Wingmen (9781310207280) (12 page)

“Ha, ha,” said
the captain, “got you, you dingbat. I’m not sitting down yet.”

“Never take
your seat,” said Schuster, “until the captain does so.” XO took his
seat beside the captain and Schuster said: “Notice how the order of
seating allows the most important officers to sit at the head of
the table and those of lesser rank and position are seated further
away from them.” Aviator was by himself at the opposite end. All
but Aviator now removed their hats and put them face up on the
table in front of them.

The captain
leaned over and spoke to XO. “Tell that stupid aviator to take off
his hat.”

XO leaned over
and said to Engineer: “Tell that stupid aviator to take off his
hat.”

Engineer leaned
over and said to Guns: “Tell that stupid aviator to take off his
hat.”

Guns turned to
face Aviator and said loudly: “Hey, you, Jerk, take off your
hat.”

“Never wear
your cover in the wardroom,” said Schuster.

The captain
elbowed XO and said: “Hey, did I tell you guys about this broad I
knocked up in Honolulu? Cheloobies,” he said, indicating the size
with his hands, “they were like watermelons.”

Aviator took
out his wallet and opened it up to reveal a small snapshot. “Did I
ever show you guys a picture of my baby daughter?”

“Stupid
Aviator,” said the captain, and the three officers beside him
nodded in agreement.

“Never discuss
women with your fellow officers while in the wardroom.”

“You know, your
highness,” said Guns, “if we could just get rid of some of those
silly airplanes, I think we could put an eight-inch mount up on the
forecastle.”

“That’s a good
idea,” said Engineer.

“Sure was a
nice day for flying,” said Aviator.

“Who is that
asshole on the end?” asked the captain.

“Just one of
the flyboys,” said XO. “You know how they are.”

“Never talk
shop while in the wardroom. Politics is also a forbidden subject.
This leaves the officers and gentlemen free to discuss such
exciting topics as art, the weather, and poetry.”

“There was a
young lady from Dallas,” said the captain, “who used dynamite for a
phallus. They found her vagina in South Carolina, and her asshole
in Buckingham Palace,” The “actors” roared with laughter and
elbowed each other broadly.

“Always laugh
at the captain’s jokes,” said Schuster. “That one isn’t in the
manual, but it’s a pretty good idea.”

“Oh, darn,”
said Aviator, “I dropped my soup spoon.”

The Captain
stood up, pounded the table with his fist and shouted, “Who’s the
motherfucking son of a bitch who said that? There’ll be no fucking
cursing in my wardroom!”

“Swearing in
the wardroom is the mark of a brutish and insensitive cad,” said
Schuster.

Guns produced a
white handkerchief which he fluttered through the air toward
Aviator. “You insensitive cad, you,” he said.

The five seated
pilots pulled folded pieces of paper from pockets and hats. “If you
are ever late for a sitting,” read Brogan, “and arrive after the
meal has been served, approach the captain, apologize for your
lateness, and politely request permission to be seated.”

“Never,” read
Hammerstein, “never, never put your feet up on the wardroom
furnishings.”

“Always start
with the outside fork,” read Higgins.

“The uniform
for the evening meal is the dress uniform for the appropriate
clime,” read Bracker. He looked up. “Jesus, is that right?”

“Depends on the
captain,” said Schuster. “Please continue.”

“If you must
leave before the captain finishes eating, wait until coffee is
served, then politely ask the captain if you may be excused.”
Higgins read, then wadded up his piece of paper, and tossed it over
his shoulder. “What a crock of shit,” he said.

“Do not tarry
in the wardroom during working hours or after a meal,” offered
Brogan, stumbling over the word “tarry.” “This gives the steward
the chance to perform cleaning duties and prepare for the next
meal.”

“Thank you,
gentlemen,” said Schuster. “This concludes my presentation on
wardroom etiquette. Are there any questions?” He looked around the
room. One ensign was nodding off. No one appeared terribly
interested.

“Hey,” said
Duggin, at the back of the room near the door. “I think the
skipper’s coming.” Brogan turned around and began taking off his
medals.

