“One thing that will give the new pilots flight time is antisubmarine patrolling,” Fuchida said. “The more enemy boats we can sink, the better off we are. You know that.”
“I know something about it,” Shindo said. Despite the sub he’d sunk, the Yankees hadn’t left Hawaiian waters. They kept on with their part of the war as if nothing had happened. Americans owned more stubbornness and more courage than Shindo or most Japanese had expected.
“All we can do about this is the best we can,” Fuchida said. “I constantly work with the destroyer skippers so they can do a better job of attacking the American boats. The problem is not easy. Ask the Americans themselves, or the British, if you don’t believe me. They have it in the Atlantic.”
“I have more urgent things to worry about-like why my so-called replacement pilots aren’t as good as they ought to be,” Shindo said. “And another one occurs to me, too: when the Americans try again, they’re going to throw more ships and planes at us than they did last time, neh?”
Commander Fuchida was silent for a moment. “I don’t know that for a fact,” he answered cautiously when he did speak.
Shindo gave him a scornful snort. “I don’t know it for a fact, either, but it’s the way to bet, eh?”
“Yes, probably,” Fuchida admitted.
“All right-we’re thinking the same way, then,” Shindo said. “When we came to Hawaii, we hit with everything we had. The Americans didn’t the last time, and it cost them. It was three carriers against three last time. We only have two in these waters now. If they bring more than three, two may not be enough. When do the reinforcements come, and how many will there be?”
Mitsuo Fuchida was silent quite a bit longer this time. “Well, that’s not such an easy question to answer, Shindo-san.”
With another snort, Shindo said, “I’m afraid you just did.”
“Things are… difficult.” Fuchida sounded defensive, not a good sign. “The Americans in Australia are bombing the southern coast of New Guinea as heavily as they can. And the British are kicking up their heels in the Indian Ocean. Admiral Nagumo’s raid a year ago didn’t clear them out of there. They bombed Rangoon and even Singapore not long ago.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Shindo said.
“We don’t go out of our way to advertise it,” Fuchida said. Shindo grunted. The other officer went on, “But what it boils down to is, our carrier forces are stretched thinner than we wish they were.”
“Wonderful,” Shindo said sardonically. “The Americans are building new carriers as fast as they can, aren’t they?” He didn’t wait for an answer, not that Fuchida tried to deny it. Instead, not trying to hide his anger, he plowed ahead: “Where the devil are our new carriers, Fuchida-san?”
“We’ve launched Taiho,” Fuchida told him. “She’s supposed to be a step up from Shokaku and Zuikaku. ”
A step up from Japan’s newest, strongest fleet carriers would make Taiho a formidable ship indeed. But launching a carrier and putting her into action were two different things, as Shindo knew only too well.
“When will we be able to get some use out of her?” he asked.
Unhappily, Fuchida answered, “Early next year, I hear.”
“Wonderful,” Shindo said again, with even more sarcasm than before. “All right, then. Let me ask a different question, sir. When do we get Zuikaku back? It’s been a long time since she limped off to the home islands to get fixed up.”
“Now there I really do have good news,” Fuchida said. “She is ready to return to duty now.”
“Well, fine-that is good news. Took them long enough, but it is,” Shindo agreed. “So we still have the same six fleet carriers that started the war, plus a few light carriers for small change. What can the Yankees throw at us?” He refused to count Taiho. She would be worth something-with luck, worth a lot-later on, but not yet.
“They have Hornet, if she’s been repaired by now. They have Ranger. They have Wasp. They also have some light carriers. And they have whatever new fleet carriers they’ve built. We are just about certain of two.”
Shindo brightened. “That’s better than I thought. They have two oceans to cover, too.”
“But the British help them in the Atlantic and cause us trouble in the Indian Ocean,” Fuchida said. “This is a world war, Shindo-san. And their advantage is that they can join hands. There’s too much space between us and Germany to make that easy on our side.”
“Hai,” Shindo said. The Germans had managed to get their fancy aircraft engine and the drawings that went with it to Japan by submarine. Such ventures were all too rare, though, while America and England might have been in bed with each other. Shindo sighed. “If only the Russians had gone down…”
“Yes. If,” Fuchida said heavily.
That seemed unlikely to happen now. For a while there, after the disaster at Stalingrad, it had looked as if Germany would go down instead. But the Germans were nothing if not resilient. They’d stabilized the front and even regained a lot of ground. That fight had a long way to go; it remained up in the air. Even so, the quick German victory on which Japan had pinned so many hopes was nothing but a pipe dream. And, while Germany and Russia remained locked in a death embrace, Russia and Japan were neutral. That created all kinds of ironies. Russian freighters from Vladivostok freely crossed the Pacific to the West Coast of the USA even though Japan and America battled to see who would dominate the ocean. Japan did nothing to interfere with those ships. When they got to Seattle or San Francisco or Los Angeles, they took on American planes and tanks and trucks and munitions the Russians would use against Germany, Japan’s ally. Then they sailed back across the Pacific, and Japan still did nothing to interfere. It was a strange business.
It was also one for which Shindo had no taste. He went back to the things over which he did have some control: “Fuchida-san, can you get me some extra fuel up here?”
“I don’t know,” Fuchida answered cautiously. “Why do you need it?”
“I want to take these puppies up and let them get some practice dogfighting me,” Shindo answered.
“Once they see I can shoot them down whenever I please, or near enough, they’ll start to realize they don’t know everything there is to know.”
“That would be good,” Fuchida said. “I can’t promise you anything-you know how tight the gasoline situation is. But I’ll try.”
“We can’t fight the Americans if we don’t have the gas to train our pilots,” Shindo said.
“Yes, I understand that,” Fuchida replied. “But we can’t fight them if we don’t have the gas to get our planes off the ground, either. The more we use beforehand, the less we’re liable to have when we need it most.”
“This is no way to fight a war,” Shindo said. Commander Fuchida didn’t contradict him. Fuchida said nothing to reassure him, either.
IN JIM PETERSON’S MILITARY EDUCATION, he’d never learned the difference between dry beriberi and wet. Somehow, the instructors at Annapolis hadn’t thought either kind important enough to put on the curriculum. That only went to show they hadn’t realized slowly starving to death might form part of a naval officer’s career.
Only goes to show what a bunch of ignorant bastards they were, Peterson thought as he lay in the miserable bamboo hut in the Kalihi Valley. It was raining. Of course it was raining. As far as Peterson could see, it always rained in the valley. The roof leaked. Since the Japs didn’t let the POWs use anything but leaves to cover it and didn’t give them much time even to put on more leaves, that wasn’t the world’s hottest headline, either.
Looking around, he had no trouble telling the wet beriberi cases from the dry. Men who had wet beriberi retained fluid. They swelled up in a grotesque and horrible parody of good health. Swollen or not, though, they were starving, too.