USS Moondragon (SS 258C)
When last we left LCDR Oscar E Moosbreger of the USS Moondragon, he has just finished/bungled a torp-ex against the practice target HIJMS Kaga, which he finally sinks at approximately 02°08′S 156°50′E. The events that follow after that little escapade bear a little explanation. First on LCDR Moosbreger’s headache generator list is that ENS Barry “Barnacles” O. Pulliver (signals) reports that the buoy ejector, that is supposed to launch the recorder/message/radio buoy with the joyful recorded message to COMSOPAC and to TF61 Actual that Kaga is now an ornament at the bottom at the southeast end of the East Caroline Basin, cannot be used because when the Hei shelled the USS Moondragon, one of her 15.2 cm shells must have exploded close enough to the signal ejector that the explosion damaged it and jammed the outer door closed. USS Moondragon would have to risk a direct report over the radio to higher headquarters. LCDR Moosbreger could just imagine how RADM Arthur Schuyler Carpender would react to that violation of standing orders.
ENS Pulliver also brings the good news that zebra traffic has come in over the radio asking “Where the h-ll are you, Gunther?” from Tulagi, which just happens to be USS Moondragon’s radio call sign for this Disney operation. It cannot be USS Mooneye to whom the one way query is addressed, because LCDR Azer’s lucky boat is radio-call-signed “Brunehilda”. LT(s.g.) Howard Cushman (weapons officer), follows soon after. He conveys the happy news that the forward torpedo room leaks. The repairs made on the forward tubes at Brisbane, from the sneeze job with which the USS Moondragon damaged herself (ENS Pulliver’s recommendation if the reader remembers, McP.), during the Philippine Islands Spyron debacle, the incident with the train ferry, Cebu City, when she plowed herself into the silt nose-first off Guimaras Island at the 20 meter line, must not have held up in service. That !7 June 1942 had been a bad day. Here it is 26 August 1942; another Wednesday and the USS Moondragon is in danger of sinking again. That is only 73 days between incidents. For LCDR Moosbreger, that adds up to one thing. If, and that is a big if, they can make it back to Canopus II at Tulagi and patch up the bow tubes and then proceed to a proper sub tender at either Brisbane or Suva, it will mean another Board of Inquiry and possibly a court martial.
A Zebra requires an immediate answer, so LCDR Moosbreger authorizes a coded sit-rep at when they surface at 2030 hours. “No more than 30 seconds." he reminds ENS Pulliver. "The enemy has huff duff and radar. He can find us.”
To LT(s.g.) Howard Cushman, he says; “I’m giving you one hour to patch the leaks on the outer doors with tar and to find out how the inner door gaskets failed. You READ ME, Mister?” Cushman, who thought he was safe after the last two torpedoes kayoed Kaga, is disabused of that notion. If Moondragon Actual is going to Portsmouth on Articles 98, 108 and 110, and of course Article 134-42 - then Cushman will be wearing prison khakis in the cell next to him.
So, under clouds more metaphorical than the real ones which rain on poor USS Moondragon, her crew conducts post-battle repairs on the night of 26-27 August, under the delusion that they are in the doghouse again, fueled by the scuttlebutt that their senior officers are headed for the breakers, and they are a marked “bad luck” boat.
RADM Arthur Schuyler Carpender
The rear-admiral has no idea what is going on in the Eastern Solomons, this day of 26 August. He has been summoned by SWPOA himself, to the AMP building in downtown Brisbane, also known as MacArthur’s Mausoleum, so that is rather bizarre. “His” submarines are in desperate combat in support of TF 61 as the US fleet tries to beat back the latest IJN effort to retake Guadalcanal. The reports when he left, forwarded from MGEN Brett, (That brasshat's USAAF fliers sure love their radios.), had not been too good. SOPac, on the other hand, talks not a jot or Morse dot at all. Silence is all that comes from Noumea and the forward base at Efate. Carpender cools his heels outside MGEN Richard Sutherland’s office for most of the afternoon while the sun travels across a clear cool Brisbane sky. It is WINTER down here, for Murphy’s sake. Of course up there near the equator, everyone still gets the tropical treatment. Carpender still sweats too much in the cool dry building.
Finally out comes MGEN Sutherland. He glad-hands RADM Carpender and ushers him into his office. Being glad-handed by the cold clammy-handed MacArthur “fixer” is never a good sign and Carpender’s hackles rise as he senses some danger afoot.
It comes quickly. “Leary is out.” announces Sutherland. “You take over in two weeks.”
Carpender responds; “That is a Navy decision. MacArthur does not have the…”
Sutherland grins his puffer fish smile, the kind a Maryland politician or used car salesman or mob boss would use when he assures his latest victim that he is that person's best friend and avows to Carpender, “Ever since he ____ __ Coral Sea, we’ve been working with Washington to move that ______ out, and put someone who knows what the chief wants, in. You are that guy. Don’t disappoint us, Carpender, get me?”
RADM Carpender gets him, just fine.
