On Seas So Crimson

by James Young

  “Do you know where the Long Island is headed?” Eric asked aloud, then almost yelped as Sadie hit a bump.

  “Sorry, got distracted,” she said. Looking at her in the rearview mirror, Eric could see her eyes begin to glisten slightly. Looking away before she looked up at him, he turned back to Nick. His younger brother was looking at Sadie, then at Read.

  He knows, Eric thought.

  “I would suspect that if I were a spy, Nick, I probably wouldn’t have come to pick up your brother and left so quickly,” Sadie said reproachfully. “So that leaves Ensign Read, and somehow I don’t think the Japanese are going to get anything out of him.”

  “It is possible that I’ve gone turncoat,” Eric joked lightly.

  “It’s also possible I’m going to click my heels three times and go back to Kansas,” Sadie replied wryly. “But anyone who has heard me sing knows that I’m not Judy Garland.”

  “Can’t be worse than Patricia,” Eric said, then stopped.

  “To quote a certain man we all love, ‘You make Patricia sound like an angelic choir,’” Sadie said ruefully.

  “Sam said that?” Nick exclaimed, his eyes suddenly wide.

  “David, actually,” Sadie said with a slight smile at her trickery. “But you know if David said it…”

  “…Sam was thinking it,” Eric finished.

  “Wake,” Nick said after a moment. “They’re heading to reinforce Wake.”

  Eric hoped that his face did not look as scared as he felt.

  “Scuttlebutt has it that Vice Admiral Pye is not looking for a fight,” Nick said. “Unfortunately, Vice Admrial Halsey is gunning for one.”

  “Is he insane?” Eric asked bluntly. “I mean, I know he’s got new aircraft, but the Japanese…”

  “The Japanese are a discussion that can wait,” Nick snapped, looking over at Sadie.

  Eric was about to snap back at his little brother then stopped.

  “Since when did you start becoming the wise one?” Eric asked, incredulous.

  “When I nearly died,” Nick replied. “It appears it doesn’t always take with some of us.”

  Eric heard Ensign Read’s sharp intake of breath.

  “You now, little brother, someday these stitches are going to heal,” Eric said, his tone making it clear there was no real heat behind the words.

  “Hopefully they’ll stop having me as a gopher around SUBPAC headquarters by then,” Nick replied with a smile. “I don’t think you can hold your breath long enough to come get me on a boat.”

  “When you hear something knocking on your conning tower hatch, I hope you’ll rethink that assessment,” Eric said.

  U.S.S. Long Island

  1300 Local (1800 Eastern)

  I really need to consider a new profession, Captain Samuel Cobb thought to himself as he banked his Wildcat into a gentle clockwise orbit orbit around the Long Island. Because I don’t recall agreeing to taking off and landing from somea postage stamp in the middle of the damn ocean when I signed up for the Corps.

  “Okay Red Flight, let’s get aboard,” Major Max Bowden ordered into his radio. “We’ll leave Green Flight to bore some holes in the sky.”

  Sam shook his head at Bowden’s cheery demeanor as he listened to Red Flight’s acknowledgment over the squadron net. He adjusted his Mae West and seatbelt, moving his massive frame around the Wildcat’s tiny cockpit in a manner that kept the fighter from scooting too much around the sky.

  I mean, I’m not scared of the water, but I went Marines for a reason, Sam continued to muse. VMF-14 should have only been expected to hitch a ride aboard the Long Island to within range of Wake. Instead, the unit’s Wildcats were part of the combat air patrol, or “CAP,” orbiting over the Long Island and her near sister, the Archer. The latter vessel had entered Pearl Harbor just long enough to unload the two squadrons of Hellcats that had been lashed to her deck, then promptly loaded on two squadrons of orphaned Dauntlesses from the sunk Saratoga and Lexington. Looking down at her, Sam remained doubtful of her ability to actually fly the dive bombers off when the time came. Still, Vice Admiral Halsey’s staff had issued the orders, so Archer’s crew were going to try their damndest.

