Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

[fester]

Minamidaito, February 24, 1944​

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Four cruisers, two heavy, and two light were escorted by half a dozen destroyers. Two destroyers stayed out to sea looking for submarines. Overhead of USS Los Angeles and USS Wichita were half a dozen Hellcats. Circling in front of USS Jacksonville and USS Nashville was a pair of Avengers armed with depth charges. Four Kingfishers were airborne with binoculars and radios waiting for the bombardment to start.

Eight thousand yards to the west, the airfield was on fire. It had been visited in early morning by a full task group's Sunday punch. The two dozen aircraft that served as an outpost to Okinawa had mostly been destroyed on the ground. The few Zeros that had been able to scramble when the radar operators picked up a strike that was larger than the attacks on Pearl Harbor were swamped. A Hellcat was damaged by a string of 20 millimeter shells eating its rudder and tail. That was all the seven shot-down Zeroes could do. The few 25 millimeter guns managed to shoot down a single Avenger and damage another half dozen attackers. It did not matter.

The antiaircraft batteries were either ruined or marked. And now the heavy guns of the cruisers began to throw super heavy shells at the few remaining anti-aircraft positions, hangers, fuel dumps and the radar station.

Eighty miles to the south, the fleet continued towards a mid-afternoon launch against Okinawa.

 

[fester]

SE of Okinawa, 2138 February 24, 1944

"Jaroshek, close the hatch..."

The steel hatched slammed shut. He walked forward with another sixty pounds of Bofor shells in his arms. The quad mount that he had been assigned to for the past six months was overfilled with ready ammunition, but more ammunition was being passed out. USS North Carolina was just north of USS Essex and USS Yorktown. The two carriers had landed their last strike an hour ago. Now the task group had turned to the southeast at twenty two knots. The heavy battleship's bow bit into the sea.

The mount slid slightly to the left. Eyes strained to see little flecks of flame from the Japanese snoopers that were playing cat and mouse with the few squadrons of night fighters that were flying from Bunker Hill and Cowpens.

The gun mount moved again. A few dozen yards away, the five inch mounts moved and the barrels slightly elevated. A snooper was in range. The order was still out that the guns could only fire in immediate self-defense. The fleet was attempting to slide away into the darkness of the night and a flaming datum. Suddenly, the horizon lit up as a string of fifty caliber slugs ripped open a Betty's central fuel tank. A minute later, a cruiser started to fire as her radio intercept team had detected a contact report from another snooper.

Soon coffee was being passed out to the gun crews. It was going to be a long night.

 

[fester]

Stalingrad, February 25, 1944

The whistle blew at the tank factory. Another twelve hour shift was over. Thousands of old men and ten thousand women soon began to file out. Today they had met their quota. This week they had exceeded their quota by half a dozen tanks. Next week they were likely to be under their quota as the version of the T-34 that they had been making was switching. Some elements would be the same, and a rivet was a rivet, but significant changes to the guns, engines and transmission would be required.

The old grandfather did not care. He had a long walk home and a grand son to play dominos with tonight.

 

[fester]

SE of Okinawa, February 25, 1944

Sleep was a blessing. He had unlaced his boots, and hung his helmet and life vest on a hook a few feet from the top rack where he was now under a blanket. Some of his division mates were already snoring. He pulled the blanket to his chin and before he could even think a thought about that girl from Algiers, he was asleep.

Ninety seven minutes later, he was jolted awake. The general quarters alarms were sounding. Feet were already running up and down the ship, hatches were slamming and being dogged, and weary men were running back to their guns. Seaman Jaroshek made it to his battle station, a 40 mm quad mount in two hundred and forty nine seconds after the alarm went off. The petty officer in charge of his side was not displeased. It was all a seaman could ask for. Sleep and a not pissed off petty officer. Guns were pointing to the west. He squinted and could see ugly black smoke stain the sky. A destroyer began to fire its four five inch guns. And then it began to fire half a dozen Bofors and a dozen Oerikilons. He could see half a dozen Jap torpedo bombers making a run. The destroyer was twisted and turning. The big battleship began a turn away from the torpedo bombers. The heavy dual purpose guns began to boom. VT shells were soon successful in splashing one, and then two Judys as they streaked past the outer screen and were turning for home.

