The Pacific (8 page)

THERE HAD BEEN NO FINAL EXAM. TEN DAYS EARLIER MIKE HAD LISTENED TO some of the other pilots talking about boarding a ship. Minutes later the CO had walked up to him and said, "You're on it, go to Pearl." In the early afternoon of April 16, he stood topside and watched his ship enter Pearl Harbor. It looked like the bombs had just exploded. Six inches of oil covered the water. It stank. It stuck to everything. Micheel saw men working in that awful soup, slowly righting the wrecked ships. Other crews looked like they were trying to recover the bodies of sailors. Four months ago right there, he thought, men had drowned inside their ships; others had been trapped without food, water, oxygen. A wave of sadness at the loss of life broke quickly, leaving a new desire. Mike wanted to exact revenge. He was here to get them. He set off down the gangway to find the Administrative Office of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's Commander Carriers at Ford Island, in the middle of Pearl Harbor. He reported for duty, only to be told USS
Enterprise
had left on a mission and would return in a week or so. His squadron, Scouting Six, had an office at the Naval Air Station (NAS) on the other side of the island, on Kaneohe Bay.

Two days later, Mike took his first flight from NAS Kaneohe Bay to familiarize himself with the area. An experienced pilot from his squadron rode in the rear seat. Mike, the pilot behind him, and the whole island of Oahu were buzzing with the news making headlines that day. The United States had bombed four industrial areas in Japan, including one in Tokyo. The news story had come from the Japanese government, which had condemned "the inhuman attack" on schools and hospitals.
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The Americans cheering "Yippee" and "Hooray" replied to the Japanese government's indictment with a countercharge. " They bombed our hospital on Bataan. Give it to them now!"
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For Micheel, an Iowan not given to cheering, the bombs had put the Japanese on notice. Americans weren't going to give up.

In the days that followed, Mike helped to prepare for the return of his squadron by ferrying in new planes. The newspapers continued with the big news. Tokyo asserted that the bombing strike had been carried out by B- 25s, a two-engine bomber used by the U.S. Army. The B- 25s, they continued, had been launched from three U.S. carriers, flown over Japan, and landed in China. British journalists confirmed the arrival of U.S. planes in China, but the local reporters examined all the possible angles. The
Honolulu Star- Bulletin
reminded readers the navy had a carrier-based bomber, the Dauntless, and doubted that a plane of the size and weight of the B-25 could be flown onto a carrier.
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Neither the navy nor the War Department offered any comment. The information was classified. When a reporter asked President Roosevelt from whence those American planes had come, he smiled and said, "Shangri La."

The return of USS
Enterprise
also was classified. Hours before it arrived, Scouting Six flew off its deck and landed at Kaneohe Bay. Micheel's introduction to his new squadron was cool; they were not welcoming and he was not one to break the ice. Thankfully a number of new pilots were joining it, including Ensign John Lough.
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John and Mike had gone through flight training together, starting all the way back in Iowa with preflight. On the weekends, they had shared car rides home together, so they knew each other's families. John had gone to the ACTU in Norfolk, but somehow they had wound up together for the big day. April 29 passed in a whirlwind of preparations, culminating with Scouting Six landing on the deck of the carrier affectionately known as the Big E. Mike and John landed riding in the rear seats, not the cockpits. Tomorrow the Big E would sail into the combat zone. Tomorrow, Mike and John and other new pilots would have to make their first landings on the flight deck, then do it twice more to qualify as carrier pilots.

That challenge would wait until tomorrow. One of Mike's first tasks was to stow his gear in his room. Pilots received some of the best rooms on a carrier, even junior officers like Ensign Micheel, although the staterooms of senior pilots had portals. He shared a room with Bill Pittman. Bill had been on board since December, but he had just been switched from Bombing Six to Scouting Six.
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Pittman showed Mike the way through the great maze that is a fleet carrier. Located on the hangar deck, near the bow, their stateroom was not too hard to find. Standing in the doorway, Bill said, "Well, I guess we have to make a decision here. Who's going to get the upper or lower bunk?"

"I don't know. How are we going to make the decision?"

"What's your service number?" Bill asked. "The guy with the lower serial number will get the lower bunk."

"Mine," said Mike, reciting from memory, "is 99986."

"Mine is 99984."

