Halsey shook his head. “Now you listen here, you son-of-a-bitch.” His cheeks betrayed his obvious anger. “You’ll meet with me on a cold day in hell. You will do exactly as I ordered in my first transmission, and that immediately. Signal your surrender now and this will end amicably. Otherwise you can go to hell, and I’ll be happy to send you there myself, personally.”
“You are making a mistake, Admiral Halsey. Very well, before things get out of hand I invite you to look to your starboard bow in ten minutes time. Karpov out.”
“Look to my starboard bow? What’s this idiot talking about?”
Halsey handed the microphone to the nearest radio man. “Issue the following fleet order and have it sent through flag and lantern as well. Don’t use the 24 MC circuit, just send it in the goddamned clear! Attention all ships, all carriers…” He looked out the porthole noting a pendant flying stiffly in the breeze to determine the wind direction.
“The fleet will come to three, four, zero degrees north and ready for battle. All carrier commanders…Let’s get turned into the wind.”
He turned and stormed out, heading for the bridge.
Chapter 24
They saw something on the Sugar Charlie (SC-2) Radar on the Missouri, but the pip was moving so fast on the screen that the radar attendant thought it was a glitch. It was there, then gone, but it was off the starboard bow of the ship, and so anything seen was reported.
“Flag; Sugar Charley One. Reporting bogie, north by northwest, bearing true, single plane, pip wavering.”
The officer of the deck took the handset to acknowledge.
“Sugar Charley One; Flag. Single bogie aye, aye. Watchstander G1, confirm sighting. Over.” The OOD wanted eyes on the contact to both confirm and identify it if possible, and he was not disappointed.
“Flag; Watchstander G1. Bogie in sight, bearing zero-one-two, range twenty, incredible speed! Designate bogie one.”
“Watchstander G1; Flag; bogie one bearing zero-one-two, range twenty and very fast, aye, aye.”
Halsey was listening closely, arms folded, eyes scanning the horizon to the northwest. Something was out there, and he reached for a pair of binoculars to have a closer look when the sky was suddenly lit up like an exploding sun. The flash was so bright that Halsey was fortunate he wasn’t focusing on the bogie with binoculars yet, and had his back to the view port, or he would have been blinded. As it was, every man on the bridge shirked and instinctively shielded their eyes. Seconds later there came a strong vibration and the entire ship shuddered as a hard wind struck it from the north. Then they heard it, the awful ripping explosion and deep angry thunder that followed.
As the brightness faded Halsey squinted off his starboard bow to see an enormous explosion mushrooming up to the northwest. It looked as though the sea itself was on fire, and being sucked up into the sky as the mushroom towered up and up, billowing out at the top in a roiling yellow orange fireball.
“Brace for high seas!” a voice shouted, and then he saw the water coming at the fleet in a great wave, perhaps eighty feet high. Amazed at the sight, he saw a distant destroyer in the outer screen lifted by the wave and tossed about like a toy. As it rolled on through the formation all he could think of was that terrible hurricane they had faced a few months ago, but soon he saw the bigger and heavier ships were riding out the heavy swell intact, and he could feel the ocean lift Missouri, see her bow find air in the wild sea spray as the big battleship crested the wave, and then Mighty Mo settled back into the water, rolling slightly but sea keeping well.
Look to your starboard bow in ten minutes time…Halsey saw the evil white halo above the explosion in the sky, as though a demon from hell had been crowned with white fire. He had told the Russians to go to hell, and now they had served up a slice of the real estate for him to survey at his leisure. It was the most awesome thing he had ever seen.
He had heard the rumors from the 1941 incident in the North Atlantic—that the Germans possessed a terrible weapon based on atomic power. He didn’t understand it. Splitting something like an atom seemed an impossible thing to do, but he had been briefed in recent months on the existence and deployment of similar weapons now in the US arsenal, and they were very close at hand.
