Belly of the Beast Read online

  The guy never opened his eyes. “You ain’t funny. Leave me be. Lemme sleep.” He rolled over and pulled his pillow over his head. The petty officer never heard him, having already run out to assume his battle station.

  Tarpy decided that the toothache wasn’t going to go away by itself, and after he got up he went to the dentist’s office in the next building over. An orderly nervously told him that the doctor was currently on liberty but would be back in two days, on December 10. Then he asked if Tarpy had heard about the Japanese attack in Hawaii. Tarpy told him he had, but that right now the bad tooth was his primary concern. He made an appointment with the orderly to see the dentist at 1100 hours on the tenth. Then he ambled over to the hospital, hoping to get some painkillers and take it easy the rest of the day.

  Although preparedness had been lacking thus far, the top brass decided that Canacao Hospital’s proximity to the Naval Yard put it in the target area and ordered that immediate arrangements be made for the patients. When Myers had arrived at the hospital at 0800, his orders were to send the ambulatory patients back to duty and prepare to move the rest of them to Sternberg Army Hospital near downtown Manila. Sternberg was the Philippines’ only general hospital and, as such, was well equipped. The dependents’ ward was vacant; in the remote chance that hostilities might develop, all dependents had been sent stateside months earlier. It was here that Canacao’s patients would be sent.

  Myers was busy scribbling on charts of the departing patients, half listening to a Manila radio station playing in the ward. Every few minutes a news flash was announced, with broadcaster Don Bell repeating that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Everyone in the ward was horrified by the very idea. And when Bell’s flashes began to include reports of attacks in the Philippines at Clark, Nichols, and Iba airfields, someone yelled, “Turn that moron off!”

  Tarpy arrived, and taking one look at him Myers knew he wouldn’t be much use regardless of whether or not the Japanese attacked. He told Tarpy he’d cover for him and sent him back to the barracks.

  Two of the patients were due for injections before they left, so Myers prepared the syringes. He glanced at his watch: 1100 hours. A new case of malaria had just been admitted so Myers set up his quinine schedule and pinned the notes to the man’s pants legs so they wouldn’t be lost in transport. The next time he looked at his watch, it was 1145 and the new shift had arrived.

  “Hey, Myers, looks like these guys are all ready to go. We’ll take it from here. Why don’t you go ahead and knock off?” one of the pharmacist’s mates offered.

  “Thanks, fella.” Myers washed up one last time and headed for the mess hall. Despite the threat of war, the weather was glorious, and men sat under canvas awnings outside the mess hall, eating their noon meals. Myers waved at a couple of guys he knew sitting over in a corner under one of the awnings, went inside to fill his tray, and came back out to join them.

  “Hey, what d’ya hear about Pearl?” Myers asked as soon as he sat down.

  “Nothing definite,” one of the men answered. “Nobody seems to know what kind of damage there was. Radio communication’s been sporadic.”

  “Hell, everything we own is in Hawaii,” another man injected. “We’re all in deep shit if the Japs messed things up bad.”

  The men continued the discussion, first about what may or may not have happened at Pearl Harbor, and then the sorry state of their own equipment and when the promised new supplies might arrive. They were suddenly aware that everyone else had left the mess area and a great deal of commotion was going on all around them. Men ran, fully loaded with combat gear, shouting as they went. Myers and the men with him jumped up from the table and ran to the road, questioning the first seaman who ran by.

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  “The Japs have attacked the airfields,” the seaman gasped. “They’ve hit Clark and Nichols. Damn near wiped out all our air power. They’re probably headed for us and the Navy Yard next.”

  It had been nine hours since the Japanese had reportedly struck Pearl Harbor. The events now unfolding on the Philippines should have been expected, yet the men were still surprised. They fell in with their respective units to await orders. When Myers reported, Tarpy was dressed and armed.

  “This must be a real war.” Tarpy winced in pain from his tooth. “They’ve given us extra bullets.”

