Ironfall

Chapter 4

The day would start very early for the Japanese carrier forces. The order sent down to awaken the crew would go out as early as 03:00 that morning. Service crews, plane mechanics, ordnance handlers would all take their brief morning meals in the mess halls before filing into the broad open spaces of the inner hangar deck. Their work awaited them in the seeming haphazard jumble of planes—white winged Zeroes, the deep green and dull earth tones of the torpedo bombers all sitting in silent repose. There were no neat lines, but there was a method to the seeming disorder, for the planes were all carefully positioned and aligned with white painted markers on the hangar deck, and meticulously anchored in position by cables fed through eye bolts. Sometimes as little as 5 centimeters separated the upward folded wingtips on the D5-A’s from one another, and crewmen would stoop to dip beneath the wings as they moved about.

Some were fetching tools, others looking for spare parts, but they all worked together like a well-oiled machine. The Sebichos, petty officers of the maintenance deck, barked orders, seeing that each mechanic was at his assigned plane, and with the correct tooling required for any work that plane needed before being certified for operations. They would all labor in the slowly rising heat by mid-day, but now the cool pre-dawn hours were the time to get everything ready, and it promised to be a very busy day.

In effect, all these men, over 2,400 of them spread across the various carriers, were filling orders determined the previous evening by the ship’s Air Officer and Squadron Leaders. Once given the authorization to operate by the ship’s commanding officer, lists of aircraft and assigned pilots would be sent down to the hangar deck, and the Sebichos would identify specific planes for each Chutai leader by their brightly colored tail markings.

The first action of the day was going to be a long range armed reconnaissance, flown off by one squadron of torpedo bombers to be escorted by a dozen Zeroes out to conduct a fighter sweep. Sighting reports from the previous day’s recon sorties had all been digested by the Air Officer, and now he intended to confirm the information. So only the planes assigned to this mission would be fueled and armed that morning, and it would be the first real sortie that might result in combat since the fleet had left Rabaul.

The Nakajima B6N was selected for the mission, for it had a range of slightly over 1,600 nautical miles. The Japanese had only been receiving these new planes in recent months, the replacement for their venerable B5N’s. They called the new planes the Tenzan, or “Heavenly Mountain,” but to the U.S. pilots on the other side, they were demoted to the common code handle of “Jill.” Four would go up, one heavy Shotai, where the flight leader would fly slightly above and behind the traditional trio of planes that would normally make up that formation. The Zeroes would be higher up, watching for enemy scout planes or fighters.

It was nothing more than a small probing sortie, intended to scout towards the last reported sighting made the previous day by a big seaplane out of Luganville. To make even this small mission possible, those mechanics and service crews had to be up and at their work well before dawn. Some were making last minute tune-ups on the engine of a Zero, others pulling the large drop tanks from the storage areas along the outer walls of the deck and getting them mounted on the planes. The whole scene was awash with the smell of aviation fuel, motor oil, lubricants of every kind. The ventilation fans were already at work to clear out the vapors, which could be deadly if ignited in the confined space of the hangar deck.

Once the long metal hoses that had fueled the planes were finally stowed away, the Armorers would begin to arrive, pushing their lethal charges on long metal carts. The weapons had already been manhandled up out of the magazines on the deeper levels of the ship, lifted by combinations of small cranes and simple block & tackle arrangements. The large carts at work this morning would carry the four Type 91 Torpedoes, weighing all of 850 kilograms. The mother planes were all fueled and waiting to receive their dark children, and the next ten minutes would see the long torpedoes wheeled through the densely packed hangar to the correct plane, and then mounted under the watchful eyes of the Sebichos. Other crews worked the belts of MG ammo into the nose guns of the Zeroes, and lugged out the sixty round canisters for their 20mm wing cannons.

The war in the Pacific was all about firing those MG rounds through the wings, fuselage, engine, canopy, or pilot of an enemy plane before it could do the same to you, and lancing those long deadly torpedoes through the hulls of enemy ships. It was just another way of hurling stones, some small, some quite big, at the other guy. The stones of the Paleolithic era became spears, then arrows, before they were eventually mated with gunpowder to become bullets. Yet it was still one tribe out after another, only this time the stones would be lifted and hurled at the enemy under the wings of all these noisome aircraft.

All this was happening in the aft hangar aboard the carrier Tosa, where the B5N and B6N torpedo bombers would always be stored. Their neatly folded wings made them more compact, and allowed them to use the smaller aft elevator. Armed and fueled however, they would soon unfold those wings to become four tons of flying death, and the ordnance crews would now turn them over to the plane handlers and elevator crews to be lifted to the flight deck.

The Zeroes used the center elevator amidships, and many were already up on the deck and spotted in one of the three long rows for this mission. They were re-tethered to the deck with wheel chocks in place, waiting for the next act in the long morning drama. The four B6N’s would be the last to take off, so they were aft. When completed, the spot would see three rows of four Zeroes, and one B6N behind each row. The last Torpedo bomber was the plane to be flown by the mission leader.

Usually Lt. Kikuchi Rokuro would prefer to take off before all the other planes assigned to his strike mission, but this time things were different. It was even unusual to combine a fighter sweep with long range recon like this, or for the squadron leader to go out this soon, when he should be briefing and planning his strike mission instead. But Rokuro had wanted to “see for himself” before the real business of the day got started, and a battle was engaged. Were the Americans really where that seaplane said they were? Had they moved? If so, where did they go, and what might they intend? A great deal was riding on the answer to all those questions, for virtually every seaworthy carrier in the Japanese Navy was now within 50 nautical miles of Admiral Hara’s task force, where Tosa was sailing smartly behind the flagship Taiho, which was about 1000 meters ahead.

