Hunter Sniper

CHAPTER TEN

At that moment, little did Oatmire or anyone else aboard USS Kalinin Bay know that the Japanese were about to launch a vast and desperate gambit to crush the American landing efforts at Leyte. Events being set in motion would result in the largest sea battle in history.

The Japanese effort spanned vast distances across the Pacific, putting at risk almost all that was left of their navy. But as with so many gambles in military history, with the risk went tremendous potential rewards.

Oatmire, O’Connell, and USS Kalinin Bay would find themselves in the middle of it.

By that point in 1944, the Japanese fleet had been decimated by losses at Midway, the Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz, and the Philippine Sea — where it had lost nearly four hundred aircraft. Those pilots and aircrew, not to mention the planes, could not be replaced.

Meanwhile, American production prowess had geared up almost faster than the United States could have hoped for, producing new aircraft and ships at an astonishing rate. The growth of the United States Navy was almost exponential.

The Japanese built excellent aircraft and ships but could not replace the huge numbers that had gone down in flames. At that point Japan was losing the war, but it had not yet lost.

There were still Japanese planes, but the overall loss of Japanese aircraft leading up to the Philippines campaign was devastating.

Although their numbers of seaborne aircraft were greatly diminished, their navy remained relatively strong. They still possessed large numbers of submarines, heavy cruisers, and battleships — including two of the most formidable ships in the world.

It hardly required a military expert to see that the odds were not in Japan’s favor. The chief factor was aircraft. Admiral Yamamoto had been visionary at the outset of the war in understanding the value of aircraft carriers and aircraft as the path toward winning the war of the future. When the battlefield was mainly composed of islands and the vast Pacific itself, these resources were vital.

Their other great weakness was that, simply put, they were running out of the oil they needed to fuel their ships. Oil flowed from their oil fields around Indonesia to Japan itself. The loss of the Philippines would cut that off, creating the nautical supply route equivalent of a vasectomy. Put in those terms, there wasn’t a man who didn’t flinch at the thought.

As the Japanese high command saw it, the best way to crush and thwart the invasion of the Philippines might be to smash the invasion fleet that provided the supply and logistics support.

Although it might seem obvious to an armchair admiral, the Japanese had not previously used this strategy of targeting the logistical apparatus of the invasion forces. With a little luck, the Emperor’s ships might even be able to get in close enough to unleash their massive guns on the American troops on shore.

To that end, the Japanese developed a simple but devious plan to fool the Americans.

Most of Japan’s remaining aircraft carriers had been recalled to Japan itself for refitting. The bulk of Japan’s remaining naval power, including the massive battleships Yamato and Musashi, were in the vicinity of Singapore.

Under October skies, the Japanese carrier fleet set sail from Japan on a path toward the Philippines. US Navy submarines quickly detected the movement and relayed the information. This information caused a great deal of excitement in American quarters.

US Navy forces around the Philippines consisted of the Seventh Fleet, composed mainly of older vessels. Their task was to provide logistical support for the US Army landing forces on Leyte. Consequently, these ships were operating closer to shore. The USS Kalinin Bay that Oatmire found himself aboard with Lieutenant Commander O’Connell was part of this Seventh Fleet force.

The Third Fleet with its large aircraft carriers was nearly sixty miles off the Leyte coast. This was the force commanded by Admiral Halsey from his flagship, the carrier USS Enterprise.

Perhaps the Japanese understood Halsey too well. They knew that he was a proud and pugilistic commander known for his personal motto, “Hit hard, hit fast, hit often.” Perhaps it was thus no surprise that they seemed to know that Halsey would be unable to resist turning all his attention to the force of aircraft carriers leaving Japan.

But the Japanese had a trick up the sleeves of their kimonos.

Little did Halsey know that the carriers were almost empty, their decks bare, most of their planes gone.

The carrier fleet was being used as bait.

The trap had been set.

Admiral Halsey fell into it, rushing his Third Fleet even farther from Leyte to meet the carrier fleet head-on. He couldn’t wait to unleash his Curtiss Helldivers, which moved at 294 miles per hour, against the Japanese, delivering a knockout punch.

