J. E. MacDonnell - 139

by Death Of A Destroyer(lit)

  In his mind was the phrase `blown out", which was true enough. It was also harsh. "He got into the water," (he wrote) "and was picked up by one of the ship's lifeboats. Lieutenant-Commander Bledsoe steered that boat, picking up survivors round the ship. Then he brought the boat back to us before he died.

  "It is small comfort to you, who have lost a loved one, to say that the manner of his passing on has aroused the greatest admiration in all of us. I wish there was something I could say to comfort you. All I can say is that you have the deepest sympathy of the officers and men of this ship, with whom he served and fought."

  The captain read the letter over. It occurred to him to show it to Caswell; but almost immediately he rejected this impulse.

  He read it over again, and with a kind of finality laid the letter down on the desk. Then he folded the page into an envelope and addressed it.

  His face a mask, his eyes hard, he opened the cabin door and stepped out into the passage.

  The destroyer's death had cut hard to the core of each man aboard Spindrift. The episode had hardened the respect they already held for the efficiency of the Jap; secondly, every man in the ship was filled with a deep and sombre hatred for the enemy who had done this thing: not one man left from an entire ship's company.

  Sainsbury sensed this feeling as he stood on the bridge, with Spindrift moving steadily through the calm sea. The bridge lookouts were staring through their binoculars, grimly alert; on B-gun below him there was no laughter, no chiacking amongst the crew; they went about their cleaning duties silently, and every few moments each man would stare up and search the sky. From these two representative indications he knew that now he had more than a ship's company - he had a team of fighters.

  It would be bad - through evil luck, or mistiming; some tiny vital error in judgement or skill - through whatever reason, it would be bad if he failed them.

  He was given the unwanted chance to prove his competence just before dusk.

  The time was getting on for seven. There was still plenty of light for this was only seven degrees of latitude below the Equator. And those clouds ahead, as if eaten up by brassy sun, had vanished. The weather change was both good and bad: good for sighting formations of aircraft on their way to blast Moresby, but bad for a ship that wanted herself to remain unsighted.

  Radar made the first contact.

  Still on watch, Caswell spoke down the captain's voice pipe; the lid was never closed in fine weather. Sainsbury had eaten most of his dinner of tinned sausages and tinned tomatoes, anticipating a long watchful night on the bridge. He had not expected to be called so soon.

  "Looks like an early night raid on Moresby," Caswell said as he made the bridge. "It will be fully dark, but moonlit, when they get there."

  "So they're headed for Moresby, Number One?" Sainsbury's tone was steady, which was more than could be said of his stomach. "It is a large formation? Not aiming for Guadalcanal, by any chance?"

  Caswell still had the radar office phone at his ear. He said, "Yes?" and a moment later looked at Sainsbury. "Enemy course is southwest."

  "Moresby," the captain nodded, and took up his glasses. "And the formation?"

  "Looks like a fairly big one, sir, plenty of echoes."

  "Mmmm. Now we have the problem..." Sainsbury stopped, then spoke down the wheelhouse voice pipe. "Nine-oh revolutions." That was ten knots. "No point in having a large white wake shouting up at them. Now we have the problem," he went on, "of just when to break wireless silence."

  Caswell seemed to think there was no problem, for he answered at once: "Right away, sir. The more warning we can give the Fighter Sector in Moresby the better. They have to scramble Kittyhawks and Lightnings, and there are the 3.7 inch batteries."

  "Yes," Sainsbury mused. "But I'm thinking that not only the Fighter Sector will pick up our transmissions."

  "Ah..."

  "Yes, Splinter. If we were to wait a little, until the formation has flown past us ahead, then even if the Japs do intercept our message they might fail to sight us. And even if they do, they might not think we're worth diverting any of their strength to deal with us."

  "Good thinking, sir."

  "Thank you, Number One. In the meantime, please close the ship up for action."

  It was done; the hurried bustling, the sharp orders from around the gun mountings, and then the quiet again. The only difference was that where before she had been alert, now she was tense.

  A lookout called his report. Sainsbury raised his glasses. He had them almost at once: high and distant off the starboard bow, remote-seeming, but quite distinct against the paling blue of the north-east sky. He could not tell their number, but it was obvious they had come from Rabaul, and just as plainly they were heading to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains to get at Port Moresby.

  Instinct urged him to transmit immediately a warning of that menacing flotilla up there, sailing with bomb-bays packed. He looked about him. The sea seemed to be alive with light. Damn those treacherous clouds! If the Japs had intercepted his signal - not if, but when - then they had only to look down for the origin of it and Spindrift must stand out on this shining sea like a fish laid on a silver plate. He thought of reducing speed still further, but that would leave him no manoeuvrability, and there was that other, more hated enemy - the skulking submarine, liable to come up about this time for a look around; and what a juicy target one of those swine would find, a destroyer at five knots...

  No, he thought: a few more minutes wouldn't make all that much difference to the port's defences, while in that time the Jap formation would have crossed ahead of him. He felt almost certain that, having passed him, the leader would not turn any of his planes back.

