Pacific Storm

Chapter 22

Lieutenant Akira Sakamoto was up on the flight deck early, standing in the warm morning mist, breathing deeply. He watched while the flight crews pushed the last of his D3A1s from the elevator, their wings glistening with a light sheen of moisture. The steam rising from the hydraulics beneath the main deck formed subtle wisps and then folded into the mist, a shadow dancer on the thick morning airs.

Too few, he thought. So many planes gone…. So many men. He now had more pilots aboard than aircraft. They had been able to patch up the seven D3A1s that had survived that disastrous first strike mission, and two shotai had been flown in from the reserve at Kendari, six more planes to give him a total of just thirteen dive bombers ready for operations that morning. All the D3A1s had been grouped here on Zuikaku. There were also nine B5N2s being readied, their long sleek torpedoes being checked even now as the first two came off the elevators. An equal number would be making ready for operations aboard Shokaku, cruising sedately off their starboard bow. That would give him eighteen torpedo planes to add to his strike, barely a third of the wave he might normally hope to lead against a naval target.

And this was no ordinary ship. He still shivered with the memory of those deadly rockets arcing into the sky, their fiery tails spitting flame as they came at his planes like piranhas, cutting his squadrons to pieces.

The words he had spoken to his men earlier in the briefing room returned to haunt him. “These rockets flung against Kirishima could not have found the target on their own. Every single one hit home, or so I am told. It is clear that they must be piloted, and so we must not underestimate the bravery of our enemies. I do not have to remind you that it was only the courage of Lieutenant Hayashi that enabled us to find and hit this demon. He did so twice, his life counting for nothing in the face of duty. Let that be a lesson to us all. It may be that we, too, must ride our planes to a flaming end this morning.”

He remembered the look on Lieutenant Ema’s face, another survivor of the first wave, and spoke one last time. “It is for those of us who have already seen this monster to lead the way for the others.” It was clear what he meant, and Sakamoto had every intention to follow in the wake of Hayashi that morning, to another life if need be, and to end the sorrows of this war insofar as his small part was concerned.

The last of EII-3 Torpedo Squadron was up from below and being spotted behind his dive bombers for takeoff. He could feel the carrier turning, noting the wide sweep of her foaming wake cutting through the green seas, and he took a long, deep breath. It was time.

Sakamoto drew out a boson’s whistle from his flight jacket and blew a high, shrill note. The rise and fall of the flight deck leader’s voice called in return and the men were now moving quickly to their planes. He was up and into the cockpit of his D3A1 like a shadow fleeing from the rising sun, and soon he heard the grinding whirr of the engine, firing sharply as the forward prop slowly rotated, then sputtered to life. He fed it power, reassured by the heavy thrum of the engine and the whirl of the glistening propeller. A flagman was already out in front of his plane, slowly walking backward, the white flag in his hand catching a slight morning breeze as the carrier faced the wind.

Seconds later he saw men dash in under his wings and felt the chocks dragged away, he was ready to fly. The flagman waved him forward and his engine revved to high rotation as he readied himself, the adrenaline in his chest sending his heart beating faster. Raijin, God of Thunder, he prayed silently. Give me your lightning this day.

Then the flagman waved him on with a sharp movement rotating and kneeling, one arm extended towards the long forward flight deck, pointing out the way. Sakamoto pushed the throttle to full and felt his plane lurch forward in response. It rumbled down the runway with a roar, until he felt that airy lightness as the wheels ran out of deck and his plane growled to gain altitude. He dipped slightly, his eyes playing over the opalescent green froth at the bow of the ship, and then he was up, climbing into the sky through a bank of low lying clouds, the air sweet in his lungs and a smile on his face.

It was a beautiful dawn, the last morning of his life, and knowing that simple fact brought an elation he could not hold within him. It glistened as a tear, wetting his cheek as he climbed. And then he banked left to look over his shoulder to see Ema’s plane rising in his wake, and a third D3A1 running swiftly along Zuikaku’s deck for takeoff. Beyond that he could see the swan white wings of the A6M2s off Shokaku rising in force to escort the strike planes in.

He would not die alone.

As the planes drew ever closer, the men aboard Kirov now had a good look at what they were facing. Admiral Yamamoto’s estimate had been a little off the mark. Hara’s strike was now composed of thirteen D3A1s, eighteen B5N2s and twenty-four A6M2 fighters in escort, fifty-five planes in all. It was reasoned that each fighter along for the mission would present the enemy with yet one more target. Increasing the chances that one of the strike planes would get through.

Rodenko was able to estimate the size of the force at fifty plus planes, already more targets than their remaining SAMs on a one for one basis. To make matters worse, the second airborne group coming up from the south returned another thirty-six discrete contacts. They were now facing over ninety planes against the thirty-five SAMs they had left in the silos.

