The Twilight Warriors Part 2

The bullhorn blared in every compartment aboard Intrepid: Intrepid: "General quarters! All hands man your battle stations!" "General quarters! All hands man your battle stations!"

The announcement was becoming routine. Since midmorning on November 25, j.a.panese snooper planes had been probing the carrier group's defenses. Each time the s.h.i.+p's crew had gone running to general quarters.

Intrepid was the flags.h.i.+p of Task Group 38.2, under Rear Adm. Gerald Bogan. In the group were was the flags.h.i.+p of Task Group 38.2, under Rear Adm. Gerald Bogan. In the group were Intrepid Intrepid's sister s.h.i.+p Hanc.o.c.k Hanc.o.c.k, the light carriers Cabot Cabot and and Independence Independence, the battles.h.i.+ps Iowa Iowa and and New Jersey New Jersey, the light cruisers Biloxi, Miami Biloxi, Miami, and Vincennes Vincennes, and seventeen destroyers.

The antiaircraft guns were firing again. On the flight deck, pilots waiting to take off were peering nervously into the sky. They had become unwilling spectators to the show over their heads.

A kamikaze was diving on Intrepid Intrepid. The j.a.panese fighter took a hit from a 40-millimeter round and crashed into the sea off Intrepid Intrepid's starboard side. Behind it came another, a Zero fighter-bomber, weaving through the tracers and mushroom bursts of gunfire, coming almost straight down. Less than a mile away was Hanc.o.c.k. Hanc.o.c.k Hanc.o.c.k. Hanc.o.c.k's pilots, just like those on Intrepid Intrepid, were watching the descending apparition. Which carrier is he going for? Which carrier is he going for? In a few seconds, they had the answer. In a few seconds, they had the answer.

At the last instant, the Zero disintegrated, but its flaming hulk crashed onto Hanc.o.c.k Hanc.o.c.k's flight deck. Amazingly, the only casualty was the kamikaze pilot, Flying Petty Officer 1st Cla.s.s Isamu Kamitake, whose remains were still in the wreckage of his airplane.

More kamikazes were inbound. The antiaircraft bursts closed in on a low-flying Zero, exploding it 1,500 yards astern. Another appeared, and it too went into the water close to the stern.

Then came a third Zero, flying low from astern. Every aft and starboard gun on Intrepid Intrepid was blazing away, tracers converging on the low-flying Zero. Somehow the Zero kept coming. The sky behind was blazing away, tracers converging on the low-flying Zero. Somehow the Zero kept coming. The sky behind Intrepid Intrepid roiled with black smoke and explosions. The surface of the sea frothed from the hail of spent ordnance. roiled with black smoke and explosions. The surface of the sea frothed from the hail of spent ordnance.

As he came closer, the kamikaze pilot pulled up in a steep climb, then rolled over and dove toward Intrepid Intrepid. By now every eye on Intrepid Intrepid's topside area, including the admiral's, was riveted on the incoming Zero. The kamikaze and its bomb exploded into the flight deck aft of the island, a few feet forward of the mid-deck number three elevator. The ma.s.s of the wrecked fighter punched through the wooden deck, penetrating the gallery deck suspended beneath the flight deck, spewing flame and shrapnel into the hangar deck below.

In Ready Room 4, on the gallery deck beneath where the kamikaze first struck, death came instantly for thirty-two sailors, most of them radarmen waiting to start their duty s.h.i.+ft. On the flame-filled hangar deck, armed and fueled airplanes were exploding. Firefighting crews rushed to the scene of the worst conflagration. The s.h.i.+p's fire marshal, Lt. Don DiMarzo, reported to the captain that the damage was bad, but he would get it under control.

And he might have if it hadn't been for what happened three minutes later.

The pilot's name was Kohichi Nunoda. Even at this low alt.i.tude, less than a hundred feet off the water, Nunoda had no trouble spotting his target. A thick column of black smoke was rising from the enemy carrier's flight deck where it had been crashed into minutes earlier by Nunoda's squadronmate Suehiro Ikeda.

