1942

The major looked through a high-powered field telescope as the small party advanced. It was apparent that it was difficult for them to pull the cart over the rough terrain, and they fell a couple of times. For some reason, the sight reminded the major of a Passion play he’d seen once where Christ stumbled under the weight of his cross. The thought chilled him.

Something was wrong with the two men. They were naked, and then he realized they weren’t men. The two naked people pulling on the cart were women, white women.

“I want two unarmed men to go out there with blankets to cover them and then help them with the cart,” he said. A dozen volunteers raised their hands. There was anger, not prurience, on their faces. They knew what the Japs had done to the women.

Under a white towel attached to a branch, two soldiers advanced through no-man’s-land and up to the slowly advancing cart. They covered the women with blankets, which were totally inadequate for the job, and assumed their burden.

After agonizing moments, they made it to the American trenches, where the major had a good look at the women. They appeared beaten and tormented. Their bodies were bloody and covered with cuts and bruises, some of which still oozed blood, and there was the hint of madness in their eyes. The sight was so disturbing that most of the soldiers averted their eyes.

“Who are you?” the major asked gently. The women were white, and he thought he knew the answer.

“Nurses,” one managed to answer through swollen lips while the other one began to tremble uncontrollably. “From Schofield,” she added.

The major examined the cart. It had high sides and a canvas top, and looked like it had come from a farm. “What’s in the cart?” he asked and wondered if he really wanted to know.

“Heads,” the first nurse answered and began to cry. “Our boys’ heads. The Japs are killing their prisoners.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt looked dejectedly out the window. Winter in Washington is a damp and usually unlovely time of year, and this day was no exception. It was raining fitfully over the nation’s capital and in the president’s heart.

“Do we have a choice?” he asked.

General Marshall, Admiral King, Secretary Knox, and Stimson all either shook their heads or looked away. General Short had earlier relayed the Japanese ultimatum and the forty-eight-hour deadline. Now they had knowledge of Japan’s barbarity.

The two nurses were survivors of a group of at least a dozen captured when Schofield had been overrun. All had been gang-raped, but the two had been chosen to survive while the others had their throats cut.

The two survivors had then watched while fifty American POWs were selected at random from a holding pen and decapitated. The message the two brutalized nurses delivered was very simple. If General Short did not surrender, ten Americans would be executed every hour that went past the deadline. Also, there would be no protection for the civilian population. General Tadoyashi was explicit on this point. If there was no surrender, he would turn the 38th Division loose on Honolulu as he had on Hong Kong in an orgy of raping and looting.

“I’m still waiting for my answer,” Roosevelt said. “Do we have a choice? For God’s sake, if there is, tell me!”

“There is none,” King answered. “I recommend surrender.”

“As do I,” Marshall said, and the two secretaries nodded agreement.

“General Short is required to surrender the entire Hawaiian archipelago,” Marshall added, “and that includes Midway.”

Roosevelt shrugged. Midway was an island base over a thousand miles north and west of Hawaii proper. Its presence on the archipelago was a geographic quirk.

“What do we have there?” the president asked.

“Nothing anymore,” King said. “We’d hoped to use it as a forward and unsinkable aircraft carrier, but the invasion of Oahu outflanked it and made it irrelevant. We evacuated the last of the personnel a day or two ago. The Japs’ll get a couple of empty islands and a fairly usable airfield if they want it, but Midway is no longer of any importance.”

“Then let them have it too,” Roosevelt snapped. “At least tell me that Magic is safe.”

“We’ve taken steps to ensure that it is,” Marshall said.

“That’s not quite a yes,” Roosevelt muttered. “But I guess it’ll do for the time being.”

King was anxious to get back to his office. “Will that be all, sir?”

The president smiled, but it was an expression devoid of all happiness. “No. I have one more task for both you and General Marshall. I told you I want the islands back. When can you do it?”

King hid his surprise. “As I said before, by the end of 1943 we’ll be strong enough to take on the Jap navy.”

“As will the army,” Marshall said. “But it may mean deferring some actions in Europe.”

“This year,” Roosevelt said. “By the end of summer.”

“Impossible,” King said, and Marshall concurred.