Once the long metal hoses that had fueled the planes were finally stowed away, the Armorers would begin to arrive, pushing their lethal charges on long metal carts. The weapons had already been manhandled up out of the magazines on the deeper levels of the ship, lifted by combinations of small cranes and simple block & tackle arrangements. The large carts at work this morning would carry the four Type 91 Torpedoes, weighing all of 850 kilograms. The mother planes were all fueled and waiting to receive their dark children, and the next ten minutes would see the long torpedoes wheeled through the densely packed hangar to the correct plane, and then mounted under the watchful eyes of the Sebichos. Other crews worked the belts of MG ammo into the nose guns of the Zeroes, and lugged out the sixty round canisters for their 20mm wing cannons.
The war in the Pacific was all about firing those MG rounds through the wings, fuselage, engine, canopy, or pilot of an enemy plane before it could do the same to you, and lancing those long deadly torpedoes through the hulls of enemy ships. It was just another way of hurling stones, some small, some quite big, at the other guy. The stones of the Paleolithic era became spears, then arrows, before they were eventually mated with gunpowder to become bullets. Yet it was still one tribe out after another, only this time the stones would be lifted and hurled at the enemy under the wings of all these noisome aircraft.
All this was happening in the aft hangar aboard the carrier Tosa , where the B5N and B6N torpedo bombers would always be stored. Their neatly folded wings made them more compact, and allowed them to use the smaller aft elevator. Armed and fueled however, they would soon unfold those wings to become four tons of flying death, and the ordnance crews would now turn them over to the plane handlers and elevator crews to be lifted to the flight deck.
The Zeroes used the center elevator amidships, and many were already up on the deck and spotted in one of the three long rows for this mission. They were re-tethered to the deck with wheel chocks in place, waiting for the next act in the long morning drama. The four B6N’s would be the last to take off, so they were aft. When completed, the spot would see three rows of four Zeroes, and one B6N behind each row. The last Torpedo bomber was the plane to be flown by the mission leader.
Usually Lt. Kikuchi Rokuro would prefer to take off before all the other planes assigned to his strike mission, but this time things were different. It was even unusual to combine a fighter sweep with long range recon like this, or for the squadron leader to go out this soon, when he should be briefing and planning his strike mission instead. But Rokuro had wanted to “see for himself” before the real business of the day got started, and a battle was engaged. Were the Americans really where that seaplane said they were? Had they moved? If so, where did they go, and what might they intend? A great deal was riding on the answer to all those questions, for virtually every seaworthy carrier in the Japanese Navy was now within 50 nautical miles of Admiral Hara’s task force, where Tosa was sailing smartly behind the flagship Taiho , which was about 1000 meters ahead.
One heavy Shotai of B6N’s, with three heavy Shotai of A6M2 Zeroes in attendance, would be ready for takeoff by 04:30, about 40 minutes after the service crews first arrived on the hangar deck. Rokuro knew that, even as Tosa was turning into the wind, a destroyer was taking station off her bow, a little under a thousand meters ahead.
Just in case one of the grease monkeys did not do his job, he thought. If a plane failed to get aloft and found itself in the sea, the destroyer crews would go “dragonfly fishing” for the pilot. It was an ignominious fate to be hauled out of the sea like that, and one that Rokuro had never suffered, but the ritual was still a necessary precaution. A strike pilot was a most valuable commodity.
They were all up on deck now, gloves pulled tight, scarfs flowing in the wind, ear muffs being adjusted as they lined up on the flight deck. There they would wait until the Flight Deck Hikocho shouted the order to run to their planes. It was like the offensive squad running to replace the defense in a football game, as the flight deck crews would retreat when the pilots and other crewmen arrived. Soon they would all be settled into the cockpits, the Zero pilots alone, but two extra flight crewmen riding in each B6N, a radio man and rear gunner. Sometimes they would give the 7.7mm Type 92 MG a quick inspection to make certain the crews had mounted the ammo belts correctly. If that weapon jammed at a crucial moment, it could mean the life of the plane, and everyone in it was at stake.
