by Peter Albano
“Easy range for their bombers,” Mark Allen observed. “They can even have fighters with belly tanks.”
With engine straining under the load of full tanks and a seventeen hundred pound torpedo, the last Nakajima cleared the deck. Following the Nakajima with slitted eyes, the ancient sailor drummed the rail.
“Won’t you change course, sir? Take evasive action?” Allen asked.
“No!”
There were shouts from the foretop. Turning his glasses to the east, Brent brought a foretop mounting radar and a huge director into focus. And there were several smaller masts visible.
“Upper works of a cruiser bearing zero-eight-zero,” he said to Fujita. There were shouts from lookouts.
“Gunnery!” Fujita shouted at the talker. “Stand by to engage enemy surface units hulled down to starboard. Open fire at fifteen thousand meters.”
“You wanted me on the bridge because of my battle experience, Admiral,” Mark Allen said, sharply.
“True,” Fujita answered, staring through his binoculars.
“You are violating every law of carrier warfare, Admiral Fujita. You should turn away – engage the enemy with your air groups. Never! Never commit Yonaga to a surface engagement with a cruiser. The British lost HMS Glorious to the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway. We lost Gambier Bay and all her escorts to Yamato in Leyte Gulf. Your tactics are ill-advised, sir. You’ll be slaughtered.”
“Perhaps! But we are luring him into a torpedo engagement. What would you suggest?”
“Proceed with your torpedo attack – he seems unaware. But turn south – stay out of range. Steam toward your returning air groups under forced draft. Recover as many as you can. Rearm. Refuel. And continue to attack.”
“This would bring us within easy range of land-based aircraft,” Fujita noted impatiently.
“Of course. You have no other options.”
The old Japanese squinted at the horizon, glanced at the chart. “No. There is an option. We will settle this here and now using the samurai’s tactic of the decisive engagement.”
“Tsushima!”
“Why not, Admiral Allen. We destroyed them.”
“Tsushima was fought over eighty years ago,” Mark Allen said, voice rising. “My God, Admiral. It was fought by predreadnoughts using the same tactics Sir Francis Drake used against the Spanish Armada. You’re hopelessly outgunned!”
“One does not need experience in carrier warfare to appreciate the difference in ballistics, Admiral Allen. I am aware of the gunnery problem.” The Japanese gestured to the horizon. “He has the six inch guns, but we have the planes and the torpedoes. And I must recover my aircraft. There is an old Japanese proverb. ‘The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants.’ Let him take his chances.’”
Flashes on the horizon brought a halt to the argument. “He’s opened up,” Brent said, staring through his glasses. Brent heard a fearsome roaring sound approaching. Freight trains! A dozen freight trains. Suddenly, the sea just short of the leading destroyer was torn by a half-dozen explosions that hurled white water fifty feet in the air.
“Ranging shots,” Allen said.
“I know!” Fujita turned to the talker. To the communications officer. “Destroyer Division Two, attack enemy cruiser. Use bridge to bridge.”
There were shouts from the foretop. The first Nakajimas and Aichis were making their runs on the Brooklyn.
“Now, we shall see!” Fujita said.
“Enemy fighters! Enemy fighters!” came from the foretop and talker simultaneously.
“Where? Where?”
Brent caught them in his glasses. “Over the Brooklyn,” he shouted. “A dozen, Admiral… Messerschmitts and—” he saw rounded wing tips, “two Spitfires.” He saw an Aichi pull up sharply, then twist into the sea. Two Nakajimas were shot down in seconds. And now the enemy was completely visible, port side to and steaming parallel to Yonaga, AA batteries blazing like a forest fire, brown smoke eddying. Two more Aichis plummetted into the sea.
“Send our CAP,” Fujita said to the talker. “All destroyers make smoke.”
“Sir,” the talker said. “Our air group commander reports enemy bombers and fighters breaking through on bearing one-six-zero.”
“Very well! AA standby.”
Brent caught specks in the southern sky. “Many aircraft,” he said with a calmness that surprised himself. “Bearing one-six-zero, elevation angle twenty degrees.”
The talker shouted, “Radar reports many aircraft closing from one-six-zero.”
“Very well! Fire when in range.”
The cruiser’s six inch guns erupted again and more express trains approached. A curtain of water leaped from the sea off Yonaga's starboard bow. “Right standard rudder!” Fujita shouted. “Steady up on zero-seven-zero.”
