Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

Now-what had the bombs done?

LIEUTENANT SABURO SHINDO was not a happy man. His Zero was still a better plane than the Wildcats he faced, but the Yankees had come up with something new, something that made them harder to shoot down. They flew in groups of four, two pairs of two separated by the radius of a tight turn. Whenever he drew a bead on one plane, the enemy pilots in the more distant pair would turn sharply toward him. That move warned the man he’d targeted to turn away sharply, spoiling his aim. And if he pursued too far trying to get it back, he came right into the line of fire of the more distant pair.

The first time the Americans tried that weave on him, he almost shot himself down walking right into it. He thought they’d got lucky then. When they did it twice more in quick succession, he realized it wasn’t luck. They’d worked out a tactic to take advantage of the Wildcat’s powerful guns and give it a chance to survive against the otherwise superior Zero.

“Be careful!” he shouted to the pilots he led, and warned them what to look for. He hoped they would listen. In the heat of battle, who could tell?

Not all the Japanese had the chance to listen. Several Zeros had already gone down. The Americans’ weave, no doubt, had done to them what it almost did to Shindo.

But Wildcats were also falling out of the sky. And the ones that mixed it up with Shindo’s Zeros weren’t attacking the Aichis and Nakajimas that accompanied them. Those were the ship-killers, the planes that had to get through at any cost.

Bombs burst around the American carriers. Shindo saw no hits, but even near misses would cause damage from casing fragments and from the effects of blast on enemy hulls. A Nakajima B5N2 raced towards a carrier. Its torpedo splashed into the sea. A heartbeat later, the torpedo bomber turned into a fireball. The torpedo was away, though.

The carrier started to slew to starboard. Too late, too slow. The torpedo struck home just aft of amidships. Nothing wrong with Japanese ordnance-Shindo watched the explosion. The enemy ship staggered like a prizefighter who’d just taken a right to the chin.

“ Banzai! ” Shindo yelled, there in the cockpit. “ Banzai! ”

He lost sight of the carrier for a little while after that. He was dealing with a Wildcat that had somehow got separated from its comrades. The pilot tried to dogfight him instead of diving away from trouble. The Yankee discovered what a lot of his countrymen had before him: that didn’t work. A Zero could turn inside a Wildcat. A Zero could, and Shindo did. He shot up the American plane till at last it nosed down and crashed into the ocean.

By then, the Americans on the carrier had got her moving again, even if not at top speed. Saburo Shindo gave American engineers and damage-control parties reluctant respect. They knew their business. Here, knowing it didn’t help. An Aichi dive bomber swooped down out of the sky, releasing its bomb at what seemed just above the height of the bridge. As the Aichi screamed away, its prop and fixed landing gear almost skimming the waves, the bomb hit dead center.

Where the ship had staggered before, she shuddered now. She lost power and lay there dead in the water as flames leaped up from her. That, of course, was an invitation to the Japanese pilots. Another torpedo and what Shindo thought was a bomb from a level bomber slammed home. The carrier began to list heavily to port.

One down, Shindo thought. Two to go.

WHEN MINORU GENDA heard American planes were on the way, he climbed out of the sick-bay cot where he’d been lying. Weak as he was, it felt like a long climb, too. He found a box of gauze masks like the ones the pharmacist’s mates wore, and fastened the ties around his ears. Masuku was the Japanese name, borrowed from the English.

“Here, what are you doing? You shouldn’t be up and about! Kinjiru! ” One of those pharmacist’s mates caught him in the act of leaving. “Get back where you belong, right this minute!” He was just a rating, but thought his station gave him the right to boss officers around.

He was usually right, too. Not here. Not now. Slowly but firmly, Genda shook his head. “No. We’re going into battle. They need me up there.” He had to stop and cough halfway through that, but he spoke with great determination.

“In your pajamas?” the pharmacist’s mate said.

Genda looked down at himself. Then he spied his uniform jacket hanging on a hook welded to the sick-bay door. He threw it on over the thin cotton pajamas. “This will do. Now get out of my way.”

If the pharmacist’s mate tried to stop him by force, the man could. Genda didn’t have the physical strength to oppose him. But he had a blazing strength of will, and the bigger, healthier man gave way before him. I might as well be Japan against the United States, he thought, and headed for his battle station.

When he reached the bridge, Captain Tomeo Kaku took one look at him and snapped, “Go below.”

An order was an order. Dejectedly, Genda turned to go. “Wait,” Admiral Yamamoto told him. To Kaku, Yamamoto went on, “Genda- san is not as well as I wish he were. But the illness affects only his body. His mind remains what it always was, and it is keen enough that I think he will be valuable here.”

“As you wish, sir,” Kaku answered. Most Japanese officers would have left it there, especially when a godlike man like Yamamoto had spoken. But Akagi ’s new skipper showed he had nerve, for he continued. “I was concerned for the commander’s well-being, sir. He would be safer down in sick bay.”

Yamamoto laughed raucously. “If we are hit, Captain, nothing and no one on this ship is safe. Or will you tell me I’m wrong?” He waited. With a small, sheepish smile, Kaku shook his head. “All right, then,” Yamamoto said. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?” He moved aside half a pace to make room for Genda beside him. Genda bowed and took his place. Yamamoto barked a question at a signals officer: “ Zuikaku and Shokaku are properly dispersed from us and from each other?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” the young lieutenant replied. “They are following your orders, just as you gave them.”

“Good.” Yamamoto turned the word into a satisfied grunt. “We won’t leave all our eggs in one basket for the Yankees.” For Genda’s benefit, he added, “They’ve grouped their carriers very close together. We have them all under attack, and we’ve struck a hard blow against at least one.”

“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” Genda said, wishing he could have had more to do with the operation under way. Before he could say anything else, the thunder of antiaircraft guns from the screening ships and, a moment later, from Akagi herself penetrated the steel and bulletproof glass armoring the carrier’s bridge.

“All ahead full,” Captain Kaku called down the speaking tube to the engine rooms. He stepped to the wheel. “ I have the conn.”

Genda didn’t like Kaku as much as he’d liked Captain Hasegawa, whose outspokenness had got him sent back to Japan. No denying Kaku could handle a ship, though. Akagi was a converted battle-cruiser, but he handled her as if she were a destroyer, sending her twisting this way and that across the broad expanse of the Pacific.

None of which might matter even a sen’s worth. No matter how swift she was, no matter what kind of evasive action she took, Akagi was a tortoise when measured against the airplanes attacking her. Antiaircraft guns and, most of all, the Zeros overhead would have the biggest say in whether she lived or died.

Admiral Yamamoto folded his arms across his broad chest. “We’ve done our part,” he said. “We have put this force in a position where it can achieve victory. Now we rely on the brave young men we have trained to give it to us.”