One heavy Shotai of B6N’s, with three heavy Shotai of A6M2 Zeroes in attendance, would be ready for takeoff by 04:30, about 40 minutes after the service crews first arrived on the hangar deck. Rokuro knew that, even as Tosa was turning into the wind, a destroyer was taking station off her bow, a little under a thousand meters ahead.

Just in case one of the grease monkeys did not do his job, he thought. If a plane failed to get aloft and found itself in the sea, the destroyer crews would go “dragonfly fishing” for the pilot. It was an ignominious fate to be hauled out of the sea like that, and one that Rokuro had never suffered, but the ritual was still a necessary precaution. A strike pilot was a most valuable commodity.

They were all up on deck now, gloves pulled tight, scarfs flowing in the wind, ear muffs being adjusted as they lined up on the flight deck. There they would wait until the Flight Deck Hikocho shouted the order to run to their planes. It was like the offensive squad running to replace the defense in a football game, as the flight deck crews would retreat when the pilots and other crewmen arrived. Soon they would all be settled into the cockpits, the Zero pilots alone, but two extra flight crewmen riding in each B6N, a radio man and rear gunner. Sometimes they would give the 7.7mm Type 92 MG a quick inspection to make certain the crews had mounted the ammo belts correctly. If that weapon jammed at a crucial moment, it could mean the life of the plane, and everyone in it was at stake.

The signal was given to start the engines, and crewmen stood ready with fire extinguishers—another necessary precaution, for special high octane fuel would be used to ignite the engine and get it to turn over. Soon the cough of the fighter engines was heard in the still morning air, and the planes sputtered to life one by one, the props revving up to a wild thrum. The engines would be warmed up while a designated flight deck officer listened to them. Called Uta no-rida, the “Song Leader,” he was always a man chosen from the ranks of the Sebichos on the hangar deck, for he would listen for any abnormality in the song of those engines as they all spun up to higher revolutions. Better to catch a misfiring engine now, before the plane and pilot were in the air.

Everything was checked and double checked: flaps and struts, oil pressure, hydraulics, fuel response when the engines were feathered and revved up again. It was a full fifteen minutes of mechanical calisthenics on the flight deck. The plane would then rev up to full military power for a long minute to make certain everything was in working order. The pilots were watching their engine gauges and temperature closely for any sign of abnormality, but mostly, their minds were already on the mission ahead. After receiving the certifying nod of the Song Leader, a pilot would turn his eyes skyward, noting the cloud height and formation, the wind speed over the deck as indicated by the cone flags and wind socks.

Once the Song Leader waved his hand to signal his choir was in tune, the actual launch operation would be ready to begin. It was only a matter of receiving final orders from the Air Officer, then the planes would be untethered, with the wheel chocks still left in place as each one made final preparations for takeoff. A different kind of song leader would now take over, the Shohikocho, who would make a last visual inspection of each plane spotted for the mission.

Then the deck lights would come on to mark the bow and stern ends of the flight deck, and light the way forward. Soon the wind sock was pointed dead aft as Tosa ran into the morning breeze. She would work up to 24 knots, and as the Shohikocho saluted each plane to signal it had passed his inspection, the pilot would visibly raise his hand so Rokuro could see they were all ready. Normally he would be in front, and turn on his wing lights when all was in readiness, but not this time. He turned them on for the Shohikocho to see that the planes were all reporting ready, and only then would that man signal the deck crews to remove the wheel chocks.

Lieutenant Saburo Shindo had come to Tosa from the Akagi, and he would be privileged to take off first. As his plane raced down the flight deck, all service crews waved their caps after him, with shouts of good luck on their lips. Then, one by one, the other pilots would follow, all the Zeroes getting off before the first of the torpedo planes lumbered after them. Rokuro was the last man up that day, finding the entire formation waiting for him. He maneuvered his plane into position behind the Shotai of three other B6N’s, and watched the Zeroes climb to gain elevation. The overtures were concluded, an hour of perfectly choreographed theater, and now the play was about to begin.

They were headed southwest, and would soon find that the sighting reports were very accurate. It would not be long before Rokuro’s sweeping recon mission flew into a firestorm of American fighters.

Halsey had his three carrier task forces separated by a good 25 to 30 nautical miles each. That kept them close enough to try and coordinate strikes, but far enough apart so he would not present his enemy with one fat target containing all his valuable carrier flight decks. While the many engagements fought thus far in the war had given the Americans a lot of much needed experience, “coordination” was still hit and miss when it came to their own strike operations. So Halsey made no attempt to ask one TF to launch and loiter with its strike wave. He simply decided to throw them like successive punches at the enemy, instead of trying to load them all up into one haymaker, and he was already fighting. Rather than trying to confirm the sighting reports out of Suva Bay, he took them on faith, He was simply going to attack in that direction, come what may.

Being farthest east and north, Rokuro found himself flying right into Halsey’s heavy CAP that morning. Halsey had allocated a full 50% of his fighters to that mission, with the other half flying escort, so there were a good many up. All 24 of the F4 Wildcats off the Enterprise were already in the sky, with twelve of those loitering to wait for the strike planes to join them. Another twelve F6 Hellcats were also on dedicated CAP, and they saw the Japanese sweep mission on radar 29 miles out. The resulting fighter duel was intense, but something happened that would shock the Japanese for the first time in the war—they would lose, and very badly.

