Ship of Steel, Men of Valor - Cuttlefish (A) versus Cribtop (J)

[Cuttlefish]

June 1, 1942

Aboard USS Gridley

Location: 535 miles southwest of Johnson Island
Course: Northeast
Attached to: TF 123
Mission: Surface combat
Ship's Status: Sys damage 1
Fuel: 387 (73%)


The weather had moderated a bit but the seas were still on the heavy side. Gerald Scott, “Jer” to his friends, had his work cut out for him as he served the soup at the beginning of dinner in the officer’s wardroom. He moved around the table with the grace of a dancer, ladling just the right amount of steaming soup into the deep bowls. He carefully timed every pitch and roll so that he was pouring during the brief interval when the ship was stationary. So far the steward’s white mess jacket was still spotless, as was the white linen tablecloth.

The other steward, Moxen, was serving the officer’s the drinks they had ordered, juice, milk, or coffee. The officer’s orders for dinner had already been taken and when the food was ready it would be passed to the wardroom via a scuttle from the pantry. In the meanwhile, they got soup. Cream of tomato soup, tonight.

Captain Stickney, at the starboard end of the table, was talking to Lieutenant Steubens, who was seated on his right. Gunnery officer Cameron, the next most senior officer present, was seated on the captain’s left. Down along the table the other officers were talking among themselves, though all were keeping an eye on their glasses and bowls in case they decided to slide away.

During rough weather not only would the table service slide away, sometimes the officers did too. The table was bolted to the deck but the officer’s chairs were not and sometimes they all fetched up against a bulkhead in a tangle, dragging tablecloths and everything else with them. But despite these challenges Captain Stickney insisted that all the formalities be followed at mealtime. He took seriously the notion that they were gentlemen and would behave like it while they ate.

So Scott proceeded to feed them with swift, quiet efficiency. He had been a clerk in a hardware store prior to joining the Navy, and his action station was in one of the lower ammunition handling rooms. But though he was not aware of it, thanks to his experience aboard Gridley any fine restaurant in New York would be now pleased to hire him as a waiter or maitre d’.

The soup was successfully served, and so far all of it was still on the table. In conditions like this the officers usually poured a little water on the tablecloth and set their bowls and plates on the damp spot. The water kept the tablecloth stuck to the table and the bowls stuck to the tablecloth.

Before the war the wardroom table had been fitted with a clever arrangement of wooden baffles and partitions which kept every officer’s place setting where it belonged. But the “gold-platers,” as old destroyer men referred to the treaty-class tin cans such as Gridely, had been stripped of those and similar luxuries back in November. The overstuffed furniture, rugs, wood paneling, mahogany gangway, and other fittings had all been removed in anticipation of war.

As the soup was finished Scott and Moxen removed the bowls and began serving the main course, now arriving from the pantry. Scott got Captain Stickney’s food in front of him without incident, despite a sudden plunge of the bow as Gridley hit a trough. Scott simply went with the motion, dipping with the plate as he staggered slightly, then sliding the plate in front of the captain before the bow began to rise again. Fred Astaire couldn’t have done it better.

Stickney turned his attention from his executive officer for just a second and gave Scott the slightest of nods. The steward felt good as he stepped back to survey the table and see if anything else was needed. A slight nod from the captain was high praise.

Serving dinner to Gridley’s officers wasn’t going to win the war or anything like that. But it was his job and he liked to do it well.

***

Far to the east Lieutenant Conright was also trying to do his job well. But the Japs weren’t cooperating and the looks he was getting from his own boss were not pleasant nods. The Colonel had listened to Conright and agreed they couldn’t afford not to pass the information along, but he had also made it clear that it was Conright’s head in the noose if it all turned out to be a wild goose chase.

So far half a dozen submarines had been dispatched or re-routed to cover the possibility that a Jap raiding force was somehow in their sea lanes. All five carriers in the Pacific were hurrying back to Pearl Harbor just in case they found something. People were not going to be happy if there was nothing there.

So Conright scanned the list of intercepts. Come on, you yellow devils, he thought. Do something, make some more noise. But that area of the Pacific remained stubbornly silent.

Conright could picture a Jap force getting all the way there undetected, if they really wanted to and were maintaining tight radio silence. He’d stared at the maps and seen how it could be done, though if they really had swung down from the north it was a miracle that they hadn’t found any targets between California and Pearl. That corridor was always filled with ships, long convoys carrying troops, fuel, planes, and supplies west and then heading back east for more. Conright could also picture someone aboard a Jap destroyer making a mistake and inadvertently starting to broadcast something, then cutting it off.

