Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th by William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich

conferences, and do as the three of them were now doing.
    “Oh, I guess I could say the usual,” James replied. “Though I am not up to speed on such things. That Panama war game was several years back. You undoubtedly have read the journal reports on it. The red team carrier slipped through at a flank- speed run, launched before dawn, and claimed they had blown the locks of the canal by dropping flour bags on them. The judges ruled otherwise. I was onboard Maryland at the time and didn’t see it. So there is no way I can claim to be an expert.”
    “But do you think the attack was valid.”
    James hesitated. But there was something about Fuchida that was so damn disarming, his open, almost boyish enthusiasm about the subject.
    “On our side it is the usual debate,” Fuchida said. “The battleship admirals claim that their ships were, are, and will always be the deciders of battle. Those who were at Tsushima think the carrier was nothing but a scout ship, to locate the enemy fleet, then to serve as fire-direction control for the battleships once they’d closed to firing range.”
    Watson chuckled. “Same here. Though remember, I’m signals, not a flyer.”
    “And are you trying our codes?” Fuchida asked good- naturedly. “You delivered your speech in Japanese, and I must say it was fairly good.”
    “Just have a knack for language,” James said noncommittally. “The Japanese is just sort of a hobby. My wife is half- Japanese, by the way. Her mother was born in Japan, so let’s just say it’s to get on the good side of my mother-in-law.
    “How do you two know each other?” James asked, changing the topic.
    “Oh, my friend Mitsuo here and I go back a bit. He comes by on a regular basis to talk to the cadets about aviation and then to practice his English on me.”
    “And steal some of his scotch,” Fuchida replied. “I will say that any talk you might hear about conflict between us and you, our navies I mean, push it aside. We see our descent from the traditions of His Majesty’s Navy. Remember, the founder of our Imperial Navy, the Great Togo,” and as he said the name he bowed ever so slightly, “long ago trained in England. So there is a brotherhood there.”
    “And as for us?” James asked quietly.
    Fuchida turned to look at him.
    “The Pacific is a vast ocean, my friend. There is room enough for both in their proper spheres of influence.”
    “Which are?”
    Fuchida chuckled and looked down at his nearly empty drink, making a motion, and Cecil poured out a few more ounces. The bottle was now well more than two thirds empty, and James wondered just how many his friend still had in reserve out here.
    “The Philippines, I can see what was almost the accidental placing of it in your hands after your defeat of the Spanish. I actually do believe your American idealistic claim that you wish to decolonize as soon as practical, though your big businesses might object.
    “But realize, if Japan is to survive in this modem world it needs the same resources your nations already have at your fingertips... steel, coal, rubber, various metals, and now, increasingly, oil for both ships and airplanes.
    “Let me ask you, Cecil, would your government willingly give up its oil holdings in the Middle East?”
    Cecil chuckled. In the old days of Admiral Fisher and the naval reforms prior to the war, seizing and holding secured oil, infinitely more efficient than coal to power a battleship, had been a cornerstone of his policy and, by extension, the British government’s.
    “We make it fair enough for the locals, and we did bring some semblance of order to the region,” Cecil replied.
    “Fair enough for you,” and he now turned to James, “but it is no question, you Americans are swimming in oil. For Japan, there are a few small wells in the far northern islands, barely a trickle of a few thousand barrels leaking out of them. So there alone we are vulnerable. Nearly every drop of oil that powers our ships