"Okay," Mike conceded, "you get the lower bunk." He did not care much, so it never occurred to him to ask to see Bill's service number.

The next stop was his squadron's ready room. Scouting Six's was located in "the island," the carrier's command center, which rose above the flight deck.
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The ready room was where the men spent most of their time. Large comfortable chairs, each with its own folding desk, faced a bulkhead loaded with charts, a blackboard, and a large Teletype display. This is where Bill Pittman and Mike split up. The veterans, men who had flown against the enemy's bases on a series of raids, stuck to themselves. They tended to stay in the front of the room, so the new guys gathered in back, near the coffeepot. Before dinner, the squadron commander would have reviewed the next day's assignments. Some of the veterans would fly scouting missions, while others would assist in the carrier qualifications of the new pilots.

In the officers' mess, where black stewards placed silver tureens on tables covered in white linens, Mike would have heard more about the bombing of Tokyo from his new comrades. They called it the Doolittle Raid, after the man who had led it.
Hornet
had carried the army's B-25s, which only just managed to fly off the deck, while
Enterprise
's planes served as guardians. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle's planes had been forced to launch early because they had been spotted by Japanese fishing boats. The boats meant the army pilots could expect to meet fighter aircraft over Tokyo. If that prospect was not bad enough, the B- 25s had had their guns removed because they were so close to being too heavy to handle this mission. The Doolittle mission had been damn near suicidal. Along with giving Mike the straight dope on it, the pilots would have shared another part of the story not found in the press.

The B-25s had not been flown onto
Hornet
--just as the newspapers had speculated, that was impossible; they had been loaded on board in San Francisco. Since it had been impossible to keep this loading a secret, the navy had simply issued a statement that the planes were being shipped to Hawaii. The problem started when word got around the city that
Hornet
was headed to Pearl. Hundreds of defense contractors had demanded to be taken aboard. Each had asserted that his business in Pearl was vital to the nation's war effort and he could get there no other way. The navy's efforts to put them off had almost worked. One contractor had come, as the story went, "thundering down to the dock and insisted on a ride to Honolulu," or he would "go to Washington."
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Rather than attract any more attention, and thereby arouse the suspicion of enemy spies, the navy had decided to let this particularly vocal businessman catch his ride to Honolulu by way of Japan's territorial waters.

As they dined, the Big E's task force steamed south toward the equator. Accompanied by
Hornet
, she was ferrying a squadron of Marine Corps fighter planes to Efate, an island in the New Hebrides, south of the equator. No part of the journey could be regarded as safe. All operations, including flight operations, would be conducted in radio silence.

The next morning, April 30, began as always with the ship going to general quarters, or battle stations, about daybreak. The pilots hustled to their ready room to receive briefings on their mission, the launch sequence, the weather, and more. The CO of the squadron, known as the skipper, gave each man the number of the plane he would fly. When Mike walked out on the great wooden flight deck that morning, the wind greeted him. A wind of about twenty- five knots, blowing from bow to stern, made it possible for a plane to take off from a carrier. What the Big E could not get by pointing herself directly into the wind, she created with her great turbines churning eighty feet below.

A few Wildcats took off to provide the ship and her escorts with protection from enemy planes. A few scouts went looking for ships or submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Then it was time for the new guys from all four squadrons to qualify. The Big E, known officially as CV-6 in navy terminology, embarked four squadrons: Fighting Six, who flew the Wildcats; Torpedo Six, who flew the TDB torpedo planes; and two squadrons that flew the SBD Dauntless. Although identified as Bombing Six and Scouting Six, the two shared the same duties. All the airplanes shared the same color scheme, two tones of pale blue, marked by white stars.

Mike met the captain of the plane to which he had been assigned, number 4563. The plane's captain regarded the Dauntless 4563 as his plane. He made sure it was ready for any pilot who was assigned to it. A good plane captain also helped the pilot, encumbered by his parachute and chart board, get strapped into the cockpit. Even with Mike's average build, he just fit. A sandbag had been placed in his rear seat; no one was going to risk his life with an untried ensign. Outside, the plane captain turned the starter crank handle faster and faster until he felt that the flywheel inside had reached the right speed. He yelled, "Clear!" as a warning to other deckhands. Mike toggled the starter and watched his gauges as the engine came to life. When his turn came, he gave his Dauntless a touch of power and taxied to the center of the deck.

