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  Once the fighters had been raised back to the deck and relaunched, Kanegasaki’s air men still had to wait for the ship to stop zigzagging across the ocean in evasive maneuvers – an impossible environment for moving and placing aircraft heavily loaded with torpedoes for takeoff.

  An officer on the bridge peering through binoculars alerted, “Tone and Chikuma laying down smoke!”

  A lookout above the Akagi bridge at the top of the tower shouted, “Sixteen bombers approaching! Twenty-two miles out!”

  All three long range binoculars in the bridge swung to the horizon.

  “Fifteen or sixteen bombers,” a bridge officer rattled off as he studied the group. “Appear to be torpedo bombers. No escort fighters in view. Approximately ten minutes to arrival.”

  The captain yelled into the speaker tube to the ship’s pilot below, “Swing to port!”

  Fuchida anxiously looked down on the deck of five Zeroes warming up. Just thirty minutes earlier there had been thirty-six fighters in the air. Now they had only eighteen, but among them were some of the most skilled fighter pilots in the Imperial Japanese Navy. And they were waiting for the Americans.

  The agile Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters were nearly three times as fast as their lumbering prey that approached in a wide, V formation. The Zeroes gathered from above and concentrated on the slow, low flying TBD Devastator torpedo bombers, then fell from all directions, opening their machine guns and cannons with cruel precision. Exploding into flames, two and three at a time, the American bombers twisted and collapsed into ocean, streaking black smoke into the blue sea. Disregarding the relentless defensive machine gun fire from the rear gunners in the Devastators, the Zeroes were undeterred and tore into the formation again and again until only three of the original sixteen were left heading toward the carrier Soryu.

  The last of the five fighters on the deck of the Akagi soared into the air among cheers of the air crew.

  Genda and Fuchida strained to follow the fate of the last three torpedo bombers who seemed to have made it through. Again, the combat air patrol fired down on the planes, blasting two more into oblivion. One lone plane droned on toward the Soryu, his rear gunner already shot dead. His torpedo splashed into the sea and headed toward the port bow of the Soryu as the pilot pitched his aircraft hard to the left, only to be met by the five newly launched Zeroes from the Akagi. They quickly shredded his aircraft into a flaming wreck, where he joined his comrades in the sea below.

  From the bridge, Fuchida could see that the Soryu had made its move and barely avoided the torpedo. He breathed out a deep sigh. They had survived yet another attack – unscathed.

  9:38 a.m.

  Fuchida reached inside his shirt with his left hand and gently felt his sweaty wound on his lower right abdomen. His pumping adrenaline had made him forget the throbbing pain of his operation, but now he began to feel faint and a bit dizzy.

  Over the intercom, word came from the tower lookout, “Enemy aircraft approaching from the south. Appear to be two groups, roughly thirty miles out. Close to the horizon. No fighter escorts in sight.”

  Looking out the left side of the bridge to the south, Fuchida couldn’t see them yet, but he was sure they were coming. The fleet now had more fighters in the air, but they were grouped to the northeast side of the fleet from their previous encounter, far to the northeast.

  As the two squadrons of American aircraft approached the outside of the fleet, they were greeted with antiaircraft fire from the screening destroyers and cruisers but successfully continued toward the southernmost carrier, the Kaga, just a few miles west of the Akagi.

  Fuchida looked up into the sky. No sign of his fighters. They were still too far away. Stepping to one of the mounted binoculars, he watched as the groups of approaching bombers split apart wider. Finally, the Combat Air Patrol arrived and began attacking one of the groups.

  Once again, the fighters fell from above with guns blazing, easily downing the unprotected bombers one after another, but two of the bombers were able to drop their torpedoes toward the Kaga which turned in the same direction the torpedoes were traveling – and escaped them.

  Six rearmed Zeroes began roaring off the deck of the Akagi into the battle as the second group of American bombers made their final approach to attack the Kaga from the opposite side. But by then the Japanese fighters were amassing on the determined bombers and riddled the band of aircraft with machine gun and cannon fire. Four bombers dropped in flames to the sea but three others released their torpedoes toward the carrier, which, again, maneuvered hard to starboard, evading every deadly fish.

