Hara-Kiri_a novel of the Pacific War Read online

  He raised his hands for quiet. “We’ll be heading back to base soon, and I just wanted to say it was an honor leading you men on this patrol. They say submarining is a team sport, and you proved it. Things were quieter than I’d like this time out, but we did all right by the Navy and our families back home. If they were here tonight in the flesh, as they are in spirit, I know they’d be plenty proud of all of us. The invasion of the Philippines is the beginning of the end for the Japs. Soon, we’ll all be back with our families again.”

  The crew cheered again. Even John Braddock, sitting at one of the tables, cracked a smile.

  Charlie added, “To say thanks for doing your duty to the utmost, Mr. Nixon worked up a special treat for tonight’s meal. Mr. Nixon?”

  “Thank you, Captain.” The engineering officer’s cheeks flushed as all eyes switched to him. “I, uh, rebuilt the ice cream freezer in the control room. It’s been—”

  The sailors cut him off with a roar, pounding the tables. Ice cream makers were the kind of luxury limited to battleship wardrooms. Saunders’s order to dismantle the last one Nixon had built had been distinctly unpopular.

  Nixon blinked at them, reddening further. “I installed it in the control room and hooked it up to the main refrigeration system. A motor automatically cranks it—”

  Charlie put a hand on the man’s shoulder, urging him to speed it along. The crew was practically drooling.

  “It’s peach melba,” Nixon finished. “Chief Sullivan was a big help—”

  The men roared again as the cooks served up gobs of melting ice cream in soup bowls. They devoured it in seconds and asked for more, though the cooks were saving the rest for the next rotation coming in for their dinner.

  “Yum,” Rusty said. “Peach with a diesel oil aftertaste.”

  Charlie laughed, eyeing the crew. “They don’t seem to mind.”

  Nixon smiled as well. “I’m going to miss this, Captain.”

  “You will?”

  The engineering officer could handle bureaucracy and machinery. The company of other men, not so much. Charlie had never gotten the sense Nixon cared for any of it. He and the Navy didn’t seem particularly cut out for each other.

  “I know I’m not a typical guy,” Nixon said. “I have a hard time with people. When I get home, I’ll never have friends like this again. This boat is like a family to me. I’ll miss it.”

  “You know,” Charlie said. “I think I know exactly what you mean.”

  “I’m ready to go home,” Rusty said.

  “I know exactly what you mean too. I hope this war ends soon. Still, all this is going to be hard to leave behind. For me, it isn’t just the crew. It’s everything about command. Nothing back in the real world is ever going to compare.”

  “Told you you’d grow into the job,” Rusty said.

  Nixon talked to the chief cook, who handed him another bowl of ice cream. “For Kendrick,” he told Charlie. “I figured he could use a boost.”

  “Good thinking,” Charlie said. “You’re a good man, Nix.”

  The engineering officer narrowed his eyes at Braddock, who caught him looking and returned a grudging nod of respect. “I’m the best.”

  Nixon carried the ice cream off to Kendrick. Charlie left as well, heading aft to take the Sandtiger’s pulse. He passed through the cluttered crew’s quarters, the bunks and lockers bolted into the bulkhead among piping and hanging baggage. Then into the hot and loud engine compartments, navigating the narrow path between the massive, pulsing Fairbanks Morse engines. Then through Maneuvering to Aft Torpedo and back forward, all the way to the control room, which was crammed with pipes, valves, and gauges. Everywhere he went was filled with sweating men and noise and the diesel stench.

  In the wardroom, he passed the time with his harmonica before deciding to turn in. Lying in his bunk, he replayed the patrol in his mind, already framing the report for Cooper, and surprised himself by agreeing with every decision he’d made and the assessment he’d given the crew. Quieter than he’d wanted, yes, but they’d done their duty and achieved some good.

  For the first time in weeks, he didn’t fret over outcomes he couldn’t control and fell asleep quickly.

