The Winds of War

my own son! I’ve spent the sum total of three days with my wife since we got married.”

“There’s another side to it. Your squadron is desperate for watch officers, we’re in a war alert, and -”

Byron broke in, “Look, what is this, Dad? I haven’t asked you to go to Tully and use your influence with him, have I?”

“I’m sure glad you haven’t. Red Tully can’t do the impossible, Byron. He stretched a point, taking you into that May class, but that was different -”

Byron broke in, “Jesus, yes, and I’m eternally grateful to both of you. That’s why my son was born in Italy, and that’s why I’m separated from my wife by the whole wide earth.”

“Maybe we’d better drop it,” said Victor Henry.

“That’s a fine idea, Dad.”

Byron turned genial again over the bacon and eggs, but Victor Henry felt that in the short bitter exchange he had lost all the ground he had been gaining with his son.

Yet Byron could not have been more amiable when he saw his father off on the Clipper next day. On the pier he threw his arms around Pug. Impulsively Pug said, as the beard scratched his lips, “Is Natalie going to like all this shrubbery?”

It was a pleasure to hear Byron laugh. “Don’t worry. The day I leave the Devilfish, off it comes.”

“Well, then — I guess this is it, Byron.”

“The tumbleweeds blowing apart,” Byron said.

“That’s exactly right. The tumbleweeds blowing apart.”

“Well, you’ll be seeing Warren and Janice in a few days, anyhow. That’s great. Give them my love.”

The loudspeaker called for passengers to board the huge flying boat.

Victor Henry looked in his son’s eyes and said with great difficulty, “Look, I pray for Natalie and your boy.”

Byron’s eyes were steady and inscrutable.

“I’m sure you do, Dad. Thanks.”

When the Clipper wheeled away for the long takeoff the son still stood on the pier, hands thrust in his back pockets, watching.

* * *

The Japanese fleet at that moment was well on its way to Hawaii. The Kurile Islands, a chain of volcanic rocks more than seven hundred miles long loosely linking Japan and Siberia, had made a good secret rendezvous. Japan’s six aircraft carriers had met in a setting of black snow-patched island crags, flecked with the gnarled vegetation that can survive in high winds and long freezes. Through rain and sleet, their fliers had practiced shallow torpedo runs while battleships, cruisers, oilers, and supply ships came straggling in. Nobody knew of this gathering armada except the men in the ships and a few of Japan’s leaders. When the force set out eastward, only a few flag officers had been told where they were going, and why.

They had no set day or hour to attack. They were not sure the attack would go. The fleet was sailing in case the Washington talks broke down. Japanese peace envoys were trying to work out a modus vivendi, a “way of living,” a sort of cease-fire in the Pacific before the guns could go off. The Japanese modus vivendi called for the United States to resume sending oil and scrap iron, and to recognize Japan’s right to rule East Asia and colonize China. If the Americans granted this, the fleet on signal would turn back.

But the modus vivendi of the United States called for the Japanese to abandon the Chinese war and get off the southeast Asian mainland, in return for normal economic relations. The Japanese leaders had already decided that if this was the last word, they would fight. In that case, on signal, the timing of an enormous simultaneous assault, planned to burst out of Japan like red rays all over the South Pacific, would be locked on to one irrevocably appointed hour: the time for a surprise air strike against Hawaii.

The three strong points held by the white race in the South Pacific were Pearl Harbor, Manila, and Singapore. The plan was to knock out United States air and sea power at Pearl Harbor from the air; to capture Singapore by seaborne assault; to land troops in the Philippines and take Manila, and then to sweep up the chips in the East Indies; and thereafter to use these new resources for a strong drive to finish China, while beating off Anglo- American counterattacks. The ultimate gamble was that Germany would either win the big fratricidal white man’s war that was giving Japan her chance, or would so use up American and British strength that Japan would in the end keep what she had seized, no matter what happened to Germany.

The Japanese leaders, including the emperor, doubted that this risky plan would come off, but they thought they had no choice. Japan’s predicament was much like Germany’s before the attack on the Soviet Union. Both countries, in the hands of their militarists, had started wars they couldn’t finish. As time ran out and supplies dwindled, both turned to strike elsewhere, hoping to mend their fortunes.

Three reasons were forcing the Japanese to a showdown now. Their oil was running out. The weather would soon turn bad for military operations. And the white men, alarmed at last, were strengthening their three bastions every week with more and more planes, warships, anti-aircraft guns, tanks, and fortifications. Japan’s temporary advantage in the South Pacific and East Asia was melting away. Unless President Roosevelt suddenly relented in Washington, she had to go, or give up her drive for empire.

And so, on the day before the Army-Navy game, the armada had sortied into the black stormy waters off the Kuriles, and set out for Hawaii.

And as the Japanese task force steamed east, a much smaller American task force sortied from Pearl Harbor, headed west. Admiral William Halsey was taking twelve marine fighter planes to Wake Island in the Enterprise. Japan had long since illegally fortified every island and atoll it held on trust in the Pacific. Time after time, President Roosevelt had failed to get money out of Congress for counter-fortifying American islands. Now, at the end of November 1941, the funds had come through. The work was being wildly rushed. At Wake it was half-finished, but the atoll still had no air defense.

The second day out, on a sunny crystalline morning, Warren Henry returned from the dawn search and came slanting around to land on the Enterprise. The deck rose up at Warren, the hook caught the number two cable, his stomach thrust hard against the safety belt, and he was down and stopped among deck force sailors in brilliant red, green, and yellow jumpers, doing their frantic gesticulating dance around landed planes. Warm sea air eddied in from his rear gunner’s open canopy. Disconnecting belts and cables, gathering up his charts and log sheets, Warren awkwardly climbed out into the brisk wind over the deck, as another scout plane roared in and jerked to a stop.

The landing officer shouted at him, holding his paddles on either side of his mouth, “Hi. All pilots to Scouting Six ready room at 0900.”

“What’s up?”

“The old man wants a word with you all.”

“The captain?”

“Halsey.”

“Christ.”

In the ready room the deep comfortable chairs were already full, and pilots in khakis, or flying suits and yellow lifejackets, lined the bulkheads. Halsey entered with the ship’s captain and the squadron commanders, and stood in front of the scored plexiglass panels up forward, where orange grease marks showed search patterns and assignments. Warren was only a few feet from him. Seen this close, Halsey’s face looked patchy and aged, and now and then he grimaced, showing his teeth in a nervous tic.

The squadron commander waved a green mimeographed sheet. “Okay, now all you fellows received and discussed this yesterday, but the admiral has asked me to read it again, out loud.

“BATTLE ORDER NUMBER 1.

1. The Enterprise is now operating under war conditions.

2. At any time, day or night, we must be ready for instant action.

3. Hostile submarines may be encountered…. ‘Steady nerves and stout hearts are needed now.’

Commanding Officer,