“God help us this time,” Fedorov whispered under his breath. He looked at Karpov, ready to hand control of the engagement to the able Captain, and for a moment their eyes met, a question in Fedorov’s, a hint of uncertainty in Karpov’s, firming to resolve. It was the first time they had faced an attack without the calm assurance that they could bat it aside. Had their magazines been full, all systems nominal, that would again be the case, but now each one knew they were under real threat, particularly if the Japanese pilots pressed home their attack with the same intensity as before.

Karpov took a deep breath, realizing that the eyes of the bridge crew were on him now, waiting. He stood straighter, clasped his arms behind his back as he often did in combat, and then gave his orders.

“Mister Samsonov,” he said calmly. “We will engage with the S-300 system as before. Range one hundred kilometers; a salvo of six missiles to target each group. I want your firing interval longer, ten seconds.”

“Aye, sir, weapons locked on targets and system ready.”

Rodenko looked over his shoulder, nodding at Karpov to indicate the targets had crossed the range line, his eyes big and white as he did so.

“Commence firing.”

The warning claxon, the snap of the forward deck hatches, the first long sleek missile up from below, the wisp of its aiming jet as it declined the sharp pointed nose before the roar of the engine sent it lancing away from the ship in a wash of pure white vapor… The Second Battle of the Coral Sea had begun.

One by one the deadly S-300’s charged forth to meet the enemy, each one accelerating so fast that they soon left the roar of their own engines far behind, and became silent steel javelins in the bright morning sky, reaching impossible speeds in a matter of seconds. A man firing an automatic assault rifle would see his bullets fly off at twice the speed of sound. The missiles were four times faster. To the enemy planes that chanced to see them coming they would seem a blur of lightning coming up at them from some angry sea god unseen on the ocean below. When they exploded, a tight bundle of long steel rods would fragment into a rain of metal, out to a ten meter radius around the point of detonation. Any plane close inside that radius would be torn to shreds, only the heavy engine compartment surviving intact. Targets farther out could be riddled with shrapnel, their wings damaged, fuel tanks ruptured, canopies shattered, pilots run through with lethal wounds.

One missile came, then another and Sakamoto, flying at the top of his strike wave with the squadrons of Rei-sen fighters, could see two planes down from the first rocket, then another, then three more, one killed outright in a violent explosion, and the remaining two B5N2s streaming smoke, but still doggedly holding formation. He shouted an order to his fighter escorts, and the zeros tipped their wings and roared down, right into the thin smoke trails scratched into the sky by the first three rockets. They would surge ahead like a pack of sleek greyhounds, willing now to take the worst of anything more that reached for their brothers behind. Five more died when the next three rockets came, and then a surreal calm settled over the scene as Sakamoto watched the last of the five ride its own smoking tail into the sea. He craned his neck to see what remained of his formation, the brave pilots steady on as they came.

He had lost seven A6M2s in all, three B5N2 torpedo bombers and one dive bomber, eleven planes hit or lost to six enemy rockets. They were birds on a wire. He gave the order to disperse by shotai and then for each group of three planes to fly a wide pattern, well off the wingtips of their brethren.

“They are dispersing,” said Rodenko. “The main formation is breaking up. I can now read about forty-five contacts in Group One, twenty-eight in Group Two to the south.”

“One more time, Mister Samsonov, salvo of six per group. Ten second intervals.”

“Samsonov paused briefly as his light pen reached to select his missiles. “Sir,” he said, “we have only seven S-300s remaining.”

Karpov turned, “Of course… Three missile salvo to each group then, and fire when ready.”

“Firing now, sir.”

The second attack was equally deadly, but it found fewer planes. Sakamoto’s tactic had worked, and with the A6N2s well out in front now, the fighters took the brunt of the attack, their wings bright with machine gun fire that had no hope of hitting the missiles, the voices of the pilots strident and wild in Sakamoto’s head set. The wide dispersal of the strike wave meant the missile kill would fall to a one to one ratio again. Three Rei-sen fighters died in the second barrage, one for each rocket that came at them. Two others were scored by shrapnel, but still flyable.

The Southern group off the light carrier Ryuho had yet to climb the learning curve, and its planes had stolidly closed formations again after the first rockets thinned their ranks. When the second salvo of three missiles hit them, it took out six more planes, four of them brave fighter pilots that had charged into the vanguard of the attack wave and two strike planes. There were still two of six dive bombers alive and flying, and nine of twelve torpedo bombers. On they came, soon crossing the fifty kilometer range line.

Karpov’s palms were sweating, though he clasped his hands tightly together as he waited. There was now only a single S-300 missile remaining. Steady and calm, the Captain gave another firm order.

