THE FORESIGHT WAR

by Anthony G Williams

  ‘Will the Humbers be OK in this weather?’ He asked dubiously. ‘I gather the roads are pretty awful on the other side.’

  The Captain shrugged. ‘I expect we’ll soon find out. Any news yet?’

  Taylor shook his head. Operation Matador, the advance into Siam to forestall a Japanese invasion, had been planned for months. The only problem was the diplomatic nicety of invading a neutral country which hadn’t asked for help. Norway all over again, he thought. We really must stop being so squeamish. At least, one glove had been taken off with the shooting down of the reconnaissance plane; now they could shoot back. He was more than a little suspicious of the reason for the orders which had taken the Hampden so unnecessarily close to the Japanese fleet, which the radar-equipped Sunderlands had been tracking from a safe distance…

  The radio headset crackled and the Captain put it on and listened for a few seconds. Then he turned to Taylor with a grim smile. ‘We’re on. Invasion ships have been reported inside Malayan territorial waters off Kota Bharu with more approaching the coast of Siam.’

  Taylor mirrored his grin. ‘I gather your loader has a bad case of the runs.’

  The Captain eyed him speculatively. ‘You didn’t find me by chance, did you?’

  Taylor’s grin widened. ‘I don’t like leaving anything to chance. Let’s go!’

  The soldiers on duty at Kahuku Point, on the northern tip of Oahu, were bored. They had been out on a training exercise since 4 a.m., manning the Opana Mobile Radar Unit. Since the big British plane they had been warned about had passed by on its way back to Hickham Field half an hour ago, nothing had flickered on the screen.

  One of the GIs leaned forward, puzzled.

  ‘What do you make of that?’

  A smaller dot had appeared on the screen from the north, as if following the track of the Warwick.

  His companion grunted. ‘Check with the others.’

  In due course the other two units confirmed that they too had made the same contact.

  ‘Better report it. Then we can start packing up.’

  Their stint ended at 7 a.m. Two of the units shut down ready to leave. The third pair of soldiers left their set on a while longer, waiting for the breakfast truck.

  The exclamation of astonishment came from one of the soldiers at 7.06 a.m., precisely.

  Peter Morgan controlled his temper. The young Lieutenant in front of him was clearly worried, but reluctant to act.

  ‘It is very early on Sunday morning, sir. My superiors are probably all asleep at home.’

  ‘Look at it this way,’ Morgan said reasonably. ‘If I’m wrong, you can blame me for insisting that the alarm is given. If I’m right and you don’t act, you’ll go down in history as the one man who left Pearl Harbor open to disaster.’

  The Lieutenant gulped unhappily. The Britisher’s fierce intensity unnerved him. ‘Well, I don’t know…’

  The phone rang.

  Commander Mitsuo Fuchida stared down on Oahu from the cockpit of his bomber. The cloud formations above the island which had been visible from far away had now broken up and the morning sun shimmered across the sea. Visibility was perfect, the surf breaking on Kahuhu Point clearly visible. The reconnaissance aircraft which had preceded the air fleet had reported no aircraft carriers in harbour, which was a blow, but several battleships. Good enough; he was going in. He scanned the sky, looking for the dots of defending aircraft ready to pounce. Very soon, he would need to decide which plan of attack to execute.

  The time was 7.40 a.m. The sky was clear. Fuchida pulled open the cockpit and fired the single ‘Black Dragon’ signal flare which indicated a surprise attack. His formation of Aichi D3A dive bombers, Mitsubishi A6M fighters and Nakajima B5N attack bombers, some carrying bombs, others torpedoes, began to move into their attack positions.

  Fuchida frowned – the fighters had not responded. Irritated, he fired another flare. The fighters reacted – but so did the bombers, as two flares meant ‘surprise lost’ and a different attack formation. Fuchida grunted in annoyance – now both the dive and torpedo bombers would attack simultaneously instead of in the coordinated way planned.

  Pearl Harbor crawled into view on his port quarter, the lines of battleships moored by Ford Island clearly visible. As he began to lead his formation around to line up on the great base, movement caught the corner of his eye. He looked down, puzzled.

