Small Ship, Big War - The Voyages of the Hibiki

[tocaff]

Warships usually travel in multi vessels TFs so a mid ocean sinking wouldn't preclude a realistic rescue. 

Imagine Shun's return to Hibiki for her fateful demise and then being in a lifeboat for a couple of weeks.  Sharks be afraid!  That's what CF has accomplished with his tale, a riveting story where nothing is beyond the realm of the possible.

[Capt. Harlock]

ORIGINAL: Cuttlefish

June 21, 1944


“I have had a strange feeling lately,” Yamamoto continues. “It is almost as if I am living somehow on borrowed time.

That wouldn't have anything to do with his being dead by this point in the historical timeline?[;)]

[Cuttlefish]

June 23, 1944

Location: Tokyo
Course: None
Attached to: TF 23
Mission: Air combat
System Damage: 2
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475

Orders: Await further orders

---

It has taken two weeks of hard fighting but on Guam the Allies now firmly control the both Apra harbor and the important airfield at Orote. The airfield cannot handle aircraft yet – the main runway looks like the surface of the moon – but that will soon be rectified.

The fighting is far from over, however. Japanese planes and submarines still make the waters between Woleai and Guam a dangerous place and there are wide areas in the north part of the island firmly under Japanese control. It will take three more weeks of combat before the Allies declare the island secure.

And even then the story of the Japanese occupation of Guam is not necessarily over…

---

Near Mt. Barrigada, Guam, 1964:

“It’s hot, Jimmy,” complains Sally Tegan as she sits down on a low rock. “When are we going to have lunch?” She sets the picnic hamper she is carrying beside the rock.

“Soon,” says Jim Tegan, emerging from the entrance to an old bunker. “I think this must be about where Dad was wounded. I want to look around a bit.” The elder Tegan is a gruff but very nice man whose left shoulder still hurts sometimes in cold, wet weather. Yet somehow, sitting here, Sally can picture him twenty years ago, younger than Jimmy is now, charging up the hill below them and waving a rifle while Japanese soldiers scream defiance and shoot down at him.

“All right, dear,” says Sally. “But be careful. Remember what the man back at the resort said about stuff that can still blow up.”

“I’ll be careful,” her husband promises, and plunges off into the tall grass and underbrush.

“And watch out for snakes!” Sally calls after him. She has no idea if there are snakes on Guam or not, but the area reminds her a bit of Topanga Canyon back home and there are certainly snakes there.

Jimmy comes back into view a moment later. “Hey, you have to come see this!” he says. “There’s an old Japanese artillery piece back there.” Sally reluctantly allows herself to be led to where a rusting old gun sits forlornly in the tall grass.

“I think it’s a seventy-five,” Jim says excitedly, taking a couple of pictures with his boxy Brownie camera. This means nothing to Sally, but she makes admiring noises anyway. If being dragged around an old battlefield for a few hours is the price to pay for a vacation in the Pacific then so be it.

“All right,” says her husband after a bit. “Thanks, love.” He kisses her on the cheek. “We passed some trees on the way up the hill, that should be a nice spot for a picnic.” They make their way back to the clearing around the bunker, but when Sally looks the picnic basket is gone.

“Someone stole our lunch!” says Jim. He jumps up on the rock and looks back down the trail, but there is no one to be seen. Sally looks up the hill and for just a second, through a gap in the underbrush, thinks she sees a Japanese soldier scuttling away. At least he is wearing a ragged version of the uniforms she saw in the pictures at the museum Jimmy dragged her through back in Tumon Bay. It looks like the figure is clutching something

Whatever it is vanishes almost instantly, like a phantom. Sally opens her mouth to say something and then closes it. It must have been her imagination. The past seems very close here, she thinks, and her imagination is working overtime. If she told her husband she saw a ghost he would think she was having heatstroke or something.

Jim gives up the search and the couple descends the hill. Sally turns her head and takes one last look before they get back in the car but sees nothing. The car drives away. Above them the forgotten artifacts of war rust amid the openings to the tunnels and dugouts of the Barrigada Line. Whatever ghosts remain there are left to their loneliness and silence – and perhaps to a ham sandwich or two.

