by James Young
The flash and blast from Houston’s guns swept across Battle Two like a giant’s breath. The glass portholes, removed and placed in their holders, all shattered as the heavy cruiser shook with her first broadside of the war.
Temporarily stunned, Jacob attempted to blink away the bright dots still clouding his vision. Beside him, Chief Petty Officer Roberts, Battle Two’s non-commisioned officer in charge (NCOIC), swore loudly as he staggered around partially blind. Sticking out a hand, Jacob steadied the shorter, heavyset man until the NCO had regained some of his night vision. The sulfuric smell of expended black powder washed over them as Houston passed through her own gunsmoke, the heavy cruiser’s thirty knot passage making the passage mercifully brief. Even so, Jacob felt this throat burning and fought the urge to cough.
Dammit Sloan, you better have fucking hit what you were shooting at, Jacob thought angrily.
Lieutenant Commander Sloan, had selected the Amatsukaze as his target. As the Houston’s 5-inch guns continued to lay starshells at a rapid rate, the turning Japanese destroyer had been a clear target in his sight. With the range at slightly under 10,000 yards and all three turrets able to bear, Sloan had made the decision to clear his nine guns of armor-piercing (AP) shells so that the next blast could be the more useful high explosive. Unfortunately, Amatsukaze made a fortuitous last minute turn that caused the first salvo to land barely a hundred meters short.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Sloan muttered disgustedly, bringing nervous looks from the director’s other occupants. Can’t even hit a damn destroyer at ten thousand yards, the blonde, handsome gunnery officer thought to himself.
“Hot damn, look at Boise!” someone shouted from the lookout station below. Sloan did not flinch from his sight, continuing to track the rapidly evading Japanese destroyer as he waited for the Houston’s gun crews to reload.
Even as Amatsukaze was dodging the Houston’s fire, the Yukikaze finally met her end. Firing as the range closed through eight thousand yards, the Boise’s eighth salvo found the destroyer’s forward magazines. With a bright initial flash, followed by a thunderous explosion the 2,500-ton destroyer and her 240-man complement ceased to exist in a corona of debris. Every man who watched the fiery demise of the Yukikaze aboard the Allied ships broke out in a spontaneous cheer. For one vessel, these cheers were suddenly broken off by explosions.
The three Japanese destroyers had unleashed twenty-four Type 93 torpedoes upon their initial sighting of the Allied force just under five minutes earlier. With a top speed approaching fifty knots and the Allied column turning towards them, the weapons had closed the intervening distance far more quickly than the Allies would have expected. Nearly wakeless, the 24-inch weapons carried warheads designed to eviscerate a full-sized battleship with one blow, nevermind the gaggle of cruisers and destroyers they faced that night.
For the majority of the Allied force, the horrible angles the Japanese torpedo officers had chosen made the chance of hits very slim. Australia’s turn to unmask her full broadside and errors made by terrified torpedo crews still shaken by sudden aerial assault all combined to worsen these odds. However, even bad percentages were still greater than zero. The bulk of the Yukikaze’s hastily fired torpedoes passed astern of Houston and Exeter. The latter’s lookouts, startled by seeing detonations in their wake, had just shouted a warning to the bridge when the Tokitsukaze’s spread found the Perth.
In his haste, the Tokitsukaze’s torpedo officer had failed to put a proper angle between the torpedoes. As a result, the eight fish from the destroyer had barely fanned out as they set upon their runs. Had he misjudged the Allied line’s speed this would have resulted in a complete miss. Unfortuantely for the Australian cruiser’s complement, it was not their Japanese counterpart’s night to be unlucky. Three of the Type 93s intersected with the Leander-class cruiser’s port amidships. The Electra and Exeter were treated to the spectacle of three almost indeterminate explosions that killed every man in the vessel’s aft engine room, destroyed the bulkhead between that space and the boiler room behind it, and broke the cruiser’s back. Steaming at thirty knots, the damage forced the Perth to tear herself apart, splitting in two just aft of her second funnel. The aft portion, almost open to the sea its entire length, sank in moments. As the stern went under, witnesses aboard the Electra saw the cruiser’s screws still turning at full revolutions.