The signal was given to start the engines, and crewmen stood ready with fire extinguishers—another necessary precaution, for special high octane fuel would be used to ignite the engine and get it to turn over. Soon the cough of the fighter engines was heard in the still morning air, and the planes sputtered to life one by one, the props revving up to a wild thrum. The engines would be warmed up while a designated flight deck officer listened to them. Called Uta no-rida , the “Song Leader,” he was always a man chosen from the ranks of the Sebichos on the hangar deck, for he would listen for any abnormality in the song of those engines as they all spun up to higher revolutions. Better to catch a misfiring engine now, before the plane and pilot were in the air.
Everything was checked and double checked: flaps and struts, oil pressure, hydraulics, fuel response when the engines were feathered and revved up again. It was a full fifteen minutes of mechanical calisthenics on the flight deck. The plane would then rev up to full military power for a long minute to make certain everything was in working order. The pilots were watching their engine gauges and temperature closely for any sign of abnormality, but mostly, their minds were already on the mission ahead. After receiving the certifying nod of the Song Leader, a pilot would turn his eyes skyward, noting the cloud height and formation, the wind speed over the deck as indicated by the cone flags and wind socks.
Once the Song Leader waved his hand to signal his choir was in tune, the actual launch operation would be ready to begin. It was only a matter of receiving final orders from the Air Officer, then the planes would be untethered, with the wheel chocks still left in place as each one made final preparations for takeoff. A different kind of song leader would now take over, the Shohikocho , who would make a last visual inspection of each plane spotted for the mission.
Then the deck lights would come on to mark the bow and stern ends of the flight deck, and light the way forward. Soon the wind sock was pointed dead aft as Tosa ran into the morning breeze. She would work up to 24 knots, and as the Shohikocho saluted each plane to signal it had passed his inspection, the pilot would visibly raise his hand so Rokuro could see they were all ready. Normally he would be in front, and turn on his wing lights when all was in readiness, but not this time. He turned them on for the Shohikocho to see that the planes were all reporting ready, and only then would that man signal the deck crews to remove the wheel chocks.
Lieutenant Saburo Shindo had come to Tosa from the Akagi , and he would be privileged to take off first. As his plane raced down the flight deck, all service crews waved their caps after him, with shouts of good luck on their lips. Then, one by one, the other pilots would follow, all the Zeroes getting off before the first of the torpedo planes lumbered after them. Rokuro was the last man up that day, finding the entire formation waiting for him. He maneuvered his plane into position behind the Shotai of three other B6N’s, and watched the Zeroes climb to gain elevation. The overtures were concluded, an hour of perfectly choreographed theater, and now the play was about to begin.
They were headed southwest, and would soon find that the sighting reports were very accurate. It would not be long before Rokuro’s sweeping recon mission flew into a firestorm of American fighters.
Halsey had his three carrier task forces separated by a good 25 to 30 nautical miles each. That kept them close enough to try and coordinate strikes, but far enough apart so he would not present his enemy with one fat target containing all his valuable carrier flight decks. While the many engagements fought thus far in the war had given the Americans a lot of much needed experience, “coordination
” was still hit and miss when it came to their own strike operations. So Halsey made no attempt to ask one TF to launch and loiter with its strike wave. He simply decided to throw them like successive punches at the enemy, instead of trying to load them all up into one haymaker, and he was already fighting. Rather than trying to confirm the sighting reports out of Suva Bay, he took them on faith, He was simply going to attack in that direction, come what may.
Being farthest east and north, Rokuro found himself flying right into Halsey’s heavy CAP that morning. Halsey had allocated a full 50% of his fighters to that mission, with the other half flying escort, so there were a good many up. All 24 of the F4 Wildcats off the Enterprise were already in the sky, with twelve of those loitering to wait for the strike planes to join them. Another twelve F6 Hellcats were also on dedicated CAP, and they saw the Japanese sweep mission on radar 29 miles out. The resulting fighter duel was intense, but something happened that would shock the Japanese for the first time in the war—they would lose, and very badly.
