Trial by Fire Read online

  19

  J.R. was in the forward wardroom, finishing every bite of his “gourmet” breakfast, which this time consisted of oatmeal, limp strips of canned bacon, and freshly baked cornbread on the side. He hadn’t eaten since lunch the previous day and the cornbread, awash in syrup and butter, was a real treat. He was reaching for the coffee pitcher when something happened. For an instant he wasn’t sure what he’d felt, but then realized that whatever it was, it was really serious. It was like a bump, but a mountain-sized bump. Then there was a second one, this time farther back in the ship. The overhead lights flickered, came back on, and then buzzed into darkness.

  He looked around the wardroom. Everyone had the same expression on his face: What the hell was that? And then came the roar of an explosion, followed immediately by another and another, all somewhere above and behind them. Some of the light fixtures fell off their mounts as the air filled with dust. The cascade of explosions was strong enough to shake the entire ship. Ominously, the battle lanterns came on and projected trembling beams of yellowish light into the wardroom. Those ponderous blasts got even louder and more frequent until J.R. had to grab the wardroom tablecloth just to stay upright. Then came a truly enormous explosion from what had to be the hangar deck, right above them.

  J.R. jumped out of his chair and ran for the forward door to the wardroom passageway. Other officers were also getting up, some headed for other doors, others just standing there, mutely trying to comprehend the growing crescendo of stomach-thumping blasts behind and above them. J.R. ran forward in the passageway and then went up one ladder to the hangar deck level. He opened a watertight door that led out into the hangar and was confronted by what looked like a blast furnace to his immediate left. The entire hangar, deck to overhead, was a mass of gasoline flames, which were boiling forward and directly toward him in a lethal yellow and orange incandescent cloud, pursued by white-centered explosions farther back in the hangar deck. The fire was compressing what air was left in the hangar bay and before he could fully comprehend what he was seeing the overpressure forced the hatch back into the hatchway, pinning J.R. behind it against the bulkhead, which actually protected him from the bolus of flames that pushed into the vestibule, looking for someone to burn.

  He instinctively pushed back and slammed the hatch shut before having to let go because his hands were being burned. The hatch began coming back open and he quickly sat down on the deck and used his legs and shoes to push it shut. One of the dogs dropped into place, which held the door long enough for him to get back up and gingerly secure the other dogs.

  Great God, he thought. What the hell’s happened? Then came more explosions from the aft end of the hangar deck, each one shaking the steel bulkheads and sending clouds of steel fragments rattling and pinging the length of the hangar deck. It sounded like all the shipyard needle guns in the world were at work on the other side of that hatch after each explosion. He stared in horror as some fragments punched dimples in the metal on his side of the steel bulkhead.

  He knew he needed to get forward to Central Two, his GQ station. Normally he would have gone out onto the hangar deck, hurried forward toward the ship’s bow, and then gone through two hatches and into the secondary DC station. But now? Then came a truly terrifying sound: what sounded like a large rocket came howling by the hatch on the other side and then exploded forward, in what had to have been his GQ station. The bulkhead, which held the hatch, was beginning to deform from the heat of the fire on the other side, and suddenly the vestibule began to fill with thick, black smoke, forcing J.R. to retreat back into the passageway behind him. To his horror, every ventilation outlet in the passageway was pumping hot, black smoke, thick enough to obscure the battle lanterns. He had none of his battle gear—no helmet, and, most importantly, no OBA. He did have his gas mask, which he stopped to don. He had to drop to his knees to do so. It gave him some relief from the acrid oil smoke, but no additional oxygen. He knew he had to get out of this passageway now or he was going to suffocate. Another rocket came blasting forward, screeching along the hangar bay bulkhead before hitting some immovable object and disintegrating in a shower of heavy metal fragments. Its motor must have been pointed right at the bulkhead because a red spot began to glare at him in the steel. When he saw metal bubbles forming, he began scrambling forward, away from all those explosions.

  20

  Gary was jarred awake by the sound of two powerful explosions. Guns? Wait a minute, he thought: we’re not at GQ. And those definitely weren’t guns. Then came a whopper of a blast that sounded as if it involved the entire length of the hangar deck. It was strong enough to rattle all the ventilation ducts, which showered the fireroom in dust and soot particles.

  Oh, shit, he thought: we’ve been hit. As if to confirm that thought other things began to blow up above them in an ascending crescendo of disaster topside. Then he heard the forced-draft blowers begin to overspeed. Two of the boilertenders jumped to take them off the line as the chief shouted instructions to pull fires and then secure the two boilers in the space. Without forced air for their fireboxes they would fill with atomized fuel and blow up. In quick succession the burners were secured at the boiler-front, followed by the main feed pumps and their boosters, the fuel pumps, and the main and auxiliary steam valves, which routed steam to the engine room behind them. When those were closed the boilers were momentarily overpressured from residual heat in the firebox, causing the safety valves atop the boilers to lift with an ear-punishing roar of escaping high-pressure steam going up the stack, rendering the explosions above them into deckplate-shaking thumps.

