The Final Storm: A Novel of the War in the Pacific Read online

  “Yeah, sure. Two quail in one bag. Gotta love that.”

  “You don’t sound like you love it.”

  He kept his stare on the oil slick.

  “Haven’t sunk a sub before.” He kept the rest to himself, the odd change in his mood. Merchant ships never gave me a minute’s thought. Sinking steel, that’s all. Tonnage, equipment, supplies, numbers. Never gave much of a crap about the crews.

  “Oh, hell, Skipper, you got a warship! We’ll be bragging about this one!”

  “Maybe. Yeah, fine.”

  “You thinking about … the crew, Skipper? Hell, they’re just Japs. Just ’cause they were on a submarine …”

  “That’s why they matter, Gordy. This one wasn’t about steel and the junk it takes to fight a war. That could have been us. Nothing but an oil slick.”

  Below him, on the deck, a voice called up.

  “Nothing to report, Captain. Just bits of cargo and timbers. Looks like she went down with all hands.” The captain nodded, said, “Bring your boys back up. Let’s get under way.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Gordon said, “With your permission, sir, I’ll go below. Cook should have some breakfast ready about now. The crew deserves a toast, even if it’s just bad coffee.” The captain stood aside as the rescue teams came up onto the bridge, the men filing down through the hatch. Gordon began to follow, said, “Lieutenant Green is on first watch. I’ll send him up. Breakfast, Skipper?”

  “In a minute. Go on below. Tell helm, resume course zero three zero, maintain twelve knots. Double-check the torpedo count, fore and aft. We need to keep hunting.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Gordon disappeared, and the captain was alone now. The morning was cool, the breeze light, the sub rocking gently through the long, deep swells. He kept his eye on the oil slick, thought, nice try, Captain. You almost pulled it off. I was careless, cocky, all ready to gloat about one more great victory, sending some piece of junk merchant ship to the bottom. You were counting on that, weren’t you? Smart enough to know I might be careless. I should have listened to sonar. Gifford knew you were there, knew there were two ships. I won’t make that mistake again.

  He couldn’t shake the thoughts of his friend Beaumont, the Tang. Maybe he never knew what hit him either. Best way to go. Best way for any of us. He saw a man coming up through the hatch, another of his officers, Green, followed by a crewman.

  “I have the watch, sir. Lieutenant Gordon said to tell you that breakfast is in your mess.”

  “Thank you, Steve.”

  “Good shooting this morning, sir. We nailed those bastards but good.”

  “Yep. Good shooting.”

  He made one more glance toward the oil slick, knew that he would not forget this. The curses were always there, the insults, Nip bastards, Jap sons of bitches. Yeah, maybe, he thought. They’re the enemy and we hate their guts. No good Jap but a dead Jap. But that one was a sub captain, and he was sharp, and if he’d had better equipment …

  He turned away, moved toward the hatch, thought, lucky for all of us, he won’t be around to try that again.

  2. NIMITZ

  GUAM—HEADQUARTERS, CINCPAC

  (COMMANDER IN CHIEF, PACIFIC)

  MARCH 20, 1945

  He took careful aim, squeezed off a round, the .45 jumping in his hand. He squinted, could see the impact on the target, a small hole just right of center. He aimed again, fired one more round, the small hole punched square on the paper target’s crosshairs. He turned, glanced toward his Marine guard with a self-satisfied smile.

  “Sixty years old, dammit. Eyes like a hawk. Anybody feel like taking the old man on?”

  The Marines knew the routine, their sergeant offering a polite smile.

  “Thank you, sir, but my men don’t get their pay for another three days. I can’t have any of them coming to me for a loan because the admiral’s cleaned their pockets.”

  Nimitz turned again to the target, smiled, had heard that answer before. He thought of refilling the pistol’s clip, but the heat was stifling, even the late afternoon cloud cover not enough to hold back another day of sweating misery. He glanced up, saw no sign of rain, shook his head, said aloud, “Another scorcher. And this is supposed to be spring. I really don’t want to suffer through this place in July.”

