Rising Sun

by Robert Conroy

  “So what now?”

  “Since they’ve started up, we can assume two things. One, they’ll do it again, which means stepped-up security and patrols, and that means your navy as well as the army. We don’t know if these guys have access to any military bases or not, or whether they’ll strike closer to San Diego or farther away. In short, we don’t know much at all.”

  Dane shrugged. “What else is new? Knowing little is standard with the navy.”

  “Same goes where I work. However, Dane, we must also assume that someone’s in charge and has to report his successes back to the Reich so they can inform the Japanese, if he is indeed trying to help out the little sons of Nippon. In order to report, he must be using the mail, telephone, or telegraph, or shortwave radio. Mail’s too slow and telegrams can be monitored. International mail can be opened, too, but don’t tell anybody that. We can have operators listen in on international phone calls, although we haven’t been paying all that much attention to calls from the U.S. to other countries.”

  “Obviously, that’s going to change.”

  “Absolutely. Therefore, we think he will start to use shortwave. If he stays on the air long enough, we can locate him, but odds are he won’t. He could set up a transmitter, broadcast for a minute or two at a prearranged time, and shut down quickly without us being able to find him.”

  “What if he uses messengers, couriers, to go back and forth across the border and send their reports from Mexico?”

  Harris paused thoughtfully. “Another good question, but I don’t think so. My gut says that would take too long, and also leave him or his messenger open to getting caught.”

  “You paint a depressing picture, Agent Harris.”

  “Indeed I do, Commander Dane. So far, we’ve told the public that this was a tragic accident that we are routinely investigating because of interstate commerce implications and all that bull-crap. If he strikes again, like at a civilian installation, and if the public realizes it’s sabotage, we could have a genuine panic on our hands.”

  Dane thought of Amanda and her friends coming down to San Diego from San Francisco. A well-placed bomb could destroy a passenger train and all its occupants as easily as a freight train. Where the hell was she, and why didn’t she make it down to him? And what was so important about her journey to California that she couldn’t tell him?

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander Lou Torelli’s new sub was a Salmon-class boat built in 1939. Named the U.S.S. Shark after a sub of the same name that had been lost earlier in the year, she carried a crew of ninety, and was larger and faster than his previous sub. She carried twenty-four torpedoes, which could be fired from eight tubes, with four each located at the bow and stern. The Shark had a three-inch gun on her deck and four machine guns to fight off enemy aircraft. Torelli, however, had no intention of being on the surface long enough so that enemy planes could either find or attack him. He’d learned that lesson transporting people from Hawaii to San Diego. He’d been lucky once. He would not count on luck again.

  Like most smaller warships, the Shark had no radar, which many still considered unreliable anyhow. Until radar was perfected, most sailors preferred a wide-open eyeball to unproven technology. Torelli was reasonably confident that no Japanese ships or planes carried radar either, although there were rumors that the Japs did have knowledge of it and were building sets. It was yet another blow to Anglo-American egos. The Japanese were too primitive to understand radar, it had been thought. Another stupid miscalculation, he thought ruefully.

  Even though fairly new, the Salmon-class subs were already being outclassed by newer categories of subs that were being built by the dozen. Soon, it was joked, subs would have to be outfitted with old tires on their hulls because there would be so many of them they’d be bumping into each other while underwater.

  He had the dismal feeling that this patrol was his punishment for complaining about the quality of U.S. torpedoes. The powers in the navy’s Bureau of Ordnance in Washington had accused him and other sub captains of incompetence or cowardice and insisted there was nothing wrong with their damn torpedoes. It was a debate that now raged far above his pay grade.

  Perhaps in order to get him out of the sight of BuOrd, his patrol area included the waters off the Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Alaska to its south. Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood had recently arrived from Australia to head up the submarine force in place of the ailing Admiral Thomas England. Torelli and other submariners felt that Lockwood was a stern fire-breather, but a man who would be sympathetic to the needs of submariners and would fight hard for them.