Today was the most concentrated tokko tokko raid to date-125 dedicated pilots plus their accompanying reconnaissance and fighter escorts. Not since the Leyte Gulf battle a month earlier had so many j.a.panese warplanes been launched against the U.S. fleet. raid to date-125 dedicated pilots plus their accompanying reconnaissance and fighter escorts. Not since the Leyte Gulf battle a month earlier had so many j.a.panese warplanes been launched against the U.S. fleet.

As the s.h.i.+p swelled in his winds.h.i.+eld, Nunoda hauled the nose of the Zero into a steep climb, rolled up on a wing, judged his dive angle, then plunged downward. He aimed for the middle of the flight deck, which was already ablaze from Ikeda's attack.

Nunoda was taking no chances that his mission might fail. With the deck of the carrier rising to meet him, he released his bomb. Then he opened fire with his 20-millimeter cannons. Nunoda's guns were still firing when his Zero crashed into the s.h.i.+p.

The devastation was immediate and spectacular. The bomb drilled straight through Intrepid Intrepid's wooden flight deck. It ricocheted off the armored base of the hangar deck, then hurtled forward to explode where the firefighters were still battling the blaze from the first kamikaze.

Lieutenant DiMarzo and his firefighters were blown away like chaff. Nearly every airplane on the hangar deck burst into flame. Secondary explosions from airplane ordnance turned the cavernous hangar bay into a maelstrom of fire and shrapnel.

The worst killer was the smoke. It gushed into pa.s.sageways and filled compartments, trapping men on the shattered gallery deck with no route of escape. The smoke billowed into the sky through the open holes in the flight deck. Firefighting crews manned hoses on the open deck, trying to keep the flames from spreading to more airplanes and ammunition stores. The debris of the wrecked Zero-the second kamikaze-still smoldered on the forward deck. In the wreckage someone discovered the mostly intact body of the pilot, Kohichi Nunoda. His remains were given an unceremonious burial at sea.

The second kamikaze strike jammed the s.h.i.+p's sky-search radar. Sailors were drafted as lookouts, their eyeb.a.l.l.s serving as Intrepid Intrepid's primary warning system. The towering column of smoke was a beacon for more kamikazes. "For G.o.d's sake," said a gunnery officer, "are we the only s.h.i.+p in the ocean?"

They weren't. The ma.s.sed wave of tokko tokko aircraft had fanned out to other targets. At 1254, another pair of Zeroes dove on the light carrier aircraft had fanned out to other targets. At 1254, another pair of Zeroes dove on the light carrier Cabot Cabot. The first crashed into the forward flight deck among a pack of launching airplanes. Less than a minute later, a second Zero attacked from nearly straight ahead. At the last second, the gunners put enough rounds into the plane that the Zero veered off course and crashed into the port side at the waterline. Still, the intense shower of flame and debris wiped out the gun crews on Cabot Cabot's exposed port rail. By the time the flames were extinguished, the toll of Cabot Cabot's dead and missing, mostly men of the gun crews, had swelled to thirty-five, with another seventeen seriously injured.

While Intrepid Intrepid and and Cabot Cabot were fighting their fires, yet another carrier in the same task group, USS were fighting their fires, yet another carrier in the same task group, USS Ess.e.x Ess.e.x, was under siege. At 1256, an Asahi D4Y "Judy" dive-bomber, a sleeker replacement for the fixed-gear D3A "Val" bomber, flown by a young man named Yos.h.i.+nori Yamaguchi, came slanting out of the sky toward Ess.e.x Ess.e.x. Trailing a dense stream of smoke from its burning left wing, the kamikaze dove straight and true into Ess.e.x Ess.e.x's port deck edge. A geyser of fire and smoke leaped into the sky and enveloped the carrier's flight deck.

Later it was determined that Yamaguchi's plane carried no bomb. Intelligence officers searched for an explanation. Was he not a kamikaze? Had he already dropped his bomb, then spotted Ess.e.x Ess.e.x and decided to crash into it? The mystery only added to the aura that was growing around the kamikazes. What sort of people would turn themselves into human bombs? and decided to crash into it? The mystery only added to the aura that was growing around the kamikazes. What sort of people would turn themselves into human bombs?

