Turning Point

Chapter 19

Neither Pavel Kamenski nor Anton Fedorov were at hand on the bridge of Takami that day to deftly explain what had just happened. If they had been there they would have said that the incredible power of that eruption must have ruptured the time continuum yet again, and that Takami was just in the wrong place at the wrong time in 2021 when it rounded Cape Merak and started into the Java Sea. The ship had been on a small international maritime patrol with the Australian Frigate Anzac out of Darwin. They escorted the LHD Canberra back to Darwin, conducted brief maneuvers in the Timor sea for ASW training, and then Anzac departed, also returning to Darwin.

Rising tensions with the action over Taiwan and the sharp engagement in the Pacific involving the US 7th Fleet had prompted the Allies to mount small security patrols like this with local assets in various theaters of the Pacific Region, and Takami had been stationed at Singapore. When Japanese fighters got pulled into the engagement off Hokkaido, tensions rose considerably. Being Japan’s newest and most capable Aegis Fleet Defense Destroyer, Takami should be home now, yet caught overseas when hostilities began, the ship was ordered to return to Singapore to form the heart of a new task force there. They skirted the southern coast of Java, transiting the Sunda Strait before it all happened. They simply sailed right out of the world they were born to, and would never be seen there again. Kamenski might have called it a gopher hole, but it was more like a sink hole in time, or a temporal fissure caused by that eruption in 1942.

Perhaps it was just happenstance that Takami sailed right through that fissure, which came and went, sometimes there, sometimes not. It may have required the ship to be at just the right angle and alignment, at just the right location and at an exact speed to work its magic that day, much like the strange alignment of another similar fissure along the stairwell at Ilanskiy. No one could really explain it, but there it was, and that sink hole swallowed the ship whole, dragging it inexorably back towards the source of that fissure, the detonation of Krakatoa in 1942.

The tension on the bridge was very thick, as heavy as the night around them, and as threatening as the low growl of the beast that had blasted its way up from the depths of the earth. Captain Harada could simply not make sense of what he was hearing, though he was grateful that Chief Engineer Oshiro had finally rebooted the ship’s systems, and they were fully active now. All vital stations were manned and ready, Sensors, CIC, Damage Control, the bridge crew alert, if somewhat edgy.

Lieutenant Fukada was standing very near the Captain’s chair now, and the two men were discussing something in low, hushed tones.

“Once we got systems up, SPY had contacts on every heading. There must be nearly 100 ships out here, most down near Jakarta and along the north Java coast.”

“There wasn’t that must sea traffic before that volcano blew its top. What’s the story here?” The Captain seemed very flustered. He liked things all lined up, every shift well assigned, every eventuality contemplated and prepared for, but this was a situation that no one on that ship could have ever expected.

“Could be search and rescue operations underway down there,” said his XO. That coastal area would have been hit very hard by the tsunami. Shipping could have been coming in while we were down and dark.”

“What about submarine threats?”

“Too much subterranean noise. It’s just loud as hell with that eruption under way. No way I can put Nakano on that station with a headset, good as he is. We’ll have to rely on the computers sorting the signals out.”

They had moved above a group of low lying islands north of Jakarta, once called Batavia, and the devastation they saw there was complete. The tsunami had been high enough to sweep completely over those islands, and they were little more than barren specks in the sea now, with every sign of life gone. With radar back up, they could easily see and avoid other ships in the vicinity, and the Captain put on some speed, steering 060 northeast towards Borneo. He was looking for open sea, trying to get out from under that ashfall, but it remained thick enough to preclude any thought of air operations with the single SH-60K helo aboard.

What bothered him most, however, was the discussion he had with the General they had fished out of the sea. Nothing the man said seemed to make any sense. Who was this man? He looked as though he had been pulled right out of the last war, uniform and all. Once things settled down, he confided his uncertainty to Fukada.

“I’m not sure what to make of our senior survivor,” said the Captain. “He says he’s commander of the 16th Army out here. Ever hear of that?”

“We’ve got five Armies,” said Fukada, “and we don’t number them. They just have regional names.”

“He was talking about troops from our 2nd Division being on Java.”

“Java? That division is in the Northern Army, stationed up on Hokkaido.”

“Right… Camp Asahikawa. I have friends there.”

“I think we’ve got a 16th Mech Infantry Regiment in the 4th Division,” said Fukada, “but there’s no way it would ever be on Java. Maybe this fellow is playing games?” Fukada folded his arms.

“He sure sounded convincing. All he could talk about was getting field reports from forward deployed units, arranging reinforcements from Singapore, as if some kind of big operation was underway down here.”

“Kyou ki no ookami. Sounds like one crazy wolf. Are you really going to ferry him up to Balikpapan?”

“I’d sooner fly him there, or some other medical facility, but that isn’t going to happen in this ashfall. For now, we’d best forget about him and sort our situation out. So far we’ve no signals traffic on regular channels at all, and no satellite uplinks.”

“Why don’t I have Ensign Shiota monitor regular radio bands?”

“Put her on it. We ought to hear some news, unless that volcano is washing our those bands as well. Those damn things can kick up their own weather.”

Of course, the Executive Officer’s suggestion only made things worse, for the only news they heard was rather dated. Just to cover every base, the Captain went to the ship’s library to look up 16th Army… and there was General Imamura, right there in black and white photographs, right down to the uniform the man in his sick bay was wearing! The details of the man’s career were all laid out, and he was indeed Commander of the 16th Army… but in 1942, and the troops and divisions he had mentioned, the operation also underway, were all a part of the invasion of Java in February, 1942.