  The troops and medical corps were put on standby and held their collective breath. Questions flew around with great abandon, but most of the answers were rumors or guesses. Some wondered why MacArthur and his Air Corps commander, General Lewis Breneton, hadn’t taken action sooner. Rumor was that one of them had not communicated sufficiently to the other. The men were divided as to whose fault it might be.

  Others tried to calculate when the attack had begun. Somebody said they’d heard about a false alarm of incoming enemy fighters over Clark Field at 1030. Supposedly the aircraft scrambled, orders were confused, and the planes never took off. At 1100 hours, the pilots received orders to get ready to attack. As the planes were being fueled and armed, the Japanese arrived with over fifty high-level bombers with accompanying fighter cover. Because of the confusion and lack of communication, the Japanese were virtually unopposed.

  Another guy asked what else had been damaged. A petty officer swore he heard that Fort Stotsenburg, a cavalry post adjacent to Clark Field and about sixty miles north of Manila, had been pounded to dust. Buildings were decimated, and casualties were estimated at two hundred. Another man claimed he’d heard on the radio that at Nichols Field, American fighter planes had recently been uncrated and were in the process of being made combat ready. Men had been working on them around the clock in the hopes they wouldn’t be caught on the ground when the fighting began. But the work wasn’t accomplished quickly enough. He said the projection was that the Far East Air Force had already lost half of its planes, on this, the first day of the war.

  The big question was where would the damn Japs hit next? All of Sangley Point, the little scrap of land jutting into Manila Bay, waited. This included the town of Cavite, the Cavite Naval Base, the communications towers, the fuel tanks, an air station, and Canacao Naval Hospital. The Japanese attacked Nichols Field again on December 9 but still left Sangley Point untouched.

  Myers and Tarpy had been assigned to a battle dressing station in the dispensary building located in the Navy Yard. They were headed there when the Japanese finally arrived to begin their attack of Sangley point. Their high-flying bombers sailed at about twenty-one thousand feet. The anti-aircraft shells fired from the ground burst four thousand feet too low. The bombers kept coming, unopposed. Myers looked around and saw men running toward what looked like the cellar doors outside the farmhouses back home. He and Tarpy followed them, finding themselves in an underground concrete locker.

  The attack lasted about an hour. The Japanese bombs knocked half of the naval base into the bay. Since most of the buildings were made of wood, the rest of the base went up in flames. The thick black smoke billowing from these raging fires singed the men’s noses and burned their eyes as they scrambled out of the underground locker. Some tried to put out the fires, but they were unfamiliar with the pumps on the fire trucks, and the flames raged on.

  Myers and Tarpy, still carrying their medical kits, found an unscathed truck and drove it the short distance to the port area. Dead and wounded were scattered on the ground like pickup sticks. Many men had been caught out on the docks when the planes came in. One seaman told them everyone was so amazed at the sight that they had just stood there staring.

  “We saw this perfect ‘V’ formation coming at us dropping leaflets,” the seaman said. “Then somebody shouted, ‘Leaflets, hell, those are bombs!’ We all started running, but some of the guys just couldn’t make it in time.” He looked at the charred bodies around him with tears in his eyes.

  Myers and Tarpy triaged the wounded as best they could and drove back to Canacao, which had been relatively undamaged. Other teams of
corpsmen were doing the same. Soon, about a dozen vehicles raced back and forth between the Navy Yard, the port area, and the hospital.

  Although the bombers were gone, the noise was still deafening. These were noises foreign to the men’s ears: the roaring conflagration all around them; the earthquake-like concussions as ammunition and gasoline dumps exploded; the inhuman screams of men, frightened and in pain. None of these men had combat experience. None knew what to expect. Many never got the chance to fight back.

  Chapter Four

  Hearth and Home

  Back in the States, on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the football season was winding down and the New York Giants had a game that day, heading toward finishing first in the Eastern Division under head coach Steve Owen. Joe Louis was wowing boxing fans with his “cosmic punch.” This was the year Spam became known as “the meat of many uses,” and a new Plymouth coupe could be had for $700. Women across the country were cooing over the rugged good looks of Clark Gable, while men’s eyes lingered on the likes of Gene Tierney, Lana Turner, and Rita Hayworth.