  On the bridge of the Akagi, Vice Admiral Nagumo pulled off his officer’s cap, wiped his perspiring face with a handkerchief, replaced his cap, and exhaled with a sense of subdued pride.

  Fuchida leaned over bracing his hands on his knees, blinked, and shook his head. It had been an unbelievably brutal three hours of nearly non-stop attacks by over eighty enemy aircraft. During the course of the morning, at Midway and among the fleet, the Japanese had downed sixty-one American planes at a loss of only fifteen of their own. Not a single ship had been touched. They had run the gauntlet and the Americans had failed.

  Fuchida, stood up and winced, walked to the window, and looked down with a smile at the sailors on the deck below, who were shouting with cheers of joy, waving their white caps in euphoria. He knew that in less than an hour, they’d be sending off their own devastating strike against the Americans.

  Chapter 58

  10:00 a.m. The battleship Yamato.

  A courier saluted Admiral Yamamoto in the bridge of his fleet flagship.

  “Sir, message from Vice Admiral Nagumo.” The courier snapped a sheet of paper between his white-gloved hands. “Carried out attack of Midway at 0630. Many shore-based planes attacked us subsequent to 0715. We have suffered no damages.”

  Yamamoto looked at Captain Kuroshima with a confident sparkle in his eye.

  “After destroying enemy forces spotted at 0728, composed of one carrier, seven cruisers and five destroyers, we will resume our attack on Midway Island.”

  “You’re excused,” Yamamoto said to the courier. He turned his eyes toward the window and patted his hand on the sill, and smiled.

  10:10 a.m. The carrier Akagi.

  Fuchida ventured back down to the flight deck of the Akagi where he proudly watched another torpedo-equipped Nakajima B5N2 rise up the rear elevator. At the same time, a fighter took to the air off the front of the bow under patchy clouds to join the fatigued Combat Air Patrol covering the fleet.

  Fuchida whispered under his breath, “Now it’s our turn.”

  In the bridge, Genda was alerted by the intercom.

  “Combat Air Patrol reports twelve-plane torpedo squadron from the southeast. Accompanied by six fighter escorts.”

  “There must be another carrier in the area!” Genda uttered.

  “Approximately fourteen miles out. Seven minutes from fleet contact.”

  Fuchida heard the message as well. Taking the binoculars from another officer, he looked east. Sure enough, another squadron was approaching, and just as surely, the Japanese fighters descended once again, dozens of them with machine guns blazing, decimating the slow bombers as before. Within seconds, over half of the bombers were shot into flames and fell from the sky, but not without a fight – four Zeroes succumbed to the rear facing guns of the American Devastators and, likewise, fell in burning wrecks, trailing black smoke down to the ocean in a series of white splashes.

  Five of the original twelve bombers struggled through and released their torpedoes into the sea, straight for the carrier Hiryu, as fighters again ripped into the planes, sending three more down in flames. The carrier heaved hard to port then reversed back to starboard, evading every incoming torpedo.

  On the deck beside Fuchida, men once again cheered with relief. Although he reveled in their skilled victory, he felt a twinge of sympathy and a sense of respect for the brave Americans who attacked relentlessly and
fell to their deaths into the sea. They were opponents worthy of his respect.

  In the bridge, Genda looked out to his left as an officer announced over the intercom, “Enemy dive bombers approaching from the north. Two large groups approaching from the south.”

  Genda could see the northern group high above the Kaga, dropping into a steep angle, one after the other – and this time with no interference from Japanese fighters who were nowhere to be seen. He held his breath, hoping they were just as unskilled as all the previous attackers. Three explosions in succession shot up columns of water around the Kaga, but the fourth explosion ripped through the rear deck, hurling out debris and flames. Two more columns of water blasted toward the sky and then the bridge tower of the Kaga exploded into a thousand fragments as a massive fireball rolled up into the sky.

  “Dammit!” Genda yelled.

  Down on the deck, Fuchida likewise cursed under his breath. Suddenly, lookouts pointed above and screamed out, “Hell divers!”