  The Shark was at periscope depth and creeping along to keep any wake from the periscope to a minimum. The day was gray and bleak with pockets of fog obscuring their view. Torelli wished he did have radar. In the lousy weather, the Japs could be a few hundred yards away and nobody’d know. Of course, the Japs wouldn’t either, but he was not going to risk running on the surface just so he might be able to see a little better.

  Torelli had turned the periscope over to his XO, Lieutenant Crowley, who was peering intently through it. “What do you make, Ron?” Torelli asked genially.

  “Visitors for Anchorage, Skipper. I make two Jap heavy cruisers and six destroyers all escorting at least half a dozen transports.”

  They’d spotted the enemy force a half hour earlier as gray shapes moving through the intermittent fog. The Japanese ships were well out of range and Torelli was torn between the need to try an attack and his duty to inform the brass of his discovery. He decided to do both. Catching up to the convoy was out of the question. They had too much of a head start. He would wait until they were out of sight, surface, and send off a message. After that there might be the opportunity to seek out and hit the Japs where it hurt. Right now, the Japanese commander was skillfully keeping his convoy against the shore with the warships protecting their port flank.

  Torelli did not entirely agree with Crowley. “Not only am I better looking than you, my eyes are sharper, young Lieutenant. I make two heavy cruisers and one light along with five destroyers. No, change that. I see another light cruiser. If my math is correct, that makes nine of the fuckers heading straight for Anchorage.”

  Crowley whistled softly. According to his latest copy of Jane’s, a Japanese heavy cruiser generally carried eight-inch guns. “Lord, Skipper, one of them would look great on our trophy rack, although we’d need a helluva big trophy rack.”

  Torelli didn’t respond. He had some decisions to make. If he decided that the transports were the more valuable targets; he’d have to shoot his way past the cruisers and destroyers to get at the transports. He wondered what important materiel the transports carried to make them worthy of such a strong convoy. Planes, artillery, more troops, supplies, and all of the above came to mind, and there was no way he could close the distance in time. He swore. So much materiel would soon be landed to reinforce the invasion of Alaska before he could do anything about it.

  As soon as he could he surfaced and sent a detailed message. He stayed on the surface to recharge his batteries. Torelli had the nagging feeling he was going to need them fully charged soon. Bad torpedoes or not, he wanted to strike back at the Japs.

  A couple of hours later, he got the response. The Shark was to stay and observe, but not attack, at least for the time being. The message didn’t quite say it, but Torelli felt that something nasty was being planned for the Japanese. He fervently hoped he could help out.

  * * *

  Japanese ships on patrol off the American coast could not see through the persistent fog, and they could not get too close to the hostile shoreline when the gray shapes of American ships slipped out of Puget Sound and headed north a week earlier. Hugging the shore, they’d made it to Yakutat Bay, south of Anchorage, where Alaska became a finger of land running alongside the border with Canada. The bay was dominated by Mount Hood and Mount Hubbard, and, if the weather was right, they could see the mountains and glaciers farther up where Yakutat Bay c
hanged its name to what the sailors of the American force thought was the wonderfully appropriately named Disenchantment Bay.

  There was a town called Yakutat, but none of the crew showed any inclination for shore leave in such a dismal-looking place, even if liberty would be permitted.

  Admiral Jesse Oldendorf had recently arrived from a command in the Atlantic. It was rumored that he would take over from Admiral Pye, who was under severe criticism for his handling of his part of the fleet after Pearl Harbor. The criticism might not be deserved, but scapegoats were needed, and Pye had pulled his ships back from reinforcing Wake Island. Wake had subsequently fallen after heroic fighting and Pye had been blamed for not making a strong enough effort to help. Cooler heads said Pye’s efforts would have been doomed, but Pye would still be sacrificed.

  Oldendorf’s command consisted of two of Pye’s old battleships, the Mississippi and the Colorado, along with four destroyers. The admiral flew his flag in the Colorado, in part because her eight sixteen-inch guns mounted in four turrets were larger than the Mississippi’s twelve fourteen-inch guns. Bigger is always better, the admiral had said with a smile.

