Steel Reign (Kirov Series Book 23)

by John Schettler

  “HYPO sure thought they nailed it,” said Douglas. “I thought they were going to pull us north last week.”

  “Not with this MO operation. That was the fly in the ointment. Why would the Japs have a big operation planned for Midway when they were still pushing so hard down here to get into the Solomons? No. As soon as I heard they had something planned for Port Moresby, I realized this Midway thing was nonsense. Nimitz must have realized it too, otherwise he’d still have Halsey on a leash up there.”

  “I thought he was waiting for the Wasp?”

  “I did too, but now I think they’ll send that ship south as well. Something is brewing out here, and I think we’ve just got wind of it with this sighting. Four Jap carriers? Hell, you know damn well they aren’t heading for Midway if they’re this far south.”

  “Right,” said Douglas, “but they’re still pretty far east to have anything to do with this Moresby operation.”

  “That’s why I think there’s something more to all this,” said Fletcher. “It wouldn’t surprise me to find out they have troop ships out there bound for Fiji. They were snooping around there with submarines last week.”

  “Fiji? Then you think they’re after Suva?”

  “It would be a real plum if they ever did manage that.” Fletcher scratched his head, replacing his cap and looking out the narrow window at the flight deck as his dive bombers began to launch. “Our job is to see that never happens.”

  “What about Moresby and the raid on Rabaul.”

  “Can’t be helped. We’re a day late and more than a dollar short. Now we’ve got four Jap flattops out here, and that trumps everything else. Halsey’s been ordered to get down here ASAP.”

  “He won’t be any help for a good long while.” Douglas had just the hint of nerves in his tone. Saratoga was going into her first real fight here, untested and untried. “Let’s hope we get lucky today.”

  * * *

  When Sakamoto saw the enemy carriers below, he smiled. It looked like a very weak escort group, only a few cruisers and destroyers, and there were two easy targets just waiting for his bombs. Ema’s group was on his left, Hayashi on the right, and though he had every right to begin this attack himself, Ema was in the best position, and he signaled that he should have the honor of leading in the strike. He knew Hara well enough to also know the torpedo planes would soon follow, vectored in from the information he had sent back on the enemy position.

  Now it was time for the Thunder Gods. He had every dive bomber available from Zuikaku, and two Shotai from Shokaku had mistakenly followed his formation as well. That would now send 33 D3As into this attack, and there was no better plane in the world for naval air strike at this time, and certainly no better pilots. That was the lethal combination that was going to ruin Admiral Fletcher’s day, and inflict a staggering blow to US hopes in the early months of the war.

  Ema’s planes were already attacking through a thin AA defense, but more allied guns were getting into the action. He could see enemy fighters trundling down the long flight decks of the carriers to scramble on defense, but no more than 16 would ever get into action before his attack was driven home. With 22 A6M2 fighters escorting his planes, he was confident that most of his men would get through.

  Now it was his turn, his wings tipping over as he maneuvered to attack position. One by one the three Shotai he commanded would follow him down, and after that Hayashi would move in support. Even as he began his dive, he was thrilled to see the first bombs from Ema’s group finding targets. The lead enemy carrier was straddled, and one came down right on the forward flight deck in a dark blooming explosion.

  The flack thickened around his planes as they fell on the enemy, but Sakamoto was heedless, his mind on only one thing. His fate was now in the hands of the Thunder Gods he served. The line of his descent was now fixed, and his soul would follow it, carrying with it the echoing voices of all his ancestors. The ship in his sights looked like it was Lexington Class, the prominent joined stack section mounted behind a much small conning island forward. The other ship was different… yes… Yorktown Class, with both the conning section and stack joined on one island. He knew now that he was diving on the Saratoga, and he would not fail to deliver his charge, a 500 pound armor penetrating bomb that went right through that long flight deck to wreak havoc when it exploded on the hanger deck below.

