Voyages of the Seventh Carrier

by Peter Albano

  Fujita broke in. “Japan has none.”

  “True, sir. Indonesia is still your biggest source.”

  “She’s OPEC,” Bernstein said.

  “No! Kadafi has been demanding that she stop oil sales to Japan. She broke away while you were in the Med, and already strange subs have been snooping around her oil ports,” Dempster said.

  An angry rumble swept the cabin.

  Matsuhara said, “The US should help Japan. This is your war, too!”

  Dempster sighed. “With our reliance on jets and rockets, we’ve found our capabilities almost cancelled. We’re converting all thirteen of our carriers and even seven LPHs — helicopter carriers — to fixed wing capabilities. Yet, real offensive power is at least a year away. And keep in mind, we have our problems with the Russians in Western Europe, Cuba, and Central America. We can’t even honor our commitments. And there’s the matter of the moderate Arab powers, especially Saudi Arabia, which remained neutral during the recent fighting. American intervention would reunite Kadafi’s jihad and bring the Russians storming across Pakistan, Iran, and even into Turkey into the heart of the Middle East. No,” he said, nodding at Admiral Fujita, “I’m afraid you must handle this one alone. But,” he added hastily, “the CIA will give you air the assistance we can.”

  “Planes?” Fujita asked sharply.

  The CIA man smiled. “Every old pilot who ever flew in World War — I mean, in the Greater East Asia War — is eager to fly for you, sir. We’ve patched together forty Zeros, twenty-three Nakajimas, and seventeen Aichis. They’re training now at Kasumigawa. But half need engines.”

  Fujita glanced at Kawamoto. “We have them?”

  The old executive officer nodded. “Yes, sir. Packed in petrolatum.”

  “Escorts?”

  “We have seven Fletchers in Subic Bay. All are in mint condition with original five inch, twenty millimeter and forty millimeter mounts and experienced American skippers and American and Japanese crews.”

  Reaching into his briefcase, the CIA man handed a single envelope to Admiral Fujita. “For your eyes only, sir.”

  Slowly, the old Japanese opened the letter. While reading it, he pushed himself to his feet. “It is from the emperor,” he said, obviously moved by emotion. Every man in the room came to attention. After scanning the letter, he looked up. Haltingly, the admiral disclosed the contents of the letter: “Submarines have been sighted off Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and even the Malay Peninsula. It is feared the Arabs will attempt to bring Japan to her knees by staging a blockade. Self-defense forces are patrolling close to the main islands and are poorly equipped, and we all know they are useless anyway. Convoys are out of the question. We do not have the escorts. Yonaga is to return to Japan at full speed, pick up more Fletchers and make a patrol in the South China Sea. Then let the Libyans meet our Yamato damashii!”

  “Banzai! Banzai!”

  “Sir!” Kawamoto managed over the bedlam. “We are low on fuel, and our escorts’ tanks are almost empty. We will not meet our next tanker for two days and cannot steam over sixteen knots until we top off.”

  “Sacred Buddha,” Fujita cried angrily. “We need more help.” He turned to a paulownia wood shrine attached to a bulkhead under the emperor’s picture, which contained a talisman of the Eight Myriads of Deities, a Buddha from Three Thousand Worlds, and a three inch gold Buddha of exquisite workmanship from Minatogawa, and assorted icons and good-luck charms from the shrines at Kochi and Yasakuni. Every Japanese clapped twice in unison. Fujita’s voice took on reverential timbre. “Amaterasu, let us find hidden powers by contemplating the laws of the universe with reverence and introspection. In this way, we will be prepared to meet and conquer our enemy, or die facing him.”

  After a long silence, the old man turned to Commander Yoshi Matsuhara. “Yoshi-san,” he said with an unexpected fatherly warmth. “You are a poet. Give us some of your haiku — a verse to inspire us to this new task.”

  Drawing himself up, the pilot stared at the overhead, finding another place, another time. He spoke slowly:

  There is no path returning

  To the spring of my youth

  But my guns are young

  And I will sow the sea

  With the bones of my enemies.

  Obviously pleased, the old Japanese stared the length of the table, black eyes hard, voice ringing like steel from a scabbard. “Yes, Yoshi-san. The bones of our enemies. Let any man who thinks he can attack Yonaga with impunity remember we have left the bones of hundreds in our wake.” Knuckling clenched fists on the desk, he leaned forward as he reached back for teachings from his youth and spoke like a man quoting a favorite passage. “The bones of our enemies are not of this or that man, but the accursed bones of dogs.”