“Switch to Klinok system, enable infrared and optical guidance systems.” They had lost one of two fire control radar sets for that system when Hayashi’s plane had come thundering down on the aft battle bridge. Their forward radar could not process all the contacts they were still facing at one time. They would use it to give the missiles their initial heading and range to target, and then allow infrared and optical tracking systems to take over if necessary.

There came a slight vibration, barely perceptible, and then the comm link buzzed and Fedorov went to receive the call. It was Admiral Volsky.

“What is happening, Fedorov?”

The young Captain quickly briefed the Admiral.

“Very well, carry on as best you can. I will be in engineering with Dobrynin.”

At forty kilometers the medium range Klinok system began to fire, the last missile gauntlet to be run by the enemy before they could get in actual visual range of their target, but they had only sixteen remaining. Karpov sighed heavily and gave the order.

“Two salvos of eight,” he said. “Ten second firing intervals, as before.” They still had plenty of time before the enemy could threaten the ship with direct attack. He wanted to be sure each missile acquired a target before a second was sent on its way, to avoid any possibility that two missiles might expend themselves on a single plane. The tactic worked as planned. Eight more planes would die in each oncoming group, but five minutes after the first missile streaked away a strange silence settled over Kirov’s long forward deck, the warm morning breeze slowly driving off the last of the steamy smoke and vapor from the missile firings. The Klinoks were gone. Samsonov’s light pen still hovered over the screen, but he had no more missiles to select. Only the last S-300 remained.

“Helm,” said Karpov. “Ahead thirty. Mister Fedorov, will you take charge of maneuvering the ship?”

“I will,” said Fedorov grimly.

There was a second shudder from below decks, and this time Fedorov noticed it, worrying that the hull patch might fail at high speed. This had been the very first time the new innovation had been tested under actual combat conditions. Yet Kirov plowed ahead, her sleek bow kicking up a white wash as the prow of the ship cut through the jade green sea.

“Thirty Kilometers and closing fast now,” said Rodenko.

“Ready on Kashtan-2 system, Samsonov.”

“Aye, sir.” It was now up to Kirov’s close in defense systems.

The Ryuho Group to the south had been hit very hard. All six of the dive bombers there were gone, and only seven fighters and seven torpedo bombers remained. Sakamoto’s more experienced pilots presented a stronger threat. Only two of his dive bombers had been hit, and he had eleven left. There were still fourteen of the eighteen torpedo bombers as well. But his brave fighters still dancing ahead of the strike wave, had paid heavily. Only nine of twenty-four remained.

“I can hear them now,” said Nikolin, his brown eyes dark beneath his head set. The shouts of one pilot to another were evident, and though he did not know what they were saying, he could sense the emotion, hear the iron in their voices, and he knew they called to hearten one another, and bolster their resolve.

The Kashtan system still had thirty-two close range missiles to augment its two twin Gatling gun mounts, and then there were the four AR-710 single barreled Gatling Guns as well, and plenty of 30mm ammunition. The weapons were computer controlled, with radar, laser range finding and optical backup systems as well. The four single Gatling guns could even be fired by a human crew that could man a control harness from a nearby position on the deck. They had forty-eight planes to kill.

In they came, brave to a man, unyielding. Not one pilot ever considered peeling off and turning away. Sakamoto gathered his dive bombers into two fists of five or six planes each at the top of the formation and he saw his torpedo bombers under Lt. Subota slowly dropping down to begin their low altitude runs. Off to the south they could see what was left of Ryuho’s strike charging in on a well timed attack, both groups arriving within minutes of one another. It was time. He tipped his nose down and yelled for his men to follow, and the D3As were soon screaming down like a flock of merciless falcons swooping on their prey.

Chapter 23

The old Kashtan system sat like a gray crab at the base of the aft secondary mast that was topped with the Fregat radar system, one on each side of the ship. Directly above it the stolid robot-like figure of the Tin Man seemed to stand a solitary watch as the enemy planes came in.

The arms of the gray crab were now heavy with four barreled missile canisters above the Gatling guns, each capable of ranging out to 10,000 meters, and Karpov wasted no time firing them. Their smaller warheads could still generate a fragmentation sphere five meters in diameter when the missile detonated, and so they posed another strong threat with a high probability of interception for approaching air targets, and a follow-on engagement of surviving targets at a close-in range with the intense gunfire generated from the long black six-barreled Gatling guns.

The old Kirov had six such systems installed, but four had been replaced with the AR-710 Gatling guns given the new ship’s substantial SAM inventory. But now, Karpov found himself wishing he had all six Kashtans back, as they proved to be a most capable close in defense system.

Half their missiles were gone in a flash, a barrage of eight from each unit. Then the heavy crab-like arms rotated skyward to retract the missile tubes vertically, and a rotating canister below decks quickly moved in the last remaining missiles. The reload was very quick, under two seconds, and soon the missiles were ready to fire again.

