Marine H SBS

by Ian Blake

  For several seconds nothing happened and then the ML began to surge ahead. As she did so the first fighter opened fire, but the ML’s change of pace had confused the pilot and the bullets hammered harmlessly into the ML’s broadening wake. As it fired, the Oerlikons opened up on it, the twin barrels spitting out 20mm shells.

  The second Zero waited longer and was therefore more accurate. Its bullets ripped into the funnel and spattered the bridge, and one of the crewmen manning the port-side twin Lewis gun toppled and fell. But the pilot held his course just a fraction of a second too long and the heavy machine-gun in the stern of the ML raked its fuselage efficiently.

  The Zero’s pilot must have been hit, or perhaps he just panicked, for he made the fatal mistake of turning right across the ML instead of left. It was just what the three-pounder crew in the bows had been hoping and waiting for, as they could not bring their weapon to bear on any target which attacked from astern or either quarter. But now the second Zero was exposed to their fire and before it could sheer off they pumped two shells into it. The aircraft bucked and slewed and then swerved away, trailing smoke. Tiller, kneeling as he worked on the hit Lewis gunner, heard the ML’s crew cheering wildly. The gunner was dead, Tiller discovered, and dragged his body away from the gun.

  ‘Watch for that other bugger,’ Davy yelled at the top of his voice. The first Zero was long gone, but now they could see it a mile away, barrelling skyward to gain height. The sun glinted on its wings and its engine revved into a high-pitched scream. It looked, Tiller had to admit to himself as he wedged himself into position behind the port-side twin Lewis gun, a very beautiful piece of equipment.

  Tiller gripped the gun, made sure the ninety-seven-round pan magazine was properly attached, and aligned the Zero in the large circular central sights positioned between the distinctive air-cooling jackets which covered each of its barrels. He had never used a Lewis before and he just hoped it was as accurate as the praise he had heard heaped on it.

  The Zero reached the height the pilot wanted and then carved through the sky until it was on a straight run towards the ML. With the second Zero limping into the distance, all the ML’s armament was able to concentrate on the first one. Even the three-pounder was able to train on it, but the pilot pressed home his attack. Tiller smelt the acrid tang of cordite as he fired the twin Lewis and was dimly aware that splinters from the bridge were flying past him in the air; someone cried out; spent cartridges cascaded on to the deck beside him and the quick-firing weapon bucked under his grip.

  The Zero’s engine rose to a climax and for a fraction of a second, as it passed overhead, its shadow fell across the ML. Then its sound quickly faded into the distance and the fighter was lost in the heat haze that shimmered on the horizon.

  ‘He’s had enough,’ Davy yelled. ‘The bugger’s had enough.’

  The crew cheered and then the lookout shouted: ‘The other one hasn’t though, sir. Here he comes.’

  The second Zero had swung round and was coming back. It was definitely wobbly in the air and smoke was belching from its engine. It bucked and shuddered but somehow the pilot kept it on its course. Davy watched it, shading his eyes from the sun. The aircraft dipped towards the ML, coming at such an angle that its intentions were obvious.

  ‘Jesus,’ Davy shouted, ‘it’s a kamikaze.’

  The Zero was belching smoke but still it came on, despite the fusillade being fired at it.

  ‘Hard a starboard,’ Davy shouted into the voice pipe. ‘Give her every bloody rev you can.’

  The ML headed for the bank furthest from the approaching aircraft. Tiller watched in amazement. Davy appeared to be driving the ML aground. The Zero swung crazily in the sky as the pilot tried to aim it like a missile at the vessel.

  ‘Hard a port,’ Davy yelled into the voice pipe, and the ML slewed round. Now the Zero and the ML were on a collision course.

  But the Japanese pilot had either not calculated what the ML would do, or could not get the controls of his doomed aircraft to react quickly enough. The Zero screeched towards them and everyone except Davy threw themselves on to the deck. It missed the ML by twenty feet or so and hit the far bank with a blinding explosion.

  ‘One down and one to go,’ Davy yelled.

  But the other Zero did not return.