  “Banzai! Banzai!” the Japanese cried.

  “Hear! Hear!” came from the Americans and Bernstein.

  Fujita raised his hands. “With Amaterasu’s help, we will kill them like animals.”

  Chapter Seven

  Steaming on a northwesterly heading at a steady 16 knots, tanks almost empty, the task force finally met the tanker 500 miles southeast of the Hawaiian Islands. The CAP had been warned to be on the alert for American patrols, but none was sighted.

  “Usual American alertness,” Kawamoto snorted derisively early in the morning just before the launching of the CAP and the rendezvous with the tanker. Mark Allen and Brent had exchanged an uncomfortable look.

  Dawn had found the flag bridge jammed with the usual group of officers, all searching the western horizon for the low silhouette of the oiler. Even Kathryn Suzuki and her guard stood close to the bulkhead, staring at the horizon.

  Over and over Fujita had had the same exchange with the talker.

  “Radar!”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Very well.”

  Brent had focused and refocused his glasses as if his efforts would hasten the arrival of the tanker.

  “Ninety-six revolutions, sixteen knots, sir,” Kawamoto said to the admiral. “But we’re making seventeen and one half.”

  Without lowering his glasses or glancing at a plotting sheet tacked to a small table attached to the windscreen, Fujita said, “We are at latitude twelve. The north equatorial current is giving us an extra knot.” He waved a hand over his right shoulder. “Also, we are back in the northeast trades. They are making a sail of our freeboard.”

  “He never misses a thing,” Brent said under his breath to Mark Allen.

  “The best seaman I’ve ever met,” Mark Allen acknowledged quietly.

  The equatorial current brought moisture and moisture brought scudding patches of fog, dirtying the sky to the east where the sun climbed slowly out of a gray, lead sea. It was very red, rising like a mortally wounded warrior bleeding on the clouds.

  Finally, the call everyone hungered for came. “Radar reports a target bearing two-seven-zero true, range three hundred. Closing at slow speed.”

  “Very well,” Fujita said expansively, tension falling away like leaves from a tree in autumn. An excited murmur swept the platform, and even the sun brightened as it climbed slowly off the stern. But Brent felt none of it; instead, a mystic sense of pre-destiny filled him with ominous melancholy, a sense of unease and disquiet.

  Fujita turned to the talker. “Standby to launch. CAP, search aircraft and antisubmarine patrol. Edo One and scouts Three and Four are to reconnoiter contact.” He said to Kawamoto, “Provide the pilots with range and distance to target just before launch. Also, for their point option data, Yonaga will maintain this course and speed until fueling begins. Then we will reduce speed to eight knots.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” The old executive officer disappeared into the conning tower.

  *

  Just before noon, the tanker was sighted. “A giant,” Lieutenant Hironaka said, staring through his glasses at the low wallowing hull. “At least twenty thousand tons.”

  “Ha!” Mark Allen snorted. “She’s an old US Navy AO, twenty-t
hree thousand tons, but little by today’s standards. Some tankers displace over two hundred thousand tons.”

  Even Fujita was surprised, turning wide-eyed to the admiral.

  “Oil from the Middle East, admiral,” Allen said. “It’s cheaper to transport in big hulls.” The old Japanese nodded.

  Fujita turned to the talker. “Seaman Naoyuki, signal bridge is to call the tanker on flashing light: ‘Fuel escorts first’” And then into the voice tube with obvious distaste: “All ahead slow.” Dropping his glasses, he turned to the other men on the bridge. “We must steam at eight knots until fueling is completed, an easy target for one of Kadafi’s Whiskies. Stay alert!” Every man took new interest in his binoculars.

  “Eight knots,” came from the tube.

  “Very well.”

  By late afternoon all escorts had been fueled and the tanker moved ahead of Yonaga. “Fueling party, stand by,” Fujita shouted at the talker. “We will take aboard fuel oil and high-test gasoline simultaneously. Two block ‘Baker,’ and the smoking lamp is out.” Within minutes, four hoses were lifted from their floats and winched over the bow. Quickly, pumps began to throb, and the transfusion began.