The Captain sat on that for an hour, thinking Fukada must have been correct when he called the man a crazy wolf. But like any dangling thread, unattended task, or misplaced item, he could not rest until he had it in place. So he went back down to the sick bay to speak with his Chief Medical Officer, Lieutenant Hisakawa.

“Take a look at this photograph,” said Harada. “Then tell me that isn’t the same man in there asleep on your cot.”

“I’ll admit the resemblance,” said Hisakawa. “But taking it any further is plain stupid.” A former university professor in Japan, the man was not given to flights of fancy, and he had seen enough of the world’s misery in his profession to be the grim realist he was. During an accident three years earlier on fleet exercises, a helicopter had experienced engine failure on landing and came down very hard on the deck of the helicopter destroyer Izumo, where he had been stationed at the time. When they brought the injured flight crew in, he took one look at the co-pilot and immediately pronounced his wounds would be fatal. That kind of bedside manner was unusual for a healer by profession, but it was Hisakawa, who could be a hard, difficult and blunt man at times.

“Call me stupid then,” said the Captain. “But you know better than that, Doctor. The man isn’t a wax figure from a museum. Have you spoken with him at length? Believe me, the longer you do, the more you realize something is wrong.”

“Well considering that we just pulled him out of that ash laden sea, it doesn’t surprise me. He’s likely suffering post-traumatic stress. You can’t place any faith in what he might babble out under these circumstances. What he needs now is a good hospital in Singapore.”

That’s how it would go in the beginning, until the men dressed up like wax figures multiplied around them at an alarming rate, in ships out of museums, many which should have long ago been resting on the bottom of the sea. The officers and crewmen of Takami all knew of their ancestors in the navy, the ships they took to war, as much as any US sailor might know of Halsey and the USS Enterprise. It was a very slippery path now, and it led to only one place, a rabbit hole of madness, impossibly deep, and a wonderland of nightmare which would become a crucible for each and every man and woman aboard.

Way would lead on to way as Captain Harada began to walk that path. Along the way he would come to question his own sanity on more than one occasion, but reality has a very hard bite, particularly when it shows up as a surface action task force off the southern coast of Borneo. They had to come about 600 kilometers northeast of Krakatoa to get out from under that awful blackness, the light of the sun completely blotted out in all directions from the eruption. It had forced Mountbatten to withdraw to Perth, and also prompted Nagumo to take his carrier task force well up into the Makassar Strait off Balikpapan. That was where the Western Screening Force had fled when the eruption drove them deeper into the Java Sea, just as Takami was probing north for clearer skies.

Prevailing winds from the southwest had driven the worst of the ashfall up over Sumatra and into the lowermost portion of the South China Sea as it approached Singapore. They had radio intercepts of heavy ashfall in Singapore itself, adding more misery to the refugee crisis Percival was struggling with. Then they got the strangest report, of renewed fighting on the Island of Singapore, and news of Japanese troops breaking through to the city.

Without Montgomery’s 18th Division, and the tough Anzac troops, the steamy General Nishimura had taken advantage of the chaos and darkness to launch a surprise attack. The Indian Division posted astride the road from Kranji to the city could not hold, and Nishimura’s Imperial Guards broke through, following their remaining tanks to the city, supported by the 18th Division. Percival was unable to salvage the situation, and would now make his appointment with a Japanese prison camp, the event a sad echo of what should have happened a month earlier. Now Singapore was Nishimura’s problem to govern, and he would rule there with a very hard hand.

Bewildered by what they were hearing, consistent across all radio channels they could tune in, and being unable to reach any level of the command structure above his pay grade, Captain Harada was in a real quandary. His equipment was finally running, but his men did not reboot so readily or without some distress, nor did he. Rumors began to fly, with talk of calamity and war, with a heavy dose of confusion over the entire scene. When they heard news that the Makassar Strait and Celebes Sea were largely clear of ashfall and darkness, that became the best course he could set. The fact that it was on the sea road home to Japan also weighed in the Captain’s decision. Nothing made sense any longer, and he instinctively wanted to return to the certainty of navy life back home, but it soon brought him close to the precipitous edge of bedlam.

They saw the ships on radar this time, edging closer to have a look. Harada had it in his mind that they could be other ships in distress, for they seemed to be gathered listlessly in one place, steaming at a sedate 10 knots southeast of Balikpapan. The ash was finally clearing, though it still left a dull haze over the entire scene. They got close enough to use the optics, but that only made things worse. Fukada was soon convinced he was looking at a pair of old heavy cruisers from the IJN. He knew their silhouettes well, as he had built the models as a hobby for many years, and had several on the shelf of his cabin.

“By god,” he breathed. “Captain, that’s a Mogami Class cruiser out there or I’m a goat!”

And we all know where the story went for them soon after that little discovery. It was a progression, a madness that so many others on either side of the time line had gone through in these events, a creeping psychosis that hardened in their brains to a realization that they were no longer in the world they had been in when they left Singapore. There was surprise, astonishment, denial, even anger in the mix of emotions as they debated what they were seeing, what they were asking themselves to now believe.

Yet the world around them was going to be entirely too convincing, too consistent in its insanity—every radio transmission, every ship encountered, every other human being they would ever see there from that moment on, would all stand implacably on the side of the only impossible conclusion they could come to. It would not be something any man among them could dismiss, and along with that, there would not be a single vestige of the world they had come from to balance the scales on the other side, where all they had now was awful doubt, fear, uncertainty, and a quiet rage against the folly of what they were being forced to believe.