  * * *

  Fletcher saw the planes coming , and they did not have enough F4s up on cap. Three had found and met the enemy escorts, four more joining them quickly from the patrols aloft. He had six more up with two ready sections off each carrier, and he could see Yorktown scrambling three more. Down on the flight deck, the blue wings were ready to go with another fighter section from Saratoga, but it would never take off. Sakamoto had just seen to that when his bomb fell right forward of the main conning section on the flight deck. There was a shudder as the explosion rocked the ship, and fragments of the shattered deck clanked against his conning section, followed by thick black smoke.

  “They couldn’t have put that one in a worse place,” said Captain Douglas, his face grim and set.

  “Thank god we launched the dive bombers half an hour ago,” said Fletcher. “We’re going to take some lumps here, but we put 60 SBDs in the air with a good escort, and they better find those bastards.”

  “They’ll find them,” said Douglas, “and they’ll hurt them too. Let’s hope to god we’ve got an operational flight deck here when they get home.”

  They could already see the damage control teams rushing to get a hose stream right into that hole in the flight deck. It looked bad, and it was going to get a lot worse. Sakamoto’s bomb would not be the last to hit home. The pilots of the Misty Lagoon were in rare form that day, and it was Hayashi’s group that proved to be particularly lethal.

  * * *

  He dove into the blooming dawn, seeing the line of distant clouds framing the horizon. Hayashi was in the lead, riding his machine with the special brew of adrenaline that only active combat can produce. It was fear restrained by excitement and the sheer will to survive and bring harm to the enemy. It was dedication and bravery, and both came with a heavy dose of mayhem and insanity. There were thirty seconds down, five to pull out, and just before, that single split second on the edge of fate where the bomb releases, swinging down on the trapeze, and whistling into the leaden sky. He had to time that moment perfectly, the effort of synapse, muscle and bone.

  All the while he focused his mind on only one thing—the target—ignoring all else. Somewhere, the ten other things he had to do in a dive were all being processed by his brain. His hands and feet moved, applying just the right pressure, at just the right time. Then it was bomb away. Hayashi was going to get his hit. He could hear the explosion, and see the bright tongues of fire leaping up in his wake after he pulled out. His would be one of three other bombs delivered to that carrier that morning, and when they were done, the Saratoga was a flaming wreck.

  * * *

  The fires were burning deep, well below the main flight deck, but it wasn’t until Hayashi had made the climb up to 10,000 feet again that the final blow would be delivered by the N5N torpedo bombers. Matsua had arrived with the 18 planes of the Lucky Crane, and they were going in. Four bomb hits on Sara would now get insult added to injury when two torpedoes put the ship into a steep list. Fletcher suddenly had much more to worry about than clearing his flight deck. It was now a question of whether he could even save the ship.

  The island was largely intact, but the hanger deck was severely compromised with three separate fires, and he had two gaping holes on his starboard side, and a list that forced him to counter-flood and lose his main magazine in the process. No matter what he did now, Saratoga was out of this fight. Her planes were still out there somewhere, but her war would soon be over. Captain Douglas came running up the stairs to the smoky bridge, his eyes carrying the bad news before he could speak a single word.

  “It doesn’t look good,” he said. “
We’re still shipping water, and they can’t stop that breach forward. We’ll be down at the bow well over 5 degrees in ten minutes. Admiral, I think we’re going to lose her. You had best consider transferring your flag to one of the cruisers.”

  “My God,” said Fletcher as another explosion thundered up. “Look at the Yorktown.”

  They stared, seeing the tall column of fire and smoke amidships. Seven bombs had done the work there, and one of them set off the aviation bomb storage magazine. It blew a thirty-five foot segment of the hull clean off the ship, and now the smoke was so heavy they could barely see the bow of the carrier. “We’re going to lose them both…” Fletcher had a dull, vacant look in his eye. “I knew we were looking for too much trouble coming north like this. Why the hell wasn’t I more careful?” It was too late for caution now.

  The ship rumbled with a heavy vibration.

  “Sir,” said the Captain. “With your permission, I think we should get the crew off as soon as we can. They’re after the cruisers now. Minneapolis took at least two hits, along with Pensacola. Chester is damn near dead in the water, but New Orleans still has some fight in her. Get on over there, sir. We’ll need you off this ship.”

