With their own tanks mostly still full and with no excess weight or drag to hold them back, the remaining fighters of the First Wave fell upon the leading squadrons of TF.16’s attack force with a brutal lack of mercy. Howling in straight out of the sun, the Zeros were hitting their prey before any warning could be relayed from the mainland regarding news of the breakaway group. The attacking American force numbered over three hundred planes however of those, only one hundred and twenty were fighters; a number that closely matched that of the attacking A6Ms.
They crashed through the formations of escorting Corsairs, destroying a dozen or more in their first passes before powering away skyward again in classic hit-and-run tactics. The F-4A’s followed, again powered by identical Wright-Cyclone engines and again closely matched to the Zero in performance and agility. The US Navy pilots congratulated themselves in their protection of their accompanying attack aircraft as the Zeros roared away skyward again, drawing the Corsairs with them in hot pursuit. Their job was to protect their charges, and that appeared to be exactly what they were doing as the blue-painted F-4As chased after their gull-grey quarry, completely unaware that allowing themselves to be drawn away from the attack aircraft was exactly what the Japanese pilots were after.
As radio reports of engagements on both fronts came back to the command centre on Yamato, the order was given for Hiei to launch the remaining fighters still waiting patiently on her flight deck – those at least that weren’t already circling about overhead on BARCAP. Every single one was up and ready to pounce by the time the oncoming waves of low-flying American aircraft were picked up on the fleet’s radar at a range of ten or twelve nautical miles. Sixty more A6Ms turned in and powered westward toward the attacking horde of A-1B Skyraiders.
Designed and built by Douglas, the Skyraider was an exceptional attack aircraft that in Realtime would have had a long and versatile service life following its first flight at the end of the Second World War. Almost identical in this era to the Nazis’ S-2 strike aircraft, it had replaced the Grumman Avenger and SBD Dauntless for carrier-based torpedo- and dive-bombing roles respectively.
Big and tough and able to take a great deal of punishment and still keep flying, a full-laden A-1B was nevertheless no match whatsoever for an A6M and their ranks were broken apart as the Zeros tore through them. Sixteen squadrons comprising almost two hundred aircraft, the US attack waves were decimated by swarms of Japanese fighters, each pilot diving in behind a target and shredding it with fire before powering away again to higher altitude.
Here or there, one of the Skyraiders’ rear gunners would pick off the occasional Zero in return, but it was never going to be enough to keep up with their own losses as the American pilots were in most cases forced to dump their own ordnance and manoeuver wildly in their attempts to save their own lives. The handful of A-1Bs that eventually made it through that curtain of fire with their offensive loads intact and were able to carry on with the attack were blown from the skies within sight of their targets by the masses of anti-aircraft weaponry fitted to the heavy cruisers Agano and Myoko.
Both had intentionally placed themselves between the carriers and the oncoming American bombers with a pair of destroyers in support, and both had had their complement of AA guns significantly upgraded prior to embarkation on this special mission. Streams of 25mm and 40mm cannon fire rose into the sky to seek out the attackers, bolstered by the puff of proximity-fused shells from heavier 76mm weapons in smaller numbers. Not a single aircraft made it through that curtain of fire, most pilots flying too low for there to be any chance of bailing out as they spiralled into the water in flames of were simply blown apart by a wall of gunfire.
Some distance to the north-west, Lieutenant Commander Suzuka Mitsuo kept his own Zero low above the surface of the waves, surrounded by hundreds of his fellow fighter pilots as they drew ever closer to the American carrier fleet. News of engagement between the First Wave and the US Navy squadrons had already reached them, and there had seemed no need for secrecy from that moment on. Akagi had picked up the American radar emissions a few minutes later and immediately relayed the exact position to their pilots, still a hundred miles or more out at that stage.
