THE FORESIGHT WAR

by Anthony G Williams

  ‘That’s more like it. A long hot soak, clean underwear and a large scotch.’ Geoffrey Taylor settled luxuriously into the liberally cushioned chair with every sign of having settled in for the duration – of the bottle, at least.

  ‘I hear you’ve been having some exciting times.’ Peter Morgan had been considerably cheered to see his old colleague again. At last, he had someone to whom he could talk freely, who would understand the tension and the constant, underlying guilt which had racked him since Pearl Harbor.

  ‘I thought it better to get some first-hand information about what was going on. Very difficult to form a clear view from several hundred miles away.’ And it had certainly been first-hand, he thought wryly. The fluid ‘front line’ combined with the Japanese tactic of small-unit penetration meant that there were no safe areas anywhere near Nakhon.

  He shivered briefly at a sudden, intense memory; darkness, confusion, screams and shots sending a surge of adrenaline through his sleep-befuddled mind, the weight of the Solen in his hands, the bucking, hammering recoil, the contorted Japanese faces close enough to be illuminated by the flickering muzzle flashes. He abruptly shook his head and took a large swig of scotch. ‘Meanwhile you, I suppose, have just being playing the tourist in your personal chauffeur-driven transport plane.’

  Morgan grinned lazily. ‘Something like that, yes.’ The Warwick had been on duty whenever the weather permitted, ranging far across the South China Sea towards Borneo, constantly watching for the movement of Japanese ships; a duty which had only recently become less hazardous with the arrival from England of some Reaper aircraft for escort duties. ‘Off to Burma soon, are you?’ Morgan teased.

  Taylor groaned. ‘Give me a break. I’ve had enough of jungle for the time being. Anyway, they seem to be doing well enough without me.’

  This time, the British had been expecting the Japanese to thrust westwards across the Siam-Burma border and had been able to call on well-equipped troops and air cover, aided by the American Colonel Chennault’s ‘Flying Tigers’, to repel the initial attacks. As in the Isthmus of Kra, the jungle hid a conflict mainly consisting of a continuing series of intensely bitter engagements between relatively small numbers of troops.

  ‘At least we don’t have to worry about defending Hong Kong.’

  Taylor nodded. The position of the colony would clearly be hopeless once Japan entered the war, so after a brief argument with a belligerent Churchill, Don Erlang had secured agreement to withdraw all regular forces the previous November. The local defence volunteers had followed instructions and surrendered after a brief token resistance in order to minimise casualties. ‘The place seems a bit emptier than I remember?’ Taylor’s remark was a question.

  Morgan nodded, serious. ‘Singapore’s defences have largely been stripped to support Burma on the one hand and the Philippines on the other. There are only a few Spitfires and Mossies available on the island – as well as the carrier planes, of course; the fleet refused to give them up.’

  The war of attrition was continuing in the Philippines, with General MacArthur doggedly blocking the Japanese advances, greatly helped by the influx of British and Australian air power to supplement his own depleted defences.

  ‘I hear fleet leave has been cancelled.’

  Morgan nodded, his face suddenly sombre. ‘There’s every indication that the Japs are going to move south. And our cryptanalysts have identified their new flagship – the Yamato.’

  Taylor winced. They had all been warned by Don about the massive Japanese battleships under construction, which dwarfed the treaty-limited ships being built by the other naval powers. At seventy thousand tons, Yamato displaced twice as much as the new British battleships. Her nine eighteen-inch guns fired shells weighing nearly one and a half tons – two-thirds heavier than the British fifteen inch – out to a range of twenty-six miles. Her armour protection was equally massive. No ship was unsinkable, but the Yamato was by far the most formidable battleship ever built. Her sister-ship – Musashi – was due to be commissioned later in the year. ‘Rather them than me,’ he muttered, thinking of the British crews.

  Morgan raised his glass. ‘Amen to that,’ he intoned. They continued to drink in thoughtful silence.