[vettim89]

[&o][&o][&o][&o]

[tocaff]

There were no snakes on Guam until a freighter brought, unknowingly, some brown snakes (I think they were).  So any of the Navy types here who were ever there would tell you that in the 60s there were plenty of birds.  The snakes ate the bird eggs so there are no longer singing birds on Guam and the snakes hunt for whatever they can find now.

[Cuttlefish]

June 24, 1944

Location: Tokyo
Course: None
Attached to: TF 23
Mission: Air combat
System Damage: 2
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475

Orders: Await further orders

---

Chief Petty Officer Shun walks down the road that leads to the village of Kunigami from his house. His daughter walks alongside him. They have gone half a mile and her father is showing no signs of weariness. The first time they walked this far, ten days ago, he was pale and trying to hide the fact that his hands were shaking. Nanami almost had to help him up the path back to their house.

A military lorry goes rattling by and the driver waves cheerfully to them as it passes. Such vehicles are more and more common on Okinawa these days. The number of troops on the island has quadrupled since the beginning of the year and more arrive almost every day.

The truck rattles on its way, leaving a faint cloud of dust behind it. The dust is quickly carried away by the breeze off the ocean. Shun and his daughter stop for a moment while Shun looks down the wildflower-clad slope to where waves crash on the beach. Nanami knows he is not stopping because he is tired, but because he wants to watch the ocean for a moment.

Hibiki is back in Japan. The naval doctor at the base at Kadena has agreed to see Shun again in a week and if he gives his approval Shun will return to active duty. Nanami suspects that her father is still far from fully recovered from his gunshot wound but she knows better than to say anything. Even her grandmother has had to step aside in the face of Shun’s determination to return to the destroyer. Nanami thinks it likely her father will pass his physical.

“Shall we head back?” she asks him after a moment. Shun nods his head.

“Yes,” he says in his gruff voice. “Perhaps tomorrow we can walk all the way to the village.” Together the two of them turn and walk back down the road towards home.

[Feinder]

“Yes,” he says in his gruff voice. “Perhaps tomorrow we can walk all the way to the village.”

 
Been there, done that.
 
Pushing yourself to recover quickly for whatever reason(s) makes all the difference.  In my case (had major surgery last year), I didn't wanting to be the invalid/burden, and more so, didn't want my sons to see we in weakness.
 
-F-

[princep01]

Now, this is scary!
 
Saturday (football) Highlights:
 
Shun White, Navy, 19 rushes 348 yards, 3 TDs.   Hummmmmm, Shun's great-grandson, maybe????

[Cuttlefish]

June 25 - July 1, 1944

Location: Tokyo
Course: None
Attached to: TF 23
Mission: Air combat
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475

Orders: Await further orders

---

A quick week in Tokyo takes our destroyer and her gallant crew into July 1944:

June 25 – Captain Ishii is belatedly notified that a letter of commendation has been placed in his file for commanding the task force that delivered the 48th Independent Mixed Brigade to Iwo Jima without losing a man earlier in the year. Along with the commendation is a letter of thanks from General Shigematsu, the brigade’s commander.

June 26 – Allied aircraft begin operating out of airfields on Guam.

June 27 – Reports reach Tokyo that enemy battleship forces are off Ulithi. Heavy damage from bombardments is reported.

June 28 – System damage aboard Hibiki drops back to 1.

June 29 – In anticipation of a night of shore leave Seaman Shoji buys some raw oysters from a street vendor. Instead of having the desired effect the oysters make Shoji very ill. He spends the next three days in the ship’s infirmary.

June 30 – Enemy transports are reported massing at Woleai.

July 1 – Chief Petty Officer Shun is cleared to return to duty.

[bradfordkay]

"June 29 – In anticipation of a night of shore leave Seaman Shoji buys some raw oysters from a street vendor. Instead of having the desired effect the oysters make Shoji very ill. He spends the next three days in the ship’s infirmary."

I suppose that in the Japanese language the little mnemonic about months with an "r" doesn't exist...

[Feinder]

I suppose that in the Japanese language the little mnemonic about months with an "r" doesn't exist...

