by gerald hall
“But I have to make sure that everyone is taken care of here.” Harold insisted, the concern evident in his voice.
“They will be. The militia has already started mobilizing. The call has also gone out to reach everyone on ‘walkabout’ as well. We are well on our way to giving the Japs a very unpleasant surprise, I assure you.” The major replied.
“What about Dorothy and my children? I have to make sure that they are safe too.”
“We will be sure to take care of you and your family, Mister Cavill. You have our promise on this. This is your land and ours. We are going to defend it against these blighters.” One of the aborigine militiamen said with a ferocious smile that contrasted starkly against his dark brown skin.
The latter statement also struck Harold as somewhat ironic. It was only a century or two earlier that the white Europeans were the invaders into these lands. Now, the aborigines will be fighting alongside the descendents of those white settlers to repel another set of invaders onto their land. Only this time, the aborigines see themselves as sharing the land and the responsibility to defend it.
Perhaps part of this was because of the relationship that Harold had developed with the aborigines over the past two decades. Once again, Harold had to place his trust in the people that he had befriended.
The growl of high-powered engines began to fill the air from above. Harold looked up to see a myriad of white contrails crisscrossing the sky overhead as Japanese, Australian and even a few American aircraft dueled to the death. A near constant roaring sound came from the nearby airfield as scores of aircraft that had been produced by Harold’s factories taxied out of the underground hangars where they had been stored. Then the fighters and bombers took off from the nearby runway and raced into the sky to help defend the area from the Japanese invaders.
“Mister Cavill, please come with me. I’ve got a spot with an excellent view already set up. Don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe.” Major Burke told Harold before leading him to the waiting truck. They quickly drove north.
As Harold and Major Burke drove up the road, they could see Japanese aircraft from the carriers Ryuho, Ryujo, Zuiho and Shoho soaring over King Sound, searching for targets below. Fortunately, no Japanese aircraft attempted to strafe the militia truck along the way.
Derby Militia Forward Command Post
Derby Western Australia
April 21, 1943
Major Burke, Harold and a small contingent of support troops ended up on a hilltop overlooking the entrance to King Sound after leaving the command post in town. Major Burke had set up the hilltop location as a forward command post, complete with trenches and camouflaged earthen bunkers almost immediately after he had arrived in Derby over a year earlier. Now, the military commander of the Derby militia was watching the nearby beaches and swampland when he received a call over the field telephone.
“We have confirmed sightings of Japanese transports and escort ships approximately eighteen kilometers away from our coastal battery. They have made their way between Sunday Island and Long Island” Said the battery fire control director officer.
Major Burke then said a quick ‘Thank you.’ over the phone before turning back towards Harold.
“I’d say that those transports have gotten quite close enough already, Sir. Shall we unveil our little surprise out there on the point?” Major Burke asked with a hungry smile on his face.
“Certainly, Major. We wouldn’t want to keep our ‘unwelcome guests’ waiting any longer, would we?” Harold grimly replied.
Major Burke picked up a phone and relayed the order to the gun crews that had waited for months to finally fire their guns in anger for the first time.
Out on the point near the opening of King Sound and just southeast of Buccaneer Archipelago, hundreds of square yards of camouflage netting was pulled away from in front of four massive gun turrets. Nearly two decades before, the main gun turrets from HMAS Australia had been laboriously moved out to that location in secret. There, they were emplaced on top of reinforced concrete structures that were initially built partially underground. Once there, the turrets were carefully camouflaged while the spoil from the tunneling around Derby was piled around the structures to further conceal and protect them.
Dozens of trees had been planted around the perimeter of the island to help with their concealment. But before the trees had been planted, sheet metal buildings had been temporarily built around the turrets. This gave the impression to the outside world that this was just another warehouse complex for the Cavill business empire. But the buildings were later removed as unnecessary with the rest of the camouflage finally in place.
All of this effort created what appeared to be an artificial island in the middle of swamplands. With the exception of a narrow roadway, there was no easy way to approach the site. The swamplands were a very formidable protective barrier with the various crocodiles, venomous snakes and other deadly creatures that lived there.
The gun turrets themselves with their twin twelve-inch naval rifles had been reinforced with a combination of additional armor plates and concrete. The sculpturing of the concrete over the turrets to change their external shape helped further conceal their true nature from observation, both from the air and the surface. The final touches were green and brown camouflage paint and groves of trees that had been planted all around to obstruct the view into the gun batteries.
The guns were organized into two gun batteries, each armed with a pair of heavy turrets. Back inland, there were two tall towers. Most people thought that the towers were meant for radio communications, though they were rather heavily constructed. Indeed, Harold did install radio antennas into the towers for a pair of local radio stations. But the towers also had another function as well. Inside of each tower was a stereoscopic optical range finder. They would determine the range of any targets that the guns would be directed to fire at.
One of the towers just had installed a radio ranging and detection set as well. This radar was an experimental unit for detecting aircraft, but could also be used additionally to assist with detection and ranging of surface targets like warships.
Battery A, on the west side of the installation, fired its four twelve-inch guns first. The gunners at Battery B waited until Battery A’s shots landed.
