Nagasaki sighed before responding, “Sir, the transports are already moving ahead of the fleet as we speak; they will be docking in the ports within the next three hours. Once they are in the port, we can turn the fleet to join the PLAN after they have offloaded their invasion forces.” As he spoke, the Captain resigned himself to the fact that they were going to have to fight the US navy toe-to-toe and hope for the best.
Suddenly, one of the action officers walked towards their little group and announced, “Sir, one of the destroyers has detected an American submarine in the area and is engaging it. The sub apparently fired off a series of torpedoes at the transports and one of the cruisers….”
Their jaws hit the floor in genuine surprise.
On my Mark, Engage
Captain Hughes had guided the USS Utah as close to the path of the JDF transports as possible without giving away his position. Their goal was to fire a spread of torpedoes at the transports and get a shot off at the Japanese cruiser guarding them. Those transports were bringing troops, tanks and other material to support their ground forces in LA; if the Utah could send a few of them to the bottom, then maybe they could give the ground forces a better fighting chance of repulsing the invasion.
Looking at his XO, Captain Hughes said, “Commander Mitcham, do we have a firing solution yet on those ships?”
Receiving a nod from his weapons officer, Commander Mitcham replied, “Sir, we have four torpedoes targeting the freighters, one each. The other two are targeted at the guided missile cruiser escorting them. We are ready to fire when you give the order,” he said nervously.
The tension in the air was immense; once they fired their weapons, the Japanese would know where they were. Their sonar technicians had already detected two enemy submarines in the area, in addition to the five destroyers with the Japanese fleet and the rest of their anti-submarine helicopters. The chances of them surviving this attack were slim, and they all knew it. They also knew they had a duty to try and stop the enemy troops from landing in America, if at all possible.
Looking at the men and women manning the Con, the captain could see fear in their eyes, but also anger and determination to avenge their fallen brethren. Captain Hughes steeled his own nerves and ordered, “Fire all tubes!”
“Tubes one through six are firing! One, two, three, four, five, six. All tubes fired. Torpedoes are tracking their targets,” one of the sailors said as he read off the times to impact.
Without missing a beat, the Captain yelled, “Chief of the Boat, take us down to five hundred feet! Launch the decoy now and get us out of here!”
As the Utah began to dive, they deployed their submarine decoy, which was essentially a large torpedo that was designed to sound just like the Utah at a higher rate of speed. This would make it appear to the enemy sonar operators that the Utah was trying to flee the area. If all went well, they would go after and attack the decoy and the Utah would be able to slip away to fight another day.
Within a minute, several enemy torpedoes were in the water heading towards the decoy. Just as the men of the Utah thought they might have escaped, a Chinese submarine who had been monitoring the area spotted the Utah as she descended to below 500 feet. The Chinese sub was less than 5,000 meters away from the Utah when they fired two torpedoes at nearly point blank range. The Utah was still reloading her own torpedo tubes, so they were unable to fire back. Within two minutes, the Chinese torpedoes zeroed in on their mark and struck the Utah, imploding her hull and killing everyone on board.
Another Beach Invasion
Corporal Chang had recovered from his wounds during the beach invasion of Anchor Point and was once again back with his old unit. He had also been promoted to Sergeant and now commanded the entire platoon, along with a lieutenant who had just been assigned to their company. Word had it they were going to be the lead element landing on the beach near the Marine Base, Camp Pendleton. Chang had never fought the American Marines before. He fought the American Army soldiers in Alaska, and they were tough as nails. He had been told the Marines fight like devils. He thought that hard to believe because the Americans he fought in Alaska fought like men possessed, and they were Army soldiers. If the Marines were supposed to be tougher, then he was not sure he wanted to meet them.
As their ships approached the coast of California, they received the order for them to suit up and move to their landing craft. They were going to be hitting the beaches of Camp Pendleton before the end of the day. For some reason, there was a lot of urgency to get the ground troops ashore; the Admirals must have known something they were not willing to share with the rest of the men.
Chang looked over his platoon and saw a lot of green faces. He also saw a lot of hardened combat veterans who had fought in Alaska and lived to tell about it. This would be their third beach assault of the war, and hopefully their last. The platoon loaded up into the landing craft, and soon they were on their way to the beach. From what Chang could see, the beach looked like it was not prepared to repel an invasion; this was good news. They might land unopposed. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than the whistling of artillery could be heard as artillery shells began to explode all around their landing vehicles. As they got closer to the beach, they could start to see the silhouettes of Marines moving into fighting positions along the top of the rise, about two hundred meters away from the shore.
Using his binoculars, he could see these Marines were also equipped with their exoskeleton suits, though theirs looked to be a fully enclosed suit. As they neared the beach, they could start to hear the familiar sound of machine gun fire intermixed with explosions and yelling. Lots of yelling. Suddenly, the landing craft hit the beach and the rear ramp dropped. The platoon immediately began to run through the back ramp and headed towards the low rise at the end of the beach.
Chang also began to run towards the beach, yelling at the soldiers in his platoon to keep advancing and secure their objectives. The platoon ran as fast as they could, ducking and dodging as best they could through the hailstorm of gunfire being rained down on them. Dozens of soldiers were being hit, some getting back up and firing back at the Marines, others just simply dropping to the ground, dead. Chang raised his rifle as he ran and began to fire at the Marines. Suddenly, dozens of claymore mines were triggered and nearly three platoons of soldiers in front of Chang’s group were shredded to pieces.
He dropped to one knee and sighted in on a small group of Marines manning a heavy machinegun. He fired several rounds, hitting one of the Marines in the face, killing him instantly and wounding the other two Marines near him. Without missing a beat, those two other Marines he had hit got right back up and began firing at him and the men around him. He thought to himself, “Their armor must be stronger than we thought. This is not good.”