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) 📗

"Tell the OOD to get me a damage report!" Jacob called to Farmer, hoping the man heard him over the bedlam of the cruiser’s guns. The British officer waved acknowledgment, then repeated the order into the phone.

Dammit, we’re really ablaze.

Pushing hard on the corpse’s shoulders in front of him, Jacob struggled from under the dead lookout. His trousers were soaked in the young man’s blood, the coppery smell mixing with the stench of burning oil and gunpowder in a noxious mixture. As he got to one knee, the roar of engines made him turn to port.

Oh shit.

A trio of bombers was approaching from port, their rising suns standing out starkly against their dark green fuselages. The Houston's guns knocked pieces off one of the dark green bombers as they passed in front of the heavy cruiser. Turning back to port, Jacob saw no more Japanese aircraft coming. He whirled back to starboard just in time to to see one of the trio burst into flames and fall into the water before it could release its torpedo.

"What the hell happened to the Massachusetts?!" he asked Farmer, seeing the battleship wreathed in fire. A second later that Jacob realized it was the BB's own guns that were the source of most of the flame, but not all of it. Unfortunately, the vigorous AA only clipped the chutai leader after the Japanese pilot and his wingman released their ordnance towards the battleship's port side.

Why is she turning to give them a broader…shit, nevermind, Jacob thought as another trio of Japanese aircraft flashed past the battleship’s bow towards Houston. They anviled her.

Jacob's guess was more or less right. Like their American counterparts several hours before, the Japanese torpedo pilots had drawn the most dangerous task of their attack. Resolute, and well-disciplined, they pressed into the cauldron of fire that surrounded the three Allied capital ships in the finest tradition of bushido.

Unfortunately, much like their ideological forebears had found at Shiroyama, bushido did not make up for a marked difference in technology. The simultaneous attacks of the Suisei initially managed to distract and divide the Allied anti-aircraft fire. However, as the thirty-four Tenzan covered the final thousands of yards to their drop point, gunners aboard multiple vessels switched to engage the far more dangerous threat.

Twenty-nine of the torpedo bombers made it past the outer screen and a lone Hellcat that managed to evade the escorts long enough to splash two Japanese attackers. Another four bombers cartwheeled or plunged into the Indian Ocean's depths before they could release. Two chutai broke from the intense fire, either launching their weapons far out of range or diverting to attack the Exeter.

It was the assault of the remaining bombers that Jacob witnessed. The Massachusetts had suffered significant damage before the torpedo bombers had managed to trap her with their attacks on two axes. However, a jammed No. 3 turret, cleared her auxiliary bridge, and a hangar fire were hardly fatal. What they did do was distract the “Big Mamie’s” captain, which in turn led to his misjudgment of the attackers’ speed and timing. Although faster and vastly nimbler than her older compatriots that had fought at the Battle of Hawaii, the mistake meant Massachusetts could not avoid intersecting with three torpedoes.

The first of these weapons, dropped at comparatively long range as the battleship heeled away, came in at an awkward angle. Rather than detonating against the vessel's armor, the sandaburo warhead exploded prematurely from the sheer water pressure exerted by a 36,000-ton battleship moving at twenty-seven knots. Other than shaking the Massachusetts' black gang, the weapon had no effect.

The two Tenzans from starboard, on the other hand, had far better luck. Led by Lieutenant Tomonaga off Hiryu, the duo braved the Big Mamie's prolific fire to almost point blank range. His aircraft burning, blood pulsing from a massive chest wound, Tomonaga dropped his weapon barely a football field's length outside of minimum range. A moment later, Tomonaga's wingman followed suit, then was immediately blotted out of the sky by a VT shell from the Massachusett's secondary battery. Another shell from the barrage ignited Tomonaga's fuel tanks and simultaneously killed his tail gunner. Surrounded in flames and screaming his loyalty to the Emperor, Tomonaga continued on to crash into Big Mamie's superstructure in a bright gout of flame.

Other than immediately killing twenty-five of the battleship's crew, the suicide crash had little impact on the big vessel's fighting ability. On the other hand, the two torpedoes that impacted a little over a minute proceeded to maim the vessel in a horrific way. Tomonaga's weapon, running deep, hit just forward of the juncture of the engine rooms one and two. Normally, the weapon's 660-lb. warhead would have been well-contained by the battleship's torpedo defense system. Unfortunately for the Americans, the sandaburo explosive was one and a half times more powerful than its high-explosive counterpart. The influx of fragments and water was not immediately fatal for all of engine room 1’s occupants, but sufficient for the survivors to begin heading for the escape trunks.

Most of the crew had just began this journey when the second torpedo hit barely ten feet aft of the first. In a demonstration of effectiveness that would have upset every American torpedo bomber pilot, the second warhead also performed exactly as designed. With the anti-torpedo bulkheads already weakened, almost the entire explosive force scythed across engine room number two in a bow wave of spall and gases. What men the metal and heated air did not rend or dismember, the Indian Ocean drowned. More importantly, in a fury of arcing electricity, smoke, and screams, much of the Massachusett's electrical power was knocked out due to the explosive vibrations. In the chaos and the darkness, the survivors of engine room #1 heard the screech of plating being torn back from water pressure as the battleship continued forward.

Jacob watched as Massachusetts continued her turn to starboard, away from Houston. Oil trailed in the