Seeing their comrades’ success, the last three dive bombers pulled up without dropping their bombs. “What are you doing?” Shindo called to them.

“Sir, the carrier is dead in the water,” one of those pilots replied. “We request permission to attack a battleship instead.”

“I think they’re cruisers,” Shindo said. “But even if they are battleships, the carrier is the primary target.” He looked down at it. The Aichi pilot was right; it could not move at all. Still, the Americans were supposed to be very clever, very skillful, at damage control. Shindo made up his mind. “Two of you will strike the carrier again. The third may use his bomb against a cruiser. Do you understand me? All three of you-speak up!”

“Aye aye, sir!” they chorused.

“Obey, then.” Shindo radioed the rest of the D3A1s: “Go back to the ships. If you pass the torpedo bombers coming this way, give them a course.”

The three bomb-laden Aichis climbed back up into the sky, then dove once more. As Shindo had commanded, two of them attacked the carrier. One missed even though the target lay dead in the water. The other bomb, though, struck square amidships. Shindo thought afterwards that that one might have been enough to sink her all by itself. She began to list to starboard. The list quickly grew. Whatever men remained aboard her could do nothing to stop it.

Shindo was so intent on watching her that the fire and smoke suddenly spurting from a cruiser’s-or was it a battleship’s? — superstructure took him by surprise. “Banzai! ” an excited young pilot shouted in his earphones. “That is a very solid hit!”

“Yes, it is,” Shindo agreed. He ordered the remaining D3A1s back to the carriers, and all the Zeros except his own. If he spotted the torpedo bombers, he could guide them down to the American ships. He throttled back. His plane had more endurance than the dive bombers, especially when he wasn’t going all out in combat. He could afford to loiter here for a while. And he wanted to watch that carrier sink.