“We had no trouble with the two Italian battleships,” said Karpov. “And for that matter we kept all the British battleships we engaged at bay as well.”
“True, Captain,” Fedorov returned. “But these are not the Italians. You saw what happened when their torpedo planes came in. They died, yes, but they kept on coming just the same. You can expect this same determination from Iwabuchi. He was adamant. In fact, he fought the very first action where battleships on two opposing sides faced one another in the Pacific. His ship was heavily engaged in a night action off Savo Island near Guadalcanal with the American battleships Washington and South Dakota. I have a document detailing that battle and I have prepared a slide showing the hits sustained by Kirishima.” Fedorov displayed a profile of the ship on the overhead display, and they could see that it was riddled with red and blue dots indicating locations where the ship had been struck by shells.
“Take a good long look at this, and count the large red dots. Kirishima was hit by no less than twenty 16 inch shells, each one with a striking power almost as great as our missiles! Note that most of these hits were at or below the main deck. The lighter blue dots on the upper parts of the superstructure were from the 5 inch secondary batteries, another seventeen hits from those. The ship took damage to her rudder and engine compartments. They had to flood gun magazines due to the fires. Her armor was breeched and she was holed below the waterline, but both the ship and its crew kept on fighting through the whole engagement until her flood control officer was unable to stop her from capsizing….” He paused, letting the image speak for itself, and hoping he had made the impression intended on the other officers, particularly Karpov.
“Kirishima sunk during that battle, in November of this very year. Her captain was pulled alive from the sea and eventually posted to the Philippines. During the final American invasion there, he disobeyed an order to withdraw from Manila and stubbornly defended the city, block by block, leaving it utterly devastated and killing all of a hundred thousand Philippine citizens in the fighting. He died, some say by committing suicide, as the American troops closed in on his last positions. It was later known as the ‘Manila Massacre,’ and the overall commander, General Yamashita, was executed in 1946 though he had given a direct order to abandon the city to prevent this from happening. One charge of war crimes filed against him was that he failed to restrain the subordinate officer who provoked this fight for the city—Sanji Iwabuchi. And that very same man may now be sitting about seventy kilometers off our starboard aft quarter. If he has not heard already, he will soon learn what happened to the carrier planes that attacked us. I have no doubt that he will be ordered to find us, and do everything in his power to sink us.”
No one said another word.
Chapter 9
The cruiser Nachi was leading the charge south as the sun began to drift lower, illuminating the rising grey tops of the thunderstorms off to their northwest. Myoko was a thousand meters to the right, Haguro to her left, both a little behind. The three ships had been reunited again as Cruiser Division Five after Nachi spent some time in the north. Now her Captain Takahiko Kiyota was given overall command of the division, a competent officer, and ready for battle.
Kiyoya’s ships were all of the same class, built in 1927 and 1928, over 660 feet long and just shy of 15,000 tons fully loaded. They had good armament, in an unusual design with a tight cluster of three twin 8 inch guns forward, and another two turrets aft. The forward cluster was only made possible by mounting the number three turret with its guns facing aft, but it gave the ship some extra firepower in the forward arc to about 23 degrees on either side of the ship. Clearly, the ships were ideal for scouting and chasing, built for speed, and fast enough to catch most any adversary, strong enough to hurt them if they did.
Even the two forward stacks had been elegantly inclined backwards in a graceful curve, and mated together as one, with a third smaller stack amidships. When the ship closed on its prey, they could also bring another formidable weapon to the action, the highly effective Type 93 “Long Lance” torpedo, with a range exceeding any other in the world at that time, capable of running all of 40,000 yards before its oxygen based propellant system would be expended. In action, however, the torpedoes would generally be fired inside 20,000 yards, but this was twice the range of similar ship borne systems on most US and Allied vessels.
We will get the first crack at this enemy ship, thought Kiyota. And it would be good if we handled the matter before Iwabuchi gets into it. The last thing that man needs is another feather in his cap. He would signal Captain Mori on Haguro and Yamazumi on Myoko: ‘Assume a heading of 160 on approach and engage with forward turrets on my signal. Torpedoes to launch at 15,000 meters.’ And for the sake of decorum and protocol, he also signaled Iwabuchi: ‘Sighted ship, engaging at15:30 hours.’
* * *
Aboard Kirov there was little time to debate. Karpov wanted to engage the nearest enemy task force at once, though the Admiral asked about the possibility of outrunning the Japanese ships.
“Not this time, sir,” said Fedorov. “They can make 34 to 36 knots, so unless you want another gun battle, we must decided what to do at once.”
“We can engage now with our deck guns,” said Karpov. “Rodenko has the range plotted for CIC operations.”
They were racing for the north cape of Melville Island, but the Japanese screening force had used their superior speed to get a slight lead on them and now the cruisers were aiming to cut them off. Volsky decided they had no choice but to engage. The art of waiting in defense had been ably demonstrated when they watched the slow approach of the Japanese dive bombers, this time they had to take the initiative, and let their offensive be the shield.
“Should we use missiles on these ships? Our Moskit-IIs would have quite a shock value.”
