John Schettler - Devil's Garden

“I am today demanding, and ordering, that all units of the Red Army west of the Oder River must withdraw to Russian territory at once, and that no unit of the Soviet army will be permitted to land anywhere on the Japanese mainland, or on any islands in the Pacific that were the former territory of Japan.

“If the Soviet government does not accede to this order and ultimatum immediately, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such number and with such power as they have not yet seen…”

The Russians, of course, denied any involvement in the attack the President was speaking of, claiming Truman and Churchill sought to define the post war era in their favor and refusing to withdraw from any territory then occupied by Soviet forces. In truth, they had no idea what Truman was talking about, and said as much.

The Presidential order went out that same day, and it was answered by the 509th Composite Air Group on the island of Tinian. And so three days after the Second World War ended, the third war started, and it would rage for nine days of continued madness until the world had finally had enough.

* * *

ColonelTibbets got the call two hours later. It was Go, Go, Go! The entire 509th would fly with him, as well as over a hundred other B-29s in a massive show of force intended to convince the Russians that any further deployment or use of atomic weapons would lead to their swift and utter destruction.

In truth, the United States was taking the gravest possible risk in hand with the order that Tibbets received that day. Yes, they had the bomb ready just as Truman had boasted, but there were only two available, and both were in the Pacific. Operations at the ultra top secret Manhattan Project in New Mexico were ramping up as never before in a desperate effort to enrich more nuclear fuel and assemble more bombs should they be needed.

The US was already well behind in the race to atomic supremacy. Now they believed the Russians had tested their first bomb in the North Atlantic as early as August of 1941, though the Allies had first thought the Germans were responsible when the Mississippi went down. Years of intelligence work had slowly brought them to another conclusion-that it was a Russian ship, and not the Germans, who had attacked TF-16 in the North Atlantic. It was that conclusion that fed the fires of suspicion where the Russians were concerned for the remainder of the war.

The Russians had the bomb… Why they never used it again on the Germans remained a mystery, and it was eventually decided that the considerable resources, technical knowhow and time required to produce a bomb while under all out attack from Germany had prevented them from creating any more bombs until late in the war. By the time they were ready, Germany had already been defeated.

Yet now the Russians appeared again, with the same blighting footprint on the hallowed ground of peace as before. They used it not on their enemies, but on their friends, or so the Americans believed. They blasted yet another American battleship in a gruesome echo of the dastardly attack made in 1941. Only a very few knew of the fate of the Mississippi and TF-16, and of these no more than ten men alive on the earth at that time knew all of what had really transpired.

But none of that mattered now. Tibbets got the order, and the Enola Gay got the bomb. The planes were in the air the day after the Iowa was sunk, and not two hours after the Soviet authorities had issued a venomous denial of all charges leveled against them and a refusal to withdraw.

The skies were bright and clear that morning, but they had floodlights up to illuminate the runway just the same. The video cameras would record the takeoff for posterity, a newsreel for the ages. One by one the big engines sputtered to life, turning over and spinning the massive props on the enormous engines of the bombers. Tibbets felt the vibration of all four engines shaking his plane, and just before he taxied away he leaned out the side window and waved. Then it was out on the tarmac and down the long runway of North Field, Tinian.

“Hey JS, look at ‘em go!” A group a Seabees were watching near the hangers. “And to think we built the damn airfield that made all this possible.”

They had seen the bombers go many times before, but never with this kind of fanfare, and by direct Presidential order. It was awesome, as all real military power was meant to be. And it was terrible beyond the soul’s capacity to measure, 425 superfortresses in the sky, and one with the power of the sun itself in its belly, all flying north for the vengeance the nation demanded. Only the final raids on Japan had been bigger, with two massive raids involving 464 and 520 planes in late May.

There was no sign of the awful fire that had ravaged the seas the night before. The B-29 bombers were in the air, flying in a massive formation northwest from Tinian. It was a little over 2000 miles to Vladivostok, and with a range just over 3500 miles the bombers would not be returning to the island that day. Instead they would land on airfields cleared and now well established on Okinawa.

If the Russians had any more ships equipped with their new missile weaponry, they would have 425 planes to shoot at, and odds were that the Enola Gay would get through. The Russians had built at least two bombs, and the great risk was that they had more. What if they were to load one on another of their fearsome new aerial defense rockets to blast the entire bomber formation? In the end it was decided that, in spite of Truman’s dire fair warning, the US would have the element of surprise.

“Captain?”

Karpov heard the voice, but it seemed to quaver in the air about him with a strange echo. He backed slowly away from the viewport, seeing the distant cloud of doom slowly fade in his vision, feeling dizzy and feather light.

There came a sudden mist, rising thickly about the ship, and many on the bridge crew thought they had been enveloped in the impenetrable haze that accompanied nuclear detonations at sea, known as the “Wilson Cloud,” but this was not the case. The mushroom cloud was gone, as if blown away by a sudden wind, as a man might blow out a candle flame. And there was no wind, only the dull grey of the enveloping fog, and a sudden chill, as if the ship had fallen off the edge of the world long feared by mariners of old, and was now adrift in eternity.

The Captain turned, his eyes glazed over, his face tortured with emotion. Rodenko was at his side at once. “Captain, sir… Are you alright? Mishman! Summon the doctor to the bridge.”

“No, no. Belay that…” Karpov held up a hand as if to reassure his Starpom , and now his numbed brain began to work again, and his senses began to assemble the clues in his mind-the light, the changing color of the sky, the eerie luminescence of the sea, and the hushed silence of the enveloping fog. He knew what had happened.

“Radar, report all contacts,” he said quickly.

“Captain, my screen is empty, sir. I have no readings.”

The helicopters they had up were gone as well. They had the KA-226 and one KA-40 aloft. The last was still in the helo bay.

“Sonar. Active pings. Report!”

“Con, sonar has been on active search for ten minutes. I can report no undersea contacts.” Tasarov was listening intently, monitoring his scope closely for any signal returns.