MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan Read online

  “Yes, sir.” I can. The real question is whether I will. Keeping my mouth shut is one thing, ratting out other people is something else.

  It was as if Sutherland could read his mind. “I know you’ve got orders to go home. As a way of thanking you, I’m going to do my best to try to see if I can get those orders implemented, and get you out of here before … before the end.”

  Johnny’s heart leaped at that suggestion, but he tried to keep his face impassive. He was about to stammer out a reply when Sutherland spoke again. “If you can help me, I may be able to help you. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir!”

  “All right. Dismissed.”

  • WEDNESDAY, 11 MARCH 1942 •

  SOUTH DOCK, CORREGIDOR, PHILIPPINES, 1900 HOURS

  The wharf and its facilities, at the base of the Rock, had been utterly exposed to air attack for months, and the Japs had done a real job on South Dock. Not a single building remained standing. The earth itself was rent and broken, the seawall chiseled away by craters. The two dozen men who stood out here now cast frequent glances skyward, when they were not watching the dark, cavernous entrance at the base of the nearby cliff.

  The salt air stank of fish, but that was better than the stench of sweaty humanity crowded into Malinta Tunnel, or the acrid smell of cordite and gunpowder, the parching clouds of dust that accompanied each artillery barrage. Johnny stood on the concrete wharf and took a breath of the sticky air, tried to focus on the smells of Manila Bay instead of the nervous tumble in his gut. In any event, there was nothing to do but wait.

  The lapping of waves against the ruined pier merged with the bass rumble of the idling torpedo boat engine. There were some insect sounds, a few murmuring human voices, and otherwise an unearthly and deep silence. The tropics were so removed from the Pennsylvania landscapes of his upbringing that he might as well be on a different planet: Burroughs’s Venus, perhaps, or Doc Smith’s Green System.

  But those stories were fantasy. This terrible place, from jungled Bataan to rocky Corregidor, was all too real. It was a prison, a death trap, a hell. It was the place where Americans and Filipinos had come to die. Most, but not all. The four patrol torpedo boats in tonight’s mission would see to that.

  Of these boats, the most important was PT-41. While the other three picked up their lucky passengers from other docks on the small island, boat number 41 bobbed in the outgoing tide alongside the charred and blackened pylons of timber that made up what remained of South Dock. The worn engines, too much maintenance delayed for too long, chugged roughly, spewing exhaust heavy with oily smoke.

  Johnny wanted to get on board that PT boat so much he could taste it. Even knowing the risks involved in getting out from under Jap patrols in Manila Bay, he was ready to leap aboard in an instant. He had spent all afternoon on the ruined dock preparing for the mission, arranging camouflaged fuel barrels so that the boat could top off its tanks, collecting a few precious provisions for the crew and passengers that would squeeze into the tiny vessel. All along his eyes had swept the placid, brackish waters, seeking the low silhouette of potential deliverance.

  Sutherland had promised. He had promised.

  Johnny had done what Sutherland asked—keep his mouth shut and tell him if anyone came snooping around. But nobody came. He let Sutherland know, and suddenly the chief of staff became hard to reach. He got one message from Sutherland: “I’ll do my best. I haven’t forgotten.”

  What did that mean? Was he getting off the Rock tonight, or was he staying behind?

  Although there really hadn’t been that much to do, he’d made a show of checking everything three or four times. Though he felt vulnerable in the sunlight, he’d wanted to remain outside, with that view of the water. A flight of dive-bombers or strafing fighters could have come screaming down from the hazy sky, and he would have thought long and hard about whether or not to take shelter in the tunnel.

  Now night had fallen. His duties done, he was simply standing at ease with other soldiers, sailors, and marines, waiting. There was a stir in the rank as the party came out of the tunnel, a dozen people moving quietly, each avoiding the eyes of the men lined up at the wharf. Me. Me. Take me with you.

