The Commodore

by P. T. Deutermann

  Five minutes later, Combat reported that the spotter had called a cease-fire order. He reported that it looked like everyone and everything anywhere near the banks of the river had been obliterated. The jungle on the Japanese side, reaching back for five hundred yards, had been reduced to flaming tree trunks, mangled piles of shattered mangrove, and mounds of wet, black mud covered in body parts.

  “Captain, Combat.”

  Sluff smiled in the darkness, glad for the cessation of mount fifty-two’s ear-crushing noise. Captain now, he thought. We’re just a destroyer again.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Marines are saying the attack is over. Our spotter is actually hysterical right now, but he’s happy. Looks like we’re done here for tonight. Waiting for orders from CTG Sixty-Four Point Two.”

  “Okay, we’ll stay at GQ for now. Have the gun crews police the brass. Ask the galley if they can get some chow moving out to the GQ stations.”

  He went out to the port bridge wing again and surveyed the scene ashore. Everything within about a twenty-degree arc was burning. He looked north. The ammo dump was still pumping out red-hot projectiles, although at a lesser rate.

  An hour later the ships were steaming in column formation at a stately fifteen knots five miles north of Savo Island, scene of the Navy’s worst defeat at sea. Somewhere below them, two thousand or more feet down, lay the shattered remains of heavy cruisers Quincy, Vincennes, Astoria, and the Australian cruiser Canberra, all sunk during their very first encounter with the Imperial Japanese Navy, whose sleek heavy cruisers, loaded to the gills with Long Lance torpedoes and trained for years in night surface-action tactics, had slashed through the weary and inexperienced American formation like a samurai sword through butter. No American sailor could look at Savo Island and not remember that night.

  The admiral’s night orders said they would patrol north of Savo on an east-west line until daylight. Sluff told the OOD on the bridge to secure from GQ and set condition II so that half the crew at a time could get some rest for a few hours before relieving the other half on station. But then he remembered: First they needed to bury their dead.

  They’d lost six men killed outright in the forward gun mount. All hands not actually on watch were called to the fantail, where Sluff read the committal prayers as six weighted bags, one after another, were slipped down a plank into the sea to join the thousands of dead already asleep on the bottom of Ironbottom Sound. It was cold comfort to know that there were also a few thousand Japanese sailors down there now, too. Sluff was pretty sure that every man standing at attention in ragged ranks on the fantail and the 01 level just above it was wondering if he, too, would one day make that deepest of all dives.

  After the service, he found the exec down in the wardroom, where some of the officers were having a quick cup of soup and a sandwich before they went on watch. Everyone stood when he came into the wardroom. He told them to carry on and then went to the sideboard for a sandwich. He sat down at the head of the wardroom table for a few minutes and chatted with the officers. LTJG Chandler was there and Sluff asked him to prepare letters of condolences for his signature. LTJG Bob Warren, the supply officer, asked him if they were expecting more shooting tonight.

  “I don’t think so, Bob, but we’re at condition two for a reason. The Japs have a lot more ships than we do right now, so they could come at any time, and from any direction, for that matter. The coast watchers usually give us warning, though.”

  “Who are the coast watchers, Cap’n—er—Commodore?”

  Yeah, Sluff thought with a mental smile—which is it?

  “The system was started by Australian naval intelligence a few years before the war broke out last December,” he replied. “They used the colonial administrators already in place. Then they sent out naval officers to set up camps all through these islands to keep watch on what the Japs were doing in the Solomons. Gave ’em a radio and let them hire some of the natives to act as bearers for the equipment. They sit up on mountain ridges and call in warship sightings to the Marines on Guadalcanal.”

  “The Japs know about them?”

  “I think they do. They reportedly captured one of them in the Shortland Islands, right below Rabaul.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “They cut his head off, actually.”

  That brought a moment of silence to the table. Sluff reached for his plate as it began to slide across the green felt tablecloth to one side of the table. The ship was turning, and then the sound-powered phone mounted under the table squeaked.

  “Captain,” Sluff said.