“You’re ‘salvo chasing.’”
“Yes, Admiral Allen.” Then quickly, “Left standard rudder. Steady up on zero-zero-zero.”
“When he gets the range, he’ll go to rapid-fire. Blow us to pieces,” Allen said.
“Then he will eat torpedoes,” Fujita answered.
Although the heeling ship threw Brent against the windscreen, he kept his glasses to his eyes. All the destroyers were gushing black smoke which clung to the sea in greasy rolls. But three, now, had pulled away and with white “bones in their teeth” steamed in a column toward the enemy cruiser which turned away while three of her own Fletchers raced to meet the attackers, guns firing so fast the ships appeared to be burning.
Quickly, the Brooklyn came to a northerly heading, six inch guns volleying tongues of flame. But the Japanese destroyers continued their run, closing despite a forest of splashes leaping all around them. Gracefully, they turned as one, bringing their torpedo tubes to bear.
The Brooklyn found the range. Firing on the leading destroyer, a single broadside hurled the Fletcher’s entire bridge and mast high into the sky, shattered both funnels and detonated ammunition in numbers three and four gun houses, both mounts exploding, flinging steel and pieces of men in a huge radius. But the burning destroyer, with engines undamaged, continued sluicing through the sea, out of control and curving toward her executioner.
“Number Five – Ogren,” Mark Allen said, under his breath. “Lord! Lord! What a way to die.” He bit his lip.
Holding his glasses tightly, Brent saw the Brooklyn's guns depress as the range on Ogren’s destroyer shortened. “Point blank!” He bit his lip. Then yellow flame raged from five turrets as the cruiser’s main battery went to rapid-fire.
Struck by a typhoon of steel and explosives, the destroyer leaped from the boiling sea, hurling wreckage in every direction. Then her forward magazine ignited, rocketing sheets of fire hundreds of feet in the air, flinging a single five inch mount like a child throwing a pebble. In seconds, only burning oil and a black pall marked the Fletcher’s grave.
Cursing, Brent shifted his glasses to the two survivors who continued to belch smoke as shells fell all around them. There were flashes amidships on both vessels. “Torpedoes away!” Brent shouted. Desperately, the cruiser, with two of her own destroyers hard on her port side, turned toward Yonaga.
“She’s ‘combing the wakes’!” Mark Allen shouted.
An Arab Fletcher with a number “1” painted on her bow staggered as a column of water leaped from her beam. Within seconds, another torpedo struck her stem. And with huge spouts of water rising, two more torpedoes struck another destroyer. Then the Brooklyn found the range of the trailing Japanese destroyer, tearing the ship to pieces in seconds like a man crushing a tin can under his heel.
Cursing, Fujita pounded the rail. “That was Jackson! Jackson! And they took our torpedoes!” He leaned close to the talker. “Why are our guns silent? We must be in range!”
“The gunnery officer says one of our destroyers is in the line of fire, sir. And our targets are obscured by our own smoke screen.”
“Number Six. Warner!” Brent said, studying the smoke and flashes on t
he horizon. “He’s opening the range on the cruiser, Admiral.”
“Very well. Warner will take his chances!” To the talker, “Starboard battery, commence firing.”
Like a thunderclap, twenty five-inch guns fired together. Groaning, Brent dropped his glasses, pushed up his helmet and grabbed his ears. But the roar of the guns and the smell of cordite brought a new confidence. They were hitting back. At least they would hurt their fearsome tormentor.
Staring down at the galleries, Brent saw gun crews working their weapons with desperate fury, passing the semi-fixed ammunition, ramming it home and standing a step aside as gun layers fired the weapons, sending breeches flashing back in recoil. Within minutes, the galleries were cluttered with brass casings which were kicked over the side by impatient gunners.
Brent studied the distant ships weaving through the rolling clouds of smoke. Catching a glimpse of gray stem with a white “6” before smoke obscured his vision, he turned to Fujita incredulously, “Warner’s making another run”
“Sacred Buddha!”
“We’re hitting her! We’re hitting her, Admiral,” Brent said as he saw two flashes on the Brooklyn’s superstructure. But the guns blazed and the sea exploded on both sides of Yonaga.