He could also picture the whole thing being an error on his part. It wasn’t a pretty picture, though.

[Cuttlefish]

June 2-3, 1942

Aboard USS Gridley

Location: 75 miles east-southeast of Johnson Island
Course: Northeast
Attached to: TF 123
Mission: Surface combat
Ship's Status: Sys damage 1
Fuel: 345 (65%)


“Hey, Al…” began Ranker.

“Shut up, Ranker,” said Al Tanner, “I’m thinking.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Ranker diffidently. “But you said to watch for Odell, and here he…”

“Christ, why didn’t you say so!” snapped Tanner. He turned away from the rail and back to the bulkhead, where he began an industrious show of chipping paint. Petty Officer Odell came strolling around the uptake and stopped to survey the work that he, Ranker, and Vick were supposed to be doing. He said nothing for a moment. Tanner admired the timing. Odell was letting them sweat a little before he said anything.

“My grandmother could have finished this by now,” Odell finally observed pleasantly. The seas had moderated and the sun was out. It wasn’t terribly warm but Tanner began to sweat a little. Ranker and Vick were already sweating, but that was understandable. They’d been working.

“We’ve almost got it, Chief,” said Tanner. “Don’t we, guys?” Ranker and Vick nodded vigorously.

“That’s good,” said Odell, “because you aren’t stopping until it’s done. Clear?”

“Yes, Chief,” they all chorused. Odell started to walk away, and then turned back. Here it comes, thought Tanner.

“Oh, and Tanner,” Odell said. “It might go faster if you stopped goofing off by the rail and actually did some work, eh?”

“Sorry, Chief,” said Tanner. He tried to assume a mournful, slightly feeble attitude. “I wasn’t goofing off, I was puking. I must have gotten some bad meat at chow or something.”

“I see,” said Odell. “That’s a real shame.” He looked at Ranker and Vick and his voice sharpened. “Is that true? Has Tanner been sick?”

“Oh yeah,” said Ranker.

“Like a dog,” agreed Vick. “Throwing up something terrible. We keep trying to get him to go see the doc but he won’t quit workin’.”

“Crap,” said Odell disgustedly. “If Tanner said ‘frog’ you two would jump. I don’t know why I even bother.” He pointed at the bulkhead. “Scraped down and ready to paint. And you three don’t stop until it’s done.” He turned and stalked off, easily keeping up with the roll of the ship with his straddle-legged walk.

After he was out of sight forward Tanner kept working. Odell was apt to turn around and come back, just to try and catch him slacking again, but Tanner wasn’t going to fall for that one. His thoughts resumed their former course, though.

He really needed to find a way off this ship. And not to another ship, either, but to shore duty, preferably in Pearl or the States. The recent raid against the Marshalls worried him. The Japanese were obviously done expanding and instead were digging in. Everyone said so, and Tanner agreed. That meant they would be going after the Japs more and more. And the Japs would be waiting with all their guns, ships, and planes. It was going to get dangerous out here at sea. And dangerous didn’t sit well with Tanner’s determination to get through this stupid war with a whole skin.

The trouble was that the Navy took a perverse sort of joy in doing exactly the opposite of what you wanted them to do. Even Tanner, for all his cunning, had had no luck in manipulating the bureaucracy. It was too vast and too impersonal.

He could get kicked off the ship easily enough, sure, but he wanted his record clean. Ending up in the stockade wasn’t going to do it. Ma Tanner’s eldest boy needed to be someplace where he could feather his nest in comfort and come through the war with a clean record. He had the future to think of, after all.

He needed a cunning plan. Eventually, he felt confident, he would come up with one. He was good at cunning plans.

[adm]

Its been 3 weeks, maybe he should go with something less cunning. [X(]

[adm]

I did not intend to offend with my last post.

Is everything all right?

[nashvillen]

+1, don't want it to disappear like the Hibiki appears to have done!

[kaleun]

bump?

[Cuttlefish]

My apologies for the hiatus. Real life caught up with me for a bit there and my routine is just getting back to normal. On the minus side, I was pretty sick for a while. On the plus side, my second grandchild was born, a healthy baby boy. But I am at last ready to get back into the AAR.

