Keynes' Cruisers

Status
Not open for further replies.
Reader mode
Story 0943
  • Index

    • fester


    December 11, 1941 1300 near the Thai-Malayan border

    A company of Punjabi infantry ambushed a Japanese infantry column supported by three tanks near the Thai border. They had arrived in the village two days before and spent most of their time digging in. Clear lines of fire were prepared for the Vickers machine guns and the section of anti-tank guns. Engineers had placed demolition charges in every culvert. A dozen landmines lined the road and a line of observation posts extended two hundred yards into the jungle.

    The forward listening post had sent a runner back to the main position fifteen minutes ago that the first Japanese column had been sighted. Three tanks and three companies of infantry with a pair of mountain guns were marching down the road. The lead company was the vanguard with the tanks separating that company from its fellows. Twenty minutes and the Japanese would make contact with the main delaying positions.

    Every man waited. Nineteen year old volunteers who wanted an adventure or at least a sight of the world beyond the flooded river valleys and the back end of an ox that was their home clutched their rifles tightly and put out a brave face when their sergeants came by their fox holes and told them to relax and remember their training. A Viceroy Commissioned Officer, a gnarled veteran of many deployments looked over his position one last time and worried about his tea going cold.

    The two English officers were nervous; one had fought in France and was injured during the evacuation from Dunkirk.

    The other was a novice, and afraid to show his inexperience and his fear. The fear that he could fail, the fear that he were not who they imagined himself to be, the fear that his men would die pointlessly, the fear that the elephant would trample him as he saw it the first time.

    Fear of dying was real, but it was not a primary fear for these young men who everyone else counted on to keep their heads despite this being their first action.

    Suddenly, the lead Japanese company came into view. They had spread out as they entered the town and advanced warily. This was a natural choke point and ambush position. Three eight ton tanks followed them, silence filled the road as civilians had fled when they could and taken cover when they could not. No one was about. Violence was in the air.

    A pop of a flare gun went off and a green flare arced over the Japanese force. This was the signal for the ambush. Anti-tank guns barked and Vickers chattered in controlled bursts. Riflemen ran through the routine, shoot,shoot, shoot, move to a new position. Within seconds the Japanese infantry had hit the ground and started to return fire

    Ten minutes of intense fighting left three tanks burning as ammunition cooked off. The two-pounder anti-tank guns and a section of Boys anti-tank rifles left all three Japanese tanks on fire. Heavy machine gun fire forced the Japanese infantry to the ground until darkness. In the dark, the second company was able to slip into the jungle and re-appear behind the Punjabi’s half an hour later. Fierce hand to hand fighting punctuated by the din of pistol shots and bursting grenades relieved the pressure on the rest of the Japanese advance guard. The flanking company was beaten off, but the Punjabis hurried to their dozen bivouacked trucks and withdrew down the road, abandoning a pair of machine guns and a single anti-tank gun.
     
    Last edited:
  • Index

    • Captain Seafort

    fester said:
    The few English officers were nervous; one had fought in France and was injured during the evacuation from Dunkirk. The others were novices, and afraid to show their inexperience and their fear. The fear that they could fail, the fear that they were not who they imagined themselves to be, the fear that their men would die pointlessly, the fear that the elephant would trample them as they saw it the first time. Fear of dying was real, but it was not a primary fear for these young men who everyone else counted on to keep their heads despite this being their first action.
    Click to expand...

    Nitpick: an Indian rifle company would only have one, or at most two, British officers - the OC and maybe a "company officer" (i.e. a just-commissioned 2nd Lt effectively still in training). Platoon commanders and the company 2iC would all be VCOs.
     
    Story 0944
  • Index

    • fester

    December 10, 1941 Philadelphia Naval Shipyard

    HMS Furious was guided into the main shipping channel of the Delaware River. Her engines were freshened up and her anti-aircraft suite improved with almost a score of new 20 millimeter guns. Other minor repairs and revitalizations were made to the old carrier. She would meet with a pair of American destroyers at the mouth of the river before her air group came back aboard. A day of qualifications was needed and then she was due to join Indomitable at Norfolk.

    As the carrier was leaving the refit slip, USS North Carolina stood in queue. She had shaken down. She was supposed to be a brutally efficient fast battleship and her gun crews had an excellent shoot earlier in the week so she was a battleship although her shakes still kept her from outrunning the World War 1 veterans that made up the Atlantic Fleet battle line. Maybe the next repair would be the one that made her a truly fast battleship.
     
    Last edited:
  • Index
    • Story 0945
  • Index

    • fester


    December 11, 1941 Washington DC

    For some inexplicable reason, the German ambassador requested an early morning meeting with the Secretary of State. At that meeting, he delivered a declaration of war.

