The Commodore

by P. T. Deutermann

  He used the head, washed his face, then changed into a long-sleeved khaki shirt, buttoned to the throat. Then came his kapok life jacket, which he tied across his chest with three strings before he pulled up the two straps that went between his legs and back up to the waist. There were two tiny flashlights pinned to the bulky jacket, one red-lens, one white. There was also a police whistle on a cord attached to the jacket’s lapel.

  Already beginning to sweat from all the layers, he strapped on his steel helmet with the letters CO painted front and back. He could hear the tramp of men hurrying to their GQ stations, along with the first sounds of hatches going down. He bent over with difficulty to stuff his khaki trouser hems into his socks. Finally came the utility belt, which contained a packet of morphine syringes, a full-sized red-lensed flashlight, a pouch of battle-dressing bandages, a sheath knife, and a holstered .45 semiautomatic.

  He stood up and inhaled, feeling a little like a knight about to climb up on his charger. The gear hanging from his belt and life jacket was mostly for use in the water or in a life raft. He’d often wondered about the utility of the pistol, but the idea was that if all the officers carried a sidearm and the ship went down, there would be some guns aboard the life rafts. That was the published version, anyway. The officers all knew there were other uses for a pistol should battle damage, horrible wounds, or a hysterical crewman require it. Unlike in a land battle, retreat was not an option in a naval gunfight.

  The GQ alarm finally sounded, almost as an afterthought, since most of the men were already on station. He could hear the phone-talkers out on the bridge taking manned-and-ready reports from GQ stations throughout the ship. He took a deep breath and went back out onto the bridge. The usual chorus greeted his arrival. The OOD reported that the ship was manned and ready for general quarters. It was fully dark now, with only a faint moon showing through a high overcast. He went out onto the bridge wing, where he could just barely make out the white bow wave of the destroyer next behind the King. The battleships, one and a half miles back, were now lost in the gloom.

  He went back into the pilothouse area to the chart table, which was illuminated by a dim red light. The navigation plot showed that the formation was north-northwest of Savo Island, about ten miles behind them. He wondered how long they’d head northeast up the channel, called the Slot by the Americans, that ran all the way through the Solomon Islands chain to New Britain and the Japs’ big naval base at Rabaul, almost six hundred miles from Guadalcanal. As if in answer to his question, the signal bridge called down with another course change, this time to the southeast. Admiral Lee, embarked in the Washington, obviously suspected that the Japs were listening to American tactical radio frequencies, so he was staying off the radio until the action started. Sluff acknowledged the visual signal and then told the OOD to initiate the turn when the signal was executed. A minute later the bitch-box sounded off with a single word: “Execute.”

  The ship heeled gently as she came right to the newest course. The rest of the formation would do likewise, each ship turning in the same spot where King had put the rudder over until the entire column was steadied up on a southeasterly heading. He picked up the sound-powered phone handset next to his chair, dialed CIC, and asked for the exec.

  “XO, here,” Bob answered a moment later.

  “I think I need to tell the crew what’s going on,” Sluff said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “So you’re in charge of the Combat Information Center. What the hell’s going on?”

  Bob laughed. “Um, well, we’re on course one three five, speed twenty, and it’s, uh, dark outside?”

  Sluff smiled. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said. “Like: Has the boss transmitted a battle plan of any kind?”

  “No, sir, not that we’ve seen. After what happened last night, I’m guessing they have intel that the Japs will be back, and hopefully our battleships’ll surprise them. But for right now, we’re in the mushroom mode for sure.”

  The mushroom mode: in the dark and up to their necks in manure. “Okay,” Sluff said. “I wish I had that radar display up here, but I don’t, so I’m depending on you and your radar guys to keep me informed as to enemy contacts and what the big boys are doing. If nothing else, when the battlewagons start to maneuver, I do not want to get in the way of either one of them.”

