Rising Sun (16 page)

He asked for and got permission to fly again with Ensign Tuller who openly called it a suicide mission and berated him for coming up with the idea. “Look, Commander, it’s one thing for us to attack a sub or a relatively unarmed freighter, but we’re no good at hitting ground targets and we’ll be nothing more than low, slow targets for Jap gunners.”

“Which is why the plan calls for us to fly low and slow and come in over from land, rather than water. Hopefully, they won’t expect us to come from that direction.”

“With respect, Commander, ‘hopefully,’ my ass. Low I’ll give you and slow is the only way we can fly, and coming in over land might just give us the element of surprise, but that won’t last long. Maybe ten seconds if we’re lucky. Besides, I’ll give you a dollar for every real target we hit.”

Dane could not argue with Tuller’s assessments. What was now referred to as “Dane’s idea” had taken hold and would be implemented regardless. As Spruance had explained to him as he was departing, “It’s vitally important for us to hit back at the Japs, or at least be perceived as hitting back. The American public is demanding that we do something, anything, to strike back at our enemies. Even though Alaska isn’t a state, it’s damn close to us and we just can’t let them get away with invading us and not do anything.”

When Dane had been on the verge of saying something, the admiral had put his hand on Dane’s shoulder. “Doolittle’s raid was a mission with little chance of success and it managed to rile the Japanese government into doing something foolish. With just a little bit of luck, the Japs would have suffered the disaster at Midway and not us.”

“Even if we do nothing other than dig holes in the ground with bombs and lose a lot of planes?” Dane asked.

“No. It won’t be like flying over Japan and then having to bail out over China like Doolittle’s boys did,” Spruance said. “You’ll have a much greater chance of survival.”

Dane shuddered. While many of Doolittle’s pilots had escaped, some had been shot down and captured. Rumors had it that they either would be executed or had already been killed.

Spruance continued. “The Catalinas will come in, hit, and fly back out just as fast as they can. There is no indication that the Japs have any planes on the ground or much in the way of antiaircraft guns, and we’re certain there are no carriers out there.”

Dane wondered how the admiral could be so certain, but again kept his mouth shut. He was getting good at that. He did wonder if the navy had some superior source of intelligence regarding the Japanese he wasn’t being told about.

The next day, they flew the PBYs from Puget Sound to Juneau, which was still an incredible eight hundred miles from Anchorage. “Jesus,” said an incredulous Tuller. “Don’t they make anything close to anything else up here?”

They and the rest of the PBY’s crew were in a bar in Juneau having a meal. To a man they resisted the urge to call it their last supper. Since they would be flying over land, the actual flying distance would be much longer than crow-fly miles, more than a thousand miles altogether. Days were getting shorter, so they would have to leave before dawn to arrive over the target before nightfall. Their cruising speed was a lowly one hundred and twenty-five miles per hour, which meant at least an eight-hour trip each way.

Tuller accepted the inevitable. “Commander, don’t forget to bring a change of socks and underwear, and some nice warm pajamas would also be a good idea.”

“Tuller, go screw yourself,” Dane said and then ordered another round of beers for “his” crew.

The next morning they took off before dawn as planned and formed to four groups of three each. They did not keep radio silence; instead, only mimicked casual conversations between bush pilots to maintain order and help keep in visual contact.

Alaskans on the ground had set up radio beacons, and the Ugly Duckling Flight, as they now called themselves, duly turned west after several hours and headed to Anchorage. As they got closer, a female voice identified only as Ruby Red chatted inanely about food and fuel shortages, and the flight followed her signal. At a certain point they dropped down to less than five hundred feet.

“There we are,” yelled Tuller. “Finally.”

The small town of Anchorage was coming up fast. Rows of tents were visible in a field alongside the road leading to Fort Richardson. Tuller laughed. “God, we can’t miss a field full of tents, can we?”

The Japanese were not asleep. Spotters on high ground had seen the planes, but only at the last minute. As PBYs dropped their loads, machine-gun and rifle fire blazed up at them.

“We’re hit,” yelled one of the machine gunners who was busy returning fire. To Dane’s horror, holes had appeared in the plane’s hull.

“One down,” yelled Tuller. One of the PBYs had been mortally wounded and had just crashed in flames. Another was burning but still staying aloft.

“We’re done,” Tuller yelled and turned his plane due south.