“We’re bracketed! Bracketed!” Mark Allen said.
Tons of water rained down, sweeping across the flight deck, soaking gun crews. Brent felt spray on his face, wiped his lenses. Suddenly, a gray Fletcher, listing and burning, drifted out of the smoke. There was a huge “6” painted on her bow. Men were leaping into the burning sea. Floating in groups. Burning.
Brent groaned, “Warner’s burning… burning—” Suddenly, an Arab destroyer charged through the men, dropping depth charges. Six hundred-pound charges flung bodies like mannequins.
“Swine!” Mark Allen spat.
Brent turned his head sharply as Yonaga’s antiaircraft stuttered to life with staccato blasts. The ensign brought his glasses up, focused over the stem where a half-dozen twin-engined aircraft with an equal number of Zeros hounding them approached at a high speed.
Staring at the bombers, an eerie feeling of incredulity gripped Brent Ross. This was worse than the shelling. These men were coming for him. These men wanted to kill Brent Ross. His brain rang with the thought that runs through the minds of all men caught in combat. They're trying to kill me. Kill me, Brent Ross.
Suddenly, Yonaga was firing on the Brooklyn and attacking aircraft. And an insane cacophony of approaching shells and aircraft engines overwhelmed the ensign. As he held his temples and rocked on his heels, a gigantic cliff of water shot skyward across Yonaga’s bows and unmistakable detonations assaulted his ears as six-inch shells drove home. Tumbling like a thrown match stick, a five inch gun twisted into the sea, its dismembered crew raining around it. Smoke and flame lunged skyward and smoke swept the deck.
“Left full rudder!”
The twin-engined aircraft were on them and bombs arced toward the carrier. Fascinated, Brent watched as shiny black cylinders shrieked toward him – him alone. Water leaped from the sea off the starboard side, spray and blue water ripped across the bridge. Then the unmistakable shock and the clang of ripping steel as a bomb found Yonaga.
“The stem! The stern! We’ve taken one on the stem!” Mark Allen cried.
Flames and black smoke were leaping from a great hole just aft of the stern elevator. “Damage control parties to the bow and stern!” Fujita shouted.
Two more bombers with three Zeros in hot pursuit raced for Yonaga’s stem. But a burst of twenty-five millimeter ripped a wing from one, sending it cartwheeling across the surface crazily, shedding chunks of aluminum and hurling bombs and bodies like a great, grotesque children’s toy flung by a Goliath. Then, with both engines flaming and trailing black smoke, the second bomber shot straight up, exploding in a spectacular display of pyrotechnics which rained burning fragments in a huge circle.
Deafened by the firing, the young American heard Fujita’s voice in the distance. “Come right to zero-zero-zero.”
Now, the sky was suddenly clear of Arab aircraft and every five inch gun on Yonaga’s starboard side was firing at the Brooklyn which returned fire like Vesuvius. But Aichis and Nakajimas streaked toward her like vultures. One Aichi struck her bridge, fuel and bombs exploding in a yellow ball which roiled skyward, winking orange and red. A Nakajima put a torpedo into her stem and she veered sharply to port. Then two more dive bombers streaked down, crashing into the cruiser amidships, bombs and gasoline exploding, enveloping the ship’s funnels and center section in flames. Out of control and twisting slowly like flotsam in a stream, the great cruiser’s guns fell silent.
“Banzai!”
“What’s that?” Allen shouted. “A beam to port, eight thousand yards, elevation thirty degrees.” The cheering stopped.
“A twin-engined Cessna,” Brent said, disbelieving his eyes. And as so often happens in battle, friendly fighters were no where to be seen.
“Cessna?"
“Yes, Admiral. Civilian aircraft."
“Any more?"
“No, Admiral."
“Five inch engage aircraft to port, machine guns fire when in range."
Cranked upward, the cannons stormed to life, splattering the sky around the Cessna with ugly brown smears. Casually, the civilian aircraft turned and dived through the angry puffs, closing on the carrier’s port side.
With massive ripping blasts that blurred each other with their speed, Yonaga’s twenty-five millimeter mounts began firing. Thousands of tracers raced to meet the attacker. But the Cessna bored in, oblivious of the death all around. Suddenly, the port engine streaked oil and smoke. But the plane held its course, never deviating, nose pointed at the bridge.
