"And what are we going to do when he gets back here?"

"We'll arrange for him to find you in a black negligee in his bed," Pickering said. "As a Marine officer, he would be duty-bound to do his duty. You can play the ball from there."

"If I thought that would work," she said, "I'd do it."

"I think, Ernie," Pick Pickering said seriously, "that all it would take would be for him to find you sitting there, just like you are now."

She looked at him and smiled. Then she got up and walked to him and kissed him on the cheek.

"And I was really afraid that you'd be a shit about this," she said.

"My God! Me? Pick Pickering? Cupid's right-hand man?"

She chuckled and looked at her watch.

"I was so sure of it, that I reserved a compartment on the three-fifteen to New York. I've still got time to make it."

"Maybe," Pickering said, "you should get some practice riding coach."

She looked at him curiously for a moment until she took his meaning.

"If that's what it takes, that's what I'll do," she said. "But the next time. Not today."

He smiled at her and walked with her to the door, where she kissed him impulsively again.

He had just rearranged himself in the chair with his feet on the pillow and The Miracle of Flight propped up on his belly when there was another knock on his door.

"Jesus H. Christ!" he fumed as he went to answer it.

It was Ernie Sage, and he could tell from the look in her eyes that something was terribly wrong.

"A radio," Ernie said. "Have you got a radio?"

"There's one in here," he said. She pushed past him into the sitting room.

She had the radio on by the time he got there.

"Repeating the bulletin," the voice of the radio announcer said, "the White House has just announced that the Navy Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, has been attacked by Japanese aircraft and that there has been substantial loss of life and material."

"Jesus Christ!" Pickering said.

"If he's dead," Ernestine Sage said melodramatically, "I'll kill myself."

"You don't mean that," Pickering said.

"Oh, my God, Pick! Your mother and father are there!"

He hadn't thought of that.

Somehow, he wound up holding her in his arms.

"Everything is going to be all right, Ernie."

"Bullshit!" she said against his chest.

And then it occurred to him that he was a Marine officer and that what he should be doing now was getting into uniform and reporting for duty.

(Two)

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

7 December 1941

The Japanese task force, which had sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, began to launch aircraft at 0600 hours. The task force was then approximately 305 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor. In relation to the task force, Pearl Harbor was on the far side of Oahu Island, the second largest island of the Hawaiian Chain.

Japanese Intelligence was aware that the attack could not be entirely as successful as was initially hoped. In the best possible scenario, essentially all of the United States Pacific Fleet would be in Pearl Harbor. The worst possible scenario was that essentially all of the Pacific Fleet would be at sea. The reality turned out to be between these extremes. All the battleships of the Pacific Fleet were in Pearl Harbor, as well as a number of other ships.

But the seven heavy cruisers and the two aircraft carriers the Japanese had also hoped to find at anchor were at sea. The Japanese knew the composition of the at-sea forces, but not their location.

Task Force 8-an aircraft carrier, three cruisers, and nine destroyers and destroyer minesweepers-was approximately 200 nautical miles from Pearl. Task Force 3-one cruiser and five destroyers and destroyer minesweepers-was 40 nautical miles off Johnson Island, about 750 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor. Task force 12-one carrier, three cruisers, and five destroyers-was about as far from Pearl Harbor as Task Force 3, operating approximately 400 nautical miles north of Task Force 3.

The decision was made to attack anyway. There was always the chance of detection; the destruction of harbor facilities and airfields was of high priority, and the destruction of one or more battleships would severely limit the capability of the American fleet.

The code command for the attack was "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208."

Approximately 125 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor, the stream of aircraft from the Japanese task force split into two streams. Fifty miles from Oahu, what was now the left stream began to split again, this time into three streams. The first two turned right and made for Pearl Harbor across the island. The third stream continued on course until it was past the tip of Oahu, and then turned toward the center of the island and made an approach to Pearl Harbor from the sea.

Meanwhile, the right stream had broken into two, with one crossing the coastline and making for Pearl Harbor across the island, and the second continuing on course past the island, then turning back to attack Pearl Harbor from the open sea.

The first wave of Japanese bombers struck at 0755 hours and the second at 0900. By then the task force had changed course and was making for the Japanese Inland Sea, hoping to avoid any encounter with carrier-based aircraft from Task Forces 12 and 8 or with land-based aircraft on Oahu. Intelligence reported that at least one squadron of long-range, four-engine B-17 bomber aircraft was en route from the continental United States. Despite the risk of detection by radio direction finders, shortly after 1030 hours, a priority message from the Japanese task force was radioed to headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy in Tokyo: "Tora (Tiger), Tora, Tora." It was the prearranged code for the successful completion of the attack.

(Three)

Although he tried to be very nonchalant about the whole thing, Second Lieutenant K.J. McCoy made his first aerial trip from Anacostia to the West Coast. All in all, once he got used to it, he found it very enjoyable. The airplane was a Navy transport, but so far as he could tell, identical to the Douglas DC-3s used by civilian airlines. The Navy called it an R4-D, yet it even had white napkins on the seats to keep your hair tonic from soiling the upholstery.

It was considerably more plush than the aircraft that carried him from California to Hawaii. As Major Almond had warned, there were a lot of people in California with an AAA priority waiting for air transportation to Hawaii. He could wait, the sergeant told him, until there was a space, but he should understand that when two people had an AAA priority, the one who was senior in rank got the seat. As a second lieutenant, he was liable to wait a long time.

There was another way to get to Hawaii. The Army Air Corps was flying a squadron of B-17 bombers to Hickam Field. They had excess weight capacity because they would not carry bombs, and they were carrying passengers.

"Well, if that's the only way to get there, Sergeant," McCoy said, with feigned reluctance, "I suppose that'll have to be it."

The truth of the matter was that he was a little excited about the idea of flying on a bomber. And the flight started off on an ego-pleasing note, too. When he got to the airbase and presented his orders, a thoroughly pissed-off Air Corps major had to get out of the airplane so that Second Lieutenant McCoy of the Marines with his briefcase and AAA priority could get on.

They were supposed to land at Hickam Field about noon. An hour before that, the radio operator established contact with Hawaii. Moments later the pilot came back in the fuselage and told the crew and the four supercargo passengers (two Air Corps lieutenant colonels, an Army master sergeant, and McCoy) what had happened in Hawaii.

It was all over when the B-17 appeared over Oahu, but some dumb sonsofbitches didn't get the word and shot at the B-17, not just once but twice, the second time as they made their approach to Hickam Field.