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July 11th 1943

Extract from Shattering the sword, a cantona production.

There was, of course, why the Allied Army had "disapeared' over warzup.
The allies have poked out the eyes of Japans army.

Not for nothing, have the P 38's and P 40's kept a blanket over the Jungles of Burma.
They have culled a pretty crop of Japanese recon planes. Such a crop in fact, that for the last 5 days no red balls have survived these skies at all.
Burma Army is there. It has not vanished. It marches south still. A great race is developing, they come south, 15th army comes North
And so far, they have stolen a great jump on Japan.

Lt Hanimoto is good. very, very good.
A pilot of a very select group of Dinah recon pilots, he has been transferred up from Singapore, with orders from the dictator himself.
Seek

Three Dinahs only depart today.
And so much turns on these three planes.

Unknown to Hanimoto, both his companions will fall today, joining the P 38's crop.
Flying at 30000 feet, in the staid old usual Japanese way, they will be shot down in the same old American manner.

Hanimoto will try something different.
Engines snarling, his sleek beast rushes across the river south of Myitinka at 300 feet, his shadow racing across the tree tops so close below.
Hills stretch above him to both left and right, and flight is a constant banking left, swinging back to the right, climbing over each ridge, diving down the next.
The great green races underneath, the path he follows a blur of glimpsed pictures , parts of a jigsaw , passing underneath, peice by piece.
The sun shines brightly, beating through the glass house of his cockpit, and the world is oh so bright and crisp and clean
Another ridge, this one slightly bare at its back, the Dinah swooping up its climbing carpice.

Glimpses.
khaki
White limbs
Soldiers
And even at 300 knots, there is no missing the Aussie head gear.

He banks, hard, wings almost vertical, going for another look, and lives.............

The P 38 blasts by, foiled, swinging away from its dive, turning the other way.
Hanimoto grips the wheel , grimaces, the blood pounding, lungs starining, over the ridge again..
Troops.
Trucks
Guns

Armour. yes. armour.

Up the valley now.engine bellowing at full throttle, observer talking the P 38 on his tail, he jinks, he swings, the 38 follows

tracer hammers past
Lower.
he pushes her lower, and now its not a trail, but a river of men, a torrent of men. The camera's whirl.
Abruptly he swings up and away and hard to the left, straining everything to make the turn.

A successful turn, the 38 missing it, blasting past.
Hanimoto climbs, climbs hard, makes the clouds, and safety, and home.

And so, 24 hrs ago, I prayed that this was a storm in a tea cup.
What foolishness!
Cantona shows no subetly here.
Why bother!
23 units identified coming south. Warzup falls to the allies.

Very well then.
15th army must slow them. While I gather everything I have.
15th Army has 140 miles to march to the river. March then they must!

55th division bears the brunt today.
34 B17's rumble over through the clear blue skies, and the endless streams of bombs scream down.

Few strike the division, only 100 men are killed (only!)
But it does a more deadly job this attack, more deadly than a few casualties.
Companies, regiments, melt into the jungle seeking cover. Men everywhere slide into holes.
The March stops. it takes hours to resume, no longer in easy marching formations, but under cover, in combat formations, a far far slower way to move.

If this is a race to the river, then the allies have filled 15th Army saddle bags with lead.

All Avalanches start with but a single pebble, a single snowflake.

They initiate another down the slope, that takes some more with them, that take some more, the avalanche growing in size and destruction, each piece cascading into another, until before you know it, the entire hill is coming down, sweeping away town, village, Empire before it.

A single snowflake.

Here, at Palua, the single snowflake falls.
Two words, flashed by lamp from the flagships great dark bridge to the Empires fleet brooding silent and dark about it.

Words that begin the great slide of action .....................


"raise steam"

Go get 'em!

[Deleted by Admins]

SPAM!

can some one please explain the last to me??????????????[&:]

updates coming soon, been away

There was spambot "Angelina" on forum. But admins kill it in weekend and all his posts where removed

14/7/43

Zuiho steams over a calm, moonlit sea.