Halsey turned to Captain Stuart S. Murray, an old misplaced submariner who had been serving at the Annapolis Naval Academy since 1943 and was taken out of mothballs to be given a prime command on the battleship in May of that year.
“What in God’s name do you make of that?” The searing light was finally dim enough to be viewed without discomfort, but the big, amiable Captain, dubbed “Sunshine” by his peers, seemed dumbfounded.
“Get a message off to Admiral Nimitz,” said Halsey. “Tell him we have just witnessed what appears to be a large explosion—belay that—tell him the Russians have the goddamned bomb, and they’ve just detonated one after warning me to look out for it ten minutes ago. That ought to make his day, because it sure as hell just spoiled mine.”
* * *
When the news reached Admiral Fraser he was with Chester Nimitz on Guam, preparing to board a plane to rejoin his Task Force 37 in the Sea of Japan. Now he was certain of what would happen if the Americans attacked. He had not been present in the North Atlantic when that first bomb went off, but Admiral of the Fleet, John Tovey had seen it with his own eyes along with his Chief of Staff, Daddy Brind. He remembered all too well what Brind had told him about it.
“Vast and threatening,” he called it. “Threatening in a way that you simply cannot describe—and that was well after the detonation by the time we got within sight of it. I would hate to see one actually go off. Seeing one in a lifetime was more than enough.”
In 1942 when Fraser had advanced to second in command of Home Fleet, Admiral Tovey took him into his confidence on a very delicate matter after the incident in the Mediterranean, one concerning the true nature of the ship Rodney and Nelson had tangled with, and what had really happened after Gibraltar, a story that few men alive had ever heard. Fraser was now one of an elite inner circle known simply as “The Watch” and his code signal was Watchstander G3, number three in the overall chain of command within the group that stretched back to Tovey. Ahead of him in those shadowed ranks were only two men: Admiral Tovey himself and the eccentric but brilliant Alan Turing. He was amazed that Turing would be privy to matters where Churchill was not informed, but Tovey convinced him that bringing the Prime Minister in, and the government, would be no easy task.
Ever since the Geronimo raider had disappeared off the Island of St. Helena, the Watch had come to believe it reappeared in the Pacific soon after, a matter of days in fact, and that was a clear impossibility that had led to the startling conclusion that the ship was not from their time. Beyond that, its weapons were simply too advanced. The Watch had been set on every active sea lane of the world to look out for this ship, and now it had returned, two years later in 1945, back with the bomb.
Where was it going in those intervening years? How did it manage to evade detection? These were questions the Watchstanders had toiled with for long years. Turing was of the opinion that the ship was continually moving in time, perhaps marooned, perhaps under deliberate control. Either way, its continued reappearance was deeply troubling and Fraser had just had a long conversation with Admiral Nimitz about it. Try as he might, he could not persuade the Americans to belay the planned attack being assembled at that very moment by Admiral Halsey.
“The ship is dangerous,” he had argued. “It is unlike any warship afloat, with weapons that can do grave harm in an instant. You could be sacrificing a good part of your Pacific Fleet if your lock horns with this ship and it decides to use the same weaponry it just demonstrated. I strongly advise we parley with this Russian Captain, just as our Admiral John Tovey did. We had four battleships at risk and ready to engage, the core of the entire Home Fleet but—”
“But what did it get you?” Nimitz said quietly. “They reneged on their pledge and slipped away.”
“Yes, but they went to fight the Japanese! Your invasion at Guadalcanal succeeded largely because of their intervention. Yamamoto had another full carrier division heading your way, and this ship stopped it single handedly—at least this is what we have surmised after a couple years good intelligence work.”
“Hard to believe,” said Nimitz. “But the Russians didn’t use anything like that weapon on the Japanese. Hell, if they had the bomb back in 1941 , then why didn’t they use it on the Germans?”