It was days before any of them could truly internalize what had happened, but it was only hours after that sighting before they were sitting in the officer’s wardroom with a very uncomfortable question before them. Brigadier Kinlan did not have to deal with this last inconvenience when his 7th Brigade appeared in the Western Egyptian desert. With the help of Fedorov, and the evidence of his own eyes, he had been eased over the line and knew where he could take his place on the battlefield. It wasn’t long before he was sharing a brandy with Churchill over the matter, and there was never any question in his mind like the one now plaguing the officers of the Takami.

It was something the Russians aboard Kirov had gone round and round with, a very thorny question indeed. If all of this were true, these ships, the men on them, the news on the radio, then they were right in the middle of the Second World War! If it were true, if they were really sailing in the Java Sea of 1942, then who’s side were they on here? They were sitting on a ship with the power to do what Kirov had been about for all these many long months. They were sitting on an Atago Class Guided Missile Destroyer, laid down in 2015.

The first two ships in the original class, Atago and Ashigara, had been commissioned in 2007 and 2008 respectively. His ship was a new, improved model, state of the art, and arguably one of the best fighting ships in the world when it was commissioned in 2021, just after its sister ship Takari entered service the previous year. Both were in the new 27DD subclass for the Atago Class, that number being the chosen because the first would be launched in the 27th year of the current ruling Emperor Akihito. Takimi was the latest and greatest.

There was a reason why General Imamura had thought he was rescued by a cruiser, because in spite of the name, that was the real weight class Takami fought in. DDG-180 was over 8600 tons when empty, and was now just over 11,000 tons fully loaded. And aside from her crew and supplies, much of that extra weight was sheer muscle for the mission of modern era naval combat. A variant of the American built Aegis Ticonderoga Class Cruiser, the ship had a sensor suite second to none, with the AN/SPY1D(V) phased array radar, along with the AN/SQQ-89 Sonar system.

Were they to come on the scene of a typical WWII sea engagement such as that fought recently in the Java Sea, they could not only accurately track the course and speed of every ship, but also of every round being fired, right down to the level of machine gun bullets. The sensors were so good that they could even tell you whether or not an 8-inch shell that had just been fired was going to hit its intended target.

Primarily an anti-air/fleet defense ship, Takami had two Mk 41 VLS Modules, with 64 cells on her forward deck, and another 32 on the superstructure above the helo bay aft. Those cells could mount canisters of several missile types, mostly US developed systems. There was the RIM-66, also known as Standard Missile 2, (SM-2), which was the ship’s primary SAM for air and missile defense. For ballistic threats, there were cells mounting the RIM-161, Standard Missile 3. These two systems paralleled the British Aster 15 and 30 systems installed aboard Argos Fire.

For submarine defense, Takami could also fire the RUM-139 ASROC guided rocket torpedo from its VLS cells, and against other warships a separate system mounted Japan’s latest indigenous SSM project, known as the Type 12 Anti-Ship Missile. Weighing 720kgs, it could push a 300kg warhead out to a range of 200 kilometers at high subsonic speeds. It wasn’t as good as anything the Russians had, but it was nonetheless deadly against any modern ship it might hit. The forward deck mounted a Mark 45 (Mod 4) 5-inch naval gun that could range out 56 kilometers, and the ship also had two triple torpedo tube to either side amidships, with the Type 68 (Mark 32) 324mm torpedo.

For close in defense, the ship had the very latest in weapons development from native Japanese industry, the long awaited JAX-Heisei-27 Naval Rail Gun system, and the combat ready TR-D1 Laser CIWS system to go along with the two older Phalanx gun systems for close in defense. That rail gun was a new evolutionary leap in thinking and application for naval gunnery. Its main role was not to stand in as a heavy anti-ship battery, but a lighter, quick firing anti-air and missile defense gun. It could fire a 23lb projectile at the dizzying speed of Mach 7, and out to a range of 110 nautical miles, or just over 200 kilometers. There was no explosive warhead at all, but at that speed, a projectile of that weight would deliver 23 mega joules of impact energy to any target it hit.

By comparison, the 16-inch guns on an Iowa class battleship would deliver about 160 mega joules when they hit, so the rail gun was not something designed to go through heavy armor. Against light skinned missiles, planes, or even ships, it could still be lethal, and the round it fired was virtually unstoppable by any other CWIS system of the day. Considering Takami’s brilliant situational awareness in the sensors it employed, the lightning quick efficiency of its computers, the ship was not one any sane sea Captain would ever want to tangle with.

And there it was, in the Makassar Strait off Balikpapan, in 1942, with cruisers, destroyers and transports of the Imperial Japanese Navy on every side, and a flag fluttering over Takami’s aft gunwale that bore the image of the rising sun.

Chapter 20

“Alright,” said the Captain. “We’ve been round and round on this, and nothing any of us have said will change the fact that most every ship we’ve seen out here should have been sunk or scrapped long ago. We can either believe it, or just say we’re all lunatics, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s just assume it is true.”

The ship’s senior officers were all gathered in the wardroom. First Officer Kenji Fukada sat next to the Captain, a steady figure of efficiency. With a logical mind and calm demeanor, the unsettling nature of the last 36 hours was weighing on him heavily. Many of the men had little or no sleep, and the tension on the ship was wound up fairly tight. The news had been hard for a man of his disposition to swallow, but he nonetheless harbored a secret delight in the thought that the ship models he had doted over as a boy, and still treasured as a navy man, had become real things on the seas not 20,000 meters off their starboard bow—as big as life.