The forward section, ablaze towards its aft end, gradually lost momentum. As the Electra put her helm over to pass Perth’s remnants to starboard, the mangled, burning section began to slowly roll to port as it settled. In the half light of the blazing fuel oil pouring out into the surrounding ocean, Electra’s crew were treated to the ghastly spectacle of men racing up the sinking light cruiser’s side. With a roar, the maimed vessel’s ‘A’ turret fired one last blast to port, the shells smacking into the water barely eight hundred yards away.
“Exeter and Electra report Perth has been hit by a submarine!” Teague screamed. “Exeter has been near-missed!”
“How bad is Perth hurt?” Jacob asked, fighting to keep his voice calm while fixing the excited young sailor with a baleful gaze.
“She’s blown in half, Sir,” the talker replied, much quieter but visibly shaken.
“Goddamit Teague, she who?!” Jacob barked.
“Perth, Sir,” Teague said, visibly shrinking under his own helmet. “Exeter and Electra report she went straight down.” A moment’s pause. “The Whipple and Peary are being directed to search for the submarine and pick up survivors.”
Jacob nearly lost his footing as the Houston suddenly lurched to port. Gazing at the helm indicator, he belatedly realized that Battle-2 was bathed in light, the deck outside clearly visible.
Starshells! Jacob thought, just as the Houston’s forward turrets thundered at the Amatsukaze. Jacob fought the urge to try and hide from the illumination rounds. Instead, he turned his head around as he heard several cheers from the closest 5-inch gun crew.
Sloan’s sixth salvo had finally found paydirt. Almost carrying over, one of the cruiser’s 8-inch shells hit the Amatsukaze’s No. 2 funnel. Detonating with a bright flash and sparks, the high explosive shell spewed a scythe of fragments into the aft torpedo mount just as the crew was completing reloading. Through some miracle, the mount remained serviceable. Its crew, however, suffered the usual fate of men caught in the open by artillery, their screams carrying across the destroyer’s deck.. The Japanese vessel lurched under the impact, funnel smoke pouring back down into her engineering spaces seconds later. Coughing and sputtering, the men tried to doggedly continue working on their tasks.
Amatsukaze’s captain, feeling his ship staggered by the hit, struggled to keep his face calm.
“Sir, should we switch shells?!” his gunnery officer called down the voice pipe.
“No! Continue to fire starshell!” the destroyer captain responded. Any moment now, he thought.
“Why is that bastard firing only star shell?” someone asked on the Australia’s bridge.
“It’s not like it’s needed with the Yanks firing!” came the response from another talker.
The Commonwealth cruiser had quieted her own guns in order to avoid interfering with the Boise and Houston as they engaged the two Japanese destroyers. While their less disciplined American lookouts had done everything but break out the popcorn for the show, several months of fighting in the Mediterranean had made the Australia’s crew a little more disciplined.
“Ships! Three enemy ships to three points off the port bow!” the young rating sang out.
“Hard a port! Watch for torpedoes! Guns, engage enemy vessels to starboard!” Captain Fitzpatrick barked as he ran across the Australia’s bridge. Leaning down towards the sighting glasses on the bridge wing, Fitzpatrick saw the two enemy vessel’s wakes clear as day even if he could not make out their shapes. A few moments later, Australia’s starboard secondary guns began firing even as the cruiser’s four turrets began turning to bear on the new targets.
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��Sir, Australia reports enemy ships to starboard!”
“What?!” Jacob asked, turning to Teague. His question was lost in the Houston’s guns firing their next salvo.
Commander Sloan had begun to figure out the Amatsukaze’s evasive patterns. Out of the nine shells from Houston’s broadside, four were near misses that completed the slaughter of her torpedo crews, knocked out her No. 1 turret, and began leaks below the vessel’s waterline. Two more shells hit the cruiser, destroying her steering room and starting a bunkerage blaze amidships. With water pouring into her stern and her helm no longer answering, the Amatsukaze began to slow, carrying on in a straight line.
