At Wheeler Airfield, all the planes had already been gone and no more bombs fell. Now, the men all waited for their pilots to return. They soon found three planes coming into the runway and returning to the main base. The three pilots jumped out, but Evira noticed that none of them were Rasmussen, and she ran up to them.
"Where's lieutenant Rasmussen?" Evira asked.
"I'm afraid we lost him," said one of them solemnly. "He was shot down by one of the Japs."
They all began to mourn until they heard what sounded like a plane coming in. They all turned to see what looks like a battered and damaged P-36 with lots of bullet holes coming into land. The three pilots gasped in bewilderment.
"That's him! That's Rasmussen?!" one of them exclaimed.
"He's still flying?!" exclaimed another.
They all watched as the plane lowered closer towards the runway for a straight landing. As it did so, the plane's rudder suddenly ripped completely off. Rasmussen felt a shudder but didn't let that distract him and kept his focus on landing the plane. He flipped the switch, letting out the landing gear. The tailwheel came off in the process! He could already tell his plane was coming apart.
"Come on," he muttered. "Please hold on just a little more until I'm on the ground!"
Very soon, the front wheels safely touched the pavement and the rear end dragged on the runway with sparks and a loud screeching noise while turning off the engines and pulling on the brakes, but nothing happened. He tried again, still nothing! The brakes were broken! His plane wasn't designed to reverse on its own, so all he could do was pray that it would stop while everyone watched in suspense. The plane drew slower and slower... and slower... and slower... until finally coming to a stop just an inch from the runway's edge!
"Phew!" sighed Rasmussen in relief, relaxing in his seat. "Thank you, God!"
Everyone cheered as they ran towards his plane. Even Evira was relieved that the lieutenant as okay. Rasmussen climbed out of the cockpit and jumped safely onto the ground just as everyone congratulated him for his brave efforts in the fight and the landing.
"Nice landing, Pajama Pilot!" smiled one of the men, shaking Rasmussen's hand while Rasmussen chuckled in reply, noticing how he's still in his PJ's the entire time.
At McGrew's Point, the USS Vestal is anchored but leaning badly and slowly sinking by the stern. And with several fires all around from other bomb attacks, it felt like they would be underwater in maybe and honor. Cassin Young realized he couldn't keep the ship afloat any longer and had to beach the ship somewhere. He looked around to find a good spot and found far enough a good place, which looked like Alea Bay, which had a good beach with no people there.
"We have to ground the ship!" Young called to his men. "Lift up the anchor! Full ahead towards that beach!"
As soon as the ship's anchor was lifted, men turned the ship's throttle and wheel, and the ship began to slowly limp towards the beach.
On the way, they couldn't see any more planes flying about. But they weren't letting their guard down easy. That said, they also took note of the ship's current condition. But with a few holes in the hull, it was like driving a car with a flat tire. It took little effort, but they finally reached it.
"We're going to ground, boys!" Young called. "Everyone, grab something and hold on!"
They held on tight just in time as the ship grounded with a violent jolt, sliding up on the sand before coming to a stop, resting on the sand underneath the keel. Once it was over, Young and the rest of the men sighed in relief. They were about to cheer about being safe, but Young stopped them.
"Let's not celebrate yet," he said, spotting the capsized Oklahoma through his binoculars. "I want a few teams to go back to the harbor to help out. There's going to be men trapped inside the Oklahoma."
With those orders, men lowered some boats to the shallow waters and motored back to the harbor.
At Lunalilo Elementary, the school was being cleared out while the fire department tried to put out the fire. The students were already evacuated and lots of stuff were carried out to avoid any further destruction to it. All their parents arrived on the scene to check on their children. Lotte's mother was among them, but she couldn't find her daughter amongst the crowd.
"Excuse me, have you seen my daughter, Lotte?" she asked one of the teachers. "Dark hair, bright smile, green eyes?"
"We haven't heard anything yet, ma'am," replied the teacher.
Her mother kept searching for her endlessly for several minutes until she saw one of the firemen carrying a pre-teen girl in his arms, lying limp. She rushed over to her and got a good look at her. It was indeed Lotte, but she looked lifeless as her eyes were closed, blood had rushed out from a wound in her forehead, and she wasn't breathing.
"Is she okay?" her mother asked worryingly.
"She was like this when I found her," replied the fireman. "I couldn't find a heartbeat or a pulse."
Her mother gasped in horror before trying to tap and shake her awake, but to no avail. There was no response nor movement. She was truly dead. Her mother teared up before carrying her Lotte's body in her arms, kneeling down, and sobbing uncontrollably for her deceased daughter while other students and teachers crowded around, keeping their distance as respect.
At the harbor, with no more Japs, it was now time for recovery. Onboard the Solace, Bianca was in her ward, working with another wounded patient by giving him a shot of morphine before he started shaking in his condition and started breathing heavily.