She knows these waters
In those halcyon days of early 42, here she hunted, and killed the enemy.
The war may have changed, but this little ship continues on.

deep in her bowels, feedwater is steadily drawn from the De aerating tank by booster pumps, and driven upstairs to the feed pumps, that whine endlessly. (Zuiho is having a good run with them lately ney?. Thats what happens when you keep a steam plant humming, things don't break nearly as often. Its those damn refit and maintenace periods alongside that cock everything up)

The feed, at nearly 600 PSI, passes through the big, and surproisingly crude feed control valve, and enters the boiler.
A quarter ton of fuel every four minutes burns in the furnace, the flames bright and strong, 4 feet long, or more, heating the fireside tubes cherry red.
The feed races down the down comers, into the drum at boiler bottom, the mud drum, races back up the fireside tubes, or the myrid banks of uprisers, changing to steam, and cooling those tubes just enough to prevent failure.

it strikes a difuser plate, races through it, leaving the water behind.
Out, out through the main stop at full pressure.

Now the steam will take many paths.
Much, a great amount, renters the boiler superheater, drying, gaining yet more energy and power.
Unseen, it pulses to the throttle valves, and bursting, expanding, surrenders the energy into the turbines.

The condensers capture it, gather it as water, and the condensate pump pushes it to the de areator.

And repeat.

Some steam goes to the blowers, the fuel pumps.
More is reduced, goes to the oil pumps, the condensate pumps.
Some drives the ejectors, those pricks of machines that maintain the vacuum in the condensor.
yet more drives that bitch of a fuel pump set., the fuel heaters, the gland steam controllers.

used, it all returns in a million drains.

Water/ Steam. Zuiho's heart. A hundred different pipe runs, dozens, upon dozens of valves to control and isolate it.
Some, huge things, 18 inches or more across, some mere tap size.

Charge knows them all.
So do his Petty officers
So do his leading seaman
As does the ables
All, every stoker on this little ship can find them now , un erringly, in the dark, in chaos, in calamity.
If you want to be a stoker, then you to, had better be able too.



Your life depends on it.

Balikapapn

"Destroyers reporting periscope 1000 yards, bearing 320 degrees sir!"
'Very well. Sound action stations"

Yet again, the bells ring, the alarms sound.
Yet again, the men tumble from their hammocks, from their mess dacks, from a thousand holes, and Zuiho swiftly begins the process of buttoning up.
Kato takes his glasses, walks swiftly to the port bridge wing.
Below him, Zuiho trembles. Fans winding up, as Tan has the banked boilers brought on line.
About him, doors clang, and the clatter of ammunition being loaded into the twenty fives drifts to him,.

The horizon glows pink.
dawn in minutes.
The wind is cold upon his face
"Ship at action stations sir, 2 minutes 28 seconds"
Good. very good.

Kato hunts the horizon. There, just there. A kagero class, wheeling hard.
Fountains of water bursting behind her.
Good, keep the barsted down......
The clang of the charges against the ships side.

'Destroyer passing astern sir"

One of the new Akitsuzuki class..........big, fast, beautiful.......her bow wave big, bad, beautiful, a giant bone, racing past, fans audible from here, her captain, stark white on her bridge, glasses trained ahead.

Get the buka...

The kagero is still swinging, charging back towards the white waters......
The sun peeks over the horizon, sunburst on calm sea.
And that black hated shape of a American submarine bursting uncontrollably to the surface........


For a moment.
Stillness

a potrait for war.

Water streaming from the black hulll, water splitting aside from the kagero's bow.

And then she is firing, and the black shape is sliding back down again, fountains rising about her like picket fences, blossoms of fire, of flowers bursting on her tower..........and she is gone.

Charges, more charges hammer down.


Zuiho slides past the action, her men staring across the still dark waters, destroyers now brilliantly lit in the dawns rising sun.
The Charges fountains so crisp and white
Did they really see the enemy then, those hidden bukas?

yes, they did.

And unlikely to see them again.


Zuiho travels on.
It is a brilliant way to start the day.

Hosho wearily turns to Bando
"I will give them this, they are persistant"

'At missing, yes"

A good thing too.


28 B17s bomb 55 division, hidden deep in the jungle, marching steadily north.
They miss.

Near Ominato

54th division moves into the fields for exercises.

The exercises will see a selected regiment a mere 3 miles from where Japans hidden emperor, is being held.

herbiesan must have been a fool to think that he could just hide the son of heaven.