  8

  As Coates had predicted, the monsoon proper arrived early. A week after the ML returned from its mission a huge turmoil of cumulonimbus clouds boiled over the whole sky and the rain tumbled down in a seemingly unending torrent that turned the ground at Cox’s Bazar into a muddy morass. On most days it stopped occasionally and the sun shone briefly, a watery yellow ball that made the ground steam and the air damp and clinging. But within hours the black clouds, with their flat bases and monumental peaks, would gather again.

  Every so often a cyclone swept through the area, accompanied by rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning that lit up the whole sky. Then the south-westerly monsoon winds blew fiercely off the Bay of Bengal, driving the rain almost horizontally and bending and contorting the palm trees and scattering their leaves.

  On these occasions the sea became as tumultuous as the sky: white-flecked, boiling, black. It seemed impossible that any ship could stay afloat in such conditions. But the cyclone always blew itself out as quickly as it had come, leaving a lurching swell, unpleasant but manageable.

  ‘No army could fight in this, surely,’ said Davy to Danforth, watching the rain tipping down outside Danforth’s office. The other ML skippers and the SBS patrol leaders murmured their agreement. War had become completely mechanized and it was difficult to see how any vehicle could move in such conditions.

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Danforth replied. ‘Since Supremo’s taken over he’s given orders that fighting is to continue throughout the monsoon period. There’s to be no let-up at all. Which is why we’re all gathered here this morning. We’ve got the Japs on the run and we’ve got to keep them running. We mustn’t give them any time to recover. Fifteenth Corps is planning something big. I don’t know the details, of course, but my guess is that it’s going to make an all-out drive down the Arakan shortly. Our task will be to continue to harass the Japanese supply lines and their lines of communication.’

  ‘Easier said than done in this weather,’ grumbled one of the ML skippers.

  ‘We’re not doing too badly,’ said Danforth easily. ‘We’ve already forced the Japanese to detach a regiment of the Burma National Army to counter our activities. However, Fifteenth Corps is keen that we draw off as many Japanese troops as possible. So they have asked us to mount what is primarily a deception operation. We are to capture and hold an island off the coastline to make it look as if we are going to use it as a base for raiding the mainland. It would be a move which the Japanese, hopefully, could not afford to ignore.’

  ‘Which island is it?’ the same ML skipper asked, and Danforth picked up a wooden pointer from his desk and indicated the island on a map hanging on the wall. ‘Ramree. Here.’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then Taffy said: ‘But, sir, that’s almost down to Sandoway. Must be a good fifty miles behind Jap lines.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Danforth cheerfully. ‘If you want to hit them below the belt it’s no use giving them a jab on the nose. This will be a jitter party they won’t forget.’

  ‘If we capture it, sir, how do we manage to hang on to it?’ Tiller asked. Presumably, Fifteenth Corps did not expect the SBS Group to defend an island some forty-five miles long by fifteen wide which was within spitting distance of the Japanese-held mainland. It numbered only sixteen men in total.

  ‘From that Jap who was captured last week, we’re fairly sure it’s only lightly held at the moment,’ said Danforth reassuringly. ‘But we’re going to have to put in a recce patrol first, to make sure. If we’re right we start the deception operation to make the Japs think we have landed in force. If they look like making a full-scale assault from the mainland to take it back, we won’t att
empt to hold it. But we will have succeeded in our objective of drawing off troops from their front line.’

  ‘You mean we’re the cheese in the mousetrap?’ Tiller said.

  ‘Exactly, Tiger. Any light Japanese reinforcements from the mainland will be dealt with by the RAF and by our ML patrols.’

  ‘Will we get any reinforcements, sir, once we’re on the island?’

  Danforth rubbed his cheek. ‘If necessary. The Eastern Fleet is now back at Ceylon from Mombasa. God knows why. Perhaps the powers that be think the Japs might raid Ceylon again, as they did a couple of years back. But the fleet does have the capability of lifting a Marine Commando that’s available in Ceylon. Certainly the deception plan is to make the Japs think the Commando is going to be used for a landing. We’ll see.’

