Red Phoenix

CHAPTER 23 First Kill

Commander Michael Deveroux, USN, studied the plot carefully. His ship, a Spruance-class destroyer, had slipped its moorings and left the South Korean navy port of Chinhae an hour earlier. Now they were ten miles outside the harbor, moving south at fifteen knots through a narrow passage between the islands of Kadck-do and Koje-do.

The start of the war had caught almost everyone in Chinhae by surprise. Everyone but the North Korean commandos who’d infiltrated the port. The crew of John Young, anchored there on a port call, had come awake to the harsh rattle of automatic weapons fire and then the unending, thundering roar as a fuel storage depot went up in a towering ball of orange-white flame. One South Korean frigate fueling from the depot had been caught by the blast and she’d turned turtle, the water hiding the mangled metal of her upper works.

Deveroux shook the image out of his mind. He had his own ship to look out for now.

Seventh Fleet’s orders had been clear and concise. “Proceed at best speed to Yokosuka, Japan.” Once there, Deveroux had no doubt that they’d be ordered to serve as a convoy escort or formed into a battle group sortieing against the North Koreans. Well, good. They hadn’t asked for this war, but the shooting had started and John Young would get a chance to show her stuff.

Right now, though, she had to make it to Japan. It was only a ten-hour run across the Korea Straits, but Deveroux knew that might be a very long and lonely ten hours. North Korea had a sizable diesel-electric sub fleet and dozens of fast attack missile craft — any of which might be out there lurking in wait for his ship.

He’d asked for air support, but all of the Seventh Fleet’s P-3 Orion ASW aircraft were fully engaged. And South Korea’s S-2F Tracker squadron had been hammered hard by a North Korean air raid earlier that morning. Essentially his ship was on her own.

Outside, the sky was paling to a predawn gray, but it was always dark inside the dimly red-lit Combat Information Center. Deveroux swept his eyes over the ship’s status boards. Hull-mounted passive sonar operating. Active sonar on standby. Surface and air search radars operating, sweeping the sky and the sea for enemy contacts. He looked across at the antisubmarine warfare officer. “How are the water conditions?”

“Still lousy, sir. You know what this area’s like. Strong currents, shallow water, mixed-up salinity. And there are dozens of wrecks on the bottom. Jap freighters we sank during World War II. Passive detection’s lousy, but we can’t turn on active sonar without getting blanked by our own reverberation. It’s gonna be tough to hear anything out there, Captain.”

Deveroux nodded. “Yeah. Well, at least the North Koreans will have the same problem. Hell, those old Romeo-class boats of theirs will probably have to rely on periscope sightings instead of that crappy sonar they’ve got.” He studied the plot again. “How’s the LAMPS helicopter doing?”

“He’s been aloft for forty-five minutes. We’ll be launching his relief in another fifteen, sir.”

“Well, ensure we have continuous coverage till we get into deeper water. With the LAMPS’s radar we should be able to pick up a periscope in time.”

“Yes, sir.” But the ASW officer didn’t sound especially convinced.

“Captain.” It was his executive officer and navigator, calling down from the bridge. “We’re almost up to that chunk of rock they call an island.”

The passage they were steaming through held only one obstruction. A small, barren point of land rising above the water midway between the two larger islands that bounded the passage out into the Korea Strait proper.

Deveroux made a decision. “Very well, let’s put it to port.” They would pass the small island on the right, well away from the main track to Pusan. He suspected that South Korea’s main port was probably not a very healthy place to get closer to at the moment.

“Aye, aye, sir.”John Young heeled slightly as she came around on her new heading.

“I have a passive sonar contact, Comrade Captain.” The sonar operator’s voice was jubilant. “Bearing three five zero degrees.”

Senior Captain Chun Chae-Yun smiled slowly. The enemy vessel had done precisely what he’d thought it would — turn to avoid Pusan. And now it was coming into his sights.

He looked around the crowded control room, marveling all over again in its clean, modern equipment. Acquiring this latest-model Kilo-class submarine from the Russians had been another brilliant stroke by the Great Leader for whom it was named. Its sensors were much better than those on the Romeo-class subs, and its anechoic coating made it almost impossible to detect in these shallow waters.

He had taken advantage of that to lie hidden near a small island in the middle of this passage out of Chinhae, the main South Korean naval base. Long hours of waiting had followed, waiting for the first enemy vessel to fall into his trap. Now the waiting was almost over.

“What’s our battery state?’

“Ninety percent, Comrade Captain.” Excellent. They had more than enough battery power to maneuver against this contact.

“Very well. Left standard rudder. Come to course two seven zero degrees.”Great Leader swung right, closing on the sonar contact and moving slowly at five knots to reduce the chance of the enemy’s sonar detecting them.

Five minutes passed endlessly. Chun could feel his heartbeat accelerating as the sonar operator continued to report contact. The technician worked with the signal, analyzing it and comparing it with known signatures.

“Contact positively identified as a Spruance-class destroyer. Screws turning for fifteen knots.”

His first officer asked, “Should we come up to periscope depth for a visual sighting?”

Chun waved the suggestion away. “No. They haven’t heard us yet. Let’s not give them a chance to see us either.”

Another minute passed. Chun watched his control room crew feeding bearings and other data onto the fire control computer. It would determine the position, course, and speed of the target and compute the firing angles for the sub’s torpedoes.

Any moment now, Chun thought. It was a short-range solution. The torpedoes would travel quickly, and there would be little warning time. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a green light appear on the computer console.

