by Row, David
That was the final blow of the FAA planes. Job done, they climbed into the darkness above the remaining, sputtering flares, as they reformed to head back to their carriers. The only planes remaining were two of the Cormorants, busy taking pictures of the destruction before heading back themselves. For the loss of three aircraft, the Japanese covering force's heavy ships had been ruined in barely half an hour.
Chapter 4 - First Battle of the South China Sea, the surface attack
The British pilots were exuberant as they headed back to their carriers. While the exact damage they had caused would have to wait for the photographs now being taken to be analyzed, they had already seen two small carriers going down. Back at Force Z, however, the return and recovery of the strike was starting to become complicated due to things happening on the surface. Kondo had not been certain that his cruisers would in fact encounter any British ships that night - indeed the main aim of them was to make sure Force Z did not somehow slip in close so it could use its battleships against him. However if the British were encountered, a single cruiser could do damage, especially if it achieved surprise, and would locate the force for him. He had spread the four heavy cruisers out in a search line, interspersed with the destroyers he had sent with them, to cover the maximum amount of sea.
At 0200, while the strike planes were on their way back, a blip was spotted on the radar of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales. The British were suspicious there were Japanese ships in the area (indeed the patrolling ASV SeaLances had already reported some contacts during their search for the main body), so the cruisers and heavy ships were between the carriers and where it was thought that any enemy ships, if they were present, would appear. The battleship signalled her sighting to her escorts, and kept it under observation. Her captain was pleased to be informed that no radar signals were being detected from the ship, however he was reluctant to just open fire on it for two reasons. First, it would give their position away - gunfire being rather noticeable at night, secondly that it was possible that there were still Dutch or neutral merchant ships in the area - it would be embarrassing to put a salvo of 15" shells into a small merchant ship. Accordingly, the ship and its consorts came to readiness while keeping a close eye on the contact. It was obvious after a short time that this was highly unlikely to be a merchant ship - small, old vessels of the sort found in these waters were not known for making 24 knots. The problem still remained as to when would be the best time to give away their position.
The heavy cruiser Kumana, for her part, had not detected the British ships - perhaps not surprisingly, as the distance was still some 17,000 yards. The bearing indicated that she would come to within 10,000 yards if she did not change her course, and the captain of the Prince of Wales decided this was too fine a margin - if the ship zigzagged to avoid a potential submarine threat it was quite possible it would run right into them. The captain also preferred to engage before the moon rose at around 0230 and reduced the advantage of radar he currently enjoyed, even if it was only four days from new. As the range closed to 15,000 yards, the order was given to open fire.
Although the contact was on radar, the first shells to be fired were starshells from the battleships secondary armament - there was still a need to definitely identify the ship. The falling flare illuminated what was clearly a large cruiser of Japanese design, and the next order was to shoot for effect. The escorting cruiser, HMS Ceres, also opened fire at this point. The Kumana was taken by surprise by the sudden illumination of the starshells, but her well-trained crew reacted swiftly, turning to fire off her own illuminating rounds. The identity of the enemy hiding in the dark was made very clear as the first salvo of five 15" shells plunged into the water close to the hapless cruiser, sending monstrous pillars of water into the air.
The cruiser was not surprised to see that it was illuminating what was obviously a battleship, already at close range for the calibre of guns she mounted. Rather than try to escape, which was probably futile, the captain ordered a general sighting report to be made out to Admiral Kondo and the rest of the cruiser force. He did not know that Kondo was already dead by this time. Although only a few ranging salvoes had been fired, the battleship's huge shells were already far too close for comfort, the Japanese captain being impressed by how fast the British had found the range at night. It was already looking like his ship would not escape, so instead he turned to bring his torpedoes to bear. The Kumana had twelve torpedo tubes for the Long Lance torpedo, six on each side. At the same time, her 8" guns were firing back at the British ships - two now, as she saw the gun-flashes from a second, smaller ship in company with the battleship.