That something was the F6F-Hellcat, which had made its debut flight in June of 1942 in the real history, but never got into a fight until September of 1943. In this history, it was fighting six months early, and the new Lady Lex had come with two dozen. With a powerful engine, rugged design including bullet resistant canopy, and armor around the cockpit, oil tank, and cooler, it was built to fight and survive. In fact, it had been built to order as a plane specifically meant to match, and defeat, the dread Japanese Zero.
Throughout its development, the Navy brought in some of its top Aces to work directly with the Grumman engineers who were building the plane, and hear right from the horse’s mouth what was needed or wanted by the pilots. One of those aces was Lieutenant Commander Butch O'Hare. He had been the Navy’s first flying Ace and Medal of Honor winner when he defended the carrier Lexington from a flight of nine Japanese Betty twin-engine bombers. He would get three of them, damaging others, as he utilized a high side angle of attack to avoid the dangerous sting of their tail guns. Once he got back to Pearl, the reporters descended on him, for America was looking for heroes to bolster morale, and Butch O’Hare was a perfect candidate, cool, personable, and handsome.
He was flown to the White House to get his Medal of Honor, put on Parade in Saint Louis, and then relocated to Hawaii to train other pilots. There he related everything he knew about the enemy Zero, and how to fly against it. He told the young pilots never to follow one into a loop, for the Zero could turn tighter than the F4 and would end up on its tail. Instead it had to be countered with a break hard to the right, which would bring the F4 around in a timely way to get back on the Zero’s tail after it came out of that loop. And he also passed on the one good habit that had served him well—always look over your shoulder , no matter what you were doing. Even if you thought you were alone out there, in a one-on-one duel with a single enemy fighter, you look over that shoulder. It was a life saver to many a Navy Pilot.
With new planes like the F6, and pilots trained by men like Butch O’Hare to fly them, the game had suddenly changed in the skies over Halsey’s carriers. Lieutenant Rokuro’s twelve Zeroes raced to engage, but for the first time they were bested and savaged by the speed and hitting power of this new American plane. They hit many of the Hellcats, but they kept flying, and when they hit back with those four .50 caliber MGs, the Zero was cut to pieces.
Ten of the twelve would go down, and the entire Shotai of those new B6N ‘Heavenly Mountains’ went into the sea, all except Lieutenant Rokuro, who managed to evade and dive away into clouds. The Zeroes got two Wildcats and one Hellcat, but the Japanese survivors were shaken by the bruising losses they had sustained. Rokuro knew he could not take the chance that he would also be shot down without sending a report back to Admiral Hara’s carriers. So he ordered his radio man to send a message in the clear, even if it meant violating radio silence—“Sighted two enemy carriers, three cruisers, four destroyers. Enemy strike in the air!”
Chapter 5
The Japanese decided to hit back hard, those same maintenance crews sweating out another wild 40 minutes on the hangar decks, knowing the enemy was already out after them. That sighting report from the savaged recon sweep put the Americans quite far out, about 350 miles southwest of Hara’s present position. Taiho and Tosa still had time to get a strike in the air before those American planes found them, but there would be little margin for error.
Cruising at 160 knots, the American strike wave would take two hours and twenty minutes to reach them. That window was wide enough for Hara to continue to launch his morning CAP patrols while the strike was armed and spotted. The sun had just broken over the horizon when Lieutenant Rokuro’s warning was received. The messenger read off the signal tersely on the bridge of the Taiho , and King Kong Hara stood silently, his implacable self, seemingly unmoved. When he spoke, the order was exactly what the other officers wanted to hear.
“Signal all carriers in this task force. Prepare for naval strike! Admirals Nagumo and Yamaguchi should be notified immediately.”
That would set in motion the frenetic machine below decks, the fueling, arming, lifting and spotting of the planes. Taiho had started the day with only 18 Zeroes, 27 D5-A2’s and 18 B6N’s. Four of those B6N’s were already expended, and Lieutenant Rokuro was winging his way back home in the only surviving plane.