Off to his right the carrier's island rose several levels above him, with the ship's battle pennants and great antennae soaring high above. Spectators usually filled the catwalks (balconies) on each level of the island. With a perfect view of any crashes, these catwalks were known as Vulture's Row, except for a spot where the airmen stood. Known as PriFly (for Primary Flight Control), this spot was reserved for the air group commander. No one down on the busy flight deck, however, paid the gawkers any mind. The settings of his flaps, his propeller, and other items on his checklist demanded a pilot's full attention.

As the plane ahead of him roared off, Mike eased forward till the tip of his starboard (right) wing came level to the launch officer, dressed in white. To stop, he pushed down hard on the wheel brakes. The launch officer gave his arm a crazy swirl, and in response Mike ran up his engine to full power. The noise and vibrations, by now old friends, became tremendous. Mike looked down at his instrument panel, paying particular attention to the magnetos. Satisfied, he looked back at the launch officer. Both men listened carefully to the roar of the engine for any errant pops or pings. A second passed. When the launch officer determined the plane was ready and the flight deck was clear, he gave Mike a thumbs- up sign. It was a question. "Ready?"

"Ready," he signaled, fist clenched, thumb up. The launch officer kneeled down and pointed toward the bow of the ship. Mike released the brakes and the Dauntless gathered speed. The deck length of
Enterprise
was 802 feet, but he didn't get to use it all. Depending on where he was spotted for takeoff, he might have had six hundred feet. It did not seem long enough at that moment. His plane dropped a little when it rolled off the bow before starting its slow climb.

Mike flew a standard training flight of over an hour, watching the flight operations on the decks of both
Hornet
and
Enterprise
. A few destroyers and cruisers, small compared to a fleet carrier, were escorting them. A hand signal from his flight leader told him to get into the groove. As he had done since his first solo flight, Mike concentrated on the mechanics. He went down the checklist: "You're going to be this far out from the ship, at this position; you're going to make your turn at this time when you're at the stern. If . . . there's a lot of wind, you've got to turn early so you don't get blown back here." In his final turn, he could see the Landing Signal Officer down below his port wing. His paddles said "looking good." Mike came out of the turn and the LSO gave him the cut. He cut the throttle, the plane dropped to the deck, and the tail hook caught a wire. Carrier landing number one was followed quickly by landings number two and number three, although in a different plane with a different sandbag. He happily noted them later in his flight logbook. These flights were his last for the month, April 1942. His skipper, Lieutenant W. E. Gallaher, signed his logbook and Mike became a carrier pilot. The logbook showed Mike had flown a total of 371.9 hours in his naval career.

THE FIRST FEW DAYS IN MAY BROUGHT A BOMBARDMENT OF APOCALYPTIC PROPORTIONS, including a twenty-four-hour period when something like sixteen thousand shells of all calibers detonated.
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The emperor's army had ringed the bay with some thirty-seven batteries of artillery, all pointed at the Rock. The enemy no longer smothered it indiscriminately. A few weeks earlier two hot air balloons had risen off the peninsula, their baskets providing a perfect vantage point for artillery spotters.
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They aimed some of the cannons at specific targets. Buildings, trees, birds, deer--everything was disappearing. The encompassing malevolence could make breathing hard, not to mention sleep. Shofner, who began to suffer dysentery (diarrhea), likened it to "life in the bull's eye."

Few men were not cowed, especially those who had come from Bataan. They had seen this before. During the hours of abuse, the marines often wondered about the thousands of soldiers who lived deep down in the Malinta Tunnels; few of these units had been seen aboveground recently. A rumor passed that the officers in the tunnels still had houseboys laundering their uniforms.
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To Shofner and the Fourth Marines, who were expected to maintain an ability to hold off an invasion, their disappearance amounted to cowardice. They made up a name for the condition: "tunnel-itus." The marines dug tunnels, of course, to the extent possible, but they had to put themselves at risk each day. The marines, as well as the army's coastal artillery units, had to repair damage to their trenches and firing positions for the day when the invasion began, even as the landscape became blackened and denuded. On clear nights, the marines could see that the lights had come back on in Manila. The Japanese were probably living it up.