  Yamamoto had made his decision, not without some anguish. The American carrier force still lurked intact in the Pacific, a threat to Japanese operations against Midway and other Pacific islands. However, the need to secure the East Indies, with their oil and other vital resources, was paramount; and this was being blocked by the British Eastern Fleet. The Royal Navy must be forced to come out from the protection of Singapore and fight. The Pacific would have to wait.

  From the cruising Beaufort, the South China Sea stretched like a vast steel sheet, gleaming in the evening sunshine. A pattern of markings marred the smoothness, white-streaked trails running in parallel. At the head of each was what looked like a small, pointed stick. From this altitude, the massive Eastern Fleet looked insignificant indeed.

  The plane lost altitude, shaping its flight to head for the boxier stick which was its home, HMS Manchester. As they approached, the crew began to identify the ships. The four new fleet carriers, Illustrious, Invincible, Inflexible and the Ark Royal, were in a loose group in the centre of the fleet, with the smaller Manchester a couple of miles ahead.

  Surrounding them were the massive shapes of the battleships: the flagship King George V, which had given its name to the class of ‘KGVs’, with her sisterships Duke of York, Prince of Wales and the new Anson, on her first commission. Ahead of the formation came the surviving cruisers: Canberra, Australia and Glasgow, joined by the Dutch De Ruyter and Java. Newcastle was absent, still being repaired in dock. In a screen around the fleet was a circle of Dido class frigates, and further out still were the lithe, restless destroyers. All in all, the pilot of the Beaufort reflected, it was the most impressive fleet the United Kingdom and Commonwealth had sent into battle since the Great War.

  Admiral Somerville did not share the Beaufort pilot’s complacent pride. The fleet had successfully negotiated the minefields, albeit with the loss of a minesweeper and a destroyer, and the circling Beauforts had suppressed any enemy submarine activity, but he was well aware that the worst was yet to come.

  Long-distance radar contacts made by patrolling Sunderlands had been followed up by a photo-reconnaissance plane. The sweating pilot had flown his Reaper straight over the Japanese fleet, spearing through the swarming Mitsubishis at well over 400 mph with Merlins howling and boost gauges in the red. He had been too preoccupied to notice much about the ships, but the photographs he brought back sent a chill through the intelligence officers who examined them.

  ‘They’ve sent the lot,’ one said, his voice an awed whisper. There were transports in plenty, clear evidence of the Japanese determination to seize the East Indies with the minimum of delay, but it was the escorting warships which drew the attention.

  ‘Six carriers. The two big ones must be the Kaga and Akagi. The other two the new Shokako class. And two smaller ones.’

  ‘Look at those battleships,’ another said. ‘Four twin turrets in close pairs; they must be Nagato and Mutsu, with sixteen-inch guns. The two with six turrets have to be the Fuso or Ise classes, with fourteen-inch. There seem to be a couple of Kongo class battlecruisers with eight fourteen-inch – X and Y turrets are widely separated – and just look at that!’

  Dwarfing the other battleships, the immense shape drew them all to peer in turn through the magnifying glass. The ship’s huge beam tapered to surprisingly slender fo’c’sle before swelling out again to rounded bows. The massive triple turrets were unmistakable.

  ‘It must be the new one, the Yamato.’

  ‘Yes, but look at the size!’

  Somewhat to his regret, Somerville had just had time to study the photographs before the fleet left Singapore. He was left, he reflected, between the devil and the deep blue sea. He had to try to stop the invasion but he also had to try to preserve his fleet. He
would do very well to achieve either. There was a strong chance that he would fail at both.

  The silence in the Ops Room was sombre. Don Erlang, Charles Dunning and Harold Johnson had spent several hours together in the claustrophobic space, collating the intelligence reports of the battle as they came in. They had been obtained at some risk, Peter Morgan flying his Warwick over the South China Sea to radio the messages back to Geoffrey Taylor, who in turn sent them on to London.

  ‘That seems to be it, then. It’s all over.’

  Nobody felt inclined to add to Charles’s conclusion. Johnson left the room for a while, and returned clutching a bottle of gin and some glasses. He poured large measures into each and passed them round.

