Small Ship, Big War - The Voyages of the Hibiki

[FeurerKrieg]

Excellent!!!

[DuckofTindalos]

Wonder what happened to the head that the hat was on...[:D]

[John 3rd]

Yaaaaa...KNEW Shun would get into it!  BANZAI!
 

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Wonder what happened to the head that the hat was on...[:D]

I wonder what Shun did with the other eleven hats?

Chez

[1EyedJacks]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Wonder what happened to the head that the hat was on...[:D]

I wonder what Shun did with the other eleven hats?

Chez

Probably New-Year party favorites? Those, a ration of saki, and a few patriotic songs plus a gift to the snake would be a pretty good welcome to a new year... [:D]

[John 3rd]

What sort of 'offering' might Shun make to the snake???
 

[1EyedJacks]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

What sort of 'offering' might Shun make to the snake???

I dunno - maybe a pound of Army flesh? [:D]

[John 3rd]

Literally...
 

[princep01]

Snap, crackle, pop!  Bring the pain.  The 56th Infantry my be mourning the violent passage of an NCO.

[tocaff]

Nice touch that keeps the story so interesting.

[Capt. Harlock]

ORIGINAL: Cuttlefish

“Too bad,” comments the captain. Only now does he glance up at the cap Shun is wearing, the item that first attracted Tanabe’s attention. It is an army-issue cloth field cap. “Nice hat, Chief,” Ishii says.

“Thank you, sir,” says Shun, and gives another of his frightening smiles. “A nice sergeant gave it to me last night.”

Brilliant -- just brilliant!

[Cuttlefish]

August 23, 1943

Location: 300 miles north-northeast of Truk
Course: North
Attached to: TF 46
Mission: Transport
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 439

Orders: Escort tankers back to Japan

---

It is another routine day on a routine mission. Again there is no sign of enemy activity. The task force churns slowly north under mostly sunny skies, though here and there rain squalls drift eastward.

The ship’s log for Hibiki will note for today only the ship’s position, speed, and bearing. It is just another day in a long string of days that make up this destroyer’s service in the war. Yet behind the laconic log entry are almost two hundred men, each doing his part. From the cooks who prepare and serve the food to the stokers who keep the boilers hot, there are hundreds of tasks that go into keeping the ship running smoothly.

Daily activity aboard Hibiki is dictated by routine. Watches are stood and relieved with metronomic precision. Meals are eaten according to schedule. Everything from noting the ship’s position to doing laundry is done by the clock, and every man aboard knows where he should be and what he should be doing at any given time. Most men even develop a pattern of how they spend the short amounts of time they have when they are not on duty, asleep, or otherwise busy. These interweaving schedules form a steady, efficient pattern.

But the men performing these tasks are not, of course, just cogs in a machine. Each is an individual who goes about the day with his own story, with his own thoughts and hopes and worries. In the final analysis this is not a war fought by ships, by airplanes, or by divisions. It is fought by men.

It is another routine day on a routine mission. Hibiki continues north, sailing towards home.

[bradfordkay]

If Hibiki's convoy makes it back to Japan without encountering any allied subs (again!), I predict that there will be a major business develop in the capture of Burmese pythons for the Imperial Japanese Navy's use...

[Cuttlefish]

August 24, 1943

Location: 290 miles southeast of Guam
Course: North
Attached to: TF 46
Mission: Transport
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 410

Orders: Escort tankers back to Japan

---

Captain Ishii checks his watch and nods at Ensign Izu. Izu gives an order to the bridge talker, with immediate results.

“This is a drill! Enemy submarine sighted 1000 meters to port! Combat stations!” The order reverberates through the ship, followed by the jarring sound of the klaxon. Hibiki jumps to life like an ant hill poked by a stick. Running feet thud in the narrow companionways and up and down stairs and ladders. There are clangs and rattles as equipment lockers are opened and helmets and other gear distributed.

On the bridge Captain Ishii watches as reports come in from different parts of the ship.

“Fantail manned and ready!”

“Engineering spaces are manned and ready!”

“Forward turret reports manned and ready!”

And so on. Soon Izu turns to Captain Ishii and says that all sections have reported in. Captain Ishii checks his watch again.

“Two minutes, twelve seconds,” he observes with a grimace. “That isn’t good enough. Secure from combat stations, but I want the drill repeated today until we have it under two minutes.”

“Yes sir,” says Izu. “It’s the new men aboard, sir. They don’t have the speed of the old hands yet.”

“They’d best acquire it,” says Ishii shortly. “The enemy isn’t likely to courteously wait until they are fully trained before attacking.”

Izu notes which sections are slow and passes the captain’s message to the appropriate officers. The officers turn to their petty officers, who take the matter in hand with the crew. The drill is repeated, and repeated again. By the fourth time they have done it all sections report manned and ready in one minute, forty-five seconds.

Satisfied, Ishii orders the drills halted for the remainder of the day. These aren’t the first drills the destroyer has held since they left Japan, nor will they be the last. Ishii is determined to take advantage of the time provided by this relatively easy escort duty to bring the new crew up to speed. Hibiki will see action again, he knows. It isn’t a matter of if, but of when.

[Cuttlefish]

Despite my best efforts to keep up the game is getting further and further ahead of the AAR. We’re into early November now. So I am going to play a little bit of catch-up here and hurry Hibiki back to Tokyo.

---

August 25-31, 1943

Location: Tokyo
Course: Disbanded in port
Attached to: None
Mission: None
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475

Orders: Escort tankers back to Japan

---

Call it luck. Call it skill in locating and avoiding enemy submarine concentrations. Call it the hand of Benzaiten, hovering protectively over Hibiki. All of these theories have their proponents aboard the destroyer. Whatever the reason, the return journey of the convoy is as uneventful as the outbound voyage was.