  I’m not so sure I like being the bait on a hook either, Sam thought grimly. He scanned the screen arrayed around the two escort carriers and six fast troop transports in two columns behind them. Technically Vice Admiral Halsey and the carriers Yorktown, Enterprise, and Victorious were acting as a “covering force,” but in reality the three carriers had been acting almost independently due to their superior speed. As a result, the five operational battleships of the Pacific Fleet were plowing through the seas a few thousand yards off the convoy’s starboard bow, with the entire force shepherded by fifteen destroyers.

  “Green One, Green Three,” his brother David drawled. “Action, eight o’clock.”

  It’s bad enough that we’re both out here, Sam thought. They didn’t have to go and break us up too. The Cobbs had been wingmen ever since they’d arrived in Hawaii. While Major Bowden had initially pondered the wisdom of the arrangement, he had come to rely on it. Apparently that hadn’t been enough for one Captain Browning.

  Someone needs to teach that son of a bitch the old saying about not sticking your nose in someone else’s business lest it get broken, Sam thought. Glad he got put in his place by Major Bowden and Lieutenant Colonel McKenna.

  Motion on the ocean beneath him caused him to turn his head. Two destroyers were turning sharply from the Long Island’s screen, and black smoke began pouring from both vessels’ stacks as they began adding speed.

  “Red One, Green One, there’s some DDs going after a sub,” Sam said.

  “More likely a whale killing,” someone muttered from one of the two flights.

  “Those boys better be careful, or they’re going to run out of depth charges,” another pilot answered on the squadron frequency.

  “Belay the chatter,” Bowden snapped as he settled into the Long Island’s landing pattern. The little escort carrier was coming into the wind and steaming as fast as she could. Turning back to the destroyers, Sam watched as one of the two vessels began her attack run on the suspicious contact.

  I don’t blame them for being jumpy, Sam thought. The Japs apparently learned something from the Germans in the last few months, as their subs have been downright annoying.

  As Sam watched, depth charges flew from the destroyer’s side even as more ‘ash cans’ rolled off her stern. The single stack vessel briefly continued on a straight path to clear the blast radius, then put her helm hard over to starboard. As the ship’s bow began to come around, the water leaped behind the vessel as the pattern of charges went off.

  Well there goes a few hundred fish, Sam thought disgustedly.

  “Schoonover Base, Schoonover Base, this is Clipper One,” he said, radioing the battleship California. “How do you read this station?”

  “This is Schoonover Base,” came the staticky reply. “We have you five by…”

  The controllers transmission was cut off by a sudden scream and dull crump that both sounded so up close Sam reflexively shoved his stick over to port and added throttle. His wingman, startled, immediately followed his section leader, while David and his wingman broke to starboard. Even as completed what Navy pilots were starting to call the Thach Weave, Sam realized that the sound he’d heard wasn’t from any airborne source.

  “Rejoin on me, Green,” he barked, pulling up and scanning the ocean beneath him. Full pandemonium appeared to be breaking out, as the California was ablaze from her No. 2 turret aft on her starboard side and coasting to a halt. While Sam watched, the battleship began to drunkenly roll to starboard.

  What in the hell? Sam thought, looking around the skies.

  The “what” in this particular instance was the Japanese submarine I-19, and “the hell” was the plucky I-boat had managed to put four 21-inch torpedoes into the California’s starboard side from the nearly point blank range of three thousand yards. Ev
en had the torpedoes been the standard weapons which the IJN had developed prior to 1941, the wounds would have been grievous. When equipped with the special Sandaburo warheads that the IJN had developed from the German transfer of the captured British explosive TORPEX, the resultant effect was like the difference between being stabbed with a hunting knife versus slashed with a katana.

  Amazingly, the weapon that penetrated the California’s torpedo bulge and vented its wrath into the vessel’s forward powder magazine only stirred a runaway deflagration rather than a hull-shattering explosion before being quenched by seawater, but this was of little comfort to either Captain McWaters, her master, nor to Vice Admiral Pye and his staff. Even as the former was returning to the bridge from the latter’s map room, he found himself having to fight the battleship’s sharp list as water rushed into her hull. In the two minutes it took for him to reach his post, the inclinometer had already reached ten degrees. In the ensuing two minutes it took for him to get any semblance of a report, it was at fifteen. By the time McWaters made the decision to have the crew abandon ship, it was far too late for him to affect anything resembling an orderly evacuation. The vessel’s sudden and violent capsizing spared him both the burden of making any further decisions or the inconvenience of answering questions at any ensuing Courts of Inquiry.