  The Allison engine screamed as if in unearthly rage, dragging the P-40 upwards and forwards into the sky, hurtling towards the clusters of dots gleaming in the morning sun. In his headphones the pilot could hear the constant stream of profanity from his wingman. Nerves were stretched close to snapping by the sudden alarm at Wheeler Field, the desperate rush to fuel the planes, arm the guns, take off, take off!

  Behind him, some three dozen sleek fighters, all of the P-40s that could be scrambled, fought to catch up. Further behind still trailed however many P-36s had managed to get airborne.

  Shouts and screams echoed over the intercom and he glanced in his mirror. The P-36s were under attack! He could see the swarm of dots which must be Japanese planes surrounding the struggling American fighters. No time for that now – his business was ahead of him.

  Fuchida urged the Nakajima onwards, the airframe shuddering as it approached its maximum speed of 200 knots. Ahead and to one side, he could see the Aichis preparing to dive. Suddenly, his plane juddered and lurched as if in pain, and strange shapes flashed across his field of view – fighters with long, pointed noses, not the blunt radials of the familiar Mitsubishis. The Americans were amongst them!

  The Japanese formation, shredded and dispersed by the P-40s’ attack, pressed on to the target. The quiescent ships suddenly erupted with anti-aircraft fire; first the five inch guns, their fifty-five pound shells bursting among the planes, then the 1.1 inch cannon in their quadruple mountings, hammering rhythmically as the gun crews raced to and fro with clips of ammunition; finally the rapid blare of the fifty-calibre Browning machine guns. Planes fell, bombs fell, torpedoes struck, mayhem ruled. The noise, smoke, shock and terror were indescribable. It was just past 8 a.m. on a sunny Hawaiian morning.

  ‘They should have provided us with periscopes – it’s just as well it’s dark, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see a thing!’ The navigator grinned at the pilot’s idiosyncratic logic as rain sluiced past the Beaufort’s canopy.

  ‘Not to worry!’ He called out. ‘We can blow ballast tanks soon!’ He continued to watch the radar screen as the Isthmus of Kra crawled below him. Somewhere up ahead should be some ships.

  Admiral Somerville stared grimly at a much larger radar screen, which showed the Beauforts at the limit of detection. Soon they would be out of range and on their own. He sighed. ‘It’s a foul night. I hope the weather’s better on the eastern side.’

  ‘Not much, sir. There should be some breaks in the cloud and rain, but on the other hand they shouldn’t need them. At least, there is good news from Kota Bharu. One of their ships tripped over our minefield and Brigands from the air base hit the other two with rockets before they could start unloading. All three ships were sunk and not many troops made it. The survivors have all been captured.’

  Somerville grunted. He was not best pleased to be sending his airmen out to do battle while he was forced to remain in relative safety in the Indian Ocean, fifty miles off the west coast of Siam. His mighty battleships were useless there, hundreds of sea miles from the Gulf of Siam on the other side of the Isthmus of Kra. He fretted in the knowledge that action had already started. Still, he was forced to acknowledge the sense of his orders. He could not possibly have sailed the Eastern Fleet round the Malayan peninsula and past Singapore without the Japanese knowing all about it. For a little while longer, his presence would be unsuspected.

  At midnight local time, the three transports of the Ando Detachment separated from the fleet and headed for Patani. About two hours later, the fourteen ships of the main invasion fleet dropped anchor opposite Singora beach, guided
in by the lighthouse still innocently functioning. The ships rolled in the heavy seas and the freshening north-east wind dashed the waves against the sides of the vessels.

  The Japanese soldiers gloomily contemplated climbing, heavily laden, down rope ladders into violently pitching small boats. This was not going to be fun. The only benefit was that the clouds had thinned sufficiently to allow a dim moonlight to illuminate the scene. A signal light flashed from the command ship, the Ryujo Maru, and the lowering of the flotilla of motorboats began.

  A bright, fast-moving streak of light suddenly flashed across the sky.