VADM Herbert Fairfax Leary
VADM Leary bogies on Hole 11 at the Saint Lucia golf course. He has a gaggle of staff and aides with him as he is in a “gentleman’s”^1 game with Captain
John Collins. An Australian RAN rate drives a jeep onto the green, which is simply not done, not even in wartime. The rate leaves the jeep, runs up to the American admiral and the Australian captain. He salutes them both, looks at the sealed envelope he carries in his hand, then hands it to CAPT Collins with another salute, hurries back to his jeep and takes off at a good clip, retreating the way he came, plowing fresh furrows in the manicured green.
^1 They are gambling, $ 20 USD a hole or £ 4.95 pounds sterling.
CAPT Collins hands it over to Herbert Leary, who is a good friend and tells him; “You can open it, if you like, but they’ve given you the ax, the way they gave it to Crace. And for about the same reason, I’m afraid.”
VADM Leary’s face turns beet red. “You knew?”
Collins shrugs; “I helped them do it, old boy. We have a war to win, and you are losing it. If it helps, ADM Sir
Guy Royle should be getting his knife at the NHQ at about this time, too. Got to move Crutchley in his spot, for the good of the war.” What Collins does not tell Leary, is that Crutchley will not be CNS. That is the spot Collins has his eye upon. MacArthur, the final ultimate author of all these little shenanigans, has his eye on the USAAF, too, but that can wait until October. Right now, it is the Navy that he wants to fix his way.
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What MacArthur does not know is that FADM King has his own ideas. It will take a couple months to gel, before “the Chief” understands this little monkey wrench; but you know what they say about the Army Navy game and Carpenders who build shabby houses?
As for Admiral Robert L. Ghormley?
He has seen better days.
The Bull
Halsey and Ghormley are friends. ADM Nimitz sends VADM Halsey out to SoPAC to investiogate why VADM Ghormley has the trouble he has, after the results of the Battle of the Eastern Solomon Islands percolate in. The medical problems Ghormley suffers with the teeth come out, and so does the command mess that VADM Ghormley makes of things, but Nimitz is not the beast that either MacArthur or King is. He has room for compassion. He is a friend, too. He will find a gentle way to ease Halsey in and send Ghormley home for the health care he needs. "Exhaustion" will be the excuse.
VADM Frank Jack Fletcher
He's having a better war than he has any right to expect. ADM King thinks he is gutless, but that is alright. Who else can claim five enemy aircraft carriers sunk so far, or three naval battles won? Frank is a terrible golfer. He never learned the game...
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As for the Japanese?
Chūichi Nagumo (南雲 忠一
Nagumo Chūichi)
VADM Chuichi Nagumo would in the RTL and in this ITTL continue to command the 3rd Fleet long enough for the USN to ding him again. He will wind up where many of the IJN admirals who "do not do as well as hoped" migrate. He will command the Sasebo Naval district for a few months before he is sent to the Kure Naval District to park until IGHQ can find a face saver assignment.
Finally he returns to First Fleet (Now reduced to a shore based training command.). He administers it okay, but he is not outstanding at it. he has no resources and he has no able staff officers like the liar Fuchida or the incomparable Genda, so one can consider his tenure there to be an ultimate mission as he fails to replace pilot cadres the Americans will kill during CAETWHEEL.
As a reputation restorative, Nagumo requests and is given the 14th Air Fleet in the Marianas Island to command. It is there on Saipan that he will die when Spruance comes for him. The Marines will find him in his command cave where he dies honorably by his own hand of a pistol shot to the right temple on 6 July 1944 (RTL). ITTL he putts for par, far sooner.
Isoroku Yamamoto (山本 五十六
Yamamoto Isoroku)
Isoruku Yamamoto remains a controversial figure. In many respects he is very much the hero to the Japanese in the Pacific War, with his stature cemented by the extraordinary efforts that his American enemies exert to put an end to him. "They fear him." seems to be the coda and the logic for this hero worship. But when one reads what this man does, what he decides and what the results are, one almost comes away with the impression that he is Japan's Robert E. Lee; a gambler who repeatedly and recklessly overestimates his odds and bets it all on a known losing hand and then is astounded when the odds bite him as they must. At least, like Lee At Gettysburg, when he commits his greatest blunder at Midway, he is honest enough to tell his men after the disaster unfolds: "I will apologize to His Majesty." which is quite un-Japanese for admitting; "It is all my fault." Truly it is laudable to take the blame, but would not a bit of pre-battle caution and humility have served his reputation better in the RTL? It is as much his arrogance that rejects the pre-battle wargame results, the tabletop exercises that replicate MI, that predicts the Midway disaster. He is the one who twice rejects VADM Nagumo's well-founded warnings that the plan: as finalized; is too complex, the forces too dispersed and timing envisioned that is flawed. We like to blame Nagumo for losing the First Air Fleet, but it is really whose fault? Isoruku Yamamoto's plan, his orders, his concept of operation, his mistake, it is.
One
1st LT Rex T. Barber in the RTL does Yamamoto a favor, before the later war piles up Yamamoto's mistakes to the mountain range size that they truly are. In this ITTL, we shall see if something else happens?
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This guy...
In about ten days...
That is Holland Park Military Hospital Brisbane; Australia.
The thing is, he will be there for about six weeks, this ITTL, learning how to stump around on a new tin leg. You can imagine the "love" he will feel for the Japanese.
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HIJMS Mutsu... T minus 100 days and counting.
USS Moondragon…. T minus 13 days from Brisbane and counting.