They flew on at low-level, intending to give the enemy as little warning as possible and allowing their attack squadrons their best chance of getting at the carriers. None knew exactly how many defending fighters they might be facing, however they were assuming the worst: that they would be up against a mass of enemy aircraft, all prepared to defend their ships with their own lives if need be. Suzuka would do no less were the roles reversed, and he naturally expected his opponents would act in the same manner.
The first waves of approaching Japanese aircraft were spotted at fifty miles out, picked up by a lone pair of F-4A Corsairs on BARCAP to the north-east of the fleet. Calling in a detailed contact report, they both indeed ultimately sacrificed their lives quite selflessly by diving in to attack, two defenders against three waves of almost five hundred attackers in total. Diving in fast from high altitude, the pilots to their credit managed to shoot down four Nakajima torpedo bombers between them before being pounced on and obliterated by no less than a dozen escorting Zeros, Suzuka among them.
The secret was out now, with no further chance of surprise. Almost as one, the almost endless waves of fighters and bombers began to climb to altitude, preparing themselves both mentally and physically for the huge battle that was now just moments away. Auxiliary tanks fell away below as all switched to internal fuel, already clearly able to see the American fleet in the far distance, spread out across several square miles of clear, blue ocean.
“All units free to engage,” Suzuka advised the squadrons under his command. “Reisen; protect the bombers – that is your only objective: they must reach their targets. Bombers, remember: your primary targets are the carriers… ignore anything else until the objective is obtained… For the Emperor! Banzai…!”
“Banzai…!”
“Banzai…!”
“Banzai…!”
“Banzai…!”
A chorus or identical responses echoed back to him over the radio as fighter pilots called out that traditional cry of “Ten thousand years…!” and charged their machine gun and cannon, while bomber crews prepared to release their ordnance.
One hundred and forty-four torpedo-laden Nakajima Tenzan bombers swooped down again to lower level in their three waves, levelling out at just a few thousand feet above the water as they sought a more suitable altitude to release their weapons. In contrast, the accompanying D4Y Shusei dive bombers continued to climb with the fighters, seeking higher altitude from which to plummet down upon their targets in near-vertical dives to release their own bombs with pinpoint accuracy.
As the remaining American fighters already in the air all immediately vectored in toward the approaching attack, deck crews worked quickly to launch the rest of the few fighter squadrons that had been held in reserve; to launch everything they had. Up on the bridge of Enterprise, Spruance and the rest of his command staff could now clearly see the mass of enemy on their radar screens and already knew that that everything wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
It took perhaps ten minutes for swarms of Zeros to wipe out the two dozen Corsairs that rose to meet them. They lost quite a few of their own into the bargain however a few dozen fighters or attack aircraft shot down was no more than a tiny fraction of the almost five hundred currently heading in. Now without any creditable fighter protection, the defence of the fleet now lay squarely on the gun crews that stood at its anti-aircraft mounts.
Heavy flak from 5-inch DP guns mounted on most of the US fleet’s larger vessels reached out for the attackers at a range of about eight miles with proximity-fused shells, the black, cotton-like puffs filling the air with shrapnel that managed to at least thin the first ranks. The shells were powerful and quite effective, but there simply weren’t enough of them to go around, and their relatively slow rates of fire meant that most of the att
acking force slipped through the rain of shells they were pumping into the air.
As a few dozen fell in smoke and flame, hundreds flew on toward their targets, smaller but much faster-firing weapons joined the fray as 3-inch automatic guns in single- and twin-mounts sent a hailstorm of 76mm shells into the sky, each also equipped with its own deadly proximity warhead. Devastatingly effective against fast-moving aircraft, they took a far heavier toll as the enemy came on, cutting huge swathes through the Aichi D4Ys as they reached their optimum altitudes and began to roll over and dive down upon their targets.
