Avsnitt 18

Kadomatsu learns that the operations on Guadalcanal are to resume — under an imperial decree — and blames Kusaka for this development. He goes ashore with Lt. Tsuda to talk to Kusaka — and is shocked to see him in a car heading towards the airfield with Lt. Colonel Tsuji. Kadomatsu tries to stop Kusaka but fails. As Mirai prepares to sail to Yokosouka, Lt . Commander Taki, a naval staff officer, plots with Admiral Matome Ugaki, the Combined Fleet Chief of Staff and a hardliner in the navy, to destroy the Mirai by arranging to have radio messages about her movements transmitted in a code that they know has been cracked by the Americans — so that it would be destroyed by an American, rather than Japanese, attack . Taki remarks that he is working under orders from someone high in the Japanese naval command, whose identity he cannot reveal.