  As the country slowly extricated itself from a depressed economy, a new interest in travel had begun to grow. The railroad ads in the evening newspaper encouraged Americans to make a “Grand Circle” of their country. For $135, an individual could spend an entire week on a train, including meals and a sleeper car, crisscrossing the country from New York City to San Francisco. If the high seas were more to the traveler’s liking, a variety of cruise lines were eager to please. One in particular, the Matson Navigation Company, promised pineapples and balmy breezes in their 1941 advertising campaign. It was a lavish expense far beyond what the Myerses could afford, but it painted an enticing picture nonetheless. With the innocence manifested by an entire country, Matson proudly announced, “All roads lead to happiness in Hawaii.”

  While Estel Myers was serving the country in the Pacific, his twenty-year-old brother, Orville, was finishing basic training in the Army. Their married eighteen-year-old sister, Iola, was taking care of her new baby, while their fifteen-year-old brother, Kenny, was juggling school with his job at a local filling station. Burt, Jr., the youngest of the Myers children, was completely engrossed in basketball, playing on a team that competed year-round.

  On December 7, they were all to meet for Sunday dinner at the home of Orville’s girlfriend. Kenny finished work at the filling station early that day, and by 12:45, he was on his bike heading toward Louisville’s east side.

  Kentucky winters are always a mixed bag of weather, as is true for most of the Ohio River Valley. No two days are ever alike, and it was not unusual to see sunshine dissolve into rain and then sleet within a twenty-four-hour time period. This day was no different; though the sun had been shining when Kenny arrived at the filling station in the morning, the day had quickly turned bleak, and a cold rain was soon sputtering down. By the time he had completed his thirty-minute ride, Kenny was cold and wet and looking forward to the warm glow coming from the house that was his destination.

  He knocked on the door and waited patiently for it to open. When it did, the dismay every young man feels when he’s in the presence of crying women flooded through him. Orville’s girlfriend, her eyes puffy and pressing a handkerchief to her nose, stood at the door. Beyond her in the sitting room, a chorus of sobs came from the girl’s mother and Iola. The men were grouped around the living room’s largest piece of furniture, an RCA radio. Their faces wore grave expressions.

  After listening for several minutes, Kenny asked his brother what had happened.

  “The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands,” Orville told him. “That’s part of America, Kenny. The Japs have attacked America and now we gotta defend ourselves.”

  Upon hearing Orville’s statement, the women’s crying escalated. Kenny’s thoughts ran the gamut, from loathing for this as yet unknown enemy to the realization that his brother Estel would be very near the fighting and possibly in danger.

  In the weeks prior to December 7, ongoing negotiations had been conducted in Washington, D.C., between Japanese and American officials. The Japanese ambassador and his staff were insistent that their government was trying in good faith to soothe tensions between their country and the United States. They defended their acts of aggression in Asia with great voracity and asked repeatedly for the U.S. to lift the freeze on their assets. Secretary of State Cordell Hull was not moved in the least, but continued to receive the foreign officials conveying their missives from Tokyo.

  At the same time, the American military was monitoring Japanese radio transmissions, employing top-notch cryptologists to break most of the codes used. By the end of November, it was widely known that use of the terms “East Wind Rain” was a reference to the United States. “North Wind Cloudy” referred to Russia, and Britain was known to the Japanese as “West Wind Clear.” These code names were particularly important in helping to determine what Pacific aggressions the Japanese might take next.

  The codes weren’t foolproof, however. On December 5, a radio operator received a transmission that included “North Wind Cloudy,” which he deciphered as a reference to a possible invasion of Russia. This didn’t fit with the current intelligence reports stating that Russia was not a probable target in the near future. A day later it was finally concluded that the words were not the coded part of the transmission but simply a part of the daily Japanese weather forecast.

