The Final Storm (7 page)

One member of his staff had been indispensable and so had made the trip to the new headquarters. Nimitz heard him now, the manic fierceness
of his schnauzer, a fairly vicious dog who seemed to dislike everyone but his master. Even the Marines respected the schnauzer’s temper, each man freezing in place as the schnauzer galloped past. Nimitz turned, watched with a smile as the dog bounced up to him, stopping abruptly, spinning in the sand, rolling over in a desperate request for a belly rub. Nimitz could never resist the dog’s show of soft affection, something few of his officers had ever witnessed. He leaned low, stroked the dog’s exposed stomach, the schnauzer’s tongue hanging loosely out of its mouth.

“Damn you, Mak, you’re too spoiled. Just once I’d like to try this little maneuver of yours with my own staff. They think you’re some kind of damn werewolf. Hell, I can’t even get my wife to do this to
me …
” He stopped, thought of the Marine sergeant, kept the indiscreet thought to himself. He stood straight again, the schnauzer bounding away once more, and Nimitz looked to the west, the sun melting into the far horizon like a fat blob of orange ice cream. The Marines kept to their usual boxlike formation, most of them keeping their gaze on the distant trees. He enjoyed talking to the men, but there was little opportunity for that beyond the walls of his compound, and there the guards understood that their job didn’t include socializing with the brass they were supposed to protect. He enjoyed their generals far less, the men like Holland Smith, known by all as Howlin’ Mad Smith, the Marine commander who had headed up the slugfests that tore Guam, Tinian, and Saipan from Japanese control. Smith’s command now included the forces that were completing operations on a dismal slab of lava rock called Iwo Jima, and Nimitz knew that the horrendous Marine casualty counts would throw Smith into a hot temper directed toward anyone in his command who had failed to live up to Smith’s own standards. It wasn’t a bad trait for a commander to have, but Smith had made few friends among the brass from the army and navy he was supposed to be working beside. Nimitz knew that Howlin’ Mad’s days were numbered in this part of the war. Even out here, a good general could create problems for himself if he didn’t respect politics. Smith would have no role at all in the upcoming invasion of Okinawa, that job placed into the hands of army general Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. Buckner had been a surprise choice to some, and Nimitz knew he was despised by Douglas MacArthur, who had made it clear that he wanted Buckner far removed from MacArthur’s own command to the south. But Buckner seemed to be a man who understood that it was possible, even necessary, to combine army and Marine forces into one cohesive unit, without making enemies
in the process. And, as Nimitz had been quick to observe, Buckner was a man who understood that his superiors, namely Nimitz himself, had the last word.

He turned back toward the headquarters buildings, saw the usual rumblings of activity, jeeps coming and going, men on foot, some of them MPs. But it was the heavy equipment that caught his attention, men up on bulldozers and excavators. The Seabees were continuing to improve the Guam command post, adding buildings and storage areas as the need arose. Nimitz enjoyed watching the massive machines, green steel and black smoke. He knew the Seabees carried a chip on their shoulder for the lack of attention the newspapermen gave them. Just because a man rides a bulldozer doesn’t mean he can’t get shot to hell, he thought. They’ve sure as hell taken their share of casualties too. But if I need an airstrip or a harbor cleared, there’s no one as good at it as those boys. They’re probably pretty sick of getting razzed by the Marines, but any Marine worth a crap who’s watched these boys turn a swamp into a mess hall learns to keep his mouth shut. And if one of those bulldozer jockeys busts a rifleman in the mouth for smarting off about driving a tractor … well, I haven’t put one in the stockade yet.

He glanced again at the setting sun, heard a storm of barking from the schnauzer, looked that way. He had expected to see Buckner, the army general often timing his frequent meetings to coincide with Nimitz’s afternoon cocktail hour. But the man he saw now was shorter, moving toward him with a hurried determination. Nimitz knew the uniform of the air corps, watched as the man pretended to ignore the dog, who now circled him in a show of temper, neither the man nor the beast allowing the other to intimidate him. Nimitz knew that might be the smartest move his dog could make. The man was Curtis LeMay.

LeMay walked more toward the pistol target than Nimitz himself, said, “Not bad, Admiral. I hear MacArthur can’t hit the side of a barn.”

“Good afternoon, General. Care for a little target shooting?”