“He’s Sabbah!" Bernstein cried. “He wants to ram us!"
“Kill him! Kill him!" Fujita shouted.
Dropping his binoculars, Brent stared at the approaching plane, the back of his neck suddenly crawling with cold insects, stomach empty and sick, mouth a desert. Fear was back like that night in the alley, melting his knees. And that feeling went with Sarah Aranson, conjuring her face for a millisecond like a broken film strip caught on a projector’s sprockets. He pounded the rail with both fists. Our date may be off, he said to himself as the plane roared closer. What a shame! What a body! Then he wondered about the insanity of his thinking. But there was nothing he could do. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. Anyway, he would not flinch in front of the other men. Straightening his back, he filled his lungs. Strange, the other men seemed to be doing the same thing.
Now, flames streaked the black smoke and the starboard wing dropped. But the plane was on them and guns were yammering all around. Aluminum flaked from the aircraft like a reptile shedding skin. The nose dropped. Came up. She was only a few yards away. Brent caught a glimpse of the pilot staring at him through a shattered windshield.
The starboard engine burst, ripped itself loose. Hung by broken mounts and ganglias of colored wires and fuel lines. More flames. Crossing the flight deck, the plane began to roll to the right, impacting the top of the carrier’s stack, bouncing and disintegrating with engines hurled to the starboard bow and quarter, fuselage tumbling crazily, catching the sea like a cartwheel, revolving, flinging pieces of wreckage and finally coming to rest in a great spray of water. But guns still fired.
“Cease firing,” Fujita said. The talker nodded. “Tell the communications officer to order Captain Fite to finish off the cruiser.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And, also, I want damage reports immediately.” He stared aft where damage control crews were smothering flames with a new foam supplied by the Self Defense Force. “I want a report on the stern elevator.” The talker spoke into his headset.
Brent caught a flash of red high in the sky. “Flare, Sir. A Nakajima!” He stabbed a finger at a bomber low on the water curving toward the carrier, trailing smoke.
“He has casualties,” Fujita noted.
“Damage con
trol officer reports fires out, stern elevator jammed, one five-inch mount and two twenty-five millimeter mounts destroyed, twenty-seven dead, twelve wounded and three missing. And a shell destroyed the port capstan, and we lost our anchor. But we can receive aircraft.”
“Very well,” Fujita said in a flat voice.
“Aircraft! Aircraft!” came from the lookouts. High in the sky, Brent saw, perhaps, ten white monoplanes as the CAP resumed its patrol. But low on the water, a handful of Aichis and Nakajimas joined the wounded bomber circling counterclockwise impatiendy. Two more flares arced.
“Come to zero-four-zero, speed twenty-four. Stand by to recover aircraft.” The command rang through the ship’s PA system. Fujita reeled off more commands to the talker. “Bridge to bridge to Captain Fite… I am recovering aircraft… kill all survivors and then reform on me!”
“No prisoners?” Mark Allen said.
“Yes. A warrior’s destiny is to fight or die – not surrender.” He waved. “The Arabs fought well. They have earned an honorable death.”
Chagrined, Mark Allen ground his teeth. “They can do without such compliments, Admiral.”
“My decision,” Fujita said sharply. There was a roar of an aircraft engine and the first bomber – wings and fuselage punctured by scores of holes – staggered aboard. Instantly, handlers, firefighters and medical orderlies swarmed over the smoking aircraft. Within minutes, two air crewmen were pulled from the cockpit and the Nakajima was wheeled to the forward elevator.
Then the remaining bombers began landing.
“So few! So few,” Mark Allen said.
Gunfire brought Brent’s eyes back to the starboard side. Four Japanese Fletchers slashed through the dissipating smoke firing at a great hull which rested on beams end. No Arab destroyers were in sight.
Bringing up his glasses, the ensign saw hundreds of men clinging to the Brooklyn’s hull. But shells were bursting and machine guns swept them from the steel plates like pins on a bowling alley. He tasted bile. Dropped his glasses.
Fujita’s voice to the talker. “Tell the communications officer to contact Captain Fite. He is to report aboard this vessel immediately. The other destroyers of Division One can finish off the cruiser!” And then in a deep, prideful voice, “Make the signal, ‘All hands, well done.’” He pulled the microphone to his mouth. “Well done! Well done!” echoed through the carrier.