The Final Storm: A Novel of the War in the Pacific by Jeff Shaara
Tibbets knew the Initial Point from the many maps and photos they had studied, a point of geography obvious even from their altitude. The Aiming Point was drilled into him as well—the T-shaped bridge. He waited for Van Kirk’s voice, ticking off loud seconds in his brain, and it came now.
“IP.”
Tibbets turned the yoke, engaged the ailerons and rudder, turning the Enola Gay in a sharp left-hand turn, watched the compass, leveled out, heard Van Kirk, verifying what his own compass said.
“Course two seven two degrees. Speed two zero zero.”
“Roger. Two seven two. Speed two zero zero.”
“AP in ten minutes.”
“Roger. Ten minutes.”
“Winds south at ten.”
Tibbets felt a stab of alarm. The prevailing winds over this part of Japan came from the west, and he cursed silently, realized Parsons was standing just behind him, nothing left for the man to do. Tibbets said, “Dammit, Navigator, give me a course correction.”
“Working on it, sir.”
The voice was Ferebee’s, the bombardier fully aware how to correct for any variation in wind speed. Tibbets waited, agonizing seconds, heard Van Kirk’s voice now.
“Correct to two six four.”
Tibbets eased the plane slightly to the left, stared at the slow turn of the compass, said, “Roger, two six four.”
Ferebee’s voice came now, the man agitated, high-pitched, Tibbets not concerned, knew that even the most professional bombardier would feel this strain.
“Okay, I’ve got the bridge.”
Van Kirk said, “No question about it.”
Tibbets strained to see, knew both men had a far clearer view from the Plexiglas nose cone of the plane. He saw it now, the distinct T-shaped bridge, heard Van Kirk again, “Ninety seconds.”
Tibbets said, “Bombardier, it’s all yours.”
He lifted his hands slowly from the controls, felt the plane quiver slightly, Ferebee taking control. Behind him, Parsons leaned low, said, “Forty-seven seconds. Remember that. From the time the bomb leaves, you’ve got forty-seven seconds to get the hell out of here.”
“You get out of here! Get back to your damn lights. I know what to do!”
There was no time for an apology, Parsons backing away, and Tibbets wouldn’t think of that now, knew no one would be pissed off by a short temper, not now. Tibbets sat back, gazed out across the vast sweep of the city, scanned skyward, no sign at all of enemy planes, no anti-aircraft fire. He had a burst of thought, keyed the intercom again, said, “Goggles. All of you. Put ’em on!”
Tibbets had his own resting up on his forehead, would wait until the final second. He knew Ferebee was working intensely with the bomb sight, the man wonderfully good at his job. Come on, Tom. One more job. That’s all.
The tone came now, a high-pitched sound generated by one of the electrical connections to the bomb itself. Tibbets was startled, scolded himself nervously, knew to expect it. It was one small part of Parsons’s instrument panel, triggered by a connection that had been strung to the bomb sight, controlled by Ferebee. When the bomb dropped, the wires would pull free, and the tone would quit. But Tibbets knew that when the tone began, there was one meaning. One minute to go.
Tibbets stared ahead, nothing else to do, felt a hand on his shoulder, Parsons, the hand letting go. All this time. All this work. Everything … and then he heard the violent rush of air, the bomb bay doors opening, and in an instant, the radio tone was silent. The plane suddenly lurched upward, the voice of Ferebee in his ear.
“Bomb away.”
Tibbets took the controls again, paused for a glance at his watch, nine-fifteen and seventeen seconds. He pulled hard on the yoke now, the plane in a sudden steep bank to the right, the compass spinning, Tibbets struggling to hold tight to the yoke. The plane bounced, the tail settling downward, just as it always had, the Enola Gay fighting the unnatural angle, Tibbets fighting with her to prevent a full roll, keeping the tail up just enough to avoid the stall. He slipped one hand from the yoke, a quick jab at his face, the welder’s glasses down over his eyes, total blackness, the instruments gone completely. Son of a bitch! He raised the goggles again, just enough, had to see, watched the compass, thought, hell I’ll be going the other way. Forty-seven damn seconds … the image of the tail gunner flashed in his mind … Caron, you jackass, you better not forget those goggles. How many seconds has it been?
“Tail gunner! See anything?”
“Not yet … oh …”
The cockpit suddenly filled with a soft glow, and Tibbets felt his heart racing, felt a tingling sensation, had a sudden metallic taste in his mouth, thought, what the hell? He fought the distraction, kept his eyes on the panel, straightened the flight of the plane, glanced to the side, the blue sky changing to pink and purple, engulfing the plane, bathing the cockpit in eerie light. In the tail Sergeant Caron stared through the welder’s glasses, tried to make out any detail, blinded by the light of ten suns, and he pushed the buttons on the camera, again and again.
