Untimely Designs

by gerald hall

  By the time that Ted let off the trigger, he was already too close to launch his torpedo. So he overflew the disabled Fubuki and began looking for another target. He soon spotted a large transport moving at top speed towards the coast. Dozens of blazing tracer rounds fired from the transport’s antiaircraft guns flew past his Beaufighter as Ted bore down upon the enemy ship. He was less than one thousand meters away when he dropped his Mark 21 torpedo.

  Upon hitting the water, the torpedo shed its specially-fitted wooden tail assembly, stabilizing the weapon right on course with the targeted transport ship and preventing the weapon from diving too deeply into the water. Ted fired his forward guns into the superstructure of the Japanese transport for a second before sharply pulling back on his control column and barely clearing the ship’s mast.

  Ted heard his radio operator yell out triumphantly as a huge column of water erupted into the air next to the transport. Ted’s torpedo had struck amidships, tearing a massive hole in the side of the transport. The ship was clearly doomed though Ted did see that the enemy transport was still trying to make it to the shoreline. The ship’s captain was apparently trying to beach his ship on one of the islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago before it could sink. If the Japanese captain was successful, this would enable him to still offload the troops and their cargo from onboard his doomed ship.

  For now, Ted turned back toward his base. He needed to be refueled and rearmed as quickly as possible so that he could get his Beaufighter back into the fight. He just had to worry about running into any Japanese Zero fighters along the way back home.

  Flying Officer Toby Matthews took off in his Dragonfly fighter-bomber from the Derby aerodrome and turned directly north towards the Japanese invasion armada. His wingman, Oliver Windale was there next to him, virtually glued to Toby’s wing as they both flew up into the sky.

  This would not be the first time into combat for either Australian airman. Both had spent time with Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group, popularly known as the Flying Tigers, receiving advanced combat training and actually flying combat missions against the Japanese. They also helped the Americans learn about the Dragonfly fighter-bomber as the Chinese had purchased two squadrons of the tandem-wing aircraft for use by the Flying Tigers.

  Both Dragonflies were each carrying a two hundred and fifty kilogram semi-armor-piercing bomb under their fuselage in addition to a full load of ammunition for their M2 fifty-caliber heavy machine guns. Each Dragonfly had four of the powerful weapons mounted in the aircraft nose. This gave the Dragonfly a concentrated heavy punch of long-range firepower, both for strafing surface targets and for engaging enemy aircraft.

  Toby and Oliver were part of Derby’s defending squadron of Dragonflies. The fourteen tandem-wing fighter-bombers joined a like number of Twin-Wasp powered Whirlwind fighter-bombers as the first line defenders of the air over Derby. Nominally, they belonged to the Royal Australian Air Force. But in reality, they were the aerial component of the Derby militia that Harold had produced and paid for to defend the area that he had worked so hard to develop.

  The Derby air militia joined more than two score of other RAAF aircraft responding to the Japanese invasion force. This included Bristol Beaufort bombers, Beaufighter twin-engine fighter-bombers and the classic Supermarine Spitfire fighters flying from as far away as Darwin.

  Toby and Oliver were flying at about ten thousand feet when they saw the wakes of dozens of ships below them through the light overcast. The direction that the ships were heading left no doubt who they belonged to.

  “Tally-Ho. We have multiple targets to the northwest.” Toby called out over the radio to his wingman.

  “I’m ready to fight, mate. Let’s go get the damned buggers.” An eager Oliver replied over the radio.

  “Ollie, remember what General Chennault told us about fighting the Japanese fighters. Altitude and airspeed are life. Get above the enemy. Dive down on them at full speed. Chop them up from above. Then climb back up as fast as you can and do it all again as necessary. Don’t try to turn with their fighters. We can outrun them just fine, especially in a dive. Then we get to pick when we want to fight.”

  “Roger that, boss.”

  “Looks like a Nagara-class light cruiser down there leading those destroyers. Let’s drop our bombs on her, Ollie.”