The cruiser fired her first salvo of six torpedoes from her port tubes, and then, still firing, started to turn in order to bring her starboard tubes to bear. She never completed the turn, as at that point a 15" shell crashed into her side and exploded. The whole ship shuddered. The Kumana had been built lightly in order to cram in the maximum firepower, and even if that hadn't been the case, no cruiser was designed to take that sort of punishment. As she kept on turning, she was hit again, this time on the bridge. The explosion killed the entire bridge crew, leaving no one in charge of the cruiser at a critical moment. Ironically, the absence of helm orders actually helped her for a few minutes, as the battleship's fire control had assumed she would keep dodging, but once these had passed the ship was hit heavily by a number of 15" rounds as well as shells from the Prince of Wales's secondary armament and the escorting cruiser. It took very little time to turn the Japanese ship into a floating target, and although the crew brought her under control again, it was too late. A shell (it was never known from which ship) finally exploded close enough to the torpedoes to send white-hot splinters into some of the oxygen tanks, and the aft of the ship exploded in a huge fireball. When the observer's on the battleships dazzled vision cleared, the cruiser was already broken in two and sinking.
The Long lance torpedoes were fast, but even so it took time for them to cross the eight miles between the ships. With only six torpedoes in the salvo, the chances of a decisive hit were small, but this time the Japanese had luck on their side. Although five of the torpedoes missed, the final one hit the cruiser HMS Ceres aft. Ceres was small for a cruiser, at only 4,300 tons well under half the displacement of the more modern ships in the fleet, and had been modified into an anti-aircraft ship before the war. The hit by the large warhead of the Japanese torpedo was too much for the old ship to absorb, and it was obvious to her crew within a few minutes that she was doomed. One of the escorting destroyers, who had already closed when they saw the action in progress, moved up alongside her to take her crew off as the ship slowly sank under the inrush of water.
The men on the bridge of the Prince of Wales were puzzled by the sudden explosion of what was surely a torpedo. The cruiser seemed to have been far too far away for a torpedo attack, and no other ships had been spotted on the radar. The explosion was also very large, indicating a big warhead, and there was some discussion that maybe the Ceres had in fact struck a mine, or maybe been torpedoed by a submarine. The timing though was suspicious; it fitted in with torpedoes launched shortly after the enemy ship had been engaged.
While the action of the Prince of Wales had been spectacular, the main activity of the carriers was landing back the strike on the two fleet carriers. Indeed, the only problem was that aircraft had to be held in the deck park, the air commanders having assumed somewhat pessimistically that more planes would have been lost. In fact all but three planes made it back to the carriers, although a couple were rather badly shot up. At 0315 Illustrious signalled to Somerville that all aircraft were safely back and that the planned move back towards base could commence.
Somerville was growing increasingly anxious about just what Japanese ships were out there in the night. Having achieved what looked like a satisfactory victory for a low cost, he did not want to be ambushed in the dark while his fleet was busy conducting air operations. It was a justified fear. The report of the
Kumana had indeed been picked up by some of the other Japanese cruisers, and one had been close enough to see the flashes of the guns over the horizon. The heavy cruisers Takao and Atago, accompanied by two destroyers, were stealthily closing on his force under the cover of darkness.
The ASV planes had also been recovered after the strike; Somerville wanted to get four airborne to cover any night surface threat, but first they had to be refuelled - the maximum strike against Kondo's force had used the planes usually held back for such operations. The Japanese target was the Prince of Wales. She had been hit by two 8" shells during the confusion of the night action, and while they hadn't done any serious damage they were still putting the fire caused by one of the hits out, and the cruisers had been tempted by the faint, distant flicker of flames in their binoculars. Unfortunately for the ship her radar was also temporarily out of action - the firing of a battleship's main guns often had a negative effect on her radar sets - and with the Ceres sunk, the radar coverage of Force Z was reduced in that area of the screen.
