Keynes' Cruisers

[fester]

Tilos May 25, 1942

Royal Marines scrambled into the boats that would soon be lowered into the water from the two cruisers and two Greek destroyers slowly moving a few hundred yards offshore. They were landing on the wattle of the seahorse shaped island. The Italian garrison was small, a platoon of old reservists and a dozen policemen. Their most dangerous weapon was a radio which had been jammed for the past hour.

The landing beach was at the bottom of a narrow valley between two 1,200 foot hills. Resistance was only natural, waves and a breeze that upset more than a few stomachs. A trio of Marines drowned as they jumped out of their boats too early and could not escape from their heavy gear. Within an hour, the entire landing party was ashore with patrols beginning six mile march from the landing beach to the small island’s ferry port at Livadia.

By nightfall, engineers were ashore. Some were preparing Livadia for the expected lunchtime arrival of Motor Torpedo Squadron 10 from Crete while most were surveying the flat lands on the seahorse’s head for a fighter strip that would soon be built. Soon, Rhodes would be cut-off from all supply and the Italian division there could either starve or surrender once the diplomats had made their presentations in Ankara.

 

[fester]

A Ukrainian village May 26, 1942

Half a dozen trucks showed up at dawn and soldiers who had never heard artillery or needed to dive for cover from an air attack clambered out of the back. Local collaborators pointed out the targets as the villagers had been forced to gather in the square. The selected men of working ages were split off immediately. The obviously Jewish men were marched to a field on the northern edge of town and handled shovels to dig their own graves. The Party members’ hands were tied together and then a chain was passed between them before being led to the trucks.


Children were led to the trucks while the women were herded into a single house. One squad guarded them, one squad guarded the trucks, one squad began to loot the third of the village’s houses which were now empty while the rest of the Germans began to systemically execute the prisoners in the north field. Every minute, half a dozen rifle shots rang out followed by the occasional pistol shot. By noontime, the squads had rotated through their positions and the women who had started the morning clothed and somewhat possessed where marched out of the temporary prison house with few clothes on and a horror at the morning and hopelessness of the future as they were loaded onto trucks that would eventually take most of the survivors to Polish concentration camps.

 

[fester]

Kupang, Timor May 27, 1942

Josh Jaroschek jumped out of the cockpit of his Wildcat. The flight from Darwin to Timor was uneventful and the convoy that had carried the ground crews had arrived at the contested island three days before the planes had. The Marine infantry battalion was already in the general reserve as National Guardsmen had been detached from the tired forward units to get the new soldiers acclimated to the fighting as well as impart some veterans lessons to the well trained but green troops.

He inspected the aircraft as he talked to the crew chief even as the rest of the ground crew was pushing the plane between revetments and resetting the overhead netting. One of the pistons sounded a bit off for the last half hour and soon five men were tearing apart the engine. The other planes from his section were also getting worked on as the squadron had been promised at least twelve hours of downtime after they landed before they would be needed.

On the flight line, Army P-40s roared into the sky. Six were going up to replace the standing patrol protecting the harbor. Four had bombs slung underneath the wings and they would be directed to attack a Japanese artillery supply column that a Piper Cub had spotted. Two Australian Whirraways were landing after their bombing runs on the Japanese front lines. A pair of bulldozers and a steam shovel were busy at work expanding another runway.

 

[fester]

Badad, Java May 28, 1942

If a man was still and the railroad empty of traffic, he could feel the ground rumble. Japanese, Dutch, and Canadian artillery were trading shots thirty five miles away. The railroad was seldom empty and men were even less frequently still as sergeants and VCOs made sure that any still man had a new task that needed to be accomplished.

The 5th Indian Infantry division was using this crossroads town as its primary supply hub as two brigades were advancing to contact while the third was waiting to see which way it should it should shift it weight. A single Dutch armored cavalry battalion consisting of a company of American built light tanks and three companies of tankettes was attached to the division. The Japanese landing at the start of the month had been enough to take over the easternmost third of the richest colonial island in the Dutch empire but the retreat into Surabaya by two continental style brigades and several Dutch militia regiments had denied the Japanese the quick victory that they needed in order to overwhelm the rest of the defenders on the island.

Indian scouts, veterans of battles in Egypt, Libya, Malaya and now Java were probing the forests, seeking to find the Japanese flank while the Dutch and Canadians held the Japanese focus. Experienced artillerymen surveyed their positions and made arrangements for more box cars full of shells to be shipped forward. Well drilled staffers made adjustments to plans that they knew were unrealistic in detail but useful in general.

The division was moving to contact once again.

