And it was the nearest one to him. One of the Arado reconbirds. They had a secondary bombing capability and could lift loads. Foreman curved in aft, staying away from the tail, the Arado was reputed to have two fixed rear 20 millimeter guns. Lead off from the nose, the Arado was turning but it wasn't agile enough and had left its turn late. A long burst now, Foreman saw the bright sparkle of his machinegun hits over the nose section and along the fuselage. Saw the plexiglass nose cave in, then flames start from the wingroots and engines. One of the twin engine pods peeled away and then the whole aircraft just vanished in a fireball.
There was another target just beyond him, one of the little bombers. They had no tail guns. Foreman closed in behind and squeezed a short burst. That was cheating, the pilot of the German aircraft had twitched at the last second and the burst must have gone just past his wingtip. The second time it happened, Foreman realized it wasn't a fluke, the guy knew what he was doing. He was eating up precious time as well. And ammunition, it was spooky the way the little Hs-132 seemed to slide away from the bursts. OK lets do this by the book. Foreman slowed slightly, dropping back and firing a quick burst while watching the tail controls. OK, the 132 was breaking right, he kicked his flivver right and fired a long sawing burst. Bright sparkles again as the 132 took hits all across its right wing and fuselage. He went in with hardly a splash.
And they were now dangerously near the carriers. The bird farms and their escorts would be putting out sheets of fire. Instructions were strict. Stay away from enraged warships. But the attack wasn't broken. Foreman didn't even think about it he just closed on the lead 132. OK so we start again. Short burst and - not that short. With something close to despair Foreman realized his guns had just run out. Some pilots loaded the last few rounds on the belts with tracer to warn of this but he'd never seen the point of advertising the fact he was defenseless. Still one thing left, get right on the guys tail, make him jink to avoid the .50s he thought would be coming and fly into the sea. This low, this fast, it just needed a mistake.
With interest, Foreman watched a outer section of wing with a tip tank attached spin away. A section of his wing and his tip tank spin away. He felt the Flivver lurch and start to roll to the left. Even as he watched, he saw his aircraft start to burn, flames shooting out from the smashed wing and belly. Time to leave. The ejector seat worked as advertised and he went up while his crippled Flivver went down. Major-league jerk as the parachute opened and a sickening smack as he hit the sea. Vest inflated as advertised, that was two things that worked, three if one included the American AA fire that had brought him down. The Government must be slipping. God, his back hurt.
Combat Information Center, USS Shiloh, CVB-41. Position 46.8 North, 4.6 West.
“They're coming in sir, raid count twenty. Bearing 90 degrees. We have four Flivvers intercepting”
Captain Madrick tried not to shake. This was bad, TF57.2 had been caught flat-footed. He watched the air battle on the plot with the enemy contacts vanishing off the screen. The Flivvers were doing well, going through the enemy formation like a well-disciplined buzz-saw. Seven, eight, nine down. Then came the sound of the triple A opening up. The rapid thumping of the three-inch fifties, thank God they had those with their proximity fuzes, not the older 40 millimeters. The slow crunches of the five inch 54s. That wasn't so good, when the CVBs were being designed somebody in the Navy had gotten scared about surface ship attack and replaced the old reliable 38s with the new 54s. The new guns were a lot better at anti-ship but fired and slewed slower than the handy little 38s. The Essex class were probably better off than he was now, but they weren't going for them. They were coming for him. The AA gunners were filling the sky, the bursts so dense that they were giving search radar echoes, messing up the air picture.
Then came the staccato rattles of the close-in guns. 20 millimeters. Last warning. Even deep in the bowels of the Shiloh, the howl as the German jets swept over caused cups to rattle. Or was it them? There was a deeper shaking as well, an ominous one. The lights in CIC went down then flicked back up again as the emergency generator kicked in.
“Clean sweep sir, we got them all.” Air Warfare's shout was triumphant.
Madrick wasn't so sure there was cause to celebrate yet. He'd seen the damage control board light up in one corner of the CIC. Something was wrong, how bad was it. He made it to Damage Control in record time.
“Initial reports coming in sir, We took five hits, all estimated to be thousand pounders. Two forward, three aft. One just under the foremost 5 inch L54, another landed short and hit us under the waterline.. Wait one sir. I have the team on that reporting in.
“Put it on speaker”
“DCT here sir, we have an unexploded thousand pounder here. Came through the side. Its flooding, we can't get to the munition until we stop it. We've got a flood boundary established but we need to get in.”
“Have you anything useless you can stuff in the hole?”
“Only Ensign Zipster sir.”
The CIC chuckled. Every ship had an Ensign who was a walking disaster. Madrick suspected there was a regulation somewhere about it. “Make it so.”
“I have a disposal team sir, on its way down there. Three hits aft, we're still getting reports on those.”
“What about those loaded Adies?”
“Some were unloaded, the hangar team pushed the others over the side when the alarms went off. CAG says if you don't approve, you can take it out of his pay. Hangars been hit hard lot of dead and wounded there. But the gas lines were inerted and everything closed down. Apart from that, we have strafing damage to the bridge and a fire amidships. We think it’s under control already. We're hurt sir, no hiding that but I wouldn't say the ship is in danger”
“Thank you DCO. Transmit the damage report to Admiral Spruance. AWO get a full account there also. I'm going to the bridge to see Admiral Newman. Oh, DCO, one question.
“Sir?”
“If we were hit fore and aft, why are we burning amidships?”
Flag Bridge, BB-57 South Dakota, North Atlantic
Admiral Spruance could read signals as well as anybody and he knew that these ones meant the end of his career. Oh, he might get a shore job, Public Relations perhaps or running a supply depot but that German strike had finished his career. It wasn't a hurt carrier that was doing for him. The Navy expected its ships to go in harm’s way and the cost was having them lost or damaged. But he'd screwed up badly. Royally. Disastrously. Idiot, Idiot, IDIOT He could see it clearly now. So clearly he knew he should have seen it earlier. It seemed so reasonable. Have the carrier groups out front, lined up to hurl their strikes. Keep his battleships as a support group behind. That way, if a threat developed, he could move the BBs with their immense AA firepower to support the threatened group. And it had worked. Up to now.
Adding the fifth group had set the scene. It had lengthened the Murderer's Row line just that little bit too much. Positioned centrally, his battleships couldn't get to the ends fast enough. Worse, there was too much space along the line so the groups weren't mutually supporting. So caught short, 57.2 had been on its own. And that was the other problem. Spruance knew he'd still been thinking in terms of piston engined aircraft, where threats took time to develop. But with jets, the threats developed much faster. It had been less than 30 minutes between Shiloh spotting the recon bird and the bombs hitting her. He'd completely underestimated that. And Shiloh had paid the price for his mistake.