  Sam felt himself starting to shake as he looked at the California’s glistening hull.

  Oh my God, it’s happening again! he thought, frantically looking for Japanese aircraft. Reaching to slide the canopy back, he stopped himself. Screaming in frustration, he punched the side of the cockpit, the pain bringing him back from the edge of insanity. Breathing rapidly and roughly, he watched as the Long Island and the rest of the convoy put their helms hard over to port to turn away from the attacking submarine. To his horror, Sam watched as two of the torpedo tracks continued towards the line of transports. Before he could click his radio in warning, one of the weapons connected with the last vessel in the port column. With a black tinged waterspout that went higher than the vessel’s masts and gout of steam, the transport came to a stop.

  Hit her stern, Sam thought disgustedly. She probably just lost power. Which means she’s going down. Searching, he realized he’d lost track of the last weapon. Scanning, he saw the errant weapon heading harmlessly past the Long Island’s starboard side…and four more inbound towards the escort carrier and the Archer.

  “LONG ISLAND, LONG ISLAND, TORPEDOES INBOUND!” Sam screamed into his radio.

  Even had the Long Island’s captain had Sam teleport onto his bridge and point at the weapons, there was nothing that could have been done. Already engaged into the hard turn to port that had brought her into the crosshairs of the lurking I-168 when the Japanese submarine fired its bow tubes at her, the Long Island lacked either the speed or the rudder capability to take any evasive action. Even as Sam’s panicked warning was echoed by her lookouts, the bridge crew could only watch as the duo of torpedoes aimed for them closed at fifty knots. Astern, the Archer’s crew remained blissfully unaware of their own danger, as the second half of the I-boat’s salvo remained unseen thanks to the lookout’s focus on the capsizing California.

  Whereas misfortune had placed Long Island in the current situation, it would be poor design that sealed her fate. A former merchantman, Long Island lacked any of the protective measures enjoyed by her larger fleet carrier brethren. Had she been built with any semblance of armor, the greed of Commander Tanabe, I-168’s captain, would have potentially resulted in a grieviously damaged vessel. Instead, seconds after the first torpedo passed just under the Long Island’s bow, the second slammed into the carrier’s starboard side abreast her avgas storage.

  To describe the subsequent explosion as violent would have done it a grave injustice. With a roaring whoompf and accompanying fireball that vomited from the escort carrier’s open hanger, the Long Island’s aviation fuel immediately transformed into a roaring conflagration that rippled aft like a flaming flood tide. Staggering out of line, the carrier began immediately suffering from secondary explosions as aircraft being readied in her hangar began to explode. Major Bowden, having just returned to the VMF-14 ready room with his flight, had just enough time to order the eight other pilots in the compartment out toward the flight deck before the blazing tidal wave overtook him.

  Aboard the Archer, her captain had only enough time to register what had happened to the Long Island before his own vessel was struck. Unlike the Long Island, the Archer was not hit directly in her avgas. Instead, the first weapon struck her far enough forward that the vessel might have survived the ensuing flooding…had the second weapon not struck at the juncture of her engine room and bomb magazine. If the Long Island’s secondary explosion had been violent, the detonation of several dozen bombs and depth charges was positively cataclysmic. In an instant, the Archer’s entire aft end ceased to be, fragments hurled in a three quarters circles that saw steel landing on the light cruiser Honolulu steaming over six thousand yards off her starboard quarter.

  Above the two stricken carriers, Sam felt tears running down his cheeks. Stunned, he watched as the Long Island continued to leave a snail’s trail of burning avgas and fuel oil behind her as she slowly came to a stop. His mouth dry, he belatedly realized he was flying erratically, his flight strung out behind him.

