Robert Conroy - Rising Sun

Tim Dane, however, did not feel he was ready at all. Like everyone else, he’d tried his hand at looking through binoculars for enemy subs and seen nothing. Enough, he thought. He decided to once more try to squeeze his frame into the small navy bunk he’d been allotted, and maybe he’d get at least a little sleep. He hoped the fleet and Spruance would be lucky and the enemy subs would be elsewhere. But every moment brought them closer to Midway and the Japanese fleet.

None of the hundreds of pairs of searching eyes could pierce the night and notice the slight feather of water made by the emergence of a periscope less than a mile away. With cruel luck, the Japanese sub had emerged in the middle of TF 16. She was an older boat, a Kaidai -class sub with six torpedo tubes in her bow, loaded and ready to kill, and eleven other torpedoes ready to replace the ones fired. She weighed in at just under three thousand tons, and had a crew of ninety-four officers and men. The oceangoing sub had a cruising range of fourteen thousand knots. This meant she could cruise far away from Japan and stay in position, waiting for her prey.

The Japanese sub and two others had arrived a day earlier than American intelligence anticipated. There had been confusion, perhaps even incompetence, among Japanese commanders regarding when the subs would depart and only these three had left on time. With equally cruel luck, the subs had placed themselves directly in the path of the American carriers that were on their way to a rendezvous at what had been incongruously named Point Luck. This night, however, luck was on the Japanese side.

Lookouts on the Enterprise didn’t notice the disturbances in the water made by the first of the six torpedoes until they were less than a quarter mile away and approaching at nearly fifty land miles an hour. Screams and alarms were almost useless. Four of the six Type 94 torpedoes fired from the sub hit the carrier. One after another they slammed into her hull and exploded, sending plumes of water and debris high above the flight deck, with much of it landing on the deck. Men were injured and a few swept overboard to their deaths by the sudden assault.

The mighty Enterprise shuddered like a large, wounded animal and immediately began to lose speed. Secondary explosions soon followed as fuel and ammo ignited, further damaging the ship and causing large numbers of casualties. Fires raged while valiant sailors braved the flames to contain them.

Dane had been in his skivvies and sitting on the edge of his bunk when the first torpedo slammed into the carrier, hurling him face-first onto the deck. He lay there for a stunned second and then quickly checked himself out. His lip was split and there was something wrong with the top of his head. It was wet and sticky with blood. He was bruised and shaken, but otherwise he thought he was okay.

Dane’s first reaction as he picked himself up was to run and hide, but he quickly calmed himself and tried to gauge what had just happened. And besides, where the hell do you hide on a ship? As a new and minor member of Admiral Spruance’s staff, he really didn’t have any set place to go in an emergency. But he had to do something, he thought as he threw on some clothes. He would be damned if he would run up to the flight deck in his skivvies.

Cramped passageways were filled with men either hastening to their duty stations or fleeing the greasy black smoke that was beginning to clog everything. The smoke was burning eyes and choking throats. Dane grabbed a life jacket and put it on. He would go to the flight deck, then try to climb up to the flag bridge where Spruance would be, which was as close as he could come to having a duty station. He was also horribly conscious of the fact that the carrier had begun listing to port.

Dane had just made it to the flight deck when a series of explosions knocked him down again. This time, the fuel from the planes parked on the stern of the ship was exploding and detonating ammunition, sending more billowing clouds of smoke and debris over the great, terribly wounded ship. A wave of searing heat blew over him. He screamed and covered his face with his hands. His hair and clothes began to smoke. He rolled across the deck to where an abandoned fire hose was thrashing like a snake and spewing water, and put out the flames by rolling in puddles.

Scores of men lay prone on the deck, either dead or wounded, while others were being brought up from below. A priest was going from one mangled body to another, administering last rites. To Tim, the carnage was a scene from hell. Dane’s hands and clothes were covered with something sticky and he saw that it was blood, and that rivulets of the stuff were flowing across the flight deck and over the side.

Sailors with fire hoses tried valiantly to stem the flames, but were in danger of becoming overwhelmed by the size and intensity of the conflagration. Tim saw one man hit by flying debris and fall, leaving a wildly bucking hose understaffed. He grabbed on to help the remaining men who were fighting to keep control of the wild beast.

A sailor glanced at his rank and grinned. “Thanks, sir, it’s appreciated.”

“Just tell me what to do.”

“Hang on!”

Dane anchored the hose while the real firemen played water on the flames. After a few moments, a grimy lieutenant commander replaced him with another sailor. “Nothing personal and thanks anyway, Dane, but you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”

Dane didn’t argue the point. He gratefully handed the hose to a grim-faced seaman and turned to the other officer. His name was Mickey Greene and he’d befriended the bewildered Dane when he’d first come aboard.

“We gonna make it, Commander?”

Greene shook his head, “Beats the hell out of me, Tim. We took at least three torpedoes and water’s still coming in. We’ve got the flooded areas pretty well sealed off, but a lot of things are burning, even though we’re throwing tons of water on the fires. The bad news is that all that water coupled with the torpedo holes is causing us to list, and that means we’re helpless if Jap planes show up because the list prevents us from launching our planes.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah, and if you haven’t noticed, the Hornet ’s also been badly hit.”

Stunned by that piece of news, Dane looked out across the waves and saw that the other carrier was also burning furiously. The cruisers Atlanta and Pensacola were alongside her and using their hoses to pour water on her, while destroyers frantically searched for the enemy sub. The New Orleans and Minneapolis were cautiously approaching the Enterprise , and water from their hoses began arching over and onto the wounded carrier. Jesus, he thought, most of what remained of the American Navy after the massacre at Pearl Harbor was being destroyed before his eyes. Two carriers with just under two hundred planes were probably going to sink along with God only knew how many pilots and crewmen. And maybe Tim Dane would be among them. Well, not if he could help it, he thought angrily.

Making things even worse, the smoke from the burning ships would be a beacon for the Japanese ships and planes that must surely be homing in on the carnage.

Jochi Shigata was the captain of the Japanese submarine whose torpedoes had hit the Enterprise . He knew that he and his sub were doomed and relished the fact as the culmination of his destiny. He would die as a warrior. He and his comrades had severely damaged two American carriers and, with a little luck, at least one of them would sink.