B00DSDUWIQ EBOK (32 page)

Karpov
looked at Nikolin, a sallow expression on his face.

“Tell
him I am going to hit the Americans here,” he was still looking at the tactical
board as he pointed. “On their right flank.” Tell him that we will begin the action
ourselves, and assign him his targets. I have moved the KA-226 to a position to
allow us to better identify what we are shooting at. I’m going to punch a hole
in their line right here, and sink whatever I have to in order to do so. Signal
Admiral Golovko
that they should keep their helos aloft on active ASW
watch. Go to active sonar. I want no surprises.”

“Very
well, sir.”

Rodenko
was watching the long range radar returns now, noting the refresh of the screen
as the system updated at intervals. Then he experienced a thrum of anxiety, for
he saw what looked like a definite concentration of smaller contact returns to the
south. His radar man saw it as well and turned to report, but Rodenko raised a
hand, silencing him. He would deliver the bad news himself.

“Captain,
I believe I have long range returns on air units forming to the south.”

He
saw Karpov’s eyes shift quickly to him from the tactical board. The Captain licked
his lips, as though he were very thirsty, needing water and sustenance. His
right hand strayed to his brow, and he rubbed a spot above his eyebrow. There
was no clasping of his hands behind his back this time. His chin was not elevated
and his eyes seemed dark and smoldering, not bright and alive as Rodenko had
often seen him in combat. There was no instruction to begin a log entry to
commence the action, with all the drama Rodenko remembered when they had
engaged the battleship
Yamato
. Karpov had the look of a man who was about
to fight his last great battle, confident but wary and burdened by a strange
feeling of presentiment, like Napoleon at Waterloo. There was just a moment’s
hesitation, and then he spoke, his voice low, yet firm.

“Mister
Samsonov. P-400s. Long range barrage in two batteries of eight. We are going to
spoil their party.”

“Aye,
sir. Keying targets and ready to fire.”

“How
many will that leave us?”

“Sixteen
on the P-400s, sir.”

“Sixteen?
Oh yes… We fired half the entire inventory against the Americans in 2021. We’ll
use the remainder now in 1945, and hit them before they have the slightest inkling
of any danger. Perhaps we can pluck this weed out by the root this time, before
it flowers.”

A
last whisper of recollection came to Karpov now. It was Volsky speaking to Doctor
Zolkin just after he had laid out his plan of attack against the British.

“I
told you this man was one of the best tactical officers in the fleet, Doctor.”

“Yes,”
said Zolkin
. “He has the
bravery of being out of range. It’s very comfortable—but just a little a bit
devious at the same time.”

 Yes,
just a little bit devious, thought Karpov. What else should one expect from a Fallen
Angel?

Chapter 32

The
line swept north for two long
hours, covering just over 50 nautical miles in that time. Halsey had three
radar pickets out in front of the main skirmish line, but they were having fits
with their radars. So the orders went out to man every weather deck and crow’s
nest with eyes, and it was down to binoculars again, and the hope of a clear
horizon.

Destroyer
escort
Fox
was out in front, making 30 knots as she raced north. The seas
had been heavy behind them, driven by the gales of a budding typhoon to the
south, but now the wave sets were lower, swells evening out, skies clearing ahead.
Named for a gallant Marine Lieutenant, the
Myles C. Fox
, DD-829, was a
latecomer to the war, a
Gearing
class boat that had been fitted out with
the latest radars for picket duty. She arrived in mid-August just after hostilities
had ceased.

Commander
John S. Fahy was at the helm, a bit rattled over the fact that none of his radar
equipment was in working order. He had come over from USS
Gillespie
, DD-609,
where he saw action in the Solomons and Peleliu campaigns, so he was no stranger
to combat. The screens were clouded over, and he quickly deduced the enemy must
be jamming them.

“They’re
close, Pem,” he said to his XO Pemberton Southard. “I can feel it. Double up on
the lookouts. I can smell a good fight coming, and soon.”

“Aye,
sir.” Southard was a competent man who was just a little disappointed that the ship
was late to the action in the Pacific. The Japanese had surrendered when they
were off Wake Island, and he boasted it was because they knew the
Myles C.
Fox
was coming. He didn’t quite know what to make of the rumor that they were
up here looking for Russians now, and that broiling mushroom cloud northwest of
their position that morning was an ominous and disheartening thing to watch.
All the men on the bridge were tense and alert. They could sense trouble coming
too.

Ensign
Pine was the first to make a report. “Look to starboard, sir. Lookouts report a
contrail.”