  Toby banked sharply and began to dive towards the Japanese light cruiser. Oliver followed closely behind. Their Dragonflies weren’t exactly designed to be dive-bombers. But flight tests proved that the fighter-bombers could still accurately deliver bombs using a relatively steep diving profile and their integral dive brakes. First, Toby and Oliver strafed the cruiser after beginning their dives.

  Toby dropped his bomb in the face of heavy fire from the light cruiser’s recently installed 13mm heavy machine guns and 25mm automatic cannons. A tower of flame and smoke erupted from amidships where one of Toby’s bombs hit. The bomb penetrated into the cruiser’s forward engine room, putting it out of action. His second bomb missed close aboard.

  Oliver’s bombs detonated in the water next to the cruiser. But both of the detonations were so close that they started substantial leaking from shock damage and bomb fragments penetrating the light hull plating. The cruiser was not destroyed, but slowed substantially. This would make it vulnerable to follow-on attacks by other Allied ships and aircraft.

  After dropping their bombs, Toby and Oliver pulled back on their sticks as quickly as possible to regain altitude. Immediately after they had climbed back up above the fray, Toby saw a formation of Japanese Zero’s escorting a squadron of Betty bombers.

  “Come on, mate. Let’s kill some Jap bombers.” Toby radioed to his wingman before winging over and diving upon the Japanese aircraft, followed immediately by Oliver’s Dragonfly.

  The escorting Zeros had no idea that their bombers were under attack until the tracer rounds from Toby’s heavy machine guns began to intersect with one of the Betty’s. The Japanese twin-engine bomber was quickly set ablaze and chopped to pieces. The two Dragonflies flashed down through the formation at a speed of over four hundred knots after shooting down the first pair of the Japanese bombers.

  After three diving passes each by Toby and his wingman, the Japanese bomber formation broke apart in a wild attempt to avoid being targeted again. The bombers had already lost half their number to the two Dragonflies. Toby and Oliver easily outran the escorting Zeros, especially when diving. Four RAAF Spitfires then joined the fray while Toby and Oliver started to search for other targets.

  Toby saw a pair of Zeros attempting to intercept a damaged Beaufort on its way back home. He signaled Oliver before beginning to dive down on the enemy fighters. Toby picked one of the Zeros and began to fire on it from over five hundred meters away. Even at that range, the concentrated firepower of the four fifty-caliber machine guns tore the lightly built Zero to shreds in only a few seconds. Oliver took a little longer with his target, but the result was still the same in the end.

  “Thanks, mates. We thought that we were goners for a few seconds there.” The pilot of the Beaufort radioed.

  “Glad to be of assistance.” Toby replied while he and Oliver climbed back up to prepare for another attack on the Japanese invaders.

  Toby shot down another Zero and damaged a second one, while Oliver shot down a Val dive-bomber before both of them were forced to return to base for refueling and rearming.

  The two Dragonflies touched down on the runway at Derby and quickly taxied up to the entrance of one of the underground bunkers. After the fighter-bombers shut down their engines, a large group of men burst out of the bunker and began to service the aircraft while the pilots remained seated in the cockpits.

  “How’s the fight, gents?” Asked one of the aborigines working on Toby’s aircraft.

  “It’s pretty hairy up there, Billy. But we are giving the bloody Japs a rough time of it though.” Toby told the ground crew. In addition to refueling, reloading the machine guns and attaching another b
omb to Toby’s Dragonfly, the ground crew was also busy patching more than a dozen holes in the aircraft from enemy fire.

  “We heard that the Beauforts out of Darwin lost at least half of their planes. But they sank a couple Jap transports still. The mates flying those bombers were brave as hell going against those damned Zeros.” Allen Mackin, one of the other Dragonfly pilots yelled from his cockpit.

  “It looks like we lost some of our aircraft as well.” Toby grimly answered while looking at a couple of empty parking spots where Dragonfly fighter-bombers had been sitting before flying into this battle.

  “Yea, I know. We haven’t heard anything about whether or not our pilots were able to bail out to safety. A couple of the Beaufort blokes were shot while in their parachutes by the bastard Japs though. When I get my aeroplane back up in the air, I’m going to make the Japs pay for murdering our mates.”