More Japanese machine guns opened up and more planes were struck. Dane saw that one of the Catalinas was attempting to land in the water off Anchorage. Not a good idea, Dane thought. What the Japanese would do to the survivors wasn’t pleasant to contemplate. They should have tried for land farther south, but maybe they didn’t have a choice. Tuller was screaming into his radio, but Dane couldn’t hear it. One of the bow gunners nudged him and Dane looked back to where the bombs had dropped. Yes, they had managed to hit the field. A total of forty-eight five-hundred-pound bombs had been dropped on the tent city, but, he wondered, had anybody been in the tents?

He also wondered how many Americans had perished in this exercise, and the thought that it had been his idea made him slightly ill. How the hell do people like Spruance or Nimitz get away with sending people to their deaths and not cracking up over it? If that was one of the privileges of rank, he thought, the brass could keep it.

* * *

The little town of Grover, California, was about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It consisted of a couple hundred frame houses, some stores, and a few churches. It also had thirty-five-year-old and unemployed Fred Hanson, who was waking up on the beach after a long evening of drinking with some friends at the hotel where he once worked. Sleeping on the beach had been a little chilly but much better than going home and confronting his wife.

Maria was half Mexican and had a temper that was half volcano. When Fred had a little too much to drink, she was not rational, in Fred’s highly biased opinion. Thus, he’d made the decision to sack out on the sand. If he had been a truthful man, Fred would have admitted that he wouldn’t have been able to walk to his house in the first place. Being unemployed, he had a lot of time on his hands. Even he had to admit that he was jobless by choice. Sometimes he thought about going to nearby San Diego or even Los Angeles and getting a job in one of the burgeoning war industries, but that never quite appealed to his minimal sense of ambition. So far, too, he’d been declared too old to be drafted, but he knew that could change at any time. What the hell, he thought, he’d face that problem when it came along, which was pretty much the way he ran his life.

The Town of Grover was its official full and pretentious name. It had advertised itself as an affordable tourist location before the war, but there were damn few tourists nowadays.

Fred rubbed his eyes and splashed water on his face. He was careful not to swallow. The salt water would have upset his stomach even more than it was, and the last thing he wanted right now was a case of the heaves. Damn, Maria was going to be pissed. He couldn’t put it off, though. It was Sunday morning and maybe the good, devout Catholic woman would be at church when he sneaked home.

Speaking of piss, he stood, smiled, and relieved himself hugely into the ocean, sending a multibeer stream arching well into the sea, hoping as always that he hadn’t killed any of the little fish that swam around in the shallows. He blinked and noticed a pair of warships a mile or so offshore. They looked different. He wasn’t an expert, but they looked, well, foreign. He’d seen a number of American ships cruising by, but there was something not right about these two. What the hell, he thought as he carefully zipped up his fly. Maybe the navy got some new style ships and why not? The old ones hadn’t done them all that much good so far. Every time they went out, it seemed that they got themselves sunk.

Lights flickered on the ships, and, seconds later, something shrieked through the sky and impacted in the town, sending debris and dirt high into the air. The explosions were shocking and ear-shattering and threw him to the ground. When he looked up, he saw that several buildings in Grover had been damaged and were on fire. Jesus, he thought, those were Jap ships and the Japs were shelling Grover. Why? What had the people of Grover done to deserve it?

More shrieking shells flew over him and landed in Grover. People spilled out of their homes and ran around, confused, terrified, and aimless. Fred lurched to his feet and watched as a number of them headed to the nearby Baptist church for what they might have thought was sanctuary. But that was a mistake as another shell hit it squarely, causing what could only have been incredible carnage inside. Outside, torn bodies littered the ground. Fred could hold it no longer. He threw up all over himself.

Fred regained control and took off for his home as fast as his legs would propel him. Others were heading out of town in cars, on bicycles, or, like him, just running like hell.

More shells struck around him. One of his neighbors grabbed Fred’s arm. His eyes were wide with terror. “What the hell’s going on, Fred?”

Fred pushed him away angrily. “How the hell would I know?” He had to find his family.

Finally he saw Maria and the two boys running toward him. At least she wouldn’t be mad at him right now unless she was blaming him for the disaster. She was wide-eyed with fear and the boys were crying uncontrollably. Maria threw herself into his arms and, sobbing, asked him what was happening and told him that she was terrified. Welcome to the club, Fred thought.

