22: Sato’s Cherry Blossoms
AT SIX IN THE MORNING on the bridge of the Tancho, Admiral Sato looked at the sky. Broken clouds masked much of the full moon. An hour earlier, all 60 men had squeezed into the ward room designed for 20 officers.
“Well, men, today we will make history for our nation. I can tell you that our countrymen are about to attack the American possession of the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific.”
A gasp swept the room; Sato waited for it to subside,
“And with that attack, we will start to fulfill the Emperor’s destiny to be the ruler of the Pacific, our Pacific. But our mission is just as important. And we can cripple our enemy—cripple it without the loss of one life, either Japanese or anyone else.”
Sato moved to a large map on the wall of North and South America. Two red lines showed distances from New York to San Francisco. The red line going through the Canal had the distance listed beside it of 8,370 kilometers, while the second one, around the Horn, had the distance listed as 20,900 kilometers.
“Gentlemen, as you can see from these lines, the Panama Canal is the most vital strategic resource the Americans have. Yet, in spite of this, they have decided not to reinforce it in any way. Such a sweet little virgin cannot be wasted.” (All present knew of Sato’s predilection for Yokohama virgins; it was common knowledge that in this very ward room Sato had deflowered seven girls—“just there where you are eating your udon noodles”—he would remind many a blushing midshipman who stared at the table. “Clean, sweet, innocent and above all, very, very tight,” Sato would smile.)
Sato was loved for his wit, his love of wine, his joie de vivre and above all, how he cared for his sailors.
“But seriously, gentlemen, we have been blessed. So here is the plan: we will weigh anchor at midnight and will slip out of this very congenial port. Silence is key. Our hosts will mostly be in their beds, but there is no reason to tempt the Fates. We will steam due east. Our agents up the coast have indicated there are no commercial vessels at the mouth of the Canal. Then we will turn 180 degrees and steam into the mouth of the Canal. We will travel at just six knots, and even at that, it will be damn close as the Canal is only three boat widths wide in the entrance. The depth reading our fishing boats have taken over the past year as they have ‘accidentally’ strayed into the Canal have suggested we can drive at least five kilometers, possible as far as seven kilometers, into the Canal. At the five kilometer mark, there will be a burning truck on each bank. When we see these markers, we turn hard a-starboard and reverse the starboard engine. We will then block the Canal. When we run aground, I will scuttle the ship.”
A second gasp was heard.
“Gentlemen, please be aware this is not a game. We are simply following the guiding principle of attacking the enemy’s weakness, and in this case, his weakness is his Canal. We will proceed into the Canal, scuttle the ship, disembark the ship’s company and then the explosive charges will turn her into a great, impassible thorn. A thorn that will do more damage than one thousand sister ships could ever inflict. All of you will remember the difficulties we had as a massive ship of the line in rounding the Horn—the massive seas, the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, the Screaming Sixties. We felt like the proverbial cork. And remember the icebergs we saw? Now think what a small, frail, common oiler, one tenth our size, will feel. Gentlemen, we are blessed.
“You have all wondered about the dry docking in Yokohama last year. And how it was done in such secrecy. How our aircraft hangars below decks were filled with the huge blocks of triangular cast steel. Blocks that are taller than two men and each weighing 50,000 kilograms. Well, now you know. As the ship explodes, these huge blocks will all settle together to create a massive barrier. Nothing will pass. You will be disembarked so we can complete our mission. Are there any questions?”
Sato felt a frisson of excitement as he finally explained to his crew what he himself had proselytized to Yamamoto two years earlier.
No one spoke.
“Dismissed, and good luck to all of you. I expect all of you to report on the first of April at noon to the bar of the Palace Hotel in Tokyo to drink sake with me and to view the cherry blossoms fall around our Emperor’s palace.”
The reference to the ideal of a samurai’s death was a nice touch.
Ten hours later, the Tancho steamed at under quarter speed—six knots—into the eastern side of the Canal. The fishing agents had been modest—the Tancho had no difficulty in making the five kilometers into the entrance of the Canal. Sato had assigned two flagmen to stand at the front of the aircraft carrier’s flight deck. In case of a premature grounding Sato had taken the precaution to have them wear harnesses attached by a rope to the deck. The flagmen were needed because it was impossible for the conning tower to see the Canal, so these two directed the way. From time to time one of the flagmen would lose his footing. Sato smiled to himself that Takashi in the battleship Senshi at the other end of the isthmus would be able to drive in without having to resort to using flagmen.
True to Sato’s word, the five kilometer mark was indicated by a truck on fire on each side of the Canal. Upon seeing the burning beacons, Sato started the Tancho on the final turn of her life. At 36,000 tons, the aircraft carrier took over 16 kilometers to completely reverse direction. But because of the narrowness of the Canal at the eastern end, Sato did not have to wait long. A moment later, the Tancho started to run aground, her twin screws still madly turning in opposite directions doing nothing but churning the mud.
“Done with engines,” Sato shouted down the voice pipe.
“Abandon ship” was the next command.
Sato had transferred the Tancho’s portrait of the Emperor to the Suzume a week before they departed; Sato abandoned his command—unheard of for an admiral—with a sense of serenity.
All the ship’s skeleton company was put ashore. Four local trucks had been there and had taken them into the jungle. The jungle in Panama started 100 meters from the Canal and the U.S. troops saw it as the devil’s playground—full of man-eating pythons and worse. To continue the myth, the locals would get an American soldier paralytically drunk and feed him alive, but unconscious, to a hungry male python that would then proceed to fall into a deep digestive sleep. Two weeks later they would then shoot the sleeping reptile with a simple .22 round through the eye to the reptile’s brain. Then they would skin the snake and show the soldier’s half-digested remains. The effect among the American troops was always the same—panic.
An hour later, safely ensconced in the jungle hamlet eating rice and udon noodles, the crew of the Tancho saw the night sky illuminated with a huge orange and yellow fireball—the Tancho had done her job.
23: Admiral Abe’s Type 93
IN EVERY NAVY’S LANGUAGE, the Forenoon Watch is from 8 a.m. to noon. The modern Imperial Japanese Navy followed this convention, as it was crafted by the officers seconded from the Royal Navy; to this day the uniform of Japanese school children still have the square pigtail guards of the Royal Navy from Nelson’s time, embossed with three white lines, modern-day reminders of Admiral Nelson’s three victories.