[PaxMondo]

WELCOME BACK!!!!

Congrats on the grandkid!

[Cuttlefish]

June 4-6, 1942

Aboard USS Gridley

Location: Pearl Harbor
Course: Northeast
Attached to: TF 123
Mission: Surface combat
Ship's Status: Sys damage 1
Fuel: 525 (100%)


Gridley and the rest of the Allied armada finished their journey back to Pearl Harbor without incident. But it was to be a brief visit. No sooner had they arrived when Captain Stickney was informed that there would only be time to take on fuel and supplies before all the ships were sent out again. This time they would be heading northeast. It seemed there was a rumor going around that a Japanese raiding force might have somehow gotten east of Hawaii. No one seemed to think that it was a credible threat, but on the other hand the entire 2nd Marine Division was inbound from the mainland northeast of Pearl and no one wanted to take any chances.

So they were going to sortie, rendezvous with the transports, and give them cover on their way into Pearl. After that, it seemed, there was a vague plan to send the carriers north to prowl around a bit. It seemed like a wild goose chase to Stickney, but orders were orders. He wondered if there was actually any solid intelligence to back up the paranoia that had suddenly seemed to infect the top brass.

***

Lieutenant Conright knocked at the door to the Colonel’s office. It was a warm day in the Bay Area but that wasn’t why Conright was perspiring slightly. He had been able to pick up no further evidence of Japanese raiders off the West Coast and the flurry of activity that his report had triggered was beginning to draw some questions.

“Enter,” said a gruff voice. Conright turned the knob and opened the door. Inside he saw that things were worse than he feared. The Colonel was behind his desk, looking unhappy, and several other chairs were also occupied. The additional occupants wore enough gold braid to satisfy a pharaoh. Conright swallowed hard, stepped inside, and saluted.

“Is this the man?” an admiral asked.

“Lieutenant Conright, yes,” said the Colonel.

“Son,” said another admiral, “we have most of the Pacific Fleet out there chasing after that report you made. Do you have any further information for us?”

“Um, well sir, nothing…that is to say, nothing new…in the latest reports,” Conright managed to answer. “Everything quiet, so to speak.”

“Do you have any information for us at all?” asked a general.

“Well, sir,” stammered Conright, “the latest intercepts…the latest decodes…show some…have some interesting information.”

“Such as?”

“I have detected heavy radio transmissions from Tokyo, sir,” said Conright.

“Really?’ one of the admirals asked. “Regarding what?”

“Well, I don’t know, sir,” said Conright. The admiral’s brows lowered.

“Anything else, Conright?” asked the Colonel. His tone suggested that there damned well better be.

“Sir, I have…have established that the Chichi Jima fortress is located at, um, Chichi Jima,” said Conright, blurting out the first thing he could think of from the morning’s intercepts.

“Is that a fact?” asked one admiral, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

“Never would have guessed that one,” added the general. The Colonel closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain.

“That will be all, Conright,” he said. Conright saluted again and fled. He wondered to what god-forsaken corner of the world they were going to exile him.

[princep01]

It will most surely be a dark, cold and lonely place after that remarkable performance....unless of course, the CVs find a real menace out there in the Big Blue.

[ny59giants]

Hex (169,32) - Nome is where Mr. Conright will spend the rest of the war. [;)]

[adm]

Glad to hear that everything is better now.Congratulations on the grandson!

[Cuttlefish]

June 7-10, 1942

Aboard USS Gridley

Location: 1000 miles north of Pearl Harbor
Course: Northeast
Attached to: TF 123
Mission: Surface combat
Ship's Status: Sys damage 1
Fuel: 417 (79%)


“Well, that was a waste of time and fuel,” said Red Sherwood as he dropped into a chair at the table in the officer’s wardroom, his hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. Gridley and the rest of the Allied force had just completed a wide curve to the northeast and then the northwest without finding a hint of the enemy.

“I dunno, Red,” said Jack Cameron, who was already seated. “All those Marines are disembarking at Pearl now, safe and sound. Who knows, maybe there were some Japs out here.”

“Yeah, well,” said Sherwood, “if there were, they’re gone now.”

“What I want to know,” said Ensign Puhls, refilling his cup, “is what we’re doing now. We’re still headed west by northwest.”