He grabbed her arm and she took the kids. They didn’t own a car so they would have to walk to get out of Grover. People from everywhere had the same idea and soon the two-lane dirt road that led inland toward the mountains was choked with people. Behind them, the bombardment continued then, as suddenly as it began, stopped. When he was certain it was safe to look back, Fred saw that the two Japanese warships had turned and were heading toward the horizon. Scores of buildings were on fire and the flames were beginning to spread. Unless somebody took charge, the town of Grover would be ashes in a very short while. However, it didn’t look like anybody was interested in fighting fires, only running.

“Where’s our fucking navy?” Fred raged. Maria tried to shush him, but she suddenly began screaming and swearing when she realized that their two-bedroom home was burning furiously. Everything they owned except the clothes on their backs was being consumed by flames. For once Fred was grateful that they rented instead of owned like Maria wanted.

Almost half an hour later, a dozen American fighters flew overhead and out to sea. “Where the fuck have you been?” Fred yelled impotently. “Where the fuck is Roosevelt and all the assholes who are supposed to protect us?” Before this, they had been poor, poor but proud. Now they were destitute. What would happen to them?

Long lines of people from Grover and other towns in the area headed inland toward what they hoped was safety. It was a regular exodus, Fred thought, or maybe it was like the newsreels of French civilians fleeing the Nazis. Where they would go and who would feed them, they didn’t know. Maria had stopped crying and hung onto his arm with grim determination. He commented about the French refugees, and she clutched his arm and asked him if they’d sunk to that level. Fred said he had no fucking idea but it sure looked like it. Maria didn’t chastise him for swearing in front of the boys, and she hadn’t said anything about the puke on his clothes. She was too busy crying again. Fred quietly decided that getting a job in a factory wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

CHAPTER 9

THREE AMERICAN PLANES HAD GONE DOWN IN THE ATTACK ON the Japanese facilities at Anchorage. The first had crashed near the city in a blaze of flames and the explosion of a bomb that hadn’t been released, which told Ruby and the others that finding survivors was highly unlikely.

The second one landed in the water a mile down Cook Inlet and was quickly surrounded by Japanese soldiers in small boats. As they watched from a prudent distance, the surviving crewmembers were becoming prisoners whose fate was grim. They were punched and shoved as they were thrown into the Japanese boats, heedless of any possible injuries they might have had. The enemy was furious at the attack that had left a number of Japanese soldiers dead and wounded, along with a score of small fires where the bombs had landed in their tent city. Helping the downed airmen was impossible. Their fate was in the hands of merciless Japanese.

The third PBY had gone down a couple of miles south of Anchorage and in dense woods. The plane was burning when they got there, but the wind was blowing a smoke plume low and away from the town. Ruby hoped the Japs couldn’t see it, at least not for a while.

When Ruby and the others arrived at the scene after some hard hiking, the Japanese hadn’t yet shown up. The plane, however, was a charred and smoldering skeleton, and the stench of burning flesh was heavy in the air. The surrounding trees had been scorched, but it had rained heavily recently, and a forest fire had not developed.

Two living crewmen had been pulled out by other quickly arriving civilians and were stretched out on the ground. Each appeared to have multiple fractures and cuts. Caring for them would be well beyond their capabilities, which didn’t go much past first aid. People were very self-sufficient in Alaska, but they couldn’t perform major surgery. Broken arms and legs would be splinted and cuts stitched, but anything more serious would be beyond them.

Ruby decided they would pack the two men onto makeshift litters and take them to the small fishing village of Valdez, a hundred miles south on Prince William Sound. From there, maybe they could find a boat that could take them south to Juneau, or perhaps even a plane could land on the small strip that served Valdez. Taking the road from Anchorage inland to the larger city of Fairbanks was doubtless a bad idea. The Japanese had likely already cut it.

She had a thought. If the Japs had the road, would they move inland to Fairbanks? It was less than three hundred miles between the two cities. After this raid, she didn’t think they’d sit still and wait to be clobbered again. The Japs didn’t look like they were ready to move out just yet, but that could change at any time.

The two wounded men were secured onto the litters and a small group of local men and women said they’d transport the men to Valdez. It would be a rough trip and the men would have to be carried. They were unconscious and she hoped they’d stay that way. She wondered if they’d survive.