“No chance. You’d embarrass me. Won’t stand for that.”

Nimitz smiled, thought, no, you wouldn’t stand for that at all.

L
eMay was a gruff bulldog of a man, hated anyone’s inefficiency, and had no hesitation spouting off about it. He had spent most of his career spouting off about nearly everything, and if you didn’t agree with
LeMay’s manic dedication to the army air force, you were most likely to be disrespected in a way that most senior commanders wouldn’t tolerate. Nimitz knew that LeMay didn’t much care for him at all, probably disliked anyone who had
webbed feet
, the man’s casual insult to anyone in a naval uniform. But Nimitz knew that despite his irritable disregard for anyone else’s authority, LeMay carried a frightening dedication to destroying the enemy. As long as LeMay brought results, Nimitz could care less what the man thought of him, and would ignore LeMay’s utter lack of social graciousness.

LeMay commanded the Twenty-first Bomber Command, and in the often strange configuration of the American military’s chain of organization, he was the only general officer serving in the central Pacific who was not technically under Nimitz’s authority. It was the ongoing mystery of just how the War Department handled their air force; no one was really sure just who should be running that show, other than the airmen themselves. But the targets for the air force were spread out over the entire theater of the war, from Joe Stilwell’s command in the China/Burma campaigns, over MacArthur’s area throughout New Guinea and the Philippines. It wasn’t a practical solution to have the air force fall under the single authority of anyone on the ground. Nimitz had come to accept LeMay’s independence, knew better than to concern himself with the views of either Stilwell or MacArthur. He had a large enough sphere of authority without worrying about nagging controversies in Washington that never seemed to fade away. From the air force’s first days, there had been outright hostility between those who saw enormous value in airpower and those who considered airplanes a waste of resources. Though the air force was technically under the umbrella of the army, the senior air force commander, Hap Arnold, had rarely accepted anyone’s authority other than the president. In Washington, Arnold had shown sufficient stubbornness and had earned enough clout with members of Congress that most in the War Department conceded to him his place in the military’s hierarchy, virtually equal to that of George Marshall and Admiral Ernest King. That arrangement had worked well enough in Europe, where the value of airpower had long proven itself. There General Eisenhower had avoided any controversy over the independence of Jimmy Doolittle and Tooey Spaatz. But those men had made it a point to work in full cooperation with the Allies’ European commander. As far as Nimitz could see, Curtis LeMay had little interest in cooperating with anyone. Like many in the air commands, LeMay
seemed to believe that the war could be won by dropping as many bombs as possible on the enemy. With his extraordinary success in obliterating so much of the Japanese capital, LeMay would only grow more vocal about fighting the war precisely as he pleased. The soldiers and Marines who slogged ashore into vicious fighting on so many of these disease-infested islands were just a time-consuming sideshow.

L
eMay leaned close to the paper target, said, “Work on the grip. Hold it a little looser. You’re tugging it to the right.”

Nimitz already knew how his marksmanship compared to the other ranking officers on Guam, or anywhere else, and didn’t really need any coaching from an air force man.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Nah, you won’t. Nobody listens to much of anything I have to say, so I try to keep my mouth shut, usually.”

But not today, Nimitz thought.

“You come by for a shot of bourbon, General? Or maybe some dinner?”

LeMay didn’t smile, nodded.

“Dinner. That’s good. I thought you might like to see the reports from Tokyo. Recon flights confirm what I predicted. I turned that place into one big damn cow pasture.”

Nimitz glanced at the Marine sergeant, who seemed to perk up at the words.

“Let’s take this inside, General. I’m getting too old for the heat. My cook’s supposed to be throwing together some fish recipe he picked up from the natives. Top-notch, if you don’t mind some spice.”

“That’ll do. Lead the way. Anything you got here has to beat the slop your supply boys throw my way. Not as bad as MacArthur though, I’ll give you that. His people spend more time trying to poison us than feed us.”

Nimitz knew better than to open that door, thought, let it go. He has a permanent bone up his ass for MacArthur, and I don’t really want to hear about it. I hear enough of that as it is.

“Y
ou could have sent the reports over here, you know. No need to deliver them yourself.”

LeMay sipped from the glass, seemed to appraise Nimitz’s liquid offering.

