The Nugget Page 4

  “We’re going into port tonight to refuel and reprovision,” he announced. “Then we’re leaving tomorrow night to head for the central Pacific to an area known as the mandated islands. We’ll go in company with the Yorktown to, at long last, take the fight to the Japs. Admiral Halsey will be in command so it won’t be boring. Saratoga was supposed to go but she ate a Jap torpedo last week and is laid up in Pearl. This briefing will be just an overview. Things like what ‘mandated islands’ means. Later this afternoon the air intel people will be here with detailed briefs and threat assessments. No one will be going ashore tonight. So: let’s take a smoke break, get some coffee, and then we’ll get to it. Ten minutes, please.”

  While Quantrill conferred with the exec and the skipper, the rest of us took care of head calls, fresh coffee, and cigarettes if needed, which included almost everybody. When we reassembled, we nuggets found ourselves the proud owners of thin clipboards, on which we were supposed to take notes. Three hours later we all had hand cramps and really thick clipboards. There was simply too damned much stuff to get our feeble brains around. When the skipper finally called time and sent us to chow we were instructed to leave our boards behind—they could not leave the ready room. Cheer up, he told us. You won’t have to memorize all that good dope. We smiled in relief until he told us why. It would all change by tomorrow, and every day right up to the day we went after the Jap bases far to the west. Oh, yay.

  After chow we went down and out onto the hangar deck for a smoke and some fresh air. The ship was so big that we hadn’t even been aware that Enterprise had entered port and was now alongside the Ten-Ten dock, busily on-loading truckloads of stuff. As long as we stayed out of the way of all the whirling forklifts, bomb-trains, and cargo elevators, we were allowed to hang out. We’d all looked once across the harbor at the silhouettes of blasted ships illuminated by a hundred welding torches. Just once, though. The sight still made us sick to our stomachs and we unconsciously blew cigarette smoke at each other just to hide the persistent stench from the harbor water.

  FIVE

  The next week at sea offered a blistering operational pace as we headed west to the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. The entire air group spent its mornings doing flight training, the afternoons in intel briefs, and nights practicing night landings until almost midnight. Fighting Six suffered another accident, but this time the pilot, who was not a nugget, got the plane down into a good ditch and one of the destroyers picked him up, shaken, chastened, but alive. I felt my own confidence growing as I went through all the legs of the training program and I really fell in love with the Dauntless model 3A. She was a powerful bird and each launch felt like she wanted to go out there and kill something. Responsive, protective, stable, a dream to fly and land, with those 1,000 horses in the mill, big flaps, and the knowledge that we were sitting in front of some armor. It was also comforting to know that our gasoline tanks, unlike those on a Zero, probably wouldn’t turn into fireballs at the first hit.

  I had finally been assigned my gunner, an aviation communications specialist second class by the name of Bill Perry. Each Dauntless carried a crew of two: the pilot up front, and right behind him, his rear-facing gunner, who manned a twin .30-caliber machine gun mount and also handled all the long-haul communications, checklists, and anything else I might need help with. The Dauntless had two sets of guns: two .50-caliber machine guns embedded in the nose and that twin thirty stinger in the back, which made life dangerous for any fighters who got on our tail. The twin thirty had a firing cutout which prevented the gunner from shooting our own tail off, but otherwise he had a wide field of fire.

  Our current mission was to hit the Jap bases in the central Pacific. It wasn’t going to win the war, but it would put them on notice that as long as we had carriers, none of their bases were safe. The islands were small and scattered, with some being nothing larger than a circular coral reef surrounding an anchorage suitable for seaplanes. Others were large enough for an airfield and possessed harbors deep enough for cruisers and destroyers. Given the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, any harbor was a godsend: a place to shut down, make repairs, refuel, rearm, and sleep, without having to worry about enemy submarines or high seas. Our intel people said the Japs had fortified most of the islands with heavy antiaircraft guns and even fighter planes. This was going to be no cakewalk, but our blood was up. Just the sight and smell of Pearl Harbor was enough to make every one of us want to go out there and kill as many Japs as we could find.

