No such worries here. Just white wakes in the water, straight as arrows. Shindo cursed when a dodging destroyer managed to evade one of those arrows. But then he shouted, “Banzai! ” again-a torpedo hit the damaged cruiser amidships. The cruiser shuddered to a stop. A destroyer was hit, too, and her back broken. She sank faster than the carrier had.

And there was another cruiser (or battleship? Shindo could still hope) hit, her bow torn off by the force of the blow. Shindo wished for more bombers to finish off the whole flotilla. He shrugged, then let out another cheer as a second destroyer was struck. Despite the cheer, he knew the carrier-based planes were lucky to have accomplished this much. The American carrier was dead. That mattered most. The Japanese Navy also had a swarm of submarines in Hawaiian waters. Maybe they could finish off some of the U.S. ships that had escaped the torpedo bombers.

That wasn’t Shindo’s worry, or not directly. He’d done everything he could here. The surviving Nakajimas were flying back toward the northeast. He followed them, as he’d trained to do. They had better navigation gear than he did. He smiled as he buzzed along over the Pacific. It wasn’t as if he had to worry about American pursuit. No, everything had gone just like a drill.

THE FIRST ATTACKS on Oahu passed Schofield Barracks by. Listening to the radio, looking at the smoke rising from nearby Wheeler Field, Fletcher Armitage was almost insulted. “What’s the matter?” he exclaimed. “Don’t they think we’re worth hitting, the lousy yellow bastards?”