The head of the crab was a rapidly spinning fire control radar painting the sky with microwaves intent of finding and assigning targets. After the first barrage it noted that there were still twenty-six targets to the northeast and nine to the south. The second and final barrage of missiles fired, sixteen in all and their lean vapor trails wound out like thin threads in the sky seeking the planes with precision accuracy. Kirov did indeed seem like a great sea monster with white smoky octopus arms reaching up into the blue skies to lash at the oncoming planes. When the Kashtans had expended the last of the missiles there was a breathless hush over the scene for a moment. They looked out the forward view panes and could see all that was left of Sakamoto’s strike wave of fifty-five planes. Subota had six torpedo planes gliding swiftly over the deck, and from above came the last eight dive bombers, both Sakamoto and Ema still alive.

“I should have saved the last of the Kashtan missiles,” Karpov breathed. “Now it’s down to the Gatling guns.”

He stepped quickly over to the view panes, reached for his field glasses where they always hung there on a hook, and snapped them quickly up to his eyes. Then he saw something unexpected—more missiles streaking in from high above and vectoring in on the hurtling D3As. He had forgotten the KA-40!

The helicopter had climbed to high elevation over 16,000 feet, and was hovering well above the strike wave now. The Japanese Zeros had been so intent of sacrificing themselves to the missiles that not one of them had seen the helo, and now it fired off its load-out of four air-to-air missiles. Two Zeros and two more of Sakamoto’s dive bombers were hit and flamed by the helo, but it could do little more.

Sakamoto screamed in on the ship, streaking through a thin cloud. His vision seemed to blur, and he reached for his goggles to remove them as the ship seemed to resolve into shadow. Then he saw it again, pulling on the stick to re-orient the angle of his attack, but the target was wreathed in an undulating veil of cloudy mist, a glimmer of light was winking at him then flashing out from the ship below. He was so disoriented that he lost his concentration, and saw two other planes swoop past him. He shook his head, trying to clear his senses. Then he heard his men shouting in his head set: “Where is it? I can’t see it now—off on your left, bank left!”

He saw a stream of hot tracer rounds zipping up from below, and knew he would be hit but, to his amazement, the rounds seemed to pass right through his plane—one right through his canopy—yet there was no visible damage! Then he saw the lead planes swoop and climb, their bombs arcing down at a shadow on the sea. It must be making smoke, he thought, seeing a third brave pilot, his bomb gone, still resolutely aiming his plane for the enemy ship. This Shadow Dancer is trying to throw a cloak of black and gray over itself to hide from us!

He looked again, and then again… The ship was not there. Stupefied, he banked his plane this way and that, thinking he had lost consciousness and drifted off course, but he could see nothing. Then Sakamoto pulled hard on the stick, his engine straining, dive brakes shuddering as he struggled to pull up and avoid crashing into the empty sea. He was astounded to see three thin white streaks on the ocean below, wakes of torpedoes that had been aimed right into the heart of the ship, but now they crossed each other, heading off away from the scene. There was a great water splash there where one of his dive bomber pilots, his bomb expended, had flown his plane right into the empty sea! The torpedo bombers were still low on the deck, and now he saw them fly past one another, banking away to avoid colliding, and heard the pilots calling to one another: “Where is it? Have we sunk this demon?” Yet no man among them had seen any bomb or torpedo hit the ship. Their target had simply vanished!

A submarine! Thought Sakamoto. It was the only thing that entered his mind at the moment to explain what had happened. The ship must have been a submarine! It has dived beneath the sea! Amazed, and yet exhilarated by the thrill and the fear of the attack, he steadied his plane and started to climb again.

“This is strike leader Sakamoto,” he shouted through his microphone. “All planes form on me. This Shadow Dancer has slipped beneath the sea. We’re going home…”

Aboard Kirov they braced themselves for the attack. Karpov saw the AR-710 Gatling guns jerk to life and spit their lethal flaming fire at the oncoming torpedo planes, two were found and quickly flamed. There came a third shudder, so noticeable now that every man on the bridge instinctively reached to brace themselves, and the Captain wondered if the ship had already been struck by a bomb. He saw another bomb fall off the starboard side, a tall geyser exploding upward in the sea, but the whole scene seemed veiled and strangely out of focus. The Kashtan system was now firing its twin Gatling guns, almost straight up in a snarling rattle of violence and flame. Then the planes he had been squinting at on the horizon seemed to blur and waver in his field glasses and he reached to adjust the focus. As he looked again, he saw the planes were gone, then there again, driving through the smoke of a fallen comrade downed by the AR-710s.