Cameron shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “If the Skipper knows, he isn’t telling. My guess is that, since we’re out here anyway, we might swing up to the Aleutians and see if we can catch the Japs napping.”

“Makes sense,” said Sherwood,” the Japs have hit Umnak a couple of times, and they’ve been damned quiet everywhere else.”

“At least it’s summer now,” said Puhls.

“Summer in the Aleutians is kind of a relative term,” said Cameron with a laugh. “But yes, better to go there now than in January.”

“Do you suppose we’re going to be invading up there soon?” asked Sherwood. When and where the American forces would begin to counterattack was a favorite topic among the men.

“I don’t know,” said Cameron. “Everything seems to be going to the South Pacific. Planes, ships, men…I’m betting something’s up down there.”

“Maybe Australia,” suggested Puhls.

“Maybe,” said Cameron. “My guess is we’ll find out about it when we get the orders, and not before.”

“Loose lips sink ships and all that,” agreed Puhls. Sherwood laughed.

“Only if the Japs have better intelligence than we do,” he said. “Jap carriers off the West Coast, what a joke.”

***

[font="Courier New"]From: Bureau of Naval Personnel
To: Lieutenant Howard Conright

You have been reassigned as Asst. Meteorological Officer, Nome, Alaska, effective immediately. Transport already arranged. Report aboard SS Cuttlefish prior to 0600 tomorrow.[/font]

[Cuttlefish]

Here, by the way, is the report that got poor Lieutenant Conright into so much trouble:

[font="Courier New"]SIG INT REPORT FOR May 31, 42

Heavy Volume of Radio transmissions detected at Ominato (119,54).
20th Army is located at Port Arthur(99,44).
Mongol Garrison Army is located at Kalgan(95,37).
21st Ind.AA Gun Co is located at Nagasaki/Sasebo(102,58).
8th Ind.Mixed Brigade is located at Lanchow(81,34).
57th Infantry Regiment is located at Sunwu(113,34).
25th Division is located at Mutankiang(111,42).
Radio call sign of DD Yuzuki detected at 210,105.
Radio transmissions detected at Daly Waters (76,131).
Tsushima Fortress is located at Tsushima(103,56).
11th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion is located at Yenki(110,44).
2nd Ching An Tui Brigade is located at Paotow(92,34).
19th Ind.Mixed Brigade is located at 85,56.
51st Air Defense AA Regiment is located at Takao(84,65).
Radio transmissions detected at Yenki (110,44).
Radio transmissions detected at Nanchang (85,54).
25th RGC Temp. Division is located at Soochow(92,54).
9th Border Defense Fortress is located at 110,45.
26th Air Defense AA Regiment is located at Mukden(104,42).
5th Medium Field Artillery Regiment is located at Fushun(105,42).
15th Const Co is located at Singapore(50,84).
31st Air Defense AA Regiment is located at Hakodate(119,53).
RGC Tax Police Regiment is located at Shanghai(92,55).
10904 men are based at Fusan (103,55).
2336 men are based at Arshaan (105,33).
1st Mortar Battalion is planning for an attack on Tienshui.
4th Brigade is located at Changchun(106,41).
5th Fleet is located at Ominato(119,54)[/font]

[kaleun]

That's why I don't read the sigints
(Usually)

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: kaleun

That's why I don't read the sigints
(Usually)

[:D]

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: kaleun

That's why I don't read the sigints
(Usually)

[:D]

I think just like RL you have to put together a story. Does it make sense? Along with the occasional FOW there are lots of juicy tibbits that many of Allied players have used to intercept IJ operations and/or prepare just the right forces to attack a position. However, I am begining to think that the Allies get sooooo mcuh stuff that the IJ are in trouble whether the Allies make use of intelligence or not ...[;)]

[Smoky Stoker]

ORIGINAL: Cuttlefish

[font="Courier New"]From: Bureau of Naval Personnel
To: Lieutenant Howard Conright

You have been reassigned as Asst. Meteorological Officer, Nome, Alaska, effective immediately. Transport already arranged. Report aboard SS Cuttlefish prior to 0600 tomorrow.[/font]

Which does make me curious as to the whereabouts of Cuttlefish (SS-171), historically an operational vessel in this time period. Is that unit now in Japanese waters contributing to the statistical base on US torpedo failures?

[Capt. Harlock]

We're getting news of a CV encounter from the Japanese AAR. Any involvement of Gridley?

[kaleun]

Must bump this.