Operations on Leyte would be left without vital air support as a result. Defense of the waters around Leyte would be left up to the aging “second-rate” ships of the Seventh Fleet.

Meanwhile, withdrawing from Singapore, the Japanese battleship fleet began to move north toward the Philippines, intending to strike a crushing blow against the workhorse Seventh Fleet and the US landing forces.

This force represented much of the remaining might of the Japanese Navy: thirteen destroyers, one light cruiser, seven heavy cruisers, and five battleships — including the mighty Yamato and Musashi.

The two battleships on their own may have been enough to sink the Seventh Fleet. They were massive, approaching nine hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide, with several eighteen-inch guns — the largest ever used in naval combat.

In comparison, USS Kalinin Bay was equipped with a single five-inch gun.

The Japanese force split in two to come at the Seventh Fleet in a pincer movement. Half the force steamed through Sulu Sea and Surigao Strait toward Leyte Gulf. The other half of the enemy fleet moved through the tangled islands of the Sibuyan Sea and then into San Bernardino Strait.

It was shaping up to be an epic naval battle — or a slaughter.

Captain Oatmire had finished up his medicinal scotch and received a tour of the Kalinin Bay courtesy of Lieutenant Commander O’Connell. He watched a couple of planes take off and land, which was something of a novelty to see up close. The trio of planes had launched to scout Japanese positions on Leyte. The ship was too far out to sea to offer any glimpse of land, but it was just a hop, skip, and a jump for aircraft to get there.

“They’ll drop some bombs while they’re at it and give the Japanese a headache,” O’Connell commented.

It was approaching sunset, the sun giving a golden glow to the sea, when the planes returned. They were just in time — the fighters did not typically fly at night.

Watching the landings gave Oatmire new respect for naval aviators. It nearly boggled the imagination to think about landing a plane on the deck of a ship that would be little more than a speck in a very large ocean. He was reminded that every soldier, sailor, marine, submariner, and aviator in the US armed forces thought that he had it tough — and he often did — until he took a moment to think about the job that the other guy was doing.

“Here they come,” O’Connell said. “Looks like they all made it back. Thank God for that.”

Oatmire watched the plane grow from a dot on the horizon to an aircraft swooping down onto the deck and shook his head. Damn, that was something to see.

Not long after sunset, Oatmire was only too happy to adjourn to the bunk that he had been assigned in the junior officers’ quarters. It wasn’t much space, but he was already used to that from USS Nashville. He read for a bit from a paperback copy of Last Laugh, Mr. Moto, a detective story by John P. Marquand. Oddly enough, the popular series featured a Japanese detective. Marquand had written the book before Pearl Harbor, so its publication had been up in the air until government officials had determined that the detective was sufficiently bumbling to allow continued publication of the series.

The pages were only a little waterlogged from his trip across on the launch. He’d managed to get through only a page or two, and then he’d fallen into a deep sleep.

Early-morning daylight was coming through the single porthole, open to the sea breeze to keep the tropical heat at bay in the cramped quarters. Despite the morning cool, the porthole was failing miserably at its job.

But it had not been the morning light or the heat that had awakened Oatmire; rather, it had been the klaxon calling the crew to general quarters.

“Here we go again,” he muttered, sitting up and promptly banging his head on the bottom of the bunk above him.

Aboard the Nashville, he had experienced more than one general quarters. Those alarms had always been due to air raids. Usually they hadn’t amounted to much. General MacArthur’s staff found those alarms to be little more than an annoying interruption of their work.

Oatmire figured that it would be more of the same here on Kalinin Bay.

The other officers he’d been bunking with scrambled to get dressed.

Oatmire rubbed his head and took his time getting his pants on. As a visiting army officer, he had no real duties on the ship. Eventually, he followed the others up on deck.

O’Connell was waiting to shove a helmet and life vest at him. The serious look on the normally jovial Boston Irishman’s face told Oatmire that something was going on even before O’Connell explained.

