The Pacific (10 page)

While brown shoe and black shoe served on the same team, an unseen force produced friction. A seismic change had occurred within the United States Navy. For more than a hundred years, the battleship had been the foundation of the fleet. Only the best officers had gained command of battlewagons like USS
Arizona
. In the past decade, however, naval aviators had begun to buck the traditions, the strategy, and the tactics. The aircraft carrier was the most potent naval weapon, they argued, and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor could be seen as the final ascendancy of the carrier over the battleship.

Such seismic change met resistance from older sailors--the officers and petty officers. Younger sailors, the seamen and yeomen, tended to be less concerned about tradition and more jealous of some of the privileges of being an Airedale. For instance, every black shoe had, in addition to their normal duties, a station to take when the ship went to general quarters. Seamen also stood watch in rotation. Flight crews did not stand watch. It was easy to resent the glamorous life of a pilot while sweating through another shift down in the holds of Big E. Their tours of duty, however, entitled the black shoes to consider
Enterprise
as theirs, in a way the aviators could not.

Ensign Micheel, to be effective, had to keep these attitudes in mind. He also was coming to understand that the rift between old pilots and new in Scouting Six was not due entirely to the latter's replacement of lost friends. The older men wore the ring of Annapolis and they trusted those who wore it, the career naval officers. None of them went out of their way to train the new guys, most of whom were "ninety-day wonders." So Mike and John picked it up as they went along. When not assigned to fly, Mike liked to watch flight operations from Vulture's Row.

The intricate and dangerous work occurring below him on the flight deck took a lot of time to understand. Each man wore a specific jersey color based on his task, such as loading the plane's bombs, and he performed his job at a specific point in the process. Mike watched a Wildcat roll to the takeoff spot. The pilot gunned the engine, gave the thumbs- up, and roared down the deck, taking off for a search mission. After the fighter dropped off the bow, it did not reappear. Since the drop from the flight deck to the sea was eighty feet, even without considering the plane's forward momentum, the thought of this hapless fall was enough to cause fear to the point of physical illness. As
Enterprise
roared past the wrecked plane, unable to stop, Mike and many others looked down and saw it begin to sink. The pilot floated free. The collision with the ocean had knocked him out. The plane sank. The unconscious pilot sank. The "rescue destroyer" arrived too late.

The loss confirmed Mike's suspicion. Taking off, when a sharp wind shear or a stutter in the engine power could mean sudden death, was more dangerous than landing. By the time he got into the groove of the landing pattern, on the other hand, a pilot had been in the air for a few hours. A power failure at that moment seemed unlikely. Micheel decided to pray more often, especially during takeoffs. On the radio that night, Tokyo Rose revised her claims for the U.S. warships her airmen had sunk in the recent battle in the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy for its part denied losing a carrier in that battle. The following day, all the aircraft in all the squadrons on
Enterprise
took off. Micheel landed on Ford Island, in the middle of Pearl Harbor, on May 26, near where his ship would dock later.

MAY 26 FOUND SHOFNER HAPPY AND RELIEVED TO BE IN THE CITY JAIL OF MANILA. The surrender had been followed by weeks of living on a beach without shelter and with very little food and water until, when their captors finally had taken them off Corregidor, seven thousand Americans and five thousand Filipinos had boarded three ships. The ships had not come, however, alongside one of Manila's docks. Instead they had dropped anchor off Paranaque. When the afternoon had grown oppressive, the POWs had been forced to climb down into Japanese landing craft, which had taken them to within a dozen feet of the shore. The order to disembark had not been understood immediately. What were the guards thinking? Enough shouting and pointing of rifles, however, had persuaded the men to jump into the chest-deep water with their packs and wade to shore. They had formed into a long column, four abreast, and marched up Dewey Boulevard through the heart of Manila.

Great throngs of Filipinos had lined their way. The import of it all had taken a while to occur to them, but slowly the POWs realized that the Japanese were staging a victory parade. They wanted the Filipinos to witness the beaten and bedraggled Americans. Struggling under their packs, the Americans had been humiliated. The locals, however, had not suddenly accepted the Japanese as the master race. The people had offered the Americans water and even tossed pieces of fruit. These acts of kindness had angered the guards and they swung their rifles at the offenders. When prevented from helping, some of the people had cried. Through the throngs, the POWs had struggled across the city to the gates of Bilibid, Manila's jail.

