by Stephen Makk
USS Stonewall Jackson.
Books one to three, plus HMS Holy Ghost.
Thanks for downloading the USS Stonewall Jackson Boxset.
Let’s get started, the engine’s running, strap yourself in and turn the page.
Stephen Makk.
***
Table of Contents
USS Stonewall Jackson.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Beneath Sunless Waves.
A Fall into Darkness.
The Kali Option.
Forbidden.
Ascension.
Grace, Collector of Evil
The Rebel.
PUBLISHED BY STEPHEN Makk in 2019
“The business of a soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, and live in camps. But to find the enemy, and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time...but such a war would of necessity, be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of prosperity and life in the end. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory, is the secret of successful war.”
GENERAL THOMAS J “STONEWALL” Jackson.
USS Stonewall Jackson series is proud to sport covers designed by Laura Read.
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Chapter 1
NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN.
One hundred and thirty miles west of Eureka, Northern California.
“RIG TRIM TO ASCEND fore and aft. Up angle fifteen degrees. Make for periscope depth.”
“Periscope depth, Sir.” The planesman pulled back on the yoke and the deck tilted upwards. The control room crew leaned to compensate. After a short time, the planesman pushed the yoke forward and the boat came level.
“At periscope depth, Sir.” All on board felt the gentle rise and fall of the ocean swell.
The submarine Seopung is a medium size diesel-electric vessel at 2,800 tons, developed from the earlier Sinpo class boats.
“Signals Officer, raise the communications buoy.”
“Sir.” The buoy streamed up to the surface held on its cable.
“What’s our position Lieutenant Rhee?” The Communications Officer read off the latitude and longitude to the Navigation Officer, who plotted it on the chart.
“Sir, datum bearing two six five degrees, point seven kilometres.”
“Planesman come to two six five. Maintain speed.”
Captain Kwon Hwan, of the Korean People’s Navy, calculated the time to the datum.
“Check our position.”
“Coming up on datum Sir.”
“Very good, coast the boat.” The revs dropped off and the boat slowed.
The Navigation Officer worked on his chart.
“Sir, we’re at datum now.” Kwon raised the periscope did a three hundred and sixty sweep.
He flipped the handles upwards and lowered the periscope.
Pride of the Navy, the Seopung an SSB (Strategic Submarine Ballistic) was ready. It was time for the ballistic missile submarine Seopung, West Wind, to announce its nuclear missile presence to the world.
“Weapons Officer ready missile tube one.” The Weapons Officer set several buttons and switches on the console he sat at, and waited for a digital display counter to reach the correct value.
“Ready for missile launch Sir. Target is T1.”
“Open tube one door.” The circular cover on the vertical tube swung open.
“Door open, Sir.” This was it, thought Kwon; please go well.
“Launch tube one.”
There was a vibration and a rushing sound from up forward as the compressed air was forced into the launch tube. The missile climbed out and upwards, broke the surface, and its solid rocket motor ignited. The Pukgukson-3 ballistic missile roared skywards on a tower of flame. As it gained altitude the exhaust gimbaled and the missile started to arc toward its apogee, the highest point in its flight. Now in space, the missile started its curving fall back into the atmosphere. In the atmosphere heat built up on the outer skin of the warhead. T1 is eight hundred and ninety miles downrange. The missile plunged into the Pacific some 1,020 miles off the Californian coast. The Seopung now streamed her communications buoy on the surface by cable.
A North Korean cargo ship temporarily equipped with a P-35M BARLOCK-B E/F-band target search radar sailed south of the expected ground zero, tracking the missile as it reached its impact point. The radar had been taken from an SA-5 Gammon surface to air missile system. The ship sent a coded signal to Naval HQ in Pyongyang North Korea and the Seopung.
“T1 has been achieved, strike confirmed,” reported the Communications Officer.
“Yes!” exclaimed Kwon, and clenched his fist.
“Close tube one door. Run the tape and transmit.”
The Communications Officer hit the tape start and transmit buttons. The tape was a repeated recording of ‘Aegukka’, the North Korean national anthem. “Let morning shine on the silver and gold of this land....”
The anthem played seven times then stopped.
“Rewind and stow the buoy. Flood forward. Open and trim vents fore and aft. Make for depth. Down angle fifteen degrees, make for depth two hundred and thirty feet. Speed fourteen knots, bearing three hundred and fifty five degrees.”
“Two eight five at seventy, speed fourteen, Sir.” The deck angled down to the bow, and the boat dived on the start of her journey back to homeport. She’d head North to Canadian waters and make her way along the coast of British Columbia. Then it would be westward, just south of the Aleutian Islands. Kwon expected the Americans to search directly west of the launch point.
THE PENTAGON.
“YES, SIR. I KNOW. YES, it’s unacceptable.” Admiral Koch sat with his elbow on the desk, his left hand on his forehead. He listened to the National Security Adviser and Chief of Defense staff taking turns to chew his ass. “No Sir, we can’t track everything. I know.” He stood.
