On Seas So Crimson

by James Young

  Fuchida’s men were not to be denied. Dropping their eleven weapons at almost suicidally close range, the Kates broke away to the bow and stern of the Hornet. Another of their number was blotted from the sky by a 5-inch shell from the carrier as they withdrew, but it was too little too late. As they watched the wakes approach the port edge of the flight deck, both Mitscher and Fitch realized that they had done all they could. Grabbing onto something nearby, both men braced for impact as the first torpedo found the carrier’s bow, exploding just forward of the avgas magazine. In a fluke of fate, the explosion failed to cause a massive secondary explosion or fire as water quickly rushed into the space the weapon opened. The second tin fish hit further aft, just behind the aft 5-inch magazine. The explosion snapped the two port shafts and opened the magazine and hull to the sea.

  The Hornet’s crew did not even have time to react to the two explosions before two more torpedoes arrived from starboard. Hornet, the eighth carrier to be bought for the United States Navy, had been based on the Yorktown, the sixth carrier. While this had allowed the Navy to produce the vessel more rapidly than a new design, it also meant the USN had to accept the Yorktowns’ shortcomings. Chief among these were the carriers’ adjacent boiler and engine rooms. It was at either end of these compartments that both torpedoes hit with massive plumes of water that reached almost over the carrier’s stack and island. The carrier’s lights flashed once, then went dark as the vessel’s power was knocked out. As the water from the torpedo plumes rained back onto the carrier’s deck, her crew could feel the vessel starting to slow. It was a mixed blessing to have been hit by the equal number of torpedoes to port and starboard, as the vessel started to rapidly settle on an even keel instead of threatening to capsize.

  The egress was only slightly less difficult for the Kates than their ingress had been, as the San Diego was wholly undamaged. Several of the fleeing aircraft were damaged, but only one more fell to the guns of the American task force. With the remaining Hornet fighters either engaged or forced off by the circling escort, the strike group suffered no more losses as the aircraft began to form back up.

  Watching from twelve miles away, Ensign Read felt his heart in his throat. The Hornet was clearly seriously hurt, as was the Denver. The Japanese strike had been very effective, despite the anti-aircraft fire that continued to darken the sky above the task group.

  “I counted at least three torpedo hits, sir,” his gunner, A1RC Van Dort, intoned.

  “There were four,” Charles replied grimly. While he had only limited knowledge of torpedo bombing, it didn’t take a genius to figure out four hits did not bode well for their ship. Even from their distance and in such a short time after the attack, the Hornet was noticeably lower in the water.

  “The old girl doesn’t look so good,” Van Dort said quietly, giving voice to Charles’ own fears.

  Both men should have been paying closer attention to their immediate surroundings. While it was a very human tendency to be concerned about the ship that was their home, like most inclinations the concern was potentially fatal in a combat zone. In the end, that potential was only realized in one case. Van Dort had just enough time to register motion out of the corner of his eye before a burst of machine gun fire extinguished his life. Charles did not realize his aircraft was under attack before the tail end of the same burst as well as two cannon shells shattered the cockpit canopy, sent fragments into his left arm, and shards of the instrument panel into his chest and face.

  The follow on burst struck with even greater violence, the dive bomber getting hit with six more cannon shells in addition to more machine gun fire. The Dauntless’s structural integrity was the only thing that kept Ensign Read alive. Hard hit, its engine out, the dive bomber literally fell out of the sky from ten thousand feet. Its assailant, a Soryu Zero, continued on to the rendezvous point, its pilot convinced that no aircraft could recover from that much damage.

  Stunned and bleeding, Charles managed to regain enough of his senses to attempt pulling out at two thousand feet. His controls unresponsive, Charles was only able to bring the SBD’s nose above the horizon and hit the Pacific with some degree of a glide rather than a plunge. Still, the impact was hard enough to throw Read against his shoulder straps, bounce his head off the bombsight, and hurl Van Dort’s corpse halfway out of its seat. Dazed, Read had enough presence of mind to begin unstrapping himself and stand up.