“Yes,” said Karpov, “but we have only nine left, and twenty-six total SSMs in all. We must not forget the battleship is still out there. I suggest we use the 152mm batteries first.”
“Very well, Mister Karpov. You may commence your action now.”
Karpov nodded and turned to Samsonov. “You have your targets keyed, Mister Samsonov. Fire at will.”
“Aye, sir.”
They watched the forward turret rotate and train on a still unseen target in the distance. “Range, 37,200 meters, and firing now.”
There came a sharp crack…crack…crack… with both barrels in the turret recoiling as they fired at three second intervals, and the radar guided shells were on their way.
* * *
When Nachi’s spotters saw the dark silhouette ahead wink at them from its forward segment, they called out incoming fire. Kiyota was surprised at the range of the action. This must be a battleship to fire at that range, he thought. Could the Americans have a task force here? Yet only one ship? No escorts? Might it be a British capital ship running out of Darwin that we did not know about? That made more sense to him. There was no way the Americans could have slipped through the Coral Sea and Torres Strait. And no heavy cruiser he knew of had guns that could range over 35,000 yards like this. So he had a British battleship, or perhaps one of their fast battlecruisers at hand, and he rubbed his hands with the excitement of the chase. But Kiyota was in for another surprise. He did not expect the lethal accuracy of the enemy rounds.
Two small geysers fell very close to Myoko off his port quarter now. Then he was startled to see that ship immediately struck on its long, sleek foredeck, an explosion just forward of the first turret, a second right on the barbette, and one of the two guns there was canted upward when it exploded. Two more rounds just missed the cruiser on its starboard side.
Two hits on the very first salvo, thought Kiyota? Yet these were small caliber weapons. The small water splashes and the effect of the weapons was not characteristic of a main gun from a battleship. Such range and accuracy! A small gun that could outrange his own bigger 8 inch batteries was very surprising. He decided to give the order to make smoke now, and he
could discontinue when they were inside 25,000 yards so as not to hinder his own gunners. Soon artificially induced smoke joined that from the small fires beginning on Myoko, and the whole scene was shrouded in grey. He had to come fifteen points to port so as not to outrun his own smoke, and was pleased to see his division smartly turning on cue, a maneuver that they had practiced many times. The turn would also allow his aft turrets to begin training on the target, yet he was soon discouraged to see the smoke had no effect on the accuracy of the enemy fire. His ships were still being closely straddled. The salvos came in sets of six rounds, with a hit in virtually every set!
This ship could not possibly be using optics, he thought. We are barely showing them our main mast at this range. He made a mental note to make a log entry suggesting that this must be a new British radar controlled naval gun. Then his own ship was struck with a hard thud and black explosion, just below the main superstructure foreword.
“Fire below decks!” said Harada when he receive the report over the voice tube. “Not serious, however.”
Kiyota nodded, raising his field glasses. It would take them another ten to fifteen minutes to close the range on this ship before his own 8 inch guns could even come into play! Before that happened he would stand there, furious to see more and more hits being scored on his cruisers. Myoko had taken two more hits amidships, one on her aft funnel. Haguro was on fire at the bow. He gave the order for the formation to begin a ziz-zag approach, now estimating the range at 32,000 yards, but to no avail. The enemy rounds still found them, dogging their every maneuver. Haguro had just taken another hit forward on her number one turret and it looked like a bad fire there.
Kirov was fighting them like a skilled boxer, at a long arm’s range but with a stinging jab to the face. Finally, in great frustration, Kiyota gave the order to fire before the enemy put more of his own guns out of action. The boom of Nachi’s 8 inch guns sounded the charge: “Ahead full!”
* * *
Aboard Kirov the crack of the deck guns punctuated Samsonov’s report, “Target Alpha, two hits—Target Beta, hit.” For the next ten minutes they listened as Samsonov fired a total of sixty rounds, putting 24 directly on targets, with many others reported as ‘close hits.’ It could have been much worse. He was firing at a measured pace and not using the full rate of fire the 152mm guns were capable of.
“Just like the Italian cruisers,” said Karpov. “We’ll riddle them to pieces before they get in range.”
“They are firing now,” said Rodenko. “Rounds inbound… trajectory is short.” They saw a salvo pattern fall very short in the distance, though it was remarkably tight.
“Mister Fedorov,” said Volsky. “Will we have to sink these ships with gunfire?”
“Most likely, sir. They will press home the attack until they at least reach torpedo range. Our rounds are hurting them, but they are not fatal blows.”
“A little something more then, Karpov. Let’s use a MOS-III, shall we? I want to shock them.”
“Very well, sir. Target discretion is yours, Mister Samsonov. One missile please.”
“Aye, sir, firing missile number nine now.” The number ten missile had been used by Karpov to savage the American Task Force 16 in the North Atlantic—with a nuclear warhead. He hit the firing pad and the missile fire warning sounded, the hatch on the forward deck opening and catapulting a sleek missile up, its declination jet firing precisely and the roar of the powerful engine vibrating the deck at it hurtled into the sky. The ‘Starfire’ was the fastest missile on the ship, though its warhead was 100 kilograms smaller than the Moskit-II Sunburns. Samsonov called out the time to target as 18 seconds. They soon saw a brilliant orange explosion on the horizon, and thick black smoke billowed up.