“We don’t know…” Fraser could not reveal the whole truth, not even to Nimitz. “But they didn’t need to. The ship beat the Yamato to a near hulk, and that was with its conventional naval rocketry alone. You can’t beat this ship in anything like a fair fight, Admiral. It will require overwhelming force, and my great fear is that if we concentrate to attack, they will answer with what we just saw—an atomic bomb, just as they did in the North Atlantic when we closed in for the kill.
“So now we’ll have to deal with it on our terms. You British were entirely too accommodating. Is this thing Russian, Admiral? We’ve had the Russian Ambassador on the hot seat for hours and he swears on his first born son that the Soviet government knows nothing whatsoever about this ship.”
“He may be telling the truth, Admiral. That was, in fact, what the commander of that ship asserted when he met with Admiral Tovey.”
“Well how in the world is that possible?” Nimitz sounded irritated now. “They design and build the damn thing, and now you’re telling me they claim to know nothing about it? Sorry, Admiral, but I just can’t buy that line. I think Uncle Joe is blowing smoke in our face, and I put that lightly. I’ve also been advised that President Truman has authorized us to respond in kind if the Russians do actually deploy an atomic weapon in combat against us. We’re drawing a proverbial line in the sand here. The feeling back in Washington is that the Russians have to be reigned in, and quickly. Patton is itching to go after them in Europe right now. They may have the bomb, but they can’t have very many.”
“But don’t you see, Admiral. They’re trying to warn us off. They offered to negotiate. Why not take them up on it? If you attack now they will escalate with more atomic weapons. I’m sure of it.”
“Then that’s exactly what they’ll get in return.”
“But this is insane! How many bombs do you have?”
“That’s not the question we need to ask now, Admiral Fraser. The question is how many do they have.”
“Well, if they can expend one to make of demonstration like this what does that tell you? Our intelligence believes they may have many of these weapons, and that creates a whole new calculus here. It isn’t simply a matter of ships and planes, Admiral, though if you do attack this ship be prepared to lose very many of both in that effort.”
Nimitz took a deep breath. “Admiral Fraser. We just won the Second World War. Now the Russians seem intent on starting another one. So be it. We have the force to win this one too, and atomic weapons in theater if they escalate. I will tell you now that I have been authorized to use them.”
The silence between the two men was thick now. What more could Fraser say? Revealing the true nature of this ship would seem incredulous. Negotiation bought time for the Watch to get more valuable information. Where exactly did the ship come from? Why was it here? What did its officers and crew really want?
But to Nimitz this was just a ship—one of hundreds that had gone to the bottom of the sea in the last four years. It was just a ship with the bomb, and that was all the more believable now because he had planes with the bomb, out there in the Pacific somewhere on one of those tiny islands. One last attack would settle the matter, or so the American point of view was evident now.
The Yanks had been the senior service from the moment they first entered the war on Britain’s side. They were like a well muscled work-horse in the beginning, and one that needed to be broken to the plow harness if they were ever going to get the job done. Thankfully the more seasoned and experience British officers had been there in the beginning. In time, however, the dash and fighting ability of Men like Patton, the dogged perseverance of Omar Bradley, Hodges and so many others, had made all the difference in the war. England could not have prevailed without the United States at her side. Montgomery could not have won without Patton and the others.
“Well then…” Fraser cleared his throat. “Where do you want me with Task Force 37?” He folded his arms, resigned.
“Swing up north of Hokkaido, Admiral Fraser, and cut the bastards off from Vladivostok. Make sure nothing comes out to reinforce this Captain Karpov. We’ll handle the rest.”
“Very well. Admiral Nimitz, you know me to be a well seasoned officer of the line. If you won’t take my advice on not picking this fight, then allow me to suggest how you might win it. The Royal Navy has faced down this ship twice before, and here is how you must deploy…”
* * *
Fraser’s primer was well reasoned, and Nimitz listened intently. All carriers should move to the rear in a widely dispersed formation. Aircraft must launch and assemble only to begin the operation. Thereafter they must disperse and come in from all compass headings on the target, and at layered altitudes. Sub flights were to break formation and scatter to make individual attacks the instant they were fired upon by aerial rocketry. It would be every man to himself from that point on. Coordinated air strikes were useless, but if the fleet air arm could keep consistent and constant pressure on the enemy, it was hoped some planes would penetrate the fearsome anti-aircraft defense and score hits.
