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Cap Mandrake -> Shot over! (2/20/2008 6:04:20 PM)
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********USN Forward Motor Torpedo Base, Tenimbar, in the Southern Banda Sea, 23:20, December 5, 1942********
Captain Binghamton studies a navigation chart perched on a small card table lit be a kerosene lamp. His "office" is a used Quonset hut perched unevenly and hastily on unprepared ground. His job is to isolate Aru Island and attack targets of opportunity in the Banda Sea. His original force was comprised of 18 PT boats, but first reports from last night's raid on Amboina suggest he may have lost as many as four boats. "Eh", he says to himself, "they ae only one Vcitory Point each" His small operation has no coastal defence guns, no airstrip, no radar, no security troops. Fuel for the boats is stored in 80 gallon drums by the jetty and hand pumped. Torpedo reloads are under a tent. It is a shoestring operation, but he can scarcely guess what kind of annoyance he has become to the Imperial Japanese Navy.
He looks down to see a 3 inch cockroach near his foot. He crushes it without a thought. As he conducts a damage assessment on the cockroach, the still night is rent by an unwordly shreik. An 18 inch shell screams over his head....
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