It did not matter. The destroyer dodged all but one of the torpedoes. The forward hundred feet of the ship was sheared off. Men were already in the water. One of her division mates was breaking ranks and hurrying to render aid and take off survivors even as the rest of the task force tightened up and continued their run to the south at twenty four knots.

This afternoon was going to be another long afternoon.

 

[fester]

West of Guam, February 26, 1944

USS England was tight to the port side of USS Arizona. The old battleship was also connected to USS Raby. USS George was next in line. By lunchtime, the patrol division was fully refueled and had taken their position back in the van of the screen. By the end of the dog watch, the bosun aboard USS England was painting the silhouette of a submarine on the deckhouse. It was their second kill and their first shared kill as a trio of Avengers from Liscome Bay had spotted and drop charges on the Japanese submarine before the destroyer escorts could hedgehog her.

 

[fester]

Silvano d'Orba, Italy February 27, 1944

The Goumiers were only supposed to have conducted a patrol. They were only supposed to capture a few prisoners and find the machine gun positions of the Germans that had been slowly forced back from the hills outside of Genoa. That is all they were supposed to do.

Instead, they found a path that was lightly guarded where a dozen sneakers had managed to silently eliminate the German observation posts covering it, and then there were almost five hundred men marching nearly silently into the rear of a German regiment. Since last night, knives and bayonets had been the preferred method of eliminating small parties of Germans who were expecting yet another mechanized infantry attack that would be falling under their guns. A few hours before dawn, a company finally was able to start a major firefight.

Now hundreds of planes circled overhead. Half a dozen or a dozen entered the valley every minute. Fighter bombers dropped napalm, while light and medium bombers dropped tons of high explosives from ever decreasing heights. When the planes were not active, hundreds of artillery tubes were firing. Some fired smoke, more fired high explosives as an impromptu divisional attack had been launched at the weak points the Goumiers were creating in their march of chaos.

 

[fester]

Western Pacific, February 27, 1944

The destroyers broke free from their links to the USS North Carolina. The tin cans were fully fueled again and had even collected several gallons of ice cream for their galleys.

Jarosheck wiped his brow. The deck division was busy policing the deck from the morning's evolution. His watch would soon start and then the chief had a punch list of small repairs and maintenance tasks before dinner. Hopefully he could get a good six hours of sleep tonight as the fleet had pulled back out of easy search range of the Japanese snoopers and scouts last night.

Several miles away, in the ready rooms of the carriers that the battleships escorted, claims were still being tallied and lessons learned were being spread among the mostly full rooms. The greatest killer of enthusiastic ensigns had been flak but the Zeros still had been a formidable threat. Plans for a continual cycle of both strikes and CAP for tomorrow were being planned. The fleet would be staying forty or fifty miles out to the east of the objective with destroyers twenty miles to the west and north of the objective. Any threat would be seen in American radar coverage for most of an hour before they could find and strike at the carriers.

Above the ready rooms, mechanics made sure that their machines that they temporarily loaned out to the pilots would be ready.

 

[fester]

Mount Olympus, February 28, 1944

The observer looked north. There was movement down the valley.

Seven minutes later, outgoing hate from six regiments erupted overhead. The German replacements would never have a chance to learn what the ever decreasing number of veterans knew --- never be seen and hope that was enough.

 

[fester]

Western Pacific, February 28, 1944

USS North Carolina slowly accelerated away from her bodyguard position. Task Force 34 was now being formed an hour before dawn. Behind the Showboat, the carriers were getting ready to turn into the wind. In front of her, her sister ship Washington had already joined up with Massachusetts. Two more battleships along with half a dozen light cruisers and fourteen destroyers would join the already assembled ships to form both a shield against Japanese air attacks and a lance to be driven into the remnants of the Imperial navy's heavy surface units.