 

[fester]

Tarakan, Borneo May 28, 1942

As the tide was heading in, six fully laden tankers slowly made their way out to sea where an armed merchant cruiser and a trio of destroyers awaited them. The escorts would take them to Palawan and then the destroyers would return to the southern waters for combat operations. These six tankers were destined for the refineries of the Home Islands while the destroyers would refill their bunkers from the storage tanks holding some of the sweetest and cleanest crude oil in the world. Over the long run, unrefined fuel would destroy the engines, but the destroyers would either be sunk or Japan would be victorious before that was a concern.

Throughout the day a float plane loitered overhead searching for pesky Allied submarines and stayed with the large, slow, vulnerable valuable tanks until darkness fell.

 

[fester]

Dutch Harbor May 29, 1942

The Coast Guard cutter was bobbing at anchor. A pair of cargo ships were unloading in the fishing harbor. A company of National Guard infantry and two engineering companies had been shipped north from Seattle to begin building an air strip and submarine base as this was the closest American controlled deep water port to Japan.

 

[fester]

Murmansk, May 30 1942

Sea birds swooped low, beaks open and eyes searching for the stream of garbage and food that trailed merchant ships making anchor. Thirty seven cargo vessels had arrived over the past twelve hours in three waves. Four ships had been lost, three to submarines and one to a mine. Most of the escort including the overworked escort carrier Audacity had been directed to dock in Archanglesk as the quays and docks off Murmansk were overwhelmed.

Cranes were soon hauling crates and bundles out of holds while pipes and hoses drained tankers of their cargo. Waiting trains were ready to bring the hundreds of tanks and guns south to the armies that needed to be rebuilt yet again.

 

[fester]

May 31, 1942 Over Cologne

Over 1,000 bombers including 30 American B-25s and fifty Coastal Command Liberators were in a bomber stream. Twelve bombers a minute were scheduled to drop their bombs and incendiaries on the German city. Flak guns had started to open up an hour ago as the stream twisted and turned first over the Dutch countryside and then over the German approaches to the city. Night fighters had claimed a share of the bombers already although gunners were claiming their kills.

By dawn, the city was on fire. The 1,600 tons of bombs did not start a firestorm unlike the raids on the Baltic ports earlier in the spring as the city was too modern and the streets too wide, but within a week 100,000 residents, mainly women and children, were evacuating from the densest parts of the city.

 

[fester]

Chicago May 31, 1942

A dozen workmen looked at the blueprints. No one had any idea why it was so important for a racquetball court to be knocked down underneath the University of Chicago’s abandoned football field, but none of the men were questioning the double time on a Sunday. Soon sledge hammers were knocking out a wall while other men were bringing steel in from the loading dock to build a reinforced floor. The eggheads wanted something that could handle a very large and dense machine, and as long as the checks cleared, the laborers could build anything that was desired.



End of Volume 3

 

[fester]

June 1, 1942 Fairbanks Alaska

Another bulldozer was ready to be released from the maintenance depot. The engineering regiments were running through the machinery almost as fast as an auctioneer went through his patter. The highway was steadily expanding east and then south even as the Canadian side of the project edged north and west. By the fall it was scheduled to be done even as the mud ate a bulldozer every week.

 

[fester]

Southwest of Ras Lanuf June 2, 1942

Two armored cars stopped. Even as the riders scrambled to put up the mottled netting to offer some cover, three more trucks arrived. Within half an hour, one section was guarding the vehicles while the rest of the patrol began to advance. The flames from the recaptured port were still touching the sky. Very little had been captured before the Italian and German engineers wrecked the small town. The infantry regiments that had captured the city were more comfortable living in tents outside of the ruins.

The men advanced single file. Three men were the point element, one man was thirty yards in front of the other two who were his support. The rest of the column was almost one hundred yards behind them. The lead man carried his rifle. He knew that if the enemy was ready, he would never have the chance to fire his weapon so he kept his grip light and easy even as his eyes focused on the dune lines looking for anything that was too smooth or too regular. The other two men were an immediate reserve, one carrying a brand new Sten gun and the other carried a rifle with a quintet of rifle grenades. Their mission was to create enough chaos if the patrol got jumped to give everyone else a chance.

Four hours later, the patrol found a good hide on the reverse slope of a dune. Men began digging into the cold desert sand looking for create both shelter from shells and from the incessent heat of the mid-day sun. Even before the desert turned to a brilliant copper-gold color with the dawn, every man had finished his hide in the sand and had his eyes protected from the glare even as they were drinking the second of their canteens for the day. They would stay here for the day, and complete the patrol once night fell again.

