At Dawn they Fiddled – 2001
Mather Air Force Base, Sacramento California, March 2001
On a surprisingly sunny day for so early in March after a spate of rather heavy rain, a number of people chose to take advantage of the cloudless sky to eat outside the Base Exchange snack bar.
"Jumbo dog, brown mustard. Coke." said Captain Frank Mitchell
"Kraut?" asked the vendor.
"No, not today." Mitchell was flying later that day and didn't want to deal with the gas the sauerkraut would give him. As he got his hot dog and turned to the tables, he spied one of his bombers's ground crew busily munching away on a large polish dog, Chicago style. He sighed at the ruination of a good frank that way but walked over nonetheless.
"Good morning Sergeant, mind if I join you?"
TSG William Kyle looked up from the nearly demolished weenie at the approaching officer and made to stand, putting down the Polish dog back on the deli paper.
"Certainly sir." Checking his rise upon seeing the captain wave his hand for the man to stay seated.
Mitchell took a seat and began working on his jumbo dog. After washing down a few bites he looked back at his NCO. Careful to frame his question to follow the unwritten rule among the bomber flight and ground crews that during lunch, business was discussed only if necessary.
"How was your leave? "
"Very nice, the kids loved Disneyland." replied Kyle, "And they got to see my brother"
"The Hollywood special effects guy? "
"That's the one. He got me into an insider's sneak preview of a movie coming out in May called Tennessee. It's a fictional 'what if' of an attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He worked on it."
Mitchell rolled his eyes "I've seen previews of that during the Super Bowl, I wasn't impressed with their choice of who plays LeMay. He's not fit to carry the President's toilet paper."
"Yeah, President Le May is probably conducting post-mortem experiments in cadaver centrifugal force over that casting choice."
"What would LeMay be doing at Pearl Harbor?" asked Mitchell.
"Get to that in a second. My brother wanted me to see it since I have a bad habit of laughing so loud at military mistakes. Once the usher had to ask me to calm down and the film wasn't a comedy. "
"Which movie was this?"
"Well, this was a good 15 years ago." Kyle said "Iron Eagle. About the kid who steals an F-116 to save his dad captured by the Caliphate. Obviously the makers never heard of the SEALs."
"I remember that one," another eye roll, "I would have told the usher that it WAS a comedy. I am ashamed to admit my dad paid money for me to see that. Anyway, back to Tennessee."
"Right. Seems the hook is Halifax failed in his displacement of Churchill and England stayed in the fight. So much so that we sent pilots over to fly with the RAF to help stop the German bombers."
"H'mm, that would have helped a lot if England had stayed in it. Certainly would have made the invasion a whole lot easier if The Big One had failed."
"That it would, so if Britain was still fighting in early '41, the Germans couldn't send everything they had to smack Russia, so we never sent anyone there. But all we did was send pilots to England and never really got involved."
"Yeah right. Just pilots? No planes? That will do a whole lot of good." Said Mitchell sarcastically.
"Yep, just pilots. Seems in the film we didn't want to get into it. So all we did was do some economic maneuvering in the Pacific to deny Japan material it could use in its war in China."
"And the Japanese were touchy enough to see US as a threat for that?"
"Right in one. So they send six, count em six carriers to hit Pearl. Come to think of it I dont know if they even HAD six carriers at that point, but my Chipanese history is kinda thin on that era, though I guess they wouldnt have been Chipan just yet."
"Wait. They want us to swallow that they could get six carriers, and all their escorts within 200 miles off Hawaii and no one ever noticed it? I can suspend disbelief only so far. That would be like saying we only needed one or two nukes to end the war."
"Yeah, delivered by solitary B-29s no less. It gets better or worse depending on how you look at it. Because of the large Japanese population and fears of sabotage, the commanders order all the planes to be parked close together to guard them easier."
"Tell me you are kidding." Mitchell paused as Kyle took another bite and shook his head. "So no one ever told them about dispersal? This kinda makes the army look stupid."
"Well, not that they need any help."
Both men grinned at the interservice ribbing.
Kyle continued "So at the appointed time on a Sunday morning, they launch before dawn with a massive strike of bombers and torpedo planes. They do get spotted but are mistaken for a B-17 group due in later that day."
"Sunday at dawn?" Mitchell pondered that for a moment. "Well, at least they got that right. But torpedo planes? Pearl is too shallow for air drops."
"Fins on the torpedoes to keep them from diving too far."
"Hmm, that might actually work."
"I thought so too, but its odd they got that when so many other details were so badly handled, like modern ships standing in for the 1941 era fleet. So, as you might imagine, Pearl gets blown to unholy hell, our guys die by the bushel but since the two heroes are fighter pilots, they get in the air."
"Only two?"
Kyle nodded. "Only two. The rest were in neat rows and strafed. When they blew up, it took others with them in a chain reaction."
"I suppose our heroes never ending ammo supplies then proceed to sweep the skies of the dreaded Yellow Menace?" said Mitchell, waving his arms grandly.
"Oddly enough for Hollywood, no. They only account for 4 of them. But its not enough to stop the battleships and cruisers from taking a serious pounding. One shot has a bombs eye view from drop to hitting down the stack of the Tennessee which then goes down with nearly all hands. We get the sense that the rally cry for the US afterwards is 'Remember the Tennessee!' Arizona gets beached after getting underway, and the Nevada turns turtle, but a lot of her crew makes it out."
"What happened to the carriers?" Asked Mitchell, wiping mustard off his mouth.
Kyle took a sip of his soda, "Nothing. They weren't there."
"Score one for the good guys. At least something went right."
"True enough. Though they show that the Japanese never hit the repair docks or the fuel stores. Those were targeted for a follow on strike but the Japanese thought that with surprise lost, it was time to get the hell out of Dodge."
"That's plausible enough, but it would allow recovery a whole lot faster than if they were destroyed. So where does LeMay come in?"
"Biggest howler in the movie, and that's saying something. They get a crazy idea about doing a counter attack on Tokyo using B-25s off carriers. Led by our Ironass."
"No. Fricking. Way."
"Way. Only they DO get detected by the Japanese and have to launch early, so most of them crash in China, instead of making it to Russia."
"B-25s off carriers. Someone was smoking some serious weed for that to be written."
"No doubt, but cocaine is the drug of choice it seems."
"How does it end?"
"Enterprise steams in the next day, some of the ships and shore fires are still burning. We see Halsey on the bridge rail as he says something about waking Joe Louis and really pissing him off."
Mitchell laughed out loud. "Yeah, thats about right. Look what we did to Germany. Chipan should be thankful. Ready to help us fly?"
Looking at his watch, Kyle said, "About that time sir."
"Thank you Sergeant for a most pleasant lunch and saving me $7.50 "
"Wait till the sequel comes out. One sounded good."
"Sequels? Already? It's not even out yet."
"Just people talking at the reception afterward. I heard one of the Sci-Fi Directors talking about putting USS Shiloh back in time athwart the Japanese approach and having her open a can of whoopass."
Mitchell laughed as he cleared the table and walked away, "And she would too."