By the time that the five battleships had formed into two columns, Seaman Jaroshek had been dismissed from general quarters and could scarf down bacon and hashbrowns before reporting to his watch.

 

[fester]

Ishigaki, Japan February 29, 1944

The conscript from Honshu looked over the open sights of his machine gun. He could barely think and function as half a dozen American battleships and just as many cruisers were off-shore flinging shells. The bunkers and minefields covering the beach to his right had been getting plastered for over an hour now. A few destroyers and patrol boats have crept in closer to the shore. The machine gunner could see swimmers go over the sides and every now and then the water would bubble as another ten pounds of plastic explosives took care of another obstacle. A few mortar and even fewer artillery shells were hitting the water in response to the American armada.

More conscripts gathered in the concrete and log bunker. The riflemen should have been outside in the trenches and firing pits, but those fortifications could be readily smashed as soon as the Americans decided to shift their five, six, eight, fourteen and sixteen inch shells from the beach to the north to their beach. They would shelter in place until they were either ordered to counter-attack the beach to the north or the Americans were within rifle range of the beach itself. Then they would brave the blizzard of steel shards to reach their fighting positions.

The fire ceased for a moment. It was not a respite.

A dozen aircraft from an escort carrier roared in low and fast. Fuel tanks full of jellied gasoline were dropped. They cleared more of the minefield. And even from four hundred meters away, the machine gunner could hear the screams of men whose bodies had been roasted and burned. He looked over his shoulder and saw that one bunker was completely cooking off with mortar shells exploding and machine gun belts popping. At least those men died quickly. The men at the edge of the drop zone would not be so lucky.

A minute later, the American bombardment fleet resumed their fire. The battleships main guns and the light cruisers shifted. Instead of pounding the beach defenses, they were now pouring high explosives onto cross-roads and reserve area assembly points. The heavy cruisers had not shifted their fire.

Off in the distance, hundreds, no thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of landing craft were slowly churning to shore. The machine gunner checked his weapon one more time and then checked his straps on his helmet. Soon the riflemen and mortar teams left the safety of the bunker as the Americans were coming.


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By mid-afternoon, the assault elements of the 1st Marine Division were fully ashore. The provisional Marine brigade, along with a pair of Marine tank battalions and a reinforced 15th and 17th Marine regiments would soon be coming ashore as dozens of LSTs had space to beach themselves. The perimeter was 3800 yards long and 1900 yards deep. The crust had been hard to crack, but as soon as the Marines could maneuver, the Japanese defenses became brittle.

 

[fester]

Clark Air Base, Luzon February 29, 1944

Dozens of bombers were entering the landing pattern. Some had visible damage as shells burst yards from wings or the fuselage. More looked damaged as the observers on the ground could see the struggles pilots had in keeping their big beasts on the trajectory to safely land. The observers and the radar operators had already relayed the message to the Bomb Division commander; light losses from a raid over Formosa.

The division had perhaps four more days of operations like the past week in them. Fuel was getting tight. Bomb stockpiles were thin. Men were exhausted. However they would press on. Post-strike photos had shown dozens of Japanese fighters and bombers burning on the ground from yesterday's strike. Today the results promised to be as good as the weather was clear and the flak was not any worse even as the bombers had pressed their assault two thousand feet lower today than yesterday.

Japanese airpower on southern Formosa existed now more in theory than reality.

 

[fester]

Southern France, March 1, 1944

Half a dozen parachutes emerged out of the back of a dark blue painted transport plane. They were lightly lit by the quarter moon that was peaking in and out of thin, wispy clouds. Five minutes later, partisans were ripping open the crates and policing the fields. One crate and chute had landed in the river. The rest contained thousands of rifle and machine gun rounds, hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives, dozens of anti-personnel mines and a dozen boxes of sulfa drugs and morphine.

