1942

Colonel Omori and Commander Watanabe walked outside Admiral Yamamoto’s Pearl Harbor headquarters for a cigarette. Inside, Iwabachi was getting thoroughly chastised for letting the attacks occur, and neither man wanted to be present at the other’s humiliation.

Omori, who was not in as much disfavor with Yamamoto as was Iwabachi, was puzzled. “Forgive my ignorance of naval matters, Watanabe, but why can’t you use the planes on the carriers?”

The naval commander flipped his cigarette butt onto the sidewalk and ground it with his heel. His frustration was obvious. “Because carrier planes must be launched into the wind and from a moving vessel. The combined wind and ship speeds are needed so a plane can get enough lift to get airborne. With the carriers anchored in Pearl, no planes can take off. The floatplanes are launched by catapults from the battleships and cruisers, so they don’t need the wind as much.”

Now Omori understood the need to get a carrier out to sea, although he wondered why catapults couldn’t be developed for use on a carrier. Getting a carrier out of the harbor would not happen until dawn at the earliest. Yamamoto did not want to risk a ship going aground in the narrow channel and blocking it, and there was no arguing with his logic. With no enemy fleet, or even additional planes, there was urgency but no need to do something rash. It was getting lighter with each passing moment, and the designated force had steam up and was almost ready to proceed.

An additional problem was the way the ships were anchored. The sunken American warships in the harbor had compounded the crowding, and the carrier Akagi, not one of the escorting cruisers, as would normally be the case, would be the first ship out. The Akagi was anchored closest to the entrance, and it was impractical even to attempt to maneuver the cruisers past her bulk. Ships could not be shuttled around like cars in a parking lot. Yamamoto was not happy with the situation, but he accepted the reality.

The large carrier’s decks were full of planes ready to take off and protect the remainder of the fleet, and many of her officers who had been celebrating in Honolulu had been located and returned. Even so, the Akagi would depart significantly shorthanded, and with pilots whose heads must be bursting from hangovers.

Watanabe walked by the water, and Omori followed him. “At least this crisis will be over shortly,” Watanabe said. “It is incredible that not only are there no usable planes on Oahu but there are no usable fields. It will take only a day or two to repair the damaged airstrips at Wheeler, but, until then, we are naked. I am confident the fields at Hickam and Ford Island will also be put into service in a matter of hours.”

In the dark blue sky that preceded dawn, Omori saw motion. Planes were approaching. For a moment he puzzled over their odd shape, and then he identified them. “Ah, I see the flying boats from Hilo are arriving.”

Watanabe was puzzled. “Why? What are they doing here? They are supposed to be patrolling.” Then a look of horror crossed his face.

As the dark and mountainous islands grew closer and the dawn began to rise, Colonel Jimmy Doolittle saw fingers of smoke arising from several places in the harbor.

“Damn it,” he muttered, “they’ve already been attacked. So much for coordination.” He didn’t add that headwinds had slowed his flight, making them later than planned.

Captain Haskins, his copilot, chuckled grimly. “What’d you expect? Just a typical navy fuckup. At least we were able to find Hawaii. Too bad we seem to have lost Meagher’s plane.”

Doolittle wasn’t inclined to argue. As they approached, the two men searched the sky for fighters and found none. At least that part was going right.

But where was Meagher? With him gone and radio silence still unbroken, the five planes were now four. A 20 percent reduction in their small force and nothing had happened yet. He had no idea where Meagher was, but they couldn’t wait for him. Any second now and they’d be spotted and Zeros would be all over their butts. No, Meagher would have to take care of himself. Maybe he’d had an engine malfunction and had turned back? It didn’t matter. They were going to go straight in, drop their bombs, and fly out the back door.

The four planes went in side by side, low and as fast as they could, which caused the surface to race by. Finally, puffs of smoke in the air said that antiaircraft gunners had spotted them. Uncertain exactly which Japanese ships were where in the harbor; Doolittle’s planes broke in pairs, with two on each side of Ford Island. South of Ford Island, along Battleship Row, where so many American battleships had been sunk, six carriers were anchored. Doolittle noted that one of them seemed to be making for the entrance, while smoke came from another.