“Admiral Nagumo, we are approaching Wake Island”, said Lieutenant Commander
Matsuda. Nagumo said nothing, and only stared off into the distance. Wake Island, a
small strip of sand in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and only used by the Pan
American aircraft as a stopover point on the way to the Philippines and China. But the
Emperor had declared war, and the General Staff decried that Wake must be taken, and
the Navy had complied.
The first force to try and take the island was the 7th Fleet, composed of old and small
ships. But with 2 light cruisers, 5 destroyers, and 3 transports, certainly they must be
triumphant over a garrison with only 6 5 inch naval cannon and 4 fighterbombers. But
they had not been. 2 destroyers had been sunk, nearly every other vessel damaged,
and not one man had been landed on the shore of the island.
The General Staff was furious, and decided to make an example of Wake. Now with
6 heavy carriers, 8 heavy cruisers, 12 light cruisers, and 40 destroyers, as well as 10
transports carrying 20,000 imperial marines, Wake would be crushed. But what was
that? It appeared to be water churning and boiling, as if there was a volcano there.
Nagumo got his field glasses and looked closer. More of the object, which was revealed
to be a warship, appeared through the spray. He identified the bridge, it’s three great
gun turrets. And then its stern where the name was, and as he did his blood ran cold.
“Fuchida, come look at this” he yelled. Fuchida came and looked through the binoculars.
His face turned the color of fish and he said “It can’t be, we sunk the Arizona at Pearl
Harbor.”
Nagumo watched in horror as the Arizona opened fire with her 14 inch guns. A salvo
immediately struck the Akagi and Kaga. Both ships had explosions and began to burn,
and then capsize. Then Zuikaku and Shokaku were struck. The heavy cruiser Mogami
tried to shield Soryu, but took a shell in the magazines. The explosion was titanic,
breaking glass on the bridge of the Hiryu, and throwing commander Fuchida off his feet.
Soryu took 2 salvos and was reduced to flaming wreckage on the sea.
Nagumo screamed out to heaven , “how could this have happened?” Then there was a
great flash, and then there was nothing at all.
Gunichi Mikawa maneuvered his cruiser Mikuma closer and asked his radio officer
what he had heard. “The carrier Hiryu radioed they were under attack, and then the
transmission stopped partway.” Mikawa thought, under attack by what. The American
Pacific Fleet was crippled, the British had no ships in the area, and neither did the
Dutch. So who. “Sacred Buddha.” Where the carrier group and its escorts had been,
there was now a sea of ships burning, exploding, and men in the water screaming and
on fire. The Mikuma managed to pull one man from the water, although he was badly
burned. Mikawa asked what had done this and the man screamed one word over and
over. “Arizona, Arizona, Arizona.” He screamed the words over and over until he threw
himself over the side. Mikawa turned to his aide and said “what did he mean.”
Major Devereaux watched as the Japanese fleet closed on Wake. He knew that it was
only a matter of time before they bombarded and landed men. He had been able to
throw back the first invasion fleet but this force was too powerful. His men were nearly
out of .50 caliber machinegun ammunition, and there were few shells for his 5 inch
coast defense guns. There were transports carrying enough men to overwhelm his
meager force. Then he looked up and to his amazement he saw U. S. Navy planes!
They came in low, and dropped torpedoes first on the transports. All of them took hits
and began to sink. Then came dive bombers which attacked the heavy cruisers. The
attack was devastating and 3 cruisers were burning when they left. After that Wildcat
fighters came in to strafe and bomb the destroyers. They then landed on Wake’s airfield.
Deavareax turned to his aide and asked “Tom, do you believe in miracles?”
Captain Callahan was asked by Admiral Kimmel, how the Arizona survived.
“Everyone thought that the Arizona was sunk at Pearl Harbor.” ‘’Well sir, that is a story.
And the beginning is in March, 1941. I was asked by Admiral Stark whether in my
opinion the battleship was still the queen of the battlefield and I told him she was not.
But I also said that the battleship’s strength was close in and long range firepower. The
battleship was still as lethal as it had always been. What had changed was the airplane,
and the aircraft carrier. The airplane could travel faster than any ship, and could strike
the battleship with lethal force, as had been proved at Taranto, where 26 W.W.I torpedo
planes neutralized 5 Italian battleships. The aircraft carrier could carry squadrons of
planes to engage naval forces far from any land or airfield. But the flaw of the aircraft
carrier was that it did not have close range firepower or good side and belt armor.
Normally this would not be a problem for an aircraft carrier, since they were kept in the
center of the fleet, and protected by other warships, so that the greatest threat to a
carrier was air attack, or submarines. But I had though of a way in which battleships
could destroy aircraft carriers. It would take three things: money, time, and the battleship
Arizona.
What we planed to do was to turn the battleship into a submarine. This would make
her safe from air attack. In case of war, she would be able to find an enemy fleet, sail
into the center of it and then open fire. Against cruisers and carriers this would be a
nearly foolproof plan. The only catch was if she were intercepted by enemy battleships.
This idea would give the battleship another lease on life. A submarines main weakness
was lack of surface firepower, and this idea would remedy it. So Admiral, now you know
half of the story. The other half is in the men who sailed her. And that, as they say, is
another story.
It begins with a man called John Drake. He was of no relation to the great English
sailor, but from the time he was a little boy he was fascinated by ships and the sea. He
read of the great ages of navies, from the Greeks, to the Romans, and the muslim
fleets. He read of Lepanto, and of Drake, and Nelson, and was entranced by them. He
studied the age he was in now, of submarines, of destroyers and cruiser, and of
battleships. He was impressed by battleships, but studied all of their aspects, ad
realized the weakness that would make them obsolete as they were then.