 
I was gonna say the exact same thing (well, almost).
 
Great minds think alike!
 
[:D]
-F-

[Dili]

I think i can see Cpt. Ishii near the gun tube talking to the crew. [:)]

http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/arc ... ml#comment




Check this great post by Q-Ball tm.asp?m=1903508

[Cuttlefish]

July 2, 1944

Location: Tokyo
Course: None
Attached to: TF 23
Mission: Air combat
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475

Orders: Await further orders

---

Tendo, Japan, 1955:

Shiro Kuramata is sitting at the desk in his study when the phone rings. He stops typing and lifts the heavy black receiver off its cradle.

“Hello, this is Kuramata,” he says.

“Hello, Mr. Kuramata, this is Hashimoto,” says a cheerful voice through a faint hollow-sounding background of static. “I apologize for bothering you. Do you have a moment to talk?”

“Certainly,” says Shiro. He leans back in his chair. “It is no bother at all.” Hashimoto is the editor at the publishing company who is helping him finish the book he is writing.

“Good, good,” he says. “I have been looking at the chapters you sent us last week. They are very nice. Your writing is becoming more polished. Still, I have marked a few possible changes and mailed them back to you for review. You should have them in a day or two.”

“I look forward to seeing them,” says Shiro.

“There is one thing I wanted to talk about, though,” says Hashimoto. “The early summer of 1944, before Hibiki was sent to Kagoshima. All you say is that..” A faint rustling of paper is heard over the line. “…Is that ‘After Admiral Yamamoto’s visit we remained in port until July 17, when we were ordered to sail to Kagoshima.’”

“Yes?” says Shiro. “It is what happened.”

“I understand,” says Hashimoto. “But it is not very exciting. This was one of the most intense periods of the war, after all. The fall of Guam, the invasion of Ulithi, the attack on Hollandia, all of this was going on during this time.”

“You have to realize,” says Shiro, “that aboard Hibiki we heard little of this. The reports about Guam and Ulithi we got were contradictory and frequently wrong. We learned almost nothing about the New Guinea campaign at all until after the war. For us it was a quiet time.”

“Was nothing happening ashore?” Hashimoto asks. “Perhaps further trouble from this Rickshaw fellow or something like that?”

Shiro chuckles. “We never saw him again,” he says, “though that was not quite the end of that story. But really nothing went on. We scraped a lot of paint and did a lot of dull work in the Tokyo heat. That’s one of the things I want readers to understand. Even in the middle of the biggest war ever we often spent weeks or even months training or drilling or doing maintenance work. Hibiki saw more action than most ships but even so we spent a lot more time in port than we did in battle.”

“I take your point,” says Hashimoto. “And this is a story about the war the way you saw and lived it. Very well, we’ll leave it like that for now. After you have finished the last few chapters we will see how it all flows.”

“Thank you,” says Shiro, looking up at his typewriter. “I am working on them now, in fact.”

“I am glad to hear it. Take care, Kuramata, and we will talk again soon.”

“Good bye, Mr. Hashimoto,” Shiro says. He hangs up the phone and then peers at the typewriter to review what he had just written. As soon as his train of thought is re-established his fingers once again begin thumping away at the keys.

[marky]

hey CFish, nice to see its still goin! [:)][&o]

[histgamer]

hmm that last entry really made me see how this would actually make a good movie. Though the focus would prolly be changed to making the movie through a series of flashbacks as Kuramata is writing his book.


But seriously this is amazing I will buy a copy of it all once your through. [&o][&o][&o][&o]

[cantona2]

We'll need a TROM of this Hibki when this is done CF!

[Mobeer]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay
I suppose that in the Japanese language the little mnemonic about months with an "r" doesn't exist...

june = roku gatsu

Should have been ok?

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: cantona2

We'll need a TROM of this Hibki when this is done CF!

I have posted a TROM for each of the first two full years of the war. This one links back to the first one. I will do one for this year (and 1945, should Hibiki survive that long) and then a master one at the end.

[kaleun]

Paper bag over head.
 
Excuse my ignorance.
TROM?
 

[Feinder]

Tabular Record Of Movement
 
-F-