“What about Japanese fleet oilers? These operations must be supported by replenishment ships. In fact, that General down there might know something about it. If we tell him we need fuel, he might be able to order in support.”
“Can we even use their fuel?” The Captain looked at his Chief Engineer.
“If it’ll burn, I can use it, at least in the diesel system. That’s what we’ve been mainly sipping on this deployment. I’ve only had to use the Gas Turbine system when we needed acceleration. The diesel used here may not be as refined as the stuff we’re used to, but I have some additives aboard that could help. We might have a bit of indigestion, and I may not get the best efficiency from the propulsion system, but I can keep us running if you find me the fuel. As for speed, you’ll have it as long as I can feed those Gas Turbines. We’re at about 92% on that bunker. It’s a very refined fuel, more like aviation fuel, and we won’t find a drop of the stuff here, so keep that in mind.”
The Captain nodded. “Well if we can find diesel here, then I suppose it’s worth a try,” said Harada. “As to Yamamoto, what if he’s gone by the time we get there?”
“Perhaps we could have Ensign Shiota work up a coded signal requesting a meeting with the General,” said Fukada.
“That would seem a bit chancy. How would we identify ourselves in any way that would be convincing enough for the fleet Admiral to respond to such a message? I’m guessing a lowly destroyer Captain won’t have much pull here.”
“But we have a man aboard who just might,” said Fukada. “If this fellow is telling the truth, we have the senior commanding officer of the 16th Army, the force presently conducting the biggest operation they have running at the moment. That eruption has had to shake things up. We can say we’ve rescued this guy, and are en-route on his orders for an urgent meeting at Rabaul.”
“I like that XO. Good call, assuming our guest plays along.”
“He doesn’t have to, sir,” Fukada smiled. “We just tell him he’s been summoned to Rabaul and we have orders to get him there ASAP to coordinate future planning with Combined Fleet HQ.”
The Captain nodded. It could work. “Outstanding. Let’s make it so. Mister Ikida, verify those fuel numbers with Chief Oshiro.” He looked over the room, proud to have this group with him now, good officers, each and every one.
“Mister Kimura, we haven’t heard your wisdom on any of this. Anything to add?”
The Marine Sergeant, shrugged. “At the moment I haven’t quite swallowed this whole fish yet, sir. I do know one thing. We’ve arrived, somewhere. And to prove it, we’re here!” Yankee Catcher Yogi Berra could not have put it any better. He smiled
Part VIII
All or Nothing
“If you do not enter the tiger’s cave,
you will not catch its cub.”
― Japanese Proverb
Chapter 22
Yamamoto did not quite know what to make of the request when he first received it through channels. General Imamura, presumed lost in that terrible disaster off Batavia, had been found and rescued at sea by a destroyer. That was good news, for the entire operation on Java had ground to a halt in the chaos that erupted from that volcano.
We make our plans, he thought. We prepare so carefully, assigning men to ships, building our task groups, and timing everything to achieve the desired outcome. Yet nature has humbled us all. The initial reports on the losses most likely sustained by the 2nd Division are quite alarming. I had counted on using that unit in the Solomons after Java was secured, but that will clearly not happen. And now it seems that the entire area near Batavia will be useless from an operational standpoint for months. The harbor is wrecked, the roads impassible, the airfields covered with ash that still hangs heavily over the entire span of Western Java.
This will make the capture of Surabaya more important than ever, so I suppose the General wishes to coordinate with the navy to determine how we can now move to reinforce troops already landed in that sector. My understanding is that the 5th Division has been taken from Singapore for that purpose, so it will need transport and the assignment of a covering force. General Nishimura at least salvaged one pearl from this clam. His renewed attack on Singapore finally delivered that city and its excellent port, yet it too is under heavy ashfall for the time being, and the city itself is choking with refugees. I’m afraid things will get very ugly there, and Singapore will be of no use to the navy either, and for quite some time.
That ash cloud extends for a wide area, and well out into the Indian Ocean. It was astounding to think I could have heard that eruption even here at Rabaul, over 5000 kilometers from the Sunda Straits. At least we can be thankful that operations in the Solomons will not be affected. After Nagumo successfully covered Operation R, I sent him west with Carrier Division 5 to support the Java Operation, but I will need him back here soon. So perhaps it is best that I meet with General Imamura, and determine what the situation is in the Java Sea. Yet he would be some time coming here, and I am scheduled to move on to Davao. So I will have him meet with me there, a good midpoint between Rabaul and the Java Sea where he was found.
He took a quiet sip of tea, thinking. There was still trouble in the north to consider. Yes, that was as unexpected as this sudden eruption in the south. When we received that ultimatum from the Siberians, no one took it seriously. After all, what could they do? Now it appears that the Siberians have been at war with us since the day of that attack on Pearl Harbor. That they could have sunk Hiryu as Nagumo returned home was most disturbing—not to mention the damage we sustained to both Kaga and Akagi. Thankfully, that was not serious, and both ships were scheduled for refit at this time in any case.