  There was no response from the Marines, the eight men who followed him everywhere he went. It was the standard procedure, handpicked bodyguards, the best security force Nimitz could imagine. On Hawaii there hadn’t really been much of a need for this kind of security, other than protection from the most pesky of newspapermen, or the occasional GI, fueled by a little too much liquor, who had decided that airing his grievances straight into the face of the highest-ranking officer available might be a good idea. Even at Pearl Harbor, Nimitz hadn’t seen much of that, the Marine guards more brutally effective at their job than they would want him to witness.

  He holstered the pistol, wiped a handkerchief across his brow, turned again to the Marines. He had tried to memorize their names, knew the sergeant was O’Neal, a huge plug of a man from Chicago, who might be just as happy in a police uniform, bashing in the skulls of pickpockets. The others weren’t much different, thick, dangerous-looking men, chosen for both their appearance and their marksmanship. He knew that an eight-man guard might have been overkill on Hawaii, but on Guam it was entirely necessary. Guam had been declared secure the preceding August, but almost daily the American patrols that pushed cautiously through the hills and thickets of jungle found themselves confronted by pockets of stubborn Japanese troops who refused to end their fight. To the hazard and the extreme annoyance of the Americans who sought them out, the Japanese who took the deadly risk of confronting the Americans didn’t stick around long enough for the Marines to do much about it. They seemed to vanish straight into the earth, into a labyrinth of caves and tunnels the Marines had found on nearly every island where the two sides had met. To the Americans, it was a curious mix of frustration and bewilderment, as it had been after every American victory. No matter how brutal the slaughter, no matter the horrifying casualties, the Japanese seemed oblivious to the utter defeat their army had suffered. It had been the same way on Guadalcanal, on Peleliu, Saipan, and Tinian. Guam was no different. As dangerous as the stragglers and holdouts continued to be, Nimitz had a grudging respect for their tenacity, and their cunning. He knew they had to be desperately hungry, short of ammunition and anything else a man needed to survive in these inhospitable places. And yet survive they had, holding out in makeshift sanctuaries, able to evade the constant American patrols. For months now, enraged Marine commanders had used a variety of tactics, some insisting on the brute force of tanks and flamethrowers. Others chose a more subtle approach, employing snipers who worked alone, perched in treetops and carefully disguised thickets, hoping that the last hint of daylight would encourage an impatient Japanese soldier to betray his hiding place. But more often the Japanese came out after dark, scavenging silently through supply dumps and garbage pits, melting away at first light, only to emerge again the following night. Some were no more dangerous than the rats and other vermin that plagued the mess halls and kitchens, just hungry men who slit tent walls to grab the occasional loaf of bread. Others had shown a brazen curiosity, one report coming to Nimitz’s office that during the showing of a much-sought-after Dorothy Lamour film, the Seabees in attendance were suddenly aware that along the back of the open-air tent, a handful of Japanese soldiers had gathered in rapt attention, sharing the Seabees’admiration for the pronounced curves of the actress. The Seabees had made a chaotic effort to capture the trespassers, mostly to no avail. The reaction from Nimitz’s staff had been a mix of outrage and laughter, but Nimitz knew that there was nothing funny about any of this. Japanese soldiers meant Japanese weapons, and there would be no humor at all if the commander in chief of operations in the central Pacific was suddenly gunned down by a sniper, or confronted by a bayonet-wielding enemy during the admiral’s morning jo
g.

  Nimitz had loved Hawaii, certainly, and though he appreciated the enormous responsibility he carried for the staff work and warehouses of paper that engulfed his command, he had quickly grown weary of the vast sea of minutiae that accompanied every move his forces had made. His excuse, one that not even Admiral King in Washington could argue with, was that, with the upcoming campaigns pushing closer to Japan itself, Nimitz needed to be out there. The move to Guam had come in January, after a not so discreet shove to the Seabees who had begun building his headquarters on a site he had chosen months before. With most of the vast ocean now between the admiral and the suffering officers who dealt with so much of his paperwork, Nimitz had brought a relaxed atmosphere to his new headquarters. To the surprise of every senior officer who happened to visit, Nimitz had allowed his men to adapt to the hard tropical heat by wearing shorts. Neckties were almost nonexistent. Even the admiral himself could be spotted during his morning routine, keeping trim by a long, vigorous run on the beachside road, bare legs and bare-chested, the Marine guards who ran with him wisely keeping any commentary to themselves.