  “Got it, Cap’n,” Bob said. “Right now all the ships are on station and there are no unknown radar contacts. Washington’s radar is mounted about a hundred feet higher than ours, so they should see any Japs first. I assume that’s when Admiral Lee will start using the radio instead of flashing light.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Sluff said. “It’s a pity they don’t turn the destroyers loose to go up the Slot and see what’s what.”

  “No squad dog or divcom,” Bob pointed out. “I think the admiral’s pretty much winging it.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Sluff said. “Okay, I’m gonna get on the 1MC and do the same thing.”

  He hung up the phone and told the bosun to pipe all-hands and then give him the 1MC microphone.

  “This is the captain speaking,” he began. “As most of you know we’ve joined up with a formation of two battleships, the South Dakota and the Washington. Right now we’re steaming in a southeast direction headed down toward the eastern side of Savo Island. The admiral in the Washington expects the Japs to come down tonight to finish whatever they came for last night when they ran into our cruisers.”

  He paused to take a breath. “You saw our cruisers this morning. That fight did not go well for us, except for the fact that the Japs turned back when it was over. But they have to know they kicked ass last night and that our cruisers are not likely to be out here tonight. What they don’t know is that two battleships have taken their place, so hopefully we’re going to surprise them when they come. If they come, they usually show up around midnight, so that’s when I would expect action. Until then, stand easy on station while we wait to see what happens. Hopefully I’ll have time to give you a heads-up before the shooting starts. I need all hands who are topside to keep a watch out for torpedo wakes—that’s how the Japs usually start a night fight. That is all.”

  He handed the microphone back to the bosun as the echo of his voice died out on the weather decks. He wished he could have told them more, but at least his crew now knew as much as he did, which admittedly wasn’t much. He wondered what the admiral back there on the flagship knew.

  “Bosun’s mate of the watch,” he called. “How’s the coffee supply?”

  “Hot, black, and ready for paving, Cap’n,” the bosun responded.

  FOUR

  The port of Nouméa, New Caledonia

  Vice Admiral William F. Halsey looked out at the darkened anchorage and saw not very much. It was nearly midnight. The South Pacific breezes tried their best, but his cabin still reeked of cigarettes and human stress. His flagship, an elderly submarine tender called USS Argonne, had no air-conditioning, even in the flag spaces. Have to do something about that, he thought. Maybe run that arrogant Frenchman out of his expansive offices. It wasn’t like the French colonial government had anything to do these days but maintain their notorious pride.

  He’d sent his remaining operations staff officers to get some sleep. One of them had asked him, pointedly, if perhaps disrespectfully, if he was going to get some sleep. Halsey had banished him from his office with a growl and a beetling of his bushy eyebrows, followed by a small smile. His chief of staff, Captain Miles Browning, had stayed behind. He was in the outer office, reading the message traffic and nursing his many ulcers.

  It was up to Ching Lee now, Halsey thought, especially after the mauling his cruisers had taken last night. San Francisco, Portland, and Helena were still limping their way back. As the remnants of the cruiser force had started back to Nouméa, Juneau had been torpedoed with the apparent loss of all hands just below Florida Island. Atlanta had succumbed even before the retreat began. Two flag officers lost: Dan Callaghan had
been Ghormley’s chief of staff right here in Nouméa, and Norm Scott—another big loss. Should’ve kept Scott back here at headquarters. In retrospect, Scott had simply been a supernumerary last night.

  He fired up the umpteenth cigarette of the evening. Sending his only two battleships up to Ironbottom Sound was most certainly a calculated risk. Chester Nimitz might not agree, but Chester was back in Pearl, while he, Halsey, was right here with a real crisis in his lap. Battleships were designed for Jutland, with great formations of huge ships blasting away at each other at eighteen miles. That’s how battleships fought. Sending Washington and South Dakota into the narrow confines of the waters around Guadalcanal defied every tenet of naval tactics. Battleships with sixteen-inch guns were practically invincible against other battleships mounting fourteen-inch guns, as long as they tried conclusions at battleship ranges. But last night, Dan Callaghan had taken a cruiser and destroyer formation into something resembling one of Nelson’s close-in melees, where destroyers set the top hampers of battleships afire from ranges of less than a quarter of a mile, and the Japs’ Long Lance torpedoes had harvested almost his entire cruiser force.