In less than a half hour, four carriers had been struck. Cabot, Hanc.o.c.k Cabot, Hanc.o.c.k, and Ess.e.x Ess.e.x could be patched and returned to duty, but could be patched and returned to duty, but Intrepid Intrepid's wounds were more serious. The hangar deck was a scene of horror. Decks and bulkheads were warped from the intense fires. Bodies and body parts were still being recovered. Sixty-nine men had perished in the attacks, and 150 were wounded. Many of the dead had simply vanished, blown overboard or their bodies never found.

Intrepid was headed back to San Francisco for extensive repairs. When she returned, was headed back to San Francisco for extensive repairs. When she returned, Intrepid Intrepid would have a fresh air group embarked. The war was entering its final act. And halfway around the world, the stage was being set for the last great sea battle of history. would have a fresh air group embarked. The war was entering its final act. And halfway around the world, the stage was being set for the last great sea battle of history.

By the time Chester Nimitz arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton in October 1944, the debate about which Pacific island would be next was officially over. Nimitz was accompanied by Fifth Fleet commander Vice Admiral Spruance and a square-jawed Army lieutenant general named Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. Buckner had just been given command of the newly formed Tenth Army, which would make an amphibious a.s.sault on either Formosa or Okinawa.

Nimitz, Spruance, and Buckner were all of the same mind: Okinawa should be the target. All they had to do was convince the hardheaded chief of naval operation, Adm. Ernest King.

To their surprise, King needed no more convincing. He had already studied the logistics reports and reached the same conclusion. An invasion of Formosa would entail unacceptably high American casualties and would only lengthen the war. Formosa would be bypa.s.sed. After capturing the island fortress of Iwo Jima in early 1945, Nimitz's forces would invade Okinawa.

With the Joint Chiefs of Staff in agreement, the planning began in earnest. The invasion of Okinawa now had a code name: Operation Iceberg.

4

TINY TIM TINY TIM ATLANTIC CITY NAVAL AIR STATION, NEW JERSEY

JANUARY 4, 1945

The Grim Reapers were splitting up. The news came while the squadron was still on the East Coast, packing up to fly to California and board the Intrepid Intrepid. Instead of one big Corsair squadron, the legendary Fighting 10, a new outfit-Bomber Fighting 10-was being spun off.

The new squadron reflected the current thinking about air group composition. Task forces needed more fighters to protect them from the growing specter of kamikazes. The F4U Corsair was both an air-superiority fighter and a bona fide bomber. Unlike the plodding SB2C h.e.l.ldivers and TBM Avengers, which needed fighter cover while they hauled bombs to their targets, the Corsair provided its own protection. Since the air-to-air and air-to-ground missions were distinctly different, someone in Was.h.i.+ngton had decreed that they should be performed by different squadrons.

Wilmer Rawie was tapped to command the new squadron, now designated VBF-10. True to form, Rawie grabbed up most of his cadre of handpicked students and instructors from his former training unit. Meanwhile, the fighting squadron, which got to keep the VF-10 designation and the old Grim Reapers logo, received a new skipper, a heavyset, mustached lieutenant commander named Walt Clarke, another veteran with four kills from the Solomons campaign.

No one was happy about it. To the old hands, splitting up a legendary outfit like the Reapers was the same as breaking up a family. It didn't seem right. Despite the hoopla about bombers and fighters, weren't the airplanes and the missions the same?

Not exactly. What they didn't yet know was that the experimental new bomber-fighting squadron had been selected to fire an experimental new weapon, a rocket called the Tiny Tim. And as the pilots would find out, there was nothing tiny about it.

Like most of the Tail End Charlies, Erickson was in awe of his senior officers. Within the squadron, the skipper, Will Rawie, occupied the top rung on the ladder of official respect. Just beneath him came the executive officer, Lt. Timmy Gile, architect of the famous Atlantic City party and an ace with eight kills. Close behind were guys such as Paul Cordray and William "Country" Landreth, old hands with combat time on their records.

One figure stood out above all others. With the possible exception of G.o.d Himself, no one received greater deference than Cmdr. Johnny Hyland, who went by "CAG," the acronym for air group commander. Hyland was one of those rare commanders who seemed to have it all-good looks, a quick, focused intelligence, a charismatic personality, and the skills of a natural leader. The son of a naval officer, Hyland was a 1934 graduate of the Naval Academy. He'd put in a year as a surface officer aboard USS Lexington Lexington and then the four-stack destroyer and then the four-stack destroyer Elliot Elliot before going to Pensacola for flight training. His first a.s.signment after earning his wings was a made-in-heaven job-flying with the Navy's most prestigious fighting squadron, VF-6, aboard before going to Pensacola for flight training. His first a.s.signment after earning his wings was a made-in-heaven job-flying with the Navy's most prestigious fighting squadron, VF-6, aboard Enterprise Enterprise. He should have been in the sweet spot for quick advancement when war came.