While this air operation was underway, the carriers must be well screened by light cruisers and destroyers. Heavy cruisers and fast battleships were to break formation and deploy at intervals of five to ten kilometers presenting a wall of steel to the enemy. This would put the big ships within supporting range of one another, but not grouped to a point where more than one could be sunk by an atomic weapon. Upon contact with the enemy, they were then to close at high speed on widely spaced headings, get into gun range, and fight on a ship by ship basis, individually. Any destroyers that could be spared from carrier screening duty could serve as hounds to make torpedo runs at the enemy if possible. Every submarine available should be vectored in to attack.
The overwhelming force now available could not be used as a sledgehammer as it had been against the Japanese. Instead it must come at the enemy like a vast wave of steel, a tsunami of warships deployed on a widely dispersed front in a high speed charge. This way, even if the enemy used one of their terror weapons, they could only affect a part of the wave, blow one small gap in the line. If a ship went down, a reserve of fast cruisers would be held to fill the gap in the line, and the attack would roll on.
Nimitz listened, head cocked to one side, thinking these were some fairly outlandish naval tactics. He had two heavy fists with Halsey and Sprague, and two more behind them. Everything he had learned about war fighting relied on speed, concentration and firepower.
“Yes,” said Fraser. “That’s all well and good, but concentrate at your own peril. We learned that in the North Atlantic. Remember the Mississippi and the cruisers that went down with her. And as for your carriers, remember the Wasp—both of them. We also learned that your Captains are going to have to be prepared to take their lumps if you close with this monster, but close you must. If we can get three to five decent capital ships in gun range of this Russian flotilla, we should be able to hurt them badly. But getting there’s the rub.”
“We’ll get there, Admiral Fraser,” said Nimitz. “We’ll get there if I have to order ever man jack afloat out there to paddle in on a life raft with rifles. We’ve got good men at the tillers now, hard, experienced naval war fighters who won’t flinch. They’ll get the job done.”
“If they don’t concentrate.” Admiral Fraser put a hard finger on the table between them to emphasize his point. “Remember, Admiral, attack in force, but the entire formation must be widely dispersed. Do that and we can sin
k these ships, I’m sure of it. Yet if it comes down to the bomb, you might at least tell them it’s coming at them first. Perhaps that would stay their hand and put some sense into this mess.”
“Telegraph our punch? I suppose I could do that, but let me assure you that we’ll use that as a final measure, and I won’t take the decision lightly.”
“I’m sure of that, but I must tell you one thing more that neither one of us really cares to hear at this point in the war. Men are going to die here, and perhaps very many will not be going home on your Operation Magic Carpet. I’m sorry for that—sorry for the whole damn bloody business we’ve been about these last years.”
‘The Japanese are sorry too,” said Nimitz coolly. “The Russians will be sorry right along with them—” He looked at his watch. “I make it another three hours before the operation begins. The Russians have been circling in place and I’ve held Halsey and Sprague on a tight leash. It’s time to release the hounds.”
“God be with us,” Fraser sighed. “Yet if we can get this ship, history will thank us for it. More could be riding on this battle than either you or I can see right now.”
Day 6
“ I saw more than a thousand of those angels, that fell from Heaven like rain, above the gates, who cried angrily: ‘Who is this, that, without death goes through the kingdom of the dead?’ And my wise Master made a sign to them, of wishing to speak in private. Then they furled their great disdain, and said: ‘Come on, alone, and let him go, who enters this kingdom with such audacity. Let him return, alone, on his foolish road: see if he can: and you, remain, who have escorted him, through so dark a land.’”
Dante Alighieri, The Inferno - Canto VIII
Part IX
The Black Hole
B00DSDUWIQ EBOK Page 21