That something was the F6F-Hellcat, which had made its debut flight in June of 1942 in the real history, but never got into a fight until September of 1943. In this history, it was fighting six months early, and the new Lady Lex had come with two dozen. With a powerful engine, rugged design including bullet resistant canopy, and armor around the cockpit, oil tank, and cooler, it was built to fight and survive. In fact, it had been built to order as a plane specifically meant to match, and defeat, the dread Japanese Zero.

Throughout its development, the Navy brought in some of its top Aces to work directly with the Grumman engineers who were building the plane, and hear right from the horse’s mouth what was needed or wanted by the pilots. One of those aces was Lieutenant Commander Butch O'Hare. He had been the Navy’s first flying Ace and Medal of Honor winner when he defended the carrier Lexington from a flight of nine Japanese Betty twin-engine bombers. He would get three of them, damaging others, as he utilized a high side angle of attack to avoid the dangerous sting of their tail guns. Once he got back to Pearl, the reporters descended on him, for America was looking for heroes to bolster morale, and Butch O’Hare was a perfect candidate, cool, personable, and handsome.

He was flown to the White House to get his Medal of Honor, put on Parade in Saint Louis, and then relocated to Hawaii to train other pilots. There he related everything he knew about the enemy Zero, and how to fly against it. He told the young pilots never to follow one into a loop, for the Zero could turn tighter than the F4 and would end up on its tail. Instead it had to be countered with a break hard to the right, which would bring the F4 around in a timely way to get back on the Zero’s tail after it came out of that loop. And he also passed on the one good habit that had served him well—always look over your shoulder, no matter what you were doing. Even if you thought you were alone out there, in a one-on-one duel with a single enemy fighter, you look over that shoulder. It was a life saver to many a Navy Pilot.

With new planes like the F6, and pilots trained by men like Butch O’Hare to fly them, the game had suddenly changed in the skies over Halsey’s carriers. Lieutenant Rokuro’s twelve Zeroes raced to engage, but for the first time they were bested and savaged by the speed and hitting power of this new American plane. They hit many of the Hellcats, but they kept flying, and when they hit back with those four.50 caliber MGs, the Zero was cut to pieces.

Ten of the twelve would go down, and the entire Shotai of those new B6N ‘Heavenly Mountains’ went into the sea, all except Lieutenant Rokuro, who managed to evade and dive away into clouds. The Zeroes got two Wildcats and one Hellcat, but the Japanese survivors were shaken by the bruising losses they had sustained. Rokuro knew he could not take the chance that he would also be shot down without sending a report back to Admiral Hara’s carriers. So he ordered his radio man to send a message in the clear, even if it meant violating radio silence—“Sighted two enemy carriers, three cruisers, four destroyers. Enemy strike in the air!”

Chapter 5

The Japanese decided to hit back hard, those same maintenance crews sweating out another wild 40 minutes on the hangar decks, knowing the enemy was already out after them. That sighting report from the savaged recon sweep put the Americans quite far out, about 350 miles southwest of Hara’s present position. Taiho and Tosa still had time to get a strike in the air before those American planes found them, but there would be little margin for error.

Cruising at 160 knots, the American strike wave would take two hours and twenty minutes to reach them. That window was wide enough for Hara to continue to launch his morning CAP patrols while the strike was armed and spotted. The sun had just broken over the horizon when Lieutenant Rokuro’s warning was received. The messenger read off the signal tersely on the bridge of the Taiho, and King Kong Hara stood silently, his implacable self, seemingly unmoved. When he spoke, the order was exactly what the other officers wanted to hear.

“Signal all carriers in this task force. Prepare for naval strike! Admirals Nagumo and Yamaguchi should be notified immediately.”

That would set in motion the frenetic machine below decks, the fueling, arming, lifting and spotting of the planes. Taiho had started the day with only 18 Zeroes, 27 D5-A2’s and 18 B6N’s. Four of those B6N’s were already expended, and Lieutenant Rokuro was winging his way back home in the only surviving plane.

Tosa had the bulk of the fighters, 26 Zeroes, with 27 dive bombers and 12 torpedo bombers. Junyo had 15 Zeroes, 15 dive bombers and 6 torpedo bombers. That was a total of 164 planes, but 16 had already gone out on that ill-fated recon sweep. Hara was going to have to hold back at least half his fighters for defense, so he sent 23 Zeroes aloft for the strike, which was launching by 7:10. They would be joined by 36 dive bombers and 29 torpedo bombers, making the first strike wave 88 planes. The question after that launch was also crucial—could the second wave be armed and launched before the Americans arrived?

The crews would have another slim hour, and if the enemy got there sooner than expected, the flight decks might be crowded with planes, all armed a fueled, a most undesirable situation for any carrier commander to find himself in. The alternative would be to wait out the American strike, devoting the remaining time to servicing all the remaining fighters and getting them aloft, and this is what Hara elected to do.

Lieutenant Joichi Tomonaga, a survivor of the lost Hiryu, was the Air Officer in charge, a man that had died in the real history at Midway. His planes would form up and head southwest, but it would be a long two hours before they reached the target zone, and they would not find Halsey that day. Heavy clouds had obscured the sea, but they continued on, all eyes searching through any break in the cover for any sign of enemy ships.

At a little after 09:30, three white wakes were spotted, and one of them was a carrier. That was all the Japanese needed, and they started the attack. They did not know it at that time, but they had just spotted the newest addition to the U.S. carrier fleet, the Bunker Hill, now the flagship of Ziggy Sprague’s task force.