  “You bloody well right about that, mate. There’s going to be a lot of payback going on today, I think.” Toby said while looking at several plumes of smoke rising from Derby itself. The town had obviously been bombed or shelled by the Japanese.

  The Japanese were not simply standing still either. But, they also saw that things were not going as planned for them either.

  “I thought that the defenses here were practically nonexistent? We are taking far too many losses at our planned landing area.” Kaigun-daisa Ichiro Ono, Captain of the battleship IJN Yamashiro complained as he stood on the admiral’s bridge of his warship.

  Yamashiro had recently returned from the shipyards at Nagasaki after having been repaired from battle damage suffered during the battle with the US Navy Pacific Fleet. She had been hit nearly a dozen times by heavy shells from the American battle line and badly damaged, but had assisted in the sinking of the USS Tennessee and USS California. During the repair period, Yamashiro also received an extensive modernization to improve her antiaircraft armament. This included deletion of several of her casemate secondary guns to add two more dual purpose twin five-inch turrets and dozens more lighter antiaircraft guns.

  “I know. We need to order our ships to move to this new area here.” Pointing out a location on the map near Cape Brewster. “That should get us away from those damned guns, at least. Once we land our troops, we will move inland, destroy any defenders there, then take this area and eliminate those guns.” Kaigun-chūshō, Hiroaki Abe, commander of the Japanese invasion fleet, ordered.

  “Hai, Chūshō. What will we do with the ships that cannot make it to the new destination? There are several ships that have been badly damaged near the original objective.”

  “They will continue to push towards the gaijin industrial center. By doing this, they will divert the defenders away from where we now intend to land. All will serve and die gloriously for the Emperor, no matter where we chose to fight or the role that we play.”

  A few minutes later, new orders are issued to the Japanese invasion fleet. They begin to turn towards their new objective. Several of the escorting destroyers also lay a smoke screen to try to cover the change in direction for the formation. The radar unit in one of the observation towers is able to track the ships even through the smoke however.

  Yamashiro’s big guns continue to fire at any targets in range as she sailed along with the rest of invasion fleet’s main body. At the same time, the change of course for the Japanese fleet is reported to Derby’s defenders.

  “The Japs are moving their transports out of range of our guns, Sir. The bulk of the transports are now sailing north of Irvine Island. We got five of them though.” The Derby shore battery commander reported.

  “That still leaves another eleven known transports full of troops that we have to deal with. Obviously, they are not giving up on making a landing somewhere near here. I will have to see how our pilots are doing out there.” Major Burke responded.

  “Unfortunately, we can’t do much good against those transports at this point. We’ll stay at our posts in case something does come within our range though.”

  “Good man. Let’s pray that our mates will be successful in their missions too.” Major Burke replied as he furiously looked over the spot reports on enemy movement from aerial and ground observers. Then he and a couple of assistants plotted these positions on a large map that had been posted on a nearby wall. As he did this, a half dozen militia commanders came into the command post that the Derby militia commander now worked in. Major Burke plotted a few more points on the map before turning around and giving the newcomers a wry smile.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen. As you can tell, things are a bit hectic at the moment.” Major Burke said to a collective laugh by the militiamen.

  “Sir, that is an extraordinary understatement, I would have to say.” A young captain covered in dust from travelling to the bunker replied with a wry smile of his own.

  “Obviously, we need to get more troops and equipment over here as quickly as possible because the Japs haven’t been quite as cooperative as we would have liked.” Major Burke explained as he pointed to a potential landing site on the map to several of his militia commanders. This was already the third command bunker that Major Burke had traveled to this first day of the Japanese attack. He wanted to be as close as possible to where he thought that the Japanese would land their troops.

  “We have horse soldiers already moving there. But they are still have no heavy weapons.” First Lieutenant Thomas, one of the local aborigine militia officers explained.

  “I am going to send the gun trucks to reinforce you as quickly as possible. You still have the anti-tank rifles, machine guns and the light mortars that your horsemen can carry though. They will have to suffice for now.

