Against the Tide Imperial: The Struggle for Ceylon (The Usurper's War: An Alternative World War II B by James Young (classic book list .txt) 📗

end of the campaign, the Kido Butai’s squadrons had begun to be ground down despite their victories. Although he expected any carrier battle to be more episodic than drawn out, once more considering attrition gave him pause.

I am not a coward, just cautious.

“The good thing is that there are two British and two Americans,” Fuchida observed. “I doubt that they have established procedures between themselves.”

Honda wished he could share his CAG’s confidence.

Established procedures or not, that is still a great number of aircraft. Although at least the majority of our pilots are experienced, while the Americans will have had to replace their losses from Hawaii.

H.M.C.S. Victorious

1320 Local (0620 Eastern)

Western Indian Oceans

29 July

The flight deck was noticeably warm beneath Eric’s feet, the armored metal absorbing sunlight far quicker than its wooden American counterparts.

“Welcome aboard, Leftenant Cobb,” Commander Abraham Martin stated, extending his hand. Eric shook it, reminding himself that the Royal Navy had designated their flight decks to all be no salute zones. The restriction made sense and was something he wished the USN would adopt.

The flight deck should be a place people are less concerned about rendering the proper greetings than making sure no one walks into a propeller.

“Thank you, sir,” he replied. “I understand that you have message traffic for Vice Admiral Fletcher?”

“Yes, yes we do,” Martin replied. “Vice Admiral Cunningham had some questions regarding tactical procedures during a fleet action.”

Find the enemy, bomb the shit out of him. Not that hard.

“This vessel had previously worked those out with Vice Admiral Halsey during our exercises off British Columbia, but it appears that Vice Admiral Fletcher has some differing views on things,” Martin continued.

Namely Fletcher seems to believe every fourth day is a tanking day, whereas Cunningham appears to want to get on with jabbing the shit out of his former countrymen at every turn?

“I would say that Vice Admirals Fletcher and Halsey have always been two very different people, sir,” Eric allowed. “As soon as you get us refueled, I’ll be happy to take the message traffic back to Yorktown.”

“Of course,” Martin replied warmly. “Until then, would you care to join a few of our officers for a drink?”

“Certainly, sir,” Eric replied. “Would it be possible to get my gunner one as well?”

“I’m certain a ‘medicinal ration’ can be obtained for him from the surgeon,” Martin replied with a smile. “Follow me, we’ll go to eight oh four’s wardroom.”

Eric could understand both sides. The last thing he wanted to happen was an enemy fleet show up unexpectedly with most of the task force lacking any fuel. However, Fletcher took things to an extreme, rotating either the Yorktown or Enterprise out on a regular basis. While the tankers were only a couple hundred miles behind the task force, refueling was still a time-consuming process when Vice Admiral Cunningham clearly wanted to surge ahead and strike Mombasa after basically razing Madagascar.

I think the French are going to be loathe to send anything back to that island anytime soon, Eric thought, smirking. Between the surface sweep by the Repulse and carrier strikes, the fleet had bagged the Suffren and Trento, hunted down the Arethusa just as that vessel was reaching South African territorial waters, then doubled back and sank another Italian convoy.

“I understand it was your squadron that found the Arethusa?” Martin asked.

“No sir,” Eric said. Martin looked at him with a puzzled expression, so the American explained. “I’m from Bombing, or VB-11. It was Scouting, i.e., VS-11 that found her.”

Lieutenant (j.g.) Charles Read, one each, as a matter of fact, Eric thought, feeling a bit of pride at his future brother-in-law. Charles had sent off a textbook sighting report, got it acknowledged, then proceeded to put his 500-lb. bomb right beside the Usurper cruiser.

Too bad I missed the strike thanks to flying antisubmarine patrol. Although I got to make up for it on the convoy.

“Ahhh,” Martin said. “Squadron nomenclature is always a funny thing.”

“I freely admit I can’t keep track of your squadrons, sir,” Eric said as they moved down a passageway.

“Eight hundred series are operational carrier squadrons,” Martin said. “The Air Ministry reassigned numbers back in June, so now even squadrons are fighters, odd are bombers.”

“Ah,” Eric said. “In any case, our squadron was the one that attacked the convoy, not the cruiser.”

“Ahh,” Martin said. “Good work on that, really made a mess of that escort before the torpedo bombers went in.”

“That we did,” Eric stated. “Although I think those destroyers thought we were friendly before we started diving. Makes it a lot easier to put a bomb on target when someone’s not firing at you.”

“Indeed,” Martin said. “Bad week for Italian destroyers. I don’t know how many they started this week with, but they’ve got seven less thanks to you Yanks and Vice Admiral Godfrey’s force.”

Eric smiled at the gallows humor as they stepped into No. 804 squadron’s wardroom. Unlike the lighter, haze gray of the Victorious’s passageways, the 804 wardroom’s bulkheads were painted a sky blue, with the squadron’s crest on the far wall.

Swift to Kill. Apt motto for a fighter squadron, although I’m not sure about the tiger clutching a sword as the emblem.

“All right you lot, we’ve got a Yank among us for about a half hour,” Martin said. “Some of you may have heard of the famous Leftenant Eric Cobb…”

To Eric’s surprise, there was a round of cheers, with several of the men standing up to come clap him on the back. He shook hands with several of the officers in a whirlwind of introductions, then had a shot of whiskey shoved in his hand.

I guess people like you when you’ve allegedly saved part of their fleet from defeat, Eric assumed. I still say that they would have sighted the Germans before they were able to bag the Royal family, but if it keeps getting me drinks I’m not going to argue.

“To Her Majesty!” someone shouted. Eric lifted his glass, then tossed it back with his companions.

Now I understand why I got tagged for