31. HAMISHITA
NORTHERN OUTSKIRTS OF HIROSHIMA
AUGUST 6, 1945, 8:15 A.M. (LOCAL TIME)
Through the long night he had slept close to his wife, the tragedy of her trip to Tokyo hard on both of them. For more than a week she had sought out missing relatives, learning that two were confirmed dead, others not heard from at all. The refugees from the great city had been fleeing the destruction there for weeks, seeking refuge in the countryside, some with family, some homeless, traveling anywhere they could find food and shelter. Her return the evening before had brought a flood of tears, triggered mainly by the sight of her husband in his surgical gown, his hands thick with blood. The tears had been unusual, the product of so many days sifting through wreckage, the impromptu need for a nurse for some injured stranger. It had been nothing different from what she had seen before, and yet the magnitude of it had seemed to overwhelm her, the outpouring of her emotions triggered by little more than her husband with blood on his hands. He had tried to soothe her with words that belied his appearance, that he was the fortunate one, they both were, healers, in a place where so much was needed. On this one night he had to concede that the healing was not as helpful as it might have been. More often he spent his time in the clinic ministering to the injured, whether soldier or civilian, usually some wound from the collapse of a building, a direct hit from an American bomb. But there had been no bombing raids on the city for the past two days, and she had arrived just as Hamishita had completed an emergency cesarean on a pregnant woman. What should have been a small glimmer of light in a dark world had instead been a tragedy all its own. The baby was stillborn, the mother barely surviving. As a trained nurse, his wife had seen as much blood and as much tragedy as he had, but the death of the baby was one more knife in her emotions, one more weight for a woman who had struggled through too much of her own.
As quickly as possible, he had closed the clinic for the night, changing from the surgical garb, removing any sign of the sadness of his own day. They had eaten an evening meal in silence and candlelight. It had been common for some time, all of Hiroshima blacked out, logical precautions against an American raid. With the darkness swallowing the city and everything around them, she had pulled him to the bed, a woman who needed the secure arms of her husband. He had obliged her, had kept himself awake while he tried vainly to soothe her tears. His last thoughts were of the morning, that he would make some effort to find some flowers, something cheerful, to wake her to color and light and a smile. But his own exhaustion was overwhelming, and when he woke, it was to daylight. The shock of that had pulled him from his bed in a quick scramble, and he had moved outside to the comforting warmth still in his nightclothes. The day was bright blue, and he thought still of the flowers, knew she would not sleep late, would rise to find him gone. He moved quickly out the short walkway to the road, saw a spread of wildflowers beyond, sad, shriveled, thought, well, it will be something. There was no one on the ro
He began to move back toward his house, felt foolish, cursing at airplanes, cursing at his old friend. He ignored the plane now, stepped out in the road, saw a group of men coming up from the town, soldiers, one more march, one more drill into the countryside. He hurried his steps, moved out of their way, and the sky seemed to burst above him, a blinding flash of orange and purple, a low roar, growing louder. The roar drove him down to the ground, deafening, a hard hand pressing him flat, the ground beneath him moving, rumbling, a gaping crack, a ditch, his body sliding, driven hard into a low place. The darkness covered the sky, he saw nothing at all now, the immense brightness changing to black, smoke and dirt, then no sky at all. He stayed flat, immovable, the darkness covering him, crushing in on him, obliterating the road, the flowers, and he felt a hard punch of wind, ripping the ground around him, debris whistling past, a piece of something hard striking his stomach. He tried to call out, turned to the house, terror in his mind, thoughts of his wife, raised his head in the violent storm, saw the house suddenly collapse to one side, flattened. More debris blew past him, and he tried to stand, impossible, was driven deeper into the ditch, the wind still shrieking over him, dirt and dust and pieces of everything covering him. He called out for his wife, but there was no sound but the roar of the storm. He closed his eyes, felt heat now, tried to curl himself up, too much wind, felt himself pulled up from the low place, scraping the ground, dragged by an invisible hand, his clothes ripped away, searing heat on his back. He rolled to one side, more debris falling, and he covered his face, but his hands were stripped away, his body beaten by the force of the wind. He slid farther along the ground, shoved into another hole, felt his legs crushed against a fallen tree, stopping his slide. He held to the tree, blinded, still crying out, nothing else to do, nowhere to go, his home and the sky and the city simply gone, filled by a swirling storm of fire and debris and the scattered bits of men.
