The Wildcats that had accompanied the strike had been chasing off the last of the planes that struggled into the air off the Bearn. The hapless French pilots did not know where they were going, and simply fled away from the scene on any heading. By the time the US fighters realized they had uninvited guests, those three Zeroes had each feasted on one of the SBDs. The Americans reformed and raced to get to the scene of the battle, the twelve planes being enough to discourage Teneko when he saw them coming. As much as he had every desire to dance with the American fighters, he knew that this many planes were confirmation that an enemy carrier was somewhere close at hand, and that became his highest priority. So he quickly ordered his Shotai to break off and follow him due south to mask the real location of the Hiyo, which was now steaming exactly 294 miles west of the battle zone.
Teneko flashed the warning back to Hiyo—enemy planes—possible carrier close by! He could not provide a location, but he had carefully noted the course of the SBDs when they had found them, and surmised from this that the Americans might be to the north. So with plenty of fuel left in his long legged Zeroes, he led his planes back north again to see if he could stealthily trail the American formation home.
For their part, the US strike leader had radioed back to Antietam that they had just mixed it up with three Jap fighters, and were now inbound, and with three confirmed hits on the French flat top.
This was a real surprise for Captain James Hansen. “Enemy fighters? Out here?” he folded his arms, looking at Cliff Howard, the balding XO of the ship with a bulldog neck and heavy shoulders.
“Must have come out of Noumea,” said Howard. “For my money, we ought to get down there and give them a good pasting, right along with the Frogs. Let’s bust up their little tea party with Tojo’s boys before it gets started.”
“Easy does it, Cliff,” said Hansen. He was a tall, straight backed navy Captain, near the top of his class, and with just enough of a cavalry officer in him to have landed this posting to Antietam. Yet for him, orders were orders. He had been sent to find and protect the Pensacola Convoy, and that was what he was fixed on doing.
“This signal says those Zeroes broke off to the south. There’s nothing down there but open sea, so maybe they did come out of Noumea. That said, we’ve got to link up with Pensacola ASAP. We gave it to that French carrier pretty good. As soon as we recover the boys, I’m moving east.”
That was going to take Antietam and Shiloh directly away from his unseen enemy. The Hiyo group had come down through the Solomons, and was right between the long island of New Caledonia and the lower New Hebrides, a string of four islands, Efate, Erromango, Tanna and Aneityum. You could draw a line between the Japanese and American carriers now, and it would run right over the second island in that chain, Erromango, largely uninhabited and with no history to speak of in the original war.
Teneko’s fighters followed the Americans just long enough to get a good heading, carefully watching his fuel diminish as they went. Yet he persisted until he finally saw them starting to descend. There, ahead through a stand of puffy white clouds, he clearly saw what he was looking for, two enemy carriers. Elated, he noted his position as best he could, and turned off to head home, now flying slightly southwest. He would find Erromango dead ahead, and knew that he could use it again to lead him right toward the enemy carriers.
Aboard Hiyo, Captain Beppu could hardly believe the news. He knew the Americans were thought to have four carriers here in the Pacific. Two had been spotted and engaged near Pearl Harbor, and these could certainly not be those ships, because the Kido Butai had put one of them on the bottom of the sea. So these must be the other two carriers, hiding out here and probably trying to get to Australia. It was just his luck that he had discovered them, and though he was outnumbered two to one, or so he believed, he would now get his chance for a big kill.
In fact, the odds were fairly even, for the Americans would now have 44 planes between their two hybrids, losing those three SBDs and one Wildcat that had developed engine trouble and had to ditch. Beppu immediately ordered his strike planes to make ready, and now the race was on to get those planes into the air as soon as possible.
By the time Teneko’s three thirsty Zeroes returned, the strike wave was being spotted on deck. He took his plane in, leaping from the cockpit to run to the Hiyo strike leader, Lt. Zenji Abe. “Two carriers!” He pointed stiffly to the east, right off the bow of the ship, which was now turning into the wind. “All you have to do is find the big island out there, and fly right over top of it! But be sure you save something for me. I’ll be right on your tail as soon as they refuel my plane.”
