The Whale Has Wings Vol 3 - Holding the Barrier

by Row, David

  The dive bombers, busy during this attack in searching for the second US carrier, had finally found her. The Enterprise, however, was a more difficult target than the lumbering Saratoga. Despite the best efforts of the Val pilots, she twisted and turned, evading all the bombs except the last one. That hit her just forward of her island, right in the centre of the flight deck, exploding in the hangar below. Again, there were no fuelled planes below, but it would take some time to bring the fire under control. Indeed, the smoke billowing up through the hole in her deck was so thick the Japanese pilots were already convinced that she was sinking. In fact she was in no real danger, and her damage control teams had the fire out in 40 minutes, the crews already repairing the deck with the urgency of men who knew their planes were about to return, and had nowhere else to land.

  While unknown to them the skilled Japanese pilots had been eviscerating their carriers, the strike from the Saratoga had finally sighted the enemy. Sixteen Dauntless dive bombers and twelve Devastator torpedo planes drove steadily into the attack, covered by four Wildcat fighters. The Japanese carriers had kept back eighteen Zeros to defend themselves, but while the pilots were skilled the methods of controlling them onto the attackers was primitive. The first group of four Zeros didn't actually spot the approaching Devastators; they were alerted by one of the cruisers firing her main armament in the direction of the attackers to warn them. The first four were in turn attacked by the Wildcats, but again these suffered from poor tactics, not being aware of the Zero's agility. All four of the Wildcats were shot down for the loss of one Zero destroyed and one damaged. Meanwhile the torpedo planes had been closing to their launch point.

  Thanks to the lack of radar on the Japanese ships, and the poor methods of controlling the CAP, the twelve planes found nothing but AA between them and the first carrier, which was the Hiryu. Although one of the Devastators was shot down by the carriers AA, the other eleven made a textbook launch. It was a shame that the US torpedoes weren't up to the job. The maximum speed of the type 13 torpedo was 33 knots. The maximum speed of the Hiryu was 34 knots. The carrier simply turned away at full power and ran away from the torpedo attack.

  While she was doing this, more of the CAP was engaging the dive bombers, which were peeling off into their dives above the speeding carrier. They had been spotted by another four Zeros, and with no fighter protection had to make their own way through the defences. This was not easy, and six of them were shot down as they got into position, although not before their rear gunners had shot down two Zeros. The ten dive bombers hurtled down onto the Hiryu, who started to make radical course changes more suitable to a destroyer than a carrier. This sort of radical manoeuvring was a part of the Japanese doctrine for evading air attacks, and her captain managed to avoid all but one of the 500lb bombs. That one struck her well forward on the flight deck, exploding in the front part of her hanger deck and starting a serious fire.

  The planes from the Enterprise had been looking for the Japanese carriers - they had not been as accurate as the Saratoga's flight leader, but the radio messages from the attackers, plus the thick plume of black smoke coming from the Hiryu was all the help they needed. Sixteen Dauntless and eighteen Devastators headed for the burning carrier, whose fighters were mainly engaged in chasing away the last of the Saratoga's planes. Not all of them as some of them were still covering the carriers, and the dive bombers found ten Zeros turning to engage them. The six Wildcats with them dove into an attack, but the Zeros, expertly piloted, split, four engaging the fighters while the other six went for the torpedo bombers (still seen by the Japanese as the main threat to their ships, being unaware of the poor performance of their torpedoes). Despite a constant stream of attacks the Devastators clung together, losing eight of their number for only one Zero. Despite their losses, ten of them got close enough to drop their torpedoes, only for the fish to suffer the same humiliating results as had those from the Saratoga. However one of the torpedoes exploded in the carrier's wake, making the retreating torpedo planes think that they had indeed scored a hit.

  The concentration of the Japanese fighters on the low-level torpedo planes had left the Enterprise's dive bombers unnoticed, and indeed, they were only finally spotted by an observer on the Hiryu as they angled down into their attack dives. The ship responded with sharp and violent course alterations at full speed - so violent that a number of flight deck crew vanished overboard - but the Dauntless crews were determined to finish off the Japanese carrier. Despite all her AA could do, she was hit by three 500lb bombs, which were hardly slowed by the carriers 1" of deck armour. Two of the bombs exploded in her hanger, starting new fires and also killing or incapacitating many of the men fighting her existing fire; the third bomb sliced lower, exploding in one of her engine rooms. The carrier slewed to a halt, huge clouds of smoke billowing from the gaping holes in her flight deck.

  The surviving American pilots turned away for home, convinced that the carrier, if not already sunk, was sinking and would soon go down, the thick smoke almost hiding her from their sight as they evaded the last of the angry Zeros on their way to safety.

