Ironfall (Kirov Series Book 30)

by Schettler, John

  It was not U.S. Navy policy to attempt to defeat the enemy attack by maneuver. The Americans posted their supporting ships close by the carriers, and it was that massed firepower that would be the backbone of the US defense. A bit of a maverick, Sprague had already violated that policy by making some amazing turns and maneuvers to throw off three attacking enemy dive bombers, their bombs falling off the port side of the ship. In doing so, he kept a wary eye on his cruisers, but that single torpedo bomber, a B6N, put its fish right on target, and it could not be avoided.

  The was a high white wash of water off the port side, then all that water was vaporized by the explosion. Ziggy felt the hard thud, the heavy blast, the roll of the ship, and he knew he had been skewered. He swore inwardly, but remained outwardly cool, a hard look set on his face. An officer of the deck made the mistake of swearing aloud, and Ziggy, who was normally not one to dress a man down for a lapse, simply gave him that look. “This isn’t a CVE,” he said. “Look to your post.”

  The navy disparaged the CVE as being three things, all denoted by those three initials: Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable. But that was not the case for Bunker Hill . A light carrier might have been put out of action by that torpedo, but Ziggy had a ship that could take more punishment and still keep running. He also had a little ‘luck of the Irish’ on this Saint Patrick’s Day engagement, for the torpedo struck in a safe location, far from avgas bunkers and magazines. His damage control crews also knew that this ship was definitely not expendable, and they rushed to heal the breach and mend the wound with vigor. There would be minor flooding amidships, but no list developed, and Ziggy knew his flight deck was still squared off and level for ongoing operations. He sent one signal to Halsey. “09:42—Torpedo amidships—damage under control—CV-17 is H.G.U…” Those last three initials meant, of course, “Haze Grey and Underway.”

  When Halsey read it he smiled. Ziggy had taken a punch that had been meant for him, and the gritty senior officer knew that. The Bull sent back a simple three word reply: “Have at ‘em!” That message was also received by Ray Spruance, and between the two of them, they would launch a devastating counterpunch against Hara’s task force that would more than balance the scales.

  * * *

  King Kong had been waiting for news, the singular agony of the fleet carrier commander in a battle like this. All the action was well beyond his horizon, and nothing he could see, so patience was the only virtue he could embrace. He stood stolidly on the bridge of the Great Phoenix , carrier Taiho , waiting for the runners to come up from the signals room, delivering one morsel of information at a time, just a small piece of the puzzle that Hara had to fit together in his mind as he tried to ascertain what was happening. He had waited nearly two hours for the first piece: “Sighted enemy Carrier – Attacking!” Now he waited for results.

  A runner came up, saluting before announcing the latest news in a loud voice for all to hear. “Torpedo hit on one enemy carrier!” That was all, leaving Hara to wonder how many enemy carriers were even there. Only one had been reported prior to the attack, and it was good to hear that it had been hit, but this could not be the entire American carrier force. Where were the others?

  This was his fate—waiting, asking these inward questions, guessing, making calculated assumptions, trying to surmise things from these incomplete snippets of signals traffic. His entire situational awareness of the battle was reduced to the tapping fingers of a man riding in the wild rear seat of a torpedo bomber, over 300 miles away. Tracer rounds from enemy fighters streaked past his plane, and a heavy flak round exploded close by, sending a hail of shrapnel against the fuselage. He would crane his neck around, straining to see what was happening below. A rake of clouds would open, and there he saw another American ship on fire. His finger moved in a fitful haste: “Cruiser burning amidships!” five minutes later that signal would be shouted out on the bridge of Taiho , with Hara standing there, gazing out to sea, like a mountain island of calm.

  Soon the radar crews would report a hard contact inbound on the fleet. Taiho had the newest addition to fleet radar sets, again nearly six months early, the Type 21, with a detection range of 60 nautical miles against aircraft groups. That meant the enemy was just twenty minutes away, and looking for his ships as they approached. All Hara’s fighters were already in the air, and his crews were now arming and fueling the second wave strike planes. It would be another ten minutes before they would be lifted up onto the flight deck, which was something he did not want. He turned to an officer and spoke: “Spotting operations are suspended. Aviation fuel and munitions are to be secured, and the hangar decks thoroughly ventilated.”

