An effect known as a Wilson Cloud formed over the expanding blast, an ‘instant’ fog caused by the a supersonic shockwave expanding through the air as the fireball broke into the atmosphere above the disintegrating remnants of Liberty Glo. It formed like a white dome that rose above the detonation point and eventually disappeared high above as the visible ‘ripple’ of hydrostatic shock spread outward, taking the Iowa and smashing into the locks beyond.
Several million tons of water were lifted into the air in the first second to form a terrible column six hundred yards wide that reached over a mile above the lake. As the Wilson Cloud finally evaporated, it blossomed into a great ‘cauliflower’ of displaced water that slowly reached the zenith of the blast and began to collapse back into itself. At the moment of detonation, all water within a 200-yard radius had been lifted as part of that rising column. As the rest of the lake’s water rushed in now to fill the void it formed a tsunami that rolled away from the blast site, creating waves almost a hundred feet high that swamped the Gatun Locks and killed everyone standing there in the open.
Smashed by the same fireball and blast wave that had struck Iowa, Queen Mary had at least been spared most of the same underwater damage as the eight-foot-thick lock gates absorbed most of the shock, tearing them from their mountings but expending most of its energy in doing so. The tsunami that followed however swept across the mighty liner like a giant’s hand, slamming its stern into the second set of lock gates at its stern and tearing them completely off also. As water rushed past, the 70,000-ton liner was unceremoniously dumped back into the lock behind, crashing down into the thirty-foot drop stern first and then down again into the third and lowest set as the devastating waves continued to wreak havoc and rip away those gates also.
Flooded badly and listing heavily to port, she came to a final, shattering halt at the bottom only after her ruined stern smashed into the bow of the waiting Queen Elizabeth, the impact tearing open the hull of the second ship and flooding her also even as she was battered by that same tsunami wave that came rolling down the hillsides around the locks with devastating fury.
The dam wall, against which the bomb had detonated in the first place, had lasted perhaps for the first few microseconds. The force of an underwater atomic explosion was so far above anything for which he it been designed as to be beyond comprehension, and its concrete walls had vaporised and crumbled instantly as a result. The Gatun Lake, covering an area of over 150 square miles, lay 85 feet above sea level and held an estimated cubic mile of water (roughly the equivalent of twelve months’ flow from the entire Chagres River system).
Between the dam’s breach and the shattered lock gates, all of that water – approximately five trillion tons – began to pour out across the landscape below, flooding down the lower sections of the Chagres River to its mouth and wiping away huge sections of jungle and entire settlements in its path to the Atlantic. At Colón and Coco Solo, the flooding, while less severe was bad enough for all that as a wall of water fifteen feet high swept across the town and the naval base, adding untold dead and dying to the thousands already lost in the destruction of the warships and troop-laden liners at the locks.
Yet the blast had one more important card to play. The huge ‘cauliflower’ at the top of that column – several million tons of water in itself – had collapsed back down again in the seconds following the detonation. That falling water formed a base surge hundreds of feet high that spread out from the area, rolling right over and coating everything in its path. Looking for all the world like the thick mist of a waterfall, its contents were hideously radioactive, and anyone still alive after everything else that had happened were instantly doomed to a slow, painful death by radiation poisoning as it swept over them.
Ship’s crews, naval personnel and members of the local population alike were all swamped as the surge expanded outward, enveloping the town below the locks and every nearby vessel still trapped within the rapidly sinking lake. As great as the immediate damage was in the destruction of the Panama Canal, it was the ongoing, long-lasting effects of that terrible radiation that would come to most hamper any attempt to enact repairs in the years to come.
Out on that empty dirt track, still walking toward Gamboa, Miguel Ortega and Lionel Perry first felt the shock through their feet as the ground shuddered under that initial, distant explosion. Forgetting everything they’d been warned of, both turned in the direction of Gatun, instinctively sensing that this was the catastrophe they’d been fearing. Sakamoto had been wrong however: as the blast had occurred below water level, there’d been no flash and no huge mushroom cloud to carry fallout high into the stratosphere.
They heard the rumble of it a few moments later though, soft at first but building to a crescendo as the first of the atmospheric shockwaves gusted savagely past them. The track ran right at the edge of the canal at that point, and by starlight they could see the surface of the water churning and rippling with the force of the tremors they’d felt. As they paused for a moment, the first of the remnant tsunamis swept past, now no more than perhaps three feet high, with most of its energy spent in its journey back up the Chagres.
Even so, it was sufficient to wash up across the bank and again drench their feet up to their ankles before subsiding back into the river. They stopped and stared at one another in fear once more, and as Miguel looked down at the now choppy waters of the Chagres River, he suddenly realised that the level of the water was falling quickly away, exposing more and more of the banks on either side. Whispering a soft prayer and crossing himself almost by instinct, Ortega turned and stared again into the darkness toward Gatun, somehow feeling relieved that in that darkness, there was nothing he could actually see.
11.Banzai…!