Three weeks after departing Japan Hibiki returns, the tankers under her care intact. The convoy is disbanded and on the last day of August 1943 Hibiki drops anchor once again in Tokyo Bay.

The ship is not issued new orders immediately. The enemy has been quiet recently. It seems an ominous sort of quiet, however, given the Allies’ recent successes and obviously growing strength. It seems certain that they are preparing a new and heavy blow against the Japanese defenses.

The wait for the blow to fall, as it turns out, will not be a long one.

[Capt. Harlock]

Despite my best efforts to keep up the game is getting further and further ahead of the AAR. We’re into early November now. So I am going to play a little bit of catch-up here and hurry Hibiki back to Tokyo.

My vote is to take whatever time you need. It's been eleven months of calendar time but a year and a half of AAR. At that rate we can hold on.[;)]

[tocaff]

No rush on the story and there's no need to catch up as we're along for the ride as you, our story teller, sees fit.

[Lecivius]

Aye, no worries.  Holoidays & games and such is all to be expected at one time or another.
 
Has anyone come up with a program, a coucilor, or a medication for us Hibiki junkies once this war runs it's course?  I forsee withdrawl the likes of which haven't been seen since Flower Power in the mid 60's.

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: Capt. Harlock

My vote is to take whatever time you need. It's been eleven months of calendar time but a year and a half of AAR. At that rate we can hold on.[;)]

I will take everyone's opinion to heart and not get into too much of a rush to catch up.

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

Has anyone come up with a program, a coucilor, or a medication for us Hibiki junkies once this war runs it's course? I forsee withdrawl the likes of which haven't been seen since Flower Power in the mid 60's.

No need to worry about withdrawal yet. This looks to be a long war and wolffpack and myself are keeping up a brisk pace with the turns, so it seems as though there is little danger the game will end prematurely. I'll be writing about Hibiki and her crew for quite some time yet, I think.

[Cuttlefish]

September 1, 1943

Location: Tokyo
Course: Disbanded in port
Attached to: None
Mission: None
System Damage: 0
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475

Orders: Await further orders

---

Shiro gets liberty and spends much of the afternoon ashore. He spends most of the day strolling about the waterfront and shopping for small gifts to send home to his mother and sisters. At length he grows hungry, so he purchases a bento lunch from a street vendor and finds a bench near the water. There he sits and eats while watching the ships out in the bay.

Another sailor is also eating lunch nearby, and soon he and the friendly Shiro have struck up a conversation. The other man, as it turns out, is from the Otori-class escort ship Sagi. Like Hibiki, Sagi has just arrived in Tokyo at the end of a convoy run. The other sailor listens with envy to Shiro’s account of their peaceful run to Tokyo and back.

“I wish we had had that kind of luck,” he says. “Our voyage out was easy enough, but the return trip turned into a nightmare.”

“What happened?” asks Shiro.

“We were escorting twelve cargo ships,” says the other man. “But we had a strong escort. A seaplane tender, so we had air cover, and three other escorts besides Sagi. We picked up cargo in Palembang and Batavia, then came back through the Makassar Strait.”

“What kind of cargo?”

“The usual sort of thing. Resources, mostly,” says the sailor.

“Resources?” says Shiro.

“Yes, you know. Resources.”

“Ah,” says Shiro. “Please continue.”

“Well, we got through the strait all right,” says the sailor, “then cleared Mindanao and headed up the east coast of Luzon. That’s when the trouble started. One night a submarine got past all the escorts and put three torpedoes into one of the freighters. The ship went down almost immediately. We searched for the submarine, but no luck.”

“Were you able to save many of the crew?”

The sailor shakes his head. “Only a handful. Then just a few hours after dawn the same submarine came back, or maybe it was a different one. Hard to tell. Another freighter took a torpedo. This time we got a contact and dropped a few depth charges, but we couldn’t tell if we hit anything or not.

“The freighter that got hit was still afloat, but leaking badly. It was ordered to divert to Manila. We heard later that the ship almost made it before sinking.” Shiro shakes his head in sympathy.

“The next night, another attack,” continues the sailor. “Another freighter was hit. This time we got a solid contact and maybe did some damage to the submarine, but it got away in the end. The damaged freighter kept up with the convoy for a while, and we thought maybe we could save this one. But then something went wrong and a hatch was opened that should not have been, and then another hatch gave way. The flooding went out of control. We saved the entire crew, at least.”

“Three ships lost!” says Shiro.

“The other nine got through,” says the man. “The attacks stopped after we got into home waters.”

“We have had our share of encounters with enemy submarines,” comments Shiro, “but I had not realized the problem had gotten that bad.”

“It isn’t talked about much,” says the Sagi crewman. “I guess it would be bad for morale or something if the truth were known. Our trip was worse than most, but there do seem to be more of them out there every month.”

“I hope you have better luck on your next trip,” says Shiro.

“Thank you,” says the other man. “So do I!” They talk for a while longer, then leave to return to their respective ships. As Shiro returns to the docks he passes a couple of merchant seamen and makes a point to give them a friendly nod and greeting. Many in the Imperial Japanese Navy consider the merchant mariners to be a lesser breed and look down on them, but Shiro knows that their losses in both ships and men have been far higher in this war than the losses suffered by the Navy. And as far as he can tell dead in the war is dead, whether it happens aboard a battleship or aboard a leaky tramp steamer.