Inside, the months of hardship ended. Although the jail could hold only two-thirds of the men, everyone took turns inside, escaping the elements. The guards served three meals a day, mostly rice, and there was enough clean water to bathe. Small amounts of canned food, cigarettes, and native fruits were sold. The money used was Philippine pesos that the lucky individuals had hidden from enemy looters.

With the secure incarceration, the looting subsided. Allowed to organize their men once again, the officers began to direct the work details that performed the tasks needed by their captors. After all they had endured, the hodgepodge of sailors, soldiers, marines, and men from other service branches felt safe at last. Only one point seemed out of order. Japanese soldiers, even privates, required all prisoners regardless of rank to salute or bow to them. The demand galled the officers, but any hesitancy resulted in the prisoner being severely beaten. Even a quick salute, however, did not always suffice. Japanese guards frequently punched and kicked unfortunate prisoners for no discernible reason.

THE SEVENTH MARINES HAD NOT STORMED ASHORE. ON MAY 27 THEY COMPLETED unloading their gear at the town of Apia, on the island of Upolu, in Western Samoa. They were joining other U.S. forces that had landed months earlier. The Seventh, with its power generators, radar, big dozers, and heavy artillery, would prepare to defend the city's harbor and construct an airfield.
⁵⁷
They set up their bivouac in the city park. They began digging trenches. As a sergeant, Manila John did not dig trenches. He and his buddy J.P. enjoyed themselves in the local establishments.
⁵⁸
In the evening the marines could go buy a beer at the store or even have a meal in the town's only restaurant. The Samoans welcomed the marines. Even a private could afford to hire a local to do his laundry. They found the native girls pretty but protected. It all added up to good duty, although one glance at the map showed the entire Pacific Ocean lay between Samoa and Manila. The clang of the air raid alarm sounded a few times, falsely as it turned out, but it served to remind everyone they were still playing defense.
⁵⁹

AFTER A WEEK SPENT IN THE SURF OF ONSLOW BEACH, CARRYING THEIR HEAVY mortar through the sand as they practiced landings, the crew of #4 gun got back to their hut to find they had a seventy-two-hour pass for Memorial Day weekend. They could leave as soon as they dressed appropriately. Sidney could have worn his dress green uniform. Since everybody knew without being told that they would ship out after this break, Sid wanted to go home wearing the dark blue uniform with the red stripe down the leg and the white barracks cap. He had not been issued a dress blue uniform, so he paid $20 to rent one. He and W.O. walked out to the highway that night and started hitching rides. Even though the fancy uniform stopped a lot of cars, it was still a long way to Mobile.

Upon arrival, Sid figured he had just over twenty-four hours to say hello and good-bye to family and friends before starting back. In the afternoon, his family got out the camera and took some photos out on the lawn: Sidney with his sister Katherine, Sidney with his parents. Eugene Sledge came by, clearly impressed by the uniform and envious of Sid's experiences. Eugene's parents had not relented. Having just completed high school, Gene would be allowed to attend Marion Military Institute in the fall. Around them, everything was changing. Thousands of workers were flooding into Mobile to build ships for the navy. Out in the gulf, German submarines were sinking U.S. ships. The Nazis had taken over Europe; the Japanese, the Pacific. Eugene was still chafing under his parents' control. Sidney Phillips, on the other hand, was part of the cataclysm. In a few hours W.O. would show up, and Sid would shake his father's hand and go do something about it.

ACT II

"EVEN UP AND SQUARED OFF"

May 1942-December 1942

THE EMPIRE OF JAPAN EXPECTED ITS MASSIVE VICTORY AT PEARL HARBOR AND elsewhere to convince the Americans to cede the Pacific Rim to them. The opposite occurred. Hatred of the Japanese knew no bounds. Americans gave their government carte blanche to exact vengeance. Part of the Roosevelt administration's challenge was to funnel some of that fury toward the campaign against America's biggest threat, Nazi Germany. The strategic goal, to hold the line against the empire while defeating the Third Reich, took a sharp twist because U.S. intelligence services decoded much of Japan's communications. These intercepts revealed first an attempt to lure the United States into a decisive carrier battle, followed by an attempt to sever the supply lines between the United States and Australia. These moves required decisive action, even when the empire's forces held a significant military advantage.