  ‘To Admiral Somerville and his men. May they rest in peace.’

  His companions murmured assent and drank. Don pulled the paper towards him, studied the scrawled notes. The Allied fleet’s advantages had been speed and radar. They had used the latter to keep out of reach of the Japanese fleet until dark, then had raced in to launch their aircraft, following up with a flat-out charge by the gun ships while the carriers retired. The radio-controlled bombs which had done such damage at Taranto had hammered the Japanese warships and had been followed up in a coordinated attack by torpedo planes.

  The first waves had been concentrated on the carriers, to put them out of action before dawn. Two had been sunk, another two badly damaged. Attention had then switched to the battleships, especially the giant flagship. Damage had been done, with one Kongo sunk and the other, plus an Ise, sent limping homewards. By then, a third of the Beauforts were lost and the pilots of the remainder were collapsing with exhaustion.

  Dawn had brought the response. First, a melee of aircraft over the Allied fleet as the defending fighters fought off the vengeful Japanese aircraft from their surviving carriers. As Don had expected, the Beaufighter had proved able to handle the Mitsubishi Zero. The British aircraft’s greater weight and wing loading made it less manoeuvrable but faster in the dive, while the combination of armour and 20 mm cannon had proved decisive against the unprotected Japanese planes.

  Then the gun ships were within range, the British battleships engaging their opposite numbers while the smaller warships tried to slip through to get at the transports.

  No quarter had been asked or given, no pause in the action through a long hot morning, the faster British ships constantly manoeuvring, covered by destroyer-laid smokescreens through which their radar-directed guns could shoot. In response the Japanese cruisers and destroyers constantly tried to close the range to launch their massive 24-inch ‘Long Lance’ torpedoes, which totally outclassed the Allied weapons in speed, range and destructive power. The covering British destroyers were repeatedly hit and knocked out, leaving gaps in the smoke-screen through which the skilled Japanese gun crews immediately opened fire.

  Don tried to imagine what it had been like for Admiral Somerville, standing on the bridge of his flagship, perhaps seeing the rippling flash of the distant Yamato’s gunfire, waiting an eternity before the gathering roar signalled the arrival of the massive shells. Could he even have seen them before they struck, he wondered? Somerville must have known that the KGV’s armour was not designed to resist such an assault.

  Reports from British survivors had described the duel, the KGV’s old guns firing quickly and accurately at the Japanese flagship, shell splashes almost hiding the towering superstructure. It seemed that it had been the Yamato’s fifth salvo that had finally caught the KGV and slowed her. Three full broadsides had then straddled the British flagship. When the spray settled, she was already sinking.

  Then the great guns had turned onto the other British capital ships, already locked in battle with the Nagato, Mutsu and the Ise class battleships. The Ise had been sunk and the Mutsu left dead in the water, but two more British battleships had been hammered to the sea floor by a hail of sixteen- and eighteen-inch shells before the Japanese Admiral broke off the action.

  At last, it had finished. Strategically, the result of the Battle of the South China Sea had been a victory for the Allies. Persistent attacks by cruisers, frigates and Beauforts had inflicted such losses on the invasion fleet that it was forced to withdraw, covered by the remaining Japanese warships, among them the Yamato, battered but unbeaten. The British carriers, staying well back from the action, had been spared as the Japanese concentrated their power on defending their fleet against the onslaught of the gun ships. But the cost had been appalling. Initial estimates were that at least five thousand British, Commonwealth and Dutch sailors had died. Japanese casualties had probably been five times higher, mainly among the troopships.

  Johnson slowly and deliberately swigged another large gin, then began reciting the names as if in prayer, his voice shaking with weariness and emotion. ‘King George the Fifth. Duke of York. Anson. Glasgow. De Ruyter. Canberra. Six frigates and at least nine destroyers, God help me but I don’t yet know their names.’

  The others stood silently. Outside, a winter’s dawn was breaking.

