It was actually worse than Fukada knew, for the intrepid Christopher Wells had arrived with HMS Formidable, and now the British would also match the Japanese plane for plane, though the edge in carrier operations and actual aircraft was still held by the Japanese. Yet it was going to be a much more ambitious operation than the historical raid, and with the odds much more even.
Harada was going to have to weigh heavily in the outcome, because Somerville had been alerted to the operations, and he was already making preparations to put out to sea and intercept it.
The move up through the Strait of Malacca was accomplished without incident. Takami was well out in front, her radars scanning the sea and sky ahead, sonars listening for any enemy that might be lurking beneath the sea. On the 24th of September she was steaming about 15 nautical miles off Port Blair, and they had a helo up to give them a look over the island. Nothing had been seen due north, and Fukada asserted that Somerville would not be there, but Harada knew they were in a different game now, and he was taking no chances. Once they were confident nothing was east of Andaman Island, he turned west, intending to approach Port Blair and cover the landing operation there by those SNLF troops, with the light cruiser Sendai.
The port was at the southern tip of the big Andaman island. The smaller Rutland island nearly kissed the tip of Andaman, and some 20 miles south of that, was Little Andaman. Hara was taking his carriers south of Little Andaman Island, intending to move west of the long main island to begin his approach to Ceylon. Ozawa was heading instead for the 20-mile-wide channel, and that was where Takami would be heading soon.
It was then that the enemy showed his first teeth. A pair of fighters came out of the northwest, and Harada presumed they were simply out on a recon operation. He gave them a pass, knowing the enemy coast watchers at Port Blair must have already reported the approaching Japanese ships. But at 11:30 hours that morning, eight more contacts were seen approaching the island on the same vector at about 24,000 feet, and cruising at 195 knots.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” said Fukada. “That has to be a strike group. Probably torpedo bombers off Somerville’s carriers.”
“The ship will come to battle stations,” said Harada. “Stand up the SM-2s. We can spend a few to make sure those troops get ashore.”
The strike wave hit the western shore of Andaman Island at 11:38, and Harada gave orders to get after them at the 20 nautical mile range. The first missile was away at 11:40, just as the enemy planes, a group of 8 Barracudas, were descending to make their attack approach. They saw the contrails coming, yet much too fast to be from enemy fighters. Instinct serving, they continued their diving descent, thinking to get down and avoid the threat, but the missiles were not in any way fooled.
The crewmen on the Japanese transport Tatekawa Maru saw those contrails too, and now their blood froze, for they did exactly what all the rumors had been reporting, climbing into the sky, then descending. Several thought their ships were now under attack, and fearful shouts of Mizuchi were heard. Gunners on the cruiser Sendai even started firing at them, though they had no chance to hit those sleek arrows. Then to their great surprise and relief, the Japanese saw those rockets fly right over their ships, streaking towards the northwest. There they now saw the distant specks of enemy planes in the sky, and the gunners on the Sendai were retraining their weapons in that direction.
They saw the missiles home true, infallibly tracking and hunting those planes. Then the first exploded in a bright orange fireball, and the fearful shouts turned to cheers. “They have missed us!” one man shouted. “They have gone after their own planes!”
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.