The only really good destroyers were with the carrier group. Agano class destroyers, built in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Originally they had been designed as light cruisers but the class had been re-modeled and rearmed. Now they had two twin 100 millimeter guns forward and anti-aircraft missiles aft. They could carry K.a-5 helicopters as well. It was well they were around. That carrier group was vital. In a very real sense, the whole operation depended on two carriers with 108 aircraft between them and their screen of six Aganos.
Of course, it didn't matter if the Americans took a hand. Not only did they have more aircraft, they had better ones and they had nuclear weapons with no inhibitions about using them. An American task group would throw more than 500 aircraft, Crusaders, Skyhawks and Skywarriors.
Individually the aircraft had an edge over anything on the Japanese decks, well, perhaps that was too pessimistic, they could match the old F2J Dragon. The Japanese Navy was still struggling to get supersonics to sea and their current fighter, the A7W-2 was, at best, transonic. Their strike aircraft, the turboprop powered 88A Ryusets was an impressive load-lifter, most people believed it superior to the US Navy's Skyraiders. But they were slow compared with the jets.
If, however, the Americans didn't take a hand, then things were different. Both the Australians and the Indians had bought a US Navy lightweight Fighter for their carriers, the Grumman Tiger, and Skyhawks for strike but, like the carriers, they were taking their time about getting them operational. Neither the carriers nor the air groups had been cleared for service yet. Even some mediocre aircraft were better than none and so the Japanese carriers had things their own way.
They might need it as well. The reason for the haste was on his signals desk. Intelligence had reported that an Australian troop convoy was forming up and it was reported they were heading for Burma. Admiral Soriva had his orders. Get the STMLF to Rangoon first by whatever means necessary, the only restriction being the obvious one. Don't get us destroyed by the Americans. Projecting time, course and speed, assuming that the Australian Convoy would set sail as soon as Hood and her escorts had refueled, it was going to be very, very tight.
So, he had his fleet arranged. His own battle group out in front, clearing the way. Behind him was the troop convoy with its merchant ships. Then, bringing up the rear, the carrier group. The problem was that troop convoy, merchant ships were faster now than they'd been when Admiral Soriva had been a youngster but they were still painfully slow. His fleet could hold the speed of the slowest ships and the merchies could do 12 knots sustained at best.
He'd routed his formations so that they would keep clear of land based aircraft, assuming that the Australians deployed their carrier groups from land bases. But his eyes kept going to Clark Field in the Philippines. If anybody had long-range bombers there, it would put him in a critical position. It was fortunate nobody in the Triple Alliance had them.
Captain's Bridge, INS Hood, Perth, Australia
The crew had turned to with a vengeance. Hood had pulled into Perth almost out of fuel and supplies after her high-speed run across the Pacific. She'd finished her tour and got back on schedule but it had been tight. Her tired engines shouldn't have been capable of holding that speed so long but they had and they were still in good condition. There was something ominous in the way her engines had been making the ship tremble and in the way her bows cut the water. Captain Jim Ladone could feel that the old ship was furious at the insult to her honor and wanted her chance to get back at those responsible.
The crew certainly were. There was suppressed rage at the cowardly bombing on her quarterdeck. The stern area itself was now sacred ground, the teak planking still ripped and scarred from the bomb, memorial tablets placed to honor the dead. Well, all but one of the dead. The rage and humiliation of the crew hadn't, thank God, resulted in deaths on board Hood but there had been a mysterious spate of “accidents” on board the two destroyers. All the victims had been Moslem crew members. All the deaths had been investigated as far as the law and the circumstances allowed but nothing had come up to show that they were anything other than accidents.
It wouldn't. The crews of the ships, Moslem and Hindu, had kept their mouths welded firmly shut. The trouble was that, following an “accident” on Rana, the locker of the victim had been searched. And there had been bomb-making equipment inside. Equipment that hadn't been there when the ship was searched after the bombing on Hood. Had it been on the ship and moved ready for another attack? Or brought on board at one of the many port stays? Or even planted by other crew members to justify a killing or stir up more trouble? Nobody knew, everybody had a theory, everybody worried.
Now, the primary task in hand was getting the ships to sea. With a little luck, everybody was working to hard and getting too tired to worry over such things. There was so much to be done before the ship was ready to put to sea again. Stores were being replenished, magazines topped off. Somehow, the Australian Navy had even managed to find some 15 inch shells for her guns. The oil hoses were throbbing as Hood sucked in the bunker oil that was her life blood. It was a crash job to get her ready for sea again, the Australian troop convoy was almost ready to leave.
Across the way, the two old carriers, Sydney and Melbourne had loaded up with vehicles and heavy equipment. Like Captain Ladone, they'd been Royal Navy once, Illustrious and Victorious, but it would have been too costly to convert them for modern aircraft. They made excellent heavy transports though; fast and their flight and hangar decks allowed even the heaviest vehicles to be stowed.
Beyond them, there were the liners that had been requisitioned as troop transports. It was going to be a fast convoy; they should be able to hold 20 knots all the way to Rangoon. One day, they would be able to airbridge formations like this. In fact on paper they already could, Quantas had a fleet of Cloudliners that could transport the personnel, it was carrying the heavy equipment that was impossible, One day there would be aircraft that would lift tanks and self-propelled artillery but until then, the big stuff would have to go by sea.
It was going to have to be a fast run. The Chipanese already had a troop convoy at sea and it was reported to be heading for Rangoon also. If they got there first, they'd be able to install a new government that favored the demands of the insurgents in the north of the country. On the other hand, if the Australian division got there first, they could support the existing government. The Chipanese squadron was nearer but the Australian squadron was faster.
There was one problem, at the moment a small one but one that could only grow. When Ladone projected the Japanese Fleet's course and speed then superimposed the Triple Alliance fleet's equivalent plans, the two plot's coincided. In fact, not only did they cross, but the two groups of ships would be in the same area at the same time. And that did not bode well.