Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

“Our own losses were in the expected range,” the briefing officer continued. “One light carrier sunk, an escort carrier and a fleet carrier damaged. The fleet carrier can still launch planes, and we are still in business.”

More growls rose, and even a couple of whoops. This time, Joe didn’t feel like joining them. The way he looked at it, the Japs had shown just how good they were. Badly outnumbered, mauled going in, they’d still managed to do real damage to the American task force. Well, those dive-bomber and torpedo-plane pilots were out of the game now, most of them for good. The ones whose planes hadn’t got shot down would have had to ditch in the ocean. There couldn’t have been many pickups.

“You’ll know we hit their air bases on Oahu yesterday with B-17s and B-24s,” the briefing officer said.

“They made it all the way from the West Coast with their bombs, but they couldn’t hope to get home again. That’s why they headed for Kauai once the raid was done. How we got an airstrip long enough to land bombers built there under the Japs’ noses is a story they’ll write books about after the war. You can bet your life on that.”

Of course, the bombers would still be sitting there at the end of the strip. If the Japs wanted to smash them up, they could. It must have been a one-way mission from the start. Talk about balls-out, Joe thought.

“Our assets on Oahu say we did a good job hitting the enemy bases, but the Japs are attempting to get them into usable shape again,” the briefing officer said. “We don’t want them doing that.” A few grim chuckles accompanied the statement. A wry smile on his own face, the lieutenant commander went on, “Bringing carriers-to say nothing of the troopships behind us-into range of land-based air is liable to be hazardous to everybody’s health.” A few more chuckles, for all the world as if he were joking. “What you boys are going to do is, you’re going to make damn sure that doesn’t happen. Our ship’s bombers are going to hit Wheeler Field again, to keep the Japs from flying off it. You fighter pilots-knock down anything that gets into the air and shoot up as much as you can on the ground. Shoot up enemy planes wherever you spot ’em, and shoot up the earth-moving machinery that lets the Japs make fast repairs. We’ll hit them hard, and we’ll keep hitting them till they can’t hit back any more. Questions?”

“Yes, sir.” A pilot raised his hand. “When do the Marines go in?”

“Day after tomorrow, if everything works the way it’s supposed to,” the briefing officer said. “You can make that happen. You will make it happen. Now go man your planes!”

As Joe hurried up to the flight deck, he fell into stride with Orson Sharp. “Day after tomorrow! We really are gonna take it back from them.”

“Well, sure.” Sharp looked at him. “Did you think we wouldn’t?”

“Of course not!” Joe made himself sound indignant. If he’d had doubts, he didn’t want to admit them even to himself, let alone to his buddy.

Hellcats buzzed overhead as he climbed into his cockpit. The combat air patrol was heavy. They were already in range of land-based air, though none had appeared yet after the naval battle. That too argued the bombers had done a good job of putting the runways on Oahu out of action for the time being.

Joe’s Hellcat was gassed up and brim full of ammo. The plane had a few bullet holes that hadn’t been there twenty-four hours earlier, but nothing vital had taken any damage. The engine came to life at once. Joe methodically ran through his checks-they’d drilled that into him before they let him into a Yellow Peril. Everything looked green.

Not quite so many pilots took off as had the day before. Bill Frank, who’d roomed with Joe and Orson Sharp and another guy at ground school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was one of the missing. Nobody’d seen his plane go down, but he hadn’t landed, either. Joe tried not to think about losses. It’s a job, he told himself. You’ve got to do it. Sometimes things happen, that’s all. But they won’t happen to you.

As planes began to leap into the air, Joe thought about what he would be doing. Wheeler Field. The center of the island. Between the mountain ranges. By now, after so much study, he could have drawn the map of Oahu in his sleep. Schofield Barracks and the town on the other side of the highway-Wahiawa-would guide him in if he had trouble finding the place. With the arrogance of youth, he didn’t figure he would. The island wasn’t very big to begin with.

And then he got the checkered flag. The Hellcat sprinted down the flight deck. There was that momentary lurch as it tried to fall into the Pacific. Joe yanked the stick back. The nose went up. The fighter zoomed away to find its fellows. Was any feeling in the world better than this? Well, maybe one.

He kept an eye peeled for ships down below. Not quite all the escorts from the Jap task force were accounted for. He figured the U.S. battlewagons and cruisers and destroyers could handle whatever was left, but why take chances? He didn’t spot any major warships. They’d either gone back to the bottom or scooted back to Oahu. He did see several fishing boats. At first, he just accepted that-he was, after all, a fisherman’s son. But then he remembered the Japs used those boats as pickets. They would have radios aboard. The attack from the U.S. fleet wouldn’t be a surprise. If the enemy could put planes in the air, he would.

He could. And he did. Joe had just spotted Oahu, green in the distance, when a warning dinned in his earphones: “Bandits! Bandits at ten o’ clock!”

Some distance back of the lead planes, Joe peered southeast till he spotted the Japanese planes. Their pilots were sly. They’d swung around toward the sun so they could come out of it and be harder to spot. Joe wished his Hellcat carried radar. Then the enemy wouldn’t be able to play tricks like that. Well, they hadn’t worked this time.

He glanced over at his wingman. He led an element now, instead of following in one. Survival of the fittest-or luckiest-worked in the air just the way it had in his biology textbook. The other pilot, a big blond guy from South Dakota named Dave Andersen, waved in the cockpit to show he was paying attention. Joe waved back.

Here came the Japs. Some of the fighters were Zeros. Maybe they’d made it back to Oahu after their carriers went down. Maybe they’d been based there-the Japs sure did that with their Navy planes in the South Pacific. Others were shorter, trimmer, with a smaller cockpit canopy. Silhouette recognition paid off. Those were Jap Army fighters-Oscars, in U.S. code.

Oscars were slower than Zeros. They didn’t carry cannon, either, only two rifle-caliber machine guns. But they were supposed to be even more nimble and maneuverable than the Navy fighters. Having watched pilots in Zeros pull off some mind-boggling loops and turns and spins, Joe was from Missouri on that; he wouldn’t believe it till he saw it for himself.

Which he did, in short order. Hellcats could outclimb and outdive Oscars with ease. But an enemy pilot who knew what he was doing could damn near fly his plane back around under itself. Hellcats flew like flycatchers. Oscars dodged like butterflies.

They couldn’t hit much harder than butterflies, though. Canvas-and-wire biplanes in the last war had had just as much firepower. And Hellcats were built to take it. Oscars weren’t. They were several hundred pounds lighter even than Zeros, and correspondingly flimsier. All that maneuverability came at a price. If an Oscar got in the way of a burst from a Hellcat’s six.50-caliber guns, as often as not it would break up in midair.

That couldn’t have been good for morale, but the Japs who flew the Army fighters had guts. They bored in on the Dauntlesses the Hellcats escorted. So did their Navy buddies in Zeros. They got a few, too, but they paid, and paid high. The Hellcats badly outnumbered them. Joe wondered how many Oscars and Zeros-and Jap bombers, too-were stuck on the ground because they couldn’t take off. Lots, he hoped.