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Cuttlefish -> RE: Small Ship, Big War (9/24/2008 9:24:45 PM)
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August 9, 1944
Location: 60 miles northeast of Morotai
Course: Holding position
Attached to: TF 23
Mission: Air combat
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 457
Orders: Strike Allied shipping at and around Ulithi
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Seaman Shoji perches precariously on a pair of footholds above the upper platform on the main mast and reaches up to hand Yoshitake a wrench. Yoshitake reaches down and takes it and hands back a pair of wire cutters. Up here even the current modest roll of the ship is very pronounced. Yoshitake grins down at Shoji.
“You are wearing your good luck charm, yes?” he asks. Shoji nods vigorously.
‘You had better believe it!” he says. He tucks the tin snips into his tool belt and reaches up to touch the cord around his neck to reassure himself it is still there.
“Good,” says Yoshitake, and turns back to his work. “This would be a bad time to leave it behind.” The two men are repairing and tightening stays loosened by the storm. Though low clouds loom above them the rain has stopped and a rising glass promises that the weather will continue to improve.
As Yoshitake works Shoji looks down. At first he is looking straight down at the port side of the destroyer, then he is looking down at the starboard side. He wishes Yoshitake would hurry.
“It could be worse,” says Yoshitake as if divining his thoughts.
“True,” Shoji says, shifting his weight as the ship rolls back, “we could have had to do this during the storm.”
“Or we could be under attack,” says Yoshitake. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Shoji starts to make a reply and then stops. Over the sound of the wind, the sea, and Hibiki’s engines he thinks he hears something. He cocks his head to one side. Yes, he does hear something. It is the droning of airplane engines and it is getting louder. Above him Yoshitake stops working and looks around.
“Do you…” he calls down, then stops. An airplane suddenly drops out of the clouds a few hundred feet ahead of the ship. Shoji goggles at the oncoming apparition but even in his amazement has no trouble identifying it as an American PBY. The plane roars past barely 100 feet over the top of the mast, close enough that Shoji can see an American staring at him from one of waist blisters. The man looks as startled as Shoji.
Astern of the ship the plane suddenly banks right, towards Taiho. As it crosses the carrier’s stern it releases a bomb which overshoots the carrier and detonates harmlessly in the sea beyond. A few antiaircraft guns in the task force belatedly open fire as the PBY pulls up and disappears once more into the clouds.
Yoshitake and Shoji look at each other for a moment. “Hand me a turnbuckle, will you?’ Yoshitake says after a moment. “Thanks.” He goes back to work. Shoji scans the clouds anxiously for more enemy planes, but none appear.
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