“Adjust fire, two hundred meters down, one hundred meters to the right.” The spotters in the towers called to both batteries.
A few moments later, Battery B fired. Its shots traveled more than twenty seconds before reaching their target. A large bloom of fire and smoke marked a direct hit upon a Japanese troop transport with a three hundred kilogram high explosive round. The Japanese ship immediately caught fire and began to slow down.
Within fifteen minutes, there were already four Japanese transports either on fire or sinking from the pounding delivered by the shore battery’s heavy guns. The shore battery guns continued to fire at their targets, crews sweating deep underground as they shoved shells and cordite charges into lifts to be sent up to the turrets. Suddenly, the men working in and under the turrets felt the earth shake under their feet followed immediately by the sounds of several loud explosions. The lights inside the installation dimmed for a few moments before brightening back up.
Five kilometers inland, the observers in the towers saw four tall fountains of water and earth erupt in the swamps near the gun batteries. Off in the distance, the observers sighted clouds of smoke from the firing of heavy caliber naval guns.
The observers took a few moments to identify the source of the smoke before picking up their telephone and calling the gun positions.
“We saw shells land near your position, Mates How are things going down there?
“One of those damned shells must have cut our power line from the Derby power plant. We were able to start up our diesel generators here to provide enough power though. Do you have any idea about the blokes who have started firing back at us?” The commander of Battery A, Captain Jeffrey Pike, quickly asked.
/> “We’ve got at least four large Japanese warships coming into range. One is a Fuso-class battleship just beyond Sunday Island. We also have three heavy cruisers in view. One appears to be a Myoko-class. The other two cruisers appear to be of the Furutaka-class. There are also some destroyers with them.”
“We probably should shift focus towards the big boys then. They are probably the only ones who could knock us out with their guns.”
“Will do, Mates. The boss man is sending up some truck-mounted guns to help out with the transports. We can see the trucks on the road coming in this direction already.”
A second phone in Battery A’s command center began to ring. Captain Pike picked it up at the same time that he was beginning to receive range and azimuth information from the director towers.
“Wait a few seconds, please. I have to get information out to the guns.”
“I understand, Captain.” Major Burke responded, before patiently waiting for the battery commander to get back to him.
“Sorry, Sir. We needed to start firing shells at one of the heavy cruisers screening the transports.”
“No worries, Captain. Your gun crews are doing a great job. Continue focusing on the cruisers. I am going to have some other folks go after that Japanese battleship. We also have gun trucks moving into position to provide close support along with antiaircraft guns. We are certain that the Japs will attempt to bomb your position. Hopefully, the antiaircraft guns coming here will help defend you against that.”
Another four shells landed near Battery A. But they did not do any real damage to the installation. Everything below the turrets was encased in three to six feet of reinforced concrete then covered over by nearly fifty feet of soil.
One of the observers in the tower seeing the towering plumes of smoke, soil and swamp water rising up couldn’t help but comment. “The Japs are really beating up on our crocs in the swamp right now.”
One of his companions quickly replied with a laugh. “The crocs will get their turn for sure if the Japs land anywhere near here though. The crocs will eat very well then.”
The guns on all four turrets were elevated to their maximum elevation and began to fire. Australia’s big guns were modified years before during the installation on shore so that the guns could fire to a range of just over twenty-four thousand yards. This was facilitated by the simple expedient of deepening the turret wells so that when the guns recoiled, there was more space under them to do so at higher angles of elevation.
Twenty three seconds later, the heavy cruiser IJN Kako found itself the recipient of the Derby shore battery’s fire. A pair of four-hundred kilogram armor piercing projectiles plunged through her deck and deep within her vitals before detonating. One of the shells hit the rear turret’s barbette and jammed the turret’s guns in train. The other hit went through three decks before detonating in between Kako’s aft engine room and forward boiler room. The engine room was destroyed while high-velocity fragments pierced the bulkhead and crippled almost all of the aft boilers. Live steam escaping from the damaged boilers scalded to death most of the crewmen on duty in the aft boiler room.
The stricken heavy cruiser drifted to a halt while her surviving engine room personnel frantically worked to cross-connect steam lines from the forward boilers to the aft engine room to get the warship moving again. The Mutsuki-class destroyer Yayoi attempted to screen the Kako by laying a smoke screen around it. Unfortunately for Kako, another salvo of heavy shells from the Derby shore battery hit her before emergency repairs could be completed.
One of the big shells hit Kako in her forward magazine, causing a massive explosion and breaking the hapless heavy cruiser in half. The two halves sank less than five minutes later.
Cheering erupted both at the fire control towers and within the shore batteries. But they had to quickly get back to business as many more shells began to fall all around the gun positions. The defenders were still heavily outnumbered and outgunned at this point. Obviously, the Fuso had now started firing on the shore battery as well. The size of the shell bursts were now much larger than before. But the gun battery had still been very well camouflaged and protected.
