“Yes, I agree. I already gave the order when you were watching the events on deck.”
That he had given it in Japanese meant that Kalinin had not realised that the man had made the small but important adjustment.
“Of course. I should have fully expected you to do so, Commander. You know your business. My apologies.”
Nobukiyo bowed slightly, acknowledging the compliment.
However, the delay would mean that they would only get one more attempt at the practice session before the air cover that guaranteed their anonymity had to return to base.
Tea was brought to the bridge and the two men drank in silence, each in turn taking in the sights of a crew working efficiently in preparation for testing their main reason for being.
Nobukiyo checked his watch and leant towards the voice tube.
“Captain, control room. Standby to initiate missile deployment drill. Standby… initiate.”
A strange squawking sound emerged from the open conning tower hatch and men spilled out from the hull hatches, accompanied by harangues of encouragement from their divisional officers.
The main hangar door was swinging open by the time that Kalinin shifted his gaze from the bloody red patch that marked where the unfortunate sailor had become pinned under the blast plates during the previous drill.
Initially, they had been welded in place with the intention of being external for the entire mission, but the effect upon performance and an unexpected increase in transit noise levels had changed all that.
So now the heavy blast plates had to be manhandled from the hangar to the bow of the submarine, far enough away as to not affect any of the hatches, or the seals to the main hangar door, not to mention the crew on the bridge.
Three working parties of twelve men, one party to each plate, two runs each to position six plates in all, mounted in place with special bolts that could have their heads struck off to recover the plates, as so far, each test firing, albeit on land, had resulted in the bolts welding to the plates.
The two senior officers observed the plates being dropped into place one by one, in a pre-designated order.
Nobukiyo had a stopwatch running and held it out to his Russian counterpart.
It was eighty seconds over the best time achieved in the dock, something that would earn the handling crews special praise later, regardless of what came next.
The whistles blew and the handling party moved quickly back and across, permitting the second group to run the V-2 and firing pedestal out of the hangar, rear end first.
Some of the plate handlers then reinforced the missile crew, lending their weight to the run down the catapult tracks, now set up for the rocket trolley.
A senior NCO handled the braking mechanism, and important part of the modifications. To send the V-2 off the end of the track would probably be terminal for the missile and submarine, as the new procedures meant that the rockets were pre-fuelled before being loaded into the hangars, a situation considered undesirable but unavoidable.
The trolley came to a halt and the deck clamps were put in place.
‘116 seconds.’
To overcome the increased weight when raising to vertical, the engineers had developed a simple but effective multi-support that extended in the correct ratios, maintaining fourteen separate support points with the missile during the operation to bring the V-2 to the vertical.
This was electrically driven and offered a smooth ride all the way.
The huge rocket achieved its final position swiftly, and the deck crew reduced in number, the final group off deck removing the rails to permit the hangar door to be closed.
“Firing sequence, standby.”
‘118 seconds.’
Kalinin nodded his pleasure at the time, their best estimate having placed the total time needed at four minutes minimum over the steady environment of the sub’s base.
The final ‘go’ signal came from the missile position itself, given by the senior deck officer once he was happy that the missile was erected properly and all was as it should be.
The white flag meant Nobukiyo could give the order. He acknowledged the signal and the remaining missile crew dropped down hatches, leaving the erect missile as the deck’s sole occupant.
“Firing sequence, commence on my order.”
The two men exchanged satisfied looks before Nobukiyo leant forward and spoke the word that set history in motion.
“Commence!”
Kalinin first, followed by the lookouts, then the submarine’s commander, dropped down the conning tower, Nobukiyo having sealed the hatch as he descended.
Kalinin was immediately glued to the intercom, where Jinyo’s calm voice relayed all he saw through the thick glass inspection hatch that had been installed in the hangar door.
At sea, the vulnerable glass would be protected by watertight metal pressure covers both inside and out, but for missile launching the viewing port was exposed.
Nobukiyo busied himself with obtaining radar reports, as the Sen-Toku was now on the surface with no eyes to watch over her, save those of the radar operator and the Red Air force that presently, albeit temporarily, owned the Black Sea’s sky.
During the non-firing drills, Kalinin had come to understand a few words of Japanese, so he was able to follow the countdown.
‘Nana.’
‘Rok.’
“Go.”
“San.”
“Ni.”
“Ichi.”
The submarine shook tangibly as the rocket engine started forcing the missile off the deck.
The trim of the submarine altered in an instant, but the crew were ready, earning the diving officer a pat on the shoulder from his captain.
Jinyo’s voice confirmed that the V-2 had left the deck successfully and Nobukiyo wasted no time in ordering his recovery operation commenced.
The intention on the mission was to dump the raising frame into the sea, but it had been decided to recover it, repair it, and re-use it, given the complexity of its construction.
Therefore, Nobukiyo didn’t worry about the additional time taken to clear the deck, other than the normal concerns of a submariner on the surface.
The frame and plates were recovered once seawater had been applied liberally, the red-hot protective plates having taken the full blast from the V-2’s rocket motor.
Even then they remained hot to the touch, and the plate handlers welcomed the heat-resistant gloves they had been issued with.
Including recovering the missile-raising frame, the whole operation took two minutes twenty-three seconds over the best practice time, an overrun that was less acceptable than that experienced during the raising operation.
None the less, I-401 disappeared beneath the waves less than seven minutes after firing the first missile ever fired from a submarine at sea.
It was an achievement that the IJN and Soviet Navy did not intend to publicise.
The V-2 rose from the sea surface, leaving a smoke plume in its wake.
A Soviet hospital ship, the Lvov, a vessel of the Black Sea Fleet and currently employed outside its intended purpose, used a modified version of the German’s Leitstrahl Beam guidance system to bring the V-2 onto its target, the Neva, an ex-Spanish refugee ship that was another anonymous vessel, although this time one well past its prime and considered expendable.
The swell made things difficult and it was no surprise that the rocket came down some distance from the target.
The missile, filled with an equal weight of concrete instead of its normal payload of explosives, arrowed into the sea at such speed that it was invisible.
It smashed into the water at just under one thousand eight hundred miles an hour.