Hey, everybody. Back with another chapter.
Let's get to it.
Chapter 36- Counter-Strike
On the bridge of the USS New Jersey, Admiral Halsey scans the horizon with his binoculars. It's now nearly midday, all his aircraft have returned to his carriers, and most of Spruance and Fraser's aircraft have returned.
But, Halsey knows the fight is far from over. Most of Yamamoto's carriers are still intact, although their air wings are depleted. Halsey knows that Yamamoto is likely going to send his aircraft after the Allied fleets. Because of that, Halsey has a hundred Hellcats patrolling over his ships, a little over half of his fighters. Meanwhile, the rest of his aircraft are stored securely on the hangar decks of his carriers. Although he knows the risk, Halsey has decided to go ahead and arm his bombers and fighters to attack Yamamoto's fleet again, trusting in his Hellcats and the anti-aircraft guns of warships to protect him. After receiving a message from Halsey about his status, Spruance and Fraser have followed his example and begun prepping their aircraft for a second strike.
In the skies over the Pacific, the Japanese strike force has separated into two forces. The first, much larger force is headed for the Third Fleet, comprised of 32 Zeros, 32 Judys, 20 Kates, and all Jills. The remaining aircraft are headed after the British Pacific Fleet. They are still miles out from visual range of their targets.
Meanwhile, aboard the New Jersey, Halsey is still watching the sky when one of his officers calls out, "Admiral, radar has picked up multiple contacts inbound 15 miles out. Bearing 250"
"Vector our fighters in that direction. Man all guns," Halsey orders.
Across the fleet, air raid alarms sound and men race to their guns as the Hellcats patrolling over the fleet turn in the direction of the incoming Japanese aircraft.
Among the Hellcats, Lieutenant Alex Vraciu, flying from the Lexington, scans the skies ahead of him. Vraciu, an experienced Hellcat pilot, has 5 kills to his credit from combat in the South Pacific, making him an ace. Vraciu is privately hoping to double that total today.
As the massive formation of Hellcats streaks away from the Third Fleet, Vraciu scans the skies ahead of him, looking for any sign of the incoming Japanese. Vraciu is eager for the chance at combat. He didn't get to go with the first strike, and is somewhat excited that the Japanese are now coming for the Third Fleet.
About 10 miles out from the outer edge of the fleet, the lead Hellcat pilot suddenly calls out over the radio, "Tally ho! Bogeys, dead ahead, 4 miles out!"
Vraciu looks ahead, now that they are out of the thinning clouds, and sees the Japanese strike force in the distance. Vraciu is very pleased to see that the highest flying Japanese planes are at least a thousand feet below his current altitude.
Vraciu and his wingman throttle up, accelerating to about 360 mph, pulling ahead of many of the other Hellcats. Vraciu and his wingman wait patiently until they're only about a third of mile in front of the Japanese formation, then nose over and dive towards the Japanese formation.
The Japanese have noticed some of the incoming Hellcats, but Vraciu and his wingman are not among the Hellcats they've seen. In their dives, Vraciu lines up on the lead of a pair of Judys, while his wingman lines up on the trailing Judy. At a distance of 800 yards, Vraciu squeezes the trigger, firing a two second burst. His rounds tear into the Judy and set it's fuel tanks on fire. A second later, rounds from Vraciu's wingman tear into the cockpit of the second Judy, killing it's pilot. The two Judys plummet from the sky.
The Japanese scatter as Vraciu and his wingman pull out of their dives to regain altitude. More Hellcats streak through the Japanese formation, downing 3 Zeros, 4 dive bombers, and 4 torpedo bombers.
The Japanese bombers go full throttle and streak towards the Third Fleet, most no longer even caring about getting home, just determined to hit the American ships. The remaining Zeros turn to attack the Hellcats. About half of the Hellcats focus on the Zeros while the others turn to follow the Japanese bombers.
Vraciu turns around to watch the battle developing below him. He decides to turn after the bombers. However, as he and his wingman turn to pursue the bombers, Vraciu spots a Zero below him that has managed to get on the tail of a Hellcat. Vraciu instantly switches priorities, noses over, and dives. Vraciu carefully lines up his guns and fires. The rounds impact precisely, ripping one of the wings off and sending the Zero spinning down.
The Hellcat that was in trouble turns hard to re-engage the Zeros while Vraciu and his wingman continue to pursue the bombers, which have by now put some considerable distance between them and the swirling dogfight between the Hellcats and Zeros. However, with the superior speed of the Hellcat, they are easily able to catch up to them.
However, by the time Vraciu and his wingmen catch up to the already depleted bomber force, the bombers are just 5 miles away and already starting to take fire from the fleet. Vraciu knows he now is in danger from friendly fire, but presses on, determined to get his third kill for the day.
Vraciu lines up behind a Judy. However, before he can even get close enough for a shot, the Judy disintegrates thanks to a 5 inch shell from an American destroyer. Vraciu quickly banks away to avoid getting hit by further fire.
Looking down, he sees the torpedo bombers low on the water, getting ready to drop their torpedoes. Vraciu decides they're an easier target, as they have less room to manuever, and dives to the attack.
Diving on a formation of Kates, Vraciu lines one up and fires. However, he almost immediately realizes he's diving too fast and pulls up while breaking away from the Kates so that he can circle around and make another run.