Senior Lieutenant Hedeo Honjo, CIC Chief, was also in attendance, his implacable presence reassuring. A heavy set, thick necked man beneath short cropped hair, Honjo had a bullish aspect about him, and the temperament of a sumo wrestler. He was a distant relative of Shigeru Honjo, former commander of the Kwantung Army during the Mukden incident that led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and a man who had been a close confidant of the infamous proponent of the “Strike North” strategy, Sadao Araki.

Junior Lieutenant Koji Nakano was a 22 year old wiry young man watching the Sonars on the ship. No legends surrounded him. He was not ever thought to have the ‘best ears in the fleet’ as Alexi Tasarov was aboard Kirov. He didn’t need the best ears in the fleet, he simply had the best sonar, and serviced radar systems that were second to none.

Nakano would team up with Senior Lieutenant Ryoko Otani, the senior ranking female on the regular bridge crew, and the eyes behind the screens of that AN/SPY-1 Phased Array Radar. Women in the navy first started exclusively as nurses, then moved to communications positions. A very few reached higher ranks of command, and women still made up no more than 6% of the SDF. Otani represented them well, a bright, intelligent woman who was well liked and often noticed by the other male officers. Her father was a navy Captain on a helicopter destroyer, so they minded their manners, but Lieutenant Otani could fend for herself in the largely male dominated seas, and it was her keen eye and radar systems that led the ship through these waters now.

Chief Engineer Ryota Oshiro was a pragmatic workman with a penchant for cleanliness and order. He kept his station that way, and prowled the ship’s engineering plants like a schoolmaster, imposing his rigid standard of excellence on all work completed. When the entire ship’s electrical systems went down, he was ceaseless in restoring order, for every light shined with the borrowed light of his energy, and he kept things running with unfailing dedication to his craft—much to the chagrin of the section crews that had to serve under him. Well done was never good enough for Oshiro. It was either done right, with excellence, or it was done again until that standard was achieved.

Lieutenant Michi Ikida was the ships Navigator. A quiet man, he was always lost in his maps and charts, and often reported directly to Chief Oshiro on plotted courses so the engineering section could gauge probable fuel usage and engine output requirements for the mission. Otherwise he kept to himself, and a few friends he had below decks with the Warrant Officers.

Lastly there was Katsu Kimura, the sturdy Sergeant in charge of ship’s security. Far from the stern and rock like aspect of a man like Sergeant Troyak, KK was an amiable man, well liked by everyone on the ship. He had a well developed sense of humor that often led him into ill considered pranks. But when it came to managing the Marine contingent, he was all business, all brawn, and the men respected and relied on him, looking up to him as the leader he was.

Assuming this was all true, everyone there had living ancestors at large in this world now. That was the most unsettling thing to think about. Somewhere, out there, were their grandfathers or great grandfathers for the younger crew, though with no one over the age of 33, their parents would have been born well after the war ended. So there was no chance any of them would ever meet their father or mother here as a young man or woman, but the famous “Grandfather Paradox” was alive and well in their minds. For now, they all had a bigger fish to fry here as they gathered around the wardroom conference table—what were they going to do?

In 2021 Japan had healed from the convulsions of WWII, coming to terms with what had happened on one level, whitewashing it on another, and with vast segments of Japanese society simply forgetting it all in the neon glow of cell phones and digital wonders. For some it was all a regrettable skeleton in the history of their nation, not thought of any more than an American citizen might bother themselves with dark memories of Wounded Knee, the Trail Of Tears, and the genocidal treatment meted out to native Indians, or the depravity that was inherent in institutional slavery that was a part of American history until the mid 1860s.

So it was not surprising that official recounting of the history of WWII was presented in softened language, where the Rape of Nanking was referred to as “an incident which led to the killing of many Chinese.” Most accounts of the war were rather dry and emotionless. There were no war heroes to be elevated, no sense of nationalism, no glorification of the military. History books in Japan that crewmen on the Takami had carried around with them in school were not patriotic narratives. For some, the war was seen as a disastrous mistake, and one that was never fully repented. For others it was a war of liberation against Western Imperialism. It was not unusual then, that a cross section of the crew on Takami would find a fairly wide range of opinions on the war.

But now these men and women were in that war, and they could not escape the inexorable gravity of those momentous days that would compel them to a decision on what they should do about it. Because they could do something about it with the ship beneath their feet. It was not a question of whether or not they could bring themselves to act, but one of how they should act, and it would not be an easy decision.

“Now we can sit out here on the edge of things for only so long,” said the Captain. “This Imamura fellow down in sick bay will be wanting us to weigh anchor at Balikpapan tomorrow, and the sight of this ship easing into the harbor is going to roll a few eyes, that’s for sure.”

“We can fly him over,” said Fukada. “Ashfall here is negligible, and the helo can get him over there easily enough with Honjo’s men as a nice little escort.”

“And they will roll eyes at that as well,” said the Captain. At 33, he was the oldest man on the ship, coming to his new post here that very year, for Takami was commissioned in February of 2021. “What if someone panics and opens fire on the helo?”

“We can radio ahead,” Fukada suggested. “Tell them we’ve rescued their General Imamura, and that he will be flying in on a very special aircraft. Impress upon them that no one is to fire at this aircraft. We can even give them the exact ETA at Balikpapan.”

“I suppose that might work,” said Captain Harada. “Now we get to the deeper question in all of this. Is he their General Imamura, or ours as well?”

There was a silence as the other officers digested that.

“You’re asking what side we’re on?” said Fukada.

“Correct. I don’t want to get technical here and cite Article 9 of the Constitution, but this is something we’ll have to decide, and soon. We have no way of knowing if we’ll ever get back to our day… Hell, we still don’t even know how this happened.”

