Final impact

He stood in front of Yamamoto, seemingly entranced with the evolving cataclysm on the map table. His eyes positively sparkled as he contemplated the presumed westward passage of Spruance’s main strike force, the Clinton battle group. It was thought to be somewhere between San Diego and Hawaii by now, as the Allies gathered their might for a sledgehammer blow on the empire. A long time ago Yamamoto might have shared Onishi’s enthusiasm for the coming fight. It was shaping up as the Kassen Kantai, the decisive battle, which he had advocated in the first days of the war. But unlike Onishi, who had yet to taste the ashes of defeat, Yamamoto was sanguine about their chances for success.

“You have heard from Manila, then, Admiral?” he said, tipping his head in reply to Onishi’s bow. “How go your plans?”

“Very well, Admiral. They go very well. The last of the Ohkas are ready. We have nearly a hundred of the Type Twenty-twos and forty of the turbojet Forty-threes. I have seen a test flight myself, and they are magnificent. Fearsome. The Americans will not be able to withstand them.”

Yamamoto’s eyebrows crawled toward the ceiling. “So you have only a hundred and forty all together. Admiral Onishi, almost none of them will survive the air screen. Kolhammer’s people have been dealing with rocket swarms of much greater sophistication than anything we can invent.”

Onishi looked insulted. “That is not all I have been doing,” he protested. “There are two and a half thousand tokkotai ready to fall on the enemy in the conventional way. And many of them will get through. But their role is really to overwhelm the Allied defenses and create a gap for the Ohkas to exploit. That they will do-I assure you. I have studied the archival material and concluded that it would not be sensible to send our men in piecemeal. They must come upon the American fleet as a typhoon comes upon a fishing boat, with overwhelming power.”

His eyes glistened as he spoke, and Yamamoto feared that he was about to cry again. He had famously soaked the ground with his tears when told of his own act of seppuku in the alternate world at the end of the war. Something had fused in the vice admiral’s mind since then, and he had become unbalanced on the subject of “his” tokkotai.

“And where have you disposed your forces, Onishi?” he asked, hoping to forestall any possible blubbering.

His subordinate rapped out instructions, and three junior officers began to place unit markers on the map table throughout the islands of the Marianas.

“The Germans,” he said as they worked at their task, “were most helpful in speeding up the development of the Type Forty-three, as you would expect given their expertise in the field. However, they were also of great assistance in helping us disguise the airfields from which the tokkotai will embark. I suppose they have learned something from the Soviets in that regard. At any rate, if you examine the map, you will see that the approach to the islands will naturally funnel the Allied ships to this point”-he tapped at the map table with a long wooden pointer-“where we shall suddenly appear as a great swarm of hornets buzzing about their heads.”

Yamamoto examined the display, and was not entirely unhappy with what he saw. Onishi had dispersed his forces well, so that they could not be destroyed at a stroke with some Emergence superweapon. They would have a reasonably short flight to intersect the American advance, and although the pilots were not the best in the empire-far from it, in fact-they could probably be trusted to follow their pathfinders. Since the full weight of Spruance’s airpower would most likely be given over to demolishing the bunkers and sandbagged gun pits that generals Takeshima and Obata were so lovingly building, there might even be a chance that some real damage could be done.

“Have you assigned your men to their targets yet, Admiral Onishi?” he asked.

“Not only have they been assigned, but they have also been training to press home their attacks as best they can, given our resources. My study of the archives led me to understand that I had previously underestimated the importance of piloting skills, to ensure that a higher percentage of them penetrate the air defense screen. I imagine that Spruance will use his jet fighters for long-range strike missions, and his lesser aircraft to fly combat air patrol around the fleet.”

Yamamoto could not stifle a snort at that.

Lesser aircraft! Onishi was talking about F-4 Corsairs and Skyraider fighter-bombers, both of which were vastly superior to the Zero that was still the mainstay of the Japanese fleet. He was glad that Onishi had planned on having so many tokkotai in the attack wave, because most of them were never going to make it through the American defenders.