Jack Hardigan
came into the room. Fred took a sharp breath, turned his head,
closed his eyes. “Forget the speech, Mister Schuster,” Jack said.
“Ironsides
sails in one hour and we take off in two.” He disappeared back
through the door. Fred exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.

Duane Higgins
was already on his feet, removing the “XO” paper, and forcing his
way through the room to the door Jack had just gone through. When
he reached it, he turned and spoke loudly to the whole room. “Don’t
just sit there, guys, get moving.” He opened the door, was
gone.

Fred climbed
wearily to his feet and thought, it’ll be better when we get to
sea, I’m sure it will. He found his yellow Mae West and pulled it
on. It has to be better, he thought.

The United
States Navy’s dramatic increase in carrier strength during 1943 is
best illustrated by some simple figures: At the end of 1942 and one
year of war, only two of the Navy’s six original fleet carriers,
the
Enterprise
and the
Saratoga,
were still on the surface of the
Pacific Ocean. Both had suffered severe battle damage, were manned
by exhausted crews, and had depleted, weary air groups.

On the first
day of July, 1943, the Pacific Fleet’s carrier strength included
four
Essex
-class and five
Independence
-class ships in commission, of
which three and four respectively were approaching combat
readiness. By the end of the same year, Admiral Nimitz had
assembled at Pearl Harbor six
Essex-
and six
Independence
-class ships, plus
Enterprise
and
Saratoga,
all combat ready and fully manned with
highly-trained, competent crewmen and pilots. This veritable
explosion in naval strength is an economic achievement unparalleled
in modern or ancient history.

J.E. Hardigan,
Commander. USN (ret.),
A Setting of Many
Suns:
The Destruction of the Imperial Navy
[The Naval
Institute Press, 1962], p. 280.

Jack Hardigan was
filled with a gut-level gratification. On either side of him the
other three Corsairs buzzed along contentedly, holding a precise
and unmoving formation. Behind him and to the right stretched the
thirty-four Hellcats in four-plane, lopsided Vs. By leaning as far
over as he could and looking down, he could catch a glimpse of the
leading Dauntless divisions. The sight of so many aircraft on a
coordinated mission never failed to fill him with chilly feelings
of evenly mixed awe and wonder. As a squadron commander, the
feeling was stronger than ever: He knew about the organization that
had brought all these machines together at this point in time, made
sure they could all fly, trained the pilots to fly them, and
assembled them into such clean formations at this altitude. But the
gratification was for another reason.

“Banger Leader
to Banger One Seven.”

“Roger, Banger
Leader.”

“Any
stragglers, One Seven?”

“Nary a one,
Banger Leader.”

“Roger, One
Seven.” Jack was inwardly thankful for a good executive officer.
Only an hour ago, Higgins had reorganized nearly every division for
the flight to the
Constitution
when the ship’s air officer had radioed
that the four Corsairs would be brought aboard all at one time and
after all other aircraft had landed. This made it necessary for
those four to form their own division. Duane shuffled the pilots
around and filled the resulting gaps. The hour they had had before
it was necessary to begin the forty-five minute journey to the
carrier had been well spent and the launching was begun on
time.

What satisfied
Jack the most was the incredible flapping around the dive bomber
and torpedo squadrons had gone through to get ready—if indeed they
were ready. He had seen one busload of harried pilots heading for
the BOQ to pack their personal belongings, just as the one truck he
had sent arrived with his pilots’ gear all packed and ready. They
had even had time to round up four volunteer pilots from another
air group to fly the four extra Hellcats to the
Constitution.
An Avenger would
fly them back to the island later in the afternoon and return
before dark. Everyone benefited from this arrangement: The ship and
the air group had the extra aircraft and the other pilots got in
some flight time in the new fighters and valuable carrier landing
experience. Jack smiled to himself, thinking how nice it was to be
well organized.