“The volcano,” said Chief Engineer Oshiro sullenly. “Remember that report we got on the Russians up south of the Kuriles when the other one erupted?”

“You mean the Demon Volcano on Iturup Island?” said Fukada,

“Right. That was just three days ago, and we got that SITREP yesterday indicating the Russian flagship and two other ships went down in that eruption. Now this one goes off, and look what happened here to us.”

“You’re suggesting the same thing happened to the Russians?”

Oshiro scratched his head. “Well, it might explain the other SIGINT traffic we’ve picked up on shortwave.” He looked at Ensign Hiroko Shiota, the other woman on the bridge at communications. At only 20 years, she had just made the ranks of Santo Kaii, technically a 3rd Lieutenant, or a position the Navy might call an Ensign until she made 2nd LT.

“Ensign, what is he talking about?” Captain Harada folded his arms, waiting. He had not been informed of any new message traffic.

“I received a coded signal an hour ago sir,” said Shiota. “It didn’t make any sense, until I realized it must have been transmitted in the Japanese Naval Code of this era. So I programmed that into the computers, and—”

“You programmed the entire Japanese Naval Code into our SIGINT dBase?”

“Yes sir. It only took a couple hours. I was going to bring you the results when this meeting was called.”

“She was still working on the damn thing in the officer’s mess,” said Chief Engineer Oshiro. “I got curious.”

“I see… Well Ensign, what does this message say?”

“Ship movement orders for a task force forming in the Sea of Japan. I think it has to do with the Russians sir.”

“The Russians?”

“Well sir… I’ve been listening on other radio traffic concerning combat operations underway in the North Pacific. It was mixed in with all the other traffic, but this new code caught my attention. From what I can make of it, that theater is hot now—a shooting war, and there were at least two intercepts referring to the use of naval rockets.”

“Naval Rockets?”

“Aye sir. That was the exact phrase used. Ships were to be alert to the usage of enemy naval rockets, and screen capital ships accordingly.”

“That was in the message stream?”

“That and a hundred other messages. I’ve been trying to log them all, sir—mostly about operations underway in the South Pacific.”

“You mean the stuff you gave me this morning.”

“Yes sir.”

“Well when were you planning to get around to informing me of this decoded intel message, Ensign?”

“Sorry sir, I wanted to make sure I got it right first.”

Captain Harada rubbed his chin. “Alright… Let’s not jump to conclusions about that yet.” He looked at Chief Oshiro, who then spoke up, focusing the question before them again in a very practical way.

“Here’s the SITREP from my perspective down in Engineering,” he said. “I’ll make it as plain and simple as I can. We topped off the fuel bunkers when we made Darwin three days ago. After that we transited the Timor Sea into the Indian Ocean, twiddled our thumbs at Christmas Island, and then swung up through the Sunda Straits, and right into 1942, crazy as that still sounds. Since then we’ve eased up here off the coast of Borneo and finally found clear air. That little trip was about 2075 nautical miles. Now we’re talking about delivering the General down there in sick bay to Balikpapan. Well I tapped Lieutenant Ikida’s shoulder on that one, and that would put us a little over 3000 nautical miles out of Darwin when we get there, assuming that’s what we do. We’ll be at 70% on the fuel bunkers, so in another couple thousand nautical miles, we’re going to dip below the 50% mark and need to start looking for fuel. If we don’t shake hands with a smile at Balikpapan, then the closest port on the other side is back to Darwin, another1330 nautical miles, and by the time we get there again our bunkers will be at under 55%. So I hope they have what we need, because if they don’t, then everything else out here is run by our great grand dads in the IJN.”

That put a fine point on their situation. Takami was not a nuclear propulsion vessel. The initial two units in the class had exclusively used the high performance GE LM2500 gas turbines, which used a highly refined and somewhat expensive fuel. It was great for quickness and fast acceleration, but produced limited range of 4,500 nautical miles. As a quiet testament to Japan’s thinking about slowly building a more capable blue water navy, the last two ships in the class had been modified to use a Combined Diesel and Gas system, known as CODAG.

Japan Diesel United Ltd. had pioneered the design of what was regarded as the most efficient prime-mover in the world at their Aioi Works plant. Designed for large container ships, these turbo charged Diesel engines soon came to the attention of the Navy, and a new 6 stroke model was purchased for Takami. At slower cruising speeds, the ship would switch to this engine, which could use regular diesel fuel and achieve much longer ranges. For a high speed burst, they would engage the Gas Turbines. This combination more than doubled the sea range of Takami over the lead ship in the class, giving her a range of nearly 11,000 nautical miles.

“Thank you for that report, Chief,” said the Captain. “So it comes down to wondering where our next meal is coming from.”

“And wondering whether we’ll get any kind of a reception at Darwin if we do head back there,” said Fukada. “If I recall the history, the IJN just bombed the place not too long ago. Oh, I suppose we could ease into port, but we’d have to strike our colors, and even then what in the world will they make of a ship run by an all Japanese crew? How do we politely explain that we’re on their side now… and if we do, how in the world do we ever explain it to anyone back home? From that moment on, we’ll be at war with our grandfathers, our own people. Now then…. Imagine if we end up killing one of them? Imagine if we put a missile on the Chief’s old Ojiichan? What happens to him?”

Silence….

The XO’s comment all underscored yet another point. The flag on their ship was the Japanese naval ensign. The nation they were pledged to defend was their homeland, the land of their grandfathers, who would soon all give birth to their parents. It was their blood, in a very real respect, that was now running in their veins. Who were they going to fight for here? They were no closer to a real answer to that on the intellectual level, but emotionally, there was movement in that room, and you could see it on many of the faces of the men around that table. The thought of taking DDG-180 out to sea to fight against Japan was going to be very uncomfortable.

