Hitler hears of that and orders Rundstedt to stand fast. In the first place the troops cannot do it and in thes econd place if they do not retreat they will be destroyed. I repeat that this order be rescinded or that you find someone else. Please give up your command. In the Pacific Ocean, rain and sleet on the flight deck of the carrier Kaga, turning it into a skating rink.
Aviators kill time by studying flash identification cards of American battleships.
All across the Pacific, Japanese troops and ships move to their action stations. These moves, many of them quite visible, set off alarms in Singapore, but nobody detects the carrier fleet heading for Hawaii. The siege is in its 92nd day. That day, Vera Inber sees something she has never seen, a corpse on a child's sled. Instead of being placed in a coffin, the body has been tightly wrapped in a sheet.