  ‘Look, a meteor!’ Several voices cried. ‘An omen!’

  The light streaked towards the Ryujo Maru and disappeared. A second later, the night burst open in a ball of fire, the concussive thunder of the explosion rolling around the bay. As the Japanese watched in horror, more lights flashed in from the west, more explosions shook the fleet.

  ‘Get loading now! Hurry it up!’ The officers screamed instructions and the men were not slow to obey, the little boats on the heaving sea suddenly seeming much more appealing than the massive transports. The task of transhipment from the surviving ships was completed in record time.

  The Captain of HM Submarine Talisman observed the carnage with interest through his periscope. His own carefully-aimed salvo of ten torpedoes had claimed four victims but had scarcely been noticed amidst the spectacular missile attack. The Japanese destroyers were dashing about frantically but posed no immediate threat. He decided to wait for his crew to finish reloading the six internal tubes, then see what was left.

  ‘A pity we didn’t have more Ospreys.’

  Admiral Somerville grunted acknowledgement to the intelligence officer. The anti-ship missiles, guided by homing in on the reflected radar emissions from the Beauforts which carried them, had been devastatingly effective, but only a few had been ready in time, flown out to Columbo for the fleet to collect.

  ‘Still, we’ve dampened their enthusiasm more than somewhat. The reports of the SBS reconnaissance units indicate that at least three quarters of the Singora ships were hit, and probably less than half the troops got ashore, without much heavy equipment.’

  ‘What about Patani?’

  ‘The Tribune got all three ships at Patani. The SBS finished off the few who got ashore.

  ‘So now it’s down to Operation Matador to clean up. Let’s hope they get a move on before the Japs send in reinforcements.’

  ‘Get that blackout fixed! Don’t you realise there’s a war on!’ Brigadier Simson was being driven to distraction by the casual attitude of the Singaporeans to their terrible vulnerability. The problem was, he was aware, that deep down most of them couldn’t really believe that they would be affected by war. To them, the war was something that happened thousands of miles away, while they continued to enjoy all of the privileged lifestyle that the wealthy colony offered.

  Robinson’s, the huge modern department store and restaurant whose air-conditioned luxury made it the central focus of white Singapore, continued to trade as usual. The cream of local society still headed out to the Sea View Hotel for Sunday morning drinks and the ritual singing of ‘There’ll always be an England’. And it was far too hot and humid to think of blocking the ventilation with blackout blinds.

  As he jumped back into the car, Simson was stopped in his tracks by a new sound. An unearthly low moaning rose steadily to a chilling wail, lifting the hairs on his spine. The first air raid had begun.

  JAPS DECLARE WAR.

  Don stopped and passed a penny over to the newspaper vendor, eyes caught by the banner headline of the Daily Express. ‘We fight Britain and America from dawn’ the headlines went on, quoting Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo. NAVY BATTLE IN PACIFIC the paper continued more speculatively.

  ‘I hope not,’ Don muttered to himself, ‘otherwise something’s gone wrong.’ He rapidly skimmed the paper, but it added nothing to the information he had been receiving all night. Pearl Harbor and Singapore bombed, but casualties were relatively light and the paper was full of praise for the exploits of the squadron of Mosquito night-fighters which had, just in time, been wrenched from a protesting Fighter Command and dispatched to the Far East. The landing at Kota Bharu had been defeated, but there was no reliable information about the situation in Siam. Don was momentarily surprised by the dates and times involved – the Kota Bharu assault took place on the morning of 8th December but some hours before Pearl Harbor was attacked on the 7th – until he remembered they were in different time zones.

  He shivered and turned his collar up in the cold morning air, then walked on towards his flat. Not too much damage last night, he noted. The night-fighter force was steadily gaining in experience and reaping an increasing toll of the raiders, while the emergency services were becoming skilled at dousing fires and clearing away the rubble caused by the ones which got through.

  Charles Dunning was waiting for him in his study. He had, it appeared, enjoyed more sleep than Don. ‘The last piece of the jigsaw in place,’ He commented.