After about ten minutes of the gun duel between the Fuso and Derby’s coastal defense battery, a fourteen-inch shell slammed into the ground right in between Battery A and Battery B. The entire installation shook like an earthquake had just happened. Both batteries ceased fire as a huge cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the entire installation.
“Is everyone alright?” An observer from the primary fire control tower asked over the telephone.
At first, all that the artillery observer heard over the phone were the sounds of several people coughing. Then a lone hoarse voice was heard.
“Yea, mate. No worries here. The Japs just stirred up so damned much dust inside here that we couldn’t see anything, not to mention that we were coughing our bloody heads off. We might also have a partial collapse of one of the tunnels between Batteries A and B. But otherwise, we’re just fine.”
“Great. You might want to throw a few shells at that battleship if she is in range. Otherwise, keep firing at the transports and the cruisers as long as they stay in range. I am not sure that you would be able to hit that battleship hard enough to sink her anyway, even if she gets in close enough for you to hit her with your big guns.”
“Roger that, Sir. We’ll shoot at anything that we can hit. Right now, we’ve got a big Jap heavy cruiser that just might fit the bill, especially since that battleship is still out of range of our guns.”
“I will then leave you to your job. Good luck and good hunting.”
After watching the exchange of heavy shells between the Derby coastal defense guns and the Japanese attackers for over an hour, Major Burke decided that he needed to leave to coordinate the movement of the militia to locate and hit the new Japanese landing site.
“Mister Cavill, just as soon as we get to the next location, I will stay behind and let these militiamen take you to where your family is currently. You will be safe there.” Major Burke said with a confident smile.
“Thank you, Harlan. If you need anything from me, please let me know.”
Major Burke just smiled and did a quick salute as the truck that they were in raced to another command post. From there, an aborigine driver and two of the other militiamen took Harold to one of the underground facilities not far from Harold’s home.
Dorothy and the children were already there waiting on Harold. They all greeted him with open arms after he arrived.
“We brought some supplies with us.” Dorothy told Harold after she gave him a quick kiss and pointed off to the side.
There were a pair of large rucksacks made of camouflage pattern cloth sitting on the floor. These were the same style of rucksacks that had also been manufactured for the militia. There were also four smaller backpacks, one for each of Harold and Dorothy’s children sitting nearby. Alongside the large rucksacks were a pair of CR-1 automatic rifles, two bandoliers of ammunition magazines, a pair of militia-issue ballistic nylon protective vests and Harold’s favorite pistols.
“I had the children all bring some changes of clothing along with snacks. I didn’t know how long we would end up in here. There was already plenty of food and water stored here inside this shelter, I knew.”
Harold was very thankful that he had practiced this sort of evacuation to safety with his family beforehand. He knew that the chances of the Japanese eventually attacking the Derby area were always going to be fairly high.
“Thank you, Dorothy. I know that all of you will be safe in here. I guess the Major wants me to stay in here for now. We’ve got everything that we need here including communications. Now, we just sit and wait. Besides, I am way too old to be trying to play soldier right now.” Harold said with a tired laugh.
He knew that he was just as scared of what was going on out there as Dorothy and the rest of his family, perhaps more so. He actually knew the results of war and the devastation tha
t it wrought anywhere that it touched because of what happened to humanity because of the Final War.
Even before the first of the attacking Japanese aircraft reached Derby, RAAF and Derby militia aircraft were lifting off from several airstrips to engage the invading Japanese force. While the unusual-looking tandem wing Dragonfly fighters and Twin-Wasp powered Whirlwind-R fighter-bombers focused on engaging incoming fighters and bombers from the Japanese carriers, RAAF Beaufort bombers and Beaufighter fighter-bombers desperately went after the Japanese invasion fleet itself.
Ironically, the defense of Darwin was being left to several squadrons of American P-40B Tomahawk fighters belonging to the Southern Pacific Command. Admiral Hart had managed to get USS Langley redirected a few months earlier to Darwin to deliver the fighters to aid in the defense of northern Australia. The Tomahawks had been onboard the old carrier, most still in shipping crates, when the Langley arrived in Darwin. The fighters had been then quickly unloaded, reassembled and readied for use against the Japanese.
Flying Officer Ted Reilly was piloting his torpedo-armed Mark 21 Beaufighter towards a Japanese Furutaka-class heavy cruiser at a little more than one hundred meters altitude when he got the shock of his life. He literally saw a large shell fly past his cockpit towards the Japanese cruiser. When a second shell also flew by, Ted’s radio operator got on his radio with the following transmission.
“We would appreciate it very much if you gents would kindly refrain from firing your guns through the same part of the sky that our airplanes are flying in.”
Ted then nosed his Beaufighter down even lower to make his attack run. A Japanese Fubuki-class fleet destroyer suddenly turned right into the Beaufighter’s path. Ted quickly opened fire with the Beaufighter’s four twenty-millimeter cannons and four fifty-caliber Browning heavy machine guns. He only had a few seconds available to fire at the Fubuki. But in those few seconds, the heavy barrage of cannon and machine gun fire riddled the large Japanese destroyer’s upperworks from stem to stern, leaving it burning and out of action for the moment.
