Return of Sky Ghost Read online

  Or at least that’s what was supposed to happen.

  The plane was now fifteen miles out from Hickam. The navigation section was bringing up a TV image of the air base; they would be putting down on Runway 5-Left a six-mile-long asphalt strip built to handle the Air Corps’s largest bombers like the B-17/52. The radio section had made contact with the base; the skies were clear; there was no air traffic in the area. The B-17/52 was cleared to come straight in, which was good. Just to turn the huge bomber in a ninety-degree bank could take more than fifteen minutes and an avalanche of new navigation plots. For an airplane as massive as the B-17/52, a straight-ahead landing was definitely preferred.

  At ten miles out, two more engines were shut down; now the aircraft was flying on eight, the minimum required for safe landing. The nonessential crewmembers—the gunners, the oilers, the radio engineers—were strapped in, preparing for touchdown. At the moment, the major concern of the plane’s four pilots was one of postflight maintenance. As it was Sunday morning, they wondered if a large enough ground crew would be on hand to service the big plane once it was down.

  They were five minutes out when the lead pilot called Hickam for final landing clearance, a mere formality. But instead of granting the OK the tower personnel sent a rather odd message: “Hang on …” the shaky voice told them. “And prepare to go around.”

  Now this was a problem because the huge bomber was already descending, losing altitude from its cruising height of 65,000 feet. It was so big, that to be waved off now would be a major operation. The plane would have to restart its eight dormant engines, halt its descent, and claw for some altitude. A new flight plot would have to be calculated and a long, slow turn initiated.

  Why then wouldn’t Hickam air control give them the OK?

  Just on a whim, the lead pilot punched the “Situation Inquiry” button on his Main/AC computer. Why, he was asking the battle management machine, couldn’t they land at Hickam?

  The answer that came back was as puzzling as it was startling.

  It read: “Impending Enemy Action.”

  A moment later the pilot’s situation awareness display began blinking. The air defense computer was suddenly going berserk. The TV screen popped on and instantly the bomber’s pilots were staring mouths agape at a huge airborne force heading for the same field they were—but from the opposite direction!

  There were at least fifty airplanes in all, flying in ten chevrons of five each. These airplanes were enormous, bigger than the B-17/52 itself. They were about to make landfall over Keahi Point. They were heading northeast, toward Hickam Field and the huge Navy base nearby. The place called Pearl Harbor.

  The American bomber’s pilots began evasive action as directed by the Main/AC. At the same moment, Hickam Field air control told the B-17/52 to abort its landing, do a slow turn, and go into a holding pattern at 35,000 feet.

  The pilots complied, hastily restarting the eight turned-off engines and yanking back on the control column to get some height. The second pilot called back to the crew compartment and ordered the gunners back to their stations immediately. The gunnery officer unsealed the recently stowed ammunition feeds. Confused and more than a little anxious, the plane’s gunners dashed to their triple-.50s.

  Meanwhile the bomber climbed to the prescribed altitude of 35,000 feet and went into a long, looping circuit high above Hickam field.

  From this height, they were about to witness a devastating action that would go down in history.

  The approaching bomber force split in two just after making landfall.

  Half the number turned slightly east, their noses pointed toward Hickam Field. The remainder continued northeast, toward Pearl Harbor.

  There were thirty-four U.S. Navy ships at anchor in Pearl this Sunday morning. Eight destroyers, five frigates, four battle cruisers, plus numerous patrol vessels and rocket boats. Biggest of all though were the five megacarriers. They were the USS Detroit, USS Boston, USS Cleveland, USS Las Vegas, and USS Chicago.

  Each carrier was nearly a mile long and half a mile wide. Their immense decks contained twelve separate launching and landing zones each, complete with twenty steam catapults, rocket-assist rails, and massive arrays of arresting cables. The ship’s company for each megacarrier topped 25,000 men, not counting the pilots and air crews for the aircraft on board. Each ship weighed more than 200,000 tons. Their displacement was nearly sixty-five feet.