  CHAPTER 8 - SECOND FRONT

  Spring 1942

  A slow churning noise disturbed the evening air, followed by the shattering roar of a high-powered aero engine. A second engine joined in, then a third and a fourth. Still more added to the cacophony, until the air itself seemed to be shaking.

  After a few minutes, the huge shape of the first Manchester bomber began to move slowly from its dispersal area to the end of the runway. Don Erlang watched with mixed emotions. Excited in his childhood by the stories of epic heroism in the fight over Germany, he had carefully assembled the Airfix kits in his bedroom before recruiting his father’s aid to hang them from the ceiling. The Wellington, Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster had cast shadows on his imagination for years afterwards.

  Later, he had found out that it wasn’t quite as simple as that. The controversy which had gathered around Bomber Command’s devastating raids on civilian populations had been the subject of his doctoral thesis. He could not help reflecting on the irony of the situation. In the hope of minimising the horrors of the war to come he had used his influence to counter the ambitions of Bomber Command, to give priority to the unfashionable Coastal Command and to developing army co-operation – even more hated by an RAF which saw its future in independent action, divorced from the other services. In the meantime, he had encouraged the development of precision night bombing techniques which would allow the small force of bombers to concentrate their efforts on military and strategic targets, sparing the cities the horrors of area bombing.

  Then disaster had struck. Once Churchill had decided that it was essential to Britain’s survival to deflect the Luftwaffe from attacking ports and dockyards and had launched the first attack on Berlin, the war of the cities had started. Since then, the desperate plight of the Soviet Union had kept up the pressure to be seen to strike hard at Germany, to encourage the Soviets to keep on fighting.

  The wind created by the dozens of propellers chilled him, and he snuggled more deeply within his greatcoat. A more urgent roar came from the first of the Manchesters, and Don watched as it slowly gathered speed. There was enough light left to reveal a shape very different from those which had hung from his ceiling. The fuselage was sleek and slender, unmarred by gun turrets, the wings narrow and long, the four highly supercharged Merlin engines tightly cowled. This was an aircraft designed to travel far, fast and high, a kind of giant Mosquito relying on speed, altitude and the cover of night to keep above the flak and avoid the attentions of the Luftwaffe.

  Don thought back to the briefing he had attended as an observer. The crews had been told that the target for tonight was an armaments factory in Berlin. The name of this most distant and heavily defended of targets always had a sobering effect, according to the Intelligence officer who had chatted to him afterwards. The night sky over Germany was the scene of a constantly fluctuating battle, as first one side then the other seized the advantage. The current odds were that of the forty-eight air
craft which had taken off from this airfield, one or two would not return.

  Don waited until the last of the huge machines had vanished into the gathering gloom, leaving behind the smell of engine oil and high-octane fuel. Then he slowly walked back to his car, deep in thought.

  The young mother groaned in exasperation as she tugged her unwilling daughter back from the shops. It wasn’t as if they were poor, but with her husband away in the army she had to be careful about money. And despite nearly three years of war, there was still plenty in the shops – enough to tempt her daughter, at any rate.

  She at last returned to the small flat she rented in the city suburbs. It wasn’t much, but it was adequate and it had the benefit of a large basement with room for all the residents during the occasional air raid. She dumped her shopping on the kitchen table, passing her daughter a sweet to suck. She checked her watch. Time to catch the news. She switched on the wireless and waited patiently as the set warmed up.

  The news was much the same as usual. Encouraging news about the fighting, exhortations from some minister about the need for more efforts to save, to produce, to economise. Nothing of interest. She sighed and started her housework, leaving her radio on for the illusion of company it gave. She wondered if the RAF would come to Berlin, tonight.

  The navigator read the battle order again, just to be sure. Unlike the early part of the War, when each aircraft had found its own way to the target, their route was carefully specified. It did not follow a straight path, but zig-zagged in order to confuse the enemy about their intended target. In addition, they had been informed of diversionary raids being mounted by other units, all designed to draw the German night-fighter force away from them. There would also be some pressurised Serrate Mosquito night-fighters accompanying them on this trip, waiting to pounce on their opposite numbers.