  He was treading water in the middle of the vast blue Pacific while Evie paddled toward him in a raft. He wondered how long he could hold on. As the raft approached, he raised his hand.

  She reached to pull him from the water—

  A hand shook him awake. “Sorry to wake you, Captain.”

  The voice belonged to Yeoman Lucas.

  Charlie sat up and rubbed his eyes. The dream came back to him, and he shuddered. “You did me a favor. What’s up, Yeo?”

  The time was 0356. He’d slept for a solid seven hours.

  Lucas offered him a mug of coffee. “Mr. Percy wanted me to tell you there’s a battle going on down by Leyte.”

  He took the mug, slurped it, and handed it back. “Thanks, Yeo.”

  Fighting to the south meant the Japanese were launching a night attack on the island, or it might mean something else.

  It might mean the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet was attacking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ARMADA

  Charlie mounted to the bridge. Under the cover of darkness, the Sandtiger knifed due east on a glassy sea. The night was a hot eighty degrees and humid. Thick patches of cloud cover blacked out parts of the starry sky.

  He said to Rusty, “Couldn’t sleep again?”

  “Bad dream,” Rusty said. “I came up here for the air, and all of a sudden, there’s a battle going on.” Rusty pointed. “There.”

  Flashes popped along the southern horizon, bringing Samar’s hilly outline into stark silhouette. Booms thudded in the distance.

  The flashes died out.

  “I can’t tell if that’s Sixth Army’s artillery or Seventh Fleet,” Charlie said.

  “Or bomber planes,” Rusty noted.

  “No hum.” If it were bombers, they’d have heard the propellers.

  New arcs of yellow light flared and faded except for a glowing smear where ships had fired starshells to light up the night.

  The thunder rolled over them moments later.

  “Christ, that’s battleships,” Rusty said. “Can you hear it?”

  The Imperial Japanese Navy had finally made its move to counter the invasion of Leyte. Skilled at night fighting, the Japanese ships were trying to get at the American invasion shipping and isolate Sixth Army on the island.

  “I hope Seventh Fleet is giving more than it’s getting.”

  “They’re getting revenge, brother.”

  Seventh Fleet included battleships raised from the harbor at Pearl. Repaired, refurbished, and put back in action after the attack that started the war.

  Charlie chafed at the distance. With no real idea what was happening, he considered his options for bringing the Sandtiger into the fight, all of which involved getting the submarine around the third largest island in the Philippines before dawn.

  He wanted to swing around Samar, cross the Visayan Sea, and get behind the Japanese to pick off damaged ships limping from the fight. He checked the time. After 0400. The trek would take around seven hours running on the surface, which he didn’t dare to do in these waters during the day.

  In any case, the battle would likely be long over by the time he got there.

  He was right there less than a week ago. He had no luck!

  The only viable path forward was to maintain course, steam down the coast, and come in behind Seventh Fleet. They could reach Leyte Gulf in three hours. There, he could re-examine his options.

  “What do you want to do?” Rusty said.

  “We’ll maintain our present—”

  “Contact!” one of the lookouts cried. “Ships, approaching, far, bearing three-double-oh.”

  Charlie wheeled. “That must be Third Fleet. Some of their ships should be guarding the San Bernardino Strait.”

  Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet was
the invasion fleet, and Admiral Bull Halsey’s Third Fleet was the operation’s roaming offensive arm.

  Eyes glued to his binoculars, Rusty shrugged. He knew as much as Charlie did.

  Charlie searched but couldn’t find them. Perched on the shears, the lookouts were at a greater height than him, able to see a little farther.

  “Conn, Bridge,” he said. “Helm, reduce speed to one-third. All stop.”

  The Sandtiger coasted until her forward momentum bled out.

  “All back, full,” Charlie ordered.

  The submarine’s engines rumbled as she overcame inertia and began to reverse. Soon, he was able to discern a series of black smudges from the surrounding darkness.

  Warships, hull-down on the horizon.

  All the while on the other side of Samar, guns boomed as battleships pounded each other in the night. Charlie felt like a mouse scurrying between massive elephants searching each other out to grapple in the dark.