  On strike day, we held reveille at 0300, followed by a breakfast of steak and eggs. One last intel briefing and then we manned up in the dark. Our planes had been spotted on the flight deck the night before, arranged in order of takeoff, with full fuel tanks and a mix of bombs hung underneath. The standard Bombing Six Dauntless load for ship attack was a 1,000-pounder centerline and two 100-pound incendiaries on either wing. Fighting Six’s Wildcats would come with us to deal with any Jap fighters who came up, while Torpedo Six bombers would be ready to go in and attack any anchored warships. Since we knew where the islands were, Scouting Six’s Dauntlesses, which were normally reserved for long-range find-the-enemy missions, were each armed with two 500-pounders. Between the two carriers, we were sending in nearly sixty planes against five island bases.

  For once the weather cooperated, handing us relatively clear skies, albeit with winds from the east. That meant the two carriers had to steam away from the target to get the planes off and back on. I thought it took much too long to assemble the strike group once airborne. The first to launch, the fighters, had to wait for as long as an hour for all the rest of the planes to get off and into formation, wasting precious gas. On the other hand, I couldn’t have told you how to do it any differently. The strike couldn’t head for the target until everybody was assembled in formation. Still, with Bombing Six going second, we seemed to spend an awful lot of time boring holes in the sky waiting for the rest of the gaggle.

  The air group formations finally settled out on a western heading. The target islands were 120 miles away. Torpedo bombers stayed relatively low, at 8,000 feet. Dive bombers and the Scouting Six formation flew at 15,000 feet, and the fighters cruised at 20,000 feet. Somewhere to the south of us, the Yorktown air group was also en route. In theory the Japanese should have no warning that an American carrier air strike was inbound. That said, we soon got a reminder of what some German general said back in 1880: no plan survives first contact with the enemy’s main force. Or the vagaries of open ocean navigation, he might have added.

  The first island atoll that came into view was empty. Absolutely nothing there. Apparently our skipper had taken us to the wrong island. Same deal with the second island. Our redoubtable leader turned northwest, which brought us to a much larger island. This one had an airfield. It wasn’t much of an airfield, but there were planes parked along the taxiways, and they weren’t ours. There were also seven of those big Kawanishi flying boats anchored out in the harbor, as well as a half-dozen transport ships. No warships, however, but that was okay with me. For the first time in my life, I was going to get to roll in on an actual Japanese target, along with eight of my squadron mates.

  The skipper led the way down and put his 1,000-pounder right alongside a tanker, which bucked, rolled, and then caught fire. The second guy down was Tom Whitley, one of the other nuggets. He put his 1,000-pounder on the same tanker, but his bomb hit it. The ship exploded in a balloon of fire. The third guy down was Quantrill, whose big boy went wild, exploding in the water a quarter mile from a freighter. I was the fourth one rolling in. I chose a fat freighter anchored close to shore. As I pulled out, Bill Perry shouted into the intercom. My crowd-pleaser had hit the front end of the freighter and blown away one-third of the ship. I pulled out of the dive, holding a deep breath against the g-forces, and looked around for the skipper and the planes that had gone before me. I finally found them up and to my left as they circled back to begin strafing runs against those Kawanishis.

  A sudden cracking
shock wave startled me as I circled back around to follow the boss back up and then over and down to tear up the seaplanes. We’d caught the Japs flat-footed, but they didn’t stay that way very long. AA bursts were peppering the air around us, close enough that I couldn’t disregard them. The little island was covered in winking red flashes, and only after three more hurtful bangs in quick succession did I react and start jinking. One final ear-cracking bang right behind us caused Bill to yell and then start cussing but by then the skipper was slanting back down from up-sun to make a strafing run on that clutch of seaplanes, using his forward-firing .50-calibers. We all followed suit, leaving five of the seven flying boats aflame. The other two had managed to light off a couple of engines and were trying desperately to get airborne, which is when Fighting Six showed up and smoked the both of them.