  Fletcher could hardly believe what had just happened to his task force. One minute he was leaning on a hand rail, eyeing the weather report with one ear cocked towards the overhead radio speaker. The pilots were finally getting into the fight at the other end of this affair, out there somewhere to the northwest, but they couldn’t return to this little slice of hell on the sea. If any man among them would live out this day, they would have to get to the Santa Cruz Islands. There was a small landing strip there, and Ndeni was still controlled by the Aussies.

  He looked at Captain Douglass, eyes glassy as he spoke. “Get a signal off to CINCPAC if we still can. Tell them what happened and that I’m taking anything that can still float to Brisbane.”

  In thirty minutes time, Sakamoto, Ema, Hayashi and Matsua had virtually destroyed Taffy Eleven, and neither Saratoga nor Yorktown would make it anywhere near Brisbane.

  Chapter 17

  The radar eyes on the Takami had not failed to notice the drama unfolding in the Coral Sea. Fukada seemed very restless on his bridge watch, lingering after Captain Harada had come up to relieve him. He was hovering over the Phased Array readout panels, asking Lieutenant Ryoko Otani one question after another.

  “How far off is that mess?” He was seeming multiple contacts, and getting a bit nervous. They were over the last reported position of the Japanese 5th Carrier division.

  “That’s right on the edge of our scanning range,” said Otani. “About 170 Nautical miles as I read it.” The SPY-1D could range out 175 nautical miles for airborne contacts at that altitude, and about 45 for low approach vector targets like missiles. Had the planes been higher, the radar could have seen much farther. But they were getting an assist from one of the helicopters, and seeing an event that was actually 290 miles away.

  “Too far for our SM-2s,” said Fukada. “But our SM-3s could get out there.”

  “What’s all this about?” Captain Harada came over, arms folded, eyes on Otani’s screens.

  “A nice little swarm over the 5th Carrier Division,” she explained.

  “A launch or recovery operation?”

  “Could be a bit of both, but the fact that it came on my screen from the south leads me to suspect the latter.”

  “It might also be an enemy strike underway,” said Fukada. “We can’t rule that out.”

  “How many bees?” asked Harada.

  “I’m reading 97 distinct contacts, but we had 6 marked as likely CAP patrols earlier.”

  “If that is a strike then those carriers would have doubled down on that with a scramble. Did we send a warning.”

  “No sir, the reading just came in and the XO and I were just trying to sort it all out.”

  Harada looked at Fukada. “So what was that about our SM-3s?”

  “I was just commenting that it was the only missile we had that could make the range.”

  “Right,” said the Captain. “All twelve of them.” The Takami had a total of 96 VLS cells, and a mix of three different missiles sharing them. The medium range SM-2s got the lion’s share, with 74 missiles that could range out 65 to 100 nautical miles. They had only a dozen of the longer range SM-3, designed to foil ballistic missile attacks at ranges out to 375 nautical miles for the Block IA/B versions, of which there were ten. The last two were block IIA, a very long range missile interceptor that could get out 1350 nautical miles, and with a ceiling of just uner1000 miles.

  “Take the S3s off your list for any combat operation we’re likely to see here,” said Harada. “They’re just too damn valuable. I’ll make them the last dozen missiles we ever fire.” The remaining ten silos housed the RUM 139 ASROC anti sub missile, so in effect, their air defense at range was going to result in no more than 74 kills, and they had already fired three. There were no reloads. Underway replenishment for the Mark 41 VLS system was just not in the cards, and even if they could reload at sea, there would never be a replenishment ship out there to service them.

  Harada could see that Fukada was edgy, and spoke again. “I know you’re itching to get into this fight XO, but we have to hold our cards close to our chest here, and play things out sparingly—that is if we want to retain any clout with Yamamoto, let alone for our own defense.”

  “I understand that,” said Fukada. “I wasn’t suggesting we fire the SM-3s Captain—just thinking out loud.”

  “Fair enough.” Harada looked over at his Comm station, where Hiroko Shiota was back at her post. “Let me know the minute you hear anything,” he said.

