“But sir, I…”
“But sir what? Do not think any shame you may feel in this failure exempts you from further duty here. Nagumo felt the same when he returned from Pearl Harbor with only three operational carriers. We fight, we take losses. Sometimes we prevail, and at other times our enemies will get the best of the situation. That is the end of it. That is war. It is clear to me now that I failed to place the adequate tools in your hands to complete this mission successfully. Two carriers were not sufficient. It would have taken at least four in my estimation, and your battleships should not have been where they were. As you can see, the range of these naval rockets makes such a strategy foolish. Only our carriers have the means to strike the enemy at long range. From now on, your battleships will serve as fast escorts, running with the carriers, and doing everything possible to protect them. So this will be my order to you. Get Hiraga operational again, and then prepare to join Carrier Division 3 with Hiraga and Satsuma. You will receive further orders in the near future. Understood?”
Kurita bowed again, then nodded.
“Good,” said Yamamoto. “Now then, I will see this Captain Harada and his executive officer next, and hear their report. But understand this—you did everything I asked of you, and so I order you to set down the burden that you now carry, just as I asked the same of Nagumo. This war is only beginning. I need every officer, and every ship we have. We had 15 carriers operational on December 7th, 1941. Now we have only eight operational, and six have been sunk. Zuiho Survived the 5th of May, but just barely. Even when that ship returns, our carrier fleet is nearly cut in half, though we are now commissioning the Taiho to try and redress those severe losses. That said, Taiho will likely be the only new aircraft carrier to join the fleet for many more months until Shinano is completed. So every one of our remaining carriers is now worth its displacement in gold. See that Carrier Division 2 is well guarded.”
That was that. Yamamoto had no room for shame ridden officers. The war was now going to enter a much more dangerous phase. The Americans had been hurt, and very badly, but it had taken those seven carriers lost in action to put that damage on them. Yamamoto knew that there were now at least seven or more enemy carriers building in the United States, while in Japan, only the Shinano would be ready for operations soon. That was a matter he would have to redress, and quickly.
He himself had already gone to the Emperor, his own head lowered with shame, to make his report. He knew this war would be costly, never expecting Japan to emerge from it unscathed, but these early losses were particularly severe. He had been forced to ask the Emperor to activate the emergency fleet expansion project that had been secretly planned before the war.
As for this Mizuchi, that ship was a monster of a different kind. Yes, it would have taken at least four good carriers to have any chance against that beast, he thought. But how many of them would survive? I had hopes that this Takami might weigh heavily in the balance, but apparently those hopes were ill-founded. Now I must find out why.
“Very well, send in this Captain Harada and his Executive Officer. That will be all.”
Chapter 47
“Then you have no more missiles to attack this Siberian ship?” Yamamoto had heard Harada’s report of the battle, the how and why of it all; the decisions made, missiles fired, and the outcome. Now his mind had moved on to the possibilities that lay ahead.
“No sir,” said Harada. “To have any chance at all against a ship like that, it was necessary to fire everything we had in one salvo. Admittedly, the odds were long, but we at least had some chance of scoring a hit. As I have told you, our ship was primarily designed as an air defense fleet asset. We are meant to operate in a task force of similar ships, guarding other important fleet assets.”
“Your modern day carriers?”
“Such as we have. The Japan of 2021 does not have very many aircraft carriers. A few helicopter carriers are now receiving a new plane, but otherwise, our navy was prohibited from building carriers, because they were deemed to be an offensive weapon, and the force was merely designed for defense after Japan’s defeat in this war.”
“I see…” said Yamamoto. There was that word again, defeat, and it was a hard one to bear. The images he had seen in the library of the Takami still haunted him, the burned out cities, the image of Musashi dying that gallant but horrible death. For all the power he felt beneath him as they sat there in his stateroom aboard Yamato, he knew his own flagship was also fated for destruction. It all seemed inevitable now, just as he feared at the opening of this war. It all seemed to be written, as it was in that library, and how could he ever hope to write that history otherwise? He realized, even now, that Japan had gone to war with the United States without any clear plan on how that enemy would be defeated.
“So now you are a fleet defense asset,” he said to Harada. “You have no further offensive capability?”
“We have a few torpedoes, though they are also defensive weapons, largely for use against enemy submarines. The explosive charge is under 100 pounds, only ten percent as compared to your own Type 93 torpedo. We might use some of our anti-aircraft missiles in an anti-shipping role, but only against very lightly armored targets. They would not put much hurt on a cruiser or even an American carrier of this era.”
“But this Mizuchi… It still has such weapons that can hit our ships?”
“If I may, sir,” said Fukada, “we aren’t exactly certain how many missiles they have, but twenty is a normal loadout on their main ship killers. They fired thirteen at us, and we stopped them all, except the one that struck Hiraga.”
“Thirteen?” said Yamamoto. “Interesting. They have already fired three at my carriers, so that make sixteen. And they fired three at Mutsu and Chikuma, so that makes 19. Are you suggesting they may only have one more of these naval rockets at their disposal?”
“We don’t know that for certain,” said Harada. “Yes, twenty is a normal loadout, but they may have been carrying more—at least they seemed to suggest they had a loaded gun still pointed at my head when we spoke with them.”
“Spoke with them?” This surprised Yamamoto.
“Yes,” said Harada, “we had a nice little parley with the enemy in the middle of the fight. They threatened us with further harm unless we withdrew. I called their bluff, but nothing else came of it. In the end, withdrawal was the wiser course, and I strongly recommended that to Kurita, though I know he wasn’t happy about it.”
“Very well,” said Yamamoto. “Even if this ship does have only one more of these rockets, it only took one to sink the Hiryu and one to send Akagi into the docks for four months. Let us assume they have at least that many, and possibly more.”
“I believe they do have more sir,” said Harada. “Missiles are bundled in groups, and then mounted in silos or compartments beneath the deck. They fired twelve of one type missile at us, a very deadly model that we call the Sunburn. It took a good many of our own missiles to stop them, but we got them all. Then, near the end of the engagement, they fired a different kind of missile at us, much faster, though with a smaller warhead. We used a special defense system I have not spoken of to target and kill this missile, but the point I am making is that it would be rare, indeed very odd, if such a missile were mounted alone. In fact, they are designed to work in groups and be fired in salvos. They hunt like a pack of wolves, and are even able communicate with each other and make independent decisions about targeting assignments. No, it would have to be in a module or group like the other missiles we faced. For this reason, I suggest they have more of that type. A small group might see four in one underdeck compartment, so I would say they have at least three more.”