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Cuttlefish -> RE: Small Ship, Big War (6/28/2007 2:48:35 AM)
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December 4, 1942
Location: Kwajalein
Course: Docked
Attached to: TF 72
Mission: Air Combat
System Damage: 2
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 443
Orders: Await further orders.
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Shiro edges his way into a place at the crowded mess table. He smiles apologetically as he squeezes in, but instead of grumbling the other sailors make room for him. Shiro, easygoing and always willing to lend a hand where needed, is well liked by his fellow crew members.
After helping himself to some rice and fish he leans over the table gets the attention of Riku, who is sitting across from him.
“Hey, Ariga, could you do me a favor?” Riku looks up at his friend. His mouth is full of food, but he gestures for Shiro to go on. “I’m starting another shogi set, but I’m almost out of wood. Could you find a piece or two for me?” Riku finishes chewing and looks at Shiro.
“Wood?” he says. “Half the islands in this atoll are covered in trees. What do you need my help for?” Shiro makes an apologetic gesture.
“The wood of the palm trees is much too fibrous and spongy,” he says apologetically. “I really need some good Japanese hardwood. If it is an inconvenience then of course I understand. I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble, but since you are the quartermaster’s chief assistant I thought you might be able to find some if anyone could.” Riku shrugs.
“It is no trouble,” he says. “I will keep my eyes open.” Shiro thanks him. The two eat in silence for a moment, listening to the conversation taking place elsewhere at the small table. The current topic is whether the enemy will stage a big attack this coming Monday, the first anniversary of the start of the war.
Many opinions are offered, and Shiro and Riku toss in a few of their own. There are those who are convinced that the Americans are never going to mount a serious attack, and others who are convinced that the Americans could not bear the loss of face that the failure to respond to the anniversary of Pearl Harbor would entail. Everyone has an idea, and that fact that the question of whether or when America will attack has been debated dozens of times before does not make the conversation any less lively.
The talking dies down as sailors finish eating and head for their hammocks or to go on duty. Soon the mess area is empty, though the rattle of pans can be heard from the galley as the cooks clean up and begin preparing for the next shift. Another day aboard the Hibiki is drawing to a close.
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Excerpt from “Japanese Destroyer Attack!” by Shiro Kuramata, Ballentine Mori Press, 1963. Translated by Captain Ben Packard, USN (ret.). Original Japanese title: “Small Ship, Big War”.
The days of our long stay at Kwajalein near the end of 1942 were good days. We were well rested and well fed, and we were men of the Imperial Japanese Navy, a force that had humiliated the West and carved out an empire.
It is difficult, and almost heartbreaking, for me to remember how we felt then. Though we had already been tested in battle and had seen comrades die, those days for us those were in many ways days of innocence. We had no way of knowing what was coming. We were like a bold group of mountaineers who had conquered a tall and difficult mountain and then triumphantly pitched our tent right in the path of an avalanche.
No doubt our optimism will seem foolish to those who read about it all these years later. We were not foolish or stupid, though a year of victories may have left us a little arrogant. But all we knew of the war was what we could see or hear from the deck of our ship. Even those of us with some appreciation of the industrial might of America could not picture the rows of warships under construction, or the hundreds of factories that were already beginning to produce endless numbers of advanced warplanes. We only had our own frame of reference to go on, after all, and that frame of reference did not include such resources.
But all that was still in the future as the first year of the war drew to a close. Aboard the Hibiki we held bull sessions, played practical jokes, pursued our hobbies, complained about officers, and waited for something to happen…
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