 

[fester]

Malta June 2, 1942

The submarine approached the harbor. The gunners at Fort St. Elmo’s concrete towers tracked the submarine without firing. As the wind picked up, laughter broke out and then cheers. HMS Marlin was flying a Jolly Roger and a broom from her periscope.

Hours later the submarine was secure to the naval base inside of Marsamxett Harbour. Her crew was handing her off to the shipyard workers for a short burst of repairs and tweaks. They would have at least two days ashore before they were needed back onboard to get ready for the next patrol.

The young lieutenant commander who commanded the small American made submarine looked over the log one last time before passing operational control of his boat to his Jimmy. The typed patrol report was tucked under his arm and he headed over to headquarters to report the success of the patrol: three torpedoes out of four fired had obliquely struck and exploded along the entire length of a Zara class heavy cruiser. Four torpedoes fired crippled but did not sink a large tanker of at least 7,500 tons as only one torpedo detonated. The rest of the torpedoes were fired at a trio of merchant ships between 2,000 and 3,000 tons. One sank after one torpedo hit and exploded. Two duds were observed. The hunting patch near the western tip of Sicily was overflowing with coastal patrols and almost continual daylight air cover. She had bumped into a single mine that had failed to detonate in an uncharted minefield. The hunting had been good but the danger was extreme.

By nightfall, his report had been delivered, and he had been debriefed by the squadron intelligence and operations planners. Marlin would be due to head back out in a week for a mine laying patrol near Tunis.

 

[fester]

Russia, June 2, 1942

Light was painful. Somewhere a small man was dancing a polka on his skull. His feet were trampling between his forehead and his ears, cushioned only by a thin layer of gauze. He tried to turn his head slowly so that the old, uncoordinated dancer would fall off to no avail. A stiff board kept his neck in one place. He flexed his eyebrows and the dancer moved slightly until he was two-tapping atop of a nerve.

He grunted and within a few minutes, he felt a feminine hand grip his fingers that he had forgotten that he had possessed.

“Comrade general, glad to see you awake…. Let me get you some water”

A straw was placed into his mouth and he sipped tentatively at first and then greedily, moisture soaking into the crevices and cracks of his dry mouth. As the nurse pulled the straw away from him so that he would not drink too quickly, his eyes scanned the hospital ward. A dozen beds were within sight. Most of the men were bandaged and restrained in a variety of positions. Half a dozen orderlies and nurses were taking care of the wounded. Two were moving a man’s leg despite his screams of pain as the scar tissue had to be broken up if he was to ever walk again. Another was removing a bed pan and the rest were like the nurse, addressing the various needs that the wounded bed cases had.

“I need to see my men, what happened to my division comrade nurse?”

“Some of them are in other wards and floors here, as for the rest of the division, I don’t know”

“Can you take me to those wards?”

She paused and thought. She would need three aides to move the wounded general to a wheelchair.

“Not today, but tomorrow morning after the doctors check on you, if nothing else is found, we can go downstairs”

He was satisfied, he could see at least some of the men who had gone into the maelstrom outside of Kharkov with him. The last day of the failed counter-attack was almost forgettable as there was no sense in the violence. Every step was observed by the fascists who alternated air strikes and artillery barrages when their machine gunners were not firing into the flanks of the depleted battalions and regiments of his division. As he laid in bed that night, he could hear the cries of the wounded, boys asking for water and their mother and the moans of broken horses. He thought about the last minutes that he could remember of that day and decided that it had to have been an artillery shell that wounded him as no one had called out in alarm about Stukas unlike the other dozen times they had been attacked that day.

The next day, the doctors looked at their work on the young general’s face and they were satisfied. No more work would be needed, he could heal and rehabilitate before being sent back to the front again. Twenty minutes later, the general was gently lifted into a crude wheelchair and pushed down to a burn ward where he saw three dozen men that he had commanded.

 

[fester]

Timor, June 3, 1942

Shells reached the apex of their journeys and then tipped over. Steel screamed downwards and then as the fuses were crushed, the explosives packing the interior of the case detonated, sending hundreds of shards in a fan pattern. Four Marine Wildcats were north of the artillery free fire zone as the first attack by the freshly arrived Marine battalion was going forward to clear out a Japanese outpost line that was sitting on the flank of the slow general advance eastward. The Marines were attached to the Massachusetts National Guard infantry regiment. The artillery battalion raised in Worcester was busy supporting the Marines' initial advance.