He went to Annapolis, and graduated 3 in his class, and within 2 years went to war.
He was an observer when the Italians sank the dreadnought Svent Istvan. He saw
firsthand that torpedoes were deadly to battleships. This made him think of way’s to
change the way battleships deployed. He then thought of submarines. But the war
ended, and Germany lost. But in the way that Germany was treated, Drake saw that
there was opportunity for a demagogue to enflame the people to war again. Germany
was humiliated, and the German spirit was such that to blame defeat on their own
vainglory and arrogance was impossible. So another enemy had to be found. Drake
realized that Germany would rise again. And his efforts to redesign the battleship in the
era of the submarine and airplane took fever pitch.
He was also an observer in China, where the Japanese were conquering everything
around. He saw part of the Rape of Nanking firsthand. It was like nothing the world had
seen since the Middle Ages, or the sack of Rome. A city destroyed, with every male
person killed, the children as well, and the women used as pleasure slaves. Drake made
up his mind that there was nothing that the Japanese would not do to advance their own
power and wealth. He saw that they talked of Asia for Asians, but really meant Asia for
the Japanese. Drake knew that such policies could only lead to war. And that any war
over Asia would involve the United States.
He went to general McArthur first, saying that the pacific theater was in danger in the
event of a war with Japan, but McArthur told him that he had nothing to worry about,
and that the Japanese would never attack anywhere but the Philipines. And, he said,
they would be stopped on the beaches if they chose to come. Drake knew that McArthur
was wrong, but saw he could not convince him. He went to naval officer after naval
officer, telling of his fears, but no one believed him. He came to be known, because of
his name and message, as “the raven.” Finally he came to the President, and
Roosevelt believed him.
With the President’s help he was able to get scientists and naval strategists together
and try and find a solution to the problem of the torpedo and the battleship. The group
met for months, and finally it came up with a solution. The battleship above water was a
target too good to be missed by aircraft and submarines, as well as torpedo boats and
destroyers. That was why they decided to take the battleship from one theater of battle,
where it was vulnerable, to another where it was not. From being able to sink a
battleship without much trouble, it became invincible again. Not because of armor, but
because of stealth. What cannot be seen, cannot be hit, and thus cannot be destroyed.
And a battleship redesigned this way would be impossible to see unless it wanted you to
see it. And then you would be dead.
It took nearly 2 years and tens of thousands of dollars, but the prototype vessel
worked, and from there it would take much less to modify existing battleships. Drake
and his team went to work immediately on several warships. The tests were successful,
and then only real action could tell. Pearl Harbor happened, and it seemed that the
Arizona, California, and West Virginia were sunk, but really they dived, and steamed
west to take the war to the enemy. Drake had been proven right, and now all that
remained was to sail and wait for the enemy to commit his fleets and transports.
The Japanese cruiser force was closing on the allied squadron, and were nearly
within gun range when lookouts from the bridge of the command cruiser Chikuma
spotted something. The sea churned and revealed a bridge,gun turrets, a hull ? It
revealed a battleship, and the cruisers fled, but it was no use. The main guns roared,
and captain Suboshi’s last orders were to send a message to the fleet, saying that
battleships that were believed sunk were actually operating freely under the sea.
Yamamoto looked at the report and blanched, and asked his aide, is this true! 6
carriers, 12 heavy cruisers, 20 light cruisers, and 25 destroyers. How could this be? The
aide said one thing “battleships”. Yamato face grew red and said “but all of the American
battleships have been destroyed at Pearl Harbor.”
“That is what we believed, but that must be a ruse.” “But how this ruse was carried
out and achieved I could not say.” Yamamoto though about this, and realized that the
only way that such a stratagem could be achieved and carried out would be with a lie to
their own people. Yamamoto realized then that victory for Japan could not now be
achieved.
The sun rose over Europe, and it brought with it a warship, with its standard the
eagle. Over Germany men and women looked up and were afraid. They were terrified of
the flying warship and justly so. The warship flew on until it had reached Poland, and
then the camp of Auswitcz. There the warship opened fire with its secondary armament,
shelling guard towers, barracks, and the ovens. It landed marines to ensure that all the
Germans were dead. When all the Jews had gotten out on captured vehicles or on the
warship, the ship opened fire on the camp with her main batteries. 16 inch shells
screamed in, blowing holes in walls and starting fires. In 30 minutes, all that was left of
that hell camp was fire.
All across Europe the same thing happened to concentration camps and work camps.
Rail yards were smashed and trains blown up, and supply depots destroyed or captured.
Paris was encircled by the warships, and supplies of arms dropped to the maquis. The
German garrison surrendered soon after, and 3 divisions were flown to England and
captivity. All resupply efforts failed, as they had at Stalingrad, and that ended the battle.
A battle squadron was dispatched to attack Rommel in North Africa, and it suceeded in
routing the vaunted Africa Korps. The retreat continued until the Axis forces discovered
a blocking force of infantry and armor, protected by two flying cruisers, the Los Angeles
and Boston. After a abortive attack in which the Africa Korps lost 300 tanks to the 8 inch
naval rifles of the cruisers, Rommel surrendered. It was a terrible blow for the German
army. And it was soon followed by other defeats. The Japanese army in China was cut
off from resupply, and got into a a battle she could not win.