Naval Rockets…
We have heard reports from the Germans on these for some time, but never really paid them any coin. Now it appears we were remiss in that as well. Naval Intelligence Group now believes that the ship that has caused such havoc in the Atlantic for the Germans has moved into the Pacific. If that is so, they could only have come by the Northern Route, and before the ice set in. That must be the ship that is now operating with the Siberians. They used it to cover their operation against Kamchatka—another lapse of both intelligence and planning that I must now account for to the Emperor.
The Army is fuming that they were not supported, but look what happened to Mutsu and Chikuma when they tried to intervene against the enemy landing operation on Kamchatka. Those were good sturdy ships, but now both are wrecked to a point where we will not have them back again for over a year! Perhaps we should proceed with the plans to convert Mutsu into an aircraft carrier, or a hybrid. That might be easier than trying to restore an old battleship that was already obsolete when it sailed north to that encounter.
I will have Kurita meet us at Davao as well, and we will then discuss operations in both the north and south at the same time. We may be taking on more than we realize with the opening of all out hostilities on the northern front. Things should be relatively quiet, but when the ice abates, and it allows us to operate in the Sea of Okhotsk, there will have to be a reckoning with the Siberians. They used the northern port of Magadan as their primary base, and that must be taken, or smashed.
Then there is the loss of Joyaku Kazantochi, the land of volcanoes on Kamchatka. Let us hope none of the fiery mountains that live there, and on our Kurile outposts, ever have a mind to rage as this one did here. Now that the Siberians have been bold enough to take Kazantochi, we will certainly have to plan a counterattack. Our real power was in the northern Kuriles, at Karamushiro and Shumushu, but the port and base we lost to the north was very useful, and we cannot allow the enemy to control it. Beyond that, they have seized all the airfields we were building there, an insult the Army will have to account for, though they will most likely find a way to blame the Navy.
Plans are already in the making. Tojo has recalled Yamashita, and they are assembling a new Army in the Amur region with divisions pulled from Manchuria and Mongolia. Yet soon I will hear that
the navy must provide sealift there as well, because there are simply no roads leading to the next likely place of contention, Northern Karafuto, the place the Siberians call Sakhalin.
So… we finally get the one nightmare we had thought to avoid, a war on both our Pacific and Siberian fronts at the same time. It will require swift action, before the Americans can organize for offensive operations. We must deal with this Siberian threat, and complete the conquest of the barrier islands and the Solomons before I face the United States again at sea. Until both those sectors are well secured, I cannot contemplate any further offensive operations aimed at the Americans. The only question is this: what are they now contemplating? We have already seen a slow buildup underway at Fiji and Samoa, which was not unexpected. This makes the early occupation of the Solomons even more essential than Java from my perspective, and I will have to express that opinion to General Imamura. He will be expecting to focus all our energy to salvage the Java operation now, but there is really no threat from Australia, and we have time in our favor. I will need troops from his Army, so I must be very accommodating to any request he may make of the Navy. He already owes us a life, thanks to that destroyer plucking him out of the sea. Strange that the name of that ship was never reported to me.
Now… With Singapore fallen at last, the British have no real strategic reason to project power east of Java. They have fallen back on Colombo, and are more worried about losing Burma than anything else. Taking that was necessary, to cut the Burma Road and Isolate the Chinese, though I have long thought that the Army was wasting itself in this quagmire that China has become for us. Now, with the disaster that has fallen on the 2nd Division, we will be scrimping for troops for South Seas operations for the foreseeable future. So I must bargain well with this General Imamura. Too much is riding on the Solomons campaign.
His mind went round and round like this for some time, circling the Pacific like a restless shark, swimming from one operational zone to the next. He was thankful that his navy remained one of the strongest in the world. Even though it had been weakened by the loss of Hiryu and the damage and subsequent refits for Kaga and Akagi, he still had a most formidable carrier force, and the best trained naval aviation on the planet. Now was the time to fight, to employ every measure, every resource, to obtain the strongest possible strategic position before the end of 1942. Then, perhaps, if they enemy can be held at bay and convinced of the futility of fighting on, a negotiated peace might be obtained, though he had serious doubts about that prospect.
Now then… to this meeting with General Imamura. I will make arrangements to depart for Davao at once.
* * *
The plan they had devised to get their meeting with Yamamoto was going to work. As Lieutenant Commander Fukada had suggested, the General did not have to give his consent. They could simply say that because of the urgency of the moment, Yamamoto had requested this top level meeting to re-evaluate the situation around Java. They kept the General in private quarters, well isolated below decks, and gave the crew orders to stay clear. The last thing they wanted was for him to get restless and wander about. Thankfully, a leg wound sustained during his ordeal at sea saw to that. He was laid up in bed, under Doctor Hisakawa’s supervision, and all his meals were served there. The Captain paid him a visit to deliver the news, saying that they had been ordered to Davao on Mindanao to confer with Yamamoto.
To dissuade Imamura from coming up with any other ideas he might then fashion into an order, Captain Harada instructed his communications team to contact local Japanese commanders at Balikpapan, Makassar and Kendari. To do so he first had to relieve Ensign Shiota, realizing that a woman would never have such a position on a warship at sea in 1942. She understood his concerns, and he kept her as supervisor, coordinating all signals traffic and code work. The voices on any radio transmission, however, would have to be spoken by men.