  Their presence in Yakutat Bay was in the hope that the Japanese would do exactly what the Shark had reported, make a reinforcement run to Anchorage, and they had been waiting anxiously for several days. The two battleships, however old, were much more powerful than three Japanese cruisers and a handful of destroyers. Better, both the Colorado and Mississippi had recently been equipped with radar. The Japanese were supposed to be superior at night fighting, but how well could they fight in a fog? Truth be told, Oldendorf wanted very much to see the enemy face to face, but it would be just as nice, he thought, to be able to sneak up on the sons of bitches before they had a chance to react. “Never give a sucker an even break” was his motto, adopted after hearing the line in a movie.

  In single file, with the two radar-equipped battleships leading, Oldendorf’s ships slipped out of Yakutat Bay and said farewell to the thoroughly disenchanting Disenchantment Bay. They headed north, again hugging the coastline.

  Naval intelligence insisted that there were no other major Japanese warships in the area. All carrier and battleship units were well to the south, they said, and concentrated in two roughly equivalent forces, one off San Francisco and one off San Diego.

  On the flag bridge behind Oldendorf, Tim Dane shivered, and not just from the cold. He hadn’t had time to draw cold-weather gear before being sent up north, and the jacket he wore was too thin.

  “Tell me again how I got here,” Dane asked.

  Lieutenant Commander Mickey Greene smiled benignly. His face was a mass of red and healing scars and, like Tim’s, his head had been shaved, but he was upbeat. Perhaps the thought of striking back at the Japanese helped.

  “Because Oldendorf asked for you after I told him you could speak Japanese. Nobody else in the squadron can perform that trick.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “He was also impressed that you’d saved Spruance and had led that raid on Anchorage, which means you know a little about the area.”

  “Damn little and I didn’t lead any raid. I just flew along as a spectator and was as useless as when I was on the Enterprise. We flew over the Jap base at a hundred miles an hour and at a height of only a few feet. It was just a blur of trees and people shooting at us.”

  Greene chuckled. “Well, that still puts you miles ahead of anybody else.”

  * * *

  As with his impression of the Enterprise, Dane was overwhelmed by the size of the Colorado and her monstrous sixteen-inch guns. At just under forty thousand tons, the battleship was much larger than any carrier in the U.S. Navy, including the Enterprise. More than two thousand men were on her and they all seemed to have a job and know what they were doing, which, once again, was more than Dane could say.

  Dane had to admit that battleships, however obsolescent they might be, looked more like warships than carriers. Greene concurred.

  “Oldendorf’s a big-gun man,” Greene said, “but he ain’t no fool. The days of the battleship are numbered and he knows it. It’s just that we have a chance to strike back at the Japs and we don’t have any carriers to play with anyhow. I guess the Sara’s too valuable to risk right now, wherever the hell she is.”

  Greene reminded Dane that the U.S. Navy hadn’t won a surface battle since the Spanish-American War, and that the only time they’d tried it in this war, it had met with defeat in the Java Sea. Dane wondered if this coming fight would be the last naval battle that didn’t involve carriers.

  Greene continued. “Don’t forget that these are old ships, at least two decades old. Yeah, they’ve been updated, but they are still at least a generation behind the newer battleships in technology and, most important, in fuel efficiency. These two battleships are real pigs when it comes to guzzling fuel and they have to provide fuel for short-legged ships like destroyers. New battlewagons like the Washington are not only far more fuel-efficient, but a helluva lot faster and better armed. It’s too bad, but this is likely the last ride for these old warriors. Oldendorff wants to make it a ride to remember.”

  Dane had briefly met Oldendorf, who asked him to confirm that he indeed spoke Japanese and then told him to stick close to Greene. Dane’s job would be to listen to Japanese radio transmissions and try to figure out if they had any idea what was going to hit them. The admiral was in his mid-fifties and this was his first combat command. He had a craggy face that made him look tougher than he was, but Greene had told Dane that this was probably Oldendorf’s last hurrah as well as his first.