  The skipper then made a high banking turn and headed for the airfield, where we could see Jap planes already taxiing to the end of the runway in a frantic effort to get airborne and come after us. Most of us still had our 100-pound incendiaries on the wings, so we came down on the field strafing and dropping those onto hangars and parked planes. I toggled mine too late and put them onto a pier near the end of the runway, where they did absolutely nothing. By then, however, several Jap fighters were climbing after us, and the Zero had one of the fastest climbing rates in the business. Fortunately Fighting Six attacked them from above as they strained to get some tactical altitude. That turned into a fur-ball of slashing fighters, ugly black bursts of AA fire, tracers burning up the air, and some of the combatants pitching down into the sea in huge balls of gasoline fire. That was the signal for we dive bombers to get the hell out of Dodge and head back to the carrier. We could see columns of smoke rising from distant atolls, so Scouting Six and Torpedo Six must have done some damage, too.

  During the time it had taken us to get to our targets, the carrier had been advancing west at 27 knots, so the trip back took much less time. In theory the entire air group was supposed to have joined up for the flight back, but once the Jap hornets’ nest woke up, discretion absolutely became the better part of valor. I turned on the homing beacon receiver and got a solid tone, joined up on the skipper at 15,000 feet, and only then noticed we were shy two SBDs. I asked Perry if he could tell who was missing, but he didn’t answer. I asked him again and then swiveled my head around to see what he was doing. I saw blood spatter on his section of the canopy. He appeared to be taking a nap, his eyes closed and his body relaxed. Much too relaxed. His clipboard notes and some of the nav charts were whirling around his cockpit like trash on a city street. I realized there must have been one hell of a hole back there. All the excitement and adrenaline rush of the attack drained away and I felt a wave of nausea as I realized he was probably gone.

  I landed in turn with a lead weight on my heart. As soon as I was clear of the wire I signaled to the deck crew that I needed a medic. They pushed my plane to the deck edge and then two hospitalmen were scrambling up my wings. I nodded in the direction of the back seat. A moment later, the senior medic looked back at me and shook his head. Once I was down on the flight deck I was shown a two-foot-wide hole in the hull of the aircraft just to one side of the main keel girder. Another foot to the left and that shell would have blown the tail right off. One of Perry’s bloody feet was dangling into the hole, minus his flight boot. The entire underside of the aircraft was slick with black blood. I just stood there, speechless, when a third medic grabbed my arm and escorted me away from the plane. He headed me forward to the island and the ready room, asking me if I was hurt. I said no, I was okay, physically, anyway. Good, he said. Because you’re all going back. Halsey wants a second strike.

  Good for Halsey, I thought, as the hospitalman showed me into the ready room before disappearing back out onto the flight deck. Quantrill caught the expression on my face and came over.

  “What happened?”

  “Lost my gunner to AA fire,” I said. “I need to make a head call. Then I want to sit down.”

  After taking care of business I went back to the ready room and dropped into one of the nugget chairs, glad to just close my eyes. I couldn’t believe it: Perry was dead. The other pilots in the ready room were talking about the strike, some bragging, some cursing, some just babbling with excitement at having conducted the squadron’s first wartime strike. Lots of “Remember Pearl Harbor, you bastards” and stuff like that. Somebody sat down next to me. I opened my eyes. It was Lieutenant Cox, the skipper.

  “Tough luck,” he said. “Perry was good troops.”

  “I hardly got to know him,” I said wonderingly.

  “You hardly got to know the other two nuggets, either,” he said. “Now they’re officially missing.”

  That was another shock. I tried to cycle up their names and couldn’t. One of them was my roommate, for Christ’s sake. What was his name? Chuck Snead, that was his name. Damn!

  “You did well out there,” the skipper said. “Good bomb work. Good formation work. You smacked that one freighter really good.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, sir,” I mumbled.

  He looked at his watch. “Halsey’s ordered another strike. The Japs will be fully alerted this time, so I gotta ask: you up for another go?”

  I stared at him, wide-eyed. Just like that? Your gunner’s dead. Your roommate’s missing. No biggie. We’ll get you another gunner and another airplane. Ready for round two, there, Ace?

  Amazing myself, I nodded and said yes, sir.

  “Attaboy,” he said. “Think of it this way: a second strike is a chance for revenge. Even more revenge. You need a drink?”

  I shook my head, remembering reveille on the Oklahoma. “No, sir,” I said. “I need a clear head.”