  Fuchida looked up. Antiaircraft guns began pounding away, filling the sky with scattered puffs of black as three planes bore down on the Akagi. He’d never been on the receiving end of a bombing before and now had a strange, helpless feeling as he stared at the dive bombers coming straight at his own ship, almost in slow motion, their bombs magically detaching and drifting downward, directly at him.

  He dove for the deck beside the winch, clasping his hands behind his head. The first bomb hit the water with a concussive blast that shook the ship, exploding a tower of water 100 feet into the air, dousing him and the deck with a shower of sooty-black sea water.

  He looked up again, fixing his sight on the next falling bomb. This one looked to be a perfect hit. With a blinding flash, another horrific shock wave tore through the center of the deck, blasting smoke and splintering the wooden deck into the sky while flinging planes off the deck into the sea. Then a third bomb exploded in the water to the rear, sending a shudder through the huge ship from stern to bow and sending up another towering geyser of water.

  Then, just as suddenly, they were gone, leaving behind the rumbling flames in the hangar below, the distant drone of fleeing aircraft, and the idling bombers on the deck. Fuchida got to his feet and ran to see the damage. Planes sat upended, their tails to the sky. He looked down into the open center elevator, now fallen to the bottom and bent like molten glass as clouds of black smoke poured out and were blown by the wind. One hit, he thought, they could survive.

  Under dangling twisted steel in the hangar below, Kanegasaki and his crew furiously wrestled hoses from racks and began spraying foam through the billowing smoke onto a wrecked bomber engulfed in flames. As he fought one fire, he saw thousands of gallons of aviation fuel cascading across the hangar deck, advancing the flames beneath another fully loaded aircraft. Soon, a dozen men were spraying foam. Kanegasaki craned his neck upward. Fuel pipes leading to the flight deck were fractured, dribbling more gasoline down the side of the hangar.

  On the flight deck, an overturned plane flashed into flames as it threw off more clouds of heavy smoke, its blazing fuel trickling across the wooden deck before dripping to the hangar below. Fuchida followed sailors carrying the wounded into the briefing room where they were laid on tables.

  “Why aren’t these men being taken down to sick bay?” Fuchida yelled.

  “Sir,” a sailor said, “the ship’s on fire below. No one can get past.”

  Bolting from the briefing room, Fuchida scrambled down a smoky ladder toward his personal quarters to fetch his notes and other items, but the dense smoke drove him back. A terrific explosion rocked the passageway, throwing him against the wall. Fuchida yanked his shirt over his nose and mouth and stumbled back to the ladder. Half-way up he was stopped by a thought that shot through his mind: There were thirty-three others in sick bay with him that morning. If he had followed the doctor’s orders, he would have been among them now – trapped.

  Struggling up to the blazing deck, he raised his arm to shield his face from the vicious heat. He flinched as another concussion from the hangar ripped through the deck, hurling a plane onto its back and shooting flaming debris high into the air.

  Wondering about the fate of the other ships, he gazed out and froze. Massive plumes of thick smoke poured from the Kaga. He turned to look in the opposite direction. His heart fell. There was the carrier Soryu, likewise a burning wreck.

  He stood in disbelief. In merely five minutes, their mighty carriers were reduced to self-destructive burning hulls. Shocked and bewildered, Fuchida strained to get back up to the bridge. More explosions rocked the vessel. Arriving, he could see there were no words for anyone to say. Vice Admiral Nagumo looked forward, immovable.

  Genda and Fuchida caught eye to eye. Genda’s slightly parted lips revealed his clenched teeth as he muttered under his breath to Fuchida, “We should have known better!”18

  Nagumo continued gazing straight ahead as flames swept across the deck, black clouds momentarily blocking the view from the bridge every few seconds. The Akagi had become a volcano of death, consuming itself into the sea.

  Rear Admiral Kusaka urged gently, “Admiral.” The bridge trembled from another explosion from deep within the ship. “I believe we must transfer your flag to the cruiser Nagara.”

  Nagumo remained calm. “We are all right,” he said.