Two hours before dawn, the hundred and seventy three partisans were on the move again. They needed to provide cover to a radio team observing a railroad bend that had become extraordinarily congested over the past three days as the German position in Italy was failing.

 

[fester]

East of Ishigaki, March 1, 1944

USS Pennsylvania was on fire. Even as damage control crews worked to pull out men on fire and string hoses from the pumps and fire mains to the blaze, gun crews continued to fire at another Judy diving on them. A trio of Bofor shells ripped open the left wing of that aircraft. The bomb it dropped went over the bow by thirty yards. The wounded pilot tried to crash into the main citadel of the battleship where his squadron mate had landed a clean bomb hit. He missed. The right wing scraped against the hull armor, and the engine bounced off the belt near the B-turret. Minimal, cosmetic damage had been done to the old warrior.

Eight hundred yards behind the Pennsylvania, Chief Swanson moved from one of the waiting damage control teams to the director controlling a significant portion of the anti-aircraft suite aboard USS Arizona. The plot was cleaning up. He heard men grumble as gun crews began to clear their stations of empty shells and the ready ammunition replenished. He spoke to a dozen men over the next twenty minutes. He heard the exhaustion of men who had been at battle stations for every moment of daylight for the past two days. He heard the pride of the claims of kills. He heard the frustration of men who saw half a dozen ships damaged by Japanese air attacks.

An hour later, the ship was secured from general quarters. A quarter of the anti-aircraft guns would still be manned. Half of the gunners were ordered to eat. A quarter were ordered to sleep.

 

[fester]

Central Ukraine, March 2, 1944

The German army commander and his staff saw a perfect opportunity to counter-attack. A Soviet rifle corps backed by three tank brigades was isolated and hanging onto the neck of a salient. Signals intelligence and prisoners had indicated that the exposed elements were low on supplies and the tanks had perhaps a day worth of fuel. It was such an inviting target to anyone looking at a map. However, the men huddled around the staff table had all trampled through enough mud to stop an elephant in its tracks.

Instead of grand maneuvers, the conversation around the staff table was how to pull divisions back to another defensive line anchored on a north-south river and then how to break up the anticipated Soviet spring offensive.

 

[fester]

Grande Terre, Keruelen Islands March 3, 1944

The Commadante entered the small hut. This was his exile. It was even worse than St. Helena could be. He had pressed too far and now he was being sent far away from any place of influence or power. The weather station would be his responsibility. It should have been the responsibility of a barely confident nor competent twenty four year old reservist who was not to be trusted with an infantry platoon. This was not where a professional, a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique should be on the eve of the liberation of his Homeland.

 

[fester]

Ishigaki, Japan March 4, 1944

The flame thrower tank jerked forward. A loud explosion signaled that an anti-tank round had been defeated by the armor on the front glacis. The tank platoon and the infantry company that were to be supported by the specialist tanks and an engineering platoon began to pour an ungodly amount of steel and lead up the hill. A minute later, American mortars began to drop a combination of smoke and high explosive shells on the area where a hint of smoke was seen. The attack slowly moved forward on the two small hills that overlooked the landing beaches and the Japanese Naval Air Service airfield that had been the primary objective of the first week.

By nightfall, the Marine battalion had succeeded in taking another four hundred yards of the hill complex. They were a third of the way done. Reinforcements slowly moved from the beach to the front line overnight to replace a ruined rifle company and to keep the push going. Once the hills were cleared, the rest of the landing force would have a secure northern flank and they would be able to dominate the flats of the island over the next week.

 

[fester]

Seattle, Washington March 5, 1944

SS John Sevier arrived at the docks. She had sailed from this city months ago loaded with ammunition and spare parts for the army that had landed in Luzon. She had taken the long swing around, first to Hawaii, and then Samoa and then through the Coral Sea before arriving at Darwin where a small convoy was formed. Half a dozen merchant ships escorted by a pair of Australian built minesweepers and a second hand Dutch destroyer brought her safely to Singapore. A larger convoy left that citadel ten days later with cruisers and destroyers as guardians to Palawan where a portion of her cargo was needed. Four days later, she headed to Subic Bay where her holds were emptied.