He pulled himself free of the tree, dug himself out of a half meter of dirt and ash. He wiped the jagged roughness from his eyes, thought of his wife, the clinic, tried to see anything through eyes he knew were burnt. His hands slipped over the crushed limbs of the tree, and he saw shapes, one eye barely functioning. He put a hand up, touched his face, one side ripped raw, the skin around the eye torn and bloodied. He cried out, no pain, just … shock, knew he had to find someone, his wife, blinked hard, wiped at the blood, could make out more shapes. There was no sound but the wind, a steady roar from a massive cloud of black fog, he saw flickers of distant fires, one burst, the thunder driving toward him, an explosion far down near the castle. He stood, leaned against the shattered tree, his vision partially clearing, put a hand over the bloody side of his face, stinging pain. He stared toward the city, the landmarks, and through the smoke there was nothing else, the buildings flattened to rubble, or gone completely. He thought of the soldiers in the road, no sign of them, of anyone else, and the smoke swallowed him again, the hard stink of something he had never smelled before, his brain tossing out an image, burning fish. He was in full panic now, tried to walk, felt a sharp pain in his leg, tested it, stepped high, the leg unbroken. He struggled through the rubble, pieces of wood and stone, a crushed bicycle, pieces of fence, scratching at him, holding him. He cried out, choked on the dirt, searched again for his home, his crippled vision catching nothing but a flattened heap of splinters, bricks of his chimney, scattered away, strewn about like toys. His legs pushed out of the rubble, and he tried to reach the wreckage of his home, saw now that what remained of the clinic was a single stone wall, the beds and offices swept completely away. And the patients. He called out again, no response, and he climbed his way slowly to the house, shattered furniture, put a hand down on a lump of metal, saw it was his stove, on its side, and close to it, the icebox, crushed and twisted. He felt cold now, shivering in his chest, cold down his legs, knew it was shock, and his panic grew, his hands ripping at the rubble, his skin torn by his own desperation. He cried out, “Kiko!” He fought for more voice, pulled through the remains of his house, ignored the blood from his face, searching for his wife, called out again, “Kiko!”
He saw the twisted metal frame, the headboard of their bed, buried by a crumbled wall, moved that way, his foot ripped by something sharp. He ignored that, moved to the rubble, pulled it away, called out again, “Kiko! Answer me!”
He saw the cloth, soft silk, flowers, and he froze, his hand extended, knew it was her gown. He bent, knelt, more sharp edges, pulled at a piece of timber, but it would not move, and he dug with bloodied hands, saw her foot, part of her leg. He yelped, shoved himself into the rubble, felt her skin, the wetness, his blood flowing onto her, saw wetness around her, dirt and bone, the sweet sickening smell. He stopped, his strength gone, the sight of her bones freezing him, his guts rolling over in a hard spasm, and he vomited, then again, the grief consuming him, paralyzing. He sat, stared at the wreckage, his own home, the clinic, and everything beyond. There was pain in his legs, the cold increasing, and he looked down, fresh blood on his leg, a deep cut, his feet bare and bloodied, his nakedness. He sobbed aloud for a long moment, but new thoughts came, a great fist wrapping around his brain, his own will pulling him to the moment. There will be others … many others. You must help them. He looked toward the crushed walls of the clinic, saw a body there as well, a patient, her gown ripped away, the mother, her body torn in a grotesque shape. He turned away, searched frantically for any sign of what had been his office, something identifiable, thought of his medical bag. But there was only debris, his instruments buried, a broken microscope lying in a pool of something brown, bottles strewn into a pile of crushed glass. He fought to stay upright, looked again toward the heart of the city, saw more smoke, more fires close by and far away, no sign of anyone moving, no sign that Hiroshima had ever been a city at all.
The heat of the fires swirled around him, the cold in his legs passing, the shivering gone. His brain kept him there, and he wrapped his arms around his naked chest, squeezed, thought, stay awake … stay alert. The only sound was the firestorm, below, toward the center of the city, the flames coming together, one larger storm, smoke and darkness bey
Hata pulled himself to his feet, heard screaming down the dark corridor, stumbled, coughed in the dust, the air thick and smoky.
“What has happened?”
He fought to find the doorway, felt the heat rolling down through the dark caverns, more smoke, saw one man staggering close to him, an officer, no name, the man just one more wounded soldier. Hata moved past him, hugged one side of the earthen wall, felt the incline, pushed his feet up the hill, no sound but a strange roar, the smoke even worse, the taste of lead in his mouth, his body tingling, a swarm of invisible bees. He stopped, heard more screaming, somewhere in front of him, the stink and the heat driving him backward. Wait, he thought. There is safety here, down below. They must have made a direct hit on the castle. He thought of his men, the daily routine, drilling in the courtyard, men in formation for the morning rituals in the parade ground, his officers, the men who had come in from the outposts, gathering the night before for the strategy meeting. They are above, he thought, the guest quarters. I should go to them. Damn this smoke! You are in command, after all!
He pulled his coat off, wrapped it around his face, climbed again, furious at the ongoing screams, thought, some coward. I will deal with him. He could barely see, kept his eyes shaded with one bent hand, his bones aching, his legs stiff. Too old, he thought. They will tell me I am too old. But I am still the finest soldier in this city. I will show them that!