1942

Incredibly, because of the chaos at Pearl Harbor, no one was certain who was on the Pennsylvania and who wasn’t. That infuriated Nimitz. No one should have to die anonymously.

There was a tap on the door, and Admiral Raymond Spruance entered. He had been commanding Halsey’s cruisers when Nimitz ordered him back to California. Spruance was a quiet man, but extremely intelligent and decisive. If Halsey was a bull, Spruance was the thinker. In only a short while, Nimitz had come to depend on Spruance’s abilities.

Spruance crossed the office and discreetly looked out the window. It gave Nimitz an opportunity to wipe his eyes.

“The Japs have pulled their ships back to the west of Hawaii,” Spruance said. “This’ll give us a chance to send out floatplanes and look for survivors. I doubt there’ll be any, but we’ll give it a try.”

Nimitz nodded. Could it get any worse? he wondered.

In the Philippines, MacArthur’s army was pinned on the Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor. They would surrender in a matter of weeks, a couple of months at the most. MacArthur had been ordered to leave Corregidor so he would not be taken prisoner and paraded through Tokyo as a trophy.

In the southern Pacific, a small American naval force had joined with other small forces from the Dutch and Royal navies. Under a Dutch admiral, they would try to blunt the Japanese offensive in that area. Nimitz thought their task was hopeless.

The British army was retreating down the Malayan peninsula toward the city of Singapore, and it looked like a disaster there as well. Churchill had proclaimed the place a fortress that would be held at all costs, but everyone knew better.

In both the Philippines and Malaya, the Japanese army had outfought and outmaneuvered the Americans and the British. This did not bode well for the fate of Hawaii.

At least, Nimitz thought with some satisfaction, he had only the Pacific to worry about. The situation in the Atlantic was no less dire, with German subs ravaging American shipping all along the eastern seaboard and up the larger rivers. In Europe, both England and Russia were reeling under Nazi attacks.

“Opportunity,” Nimitz said.

“What?” Spruance asked quizzically.

“Pearl Harbor and all that has followed is not an unmitigated disaster.”

“Some’ll disagree with that.”

“Let them,” Nimitz said firmly. “Tell me, Ray. How many battleships have been sunk or damaged by Jap carriers?”

“Nine or ten, depending on how the British count battleships,” Spruance answered. “Eight of ours and at least one British.”

“And how many carriers have been sunk?”

Spruance grinned. He knew where this was going. “None.”

“Right. Now who the devil needs battleships when they keep on sinking?” Nimitz shuffled papers on his desk until he came up with the right one. “Look, we began this war with seventeen battleships to the Japs’ ten or eleven. We’ve lost eight, at least temporarily, but have fifteen under construction. In a year, two at the most, we will have overwhelming superiority in battleships.”

“Of course,” Spruance said as he took a chair.

“And the same holds true with carriers. We have seven to their dozen or so, but we have another eleven being built, and that doesn’t even count the smaller carriers, which we will start producing by the dozens. Can they match that?”

“We know they can’t. We know the limitations of their shipyards. Japan doesn’t have an industrial base like ours to draw on. While it’s a closed society, we’re fairly confident they can’t add more than a couple of carriers or battleships in the next several years. We already outnumber them in cruisers, destroyers, and subs. If we use our resources properly, we will defeat them. The carrier is the queen of the navy now, not the gunship. Battleships and cruisers will protect the carriers, not the other way around.”

Nimitz slapped the desk with uncharacteristic anger. “Yet, we’re going to lose Hawaii.”

Spruance nodded glumly. Three carriers were operating under Halsey. Their task was to protect Australia. A handful of old, slow battleships under Admiral William Pye was positioned along the California coast. They were there primarily to calm the fears of the populace, not to fight the Japs. If they tried, they’d be murdered.

“If Hawaii goes,” Spruance added, “then we’ll have to pull out of Midway as well. That big Jap task force we’ve been listening to seems to have departed. Only Hawaii can be its destination. It’ll arrive in a week or so, and, by that time, their planes from Molokai will have softened up Oahu’s defenses to the point where a landing will be a cinch.”

Nimitz rose and paced the small office. “Our ships are sunk, our carriers are too few, and I’m being told our subs aren’t sinking anything because the torpedoes aren’t working correctly. Is anything going right for us?”