  The Cleveland was the only megacarrier permanently assigned to Pearl Harbor. The other four had transitioned from the Atlantic six weeks before, after the European War had ended. Their crews were in need of hard-earned rest; the ships themselves in need of major refurbishment. Pearl Harbor—with its proximity to some of the world’s most beautiful beaches and its vast ship repair yards—offered both.

  Each megacarrier had its full complement of aircraft on board this dreadful morning. More than 250 Navy bombers—fourteen-engined B-332 Privateers mostly—were aboard each ship, along with five complete air wings of Navy fighters, a mix of F-J14Y Sea Furys and F-9F-265 SuperPanthers.

  Many of these airplanes were up on the decks of the carriers; but like the ships themselves, they were in the midst of major reconditioning. None of them were ready for action.

  There would be no air raid sirens. No alert Klaxons, no warning at all about what was to fall on Pearl Harbor. The attacking bomber force came out of the west, thirty airplanes now aligned into two long lines of fifteen each. They swept over the anchored giants, one massive bomb under each wing. These bombs, it would be later determined, were a variation of the DG-42, a German-produced super-blockbusting weapon containing nearly 200 tons of high explosive. Three such weapons had obliterated Paris about a year before, beginning the last brutal phase of the European War. Though the Germans eventually lost the war, the designs for their huge bomb, as well as some bombs themselves, had been floating on the black market for months. Now they were hanging from the wings of the attacking airplanes.

  The first two planes peeled off and came in low and slow. Their target was the Las Vegas, docked in the first repair slip of the Pearl Harbor facility. The lead airplane let loose its pair of bombs and with a great scream of jet engines, turned wide and began climbing again. Both bombs hit the Vegas midships—but neither one exploded. They passed right through the carrier’s hull, traveled the width of the ship, and exited the other side. More than 100 men were killed by the pair of tumbling bombs, but their warheads did not explode.

  The second bomber came in and did a bombing run that duplicated the first. Two massive bombs fell from its wings as the bomber turned left and began to climb. The first bomb hit the water 100 feet from the side of the Vegas and sank. The second bomb went right through the deck however and detonated.

  The explosion was so bright dozens of people within a mile of the blast were blinded permanently. It was so loud, it deafened hundreds more. The great ship was literally picked up out of the water and slammed back down again, creating a massive blow-back wave. A gigantic plume of fire, in the characteristic shape of a flower, rose high above the ship, petals of flame spilling out for miles around. Once this firestorm dissipated, there was nothing left. The ship had been utterly blown apart, along with all the dock works and the repair facility. All that was left was a massive crater, half of it now filling with tons of seawater.

  In a flash, 28,761 people had been killed and three times as many wounded.

  Just like that, the USS Las Vegas simply ceased to exist.

  Meanwhile two more bombers were heading for the Cleveland. As with the previous attack, the first two bombs from the lead airplane were massive duds. One went through the deck of the megacarrier, the other simply bounced off. The second plane’s weapons did not malfunction however. Both went through the Cleveland’s hull, traveled deep inside, and detonated.

  The explosion two seconds later was twice as massive as the one that had destroyed the Vegas, twice as bright, twice as loud. The Cleveland was blown apart so completely,
no piece of wreckage was more than a foot long. The ship did not sink per se, simply because there was not enough wreckage to constitute a sinking. Pieces of the Cleveland would later be found as far away as Molokai, some forty-five miles to the southeast. More than 25,000 sailors and airmen were blown apart with her.

  The Boston and the Detroit shared similar fates. Both were hit by two massive DG-42 bombs each; both were blown to kingdom come along with their crews. Only the USS Chicago was spared. It was hit by no less than six DG-42s—all of which failed to explode. The bombs themselves caused severe damage plowing into the ship, killing more than 1000 people, wounding many more, and starting dozens of huge fires. But the Chicago did not sink, and its airplanes were not destroyed.

  Even in this dark hour, it was apparent it had lived to fight again.