"It's... it's... so cold!" he breathed.
"Listen, sir, stay with me!" urged Bianca, grasping his hand. "I'm not going to give up on you, you hear me?!"
"I ca... I ca... I ca..." he said, with his voice growing quieter and quieter until not a sound was made, his body going limp, and laying lifeless on the bed.
Saddened, Bianca tearfully closed his eyelids and covered his whole body with the blanket, letting him rest before walking outside onto the deck towards the railing and looking at the state of the harbor. No more Japs flew around as they had all gone back, but the damage had already been done. Fire still engulfed the burning oil spilled in the water, ships were damaged and sunk with one of them sitting aground near a crashed barge, corpses lay all around on deck, ground, or in the water.
Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Maryland, Helena, Raleigh, and Honolulu were still afloat but damaged. Arizona's hull and main deck were completely submerged while the superstructure above continued to burn, West Virginia, Shaw, the YFD-2 floating dock Shaw lays on, and California were sunk too but with their main decks still above the water thanks to the shallow waters, Cassin and Downes were sunk in the flooded dry dock with the Downes laying to starboard on Cassin's port side. The harbor tug, Sotoyomo was sunk, leaving only the top of her smokestack and wheelhouse roof above the water. From afar, Bianca noticed the minelayer, USS Oglala leaning near her pier, quickly capsizing from 20 degrees port over to 90 on her side, sinking until she settled on the bottom, leaving her starboard side popping above the surface. And finally, Utah and the Oklahoma were rolled over, almost upside-down while workmen tried to cut holes in the hull to rescue the men trapped inside.
On the Raleigh, men had already scrambled onto the nearly upturned hull of Utah with cut torches and other equipment a while ago to cut out some holes in the hull too. But they had no luck so far. Now, one of the men heard a sound.
"I hear tapping over here!" he exclaimed, pointing to the spot.
"Great Bill," said one of the men. "Let's go, men!"
Quickly, they cut a big hole in the hull and all they managed to find and pull out was four men before placing them onto the USS Argonne for recovery. One of them was Jack Vaessen from the electrical room.
Inside the Oklahoma, Muller and surviving men were still in the half-flooded compartment waiting for any rescue to cut a hole so they could get out. But they were low on oxygen. Any moment, they could run out and suffocate. But at last, they saw sparks in the hull above them.
"Hey, they're cutting us out!" cheered one sailor.
And they all cheered while Muller smiled, knowing that their freedom and survival is at large. A few minutes into the cutting however, they all began to notice the water starting to rise again, slowly at first until faster and faster. They began to panic.
"Wait, what's going on!"
"The water's rising again!"
They started to climb to reach the hull, banging the metal and screaming at the men outside to cut it faster so they could get out.
Despite his own distress, Muller was the only one to realize that because they used so much oxygen in this compartment, the trapped air began escaping out through the hull, making the water rise higher and much faster. And with their air pocket running out, their chances of drowning was likely. And he started to think, there was no reason for more water to produce in one tight room unless...
Muller inhaled a deep breath and submerged to find what looks like the only hatchway to the room and its door was open! His theory was that with the hatchway open, water would get sucked into the room. But if it was closed, would it stop? There was only one way to find out and there was no time for second guessing, so he swam down to it. The hatch door was open on the other side and he grabbed it to pull. A panicing sailor noticed this and swam down to him, wondering why he was closing the door at a time like this. Muller pointed to the door and the water above, making the sailor realize what he was doing and nodded before they tried pulling it together. But the door wouldn't budge. The door was too heavy.
Seeing how heavy it was to do it from the side they were on, Muller had another strategy. He swam through the hatchway and nodded at the sailor to pull while he tried to push with all their might. It was working, the door was closing! They could save them! Suddenly, at the last moment, the sailor realized that with Muller on the other side, he wouldn't get out.
"NO!" exclaimed the sailor in a muffled tone.
But it was too late. With a bang, the door was fully closed. Muller turned the handle on the hatchway until it was tight and stuck a long pole through it so all the sailors on the other side trying to get out wouldn't turn it. As a result, the water in the compartment stopped rising and new, fresh air starting seeping through the hole inside. The plan had worked! With his work done, even though there was no way out for him now, Muller smiled.
"You all deserve to live," he thought as he began to drown, falling into the abyss. "Now go, go back to your families and live your happy lives. They all need you."
Those were his very last thoughts.
Because of Muller's sacrifice, the workmen managed to cut open a big enough hole for the soaked sailors in the compartment to be pulled out one by one. They breathed their fresh air in relief and watched as more sailors got pulled out from another compartment. However, some noticed trouble on one of the other compartments. It was same as what had happened in their compartment, trapped air was escaping and the water was rising very quickly inside. They could hear their screams of terror inside.
"Help!"
"Get us out!"
"The water's coming up!"