The Nakajima B6Ns were also hit hard, although flying at far lower level made it far more difficult for defending gunners to draw a bead on them. Sizzling streams of tracer from lighter 40mm and 25mm guns also opened up as they drew ever nearer, filling the skies with a pattern of deadly fireworks that was now dotted right across one whole hemisphere of sky by smoke trails and puffs of flame as Japanese pilots were hit and died, what was left of their aircraft spiralling away into the ocean below.
As the northern-most carrier in the group, Saratoga was doomed almost from the outset. Reeling under attacks from dozens of Nakajima bombers of the first wave, she was struck no less than five times below the waterline by aerial torpedoes, the shock from those hits jamming one of her elevators and opening cracks in one of her main avgas tanks. Fuel and vapour began to seep out into the ship as seawater began to pour in through the holes blown in her hull, leaving her with a noticeable list to port within a few minutes.
Four large, 500kg armour-piercing bombs hit her in the moments that followed, dropped from D4Ys diving in from above. Two struck her only glancing blows, causing some casualties and minor damage, however the other two hit her forward 5-inch turrets within a few seconds of each other, punching through her deck armour and exploding her forward magazine. Every man in those turrets was killed outright, along with dozens more below decks as her store of shells and propellant detonated in a huge cloud of smoke and flame, sending debris hundreds of feet into the air all around.
She would continue to fight on, slowed but not immediately out of action as her damage control teams fought to put out the resulting fires and stem the flood of seawater filling her hull. She was hit by three more torpedoes in the interim, their damage adding to the existing carnage as she began to heel around to port, manoeuvring wildly in an attempt to avoid the worst of the attacks.
All the while, fuel vapour continued to seep from her damaged tanks and it would take just a single spark a half-hour later to ignite that vapour, creating a huge secondary explosion that knocked out her damage control and all power to the forward half of the ship. Further explosions followed, and her captain would give the order to abandon ship a short time later as the resultant fires continued to spread unopposed through her upper decks.
Lexington, her sister ship, fared little better. Subjected to a similarly-intense combined attack at the same time, she too was hit by a succession of torpedoes and bombs, one managing to punch straight through into her forward stores of aircraft ordnance and detonating in a massive explosion that wiped out most of her forward hangar, splintered her wooden flight deck and tore a huge hole in her bow above the waterline. Torpedoes ripped through her hull, also flooding her with seawater and also shattering her steering gear, locking it in a turn-to-port position.
She heeled around, fire and smoke streaming from her bow as she continued to be pounded by bomb after bomb, torpedo after torpedo, and in the chaos that followed she ran straight across the path of the light cruiser Atlanta, striking her amidships and cutting the smaller vessel completely in half between her stacks with significant loss of life. Hundreds of men either jumped or were thrown into the raging waters as the cruiser’s shattered halves began to settle quickly, explosions rippling through the wreckage as damage and shock from the impact started fires that quickly spread through her.
Already weakened substantially by the blast that had torn apart her forward hangar area, Lexington’s bow also failed completely under the shock of the collision. The first hundred feet or so sheared off completely in a shriek of tortured metal, collapsing into the ocean amid the survivors of Atlanta. Thousands of tons of seawater began to pour into the torn opening without any hope of control, and ‘Lady Lex’ immediately began to settle by what was left of her bow as her damage control teams valiantly fought what was clearly a losing battle.
Further to the south, Yorktown and Enterprise initially received far less attention than their colleagues, however that was never going to last long as it became clear that both Saratoga and Lexington were doomed. They too were eventually subjected to massed attacks, their wooden flight decks easily penetrated by strike after strike from armour piercing bombs. Within twenty minutes, both were also burning furiously, with Enterprise steaming erratically, seemingly out of control after a direct hit to her bridge. Spruance and most of his command staff were killed outright in the same strike, with control of the fleet passing to Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh, in command of the accompanying battleship USS Arizona, a mile or two west of the nearest of the dying carriers.