“We have Japanese ships on the horizon,” O’Connell said.

“Anybody have binoculars?” Oatmire asked, some boyish part of him not a little excited. He had yet to see a Japanese ship.

“You don’t need binoculars,” O’Connell said, pointing.

Oatmire looked in that direction and saw not a lone ship, but several. “It looks like an entire Japanese fleet!”

“This is one time I wouldn’t argue with a ground pounder,” O’Connell said. “That definitely looks like a Japanese fleet.”

“Where the hell did they come from?”

“Sneaked right up on us from the other side of Leyte. I’ll tell you one thing, that took some sailing.”

“Damn” was all Oatmire could manage in response. Even from this distance, he could see the telltale Japanese pagoda silhouettes of the ships and even a glimpse of the Rising Sun flag.

Water foamed at the bows of the enemy ships. They were headed right for the US task force.

“Better get that helmet on. Maybe put your fingers in your ears.”

“What—”

Oatmire was suddenly deafened by the firing of the Jeep carrier’s five-inch gun. A jet of flame shot out toward the enemy fleet.

He could feel the ship turning under his feet, struggling to make itself a more difficult target. But a big, floating shoebox like Kalinin Bay was not nimble. It did its best.

He soon understood why. There was a roaring sound like a freight train or maybe a tornado, and then an enormous geyser erupted off the stern of the ship. That was soon followed by more roaring and splashes as an entire Japanese salvo arrived. Oatmire suspected that if the ship hadn’t managed to maneuver, those shells might have turned the carrier into swiss cheese.

The small carrier was also getting her bow into the wind. Across the deck, pilots raced for their aircraft. Even as more shells came in, first one plane, then another and another, managed to claw their way into the morning air and head toward the enemy vessels.

The Jeep carrier was accompanied only by a couple of destroyers. They were hopelessly outclassed and outgunned by the big enemy ships headed their way.

In an almost suicidal attack, one of the destroyers raced toward the Japanese, every gun firing. Oatmire had borrowed some binoculars and watched, amazed, as the destroyer made a direct hit on the nearest Japanese vessel. He whooped, expecting to see the enemy ship go up dramatically in flames.

To his astonishment, the shell from the US ship exploded but bounced off, doing no more harm than a firecracker makes against a sidewalk. The Japanese ships were just too heavily armored for the destroyer’s smaller gun to penetrate.

“Look at those brave bastards go,” O’Connell muttered in amazement.

Oatmire was reminded of a mouse trying to fight a bunch of cats. “Who are they?”

“That’s the Johnston.”

The destroyer had gotten right in among the Japanese fleet, firing in all directions, hitting them with everything from its five-inch gun to antiaircraft weapons. The feisty ship even hurled depth charges whenever it came close enough to an enemy vessel.

Other destroyers followed the example of USS Johnston, but held back from getting right in among the Japanese fleet. The attack had slowed the enemy onslaught, enabling Kalinin Bay and the other escort carriers nearby to get their planes into the sky. These were not nearly the numbers of aircraft — or the savage dive bombers — that USS Enterprise and the rest of the Third Fleet carriers could have launched. However, the Third Fleet was much too far away to help them now.

Even a small number of planes was more than the Japanese possessed. Theirs was strictly a naval force. The aircraft attacked furiously, as if their lives depended on it — which they did.

Flak filled the sky, creating a rainbow effect of colorful bursts. The explosions made sharp popping sounds that jabbed at his eardrums between the firing of Kalinin Bay’s 40 mm cannons and 20 mm machine guns. It could have passed for a Fourth of July display if the intent hadn’t been so destructive. Japanese ships were each assigned a separate color as a more effective way to track their own antiaircraft fire in a joint action. It was a simple but ingenious method to manage each individual ship’s fire during the heat of combat.

Somehow the US planes managed to avoid the flak, although one or two planes were hit. One moment they were racing across the blue sky, and the next moment they were cartwheeling in flames. Oatmire shuddered at the sight.