200nm NW of Kaui, Hawaii
Northern Pacific Ocean
December 7, 1942
Monday
Lieutenant Commander Tanabe Yahachi listened carefully through the headphones before nodding solemnly and handing them back to the sonar operator. Not even close to being the expert his subordinate was, he could nevertheless hear quite clearly the roar of multiple screws through the water and judging by the speed of the revolutions, there was no doubting that they were listening to a large number of warships.
“Periscope depth…!” He ordered, his well-trained crew jumping to his orders immediately and the hull creaked slightly as the boat rose slowly toward the choppy surface of the Northern Pacific.
I-168 was a Kaidai-class (‘Navy Large Type’) submarine of around 1,400 tons displacement when surfaced, fitted with six torpedo tubes (four forward, two aft), a 100mm deck gun forward and some light AA machine guns. Of standard design and layout for any conventional submarine prior to the development of the advanced and far more streamlined German Type-X U-boat, she was typical of those operating in service with the Imperial Japanese Navy at the time and was capable enough in comparison to most other conventional designs.
She’d been silently cruising the waters north-west of Hawaii for four days now, returning to the surface only to charge her batteries, replenish her air and to listen carefully for any reports from base. She did not transmit. She was under strict orders of radio silence, and there was only one situation in which her commander was to break that order… the situation they suspected had now occurred.
“No observable threats,” Tanabe observed slowly, rotating his larger search scope through a full 360-degrees and peering out into the pre-dawn darkness. Their hydrophones already confirmed there were no moving warships within the immediate vicinity, but listening alone might not detect a smarter destroyer captain drifting with the currents, one also listening for any sign of a submarine that wasn’t supposed to be there. “Surface at current heading: ahead one third…!”
I-168 rose majestically, her conning tower breaking the surface in a faint spray and surging upward as she changed over from battery to diesels with cough and splutter and a faint burst of bluish exhaust from her stern. White-uniformed deck crew
immediately appeared to man her deck gun and anti-aircraft weapons, not expecting any threat but taking precautions all the same as the commander and XO climbed out onto the bridge.
Lifting a pair of powerful binoculars, Tanabe scanned the dark waters off to the west – the direction of the ship noises they’d picked up. He smiled faintly, thinking that perhaps good fortune sometimes favoured the patient. Although dawn was already approaching, it was also just an hour before moonset and the huge, silver disc of the full moon that hung low on that otherwise empty western horizon perfectly illuminated the faint distant silhouettes of the warships they were seeking.
“Ten ships so far… range as per sonar readings: eight nautical miles…” he advised as his XO carefully noted everything down on a small notepad with a short stub of pencil. “At least three carriers… one battleship… there will be others…” he added finally, a gleam in his eyes as he lowered the glasses. “Send the message! We have them, Taka-chan… Glory to the Emperor, we have them…!”
The order was passed along, and down at the communications console, a young ensign was handed a coded message that he instantly began tapping out in machine-gun-fast Morse code.
Nine nautical miles away aboard the US aircraft carrier Enterprise, a junior radio man coming toward the end of his shift picked up the transmission and quickly noted it down, immediately bringing it to the attention of the XO; currently the ranking officer on watch.
“Whaddya got for me, Doolan?”
“Signal, sir… plain English… sounds like it’s from a fishing boat or somethin’…”
“Well,” the XO asked expectantly, hands on hips. “What does it say?”
“It reads: ‘Supplies low – fishing good – returning home immediately…’” the ensign answered, reading straight from the page he’d just written out. “Then it gives an approximate position, sir: maybe eighty miles east of us…”
“None of our business then,” his superior decided with a shrug. “Let’s just keep an ear out for any Japs in the area and hope to God we don’t find anythin’.”
The nearby US Navy task force had been on general alert since news of the Japanese Diplomats’ unexpected departure had reached the Office of Naval Intelligence the day before. Reports of what had happened in Panama had not yet come through as yet however, as those few left alive or dying in the area of the Gatun Locks had been understandably slow in bringing what was left of their communications back online after the blast and subsequent inundation. There was therefore no reason to suspect any immediate threat at that moment, so early before dawn. No one would have expected a Japanese warship to transmit openly in plain English, exactly the reason why the message had been sent in that fashion.
Some distance to the north-east, that same simple message was also received by radio operators aboard the flagship Akagi and brought immediately to the attention of Yamamoto, already up and patrolling the bridge in anticipation of the action to come.
“This is definitely one of our transmissions?” He asked sharply, his tone deadly serious. “There cannot be any doubt in this!”
“The message is word-for-word, sir,” the radio officer confirmed, holding up the pad where the newly-received transmission had been written down alongside a printed sheet containing at least a dozen such messages. “It corresponds exactly with the code allocated to I-168, patrolling this area between Nihoa Island and the Mendelssohn Seamount…”
“We know the carriers left port early yesterday,” Genda advised, standing beside Yamamoto. “They could easily have made position in that time, and would be perfectly placed to launch a surprise attack on our ships, were we to make any offensive move against Pearl Harbor.”
Yamamoto nodded slowly, his mind thinking over every possible outcome as he turned and moved across to the map table in the middle of the bridge and studied the area the radio officer had mentioned.