But Hyland's timing was off. On the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, December 7, 1941, Hyland was in the c.o.c.kpit of a lumbering PBY patrol plane attached to Patrol Wing 10 at Olongapo in the Philippines. He flew the last patrol plane from the Dutch naval base at Ambon before the j.a.panese swarmed over the Dutch East Indies. Of the wing's original forty-six patrol planes, only three escaped.

Sent to Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., Hyland became the operations officer, then the executive officer at Anacostia Naval Air Station. Instead of rotating to a combat billet in the Pacific, he was chosen as the personal pilot for the chief of naval operations, Adm. Ernest King. Hyland was missing the war, a victim of his own competence.

He pulled every string, including a request to King himself. Finally, in the summer of 1944, came the orders Hyland had been praying for. A new air group was being formed aboard USS Intrepid Intrepid. John Hyland would take command.

The a.s.signment came just in time. If Hyland was to have any chance at ascending to high rank in the postwar Navy, he had to collect his share of combat ribbons. He'd come dangerously close to missing out.

By now the new bomber-fighting squadron had been sorted into four-pilot divisions. Each division was split into a pair of two-plane sections, with a senior pilot leading each division and section. The junior pilots-the Tail End Charlies-were a.s.signed as their wingmen.

Erickson learned that he would be the wingman of a veteran of the Solomons campaign, Lt. (jg) Robert "Windy" Hill. Hill had been in VF-17, a famous squadron called the Jolly Rogers. He was one of the more flamboyant pilots in the squadron, earning the nickname "Windy" for his fondness for over-the-top storytelling. Hill was the epitome of the World War II fighter pilot-c.o.c.ky, aggressive in the air and on the ground, with movie-star good looks.

"If there were two good-looking women in the room," remembered one of the Tail End Charlies, "you could count on them both going for Windy. The smart thing was to stay close and grab the one he didn't take."

Being Hill's wingman suited Erickson just fine. Then he learned the rest of his a.s.signment. The leader of their four-plane division was none other than the air group commander himself.

Erickson didn't know whether to cheer or moan. The CAG could have picked anyone he wanted as his Tail End Charlie. It meant that Hyland trusted Erickson to cover his tail. It also meant that if Erickson somehow screwed up and didn't didn't cover Hyland's tail, he was dead meat. cover Hyland's tail, he was dead meat.

Off they went, in flights of four, headed for California and the USS Intrepid Intrepid. It was not a smooth journey. Before they reached Alameda and their new carrier, two more Tail End Charlies were gone.

One was an ensign named Charles Jensen, who decided to take a detour over his hometown of Mesa, Arizona. In a cla.s.sic case of boldness exceeding judgment, Jensen was buzzing the floor of the desert when he clipped the ground. The Corsair crashed and exploded in full view of the pilot's horrified family.

Almost as soon as they reached California, they lost another. Ens. Spence Mitch.e.l.l took off on a training flight over the cloud-covered Pacific. He was never seen again, and no trace was found of his fighter. The best guess was that he'd become disoriented in the clouds and spun into the ocean.

Meanwhile, the pilots of the new bomber-fighting squadron had one more square to fill. They flew out to the Navy's ordnance testing facility at Inyokern Naval Air Facility, in the California high desert country, for indoctrination in the new weapon called the Tiny Tim. Inyokern was part of the Navy's China Lake ordnance test base. The place looked like the set of a movie Western. There were a couple of bars and a motel, but not much else of interest to young fighter pilots.

No one got a good feeling when they first saw the Tiny Tim rocket. The weapon already had a bad reputation. In one of its first test firings at China Lake, it had killed the crew of the SB2C launch plane when the rocket blast destroyed the h.e.l.ldiver's control surfaces. The fix the engineers came up with was to drop the weapon far enough to clear the aircraft before igniting the rocket with an attached lanyard. The fix didn't always work. If the rocket wasn't released from a precise 45-degree dive, the missile could fly through the airplane's propeller. Or it could veer off and hit an unintended target, such as the plane that launched it.

