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replacement for the fixed-gear D3A “Val” bomber, flown by a young man named Yoshinori Yamaguchi, came slanting out of the sky toward
Essex
. Trailing a dense stream of smoke from its burning left wing, the kamikaze dove straight and true into
Essex
’s port deck edge. A geyserof fire and smoke leaped into the sky and enveloped the carrier’s flight deck.
    Later it was determined that Yamaguchi’s plane carried no bomb. Intelligence officers searched for an explanation. Was he not a kamikaze? Had he already dropped his bomb, then spotted
Essex
and decided to crash into it? The mystery only added to the aura that was growing around the kamikazes. What sort of people would turn themselves into human bombs?
    In less than a half hour, four carriers had been struck.
Cabot, Hancock
, and
Essex
could be patched and returned to duty, but
Intrepid
’s wounds were more serious.The hangar deck was a scene of horror. Decks and bulkheads were warped from the intense fires. Bodies and body parts were still being recovered. Sixty-nine men had perished in the attacks, and 150 were wounded. Many of the dead had simply vanished, blown overboard or their bodies never found.
    Intrepid
was headed back to San Francisco for extensive repairs. When she returned,
Intrepid
would have a fresh air group embarked. The war was entering its final act. And halfway around the world, the stage was being set for the last great sea battle of history.
    B y the time Chester Nimitz arrived in Washington in October 1944, the debate about which Pacific island would be next was officially over. Nimitz was accompanied by Fifth Fleet commander Vice Admiral Spruance and a square-jawed Army lieutenant general named Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. Buckner had just been given command of the newly formed Tenth Army, which would make an amphibious assault on either Formosa or Okinawa.
    Nimitz, Spruance, and Buckner were all of the same mind: Okinawa should be the target. All they had to do was convince the hardheaded chief of naval operation, Adm. Ernest King.
    To their surprise, King needed no more convincing. He had already studied the logistics reports and reached the same conclusion.An invasion of Formosa would entail unacceptably high American casualties and would only lengthen the war. Formosa would be bypassed. After capturing the island fortress of Iwo Jima in early 1945, Nimitz’s forces would invade Okinawa.
    With the Joint Chiefs of Staff in agreement, the planning began in earnest. The invasion of Okinawa now had a code name: Operation Iceberg.

4TINY TIM
    ATLANTIC CITY NAVAL AIR STATION, NEW JERSEY
JANUARY 4, 1945
    T he Grim Reapers were splitting up. The news came while the squadron was still on the East Coast, packing up to fly to California and board the
Intrepid
. Instead of one big Corsair squadron, the legendary Fighting 10, a new outfit—Bomber Fighting 10—was being spun off.
    The new squadron reflected the current thinking about air group composition. Task forces needed more fighters to protect them from the growing specter of kamikazes. The F4U Corsair was both an air-superiority fighter and a bona fide bomber. Unlike the plodding SB2C Helldivers and TBM Avengers, which needed fighter cover while they hauled bombs to their targets, the Corsair provided its own protection. Since the air-to-air and air-to-ground missions were distinctly different, someone in Washington had decreed that they should be performed by different squadrons.
    Wilmer Rawie was tapped to command the new squadron, now designated VBF-10. True to form, Rawie grabbed up most of his cadre of handpicked students and instructors from his former training unit. Meanwhile, the fighting squadron, which got to keep the VF-10 designation and the old Grim Reapers logo, received a new skipper, a heavyset, mustached lieutenant commander named Walt Clarke, another veteran with four kills from the Solomons campaign.
    No one was happy about it. To the old hands, splitting up a legendary outfit