No matter what he wanted, he wasn’t quite first. But he spied the enemy warships just after the first radio calls rang out. Like the Japanese, the Americans used cruisers and destroyers to surround the all-important carriers. The smaller vessels started throwing up antiaircraft fire. Puffs of black smoke marred the smooth blue of the sky.
A couple of shells burst not far from Fuchida’s bomber. Blast made the Nakajima shake and jerk in the air. A chunk of shrapnel clattered off a wingtip. It seemed to do no harm. The B5N1 kept flying.
“Torpedo planes, dive bombers-work together,” Fuchida called. “Don’t let the enemy fighters concentrate on one group. Fighters, protect the attack planes. Banzai! for the Emperor.”
Answering “Banzai! ”s filled all strike-force frequencies. Here came the Wildcats that had been orbiting above the American fleet. Muzzle flashes showed they’d started shooting. The four heavy machine guns they carried were not to be despised. If they hit, they hit hard.
As if to prove as much, a burning Zero spun toward the Pacific far below. A Wildcat followed. It was out of control, the pilot surely dead, but it didn’t show nearly so many flames as the Zero. Wildcats could take more damage than their Japanese counterparts. They could-and they needed to, for the Japanese had an easier time hitting than they did.
“Level bombers, line up behind your guide aircraft,” Fuchida called out over the radio. The tactic had worked extremely well above Pearl Harbor. The level bombers scored a surprising number of hits there. Back in December, though, their targets lay at anchor in a crowded harbor. Now they were twisting and dodging all over the sea. Hits wouldn’t come easy. We can only do our best, Fuchida thought.
Down below, antiaircraft fire caught an Aichi dive bomber as it was about to heel over and swoop on a carrier. Instead of diving, the Aichi fell out of the sky, rolling over and over and breaking up before it hit the water. Two more brave men gone. Two more spirits in Yasukuni Shrine.
Fuchida switched places with the second plane in his group of five. First Flying Petty Officer Akira Watanabe was the best pilot in the Japanese Navy, and his bombardier, First Flying Petty Officer Yanosuke Aso, was also the best. They needed to pass right over the center of the enemy fleet. As always, hitting carriers came first.
“Be ready!” Watanbe called to the pilots behind him. His plane bounced upward as the bombardier released the load. Fuchida’s B5N1 also lurched in the air as its bombs fell free. More bombs tumbled down from the planes that followed him. Suddenly, the aircraft was lighter, more maneuverable. And it needed to be. Mizuki, who handled the rear-facing machine gun as well as the radio, opened up on something-presumably a Wildcat-behind the bomber.
Now that Fuchida didn’t have to fly slow and straight for the bombardier’s sake, he threw his Nakajima into aerobatics as violent as its engine and frame could stand. The rest of the planes in his group were doing the same thing-all but one. That one, flames shooting from the wing root and the engine cowling, plummeted down toward the sea.
Petty Officer Mizuki let out a wordless shout. Fuchida corkscrewed away to the left. Planes usually broke to the right, to take advantage of the torque from their props. He hoped his maneuver would catch the Yankee on his tail by surprise. And it did-the Wildcat shot past him, close enough for him to see the American’s startled face. If only he had a forward-facing machine gun… But he didn’t, and the Wildcat got away.
Now-what had the bombs done?
LIEUTENANT SABURO SHINDO was not a happy man. His Zero was still a better plane than the Wildcats he faced, but the Yankees had come up with something new, something that made them harder to shoot down. They flew in groups of four, two pairs of two separated by the radius of a tight turn. Whenever he drew a bead on one plane, the enemy pilots in the more distant pair would turn sharply toward him. That move warned the man he’d targeted to turn away sharply, spoiling his aim. And if he pursued too far trying to get it back, he came right into the line of fire of the more distant pair.
The first time the Americans tried that weave on him, he almost shot himself down walking right into it. He thought they’d got lucky then. When they did it twice more in quick succession, he realized it wasn’t luck. They’d worked out a tactic to take advantage of the Wildcat’s powerful guns and give it a chance to survive against the otherwise superior Zero.
“Be careful!” he shouted to the pilots he led, and warned them what to look for. He hoped they would listen. In the heat of battle, who could tell?
Not all the Japanese had the chance to listen. Several Zeros had already gone down. The Americans’ weave, no doubt, had done to them what it almost did to Shindo.
But Wildcats were also falling out of the sky. And the ones that mixed it up with Shindo’s Zeros weren’t attacking the Aichis and Nakajimas that accompanied them. Those were the ship-killers, the planes that had to get through at any cost.
Bombs burst around the American carriers. Shindo saw no hits, but even near misses would cause damage from casing fragments and from the effects of blast on enemy hulls. A Nakajima B5N2 raced towards a carrier. Its torpedo splashed into the sea. A heartbeat later, the torpedo bomber turned into a fireball. The torpedo was away, though.
The carrier started to slew to starboard. Too late, too slow. The torpedo struck home just aft of amidships. Nothing wrong with Japanese ordnance-Shindo watched the explosion. The enemy ship staggered like a prizefighter who’d just taken a right to the chin.
“Banzai! ” Shindo yelled, there in the cockpit. “Banzai! ”
He lost sight of the carrier for a little while after that. He was dealing with a Wildcat that had somehow got separated from its comrades. The pilot tried to dogfight him instead of diving away from trouble. The Yankee discovered what a lot of his countrymen had before him: that didn’t work. A Zero could turn inside a Wildcat. A Zero could, and Shindo did. He shot up the American plane till at last it nosed down and crashed into the ocean.
By then, the Americans on the carrier had got her moving again, even if not at top speed. Saburo Shindo gave American engineers and damage-control parties reluctant respect. They knew their business. Here, knowing it didn’t help. An Aichi dive bomber swooped down out of the sky, releasing its bomb at what seemed just above the height of the bridge. As the Aichi screamed away, its prop and fixed landing gear almost skimming the waves, the bomb hit dead center.
Where the ship had staggered before, she shuddered now. She lost power and lay there dead in the water as flames leaped up from her. That, of course, was an invitation to the Japanese pilots. Another torpedo and what Shindo thought was a bomb from a level bomber slammed home. The carrier began to list heavily to port.
One down, Shindo thought. Two to go.
WHEN MINORU GENDA heard American planes were on the way, he climbed out of the sick-bay cot where he’d been lying. Weak as he was, it felt like a long climb, too. He found a box of gauze masks like the ones the pharmacist’s mates wore, and fastened the ties around his ears. Masuku was the Japanese name, borrowed from the English.
“Here, what are you doing? You shouldn’t be up and about! Kinjiru! ” One of those pharmacist’s mates caught him in the act of leaving. “Get back where you belong, right this minute!” He was just a rating, but thought his station gave him the right to boss officers around.
He was usually right, too. Not here. Not now. Slowly but firmly, Genda shook his head. “No. We’re going into battle. They need me up there.” He had to stop and cough halfway through that, but he spoke with great determination.
“In your pajamas?” the pharmacist’s mate said.