The approaching ships were only spotted when they were 12,000 yards from the battleship by the cruiser HMS Exeter, who immediately signalled the Prince of Wales as she loaded her guns with starshell. After the earlier attack it had been assumed that these were more Japanese cruisers (it was in fact two cruisers and two destroyers, but Exeter initially reported this as four cruisers). Immediately after informing her consorts of the danger, she fired, illuminating the Japanese force with her starshells. The gunnery radar of the Prince of Wales was still operational, allowing her to start to range on the enemy once they could be seen. The Japanese for their part had expected to be found at some point, although getting rather closer for a surprise attack would have been advantageous, and it was only moments after the Exeter's shells burst high above them that their own illumination rounds were on their way.
The Prince of Wales had two destroyers close to hand, HMS Electra and HMS Jupiter, who had recently finished rescuing the survivors from the Ceres. They immediately started to work up to full speed and put themselves closer to the attackers. They could see at least one Japanese destroyer (the Fubuki) closing at speed. Visibility was better now than it had been for the earlier action; not only were both sides firing off illumination rounds with gay abandon, but there was a certain amount of light from the moon over the area. The bow wave of the attacking destroyer was clearly visible, and they headed for her to stop her executing a torpedo attack on the battleship.
The second destroyer (the Hatsuyuki), again moving around to try and engage the battleship with her torpedoes, was engaged by HMS Exeter. Destroyers made a poor target, especially at night, but the Exeter was renowned for her gunnery. As the destroyer was still moving into position to launch on Prince of Wales, the Exeter hit her with two 8" shells from her third salvo. While a destroyer could often take a surprising amount of damage, the splinters from one of the shells found her weak spot - her engine spaces. Superheated steam filling two of her engine rooms from shattered pipes, the destroyer slowed dramatically, leaving her a sitting target for the cruiser, who proceeded to pummel her into a blazing wreck.
The battle between the Fubuki and the Electra and Jupiter was more even, but the odds favoured the British destroyers. While the Fubuki had 6 5" guns, only two of these could bear forward, and as she was currently heading at the British ships, they were outgunning her by 6 guns to 2. The sea around the speeding ship was very soon filled with waterspouts as all three ships fired as fast as possible - in a destroyer action, it was often the first serious hit that counted, and in any case, very accurate fire from a destroyer was normally impossible. The disparity in guns soon showed, as fires started to burn on the Fubuki. Realizing he was unlikely to get past the two British ships to attack the battleship, her captain turned, firing off his nine torpedoes at the destroyers instead. In the confusion of the night battle, both the ships missed seeing the torpedo tracks (in any case, the use of oxygen in the Long Lance made its trail very difficult to see), and it was only when one of them impacted close to the bow of the Electra, that they realized what had happened. The Electra was a small destroyer, and the half-ton warhead of the type 93 torpedo blew her bows off almost to the bridge. Her own speed then killed her - although the pressure of water against her now very blunt forepart stopped her quickly, it also forced open more of her watertight bulkheads. It required no order to abandon ship, it was obvious immediately she was sinking, and in minutes, she had slid under the surface, taking over half her crew with her. It was too late for the Fubuki, though. Even while the torpedo had been making its deadly way towards the Electra, the fire of the two British destroyers had been turning her into a shambles. The final stroke was a hit on the oxygen equipment used to recharge her torpedoes, which cleared much of her upper deck and left her slowly sinking.
Meanwhile the battle between the Prince of Wales and the two heavy cruisers was continuing. The battleship was slowly getting her salvoes closer and closer to the Takao, as the cruisers manoeuvred to be able to launch torpedoes. Indeed, they had no real difficulty with their first salvo, as the Prince of Wales was hardly expecting a torpedo attack from over 10,000 yards away. Unfortunately while the Type 93 had ample range to hit the battleship from that range, its accuracy over that distance was not good, and none of the twelve torpedoes fired by the two ships hit anything. Indeed, the British force was not even aware a torpedo attack had been made. The cruisers then turned about to make an attack with their port batteries, although by that time the Takao had received two hits from the Prince of Wales, fortunately not disabling ones, although two of her turrets were now out of action. While the torpedoes sped towards the battleship, she finally managed to land a salvo almost on top of the cruiser. When the spray from the misses cleared, the Japanese ship was seen to be on fire and sinking forward.
