Jake shook his head in sadness. He had met Tim’s wife only once before and been struck by her poise and patrician good looks. She was the type of woman he would never have otherwise met if it hadn’t been for the weekly football games.
Football? God, he thought, was the world ever that innocent? As he headed back to his car, another vehicle pulled up and a grim-faced naval lieutenant emerged.
The two men introduced themselves. The naval officer was Jamie Priest, and he was from the Pennsylvania. Like dogs sniffing, the two men checked each other’s rank and academy rings. Priest was a lieutenant in the navy, which was equivalent to a captain in the army. He looked several years younger than Jake, a fact that Jake had found more and more frustrating lately. Jamie Priest was also much smaller, wiry, and, when he removed his hat, showed thinning straw-colored hair.
“I’ve got to talk to her,” Jamie said. “They found her husband’s body in the harbor.”
“Christ,” Jake said.
What a waste of a decent young guy, Jake thought, and what a hell of a way to destroy a young woman. But at least that meant Tim hadn’t been trapped in the Oklahoma, spending a day and a half going mad in the claustrophobic blackness. Should she be thankful for small favors?
Missy emerged from the house, the sleeping child still on her shoulder. She had heard the conversation. “You won’t be talking to her tonight. I gave her some pills my doctor gave me after Killer here was born. Let her sleep. I’ll break the news to her when she wakes up.” Then she looked puzzled. “Shouldn’t there be a chaplain with you?”
Jamie shrugged. “Too many dead and not enough chaplains. Since I knew Tim, I volunteered.”
Jake made a mental note to find out when the funeral was and to check up on Tim’s wife. No, he corrected himself, Tim’s widow. The grief on Mrs. Sanderson’s face as she waited in vain for word of her husband’s fate had touched him deeply.
As he drove away, he realized that Alexa Sanderson’s innocent plight had brought the war home to him in a way that was far different from what the rows of wounded, the anonymous dead, the planes shooting at him by Hickam, and the sight of Lieutenant Simpkins’s shredded body after the Zero had strafed them had done. At least Tim’s widow and her blond friend were far enough away from the carnage that they didn’t have to smell it, or watch as the last of the flames were put out.
Admiral Husband Kimmel touched his chest and felt the bruise where a spent Japanese bullet had struck him during the height of the attack. At the time he had lamented that it would have been better had the bullet killed him instead of dropping harmlessly onto the floor. Since then, nothing had happened to change his mind. The spent piece of lead was now in his pocket.
“I just received a telegram saying I’ve been relieved,” Kimmel said. “I guess no one’s surprised, although I think it’s without justification. The war-warning message from Washington was manifestly ambiguous. They did not tell me to beware of an attack on Pearl.”
To the contrary, Kimmel thought. No one felt that any navy had the capability to do what Japan had done. And, in particular, no one felt that a semibarbaric country full of nearsighted little yellow men with buck teeth would even attempt such an enterprise.
“No one even informed me that the Jap fleet was at sea.”
General Walter Short nodded politely. He wondered if he too would be relieved and thought it was quite possible, although unlikely. After all, he’d lost only a few score planes, while Kimmel had lost almost the whole damned Pacific Fleet.
Short was confident that what he’d done would hold up under the inevitable scrutiny, although he understood the navy’s screaming need for a scapegoat. Sadly, Kimmel would be it. Hell, you don’t lose a fleet without blaming someone.
The navy had been horribly unprepared for anything remotely resembling war on the morning of December 7, 1941. The army, by contrast, had been prepared for the only type of assault deemed possible-sabotage by untrustworthy elements among the very large Japanese population on Oahu. The fact that the attack had been from the sea had been the navy’s fault, not the army’s.
“They name a replacement for you yet?” Short asked. He scarcely knew Kimmel. Neither the two men nor their underlings met frequently. Each had his own responsibilities. Now Short wondered if they shouldn’t have coordinated their efforts more closely. It would be something to take up with Kimmel’s replacement.
“Chester Nimitz is replacing me. He’s anticipated out here in a few days. He’s a good man. You will work well together.”
Short smiled. Time would tell on that.
“I’m to leave Hawaii as soon as possible,” Kimmel continued. “That means Admiral Pye will be in charge until Nimitz gets here. Along with defending Hawaii with what we have left, he will be sending his damaged ships to California for repair.”
Short was surprised. Admiral William Pye commanded the battle line, most of which was at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. “I didn’t know any could travel.”
“Maryland and Tennessee are relatively undamaged and will depart as soon as possible. The engineers say we may have to dynamite West Virginia to free up the Tennessee, but that’s acceptable since the West Virginia is so badly damaged she may not be salvageable. As to the others, only the Pennsylvania is capable of departing anytime soon. She survived the first two assaults fairly unscathed, but bombs from the last attack destroyed her forward turrets. Burning oil from the storage depot flowed down and around her in dry dock and caused additional damage, although not to her power plant. She will leave as soon as we can make certain she’s seaworthy.”
The departure of the remnants of the battle fleet disturbed Short. Even though Halsey had returned with the carriers Enterprise and Yorktown, Short was not comfortable that their protective shield would be long term. Halsey wanted to cruise the Pacific and search for Japanese ships, and not use the fleet to protect Pearl Harbor, which Short felt was imperative.
This was something else to take up with Kimmel’s replacement.
General Short was thankful he had the Hawaiian Division to protect the island from invaders. So what if he had lost most of his airplanes? The invasion, if it came, would be fought on the ground, wouldn’t it? After all, the Japs couldn’t take Hawaii without landing on it, and he longed to come to grips with the little yellow bastards.
Even though it hadn’t materialized, he was still concerned with the possibility of sabotage and, as military governor, had begun rounding up some of the more radical among the Japanese community. He couldn’t imprison them all, as General DeWitt was going to do in California. That wasn’t practicable, since the Japanese represented almost half the population of the islands, but he could defang any rebels among the Japs in Hawaii by arresting the leaders of any potential revolution.
Hell, even if he were to intern all the Japs in Hawaii, he wouldn’t have enough men to guard them all.
“Tell me, Admiral, have you uncovered any evidence of sabotage or espionage, other than the spying done by the Japs from their consulate?”
“No,” Kimmel said. “And that’s quite a surprise, isn’t it?”
Damn, Short thought. His intelligence people hadn’t found any either. General Marshall, the army’s chief of staff in Washington, would be second-guessing him like a son of a bitch for having focused on potential sabotage that hadn’t occurred. In hindsight, he thought he knew why nothing had happened. In order to keep the attack a secret, the Japs in Tokyo hadn’t told their cohorts in Honolulu about it. That made sense and told him that sabotage could still occur, although what was left to destroy? The fleet was gone, as were the planes, and the Hawaiian Division was armed and on guard. Hell, the soldiers almost hoped some local Jap would try something. One sergeant had said exactly that to Short and added that he’d blast the Jap’s ass back to Mount Fuji.