  ‘Not quite. Hitler hasn’t yet declared war on the USA. Once he has, we can get down to brass tacks with the Americans.’

  Charles nodded, thoughtfully. Discussions, both public and private, had been going on with the USA for a long time, and had been raised to a new level when Churchill and Roosevelt had travelled by warship to a meeting at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, the previous August.

  Don gratefully accepted a steaming cup of his own tea and settled wearily into the other armchair. The relationship between the two leaders was rather curious, he reflected. Churchill desperately wanted to recruit Roosevelt’s, and thereby America’s, participation in the war. Roosevelt was well aware of this and countered Churchill’s jovial bonhomie with a degree of reserve. Both, however, were agreed on the importance of resisting totalitarian regimes, with Nazi Germany as the highest priority. Both men were also well aware that many in the American establishment considered the USA’s interests in the Pacific to be more important, and furthermore were reluctant to do anything to help Britain retain its prewar colonial influence.

  ‘So your Automedon ploy worked after all.’ Charles’ voice broke into his thoughts.

  Don nodded. ‘Looks like it.’

  Charles was referring to a carefully leaked report which cast doom and gloom on Britain’s ability to defend its Far East possessions against a Japanese attack, with the aim of inciting the Japanese to do just that. The code name had come from an incident in Don’s time in which just such a report, being carried to Singapore in the freighter Automedon, was seized by a German commerce raider and found its way to Japan. The difference was that in Don’s time, the loss was regarded as an intelligence disaster; this time, Churchill wanted Japan to attack in order to bring America into the war.

  ‘The great unknown is still whether or not the Germans have warned the Japanese.’ Charles was thoughtful.

  ‘Not very convincingly, obviously, or they wouldn’t have attacked. On the other hand, they might have had the same problems that we had with Stalin, who was suspicious of the warnings and didn’t want to believe them.’

  ‘From what you’ve told us of the political and economic pressures caused by the Western refusal to trade with them, they were being strangled anyway and probably thought they had nothing to lose.’

  Don grimaced. ‘The military are firmly in control, and they’re a real death-or-glory bunch.’ He threw himself wearily down into an armchair, feeling suddenly tired despite the earliness of the hour. ‘So now it’s the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore and all the rest all over again.’ The names rolled through his memory; Corregidor, Bataan, Guadalcanal, Kwajalein, Guam, Iwo Jima, Okinawa. Ferocious battles against the most fearless and tenacious of enemies.

  Charles studied his cigarette with unusual care. ‘There is a good chance that the Americans will be better prepared this time.’

  Don cocked an eye at him. ‘Let me guess – the “special relationship” is it?’


  ‘You could say that our leader was in a state of nervous excitement at Placentia Bay. He would have loved to tell Roosevelt all about you, of course, but was scared stiff that too much honesty about the battles ahead might have tipped the Americans towards negotiating with the Japanese instead of fighting them. It was no accident that you were left behind. Just the same, I’m willing to bet that the US received the benefit of some unusually accurate “intelligence reports”.’

  Don frowned. ‘I rather hope they have. Far too many lives were lost because the Allies underestimated the Japs.’ He winced as he remembered the racist rhetoric in British newspapers, whose editors were evidently convinced that the Japanese were inferior specimens of humanity, with particularly poor eyesight due to a lack of vitamin C, and with an industry incapable of doing more than produce inferior copies of western equipment.

  Charles sighed. ‘I wonder how Geoffrey and Peter are doing? I gather Geoffrey flew up to north Malaya and hasn’t been seen since. Everything’s in a state of confusion up there.’

  ‘It’s Peter I feel sorry for. We gave him a hell of a job.’

  Dunning shrugged. ‘It had to be done, and he was the only one to do it.’

  His pass eventually accepted by the jumpy guards, Peter Morgan walked through the naval base towards the South-East Loch. There was surprisingly little damage and the all-important tank farm he had passed, holding fuel supplies for the fleet, was intact. The dockyards were jammed with ships showing varying signs of damage and the teeming activity around the base reminded him of a giant anthill.