  “Van Dort!” he shouted, spitting out blood at the end of his call. When he heard no response, he turned around and nearly passed out from dizziness. Gripping the canopy’s edge to steady himself, what he saw sprawled across the rear half of the canopy was barely recognizable as a human being, much less the young man whom had flown off the deck with him a few minutes before. While an adolescence full of hunting deer and other game in rural Missouri had made Charles intimately familiar with the effects bullets had on flesh, seeing these effects on a human left him in mental shock for a few moments.

  The lurching of the dive bomber as it began to slide into the depths brought him out of it. Moving quickly and trying not to think about the carcass that had formerly been his gunner, Charles worked to free the Dauntless’s life raft from its berth in between the two cockpits. He was successful just as the aircraft’s wings slipped under, knocking him into the water. Grasping the raft tightly, he watched as the Pacific swallowed the rest of the SBD in seconds, the tail disappearing with an audible gulping sound.

  Reaching underneath the bundled raft, Charles found the D-ring connected to the automatic inflation device. Giving the ring a sharp pull, Charles was gratified when the CO2 cartridge worked as planned. Suddenly exhausted, he barely managed to pull himself up and into the raft, gasping with pain. Lying on his back, looking up into the blue sky, he could see several Japanese aircraft circling high overhead and approximately ten miles to his south.

  Just my luck, I get the anti-submarine sector that lay right across the course to their assembly point. Coughing, he spat out some blood into the raft. Looking at the red patch, he felt himself starting to drift into unconsciousness.

  Hope that…doesn’t make…sharks jump in the raft, Read thought stupidly, then passed out.

  IJNS Shokaku

  1510 Local (2010 Eastern)

  Simultaneously with Hornet’s receipt of her wounds, Air Group Eight found themselves approaching the damaged Shokaku.

  Nautilus had been slightly off in her direction guess. The captain of the Shokaku, wanting to shorten the distance between himself and Japan as much as possible, had come around to a very sharp northwest heading. Only the sharp eyes of one of the dive bomber pilots, coupled with the heavy smoke being produced by the fast running vessels allowed Commander Ring and his pilots to bring themselves into attack position, coming in from the carrier’s port side.

  Ring quickly ordered the Wildcats to descend with the torpedo bombers, leaving the dive bombers to fend for themselves. It was a decision motivated based on Ring’s estimation on which force was likely to do the most damage to the wounded Japanese carrier, especially given that she had already taken at least one hit from a submarine. Unfortunately it took away the Wildcats’ biggest advantage over the Zeroes that swarmed in like bees protecting their hive. In moments, the half dozen Grummans found themselves fighting for their own lives, leaving twelve more IJN fighters to continue their assault on the Dauntlesses and Avengers. With two of their number shot down, the remaining F4Fs dove away out of the battle.

  The Japanese fighters’ initial assault culled two Avengers from the VT-8 in exchange for moderate damage to one fighter. Lieutenant Commander Waldron and Commander Ring closed up the formation as the Japanese pilots returned for their second run. Slashing from port, the Shokaku’s squadron leader flew into a stream of .50-caliber fire. With a dead man at its controls, the Zero slammed directly into Waldron’s Avenger, both aircraft disappearing in a ball of fire. Doggedly, the VT-8 Avengers continued to press on, the Zeroes breaking away as the torpedo bombers reached the limit
of anti-aircraft range from the Shokaku and her escorts.

  Several miles above, the Zeroes that had dispatched the Wildcats joined their remaining fellows in attacking VB-8’s dense formation. Like their American counterparts, the Zero pilots did not hesitate to attack into the face of superior numbers. Unlike the Wildcats over Hornet, the Zeroes did not have self-sealing tanks or an altitude advantage. Whereas the tail gunners of the Vals and Kates would have to get very lucky to inflict fatal damage on Wildcats with their 7.7mm machine guns, each and every one of the fifty-two .30-caliber machine guns firing from the Dauntlesses were capable of putting down a Zero with a tracer round to the fuel tanks. Even worse, in the case of one of Kaneko’s wingmen, recovering anywhere in the front of the SBDs exposed the light fighters to twin .50-caliber machine guns. In exchange for killing Lieutenant Commander Couch and shooting down or crippling four more SBDs, the high cover Zeroes lost three of their number.