The smoke from the burning planes smudged the sky, and the sound of explosions echoed across the ocean. The crew on the USS Kalinin Bay stayed at their battle stations, their hearts pounding with fear and adrenaline. They had been caught by surprise, and they had to fight with every fiber of their being if they hoped to survive.

Oatmire continued to watch the naval battle unfold through the binoculars. For a few amazing minutes, it had almost seemed as if the Johnston and her intrepid crew might turn the tide of battle all by itself. But flames were now coming from the intrepid destroyers, showing that it had been hit not once, but probably multiple times.

The larger ships were not ignoring USS Johnston. Instead, she had been surrounded by several Japanese destroyers. They were ganging up on the American vessel, pouring fire into the wounded ship.

They were killing her.

Oatmire groaned and swore helplessly. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be one of the crew on that ship, being hit from all directions. The destroyer began to list to one side, its deck covered in smoke and flame. Then the stern dipped under the waves and the ship went under.

There must have been survivors, because one of the Japanese destroyers hung around to strafe the waves with machine-gun fire, ensuring that no one from USS Johnston would live.

This went beyond warfare. This was murder and revenge, all rolled into one.

Sons of bitches, Oatmire thought.

He pulled the binoculars away from his eyes. The slaughter was more than he could bear to watch.

But the sacrifice of USS Johnston and her crew had made a difference. Given the gift of time, the escort carriers’ planes were hitting the Japanese hard. It was a reminder that naval warfare now depended more than ever on aircraft. Without air cover, the Japanese were taking a merciless beating.

Slowly, the Japanese ships began to turn and retreat. They had lost the momentum of attack. Little did they know that if they had only pressed forward and really brought the Yamato and Musashi into play, they might have utterly annihilated the Seventh Fleet and done untold damage to the landing operation on Leyte.

After the war, the Japanese admiral would reveal that he had thought he must have run into the Third Fleet after all, rather than the beleaguered Seventh Fleet. Their furious defense had convinced the Japanese that they had encountered a much larger force.

It was another week before Oatmire made the return trip to USS Nashville. He hadn’t been meant to stay that long, but in the excitement over the Japanese presence, nobody had worried much about inconveniencing an army captain.

Once he had cleaned up and put on a fresh uniform, he found himself reporting to General MacArthur himself. It was a little unusual in that normally his written report would be “passed up the food chain.” In this case, the general wanted to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.

MacArthur seemed to have forgotten his concerns about what the navy boys “were up to.” Instead, he wanted details about the sea battle that Oatmire had witnessed. The general asked a few questions but mostly appeared rapt as Oatmire described the actions of the destroyer in almost single-handedly taking on the Japanese fleet.

The rest of the story, which General MacArthur already knew, was that Yamato and Musashi had not made it far from the Battle off Samar that Oatmire had witnessed. First, the Musashi had been targeted and sunk by repeated bombings from US aircraft.

Then had come a reckoning for Yamato. Although the ship had taken an incredible amount of punishment, she was no match for the relentless air attacks that she faced. Eventually, the ship that was the pride and joy of the Imperial Navy also slipped beneath the waves.

All told, the Japanese had lost several ships. Oatmire had been privy to some of the reports coming in. Estimates were that the Japanese had lost more than twelve thousand sailors and aircrew across the smaller fights that made up the sea battle of Leyte Gulf.

Allied forces — the Australian navy had also played a role — had not gone unscathed, but had also lost ships and as many as two thousand sailors and aircrew. If things had gone differently in the Battle off Samar, the outcome might have been far, far worse for the efforts to take back the Philippines.

Because the general wanted more than reports, but an actual eyewitness account, he asked Oatmire a few additional questions, then signaled that the meeting was coming to a close.

“Any other thoughts you want to share, Captain?”

Oatmire considered, then said, “Yes, sir. I just want to say, thank God for the United States Navy!”

General MacArthur frowned. It was not exactly what he wanted to hear or expected, but in this case, even the general seemed ready to admit that Oatmire had a point.

“You might just be right about that, son. Now, dismissed!”