Captain Teraoka was not happy. As he stood on the bridge of the Kiko Maru and surveyed the ongoing scenes of chaos, he made yet another mental curse against the arrogant fools who had put him in charge of this mission. With the war barely one week old, he had been placed in command of fifteen rag-tag transports and ordered to land the 56th Infantry Brigade in the bay of Davao. They would round up the slovenly American reserve troops on their base with no trouble, as had already been seen so often before.
Teraoka remembered well the assurances he had received during his briefing. The American air forces were destroyed on their airfields, their ships scattered or sunk, their troops third rate. He had been given one lowly minesweeper as an escort to the unloading point, and one minelayer would deploy a defensive minefield on the very small chance of some appearance from any stray minor enemy ships which might just have escaped from the all conquering IJN.
Since making landfall yesterday afternoon things had started to go wrong immediately. Naval guns had been positioned overlooking the bay, and for what now seemed like eternity his slow transports had been weaving to the best of their ability to avoid incoming shells. It hadn't worked, four of his transports had been burning for some time now, although they were still just about underway. Teraoka had been even more suprised when a handful of American P-35 fighters had appeared and had actually attempted to bomb his beleaguered force.
This wouldn't do. He was a servant of the Emperor, upholder of proud traditions. Putting aside his dark mood, he obtained confirmation of when the unloading would be completed and they could make their way out of this cauldron. Just a few more hours, so close now, so close.
60 miles South of Davao. Dawn. Bridge of the Heavy Cruiser USS Houston.
'Flank speed and good luck to you all!' With grim satisfaction, Rear Admiral Rockwell signed off. In the few days following the suprise attacks all over the Pacific on Allied forces, there had been nothing but bad news. However as stragglers gathered in the port of Balikpapan from bases far and wide, he was ordered to take command of all major warships which arrived and take a task force to a new base south of the Philippines. Apparently his competence and aggressive handling of warships in exercises had been noted by those higher up, and he knew that now was the hour to repay their faith in full.
Yesterday while in transit he had received the news that Japanese forces were landing at Davao, and incredibly they appeared to be virtually unescorted. Racing North throughout the night he was now in a postion his fellow admirals would envy. Dawn had broken, and it was a beautiful morning. Already he could see dark smudges on the blue horizon, telltale signs that the coastal guns had found their mark. He cast another reassuring glance down to the map, Davao could only be approached from the south, the base was at the apex of a horseshoe shaped bay which was surrounded on all other sides by land.
Picking up his binoculars he surveyed the task force. His four cuisers and six destroyers cutting through the sea were a mix of American, Dutch and British ships. Three times faster than most enemy transports, fully loaded with ammunition, plenty of fuel, steaming in against unloading and damaged transports bottled in a horseshoe bay. Hell yes, his fellow admirals would be envious, this was as good as it gets. 'Open fire at 25,000 yards, and close in for as long as possible thereafter'. The captain nodded, and seconds later the 8 inch guns swung into position...
Ok! Enough of the cheesey melodrama [8|]. For a bit of fun I would like to invite anyone to guess at how many enemy transports Rear Admiral Rockwell's task force sent to the bottom in the ensuing action. As a bit of extra help I'll (hopefully) post a screenie from round two of the action below - apologies if it doesn't work.
Guess away [:)]