  But Fujita, upset by the slow speed, stomped abound the bridge with the restlessness of a tortured spirit, urging everyone to renewed alertness. The dirty cloud cover closed in like a solemn gray shroud, the sea a flat dun-colored slate with only a hint of purple as a warning of approaching twilight.

  Brent had hardly noticed Kathryn’s disappearance at noon and reappearance just as the feeble sun died on the western horizon, smearing the sea with a long ruddy path of light and tracing silhouettes of humpbacked clouds with oranges and subdued reds.

  The warning came not by light and not by radio, but instead, by the firing of John Fite’s two forward five inch thirty-eight caliber mounts, and the burst of a red flare high over the destroyer. Two Aichis dove through the mists, firing and dropping clusters of bombs, explosions mixing with shell bursts.

  “Submarine!” Fujita screamed, rushing forward to the voice tube. “General Quarters!” Claxons shrieked and men rushed to their stations.

  “Splashes off the port bow of escort leader, bearing three-zero-zero, range ten kilometers.”

  “I see them,” Fujita said. “He is marking a periscope.”

  “All stations manned and ready,” the talker said.

  “Very well.’”

  A bridge-to-bridge transmission crackled through the loudspeaker. “This is Escort Leader. Periscope two-seven-zero true, range three kilometers.” And then the most dreaded words a seaman at war can hear: “Torpedoes at two-seven-zero!”

  “Bridge to bridge,” Fujita shouted. “Tanker belay pumping! Fueling party, quick disconnect.”

  “Admiral,” Mark Allen said. “There’ll be fuel oil and gasoline all over the hangar deck.”

  Fujita roared at the talker. “Forward damage control party stand by with hoses and foam on the hangar deck forward. We will take the hoses with us.” And then into the voice tube: “All ahead flank — left full rudder, steady up on two-seven-zero.”

  On the bow, two seamen pulled quick release levers, and Yonaga’s bow swung as her engines pulsed under flank power. The great steel-wrapped hoses tore away, hemorrhaging fuel into the ocean.

  The tanker had no chance. If the doomed vessel possessed any luck, it was that one of the oil tanks was hit first. But the tank was empty, filled with explosive fumes, which ignited like a hundred tons of high explosives, blowing plates, twisted frames, a derrick, winches, stacked fuel hoses, and a dozen men hundreds of feet into the air. Instantly, the stricken oiler stopped and began to settle by the bow. But her nearly empty tanks kept her afloat, burning oil spreading, the pungent smell gagging everyone on the bridge. Men leaped into the sea to be engulfed by flames, flopping like wounded seals.

  Kathryn began to whimper.

  Heeling hard over, Yonaga moved closer to the raging holocaust and the echoing thunder of exploding tanks. Brent could feel the hot breath of the immolated ship across his sweating face, and his nostrils rebelled against the assault of burning oil and the sickly sweet smell of roasting flesh. “This turn’s taking us close aboard the tanker, admiral,” Brent managed, choking down bile. “We may breach some of her burning oil, sir.”

  “We have no choice.” Fujita turned to the talker. “Fire and rescue party, drop rafts when we clear the burning oil.”

  A dozen great concussions turned Brent’s head. Three of the Fletchers, moving at high speed, were dropping depth charges and firing K-Guns while three Zeros and a pair of Aichis skimmed low over the water.

  “World War Two tactics and equipment,” Allen said, “but effective.”

  With the dying tanker dropping astern, Fujita shouted into the voice tube, “Right full rudder.”

  “That sub’s off our port bow, admiral,” Allen warned. “You’ll give him our beam.”

  “I know, Admiral Allen. But Captain Fite is keeping him occupied, and why did he attack the tanker and not Yonaga? He must be setting us up for an easy shot from another sub, which should be taking dead aim on us from out there.” He gestured to the starboard bow. He turned back to the tube. “Steady zero-three-zero.”

  Just as the carrier began to pick up speed and steady on the new course, the fearsome cry electrified the bridge. “Gyo! Off the starboard bow, range, four thousand.” The voice came from a lookout high on the foretop.