Clifton Sprague had come up through the ranks of Naval Aviation, and had served well as the Air Officer aboard the first Yorktown, CV-5, piloting the first two landings ever made on that carrier. Yet he had been in and out of the Naval War Colleges to learn the art of strategy and tactics at sea, and his only real experience had been active participation in fleet problems and related drills on a 16 month tour aboard Lady Lex. Before the war, he had a lowly seaplane tender in 1940, the Tangier, and finally saw action at Pearl Harbor when his was one of the very first ships to return fire against the Japanese attackers.

It may have been desperation that drove his sailors to their guns that day, for Tangier had just taken on a full load of torpedoes and was a disaster waiting to happen. Yet Sprague remained cool, directing the fire of his gunners, even as he watched one ship after another take hits all around him. That action made him a Captain. They were going to send him to Seattle where he was to take command of NAS Sand Point, and his name was on the roster for the new Essex class return of the Wasp, CV-18, but then he had been bumped up by Nimitz to take over Bunker Hill. Sprague thought he would spend long months cutting his teeth with air ferry duty on the light escort carriers, and it was a real break for him to get the Bunker Hill, and most unusual for a mere Captain to be given charge of a full task force. But Halsey had asked for him earlier, prodding Nimitz to let him bring Independence and Princeton down into the active combat zone, so when Bunker Hill was needed, Ziggy found a seat.

Now he would serve under his old student from aviation school, William Halsey. The two men had flown many hours together when Halsey learned to fly under Sprague’s able instruction. Now Halsey had sent him to the school of hard knocks, and he was about to get one, when his first hour of real naval combat at sea was at hand. He had 30 fighters up on CAP, 20 F4’s and 10 of the newer F6 Hellcats that had arrived with Bunker Hill. In the battle that ensued, the Japanese would lose only one of their Zeroes, but the Americans would get through to down ten enemy dive bombers and seven torpedo bombers. Yet 40 of the 65 strike planes in Hara’s first wave would also get through to those ships.

Light cruiser Phoenix was the first to be hit, a bomb striking her near the fantail. Destroyer O’Bannon took a serious blow amidships, and was double teamed when another bomb struck her forward. But the only hit that mattered, to either side, was the single torpedo that found Bunker Hill.

It was not U.S. Navy policy to attempt to defeat the enemy attack by maneuver. The Americans posted their supporting ships close by the carriers, and it was that massed firepower that would be the backbone of the US defense. A bit of a maverick, Sprague had already violated that policy by making some amazing turns and maneuvers to throw off three attacking enemy dive bombers, their bombs falling off the port side of the ship. In doing so, he kept a wary eye on his cruisers, but that single torpedo bomber, a B6N, put its fish right on target, and it could not be avoided.

The was a high white wash of water off the port side, then all that water was vaporized by the explosion. Ziggy felt the hard thud, the heavy blast, the roll of the ship, and he knew he had been skewered. He swore inwardly, but remained outwardly cool, a hard look set on his face. An officer of the deck made the mistake of swearing aloud, and Ziggy, who was normally not one to dress a man down for a lapse, simply gave him that look. “This isn’t a CVE,” he said. “Look to your post.”

The navy disparaged the CVE as being three things, all denoted by those three initials: Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable. But that was not the case for Bunker Hill. A light carrier might have been put out of action by that torpedo, but Ziggy had a ship that could take more punishment and still keep running. He also had a little ‘luck of the Irish’ on this Saint Patrick’s Day engagement, for the torpedo struck in a safe location, far from avgas bunkers and magazines. His damage control crews also knew that this ship was definitely not expendable, and they rushed to heal the breach and mend the wound with vigor. There would be minor flooding amidships, but no list developed, and Ziggy knew his flight deck was still squared off and level for ongoing operations. He sent one signal to Halsey. “09:42—Torpedo amidships—damage under control—CV-17 is H.G.U…” Those last three initials meant, of course, “Haze Grey and Underway.”

When Halsey read it he smiled. Ziggy had taken a punch that had been meant for him, and the gritty senior officer knew that. The Bull sent back a simple three word reply: “Have at ’em!” That message was also received by Ray Spruance, and between the two of them, they would launch a devastating counterpunch against Hara’s task force that would more than balance the scales.

King Kong had been waiting for news, the singular agony of the fleet carrier commander in a battle like this. All the action was well beyond his horizon, and nothing he could see, so patience was the only virtue he could embrace. He stood stolidly on the bridge of the Great Phoenix, carrier Taiho, waiting for the runners to come up from the signals room, delivering one morsel of information at a time, just a small piece of the puzzle that Hara had to fit together in his mind as he tried to ascertain what was happening. He had waited nearly two hours for the first piece: “Sighted enemy Carrier — Attacking!” Now he waited for results.

A runner came up, saluting before announcing the latest news in a loud voice for all to hear. “Torpedo hit on one enemy carrier!” That was all, leaving Hara to wonder how many enemy carriers were even there. Only one had been reported prior to the attack, and it was good to hear that it had been hit, but this could not be the entire American carrier force. Where were the others?