  The American attack, through sheer dumb luck, was close enough in timing to split the fire from Shokaku’s screen. Without an anti-aircraft cruiser or true fire control radar, the IJN’s barrage relied primarily on range guesstimation. Although damaging several of the approaching bombers, the IJN’s shooting was mainly pyrotechnically impressive versus actually effective. For the torpedo bombers, this was cold comfort, as the initial storm of anti-aircraft fire plus the final assault of the Zeroes killed Commander Ring, his tail gunner managing to flame one last IJN fighter before the fighter torpedo bomber crashed into the Pacific.

  Suddenly, a young ensign named George Gay found himself at the head of the VT-8 formation as they reached their drop point. Coolly, realizing that he was going to get only one chance, Gay maneuvered his throttles and stick to press in close to the massive Japanese carrier. Releasing his torpedo, Gay very quickly found himself hurtling by the Shokaku’s bow, his bow and belly gunners firing as their aircraft passed down the carrier’s side. The remainder of VT-8 followed his example, dropping at insanely close range then strafing on their way out.

  Far above, as Gay and his comrades were releasing their torpedoes, VB-8 was pushing over into their seventy-degree dives. Shaken by the death of their commander and Kaneko’s suicidal ramming, their net jammed by the frantic calls of the dying torpedo bomber pilots, VB-8’s attack was cursed by the squadron’s relative inexperience. Of the twenty-one dive bombers that reached the pushover point, three were destroyed before they could release their ordnance. Of the eighteen remaining dive bombers, twelve dived for Shokaku, while the other six altered their dives to attack the Tone.

  The heavy cruiser was limited in her evasive maneuvers by the need to stick by the damaged Shokaku’s side. Even so, the six dive bombers attacking her only managed one hit, a 1,000lb. bomb that hit her astern. Coming down almost vertically, the bomb smashed into the cruiser’s hull and penetrated down to the aviation gasoline storage tank. For a brief, poignant moment, the men stationed on her stern looked at the round hole, their bodies clenched expecting the inevitable blast and secondary explosion. When neither followed, there was a moment of disbelief, followed by relief, then as senior NCOs and officers administered on the spot physical admonishment, a rapid return to their grim determination in repulsing the attack.

  Aboard the Shokaku, it seemed as if the sky was an endless stream of American dive bombers for two long minutes. In the end, the twelve Dauntless’s managed to put four bombs, three 1,000lb. and a solitary 500-pounder, into the long wooden flight deck. The 500lb. bomb exploded on contact with the structure, blowing a 15-foot wide hole in the wooden timbers. The three 1,000lb. armor-piercing bombs, on the other hand, easily pierced the wooden planking, the hits marching from the bow to the stern.

  The first pierced the flight deck and detonated in the crew’s quarters forward, starting a moderate fire in a bedding and a rag locker. The damage control crews in the area had just started to move towards the fire when the second bomb found the ready ammunition for the carrier’s forward 5-inch guns. The resultant secondary convinced several of the departing American pilots that the carrier had suffered a massive ammunition explosion and was surely done for. While not quite that serious, the bomb did serve to start a white-hot fire forward and kill the majority of the forward gun crews on the starboard side. The final bomb exploded aft in the hangar deck, destroying four aircraft and killing or wounding sixty men, including twenty aircrew that had been impressed into aiding the carrier’s damage control efforts. Amazingly, the hot fragments only served to start a minor fire that was quickly brought under control by the damage control crews in the region.

  Picking himself up from the deck of his bridge, the Shokaku’s captain had just enough time to watch the wake of a single torpedo disappear under the lip of his flight deck. Cursing, he braced himself for another explosion. Like the crew of the Tone, he was pleasantly surprised by the lack of detonation, as yet more brave men were failed by the Bureau of Ordnance. The carrier, burning heavily, straightened from her turn to port and resumed their course.

  Angry, seeing the nearest flight deck issuing smoke, the Zeroes attempted to intercept some of the outbound strike aircraft. In two instances, the Japanese fighters were able to send Dauntlesses into the Pacific. However, in true man bites dog fashion, one of the Dauntlesses managed to bring its twin forward guns to bear and add one more destroyed aircraft to the horrible toll taken on the Kido Butai’s air strength.

