by Peter Albano
“Admiral,” the talker said. “Radio room reports the two cruisers are retiring from Balikpapan into the Makassar Straits on course one-nine-zero.”
Cheering, Bernstein and Allen shook hands and pounded each other. Brent laughed and joined in.
Fujita pointed at the ruins of the chart table and spoke to a lookout. “Get the top of the table and hold the chart up.”
Obeying, the man ripped the top from the splintered legs smeared with Dempster’s blood and gore and held up the chart. Fujita pointed. “They are here.” He looked up at the dimming sky where the sun was slowly dying on the western horizon. “It will be dark soon. They can reverse course, and then at their high speed clear the straits, cross the Sulu Sea on a northwesterly headway.” He stabbed his finger to the left. “And then west through the Balabac Straits into the South China Sea and interdict our course here at about longitude one-one-zero, latitude ten in about forty-eight hours from now.”
“You suggested this before, admiral,” Mark Allen noted. “Highly unlikely.”
“With no air cover?” Bernstein asked, the tone of his voice indicating what he thought.
But Brent wondered about World War Two and what the encyclopedic brain had in mind. The old Japanese did not disappoint him.
Eyes fixed on Mark Allen like twin gunsights, Fujita moved back to 1944. “Remember the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Admiral Allen?”
“Why, yes,” Mark Allen responded uneasily. “You’re thinking of Bull’s Run.”
“Precisely.” The black eyes moved over Brent and then to Irving Bernstein. “Bull’s Run, Adm. William F. ‘Bull’ Halsey’s stupid blunder in thinking that a powerful force of our battleships and cruisers under Admiral Kurita, which, incidentally, included Yonaga’s sisters Yamato and Musashi, could not or would not change course when it appeared they were retiring after Musashi was lost in the San Bernardino Straits. Stupidly, Halsey took his fast carriers and battleships north at a high speed to intercept a decoy force of four carriers and two battleships, but with only one hundred thirty planes. He neglected to even post a picket destroyer at the mouth of the straits. Needless to say, Admiral Kurita reversed course and steamed unopposed into Leyte Gulf the next morning where he destroyed two small carriers and their escorts. With more fuel and aerial support he could have destroyed your whole transport force.”
“Then you intend to post pickets here?” Allen indicated the Balabac Straits.
“If we had airgroups, yes — of course. But if we engage them, it will be a surface battle, anyway.” He moved his eyes to Brent Ross. “A good commander anticipates even the most remote threats.” He turned back to the seaman holding the chart. “You may put it down.” Then to Naoyuki, he said, “Radio room, bridge to bridge, all escorts to prepare for a possible surface engagement, which might develop with two cruisers and escorts in about forty-eight hours.” The man talked into his headpiece. Fujita continued. “Tell the carpentry shop I want the chart table on the flag bridge repaired immediately.”
*
Fujita’s estimate was off by two hours. It was forty-six hours later at 1600 hours that the enemy force was sighted. It had been a long, despairing afternoon for Brent Ross as lists of surviving aviators were compiled from the escorts and incomplete static-filled receptions on Yonaga’s own radios working from jury-rigged antennas. Some aviators had already been flown back to Japan from Indonesia, and the free world was rejoicing over the destruction of the enemy task force. Margaret Thatcher had personally broadcast her thanks to Yonaga. But Commander Yoshi Matsuhara’s name was not listed amongst the survivors.
“Lord, Brent,” Mark Allen had said as the two Americans sipped coffee in his cabin. “There are dozens of islands where our men could have landed. There must be many survivors.”
“We lost most of them,” Brent said, staring at the desk.
“I know. I know.”
It was then the klaxons honked, and there was the usual pounding of boots, shriek of boatswains’ pipes, shouted commands, and the rush to battle stations.
“AP! AP!” Fujita was shouting at the talker as Brent Ross, Mark Allen, Irving Bernstein, and Masao Kawamoto rushed onto the bridge, shrugging into life jackets and adjusting chin straps.
“AP, AP, all five inch guns load armor-piercing shells.” Fujita turned to the newcomers. “The right hand lead vessel of the screen just picked up six vessels moving at a high speed, bearing zero-seven-zero, range three hundred kilometers. They are on a collision course with us.”