  The second group of DG-42-carrying bombers attacked Hickam Field and the city of Honolulu beyond.

  Eight DG-42s fell on Hickam—four exploded, but this was enough to obliterate the place and the surrounding countryside for ten miles around.

  Eight more DG-42s were dropped on Honolulu itself—five detonated, vaporizing just about everything within a twelve-mile radius and killing nearly half a million people in the process.

  With the bombs dropped and their sneak attack complete, the enemy bombers linked up again and headed northwest, leaving behind death and destruction on an unprecedented scale. High above, the B-17/52 continued circling, its crew members in a collective state of shock at what they’d just seen. The pilots were too stunned to even make a Mayday radio call. They simply did not believe what their eyes were telling them.

  The American bomber would later be forced to crash-land on a sandbar near Ewa Beach; it was a tribute to the pilots that only a handful of their crew were killed in emergency touchdown. When the survivors finally made it to where Hickam Field should have been, they found nothing but four massive craters, each one nearly a mile across and a quarter mile deep.

  Later on, it would be determined that in all, the twin attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field/Honolulu had lasted less than ninety seconds.

  All of the attacking bombers returned safely to the surfaced aircraft-carrying submarines which had remained in a holding pattern some 250 miles northwest of Oahu.

  The bombers split into groups of ten each and with great precision began landing back on the monstrous subs. The pilots, aided by a bevy of automatic navigation and control systems, flew their huge bombers into the gaping mouths of the subs, recovering on massive arresting wires located inside.

  Once each ship had recovered its squadron, the huge front doors began belching steam again and then started to close. It took about five minutes for the ships to seal up. Then, along with their coterie of seven submersible cruisers, they began to dive. Inside, their commanders were radioing back to their supreme headquarters in Tokyo. The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor had been a huge success. Four of the five megacarriers had been destroyed, along with the airfield at Hickam and the city of Honolulu itself.

  Best of all, surprise had been preserved for a second phase of the overall operation because the attack had gone off completely undetected. No one had seen the ships surface, launch their aircraft, or recover them, the ship commanders reported. No one left alive anyway.

  But this was not entirely true.

  For two miles away from where the huge Japanese ships were now slowly sinking into the waves, there was a small island called Buku-Buku. On this island, hidden in the thick underbrush, were the sixteen survivors of the USS Neponset, the TPB cut in half by one of the Japanese cruisers.

  The American crew had reached the small island by sheer determination alone. Many were injured, two severely. These men had been carried to safety by Lt. Noonan, who lashed them together with pieces of rope and wire and then swam slowly and surely to the island, towing the two wounded men behind him.

  It would be seven days before the crew was rescued from Buku-Buku.

  But when they were, they would tell their superiors just how the Japanese had been able to carry out their vicious attack and then disappear, as if into thin air.

  Two

  The Panama Canal

  Pacific Side

  REAR ADMIRAL ERIC WOLF was relaxing.

  It was the first time in a while—at least a few years—that he had actually kicked off his shoes, removed his thick sunglasses, leaned back in his chair, and done nothing.

  The feeling was quite alien to him. He was a very stoic man, a highly professional naval officer and consummate loner. Things like kicking back and taking a nap in the middle of the day hardly came naturally to him.

  But here he was, sitting in a chair on the veranda of a ten-story building, looking out on the vast expanse of the Panama Canal and the lush green jungle beyond. The air was thick and sweet, a breeze off the Pacific just two miles away made the scorching temperature bearable. Wolf fought to keep his eyes closed and let his mind wander. After all, he was supposed to be taking it easy.

  There were some who said that Wolf was one of a handful of individuals who’d won the European War for the United States. He did not agree with them. There was only one person who could rightfully make that claim—and it was not him.

