Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th (33 page)

“We follow orders, remember?”

Fuchida nodded reluctantly, then seeing the “package” sitting in the comer of the room he gestured to it.

Genda grinned. “Thought you might want to see this, but before we do so, a question.”

“Anything, sir.”

“Your training of horizontal bombers. It is still not where I want it to be.”

Fuchida nodded. “If I had limitless fuel and practice bombs, it would be where we both want it. Still, we are scoring 30 percent hits at 3,000 meters on targets 40 meters wide.”

“I want 50 percent.”

Fuchida nodded, taking it in, hesitated for a moment. “Can you release more fuel? If I could raise training flights from two to four a day, I think we could reach your goal in another month.”

Genda nodded.

“Done.”

That was forty thousand gallons of aviation gas a day, he thought. Absolutely profligate for the Japanese navy. If Genda could pull that off, then indeed he was a miracle worker.

“Deliver that, and I promise you the goal of 50 percent in thirty days.”

“Fine, then,” and Genda walked over to the long, bulky object and pulled the tarp back. Fuchida could not help but whistle with amazement and then squatted down to look more

closely. “As you know,” Genda said, “our current bombs are but 250 kilograms, a few 500 kilograms armor piercing. The decks of the battleships are all but proof against that. We could blow superstructure away, but to render a fatal blow . . “

His voice trailed off.

“You are looking at the fatal blow.”

Fuchida ran his hand along the long, tapered object, taller than a man, machine-milled to perfection, stabilizing fins aft, obviously welded on after the fact, the welding then polished down to mirror smoothness.

“You are looking at a sixteen-inch artillery shell. Weight, one thousand kilograms. Armor piercing.”

“Dropped from an altitude of 2,500 meters, it will achieve a velocity of over 700 kilometers per hour in its fall to the target, enough for it to penetrate the armor of any American battleship afloat. Armed with a delayed fuse it will detonate after penetrating halfway through the ship. The destruction wrought will be nearly total.”

“The weight, though,” Fuchida interjected. “It exceeds by 250 kilograms the carrying capacity of the Kate.”

“Every extra kilogram will be stripped out of the plane, armor, ammunition for the rear gunner will be minimal--we’ve already run some tests with dummy loads--and if our carriers are moving at flank speed into a 15-knot wind or higher, the plane should be able to get airborne. After thirty minutes of cruising with normal fuel consumption, the weight should balance out. It will require exceptional skill from our pilots, and they are to be trained for overweight takeoffs.”

Fuchida nodded. It was a tough order, but could be done. “We will have sixty of them ready by the time the operation commences. Nearly all will be carried by the first strike wave. I want you to train and organize the horizontal bomber force from your best pilots and bombardiers. These are the only such weapons we will have. They must be used to maximum effect. If you can give me 50 percent hits, that means thirty will strike the six to eight battleships in port, two to three for each target. That combined with the torpedoes will complete the task.”

“A carrier, though,” Fuchida replied. “It will pierce right through the unarmored deck.”

“And most likely go clean through, but then detonate underneath the ship on the harbor floor, the explosion breaking the back of the carrier.”

“But not at sea.”

“No, not at sea, so let us pray that their three carriers are in port, for if so, one of these bombs will shatter each one.”

“When?” Fuchida asked, running his hand along the flank of the one-ton artillery shell.

Genda smiled.

“When we are ordered to, but I think that it will be soon, very soon.”

Fuchida again ran his hand along the artillery shell that was now a bomb, then looked back at the model of Pearl Harbor. He knew it was not his place to say anything, but the issue had been boiling inside him for weeks, ever since he had learned of the glory of Genda’s plan, the combining together of the smaller carrier units of two to each “fleet” into one combined fleet of six carriers for this mission. It was one crucial issue that had kept him up at nights thinking, but to dare to speak it?

They had worked together for so long that Genda picked up on the cues, the look of hesitation, the way Fuchida’s eyebrows would furrow, head lowered slightly. They had been friends for well over a decade and a half; and bonded as they were, in the air, where one could easily spot the other by the way he handled his plane, and at staff meetings on the ground, the signals were clear.