  One member of his staff had been indispensable and so had made the trip to the new headquarters. Nimitz heard him now, the manic fierceness of his schnauzer, a fairly vicious dog who seemed to dislike everyone but his master. Even the Marines respected the schnauzer’s temper, each man freezing in place as the schnauzer galloped past. Nimitz turned, watched with a smile as the dog bounced up to him, stopping abruptly, spinning in the sand, rolling over in a desperate request for a belly rub. Nimitz could never resist the dog’s show of soft affection, something few of his officers had ever witnessed. He leaned low, stroked the dog’s exposed stomach, the schnauzer’s tongue hanging loosely out of its mouth.

  “Damn you, Mak, you’re too spoiled. Just once I’d like to try this little maneuver of yours with my own staff. They think you’re some kind of damn werewolf. Hell, I can’t even get my wife to do this to me …” He stopped, thought of the Marine sergeant, kept the indiscreet thought to himself. He stood straight again, the schnauzer bounding away once more, and Nimitz looked to the west, the sun melting into the far horizon like a fat blob of orange ice cream. The Marines kept to their usual boxlike formation, most of them keeping their gaze on the distant trees. He enjoyed talking to the men, but there was little opportunity for that beyond the walls of his compound, and there the guards understood that their job didn’t include socializing with the brass they were supposed to protect. He enjoyed their generals far less, the men like Holland Smith, known by all as Howlin’ Mad Smith, the Marine commander who had headed up the slugfests that tore Guam, Tinian, and Saipan from Japanese control. Smith’s command now included the forces that were completing operations on a dismal slab of lava rock called Iwo Jima, and Nimitz knew that the horrendous Marine casualty counts would throw Smith into a hot temper directed toward anyone in his command who had failed to live up to Smith’s own standards. It wasn’t a bad trait for a commander to have, but Smith had made few friends among the brass from the army and navy he was supposed to be working beside. Nimitz knew that Howlin’ Mad’s days were numbered in this part of the war. Even out here, a good general could create problems for himself if he didn’t respect politics. Smith would have no role at all in the upcoming invasion of Okinawa, that job placed into the hands of army general Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. Buckner had been a surprise choice to some, and Nimitz knew he was despised by Douglas MacArthur, who had made it clear that he wanted Buckner far removed from MacArthur’s own command to the south. But Buckner seemed to be a man who understood that it was possible, even necessary, to combine army and Marine forces into one cohesive unit, without making enemies in the process. And, as Nimitz had been quick to observe, Buckner was a man who understood that his superiors, namely Nimitz himself, had the last word.

  He turned back toward the headquarters buildings, saw the usual rumblings of activity, jeeps coming and going, men on foot, some of them MPs. But it was the heavy equipment that caught his attention, men up on bulldozers and excavators. The Seabees were continuing to improve the Guam command post, adding buildings and storage areas as the need arose. Nimitz enjoyed watching the massive machines, green steel and black smoke. He knew the Seabees carried a chip on their shoulder for the lack of attention the newspapermen gave them. Just because a man rides a bulldozer doesn’t mean he can’t get shot to hell, he thought. They’ve sure as hell taken their share of casualties too. But if I need an airstrip or a harbor cleared, there’s no one as good at it as those boys. They’re probably pretty sick of getting razzed by the Marines, but any Marine worth a crap who’s watched these boys turn a swamp into a mess hall learns to keep his mouth shut. And if one of those bulldozer jockeys busts a rifleman in the mouth for smarting off about driving a tractor … well, I haven’t put one in the stockade yet.

  He glanced again at the setting sun, heard a storm of barking from the schnauzer, looked that way. He had expected to see Buckner, the army general often timing his frequent meetings to coincide with Nimitz’s afternoon cocktail hour. But the man he saw now was shorter, moving toward him with a hurried determination. Nimitz knew the uniform of the air corps, watched as the man pretended to ignore the dog, who now circled him in a show of temper, neither the man nor the beast allowing the other to intimidate him. Nimitz knew that might be the smartest move his dog could make. The man was Curtis LeMay.

