Small Ship, Big War - The Voyages of the Hibiki

[Feinder]

You should see one up close.  There's a B-36 at Wright-Patt.  It's quite a beast.  They even rigged it up so it could carry parasite fighters on-board (the "Goblin" I think).

-F-

And that's interesting. That photo is that of an NB-36H: A test plane for the feasability of putting a nuke reactor on a plane (to act as a power source, not to be dropped!). Something tells me somebody finally asked the question, "What happens when one of them crashes on take-off?".

-F-

[Cuttlefish]

February 20, 1945

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

Orders: Prepare for enemy air attacks

---

Like a cat stalking its prey the enemy carriers arrive 150 miles south of the Bungo Passage, neatly cutting off Tanaka’s escape route. The Japanese respond by launching a series of air strikes against them from bases all over southern Japan. The attacks last most of the day and are parried with lethal efficiency. By late afternoon the Japanese have lost 260 aircraft while just 26 defending fighters are lost. The enemy ships are untouched.

When it is obvious that the Japanese have shot their bolt Spruance’s carriers move to the northeast, straight towards Osaka.

---

Tanaka’s task force is ordered to disband. The ships dock at widely scattered points around the harbor in an effort to blunt the coming attack as much as possible.

Captain Ishii orders the torpedo tubes unloaded and the torpedoes moved ashore. Hibiki and destroyer Isokaze are docked on either side of a wide pier, most of whose length is covered by a low wooden warehouse. Aft of Hibiki is moored a squat little harbor tug.

”I want anti-aircraft crews and damage control teams in position at first light,” Ishii says. The sun is going down into a western sky that is free of any sign of cloud cover. “It isn’t going to take long for the enemy planes to arrive once the sun comes up.”

“Are you sure we are going to be attacked, sir?” asks Lieutenant Kuwaki.

“I am certain of it,” says Ishii. “I can feel it in my gut.” Though oddly his ulcer is not bothering him right now. Perhaps, he thinks, it is because I am not plagued by uncertainty. I know what is going to happen and have done what I can to prepare for it.

“Get some sleep tonight, Kuwaki,” says Ishii. “Tomorrow may be...it may be a very long day.”

[kaleun]

Bites on fingers anxiously.
(nails long gone)

[cantona2]

Whatever you do CF please do not keep us waiting long!

[tocaff]

Talk about a cliffhanger.  CF keeps bringing us to the brink only for us to find that the end isn't as near as we thought.

[paullus99]

Really captures the flavor of the war at that time - things are looking pretty grim.

[bigbaba]

hibiki must survive!

hope there are some jacks, georges and franks available to fly CAP!

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

hibiki must survive!

hope there are some jacks, georges and franks available to fly CAP!

As Newt says "It won't make any difference." This stage in the war, unless there is a crap load of them, those fighters will simply be swept aside. Trust me--I know.

Why are the ships disbanded? I would have run them away at High Speed...

[Feinder]

"No where to run, no where to hide..."
 
-F-

[Cuttlefish]

February 21, 1945

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

Orders: Prepare for enemy air attacks

---

Enemy carrier planes roam almost with impunity over the Inland Sea, Osaka Bay, and the Kii Channel. Japanese fighters rise to meet them but in numbers too small to make much difference. Once these are swept aside the business of hunting down and destroying every Japanese ship they find afloat begins.

Not everyone has made it to the dubious safety of port in time. A pair of minelayers scurrying up the Kii Channel are found and sunk. An small group of antisubmarine ships is found fleeing for safety and all four ships are sunk or heavily damaged. And several freighters are caught out in Osaka Bay.

Aboard Hibiki they can see the attack against them unfold. The men watch planes buzzing around the freighters, silently willing the big, clumsy ships to make it, but soon even those without binoculars can see smoke rising from the burning ships. Those with binoculars can see much more but soon they lower their binoculars and turn away, cursing or grim-faced and silent.

When this work is done some of the enemy planes come buzzing along the waterfront. Hibiki’s guns track them but nothing comes close enough to shoot at. A few bombs are dropped on Hiei and Kirishima but no serious damage is done.

“Everyone smile,” mutters Lieutenant Miharu, watching them a pair of dive bombers cruising slowly high overhead. “We are being photographed.”

“Yes,” says Ishii. “I fear this isn't over yet. There will be more attacks tomorrow.”

“Will we make a run for it, sir?” asks Ensign Konada.

Ishii shakes his head. “I have received no orders to that effect. And perhaps being attacked here gives us a better chance to save the ship than being caught at sea.”

“To think we have come so far and fought so many battles to end like this,” says Lieutenant Sugiyura bitterly. “Caught like rats in the bottom of a sack!”

“No more of that kind of talk,” says Ishii. “If anyone wants to sink this ship they are damned well going to have to work at it. We’ve been in trouble before and come through all right.”

“True enough, sir,” says Sugiyura. “My apologies. I just…I just hate not being able to do anything. Torpedoes can’t help us now.”

“Maybe we could go dig up some trees, sir,” says Ensign Izu. “We could bring them back aboard and place them around the ship so we look like an island.” There are chuckles from the other officers. Even Ishii smiles a little.

---

Now just 60 miles off the southern coast of Shikoku the U.S. and British carriers recover their planes. The Allied aircrews are debriefed and told to get some rest. Tomorrow will be another busy day. Tomorrow, they are told, they are going to smash the Osaka and Kobe port facilities and as many of the ships moored there as they can.

[AmiralLaurent]

Will be interesting to know at this point how much ships are in Osaka port... If Hibiki is sharing the port with 200 transports, 50 small warships and a half dozen capital ships, she will probably survive, and even may escape unscathed...
 