The workmen did the best they could, even some of the sailors who escaped tried everything they could to cut the hole bigger. But the water was way too high up and they couldn't keep their heads up. They could only manage to stick their fingers through the openings before water trickled out from the holes and their movements eventually stopped with everyone standing on the hulk knowing they have drowned.
In another flooded compartment, a man in uniform managed to open a porthole and popped up in the air pocket to meet a few sailors inside with him.
"The port hole is open, go and escape."
"But Father Schmitt, what about you?"
"I'll go when everybody's out," he said before he led the sailors out by swimming through it to the surface outside.
Schmitt would never get out. He would be out of air by the time all the surviving sailors were out, where they saw some sailors escaping through some holes cut in the hull.
At Hickam Field, Annie was waiting at the doorway, looking through all the smoke around for Izetta, whom she couldn't find after she had rushed outside just then. But she soon found her being slowly carried back by Finé, having an arm hung around her shoulder. They looked tired and partially covered in soot.
"Izetta, leaving your post like that is going to co..." Annie began to say as they arrived before stopping, seeing Finé glaring at her while holding poor Izetta, who looked half-dead on the inside, staring at the ground with her eyelid's half closed.
Annie said no more, and she let the two friends through and inside the hospital with respect, taking notice of Izetta's condition as she was carried inside like a living zombie. She could understand how she was feeling, having lost her grandmother like that in such a horrible way after just reuniting and could no longer blame her, understanding she needed some time to recuperate. Then she began looking at the corpses around the field with only a few trying to reach the hospital.
And somehow, seeing how many dead bodies there were, so many of their fallen men, all of which already feeling like family to her after their hospital had just opened, she began to feel like she would've gone through the exact same thing.
Near Hospital Point, the still slowly sinking Nevada was making her way towards the beach while being led by the harbor tug, Hoga and the minesweeper, Avocet. When they were very close, Hoga and Avocet stopped and let the Nevada continue the rest of the way.
"Full steam, everyone!" called the captain as the crewmen sped up the engines.
Edward, Donald, and a few other men could see the shore too and, seeing that there were no more Japs around, they felt sure they would make it. And soon enough, they began to hear a groan from underneath and a shift. That was the sound of the hull scraping against the bottom. Knowing that this was the moment, everyone held on tightly to the railing for the inevitable beaching.
The bottom tip of the bow hit the sand and lifted up with a jolt, sliding for a second or two before coming to a complete stop, leaving the ship to settle at last. And now, the rest of the surviving crew can get off safely.
Everyone spent the rest of the day recovering from everything that had happened on that dreadful morning. Some of the survivors helped the nurses at the hospitals by donating blood for whoever they could save, but not everybody could be saved. The airfields were in ruin as bodies were removed and several destroyed planes were taken away for scrap, but people plan on rebuilding what they had lost in the attack, hoping to make it stronger than ever. The harbor was in a state of total disaster. Bodies lying in the sea were pulled out by rope nets, hauled onto the piers by cranes. The ships that were sunk were deemed as a total loss, but only a while for some. There was talk about salvage for some of the ships such as the Oklahoma, the California even for the ones that had run aground. But the Arizona continue to lay where she was as we see her today and any savage team couldn't get to her to rescue anybody else since she was too far under, leaving all the trapped men inside entombed.
Out on the Pacific, the Japanese ships started sailing back home after all the remaining planes had returned with their mission completed, even though their planned third wave had been called off.
On the Akagi, Yamamoto was alone in his quarters, writing in his log.
"We have successfully completed our mission. We archived surprise and took down most of their fleet. With them out of commission, the Pacific fleet won't be able to interfere with our plans. But even so..."
He trailed off, thinking about Izetta's wrathful speech from earlier, which sent chills down his spine before continuing writing.
"...despite our success, I fear that all we have done was to awaken... a sleeping giant!"
That being said, he began to think about not only Izetta, but also the other American soldiers who could be ready to fight in due time. He felt for sure that what he had written was going to be correct.
And it was!
It was dark when the HA-19 Japanese mini sub drifted in the rough current near the beach of Waimanalo. The cabin was halfway flooded, still slowly leaking in water from the outside. Their engines were gone, their torpedo launchers were disabled, and their hull was crippled. The crew inside were trying to beach her after regaining consciousness a little while ago.
Suddenly, there was a lurch and a jolt!
The sub had grounded itself on a reef, which was a little far off from shore. The two men could barely see the surf ahead of them. And by how high the water has risen, they knew they couldn't waste time trying to dislodge her again.
"Inakagi, get out, save yourself," sighed Sakamaki. "I'll set an explosive to scuttle her and join you after."
"Roger, be careful," said Inakagi as he undid the top hatch.
"Same to you," replied Sakamaki as Inakagi climbed out and dove into the sea.