  “Formation is coming about to two seven zero,” the OOD reported. “Still speed fifteen.”

  “Very well,” Sluff said. He gave the exec a signal and then got up, passed his plate to the steward in the wardroom pantry, and went into his cabin. The exec came in after him.

  “I’m hoping we’ll get the night off,” Sluff said, easing into his desk chair. The exec leaned against the doorframe. His face was drawn and there were dark circles under his eyes. “In that regard, I want you to hit the rack. Now would be a good time.”

  “But I’ve got—”

  “No, not tonight,” Sluff said. “Hit the rack, get a solid four, five hours of sleep. We’ll go to GQ just before dawn for the morning air raids. You’ve been doing a hell of job, running just about everything from Combat, both for the ship and the division. You’ve made it possible for me to be both CO and unit commander. I hope that will soon be over, but some things the admiral said make me wonder. Anyway, get some sleep. That’s an order, Bub.”

  The exec grinned. “Thanks for the kind words, and, aye, aye, sir.”

  Once the exec left he called Radio Central and asked for the message boards. Both of them. Then he sent for Mose and asked for a small carafe of coffee and a fat pill if there was one to be found. Their cruiser-destroyer column was settling into a watchful night-steaming formation. He planned to get through as much of the fleet broadcast message backlog as he could and then get some sleep himself. Sleep was becoming a rare commodity out here in the Solomon Islands. For everyone.

  EIGHTEEN

  Savo Island

  Two hours later his phone squeaked. He heard it, ignored it. It squeaked again, harder.

  “Captain.”

  “Captain, this is Lieutenant McCarthy in Combat. Wichita and Providence both are reporting air contacts inbound from the north. Wichita says they look like multiple heavy bombers. Right now they’re forty-eight miles out and closing at a hundred sixty knots.”

  “What time is it?” Sluff asked.

  “Zero two thirty, sir.”

  “GQ,” Sluff said, and rolled out of bed.

  In the passageway outside he heard the bosun piping all-hands over the ship’s announcing system, followed by the words “General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations.” Then came the familiar gonging noise. He dressed quickly and scrambled up to the bridge, accompanied by everyone else headed for a topside GQ station.

  He didn’t get a chance to look at his watch until he made it to his chair. It was 0235, which meant that the Japs had now thrown night-capable bombers into the Solomons campaign, maybe even equipped with radar. He looked out the bridge windows and saw only the typical Solomon Islands darkness. No visible moon, the air heavy, wet, and still in the low nineties, even at this early hour. Then he heard the radio speaker above his chair come to life. The task group commander ordered the formation to execute an immediate-execute turn together to the north and head right for the approaching bomber formation, speed twenty-seven knots. Then he executed it, and all the ships swung left and began to accelerate.

  The Japs wouldn’t be trying to drop bombs at night. This would be a torpedo attack, and by presenting their narrow bows to the oncoming bombers, the admiral had much reduced the target aspect of the American column. Sluff called Combat and asked if King’s radars held the approaching planes.

  “In and out, Captain,” the exec
said. “I think they’re just now descending to drop level. I’m guessing Bettys. As soon as we get a solid contact, I’ll designate to director one.”

  “But on this course, we can only bring one gun to bear,” Sluff said.

  At that moment both cruisers opened fire. Each of them could bring six barrels to bear on the descending aircraft. Their radar-controlled dual-purpose six-inch guns were designed to fill the air in front of an approaching bomber formation with white-hot shards of steel at a range of ten miles. The destroyers would have to wait until the bogeys got into seven or eight miles before they could even reach them, depending on their altitude.

  “Captain, Combat, we’ve got ’em on the surface-search radar now, which means they’re down on the deck for a torpedo run. Fifty-two will open up in about forty seconds.”

  Sluff didn’t like this setup, but there really was no alternative. If they turned perpendicular to the attacking waves, each destroyer except King could bring five guns to bear, and the cruisers fifteen. But he knew the reason they were turning into the attack. Come right or left and the torpedoes would have six hundred feet of cruiser to collide with; this way, they had fifty-five. He stared out the front portholes. Mount fifty-two was in automatic, its barrel raised and quivering in response to the delicate servomotor commands coming up from the main gunnery computer.