Then the ship seemed to quaver, the lights winking on the bridge, a strange ozone smell was in the air and a crackle of static. Rodenko pushed back away from his radar screen, thinking that a power surge was shorting out his board. They heard an awful, distended roar that seemed to stretch thin to a terrible wail. Something was coming in at them from above, like a shadow of death, and it suddenly seemed to pass right through the ship wailing like a banshee. Two men on the bridge actually cowered, reflexively shielding their heads and crouching low, but it was all sound and shadow, then an eerie calm, and complete silence.

The guns had ceased firing, their fire control radars spinning fitfully as they searched in vain for targets that were no longer there. Rodenko’s system winked on again as the bridge lights quavered to life. He saw nothing on his screen and thought that his radar was down, the delicate phased array system shorted out by the static charge they had experienced.

Karpov was standing by the foreword viewport, shifting his field glasses this way and that, up and down, yet he saw nothing, heard nothing.

The enemy was gone.

“We must have shifted again!” Fedorov said excitedly. “Right in the middle of that attack! I wasn’t aware that Dobrynin had completed his maintenance procedure.”

Admiral Volsky was on the bridge with them now, smiling broadly. “From the sound of things we were in the thick of it,” he said. “I could hear the missiles firing, but the sound of the planes just kept getting closer and closer. Believe me, it was very worrisome.”

They explained what they had discussed with Dobrynin to Karpov, who listened with great interest “Amazing,” he said at last. “Nikolin told me something about Dobrynin, but I had the ship’s defense on my mind and could think of nothing else. It’s a pity! We fired every last missile we had at those planes. Had I known we were going to pull this vanishing act, I would have saved us the missiles.”

“No, Karpov,” said Volsky, “it has been a hard lesson these many weeks, but I think we have learned to shoot first and ask questions later.”

“It was astounding,” said Rodenko. “At the very end I thought I saw something pass right through the ship—just like those shells came through the citadel when we first appeared in the Med, yet caused no damage.”

“We were pulsating for a while again,” said Fedorov,”

“Yes!” the Admiral put in. “I was down with Dobrynin, and he reported those strange flux events in the reactor core again. This time I could hear it myself, when he pointed it out, and sure enough, the data stream monitors recorded the event as well.”

“It’s shuddering to think that one of those planes must have plunged right through the ship,” said Fedorov “but we were just enough out of phase with that time frame that there was no substance to us then. We were here, but not here, not in the exact moment the plane was. And I think that we would have be exactly in phase with the plane in time for it to strike us physically.”

“This is all more than I can fathom for the moment,” said Volsky. “The only question is this: where are we now? Are we back in the future again? If that turns out to be the case I think we will stay for a while. The world there was empty and bleak at times, but at least no one was shooting at us.”

Nikolin spoke up, saying he had nothing at all on his radio set now. “The bands were virtually jammed with radio traffic earlier,” he said, “not only with the local traffic from those planes, but also with more distant signals. I think there was a big battle underway somewhere.”

“And thank God we are no longer a target,” said Volsky. But he spoke too soon, his elation quashed by another call from engineering. It was Dobrynin.

“It’s back again, sir. I can hear it, and I have the same confirming flux data sets on the recorders, except this time the line is below the median, not above like the others. Very strange, sir.”

The Admiral set down the receiver, listening, his senses keenly alert, looking around him as if to see signs and effects of what Dobrynin was talking about there on the bridge, but all seemed calm and quiet. He walked slowly to the forward view pane to look at the sea, thinking he felt a slight shudder, and a ripple of movement underfoot.

“Did anyone else feel that?”

“Yes sir,” said Fedorov. “It was very subtle, and I felt the same thing before those planes came in.”

Nikolin was suddenly alert again, his head cocked to one side, and a perplexed look on his face. “Admiral I… I think I’m hearing something again.” But the signal was gone, an echo lost in the wash of static.

Fedorov had a grim expression on his face. “It isn’t over,” he said. “We’re still moving, pulsing again. Perhaps we have not yet settled into a new timeframe.”

They felt it a second time, a deeper thrum, followed by a slight roll of the ship, as though it had hit an unseen wave and was jostled about, though the seas were still and calm. Nikolin heard much more now, voices and signals quavering in his headset. Rodenko’s Top Mast radar screen seemed to trace out cloudy contacts, but when the line swept around to that point again, the scope was clean. Then his scope seemed to come to life, the signals clear and sharp. Nikolin confirmed that something had happened as well.

“I have heavy radio traffic again,” he said. “Just as I did earlier.”

“Conn… Airborne contact at ten thousand feet and descending. Strong signal!”

Everyone instinctively looked up, as if they expected another Japanese dive bomber to come barreling through the roof of the citadel at any moment. Then Rodenko blinked at the screen. “Wait a second—it’s the KA-40! I just got IFF telemetry and it’s reading green.”

“I had almost forgotten about the helo,” said Karpov. “I saw it fire its air defense load-out at those dive bombers!”