  LeMay walked more toward the pistol target than Nimitz himself, said, “Not bad, Admiral. I hear MacArthur can’t hit the side of a barn.”

  “Good afternoon, General. Care for a little target shooting?”

  “No chance. You’d embarrass me. Won’t stand for that.”

  Nimitz smiled, thought, no, you wouldn’t stand for that at all.

  LeMay was a gruff bulldog of a man, hated anyone’s inefficiency, and had no hesitation spouting off about it. He had spent most of his career spouting off about nearly everything, and if you didn’t agree with LeMay’s manic dedication to the army air force, you were most likely to be disrespected in a way that most senior commanders wouldn’t tolerate. Nimitz knew that LeMay didn’t much care for him at all, probably disliked anyone who had webbed feet, the man’s casual insult to anyone in a naval uniform. But Nimitz knew that despite his irritable disregard for anyone else’s authority, LeMay carried a frightening dedication to destroying the enemy. As long as LeMay brought results, Nimitz could care less what the man thought of him, and would ignore LeMay’s utter lack of social graciousness.

  LeMay commanded the Twenty-first Bomber Command, and in the often strange configuration of the American military’s chain of organization, he was the only general officer serving in the central Pacific who was not technically under Nimitz’s authority. It was the ongoing mystery of just how the War Department handled their air force; no one was really sure just who should be running that show, other than the airmen themselves. But the targets for the air force were spread out over the entire theater of the war, from Joe Stilwell’s command in the China/Burma campaigns, over MacArthur’s area throughout New Guinea and the Philippines. It wasn’t a practical solution to have the air force fall under the single authority of anyone on the ground. Nimitz had come to accept LeMay’s independence, knew better than to concern himself with the views of either Stilwell or MacArthur. He had a large enough sphere of authority without worrying about nagging controversies in Washington that never seemed to fade away. From the air force’s first days, there had been outright hostility between those who saw enormous value in airpower and those who considered airplanes a waste of resources. Though the air force was technically under the umbrella of the army, the senior air force commander, Hap Arnold, had rarely accepted anyone’s authority other than the president. In Washington, Arnold had shown sufficient stubbornness and had earned enough clout with members of Congress that most in the War Department conceded to him his place in the military’s hierarchy, virtually equal to that of George Marshall and Admiral Ernest King
. That arrangement had worked well enough in Europe, where the value of airpower had long proven itself. There General Eisenhower had avoided any controversy over the independence of Jimmy Doolittle and Tooey Spaatz. But those men had made it a point to work in full cooperation with the Allies’ European commander. As far as Nimitz could see, Curtis LeMay had little interest in cooperating with anyone. Like many in the air commands, LeMay seemed to believe that the war could be won by dropping as many bombs as possible on the enemy. With his extraordinary success in obliterating so much of the Japanese capital, LeMay would only grow more vocal about fighting the war precisely as he pleased. The soldiers and Marines who slogged ashore into vicious fighting on so many of these disease-infested islands were just a time-consuming sideshow.

  LeMay leaned close to the paper target, said, “Work on the grip. Hold it a little looser. You’re tugging it to the right.”

  Nimitz already knew how his marksmanship compared to the other ranking officers on Guam, or anywhere else, and didn’t really need any coaching from an air force man.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Nah, you won’t. Nobody listens to much of anything I have to say, so I try to keep my mouth shut, usually.”

  But not today, Nimitz thought.

  “You come by for a shot of bourbon, General? Or maybe some dinner?”

  LeMay didn’t smile, nodded.

  “Dinner. That’s good. I thought you might like to see the reports from Tokyo. Recon flights confirm what I predicted. I turned that place into one big damn cow pasture.”

  Nimitz glanced at the Marine sergeant, who seemed to perk up at the words.

  “Let’s take this inside, General. I’m getting too old for the heat. My cook’s supposed to be throwing together some fish recipe he picked up from the natives. Top-notch, if you don’t mind some spice.”

  “That’ll do. Lead the way. Anything you got here has to beat the slop your supply boys throw my way. Not as bad as MacArthur though, I’ll give you that. His people spend more time trying to poison us than feed us.”