  B-Blam! Fifty-two finally got into it. Between muzzle blasts, Sluff could see the northern sky filling with brilliant flashes as the light cruisers laid into the first wave of bombers. Then he saw flaming contrails light up in the near distance and then descend into the sea, where they were snuffed out in an invisible crash. Fifty-two was going strong, blasting away at some invisible radar contact flying right at them at close to 160 miles an hour. Sluff felt absolutely helpless. Either they would steam right through the swarm of approaching torpedoes, or they’d take one on the chin and the front half of the ship would disappear in a magazine explosion. And all King could do was shoot one damned five-inch at them.

  The sky ahead was now looking like the Fourth of July, with flaming contrails going every which way, shell bursts stabbing the night sky in groups of three and sometimes six, and then he heard the bombers as they roared overhead, chased now by King’s forty-millimeter and even twenty-millimeter guns in a quick swinging arc of fire. Then the after two mounts opened fire, finally able to bear on the outgoing Japs. Fifty-two went silent, and then Sluff saw the hatches open and a few men jump out to begin wrangling the brass powder cases out of the way of the mount’s training circle. The relative wind caused by the twenty-seven-knot ordered speed quickly blew all the smoke out of the pilothouse.

  Had the torpedoes passed? He was about to call down to Sonar to see if they’d heard anything, but at twenty-seven knots, the ship’s sonar was effectively deaf. And then off to port, at some distance, a bright white light bloomed into a yellow and then red ball of fire, reaching for the sky.

  Shit, Sluff thought. Somebody caught one. Then the speaker came to life again as the admiral ordered a reversal of course, 180 degrees, speed still twenty-seven knots, to head back in the direction of the outbound bombers. There was nothing to say that the Japs, too, wouldn’t turn around and have another go. Halfway through the turn, with the ship heeling hard to port as the rudders forced the stern to go sideways into the sea, King was directed to go to the assistance of Wichita. Sluff picked up the handset and rogered for the order.

  “Combat, Captain—where’s the Wichita?”

  Combat came back with a range and bearing to Wichita’s last known position, and Sluff ordered the OOD to come to that course. Once the ship steadied up, Wichita became visible fine off the port bow, illuminated by a glowing fire that seemed to be consuming her forward superstructure from the inside out. Sluff studied the wounded cruiser through his binocs as King closed in and then figured out what was wrong. Wichita was missing her bow and forwardmost gun turret. She was down by the head and making no way through the sea. He ordered the OOD to slow down and approach the cruiser from astern and then had the bosun call away the rescue and assistance team. Then he remembered the Jap bombers.

  “Combat, Captain—what are those Bettys doing?”

  “We no longer hold radar contact, Cap’n,” the exec replied. “The rest of the formation is still headed south but the air-raid reporting net has gone quiet.”

  “Keep an eye peeled, Bob,” Sluff said. “Nothing to say those bastards can’t make a wide swing around Savo and then come back up here to finish off the Wichita. Looks like she’s lost everything forward of turret two. There’s also a nasty fire at the base of her bridge. I want to go alongside so we can put some hoses on that.”

  “Combat, aye.”

  Sluff then took the conn and maneuvered the ship in a wide arc so that she could then turn and come up alongside Wichita’s starboard side. He had his talker tell DC Central to set up fire hose parties along the port side. He then slowed to bare steerageway and came alongside the darkened cruiser. He could see several men up on the starboard bridge wing, illuminated by the fire that seemed to be eating its way upward toward them. He backed King gently and then King’s damage-control parties began to play two-and-a-half-inch fire hoses on the glowing steel above them, creating huge clouds of steam. He had to back and fill several times, maneuvering gently so that the two ships wouldn’t bump up against each other in these close quarters. The streams of seawater coming from King had the desired effect, dousing the visible, external fires. Several portholes along the cruiser’s starboard main deck exploded when hit by the relatively cold seawater, and King’s damage-control men trained their hoses to inject high-pressure streams directly into the interior of the badly damaged ship. Amidships, the bosun’s mates passed over a four-inch hose to the cruiser’s damage-control teams. They connected it to their own fire main, and then King was able to augment the damaged ship’s two operational fire pumps.