Sakamaki set a little explosive somewhere high above the rising water in the cabin, setting it on a timer, before climbing through the hatch and jumping into the ocean. But after jumping in, he found that the current was rougher than he had originally thought. And he tossed and turned, trying to keep his head above the churming water.
"Inakagi! Inakagi!" he called despairingly.
But there was no answer. Even if there was, the rough waves made it hard for him to hear any reply.
It took nearly every ounce of strength he had to swim towards the shore. But at last, he managed to feel his hands and feet on sand under him and he crawled his way up the beach until he was safe and out of the water, where he panted before collapsing on the sand, falling unconscious again in exhaustion.
At Julian Ave, Izetta didn't sleep well that night. She never smiled once even after she had cleaned up from a nice, warm shower she had earlier. She tossed and turned in her bed, thinking about the attack, her deceased grandmother, and the Japanese man she shot and killed. It got worse when she began to dream.
She found herself in a bloody area where lots of bloody, decaying corpses were everywhere. She could even see their guts, their bones, their innards sticking out from each one. One of them was that Japanese pilot she shot dead earlier. Poor Izetta whimpered in disgust, gagging, until she saw a silhouette of herself, shooting the Japanese pilot on the head with blood and a few parts of his brain spilling out from the back end of the bullet wound before lying dead on the ground.
Izetta gagged again until she saw her silhouette turned to face her with a look of pity.
"Look at you!" said the sihlouette in a dark, unsympathetic tone.
Izetta jumped as the silhouette came out of the shadows to reveal herself to be a darker version of herself in a pitch-black dress, making her look more like a witch.
"You survived worse," said the reflection. "Sure, you've dealt with your people getting slaughtered back at our original home. Shot to death on the spot, gassed in the chamber, all dumped aside without being given a proper burial. You wouldn't shoot a Nazi, but you would on a Japanese pilot? Why is that? He wasn't even from the Nazi's, but you killed him anyway. Oh wait, what's this?" she went on, both noticing her grandmother laying dead on the ground. "Your grandmother had survived the Nazi's, but then she just gets killed in the attack by Japan? Tough luck! Still, it's a shadow of your true self, a shadow of your destiny! So, why not move forward? What holds you back?"
Izetta didn't answer, she just took a step back in fear.
"Oh, I get it!" smirked the reflection. "It's that Finé girl, isn't it? What's wrong if she sees you as how you should be? They took away everything, why not hit them the same way they hit you? Who cares what she'll think? Who cares what anyone thinks for that matter? You can't keep your bonds forever. Take a look!" she shouted, pointing behind Izetta.
Izetta turned around gasped when she saw Evira, Bianca, and Finé, all staring at her in pure shock and horror. She wondered why they were looking at her like that until she noticed the blood of the dead Japanese pilot on her hands and looking at the bodies around her.
"No!" breathed Izetta, looking back at the three women. "Please, I-I didn't..."
She took a step towards them, only for them to step back in fright.
"Wait! It wasn't me! I swear!" Izetta pleaded, reaching out to them.
But they didn't listen and started to leave; first Bianca, next Evira, leaving only Finé with her.
"Finé... please! I'd never do this! You have to believe me!" Izetta said sadly.
"Then why did you shoot him?" sneered Izetta's dark reflection. "That doesn't mistake who you are. You're a murderer. In other words... you're evil!"
"I'm not!" screamed Izetta at her reflection before looking back towards Finé, who slowly turned on her heel and started to walk away from her. "No, please! Listen to me!" she cried out as Finé started to move faster until she started running. "Wait, don't go, Finé! Please, YOU KNOW ME!"
But it was no use, Finé had vanished from sight, leaving poor Izetta all alone as her shadow continued to haunt her.
"There's no escaping your evil destiny, Izetta!" her shadow sneered. "Time to turn your back on all who had betrayed you! If the Nazi's say you're evil, time to prove yourself!"
Then more voices of her shadow started speaking at her while Izetta crumpled to the floor.
"Time to stand up!"
"Let's move forward!"
"It's your destiny!"
"You can never escape it!"
"Kill them!"
"Burn them!"
"Slaughter them!"
"Hunt them!"
These voices wouldn't stop echoing in her head, getting louder and louder with each passing seconds.
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Izetta screamed.
In the real word, Izetta started crying in her sleep, letting out several whimpers and a few murmurs. For a while, Finé watched from the doorway. She could tell her friend was hurting. She wanted to do something for Izetta. But after what had happened that day, she wasn't sure what to do anymore. After always having ideas for her, this was the first time she didn't know what to do.
Author's Note:
This brings an end to that fateful day. I made sure I did it as accurately as possible after looking at several sites I could find, hoping I didn't make the same mistakes as the Michael Bay film. But the story's not over yet. We'll see what happens with Izetta's turmoil in the next chapter, so be sure to leave your reviews below, keep following this story and be on the lookout for the next chapter.