  Just enough star and moonlight for visibility. He identified a fleet of heavy ships on a bearing of one-double-oh. They advanced in three columns at a speed of around ten knots, screened by destroyers and light cruisers.

  “They aren’t running navigation lights,” he said.

  Rusty grunted in agreement. “Whatever they’re doing, they’re trying to do it without anybody knowing they’re doing it.”

  The lookout said, “I don’t think they’re ours, Captain.”

  Despite the hot, muggy air, Charlie shivered. He was looking at IJN capital ships on their way to Leyte Gulf.

  He said, “Where the hell is Third Fleet?”

  “The Japs will be behind Kinkaid in hours,” Rusty said.

  “Helm, all stop,” Charlie ordered.

  “Even if Kinkaid beats the Japs in front of him, he’ll be strung out and in need of resupply.”

  “I know.”

  Rusty waited until he couldn’t stand it. “You want to attack, don’t you?”

  “I was thinking about it.”

  “Look, if we—”

  “But I won’t.”

  “I’m serious—wait. Really? We’re not attacking?”

  “Attacking won’t accomplish anything,” he said. “We might sink a ship, maybe two. We’d end up out of action, and it wouldn’t stop them or even slow them down much. You have to pick your battles, right?”

  “Well,” said Rusty. “Okay, then. So how do you want to play it?”

  Soon, the enemy ships would pass fairly close. With no bow wake and her low, gray profile against the backdrop of the coast, the Sandtiger could observe them while being virtually invisible. The enemy’s big surface ships had radar, but the proximity of Samar would scatter the reflections, camouflaging the submarine.

  Charlie planned to gather as much information as possible and radio it up the chain of command, per his operation order. Then he’d follow in the enemy’s wake and keep sending contact reports until Kinkaid or Halsey reacted.

  At which time he’d take his shot.

  The Sandtiger would be in a perfect position to submerge and send every torpedo she had into damaged ships retreating from the battle.

  Submarine skippers would kill to be standing where he was now. He had a well-drilled crew and torpedoes warming up in the tubes, and he was near an IJN task force that didn’t know he was there. Few had even been this close.

  He remembered Captain Kane, after a string of mishaps led to him sinking multiple convoy targets, saying, “Sometimes, you get lucky.”

  The lesson was you didn’t need to be lucky all the time to win. You only needed to get lucky once, when it mattered, and be ready to act on it.

  He shared his plan with Rusty before sending him below to radio Pearl and start a tracking party on the enemy fleet. Then he went back to counting ships. The enemy crossed the Sandtiger’s beam, filing past thirty miles off Samar’s coast. In Charlie’s view, just below the horizon.

  He estimated the enemy fleet to number at least fifteen ships. Beyond the destroyer screen and two heavy cruisers, he spotted the pagoda masts of four massive battleships cruising in column. The ships plowed across the sea, large bow wakes marking their passage.

  Two of them were real monsters, bigger than their fellows.

  Rusty returned. “Message received. They’re sending it on to Kinkaid.”

  “I think we just found the Yamato.”

  Navy men across the Pacific often talked about it. They knew it existed. But few had ever seen it, and little was actually known about its capabilities. Built during the war, the Yamato remained shrouded in mystery, like some legendary sea monster.

  “You’re shitting me,” the exec said.

  “At the rear of the middle column. That has to be the Yamato. The one in front of it must be a second ship in the same class.”

  Rusty clenched his binoculars as he checked them out. “Jesus. That ship’s got to be at least 800 feet long.”

  One thing that was known about the Yamato was it carried massive guns with eighteen-inch bores, capable of hurling giant shells over miles. Same as the Meteor, which had wreaked havoc during the Saipan landings.

  Kinkaid was in for a pounding. Charlie hoped Third Fleet wasn’t too far away. Arcs of light continued to burst and pulse along the southern horizon.