  Johnny’s boss General Drake was running the show, although he wasn’t going. He herded his charges onto the dock—to the extent anybody could herd Douglas MacArthur. The General stood majestically to one side, aloof and apart, while enlisted rates loaded personal effects aboard the tiny, unarmored PT boat. The passengers were entitled to thirty-five pounds of luggage apiece. MacArthur used none of his allowance. He was not even properly in uniform; his socks had loud civilian checks.

  MacArthur was taking his wife Jean and young son Arthur with him—understandable—but also his Chinese amah, Ah Cheu, Arthur’s nanny. Johnny wished the old lady no harm, but hers was a place that might have been filled by someone else.

  “We’re being abandoned by God Almighty Himself tonight. That makes it official. This is hell.” Andy’s nasal voice was pitched low so no one else could hear, but it was so clear in Johnny’s ears that he was certain the eyes of MacArthur would soon fasten on the two young officers with the impact of a heat ray.

  “You needed official confirmation?” Johnny whispered back, trying to keep his voice even lower. His whisper seemed to carry, however, because he drew a sharp look from General Drake.

  Johnny looked at MacArthur. The commanding general looked old and worn and thin, and above all he looked deeply sad. Was he losing his mind again? Did he feel as if he had really become the “Coward of Corregidor” by leaving? There had always been something about MacArthur’s bearing and manner that was reassuring, and now it was missing. He looked broken, lost.

  MacArthur had visited the Bataan Peninsula only once since reaching the Rock. He was not afraid to face the Japanese, Johnny was certain. He was still ashamed of his failures on and before December 8.

  The PT commander, Lieutenant Bulkeley, stepped onto the charred timbers of the dock and made his way over the uneven planks to the General. Bulkeley, with his beard and a uniform stained by too many tropical months, looked more like a pirate than a naval officer, but everyone knew that the General had great confidence in him. MacArthur removed the pipe from his mouth and nodded calmly as the lieutenant approached, offering a simple “Buck,” in greeting.

  The naval officer replied in a low tone, but Johnny was close enough to hear parts of the conversation. The phrase “room for two more” emerged like a clarion bell.

  The General nodded again. Johnny felt himself stiffening, at ease gradually morphing into attention. MacArthur’s gaze swept across the line of waiting men. “Captain Lunney, come here,” MacArthur said. The young officer addressed stepped forward with a look of disbelief. The man’s wife had just given birth to twins, Johnny knew. Meanwhile, MacArthur’s gaze moved on, approaching Sarnuss and Halverson at the end of the line. Those piercing eyes came to rest on Johnny’s face.

  Sutherland promised! I already have the orders! He wanted to shout out his claim. Sutherland stepped up, whispered in MacArthur’s ear, and MacArthur looked away from Johnny.

  That bastard. He’s double-crossed me. He’s abandoned me to the Japanese, figuring I’ll never make it.

  Someone coughed, a gagging rip of sound that doubled the man over. It was Lieutenant Pat Murphy, whose asthma had made life in the tunnel even more hellish than it was for most.

  “Lieutenant, you come too,” MacArthur said.

  You fucking bastards! You fucking murdering bastards!

  And that was it. Johnny watched the line of passengers, including Lunney and Murphy, slowly clamber into PT-41, bound for Mindanao and freedom. Several slipped on the charred and broken planks, while little Arthur scampered with the carefree gait of a child, evading his frightened mother’s attempts to hold his hand. They all made it safely aboard.

  Johnny was sure that particular boat would survive, no matter what happened to the others. No Jap was ever going to lay
a hand on MacArthur—it would be more than lèse-majesté, it would be virtually deicide.

  The PT boat was ready to cast off, but MacArthur was still ashore. He looked around at the men on the dock, his face white, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. His eyes stopped briefly on Johnny and the General opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he closed it.

  He raised his gold-braided barracks cap, the one with the stiffening grommet removed, in salute to all those he was leaving behind. Artillery batteries high up on the Rock opened diversionary fire, shelling the Jap positions not too many miles away on Bataan.

  MacArthur stepped into PT-41 and spoke to its commander. The 4,050-horsepower Packard motors, idling up until now, growled a little deeper, roiling the brown waters beside the wharf. Chugging loudly, pushing only a gentle wake, the torpedo boat steered toward the turning buoy. In the fading light, the other three boats were visible a mile or so offshore, waiting to form up on their leader.