After the bearers left, Ruby’s group returned to a lookout point from which they could see into Anchorage. A large number of Japanese soldiers was milling around an undamaged school building. She surmised that the American prisoners were being held inside and being interrogated. Having seen what the Japanese did to other prisoners, she pitied them. She wasn’t a particularly religious person, but this time she prayed for them. If nothing else, she wanted them to have a quick and merciful death, even though she didn’t think it would happen.

The Japanese would want revenge for the surprise bombing attack. What looked like a couple of hundred heavily guarded American civilians were also gathered to see Japanese justice. Closer inspection showed that the men in the crowd had been beaten and many of the women’s clothing had been ripped and torn leaving them in a state of semi-nudity. It was an obvious indication that they’d been sexually assaulted. Once again, Ruby was thankful that she’d decided to flee rather than run the risk of being a prisoner of the Japanese.

After about an hour, the door opened and a half dozen Americans were dragged outside and forced to kneel while an officer seemed to be screaming at them.

“He really looks pissed,” Perkins said.

“Shut up and keep taking pictures.”

Perkins was using a telescopic lens and Ruby was watching through a fine set of German binoculars her uncle had brought back as a souvenir of World War I. Ruby had the terrible feeling that she was going to regret that the picture they provided was so clear and so vivid.

The Japanese officer finished his harangue. She thought he might be the commander of all the Japanese forces from the way others deferred to him, but she had no way of being certain. She groaned when he unsheathed the long curved sword that officers carried. He waved it around in the air and his men cheered him, the sound carrying up to them.

The officer waved it a couple more times and then sent it slashing down on the neck of a kneeling American. The prisoner’s head was sent flying and blood gushed from the man’s trunk. His body continued to kneel for a second and then toppled slowly forward while the soldiers laughed and the civilians moaned.

“Fuckers,” Perkins said.

Ruby forced herself to be calm even though she wanted to both kill and vomit. “Pictures, keep taking the damned pictures.”

The Japanese officer walked slowly down the short line of kneeling men and repeated the process five more times, each to the loud cheers of the gathered soldiers and the further groans of the civilians. When they were done, the heads and bodies were tossed into the inlet.

“Ruby, you think they know we’re up here?”

“They’ve got to know somebody’s likely watching them from the trees and they don’t care. That was a lesson. Now the Japs’ll use the civilians as hostages and probably have them working for them, repairing roads and maybe building an airstrip.”

“So what do we do now?”

Damn good question, she thought. “First, we get to the radio and tell them all about these latest bullshit murders. Then we head inland to Fairbanks. Three hundred miles is a long ways to walk, but maybe we can commandeer a car. I’ve got a feeling that Fairbanks is where all the action is going to be. Hopefully, we can find an airplane there and get your pictures south to somebody who’ll publish them and let the world know what first-class pricks the Japanese are.”

“Ruby?”

“Yes?”

“Is commandeering the same as stealing?”

* * *

On his return to San Diego, Dane was informed that the brass wanted his opinion of the PBY raid. He’d been deposited at Vancouver by Tuller and stuffed into the back seat of a Douglas Dauntless scout plane. They took off immediately and, after refueling at San Francisco, arrived at the base. Dane was so exhausted and drained that he’d managed to fall asleep in the Dauntless.

“Once again, I don’t get a chance to clean up,” Dane lamented jokingly.

Merchant laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “I believe the admirals think you dress like a slob all the time. By the way, once again Nimitz is going to be there as well. We’ve issued a press release telling the world how the navy has struck back at the Japs who dared to invade Alaska. All the boys on those planes are heroes. Now all we have to do is figure out what they accomplished.”

Before Tim could make the scathing comment that was on the tip of his tongue, he was ushered into a conference room where Nimitz and Spruance were holding a meeting with others who wore stars on their shoulders. “Congratulations on making it back safely,” said Nimitz. “Spruance says you have a habit of doing that.”

“A damn good habit, if you ask me,” added Spruance. “Now, what can you tell us about the raid? And don’t pull punches.”

Dane turned to Nimitz. He was the senior man in the room. “Sir, if you wanted a public relations coup, you got one. We came in low and they didn’t notice us until we were just about on top of them. We dropped our bombs and started to fly away. At that point, things began to fall apart. We were so low that we began to take a lot of small-arms fire, and the Catalina is far from bulletproof. Three of our planes went down for certain, and we have to assume that the crews are all dead or captured.”

“But what damage did we do to them?” asked Spruance.