Tosa had the bulk of the fighters, 26 Zeroes, with 27 dive bombers and 12 torpedo bombers. Junyo had 15 Zeroes, 15 dive bombers and 6 torpedo bombers. That was a total of 164 planes, but 16 had already gone out on that ill-fated recon sweep. Hara was going to have to hold back at least half his fighters for defense, so he sent 23 Zeroes aloft for the strike, which was launching by 7:10. They would be joined by 36 dive bombers and 29 torpedo bombers, making the first strike wave 88 planes. The question after that launch was also crucial—could the second wave be armed and launched before the Americans arrived?
The crews would have another slim hour, and if the enemy got there sooner than expected, the flight decks might be crowded with planes, all armed a fueled, a most undesirable situation for any carrier commander to find himself in. The alternative would be to wait out the American strike, devoting the remaining time to servicing all the remaining fighters and getting them aloft, and this is what Hara elected to do.
Lieutenant Joichi Tomonaga, a survivor of the lost Hiryu , was the Air Officer in charge, a man that had died in the real history at Midway. His planes would form up and head southwest, but it would be a long two hours before they reached the target zone, and they would not find Halsey that day. Heavy clouds had obscured the sea, but they continued on, all eyes searching through any break in the cover for any sign of enemy ships.
At a little after 09:30, three white wakes were spotted, and one of them was a carrier. That was all the Japanese needed, and they started the attack. They did not know it at that time, but they had just spotted the newest addition to the U.S. carrier fleet, the Bunker Hill , now the flagship of Ziggy Sprague’s task force.
Clifton Sprague had come up through the ranks of Naval Aviation, and had served well as the Air Officer aboard the first Yorktown , CV-5, piloting the first two landings ever made on that carrier. Yet he had been in and out of the Naval War Colleges to learn the art of strategy and tactics at sea, and his only real experience had been active participation in fleet problems and related drills on a 16 month tour aboard Lady Lex. Before the war, he had a lowly seaplane tender in 1940, the Tangier , and finally saw action at Pearl Harbor when his was one of the very first ships to return fire against the Japanese attackers.
It may have been desperation that drove his sailors to their guns that day, for Tangier had just taken on a full load of torpedoes and was a disaster waiting to happen. Yet Sprague remained cool, directing the fire of his gunners, even as he watched one ship after another take hits all around him. That action made him a Captain. They were going to send him to Seattle where he was to take command of NAS Sand Point, and his name was on
the roster for the new Essex class return of the Wasp , CV-18, but then he had been bumped up by Nimitz to take over Bunker Hill . Sprague thought he would spend long months cutting his teeth with air ferry duty on the light escort carriers, and it was a real break for him to get the Bunker Hill , and most unusual for a mere Captain to be given charge of a full task force. But Halsey had asked for him earlier, prodding Nimitz to let him bring Independence and Princeton down into the active combat zone, so when Bunker Hill was needed, Ziggy found a seat.
Now he would serve under his old student from aviation school, William Halsey. The two men had flown many hours together when Halsey learned to fly under Sprague’s able instruction. Now Halsey had sent him to the school of hard knocks, and he was about to get one, when his first hour of real naval combat at sea was at hand. He had 30 fighters up on CAP, 20 F4’s and 10 of the newer F6 Hellcats that had arrived with Bunker Hill. In the battle that ensued, the Japanese would lose only one of their Zeroes, but the Americans would get through to down ten enemy dive bombers and seven torpedo bombers. Yet 40 of the 65 strike planes in Hara’s first wave would also get through to those ships.
Light cruiser Phoenix was the first to be hit, a bomb striking her near the fantail. Destroyer O’Bannon took a serious blow amidships, and was double teamed when another bomb struck her forward. But the only hit that mattered, to either side, was the single torpedo that found Bunker Hill .
Ironfall (Kirov Series Book 30) Page 4