Commander
Fahy had his binoculars up just in time to see it. Something descending from a bank
of clouds and diving for the sea. It was coming right for the ship and he immediately
gave the order hard left and ahead full for an evasive turn. The ship had
plenty of boiler power in reserve for the sudden burst of additional speed, but
the missile could not be fooled by such a rudimentary maneuver. It bored in and
struck the destroyer flush on the forward deck behind the number one gun mount,
setting her afire with a shuddering impact.

Fires
broke out in the passageway around number two upper handling room, in the
forward officer's room, the anchor windless room, and on the number one gun
mount itself. The Forward Repair Officer and half of initial repair party on
the scene were killed or wounded by secondary explosions. Fahy was on the handset
immediately ordering additional damage control crews forward. There they found
a ruptured fire main and began to rig out new hoses from fireplugs on the main
deck to fight the flames.

The
enemy was close, alright. Commander Fahy had the presence of mind to sight down
the line of approach of the missile and send off a good estimate of the ship’s bearing
relative to his own position. The contrail had also been sighted by a second
destroyer picket,
Chevalier
, and together the two ships began to triangulate.
Ten minutes later they thought they had a good idea where the enemy was. It
wasn’t enough to sent a “ship sighted” message, but Fahy insisted the
information be passed on to Halsey on the
Missouri
.

It
cost them seven dead and thirty-two injured, and
Fox
was forced to fall off
the line and retire after her first salt drenched smell of gunpowder, but Halsey
had what he wanted. He knew where the enemy was and he was pouring on the
speed. The word went out on the wireless to all ships in the line, and soon they
were altering course to intercept based on a presumption that the enemy was
still headed east.

They
were correct.

* * *

The
last of the
Helldivers
were spotted
and ready for takeoff on the Big T, with something under its modified fuselage
that looked very strange. Aviation Ordnanceman Julian Lowry was still scratching
his head over the device, a fat 1700 pound bomb with wings! It had a big round
nose that was crammed with gizmos, or so he had heard, though he never got a
look inside.

“This
thing like those Jap missiles?”

“Hell
no,” said Boatswain’s Mate Rod Madison. “They stick some dumb ass in theirs and
fly them like Kamikazes. Not like ours,” he pointed. “That sucker has its own radar.”

“What
do you know about it, Boats?”

“We
were working the decks in the lower munitions hold when they brought the damn thing
in. I heard the briefing. It’s got radar in there, I tell you. That’s why they
call it a bat.”

Madison
was correct. They were looking at one of the world’s first “Smart Bombs,” named
the ASM-N-2 BAT, (Mark 9). It was an amazing development by RCA, Western Electric
and other talented engineering firms, deployed and tested for the first time in
April of 1945 off Borneo where it sunk a couple Japanese merchant ships and
damaged the escort ship
Aguni
from a firing range of 20 nautical miles.
The first true “fire and forget” anti-ship weapon, over 3500 were built and
deployed on numerous aircraft from bombers to seaplanes to the versatile
Helldivers
.
The $700 million investment in the weapon was exceeded only by the Manhattan
project. Clearly the Americans had seen what these rockets and radar guided
weapons could do, and they were hot to deploy their own.

It
had been a long time in development, with numerous models by various names
designed before this model achieved success. The problem of how to guide a
special weapon to the target was a daunting one first tackled by the Germans
with their Fritz X, a glide bomb that was actually radio controlled and guided
by a crewman in the bomber it was dropped from. The US wanted to use a bomb
with its own radar instead, though one group argued it could easily be defeated
by jamming and suggested a wacky, yet novel approach. They fixed a lens in the nose
of the bomb that would project an image of the target ship onto a white screen.
There, tucked away inside the nose of the bomb, they placed a pigeon trained to
peck at the image, which generated signals from the sensitive wired screen that
would serve to reorient the bombs air foils to correct the missile’s flight
path! Needless to say, the radar advocates won the day.

“They
say the Russians have guided rockets,” said Lowrey. “Spooked some of the pilots
pretty bad last time up.”

“Yeah?
Well take a good look, Lowrey. We’ve got the damn things too.”

“Did
you see that big Russian bomb this morning?”

“Yeah,
I saw it. We’ve got one too.”

“How
you know all this, Boats?”

“You
think they got something
we
don’t have yet? Get a clue, Lowrey. We had to
ship the Russkies trucks and planes for years. If they have it, then we’ve got
it too.”

The
plane was loaded and on the flight line now, and the lucky man in the cockpit that
day was Rod Bains. Signalman Bill Tomko was handling the flags as the engine
revved up, and he was ready to wave the plane off when someone pointed at the
sky. He craned his neck to have a look, first seeing the thick flights of
Hellcats
overhead as they formed up for the big strike run up north. Then he saw what
Lowrey and the Boatswain’s mate were jaw-boning about, thin white streaks in the
sky, coming in so fast he could hardly believe what he was seeing. The rockets
ripped into the dense formations overhead with booming explosions. He saw three
planes go up with the first fireball, their flaming remnants falling from the
sky like wounded angels.

