The plating beneath their feet began to pitch as the big carrier swung into the wind. Black could only hope that none of their destroyer escorts would be run down by the unexpected course correction. This is insane, he thought, dogfighting with twenty-thousand-ton ships. He braced himself against a chart table in a corner of the bridge, and tried to make sense of the chaos around them. There were hundreds of guns firing without any sort of coordination. They were going to start destroying their own ships very quickly if that went on.

As soon as the thought occurred to him, it happened. The cruiser New Orleans attempted a ragged broadside at that spectral Japanese ship that had just “appeared” to starboard, a few minutes earlier. The volley completely missed its target, but at least two shells slammed into an American destroyer a few hundred yards beyond. Black cursed as the little ship exploded in flames.

“We’re going to need better gunnery control,” he yelled at Spruance. “I’ll get on it.”

The admiral turned away from the sailor he had been addressing and nodded brusquely. Black charged back out of the bridge, heading for the radio room.

USS HAMMAN, TASK FORCE SEVENTEEN, 2243 HOURS, 2 JUNE 1942

The Sims-class destroyer Hamman was nearly swamped by the wave that surged out from the giant ship that suddenly appeared eighty yards away, as if from nowhere. The men on the bridge, who had all gasped at her arrival, now groaned like passengers on a roller coaster as their vessel yawed over and threatened to roll down the face of the wave. As the Hamman finally swung back through the pendulum to right herself, the officer of the watch, Lieutenant (junior grade) Veni Armanno, was tossed bodily through the air and into the solid casing that housed the ship’s compass, dislocating his shoulder. He swore through the tornado of pain that blew through his upper body, and wrestled himself back to his feet with his one good hand.

“You all right, sir?” someone asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Sound to general quarters. Get the captain up here now. Radio the Yorktown and find out what’s happening.”

“Lieutenant,” called out a petty officer from the radio shack. “We’ve just had a message from the Enterprise, sir. It’s the Japs . . .”

Armanno couldn’t make out the next words. They were lost in the volly of curses from the bridge crew.

“Put a sock in it!” he said loudly.

Gesturing insistently, the petty officer announced an order that had come from task force command.

“We’re to engage the enemy, sir.”

“Captain True’s been injured sir,” reported another seaman. “Lieutenant Earls is on his way.”