“However, we can find no evidence of any such attack nor can we find any reason to believe enemy submarines were in the area. It is our belief that a series of natural events were misinterpreted and, together, mislead Admiral Idzumo into assuming a serious threat where none existed.
“It is apparent that the training standards of the Carrier Screening Force left much to be desired. Lookouts were unable to distinguish between spray, marine animal activity and submarine periscopes. Sighting reports were taken at face value without proper evaluation. Ship handling was inept and communication procedures were so poorly conceived and executed as to be totally ineffective.
“As a result, it is our conclusion that Admiral Idzumo was negligent in applying and enforcing proper training standards on the force under his command. It is also our finding that he was incompetent in using proper communication procedures. It was these failings that were the direct cause of the collapse of Operation A-Go.
“The failure to establish proper communications discipline, enforce signaling standards and train signals personnel in the proper execution of their duties was shared by Admiral Soriva. To all intents and purposes, communications between the various elements of the fleet deployed for Operation A-Go collapsed completely. This lead to false appreciations of the situation, inadequate analysis of impending threats and a gross misunderstanding of the tactical situation.
“However, the Committee also notes that the decisions taken by Admiral Soriva were fundamentally correct and prevented a serious situation from becoming critical. It is the recommendation of this Committee that Admiral Idzumo retire from active service with immediate effect. However, Admiral Soriva's sound judgment under difficult service conditions is an asset that the Navy cannot afford to sacrifice.
“The Committee also notes that the forces allocated to Operation A-Go were inadequate for the tasks demanded of them. The larger environment within which Operation A-Go existed was planned by personnel of the Army who did not allow for the difficulties of conducting maritime operations.........”
The voices droned on and on, a long menu of recommendations, observations and criticisms. More aircraft, better aircraft, better communications equipment, better training, more sea time for the fleet. New ships, built for modern warfare, replacing conversions of old designs. Viewed objectively, Soriva thought, they had done a fine job of disentangling the vital lessons from the nightmarish confusion that had doomed A-Go. Poor Idzumo was the sacrificial goat then, doubtless he was already deciding who to select as his second. His own position was better, but his career was over, he'd go no higher in the fleet.
How much of the Committee's work would see the fleet? Soriva thought very little. The money wasn't available and the humiliating fiasco in the South China Sea would seriously affect future programs. Every year, the Army was demanding more and more resources to control China and to counter the insurgencies that were springing up in the more remote provinces. No, he'd go no further in the fleet but, in a few years time, there wouldn't be much of a fleet to go further in. The Japanese Navy was a World War Two fleet in a modern era, its ships and procedures obsolete in the face of the new environment around them. Its day was done.
Listening to the Committee make its report. Soriva had a disquieting thought. If the Navy was obsolete and of only marginal usefulness and the resources to support it were lacking, then why have it at all? Why not just decide what the Navy could do given the resources available and concentrate on that, scrap everything else?
Refugee Evacuation Train, Between Russia and Germany.
Elsa, once Margrafin of Alekszejevka, sat in a carriage of the train, relieved to be out of Russia at last. A truck convoy had picked them up from Alekszejevka and taken them to a refugee camp in the forests north of the Donbass. It had been much better than they had expected, many of the women had believed they would be driven out into the woods and executed. The huts had been solid wood, they had basic beds and each had a furnace for winter. The food had been enough although nobody would have become overweight on the diet. But the camp had been surrounded by barbed wire and the wire was guarded by machine gun towers. It was a prison even though nobody called it that.
Then the man from the Red Cross had come and said the women and children would be returned to Germany. Most of the women had wept, knowing that meant they would never see their men again. Then more trucks had come and taken them to the railhead and the old steam train that was waiting for them.
The Russian-Polish crossing point was well organized. The train stopped, the women were herded off into an area in front of a long line of cubicles. One by one they stepped into a cubicle, undressed and put their clothes and personal possessions into a basket then stepped over a white line on the floor that marked the division between Russia and Poland. There, workers from the Red Cross gave them a new set of clothes and a small package of personal necessities. A few of the women had tried to persuade the Red Cross people to let them keep their wedding rings, some of the children wanted to keep a treasured toy but the workers were firm. Russian policy was that Russian women didn't have wedding rings because of Germans, Russian children didn't have toys because of Germans and it was now Russians who were giving the orders and it was Germans who would do without.
Once the border transition was complete, the train set off again, across Poland to the German/Polish border. They'd been given a meal on the train, a piece of chicken, an apple and some sauerkraut. They'd reached the German border at Gorlitz, or, rather, where Gorlitz had been. Just before the train would have reached the border, it pulled sharply to one side, off the original tracks onto a spur line. A hastily-built and poorly maintained spur line.
The line ended in something that looked like a combination of refugee camp, office block and train station. The train stopped at one set of platforms, the line it was on went no further. The women were herded off the train again, to another series of desks staffed by tired-looking workers. One of the refugees asked why they were having to change trains here. “Fallout” was the reply but nobody understood it. Whatever it was, Polish trains didn't go on into German territory.
Then the women were lined up before the desks. Soon, she found herself standing before a desk. “Name?” asked the woman behind the desk.
“Elsa, Margrafin of Alekszejevka.” The woman behind the desk stared contemptuously at her. “Name?”
“Elsa Schultz.”
“Thank you. Was that your name in 1947? And what town did you live in during that year.
“It was. My family come from Gladbeck.”
The woman pulled a file, a simple folder containing a single sheet of letter-size paper with a double column of typed names on it. She shook her head. “There are no Schultzes surviving from Gladbeck, Do you have any other family?”
“My maiden name was Heilsen but...”
The woman behind the desk checked again. “I am sorry, there are no Heilsens surviving either. As you can see we don't list casualties, we list survivors. There are so many fewer to list.” She showed the paper with the two columns of typed names. “Do you know any of these names?” Elsa Schultz staggered.
“No, but there were almost 80,000 people in Gladbeck.”
“And fewer than 100 survive. Before The Burning there were 67 million Germans living in the country. Now, there are fewer than eight million. Many died when the Americans dropped their Hellburners on our cities. More died because their injuries couldn't be treated, more still from starvation and the disease epidemics. Our population continues to fall, even now. That is why President Herrick tries so hard to bring back as many of those Germans still in other lands as he can. Now, Frau Schultz, please move on so I can try to help another.”