  Do your job, dammit, Sam berated himself.

  “Green Flight,” he rasped, then swallowed. “Green Flight, follow me. Time to go find someplace to land.”

  “Roger Green One,” David replied. “I have the Enterprise’s homing beacon already.”

  “Roger Three, you have lead,” Sam said, leading Green Two around to reform on his brother’s wing.

  Behind Green Flight, the angry destroyers that had initially gone after a contact were rushing up the turned convoy’s starboard side. While several of their brethren furiously hunted the I-19 to no avail, twenty minutes after the Long Island had been struck, the Sims and Hammann spotted the I-168. Commander Tanabe, aggressive as always, had shifted his position while his torpedo room crews reloaded. Hearing the Archer’s breaking up noises, Tanabe returned to periscope depth to see what other targets he might claim. The maneuver was his undoing, as the I-168’s scope was sighted barely two thousand yards off Sims’s port bow. Seeing the danger as he performed his first sweep of the ocean, Commander Tanabe ordered an immediate retreat to the depth. The maneuver was futile, as first the Sims then the Hammann made runs over the crash diving submarine’s position. While the ensuing oil slick and debris field was nowhere near as expressive a finale as the Archer’s demise, the subsequent plunge to the depths was no less fatal for the I-168.

  The Long Island would continue to burn for over an hour as her surrounding vessels rescued the crew that had escaped. Finally Vice Admiral Halsey, able to see the smoke over the horizon from the Enterprise’s island, had finally had enough. Ordering the Long Island scuttled, Vice Admiral Halsey then disgustedly directed the Pacific Fleet sortie to come about. Wake Island, and its defenders, were not worth subjecting the already battered fleet to additional attrition. As the Long Island sank beneath the waves after receiving another torpedo from the destroyer Blue, the Pacific Fleet’s ability to conduct offensive operations went with her.

  .

  CHAPTER 2: NEUTRAL CORNERS

  Go Sir, gallop and don’t forget that the world was made in six days. You can ask me for anything but not time.--Napoleon

  Pensacola, Florida

  0840 Eastern

  7 April 1943

  Adam could not believe the words he heard coming out of Lieutenant Colonel King’s mouth.

  “You mean to tell me that Captain Bowles will not be receiving a court-martial for having extra-marital relations with another officer’s wife?” Adam snapped. “Just because his father had the misfortune to get burned to a crisp?” He paused, aware that his tone was bordering on the belligerent.

  A knock on the head has a way of making a man just not give a damn, he thought angrily.
So much for this guy not being a careerist.

  Lieutenant Colonel King fixed Adam with a steely gaze, green eyes locked with Adam’s blue ones. After several long ticks of the clock behind his superior officer, Adam broke the glare, eyes focused on a spot above King’s head.

  “My apologies, Sir,” Adam gritted out.

  “For a moment there, Major Haynes, I was confused as to which one of us was in command of this air wing,” King observed, his tone icy. “I would think the fact that I initiated court martial proceedings against Captain Bowles for his tryst and offered to immediately transfer him from your squadron would have served to indicate my feelings on the matter.”

  Adam winced internally, though his expression remained completely neutral.

  “However, I will merely chalk up your insubordination to your injuries and not gross ignorance of military discipline,” King continued. The underlying “Unless you do this again…” was quite clear.

  “Yes, Sir,” Adam said.

  “Now, as I was saying, Captain Bowles will be reinstated to your squadron as soon as he returns from survivor’s leave,” King continued, reaching inside of his desk.

  “Tell me, Major Haynes, are you an avid reader?” King asked. Adam blinked twice, not sure if he had heard his superior correctly.

  “I read when I can, Sir,” he replied, his tone uncertain.

  “I used to firmly believe,” King stated in measured tones, “that an officer should take an interest in the popular press as part of his professional duty. My usual reasoning for this is so that officer may stay abreast of the world situation.”

  With that, King took his hand out of the desk and tossed a copy of LIFE magazine on the desk.

  “Another reason I will now add is so that he does not believe his boss is a two-faced jackass,” King said with a slight grimace.