The little ship that could.

[1275psi]

The fleet sails

The van, 6 destroyers, Aoki Kikuji commanding

The point, CV Hiyo, Battle ships Fuso, Yamashiro, Tone, Chikuma, 4 destroyers., Admiral Abe, (scowling and sour) commanding.

Fleet unit one, CV Shokakau, Zuikakau, Taiho, Akagi, Shoho, Zuiho, Ryuho, battleships Nagato, Mutsu, a CL, 8 Destroyers, Admiral Yamaguchi commanding.

Fleet unit two, CV Hiryu, Soryu, Unryu, Amagi, Ryujo, Mizuho, Nissin, the four fast BBs, CA Myoko, Haguro, 9 destroyers. Admiral Yamada...spoiling to fight.

And finally, Tanaka leads Yamato, her sister and 6 heavy cruisers and 9 destroyers.

There will never be the like again.
They slip into the dusk, a mighty line of grey, fading, fading.
Into glory?, or utter ruin?
But definately into history.............

[1275psi]

Dawn

How is it, thinks Takeji, that the night can so amplify the terrors.
The menace below the waves stay hidden, regardless of the daylight or the dark, do they not?
But how sweet the dawn, nevertheless.

Zuiho plows across a clam sea, dolphins at her bow, as if to welcome her back.
There has been no attack over night, and now her decks bustle with preparations to launch the first patrols.
The Jills are bigger, but they have more powerful engines as well.
Still, getting them off will be fun.
Getting them back down, even more so.
But go they will.

By 0600 hours, the first ones are undertaking that stupid slow crawl down the deck, floating away from her bow, joining the ever growing crowd in the sky.
Zuiho trembles, running hard as possible, Hidaka seeking every inch of wind speed.
Today he gets it.
Barely
The Jills may be fine aircraft, but Zuiho remains the same tiny deck in the ocean.

Breakfast is being served when the first attack occurs, the alarm bells scattering the men from their meal..........

"Ship closed for action sir"
"good"

It has taken his ship 2 minutes. Good. very good. They look to me now. I will not disapoint them. I must not.
The enemy attack has occured ahead, Nagato the prey.
5000 yards.
Not too close..........
The buka has missed. But a brave barsted at that.

Already two destroyers are healing over, slicing to where the fish have launched. Amusingly, Nagato has swung her tubes that way too.....
A waste of time, .............

Zuiho steams on, silence filling her.
They know the drill now. The destroyers will thrash about, the charges will go down. the enemy will slip away.........
And breakfast will go cold.


Abruptly though, accompanied by a thousand shouts, the surface of the ocean erupts, and the black shape of the submarine bursts into the sun, clearly, clearly out of control.
For a moment, frozen, she slides across the blue.

Hell erupts.
Destroyers Nenohie, Yugiri ponce, guns hammering, the submarine already plunging down, out of sight again.

"Get her, get the buka!" Takeji hisses, gripped by the excitement "Kill it!"
The charges pound, the ocean leaps..and the black barsted bursts to the surface again.
Men pour from her tower, falling, jittering, sprawling, as a dozen guns rip fire into her,impacts dancing on her, sparking, flashing, puffing, ripping into her guts............

And then she is gone, and silence falls over the fleet again.


To nobody Takeji speaks. "One less. many more I am sure. But one less now. "

But how many more?

[1275psi]

Captain Hara of Akagi stands as he will for many hours yet, near the binnacle of his tiny bridge.
A bridge bursting at the seams with the Admiral and his bloody staff.

Why, he wonders not for the last time, did he not place his flag on Taiho? let Kato handle the menace.....
But, it seems, Yamaguichi shares a fondess for this old lady, much like the late yamato did.
Hara looks around him
On this bridge, he counts the helmsman, two lookouts, the Officer of the watch, his communications officer, the flight Officer, a messanger, the quartermaster.
And himself.
Crowded around the chart table, Yamaguchi, genda, two staff officers, another communications man.

Gods........just to have his bridge back.
To have some bloody room , some bloody quiet so he could actually drive his ship..........

Almost with contempt, he observes that little crowd, that ridicolous small chart.
To try to run a war about that!
Why, why do we not have a seperate combat control room, something seperate?
Why, why , do we insist that command must be enacted from the bridge?

He sighs. Nothing to be done about it. Not now.
But he does, at least know what is going on.
SS sailfish sunk. Good
But a AO departing Davao, part of their mobile fuel station, sunk by another.
Other interesting snippets.
More bombing saumalika
And now Koepang.
many planes at darwin, and a lot of shipping.............tankers, AKs.
A possible build up?
The DEI's are all but wide open. .
But, oh, how he would, they all would, like an attack on Java.

[1275psi]

65th brigade
Planted at Finchesan, to ambush whatever would come, a year before it did.
Fought the marines, and shattered them
Fought with honour.

Driven out, fighting, rearguard unit always, slowly falling back up the PNG coast.
Retreating with honour

Trapped, besieged.
Starved of supplies
They defy the Americal, the 37th divisions, even as everything else falls apart around them.
They hold, with honour.

Tonight, they shock attack, these last 800, screaming and yelling obscenities, into the wall of fire.
No Japanese can surrender with honour.
Never..

65th brigade is dead.
Honour , or not. Dead is dead.

[1275psi]

Another enemy unit cuts the road to Katha

With out recon, with out air cover, with only hope on their side, 54th Division will again shock attack tonight.