  “Lieutenant Williams, can your bicycle troops make it there to assist?”

  A lanky young blonde haired man smiled at Major Burke’s question before responding.

  “Aye, Sir. We bloody well can do that. It will take us a couple of hours, but we will get mounted up to go help our mates as soon as I leave here.”

  “Very good. Be sure to take plenty of ammunition with you. I don’t want anyone running out. If your troops use their automatic rifles like they have been trained though, they will be able to overwhelm the Japs without burning through all of their ammunition.

  I will also try to see if Mister Cavill has any of those new rocket launchers ready just in case the Japs bring any tanks with them. The few of you who have had a chance to fire them know that they are quite potent little buggers to use. Of course, the Japs won’t like them at all.”

  Even with the dozens of aircraft that had been brought out of their underground hangars, the Australian pilots defending Derby found themselves significantly outnumbered by more than one hundred and twenty Japanese aircraft of all types. Most of the local militia’s pilots had never even seen actual combat before beyond those who had trained with the Flying Tigers. But the defenders, white and aborigine like, were all determined to do whatever was necessary to stop the Japanese invaders.

  Dragonflies and Whirlwind-R’s accompanied by a handful RAAF Spitfires were currently dogfighting with Japanese Zeros. The Zeros had been escorting more than fifty strike aircraft from the Japanese carriers. At the same time, a squadron of RAAF Bristol Beaufort bombers and Beaufighter fighter-bombers, piloted by brave young men like Ted Reilly and Toby Matthews, flew at less than thirty meters over the ground to attack the Japanese invasion armada. Dozens of black clouds rapidly appeared around the aircraft as shells from Japanese antiaircraft guns detonated around the defenders fighting to protect their homes.

  Harold watched several fiery comets hurling down from the skies as he watched from the front of the underground bunker. Each one of those flaming trails meant the death of one or more human beings. It hurt Harold even more to think that some of those dying aircraft and their crews were people that he and Dorothy personally knew.

  “Mister Cavill, we have reports of Japanese landings already on the coast northeast of here.” A young Aborigine militiaman reported
to Harold in the bunker where he and his family had taken refuge. The bunker also served as one of the local command posts for the militia. So Harold and his family were surrounded by a variety of militiamen coordinating operations for the various militia elements fighting the Japanese invaders.

  “You better make sure that Major Burke is aware of the situation.”

  “No worries, Sir. He was the one who instructed me to let you know what was happening.”

  “Thanks, mate. Then I’m sure that the major already has things well in hand. I suppose that the best thing that this old man can do right now is stay out of everybody’s way.” Harold said with a wry smile.

  “Send the mobile guns as quickly as possible to where the new Jap landing appears to be located. One way or another, we are going keep them under fire.” Major Burke ordered over the militia’s radio command network.

  “Roger, Sir.” The artillery company commander replied over the radio. He then immediately turned to his first sergeant.

  “First Sergeant, let’s get our people on the road. We can’t do anything more from here.” Before pointing out the new locations of the gun on a map that had been stretched out over the hood of a truck.

  Five minutes later, all eight of the truck-mounted twenty-five pounder gun-howitzers were racing towards the northeast. Following close behind were four truck-mounted one hundred and twenty millimeter heavy mortars and four truck-mounted one hundred and five millimeter caliber gun-howitzers in addition to two dozen ammunition trucks and their towed trailers loaded with even more shells. All of these vehicles used a common wheeled truck chassis that had been produced in Harold’s automobile factory. By designing and building these armored artillery vehicles, Harold had actually borrowed from the trend of the early twenty-first century militaries who began putting their artillery on large armored truck chassis for greater mobility.

  The artillerymen would soon be joined by two companies of horse-mounted infantry and two companies of bicycle troops. All of these infantrymen carried their own heavy fire support in the form of heavy machine guns, light mortars and anti-tank rifles. Once in place, they immediately began digging fighting positions in anticipation of the Japanese amphibious landing there.