“Sir I’m going to make sure they regret this.” There was a pause. “Yes, Sir. I understand, the ROE just got shoved up a buffalo’s ass.” He shook his head, and listened to the Chief of Defense staff, who he knew was an Air Force fighter jock, and therefore just a poser.
“I have a man in mind, Sir. He’s a plank owner.” The Admiral smiled. “That means he knows what he’s goddam doing. I’m sure the National Security Adviser is pissed Sir, but it’s time you got that monkey’s dick out of my ear and let me get on with the job. I will Sir.”
Admiral Ko
ch put the phone down. “Assholes.”
He paced the room for a few minutes, then left his office and walked into his outer office, where his private secretary Petty Officer Cindy Seebring sat working at her computer.
“Cindy, get me COMSUBPAC on the line.”
She glanced at the clock. “Sir, it is five AM at Pearl Harbor.”
“I don’t care a rat’s ass. And get me a coffee.”
“Yes, Sir.”
She walked into his office a few minutes later with a coffee. “Here, Sir. They’re getting him up.”
“Thanks.”
His desk phone rang. “Sir, I have Rear Admiral Sutton on the line.”
“Thanks.” The line clicked. “Sooty, sorry to get you up.”
“Hi, Sandy. It’s o dark hundred here. I figure it’s urgent.”
“Yeah, you’ll probably see a story on CNN today, it’ll leak no doubt. About four hours ago a Korean People’s Navy SSB launched a missile from the Pacific, it splashed down about a thousand miles north east of you. There was no warhead.”
“Jeez, that far across the Pacific? I guess it had to happen sometime, they’re obviously making solid progress with the missile technology.”
“No Sooty, the bird flew about eight hundred and twenty miles. They launched from about two hundred and seventy miles north west of San Francisco.”
“What? We thought about halfway to Hawaii would be about the max range of the new Sinpo class, and that was at a push!”
“Yeah, well we need to think that one again. The bastards launched to the north east and then stayed around to broadcast their national anthem. We can’t keep the lid on that one. They’ll no doubt be on the way back now. We have P8-Poseidons on the way. They’ll fly the likely routes searching for her. I’m going to get COMSEVENTHFLT, Yokosuka to deploy assets, it’ll be a good number of days before she’s back in their patch though.”
“I’ll get one of our boats looking out for her too.”
Koch stood and walked over to the window, he looked over the Washington skyline. “Sooty, I got my balls chewed off by NSA Stockhaisen and the Chief of Defense staff. They want ass, and they want it now. The line’s been crossed, I want you to...”
USS STONEWALL JACKSON.
(SS-582)
Ten miles west of Santa Catalina Island.
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Lemineux, the boat’s Communications Officer handed Commander Nathan Blake a communications slip.
“This just came in from COMSUBPAC Sir.”
PRIORITY RED
R 221345Z JUL 86 ZY10
COMSUBPAC PEARL HARBOR HAWAII//N1//
TO STONEWALL JACKSON
PACFLT// ID S072RQ81//
NAVAL OPS/02
MSGID/PACOPS 6722/COMSUBPAC ACTUAL//
MSG BEGINS://
PROCEED WITH ALL HASTE TO PEARL.
REPORT TO ME IMMEDIATELY ON ARRIVAL.
MSG END//
Blake raised his eyebrows, a PRIORITY RED, and from Rear Admiral Sutton himself too.
Nathan Blake, a native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas was thirty five, young to be handed command of a boat. Of medium height, with black hair and green eyes, women thought him good-looking, at least some of them did.
He turned to his Executive officer Lieutenant Commander Larry Sayers. “Larry, can you think of any reason we can’t transit directly to Pearl?”
Sayers frowned. Older than Nathan, black with a thin moustache, he rubbed his shaven head as he thought. “We’re not exactly overstocked with fresh food, but we’ve enough. If we have to, we can always go on rations for a couple of days. I think we’ve just enough, anyway. Plenty of diesel.”
“Acknowledge the signal Comms; then rewind the buoy.”
“Ok. Kaminski, plot us a course to Pearl.”
“Aye Sir.” She worked on her plot board for a minute. Lieutenant Nikki Kaminski had quite a following among the male crew members, thanks to her fair hair, which she wore pulled back in a pony tail, bright blue eyes, and trim but curvy build. She was a Ring Knocker; that is a graduate of the Naval Academy, but one with no airs and graces and very competent. Nathan knew she’d get her own boat one day.
“Two fifty five degrees, Sir.”
“Maintain depth, come to two fifty five degrees. Speed twenty five knots. Larry, descend to two hundred feet when we come alongside San Nicolas Island. I’m going to get some bunk time.”
Sayers nodded. “Right Sir.”
Nathan walked aft to his small cabin and took to his bunk.
USS Stonewall Jackson was a new boat. She’d just carried out her shakedown cruise and come through the Panama Canal to her home base of Kitsap in the Puget Sound, Washington state. She’d been on exercise with three frigates when the call had come through.