It was, as
usual, a beautiful day for flying. He had concluded long ago that
the clear skies and deep blue waters of the Pacific were capable of
lulling the most experienced pilot into a sense of false security;
the ocean’s vastness could overwhelm the negligent or inattentive.
A malfunctioning homing device and an unnoticed crosswind could
cause a single plane or a flight of aircraft to miss their tiny
carrier by ten miles—a miniscule error by navigation standards—and
send them off into wastes of sky and water. They would eventually
realize their mistake but would be unable to fight the inexorable
mathematics of fuel consumption or the approach of darkness. And
wartime necessities may dictate that the carrier remain in silence
to protect her location, or even forbid the detachment of ships or
additional aircraft to search for the lost pilots.
The most you can hope
for
, Jack thought,
is that it doesn’t happen to you.

“Red Rocket
Leader, this is Rocket Two Four.” One of the Dauntlesses.

“Roger, Two
Four.”

“I’m running
rough and hot. Oil pressure fluctuating.”

“We’re closer
to the roost than from where we came from, Two Four. Think you can
make it?”

“Negative,
Rocket Leader.” It was a kid’s voice. Young. Very scared. “She’s
getting worse every second.”

“Stay in
formation as long as you can, Two Four. If you have to put her
down, I’ll leave someone here to keep you company until we can pick
you up.”

“Roger, Rocket
Leader.”
It had to
happen
, thought Jack. Out of the almost one hundred aircraft
in the group, at least one had to develop trouble. Why couldn’t it
have been while they were still over the strip?

“Oh, Jesus,
she’s gone. Just like that. I’m putting her down, Rocket
Leader.”

“Roger, Two
Four. Three Two, follow him down and get a good fix. Drop your raft
if necessary. We’ll get you out of there, Two Four.”
Maybe
, thought Jack.
If your wingman
gets a good fix on your location. If you make it out of the plane
before it sinks. If the ship can contact Pearl in time to get a
plane out before dark. If a squall doesn’t swamp your
raft.

“Banger One
Seven, this is Banger Leader. Everything all right?”

“Couldn’t be
better, Banger Leader. Quit your worrying.”

Some minor but
unexpected turbulence buffeted the Corsairs, bouncing them around
briefly before the pilots could compensate. They were so different,
these new birds, from the Grummans he was used to flying. Maybe
that contributed to his uneasiness. Jack looked across the
intervening distance into Lieutenant Bradley’s cockpit; the pilot,
who had his goggles pushed up and oxygen mask dangling, smiled
confidently and gave a thumbs-up.

The engineer
who designed these planes, Brogan had said, must have had a wild
hair up his ass, and Jack could understand what he meant. Most
aircraft critics said the Corsair was graceful in appearance, but
Jack had to disagree. The wide, thin wings dipped sharply away from
the fuselage. It was called an inverted gull wing configuration,
but from head on it was more reminiscent of a bat than a gull. Jack
had no idea what aerodynamic advantages were gained by this setup,
although it did allow for a larger propeller. This was because the
landing gear kept the nose of the plane higher than normal when on
the deck. But the higher nose position made taxiing more difficult
because forward visibility was cut—a condition compounded by the
fact that the cockpit was located near the center of the fuselage,
almost aft of the wing. Jack also found the position of the
horizontal stabilizer curious; it extended well aft of the
vertical. He was intrigued by aircraft design and sometimes wished
he had been an engineer. But basically he would rather fly the damn
things than design them. Despite its unusual appearance, the
Corsair had amazing power and speed. It handled like a dream
throughout the range of power settings and attitudes.
We’ve come a long way
,
he thought,
since
the Buffalo.

Far below him,
an irregularity on the surface of the ocean caught his eye. Jack
tipped the fighter to get a better look. A tiny toy ship was there,
a destroyer by the look of it; it was making a foaming bow wave and
leaving a broad wake fanning out behind it. The disturbed water
gradually reassumed its slatelike surface. The destroyer was headed
in their direction, almost precisely, and Jack figured it was
making speed to join the
Constitution
’s group. As he watched, the speeding
ship abruptly changed course, turning to starboard, its feathery
wake sweeping into a giant question mark of white foam.
Odd
, he
thought. Then he remembered the pilot who had just gone down and
wished he could be that lucky when the time came. The carrier could
only be minutes ahead now.