  Then, as Brent swung his glasses frantically, and with the immolated tanker only a few thousand yards astern, a torpedo struck the oiler in a half empty gasoline tank. Thousands of gallons of high test gasoline and fumes ignited in a cataclysmic explosion that rocketed the entire superstructure and a pair of twisting derricks straight up hundreds of feet on the tip of a tongue of yellow flame like Fuji-san gone mad, painting the low-hanging clouds with a panorama of orange and yellow like the glare from a new sun, great chunks of wreckage raining and pockmarking the sea in a radius of at least a mile. Brent circled Fujita’s bony shoulders with one arm while grabbing the handrail. Then the roar that deafened and concussion struck, jarring the 84,000 ton carrier like a small car ramming a cliff. Two great chunks of hull crashed close aboard, drenching gun crews with twin towers of water.

  “Torpedo? Torpedo?” Fujita gasped, pulling away.

  Brent focused, caught four white bubbling trails off the starboard beam. “Torpedoes. Range one thousand, bearing zero-nine-zero relative.”

  “Too late to comb them!” Mark Allen screamed.

  “Right full rudder,” Fujita shouted. “We cannot let them have our screws!”

  Two more Aichis dove, dropped bombs and machine gunned, but with no effect.

  Steaming at 32 knots and with her 45 ton main rudder hard over in the slipstream of the four huge bronze propellers, Yonaga heeled and turned slowly, so very slowly, toward the approaching doom. All eyes were on the quartet of approaching white streaks. Not one head was turned astern to the grave of the tanker where the oiler had vanished, leaving a great pool of burning fuel, and where a few men still swam frantically or clung to barrels, boxes, and other charred flotsam, screaming in high mindless keening sounds like steam from ruptured boilers as flames overtook them, searing flesh from their bodies and broiling their lungs.

  Leaning far over the rail, Brent saw one streak pass close aboard, then another even closer. But he knew the next two would not pass. There was a shock like the ship had struck a reef and then another, and twin towers of water spouted higher than the bridge. Yonaga shook from truck to keel, explosions and the sound of wrenching, ripping metal boomed through her tortured hull like great temple gongs. Again, Brent held the admiral while Kathryn and her guard were hurled from the bulkhead, across the platform, finally sprawling on the deck in a heap with a pair of lookouts, Kawamoto, Hironaka, and Allen.

  “Jesus,” Mark Allen said, disentangling himself and coming to his feet, “the Russians have given ’em big warheads.”

  “All ahead stan
dard course zero-nine-zero,” Fujita said, gripping the tube, shocking every man on the bridge. “Those warheads were as big as our Type ninety-three, Long Lance,” he added, awed.

  “You won’t stop?” Allen asked.

  Fujita ignored the question and shouted at the talker, “Damage control — report!”

  “Commander Atsumi reports damage, control panel shows red lights in starboard bilge fuel tanks five, seven, nine and eleven and the outboard starboard fireroom. No report from after damage control.”

  “Damn! Those gyos were set for at least seven meters — hit below our armor belt,” Fujita snapped angrily. Turning his head to the stern where a large oil slick widened, he said, “We are leaving tracks.” Blasts to port and starboard turned heads as four of the Fletchers made side-by-side runs off the carrier’s bows, dropping clusters of 600 pound charges. Yonaga trembled.

  “Admiral Fujita, you’ll enlarge the torpedo damage at this speed,” Mark Allen said.

  “Perhaps, but if we stop…” He shrugged. “But remember, Yonaga has twelve hundred watertight compartments and a double bulkhead dividing her from stem to stern. She could take another dozen of those torpedoes.”

  The talker came to life. “After damage control verifies bilge fuel tanks five, seven, nine, and eleven ruptured and flooding in numbers eleven and thirteen outer starboard firerooms.”

  “Sacred Buddha — not the firerooms.”

  Suddenly, the rail moved away from Brent’s hand. Leaning forward, he grabbed it.

  “Commander Atsumi reports the clinometer shows a five degree starboard list!”

  “Very well.” Fujita turned to Kawamoto. “We must trim ship. Do we have any empty fuel tanks on the port side?”

  “We never fueled eight and ten, sir.”

  “Very well. We will counterflood by pumping seawater into our port blisters. If we still list, flood fuel tanks eight and ten.” Repeating the order, the executive officer turned to the talker.

  Hironaka pulled a frantically ringing phone to his ear. Horror spread across his face like spilled oil. “The warrant officer in charge of number seven auxiliary five inch magazine reports the cordite store is heating. The magazine is not on fire. The heat is coming from the bulkhead astern.”