  That order was quickly passed below to the hard working maintenance crews, a perfect example of the “hurry up and wait” that lurked in the midst of all military operations. For the carrier, that was particularly true. Hara knew he could not get that second wave strike spotted and launched before the American planes got there, no matter how much he hurried his crews, so he would simply have to wait.

  It was a wise precaution, and the time seemed to be stretched thin and taut, like two men pulling on a leather rope. Just when it reached the breaking point of tension, a watchman shouted the alarm—enemy dive bombers!

  They were coming off the decks of Taffy 12, commanded by Ray Spruance with Essex and Lexington II . A cruiser commander, Spruance had been thrust into the cauldron of carrier operations after Jack Fletcher’s disastrous losses in the Coral Sea. Halsey had personally asked for that man as well, having faith in his considerable abilities as a sea Captain. The man has seamanship wired tight, said Halsey, and it was a most accurate description of Spruance.

  As cool as they came, Spruance was methodical, rational, and careful in everything he did. Far from Halsey’s bawling and sometimes bawdy manner, Spruance was a man of words, quiet, articulate, thoughtful, but rigorously disciplined in day to day operations, with attention to detail in all aspects of his work. He had cleverly plotted the position where he expected to find the enemy carriers, and he had been dead accurate. To make matters worse for Hara, Ziggy had his planes up as well, and they were following those of Taffy 12.

  Ray Spruance had thrown every dive bomber he had at the enemy, 53 planes, and 24 of his 31 torpedo bombers, all escorted by nearly two dozen fighters. The dive bombers came in first, seeming to coalesce into fast moving solid shapes emerging from the grey overhead cloud deck. Down they came, the Japanese standard Type 96 25mm autoguns desperately trying to track and kill them. It was particularly ill-suited to that task, with a small clip of only 15 rounds that had to be reloaded after only four seconds of fire. By the time the next clip was fed into the magazine, the gun had to be re-sighted on the target that was moving at a frightening speed in a near vertical dive. So these would fire in fitful spits, and could seldom put out enough firepower to really make a difference.

  The larger AA weapons were equally bad against dive bombers, their radar fire control systems slow to respond, taking between ten and twenty seconds to obtain a firing solution. By that time, the target was long gone, and if the ship maneuvered, any solution already obtained based on the last course and speed was useless and had to be recalculated. So instead of relying on the radar, the Japanese tended to fire these weapons in a barrage, the shells set to a specific altitude in one spot in the sky. It was a barrier of flak that the strike planes would have to fly through, but those who made it through were going to have a very good chance in this attack, and there were many.

  It would now come down to the skill of the pilots in dropping those bombs, but once they were in the air, spotters would shout the danger to the bridge, and the helmsman was the last line of defense. If he could suddenly steer the ship out of harm’s way, (on the orders of the senior officer on the bridge), those terrible 500 and 1000 pound bombs would find nothing but seawater.

  But that didn’t happen this day, and Hara would be dubiously ‘gifted’ with the first bomb. It came hurtling down on the aft deck of the
Taiho , exploding on that armored steel, which was now put to a severe test. It held. The bomb did damage, but it had struck one of the thickest segments of the deck, with 80mm of armor, just over three inches thick, almost an inch more protection than the decks of the Kongo . That flight deck had been designed to resist multiple hits by 500kg bombs, (1,100 pounds), and it performed as advertised.

  While Hara cringed inwardly with that hit, it was more flash and smoke than anything else. Several deck crewmen were injured by the shrapnel, with three killed, but the deck was not penetrated, and the damage control parties were quickly on the scene to hose down the small fire and drag out more emergency deck patch plating.

  As for the other carriers, Tosa had the older style wooden deck cover over thinner 1.5 inch armor, which would in no way stop such a bomb, and the Peregrine Falcon , CVL Junyo , was no better off. Not one, but three bombs would hit that ship, and the icing on the cake was the torpedo that struck forward. Two bombs would get the Tosa , and another would strike the battlecruiser Kongo . When Ziggy’s group delivered the final attack, Junyo and Kongo would both be hit yet again with a single bomb, as would heavy cruiser Atago .