Josh looked briefly at the artillery shells screeching through the air. As long as his section of four Wildcats stayed to the north, he would be safe. His eyes scanned the front even as his ears monitored the radio. A flight of A-24 Dauntlesses covered by a half a dozen P-40s were two minutes out. Off in the distance, below him, something flashed. He called in the sighting and the airfield acknowledged the report even as he wiggled his wings to bring the other three Wildcats with him. They entered a sharp turn and as the four stubby fighters got closer, the glints of light became shapes and those shapes became green Japanese Lily bombers. Two Wildcats stayed high as Josh led his wingman down.

The fast bombers did not see their attackers until the robin blue Wildcats were less than a mile away. Thirty five seconds was an eternity as the bombers split. Two continued forward and a pair turned north while the other pair turned south. The Wildcats pressed forward against the central pair. Josh lined up his gun sight and he could see in his mind’s eye where the bombers would be in a second and a half. Even as the four heavy machine guns began to fire, the single defensive machine gun on the nearest bomber attempted to scare him away. Four .50 caliber guns against a single rifle caliber gun carried by an unstable bomber was not a fair contest. The single stream of bullets arced underneath the fighter while the burst fired by an expert marksman slammed into the cockpit. Three dozen slugs shattered instruments even as one spent all of its energy fragmenting the pilot’s femur. Another short burst started fires on the starboard engine and the bomber tilted over before slamming into the jungle below.

Josh broke his attack run and turned back to friendly lines as he gained altitude. His wingman had half a dozen bullet holes in his right wing, no serious damage as the other element of Wildcats greeted the new ace and his watcher at 11,000 feet where they could resume covering the advance of the Marine battalion.

 

[fester]

June 4, 1942 400 miles southwest of Midway Island

Ensign Jack Reid suppressed a yawn. The dawn patrol in the waters between Wake and Midway was a milk run. A single squadron of Catalinas on Midway routinely covered this region on even days while Wake Island covered the sector on odd days. Privateers from Johnston Atoll were far more likely to see any action as they could fly closer to the Marshalls.

So far in the war, he had seen nothing and had no action. There was a lot to recommend for that, the squadron had not lost a man in combat although one flying boat disappeared in bad weather without a distress call. But flying the same few patrol sectors every day was boring and a young man could not stand boredom, it was against his nature.

“Hey Skip, I think I see something at 2 o’clock” one of the observers yelled at him. He wrestled with the controls and began a slow wide pylon turn. Three men looked intently at the possible sighting. They saw nothing over the next five minutes and then a pod of whales came up for another snort. That was the only excitement for the day’s flight.

 

[fester]

Norfolk Virginia June 5, 1942

Six aircraft carriers and three fast battleships left the anchorage. To a novice, this fleet was almost as impressive as the United States Pacific Fleet that was slowly heading south to New Caledonia and then off to Timor. But a more experienced eye saw the challenges and limitations of the Atlantic Fleet. None of the carriers going past Fortress Monroe would be acceptable for use in the Pacific Fleet. Wasp might be a plausible emergency carrier, but Ranger had no torpedo bombers and her deck got wet when someone sneezed. The other four carriers were converted oilers. Two of their older sisters had already joined the Pacific Fleet as aircraft ferries and tankers to fill the depots that were being built in Samoa and New Caledonia.

Men with experienced eyes would be looking at the decks of the six aircraft carriers. Wasp’s complement of aircraft was unusual in not being unusual. The new Grumman monster, the Avenger was her Sunday punch while thirty three Dauntless dive bombers and twenty four Wildcats with folding wings rounded out her air wing. It was an air group that would be at home in the Pacific. Ranger had three dozen dive bombers and three dozen fighters aboard, packed tighter than oiled sardines. Suwanee and her sisters had a dozen fighters. Three carried a dozen Wildcats while the last had a dozen stripped down Buffaloes painted with Marine flair, and eighteen dive bombers apiece aboard. Two dive bomber squadrons flew older Dauntlesses while the remaining two squadrons had the the only operational Vindicators left. Those aircraft were supposed to have been sent to training units but the need for combat replacements had kept the Vindicators in use. Rumors and promises were flowing that these squadrons would see their Dauntlesses by the end of the summer.

One battleship had been the source of a great battle at the Navy Department. Washington was now a veteran ship having claimed a piece of Tirpitz. Admiral Nimitz had sent numerous requests to have the Rusty W sent his way as he only had a single battleship that could barely keep pace with his fast moving carrier forces. She would be sent as soon as she was no longer needed. North Carolina was an experienced ship. Her crew had almost a year to train but the vibrations still bothered her. On a good day, twenty five knots was still her top speed in calm seas. Vibrations still threatened to throw a shaft at any time despite the nine dry dockings she had taken since joining the fleet. A slow, powerful battleship could be useful in the Atlantic but a danger in the Pacific. Massachusetts was mechanically sound and her crew had completed their shakedown but they were still green. She would be fought over between the two fleets in a few months as the Pacific Fleet wished to rebuild a fast battle line.