The Captain could read the atmosphere in the room easily enough, yet he also perceived the consequences of what he was now mulling over, and thought it best that he voice them.

“I’ll be the first to say this isn’t the war we ever thought we’d be fighting. Three days ago, it was the Russians and Chinese we were worried about. From what I gather, Japan is at war with them both at this very moment, but the Grandfathers of our old American friends are not their allies here. That’s a bit awkward for us, to say the least.”

“Yes,” said Fukada. “They whipped us pretty damn hard in 1945, occupied Japan, imposed a constitution on us, and here we are in a ship with the American Aegis combat system running the show, and US built missiles in the decks fore and aft. Now we could throw salt in the wounds and turn all those lovely missiles on our own people, but then again, we could also do just the opposite, and give them back to the Americans when they come for Hiroshima and Nagasaki… That’s where my great grandparents live, and that’s where they died too. Their only child, my grandfather, was fortunately at Fukuyama visiting relatives when the bomb fell. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here now…”

Chapter 21

The words of Executive Officer Fukada cut to the bone. In spite of the fact that many of the officers and crew of Takami might have believed Japan’s war was misguided folly, a disastrous gamble that brought nothing but misery to their homeland, and most of Southeast Asia, blood ties run very thick in Japan. Then Lieutenant Ryuko Otani spoke up, voicing a concern that was still at the base of all this discussion.

“Alright,” she said. “These are our people here, our ancestors, impossible as that still seems to me. But let’s not forget what they did. This war was unnecessary. We came south to seize oil and other resources, all in the interest of the new Japanese Empire. A minute ago we were talking about delivering the General to Balikpapan. Well, when the Dutch set fire to destroy some of the oil facilities there, our grandfathers responded by killing every last Caucasian in the city—all of them. The good General there was leading the invasion of Java, where the U.N. reported after the war that three million locals died under the Japanese occupation by 1945. And let’s not forget the invasion of China, the atrocities committed there, and throughout this entire theater. They were simply wrong—no, that doesn’t even begin to say it. They were criminal, and the men who perpetrated or condoned them filled our enemies hearts with everything they delivered to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

“There were atrocities on both sides,” said Fukada. “Our soldiers called the American 41st Division ‘the Butchers,’ because they never took prisoners—though they made sure they got every gold filling out of the mouths of the men they killed.”

“Oh?” said Otani, “and shall we talk about Unit 731 and the bio-warfare experiments now? They froze prisoners to death just to assess their tolerance to cold. Then they boiled others to see how long they could survive in the heat. And then there was Manila, where our troops raped and butchered 100,000 Pilipino civilians before that city fell in 1944. It goes on and on. How can we support these men, these Generals and Admirals who allowed this to happen? How can we support a man like Tojo? Let’s face it. Some of our ancestors were real monsters.”

“Perhaps we can’t,” said Captain Harada. “Maybe our best option here would be to try to be neutral in all of this—find a safe haven where we can ride this out and try to make sense of what’s happened to us, or find a way back to where we belong.”

“To do that we will have to reach an accommodation with the Japanese armed forces here now,” said Fukada. “The Chief made a good point, we can’t cruise about here for very much longer. We’ll have to find some safe port, and believe me, we may not find one anywhere in Australia. So as I see it, our only option is to sit down to tea with the Japanese authorities here.”

“That would mean we’d have to answer quite a few questions,” said Chief Oshiro. “And I’m not sure we have any of the answers yet. I mean… well we can’t just come out and tell them who we are, can we? For one thing, they’ll likely just laugh in our faces. I no naka no kawazu. How would they possibly comprehend who we are, and what we’re capable of?”

As the Japanese often did, the chief had thrown out the opening lines of an old proverb to make his point. I no naka no kawazu, roughly speaking meant ‘a frog in a well,” and the full proverb read, ‘a frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.’

“I’m not so sure,” said Fukada. “To begin with, the very existence of this ship will be somewhat of a mystery to them. There was no Takami in the IJN in 1942, and certainly no ship like this one. They’ll take one look at us and wonder who the hell we are. Certainly they could never understand our computers and technology, but one look at a missile coming off that forward deck will stand in for a thousand words. They’ve apparently seen them in action before, which is a mystery we’ll have to solve. In any case, I’m inclined to think they would end up believing us. No matter how deep their well is, how else could they account for our presence here?”

“Well then,” said Chief Oshiro, “if they do believe us, then I can’t imagine they’ll want to simply fill up our fuel bunkers and let us go happily on our way to look for another volcano. Give them one look at what we’re capable of, and they’ll want us front row center in their fleet. At the very least, they want to get their hands on those missiles.”

“Gold coins to a cat,” said Lieutenant Otani, throwing out a little proverb of her own.

“I agree with that at least,” said the Captain. “We keep our missiles and technology under the decks here where they belong. Besides, there’s no way they could make use of any of it. It would be like giving gold coins to a cat. Our weapons would be nice and shiny, and certainly command their attention, but that’s as far as it would go. There’s no way they could even reverse engineer any of it. The technology is simply too advanced.”

“Then they’ll want us to fight for them,” said Fukada. “They’ll expect it, and to express any reservation would mean we would have to tell them more about how this war ends than they might want to hear.”

“Agreed,” said Captain Harada. “That’s another thing we have to consider. We all know information is power. Tell them they’re going to lose this war and it will only increase their ardor for battle. They’ll insist we fight to prevent that outcome.”