“Out with it,” Genda said.

“What?”

Genda put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Fuchida hesitated. “It is inappropriate for me to raise it.”

Genda gestured to the model of Pearl Harbor. “If it in any way might influence the chances of our success there, it is your duty to tell me.”

Fuchida sighed and lowered his head.

“Come on, my old friend.”

He knew it was melodramatic, but he felt he had to. Leaving his friend’s side he went to the door and pushed on the handle. The door was still latched.

Genda chuckled. “This must be serious.”

“It is. And I have your promise that it is between us only. What I am to say could remove me from this mission if it is repeated.”

Genda hesitated, his features now serious as well. “Out with it,” and it was more an order now than a friendly request.

Fuchida walked back over to the table, hands resting on the edge of the model. “I have no confidence in our commander.”

“What?” and there was a true note of shock in his voice. Fuchida hesitated, then looked straight back at him.

“Out with it,” and this time it was snapped out as an order. Fuchida nodded and sighed. “When you first approached me for this mission to test out the tactics, to do the minute planning, never have I been so honored by you, my friend, and with that honor, there was a realization of the honor given to me by my nation, to trust me with such a task. It is not my place to question at all the reasons of our superiors and, forgive me, my Emperor, to reach this conclusion. But their reasoning must be sound, and I know that the survival of Japan rests upon our shoulders.”

Genda nodded. “But?”

“I was overjoyed when I learned, at last, that our carriers were not to be broken into smaller groups, merely to support the battleships, but instead to become a great independent strike force, a dream you and I have shared for years. But,” and he hesitated, drawing in his breath. This was worse than anything he had ever ventured before. The incident in China, the fear of that moment, in a way trivial in comparison. If his friend followed what should be proper procedure after he spoke, he would be removed from this mission. “It is Admiral Nagumo.”

Genda said nothing for a long moment. “Go on.”

As he had once heard his English friend Stanford say, it was now “in for a penny, in for a pound.”

“I do not think he is the right man to lead this strike.”

“Why so?” Genda asked with a strange look on his face.

“We have both served with him in one capacity or another,” Fuchida said, now at last finding strength in his voice. “At the War College we both found ourselves in opposition to him at times. He has never embraced carriers and air strike as the means of achieving ultimate victory; instead he has always viewed us merely as the auxiliary, the secondary attack, the harassment or raid until his beloved surface ships close for the killing blow. His specialty is torpedo attacks, cruisers, and to a lesser extent submarines. I was therefore stunned when I learned he would be the operational commander of the strike force destined for this target.”

As he spoke he pointed to the model of Pearl Harbor. “I fear, sir, that ultimately, in his heart, Admiral Nagumo will view our attack not as the killing blow on the first day of the war, but instead will see it as a spoiling raid, to set our opponent off balance for four to six months, before the battle he dreams of, the great encounter with surface ships that will finally decide this war with America.

“No sir,” and he felt emboldened. “Pearl Harbor must end the war, not start it. Admiral Nagumo will hesitate if things should turn against us, or if when we arrive the fleet is not there, but out to sea. He will turn back rather than press in, or do but a half measure.”

He felt as if he had said far too much, and fell silent.

“If you wish to relieve me, sir, I will accept that fate without complaint, but I realize now, my duty to my country and my Emperor compelled me to voice my concerns.”

Fuchida fell silent, looking straight at his friend, his superior, awaiting his fate now that he had spoken.

There was a long moment of silence. “You are dismissed,” Genda said quietly, his voice barely a whisper.

Fuchida, feeling sick inside, knowing that he had crossed a line that he never should have attempted, came to attention and saluted, something he had not done with his friend in private for years.

Genda returned the salute, went over, unlocked the door, and motioned for him to leave.

And then, alone, Commander Genda returned to the table, lighting an American cigarette, and stared at the model, lost in thought.

Tokyo, Embassy of the United States: 17 October 1941

The knock on the door stirred Ambassador Grew from his thoughts, and he called for Eugene Doorman, his young assistant and interpreter, to enter. Grew looked up from the newspaper that had been absorbing his attention, the English-language Japan Times & Advertiser.