 The
Russians had pigeons too.

“Holy
crap! Will you look at that! Where are they coming from?”

The
skies overhead were soon a wild melee of wheeling aircraft and more missiles came
streaking in from the north, eight in all. The signalmen gaped at the scene,
their unbelieving eyes transfixed as the rockets exploded, one by one. There
was something wrong about it, something unfair, like a boxing match where the
two fighters were standing face to face with the referee and one man snapped a
sharp jab at the other fellow before the bell even rang. The formations
overhead were broken up and wheeling in all directions now, like angry bees.

Once
the shock and amazement abated there was also palpable anger on the flight deck.
Lowrey shook a fist at Bains, as if to urge him to go get some well deserved
revenge. Bill Tomko was fired up and he snapped his flags back up pointing the
way forward to the nose of the ship.

“Come
on Bat Man, go get the sons-of-bitches, will ya?” With a snap of his arm the
Helldiver
was on its way, the Bat Bomb cradled under its fuselage and off to war.

Then
the flying fish came in, and everything was chaos again. Someone pointed off the
port side of the ship. “Hey, look out! More of them rockets coming in fast!”

Gunner’s
mate Benny Benson barely got a look at them, three flying fish skimming low over
the sea in the distance, leaving frothy white tails behind them as they raced
in. Two veered off and he got a good side view for a second as they sped towards
the light carrier
Monterey
, the third was headed right for Big T, and it
came in with a roar and wallop unlike anything he had ever heard. A brilliant
orange fireball lit up the port side of the ship, and the missile blasted
through the thin side armor, plunging inside to the maintenance bays. It was
lucky that all the planes were mostly in the air. The Bat Man was the last off
the deck, his
Helldiver
laboring up with its heavy load.

Bains
looked over his shoulder, saw
Ticonderoga
burning, and set his jaw tight,
then wagged his wings in farewell, a signal that set the everyone on the flight
deck cheering him on. At least twenty angels had fallen from the sky when the
lightning fast rockets caught them in their tightly packed formations. Now all
bets were off. The rest of the strike package was dispersing like a flight of
scattering birds, flying off in all directions and altitudes as they had been
told in the pre-flight briefing. The rockets would not find them huddled together
again, and soon they were all heading north.

* * *

Karpov
was after the carriers first. He had pegged
their positions with the long range AEW radars on the KA-226. Samsonov fired a
salvo of eight P-400 missiles at each carrier group, hoping to catch the air
formations early and hurt them. The eight missiles that had shaken up the
Sprague’s group took down over twenty planes, and he had similar results
against the Halsey group carriers. But the allies were getting cagy now. They immediately
began dispersing their carriers at high speed, making each one an individual
target instead of steaming them in a centralized task force. Each had an escort
of two destroyers, particularly after three P-900s found
Ticonderoga
and
Monterey
, the latter hit badly by two missiles.

The
blow changed all future history, at least in one respect, in a way that Karpov would
never know. The General Quarters Officer of the Deck on
Monterey
was Gerald
R. Ford, later to become the Vice President in Richard Nixon’s administration,
and eventually the 38th President of the United States. He was once fated to be
the longest lived president in US history, reaching the age of 93 years and 165
days, but all that was changed in a hot flash of fire and smoke from a
Sizzler.
The General Quarters OOD didn’t make it off
Monterey
alive.

It
was shaping up to be a battle of attrition at first. The salvos against the carrier
groups had expended all but one of
Kirov’s
P-900s. Only the number ten
missile remained, and it was mounted with a ‘special warhead.’
Kirov
still
had seventeen
Moskit-IIs
nine MOS-III
Starfires
, and that last
remaining P-900. The other ships in the flotilla could contribute another thirty
missiles. The only question he had now was whether they could sufficiently
disable the American combat power with limited conventional weapons, or whether
they would be forced to resort to stronger measures.

As
the action proceeded Karpov finally began to take the full measure of his foe. The
Americans were not going to back down. They were going to persist with this attack
with everything they had at their disposal, just as the British had. Wouldn’t I
do the same, he thought? Shouldn’t I do the same now? I’m letting the ghosts of
Volsky and Fedorov convict me here, and Zolkin was no help either. This is war
now—yes, a war of my own making, but war nonetheless.

He
turned that over in his mind, and made an inner resolution. If he could not retain
sufficient combat power to insure future operations, he was a good as dead, the
ship sunk, and this whole thing over. Before he would let that happen he would
show the Americans that his massive shot across the bow was no bluff. Yet given
the deployment he was now facing he realized they might easily punch through
the American battle line with conventional weapons and head out into the
Pacific.