Harry Turtledove: Days of Infamy

“Yes, sir,” Genda said. Maybe I should have stayed below, he thought. What can I do up here? The fight will go as it goes, with me or without me.

A plane smashed into the Pacific, two or three hundred meters ahead of the Akagi. Genda couldn’t be sure whether it was American or Japanese. American, he thought, for after the column of seawater it kicked up subsided there was no flame floating on the ocean. As if to show the contrast, a Zero went into the sea a moment later. The stricken Japanese fighter lit its own brief funeral pyre.

“A second Yankee carrier under attack, sir,” the signals officer reported. “Heavy American resistance.”

“They need to make a coordinated attack,” Genda said: “torpedo planes and dive bombers together. That way, the enemy won’t be able to concentrate on any one group.”

“Send the message,” Yamamoto told the signals officer. “Send it in Genda’s name.”

“Sir?” the lieutenant said in surprise.

“I’m sure it’s not necessary, Admiral,” Genda said quickly. “Commander Fuchida will have given the same order-he knows all there is to know about these attacks.”

“Send it,” Yamamoto repeated. “The Americans already know where Akagi is-they’ve proved that. And Fuchida and everyone to whom he relays the message will be glad to hear Genda- san is on his feet.”

“ Domo arigato,” Genda whispered, and punctuated the words with a couple of coughs.

“ Torpedo in the water on the port side! ” Captain Kaku was swinging the helm hard to port even before that alarmed cry rang out. Genda didn’t know whether he would have swung the carrier into the torpedo’s track or away from it. His specialties were air power and attack planning. He’d never been anything more than an ordinary ship-handler.

Tomeo Kaku was definitely out of the ordinary. He hesitated not even for an instant, wrenching Akagi around so she offered the torpedo the smallest possible target. Now Genda could see the wake, drawing closer with hideous inevitability. The track looked very straight-but the torpedo slid past, missing by no more than five or ten meters.

“Not bad, Captain.” For all the excitement in Yamamoto’s voice, he might have been talking about the soup course at a fancy dinner.

Two American torpedo planes went into the drink in quick succession, both before they could launch. The Yankees were still flying the hopelessly slow Douglas Devastators they’d used when the war broke out. The pilots in them were brave men. They had to be, because they attacked in flying death traps. The Devastator was far slower and less agile than the Nakajima B5N2. Like most American planes, it could take a lot of battle damage-but not as much as the Zeros and the ships’ antiaircraft guns were dishing out. Another torpedo plane crashed, and then another.

“I hope they haven’t drawn all the fighters down to the deck with them,” Genda said. “We’ll need some up high for top cover against dive bombers.”

“Send that, too,” Yamamoto told the signals officer. He gave Genda a smile. “You see? You are earning your keep. Thank you for coming up.”

“Thank you, sir,” Genda said. “I’m sure someone else would have thought of it if I hadn’t.”

Admiral Yamamoto shook his head. “I’m not. Too much going on in the heat of battle. People get excited pursuing the enemy and make mistakes. They get so caught up in the now, they forget what may happen five minutes further down the line.”

“ Torpedo! ” The cry rang out again. In spite of everything the Japanese could do, another Devastator had got a fish in the water.

“I’ll tend to it,” Captain Kaku said. Then he laughed. It was gallows humor, as he proved a moment later: “And if I don’t, you can tie me to the wheel, and I’ll go down with the ship.”

“That is not a good tradition,” Yamamoto said severely. “Not at all. The Empire loses brave, able men who could still serve it well.”

Kaku only shrugged. “You may be right, sir, but it’s a way for officers to atone for failure. Better than living in disgrace, neh? ” He didn’t wait for an answer, but spun the wheel hard. Akagi answered the helm more slowly than a destroyer would have, but still turned into the path of the oncoming torpedo. As she swung that way, her new skipper let out a sigh of relief. “Track on this one’s not as straight as the last one was. She’ll miss us by plenty.” Plenty was about a hundred meters, or less than half the carrier’s length. Maybe Captain Kaku was trying to impress Yamamoto with his coolness, or maybe he really did have more than his fair share.

So far, so good, Genda thought. Then, in almost the same instant, he heard the shout he really dreaded: “ Helldivers! ”

MITSUO FUCHIDA’S B5B1 still had bombs left in the bomb bay. That kept him loitering over the battle above the American fleet in the hope of doing more harm. Actually, he wasn’t sure he or any of the other level bombers had done the Yankees any harm yet. He knew they’d scored near misses. Hits? He shrugged in the cockpit. Moving targets were much tougher than ships tied up in a harbor.

Next time, it’ll be all torpedo planes and dive bombers, he thought with a twinge of regret. We’ll save the level bombers for shore installations.

“See anything behind us, Mizuki?” he called through the intercom. He checked six whenever he could, but Mizuki faced that way all the time.

“No, sir,” the radioman answered. “Pretty quiet up here. Not a lot of Wildcats left.”

He was right. Most of the fighters that had flown over the American fleet had gone into the Pacific. Too many Zeros and Japanese attack aircraft had gone down with them, though-too many skilled pilots, too. No one could say the Americans hadn’t fought hard. No one could say they weren’t brave, either. They’d done everything with their Wildcats anyone could imagine, and a little more besides.

And it hadn’t been enough. One of their aircraft carriers, smashed by torpedoes and bombs, had already sunk. Another lay dead in the water, burning from stem to stern. They were abandoning ship there. And the last enemy carrier had taken at least two bomb hits. Damage-control parties on that ship must have worked like fiends, for she wasn’t burning. But she wouldn’t be operating aircraft for quite a while, either, not with those holes in her flight deck she wouldn’t.

Two U.S. destroyers and a bigger ship-a cruiser or a battlewagon-had also taken damage. Fuchida was inclined to shrug them off. They were small change in a modern naval battle.

An Aichi dove on the surviving carrier. It got shot down before it could drop its bomb. Fuchida cursed. He spoke to his bombardier: “I’m going to make one last run at that ship myself. Give it what we have left.”

“ Hai, Commander,” the bombardier answered. “I am ashamed not to have served my country and the Emperor better.”

“Don’t be,” Fuchida said. “You’ve done everything as best you could. War is a hard business, and we’re going to have to revise some of our doctrine. No shame, no blame. If there is blame, it goes to me for not flying the plane straighter.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you very much,” the bombardier said. “You’re kinder than I deserve.”

Fuchida concentrated on going straight over the surviving U.S. carrier. He had no more bombers following him; formations had broken down during the past wild… He looked at his wristwatch. Could this fight have lasted only forty-five minutes? So the watch insisted. He couldn’t say it was wrong, but he felt as if he’d aged years.