The Amatsukaze’s travails were minor compared to that of the Tokitsukaze. Even as Houston was hitting the former, Boise found the range to the latter with a 6-gun half salvoes. Seeing that most of his shells hit, Boise’s gunnery officer immediately began rapid fire with both port secondaries as well as the six-inch guns. While gun malfunctions had robbed him of three weapons, it still meant that the light cruiser was throwing four salvoes every sixty seconds. Even as Australia was throwing her helm hard to port and warning of additional vessels, the Tokitsukaze was hit by first two, then three more shells.
With the first two shells, one to the gunnery director and the other to the engine room, the destroyer ceased to be an effective fighting unit. The next three, hitting the rudder controls, blasting a massive hole in her waterline, and, finally, detonating the torpedoes being reloaded in her forward banks, caused the the destroyer to cease being a ship. With a bright white flash, the barely two-year-old destroyer broke violently in two, her demise condemning seventy-six more men to the embrace of the South China Sea’s marine life.
“Australia just turned to port!”
Jacob gestured for the TBS headphones, wanting to hear what was going on himself. What he heard chilled his heart.
“Torpedoes! Torpedoes to starboard!”
Captain Takahiko Kiyota Nachi’s master and the senior officer present, had immediately responded to the late Yukikaze’s initial sighting report. The man’s first order had been for all gunners aboard the two heavy cruisers to cease engaging airborne targets. The second was to shut off their search lights. His third had been for all three ships to reverse their northern flight away from Jintsu and come to a generally eastern course while he assessed the situation. The fourth and final order directed all destroyers vessels except for the Hatsukaze and Miniguomo away from the blazing Jintsu and onward to the attack with the intent of catching the large Allied force between two pincers.
Three minutes before Australia’s lookouts had sighted the two heavy cruisers and the accompanying Natsushio, the trio of IJN ships had launched their torpedoes at the targets illuminated by the Amatsukaze and Karushio’s star shells. The three vessels had then angled slightly to port on a course that would bring them parallel to the enemy line at a range of roughly ten thousand yards just as their torpedoes were impacting. Seeing the Boise’s shape outlined in the flash of her own guns, Kiyota believed himself to be facing a Colorado-class battleship and had ordered all three vessels to concentrate their torpedo fire accordingly. It was only after Nachi’s gunnery officer had repeated the target’s speed that the senior officer had realized his error. It was as he was giving counter orders to the destroyers approaching from the southwest that Australia made her sudden turn to port and began engaging the Natsushio with her secondaries.
“Illuminate targets! Target the third vessel!” Kiyota barked disgustedly. “Open fire!”
Unfortunately for Kiyota’s intent, two things disrupted his perfectly planned pincer. First, the Jintsu suffered several secondary explosions as her fires finally set off torpedo warheads amidships. This event, startling in its ferocity, allowed to the lookouts aboard the Whipple and Peary to see the approaching trio of Japanese destroyers that had previously attended Jintsu. Frantically signaling a warning both visually and over TBS, the duo of American four-stackers surged forward to engage their opposite numbers. The Jupiter and Encounter, having just passed the Perth’s foundering bow, also turned to port and began to close with the approaching IJN vessels.
“Enemy destroyers bearing two oh oh!” Teague shouted, just as Nachi’s searchlights swept over Battle Two.
Jacob had a brief instant to register the report and attempt to see the chaotic plot in his head before the Battle of the South China Sea degenerated into barroom brawl rather than a controlled sea battle.
The crew of the Boise, suffering target fixation as their guns switched to the Karushio, took precious moments to react to the Australia’s sighting message and sudden turn. Realizing the Australia was not as nimble as his newer ship and fearing a collision should he immediately put his helm over, Boise’s captain resolved to wait until his vessel reached the area where Australia had begun her emergency turn. With his bridge awash in the intense white light of the Natsushio’s searchlights and the enemy cruisers having just presented themselves, it was reasonable to assume the light cruiser had the thirty or so seconds to wait. Unfortunately, as the lookouts finally spotted the nearly wakeless Type 93s’ to starboard, the man had enough time to realize it was an incorrect choice based on his vessel’s own armament and a peacetime mentality.