She then rode high at anchor for another week until a convoy was available for the journey back to Singapore. Tin, rubber, manganese and wood filled her cavernous holds. Eleven days after arriving she left again. This time, she was escorted by American warships that led her and seventeen other heaily laden merchant ships through the San Bernidino Straits. In those straits, a pair of gunboats claimed a submarine kill. The convoy lost the heavy escorts once they were two hundred miles east of Luzon but the gunboats and destroyer escorts stayed with them to Guam. There, she refueled and her crew swept a doubleheader in softball before her master took her back to sea to steam independently home. As she approached the Straits of Juan de Fuca, a wooden Coast Guard patrol boat led her through the minefields and past the boom defenses and into the port. Longshoremen were soon ready to unload the riches of the Orient from her hull even as her crew collected their earnings and made plans for an assault on the waterfront bars.

 

[fester]

Santa Fe, New Mexico March 7, 1944

Three men climbed out of the small twin engine transport plane. They had enough time for a bite to eat and a bathroom break before they needed to reboard for another four hours of flying over the desolate and beautiful nothingness of most of the state. Several more candidate sites needed to be at least glanced at for basic suitability before intensive, ground based surveys and inspections would be worthwhile. They had time. They had time today, and they had time in the future as the rest of the eggheads were very confident in promising that the package would not be delivered quickly, but also that there would be a delivery. They had to do this right as their program was costing the government the same as a new fleet or a brand new bomber. So, half an hour later and a few pints lighter, the men clambered aboard the transport and prepared to take more notes as the pilot wondered why he was flying tourists around the state for the first time in three years.

 

[fester]

Near Berlin, March 8, 1944

The Mosquito was flown by an elite crew. They were pathfinders that would guide the Main Force to the target. If they did their job well, most bombs would land within a reasonable yomp of their target and the lives lost among the crews would be a worthwhile trade. If they failed, they would be throwing away lives, aircraft, fuel, aluminium, and steel that was needed for the successful prosecution of the war.

Ahead of them a dozen other Mosquitos wove back and forth. They were independently hunting German night fighters. Little business was seen on the radar screens. The Americans had raided Berlin three times in the past five days. The day fighter squadrons had been smashed while the night fighters had been called up as an emergency reserve.
The Pathfinders usually had a more complex job as the navigators took precise star fixes and the radar screens were intensely stared at in order to find enough contrast of the city against a lake or a river. Tonight, they barely had to work. The city was afire and the pathfinders just had to lead the Main Force between the pyres and mark the untouched neighborhoods and factory complexes near the zoo for a full attack.

 

[fester]

Milan, March 9, 1944

A battery of 105's started to boom again. Off in the distance, he heard a quad-Browning anti-aircraft mount open up. The mobile AA gun had become extraordinarily valuable and sought out more often than the doc after a long leave. He heard half a dozen Shermans maneuver. Their tracks squealed and their engines roared. The cacophony of combat was overwhelming as he dismounted from his now still Jeep. The driver was busy fixing a squeak in the front axle. The assistant division commander entered the tent which was well a large Red Cross.

Over the next hour, he walked up and down the ward. Mainly he listened as young boys asked about their comrades, they asked if they were able to either go home or go back to their units. They asked if it was as bad as they feared. They asked if it was worth it. He could not answer that last question. He could tell them that the division was moving forward through the German rear guards. He could tell them that most of the Germany Army in front of them was running to the Alps. He could tell them that the center of Italian precision industry would see be denied to the German war machine. He could tell them all that, and it was correct, but he did not know if it was right.

Six hours later, a division from the Pennsylvania National Guard entered the line next to the Big Red One. They would be the spearpoint to seize the railyards. They would be the ones who would need to bleed through the impromptu fortresses that had been built among the ruins of the modern parts of the city. They would be the relief.