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Cuttlefish -> RE: Small Ship, Big War (4/20/2009 7:22:14 PM)
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March 9, 1945
Location: Saigon
Course: None
Attached to: TF 27
Mission: Surface Combat
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475
Orders: None
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“We’re heading home?” torpedoman Hosogaya says. Kinsei nods. The three friends are standing on the torpedo deck.
“I heard it from the lieutenant himself,” he says. To the torpedo men “the lieutenant” always refers to Lieutenant Sugiyura. “And he heard it from the captain.”
“Then home we go,” says Chuyo. “I hope we have at least a few days here in Saigon, though.”
“I don’t know,” says Kinsei. “We might. The other thing the lieutenant said is that there are reports that a huge enemy carrier force has appeared in the Ryukyus and that there is a fierce air battle going on. Getting home might not be easy. You might wish you had stayed in that hospital, Chuyo.”
“No,” says Chuyo with a grin, “this ship will get through, I am sure. Besides, I would rather take my chances with you guys than have those doctors poke more needles into me. I hate needles.”
“How is the battle going?” asks Hosogaya. “Any word?” Kinsei shrugs.
“It’s too soon even for the usual Radio Tokyo reports that the enemy carriers have all been sunk,” he says. “We’ll probably hear that tomorrow. Then we will have to try and get home past a gauntlet of all those sunken carriers.”
“Well, then,” says Hosogaya, “let’s try to get passes ashore from the lieutenant tonight. I hate to face enemy carriers completely sober.”
---
Ensign Ito is nineteen years old and knows he will not live to be another day older. He lay awake last night, unable to sleep, tormented by thoughts of failure and knowledge of his own impending death. And now that death is upon him.
He banks his A6M5 model 52c fighter-bomber around in a tight turn high above the American fleet. It is an amazing sight. The ocean seems covered in ships. Everywhere there are planes and bursts of anti-aircraft fire. Streaks of flame cross the sky as Japanese planes plunge towards the water
But there are so many planes. Today for the first time the Special Attack Corps has been unleashed full force, hundreds of them, and not even the enemy fighters can stop them all. As if of its own will Ito’s plane lines up on an enemy carrier and Ito pushes his plane into as steep a dive as it can handle. This ship is his target.
Oddly enough, here in the last minute of his life, he is very calm. The regrets and fear have fallen away and there remains only the determination to get a hit. His plane rocks as enemy shells begin to burst around him. He jinks the plane a little to try and throw off their aim.
The carrier grows larger and larger below him. His plane is hit and shrapnel tears into his right arm and shoulder. Ito grips the stick with his left hand as best he can and as fire billows around him he utters a long scream of pain and defiance.
The tower of the enemy carrier looms in front of him until it fills the world.
---
Admiral Raymond Spruance knows that Intrepid, his flagship, has been hit hard. Smoke and flames billow from yawning hole in the flight deck just ahead of the forward elevator where one of those crazy kamikazes hit just a moment ago. But fighting fires isn’t his job, directing the battle is. He leaves damage control to the brave and capable people assigned to the job and studies the latest reports to reach him.
“Admiral!” calls an urgent voice. An ensign is pointing. Spruance looks up to see a flaming Japanese plane heading right for the flag bridge on which he is standing. Already it is so close that he can see the screaming face of the pilot.
“Oh hell,” is all he has time to say.
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