“What if we tried to facilitate a negotiated peace?” said Lieutenant Otani. She had been fiddling with a pen, head down, her long black hair all tucked neatly up under her service cap. A beautiful woman by any standards, her face was troubled now. It was clear the thought of joining WWII on the side of the men who ran the Japanese Empire was difficult for her.

“What do you mean?” said Harada.

“Well… if we could get to the real decision makers, a man like Yamamoto perhaps, then we might convince him of the futility of prosecuting this war, given the inevitable end we all know is likely to come. Perhaps we could convince them to sue for peace with the Americans.”

“After Pearl Harbor?” Fukada shook his head. “Not likely. The Americans would never agree to it.”

“We might make them see things differently,” she persisted. “We can stop them right in their tracks if they won’t listen. We have the power to do that.”

“Perhaps,” said the Captain. “At least this year, and possibly next year, but they ramp up production and put more carriers into the Pacific than we might want to tangle with by 1944. And let’s not forget what they’ll have by 1945. I don’t have to remind anyone here that no ship in our navy has ever carried nuclear weapons. So in a matter of just a few years, they’ll have the proverbial big stick, and as Lieutenant Commander Fukada pointed out earlier, they won’t hesitate to use it.”

“Then we can’t let things go that far,” said Otani. “We have to convince them to make peace before they become the unstoppable force they were by 1945.”

“A little like trying to pacify a tiger after you’ve just raided its den and killed a few cubs,” said Fukada. “Frankly, I think they’d tell us to go to hell, and then they’d go right on with their war. Oh, we could try to sit on the sidelines, but remember what happens after they get bases close enough to bomb Japan. I’m not talking about Hiroshima now. Don’t forget what the fire bombs did to Tokyo. At least 100,000 died there in a single night, with a million more injured and homeless. That was a napalm attack, with the E-46 Cluster Bomb. The lead bombers just came in over the center of the city and lit up a nice little burning letter X. Then the rest of them, another couple hundred or so, just used that for a target. The resulting firestorm nearly burned the entire city to the ground. Yes, the men running this empire were ruthless and cruel, but so were our enemies, so was General Curtis LeMay. That was the most deadly bombing raid in history. What are we going to do, just sit on some island out here and let it happen again?”

“We’re a long way from that,” said Lieutenant Otani. “We can try and divert the course of these events before it ever gets to that point.”

“How?” Fukada was adamant. “By threatening the Americans if they won’t agree to terms? Well they won’t. I can tell you that much right now. So any threat we make will have to be backed up with this ship.”

“But sir, respectfully, aren’t you saying that to try and prevent this war, we have to go to war? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It will to our enemies…”

No one in the room failed to pick up the obvious fact that Fukada had made up his mind in this matter. Captain Harada was giving everyone a wide latitude to express any opinion or feeling on the matter, no holds barred. It would have to be that way if they were ever to reach a consensus on what to do, for it had to be a consensus. There was no other way. He couldn’t order these men and women to do anything they could not fully support or embrace with their own conscience. In a way, they had to finally decide why they put on those uniforms now. Japan’s military had been considered a civilian body for decades. They were meant to be a defensive force, and specifically prohibited from developing or bearing overtly offensive weapons.

And yet, quietly, almost surreptitiously, the navy had been putting new ships into their order of battle. It was very much like the little shell game the Japanese played with the Washington Naval Treaty, designing cruisers with 6-inch guns, only with barbettes enlarged so they could be quickly converted to full 8-inch gun heavy cruisers. There were two of them out there right now, just over the horizon. They built seaplane tenders and commercial ships with specific requirements that would facilitate the easy conversion to an aircraft carrier. And in modern times, the new “Helicopter Carriers,” all ostensibly for defensive ASW patrols, could now easily receive the new F-35 strike fighter and become offensive carrier platforms. Takami had also just received a more powerful SSM, for defense against enemy ships at sea, or so went the logic. Yet it was a defense that could only be used by attacking the enemy. In accordance with another old proverb, any good officer in a modern day fight knew that the best defense was a good offense.

“Alright,” said the Captain. “We have a very limited range of choices here. We can pick one side or the other, but if we do, we won’t be able to go in half way. It will be all or nothing. Then again, we could try what Lieutenant Otani suggests and try to facilitate a negotiated peace here. That may seem fruitless, but consider the lives we would be saving if it worked. The only other choice is to stay out of it, but Chief Oshiro makes a pretty good point as to the difficulties in that. We’ll need food and fuel, and a safe harbor where we can ride it out.”

“You may get the food and fuel,” said Fukada, “But let’s face it—this war is going to find us one way or another, no matter where we go, unless you’re thinking of Antarctica, or perhaps sailing to South America. We couldn’t stay anywhere in the Pacific, and all the while, we’ll be listening to news of what’s happening over here. And one more thing—do this and we can never go home. I’m going to assume we never find a way out of this mess—that we’re stuck here. So we can stand by and do nothing, but try showing your face again back home in three years—assuming there’s a home left standing in Japan. That message Ensign Shiota was talking about gives me something else to think about. Who else would have rocket technology this early in the war? It has to be the Russians, and if there is fighting up north, then something is amiss here. That never happened until 1945.”

“All the more reason to make some kind of high level contact here and try to find out what is really happening,” said the bullish CIC Chief Hideo Honjo. He was already wanting as much data on their situation as possible.

“That could be dangerous,” said Oshiro.