“Sir, we bombed a field full of tents. I saw a lot of Japs running, and bombs exploding, but I doubt very much if we did any substantial damage. We didn’t have all that many bombs and they were small ones anyway. That, and I’ve been told that bombing a field doesn’t cause all that much damage.”

Merchant interrupted. “Spotters on the ground say that at least twenty Japs were killed. They determined that by counting graves dug the next day, and they don’t know how many were wounded. They also say that at least six crewmen were captured, and beheaded by this Colonel Yamasaki, or some other Jap officer.”

Nimitz’s face turned red. Normally mild mannered, the admiral was outraged. “That bastard’s going to burn in hell.”

Dane continued. “We sent in twelve planes and three were shot down. Every other plane was damaged in some manner, and there were wounded on several others. The PBY I was flying was fortunate. We only had two men lightly wounded, although I did count at least thirty bullet holes in the fuselage.”

Spruance shook his head. “So we just about traded casualties with the Japs, but we lost three valuable planes destroyed and nine others damaged. If we put the raid in that context, we lost.”

“However,” said Nimitz, “morale has jumped with the announcement. Just like Doolittle’s bombing of Tokyo, the price was high, but we showed the Japs that we could and would strike back. Dane, what’s your opinion of using the PBYs for a repeat raid, and be blunt.”

Dane was not in the mood for candy-coating a report for admirals under any circumstances. “It’d be a disaster. The Japs will be ready next time and they will have some kind of an early warning system in place. Our planes would be cut to pieces. The PBY is simply not a fighter or bomber. A regular bomber could hit them from higher up, fly faster and hit them with more bombs, and make them squeal. In my opinion, it’d be murder to send PBYs again. Like it or not, we should wait until the field at Vancouver is ready.”

“Even then we’d need an interim field for them to refuel,” said Nimitz. “We’re developing runways at Juneau and Fairbanks. When those are ready, the army’ll hit the Japs hard from the air. In the meantime, you’re right. No more PBY raids.”

With that, Dane and Merchant were dismissed. Dane went to his desk and sat down wearily. His body still ached from all the hours in the PBY and then in the cramped Dauntless. At least he could move around a little in the Catalina. Even the kid lieutenant who’d flown him in the Dauntless teased him about being too big for a fighter cockpit. Maybe he should go to the gym and work out, maybe get some kinks out of his body. Maybe he should have a couple of drinks and take a nap. That sounded like a much better idea. On leaving the meeting, Merchant had as much as told him that the war would get along fine without him until the next morning.

A young sailor Dane recognized as being from the mail room walked up with a puzzled look on his face and a letter in his hand. “Sir, this has been kicking around a bit, but we think it’s for you since there aren’t that many Danes around. Whoever wrote it didn’t know your correct address here and had your rank wrong.”

Puzzled, Dane thanked the kid and took the envelope. Whoever it was indeed had the right name but had his rank wrong. It was amazing that the navy figured out that it might be for him. He opened it and gasped in shock and pleasure. It was from Amanda.

Dear Tim,

Obviously we arrived safely in California and I’d love to fill you in on the details, but I can’t at this time. I’ll explain later, I hope. “We” consists of two other nurses named Sandy and Grace along with yours truly. Let it suffice that we are all weary, hungry, sunburned, and know a lot more about the ocean and ourselves than we ever thought possible. Or ever even cared to know. Otherwise, we are fine and nothing that a few good meals and a little rest won’t cure. For a variety of reasons, my hair is cut shorter than the average marine’s and I’m even thinner than I was before. I didn’t put a return address on the envelope because we are going to be moving soon and I don’t know exactly where we’ll wind up. I just hope this letter finds you and that you too are well. A very nice marine captain and his wife helped track you down. I hope.

We are planning on picking up the pieces of our nursing careers and have collectively decided that San Diego would be a good place to be, what with all those good-looking sailors hanging around in seedy bars. I hope that meets with your approval. Because of paperwork, it could be a couple of weeks before we get there. We have some money, so we’ve been able to get some new clothing and I’ve even bought some new glasses. Mine were lost in the journey.

I just realized I’m being presumptuous in assuming that you even want to see me at all. I thought we started something very interesting and special back in Honolulu a thousand years ago, and I hope you would like to continue it as well. If not, I’ll understand.

In the meantime, like it or not and ready or not, I’m coming down, and I’m bringing the other two musketeers with me. Know any other good-looking sailors?