  Gary got on the amplified sound circuit that connected all the main holes and called Main Control. He thought he heard a garbled response but the safeties were still bleeding steam so he simply shouted that they’d lost combustion air and were securing the space. The sudden loss of power as generators tripped off the line threw the fireroom into momentary darkness and also killed all ventilation. Battle lanterns popped on but there was a lot of steam-heated haze in the space now, so they glowed rather than illuminated. The temperature began to rise rapidly.

  The chief was frantically trying to make sure everything that needed to be secured had been secured when one of the huge, rectangular-shaped steel ducts that brought combustion air down from the tops of the island bulged outward and then split lengthwise, immediately filling the fireroom with hot black smoke, punctuated by pulses of fire as gasoline fumes, entrained in the stream of air being pulled downward from above by the still red-hot boiler fireboxes, ignited in snapping balls of fire across the fireroom overhead. There was still negative atmospheric pressure in the fireroom even with all the ventilation fans knocked out because of the hot updraft in the secured boilers.

  Gary stared in horror at those fireballs racing across the fireroom overhead, but then training kicked in. All hands on the upper level of the fireroom dropped down ladders to the lower level to get away from the spontaneous combustion going on across the tops of the two boilers, while struggling to don and activate their OBAs. The machinery noise had subsided by now as the shutdown took effect. The two boilers had pretty much drained themselves of steam through their safety valves. The growing silence in the space only amplified the thunderous explosions going on several decks above them. Right above them, on the upper level, that seething black cloud was getting bigger and bigger from the ruptured air supply intakes. They could feel its heat radiating through the upper-level deck gratings, and each time one of those whumping fireballs ignited every man jumped. Gary knew that if enough combustible fumes made it down into the fireroom the whole thing would go off like the fuel mixture in the cylinder of a gasoline engine.

  Then a new phenomenon manifested itself: water. There was suddenly a muscular stream of water pouring down into the fireroom from somewhere above them. Gary was about to order his team to light off the bilge pump, but without steam or electrical power, that wasn’t possible. Eductor, he thought. He checked the fire-main gauge, which sti
ll showed about 80 psi. That would do, he thought, and sent two men into the bilges to align the necessary valves.

  The in-line eductor was basically a horizontal Y-shaped suction tube with no moving parts other than valves at each end. The men opened the two valves, thus connecting the eductor to the ship’s fire-main stream, which meant that there was now water at 80 psi flowing through the long leg of the Y. That flow created a vacuum in the short leg of the Y. They then attached a hose, which ended in a debris screen basket and dropped that into the bilges, where water was visibly rising. They then opened one final valve, which allowed the water being sucked up out of the bilges to push overboard. They gave the chief the high sign: eductor was taking suction.

  Gary figured that the cascade of water pouring down through various air ducts was probably firefighting water. He wished he had three more eductors, but the good news was that an eductor shouldn’t have to be constantly tended—just as long as there was fire-main pressure, it would try to empty the bilges underneath the lower-level deckplates. If the fire-main pressure did fail, there was a check valve in the basket that should prevent the system from operating in reverse. Should. Eductors were notorious in the fleet for flooding spaces if not checked frequently. The chief was pointing up and giving Gary a look that said: we can’t stay here.

  Gary looked up again and could now no longer even see the upper-level deck gratings. That boiling, rumbling cloud of heavy oil smoke was now blanketing the entire upper level. The fireballs had quit, probably for lack of oxygen, but that meant it was time to evacuate. He shouted the order. The men dropped what they were doing and scrambled for the emergency escape trunk, a steel shaft that was four feet square with a ladder welded to one side. The shaft led up to the third deck, where there was an air lock chamber through which they could exit to a passageway. One man opened the escape trunk hatch. Thankfully, the trunk appeared to be smoke free. Battle lanterns were shining at ten-foot intervals to illuminate the thirty-foot climb.

  Gary made sure he was the last man out. He’d tried to pass the word to Main Control that they were bailing out, but the intercom system was dead. As he climbed into the trunk and dogged down the door behind him, another terrific explosion shook the entire ship. Dust and tiny bits of insulation rained down on the men as they climbed toward whatever disaster was unfolding above them. Gary had followed procedures up to now, but suddenly he was really afraid of what they might encounter the closer they got to those ear-hammering blasts going off above them. Dear God, he thought, as every steel surface around him bucked and heaved. They got us. Franklin was in her death throes.

  21

  The bright stink of high-octane gasoline roused George from his momentary daze. For a few seconds he didn’t know where he was, but for some reason he was covered in water. He was lying on his back, with one leg all the way through the lifelines, and he couldn’t hear anything at all. Eyes, he thought. Open your eyes. He felt rather than heard the punishing blasts coming from the other side of the island and then he saw the towering cloud of black smoke rising over the aft end of the ship some two miles into the air. He rolled his head to the right, toward the bow of the ship. There appeared to be hundreds of people on the flight deck, some of them scrambling to unroll fire hoses, others just staring in shock. Then he looked up to see if PriFly was still manned. PriFly wasn’t there anymore. All that remained were blackened cable ends, twisted steel stringers, and a strip of melted windows dangling in the wind along the top of the island. Billy-B, the mini boss, their entire team, and anyone who’d been out on vultures’ row had been simply obliterated.