  He mentally recited the butcher’s bill again. Atlanta, gone. Juneau, her back broken by a Long Lance, vaporized by a Jap sub on the way back to Noumea. San Francisco shredded. Portland with her propellers blown off by another Long Lance. Not to mention all the destroyers lost. The only bright spot: The Jap battleship Hiei, admittedly something of an antique herself, had been rendered helpless by gunfire from a dozen American ships and then wrecked the next day by vengeful aviators launching from the dirt field at Guadalcanal. The Japs had brought two of their battleships, Hiei and Kirishima, to bombard Henderson Field and then cover the landing of a fresh infantry division on the island. Dan Callaghan had stopped that effort, at the cost of his life, but tonight Pearl was warning him that the Nips were coming back to finish the job. Pulverize the airfield, then land an entire convoy’s worth of replacements. Then crush the Marines.

  They couldn’t know that they’d face two American battleships tonight. They’d never expect Halsey to leave his carrier force, or what was left of it, unescorted like that.

  No one else would expect that, either, especially his distant masters back at Pearl and Washington, DC. Ernie Jesus King would be suitably aghast—unless, of course, it worked. It had better work.

  “Miles, I need a drink,” he announced to his empty cabin.

  FIVE

  Ironbottom Sound, Guadalcanal

  “Bridge, Combat.”

  “What’ve we got?”

  “They’re here. Multiple radar contacts, northeast of Savo, coming south. One big, four smaller. Maybe more. Twenty-four thousand yards, closing at twenty-seven knots.”

  “Okay,” Sluff said. “Send a flashing-light report to the boss.”

  “On the way,” Bob said.

  “Officer of the deck,” Sluff called. “Pass the word throughout the ship: Enemy ships approaching. All stations: Button up tight and stand by.”

  Sluff checked the gyrocompass. They had just turned west, having circled Savo Island. The formation hadn’t changed: destroyers J. B. King, Walke, Calhoun, Morgan, followed by battleships South Dakota and Washington. They were passing through the waters between Guadalcanal and Savo Island, the site of too many defeats for the American forces. They were running downwind now, so there was no longer any cooling relief from the relative wind. The tropical night was so hot and humid that the sea haze was almost a fog. After Sluff’s announcement, the men on the bridge stood a little straighter, and the idle chitchat of a moment ago subsided into frightened silence.

  “Bridge, Sigs. From the boss: We see them. Open fire when we do.”

  “Bridge, aye,” Sluff said. He relayed the message to the gunnery officer, Billy Chandler, up in the main battery director, one deck above.

  “We have a solution on the lead ship, Cap’n,” Billy said. “They’re not quite in range.”

  “They should be in the battleships’ range,” Sluff said. Hardly had he said that than a mile behind them the night erupted in red and orange balls of fire as the battleships let go. The thumping roar of their sixteen-inch guns followed a few seconds later, punishing the hot night air. Right behind them, Walke began firing.

  “What’s the range?” Sluff asked Billy.

  “Nineteen-five,” he said. The effective range of J. B. King’s five-inch guns was eighteen thousand yards. “Effective” meant that the chances of hitting the target at nine miles were really good. The guns, however, could shoot out to almost ten miles, or twenty thousand yards.

  “Commence firing,” Sluff ordered. “Tell your topside AA gunners to look out for torpedo wakes.”

  “Control, aye,” Billy shouted. Two seconds later, all five of J. B. King’s five-inch mounts began blasting away, their barrels trained out to starboard and pointing high, at maximum elevation. The noise was terrific, with clouds of gunsmoke and wadding particles blowing back into the bridge because of that following wind.

  Sluff tried to think about what would happen next. Once the heavies started shooting, the Japs would know they’d been ambushed by something a whole lot bigger than cruisers.

  What would they do?

