40 Fuchida Falling

Pearl Harbor was in utter chaos and unrestrained panic! Japanese A6M "Zero" type fighter aircraft were flying everywhere unrestrainedly. Their guns strafing and targeting any moving vehicle, person, or object, nothing was untouched. The screams of the dying and the wounded echoed throughout the harbor as the bomber aircraft finally reached the harbor. They had been designated very specific targets. This first wave of bombers targeted the barracks, the communications building, and the armory. This wasn't coincidental as they had been fed the locations of all of these buildings by Japanese spies in the US military that they had planted years ago.

The bombs fell and to those on the ground, they heard the whistling of them piercing through the air shortly before they landed. Several huge fireballs exploded into the sky as the bombs fell on the armory, the whole building collapsed in on itself, a blooming pile of smoke, ash, and rubble.

Inside the communications building in a certain room, the officer on duty woke up in a panic and looked out a window. He saw all of the planes flying around with the trademark "rising sun" emblem on the undersides of the wings. He hurriedly toggled a few switches on the main console and the air raid siren echoed throughout Pearl Harbor, alerting those massive behemoths that sat moored in the harbor. Those ships weren't the targets yet, but with the alarm blaring everyone on the ships had entered red alert status, all hands were gathered to Battlestations. The officer sighed in relief and saluted the harbor shortly before a Japanese torpedo bomb crashed into the room, exploding and blowing up that whole side of the communications building.

....

A Nakjima B5N fighter-bomber aircraft pulled up out of its dive run over the communications building in Pearl Harbor. In the pilot's seat sat the commander of the entire attack, Captain Mitsuo Fuchida. He frowned, unexpectedly they were able to get the air raid siren off before they could bomb Communications. This was troubling, but not entirely unexpected. He glanced at the fuel gauge, it was at a quarter of a tank, he should have time for a couple of strafing runs before the second wave gets here. Though, he would have to send the signal first to the fleet to give the okay that the surprise attack was indeed effective. He still had some misgivings about it, the situation felt off, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had already given the "To, To, To" signal, and the signal was misunderstood by the leader of the bomber squadrons, Lieutenant Commander Shigeharu Murata. Fuchida had to slide back the canopy and brave the harsh and fierce winds to fire off a blue flare. Only after that did the rest of the first attack commence.

Fuchida turned the plane around gracefully in the air, the entire turn took about ten seconds, but that was nothing in the face of the American bombers, those took anywhere from fifteen to thirty seconds to turn around! Another reason they were going to lose this war so pitifully. He activated the long-range communication radio and signaled the Akagi with what would become one of the most infamous phrases of World War Two, though he would not know it yet.

"Tora, Tora, Tora!"

As they were heading past the ships sitting in the harbor, anti-aircraft fire came from one of the ships and traced holes across the wings, Fuchida glanced at the gauges and noticed that the air pressure was rapidly dropping. He glanced out of the cockpit and saw on one wing there were nearly ten holes and one of the fuel lines took a glancing hit, thankfully it hadn't ignited, but it was rapidly leaking fuel. He glanced at the fuel gauge and it was slowly dropping faster, if this kept up, they wouldn't have the fuel to make it back to the Akagi! On the left wing were seven holes, and one of the machine guns was badly mangled and unusable. Not yet a dire situation, but if they didn't make it back to the Akagi within fifty minutes, they never would, all of them would drown at sea! Fuchida signaled the radioman to send a message to the Akagi.

"Akagi, koreha fuchidadesu, watashitachiha hitto shite nenryō o morashite imasu! Kurasshu chakuriku no junbi o suru!"

Forty minutes later the B5N was approaching the Akagi, the fuel line was starting to leak less and less fuel and they were two minutes away! The fuel gauge was reading empty and the air pressure gauge was in the bottom red! They were going to drop like a rock soon! Soon enough their airplane started falling, first, it was slow, but as they approached the Akagi it got faster and faster. Fuchida was frowning and there were beads of sweat lining his forehead as he stepped on the rudders and pulled hard on the stick, the plane tilted upwards and he didn't deploy the landing gear knowing that the wheels would just snap off. He deployed the airbrakes as soon as they could see the top deck of the Akagi, there were sailors hurrying about and carrying cargo netting and arranging huge replacement tires on the deck. It looked like they were innovatively trying to soften the impact of the landing! There were also scattered fire hoses on deck crewed by at least five people each, just in case a fire broke out.

The rest of the plane crew strapped into a seat as Fuchida screamed at the controls. The plane was dropping like a rock at an angle thanks to Fuchida's excellent flying skills! The deck loomed closer and closer until finally, they were dropping horizontally to it as if someone was using their plane as a skipping stone. The nose of the plane ground against the metal pavement of the Akagi's Flight Deck, the plane skidding and sending sparks everywhere! One of these sparks ended up igniting the remnant fuel in the busted fuel line setting it ablaze! Fuchida and crew could only hold on for dear life strapped into their seats, thankfully the fuel tank was empty and couldn't trigger any large explosion that would consume them all. The plane skidded slower and slower and crashed into the cargo netting first at about seventy-two KPH, it tore through losing twenty KPH and then it crashed into the multi-layered tire set losing all of it's momentum and coming to a grinding halt. Crews with the hoses began spraying down the flames as Captain Fuchicda and his crew sighed in relief. They could only hope the rest of the surprise attack went well, their part in this was done.