An experienced eye looking at the fleet from Virginia Beach would have seen the cruisers and destroyers circle the nine ships in the center and then that eye would note that the ships were heading south as they disappeared over the horizon. One of those experienced eyes soon was tapping out his observations even as two FBI agents looked over his shoulder. This was valuable chicken shit, believable and worthless as the fleet was scheduled to return to the harbor in four days after exercising near Cape Hatteras.

 

[fester]

Guantanamo Bay June 5, 1942

A dozen ships’ captains were scrambling to take notes. For many, this was their first convoy so they needed to make sure that they knew the base course and the zig-zag plan, they needed to know the station keeping requirements and they needed to know what the too young to believe to be true Navy Lt. Commander who was the escort commander planned to do in case of attack. He only had a single twenty year old armed yacht and a trio of wooden hull patrol craft to cover the convoy from Cuba to Panama. The plan was to keep the subchasers in close while the yacht acted as a rover.


By nightfall, the convoy’s masters were ready. They would depart at the morning tide with a Navy float plane assigned to give them cover for the first day. After that, Navy and Army aircraft based on Jamaica and then Trinidad would be available in case a submarine was detected.

 

[fester]

Java dawn June 6, 1942

To the east artillery was firing again. To the west, a flight of light bombers could be heard. To the north, the sound of waves crashing against an empty shore while the south only contained jungles where tigers roamed.

The rail junction was busy. Four hundred local civilian “volunteers” had been impressed into the service of the 5th Indian Division. They were corvee labor gangs with a routine of working during the night unloading the trains that arrived from Batavia. A third of the men were almost done with their work, removing one hundred and fifty tons of artillery shells from the box cars and placing them on a steady stream of trucks that would then head to the front. The civilians were only in danger from air raids as they were out of Japanese artillery range. Their work was enough to supply the guns of the division for the day while also slowly building up a stockpile for the offensive that everyone knew was coming at some point.

 

[fester]

Islay, Scotland June 7, 1942

Four motor torpedo boats paced the edge of the landing zone. They had landed their torpedoes before this mission. Extra rafts and ropes and buoys had been loaded aboard the small craft. Three dozen American built assault craft were in the water. Propellers churned as they approached Red Beach. Another two dozen landing craft carrying French Legionnaires were just leaving the assault transports. The torpedo boat lifeguards paced the assault waves to shore.

As soon as the first craft began to run aground forty yards short of the gravelly beach, infantrymen stomped their feet as they waited for the bow ramps to lower. Men began to enter the chest deep and shoulder and chin deep water. One man from International Falls stepped into the waves and sank to the bottom as the weight of his gear pulled him down. Three of his squad mates pulled the five foot four inch tall man up within thirty seconds. The two six footers placed the private’s arms over their shoulders to lug him to shore.

By late afternoon, 14,000 men and 80 tanks were ashore. Half a dozen bodies were in morgues and three dozen men were in half a dozen sick bays. The motor torpedo boats made five rescues.

By nightfall, the exercise was almost complete and the peaty whisky of the isle was available for purchase for greenbacks. Men enjoyed the finest Scotch that they had in their lives even as they stayed close to the platoon and company laagers to hold their warmth before heading back to camp the next day.

 

[fester]

Singapore June 7, 1942

The Hurricanes taxied back to their shelters. Ten had gone up, nine had come back down. During the furball, a Zero’s heavy cannon blasted the Merlin engine of one of the Hurricanes flown by a replacement pilot. He had been able to get out of the cockpit of the burning aircraft but his parachute was caught in the tail and he was unable to escape before the fighter crashed in the South China Sea.

The Squadron commander climbed out of his aircraft and held up two more fingers. A single Zero and a Betty bomber were his claims. The rest of the squadron was claiming two more fighters and a trio of bombers. The raid had been picked up 80 miles away from Singapore when it was flying at a high altitude and then it was lost as the bombers went low to get under the radar coverage. Australian Mustangs jumped the first wave of fighter escorts while the Hurricanes just had to deal with the close escorts before they could get into the bombers.

Ark Royal was barely visible in the distance. Welders’ sparks could be seen as the shipyard continued to hurry to make her whole. The Admiralty had a few more days to make a decision, keep her in Singapore or send her to America for long term repairs. Keeping her at the King’s largest naval base would lead to her availability three months earlier as long as she was not bombed in drydock. So far, the RAF had kept the Japanese from having any success and months of bad weather would offer another layer of protection.