  Half an hour later, that minute came. “Captain,” said Shiota. “I’m getting something now.” She was running it all through the decryption computer. They had warned Yamamoto that the Americans were snooping on his naval code, but said nothing of the fact that they had the whole thing programmed into their lightning fast decryption module. “Damn if it doesn’t sound like a distress call sir. It reads ‘Soaring Crane has fallen—REPEAT—Soaring Crane has fallen.’ What do you make of it sir?”

  Fukada spoke before anyone else. “Shokaku,” he said sullenly. “That’s the Soaring Crane. It looks like we found out what our swarm of bees was. That must have been an American strike after all.”

  “Right sir,” said Lieutenant Otani on the SPY-1D. “It’s breaking up now, but this is odd, the contacts aren’t resuming a heading south to their home carriers. At least they aren’t going home the way they came in. They’re headed our way.”

  Fukada rushed over. “Show me.”

  She pointed out the tracks, overlaid a predictive plot, and it showed about forty contacts heading east. “Where could they be going, sir?”

  “The Santa Cruz Islands are right on that same heading,” said Fukada, his eyes shifting from one place to another on the screen. “Mister Ikida,” he raised his voice to get the navigator’s attention.

  “Sir?” Michi Ikida turned to acknowledge.

  “You have the position on this ruckus Otani’s been watching?”

  “Sir, yes sir. I read it at—”

  “How far to the Santa Cruz Islands?”

  “Well sir, from the present reading, about 270 standard miles.”

  Fukada smiled. “There’s our answer.” He turned to Captain Harada. “Someone must have passed the word that the nest was on fire. Those planes must be trying to divert to Ndeni. There’s a small airstrip there, and that’s still Australian held territory.”

  Harada walked over to have a look at Ikida’s plot map. It made sense. “Which means…”

  “The Americans got smashed,” said Fukada with a smile. “Hara must have had a strike wave up at the same time and hurt the American carriers, possibly even sunk them. If they were still operational, why would those planes divert to the Santa Cruz Islands? Unless… Could they possibly know of our presence here?”

  “I doubt that,
” said Harada. “We were snooped by that presumed PBY out of Fiji, but it would be some pretty fancy flying to send one group like this and attempt a double strike.”

  “Not that it matters,” said Fukada. “They’ll soon be well inside our SM-2 range when they approach. We can knock them down before they make landfall.”

  There was complete silence on the bridge after Fukada said that, and a couple of the junior officers shifted uncomfortably. Then Harada spoke. “I’m not sure I like that idea, Mister Fukada. It just feels a little too much like hitting the other fellow when he’s down.”

  “But sir, what if they do know we’re here. What if some of those planes are still carrying ordnance?”

  “We’ll know that in time if they approach, but my bet is that they are diverting to those islands.”

  “Well, if those planes land safely there, we’ll just have to deal with them again one day.”

  “Will we? The way I read it is like this: there’s probably forty or fifty planes left out there, half as many as they came with for this mission. It was their first, am I correct in that?”

  “I’m reading about 60 contacts sir,” said Otani.

  “And they just got some very bad news from home. Now they’re all probably looking at their fuel gauges and wondering how far those damn islands are, and whether they’ll make it or be forced to ditch and take their chances with the sharks. No, I don’t think I’ll add our SM-2s to the list of things they’re worrying about right now. They’ve done their job, and I’d guess most are no longer carrying any ordnance. They’ll jettison it to conserve fuel, and even then, they’ll be damn near empty if they do land at Ndeni, and I don’t think there will be any air crews waiting to arm and gas up those planes. No, I think their war is over for a while. Who knows how long it would be before the US got anyone out there to see about them. So they aren’t our business here. Like I said, our missiles are just too damn precious. Any combat order I issue will be for a clear and present danger to this ship, or to the task force we are supporting. That’s a standing order.” He looked at Fukada and the others. “So remember it—and while you’re at it, remember the men who died out there today, on both sides. Mister Fukada thinks we lost the Shokaku today. Maybe he’s right, and maybe the other side took a few hard knocks as well. Let’s work this into a signal to Yamamoto and let him know what our take is on this intelligence. If he’s concerned about it, he can strengthen his defensive CAP. Other than that, its steady as she goes.”