  “But two battleships against four heavy cruisers and one light? Isn’t that overkill?” Dane said.

  Greene smiled and rubbed the scars on his cheeks. He’d said he was glad to go to sea so he wouldn’t scare little kids until he got better. Dane wondered if he would be so calm about life and his future if he’d been burned like that.

  “The admiral said it would be wonderful if a couple of arthritic old battleships could give the Japs a bloody nose. Besides, my friend, the odds aren’t so well stacked in our favor. Heavy cruisers still pack a helluva kick.”

  Dane thought about the bloated and mangled bodies he’d seen floating around the dying Enterprise. “I’d like to give them more than a bloody nose.”

  * * *

  Oldendorf planned the attack for four AM, a time when it was believed that people were drowsiest and least on their guard. The American force moved in single file, again with the two radar-equipped battleships slowly leading the way up Cook Inlet.

  American observers near Anchorage had reported that the transports were unloading cargo while the warships were arrayed in a loose defensive perimeter. Ominously, their cargo was confirmed as disassembled airplanes, and were the Type 43 fighter code-named “Oscar” by the Americans. The Oscar had a range of a thousand miles and could carry a pair of two-hundred-fifty-pound bombs. The Oscars would be able to blunt future bomber attacks and hinder naval assaults like the one coming down the inlet.

  Dane was able to listen to radio chatter between the various Japanese ships and quickly confirmed that nothing unusual was happening. Chatter was in the clear and not encoded, which was normal for talk between ships. It took time to encode a message and more time to decode one; since most message traffic concerned mundane matters such as supplies and mail, very few messages were coded.

  Dane turned to Greene. “Tell the admiral that it’s the middle of the night and the radio operators are simply killing time. They think it’s funny that Admiral Hosogaya asked Colonel Yamasaki if there were any decent restaurants in Anchorage. Apparently, he inquired before actually seeing the place. One can only imagine his disappointment.”

  Greene nodded and reported to Oldendorf, who laughed harshly.

  Spotters on the hills overlooking the town reported that the transports were clustered near the limited docking space and struggling to unload their cargoes. The space was so cramped that only one transport
could unload at a time and then with great difficulty. Large ships were infrequent visitors to Anchorage.

  The destroyers were farthest out and the cruisers about a mile offshore. Two destroyers were patrolling while the rest of the flotilla was at anchor.

  “Do we have any other ships in the area?” Dane asked.

  “A sub’s been spotting for us as well, but she should be well to our north and west and lying low so she doesn’t get mistaken for a bad guy.” Greene reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package. “Here, have some ear plugs. You’re going to need them when the big guns fire, unless you want to wind up deaf for the rest of your life. And, by the way, hang on to something sturdy. The blast could also knock you silly.”

  Dane paused. The tone of Japanese radio communications had changed. Now there was the sound of worry. One of the patrolling destroyers had reported strange ships approaching through the light fog.

  “Are we in range?” Dane asked.

  “Of the destroyers that spotted us, yes,” Greene answered. “So put in the damned ear plugs.”

  Dane complied and, seconds later, the forward guns of both battleships opened fire, violently shaking the ship and, despite warnings, almost causing Dane to fall. Even with the ear plugs, the sound was deafening.

  A moment later, someone yelled that the shells were short. Corrections were made and another salvo was fired, and one of the destroyers simply disappeared. One moment she was a blip on the radar, the next, nothing. The second destroyer was racing at high speed toward the rest of the squadron.

  The cruisers were the battleships’ primary targets, while the American destroyers streaked in to rake the Japanese destroyers with gunfire and torpedoes. Each battleship carried three floatplanes and these had been launched to aid in targeting.

  The heavy cruisers had been identified as the Nachi and Maya, and the light cruisers as the Tama and Abukuma. Dane wondered how they knew that for certain. Greene told him that observers all along Cook Inlet had confirmed it. He added that some were retired navy and even had their own copies of Jane’s.