This was his fate—waiting, asking these inward questions, guessing, making calculated assumptions, trying to surmise things from these incomplete snippets of signals traffic. His entire situational awareness of the battle was reduced to the tapping fingers of a man riding in the wild rear seat of a torpedo bomber, over 300 miles away. Tracer rounds from enemy fighters streaked past his plane, and a heavy flak round exploded close by, sending a hail of shrapnel against the fuselage. He would crane his neck around, straining to see what was happening below. A rake of clouds would open, and there he saw another American ship on fire. His finger moved in a fitful haste: “Cruiser burning amidships!” five minutes later that signal would be shouted out on the bridge of Taiho, with Hara standing there, gazing out to sea, like a mountain island of calm.

Soon the radar crews would report a hard contact inbound on the fleet. Taiho had the newest addition to fleet radar sets, again nearly six months early, the Type 21, with a detection range of 60 nautical miles against aircraft groups. That meant the enemy was just twenty minutes away, and looking for his ships as they approached. All Hara’s fighters were already in the air, and his crews were now arming and fueling the second wave strike planes. It would be another ten minutes before they would be lifted up onto the flight deck, which was something he did not want. He turned to an officer and spoke: “Spotting operations are suspended. Aviation fuel and munitions are to be secured, and the hangar decks thoroughly ventilated.”

That order was quickly passed below to the hard working maintenance crews, a perfect example of the “hurry up and wait” that lurked in the midst of all military operations. For the carrier, that was particularly true. Hara knew he could not get that second wave strike spotted and launched before the American planes got there, no matter how much he hurried his crews, so he would simply have to wait.

It was a wise precaution, and the time seemed to be stretched thin and taut, like two men pulling on a leather rope. Just when it reached the breaking point of tension, a watchman shouted the alarm—enemy dive bombers!

They were coming off the decks of Taffy 12, commanded by Ray Spruance with Essex and Lexington II. A cruiser commander, Spruance had been thrust into the cauldron of carrier operations after Jack Fletcher’s disastrous losses in the Coral Sea. Halsey had personally asked for that man as well, having faith in his considerable abilities as a sea Captain. The man has seamanship wired tight, said Halsey, and it was a most accurate description of Spruance.

As cool as they came, Spruance was methodical, rational, and careful in everything he did. Far from Halsey’s bawling and sometimes bawdy manner, Spruance was a man of words, quiet, articulate, thoughtful, but rigorously disciplined in day to day operations, with attention to detail in all aspects of his work. He had cleverly plotted the position where he expected to find the enemy carriers, and he had been dead accurate. To make matters worse for Hara, Ziggy had his planes up as well, and they were following those of Taffy 12.

Ray Spruance had thrown every dive bomber he had at the enemy, 53 planes, and 24 of his 31 torpedo bombers, all escorted by nearly two dozen fighters. The dive bombers came in first, seeming to coalesce into fast moving solid shapes emerging from the grey overhead cloud deck. Down they came, the Japanese standard Type 96 25mm autoguns desperately trying to track and kill them. It was particularly ill-suited to that task, with a small clip of only 15 rounds that had to be reloaded after only four seconds of fire. By the time the next clip was fed into the magazine, the gun had to be re-sighted on the target that was moving at a frightening speed in a near vertical dive. So these would fire in fitful spits, and could seldom put out enough firepower to really make a difference.

The larger AA weapons were equally bad against dive bombers, their radar fire control systems slow to respond, taking between ten and twenty seconds to obtain a firing solution. By that time, the target was long gone, and if the ship maneuvered, any solution already obtained based on the last course and speed was useless and had to be recalculated. So instead of relying on the radar, the Japanese tended to fire these weapons in a barrage, the shells set to a specific altitude in one spot in the sky. It was a barrier of flak that the strike planes would have to fly through, but those who made it through were going to have a very good chance in this attack, and there were many.

It would now come down to the skill of the pilots in dropping those bombs, but once they were in the air, spotters would shout the danger to the bridge, and the helmsman was the last line of defense. If he could suddenly steer the ship out of harm’s way, (on the orders of the senior officer on the bridge), those terrible 500 and 1000 pound bombs would find nothing but seawater.

But that didn’t happen this day, and Hara would be dubiously ‘gifted’ with the first bomb. It came hurtling down on the aft deck of the Taiho, exploding on that armored steel, which was now put to a severe test. It held. The bomb did damage, but it had struck one of the thickest segments of the deck, with 80mm of armor, just over three inches thick, almost an inch more protection than the decks of the Kongo. That flight deck had been designed to resist multiple hits by 500kg bombs, (1,100 pounds), and it performed as advertised.

While Hara cringed inwardly with that hit, it was more flash and smoke than anything else. Several deck crewmen were injured by the shrapnel, with three killed, but the deck was not penetrated, and the damage control parties were quickly on the scene to hose down the small fire and drag out more emergency deck patch plating.

As for the other carriers, Tosa had the older style wooden deck cover over thinner 1.5 inch armor, which would in no way stop such a bomb, and the Peregrine Falcon, CVL Junyo, was no better off. Not one, but three bombs would hit that ship, and the icing on the cake was the torpedo that struck forward. Two bombs would get the Tosa, and another would strike the battlecruiser Kongo. When Ziggy’s group delivered the final attack, Junyo and Kongo would both be hit yet again with a single bomb, as would heavy cruiser Atago.

Considering that single torpedo that had been delivered to the hull of Bunker Hill, the American strike did a great deal more damage. Just as Hara received the news that his own carrier was not seriously harmed, he looked out and saw Junyo erupt with fire and smoke. Up went the searing mix of molten steel, fire, and shrapnel laden smoke. The flight deck was smashed, with splinters flying in all directions, some falling as far away as the escorting destroyers churning up the seas and firing all their guns like a pack of angry terriers.