  However, he had been instrumental in overseeing the American Forces’ defense in the Atlantic during the bleak fall and winter months of 1997, back when it seemed certain that Germany was about to invade the United States and finally win the fifty-eight-year-old conflict known as World War II. Both in his command of a sub-hunting destroyer and later as overall commander of the Atlantic Wartime Command day-to-day operations, it had been Wolf’s meager forces that had held the German Navy at bay until the war could be won, far away in Europe.

  When the war was finally over and all the celebrations had died down, Wolf’s superiors ordered him to take two months R and R. He refused. Admiring his pluck, his superiors did the next best thing. They assigned him to the combined Army-Navy station at Fort Davis, astride the Gatun Locks. This was a very lazy base where many veterans of the hardest-fought battles had been sent after the war. Little was expected of the men here. Routine drills, occasional musters. But that was about it.

  In Wolf’s section there were three companies of Sea Marines and Naval Infantry. In his first month here, he’d come to know just about all of them by name. Like him, most were lifers in the Navy. Just about every one of them was a hero of some sort too, or had endured wounds above and beyond the call of duty. Wolf had become close to many of them, because he’d been there himself. He knew how tough it had been in those very lean months. Now they were all getting their sunny reward.

  Still, it was just not like Wolf to sit around all day, soaking up the sun and letting his mind and soul drift away. But he’d been dozing for almost a half hour now and even he had to admit it felt damn good. So good, he’d even loosened his tie and undone his shirt collar—minor violations of the uniform dress code that Wolf had never ever broken before.

  But there was a first time for everything.

  Sweet cooking smells drifted up from below. It was Sunday afternoon, and the base cooks usually laid out a massive meal at 1700 hours. This aroma was proof that the meal was not far away. Wolf was sleepily looking forward to the feast. After that, the base saloon would open. Tonight, Wolf told himself, waving a fly off his nose, he might even have a drink. Or two.

  Things were that peaceful….

  It was strange then when it happened. Wolf thought he’d fallen asleep—a first on duty!—and that the noise that so suddenly pierced his ears was actually part of a dream he was having about riding a surfboard to the Moon.

  It was a high-pitched squeal, both mechanical and unearthly. It seemed to go in Wolf’s right ear and come out his left, at least that’s what it felt like in his dream. But then the noise seemed to get caught in the back part of his skull, and there its high-pitched whine turned into a full-throated scream.

  He opened his eyes a split second later. What he saw looked to be
still part of his dream—a dream that had quickly turned into a nightmare.

  The scream was coming from sixteen jet engines. They were attached to a huge jet that was directly overhead but coming down fast. It looked very odd at first, especially to Wolf’s sleepy eyes, because the plane was coming straight down, very fast, its engines howling as they worked with gravity to hasten this dive.

  A million thoughts ran through Wolf’s head in those few seconds. This airplane was not of any kind he’d ever seen. It was painted green and was larger even than a Navy B-201, the largest airplane in the U.S. inventory.

  It was coming down so steeply, Wolf knew its pilots would never be able to pull up in time. This meant it was going to crash, and in just a few seconds.

  Wolf felt the panic instantly rise up inside him. It was just a question now of where the huge airplane was going to crash. Would it hit the building he was in? Or the nearby barracks where he knew 300 of his men were lounging, eating a late lunch, or attending afternoon Sunday services?

  Or would it hit the canal locks themselves?

  The canal stretched nearly five miles wide at this point and the Gatun Locks Station which held it in place was a massive structure of concrete and steel. Bombproof, Wolf had once heard someone claim. In the next split second, he wondered if that claim was about to be put to the test.

  For instinctively he knew two things even as the screaming jet spiraled madly toward the ground. This plane was not crashing—at least not by accident. He could tell that it was under some kind of control, because it was moving slightly to the west and away from him now. He also knew it was heading not for his building or the barracks, thank God, but for the locks themselves.

  It hit five seconds later, slamming into the main control station and blowing up immediately on impact. The force of the explosion threw Wolf back through the plate glass window of the veranda, across his living quarters, and against the outer door. Through some miracle he survived all this with nothing more than a broken finger, a dislocated nose, and two busted front teeth.