SsgtC
Banned
Damn exploders. That sub CO must be PISSEDKure Navy Yard, 1200 September 25, 1943
The carrier Zuikaku touched the water for the first time in nine months. She had barely made it home after the fiasco in the southern seas. An American submarine had torpedoed her near Formosa as she crept north. Of the six tracks spotted, three were clean misses while two of the hits were duds. The last one ripped open a hole where another three thousand tons of water entered her already waterlogged hull. The repairs were slowed by the lack of some critical materials that could only be sourced elsewhere in the empire. Mines and submarine attacks had added at least another month to the time for the ship to re-enter the sea. It would not have mattered, her air group would not have been ready much earlier.
The heavy cruiser Asama and a trio of destroyers were ready to escort the carrier for her post-repair trials.