The damage to Junyo would be near fatal, her main elevator wrecked, 40% of her boilers serrated and venting hot white steam, and a hole in her lightly armored sides that was shipping water to the point where the carrier went into an immediate list. The ship started settling deeper into the water to one side, as her Captain desperately ordered counterflooding. Many of her planes were wrecked, for those bombs penetrated easily to the hangar decks, where nothing more than thin fire curtains separated one segment from another. They did not do their job. Captain Shizui Isii would signal his ship had been seriously damaged, and was to be considered unfit for any further operations. It was even doubtful if thePeregrine Falcon could be saved at all.

‘Implacable Mountain’ took all this in with stoic stillness, his eyes fixed on the burning carrier off his starboard bow. Then Kong bawled out an order. “Continue arming and spotting—and with all speed!” He had taken a hard hit from his enemy, and before he even really knew if his first right cross had landed, he was going to throw that left hook.

Chapter 6

It was 10:18 when Lieutenant Tomonaga’s latest signal arrived: “Attack concluded—Homeward bound.” When he received it, Hara was mentally calculating the need to recover friendly planes in about two hours, both from Tomonaga’s strike and his CAP patrols. His damage control parties had already certified his own flight deck as operational. Tosa had raised flags and flashed lantern signals as well, and he knew that she would need at least an hour to clear damage from those two bomb hits and extinguish the fires. One had damaged her forward elevator, the one most often used by the fighters assigned to CAP missions.

Now Hara was mulling over the status of Nagumo’s task force, the Shado Fleet. He had 128 more planes, and Hara knew they must be in the air by now, but the majority of those planes were fighters. In fact, Nagumo had sent many Shotai out on long range CAP, and they had been involved in the unsuccessful defense of Hara’s ships. There were only 24 of the new Yokosuka D4Y dive bombers on the battle carriers, the planes the Americans would call “Judy.” He also had 27 new Tenzan B6N Torpedo Bombers. Those planes were in the air, with a small escort, as they hoped to pick up several Shotai from that long range cap as they made their approach to the enemy.

But the weather gods would conspire against them that day. In the thickening cloud cover and light rain, the torpedo bombers veered off course, and neither formation ever found those extra fighters, though they did eventually find Halsey. The dive bombers were over the Americans first, coming down through the rain. But these were not Japan’s best pilots any longer, even though they had the benefit of all those new planes. They were pounced on by 20 fighters, and savaged as they started their diving run, the four Zeroes with them unable to stop the Americans. 13 were destroyed, another damaged, and flak would get one more. Of the eight planes that actually put bombs in the air, none would score a hit.

Ten minutes later, the Tenzan “Jills” finally showed up, the rain heavier now as the torpedo bombers tried to get low to make their runs. Their four fighters ran into many more defending planes, 29 F6 Hellcats and three F4 Wildcats. They got one of those zeroes, and then proceeded to chop up those torpedo planes, getting eight of eleven. Three torpedoes hit the water, and none found hulls. The Shado Fleet had thrown everything it had at Halsey, and hit nothing.

Hara would learn this a little after 10:40 when a message was received from Nagumo: “Attack unsuccessful. Insufficient strike planes to launch a second wave.”

That spoke volumes to Hara, and he immediately knew that Nagumo’s planes must have taken very heavy losses. Now, with the weather darkening and thick rain squalls sweeping through the scene, Hara realized this battle was over. He still had no idea what Yamaguchi had done, but would soon learn that his strike wave had been unable to locate the enemy carriers. With reports of carriers in three places, they should have seen something, but flew right into the gap between Ziggy Sprague’s Taffy 15, and Ray Spruance in Taffy 12. They never found either task force, and coming 300 miles to see nothing, they were forced to turn and head back home.

That decision led to a nice little sneak attack thrown out by Ziggy Sprague. He had three fighters up on a long range patrol, and they spotted the planes off Akagi and Soryu, the heart of Yamaguchi’s task force. Noting their heading, Ziggy sent up every plane he had left and went after them. They would arrive 20 minutes behind the Japanese planes, all in the midst of recovery operations.

The attack caught Yamaguchi completely by surprise, and it would see all his carriers take hits, two bombs on Akagi, which was soon obscured by smoke from the fires, one smaller 500 pound bomb on Soryu near the island that did only minor damage, and one bomb on Hiyo that also started a bad fire. That was most unwelcome news for Hara, for he now knew that Yamaguchi would be lucky if he could complete his recovery, and that no second strike would be likely from his ships either. Then, at a little after 11:00, Nagumo signaled that he was also under attack.

The raid was coming from Essex and Lexington, 24 fighters escorting in 33 dive bombers and 23 Avenger torpedo bombers. The latter would see six damaged by enemy fighters and flak, with one destroyed, yet they pressed on through the squall line and into a clearing. The all got their fish in the water, but the American torpedoes were damn slow at only 33 knots. Many hit the rough sea and detonated as they went into the drink, others were batted off course, and the three that were running true could simply not catch up with their intended targets. The Shado Fleet had fast ships built on cruiser hulls, and those battle carriers could actually outrun the American torpedoes. Their able Captains simply turned their bows on the same line of the American attack, and ran off unscathed.