  Fuchida could see the pain in the Admiral’s face. He didn’t want to abandon his men at their worst moment. He wanted to believe there was some way to salvage his ship, which was hopelessly blowing to pieces before their eyes. The officers in the bridge and all aboard the Akagi were now being held hostage by the pride of an admiral who could not bring himself to give the fateful command to abandon ship.

  Huddled behind a beam in the hangar with three others, Kanegasaki shielded his face from the blistering heat and wicked flames devouring the aircraft, the steel structure moaning and popping in the conflagration. “Back! We need to move further back!” But there was no place left for them to go.

  Two more bombs burst out the side of the ship with a thunderous blast, igniting a fuel storage tank and sending a colossal orange-black fireball churning into the sky.

  On the bridge, Captain Aoki bowed toward Nagumo. “Admiral, you and your staff can do nothing more here. As the ship’s captain, I will take care of this ship with all its responsibility. Please – transfer your flag immediately.”

  Nagumo only stared. “It’s not time yet,” he said softly.

  Fuchida looked down at the deck to his right. Crackling flames fully engulfed a fighter plane and began sweeping up the side of the tower.

  Rear Admiral Kusaka spoke firmly, “Admiral! The ship is ablaze and dead in the water. The radios are out. You cannot direct the battle from here. The carrier Hiryu is still intact. You owe it to our remaining men to carry out your duties there. Please!”

  Tears began pooling around the edges of Nagumo’s eyes. He tightened his mouth. With labored breathing, he reluctantly lowered his head and nodded.

  The stairs were now blocked by fuel-fed flames. Fuchida peered out the port window to the water eighty feet below – a near fatal distance to jump. Impossible.

  Genda grabbed a metal stool, smashed out a front window, and threw a rope down to an antiaircraft gun platform fourteen feet below. One at a time, each officer clambered through the opening and shimmied down the rope as flames randomly licked at their heels near the bottom.

  The last man out, Fuchida grasped the sooty rope, and swung outside the bridge into the smoke, wincing from his wound. As he began his descent, another bomb on deck exploded with a thunderous blast, breaking his grip and dropping him past the platform to the flight deck twenty feet down. Sprawled on the fiery deck, he was wracked with pain, but still conscious. Fighting to get back on his feet, splitting pain shot up through his legs and he collapsed to his chest. He knew both his ankles were broken.

  Another two blasts shook the deck as swirling clouds of acrid gasoline smoke shrouded him, stinging his
eyes and searing his lungs. With trembling arms he strained himself into a crawl. Great drops of sweat washed black soot from his face and dripped onto the wooden deck. His uniform smoldered from the flaming fuel beside him as it crept ever closer. He had imagined a more glorious end to his life, but felt the ropes of death tighten around him pulling him down to his fate. His sight dimmed as he crumpled to the deck and breathed out, “If this is the way I am to die ... then I’m ready.” Blistering waves of smoke engulfed him.

  Emerging from the billowing blackness, apparitions in white appeared through the veil of smoke – two sailors who had braved the inferno reached out and clutched Fuchida’s arms, dragged him from the flames, laid him on a bamboo stretcher, and whisked him to the bow. Only half-conscious, from there he was lowered in a net sling and placed into a large row boat with the other officers from the bridge.

  Fuchida laid his blackened head against a life preserver as six sailors silently rowed the crowded launch to a nearby cruiser while he regained his senses. He listened to the lap of the oars in the water and watched his beloved Akagi continue to rumble and cough in the throes of death. His hopes for this battle were gone, his dream of defeating the Americans, crushed. Blinking slowly, he gazed wistfully at the once majestic carrier, his eyes following the smoke of incense as it drifted up to the defeated gods of Japan.

  Chapter 59

  June, 1942. The island of Panay, the Philippines.

  Jimmy took in the lush greenery of the jungle camp of Hopevale as the melodies of songbirds unknown blended with the hum of cicadas. Columns of forest sunlight fell through the canopy on a cascade of pink and white orchids hugging the crevassed wall, their sweet scent flowing through the tropical air. It was absolutely gorgeous to him. Astounding in beauty and full of life. Everything seemed a perfect work of the Creator.