  Considering that single torpedo that had been delivered to the hull of Bunker Hill , the American strike did a great deal more damage. Just as Hara received the news that his own carrier was not seriously harmed, he looked out and saw Junyo erupt with fire and smoke. Up went the searing mix of molten steel, fire, and shrapnel laden smoke. The flight deck was smashed, with splinters flying in all directions, some falling as far away as the escorting destroyers churning up the seas and firing all their guns like a pack of angry terriers.

  The damage to Junyo would be near fatal, her main elevator wrecked, 40% of her boilers serrated and venting hot white steam, and a hole in her lightly armored sides that was shipping water to the point where the carrier went into an immediate list. The ship started settling deeper into the water to one side, as her Captain desperately ordered counterflooding. Many of her planes were wrecked, for those bombs penetrated easily to the hangar decks, where nothing more than thin fire curtains separated one segment from another. They did not do their job. Captain Shizui Isii would signal his ship had been seriously damaged, and was to be considered unfit for any further operations. It was even doubtful if thePeregrine Falcon could be saved at all.

  ‘Implacable Mountain’ took all this in with stoic stillness, his eyes fixed on the burning carrier off his starboard bow. Then Kong bawled out an order. “Continue arming and spotting—and with all speed!” He had taken a hard hit from his enemy, and before he even really knew if his first right cross had landed, he was going to throw that left hook.

  Chapter 6

  It was 10:18 when Lieutenant Tomonaga’s latest signal arrived: “Attack concluded—Homeward bound.” When he received it, Hara was mentally calculating the need to recover friendly planes in about two hours, both from Tomonaga’s strike and his CAP patrols. His damage control parties had already certified his own flight deck as operational. Tosa had raised flags and flashed lantern signals as well, and he knew that she would need at least an hour to clear damage from those two bomb hits and extinguish the fires. One had damaged her forward elevator, the one most often used by the fighters assigned to CAP missions.

  Now Hara was mulling over the status of Nagumo’s task force, the Shado Fleet. He had 128 more planes, and Hara knew they must be in the air by now, but the majority of those planes were fighters. In fact, Nagumo had sent many Shotai out on long range CAP, and they had been involved in the unsuccessful defense of Hara’s ships. There were only 24 of the new Yokosuka D4Y dive bombers on the battle carriers, the planes the Americans would call “Judy.” He also had 27 new Tenzan B6N Torpedo Bombers. Those planes were in the air, with a small escort, as they hoped to pick up several Shotai from that long range cap as they made their approach to the enemy.

  But the weather gods would conspire against them that day. In the thickening cloud cover and light rain, the torpedo bombers veered off course, and neither formation ever found those extra fighters, though they did eventually find Halsey. The dive bombers were over the Americans first, coming down through the rain. But these were not Japan’s best pilots any longer, even though they had the benefit of all those new planes. They were pounced on by 20 fighters, and savaged as they started their diving run, the four Zeroes with them unable to stop the Americans. 13 were destroyed, another damaged, and flak would get one more. Of the eight planes that actually put bombs in the air, none would score a hit.

  Ten minutes later, the Tenzan “Jills” finally showed up, the rain heavier now as the torpedo bombers tried to get low to make their runs. Their four fighters ran into many more defending planes, 29 F6 Hellcats and three F4 Wildcats. They got one of those zeroes, and then proceeded to chop up those torpedo planes, getting eight of eleven. Three torpedoes hit the water, and none found hulls. The Shado Fleet had thrown everything it had at Halsey, and hit nothing.

  Hara would learn this a little after 10:40 when a message was received from Nagumo: “Attack unsuccessful. Insufficient strike planes to launch a second wave.”

  That spoke volumes to Hara, and he immediately knew that Nagumo’s planes must have taken very heavy losses. Now, with the weather darkening and thick rain squalls sweeping through the scene, Hara realized this battle was over. He still had no idea what Yamaguchi had done, but would soon learn that his strike wave had been unable to locate the enemy carriers. With reports of carriers in three places, they should have seen something, but flew right into the gap between Ziggy Sprague’s Taffy 15, and Ray Spruance in Taffy 12. They never found either task force, and coming 300 miles to see nothing, they were forced to turn and head back home.