  They were in fact quite correct. Although due to the range the US dive bombers had only been carrying 500lb bombs rather than their preferred 1,000lb ones, the thin flight deck of the Hiryu was insufficient to stop a bomb of any significant size, and her hanger deck was now a mass of flames, her fire-fighting hampered by the temporary loss of power due to the hit in her machinery and the fact that many of her damage control men lay dead or incapacitated in the burning hangar. While the crew did their best, it was not possible to contain the fire, and soon an explosion rocked the huge ship as fire reached one of her avgas tanks, causing the volatile fuel to explode with even more force than the American bombs. The ship was obviously doomed, and the Captain had no alternative but to order his men off to the waiting cruisers and destroyers, although there was still a faint hope the ship might survive - if burnt out above her hangar deck - and be recoverable.

  Back at the Enterprise the sight of the listing and sinking Saratoga was at least offset by the news from the strike that one of the Japanese carriers was burning 'like a Fourth of July fireworks display' and sinking. Now the task was to get the flight deck ready to take on the returning planes, it was already obvious that Saratoga would never land another plane. There was also the issue of fighter defence. The TF had carried few fighters, and many of these had been lost. However, the Enterprise was carrying some additional Wildcats. These had been intended to be flown off to Wake, which was obviously pointless now. The original plan had been to carry them all on Saratoga, but she was already filled with aircraft, and when the plane was expanded to include the Enterprise, the squadron had been spilt. This gave Enterprise six additional fighters. They hadn't been used earlier due to caution - while taking off from a carrier to land on Wake was one thing, flying operationally off a carrier with non-qualified pilots had been thought too risky, a crash on a crowded deck was the last thing that was needed. But now circumstances had changed, and the marine pilots were informed they were about to become very rapidly carrier-qualified.

  At first the news coming in to Halsey was good; one Japanese carrier burning from multiple hits, and a second hit by a torpedo. As more information came in, things didn't look so promising. One of the flight leaders had radioed that in fact the second carrier hadn't been hit, although the one burning was definitely in serious trouble and already starting to list. The nastiest shock came when one of the groups of returning planes reported yet another Japanese carrier some distance from the others. It wasn't realised for some time after the action that this was in fact the Japanese seaplane carrier Chitose, which had a partial flight deck and resembled a carrier at first glance. This put Halsey in a dilemma. One Japanese carrier remaining meant a second attack would have a reasonable chance of success; he still had some 23 dive bombers on board, plus the survivors of the first strike which could be turned around. His main problem was his lack of fighters; providi
ng a second strike with a useful fighter escort would strip his task force of defenders. Two Japanese carriers meant that even if he sunk one the other would likely retaliate and in view of what had happened to Saratoga it was quite likely that with only a few fighters to defend her Enterprise could be seriously damaged or lost.

  The original mission to reinforce Wake Island was obviously now in ruins. It had been intended to reinforce the island base before it was attacked again, the US force was simply not equipped or trained to make a combat landing against opposition, and the current reports indicated that the runway was untenable (it would shortly fall to the Japanese). He decided with more than a little reluctance that under the circumstances his orders from Nimitz meant that the survival of his remaining carrier was worth more than at attack at 2:1 odds - the Japanese pilots had shown earlier that day that the pre-war estimates had been woefully incorrect. The small cruiser force (ironically almost at Wake now) was recalled, and preparations made to withdraw once the strike aircraft had been recovered. Due to the losses in the raid and the defence of the task force, all the remaining aircraft could be fitted on the Enterprise.

  The Saratoga, although now evacuated, was showing her reluctance to sink. It was obvious that she could not be saved, especially so close to an enemy force, indeed the smoke still towering into the sky above her was endangering the entire force. There was no alternative but to order the cruisers to sink her with torpedoes. That afternoon the first US carrier to be lost in the war finally slipped under the waters of the Pacific ocean, as the task force headed east back to Pearl Harbour. It had now become obvious that the war against the IJN was not going to be nearly as easy as some of the pre-war analysts had suggested. The situation was not all black; realistically it would have been very difficult to hold Wake Island in the long run, and at least they had come out even in the fight against the Japanese carriers

  For their part, the Japanese were far happier about the outcome of the battle, although this did show a considerable amount of false optimism on their part. They had captured their objective, Wake Island (a rather important point after their original humiliation at the hands of the defenders), and their pilots had reported the sinking of both American carriers, which meant that the planes that had survived attacking them would be lost as well. Of course the Hiryu was in serious trouble, but there was always the possibility that she could be recovered. A search was conducted of the area off Wake where the US carriers had been, but nothing was found, confirming that they had indeed caused the Americans to flee with the loss of two carriers. Apart from the ships intended to take and hold Wake, the rest of the force was headed back to Japan. There was annoyance at the loss of aircraft; the losses to the attack planes had been satisfactorily small, but losses to the fighters had been heavier (the force only had sixteen Zeros left), and they had been forced to ditch any damaged planes over the side in order to make room - indeed some undamaged planes had to be lost, although the pilots were safe. At least Soryu would have some 3/4 of her air group available when she returned.

