Half an hour later, that minute came. “Captain,” said Shiota. “I’m getting something now.” She was running it all through the decryption computer. They had warned Yamamoto that the Americans were snooping on his naval code, but said nothing of the fact that they had the whole thing programmed into their lightning fast decryption module. “Damn if it doesn’t sound like a distress call sir. It reads ‘Soaring Crane has fallen—REPEAT—Soaring Crane has fallen.’ What do you make of it sir?”
Fukada spoke before anyone else. “Shokaku,” he said sullenly. “That’s the Soaring Crane. It looks like we found out what our swarm of bees was. That must have been an American strike after all.”
“Right sir,” said Lieutenant Otani on the SPY-1D. “It’s breaking up now, but this is odd, the contacts aren’t resuming a heading south to their home carriers. At least they aren’t going home the way they came in. They’re headed our way.”
Fukada rushed over. “Show me.”
She pointed out the tracks, overlaid a predictive plot, and it showed about forty contacts heading east. “Where could they be going, sir?”
“The Santa Cruz Islands are right on that same heading,” said Fukada, his eyes shifting from one place to another on the screen. “Mister Ikida,” he raised his voice to get the navigator’s attention.
“Sir?” Michi Ikida turned to acknowledge.
“You have the position on this ruckus Otani’s been watching?”
“Sir, yes sir. I read it at—”
“How far to the Santa Cruz Islands?”
“Well sir, from the present reading, about 270 standard miles.”
Fukada smiled. “There’s our answer.” He turned to Captain Harada. “Someone must have passed the word that the nest was on fire. Those planes must be trying to divert to Ndeni. There’s a small airstrip there, and that’s still Australian held territory.”
Harada walked over to have a look at Ikida’s plot map. It made sense. “Which means…”
“The Americans got smashed,” said Fukada with a smile. “Hara must have had a strike wave up at the same time and hurt the American carriers, possibly even sunk them. If they were still operational, why would those planes divert to the Santa Cruz Islands? Unless… Could they possibly know of our presence here?”
“I doubt that,” said Harada. “We were snooped by that presumed PBY out of Fiji, but it would be some pretty fancy flying to send one group like this and attempt a double strike.”
“Not that it matters,” said Fukada. “They’ll soon be well inside our SM-2 range when they approach. We can knock them down before they make landfall.”
There was complete silence on the bridge after Fukada said that, and a couple of the junior officers shifted uncomfortably. Then Harada spoke. “I’m not sure I like that idea, Mister Fukada. It just feels a little too much like hitting the other fellow when he’s down.”
“But sir, what if they do know we’re here. What if some of those planes are still carrying ordnance?”
“We’ll know that in time if they approach, but my bet is that they are diverting to those islands.”
“Well, if those planes land safely there, we’ll just have to deal with them again one day.”
“Will we? The way I read it is like this: there’s probably forty or fifty planes left out there, half as many as they came with for this mission. It was their first, am I correct in that?”
“I’m reading about 60 contacts sir,” said Otani.
“And they just got some very bad news from home. Now they’re all probably looking at their fuel gauges and wondering how far those damn islands are, and whether they’ll make it or be forced to ditch and take their chances with the sharks. No, I don’t think I’ll add our SM-2s to the list of things they’re worrying about right now. They’ve done their job, and I’d guess most are no longer carrying any ordnance. They’ll jettison it to conserve fuel, and even then, they’ll be damn near empty if they do land at Ndeni, and I don’t think there will be any air crews waiting to arm and gas up those planes. No, I think their war is over for a while. Who knows how long it would be before the US got anyone out there to see about them. So they aren’t our business here. Like I said, our missiles are just too damn precious. Any combat order I issue will be for a clear and present danger to this ship, or to the task force we are supporting. That’s a standing order.” He looked at Fukada and the others. “So remember it—and while you’re at it, remember the men who died out there today, on both sides. Mister Fukada thinks we lost the Shokaku today. Maybe he’s right, and maybe the other side took a few hard knocks as well. Let’s work this into a signal to Yamamoto and let him know what our take is on this intelligence. If he’s concerned about it, he can strengthen his defensive CAP. Other than that, its steady as she goes.”
Halsey took the message, eyeing it with those aquiline eyes, his brow furrowed beneath his cap. Then his sour expression deepened, and he reached up and threw that cap right on the deck.
“Now what in God’s name is this all about?” He had a mind to say something considerably worse, but given his cap was already on the deck, and the eyes of every officer on the bridge were on him now, he restrained himself. Captain George Murray was standing by his chair, arms folded. “In my ready room,” said Halsey, and he went steaming off, leaving his cap behind. Murry had the presence of mind to stoop and pick it up as he followed. The two men entered the small room off the main bridge, and closed the hatch.
The island of a carrier was much smaller than many would think, with small metal walled rooms, low ceilings, hatches you had to step up and over to get through. The ceiling was a morass of bundled cables, squawk boxes, PA speakers and other oddments. Murray had glanced at the broad Plexiglas status board to make certain nothing was amiss there, but he suspected the source of the Admiral’s anger was not ship’s rotations or anything else that was aboard before that message just came in. He knew what it was—orders—and they were obviously not to Halsey’s liking.
“Will you look at this?” Halsey handed off the message, scowling, watching as Murray looked it over, scratching his head.
“Ellice Islands? Why there?”
“God only knows.” Halsey snatched the message back and read it aloud. “EAM — Withdraw immediately to rendezvous at coordinates to follow. Additional Message to follow. An Emergency Action Message. Funatuti? That’s in the Ellice Islands Group! Well here I was just about to lock horns with Yamamoto and now they want to pull us off east? That next message had better have a damn good reason for this bullshit. What’s Nimitz doing?”
“Steady Admiral. He must know something we don’t know. We haven’t heard a thing from Fletcher for the last six hours, and we know he got into something down south.”
“All the more reason to get down there,” said Halsey, eyes wide, the anger still there.
“Commander, Pacific Fleet wants us somewhere else,” said Murray. EAM is an order, hard and fast in any book I ever read. Let’s wait this out and see what this next message is all about.” He handed Halsey his cap, a wry smile on his face easing the atmosphere in the cramped quarters.
It wasn’t long before they got that second message, but it didn’t come before CINCPAC sent a request that Halsey confirm his new heading. When it did come, the news was far worse than anything Halsey expected. “Mother of God,” he said this time. “We lost Yorktown and Saratoga—both of them went down in the Coral Sea.…. We’re to move east at once and rendezvous with Wasp and Shiloh. Sweet Jesus, they don’t even know if Fletcher made it to one of the cruisers safely.”