Barracuda: Final Bearing

Michael DiMercurio Barracuda: Final Bearing

To the woman who gave me my life back, the one I dearly love, Patti Quigley

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With special thanks to Nancy P. Wallitsch, Esq., who is one of those rare people on this earth who are so amazingly good at what they do that it is an exquisite pleasure to watch them work. Nancy, of all those people, is the best.

Deepest thanks to Michael Perovich, who labored as much as I did delivering the book.

Heartfelt thanks to the Quigleys, who showed me what family really means.

Thanks to Matthew and Maria, who persevered through the toughest times, and gave me unconditional love through it all.

Thanks also to Bill Lord, who with skill and certainty, irrevocably and dramatically changed two lives for the better. His good deed will, in may ways, outlive us all.

And to living legend Don Fine, who opened the door to me and made all of this possible.

EPIGRAPH

“CHAPTER II. RENUNCIATION OF WAR ARTICLE 9.

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

— ARTICLE 9 OF THE JAPANESE CONSTITUTION

“Rest peacefully, for the error shall not be repeated.”

— JAPANESE SCRIPT ON THE GRANITE FACE OF THE PARK OF PEACE CENOTAPH, HIROSHIMA, JAPAN

“The United States is being utterly conceited, obstinate and disrespectful. It is regrettable indeed. We simply cannot tolerate such an attitude.”

— Y. HARA, PRESIDENT OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL, DECEMBER 1941

“Both the United States and Japan are victims of forces they can neither control nor resist. The tragedy of this war, as in many of history’s greatest wars, is that it will be fought by two altogether decent nations, neither of which harbors real ill will toward the other. Yet the fear that seems to dominate the human condition quite as much as love is supposed to will overwhelm the decency of each … if there is any hope in avoiding a second U.S.-Japanese war, it rests in our leaders becoming frightened.”

“The vanquished seem repeatedly to rise anew, to try their hand at making history again.”

“Everything happens twice.”

— GEORGE FRIEDMAN/MEREDITH LEBARD, THE COMING WAR WITH JAPAN