  Above, the shattering explosions of firing artillery and blasts of red and yellow light punctured the darkness. It was full nightfall now, and the wind picked up, splashing waves against the pilings. Johnny ignored the water, the air, the guns. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on PT-41, his last, best hope for freedom, until it slipped out of his world altogether.

  THREE

  The Pacific; Washington. D.C.

  • THURSDAY, 11 JUNE 1942 •

  APPROACHING JAPANESE CARRIER HI RYU, EAST OF

  MIDWAY, 1421 HOURS

  “The Hiryu’s in sight, Admiral,” the pilot shouted through the tube.

  As the Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bomber dipped through the cloud layer into the gray, rainy weather, the passenger in the rear seat, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, barely could make out the damaged First Mobile Force through the light drizzle. There were three carriers where there should have been four. The fire on the Kaga had spread to its magazine; the resultant explosion had torn it apart.

  Of the three remaining, two were damaged. As the fleet grew closer, Yamamoto could see where bombs had ripped through the Akagi’s deck. The Soryu’s flight deck was out of commission as well. Only the Hiryu of the four great carriers in the First Mobile Force was still able to conduct flight operations.

  Admiral Yamamoto stared impassively from the cockpit of the Nakajima as it approached the Hiryu. The Americans had taken a worse beating, with at least two of their three carriers sunk. The pilots had claimed to have sunk all three of them, but a submarine captain had spotted one, apparently the Enterprise, limping away from the battle. The Americans could rebuild their fleet. Japan’s capacity had been stretched too far already. Yamamoto was not likely to see the Kaga replaced. And even if steel could be obtained, the trained and capable pilots lost in this operation were a loss of incalculable value.

  The admiral reached up to rub his shaved head, forgetting for a moment he was wearing a flight helmet. This should have been strategic victory, he thought with annoyance. The plan was right. What went wrong?

  The objective of this operation was not to capture a specific piece of real estate, though he would have welcomed Midway being occupied by his own forces. Yamamoto needed to eliminate existing American naval power in the Pacific. If they lost badly enough in the early phases, they might bargain for terms. That’s why he’d split his forces, sending the Fifth Fleet north to the Aleutians as a distraction while the First Mobile Force and the Second Fleet invaded and captured Midway Island, and with luck, eliminated the remaining American fleet.

  But the Americans had shown up too soon, and with too many ships. The carriers had dueled, and these damaged flight decks were the result. The American fleet had been driven off, but the IJN ships were left without sufficient air cover available. As a consequence, the invasion of the island had been called off, the amphibious fleet recalled to Saipan. Yamamoto knew, rationally, that the cancellation of the landing might prove to be a blessing, since Midway was really too far beyond the Japanese defensive perimeter to be a useful base. Even so, the decision had the stench of defeatism, all the more galling because the previous month another landing—at Port Moresby, on New Guinea—had also been canceled following an inconclusive battle with the American aircraft carriers.

  Perhaps it was just bad luck. Shikata ga nai, he thought. It can’t be helped. Or was there another reason? A spy, perhaps. Probably a spy of some sort.

  “Admiral, we’ve been cleared to land,” the pilot shouted.

  No matter how many times he’d been flown onto a carrier, the sheer improbability of hitting the tiny, bobbing target caused him to rivet his attention forward. The torpedo bomber descended gradually, the pilot carefully following the movement of the carrier. When it seemed collision was unavoidable, the pilot pulled up slightly and gunned the engine as the tailhook caught a wire. Yamamoto was thrown forward in his harness as the plane’s velocity was arrested in a very short space.

  “Good landing, lieutenant commander,” Yamamoto said into the tube as the plane turned from the active landing area into its designated parking spot. Outside the cockpit, the line of senior officers and the formation of sailors were waiting for him.

