The Pearl Harbor Murders

Admiral Kimmel had gotten up early on this fine Sunday morning; every other weekend, he would meet with General Short for eighteen holes of golf. Today, Lieutenant Colonel Throckmorton and Colonel Fielder would be joining them.

He'd recently moved into this house at Makalapa Heights, about five minutes from HQ, and the place was underfurnished-severely lacking the touch his wife would have brought to it. On days off like this, he missed her dearly; but most of his time was so filled with work, he scarcely remembered he had any private life.

This week had been filled with protracted discussions over whether the fleet should be kept in Pearl Harbor or sent to sea; and now this business was looming of the supposed espionage activities that Adam Sterling-a good man, if overeager-and the ever-imaginative Ed Burroughs had brought to his attention last night.

He was still in his pajamas, and hadn't even shaved yet, when Commander Murphy, duty officer at HQ, called to say the Ward had ash-canned a sub near the harbor.

'Sorry to bother you on Sunday morning, sir,' Murphy said.

Kimmel realized this was probably just another false alarm-incorrect reports of subs in the outlying area were common.

But he said, 'You acted correctly, Commander-all submerged sub contacts must be regarded as hostile….I'll be right down.'

Around five minutes later, freshly shaved and just getting into uniform, Kimmel again answered the phone and once more it was Murphy.

But this time the businesslike commander's voice was strangely shrill: 'Sir, we have a message from the signal tower saying the Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor-and this is no drill!'

Kimmel slammed the phone down and ran outside, onto the front lawn, into the garden which overlooked the base, buttoning his white uniform jacket as he went.

The sky was filled with the enemy-the Rising Sun on their wings. He knew at once this was no casual raid, by a few stray planes.

'Unbelievable,' he murmured.

Aghast, he stood frozen among the flowers-poin-settias and hibiscus in bloom-watching Jap aircraft swoop down on the base, circling in figure eights, dropping bombs, turning and dropping more, machineguns chattering. Explosions rocked the sky-and ships, fires already burning fiercely on their decks. 'Impossible,' he whispered.

Four miles west of Pearl Harbor, the Ewa Marine Corps Air Station was hit by two squadrons of silver planes bisecting the field at two hundred mph, fishtailing to better lash their bullets into broad patterns.

Of the base's forty-nine fighters and scout planes, thirty were decimated on the ground.

Four blocks from Beretania Street, the black Ford managed to crawl through the traffic jam and make it across Kuakini Street, bordering Pauoa Park, where on the left-hand corner squatted the two-story concrete compound of the Japanese Consulate.

Sterling pulled up in front, into the no-parking zone, and Burroughs and his son hopped out, following the FBI agent up the stairs, where-oddly-Consul General Nagao Kita stood halfway down… in his dark blue silk pajamas.

Burroughs had met the usually affable Kita before, socially, as had Sterling-the consul general was short, plump, with dark thick hair, and a broad, bushy-browed face that, with its flattened pug nose, gave him the appearance of a cheerful ex-prizefighter.

'Good morning, gentlemen,' Kita said, arms folded, smiling like a friendly genie.

'Don't you know there's a war on?' Sterling demanded.

Kita shrugged. 'This is just another American exercise-an elaborate one, I admit.'

'Take a look at the color of that smoke,' Sterling said, nodding toward the sky. 'It's black, not white- fuel oil. Your planes are bombing Pearl Harbor.'

'Nonsense.'

'I'm going to have to take you in custody, Mr. Kita. We're at war, and I have evidence of espionage on the part of your vice consul.'

The smile disappeared into an impassive mask. 'I'm a diplomat, Mr. Sterling. Even if we are at war-I have certain rights.'

'You have no rights-American boys are dying right now in this vicious underhanded attack. Where is your vice consul? Where is Yoshikawa?'

Kita's eyes tightened. 'I know no one by that name.'

'I'll settle for Morimura, then.'

A siren screamed and tires squealed as a police car came to a halt next to the black Ford. Three uniformed police officers-two Hawaiians and a Chinese- jumped out, shotguns in hand, and so did a plainclothes officer… Detective John Jardine, a.45 automatic in his fist.

Jardine took the steps two at a time and joined the little discussion group, nodding to Burroughs and Hully, then saying to Sterling and Kita, 'We're putting this building under armed guard.'

'Why?' Kita said, his impassive face finally offering up a frown.

'For the protection of the consul general,' the Portuguese detective said, 'and the members of your staff.'

Kita lifted a bushy eyebrow. 'And if I don't want your protection?'

Jardine's wide thin mouth made a faint smile. 'Well, we could wait an hour or so, for a nice mob to build, and then throw your ass to it.'

That seemed to sober Kita, who said, 'Shall we step inside?'

'What a good idea,' Jardine said, then turned to the FBI man, who was already holding open the door. 'Agent Sterling, we intend to fully cooperate with your office. If I might ask, why are Mr. Burroughs and his son with you?'

'I had to press them into service,' Sterling said, as they allowed Kita to lead the way into the vestibule. 'I've been cut off from my office.'

'Glad to have your help,' Jardine said, nodding at both Burroughs and Hully. 'But why do I have the feeling we're still working the Pearl Harada murder case?'

'Help us find Vice Consul 'Morimura,' ' Burroughs said, 'and you'll find out.'

A guard fence separated Pearl Harbor from the two thousand acres of Hickam Field, biggest Army base on Oahu, home of the Army's bomber squadrons. Here, a quarter mile of neatly arranged A-20s, B-17s and B-18s served themselves up to the hungry waves of silver planes. The incessant bombing and strafing-not only of the sitting-duck aircraft but barracks, support facilities and hangars-did not dissuade the men of Hickam from working fiercely to disperse their aircraft, or from fighting back.

Two Japanese-American civilians-laborers employed at the field-helped set up a machine gun and fed it with ammo belts while a boy from Michigan fired away at the diving planes.

Standing near a hangar, Corporal Jack Stanton-one eye slightly swollen, even blackened, from his Hotel Street brawl of the night before-saw the friend standing next to him strafed into explosive splashes of blood, bone and flesh. Horrified, then energized into action, Stanton ran across the tarmac-not even pausing when another bomb blew a khaki-clad soldier in two-and managed to climb up into a bomber.

Stanton began firing the machine gun in the nose of the bomber, its deadly chatter knocking one of the silver planes out of the sky.

But when a Zero swooped down, delivering its own machine-gun fire, the fuel tank ignited and Stanton was trapped in the cockpit, flames all around him, caged in a crackling hell.

Stanton didn't bother trying to get out. As the flames slowly consumed him, he kept firing up at the sons of bitches, and witnesses said his red tracer bullets could be seen zinging skyward, long after flames had encompassed the nose of the plane.

Winging eastward in groups of three, past the Pearl Harbor entry, cutting inland at an altitude of a mere sixty feet, twenty-four torpedo planes threw their supple blue shadows across the Navy Yard and the Southeast Loch, closing in on Battleship Row-where those gray behemoths, the Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia, pride of the Navy, slumbered in the sunlight. In groups of two, coming from the west, sixteen more torpedo planes took a direct route across the island, their targets the ships docked on the far side of Ford Island, as well as those at the Navy Yard piers over the east channel.