On the other hand, I think it's time to say goodbye to Hiei and Kirishima...
 
And by the way, I agree with others, fleeing to Korea was probably the thing to do.
 
Go on Hibiki !!!

[tocaff]

I'm curious as to why the ships were left in port and not sent elsewhere that might've been safer.

[Feinder]

CF probably had the choice of having them attacked by 4e bombers from China while at sea, or an advancing TF38 from the south.  Or hide in port, hope for the best.  A ship in port is less likely to sink and give up vps, than one at sea.
 
-F-
 
 

[Capt. Harlock]

Tomorrow, they are told, they are going to smash the Osaka and Kobe port facilities and as many of the ships moored there as they can.

I see just one chance for Hibiki and her gallant crew . . . the arrival of numerous I-boats.

[Marc gto]

there must be a way out of this......

[kaleun]

there must be a way out of this......

Unconditional surrender?

[Cuttlefish]

February 22, 1945

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

Orders: Prepare for enemy air attacks

---

To this point no city in Japan has suffered major damage. Tokyo has been attacked several times but the air defense has remained stout enough there to limit the damage. But at Osaka the defense has collapsed.

For the American pilots in on the attack there has to be more than a little satisfaction to savaging the waterfront of a major Japanese city. As their torpedoes churn through the water of the bay to intersect with Japanese battleships surely more than a few of them think of Pearl Harbor. For them the Japanese are now reaping the full benefits of the whirlwind they sowed there and revenge is indeed sweet.

At the height of the carrier plane’s attack big four-engine bombers come roaring in from the south. B-29s target the industrial areas of the city while B-24s come in high over the waterfront, dropping sticks of bombs on the naval facilities at both Osaka and Kobe and on whatever else happens to be nearby. For a few hours on February 22, 1945 Osaka is turned into a small corner of hell.

---

Ensign Izu stands on one of the observation wings off the bridge and looks out over a scene of destruction and chaos. The attack is at its height and enemy planes seem to be everywhere. There are hundreds of them. All around the city, and especially around the waterfront, clouds of thick black smoke rise into the air. The roar of anti-aircraft guns, the screaming of airplane engines, and the sound of explosions near and far fill the air.

We were mad to think we could stand against this kind of power, thinks Izu numbly. Mad.

Above the background chaos the screaming of airplane engines suddenly grows louder. Izu looks up as Hibiki’s anti-aircraft guns suddenly begin to fire. Overhead a chain of enemy dive bombers is unwinding and plunging straight towards him.

It is just like the nightmares he had following the dive-bombing attack they endured off Wake back in ’42. The bombers are a bit different – these, he knows, are SB2Cs, not the old SBDs – but he is standing rooted to the spot as the lead plane seems to grow larger and larger. Then it releases its bomb, and just like in his old nightmares the projectile seems to hang there for a moment, ridiculously large.

Nor is this just an adrenaline-induced impression of his. These dive bombers are carrying 1000 pound bombs, larger and much more dangerous than the 500 pounders that have struck Hibiki before.

Time seems to freeze for Izu for only a moment, and then the bombs are whistling down as the bombers pull out of their dives and roar overhead. Izu ducks reflexively , even though he knows that it can do him no good.

Bombs hammer down near the destroyer. One smashes the end of the pier. And one smashes directly into the target of the attack, destroyer Isokaze, berthed across the pier from Hibiki. The bomb strikes atop the aft anti-aircraft platform, the one built where the ship’s Y-turret used to be. Guns and their crews are gone in an instant and the platform is reduced to twisted wreckage surrounding a gaping hole.

Shrapnel whines and pings off of Hibiki’s superstructure. After the explosion’s roar dies away there is a moment of relative silence and then debris begins to rain down, pieces of wood and metal twirling through the air with almost stately grace as gravity brings them back down from the high arcs into which the bomb’s force had flung them. Splashes erupt in the water all around and there are more rattles and pings as debris strikes Hibiki. Horribly not all of the debris is steel from Isokaze or wooden planks from the pier.

Red-hot shrapnel ripped into the wooden warehouse built along the pier and here and there smoke now begins to curl upwards. Aboard Isokaze more smoke begins to pour from the hole in the deck and Izu can see flames licking up around the edges.

“Izu!” Captain Ishii’s voice barks. “Take a damage control team over to Isokaze to assist!”

“Yes sir!” says Izu. He takes one more fast look around the waterfront. To the north, where Hiei and Kirishima are berthed, there is a great deal of smoke. Many other ships are on fire as well. The entire waterfront seems to be an arc of smoke tinged with flame, thickest over by Kobe where some burning fuel oil tanks are sending up huge billowing black clouds, through with orange fires can be seen licking here and there.

Izu bounces down the ladder to the bridge and collects a damage control team. As he leads them across to Isokaze the attack continues, though no further planes appear to directly menace Hibiki.

---

Hibiki sends more men to assist Isokaze when the attack ends after what seems like a lifetime. Isokaze is badly hurt and over thirty men have died aboard he, but she will remain afloat even though out of the war for the foreseeable future. Other crewmen from Hibiki fight the fires in the warehouse.

There is no word yet how many ships have been sunk. Hiei and Kirishima are both obviously badly hurt, Kirishima perhaps mortally so. Fires burn here and there throughout the city for the rest of the day and that evening the sun sinks into a strange ochre-colored sky.

It is the first time that Hibiki’s men have beheld such a scene, someplace known and familiar terribly transformed into a scene of destruction. They pray that it will be the last.

[Feinder]

During:

[Feinder]

After:

(actual photos of Osaka in 1945).
-F-

[John 3rd]

Damn...those are wild pictures...

Hibiki's luck still holds through THIS attack!