  He lay there for a long moment, trying to gather his wits. He watched as a crowd of about thirty men unreeled three fire hoses, rigid now with fire-main pressure, and began to haul them back toward the aft end of the ship. They got about fifty feet before a wave of bright fire, propelled by a large bomb blast from somewhere abaft the island, mowed them down like stick figures. A few badly burned men tried to get up but were then smacked down to the deck by yet another bomb blast. The explosions were coming every few seconds now, followed by a slashing phalanx of air-to-ground rockets that came screaming up the flight deck at waist level, thinning out the crowd of men hunkered down at the bow, cutting men in two before howling off the bow and down into the sea, where they exploded in dirty fountains of water right in front of the ship. The charged fire hoses were writhing around on the flight deck like angry snakes.

  Gotta get up, George told himself. Okay, his legs said: you do it because we can’t. He took a deep breath and then retracted his leg from the lower lifeline and rolled onto his left side. It was hard, but he realized he wasn’t in real pain. He checked himself for bleeding: not bleeding, either. Well then, what the hell are you doing, lying here like some kind of slacker?

  He hunched his back, rolled, and got up on his hands and knees. And capsized immediately, skinning his cheek on the deck. Then there were gloved hands helping him to his feet. He caught a glimpse of a red cross on the steel helmet of one of his helpers, who was asking him in a barely audible voice where he was hurt.

  “I’m not,” he shouted, unaware that he was doing so. “I must get to the bridge. What the hell happened?”

  “A Judy got in on us, XO. One, maybe two bombs, right on the flight deck. Half the strike was back there, gassed and loaded. That’s what’s blowing up right now.”

  “Goddammit,” George said. “Someone help me up to the bridge, please.”

  Two sailors propped him up as he gradually found his sea legs again. The awkward trio staggered into the island on the seaward side while the explosions continued back aft. There’d been at least two dozen bombers spotted back there the last time he’d looked, every one of them filled to the gills with gasoline and loaded with bombs and rockets. And then he remembered what Billy-B had said: we had to arm and fuel some planes in the hangar deck, because we’re sending the whole air group. That’s what was slowly but surely tearing the ship to pieces. Now we’re getting a taste of what the Japs went through at Midway, he thought.

  He was still very unsteady on his feet but the two strong young men helping him pushed him up three flights of ladders until he could get out onto the seaward catwalk that led to the bridge. The whole time they’d been going up there’d been a constant needle-gun sound as waves of metal fragments kept hitting the flight deck side of the island. He tried not to wince each time he heard it, but didn’t entirely succeed.

  Two bombs, he thought. One had obviously set off a major conflagration on the flight deck. Where’d the other one gone? Oh, God. The two sailors delivered him to the starboard bridgewing. He grabbed onto the wooden bullrail and tried to get his wind back. His helpers then hustled back down below.

  George took a moment to gather his equilibrium. Ahead was a clear sky and a slate-gray sea. There were still escorts and carriers all around them, right where they should be. Some of them were shooting at things in the sky. Another carrier—he couldn’t tell which one—was also burning. Then he turned around.

  Oh, Jesus, he thought. The entire horizon astern of the ship was obscured in the largest column of smoke and fire he’d ever seen. It was rising above the ship like a bulging black mountain, with spherical yellow and red flashes at its base propelling the hot cloud ever higher. Fiery objects were being blasted into the air and over the side every few seconds. He recognized plane parts, flight deck tractors, and what had to be human bodies. For an eternal moment he was glued to the deck, trying to comprehend what was happening. And not succeeding.

  A quartermaster in full battle gear came out on the bridgewing, recognized him, and hustled him inside the pilothouse, where everyone appeared to just be in shock. Just like me, he thought. Then he saw the captain, over on the port side of the bridge, white-faced and staring down at the carnage on the afterpart of the flight deck. The admiral was standing next to him, talking to him. He could barely hear their voices but then the captain said no, shaking his head emphatically. A blast down on the bu
rning flight deck momentarily deformed the entire bridge structure and turned the bridge windows into crazed panes of cracked glass. Someone was gripping his right elbow, trying to get his attention.

  “XO,” he was saying. “The admiral wants a destroyer to come alongside and take him and his staff off. What do I do?”

  George focused on the frightened young face in front of him. The officer, a lieutenant, was wearing a steel helmet with the letters OOD stenciled on the front. Officer of the Deck. Scared out of his mind. “Get on PriTac and ask the nearest destroyer to come alongside to starboard for personnel transfer,” he said. “Forwardmost sponson.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the OOD said in a high and tight voice. George recognized his face but couldn’t recall his name. The thumps and booms coming from the afterpart of the flight deck seemed to be gathering strength, and then he saw the forward centerline elevator bulge and then blow right out of its shaft, pursued by an evil bolus of bright orange flame. Oh my God, he thought. The whole hangar bay must be on fire. And the gallery deck? All those waiting pilots? That must be an oven by now.

  “XO?”

  It was the captain. His face was gray and his hands were shaking. “The admiral is transferring his flag to Hancock. Get a highline team down to the starboard side.”