“A little more than one hundred and fifty nautical miles…” He mused quietly. “No more than an hour at cruising speed, and they will receive little warning if we stay low… They know we are out here somewhere, but they cannot use their radar for fear of alerting us… even if they do, we know their radars are not effective at sea level…”
“All our men are ready, sir!” Genda assured, fear and excitement in his tone as the moment of decision was now at hand. “Do you give the word…?”
Yamamoto turned and moved over to the front windows of the bridge, staring out at the growing glow across the eastern horizon. They would have the sun at their backs, making them even harder to spot, and more importantly, surprise would also be on their side. It was the moment for decisive action… for the decision either to strike for glory or run as cowards.
At that moment, the very edge of the sun itself broke above the curvature of the earth, sending its dazzling rays across the ocean and turning the wave tops into a million sparkling, golden jewels. Yamamoto allowed himself a thin smile in spite of all his misgivings. Hinomaru; the circle of the sun and the symbol of their nation: could there have been a greater omen that the appearance of that great, celestial orb at that very moment?
“Nagumo…!” He called sharply, all doubt banished from his mind now that the decision was made.
“Hai, admiral…!” Admiral Nagumo Chūichi, strike force commander, barked instantly in response, stepping forward and coming to attention with a crisp, short bow.
“Transmit to all vessels: action imminent, proceed as planned. Tell them: ‘climb Mount Niitaka’…!”
One hundred and thirty miles south-east of Akagi and the rest of the main Striking Force, a far smaller battlegroup turned straight into the wind and the rising sun as the message to proceed was received. Known within the fleet itself only by the generic title of ‘First Wave’, it comprised three carriers, two heavy cruisers and two destroyers.
Every one of those carriers had originally been designed as a battleship. Hiei, laid down in 1911 and commissioned three years later, had indeed served for many years in that role prior to a major reconstruction during 1937-38. Assisted by information and technology supplied by their German allies, the Japanese Navy had shifted focus away from a strategy based on battleships in the years leading up to the outbreak of war in Europe. Naval air power was the way of future, and Hiei was accordingly rebuilt completely as a fully-equipped fleet carrier, intended to complement the powerful carrier force the Japanese had already began to develop following the Washington Naval Treaty of the early 1920s.
Yet at 27,000 tons she was by far the smallest of the three, and despite her size was dwarfed by both her colleagues. Yamato and Musashi had also been laid down as battleships… two of the largest ever to be built and basically identical to those currently in service with the Kriegsmarine. Their designs had been changed midway through construction however and neither had ever seen service in their original intended roles.
They instead became two of the greatest aircraft carriers ever to enter service at 70,000-tons’ displacement apiece. Each able to carry over 100 aircraft, they were floating fortresses with thick steel flight decks and all the armoured protection their battleship lineage could provide. Again based on advanced German technology and theory, they were also the first Japanese carriers to introduce the concept of an angled flight deck, something that had only just come into use with new and rebuilt Kriegsmarine vessels and only the newest of Allied ships.
Rather than the conventional ‘straight-through’ type of deck layout that had seen service since the inception of the aircraft carrier during the first world war, these vessels instead carried their main landing deck mounted aft and at a ten-degree angle off the bow to port, creating a significant overhang amidships. The dramatic modification allowed for simultaneous landing and take-off operations and also prepared for the use of larger and more powerful aircraft, particularly those destined to be powered by the embryonic jet engine.
Dozens of armed aircraft were stacked across each flight deck now, the roar and clatter almost deafening as a multi
tude of huge radial engines were started almost in unison in preparation for take-off. Moved up to the forward flight deck in twos, they were launched at short intervals, each pair struggling for a moment as they left the deck and then accelerating away into the sky with large auxiliary fuel tanks strapped beneath their wings.
Two hundred aircraft in total left the decks of Yamato and Musashi, taking some time to form up into waves before all turning away and heading off toward the Hawaiian island of Oahu, 150 nautical south. It was an impressive sight to see – so many warplanes in formation at high altitude – and as the remaining aircrews from Hiei looked on, the only thing remotely strange about the scene was the fact that there were no attack aircraft within their ranks. They were all fighters: all the infamous Mitsubishi A6M Reisen (‘Zero’).
The A6M was nicknamed Zero by her pilots, the title taken from the last digit of the year of its entry into service: the Imperial Year 2600 (1940 by Western calendars). It was a fast and exceptionally manoeuvrable design created to make the most of a new and powerful engine developed from technical designs supplied by Nazi Germany of their BMW806 radial. It was the same engine that powered the Luftwaffe’s S-2 attack aircraft, a design which itself had been almost directly copied from the Realtime Wright-Cyclone R-2800, an engine that was quite ironically also currently fitted to numerous American aircraft including the F-47A Thunderbolt and the F-4A Corsair.
The BMW-derived Mitsubishi Ha-43 radial was far more powerful than just about anything the Japanese had available in Realtime, and the resulting Zero it was mated to was therefore far larger and better armoured than its Realtime namesake. Although a completely original design – unlike most of the aircraft used by Nazi Germany – it was closest in performance and manoeuvrability to the Realtime F8F Bearcat, itself a quite potent fighter aircraft.
The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3) Page 57