The dive bombers would do much better. Rain or no rain, down they came, and suddenly ships began erupting with fire. CVB Ryujin would get most of the attention, three bomb hits. Thankfully, they were all 500 pounders, and that carrier had tough skin. It had been built out on the Kii Class battlecruiser hull, a 38,000 ton battle carrier, retaining a well armored deck that absorbed the first hit. The second had been a near miss that spent itself against Ryujin’s 290mm side armor, and the third bomb hit very near the massive 16-inch forward turret, again finding solid deck armor there, and turret armor that was impenetrable. So even though it was hit three times, the Dragon God’s scales were simply too thick, and very little damage was done.

That would not be the case for the super cruiser Kagami and escort carrier Gozo Kiryu. The former took a single 1000 pound bomb right on her stacks, which penetrated to the boilers and sent a massive steam cloud frothing up into the grey sky. Then secondary explosions rocked the ship, damaging hull plates and starting a small leak. The cruiser would survive, but lose about 10% of her flotation to that minor flooding, and see many boilers damaged that would impact her engines and speed.

The last bomb would fall on the much smaller Gozo Kiryu, a ship of only 8000 tons. 1000 pounds of mean steel and explosives would practically wreck that ship, penetrating the small flight deck, smashing right through the hangar deck and into the avgas bunker, which exploded with awful fire. In a matter of minutes, the ship was a searing wreck, afloat, but with terrible casualties, and completely out of the game. Nagumo’s Shado Fleet had been defanged, and he now signaled Hara that he was withdrawing north.

Kong looked at the glowering sky, the rain now lashing the windows of Taiho’s bridge, and thunder adding its angry roll to the whole scene. His second wave was ready on the deck, but the seas were rolling higher, and he knew it would be foolish to send those planes and pilots out into this weather. Though the junior officers urged him to launch, he simply turned to look for his Air Officer.

“Secure from launch operations.”

“But sir…”

“The flight deck will be cleared! Prepare to recover incoming aircraft. All other planes are to be secured, except fighters.”

Hara simply stared out the window, and the silence on the bridge was thicker than the rain. He then slowly walked to the chart room, knowing that he, too, would be fortunate to complete a successful recovery of the planes that would be arriving over his task force in less than one hour. He did not yet know the full measure of the losses sustained by either side, but he could feel the heavy weight of defeat on his broad shoulders, his first setback of the war.

As reports filtered in, the scope of the disaster became more apparent. Eight of the eleven carriers in the Japanese armada had taken damage, though his own ship was still fully operational. Losses to planes and pilots had been severe, and to make matters worse, they could only confirm that two of the American carriers had suffered hits. In effect. Halsey, Sprague and Spruance had simply clobbered the Japanese fleet, and came out of that fight with very little damage. Bunker Hill was still in business, as Ziggy had signaled, and the only real serious damage was to Lady Lex, which needed some time to repair her hull.

Halsey ordered Spruance to detach Lexington and send it to Pago Pago immediately. Then he told Ziggy to head northwest towards Efate, just in case the enemy got any ideas about intervening there. He would take Taffy 11 northeast, hoping to further cover the Fijis, and that move would present Yamamoto with a most difficult decision.

When the Admiral got the news from Hara, he could read well enough between the lines. His old warhorse had been defeated. The list of damaged ships was piling up, and it seemed likely that one or two of those carriers, most likely Junyo and Gozo Kiryu, might sink. He was still a full day’s sailing from the chosen landing site at Vanua Levu, with Yamato cruising like a massive iron fortress, surrounded by all those troop ships. One of his transports, the Teisin Maru, was leaking oil and darkening the sea with a wide black stripe. That would lead any spying plane right to his ships. Reports were still showing enemy carriers between 400 and 500 miles to his southwest, and he realized now that he would have no carrier cover if he persisted.

This attack cannot proceed, he realized. I am carrying the entire 3rd Infantry Division, and it will be completely exposed. Even if I did manage to reach the landing site, it would be subject to attack by all the American land based planes, and then those carriers…. The only thing to do now is to turn speedily about, and hope to get north before those carriers can close the range. We have obviously taken a severe tactical defeat here, and now my next order converts that into a strategic loss as well. Yet there is nothing else to do. The invasion fleet must withdraw.

That order was given, and Yamamoto could now thank the weather gods that had so confounded his pilots that day. Hopefully, the thick clouds would cover his retreat. Admiral Nagumo was ordered to leave Gozo Kiryu with a small destroyer escort and take the remainder of his fleet directly to Truk. Hara and Yamaguchi would take their ships back to Rabaul.

Troops suddenly come in great abundance, thought Yamamoto, but this engagement has changed the entire strategic picture if I cannot get them into battle. Our offensive was completely blunted, a dented sword that had to be sheathed before it could even join with the enemy. 3rd Division will now sit on Rabaul, and quite frankly, I doubt that I can cover it for any further offensive operations in the foreseeable future. Operation Suriyoko was over.

The journey home simply got darker the next day, when Yamamoto was informed that the Americans had safely reinforced Efate with yet one more regiment of their Marines, and that Luganville had been struck by carrier planes, the airfield there severely damaged, and the air wing depleted. The brave stand of Vicksburg and Gettysburg had protected 8th Marines, when all of Yamamoto’s fleet could not protect 3rd Infantry and allow it to reach its landing beaches. It would come to be called the Battle off Yasawa, the long string of islands off the Fijis that marked the mid-point between the two opposing carrier forces, and it was a clear American victory.

There would be many lessons learned from that battle, on both sides. The Americans would realize that their new Essex Class carriers had finally achieved parity with the enemy, and now, with so many Japanese carriers reported hit, Nimitz and Halsey would begin to feel that the US Navy was top dog for the first time in the war. The performance of the new F6 Hellcats was deemed to be superb, and the US dive bomber squadrons received commendations for both bravery and newfound skill.