Even the name seemed like a joke. The Tiny Tim was a monster-over 10 feet long and more than half a ton in weight, with a diameter of 11.75 inches, which by no coincidence was the dimension of a standard 500-pound semi-armor-piercing bomb, the warhead of the Tiny Tim. It also happened to be the diameter of standard oil well steel tubing, which was used as the casing for the rocket. The Tiny Tim had a solid-propellant motor that could accelerate it to nearly 600 mph, with an effective range of over a mile. When it leaped from beneath its launching aircraft, streaming a trail of fire, the Tiny Tim looked like a creature from h.e.l.l.

Between cla.s.ses and missile-firing sorties, the pilots had time on their hands. They played cards, checked out the drinking establishments, and pursued the local girls. It was mostly a futile chase. After Atlantic City, Inyokern seemed like a desert outpost, which in fact it was.

Finally came the end of Tiny Tim training. Someone decided that the newly qualified pilots should conduct a firepower demonstration for the Navy bra.s.s. Eight Corsairs, each armed with a Tiny Tim and eight 5-inch HVARs-high velocity rockets-dove in formation on a practice target. Led by Johnny Hyland, they salvoed their weapons on signal.

It was spectacular. Spewing flame and smoke, the rockets roared toward the earth at nearly supersonic speed. More than six tons of high explosive slammed into the target like the broadside from a battles.h.i.+p. The concussion rumbled across the desert floor, rattling every window in Inyokern and sending a eruption of dirt, sagebrush, and black smoke hundreds of feet into the sky. The senior officers watching the demonstration were flabbergasted. Even the citizens of Inyokern, long accustomed to loud noises from the Navy weapons range, were startled.

Most of all, it shocked the pilots in the Corsairs. A single collective thought pa.s.sed through their brains: Holy s.h.i.+t! Holy s.h.i.+t! It dawned on them that this thing could do a h.e.l.l of a lot of damage. And not just to the enemy. It dawned on them that this thing could do a h.e.l.l of a lot of damage. And not just to the enemy.

Vice Adm. Matome Ugaki poured himself another sake. It was evening, and he was alone in his small wood-and-fabric home in the coastal town of Atami, 60 miles southwest of Tokyo.

Drinking had become one of Ugaki's preoccupations since his return from the disastrous battle at Leyte Gulf. Unlike his mentor, Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto, who was a teetotaler, Ugaki loved sake. When he had nothing else to do, he frequently drank himself into a stupor. This evening, like most evenings lately, he had nothing else to do. Nothing except think about the war and write in his diary.

The war news was all bad. The Americans were in Subic Bay, on the main Philippine island of Luzon. The Red Army was within 15 miles of Berlin. American B-29s were flying nightly over j.a.pan. From his garden Ugaki could hear the drone of the bombers on their way to raze another city.

Ugaki had started the diary during the months before the war in 1941. Like a good navy man, he began most entries with an observation about the weather. Amid cynical comments about the course of the war and the damage inflicted on j.a.pan's homeland, he inserted snippets of poetry, thoughts about nature and the changing seasons, and notes about his health problems. He disliked going to Tokyo, he wrote, because the lack of warm water aggravated his piles.

Even when he was drunk, Matome Ugaki seldom smiled. Photographs showed a bullet-skulled man with a stern, unyielding countenance. The expression was common to senior Imperial j.a.panese Navy officers, most of whom wished to emulate the fierce image of a samurai warrior. The nickname bestowed on Ugaki by his subordinates was the "Golden Mask."

There was more, however, to Matome Ugaki. Behind the mask was a man of intelligence and sensitivity. Like his colleague, Vice Adm. Takijiro Ohnis.h.i.+, founder of the Special Attack Corps, Ugaki embodied all the ancient contradictions in j.a.pan's culture-the warrior's b.l.o.o.d.y bus.h.i.+do bus.h.i.+do ethic balanced against an aesthete's tears over the changing of the seasons. ethic balanced against an aesthete's tears over the changing of the seasons.