“Contact that helo, Mister Nikolin.” The Admiral came shuffling over to his radio man’s station.

“Mother one to KA-40, do you copy, over?”

They had an answer seconds later.

“KA-40 to Kirov, thank God we’ve found you! Where have you been? We’re running low on fuel. Request permission for immediate landing.” It was Lieutenant Alexie Rykov. He had been top of the duty list for helo operations that morning and had seen the show of a lifetime as he watched the Japanese planes come in for that last attack. He fired off the only four air-to-air missiles he had, then could do little else. When his telemetry link to the ship faded out, his first thought was that Kirov had been hit, but he could see no sign of an explosion below, and the Japanese planes still seemed to be buzzing about like agitated flies. Yet there was no sign of the ship, visually or on his radar. In one heart-rending moment he thought Kirov had sunk, and he had been searching for the ship ever since, long hours, putting sonobuoys in the sea and using dipping sonar in the water, but finding nothing.

‘Tell him to land immediately,” said Volsky. Then he looked at Fedorov.

“Well our little experiment worked, Fedorov, yet not for long. The presence of that helicopter out there tells us we must have shifted back again, yes? Back to the same point in time we have just come from. Surely it did not move with us.”

“I have no further contact on those Japanese planes,” said Rodenko. “My screen is clear.”

“Your radar always acts up when we move,” said Karpov. “The ship is still at alert one. Let’s leave things that way.”

“Probably best, Captain,” said Fedorov, “but I don’t think we have anything more to worry about from those planes. Look at the sun!”

For the first time they noticed that the sun was high in the sky, well past its zenith for the day. The entire morning had passed in less than an hour, lost in the welcome peace and calm of some other era, and they would never know exactly where they had been. Only one thing was certain. The KA-40 could not have moved with them to that other time. It was simply too far away from the ship. But if they were now watching it land on the aft fantail deck, they must surely be back on the date and time they had come from.

It was August 27, 1942, yet they had reappeared seven hours later, at 12:30 hours, and the noon day sun was already falling towards the sea.

Chapter 24

At a meeting of the senior staff in the officer’s briefing room Yamamoto listened quietly to the report made by Kuroshima, his face a mask, eyes set and distant. Events to the east near Guadalcanal had not gone well that morning. The American carriers had been found easily enough, but they had put up a ferocious fight. Admiral Nagumo had been first to reach strike range at dawn, approaching from the deep Pacific but there had been a strange radio communications failure just after sunrise. He had been unable to ascertain the exact position of the Western pincer under Admiral Yamashiro, and even communications at short range to his forward screening force had proved spotty, the airwaves broken up by an undulating wave of static.

Frustrated, he had come to conclude that the Americans must be using some new kind of jamming equipment, and paced nervously on the bridge of his flagship Kaga, trying to decide what to do. He was approaching the northernmost region of the Santa Cruz Islands and, unbeknownst to him, the Americans had been operating several seaplanes from Graciosa Bay off Nendo Island there. His task force had been spotted and a signal sent before his fighters could get to the seaplane and shoot it down. Now he realized that the Americans must know exactly where he was, and that it would be imperative that he get his planes in the air as soon as possible.

The Japanese knew where the Americans were as well, northeast of Guadalcanal, just as Genda had argued. And he had also emphasized the importance of striking first. Yet the two arms of the Japanese pincers were coming from different directions, widely separated from one another, and Yamashiro’s warning to coordinate their operations was also in his mind.

At 05:20 hrs, Nagumo decided he could wait no longer. No matter where the Western Group was, he had to strike now, lest he see the morning skies filled with American planes, catching his own strike wave flat footed on the decks of Kaga and Akagi. It was a fateful decision. Just after his formations finished their launching operations and began winging their way southwest, the alarms rang out. A large enemy air strike was heading his way, and the A6M2s were already scrambling to intercept. But they would not be enough.

The Americans had emptied the decks of all three of their fleet carriers grouped in a tight fist northeast of Guadalcanal. There Enterprise, Hornet and Saratoga stood a worrisome watch over the second day landing operations for Vandegrift’s 1st Marine Division at Guadalcanal. Their strike wave was massive and well coordinated, and in spite of a gallant defense mounted by Nagumo’s fighters, it blew through the combat air patrols and soon the air was filled with the gleaming of Dauntless dive bombers as they swooped down on the Japanese task force.

Ten minutes later both Kaga and Akagi were on fire, the latter listing heavily from two torpedo hits amid ships. The heavy cruiser Chikuma had also taken two bomb hits, and two destroyers were sunk. The Kaga was still seaworthy, but her flight deck had been ripped apart by three bombs and the fires had proved difficult to control. It was soon clear that Akagi could not correct her list, and the carrier began to slowly capsize at 06:30 hours, hastened to her doom by a torpedo fired by one of her escorting destroyers. The Americans would not be permitted to take her as a trophy.