Using call signs and codes provided by Imamura himself, they were able to establish a number of comm-links, and obtain status reports on the operations then underway. This allowed the General to arrive with his wits about him, as he was going to have to know these details with Yamamoto. Getting into the meeting itself was the next problem. Captain Harada wondered how they would arrange that.
“Don’t ask,” said Fukada. “We just go, the two of us. We’ll accompany the General, and no one will be the wiser.”
“That may get us to the meeting site, but I’m talking about the door that might end up between Yamamoto, Imamura and the two of us. I don’t think we’ll be offered chairs at that table.”
“Oh, yes we will,” said Fukada. “The instant we ease into the harbor, every head there will be fixed on us. We’re unlike anything they have ever seen at sea.”
“I’m not so sure they’ll be all that impressed,” said the Captain. “After all, we look a bit like a sleek fleet auxiliary ship, and with just that one visible deck gun forward. Sure, we’re much bigger than any destroyer of this era. Our displacement is three times that of a typical WWII destroyer. We’re in the heavy cruiser weight class here, but to them, it will seem like we wouldn’t get past the first round with one of their ships. We look like a seaplane tender. We look toothless.”
“Let’s count on curiosity first,” said Fukada. “They’ll certainly want to know who and what we are. There’s no Takami in the IJN fleet at this time.”
“Should we even use that name? Would it be easier if we just identified ourselves by hull number?”
“No,” said Fukada. “The IJN ditched simple hull number identification in favor of ship names long ago. I say we just call it like it is. We tell them were Destroyer Takami, or even Cruiser Takami if that feels better to you. Then they’ll want to know what’s going on. It may not get us a seat at Imamura’s meeting, but I’m willing to bet they’ll want to sit down with us afterwards.” Fukada had been thinking about this situation for some time, running through the possibilities in his mind.
“Damn,” said the Captain. “This whole thing still seems absolutely crazy. I still pinch myself every time I get up from the cot to see if I’m not dreaming. Kenji, you seem like you’ve warmed to it all in just these few days, but how in the world could this have happened to us?”
“I just don’t know sir. That eruption may have had something to do with it. That’s all I can say. Sergeant Kimura had the best line on it. We’re here. I can’t argue with what my eyes, ears and nose tell me. Those ships we passed off Balikpapan were all vintage 1940s IJN warships. Believe me, to an old modeler like me, it was a real feast. I still can’t believe it myself, but I’ve accepted it as real, and dangerously so. We’ve got to use our heads now. Our presence here is very significant.”
“No question about that,” said Harada. “But do you realize what we’re considering here? We’re talking about intervening in history, am I right? No man can see the far ends of his choices, but if this ship gets entangled with this war, things are going to turn out different. They would have to be different.”
“They already are sir…” Fukada let that hang.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been hanging out with Ensign Shiota.”
“I always thought you had eyes for her.” The Captain smiled.
“It’s not that,” said the XO dismissively. “I wanted to see how that SITREP you wanted was coming along. Well get this… The Japanese are fighting with Siberia up north. We’ve intercepted three messages that alluded to that.”
“The Russians?”
“The Siberians. That is what is strange about that traffic. From what I could gather, there was some kind of attack on Kamchatka recently.”
“Kamchatka, did we ever hold that during this war?”
“No, just the northern Kuriles, but this traffic clearly talked about Japanese units being withdrawn from a place called Kazantochi.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”
“Me neither. But there’s more. We picked up traffic indicating additional naval support w
as to be sent to Urajio. That one I looked up—it’s Vladivostok, an old name from the 1800s.”
“Vladivostok. You’re saying the Japanese are sending ships there?”
“Three destroyers and a cruiser were ordered there yesterday, and the odd thing about it was that it seemed as though the place was already Japanese occupied territory.”
“Well that doesn’t make any sense,” said Harada, “but considering I’m sitting in the Celebes Sea in 1942, I guess I shouldn’t be picky. What else have you turned up?”
“BBC radio broadcasts. Shiota got an earful last night—a big offensive underway in Russia.”
“That I can understand.”
“Except from what she could gather, the Germans were in Moscow, and the Russians were trying to push them out. Well, I went down to the ship’s library. Come to find out, the Germans never set foot in Moscow. They got close, but the Russians held them off, yet not according to these news broadcasts. And here’s another thing. There’s been a mention of a man named Sergei Kirov running things over there.”
“Some Russian General?”
“The title was General Secretary—of the Communist Party!”
“Wasn’t that Stalin?”
“Right. He held the office until 1952, but there’s been no mention of him at all. It’s all this Kirov fellow. Whatever’s going on here, things appear different. The history is already twisted—just like that damn volcano was never supposed to erupt this year. I looked that up too. It was supposed to happen in 1883. Something is really strange in all of this.”
“That’s one hell of an understatement.” Harada looked very troubled. “This can’t be happening XO. It just can’t be happening.”
“We better get past that sir, and quickly. It is happening, just like Kimura said. We’re here, and right in the middle of the Miso soup. The only question we should be asking ourselves now is what we’re going to do about it.”
Turning Point (Kirov Series Book 22) Page 20