“That’s a hundred and eighty miles,” Mark Allen said. “We should sight them in about two hours.”
Naoyuki spoke. “ESM reports strong incoming S-band signals, sir. They are ranging us, admiral.”
Looking down at the smashed flight deck, Fujita cursed. Then he said to the talker, “All stations prepare for surface engagement. Bridge to bridge, escorts prepare for torpedo actions and to make smoke. I will commit the divisions to torpedo runs myself.” The talker repeated the commands. “Engineering, I will call for flank speed regardless of the conditions of the bulkheads.”
“Chief Warrant Officer Tanesaki says he can give you twenty-six knots, but we may lose engine room three.”
“Very well.”
The next two hours were the longest in Brent Ross’s life. Two cruisers: the Dido with eight 5.25 inch guns and the Fiji with nine 6 inch guns were bearing down on them. All the guns were mounted in turrets and outranged Yonaga’s 5 inch guns. Eyes rimmed with fatigue, he stared at solid banks of scudding low clouds and the gray lifeless sea. He felt frightened and restless, unbearably so, like some form of illness. And like all men before battle, he felt the helplessness of a victim of the fates; a convergence of uncontrollable circumstances forcing him to face a storm of steel and explosives and probable death with no choice whatsoever. However, he straightened, shamed by his fear and armed with the determination to stand up like a warrior to whatever came over the horizon. Meet it like Yoshi Matsuhara must have met it, he told himself.
For the next two hours, steady tracking by radar placed the enemy force north of Yonaga and off her starboard bow.
Fujita spoke calmly to the talker. “Destroyer divisions One and Two prepare for torpedo engagements and to lay smoke. Form up six kilometer and on a relative bearing of zero-four-five from the flag ship. Divisions Three and Four remain on standard screening stations.”
The first calls came from the foretops. “Masts, smoke, off the starboard bow; range twenty kilometers.”
“Twenty-one, twenty-two thousand yards,” Mark Allen muttered. “The six inch will outrange us by a couple thousand yards.”
“But we have the battleship hull, the armor belt, the eight inch steel box around our vitals.”
“And two holes in our side, five thousand tons of seawater in our compartments and bilges, Admiral Fujita.”
“What would you suggest, Admiral Allen?” Fujita said coldly.
“Sorry, Admiral Fujita. We have no choice.” Allen paused thoughtfully. “Close with them and blow them out of the water.”
“Banzai,” Hironaka croaked.
Fujita smiled. “Said like a samurai.”
Brent saw a great flash on the horizon. “They’ve opened up, sir.” Fujita nodded without lowering his glasses. Then he turned to the talker. “Destroyer divisions One and Two torpedo attack and make smoke.”
There was a rumble and the terrible sound of canvas ripping the sky, and nine yellow towers of water erupted from the sea between the inner screen and Yonaga — flashes masked instantly by leaping waterspouts.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Mark Allen observed. “Dye markers for visual control.”
“Good idea,” Fujita said. “The smaller cruiser will use a different color.”
Seconds later, the howl of shells and orange-colored columns of water shot skyward a hundred yards short of the leading destroyer of Division One, which at flank speed and boiling great rolling clouds of black smoke from her two stacks slashed toward
the enemy force.
“Whose division?”
“Gilliland’s, admiral.”
Fujita hunched over the voice tube. “Right to zero-seven-zero, all ahead flank.”
Heeling and throbbing with new power, Yonaga charged toward the smoke on the horizon. Glasses pressed hard against his eyes until they watered with pain, Brent could see gunfire glowing and lighting up patches of smoke as again and again guns tore into the black shroud.
Fujita shouted at the other officers. “We will close the range while our destroyers keep them occupied. They only have four escorts. They must defend themselves against torpedoes — even the threat of torpedoes.” He spoke to Naoyuki. “To gunnery, we want the six inch cruiser first. Open fire as soon as she is in range.”
There was an orange glow on the far horizon. The great canvas sheets ripped again, and nine more yellow waterspouts erupted from the sea midway between Captain Fite’s leading Fletcher and Yonaga.
