He said as much to the pilot, who sat to his left. Lieutenant Kinsuke Muto grinned a crooked grin. “Oh, they did, Fuchida-san,” Muto said. “The only trouble was, it took them a while, or the plane would have been in service a long time ago.”
“I heard something about this last year, but not too much,” Fuchida said. “I was busy training for the Hawaii operation. Tell me more, please.”
“Busy? I’ll bet you were, sir-just a little.” Muto laughed out loud, then went on, “Well, you know we wanted something better than the H6K: faster, with longer range, and a plane that wouldn’t catch fire the first time a bullet came anywhere near it.” He laughed again, not that it was funny; attacks against the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea had shown that the H6K turned into a torch when the enemy started shooting at it.
Fuchida leaned forward in his seat to lay a gentle hand on the instrument panel in front of him. “We have what we wanted, too.”
“Hai. We do-now.” Lieutenant Muto stressed the last word. “But it wasn’t easy. The first flight tests showed the beast was unstable at takeoff and a disaster on the water generally. They had to do a total redesign on the lower hull, and it set them back for months.”
“Ah, is that what the trouble was?” Fuchida said. “I knew there was a delay, but I don’t think I ever heard why. It was worth waiting for, though-the plane handles beautifully on the water now. I saw that when we took off from Pearl City.”
Muto snorted. “Hardly a tough test, sir. The water inside Pearl Harbor is going to be calm, no matter what. But wait till you see this baby out on the open ocean. It’s just as good there.”
“You know best,” Fuchida said. He had a hasty familiarization with the H8K. He’d been bound and determined to come on this mission, but he hadn’t wanted to be dead weight while he was along.
The radioman brought tea to Fuchida and Muto. He hesitated for a moment, wondering which man to serve first: Fuchida had the higher rank, but Muto sat in the pilot’s chair. The two of them pointed to each other. They both laughed.
“Give it to Muto-san,” Fuchida said. “He’s the captain of this ship. I’m just excess baggage.”
Muto took a cup of tea. A moment later, Fuchida had one, too. He looked out the window. There was nothing much to see: only black ocean below and dark blue sky above. He couldn’t spot the other two flying boats. He was in the leader, while they trailed his plane to either side.
After sipping, Fuchida asked, “How long till we reach the mainland?”
“Another couple of hours,” Lieutenant Muto answered. “Long before then, though, we’ll use the Yankees’ radio stations to home in on our target.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” Fuchida nodded. “I did the same thing with the Honolulu stations when we hit Pearl Harbor. They even told me the weather was good.”
“That must have been handy. You speak English, then?” Muto said.
“I speak some, yes,” Fuchida told him. “And it was very handy. I’d been wondering how to find out what sort of cloud cover they had down there. It would have made a difference in how high we flew. I’d been wondering-and the Americans went and told me.”
“I hope they do it again. San Francisco can be a foggy town, I hear,” Muto said. “I don’t want to have to drop my bombs any old place. I want to hit something worthwhile in the harbor there.”
“Don’t worry. The Americans will be chattering away,” Fuchida promised. “They don’t have anything that can reach Hawaii from the mainland and get back, so of course they won’t think we have anything that can reach the mainland from Hawaii.”
Lieutenant Muto grinned at him. “Surprise!”
“Hai.” Mitsuo Fuchida grinned back.
On they went. The throbbing of the four Mitsubishi fourteen-cylinder radial engines seemed to penetrate Fuchida’s bones. He flew the plane for a couple of minutes when Muto got up to answer a call of nature. He knew he’d be doing more on the way back. Even in a speedy H8K, San Francisco was ten hours from Honolulu. He held course and altitude. That he could do, and do well enough. He wouldn’t have wanted to be at the controls if American fighters attacked the flying boat, or if he had to put it down at sea.
Muto returned and took over again. Fuchida leaned back in his chair. He could doze if he wanted to. He did for a while, to stay fresh for the return flight. Then the radioman hurried up with something written on a scrap of paper. The number had to be the new course for San Francisco. Muto glanced down at it, nodded, murmured, “Arigato,” and swung the plane’s nose a little to the north.
“Our navigation was pretty good,” Fuchida said, seeing how small a correction he made.
“Not bad,” Muto agreed. He pointed out through the forward window. “Demons take me if that’s not the California coast.”
Sleepiness fell from Fuchida like a discarded cloak. He leaned out and peered into darkness. Sure enough, those lights ahead marked the edge of land-the edge of a continent dreaming it was immune from war. He laughed softly. “This is what the Americans call blackout.”
“They’ll get better at it once we’ve been here and gone, I expect.” Muto laughed, too. “Of course, that will be a little too late.”
Fuchida had heard that German submarines were having a field day sinking freighters silhouetted against the bright lights of the U.S. East Coast. He hadn’t known whether to believe it. He did now.
A few minutes later, the flying boats approached San Francisco from the south. An English phrase occurred to Fuchida: lit up like a Christmas tree. The city probably wasn’t so bright as it would have been in peacetime, but it was plenty bright enough. Fuchida said, “The harbor is on the eastern side of the city, on the bay, not here by the ocean.”
“Yes, I know,” Muto answered, and then spoke over the intercom to the bombardier: “Are you ready? We are going into the bombing run.”
“Ready, yes, sir.” The reply sounded in Fuchida’s earphones as well as Muto’s.
Nobody on the ground paid any attention to the three flying boats. No searchlights tried to spear them. No antiaircraft fire came up at them. If anyone had any idea at all that they were there, he had to assume they belonged to the USA. A street that ran diagonally through the heart of San Francisco guided them straight to the harbor.
Not even the piers with warships tied up alongside them were properly blacked out. Fuchida grinned. We’ve caught them napping again, he thought. But then the grin slipped. Two could play at this game-the Yankee B-25s and the U.S. submarine had surprised the Japanese in Hawaii.
“Bombs free!” the bombardier exclaimed. The H8K grew livelier as it got lighter, but to a much smaller degree than Fuchida’s B5N1 had over Pearl Harbor. The flying boat was a far heavier plane. Fuchida hoped the other two Japanese aircraft were also bombing. He couldn’t tell. He had a good forward view, but not to the side or behind.
Lieutenant Muto swung the flying boat in a sharp turn back toward Hawaii. “I think, Fuchida-san, we’ve just worn out our welcome,” he said.
“Hai. Honto,” Fuchida agreed gravely.
“Hits! We have hits!” That wasn’t the bombardier-it was the rear gunner, who manned the 20mm cannon in the tail turret. Of all the crew, he had the best view of what was going on behind the H8K. A moment later, he added, “The other two planes still have bombs left. They’re unloading them on the city.”
“Good. Very good,” Muto said. “The Americans think they’re immune from war. They need to learn they’re not.”
After the flying boats dropped their bombs, a few antiaircraft guns did start shooting. None of the bursts came anywhere near the Japanese planes. Lieutenant Muto whooped exultantly. So did the radioman. As the California coast vanished behind the H8Ks, he said, “The Yankees will never catch us now!”