  By the following morning the Hiryu had finally stopped burning. That was mainly because there was not much left of her to burn, and she was little more than a skeleton above her engineering spaces. Nevertheless, an attempt was made by the cruisers Kato and Kinusaga to tow her, but the seas were not kind to the ruined carrier and although some progress was made that day, the following afternoon the tows had to be severed as worsening weather proved too much for the burned-out hulk and she joined the Saratoga on the seabed. The IJN had lost the first of its fleet carriers.

  Chapter 7 - Borneo

  Dec 24th

  The Japanese force in Borneo comes into contact with the local forces covering the oilfields. While this is in fact only by a couple of patrols, the defenders panic and orders are given for the engineers to destroy the equipment. They do so with impressive thoroughness, and the civilians then split into a number of groups to get away from the Japanese landings - it is hoped to evacuate them later if the Japanese can be contained.

  The Imperial troops sent to Borneo are meanwhile organising themselves in the south. The local transport system is poor, and it is intended to start moving north towards the Japanese on the following day. They are also impressing small craft to allow at least some of the force a faster passage along the coast.

  The troops in Malaya are now all behind the defence line that has been built up over the last two weeks. The Japanese were expected to attack this immediately with the ferocity they had already shown in the initial battles, but instead have paused somewhat short of the prepared positions, although they have been aggressively patrolling. It is not clear if this is just a momentary pause to reorganise, or a more significant delay caused by problems with their logistical support. Reconnaissance shows the Japanese air force moving into the abandoned air bases in the north, although they are not yet properly operational - the British had time to properly demolish the runways and infrastructure, and it looks like the Japanese will be operating off non-hard strips, which is expected to prove difficult in bad weather.

  The British have a number of men reporting from behind enemy lines (the jungle makes it quite easy to hide a small group of men, especially with support from the local population. They are starting to radio back reports, some worrying - the Japanese are treating the locals very badly, and the reconnaissance troops are trying to discover just what is going on, as they are having difficulty believing the actions that are being reported to them. There are also odd reports of the Japanese seeking out and impounding bicycles which Intelligence cannot work out. Reports that the enemy is also impounding coastal craft are more understandable - although any large vessels that could move were used to evacuate troops and civilians, many of the local fishermen refused to give up their boats, and though the bulk were hidden (for obvious reasons), the Japanese are steadily finding them.

  In Europe, the RAF suspends bombing raids, officially for 3 days over the Christmas period, but actually for a week to take stock of the new pattern of raids it is employing. Results have been good; while the average raid has only been 400-500 aircraft, the increased accuracy of the new methods have made the bombing much more effective than in the previous year.

  Dec 25th

  The Soviet winter offensive continues to gain ground. The Germans have lost significant strength and are now at approximately 75 percent of their June strength, and Guderian has less than 40 panzers available.

  Russian amphibious forces land on the Kerch Peninsula. Count von Sponeck's XLII Armeekorps is charged with guarding it and initially do well against the Soviets.

  This evening the British forces in Hong Kong finally surrender. It has always been known that the colony could not hold out against any serious assault, and the defence has only been prolonged as a point of honour. The Canadian Brigade which was to have reinforced the colony has been diverted to Australia, as it was obvious it would not be possible to get it to Hong Kong in time due to the earlier shipping problems.

  Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the US Pacific Fleet.

  Dec 26th

  British intelligence calculate that the combination of RN and Dutch submarines, plus the activity of the Beaufighters, are sinking some 30% of the supplies that the Japanese are attempting to ship into Siam by sea. It has been noted that a significant increase in land-based traffic is ongoing, which is significant in view of how difficult this is with the relatively poor Siamese transport network.

  General Yamashita orders the Imperial Guard division to move forward into Thailand; after the losses he has suffered he intends to use them to allow one of the original divisions time to recover. He has two more divisions available to him in Japan, and one will be moved to French Indo China as soon as shipping allows. Given the resistance put up so far, and his logistical issues in supplying more front-line troops, he is expecting it to take another 3-4 weeks to drive the British out and south from the current lines, especially with th
e problems his air support seem to be having. While he was given additional troops once the British build-up was noticed in the summer, the supply difficulties limit how many he can deploy at once.

  The British land 260 commandos on Moskenesoy in the Lofoten Islands. Their mission is to destroy a fish-oil factory. This is Operation Anklet, targeted at the islands of Reine, Sund and Soervaagen and designed as a diversion for Operation Archery.

  On hearing of the battle off Wake, Somerville gets permission from London to send a higher-ranking officer as liaison to the US Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor. He also suggests a similar officer should be sent by the USN to Singapore or Columbo so the two navies can coordinate their intelligence and tactic more efficiently. While the loss of the Saratoga is of course sad, the reports that the US task force took out a Japanese fleet carrier make her loss worthwhile. Halsey's report has been honest about the problems that became evident, and Somerville is hoping to help the Americans in their early days of combat without raising too many hackles.