“And he wants us first, admiral,” Mark Allen observed.
“Good tactician,” Fujita acknowledged. “He will engage our escorts with his four Gearings and his Dido.”
“He probably has radar fire control,” Mark Allen said.
“I would not trade radar for our optical range finder.” Fujita gestured upward. “Especially on a clear day like this.”
“Assistant Gunnery Officer Yanenaka has the Fiji in the range finder — fourteen thousand meters. Gunnery Officer Atsumi requests centralized control and that we come to a heading that will bring all of the port or starboard batteries to bear.”
“Left to three-five-zero,” Fujita shouted. Then to the talker: “Tell Commander Atsumi I will give him the starboard battery and to fire when ready.”
As the great carrier’s decks canted in the turn to port, Brent saw the lead Fletcher struck by a broadside that blew her number two gun mount and most of the bridge completely off the hull. Turning wildly to port, a rain of shells raked her main deck, blowing men, guns, and shattered plating over the side. Slowly, she came to a stop and began to settle. But the next pair of Fletchers turned and launched their torpedoes. Then the trailing Fletcher lost her stern as the fast 5.25 inch guns of the Dido scored again. Brent watched in horror as the middle Fletcher exploded, struck by a full spread of torpedoes from a Gearing on her starboard side.
“Steady on the three-five-zero, admiral.”
“Commence firing!”
Fired electrically by Atsumi from the CIC, the nineteen 5 inch guns of the starboard battery exploded simultaneously like a thunderclap. Groaning, Brent grabbed his ears, but his pulses pounded as cordite filled his lungs, and the clang of ejected brass casings on the deck and the excited shouts of gun layers hit his senses like a double shot of Chivas Regal. Firing over twenty rounds per minute per gun, the starboard battery set up a rolling, thunderous barrage. Then eight huge waterspouts leaped from the sea only 50 meters off the carrier’s starboard side.
At that moment, Division Two with Fortino leading turned as one and launched eighteen torpedoes. Fortino was struck by a storm of shells that set off a forward magazine, blowing off the entire bow in a hundred foot searing orange flash.
“Sacred Buddha,” Fujita muttered. “Bridge to bridge. Divisions Three and Four make your torpedo attacks.”
While Fite led the remaining six Fletchers in a wide sweeping turn toward the smoke and flame on the horizon, Brent saw a Gearing explode, then the Dido staggered as two torpedoes struck her amidships and broke her keel. She began to drift aimlessly in a sea of flaming fuel, burning and exploding destroyers. The young ensign felt strength drain from his limbs, and he had the impulse to run from this nightmare of hell and destruction, which smeared across the whole northern horizon in a panorama of red flames and spark-dappled smoke. It was sheer madness, something which none of them could control.
Cheers as the Dido’s stern rose as she prepared for her final plunge. But the shouts were silenced by the roar of a full 6 inch salvo passing overhead. Tragically, one gun was short — perhaps with a defective barrel liner — and a 6 inch shell struck the forward gun director and blew it over the side with an orange flash, an ear-splitting blast that demolished the entire foretop, killing and wounding every man at the foretop range finder and the AA machine guns. Shrapnel raked the 25 millimeter tub just forward of the bridge, killing and wounding the entire nine man crew. Two men blown from the foretop tumbled past the flag bridge, screaming and spraying blood until they crashed into the flight deck and lay inert like bloody rag dolls.
“Good Lord,” Allen muttered.
“Local control! Local control,” Fujita shouted. A blanched Naoyuki relayed the order to the gunnery department and then said, “All radar and radios are out, sir.” Fujita nodded.
Steadying his hands with a conscious effort, Brent glassed the enemy. He could see the Fiji clearly now only about 10,000 yards away. She was burning amidships and 5 inch shells churned the water around her. Then she fired another salvo. Brent knew this one would not miss.
A tight salvo of nine 6 inch shells exploded along Yonaga’s starboard side. Four were near misses, but perhaps five projectiles hit the carrier at the waterline, sending tons of water to soak her gun crews and spray as high as the bridge.
“That is my three hundred millimeter armor belt. You can only scratch it,” Fujita chortled, waving a wet fist.