  Without exception, top American military officials placed the Pacific Fleet, based in Pearl Harbor, at the forefront of any successful counterthrust against the Japanese. But the possibility of an attack did not seem feasible to them. It was a well-documented fact that none of the Japanese long-range bombers would be able to reach Hawaii from their bases and return safely to home airfields.

  A greater possibility was sabotage against American ships and aircraft. To guard against such sneak attacks, Pearl Harbor continued to be completely lit up from dusk to dawn like a giant bull’s-eye, right up until the last night of peace. In addition, hundreds of aircraft were ordered from their dispersal areas to a central location at which they could be more easily guarded. The Army Air Corps was a well-trained force, which, given a thirty-minute notice, would easily be able to disperse the aircraft again.

  December 7 was a beautiful Sunday morning in Hawaii. Seamen were taking it easy, sauntering on docks or sleeping in, completely oblivious to a dozen missteps, miscues, and dropped balls that would change the course of their lives. Non-military individuals, too, were unaware of what was literally just over the horizon. In fact, when the first Japanese aircraft appeared in the mist over Diamond Head, tourists in the area congratulated themselves for being present to witness American aircraft flying such remarkably realistic practice runs.

  Japanese Admiral Nagumo had committed the Japanese 6th Fleet to the attack. Riding the waves two hundred miles to the north of Oahu, over 460 Imperial aircraft were about to be employed in his two-wave attack. Thus far in military aviation’s brief history, a single attack had never involved more than one carrier and a handful of aircraft.

  The first attack began at 0740. American ships were berthed or at anchor around Ford Island almost exactly as Japanese intelligence had predicted. A few ships were missing, but along Battleship Row, eight out of the nine ships were present, constituting the very backbone of the American fleet. The harbor also contained two heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, twenty-nine destroyers, five submarines, a gunboat, nine minelayers, and ten minesweepers. In addition, several dozen auxiliary ships, like tenders, oilers, tugs, ammunition and supply ships, lay at anchor, making a total of ninety-four warships. The only targets missing from the anchorage were the U.S. aircraft carriers.

  The first wave of the Japanese attack included forty torpedo bombers, forty-nine high-level bombers, fifty-one dive-bombers, and forty-three fighters, and lasted just thirty minutes. By the time it was over, all of the American battleships were seriously damaged and engulfed in raging flames.
American airpower took an equal beating. Aircraft hit by Japanese firepower exploded and burned as helplessly as the fleet they were supposed to be protecting.

  The second attack force arrived an hour after the first, with fifty-four high-level bombers, seventy-eight dive-bombers, and thirty-five fighters, its purpose being to mop up anything left from the first wave. It lasted sixty-five minutes. The Americans had recovered slightly between the two waves and were able to get off some anti-aircraft fire. Poor visibility also hampered the Japanese in the later attack. Of the twenty-nine aircraft the Japanese lost in the whole attack, twenty of them were downed in the second wave.

  At 1000 hours it was all over. The attackers formed up and headed back for their carriers. The entire scenario was nearly a mirror image of what Rear Admiral Yarnell had executed as a test nine years earlier when he successfully simulated an air attack on the harbor.

  No other war in history had started with such a resounding victory for one side on the very first day of hostilities. Amidst the fires and carnage in the harbor, 18 of the warships were sunk or suffered major damage. Surrounded by smoke and explosions at the airfields, 188 of the 394 aircraft were destroyed and another 159 were damaged. The most terrible loss came in American lives: 2,403 were killed, missing, or mortally wounded. Another 1,178 were wounded. In this one attack, the United States Navy lost almost three times as many men as it had lost in the Spanish-American War and World War I combined.

  The Myers family huddled around their radio all afternoon as reports flooded the airwaves with more information about the unthinkable attack. First one ship was reported hit on Battleship Row, then four, then all of them. Casualty figures followed: a hundred, a thousand, three thousand men dead or wounded. An announcer on the scene reported that the aircraft destruction was indescribable. The planes had all been caught on the ground, neatly parked wingtip to wingtip. The impossible had happened, the announcer said. The United States of America had been attacked and badly crippled.