  “Conn, Bridge. Helm, all ahead full.” Charlie turned to Rusty. “You’d better get back below and radio an update to Pearl. And Rusty?”

  “Captain?”

  “Call all key crewmen to relaxed battle stations. I want them ready to jump when we go to general quarters.”

  Rusty nodded. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Everybody had believed the Battle of the Philippine Sea was to be the kantai kessen—the final grand naval battle predicted by Japanese war planners.

  They’d been wrong.

  Dawn would bring the real thing in all its fury.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  JUGGERNAUT

  Trailing behind as close as she dared, the Sandtiger paced the enemy fleet on a southeasterly course along Samar’s coast.

  Charlie decided not to risk using the radar, which might signal their presence to the Japanese. He and Rusty counted twenty-two warships. Four battleships in the middle column, with four heavy cruisers a couple miles away to port and two to starboard. Destroyers and light cruisers screened the flanks.

  Below deck, the crewmembers on duty buzzed with the news they were tracking a Japanese battle fleet.

  Rusty rubbed his tired eyes. “Daylight soon.”

  The battle in the south had lasted only eighteen minutes, and Charlie still had no idea what was happening.

  “Where’s our fleet?” he growled.

  “Maybe the message isn’t getting through.”

  The plan was to submerge in the enemy’s track when the American fleet started shooting. So far, however, nobody had shown up.

  When dawn arrived, he’d either have to dive or go over the hill, beyond the enemy’s horizon.

  “Conn, Bridge,” he said. “Helm, come left to one-double-oh.”

  The Sandtiger veered to port while edging over twenty knots, squeezing extra speed by keeping the blowers going even though the ballast tanks were dry. She passed north of the slower Japanese formation and dropped over the hill.

  “I’m going below to see what I can find out on the scope,” Charlie said.

  They slid down the hatch into the conning tower. With the crew expecting action, the atmosphere was electric. He shook his head at Percy, hoping he’d pass the word they were still observers in this battle. Then he conned the boat until she was far ahead of the Japanese position.

  He said, “Range to the enemy track?”

  The answer told him he was now fourteen miles ahead of the IJN fleet.

  “Very well,” he said. “Have the lookouts clear the shears.” This done, he said, “Up scope.”

  A trick he’d learned from another skipper at the O-Club. Raising the periscope while surfaced enabled the skipper to see farther, s
o the submarine could keep the enemy in contact while doing an end-around.

  Tonight, it would help him find his own fleet.

  He crouched and followed the observation scope as it slid from its well, extending the range of his vision from 15,000 to 21,000 yards.

  Blackness at first, turning gray. Like the Japanese, the sun was over the hill but coming fast. With the horizon fuzzy in the first light, dawn was a difficult time for observation. He finally discerned a shape, a boxy American ship called a jeep carrier. Basically, a merchantman with a flight deck. Part of Seventh Fleet, these compact flattops launched planes to support the ground troops fighting on Leyte.

  He found a second ship and magnified the view. A destroyer escort screening this light carrier task force. Then he spotted two more baby flattops, steaming slowly westward toward Leyte Gulf from their seaward night stations.

  Right into the IJN armada.

  They had no idea they were sailing to their own annihilation.

  Thinly armored, slow, weakly gunned, and carrying a small number of planes equipped with munitions ideal for attacks on ground targets, not surface ships. With typical Navy gallows humor, their sailors claimed the ship’s prefix, CVE, stood for combustible, vulnerable, and expendable.

  “What’s going on?” Rusty said. “You look like you saw Davy Jones.”

  “They don’t know,” Charlie muttered.

  “What?”

  He turned from the scope to glare at his friend. “I’m looking at a task force of escort carriers. They have no idea the IJN is coming.”

  Rusty shook his head. “Trust me, Skipper. Keep looking.”

  Charlie returned his attention to the scope.

  The rising sun pierced the Philippine Sea like a blinding spear.

  He saw everything.

  Thick cumulus clouds partially covered the sky. The sea was calm. Scattered rainsqualls grayed out part of his view.