WHEN SCOUTING SIX TOOK OFF FROM FORD ISLAND TO MEET THE BIG E, ALREADY sailing toward their next mission, Ensign Micheel flew with his new permanent gunner, J. W. Dance. After flying with a few different airmen, Mike had hit it off with Dance. They flew a long scouting pattern that afternoon, May 28, returning hours later to their carrier task force. Within a mile of
Enterprise
sailed
Hornet.
A phalanx of cruisers and destroyers surrounded them as they headed north from Hawaii. After catching a wire with his tail hook, Mike left the engine running for the plane pushers. He and Dance climbed out and walked down to the ready room.

The room was abuzz with news. One of the torpedo planes had crashed on landing and gone in the drink. The crew had been fished out, but even though the pilot was a lieutenant commander and the skipper of the squadron, they would not be returned to their ship this day. The Big E was in a hurry. Something big was in the wind. Mike would have had the feeling that he was the last guy to hear this. He would have been right. The Big E had been in a hurry-up, high-alert mode for more than a week now and he hadn't noticed. Seamen in the engine room had heard something was up.
¹
The new ensign, however, had assumed it was always like this.

On June 1 the official word came from Admiral Spruance, the commander of the task force. Fleets of enemy battleships and enemy carriers and enemy troop transports would soon attack the island of Midway, about a thousand miles from Hawaii. Admiral Spruance planned to ambush them. The admiral did not feel the need to say much more. According to scuttlebutt in the ready room, the United States had broken the enemy's communication codes. Three different enemy task forces would hit the island on June 4. "Man," thought Mike as he heard these forces described, "they've got the whole fleet coming at Midway Island. . . ."

All the pilots kept a sharp eye on the Teletype screen at the front of the ready room. As soon as contact reports came in, the air operations office above them would receive and process information, then send it across their screen. So far, only the latest meteorological and navigational information appeared. Although the task force continued to move, it was holding station at 32 degrees north latitude, 173 degrees west longitude. This location, about 325 miles northeast of Midway Island, had been chosen by Admiral Nimitz, the commander of the Pacific Fleet. Under his direction, Admiral Spruance's forces would wait for the Japanese carriers here, an area Nimitz had named Point Luck.

The skipper of Scouting Six, Earl Gallaher, did not seem to get excited. He delivered neither a pep talk nor a long discourse on the various possible tactical situations. He stuck to what was known. The main scouting duties would be handled by the army's B- 17 bombers and the navy's PBY scout planes based on Midway Island. These big four- engine planes could fly great distances. These planes would find the enemy carriers, which were expected to attack from the northwest. Marine Corps dive-bombers and army air corps bombers on Midway would meet the enemy head-on; the dive-bombers from
Enterprise, Yorktown
, and
Hornet
would ambush them. To pass the time, the skipper had them watch a slide show of profiles of Japanese ships and planes. He wanted his pilots to differentiate between enemy fighters and dive-bombers.

The next day, the flight officer scheduled Micheel and Dance to fly a scouting mission. The aggressive scheme of zigzagging by the task forces would make returning more difficult. He had been ordered to maintain absolute radio silence. If his motor quit, the skipper told him, he had to crash "and hope for the best in your rubber boat."
²
Mike pulled alongside the launch officer thinking the spot a bit too far forward. It would be nice to have a longer runway. He jammed the brakes, revved the engine, and began reciting lines from the 23rd Psalm, "And yea though I go through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me . . . ," before the launch officer pointed to the bow and ducked out of the way. The weather was terrible, though. It forced an early return. The only new ships on the horizon were USS
Yorktown
and her escorts, sailing a few miles away. The U.S. force now comprised three fleet carriers plus the squadrons on Midway. Four or five enemy carriers were expected, plus a fleet of main battleships and the invasion force. No one had ever seen a battle like this before. The key to victory over the enemy, as was self-evident, lay in finding them first. Since the Japanese could be expected to launch their attack on Midway at dawn, the dive-bombers would endeavor to hit their carriers before the enemy planes returned.