It was a short-lived promotion at best. As the now-dwindling number of armed Japanese attack aircraft began to strike at the other ships of the fleet, Arizona continued to blaze away with every available AA gun she possessed, the volume of fire streaming into the sky around her quite prodigious. Like most American battleships, Arizona had benefitted from substantial refit programs during 1940-41 that had resulted in a significant increase in her air defence capabilities.
Undeniably the most effective shore bombardment tool available to any navy, it had also become clear to the Navy that a vessel as large as a battleship was also a perfect platform for the mounting of huge numbers of light and medium anti-aircraft weaponry, making them an extremely dangerous prospect for any would-be attacker.
There was only so much one ship could do however, and even a battleship could be overwhelmed by sufficient numbers. Arizona was hit over and over by both torpedoes and bombs, shrugging off the first few as they battered her armoured hide. Some eventually made their mark however, slowing her speed and knocking two secondary turrets and a number of flak mounts out of action as several small fires burned around her deck and superstructure.
The suggestion was put to Van Valkenburgh that he should perhaps leave the bridge and move to the conning tower, a small armoured citadel that offered more protection but only limited visibility. The captain instantly declined, remaining on the bridge with a phone continually at his ear as he went about managing the defence of his ship.
High above, an Aichi D4Y nosed over from twenty thousand feet and dove headlong toward Arizona, almost vertical as the pilot aimed his nose at the ship’s bow and howled down out of the sky. At a height of less than two thousand, he hauled back on the stick and climbed sharply away, grunting from the sudden G-forces as the 500kg bomb beneath him swung clear of the aircraft’s internal bay and continued its journey straight down. It struck the forward deck, punching straight through its thick armour and through a number of other decks below before detonating inside a small magazine used for storing black powder for the ship’s saluting guns.
The resulting, relatively small explosion would not have troubled the battleship greatly, had it not then also proceeded to set off the cordite charges housed within the main forward magazine some seven seconds later. That explosion was nothing less that massive, the blast blowing both sides of the ship out both above and below the waterline as the forward deck, main guns, conning tower, main mast and even her smokestack all collapsed downward into a huge, fast-expanding cloud of flame and thick, black smoke. Over three-quarters of her entire 1,500-man crew were killed instantly in the blast, with most of the rest killed soon after as Arizona basically fell apart, what was left of her burning hulk disappearing beneath the surface of the ocean within two minutes.
The remainder of the task force fell into complete disarray with the loss of Arizona, with two cruisers and f
our destroyers sent to the bottom by the time the tattered remnants of the Japanese strike force finally turned back to the north-east, heading for home. Out of the almost five hundred that had taken to the air just two hours earlier, Suzuka now lead just one hundred and eighty assorted fighters and attack bombers on the return journey, some of them trailing smoke and displaying varying degrees of damage.
The victory had been costly – incredibly so – but a victory it had been nevertheless, in every sense of the word. Although they would eventually lose Hiei and the cruiser Myoko to land-based attack as the First Wave battle group withdrew northward at full speed, that was a small price to pay in the eyes of the Japanese High Command in return for the destruction of every US aircraft carrier currently stationed in the Pacific. With the destruction of the Panama Canal, it would now be months before any creditable force could be diverted from the Atlantic.
For the United States Navy, the loss of Task Force 16 was the single worst defeat in its history, a fact made even worse by the strategic and logistical damage caused by events in Panama. In the space of two or three hours, the Imperial Japanese Navy had completely destroyed the ability of the United States Navy to project any kind of naval force into the Pacific or South-East Asian regions.
South China Sea
East of Singapore
December 8, 1942
Tuesday
(West of International Date Line)
The thunder of fifteen-inch guns at close range was incredible as Thorne stood out on the upper bridge platform near the very top of Repulse’s forward superstructure. Mountbatten and the rest of the ship’s command were currently on the bridge itself, separated from him by only a short distance and a single bulkhead, yet it might as well have been a thousand miles considering how useless and utterly impotent he was feeling at that moment.
The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3) Page 59