The Atago meanwhile was trying to reload her torpedoes. While this was a standard operation for Japanese ships, doing it at night in the middle of a gunfight with a battleship was most definitely not, and as a result, the operation was going very slowly indeed. While she was doing so, plumes of water from a new source of heavy guns lifted up around her - the Richelieu, the next ship behind the Prince of Wales, had managed to get a clear arc of fire. Feeling somewhat put out at the way the Royal Navy had been hogging all the fun tonight, the French battleship was firing both accurately and with enthusiasm. A single battleship was more than enough to handle even a heavy cruiser; two was enough to pound the Takao into scrap before she could even come close to reloading her torpedoes.
This time the torpedo salvo from the doomed cruisers was more accurate. Although by now both Japanese ships were on fire and obviously in deep trouble, first one then a second huge plumes of water lofted up above the masts of the Prince of Wales as the huge ship shuddered under the massive explosions. The shock was enough to cut off power to the ship, and it was fortunate that the Richelieu had already engaged, otherwise the Takao at least might have gotten away or reloaded her tubes to do even more damage. As it was neither cruiser was able to do more than land a few shell hits on the French ship, only one of which did any really serious damage - the ships wine storage room was wrecked!
The Prince of Wales was seriously damaged by the two hits. The ships TDS was not designed to handle this weight of warhead, and the ship was suffering heavy flooding along one side and into her forward engine and boiler rooms. Even with counter-flooding of the TDS on the other side of the ship, she was listing at 8 degrees and having real problems getting back under control. It wasn't until 10 minutes after the hit that her engineers managed to reset the shock-damaged circuit breakers and restore some power, but by then the ship had already taken in thousands of tons of water. Fortunately, that was the last Japanese attack of the night, but even so Admiral Somerville spent an anxious half an hour before the ship signalled that she had the damage at least temporarily under control and was able to make way, even if only at 10 knots.
As dawn broke over the South China
Sea, Force Z was heading slowly southwest at 12 knots. The Prince of Wale's engineers, pushed on by the knowledge that they were still well in range of the Japanese land-based planes, had managed to get her up that fast, but the ship was handling poorly with the amount of water inside her. The quarterdeck was only inches from the water, and indeed waves were breaking over it frequently. Nevertheless, the ship pushed on as fast as she could. The Melbourne had now rejoined the fleet, and in view of the serious damage to two of his capital ships, Somerville had decided against any further air strikes against the Japanese unless a ship was directly threatening them. Instead, he had eight fighters up as a CAP and four ASV-equipped TBR's sweeping the sea around his force. He had signalled Singapore with the results of the night's action, and a squadron of Goshawks was on its way to Sinkawang airfield in Borneo where they would be able to help cover his force by the following day, landing on his carriers if necessary.
It was just as well that the fleet had reformed its air defences, as the IJN planes would indeed be in action again today. Not as early as expected - the situation after the night action was somewhat confused at headquarters, and it was not until nearly 1000 that someone got around to sending off the first reconnaissance planes. From the reports of the cruisers they had a reasonable idea of where to find them, and even though their job wasn't helped by the increasing cloud covering the area they found the retreating ships by noon, radioing their sighting back to base. Of course, it would have been a much more powerful strike if more aircraft had been available, and especially if they had been armed with torpedoes. However no one seemed to have informed higher command as yet of their problems and asked for more planes to be deployed to them. In any case, this would have taken time, as all the suitable and available naval planes were heavily involved in the attack on the Philippines, and asking the army for help was going to be a very hard decision to make.