“We have a firing solution, Comrade Captain! Contact now bearing three four one degrees. Course one eight zero degrees, still fifteen knots. Estimated range at twenty-three hundred meters, torpedo run time ninety seconds.”

Chun wheeled to his weapons officer. “Fire!”

Great Leader shuddered as two ET-80 wire-guided torpedoes were shot out of their tubes and accelerated toward the American ship at fifty knots.

“Shit! Sir, we’ve got hydrophone effects bearing one three five — evaluated as torpedoes inbound!”

The sonarman’s shout almost stopped Deveroux’s heart. Oh, my God. He grabbed for the bridge intercom. “Mr. Hall, torpedoes bearing one three five!” He didn’t have to tell the conning officer what to do.

He looked at the ASW officer. “Stream and activate the Nixie!” The torpedo decoy might fool one or more of the incoming torps. The water was really too shallow to stream it normally, but right now he didn’t care if it bumped on the bottom.

As he sprinted out the door of CIC toward the bridge, he felt the ship heeling to the right, away from the oncoming torpedoes. A vibration in the deckplates told him they were building up speed as well.

Deveroux arrived on the bridge in time to hear a thump sound as one of their own port torpedo tubes launched a Mark 46 down the enemy torpedoes’ bearing. The Mark 46 didn’t do well in shallow water, and without a fire control solution, it was just a shot in the general direction of the enemy. But the other captain didn’t know how well-aimed it was. Maybe it would throw the enemy sub off. Maybe.

He picked up a phone. “Get a Flash message off to Seventh Fleet and Chinhae!” He could feel the ship accelerating, slashing through the water faster and faster. C’mon, baby. Show your stuff. Dodge those bastards.

The intercom from the sonar shack came to life. “Captain, I show two torps, bearing one two five and decreasing range. Both are pinging on us. One is drawing left. The other’s bearing is steady. The LAMPS is dropping a sonobuoy pattern.”

Deveroux didn’t reply. There wasn’t anything more he could do.

“Comrade Captain! The Americans have fired on us. Torpedo running, bearing three three one degrees.”

Chun nodded philosophically. That was to be expected. “Have ours acquired the destroyer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Cut the wires.” The weapons officer moved to obey, cutting the thin wires that had allowed him to control the movements of the torpedoes lunging for the American ship. Now they were on their own, homing on their target with the data gained by their own active sonars.

“Right full rudder. Increase speed to fifteen knots. Release a decoy.” Chun began issuing the series of commands that would take his submarine out of danger. They should be able to avoid this American torpedo. If not? Chun mentally shrugged as he watched the display showing his own weapons closing on the enemy. If not, at least they wouldn’t be going to the bottom alone.

It was a race. A race between life and death. A race the American destroyer was losing. The ship was trying to get out of the seeker cone of the enemy torpedoes, turning and accelerating to degrade the enemy sub’s fire control solution. But the laws of geometry and physics were inexorable, the range too short, and the surprise had been too complete.

It took two minutes and nearly two nautical miles, but the North Korean torpedoes ran their target down. One missed — running behind the destroyer and attacking its Nixie noisemaker trailing a hundred yards astern. The other had locked on to John Young’s hull and it hit.

The torpedo smashed into the ship forward of the stern, and the explosive power of its 270-kilogram warhead lifted John Young up out of the water in a cloud of smoke and spray. A column of water fifty feet high announced the sub’s presence to Chinhae and Pusan harbors.

The warhead tore a twenty-foot hole in the ship’s port side, spraying fragments that penetrated the steel decks and letting water into the after berthing compartment. Just aft of the torpedo’s point of impact, John Young’s Sea Sparrow missile launcher was shaken loose from its mount and thrown high into the air, catapulting into the water to starboard.

In tenths of a single second, the blast rippled through the ship from one end to the other, tearing equipment from its mountings and throwing men into steel bulkheads or machinery.

Unfortunately for the American destroyer, its second LAMPS helicopter was fully fueled and loaded with a torpedo, preparing to relieve its comrade aloft. The force of the explosion bounced the aircraft around in its hangar like a bean in a bottle, mangling the fragile machine and spraying jet fuel all over the area. Sparks touched it off, engulfing the after part of John Young’s superstructure in flames.

Most of the men in the ship’s berthing compartment were killed instantly — by the blast, by fragments it threw, or by the concussion. Other survived long enough to drown as the sea poured in through the enormous hole torn by the explosion.

The shattered destroyer crashed back down into the water and started to settle by the stern. Damage control efforts would fail but would keep the warship afloat long enough to allow for an orderly rescue by other vessels in the area.

Senior Captain Chun stepped back from the periscope in satisfaction. It slid down into the deck.

The images of the sinking American destroyer had told their own story. It lay motionless in the water, its stern already almost completely submerged, and he could see yellow life-jacketed figures floating in the water alongside. The destroyer no longer posed any threat to his vessel or his country.

In contrast, Great Leader had evaded the American torpedo with relative ease. Chun doubted that it had ever acquired his submarine.

After the American Mark 46 had stopped running, he’d ordered his planesmen to bring the submarine up to periscope depth. This was his first kill and he’d wanted to get a good look.

Now, though, it was time to leave. The Americans had undoubtedly radioed news of the attack, and Chun was sure that retaliation would soon be on its way. He wanted to be long gone when it arrived.

“Right standard rudder. Come to one five zero degrees. Set a course for Pusan.” He had other targets to hunt down.