  After twenty minutes, Sluff was getting nervous about being so close in alongside the Wichita, which, having lost almost two hundred feet of her hull forward, was now in danger of becoming unstable and capsizing—onto USS King. He kept an eye on her forward mast, which was rocking gently in what little seaway there was, but also hanging for a few seconds at the end of each roll. That was a bad sign. He was too close to determine how far down by the bow she was.

  “Captain, Combat. From the flag: Providence holding intermittent air contacts to the west. The Japs might be coming back. Flag says they are turning around and will attempt to get between Wichita and the Bettys’ attack line.”

  “Focus on your surface-search radar, Bob,” Sluff said. “They’ll be low on the deck. We’re on the wrong side of Wichita to shoot, so I’m going to back down and come up the other side. You have comms with Wichita?”

  “Negative, Captain. Maybe use the 1MC topside speakers?”

  Great idea, Sluff thought. He asked the bosun to bring him the announcing system’s microphone.

  “Ahoy, Wichita: The Japs are making another run, from the west. I’m going to back down and come up your port side to provide AA fire. Are your guns operational?”

  Sluff’s amplified words echoed strangely in the steel canyon formed between the two ships’ hulls. There was no reply for a long thirty seconds, and then the CO of the cruiser came up on his announcing system. “The torpedo dismounted our turbogenerators,” he said. “We’re on emergency diesels, all boilers off the line. Trying to get steam up. After turrets can shoot in local control, but we can’t see right now. Radar’s down, main battery plot has electrical fires and smoke. Appreciate any AA help you can give us.”

  “I’ll stay on your port quarter, then, Captain,” Sluff said.

  Sluff waited for the midships crew to disconnect the fire-main hose and then ordered a slow astern bell and eased King back down the cruiser’s starboard side, maneuvering the rudder so as not to rake the cruiser with his port anchor. Once he was clear astern, he came left and then stopped, perpendicular to the cruiser’s stern. He n
oticed that an awful lot of her black waterline across the transom was exposed. He could also see that she had about a ten-degree list to starboard.

  “Captain, Combat, three bogeys inbound on the surface-search radar, range fifteen miles. Coming straight in. Director one is on the lead plane and we’ll open fire when they’re at nine miles.”

  “Open fire when they’re at ten miles,” Sluff ordered. “Maybe we can spook ’em out of here if we happen to hit one.”

  “Combat, aye, ten miles.”

  Sluff heard mount fifty-two train out to port and ordered up ten knots. There was no point in high speed right now, not until he thought Long Lances were coming. The Bettys were known to be flying fire hazards; flame one, the other two might bolt. Otherwise, and especially if they had radar, they had a sitting duck in the stationary light cruiser.

  The five-inch erupted into their familiar symphony and Sluff went out onto the port bridge wing to watch the show. He was proud that his officers and crew were pretty much in automatic when it came to fighting. He visualized the fire-control problem, which, on a direct attack, was simple. The computer would be aiming the shells at a point in space in front of and slightly above the approaching bombers, steady bearing, decreasing range.

  There. An orange flare blossomed out in the distance as one of the Bettys suffered a gas-tank hit. He put his binocs up and could see that the plane was still coming at them, but losing lift and descending toward the black sea. He could actually see the other two, flying in close formation on either side of the burning plane. He wondered if they could see the cruiser. With her stern pointed at them, maybe not. They sure as hell could see King, with four five-inch guns blasting away at them, joined now by the forty-millimeter batteries with their double-thump gunfire and red tracers arcing out at the incoming planes, initially too low but then rising and, finally, someone connected with the Betty on the right. The plane literally blew up, sending a fountain of fiery wreckage in all directions. The third Betty jinked left, away from the exploding plane, just as the first bomber hit the sea in a sheet of flame.