    As soon as that news was spread through Washington, chaos piled atop of the frenzied activity that had not stopped since Sunday afternoon. Ships that were supposed to head to the Pacific had their orders held, pursuit and bombardment squadrons that would be tasked with covering American possessions in the Eastern Pacific would stay put. None of the men whose lives would change because of this news knew of the changes in the plans as they had not been told where they would be needed yet.

    Three high priority messages were sent within an hour. All American carriers in the Atlantic Fleet were to be held in port or restricted to local operations until further notice. The Pensacola convoy would continue to at least Australia until the situation in the Philippines was clarified. And Admiral Nimitz would become the Pacific Fleet commander while Admiral Kimmel would still maintain his command until the arrival of his replacement.
     
  • Index
    • Story 0946
  • Index

    • fester


    December 11, 1941 1730 Norfolk Virginia

    Nineteen men were all standing at attention. Two admirals, one American and one British were looking at the still and silent men, their carrier air group commanders and some of their more experienced operational planners and attack squadron leaders. They had been called into the office with no warning of what the meeting would be about. They had been scrambling to either get the pair of Royal Navy carriers on the US East Coast ready to return to Home Fleet and then deployment to the Mediterranean or the Far East or preparing the American carriers to head to the Pacific. And now their preparations were interrupted.

    Admiral Hewitt started the conversation after the long and pregnant silence:

    “Gentlemen, please tell us, your theoretical superiors, what the hell this Operation Bathhouse is? I’ve been hearing rumors of it for weeks and I want to hear it from the horses’ mouth instead of the horse’s ass”

    Yorktown’s CAG, Lt. Commander Pederson, stepped forward. He was the commander of the most experienced and well trained American carrier group and he had encouraged the discussions the most.

    “Sir, Bathhouse was a training exercise that was predicated on a large, multi-carrier task force attacking the two German battlecruisers in Brest.”

    "Just a training exercise?"

    "Yes sir, just a training exercise and not an actual attack plan but it would be readily convertible to an attack plan, sir."

    “How many variations of Bathhouse are there?”

    “Three primary variants. Bathhouse-1 used three Atlantic Fleet carriers and had dive bombers as the primary attack formation. CAGs 4,5, and 7 have run this scenario twice while 8 has done this once. We've attacked cow pastures in North Carolina.

    Bathhouse-2 was just the four carriers of Home Fleet intending to replicate the Taranto mission. Furious and Indomitable squadrons simulated the attack three times, most recently last week when they overflew Baltimore.

    The final training scenario was Bathhouse-3 which combined Bathhouse 1 and 2.”

    Admiral Hewitt paused for a moment as he considered his words.

    “Please tell me how many times Bathhouse-3 was practiced as a combined US Navy and Royal Navy operation while we were not at war with the intended target?”

    “None, sir; it had been discussed over beer on a frequent basis and I assigned a meddlesome JG to mock up the plan as a way to keep him busy and out of trouble.”

    “And how prepared are those plans, commander?”

    “We could execute a tabletop exercise by the end of the week and fly it a few days after that.”

    Admiral Hewitt looked at his Royal Navy counterpart. They had heard what they unofficially expected to hear. Significant strength was still needed in the Atlantic to contain German capability, but Bathhouse offered a path to being able to transfer ships to the Pacific without uncovering more vital missions.

    “Very well, next Monday we tabletop and Thursday we fly Bathhouse-3; Also, never again plan a joint operation against a nation that one of the two navies is not at war without informing your admirals. We don’t like being surprised.”
     
    Last edited:
  • Index

    • Cryhavoc101

    What we need is some decent low level Pictures of the harbours

    I know just the chap - Flying officer Warburton still probably with 69 Squadron in Malta
     
    Story 0947
  • Index

    • fester


    December 11, 1941 Somewhere in the Pacific

    The transports bobbed in the placid waves. They were still far from their destination and that destination was becoming less and less knowable. USS Concord led the gaggle of ships forward.

    Sergeant Donohue did not care about the maneuvers of the captains and the admirals. He had three cares at the moment. First, he cared about the ongoing poker game going on in the NCO mess deck. As of the last hand, he was up $165.21 since the transports left New York. It was not hard to see when a man thought his cards were too good although the number of easy marks was slowly declining throughout the trip as they either learned to be better or they left the game entirely.

    He also cared about his team. They had mounted the machine guns on an impromptu welded contraption made of hollow pipes and ball bearings. Other machine guns sections had done the same since word of the attack on Pearl Harbor. During daylight hours, half of the Army’s machine guns were manned at all times. He had to keep his team on the ball and alert during their shift, the navy called them a watch. After that, he had to keep his team involved in physical training and classroom lectures. They were going to war once they figured out where that war actually would be.