  Launch a swarm of those terrible Long Lance torpedoes, that’s what. He stepped out onto the bridge wing, trying to ignore the ear-numbing blasts from the forward gun mounts. The three mounts back aft were going full tilt as well, and a thousand yards astern he could see Walke’s five-inchers pumping yellow flames. The five-inch barrage seemed insignificant compared to the enormous pulses of red-white-orange muzzle blasts from the big guys a mile and a half back. He couldn’t imagine what it was like on the receiving end of all that.

  “Bridge, Combat,” his talker shouted. “Enemy ships are turning around. Control reports we’re getting hits on the lead ship, but they’re definitely on the run!”

  On the run, maybe, Sluff thought. Or, they were turning to present their torpedo tubes, now that they could see the Americans. He just knew the torpedoes were coming. The Jap Long Lance was much bigger than J. B. King’s torpedoes. Twenty-four inches in diameter instead of twenty-one. They ran at almost sixty miles an hour, with a half-ton warhead, and outranged the American torpedoes by miles. He walked quickly back into the pilothouse.

  “Left standard rudder,” he called. “All ahead flank, turns for thirty-four knots!”

  “Captain has the conn,” the OOD announced inside the pilothouse. He sounded scared. You ought to be, Sluff thought. He moved quickly over to his chair and punched down the button for the CIC. “Combat, Captain, I’m hauling out of formation to avoid torpedoes. Tell gun control to check fire until we’re clear of our own ships. I think there are torpedoes incoming.”

  “Combat, aye,” the exec responded. “Radar shows there are more Japs coming out from around the west side of Savo. These look bigger. Cruisers, maybe.”

  King’s guns remained silent as she straightened up and began to run down the column of American ships in the opposite direction. As if to make the exec’s point, large waterspouts began to erupt around the destroyers who’d remained in the van. Then another series of shell splashes erupted all around the lead American battleship, South Dakota. Sluff could barely see them, but the force of their impact with the water meant that that had to be eight-inch fire from heavy cruisers coming in. He wanted to shout at the other destroyers: Maneuver, do something to avoid the incoming shells. Don’t just steam in lockstep in a straight line in front of the battleships, whose enormous gun flashes were clearly illuminating the destroyers.

  Another round of salvos came out of the night, landing this time on the other side of the column now drifting down their port quarter as King accelerated. South Dakota was just about abeam, perhaps a mile and half, thundering out nine-gun salvos with clockwork precision as King raced by, headed for the rear of the formation so that she could rejoin the shooting. Sluff knew that the Japs were refining their gunnery solution on the
steady-as-you-go American formation. Salvos that landed short and then over meant that they just about had the range and the next salvo would be—

  There was a bright yellow flash, a massive bang of overpressure, and then the sound of shrapnel flailing King’s mast and upper superstructure. A moment later, the bitch-box lit up as huge waterspouts stood up all around them, shaking the ship like a dog with a rag.

  “Bridge, Combat, we’ve lost comms with the task force. Radio says the radio antennas are probably down.”

  “Okay,” Sluff said. “We’re coming abeam of Washington now, and I’ll resume firing when we’re clear of her. Looks like South Dakota has stopped shooting for some reason. Looks like they’re getting hammered by eight-inch.”

  “Radar shows something really big coming around Savo now.”

  “Very well,” Sluff said. “I’ll eyeball us back into formation behind Washington as soon as—”

  The night lit up behind them as the three destroyers still in the line, Calhoun, Walke, and Morgan, were eaten alive by the arrival of several Long Lance torpedoes. Sluff rushed out to his port bridge wing in time to see pillars of flame rising up from the sea, bright enough that he could actually see the Washington, still blasting away with her nine sixteen-inch guns. Ahead of her, South Dakota’s guns were still strangely silent, even as she was being straddled again by even larger waterspouts. Damn, he thought. They’ve got a battleship, too. Up above, on the signal bridge, there were shouts for a corpsman.

  “Officer of the deck,” Sluff shouted. “Put us astern of Washington at one thousand yards. Tell Gun Control to resume firing when arcs are clear.”