Strategically, Halsey now believed he could defend all the turf the Allies now held in the Pacific, and stop any further enemy offensives. In fact, because of Yasawa, New Zealand felt secure enough to again release its veteran 2nd Infantry Division for deployment to Persia, and that would make a big difference in that campaign. The US had control of southern New Caledonia, and with the delivery of 8th Marine Regiment, they would now outnumber the Japanese on Efate two to one, and with much better troops. Nimitz also still had the entire 1st USMC Division in the bank at Pago Pago, and was slowly mustering the transports to move them. The fact that he had this division in hand, with carriers that could defend its transit to a new objective, put the real fear into Yamamoto.

Yet compared to the catastrophe that was Midway in the old history, this battle was not such a severe blow to Japan. While many carriers were hit and damaged, almost all of them would make it safely to a friendly port, except Junyo and Gozo Kiryu, which both sunk on the 21st of March as they struggled homeward. Perhaps it was to bolster morale, but the Japanese circulated the rumor that the battle had been a draw, claiming they had sunk the Lexington, even though Halsey knew it was safe at Pago Pago, and needed only six days repairs to the hull.

The Japanese had plenty of work to do at pierside. Akagi would need 38 days repair, and some of her damage to the hull and engines was going to eventually require a trip home to Japan. Hiyo would need only 23 days work, as would Tosa when that ship reached Truk. So by the end of March, Halsey had all his carriers intact, save for Gettysburg, which would be laid up at Suva for some time. But the Japanese would be missing two carriers, particularly Junyo, and need to wait into mid to late April to get back Akagi and Tosa.

One lesson that both Hara and Nagumo could agree upon was that the toughness of ships like Taiho and the battle carrier Ryujin made a big difference. Both those two ships took bomb damage, but simply shrugged off the hits and kept operating. It put in their minds that the big fleet carriers they had relied on at the outset of the war were much too fragile, and that they would need to get more ships like Taiho if they were to win this war.

This changes everything, thought Yamamoto. The troops on Fiji are now withering on the vine, two of the best divisions in the Army, and I cannot reinforce there for at least a month, let alone land on Vanua Levu to continue to contest those islands. I will be lucky to cover supply runs to Fiji, Efate, and New Caledonia, and our position on Espiritu Santo at Luganville is now very precarious. The Army will now lord it over me, and berate the navy, saying that their gift of five divisions promised to the South Pacific region is sorely wasted. I suppose they will, at long last, have a point.

Morale will be very low when we return to Rabaul. I must do something to bolster the troops. Perhaps I should arrange a tour of all our bases in the Solomons, for they will most likely become the next front if we cannot hold out in the New Hebrides.

He did not know it, but that idea was a dark shadow that could threaten to end his life. He had died while conducting just such a tour, ambushed by American fighters on the 18th of April, 1943. If time and fate had their way, the Admiral had only three weeks left to live.

Then he received two cryptic messages, right in the midst of all this turmoil. One from Admiral Nagano, as he was surprised to learn that Captain Harada and Takami never arrived at Yokohama. Then, not two hours later, the special communications equipment given to him by Harada lit up aboard Yamato. It was the very man he needed to speak to, and he would receive some most unusual news….

Meanwhile, Yamamoto would not have to worry about resupplying Efate. The two US Marine regiments, and 1st Marine Para Battalion made short work of the 79th Regiment posted there. The Japanese had landed at Havana Harbor in the north, and when they began to push south they ran right into a Marine regiment. Then, news came of the landings on the east end of the island, where the French 2nd and 4th Tonkin Battalions were watching possible landings sites and the one good airfield near Takara.

Colonel Holmes had landed his battalions at Eton Bay and Pang on the east coast. There they quickly overwhelmed the 2nd Tonkin Battalion, took a small airstrip at Forari, and drove up the coast road through the villages of Lamin and Bong. The Japanese sent one of their three battalions to Takara to stiffen the defense there, but it would not hold against the eventual weight of the entire 6th Regiment.

Colonel Hall’s 8th Regiment had the hardest fighting in the west, scaling the heights of Mount Erskine to root out the enemy, and pushing up “Ring Road” along the coast. The Coup de Grace was when 1st Marine Para Battalion re-embarked to do an end around, storming Havana Harbor behind enemy lines and pushing out the HQ of 79th Regiment there. Exhausted, out of supply, the Japanese holed up in any hillside cave they could find, and the Marines had the bitter taste of the cold soup they would eat in many of these future island battles. They had to burn and blast the Japanese infantry from each cave and bunker, but by the 27th of March, Efate had fallen.

The rapid demise of 79th Regiment put the fear in to General Imamura that his 78th Regiment, from the same reserve line division, would not be able to hold Luganville on Espiritu Santo. Now he regretted the ill-fated sortie to try and seize Vanua Levu, realizing he should have argued for a much more conservative approach, posting 3rd Division on Luganville.

It was now too late for such regrets. The Battle off Yasawa had, for at least the next two to three weeks, paralyzed the Japanese Navy’s ability to impede anything the US Navy would undertake. Nimitz had 1st USMC waiting for transports, and he was going to use those troops as soon as he could.

Half a world away, other events would conspire to cause a dramatic shift in the tides of this war. This time it would not be bold and aggressive moves on the ground, but the sheer obstinacy and foolishness of a single man—Ivan Volkov.