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I smell fish food in the Pacific.

August 3, 1944

Location: 240 miles southeast of Davao
Course: Holding position
Attached to: TF 23
Mission: Air combat
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 351

Orders: Strike Allied shipping at and around Ulithi

---

The Japanese carrier groups pull back. They withdraw far enough to escape detection by the ubiquitous Allied PBYs but no further. This leads to some tension on Hibiki’s bridge. Have they withdrawn far enough to evade the enemy carriers if they come looking for them?

Captain Ishii gazes across the water at Taiho, trying to discern what is going through Ozawa’s mind. Has the Admiral deliberately revealed their position for some reason? Ozawa is seldom careless. Under the circumstances Ishii would ordinarily expect him to either attack or withdraw completely, but as it is he seems to almost be deliberately trying to draw the attention of the enemy’s carriers. That doesn’t make much sense to Ishii, knowing what he does of Yamamoto’s reluctance to risk his carriers to defend the Carolines and the Marianas.

Ishii’s deepest fear is that Ozawa is wracked by indecision, unable to commit to a firm course of action. Hibiki’s captain doesn’t mind if there is a deeper plan here that he is unaware of. He is used to operating in the dark. But the thought that perhaps his superiors are behaving ineptly is deeply unnerving.

He reveals none of these thoughts to his crew, not even Lieutenant Miharu. His manner instead suggests that he is calm and confident and that everything is going according to plan. And maybe it even is, he thinks. Only time will tell.

Hummmmm, one is mindful of the bait Halsey gambit.  This is even fairly close to the scene of the actual event.  "TF 38 where are you" ?  "The world wonders".

LOL

"[font="times new roman"]TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS[/font]"

August 4, 1944

Location: 240 miles southeast of Davao
Course: Holding position
Attached to: TF 23
Mission: Air combat
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 320

Orders: Strike Allied shipping at and around Ulithi

---

Admiral Ozawa is bent over a table studying a chart when an ensign approaches and salutes smartly. The remarkably tall and famously ugly admiral straightens up and returns the salute.

“Message for you from Admiral Yamamoto, sir,” says the ensign. “Highest priority.” He proffers a message flimsy to Ozawa, who takes it and reads it. As he does so his shoulders sag.

“I see,” he says after a moment. “Did you decode this yourself, Ensign?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good,” says Ozawa. “You will speak of this to no one. Is that clear? No one.”

“Yes sir.”

“You are dismissed,” the admiral says. The ensign salutes and departs. Alone once more Ozawa again reads the message. Then he crumbles the flimsy in one fist and hurls it across the cabin. It lies there unregarded as Ozawa sinks into a chair and passes a hand across his eyes as if in pain.

Uh oh

Something in the orders from Tokyo is upsetting to say the least.  [&:]

Cuttlefish is trying to tell us that what happens next is not what he expected when he issued the original orders... [X(]

When things are going according to plan, watch out because it's a trap.

come on CF the suspense is killing us!

ORIGINAL: tocaff

When things are going according to plan, watch out because it's a trap.

I've found that most of the time when things seem to be going according to plan that they are going exactly to plan...my opponant's plan. [:D]

"No plan survives contact with the enemy."

ORIGINAL: tocaff

When things are going according to plan, watch out because it's a trap.

Jisaburō Ozawa IS Admiral Ackbar IN "Small Ship, Big Trap"

[:D][:D]

Sorry to jump into the thread while big things are afoot, but I thought this was worth it. A colorized pic of Hibiki in 1941, courtesy of Q-ball's blog find.

Edit, sorry, I noticed it has already been posted...

August 5, 1944

Location: 225 miles northeast of Morotai
Course: East
Attached to: TF 23
Mission: Air combat
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 282

Orders: Strike Allied shipping at and around Ulithi

---

Excerpt from "Naval Battles of the Pacific, Volume 7: Ring of Steel" by Morris Elliot Samuelson; Harper, Row, and Fujimori, New York, 1965:

The goal of Ami-Go (“Operation Net”) was to disrupt the American build-up of troops and supplies in the Central Pacific, thus buying time for Japan to strengthen its defenses. On paper, at least, this goal was achievable. The plan was sound and the long Allied supply lines were vulnerable. Had the Japanese achieved their aims the next Allied operation, an early September assault on Tinian, would almost certainly have been delayed. It is hard to say what the long-term effects of such a delay might have been but given subsequent events in the theater one can speculate that Japan would have put the time gained to good use.

That the operation failed was not due lack of planning or execution but to sheer mischance. As Admiral Nimitz remarked later “We were not smart, we were lucky. And sometimes that’s better.” Certainly prior to the Battle of the Eastern Marianas some of his commanders were bitterly critical of their orders. Halsey in particular was vitriolic. “The bastards have finally come out where we can hit them and we’ve been ordered to withdraw?” he said to Mitscher. “What kind of [censored] is that?”

But even given the events of the subsequent battle the western Japanese strike force might still have salvaged something from the situation had not a further stroke of bad luck intervened. But instead of the Allied fast carrier task forces Japanese misfortune this time took a much different form…

---

U.S. weather report from Ulithi:

[font="Courier New"]Wind speed now 27 knots from the SE, bp 998 and falling. Precipitation moderate to heavy. All ships and planes are advised that tropical storm conditions are expected to persist for the next 24 to 48 hours as the system moves to the northwest…[/font]

U.S. weather report from Ulithi:
[font="courier new"]Wind speed now 27 knots from the SE, bp 998 and falling. Precipitation moderate to heavy. All ships and planes are advised that tropical storm conditions are expected to persist for the next 24 to 48 hours as the system moves to the northwest…[/font]

 
Those of us along the Gulf Coast are all to familiar with what's brewing...
 
-F-

Had the Japanese achieved their aims the next Allied operation, an early September assault on Tinian, would almost certainly have been delayed. It is hard to say what the long-term effects of such a delay might have been but given subsequent events in the theater one can speculate that Japan would have put the time gained to good use.

At least we have a little taste of what's to come. (Saipan is apparently being saved for last.) But there are two cliffhangers in this update . . .[X(]

Ok, that doesn't sound good... [:(]

Bill Halsey seemed to have an affinity for big storms; both of the verbal and weather type.