Ugaki was a cla.s.sically educated scholar who had made a lifetime study of Buddhist philosophy. He was also a devoted family man, inordinately proud of his son Hiromitsu, who had just become a naval surgeon. Ugaki had never stopped mourning his wife, Tomoko, who died five years earlier. He made regular visits to her tomb to clean the grounds and offer prayers.

Ugaki had begun the war as chief of staff of the Combined Fleet, serving under the brilliant Yamamoto. He remained in that post, surviving the Battle of Midway, until April 18, 1943, when Yamamoto's and Ugaki's planes were ambushed by American P-38s over Bougainville. Yamamoto's Mitsubis.h.i.+ G4M "Betty" bomber was shot down in flames and crashed in the jungle. Ugaki's bomber also went down, ditching offsh.o.r.e. Ugaki managed to crawl out and survived by clinging to floating wreckage.

Though badly injured, he recovered from his wounds, was promoted to vice admiral, and took command of a battles.h.i.+p division in time for the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Again he escaped death, though his fleet was pounded by American carrier-based planes, sinking the 72,000-ton dreadnought Musas.h.i.+ Musas.h.i.+. En route back to j.a.pan, Ugaki endured the further ignominy of losing more s.h.i.+ps-the battles.h.i.+p Kongo Kongo and the destroyer and the destroyer Urakaze-to Urakaze-to American submarines in the East China Sea. American submarines in the East China Sea.

Then Ugaki's career slid into limbo. For the rest of 1944 he was attached to the navy general staff, with no specific duties. Each day pa.s.sed much like the one before, puttering in his flower garden, writing in his diary, drinking sake. He took long walks and gazed balefully into the sky. American bombers were a steady presence. On the last day of 1944 he wrote in his diary, "However impatient I might be hoping to save this crisis by all means, I can't do anything now. All I can do is to send off the outgoing year, expecting to exert efforts next year. My thoughts ran wild seeking ways to save the empire."

To save the empire. As if by a miracle, a way to save the empire came to Ugaki on the night of February 9, 1945, while he was still finis.h.i.+ng his bottle of sake. It arrived in the form of a phone call, via the local police station. The admiral was to proceed to Tokyo immediately for an audience with the emperor. Ugaki would be appointed commander in chief of a newly established unit, the Fifth Air Fleet, with the responsibility for guarding all of j.a.pan's southern sh.o.r.e.

Although the new command was called a "fleet," Ugaki knew there was no fleet. The Fifth Air Fleet was a suicide force composed of tokko tokko aircraft and pilots, Kaiten manned torpedoes, and aircraft and pilots, Kaiten manned torpedoes, and Ohka Ohka flying rocket bombs. flying rocket bombs.

Ugaki considered the a.s.signment a gift from heaven. He already believed that the only strategy left to j.a.pan was to bleed the Americans until they sued for peace. In Tokyo he had heard the whispers and veiled suggestions from certain officers that j.a.pan should avoid total ruin by negotiating a conditional surrender. Ugaki had only contempt for these weaklings. In his view, j.a.pan's honor demanded that every fighting man and citizen be willing to sacrifice his life.

Matome Ugaki was a religious man. Like most senior officers, he wors.h.i.+ped at the Yasukuni Shrine, where, according to s.h.i.+nto belief, the kami kami, or spirits, of j.a.pan's fighting men resided. Ugaki mused in his diary that if he, too, could be honored to be enshrined with the other spirits at Yasukuni, he would be content.

"I'm appointed to a very important post," he boasted that night in his diary, "which has the key to determine the fate of the empire, with the pick of the Imperial Navy available at present. I have to break through this crisis with diehard struggles."

Ugaki already had an idea where the diehard struggles would occur. The Americans were bringing the war closer to j.a.pan. Their next target would surely be in the Bonin Islands, perhaps Chichi Jima or Iwo Jima. And then would come the stepping-stones to southern j.a.pan, the Ryukyus-and the island of Okinawa.

5

YOUR FAVORITE ENEMY YOUR FAVORITE ENEMY SAN FRANCIs...o...b..Y, CALIFORNIA

FEBRUARY 20, 1945

A steady barrage of thunder pulsed in Erickson's skull. His stomach churned, and he had the dry heaves. The twenty-two-year-old fighter pilot was an inexperienced drinker, and now he had a hangover of seismic proportions. steady barrage of thunder pulsed in Erickson's skull. His stomach churned, and he had the dry heaves. The twenty-two-year-old fighter pilot was an inexperienced drinker, and now he had a hangover of seismic proportions.