Lieutenant Zenji Abe was eager to go. He had come over from the Fleet Carrier Soryu, thinking to make a move to the Fleet Flagship Akagi, and was disappointed when he first learned he would be sent to the Hiyo instead. He would not be with his old ship in the Pearl Harbor attack, and this posting to Hiyo seemed a lackluster affair. Yet now he would get his chance to shine. He would not get his day over the Devil’s Island, as the Japanese called Oahu, but today he would give the Devil his due.
His 18 Vals had good range, nearly 800 nautical miles, and it was only a reported 300 to the enemy task force. That meant he could expend fuel he might use to travel 200 nautical miles over the target, which was more than enough to deliver his bombs to the enemy. The Kates behind him had even better range, so he knew they would make a good attack. But there were only six Zeroes along, and Teneko would not be able to make good on his promise to follow when he was told his Shotai would refuel and then stand on defensive CAP over the Hiyo.
On the long flight out, Abe put his mind into a calming meditation, but when they finally spotted the dark silhouette of Erromango, he could not help the rising adrenaline in his chest. Cruising at a little over 140 knots, it took Abe a little over two hours before he found what he was looking for.
The American carriers had moved east as Captain Hansen ordered. Even as Teneko was landing on Hiyo with his news, the US strike wave was being recovered. In those two hours, the service crews below decks worked like maniacs to turn those planes over and get them spotted again. Yet Hansen had no idea what to do with them. Even if he presumed there was a Japanese carrier around, he did not yet know where it was, and his only suspicion put it south of the French Fleet in his mind. The thought that the Japanese would come from the west, right over the line of the southern Hebrides, never entered his mind.
At 15:00 hours, Hansen had considered mounting yet another strike on the French, but hesitated, hoping the seaplanes off the Houston would tell him whether the enemy was persisting in an easterly course towards Pensacola. That was not happening, for Admiral Decoux had had quite enough after Bearn took those hits, and he was nursing a fruitless hope that he could get the carrier back to Noumea. So the French were just hovering, and Houston’s spotters confirmed that.
“What’s your call,” said XO Cliff Howard. “You going to give it to the Frogs on the other cheek now? We can make sure we get that carrier, and after that, get after those French cruisers.”
Hansen liked the fire in his eyes, and so he nodded, ordering the planes to be spotted again for a final strike. “This time we better load up on fighters,” he said. “Just in case those Japs have more Zeroes out there. Tell Murray to get all his Wildcats up first.”
That was a fortuitous order, for when Abe’s strike came in they were surprised to find the skies already crowded with American planes over the two carriers. 18 of the 24 Wildcats had already taken off, forming up like a swarm of hornets over the two fast carriers. Behind them the strike planes were following them up, climbing slowly into the sky.
The seeming calm of all that open sea and sky was soon a wild swirl of planes. Abe was determined to put in his attack, and he led his Vals gallantly forward against very steep odds. The Wildcats had been forewarned by the planes returning from the strike, and they figured they had a score to settle should they find any more Zeroes holding hands with the French. Th
is time they found much more than they expected.
The six Zeroes flying escort raged in, boldly challenging the American formation, though they would be outnumbered three to one. Yet at this stage of the war, they were among the best pilots in the Japanese Navy, even on a secondary light carrier like the Hiyo, and the planes they were flying were second to none. They downed two Wildcats before the numbers began to matter and they were more often forced to defensive maneuvers after that initial fitful attack. Yet they had two thirds of the Wildcats in a wild fight, leaving no more than six to go after Abe’s strike planes.