Lyrics of a song that had swept the airways in the last week had been translated and printed:

We will win, we must win
What of air-raid?
We know no defeat
Come to this land to be shot down.

Madness, the evidence clear enough of all that it portended. He looked up from the paper, knowing as well what Doorman was there for.

Gene stood in the open doorway, clutching an ornate silk- embroidered envelope, the kind that Prince Konoye was so fond of using in his correspondence. The letter was secured with a red wax seal, and as Gene placed it on the table he could see the elegant “To Ambassador Grew,” written across the front, in English, in Konoye’s spidery and well-practiced calligraphy. Fascinating, Grew thought, how the Japanese took such pride in their penmanship, be it their traditional calligraphy or in Western Latin lettering. The typewriter was changing that now for so many Americans, an art form of a more refined time being lost.

Not wishing to damage the envelope he took a pen knife out of his desk and worked the seal open, drawing out the letter.

“It was just delivered by one of Prince Konoye’s staff,” Doorman said.

The letter, in English, was brief, having both the formal style of diplomacy but also something of a personal aspect to it, for he and Grew had known each other for years, the one man Grew felt who could have successfully stayed the course of the military . . . and it was a letter regretting his acquisition to acceptance of the Emperor’s call to form a new cabinet.

He read and reread the letter. Konoye’s hope was that negotiations would still move forward as they had both so vigorously worked to achieve. But it was evident what the portent was.

“I’ll need to send a secured cable to Washington,” Grew said wearily, putting the letter down. “It is only a matter of time now.”

Akagi: 18 October 1941

He was drunk, and the knowledge of that disgusted him. He usually could handle his liquor, something few of his countrymen could do when a bottle of Western liquor, in this case scotch, was placed before them. Over half the bottle was empty. Sitting on his bunk, he uncorked the deadly stuff and filled his teacup back up.

A bit sloppily he raised the cup in a toast to the two portraits on the wall of his tiny private cabin, the portraits of the Emperor and his commander in chief of the navy, Admiral Yamamoto.

“What do I do?” he said, not really aware that he was speaking out loud.

Fuchida had not said a word to anyone about his concerns since their conversation of the day before. And it had haunted him, for the deep-seated fear he carried was the same one, though he never would have dared to express it to a subordinate, even one as close to him as Fuchida. He knew his friend was right. For the strike force destined for Malaya or the Philippines, if that was the case, then Admiral Nagumo would be well suited to the task.

He feared, in fact he knew, that at heart. Nagumo did not have the stomach for this mission. He still thought of carriers as fragile auxiliaries, nor was he a battleship man who, bullheaded, would forge straight in. His specialty was cruisers, destroyers, what some still considered to be the surface scouts of the fleet, a task that anyone with sense knew the airplane had long overtaken. To raid, thrust in sharp, but then to run away.

“Like a small dog,” Genda muttered, “bite then run away.”

But how do I tell the boss, my admiral, he wondered, looking at Yamamoto’s portrait again.

“How do I tell you?”

To go before the Commander in Chief of the Navy, to tell him to his face that his choice of Nagumo was the wrong one. There would be only one recourse left open for the admiral, to remove him from the operation for insubordination. No one would dare, in this navy, to go not just over the head of their superior, but to go all the way to the top and say such a thing.

No one. It would mean the end of a career, beached just as the greatest naval war in history was about to unfold, one that he had personally helped to plan.

“No, I can’t,” he sighed, draining the teacup, then refilling it yet again, this time so that it overflowed and spilled on the deck. He didn’t care, he was so drunk now that all he needed to remember was that a trash bucket was beside his bunk as he drained the cup and then fell back to try and get some sleep.

Tokyo: 18 October 1941

The newly selected prime minister of Japan, General Hideki Tojo, with head lowered approached the steps of the Ise Shrine. The crowds that waited for him outside the gate had broken into thunderous applause at his arrival, the guard detail struggling to keep them back, to provide for him the quiet needed for the ceremony of this moment, where alone, he would enter the temple to kneel and pray, as custom demanded, to the Sun Goddess, guardian of Japan.