He wasn't alone. The squadron's deployment bash at the Alameda officers' club had left most of the Tail End Charlies in a near-comatose state. As Intrepid Intrepid slid away from her berth at Alameda, the forty-man junior officers' bunkroom they called Boys' Town looked like a death ward. From the lavatories came a steady litany of gagging and retching. slid away from her berth at Alameda, the forty-man junior officers' bunkroom they called Boys' Town looked like a death ward. From the lavatories came a steady litany of gagging and retching.

Despite their nausea, Erickson and a few others mustered the strength to go topside to watch Intrepid Intrepid's departure. The s.h.i.+p's crew, wearing their dress blues, lined the edges of the flight deck. As the carrier steamed across San Francis...o...b..y, past the rocky hump of Alcatraz, someone yelled, "So long, Big Al." For the old hands who had made this pa.s.sage several times, it was a tradition. It didn't matter that the prison's most famous inmate, Al Capone, was no longer in residence.

The men on the flight deck and in the island watched the great spans of the Golden Gate Bridge looming ahead. There was always a crowd on the bridge to observe wars.h.i.+ps departing, but this time was different. The people lining the rails of the bridge were girls girls, dozens of them. They were waving bra.s.sieres, scarves, panties. They yelled and blew kisses to the men on the deck.

The men whistled and yelled and waved back. Even the carrier's new skipper, Capt. Giles Short, who had the best view of anyone, was laughing. Minutes later the Golden Gate and the rocky sh.o.r.eline of Marin County were receding in the distance.

Then came the open ocean. As Intrepid Intrepid took on a gentle roll, the hangovers were compounded by violent seasickness. Erickson, a kid from the Great Plains, lay in his bunk feeling deathly ill for three days. Then one morning, halfway to Hawaii, he woke up feeling fine. By the time took on a gentle roll, the hangovers were compounded by violent seasickness. Erickson, a kid from the Great Plains, lay in his bunk feeling deathly ill for three days. Then one morning, halfway to Hawaii, he woke up feeling fine. By the time Intrepid Intrepid pulled into the channel at Pearl Harbor, Erickson felt like an old sea dog. pulled into the channel at Pearl Harbor, Erickson felt like an old sea dog.

While most of the pilots. .h.i.t the beach and prowled the bars at Waikiki, the former art student packed up his sketchbook and watercolors and spent his liberty time touring the mountains of Kaneohe. At the highest point on the island's mountain ridge, Erickson spent an afternoon sketching the magnificent scenery. It was hard to imagine, gazing around at the tranquil mountainscape, that somewhere beyond the western horizon a war was raging.

The air group was scheduled for a five-day operational training session aboard the Intrepid Intrepid. After the first day, the exercise was abruptly canceled and Intrepid Intrepid was ordered back to Pearl Harbor. The crew was told to prepare for immediate departure. was ordered back to Pearl Harbor. The crew was told to prepare for immediate departure.

The pilots and aircrewmen were herded into an open-air theater on Ford Island for a briefing on escape and evasion techniques. The next morning, March 3, 1945, Intrepid Intrepid was under way, joined in her voyage by the carriers was under way, joined in her voyage by the carriers Franklin, Bataan Franklin, Bataan, and Independence Independence, the battle cruiser Guam Guam, and eight destroyers. They were on their way to an atoll called Ulithi, in the Caroline Islands group. Since late 1944, when Marines seized Ulithi from the j.a.panese, the atoll had become the U.S. Navy's princ.i.p.al anchorage in the western Pacific.

Now Ulithi was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with wars.h.i.+ps staging for what would be the largest amphibious operation of the Pacific war. The s.h.i.+ps of Raymond Spruance's Fifth Fleet would converge on the island of Okinawa, where, on April 1, 1945, 182,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army would storm ash.o.r.e.

The Ulithi atoll was more than a thousand miles from the closest enemy air base in j.a.pan. Their vital anchorage, most senior U.S. commanders believed, was safe from attack.

They were wrong.