Flight leader Calvin Murray was one of them, and he cut a path to get at those Vals just as they were tipping over, following one down and forcing it to break off its attack run and go defensive. The others persisted, 17 dive bombers coming down to churn up the seas with their 500 pound bombs. Six went after Houston, putting one bomb right amidships on the Galloping Ghost. The other eleven focused on the carriers, but the Wildcats got two more on the way down. That left nine Vals to put in that attack, and one put a bomb right beside Antietam, the spray of shrapnel and seawater raking the hull and one of the 5-inch guns there. The second was lucky enough to score a direct hit, but it was well forward of the flight deck, landing right on the number two 6-inch gun turret.
The resulting explosion looked worse than it was, for there was just enough armor there to protect the ship from taking serious harm, even though that gun was certainly put out of action. But now the Kates were swooping low, bearing down on Antietam, which seemed to be pulling in most of the enemy attacks. Captain Rooks was cruising just off the starboard side of the carrier in Houston, his cruiser throwing everything it had at the enemy, and he was about to make history, and pose a question to every new academy recruit for the next sixty years.
Chapter 14
The Galloping Ghost was a beautiful ship when it first sailed in dress whites. It had a lovely clipper bow, with two big triple 8-inch gun turrets right behind it, and a third turret aft. A tall tripod mainmast, that looked much like those on the old American battleships, rose high above the bridge, doubling the height of the ship well above the two stacks, and there was another small tripod mast right behind the aft turret. Now she sailed in Haze Grey war paint, her sleek bow cutting through the whitecaps as she put on speed.
In better days, the ship had hosted President Roosevelt on a long Pacific cruise before the war, attended the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, but now she was rigged for battle, with four new quad 1.1 caliber AA cannons installed just before the war. Those guns opened up on the Kates, along with all the 5-inch 130mm AA guns on the starboard side of the ship, and eight .50 caliber machineguns. Their fire had been ineffective against the dive bombers, but with barrels depressed, Houston was throwing out a hail of steel at the oncoming enemy planes.
Torpedo planes died at an average kill rate of 30% to 50% in the early war, but the Japanese were coming in very fast, much faster than the American gunners expected. This high speed run was possible due to the unique technology of the Type-91, and that would save all but three that were downed by defensive fire, one in a tumultuous cartwheel when its wing hit the choppy seas. Three more had been harried off by a group of four Wildcats, and that left a dozen in the attack, all getting fish in the water. Of these, four were ill timed, and two others skipped on the ocean when their pilots came in just a little too low. But the last six were running true in a wide spread.
Captain Rooks saw the Antietam pull a hard right turn to port, slightly ahead, and knew that if he did the same he might avoid the leading torpedoes. But in his judgment, if he did that they would plow right into the Antietam, for he did not think the carrier was nimble enough to turn where it needed to be. In that hard moment a cruel calculus ran through his mind. Should he save his cruiser, leaving a good chance that the carrier would be hit?
Aboard Antietam, Captain Hansen was on the weather deck with his bulldog, Lieutenant Commander Cliff Howard, who pointed at the Houston with a growl. “God damn! This is going to be close. Why doesn’t he turn?”
Hansen knew why.
Seconds later they saw the tall splashes that told the story. Rooks and the Houston had taken the fall. In that split second the Captain had simply ordered steady as she goes, his jaw set. His cruiser had already taken a 500 pound bomb, with damage in that attack that was far more serious than the one that took out the number two turret on Antietam. And though he had violated his primary duty as a Captain to see to the safety of his ship and crew, he saved the Antietam that day, for those torpedoes were going to hit her for sure if Houston turned.
Each of those Type 91s would put a 204kg warhead into Houston, and that would end her career long before she ever would earn her nickname. Her sides were ripped open, and the water flooded in. While it helped douse the fire amidships from that bomb hit, the flooding could not be controlled. Houston would die in what the Navy training schools would later call “Rooks’ Gambit,” but that Rook had protected the Queen in this deadly chess game at sea, and the planes off that queen had skewered the enemy King.
The Russian chess player Koblentz once said that no price was too great for the scalp of the enemy King. The men who went into the water that day took little solace from that, but their sacrifice was going to make a great difference in the months ahead.