  In less than a few minutes, in fact only a few seconds after he had made up his mind to delay, the decision was taken out of his hands.

  "Yes?" Caswell said again. He listened, then turned a sober face to Sainsbury. "Radar reports two contacts have broken away from the main body, probably fighters. Whatever they are, they're heading straight for us."

  "Warn all gun positions," Sainsbury said, and again raised his glasses. And from under them: "Yeoman, get off that sighting signal, at the rush."

  Chapter Seven

  Against the mass of the main formation it was not yet possible to distinguish the two breakaways by eye. Sainsbury lowered his binoculars and wiped impatiently at his eyes. Surprising him, his fingers came away wet. He pulled out a handerkerchief, for his whole face was perspiring. But then the air clung like a warm face cloth. And yet - analysing himself as he always did - he had not felt so sweaty a few minutes ago. Before the sighting of those planes? Honest with himself - this above all - he knew that he should have turned back after the loss of Mack; that now he might very well be leading his men into the same total annihilation. He had found an enemy bomber formation. But giving Moresby's defences an hour or so extra warning... was that worth the death of his ship and all his men? The top brass apparently thought so, else why had they sent him to patrol here? But the top brass, God knows, had been wrong before. And he, too - hideously wrong?

  "I've got `em now," Caswell said suddenly. "Two Zeros, angle of sight six-oh."

  He felt thankful for the first lieutenant's words; their practicality returned the ferment of his mind to hard tactical considerations. He resurrected a mental image of the chart. They were about 100 miles north of Trobriand Island, which was clear of Japs. No point in running on towards New Britain, which was occupied by Japs. Running? He was at ten knots!

  "Pilot! Increase to thirty knots. Come round on to the southern leg."

  No point, either, in telling Pilot why he wanted to get close to land, and with the bridge listening in. The yeoman called:

  "The main formation are twin-engined bombers, sir, almost certainly Betty's."

  "Very well. Keep on them, Yeoman. You will be able to detect any change in course before radar."

  "Aye aye, sir," answered the yeoman, who had every intention of doing just that.


  "As soon as those fighters are in range, Number One, open in controlled firing. You never know, we might be lucky enough to bring one down."

  "It's been done before." Caswell's tone was hard, like his lean face. I don't have to worry about you, Sainsbury thought. It gave him some small comfort. But Caswell was speaking again. "Just before we open fire, sir, you'll alter course to bring all four guns on the bearing?"

  To such an elementary suggestion Sainsbury very nearly replied, "Do you really think I should do that, Number One?" He desisted, realising that Caswell was wire-taut, and had known his captain only a few days. He said: "I shall alter to port, away from Rothwell Bank." And then, sharply, seeing the look of surprise on Caswell's face: "Well?"

  Caswell looked embarrassed. "Sorry, sir. I'd forgotten about Rothwell Bank." His eyes added: "Thank God you hadn't." For Rothwell Bank was a deadly shoal, and it lay only a few miles to starboard of Spindrift's present course.

  "Mmmm. What is the range now?"

  "Twenty miles, sir."

  Both gunnery and navigation are essentially mathematical sciences. Used to quick calculations, Sainsbury had no trouble with this one. Give the Zeros three hundred knots, then they'd be up to them in four minutes.

  "How many aircraft, Yeoman?"

  "At least fifty, sir."

  "Make that to the Fighter Sector - fifty Betty's, escorted by Zeros." He stepped to the mike of the PA system. "D'you hear there. This is the captain. We have sighted a formation of fifty Betty's heading for Moresby. Two Zeros are heading for us. We shall be opening fire in about two minutes. We got that fighter-bomber and we'll get these bastards. That's all."

  Quickly, Caswell turned his face away. It held shock. Like hearing a parson swear. His face came back, but this time he was less successful with its expression.

  "Something funny, Number One? Please let me in on it."

  Caswell widened his grin; it was disproportionately pleasing to be able to do that, right now. "Not really, sir. Just that I hadn't, well, heard you swear before."

  "I do hope I have not offended you. Unfortunately, in something like twenty years' service, I am afraid one tends to pick up certain coarse expressions. Not from officers, of course. But I happened to ship before with our chief bosun's mate."

  "Ah," from Caswell, "all is explained."

  It was not really funny, it could hardly have had the Tivoli or Palladium in an uproar; but it did lay a calming hand over the minds of the bridge team, and in the ship's tense quiet the crew of B-gun just below heard it, and so Sainsbury's deliberate little speech just may have had a hand in what happened next.

  "In range, sir," Caswell said, and Sainsbury said, "Port ten," and a moment later, with Spindrift steady on the new course, "Open fire."

  Now, steaming at right-angles to her former course, she had her four 4.7s bearing on the Zeros. Their combined rate of fire was about sixty rounds per minute, and each shell weighed fifty pounds. The director-layer pressed his electric trigger. Spindrift jerked; she spat flame and smoke and two hundred pounds of steel and high-explosive sheared into the sky at a velocity of 3,000 feet per second. Then again, and again and again and again, until the bridge was covered with the biting stink of cordite and her lean flanks were wreathed in brown smoke.

