Interesting that Karpov failed to take his line of reasoning that one step further, thought Fedorov. Yes, everything can be laid at his feet, the first detonation that sent us to 1942 and Operation Pedestal was his doing. He led the ship through the hole in time caused by the Demon Volcano, and from there, it was again his doing that sent it to 1908. What he did there is still apparent here in this world. As for Orlov… He brought us Kinlan, and when I threw that thing he found overboard, who knows what else it may have done?
Part XVI
Cherry Blossoms
“That is the beauty of the rose, that it blossoms and dies.”
Chapter 46
On the northern Island of Hokkaido, the Cherry Blossoms were blooming very late that year. It was already June, the war over six months old, but the beauty of the fragile white flowers had not been frightened away. Yet that year, another flower was blooming in a secret design facility near Yokosuka that had first been set up to evaluate models of foreign aircraft acquired by Japan before the war. It was now working closely with the Naval Academy and design bureau at Tsukijii near Tokyo Bay, and the flowers they were contemplating would one day come to be known as the MXY-7 Ohka, or “Cherry Blossom.”
For a long year now, there had been rumors, followed by intelligence, concerning the existence of a phantom ship that had appeared in the Atlantic, soon found to be closely cooperating with the British Royal Navy. It was thought to be a highly advanced prototype ship, bearing weapons that soon shocked military analysts in battles with the German Kriegsmarine. They were naval rockets, fast, precise in their targeting, and very deadly.
The rumors remained simply that for some months, talk in the bars, whispered tales, sailor’s stories as wile and contrived as those of a fisherman describing his catch. But they did not remain rumors and stories for very long. Not ten days after the dramatic opening attack on the American fleet at Pearl harbor, the rumors and gossip became a grim reality, witnessed by officers of the highest rank aboard the flagship of the Kido Butai, the carrier Akagi.
A sighting report had come in from a search plane describing a fast moving vapor trail approaching Nagumo’s task force from the north. That alone had been puzzling, for there was no land mass of any kind in that direction where a plane might have originated.
“What is this supposed to mean?” said Nagumo at that time, handing the report to the ship’s Captain. “A fast moving vapor trail?”
The Captain frowned at the paper, but at that moment a bell rang and the upper watch was reporting verbally that something was in the sky to the north. Nagumo considered the possibilities quickly. The only land mass that could have launched an aircraft was Wake Island to the south. What would be coming out of the north? Could one of the American carriers have been so bold as to follow them? Surely his search planes would have spotted such a task force creeping up, but he had not paid much attention to the northern flank. He had three fighters up on cap, with three more on the decks of his carriers ready for immediate launch. He had it in mind to have his Air Commander, Masudo Shogo, vector in one of those fighters for a look, until he saw what the watchmen were reporting with his own eyes.
The meaning of ‘fast moving vapor trail’ was now immediately apparent. Something was soaring towards his position, high in the sky, but now it began to descend, like some demigod or demon swooping down. It had to be a plane on fire, he thought, raising his field glasses, and thinking he could even see the faint gleam of fire there. Some ill-fated pilot was falling to his doom, but impossibly fast in the descent. Who could it be?
Then, to his utter amazement, the falling aircraft leveled off just before it would have crashed into the sea. All the men on the bridge who saw it reacted, some pointing in awe. The Admiral’s eyes narrowed as he watched. It was coming, still burning from what he could see, low and fast over the water, and the fire from its tail glowed upon the sea. That such a descent could have been corrected at the last moment like that seemed an impossible feat of flying to his mind, but now he would see more than he ever thought possible. The aircraft suddenly veered left, then right again, dancing over the water like a mad kami from hell. The pilot must have finally lost control, he thought, but the longer he looked, the more those first moments of surprise extended into shock.
The maneuvers that aircraft was making could not be accomplished by any plane he had ever known, and yet there was something about the snap of its course corrections that led his mind to conclude they were carefully controlled.
The thing in the sky came flashing in at the ship, as if deliberately piloted and steered to collide with the carrier. Nagumo saw the deck of Akagi heave upward when it struck, exploding deep within the innards of the carrier. He staggered under the jarring impact, still stunned and not yet even knowing what could have possibly hit the ship. Yet he had seen it with his own eyes, and now the roar of chaos and fire was all about him. It was as if some demonic spirit had simply reached down and hammered his fist against the side of the carrier, breaking its hard metal hull and shattering all within.
The shock of that hit weighed heavily on the entire bridge crew, and they would soon learn that the entire center of the upper hangar deck was involved with fire.
“It was clearly a single plane,” said Fuchida. “I was well aft when it came, seeing to the three Zeros we have spotted on ready alert. The impact knocked me from my feet.”
“One plane?” said Shogo. “Its speed was fantastic! Could it have been the rocket weapons we were warned about?”
“The tales told by the Prophet?” said Hasegawa. “You might just as easily tell me it was a sky demon”
“That is not far from the truth,” said Genda. “Plane, rocket, it does not matter. We have seen what it can do, how it can move and strike us with such precision.”
“It must have been piloted,” said Shogo. “No rocket fired from over the horizon could hit with such accuracy. So if it was piloted, then it must have been launched from a carrier. We must find it and destroy it at once!”
Those first words, uttered in both awe and fearful respect for the weapon that had just attacked them, would soon reach the ears of the aeronautical designers at technical facilities all over Japan, and one in particular, an Ensign Mitsuo Ohta, took them to heart…. “No rocket fired from over the horizon could hit with such accuracy. It must have been piloted….”
The concept of rockets wat not a new thing, particularly to the people and culture of Japan. The Chinese Song Dynasty had created rudimentary rockets as early as the year 1232, and enemy warriors actually described them as “Fire Arrows,” with a devastating explosion on impact that could be heard five leagues away. In the 14th Century, the first multi-stage rocket would be born, described as a fire dragon in the artillery manual known as the Huolongjing, or Huo Lung Ching.
Used by the Chinese Navy, it would be fired from a ship, and could then even ignite smaller rocket propelled arrows from the front of the missile, the fiery breath of the monster used to attack the enemy. Others called them flying crows with magic fire. So it came as no great surprise that the Germans of the 1940s were not the only nation working on rocketry, and the Japanese interest in the subject had been dramatically accelerated when the Akagi was struck by what might easily be described as a flying dragon on the 16th of December, 1941.