She was the USN’s first diesel-electric boat in a long time. The USN was an all-nuclear submarine fleet, but it was aware that in any conflict it would likely have to face diesel-electric boats. They’re powered by diesel on the surface, and able to charge their large powerful batteries there for underwater propulsion and use. These boats are generally slower and more limited in the time they can spend underwater. But, they’re generally quieter and equipped with the same weapons. If a wire-guided torpedo strikes you, it doesn’t much matter what type of boat launched it. The USN exercises against this type of vessel whenever it can. A Swedish Navy boat, the Gotland and its crew, had been hired long term as the Navy’s own pet diesel-electric boat for training. In 2005 the carrier USS Ronald Reagan sank after multiple torpedo strikes. This fortunately was an exercise, despite making multiple attack runs on the Reagan, the Gotland was never detected. The submarine was said to run rings around the carrier task force, demoralising USN ASW specialists.
How? The Gotland uses batteries or an Air independent Propulsion system when on the prowl. No engine with rotating parts creating noise. On AIP the Gotland can remain submerged for two weeks at an average of six MPH, surges are possible to 23 MPH.
So, slow but almost unseen, a lethal combination. Japan’s Soryu uses Lithium Ion batteries instead of an AIP, a significant advance.
The Navy watched and learned, a partnership and joint development with Japan was formed and came up with a tool they didn’t possess: their own diesel-electric boat. First in the class is the Stonewall Jackson. She is the most powerful and silent, the most deadly diesel-electric boat ever to patrol the deeps, and she was Nathan’s command.
THE BOAT HAD COMPLETED the long transit to Pearl, and Nathan stood at the conn. “Planesman, up angle fifteen degrees come to periscope depth.” The deck angle tilted up at the bow. Then levelled.
“Periscope depth, Sir.”
He looked into a monitor at his station. He selected full rotation from the touchscreen. The scope raised itself, did a brief 360 rotate and then lowered itself. Nathan looked at the view on screen and rotated the view; all clear. He could pick off the bearing, range to any targets, and zoom in if necessary. The scope could switch to night mode if needed. The boat was three miles south of Hanauma Bay, around ten miles from Pearl. He’d come around Diamond Head and into the base.
“Surface the boat.”
The USS Stonewall Jackson broke surface on a bright sunny morning with a moderate following sea.
“Crack the hatch, COB.”
“Aye, Sir.”
Chief of the Boat was the senior enlisted man aboard, in charge of all enlisted men, watch station assignment, racking assignments, and crew discipline. He was indispensable and could train, blame, curse and chew ass. The boat’s COB was Seamus Cox. He didn’t mind being called Dick. The COB climbed the sail and opened the hatch to let in some fresh air. He stayed upstairs for several minutes; Nathan didn’t object to his little luxury.
Once tied up alongside at the quayside, Nathan left the boat and walked to the office building and entered COMSUBPAC’s outer office.
“Hi,” He checked out her name badge, “PO McFadley. I’m here to see Admiral Sutton, Nathan Blake.”
“Yes
, Sir, go right on in.”
Nathan knocked on the office door and entered. Sutton was sitting at his desk, behind piles of paperwork and a model of an Ohio class Boomer. A Boomer was an SSBN; Ship, Submersible, Ballistic Nuclear; a nuclear missile boat. The USS Nevada had been Sutton’s last sea-going command.
“Blake. Good to see you. Coffee?”
“Thanks, Sir.”
Sutton poured two coffees and sat. “All well with Jackson?”
“Yes Sir, she’s had a few minor teething issues, but nothing serious.”
Rear Admiral Sutton sipped his coffee then set it down on his coaster and stared fixedly at Blake. “We need you to carry out a mission for us. You probably haven’t heard about it, but Kim Jong-un has been up to his tricks again....
.... So, there you have it.
Not exactly good news. The bastard can sit off Northern California and drop the good news on Seattle, San Francisco, LA and San Diego. The Sinpo-3 class has four tubes forward of the sail, each with a Pukguksong 3 missile in it, so he can take a dump on all those cities.”
“It’ll be tough to catch him now, Sir.”
“I know, we have P8-Poseidons up there flying around searching, they’ve had a few possible contacts but nothing firm. COMSEVENTHFLT is deploying an SSN, the USS Key West, out from Guam. She might find it.” Sutton leaned forward. “We have permission from the White house to sink her. POTUS is pissed as all hell. We’re ROE free, so your mission and Rules Of Engagement are to sink the enemy boat and any enemy boats or ships you encounter. Not only that, but you’re to seek them out and sink ‘em. Blake, you are officially weapons free. You lucky bastard.”
Nathan tried to keep his mouth shut. This was amazing. The first real cruise and he’d not been told that he may see action. He’d been told to seek it out.
“I see, Sir. But why us? There are many more experienced Captains and crews.”
“Because Stonewall Jackson is the stealthiest boat in the fleet. Also, she’s led by the ballsiest young Commander we have. Get out there Blake, and sink the bastards.