Nagumo stared at his shattered carrier division realizing that he now had only the small light carrier Ryujo operational. It had taken one bomb on the fantail, but the damage had been controlled. Neither of his fleet carriers could receive the returning waves of planes, and Ryujo could accommodate no more than thirty aircraft. He had sent eighty strike planes and twenty fighters against the Americans, pleased to learn that they had scored hits on two of the three carriers there, and that a battleship had also been hit. Thirty planes had been lost in the attack, but where would the remainder go? He also had fighters aloft and needed Ryujo for defense operations over his task force, or he would certainly lose Kaga should the American planes return for a second strike. The dogged American Marines had also wrested control of the airfield on Guadalcanal at Lunga, so his surviving planes could not land there.

He had no choice but to order them to fly southwest in the hope of somehow finding the Western Task Force under Admiral Yamashiro where they could land on Hiryu and Soryu. This they did, eventually finding that task force south of San Cristobal and east of Rennell Island, but the haggard formations of Nagumo’s precious strike planes arrived at a most inopportune time.

Yamashiro had been unable to get any radio communications through to either Nagumo or Combined Fleet Operations in the Kondo Bombardment group. The radio waves eventually cleared up, but unlike Nagumo, the urgency to strike at once was not as great for him. The Americans did not know where his ships were. For all they knew, Nagumo’s force represented the only real threat to their operations. He therefore held his strike wave on deck—until the airwaves suddenly cleared a little after 06:00 hrs that morning and he heard the urgent calls coming from Nagumo’s planes as they desperately tried to locate his carriers.

Realizing that he now had to receive some fifty planes in a recovery operation, he hastily began launching everything he had to make room on the already crowded decks of his two fleet carriers. Nagumo’s planes arrived short of fuel, and many had to be given immediate priority to land. If he had kept his third carrier in hand, the light escort carrier Ryuho, he could have started bringing Nagumo’s planes in there, but the Dragon Phoenix was well to the north by now, coordinating with the Hara Group for a strike on a mysterious ship that appeared to be threatening the second wave transport fleet where troops of the 3rd division were still riding at sea.

Yamashiro had only Hiryu and Soryu available, but he managed to juggle his operations and get most of his planes in the air, ordering some below decks, still fully armed, so as to make room on the decks for the recovery. It was a matter of controlled chaos for a good long while, and by the time his strike wave was finally headed northeast to look for the Americans, the enemy had already learned of his location as well.

The American carriers moved boldly west, like a boxer side stepping in the ring and slipping into a corner. Their superior damage control had enabled them to clear their decks, recover most of their planes and turn them around into another strike wave while Yamashiro was struggling with his own recovery/launch operation further south. Yamashiro’s planes flew to the last reported positions of the US fleet and began search operations, but the lucky American strike wave led by Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky off the Enterprise found and followed one last straggler from the Nagumo group, and it ended up leading them right to Yamashiro’s carriers.

The resulting air strike was catastrophic. The Americans dove on the enemy while Lieutenant Commander John Waldron’s Torpedo 8 off the Hornet came in on the deck. Yamashiro looked out to see yet more planes coming at him for recovery before he realized what was happening, and then controlled chaos became utter chaos. The American planes found their primary targets and rained hell upon them. Bombs penetrated the flight deck of both Hiryu and Soryu, some deep enough to smash the armed remainder of his strike planes that had been taken below. The resulting explosions were ripping his carriers to pieces, and then the torpedoes came.

By 07:00 hours both Hiryu and Soryu were gone, and he had transferred his flag to the cruiser Chokai, shaken and much distressed. He was now commander of little more than a screening force with two cruisers and four destroyers. His planes would eventually find and strike the Americans, hitting the Hornet hard enough to put her at the bottom of the sea and also damaging both Enterprise and Saratoga, but when they concluded their strike there was now nowhere they could go. No friendly flight deck could receive them in the Western Group.

In an astounding feat of flying and carrier management, some twenty planes were told to look for Nagumo’s last remaining light carrier Ryujo, the Prancing Dragon as it retired to the north. There Nagumo managed to juggle operations and launch planes from Ryujo, and then receive the valuable strike planes from Yamashiro’s savaged carriers. He would refuel them and then send them up again while he recovered the fighters as their fuel ran out, and on it went as the last of Nagumo’s force hastily retired towards Rabaul. The planes from Hiryu and Soryu that could not take part in this flying circus were forced to ditch near Guadalcanal and, though they were total losses, their precious pilots would make it ashore there to fight again another day.

Yamamoto’s face was ashen as he listen to the reports. The entire operation had come flying apart. The odd radio interference had prevented close coordination of the two pincers and the Americans had done exactly what the Japanese feared they would, defeating each horn in detail. He had lost Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu, and Kaga was making a pathetic twelve knots as she limped back to Rabaul. Her damage was severe enough that she would be many months in repair, and effectively lost to the fleet for the remainder of the year.

