AllFreeNovel
Share Us
For the next half hour everyone kept a wary eye on number four engine while Mosely called out the temperature drop.
"We have a landfall," announced Arnold. "A small island coming up about twenty miles dead ahead."
Stromp peered at it through binoculars. "Looks like a hot dog sticking out of the water."
"Sheer rock walls," observed Arnold. "No sign of a beach anywhere."
"What's it called?" asked Dennings.
"Doesn't even show on the map."
"Any sign of life? The Nips could be using it as an offshore warning station."
"Looks barren and deserted," answered Stromp.
Dennings felt safe for the moment. No enemy ships had been sighted, and they were too far from shore to be intercepted by Japanese fighters. He settled down in his seat and stared unseeing at the sea.
The men relaxed and passed around coffee and salami sandwiches, immune to the droning engines and the tiny speck that appeared ten miles away and 7,000 feet above their port wingtip.
Unknown to the crew of Dennings' Demons, they had only a few minutes to live.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Sato Okinaga saw the brief glint from the reflected sun below him. He banked and went into a shallow dive for a closer inspection. It was an aircraft. No question. A plane from another patrol, most likely. He reached for the switch to his radio, but hesitated. In a few seconds he'd be able to make a positive identification.
A young and inexperienced pilot, Okinaga was one of the lucky ones. Out of his recently graduated class of twenty-two, who were rushed through training during Japan's desperate days, he and three others were ordered to perform coastal patrols. The rest went into kamikaze squadrons.
Okinaga was deeply disappointed. He would have gladly given his life for the Emperor, but he accepted boring patrol duty as a temporary assignment, hoping to be called for a more glorious mission when the Americans invaded his homeland.
As the lone aircraft grew larger, Okinaga didn't believe what he saw. He rubbed his eyes and squinted.
Soon he could clearly make out the ninety-foot polished aluminum fuselage, the huge 141-foot wings, and the three-story vertical stabilizer of an American B-29.
He stared dumfounded. The bomber was flying out of the northeast from an empty sea, 20,000 feet below its combat ceiling. Unanswerable questions flooded his mind. Where had it come from? Why was it flying toward central Japan with one engine feathered? What was its mission?
Like a shark knifing toward a bleeding whale, Okinaga closed to within a mile. Still no evasive action.
The crew seemed asleep or bent on suicide.
Okinaga had no more time for guessing games. The great winged bomber was looming up before him.
He jammed the throttle of his Mitsubishi A6M Zero against its stop and made a circling dive. The Zero handled like a swallow, the 1,130-horsepower Sakae engine hurtling him behind and beneath the sleek, gleaming B-29.
Too late the tail gunner sighted the fighter and belatedly opened fire. Okinaga squeezed the gun tit on his control stick. His Zero shuddered as his two machine guns and two twenty-millimeter cannons shredded metal and human flesh.
A light touch of the rudder and his tracers ate their way into the wing and the B-29's number-three engine. The cowling ripped and tore away, oil poured through holes, followed by flames. The bomber seemed to hover momentarily, and then it flipped on its side and spun toward the sea.
Only after the choked-off cry of the tail gunner and his short burst of fire did the Demons realize they were under attack. They had no way of knowing from what direction the enemy fighter had come. They barely had time to recover when the shells from the Zero ate into the starboard wing.
A strangled cry came from Stromp. "We're going in!"
Dennings shouted into the intercom as he fought to level the plane. "Stanton, jettison the bomb!
Jettison the goddamn bomb!"
The bombardier, wedged against his bombsight by the centrifugal force, yelled back. "It won't fall free unless you straighten us out."
The number-three engine was blazing now. The sudden loss of two engines, both on the same side, had thrown the plane over until it was standing on one wing. Working in unison, Dennings and Stromp struggled with the controls, fighting the dying aircraft to an even keel. Dennings pulled back on the throttles, leveling out but sending the bomber into a flat, sickening stall.
Stanton pulled himself to an upright position and popped open the bomb-bay doors. "Hold it steady,"