Brent saw Fite’s Division Three and Philbin’s Division Four vanish into the flaming, smoking holocaust. He whispered a prayer.
Another roaring, ripping sound and every man on the bridge dropped as a full salvo struck Yonaga’s forward starboard galleries, blasting three 5 inch and a half-dozen 25 millimeter triple mounts from their mounts with a shock that jarred the carrier all the way to her keel. Torn chunks of metal plating whirled through the air like scraps of paper in the wind, while gun barrels were flung like sticks. Men and parts of men twisted in the wreckage, raining into the sea and onto the flight deck. Ready ammunition began to explode in the gallery on the starboard bow and choking brown smoke billowed from burning powder.
“Flood number one five inch magazine,” Fujita ordered. “Damage control one to the starboard bow.” Immediately, men pulled hoses across the flight deck to the gallery that looked like a burning junkyard peopled by green-clad dead and dying men.
Brent had his glasses on the Fiji when at least three torpedoes hit her squarely amidships. She seemed to rise straight up like an inverted V, and then settled back into the water and slowly began to roll onto her beam ends.
“Banzai! Banzai!” echoed through the carrier. Allen grabbed Brent’s hand and Fujita pounded Bernstein’s back while the Israeli jumped up and down shouting. Hironaka stared at the sky and gave thanks.
Recovering quickly, the admiral moved to the voice tube. “Right to zero-three-seven, speed sixteen.” And the requests for damage reports and the inevitable casualty count. “Bridge to bridge — does Captain Fite answer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Order Captain Fite to take no prisoners.”
“See here, sir,” Mark Allen said sharply. “That’s not human —”
“They are nothing but terrorists to me, and there is only one way to handle terrorism,” Fujita lashed back.
“Kill them,” Bernstein said matter-of-factly. “We’ve learned.”
Because the thick oily smoke had been dissipated by the wind, Brent could see the hull of the Fiji clearly. Not one Gearing was afloat, and only seven Fletchers were visible. Two were stationary, one with a fire amidships and the other listing to port. The Dido was gone. Burning patches of oil and floating wreckage covered miles of ocean.
“Dust on the sea, they call it, Brent.”
“After something like this?”
“Yes, Brent. When the killing ends.”
“But it hasn’t, yet.” There were bursts of machine gun fire, and Brent saw men swept from the red-leaded hull of the Fiji while others were shot in the water. Feeling sick, he turned away. Then the tho
ught that comes to all men who survive battle: It’s over and I’m alive. But he felt no joy, just numbness and a great fatigue.
“Flashing light to Captain Fite; radio silence. By visual signals, detail two destroyers to take damaged ships under tow, the remaining three destroyers form a standard screen ahead of the flagship and off my bows. Course zero-three-seven, speed sixteen.” Fujita paused. “And well done!”
“Banzai! Banzai!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Yonaga limped into Tokyo Bay seven days later, she was greeted by flotillas of gaily decorated boats and crowds lining the bluffs of Igu Hanto and Boso Hanto. At first there was cheering, but then silence as the revelers studied the blackened and ripped bow, the two jagged holes in the flight deck, and the smashed foretop. As he stood next to Admiral Fujita on the flag bridge while the carrier made its way toward berth H-2, which was next to the graving dock at Yokasuka, Brent’s feeling of horror and revulsion had faded despite the terrible punishment the carrier had taken: The dead crewmen numbered 264, 327 wounded, and the total count of dead aviators and aircrewmen still unknown. However, the realization that he had been terrified under fire gnawed at him like acid.
“You are a valued aide and a brave man, ensign,” Fujita said staring through his glasses as Yonaga entered the Uraga Suida.
“Brave?” Brent said, lowering his glasses. “I’ve never been so frightened, sir.”
Dropping his glasses to his waist, the old man stared up at the ensign. “The shell fire was the worst.”
“Yes, sir. At least you can see the planes. But the shells — the noise, and you can hear them coming in.”
The old black eyes were clear and bright. “I was very frightened, ensign.”
“You, sir?” Brent blurted incredulously.
“All men have fears, the brave man manages his. Only a fool or a madman would not have been frightened out there.”