Appendix 1. Debriefing Excerpts
Appendix 2. James H. Doolittle—Flight/Mission Report
Acknowledgments
Sources
Also by Dan Hampton
About the Author
Copyright
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
VANISHING ACT. Copyright © 2024 by Ascalon, LLC. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
Cover design by Rob Grom
Cover art: Japan Aerial View © Anton Belazh/Shutterstock.com; rough texture © Phongphan Phongphan/Alamy Stock Photo; North American B-25 Mitchell Bomber © The National WWII Museum
eISBN 9781250283252
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First Edition: 2024
* USS Hornet and Enterprise; heavy cruisers Salt Lake City, Vincennes, Northampton; light cruiser Nashville; destroyers Balch, Fanning, Benham, Ellet, Gwin, Meredith, Grayson, Monssen; fleet oilers Sabine and Cimarron.
* Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Zuikaku, and Shōkaku.
* The Japanese did exactly that, at 07:55 on Sunday, December 7, 1941. Clark Field was hit at 12:35.
* I-30 left Japan for Germany in late 1942, and the Type 91 was modified and designated Lufttorpedo LT 850 by the Germans. In October 1942, loaded with blueprints and equipment for the Wurzburg air defense radar, I-30 returned via Singapore. Fortunately for the Allies, it struck a British mine three miles into the Keppel Channel and the game-changing radar technology never reached Tokyo.
* USS Greer (DD-145) by U-652, Kearny (DD-432) by U-568, and the Reuben James (DD-245) by U-552.
† The Japanese would count five battleships; however, the aged USS Utah (BB-31) was a target ship.
‡ USS Ranger (CV-4), Yorktown (CV-5), Wasp (CV-7), and Hornet (CV-8). The latter had been commissioned in October and not yet undergone her shakedown cruise.
* USS Narwal (SS-167), Tautog (SS-199), Dolphin (SS-161), and Cachalot (SS-170). All four boats survived the war and, between them, earned twenty-nine battle stars by sinking thirty-three Japanese ships, totaling 86,435 tons.
* SNLF troops were drawn from, and named for, the four Japanese naval districts: Maizuru, Sasebo, Kure, and Yokosuka. These men are sometimes, and quite incorrectly, labeled “Japanese marines.” They were not. The SNLF was composed of sailors with very basic infantry training, unlike U.S. Marines, who specialize in combined arms amphibious assaults.
* Bonita Gilbert’s Building for War: The Epic Saga of the Civilian Contractors and Marines of Wake Island in World War II lists those captured as four hundred Marines; sixty-seven members of the Navy; six members of the Army Air Corps; thirty-eight civilians, largely from Pan Am Airways; and 1,111 civilian CPNAB contractors. Ninety-five defenders were killed in action, and 135 of those captured would later die in prisoner of war camps. Five men were beheaded by the Japanese after the surrender, and ninety-eight civilian contractors were executed on Wake in 1943.
* All twenty-three of the Essex-class carriers and four Iowa-class battleships were eventually launched from the East Coast yards of Newport News, Virginia; Fore River, Quincy, Massachusetts; Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York; and the Philadelphia Shipyard, Pennsylvania.
† The Americans had the advantages of qualified engineers, government backing via a private consortium, and a plan based on using a series of locks instead of attempting to cut a sea-level canal through the Panamanian jungle. The Americans also understood that malaria and yellow fever were transmitted by mosquitoes and took precautions accordingly.
* Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita dropped 168-pound incendiaries in several places near Brookings, Oregon. The Japanese did not account for the wet weather, so the fires were very small. Nevertheless, the attack sent the West Coast into a near panic, so any attack on the Panama Canal would inevitably accomplish the same. Fujita survived the war and visited Oregon to apologize. On his fourth trip, he was made an honorary citizen of Brookings shortly before his death in 1997. A portion of his ashes were scattered over the very forest he bombed fifty-five years earlier.
* Vixen, a converted motor yacht, had arrived on December 28, 1941, from Newport, Rhode Island. She served as King’s flagship and office until relieved by the USS Dauntless (PG-61) in June 1942.
* The U.S. Army Air Corps became the U.S. Army Air Forces on June 20, 1941.
* Valued at $223,295,870 in 2022.
* Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, I-25 and eight other submarines took up positions off the West Coast. Intending to shell several cities, she was driven off by American defenses, including the 17th BG Mitchells. On 28 December, 1941, the I-25 did torpedo the tanker SS Connecticut near Cape Disappointment, west of Baker Bay, Oregon.
* This was in reference to Sergeant Alvin C. York, the Great War hero awarded the Medal of Honor for single-handedly killing twenty-five Germans and capturing 132 more during the 1918 Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
* This was in reference to Peter Cassius Marcellus Cade, Oklahoma’s first academy appointment, who washed out in 1903.
* John Henry “Jack” Towers would command both the Langley and Saratoga, and all three men survived the Second World War to retire as admirals.
* Reuben James was not flying the U.S. ensign when she was hit and was actively attacking the wolf pack, so the confusion, though tragic, was understandable. U-552 was commanded by Kapitänleutnant Erich Topp, who, along with his boat, would survive the war. He later served in NATO as a rear admiral for the Bundesmarine, the West German Navy.
* This involved passing a charged electrical cable over the ship’s steel hull to reduce the effects of Earth’s magnetic field.
* The Mackay Trophy is awarded for the “most meritorious flight of the year,” which Arnold won for a reconnaissance competition in Virginia. The films were Military Air-Scout (1911) and The Elopement (1912).
* Many Japanese units behaved decently toward prisoners and civilians. No one at the Kowloon Hospital was harmed, and some Japanese officers often discreetly aided captured personnel. Rape, torture, and murder were largely condoned and encouraged by individual commanders who believed such acts were inalienable prerogatives due a conqueror.
* Halsey always claimed it originated from a war correspondent who misspelled “Bill.” Some of his brother officers claimed it was given in recognition of amorous conquests ashore. Whichever is true does not detract from his willingness to seek out and destroy the Japanese whenever possible.