What we target, we hit, thought Volsky, remembering Karpov’s words. He wondered if the enemy would be discouraged, because now their SSM count slipped one more notch to 25 missiles. Rodenko was watching his signal returns closely and reported one enemy ship had reduced speed and was falling out of formation. It was Haguro.
* * *
Kiyota saw it coming, first high in the deepening blue of the sky, a long white tail of smoke behind a fiery dart. It moved impossibly fast—faster than any plane he had ever seen, so fast that he had barely time to point at it when he saw it suddenly swoop low, then level off and come thundering in at Haguro on his left. It struck like a hammer, the explosion and fire awesome to behold, right against the forward bow of the ship and just below the triple batteries there, and he gasped to see that it blew completely through the ship, sending fragments of torn metal and fire out the other side.
What demon from a thousand hells was that? It was Raiju, the thunder beast that falls from the sky like a ravenous wolf wrapped in lightning, and with that horrible thunderous roar. Then the magazines for the six forward eight inch guns exploded in a cataclysmic uproar. He saw the entire bow of the ship ripped apart, one of the massive 8 inch turrets hurled up into the sky like a toy. Haguro immediately was swamped at the bow, settling deeply in the water, and he knew she had been dealt a fatal blow.
“Signal Kirishima,” he said. “Tell them this is no cruiser, but a battleship! Tell them we have hold of Mizuchi’s tail, and we have lost Haguro.”
Mizuchi was a legendary and much feared water dragon, in Japanese and Chinese lore. He could now dimly see the enemy ship in the distance, then felt the thud and explosion of yet another round against his side armor. His forward batteries fired again, but the range was still 28,000 yards and he knew it would be long minutes before they had any hope of even spotting their own rounds, let alone doing any harm to the enemy. He saw the ship turn away from him now, running towards Melville island to prevent the range closing. He could probably outrun it, but by how many knots per hour? How long would it take him to get within a decent range? In time the enemy ship would have to turn to port to avoid the island, but how much damage would he take before then? His guns fired again, the rounds still well short as he watched through his binoculars.
There were over 700 men on Haguro, and most would soon be in the water where they might be saved. Should he press on with his attack? Five minutes later he received an order to break off, and steer a shadowing course outside the range of the enemy guns. Iwabuchi was dispatching his two destroyers to the scene for rescue and recovery. He was to maneuver to lead the enemy away from the area or effect a rendezvous with Kirishima, which was rushing to intercept the enemy ship at her top speed of 30 knots.
“Very well,” said Kiyota as he gave to order to turn. “Our big brother is coming, Mizuchi, a fair fight this time, and then we will see how much thunder you have left!”
* * *
Rodenko reported the advancing cruisers had altered course, one now dead in the water. Admiral Volsky immediately gave the order to cease fire.
“Thankfully these men were not of a mind to sacrifice themselves for their empire,” said Volsky.
“The maneuver we made turning in towards Melville Island may have helped, sir,” said Fedorov. “They weren’t going to close the range before we reached the coastline and the damage they were taking may have been enough to let them realize they were no match for us.”
“I still have a large signal return vectoring on our position,” said Rodenko.
“And we will have to turn north in ten minutes to get around the headlands soon. I’m taking us right between Parry Shoals and Mermaid Shoals, and up around Cape Van Diemen.”
“What about the battleship?”
“Still vectoring in at 30 knots. It looks like the remaining two cruisers are maneuvering to join it now.”
“How long before it could engage us?” asked Karpov.
“If we could stay on this heading we could keep it astern indefinitely, but we must turn, as Fedorov says, and in that instance I would say they could be within 30 kilometers in shortly after our turn.”
“Fedorov?”
The Starpom did some hasty calculations and then tapped the Plexiglas scr
een. “They’ll be in firing range here, sir. Just as we round the tip of Cape Van Diemen. I’ll have to take us through Beagle Gulf south of Marie Shoals. Thereafter we can turn due east and run full out. It will allow us to slowly break away from them, though our speed advantage is only two knots and we may be under fire for a time.”
“Due east…” Volsky tapped the arm of his chair. “They are running us out of the Timor Sea! Not a very hospitable welcome.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fedorov. “But if we take any other heading we will have to confront this battleship, and don’t forget the carriers west of our position as well.”
“What happened to the aircraft that were sent to bomb Darwin, Rodenko?” Volsky asked.
“I tracked them northwest and that signal is diminishing,” said Rodenko. “I’m losing the contacts one by one as they descend to lower altitudes.”
“That is probably the recovery operation. It may take them another thirty minutes to an hour, but I would say they could have a new strike wave spotted on deck by 16:40 hours. That’s still enough daylight for them to hit us again.”
“We can stop the carriers from launching just like we hit that cruiser, with a couple more MOS-III Starfires,” said Karpov.
“That may not be necessary,” said Rodenko. “That weather front is moving at over thirty-five Kph now and creeping up on them. It could inhibit flight operations soon.”
Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) Page 10