  Then, once more, the skies were clear of enemy aircraft. Hornet’s strike had been decimated in order to place four bombs onto the Shokaku. Seeing the carrier’s flight deck holed and issuing smoke, those Zeroes with over half their fuel remaining requested the last known location of the other four carriers. Of the four fighters that chose this route, only two would find friendly decks.

  The other two fighters, as well as their pilots, would never been seen again by human eyes. Facing the pitiless swells of the Pacific, one of the men would end his own life with his pistol while staring at the picture of his wife and child. The second man would go mad from the heat and believe himself in Tokyo Bay, only a hundred yards from shore. With the actual distance to the shores of Tokyo Bay being several thousands times that, he would drown far from home.

  Hornet

  1535 Local (2035 Eastern)

  Really wish we’d paid more attention during the damage control drills, Eric thought as he stood on the Hornet’s slanting deck. Oh wait, our CAG decided that we should all remain in our ready rooms during most of them.

  “You men! Come with me!” a lieutenant commander shouted from forward of the island. “We need to push some planes over the side!”

  Seeing several ensigns and gunners hesitating, Eric stopped.

  “Come on unless you want to be swimming!” he shouted. The junior officers started moving forward, moving faster as Eric began giving them the “hurry up” gesture. Eric was pleased to see that Brown did the same for several of the gunners, if with far more profanity and a literal kick in the pants in one case. As they descended back to the hangar deck, Eric saw the lieutenant commander starting to divide men into groups of ten for different tasks. Moving forward, Eric nearly fell and realized that the Hornet was starting to slant slightly towards port.

  That’s not good, he thought. We’re also a lot closer to the ocean than we should be. Crabwalking, Eric and the airmen were directed to a spare Avenger that had crashed down from the hangar deck’s roof. Grabbing a wing edge, Eric listened as one of the usual plane handlers gave hurried instructions on the best way to move the heavy torpedo bomber. Wisely, the gathered men worked with, not against, the Hornet’s slant. As he pushed, Eric detected the faint aroma of avgas wafting back from the carrier’s bow.

  I should not be smelling avgas, Eric thought.

  “I hope we give those yellow bastards as much hell as they’re giving us,” a sailor grunting beside Eric muttered.

  “I think that is definitely…” Eric began.

  The explosion was completely unexpected and horrible in its effect.
Two separate crews, one for emptying fuel tanks and one for disarming aircraft, had been working on the Hornet’s hangar deck in anticipation of the incoming Japanese strike. The crew emptying fuel tanks had been complete in their tasks and had proceeded to their normal stations. The crew disarming aircraft, however, had been delayed by a belt of .30-caliber ammunition jammed in an SBD’s twin tail guns. They had been completing their task when the second Japanese bomb had permanently ended their efforts, leaving behind a 500-lb. depth charge surrounded by flames. The high explosives shredded the depth charge’s light case, leveling the thirty men attempting to put out the fires in Hornet’s flight deck. The fragments and blast hurled down the hangar deck, scything into the men moving the Avenger.

  Eric came back to consciousness with a left shoulder blade that felt like it was afire, pinned on his stomach to the deck beneath him. There was a moment of silence, the crackle of flames forward audible as he lay on the cold steel. The slaughterhouse smell of spilled insides and the sight of a pair of brown shoes drumming frantically before going still added to the surrealness of the scene. Then the screaming, shouting, and sound of running feet started. Reaching behind him, every move agony, Eric felt something wet and gelatinous in the small of his back.

  Oh God, he thought, then passed out.

  Several dozen feet above Eric, the burst of fire from the Hornet’s forward flight deck, followed shortly by a larger, more severe explosion from deep within the carrier’s hull was enough for Admiral Fitch and Captain Mitscher.

  “Marc, let’s get the boys off,” Admiral Fitch said resignedly. “She’s a loss.”

  Captain Mitscher nodded, his lined cheeks streaked with tears as he turned to his XO.

  “Give the command abandon ship,” he rasped. “Ask the screen to stand by to scuttle.”