  ‘The Japs aren’t crazy enough to mount another raid, are they?’ one of the ML skippers said. ‘Without air supremacy, that’s kamikaze tactics.’

  Danforth shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But remember, they still have the most powerful battleships in the world at their disposal.’

  ‘What’s this word "kamikaze" mean?’ Tiller asked Davy when the briefing broke up. ‘You used it to describe that Zero pilot.’

  ‘Kamikaze? It’s a suicide tactic the Jap air force has begun using. They crash their aircraft on to our ships. It’s very effective.’

  ‘So kamikaze is Japanese for topping yourself?’

  Davy shook his head. ‘Means divine wind. It’s what they called the typhoon which prevented Genghis Khan from invading Japan in the thirteenth century.’

  ‘Very poetic,’ said Tiller. ‘They’ve got some imagination, those Japs.’

  To get the better of your opponents you had to understand them, anticipate how they thought and how they would react, he reflected. This was especially true of small-scale operations that the SBS specialized in. The Japs were different from the Germans or the Italians and Tiller was only too well aware that he still hadn’t adjusted his fighting habits to take account of this difference. That was dangerous and he knew it. Both the Americans and the British had vastly underestimated the military skill of the Japanese at the beginning of the war. It was not a mistake that any Allied serviceman made in 1944. Or if he did, he most likely did not live to make it again. But it was one thing to realize the Japanese were good and to respect their skill and bravery; it was quite another to understand what made them tick. Tiller wondered if he ever would.

  ‘Got a moment, you two,’ Danforth called over to them as the others filed out of his office and into a downpour. It was raining so hard that the noise of the water drumming on the corrugated-iron roof filled the room. The gutters could not cope and were spilling the water everywhere.

  Davy and Tiller turned and Danforth said: ‘I know you’ve only just got back, but this is the op I wanted you for, Tiger. I want you to recce Ramree and clear it of Japs if there are only a handful there. I’m going to give you extra men. If the Japs hold the island in force I shall need some estimate of how many there are there, what state of readiness they’re in and where, if necessary, we could land the back-up force.’

  ‘What would a back-up force be landing in, sir?’ Tiller asked.

  ‘LCAs or LCPs. Two LSTs plus an escort force is available at Trincomalee to bring the Marines to Ramree. You’ve just got to find the right place for them to land.’

  Tiller looked doubtful. He knew both the LCA – Landing Craft Assault – and its American equivalent, the LCP – Landing Craft Personnel – had very shallow draughts. Provided he could find a suitable beach on Ramree, with firm terrain, the right gradient and no sandbanks, the back-up force could be landed in these craft easily enough. But their mother ships, the LST – Landing Ship Tank – were two hundred feet long. If there weren’t any suitable landing beaches facing the Bay of Bengal, it could be tricky finding enough open water for them to operate from, for on its landward side Ramree was a mass of tiny islands and solid mangrove swamp.

  ‘That’s a job for a COPP team,’ said Tiller doubtfully.

  ‘I know,’ agreed Danforth, ‘but the nearest COPP team is at Algiers, I believe. Supremo says we can’t wait for them. If he says we can’t wait for them we can’t. Anyway, you know enough about COPP work, Tiger, to make a fist of it. It’s the best we can do in the time available. I’ve got some photo recce shots for you to look at.’

  He led them to a table and extracted a number of vertical aerial reconnaissance photographs from a large brown envelope. They were taken quite low – the pilot obviously was not worried about Japanese anti-aircraft fire – and were remarkably clear, given the monsoon conditions.

  ‘Taken last week during a break in the weather. They’re of the island’s only harbour and the main town, Kyaukpyu,’ – Danforth pronounced it ‘Chalkpu’ – ‘which surrounds it. There are also some likely landing beaches for your recce team, Tiger, and for the backup force.’

  They took turns in looking at the photographs through stereoscopic lenses. Viewing the overlaps of succeeding photographs with the lenses gave a three-dimensional effect. A trained photographic interpreter could extract astonishingly detailed information from them.

  ‘The interpreters have measured the depth of water over these beaches,’ said Danforth, ‘but their gradients and firmness will have to be checked if we’re going to use them.’