  “Okay, Nugget. Oh, and by the way: welcome to the first team. Brief in ten minutes.”

  He got up and hurried off while I tried to collect my thoughts. I felt another wave of cold nausea as it all sank in. My gunner had bled to death without saying a word and I had been oblivious. Two other aircrews were simply missing. There was a chance that we might get some seaplanes out into the area to search for them, but even I knew that wasn’t really going to happen. We’d been deep into Injun territory. If a seaplane did find them, it wasn’t going to be one of ours. And if the Japs did pick them up, they’d interrogate them and then cut their heads off.

  My reverie was interrupted by the general quarters alarm and then the Big E began to accelerate, her massive bulk settling to one side as she turned back into the wind. Everybody stopped talking in the ready room. The 1MC, the ship’s announcing system, came on to report enemy aircraft inbound and for all pilots to man their planes. There was a general rush out to the flight deck, the intel brief forgotten, which I joined until I realized I didn’t have a plane. I stood there, pressed right up against the sheer steel sides of the island, and then jumped when the five-inch batteries opened up. Engines were starting up in big blue clouds of smoke out on the flight deck and the first planes, fighters, were trundling forward to the launch position on the flight deck. A hand grabbed my arm in all the noise.

  “You Mister Steele?” he shouted.

  I nodded and he pointed to an SBD that had just come up from the hangar bay. The message was clear: There’s your bird. I ran over to the plane where three flight-deck crewmen were hustling to tow it clear of the elevator. She was sporting a 1,000-pounder centerline, but no 100-pounders out on the wings. I nearly collided with a heavily built, redheaded enlisted man in a flight suit who arrived at the wing root at the same time I did. The noise of aircraft engines by now was overwhelming; we both had to duck as another SBD taxied by, its wingtip three feet over our heads. Both the fore and after five-inch guns were going full bore by now, adding to the din. The redhead gave me an after-you signal, so I scrambled up onto the wing and into the cockpit. He was right behind me, lifting himself awkwardly into the gunner’s cockpit. There was no time for checklists: the flight deck guys were frantically making the signal for crank-it-up, and I
did. The engine bearings were apparently on their own this time. Moments later, with both of us still strapping in, we were taxiing up towards the bow. I caught a momentary glimpse of the forward five-inch mounts spitting fire out towards the starboard bow but then I had to stand on the brakes to avoid colliding with the plane in front of me. One minute later we went howling off the bow.

  I wasn’t sure who was up or even on what frequency, so I followed the guy in front of me who was also sporting a 1,000-pounder centerline. The fighters all appeared to be scrambling northwest, where the sky was filling with black puffs from the formation’s AA batteries. Pretty soon we rendezvoused with another two SBDs, one of whom flashed us a hand signal with the tactical frequency. We climbed to 15,000 feet, away from all the shooting behind us, and headed due west on slow cruise to let the rest catch up. The skipper joined up a few minutes later and gave everybody a quick, off-the-cuff brief on where we were headed. I never did see any Jap airplanes. Then I remembered my passenger, whom I assumed was flying temporary gunner for me. I switched to intercom.

  “Bobby Steele here,” I said. “Welcome aboard.”

  “Rooster W. Baynes, radioman second, at your service, suh,” he said in a Southern accent. “We gonna go kill us some Jappers?”

  “I certainly hope so,” I said. I had barely met all the pilots, so there were lots of the enlisted I didn’t know by name. “You done this before?”

  “Oh, hell yes, Boss,” Rooster said. “At least twice.”

  I laughed. At least he was game, I thought. “You got me by one,” I said. “This is my second real strike. First one didn’t end so good.”

  “I heard about Bill Perry,” he said. “Damn shame. Boys said he was good with these here guns.”

  At that moment the skipper started issuing orders for our formation assignments into two-plane divisions. Then he broadcast corrected navigation data to the target island, whose name was unpronounceable. Rooster got busy with charts and calculations on fuel consumption. I paid attention to my formation flying, noting that the weather was starting to thicken. My division leader was Lem Worth, an aviation chief petty officer out of the NavCad program. At that time, nearly a third of the Big E’s pilots were enlisted. Lem took station on the skipper, and I took station on him.