[kaleun]

Awesome storytelling.
Hoe far ahead is the game from the story, I wonder.

[Smoky Stoker]

Have I mentioned how good your story-telling is? Let me do it again.

Even so, it helps when the action speeds up. [:)]

[hosho]

second to that!
it does not get any better than this....
well done you old dictator!

[1275psi]

Hi guys

I am level pegging with the game at the moment

Regretfully, being a school teacher and all, Cantona is on Holidays.Again![8|]

So I am waiting for a turn............on tenterhooks.

Hosho mate..........me thinks you are headed towards a terrible battle.........15th Army is going to have to rescue the lost divisions at Katha[:(]

Comments very appreciated.

[Gridley380]

If I'm reading your TF composition right, most are over 15 ships. My understanding is that TFs larger than 15 ships suffer coordination penalties.

[1275psi]

yes, in carrier combat.
But i will split the forces up a little when that happens.
In the meantime, its all about the ss menace.............................

[1275psi]

"radio room calling sir"
Captain Hara takes the telephone from the Quarter master, struggling past the bodies crowde d on his bridge.
"Yes, what is it?"

'Sir, we are intercepting a message from SS Flying fish.very close!. They are sending in the clear!"

damnation...............

Struggling to keep calm, Hara covers the mouth piece. "What does it read?"
"have sighted , am trailing enemy battle fleet. Four battle ships Kongo class, many destroyers. he is giving our course and speed too sir!'

Double damnation!. The buka must be close.
Another 3 hours to dawn.
"Thankyou, try to get a fix"
"Hie!'
Triple damnation. The men have had so little rest already.
"Quarter master, general quarters!".

[1275psi]

"Akagi flashing sir!'
Takeji does not answer. No need, he will get the message soon enough.
Flashing in the dark can only spell one thing............trouble.
'Enemy SS suspected inside screen, possibly astern of you. Take appropiate action"

Another Buka.

'Quarter master, sound general quarters please..........."

[1275psi]

The attack comes just 15 minutes later, aimed at the Kongo, aimed from somewhere astern and starboard of her.
It is a good attack, a brave attack.
But the fish are duds, a rare thing now.........

The fleet put there arses to her, and increase to 24 knots, leaving the flying fish behind.
But they will listen to her sighting reports again at dawn, and an hour after that, and an hour after that, despite the air patrols efforts to keep her under.
Flying fish does not have to score today. those radio messages are almost as deadly...............

[1275psi]

Katha ridge is all but empty
Only 38th division remains, spread over an impossibly long front.
Its commander, LGEN Kameji will today try to do the impossible. Bluff the enemy that Katha ridge is still defended by 100000 men, not 16000.
A hundred cooking fires will be lit, and every man is charged to to expose themselves at least twice, in different places.
The single gun battery he has, will fire all day, its guns scatterd the length of the ridge.

The tactic works.

By dusk, 20th, 23rd Armys have put 45 miles between them and the aussies, moving ever closer to the safety of shwebo.
The Aussies, however, are not idiots.
They have 'cottoned on"
"Rear guard action, to cover a retreat"
Not a pretty sentence
And bound to be a very unpretty action.

[1275psi]

The road to Shwebo is now cut.

In two places

The retreating forces have enemy troops facing them.
Who?
How strong?
how many?

It doesn't matter. To get home, Katha Army has to retake the road, has to keep pushing south
Has too!

The Tiger of malaya will not let doubt sieze him
His orders are simple

'There is the road gentlemen. We shall march down it, just as we did in malaya!"
A grin.
"like old times ney?. we are not retreating, merely attacking in another direction!"
The smile will crack.
And that hardness that took Singapore will blaze forth

"Officers will lead from the front, and will not hesitate. The attack will carry through!"
"Forward!"

[1275psi]

54ths attack........................melts away.

Too much enemy fire power.
Too many bombs
Too few tanks left running.
Too few men

But mainly, too many bombs.

16th, 18th naval guard units now cease in all but name, to exist.
One, caught fair in the fields by waves of medium bombers, fails to even attack
The other, hammered by dive bombers, breaks apart, melting away, seeking for what little cover it can find.

The division itself simply attempts to advance, is pinned down.
The 8th will see a day of fighting for the single road, the Indians , a full bloody division of them, holding its northern side, the Japanese the south.

Nothing of course, will pass up it.

Even if the Tiger clears his road, he will have to fight for this one.


A single road
40 square miles of paddy fields
A few scattered grass and palm built huts, a few trees.
But then, wars are never decided on the battle fields generals would decide them upon..............

[1275psi]

Hosho boards another train

2 days to Shwebo.
then, any bloody money...............more marching.
Hosho peers at the miserable remains of his boots

"I need to kill myself a well heeled britisher, and soon........."


He will get his chance, I feel, soon enough.

[1275psi]

Midnight, 9/10/43

"Fire one!, fire two!, fire three!, fire four!"
The fish burst from the tubes
Running hot, running true.

SS Flying fish has called her brothers

And now, now they come calling....................

[BBfanboy]

Hi 1275. Just wanted to thank you for posting this great AAR. You have done a great job of personalizing the impersonal battle reports and strategic dithering behind the scenes!

I am really enjoying the narrative - tension within a panel board of scene-setting pictures. Reads like a graphic novel.