  A warrant officer quickly scaled the steps onto the platform that had been wheeled up to the plane and unfastened the cockpit locks. Yamamoto’s rear section was opened first, and the warrant officer saluted his admiral before offering a hand to help him from the cockpit. Yamamoto stood on the platform and removed his flying helmet. The formation snapped to rigid attention, and from somewhere behind them military music began to play.

  A light drizzle began to fall, so no one had much enthusiasm for a prolonged ceremony. For his part, Yamamoto cut most of the speech he’d prepared. “It is a great blessing for our nation that such men as you have been able to lead our fine fighting men against the enemy. I salute you.” He bowed to show his respect.

  Nagumo, as senior officer, replied, “We would have been directionless and lost without the genius of your leadership and planning as our daily operation,” and bowed more deeply in return.

  Neither Yamamoto nor Nagumo were inconvenienced by the rain. A tarp covered the podium. It was big enough to cover all the admirals—four for First Mobile Force, who fought the carrier battle; six for Second Fleet, responsible for the transports and the invasion of Midway Island. Add Yamamoto himself; the commander of the Aleutians Fleet, Vice Admiral Moshiro Hosogaya; and Rear Admiral Kysaka Ryunosuke, chief of staff of the First Air Fleet; and barely half the captains were able to come out of the rain. Seniority mattered a lot.

  After the ceremony concluded, Yamamoto and the most senior admirals adjourned to Nagumo’s new quarters. Vice Admiral Nagumo had transferred his flag to the Hiryu, as it was now the only carrier capable of fighting, displacing Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, now on the Soryu and responsible for getting her and the Akagi safely into port.

  The admiral’s suite consisted of bedroom, private bath, sitting room, and private office. The sitting room could accommodate six men, enough for a small meeting. Eyes turned instantly toward Yamamoto.

  Yamamoto rubbed his shaved head with his three-fingered left hand, a souvenir of the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War. Everyone was cheering his brilliant achievements in naval strategy, first at Pearl Harbor and now at Midway. The thought gave him little pleasure. Midway was a transient success. “My congratulations to one and all,” he said, bowing again.

  Nagumo, normally gruff, conservative, and skeptical of air power, was elated by his successes. “With two American carriers sunk and the third damaged and possibly sunk, the enemy battleship fleet out of commission, and his loss of face and honor devastating, the United States will cease to be a military factor for three years or more to come!” he crowed.

  He seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as Yamamoto. The loss of the Kaga had shamed him, and he had been fretting over the repairs to the Akagi and Soryu, both of which had lost many men when the American dive-bombers had s
truck. In one respect, the old fool had been lucky: the flight groups from those stricken carriers had been attacking the American carriers when their own ships had been bombed. If the airplanes had been aboard the ships, possibly in the midst of fueling and arming, the damage could have been truly catastrophic.

  “You present an interesting theory,” said Yamamoto, using words that he intended to convey the meaning, You’ve got it completely wrong. Before the war, I predicted that I could run wild for six months, and after that have no expectation of success. This victory changes nothing permanent.

  But Nagumo acted as if he heard the words literally rather than as carrying their intended meaning. He, like so many others, dismissed Yamamoto’s concerns about the American sleeping giant awakening as spinsterish at best, paranoid at worst. Nagumo saw the Americans as representing only weakness, corruption, dishonor, and cowardice. Nagumo had never been to America, never seen it, never gotten to know the Americans.

  Yamamoto had. He knew.

  He also knew that this war was inevitable in one way, utterly unnecessary in another. And now that it was raging, its course was inevitable as well: a period of unstoppable Japanese advance, followed by a retrenchment against an awakened and aroused America. In the end, the United States’ manufacturing, economy, and sheer size must lead to a hideous defeat for the Empire of Japan.

  “Will you say again, Yamamoto-san, that with all this success, we are in more danger than we suppose?” Nagumo said.

  “Have I become that predictable? My humble apologies. I’m sure that with all your successes to date, you will continue to perform miracles no matter what the odds,” Yamamoto replied.

  Nagumo laughed. “You worry too much about the gaijin. Of course, that’s part of what makes you such a great admiral. Do you know what the other part is?”