Yamamoto slips on his new boots.

they are uncomfortable, tight, terrible for walking in.

But for this meeting, alone with the dictator, they will do.
After all, 6 inches of cold steel tends to stiffen a boot awfully.

He does not intend to be walking far.
Dawn is rising as he climbs into his staff car.
Its an hours drive to HQ.
He closes his eyes, and sleeps.

15/7/43

Yamamoto awakens abruptly.
His body is being thrown violently against the door of the car, the air filled with the screech of sliding rubber, the clang of clashing metal.

It all happens fast.
The horror crowds in , the looming guard rail, the smashing timbers, the drivers despairing wail, the sickening plunge off the bridge

"what???"

The waters, smashing in, the slam to the head........darkness

LGEN Katamura waits nervously for the appearance of the son of heaven

It has been to easy.

The regiment has marched to the gates of this minor castle, marched straight to its gates, and through them.

They have been open, guardless.

Only here, at the outer chamber, have they met anybody.
But not just anybody, LT Ashigara, personal secretary to his Highness.

'Ahh, General, we have been expecting you..........."

Expecting us?

But there is no time to ponder this, for the doors are opening.

It is true, he look a mere man.

Ashigara speaks
'His Highness has this statement to make.

"To the men of 54th division. I thank you in this time of the Empires great trial.
I thank you for awakening me to Japans desperate plight, for encouraging myself to once again take my place at the nations head, as we bring peace to the peoples of the greater prosperity sphere.
I thankyou, and now look forward to working with herbiesan, in the further and ultimate successful conclusion of this war, which we intend to prosecute to our nations fullest strength."

And behind Katamura, that so familiar voice.

And he knows, knows now, that all is lost

herbiesans voice is dark, and hard. " So many won't fight for me neh?. But how many for our emperor?
Japan will never surrender, not while the son of heaven breathes.............."

Kato passes the signal to Hidaka. His hands tremble.

The words are beyond belief.

An American Company, dressed as Japanese soldiers, has attempted to kill the Emperor.
Only through fate, and the 54th divisions intervention, has the Emperor been saved.

Monstorous.

Obscene

To attack the son of heaven!


Rage fills Hidaka's heart

"they will pay for this.............."
"There is more, the Emperor is coming back to Tokyo. And he has released a statement"
"A statement?, the emperor?"
"Yes. he asks Japan to rise as one, to root out all traitors, and to fight for our nations place in the sun........"

Hidaka stares out over the Java sea.
There can be no peace now. Not ever. Yes, they will fight. Fight as one.

Burma

North east of Akyab

The shattered remains of the british 23rd brigade struggle away from the river.
Something has gone terribly wrong. A recon in force, has found far, far more force than it anticipated.
Japans 56th division, and the heavy artillery of the Tone heavy gun battalion , has smashed it.

two crossings
two defeats.

But if the british high command thinks these actions are pinning Japanese forces to this line, they are wrong.

From the pacific, to rangoon, Singapore, from Lashio, from reserve, japanese divisions move.
Will 7 be enough to plug the hole?
Soon we shall find out.

16/7/43

As political and popular storms wrack Japan, real storms play there part in the bitter skies over Burma

From Akyab, to Mytkyina, they sweep south, great mountains of moisture, towering white into the upper heavens, clear and clean, yet with dark hearts and even darker bottoms.
Below many, great curtains of rain frequently lash the jungles and armies struggling through the green hells.

Amongst these giants, the two airforces play a deadly game of seek and kill.
6 Tojos blast through the edges of one of these great mountains, one becomes seperated, and shortly later encounters 18 hunting 38's
The Tojo will simply, for all intents and purposes, vanish from history.
3 liberators will encounter 9 oscars. No one hurt.
Hurricanes will come south, see nobody.
Ten minutes later, Wellingtons following them, will meet a hell of diving japanese fighters..........

from West to east, the battles will rage, unseen mostly by the troops below.
13 allies lost. 8 japanese.


And yet, despite the losses, the blood shed, these were good times for the fighter men.
Free to hunt, free to seek battle.
Free to roam the skies, and to try themselves, young man against young man.

The warriors fight.
Japans high command begins to feed in the reinforcements. So far, they feel, they are winning.

The battle for Burma is racing to a decision.