    And finally, he cared about the letter he was writing to his wife. He had just started it.


    ‘Dearest Elaine,

    The seas are open and broad, promising so much and smelling so different than the beaches at Salisbury and Hampton. The ocean now has a clarity that I could never have imagined, having seen Boston and New York harbors, I never knew the ocean could be clean. We are aboard the ship that you kissed me onto and we are somewhere far far away. I could ask the navy guys but anything they tell me would not matter. We were told that the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor and there is fighting in the Philippines, we might be heading there, we might be going somewhere else. No one has told us yet.


    I promise I will be safe and come home to you and our baby. I promise you the world and on all of my love for you that once this war is over, we will go on a ship far more comfortable than this one to someplace warm and safe so that you too can see the beauty of a clear sea…..”


    He needed to write more and say more to his wife, so he chewed on his pencil for a moment and looked out over the ship’s stern and at the foaming wake and let his mind wander until the words could find him.
     
  • Index

    • Crowbar Six

    fester said:
    December 11, 1941 1730 Norfolk Virginia

    Nineteen men were all standing at attention. Two admirals, one American and one British were looking at the still and silent men, their carrier air group commanders and some of their more experienced operational planners and attack squadron leaders. They had been called into the office with no warning of what the meeting would be about. They had been scrambling to either get the pair of Royal Navy carriers on the US East Coast ready to return to Home Fleet and then deployment to the Mediterranean or the Far East or preparing the American carriers to head to the Pacific. And now their preparations were interrupted.

    Admiral Hewitt started the conversation after the long and pregnant silence:

    “Gentlemen, please tell us, your theoretical superiors, what the hell this Operation Bathhouse is? I’ve been hearing rumors of it for weeks and I want to hear it from the horses’ mouth instead of the horse’s ass”

    Yorktown’s CAG, Lt. Commander Pederson, stepped forward. He was the commander of the most experienced and well trained American carrier group and he had encouraged the discussions the most.

    “Sir, Bathhouse was a training exercise that was predicated on a large, multi-carrier task force attacking the two German battlecruisers in Brest.”

    "Just a training exercise?"

    "Yes sir, just a training exercise and not an actual attack plan but it would be readily convertible to an attack plan, sir."

    “How many variations of Bathhouse are there?”

    “Three primary variants. Bathhouse-1 used three Atlantic Fleet carriers and had dive bombers as the primary attack formation. CAGs 4,5, and 7 have run this scenario twice while 8 has done this once. We've attacked cow pastures in North Carolina.

    Bathhouse-2 was just the four carriers of Home Fleet intending to replicate the Taranto mission. Furious and Indomitable squadrons simulated the attack three times, most recently last week when they overflew Baltimore.

    The final training scenario was Bathhouse-3 which combined Bathhouse 1 and 2.”

    Admiral Hewitt paused for a moment as he considered his words.

    “Please tell me how many times Bathhouse-3 was practiced as a combined US Navy and Royal Navy operation while we were not at war with the intended target?”

    “None, sir; it had been discussed over beer on a frequent basis and I assigned a meddlesome JG to mock up the plan as a way to keep him busy and out of trouble.”

    “And how prepared are those plans, commander?”

    “We could execute a tabletop exercise by the end of the week and fly it a few days after that.”

    Admiral Hewitt looked at his Royal Navy counterpart. They had heard what they unofficially expected to hear. Significant strength was still needed in the Atlantic to contain German capability, but Bathhouse offered a path to being able to transfer ships to the Pacific without uncovering more vital missions.

    “Very well, next Monday we tabletop and Thursday we fly Bathhouse-3; Also, never again plan a joint operation against a nation that one of the two navies is not at war without informing your admirals. We don’t like being surprised.”
    Click to expand...

    The biggest risk to that one will be U boats and any Condors that happen to be up and about. Doenitz would send every U boat in the Atlantic after a force that size.
     

    fester

    Crowbar Six said:
    The biggest risk to that one will be U boats and any Condors that happen to be up and about. Doenitz would send every U boat in the Atlantic after a force that size.
    Click to expand...

    Multiple carriers with lots of fighters and almost as many destroyers as torpedo bombers for escorts will take their chances fighting their way in or out.
     

    Crowbar Six

    fester said:
    Multiple carriers with lots of fighters and almost as many destroyers as torpedo bombers for escorts will take their chances fighting their way in or out.
    Click to expand...

    I have no doubt they will achieve their mission but I don't know if they can achieve operational surprise. Were they reading the U Boat cyphers at Bletchley yet, if they were moving the force around U Boats would mean getting in would be a lot easier, though if Condors start disappearing in job lots someone might get anxious.
     
    Reader mode
    Top
    Status
    Not open for further replies.
    Top