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Cuttlefish -> RE: Small Ship, Big War (11/12/2008 10:37:34 PM)
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September 22, 1944
Location: Tokyo
Course: None
Attached to: Disbanded in port
Mission: None
System Damage: 0
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475
Orders: Await further orders
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“Welcome aboard Hibiki, Mr. Hiroo,” says Lieutenant Miharu, shaking the hand of a slender young man in a brown suit. A boat has just delivered him to the destroyer.
“Thank you, thank you,” says Tomofusa Hiroo. “It is a rare treat these days for me to actually get to talk to the men I am writing about!” He claps a hand on top of his hat to keep an errant breeze from blowing it away.
“Indeed?” says the lieutenant. “Well, the Navy has asked us to extend you all due cooperation and courtesy, so you will be able to talk to as many of us as you wish. Captain Ishii asked me to personally take charge of your visit.”
“Splendid!” says Hiroo. He has a round, pleasant face and his eyes sparkle with enthusiasm behind his round glasses. “I have never been aboard a destroyer before. Not that that would stop me from writing about one! My last series of articles, for example, were dispatches from the battlefront at Tinian.”
“How did you escape when the island fell?”
“I didn’t! I was never there. I just made it all up at my desk.” He shakes his head. “I don’t take pride in this, mind you. Before the war I was a real reporter. I investigated, I asked questions, I wrote about what I found. Now…well, we all write what we are told to write.” He glances up at Miharu. “I probably should not speak so frankly.”
“Don’t worry, I understand,” the lieutenant assures him. “I was a teacher and scholar before I entered the Navy. Many of my friends are writers and I understand what things are like these days. Now, shall we begin the tour?”
Hiroo looks eagerly up at the torpedo deck and forward and aft at the ship’s bristling weaponry. “By all means!” he says, taking out a notebook.
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“Lieutenant Miharu, the ship’s executive officer, is emblematic of the new breed of Japanese fighting man. The former professor is cool and unflappable in the face of even the gravest perils. He eyes his foes with the level gaze of a shogi champion, which he is, methodically plotting ways to sweep the enemy’s pieces from the board.”
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“Captain Ishii, may I present Mr. Hiroo of the Asahi Shimbun. Mr. Hiroo, Captain Ishii.” Ishii looks up from the dispatches he is reading.
“What?” he says. “Oh, the reporter. Welcome aboard and all that. Sugiyura! Where is he? Ensign, find Lieutenant Sugiyura and have him report to me immediately.”
“Yes sir!”
“Captain,” says Hiroo, “I can see you are busy but I have a question for you, if you would be so kind.”
Ishii sighs. “Certainly,” he says with only a trace of impatience.
“Your ship has compiled an enviable record during the war,” Hiroo says. “What do you think is the secret to your success?”
“The secret?” says Ishii. “Hm. I would say the biggest thing is that we’ve been lucky. Damned lucky, in fact.”
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“Lieutenant Commander Ishii, the ship’s captain, runs his ship with a hand of iron. He is modest about his accomplishments but his strong jaw speaks of determination and his fierce eyes burn with the desire to come to grips with and destroy the enemy.”
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“Yoshitake! Shoji! Oizuma! Come here, please,” says the lieutenant. The three sailors jump up from the motor they are working on, trot over to Miharu, and salute. “This is Mr. Hiroo, a reporter,” Lieutenant Miharu says. “He is going to write an article about the ship and would like to ask you a few questions.”
“Yes, thank you Lieutenant,” he says. He looks at the men. “Um, at ease or whatever, fellows.” The sailors glance at Miharu, who nods fractionally. The men relax.
“Good, good,” says Hiroo. “Now, I know you men have been all over the Pacific during the war. Which of the exotic and distant ports of the new Japanese Empire have been your favorites, and why?” The three sailors look at each other.
“Well,” says Oizuma, “Rabaul was very nice. There were hot springs and some shops.”
“That’s where the cone snail almost killed me,” recalls Shoji.
“We spent the most time at Kwajalein,” says Yoshitake. “What a dull place!”
“That’s where I snagged the torpedo with the anchor,” says Shoji.
“But I did like Espiritu Santo,” says Yoshitake. “There was so much good food there!”
“That’s where I was washed overboard,” Shoji adds.
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“The sailors excitedly recount tales of their past battles. Every port they have called at has its own stories filled with adventure and excitement. No danger seems to faze these fighting men.”
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“Ah, Chief, there you are,” says Lieutenant Miharu. He introduces the reporter, who blinks upon seeing the remarkably ugly but powerfully built Shun. To his credit he recovers almost immediately.
“Chief Shun,” says Hiroo, “What do you think is the most important ability a petty officer should possess?”
Shun looks at Lieutenant Miharu and grins. “The ability,” he says to Hiroo, “to let the officers think that they are the ones running things.”
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“Shun, the chief petty officer of the deck force, is a man of immense strength. To many of those aboard he is the heart of the ship’s fighting spirit. Yet like many old salts he is also something of a philosopher as well.”
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“It’s a remarkable ship,” says Hiroo. “So many men and weapons in such a small space! I would not want to be the enemy who has to face this ship in battle.”
“I wouldn’t either,” says Lieutenant Miharu. “Yet the enemy has ships like it, and many more of them. If you talk to anyone, sailors, soldiers, airmen, anyone who has survived an encounter with the enemy, almost all of them speak of one thing – the almost unbelievable amount of firepower the enemy has. It is like trying to stand against a cyclone of steel and fire.”
“I have heard that,” says Hiroo. “But of course I can’t write anything of the kind.”
“No, I imagine not,” says the lieutenant. “I hope you got everything you needed from your visit.”
“I did, thank you,” Hiroo says, patting his notebook. “Good luck to you and the rest of the crew, Lieutenant. Look for my profile in the Asahi Shimbun in a couple of days!”
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“While the big battleships and aircraft carriers get the most attention it is destroyers that form the backbone of the fleet. And high in the ranks of the destroyers stands Hibiki. This fine ship exemplifies the superior principles of Japanese naval design and her crew exemplifies the fighting spirit of the Imperial Japanese Navy. With such ships and such men no one can doubt that the enemy’s aggression is doomed to end in inglorious defeat. Everyone aboard Hibiki knows that it is only a matter of time before they and the rest of the Combined Fleet sweep the enemy from the seas.”
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