1275psi
Posts: 7979
Joined: 4/17/2005 Status: offline
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July 8th Esperance harbour is packed to the gills with transports. Transports un loading a veritable avalanche of men, machinery, stores. Fletcher, under terrible pressure from the very highest quarters, has brought the carriers in close, Jackson can see the coast from Enterprises bridge, see the flak bursts, and the smoke from the last raids victims, 3 AKs, a tanker. 30 Betties already flung at the port, a third destroyed. Yet they still keep coming. Every fighter they have, that Esperance has, has been flung into the air. The first raid, 50 plus the second, 40 odd the next, 30. But they still keep coming. Too many planes now with out ammunition, or fuel, or still over the Port. Jackson follows the mere 8 betties all the way in. He see's them on the coast, low. See's them fan out. Follows the flack, watches one spin into the sea. Watches the drops.......watches as if this is some sort of movie, thuis has nothing to do with me, nothing....... The betties roar overhead, or wheel away, the guns hammer, Enterprise wheels, wheels hard, and shudders, leaps, as the single fish tears into her deep down, deep in her vitals. And still, for Jackson, it feels un real. Enterprise struck????........impossible. But the shrieks of steam, of flames erupting out her funnel speak of terrible reality. She is not alone Yorktown too...........8 bombers. 2 carriers crippled. Fletcher says nothing. What can be said????
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big seas, fast ships, life tastes better with salt
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