“Everything we do here from this day forward could be dangerous,” said Fukada. “But the Lieutenant has a good point. If we can meet with a man like Yamamoto and reach some accommodation, then we’ll be in a much better position. Strong as we might seem, a single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle. That’s where the Chief’s wisdom shines. We can’t go it alone here, so why not take his advice, and Lieutenant Otani’s, and see if we can arrange a conference with the Admiral of the IJN. Yamamoto, of all the personalities at large here, is a man we might deal with.”

“Aye,” said the Chief. “Wade in slowly. No need to jump to any quick decision here now. These people are going to learn about us one way or another. With a man like Yamamoto in our camp, we have many more options than we would if we tried to go it alone.”

The Captain looked at Lieutenant Otani now, giving her a chance to speak again. “Better talk than anything else. I’d support that course of action, but we’d have to be cautious. Wading in slowly sounds like a reasonable proposition, but first the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man.” She looked at Fukada with that, but said nothing more.

“The Lieutenant has a point. In the beginning, walk slowly. I’m not sure we can avoid stepping on toes here. A warship like this can be a very indelicate thing. That said, we can be cautious, as Lieutenant Otani suggests. Alright, I’ll support that course of action. Any other opinions?”

No one else spoke.

“Then, Ensign Shiota, I have a job for you. Use those ears of yours, and that nifty IJN naval code breaker, to find out where a man might find Admiral Yamamoto. In doing that, you might want to nail down exactly what day it is.”

“Oh, I already know that sir. It’s been on all the intercepts I get each day. This is March 1, 1942, and I think Admiral Yamamoto is at Rabaul inspecting the new base there.”

“How do you know that? If you got this from the ship’s library files this may not be anything like the March of ’42 written up in the books. That damn volcano is evidence enough of that.”

“No sir, I’m not much for history books. I just picked up a signal yesterday indicating he would be at Rabaul for the next week. They just finished up some kind of big operation there.”

“I see… Good work, Ensign. Now do something else for me. Use those ears and try and put together a good SITREP. I want to know what is happening in this war. If something as big as that eruption has happened, who knows what else has changed here. Find out, and report to me as soon as you can. In the meantime, I think we should revisit the question how we deliver the General to Balikpapan, or whether we even do so.”

“He’s likely to insist,” said Fukada. “At least that’s what I’ve been hearing from Doctor Hisakawa.”

“He can insist all he wants,” said the Captain. “I’m navy. In fact, the more I think of it, the more I begin to feel we should keep the good general right where he is. We could tell him we’re a top secret outfit, and that Yamamoto has personally ordered that we find and rescue him, and then bring him to meet with the Admiral. I think he’d go for that one. Mister Ikida, what is it you’re pecking away at with that tablet?” He had noticed his Navigator, Michi Ikida, had been absorbed for some time.

“Sir? After the Chief Engineer’s discussion on the fuel situation, I was just doing some preliminary course plots to various locations. I think I can get us to Rabaul from here in six days at an average speed of 20 knots, which is the upper limit for cruising speeds. If we cruise at 15 knots, we’re looking at eight days, but we would have more in the fuel bunkers when we get there.”

“Either way this fuel issue is going to loom bigger and bigger as we proceed here.” Harada was concerned, but his XO made a quick suggestion.

“What about Japanese fleet oilers? These operations must be supported by replenishment ships. In fact, that General down there might know something about it. If we tell him we need fuel, he might be able to order in support.”

“Can we even use their fuel?” The Captain looked at his Chief Engineer.

“If it’ll burn, I can use it, at least in the diesel system. That’s what we’ve been mainly sipping on this deployment. I’ve only had to use the Gas Turbine system when we needed acceleration. The diesel used here may not be as refined as the stuff we’re used to, but I have some additives aboard that could help. We might have a bit of indigestion, and I may not get the best efficiency from the propulsion system, but I can keep us running if you find me the fuel. As for speed, you’ll have it as long as I can feed those Gas Turbines. We’re at about 92% on that bunker. It’s a very refined fuel, more like aviation fuel, and we won’t find a drop of the stuff here, so keep that in mind.”

The Captain nodded. “Well if we can find diesel here, then I suppose it’s worth a try,” said Harada. “As to Yamamoto, what if he’s gone by the time we get there?”

“Perhaps we could have Ensign Shiota work up a coded signal requesting a meeting with the General,” said Fukada.

“That would seem a bit chancy. How would we identify ourselves in any way that would be convincing enough for the fleet Admiral to respond to such a message? I’m guessing a lowly destroyer Captain won’t have much pull here.”

“But we have a man aboard who just might,” said Fukada. “If this fellow is telling the truth, we have the senior commanding officer of the 16th Army, the force presently conducting the biggest operation they have running at the moment. That eruption has had to shake things up. We can say we’ve rescued this guy, and are en-route on his orders for an urgent meeting at Rabaul.”

“I like that XO. Good call, assuming our guest plays along.”

“He doesn’t have to, sir,” Fukada smiled. “We just tell him he’s been summoned to Rabaul and we have orders to get him there ASAP to coordinate future planning with Combined Fleet HQ.”

The Captain nodded. It could work. “Outstanding. Let’s make it so. Mister Ikida, verify those fuel numbers with Chief Oshiro.” He looked over the room, proud to have this group with him now, good officers, each and every one.

“Mister Kimura, we haven’t heard your wisdom on any of this. Anything to add?”

The Marine Sergeant, shrugged. “At the moment I haven’t quite swallowed this whole fish yet, sir. I do know one thing. We’ve arrived, somewhere. And to prove it, we’re here!” Yankee Catcher Yogi Berra could not have put it any better. He smiled