The Boise was the target of over thirty torpedoes. While the vagaries of night targeting, her changed course, misjudged speed, and pure dumb luck made the overwhelming majority of these weapons miss, the light cruiser’s fate was almost pre-ordained. The first tin fish to merge with her was set for a battleship’s draft, passing underneath the light cruiser’s three forward turrets. The second tin fish, hastily and improperly handled during reloading drills when the Nachi had been departing Cam Ranh Bay, hit with a dull thunk that was audible throughout the light cruiser’s forward half. Less than ten seconds later, Myoko’s first torpedo ripped open Boise’s No. 1 fireroom, killing all hands where they stood. The blast threw almost every man aboard the cruiser off their feet. The lights flickered once, then went out throughout much of the ship, causing panic among the crew of the adjacent compartments as water began flooding into the engineering spaces. As old hands and petty officers began restoring order, yet another torpedo speared the light cruiser’s bow, shaking the entire vessel and completing the process of knocking circuits askew in her main generator room. Hard hit, unable to fire or steer, the light cruiser began to come to a stop with a fire beginning to glow in her midsection.
The remainder of the Japanese torpedo salvo continued through the Allied formation, with two of the Type 93s passing just forward of Houston while three detonated in the heavy cruiser’s wake. Feeling the vessel shake, Jacob ran to the starboard side of Battle Two to look behind the vessel. To his surprise, Jacob realized that the Exeter was no longer behind the Houston, and that his vessel’s own 8-inch guns had almost completed swinging to starboard. Ducking back inside Battle Two’s hatch, Jacob turned to ask the talkers a question just as all hell broke loose.
Seeing that their salvo had only crippled one target and completely missed the other, the Nachi group suddenly found themselves with a tiger by the tail. Aboard the Nachi, Kiyota had a brief moment of indecision as he first ordered the main battery to fire at the Houston, then countermanded his order and ordered the guns to fire on the Boise and the cruiser’s generators to begin making smoke.
The Boise, heavily damaged by her torpedo hit and slowing, was all but sitting duck. Her crew had just begun responding to the disemboweling torpedo attack when the Nachi’s searchlights swiveled to illuminate her in stark relief. Firing on manual control, the American cruiser’s starboard 5-inch guns managed to get off a hurried volley at the lights before the Nachi unleashed a full ten gun broadside at her. While not the virtual machine-gunning that Boise had delivered to her two victims, the heavy salvo was tightly grouped due to the Japanese Navy’s Sokutekiban device. As a result, all ten shells either near missed or hit the light cruiser in a forest of waterspouts and cacophony of dull explosions that sliced the cruiser�
��s forward funnel in half, blinded her aft director, killed many of the secondary battery’s crews, and jammed the No. 5 turret with a hit to the barbette. Wallowing from her torpedo damage, the Boise’s guns remained silent as her crew fought to save the vessel’s life.
For the Myoko, trailing astern of the Nachi, the gunnery officer had lost sight of the Australia, which was masked by the burning Boise. Switching to the Houston as Nachi’s first broadside thundered out, the Japanese commander was startled to see the American cruiser’s own 8-inch guns turning towards the Nachi. Hurrying his shot, the officer put his first salvo over two hundred meters short of the Houston.
The beauty of night combat was that searchlights worked both ways. Even as his own ship was lit up like King Kong on the Empire State Building, Lieutenant Commander Sloan took aim at the heavy cruiser battering the Boise. At under eight thousand yards and closing thanks to Captain Wallace’s aggressive decision to turn towards the enemy vessels, Sloan made a quick range estimate and fired the six guns loaded.
The broadside was on for range, but Sloan had misjudged the Nachi’s course. As a result, only one 8-inch shell hit the IJN vessel. Streaking in like a meteor from the starboard bow, the shell pierced the Nachi’s thick belt and detonated with a low order explosion in A turret’s handling room. Miraculously, none of the Japanese cruiser’s own shells exploded in a sympathetic detonation, although every man in the compartment was killed by the resultant powder fire and fragments. High up in the vessel’s director, the Japanese gunnery officer felt the slight tremor and realized that he was shooting at a sitting duck when another American vessel was trying to kill him.