  The pair of Zeros came on; straight and steady and high. They should not have maintained such a direct approach, especially with their manoeuvrability. Perhaps the pilots had been used only to American ships, whose radar and fire-control systems were not the equal of the British.

  Spindrift's radar and fire-control table were British, like those of every warship in the Australian Navy.

  Her opening salvoes were well aimed, bursting in black blossoms of smoke and red licks of flame all about the targets. But not close enough and the Zeros still came on. Then the sixth salvo screamed upward.

  Three of those shells burst like the others; close. The fourth shell changed into a blast of ripping splinters a few feet in front of the nose of the right-hand Zero.

  "That must have got him!" Caswell shouted.

  It had. Like a badly-burning pine torch, trailing dark smoke instead of bright flame, the fighter dipped its nose and headed in a long straight slant for the sea. The pilot was still alive. When a hundred feet up the plane's nose lifted a little; up, further, until it flew almost level, and level with Spindrift's bow. But the effort was too much. The nose dipped again, the fuselage tilted until they could see the whole top of both wings. Then one wingtip brushed the sea and the plane was clutched form the sky; it spun nose over tail in a swift series of giant cartwheels; and then the hungry sea finally had it, and opened in a white-flashed gash and took it under.

  "Shift target!" Sainsbury shouted. Not anger but apprehension coloured the command blood red.

  It shocked them. Caswell jerked his sight from the evidence of their first victory and saw what might well be their knell of doom. Quick-witted, that second pilot. Taking advantage of their interest in his colleague, he had got close in. His slanted approach was also long and straight, but powered, and completely under control.

  "Barrage short, short, short!" Caswell yelled.

  But it took seconds to get an order up to the director, and with an aircraft attacking at 400 knots you don't have even seconds to spare. The Zero's wings mounted twenty-millimetre cannon, of the same size as Oerlikons, firing explosive shells instead of solid bullets. It was through the main armament's first barrage salvo before the shells had burst; now there were only the pom-pom and the machineguns.

  But the crews of these, too, had been fascinated by the first Zero's death plunge. They opened fire, with desperate haste, but haste is the enemy of accuracy. The pom-pom's shells tracered above the target and the machineguns' bullets fled below it. The Zero's cannon, aimed steadily and at a much bigger target, brought about better results.

  A stream of twenty millimetre shells struck the base of the bridge; luckily below the compass platform, holding the captain and officers, and just as luckily below the wheelhouse, for Sainsbury had ordered the wheel hard-over, and Coxswain Smith had just got her swinging.

  It was this sharp and sudden alteration of course that saved her

  -possibly from total destruction, for those shells might have punched through her thin side into a magazine filled with cordite, and certainly from the loss of many men of her close-range weapons on the upperdeck. Spindrift heaved her straining body clear of the lethal flail and the Zero rocketed overhead in a bellow of power.

  The guns ceased firing; it was a waste of ammunition to fire at a target opening the range so fast. The note of the fighter's supercharged engine dwindled to a receding whine. The ship was quiet again. Sainsbury's amplified voice sprang through the ship.

  "That was shockingly bad drill on the part of the ship's gunnery personnel. Are you green amateurs?" he flared at them. "You do not watch an enemy die. Once you have hit him and he is on the way down you have finished with him. Your attention and your guns must shift at once to the next target. At once. We still have a target up there on the starb'd beam, and it is turning for a second run. Get your fingers out for God's sake. Main armament open in long barrage.

  Silence again. No man on the bridge dared look at the tightly angered face of what had been their maiden-aunt captain. One first look had been enough, and the memory of the change would stay with them all a very long time. Caswell felt the urge to apologise - he was the gunnery officer in action, his was the duty of spotting and designating targets - but his urge was easily overcome by the sight of Sainsbury's face, as tight and threatening as a clenched first. Irrelevant things like apologies would have to wait. Spindrift was still running to the east, almost at right-angles to her original course so that all 4.7s could bear. The Zero had completed its tight bank and was coming in on the starb'd beam; at right-angles to Spindrift's body. This relative position between ship and aircraft opened her whole length to attack, but she could not be swung to present a narrower target without masking th
e fire of her two after guns. So she made a big target, but she could use all her big guns. The Jap presented little but his nose; yet, coming straight in like this, he gave the Australian gunners the advantage of not having to aim-off. Thus he lost much of the benefit of his high speed.

  Yet, though valid, all these equations of presentation, fire-power, speed and aim-off, surrendered second place to the over-riding dictates of training, and above all, steadiness. There was, of course, the matter of human courage, but this factor, being present in both ship and plane, was thus cancelled out.

  The 4.7s were firing at their maximum rate, striving to place a wall of blast and steel before the enemy. This they were doing efficiently enough, but there were about four seconds between each quadruple burst, and in that time a speeding fighter travels a long way. This one was approaching the long-barrage wall now; if it got through safely, there was the short-barrage hazard, and after that only the close-range weapons.