More explosions followed, and in those first hot minutes, four of the eight enemy planes were blasted from the sky, with one other suffering fragment damage from one of its dying comrades. The three remaining planes were getting lower, swooping over the long inlet of the bay and turning to come around and take the Japanese ships from the south.
“Three more,” said Harada. “I know it’s a lot to spend, but if they get one torpedo off it could deep six one of those transports. Then what good are we here?”
So they fired, three more precious SM-2s, and the result was inevitable. The missiles ran true, tracked their targets, and killed them, and Somerville would get the report five minutes later where he stood with Wells on the bridge of HMS Formidable.
“Sir,” came the signalman. “We’ve lost them. All eight, sir. They’re gone.”
“Damn!” said Somerville. “They must have seen our recon group and got up fighters. We tried to bugger them, but they were on to us.”
“No sir,” said the man. “It wasn’t Jap Zeros, sir. It was rockets. Bill Whitman was the last, and we heard it clear as day. Rockets, he said. The Japs have naval rockets!”
Somerville’s carriers were in a very good position to stop this little raid by the enemy, about 90 nautical miles slightly northwest of Port Blair. Indomitable was in the lead, followed by Illustrious and then the flagship, Formidable. Six destroyers accompanied them, in three groups of two, and the cruiser force, with Cornwall, Dorsetshire, Emerald, Enterprise and the destroyer Legion were some miles to his southwest steaming for the channel.
“Indeed?” said Somerville, looking at Wells. “Naval rockets is it?” Virtually everyone in the fleet had heard of them. There had been lots of talk of the big battles fought in the North Atlantic, and the Med. But the rockets had always been on their side. To now learn that the enemy had them as well was most disheartening.
“What do you make of this, Mister Wells?”
“I’m not quite sure, sir. I wonder if Admiral Tovey knows about it?” Wells had seen a good deal of action in this war. After saving Glorious, he had served briefly aboard HMS Invincible, and that was where he had his first glimpse of what this was all about. A mysterious ally had joined the Royal Navy, though Wells had never been aboard the ship. He knew it had Naval rockets as its primary weapon of war, but not much more. He certainly did not expect the other side had these weapons, least of all, the Japanese.
Somerville frowned, thinking. He was considering whether he should now launch a second strike, but reports arrived minutes later that the Japanese were landing troops at Port Blair. It was too late. All his planes would hit now were empty transports, as this was most likely a light SNLF battalion of Naval Marines. That would be enough to overcome the small garrison at Port Blair, no more than a company in strength, with a few 40mm Bofors and service troops for the port.
A day late and ten pounds short, he thought. But what we do know is that our enemy is out there, somewhere south of the Andaman Islands, and right where I expected them. We knew the Sunda strait was still too hazardous for them to use. So they had to approach through the Strait of Malacca, which is why I deployed here, and not farther to the southwest. I must move that way now, and seek to cut him off as he approaches Ceylon.
It was sound military thinking, but a maneuver he would soon find fraught with danger.
Part XVIII
Pearl of Great Price
“The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”
Chapter 52
It would come to be called the Pearl Harbor of the West, an effort by Yamamoto to smash the main British bastion in the Indian Ocean and drive them all the way back to Madagascar and Cape Town. If successful, it would be the perfect complement to the Army’s operation then underway in Burma, which had already seized Rangoon, and now intended to drive the British back into India. After that, Japan would stand on defense there, and no further offensive operations against India or Africa were contemplated.
The Army’s sobering experience in China had led it to determine that it could simply not invade another country as populous as India. There was too much ground, and the British would have an almost endless source of manpower for recruits that would likely flock to their banners after such an invasion. They already had great forces there in the British Indian Army, so it would be enough to drive them from Burma, and then secure that flank. Hara’s Operation C was the naval element, aiming to supplant Britain’s valuable naval bases at Colombo and Trincomalee with Japanese forces. From there, Japanese air power could pose a constant threat to enemy shipping in the Bay of Bengal, and force British convoys to Australia deeper into the Indian Ocean.
Hara’s carrier group was 150 sea miles southeast of Port Blair when Takami fought its first defensive duel against those incoming Barracudas. They had traded seven irreplaceable missiles for eight enemy planes, which was the dilemma of these interlopers from the future. Every time they used the power they possessed, they grew weaker.
Receiving that report, Hara dispatched a pair of Zeros off Taiho to overfly the channel between the Big and Little Andaman Islands where Ozawa intended to take his task force. That was where Takami was now heading, and the planes would vector in on her coordinates, and then proceed northwest for a recon sortie. A little before 13:00 local time, the fighters made their rendezvous with Takami, and proceeded north.
“Come to 300,” said Harada, noting the time. They were now going to run up towards the Sentinel Island, passing south of that and continuing on this heading to scout the way into the Bay of Bengal. Ozawa’s Cruiser Force was just under seventy miles due east as they made that turn, bound to make that same transit of the channel. Eight minutes later, that recon sortie produced results when the Zeros spotted large wakes combing the sea.
“Sir,” said Shiota, “I am monitoring a signal from Scout 1. They have numerous contacts, 60 to 70 nautical miles out. Several destroyers and cruiser class ships, and three carriers. They now report the enemy is launching planes.”
“Notify Hara immediately.”
“Aye sir.” Shiota passed the information on to Ensign Teppo. She was at the comm station to be ears, but any communications with the Japanese fleet would go through Teppo’s mouth. It still would not do to have a woman make such a call in 1942.
“Scout 1 heading home, but they have what they think is a flight of fighters in pursuit.”
“Don’t worry about them,” said Fukada to the Captain. “Our Zeros can outrun anything the British have, and out fight them if they do try to intercept.”
“Very well,” said Harada. “Track those fighters, but take them off the missile targeting board.
“If they do persist,” said Fukada, “they may get close enough to spot us.”
“Lieutenant Otani, how far out are they?”
“47 nautical miles at a little over 12,000 feet and now climbing through 12,500. Speed 160 knots. If they continue on their present heading they’ll pass about 10 to 12 miles east of us.”