  That decision led to a nice little sneak attack thrown out by Ziggy Sprague. He had three fighters up on a long range patrol, and they spotted the planes off Akagi and Soryu , the heart of Yamaguchi’s task force. Noting their heading, Ziggy sent up every plane he had left and went after them. They would arrive 20 minutes behind the Japanese planes, all in the midst of recovery operations.

  The attack caught Yamaguchi completely by surprise, and it would see all his carriers take hits, two bombs on Akagi , which was soon obscured by smoke from the fires, one smaller 500 pound bomb on Soryu near the island that did only minor damage, and one bomb on Hiyo that also started a bad fire. That was most unwelcome news for Hara, for he now knew that Yamaguchi would be lucky if he could complete his recovery, and that no second strike would be likely from his ships either. Then, at a little after 11:00, Nagumo signaled that he was also under attack.

  The raid was coming from Essex and Lexington , 24 fighters escorting in 33 dive bombers and 23 Avenger torpedo bombers. The latter would see six damaged by enemy fighters and flak, with one destroyed, yet they pressed on through the squall line and into a clearing. The all got their fish in the water, but the American torpedoes were damn slow at only 33 knots. Many hit the rough sea and detonated as they went into the drink, others were batted off course, and the three that were running true could simply not catch up with their intended targets. The Shado Fleet had fast ships built on cruiser hulls, and those battle carriers could actually outrun the American torpedoes. Their able Captains simply turned their bows on the same line of the American attack, and ran off unscathed.

  The dive bombers would do much better. Rain or no rain, down they came, and suddenly ships began erupting with fire. CVB Ryujin would get most of the attention, three bomb hits. Thankfully, they were all 500 pounders, and that carrier had tough skin. It had been built out on the Kii Class battlecruiser hull, a 38,000 ton battle carrier, retaining a well armored deck that absorbed the first hit. The second had been a near miss that spent itself against Ryujin’s 290mm side armor, and the third bomb hit very near the massive 16-inch forward turret, again finding solid deck armor there, and turret armor that was impenetrable. So even though it was hit three times, the Dragon God’s scales were simply too thick, and very little damag
e was done.

  That would not be the case for the super cruiser Kagami and escort carrier Gozo Kiryu. The former took a single 1000 pound bomb right on her stacks, which penetrated to the boilers and sent a massive steam cloud frothing up into the grey sky. Then secondary explosions rocked the ship, damaging hull plates and starting a small leak. The cruiser would survive, but lose about 10% of her flotation to that minor flooding, and see many boilers damaged that would impact her engines and speed.

  The last bomb would fall on the much smaller Gozo Kiryu , a ship of only 8000 tons. 1000 pounds of mean steel and explosives would practically wreck that ship, penetrating the small flight deck, smashing right through the hangar deck and into the avgas bunker, which exploded with awful fire. In a matter of minutes, the ship was a searing wreck, afloat, but with terrible casualties, and completely out of the game. Nagumo’s Shado Fleet had been defanged, and he now signaled Hara that he was withdrawing north.

  Kong looked at the glowering sky, the rain now lashing the windows of Taiho’s bridge, and thunder adding its angry roll to the whole scene. His second wave was ready on the deck, but the seas were rolling higher, and he knew it would be foolish to send those planes and pilots out into this weather. Though the junior officers urged him to launch, he simply turned to look for his Air Officer.

  “Secure from launch operations.”

  “But sir…”

  “The flight deck will be cleared! Prepare to recover incoming aircraft. All other planes are to be secured, except fighters.”

  Hara simply stared out the window, and the silence on the bridge was thicker than the rain. He then slowly walked to the chart room, knowing that he, too, would be fortunate to complete a successful recovery of the planes that would be arriving over his task force in less than one hour. He did not yet know the full measure of the losses sustained by either side, but he could feel the heavy weight of defeat on his broad shoulders, his first setback of the war.