  ‘How the hell can they know the depth of a beach from an aerial photograph?’ Davy asked.

  ‘It’s called the direct wave velocity method,’ Danforth explained. ‘In shallow water the velocity of a wave is a function of the water depth. The slower it is the shallower the beach. If the interval between successive photographs is known, and if individual crests can be identified in successive ones, their velocities can be measured and so can the depths over which they are passing.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have asked,’ said Davy.

  Tiller was more interested in the aerials of the town as that was where the Japanese on the island would have their main defences. He knew he had the expertise to land safely on the beaches, even if it meant going through quite high surf, and that was all that mattered to him for the moment. If the back-up force had to be landed at a later date, that was something that could be planned after he had had time to reconnoitre the best beaches. In the meantime the town was where the Japanese would be. He pulled the photographs towards him and reached for the stereoscopic lenses. Davy peered over his shoulder.

  ‘Looks in ruins,’ said Davy.

  Danforth nodded. ‘It is. But have you looked carefully at the harbour?’

  Davy bent over them again.

  ‘Did you see anything, Tiger?’

  Tiller shook his head. ‘It looks empty to me.’

  ‘And to me,’ Davy added, straightening up.

  ‘You’re right. Now look at these.’

  Danforth extracted more photographs from another envelope. ‘Taken forty-eight hours ago. Arrived this morning. See any difference?’

  Davy and Tiller bent over the new photographs in turn, and both shook their heads.

  ‘Look. See this shadow? And this one here? And another here?’

  ‘Just shadows, surely?’

  ‘Not so, so the boffins tell us. They’re native boats. Mergui, probably, for local coastal trade. But that one there might be something bigger, a tavoy schooner perhaps.’

  ‘What does that indicate? There are Jap reinforcements there?’ Davy asked.

  Danforth shook his head. ‘RAF Intelligence think not. They’re much more likely to be country boats the Japs have commandeered to take food from Ramree to the mainland. Whatever they are they need to be destroyed. If it wasn’t for the monsoon the RAF might find the aircraft to do it, but it’s a hundred to one against them having clear enough weather for long enough to do it. Anyway, if there was they would be too busy supporting Fifteenth Corps. No, it’s a job for us. Right up your street, Tiger.’

  ‘I’d say,’ agreed Tiller. A pulse of excitement went through him at the prospect.

/>   ‘It’ll be a good opportunity to use those new collapsible canoes, Tiger. But I’m not going to risk you using those in the surf, so Davy will put you ashore in the motor surf boats.’

  Tiller nodded his agreement. The previous week four large bergen rucksacks had arrived at Danforth’s office. Each contained a sixteen-foot collapsible canoe which weighed only 104lb. Ingeniously constructed from shaped plywood frames which were fitted together by lengths of metal pipe, a canoe could be put together in less than five minutes by its two-man crew.

  ‘Take plenty of toys with you,’ said Davy, referring to the limpet mines the SBS employed to destroy shipping.

  Tiller shook his head. ‘A limpet’s no use against a mergui – or any local boat for that matter.’

  Davy looked surprised. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘They’ve all got wooden hulls,’ Danforth said. ‘A limpet will only fix itself to a steel hull.’

  Davy laughed. ‘Of course. I should have thought of that. Even I know magnets won’t hold to wood. So what will you do? Or do you want me to come into the harbour and do the job?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Danforth sharply. ‘We’re not going to risk an ML.’

  Tiller shrugged his indifference at Davy’s question. ‘The easiest thing is probably to capture them and sink them with a PE charge. I don’t see any problem.’

  ‘Well, there is a problem actually, Tiger,’ Danforth said. ‘Destroying native craft being used by the Japanese is one thing. Sinking them in a Burmese harbour is quite another. The government has issued an edict on it, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Government?’ Tiller queried in bewilderment. ‘What government?’

  ‘The Burmese government-in-exile.’

  ‘You mean the lot that sacked Dick?’ Davy said. ‘Well, stuff them.’

  Tiller nodded his agreement. He’d never heard of a civilian colonial government interfering in military operations.