“No chance. I wanted you to hear it from me, not some ass-kissing toad who thinks being a messenger will get him a medal.” LeMay paused. “Word is, your boys are rationed a bottle of booze a week and a case of beer to boot. We don’t get a damn drop. No alcohol ration at all. Not your doing, I guess. Someone back in Washington thinks air boys don’t need any favors.” LeMay tipped up the glass, emptied it, appraised again, nodded slowly. “Good stuff. Hate to see somebody in my command do a commando raid on your supply depot, liberate a few hundred cases of this stuff.” He stared at Nimitz, still no smile. “Just kidding.”

“So. Reports? Photos?”

“Right here.” LeMay held the folder in his hand, hesitated, looked at Nimitz again. “Bomb ’em and burn ’em until they quit. That’s been my motto and my strategy since I earned this command. So, here, Admiral. Take a look at this.” LeMay took a long, self-satisfied breath, and Nimitz knew the presentation had been well rehearsed.

“On nine March we threw two hundred seventy-nine Superforts right into Tokyo. I took a new approach, ordered them in at night, flying low, under ten thousand feet. My boys weren’t too happy about that, thought the Jap anti-aircraft fire would chew them to bits. But I knew better. Coming in that low, a few planes at a time, would catch the yellow bastards with their pants down. They wouldn’t know what the hell to do. For whatever reason, they don’t seem to have the kind of ack-ack the Germans threw at us, don’t seem able to adapt to different attack altitudes. I had to convince my boys that the advantages outweighed the risk. Even persuaded them to make room for more payload by reducing weight. Thought it would be a good idea to remove most of the machine guns, and the gunners too. Jap fighters haven’t done much damage to us in night raids, so what the hell do we need all that extra weight for? The boys weren’t too keen on that, but I convinced them.”

Nimitz thought, you didn’t convince anybody of anything. You just ordered them to do whatever the hell you wanted.

LeMay continued.

“The low altitude gave the B-29s a greater bomb capacity, and I loaded up those sons of bitches with incendiaries. No more of this high-altitude tiddlywinks, playing hit-and-miss with targets that are too far below us to pinpoint. This time we didn’t need to pinpoint anything. The
target was the whole damn city. Hard to miss that one.” He slapped a folder of papers against his leg. “It worked too. We should have been doing this to those Nip bastards from the beginning. We’ve gutted Germany’s war machine, and now we’re doing it to the Japs. But this is even better. You know what their damn cities are made out of? Paper and wood. I wish I’d have seen it myself, especially at night. Had to settle for the recon reports, but I’ve got ’em right here. In the last ten days, we’ve incinerated what looks to be fifteen or sixteen square miles of the Japanese capital.
Incinerated. Gone
. Flat damn ground. We have to assume that the number of enemy casualties is in the high tens of thousands, maybe double that. They’re not likely to give us that information on their own. But dammit, Admiral, this is how the war ought to be fought. It worked in Germany and it’s working here. Problem is, I’m having trouble getting an adequate supply of incendiaries from the mainland. Damn pestiferous supply bastards keep telling me that the factories can’t produce them as quick as I’m dropping them. What a load of crap. Some asses back home need to be kicked.”

LeMay tossed the file on the table, reached for his cigar, resting on the nearby ashtray. He jabbed the cigar in his mouth, sat back with a self-satisfied grin, a rarity.

“Learning to smoke these things. Not bad. Prefer a pipe, but can’t keep the mold off ’em out here in this tropical hellhole.”

Nimitz ignored the cigar smoke, pulled the folder close, opened, saw the reports, the number of sorties each night, the bomb loads, and then high-altitude recon photos of the aftermath, the enormous city showing a great gray stain, as though one large hand had simply wiped it away. My God, he thought. How many civilians? He knew LeMay wouldn’t listen to any lecture about casualties, and Nimitz had already heard intelligence reports about Japanese factories spread all through civilian neighborhoods. LeMay knows that too, he thought. So, who do we blame? He’s right on that count. They are
all
the enemy.

LeMay seemed to wait for the pat on the back, and Nimitz sat back in the chair, sipped the bourbon.

“Amazing. Impressive.”

“You bet your ass it’s impressive. I don’t know what the hell’s going on in Washington, rather not know. But Hap Arnold needs to shove this report and these photos under every face in the War Department, maybe
give FDR a good look too. I’m so damn sick of …” He paused, seemed to catch himself.