It doesn't take him long to make his turn, pulling out about 1,500 yards behind the torpedo bombers. Vraciu lines up behind the rear Kate and closes in, going about 80 mph faster than the Kate. Finally, at a distance of 1,000 yards, he squeezes the trigger. His bullets streak out all around the Kate. Several bullets tear into the tail and shred it to pieces. The Kate pilot quickly loses control of his fighter and nosedives into the sea.
Vraciu quickly moves on to another target. However, as he's firing at the Kate, a blast of anti-aircraft rocks his Hellcat. It's too close for comfort, and Vraciu breaks off his attack and pulls away to get himself out of harm's way, having scored few hits on the Kate. He inspects his fighter once he feels safe enough, but the damage is superficial.
Back on the Third Fleet, the bombers are now within range of 40 mm anti-aircraft guns on the destroyers and outer ring of cruisers, which quickly begin filling the sky with lead. The Japanese bombers, now down to just 30 planes after having been badly mauled by the Hellcats and whittled down further by fire from 5 inch guns from the destroyers.
Flak fills the sky as the bombers press on, a few brave Hellcats still pursuing them.
Down on the deck, the Kate that Vraciu had started firing at is more damaged than Vraciu thought. The pilot recognizes he's not going to get home, as he can see he's losing fuel. Looking ahead, he sees the destroyer USS Swanson up ahead. Screaming "Banzai!" he aims his Kate right at the Swanson. Despite anti-aircraft fire all around him, he holds steady. And in a matter of moments, the Kate slams into the bow of the Swanson.
The Kate and its torpedo quickly explode, engulfing the bow of the Swanson in a massive fireball. On several nearby ships, crewmen watched in stunned silence. The Kate hadn't looked that damaged. On the few occasions where Japanese pilots targeted ships with their planes, it was almost always after being badly damaged. Some crew wonder if this pilot was just suicidal from the beginning and was looking for a way out of everything
However, they try to refocus on the task at hand and continue firing on the approaching bombers. The fierce storm of anti-aircraft fire begins blowing one bomber out of the sky after another.
However, several bombers manage to get within range of the light cruiser USS Montpelier and drop their weapons. The Montpelier manages to avoid the torpedoes dropped against her, but takes a hit from a 550 pound bomb and a 1,000 pound bomb. One bomb explodes on deck, causing light damage, and the other explodes below deck, killing several crew and starting a fire.
Then, a Judy diving on the carrier Independence is hit by flak. Although it can still fly, the pilot decides he won't be able to make it back and dives for the carrier. Despite all the guns firing at him, he continues diving and then slams into the stern of the carrier. The plane explodes on the flight deck, spreading flames across it, and the bomb punches through the deck to explode on the hangar deck, destroying three parked Avengers and starting another fire.
From the bridge of the New Jersey, Halsey watches in shock as the Judy plows into the Independence. Then, he notices a Kate heading straight for the Alabama. The Kate's wing comes off from flak when it's less than a hundred yards away, but the rest of the plane impacts the Alabama's side. Thankfully, the explosion hardly scratches the battleship.
"*****! They're turning to suicide tactics!" Halsey says out loud. Even as he watches, the final Japanese bomber in the air dives on the cruiser Chester and smashes into the superstructure, causing heavy damage to the bridge.
Halsey looks up at the sky. The sky is still full of smoke from the flak and exploding airplanes, but all he can see are his Hellcats. Looking through his binoculars, he sees no sign of any plane besides Hellcats.
Halsey watches the sky for a few minutes before lowering his binoculars. He then calls out, without looking around at anyone, "Tell Mistcher to get that strike force in the air! Contact the Independence and find out how bad she got hit, but if she can launch planes at all, I expect 'em to. The Japanese just lost most of their air craft. Now let's sink their fleet!"
(British Pacific Fleet)
On the bridge of the Duke of York, Admiral Fraser ducks as a bomb from Judy lands in the water close to the ship and showers the deck with water. Glancing up, he sees one of his Seafires streak overhead after the Judy. The Seafire opens up with its machine guns and sets the Judy on fire. As the Judy spins out of the sky, the Seafire banks away to find another target.
At almost the same time the USS Swanson had been hit by the Kate, the second half of the Japanese strike force had been engaged by British fighters a few miles out from the fleet.
The British had done very well defending themselves. The Seafires and Martletts flying CAP over the fleet had destroyed about half of the strike force before it ever got within range. Anti-aircraft guns from his warships had mostly finished off the rest.
However, Fraser had also noticed suicide tactics being used. A seemingly undamaged Judy had dived into the destroyer Urchin, setting it afire and setting off it magazine. A burning Kate had tried to smash into the cruiser Norfolk, but missed. Fraser is very concerned about this, but thankfully only the Urchin had been hit by the Japanese attack.
Now, Fraser turns to one of his officers. "I want all of our bombers and fighters that went out the first time re-armed and re-fuelled. When Halsey contacts us, I want us to be ready to send everything we've got against those Japs," he says.
And, I'll end there.
So, the Japanese have finally begun using kamikaze tactics. Obviously, it hasn't caused much damage yet and is on a small scale, but I may include chapters with larger scale kamikaze attacks in the future.
Also, for those wondering, the pilot I focused on in this, Alex Vraciu, is a real pilot and was one of the Navy's leading aces in WWII.
Next chapter will show the build up for the next attack on the Japanese First Fleet. It should be up soon. Until it is, please leave a review and stay tuned!