Then he heard the result of Admiral Hara’s strike, and his mood darkened further. Lt. Commander Sakamoto was alive, though many more planes and pilots from Zuikaku, Shokaku, and Ryuho had been killed. His force was now spent, and could be of no further service to the action around Guadalcanal.

Yamamoto shook his head sullenly. “Four decks sit there, almost empty considering Zuiho has also lost all her planes, and here we learn of Yamashiro’s planes having to ditch off Guadalcanal. This is a disaster. We had nine carriers to the enemy’s three! We could have smashed the Americans if we had only coordinated our strikes more carefully.”

“This odd radio interference, sir,” Operations Chief Kuroshima explained, an almost pleading look on his face now. “It could be another example of advanced jamming capabilities developed by the enemy. This ship we have been chasing, this Mizuchi, has also been a most unsettling affair.”

“Most unsettling? That ship has passed through our entire operation like a bullet! Well, Kuroshima, what about it? Did Hara’s planes sink it this time?”

“We have very strange reports, sir. Sakamoto says the ship seemed to simply disappear as the strike planes were making their final attack.”

“Disappear?”

“The reports are very confused, sir. None of the pilots reported hits this time, but the ship was masked by smoke, or so some of the reports read this way. Then it could not be found minutes later. I was of the opinion that it had been hit and sunk, sir, possibly by one of our submarines, but—”

“But we had no submarine in that area, yes?”

“Correct, sir. Then we received this last report from a seaplane off the cruiser Tone. Captain Iwabuchi has his flag there now, and he reports that this Mizuchi has been spotted again, about forty miles east of the position where Sakamoto’s planes made their attack. The odd thing is this, sir. They made that sighting at 12:20 hours, just ten minutes ago. We’ve only just received the report.” He held out the decrypted paper like another excuse.

Yamamoto frowned. “The distraction of this ship has proved fatal. It has unhinged our entire operation, from Darwin to the Coral Sea. Thank God Yamashita’s troops made good their pledge and at least took Darwin. That is our only consolation in this whole sad affair. We lost three fleet carriers today, and Kaga is a complete wreck as well. Hara’s group has no teeth either. Do you realize that we now have virtually no naval air power we can use here, and that is likely to be the case for months! I wanted a decisive engagement, but who could expect this? Operation FS must be immediately canceled. Kondo cannot hope to take those transports to Guadalcanal now. It will be all we can do to safely get the men of the Nagoya Division to friendly ports. The American carriers have been hit, but they do not sink!”

“We do report one carrier has been abandoned and scuttled, sir. The Hornet.”

“Yet they still have two carriers operational, not to mention control of the airfield at Lunga. Now we will have to operate at night, running fast cruiser forces south through the Solomons to land troops in the dark, like shadows skulking ashore before the dawn chases us north again. This is disgraceful.”

There was a long silence in the room before Kuroshima spoke again. “And this enemy ship, sir? This Mizuchi? Captain Iwabuchi has asked permission to take the cruiser escorts from Hara’s group and hunt this sea dragon down again.”

Yamamoto’s eyes were like frozen fire. “Where is this ship?” he asked, his voice low, with a dangerous edge.

“It is now reported heading southeast, sir, and on a course that could still threaten the second wave troop convoy in the Coral Sea.”

Yamamoto gave him a hard look. “Then we turn to join the hunt as well,” he said. “Plot an intercept course at once, and tell Captain Iwabuchi he may proceed. Let his hounds flush this bird out and we will do the rest. It will be a long voyage north to Japan after this is over.”

“I will personally apologize to the Emperor, sir. It is all my responsibility.” Kuroshima lowered his head, the shame apparent, his shoulders slouching.

“No, Kuroshima,” said Yamamoto. “I will apologize to the Emperor—for the sinking of the Akagi, and all the rest. The responsibility lies with me.” The Akagi had always been a much loved and favorite ship for the Emperor. “But before I do so I will finish off this Mizuchi once and for all…Or die trying.”

“Sakamoto had another name for this ship, sir. How strange that his men lost contact with it in the middle of a fight like that, only to find it a mere forty miles away over six hours later! He called it Kumuri Kage, the Shadow Dancer. Everything we have learned about this ship is most unsettling, sir. It has endured two major air strikes and yet survived. That last attack by Hara’s group threw everything he had at the ship—over ninety planes! It has sunk a cruiser, killed a submarine, beached a battleship and still it eludes our grasp.”

Yamamoto gave Kuroshima a last sullen look, a strange uncertainty in his eyes now, chased by sudden determination. Then he gestured with his hand. “That will be all.”

Nothing more was said.