Three separate carrier based task forces had now each put in attacks, one after another. The French attack had suffered from the liability of their obsolete planes and inexperienced pilots, the Americans had hit them back hard and knocked France right out of the war, at least insofar as carrier operations would be concerned, and now the Japanese had come to their aid and hurt the Americans in turn.
Antietam had been hit, but her flight deck was not involved, and she could still launch whatever she had left. Shiloh had been completely unscratched, along with destroyer Alden, shunned by the Japanese pilots. There were still three French planes out there somewhere, each one running alone on a different heading. Two eventually made it back to Noumea, but one ornery man, Captain Louis Delfino, had a crazy idea. He had flown for the Vichy Squadron at Dakar, then mustered out to French Indochina where he found himself available when Bearn arrived at Saigon. Fascinated by the prospect of becoming a carrier pilot, he persuaded the ship’s Captain to let him train, and he was the one man who would put that training to good use that day.
Not knowing the fate of the Bearn when he sped away, Captain Delfino took the same heading he had flown earlier, and it led him right back to the Pensacola convoy. When he got there, he kept looking over his shoulder for company, but found himself completely alone. Had his mates been with him, the flack would have been fairly thick, but as it was, he was able to line up on one of the transports in an almost leisurely fashion, low and slow.
At one point Captain Lowe on the Pensacola thought he might be looking at his lost seaplane, as the resemblance was very close at range. Then he spied the torpedo slung below the belly of Delfino’s plane, and sounded general quarters.
He was a little too late. The men on Holbrook were quicker, their .50 caliber machineguns opening up with a restless chatter. The men hadn’t seen a thing for well over three hours since that first attack, and they thought they had licked their enemy. For the most part that was true—all but one. The plane was coming right in on the water, not aimed at Holbrook, but at the ship right behind her, the Admiral Halstead, with those 9,000 drums of high octane Avgas. Delfino got his fish in the water, it ran true, and the resulting explosion was the loudest sound to be heard on those waters for decades.
Cliff Causton, was on the bow manning his gun when it happened, along with Willie Heath. The two men were almost blown right off the ship by the blast wave, and the fireball was big enough that portions of deck mounted cargo on the aft of the Holbrook ignited, forcing the stunned crew to scramble for water hoses. As for the Admiral Halstead, when the shocked crewmen peered through the smoke and roiling flame, they could see nothing of the
ship at all, and then a rain of hot metal began to fall all around the convoy line. The ship had literally been blown to ten thousand pieces, and not a single man aboard survived.
There, too, went all the aviation fuel for the P-40s and A-24s crated aboard the Blomfintien and on the Meigs. The French had salvaged a measure of honor, with just enough of a spike of revenge to put some steel into Admiral Decoux when Captain Delfino radioed back with the news of his lucky hit. The Admiral was delighted, wagging his finger at every man on the bridge of his sinking carrier, and telling them that when they got safely off the ship, and onto those cruisers, that this battle was far from over. He also had the radio operator tell Delfino that there was no point in trying to get back to the Bearn, she would be gone before he got there.
The Captain had already flown 200 miles to make his stunning kill, and now he reasoned that he might have just enough fuel to make landfall somewhere—in Fiji. Those islands were about another 200 miles ahead of him, and any friendly ground behind him was well beyond his range. So that is what he did, barely making it to Fiji where he ditched his plane in the surf just off the southern coast. He was soon found by members of the local Fiji Battalion, to whom he promptly surrendered with a stiff salute, his private little war over for the moment. Later he would cross the line and join the French Normandie-Niemen Squadron to fight the Germans in Russia.
* * *
Antietam and Shiloh were in a quandary now as Captain Hansen tried to decide whether he should launch that second wave as planned against the French, or try to look for the Japanese.
“Those planes came in from the southwest,” he said to Cliff Howard, “but we don’t really know where the Japs are. If they’re more than 300 miles out, we won’t be able to get at them. Hell, we can barely hit the French from here, as I’ve been running east for the last hour.”
Tide Of Fortune (Kirov Series Book 20) Page 12
