Kirov III: Pacific Storm

suicide, as the American troops closed in on his last positions. It was later known as the ‘Manila Massacre,’ and the overall commander, General Yamashita, was executed in 1946 though he had given a direct order to abandon the city to prevent this from happening. One charge of war crimes filed against him was that he failed to restrain the subordinate officer who provoked this fight for the city—Sanji Iwabuchi. And that very same man may now be sitting about seventy kilometers off our starboard aft quarter. If he has not heard already, he will soon learn what happened to the carrier planes that attacked us. I have no doubt that he will be ordered to find us, and do everything in his power to sink us.”

No one said another word.

Chapter 9

The cruiser Nachi was leading the charge south as the sun began to drift lower, illuminating the rising grey tops of the thunderstorms off to their northwest. Myoko was a thousand meters to the right, Haguro to her left, both a little behind. The three ships had been reunited again as Cruiser Division Five after Nachi spent some time in the north. Now her Captain Takahiko Kiyota was given overall command of the division, a competent officer, and ready for battle.

Kiyoya’s ships were all of the same class, built in 1927 and 1928, over 660 feet long and just shy of 15,000 tons fully loaded. They had good armament, in an unusual design with a tight cluster of three twin 8 inch guns forward, and another two turrets aft. The forward cluster was only made possible by mounting the number three turret with its guns facing aft, but it gave the ship some extra firepower in the forward arc to about 23 degrees on either side of the ship. Clearly, the ships were ideal for scouting and chasing, built for speed, and fast enough to catch most any adversary, strong enough to hurt them if they did.

Even the two forward stacks had been elegantly inclined backwards in a graceful curve, and mated together as one, with a third smaller stack amidships. When the ship closed on its prey, they could also bring another formidable weapon to the action, the highly effective Type 93 “Long Lance” torpedo, with a range exceeding any other in the world at that time, capable of running all of 40,000 yards before its oxygen based propellant system would be expended. In action, however, the torpedoes would generally be fired inside 20,000 yards, but this was twice the range of similar ship borne systems on most US and Allied vessels.

We will get the first crack at this enemy ship, thought Kiyota. And it would be good if we handled the matter before Iwabuchi gets into it. The last thing that man needs is another feather in his cap. He would signal Captain Mori on Haguro and Yamazumi on Myoko: ‘Assume a heading of 160 on approach and engage with forward turrets on my signal. Torpedoes to launch at 15,000 meters.’ And for the sake of decorum and protocol, he also signaled Iwabuchi: ‘Sighted ship, engaging at15:30 hours.’

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Aboard Kirov there was little time to debate. Karpov wanted to engage the nearest enemy task force at once, though the Admiral asked about the possibility of outrunning the Japanese ships.

“Not this time, sir,” said Fedorov. “They can make 34 to 36 knots, so unless you want another gun battle, we must decided what to do at once.”

“We can engage now with our deck guns,” said Karpov. “Rodenko has the range plotted for CIC operations.”

They were racing for the north cape of Melville Island, but the Japanese screening force had used their superior speed to get a slight lead on them and now the cruisers were aiming to cut them off. Volsky decided they had no choice but to engage. The art of waiting in defense had been ably demonstrated when they watched the slow approach of the Japanese dive bombers, this time they had to take the initiative, and let their offensive be the shield.

“Should we use missiles on these ships? Our Moskit-IIs would have quite a shock value.”

“Yes,” said Karpov, “but we have only nine left, and twenty-six total SSMs in all. We must not forget the battleship is still out there. I suggest we use the 152mm batteries first.”

“Very well, Mister Karpov. You may commence your action now.”

Karpov nodded and turned to Samsonov. “You have your targets keyed, Mister Samsonov. Fire at will.”

“Aye, sir.”

They watched the forward turret rotate and train on a still unseen target in the distance. “Range, 37,200 meters, and firing now.”

There came a sharp crack… crack… crack… with both barrels in the turret recoiling as they fired at three second intervals, and the radar guided shells were on their way.

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When Nachi’s spotters saw the dark silhouette ahead wink at them from its forward segment, they called out incoming fire. Kiyota was surprised at the range of the action. This must be a battleship to fire at that range, he thought. Could the Americans have a task force here? Yet only one ship? No escorts? Might it be a British capital ship running out of Darwin that we did not know about? That made more sense to him. There was no way the Americans could have slipped through the Coral Sea and Torres Strait. And no heavy cruiser he knew of had guns that could range over 35,000 yards like this. So he had a British battleship, or perhaps one of their fast battlecruisers at hand, and he rubbed his hands with the excitement of the chase. But Kiyota was in for another surprise. He did not expect the lethal accuracy of the enemy rounds.

Two small geysers fell very close to Myoko off his port quarter now. Then he was startled to see that ship immediately struck on its long, sleek foredeck, an explosion just forward of the first turret, a second right on the barbette, and one of the two guns there was canted upward when it exploded. Two more rounds just missed the cruiser on its starboard side.

Two hits on the very first salvo, thought Kiyota? Yet these were small caliber weapons. The small water splashes and the effect of the weapons was not characteristic of a main gun from a battleship. Such range and accuracy! A small gun that could outrange his own bigger 8 inch batteries was very surprising. He decided to give the order to make smoke now, and he could discontinue when they were inside 25,000 yards so as not to hinder his own gunners. Soon artificially induced smoke joined that from the small fires beginning on Myoko, and the whole scene was shrouded in grey. He had to come fifteen points to port so as not to outrun his own smoke, and was pleased to see his division smartly turning on cue, a maneuver that they had practiced many times. The turn would also allow his aft turrets to begin training on the target, yet he was soon discouraged to see the smoke had no effect on the accuracy of the enemy fire. His ships were still being closely straddled. The salvos came in sets of six rounds, with a hit in virtually every set!

This ship could not possibly be using optics, he thought. We are barely showing them our main mast at this range. He made a mental note to make a log entry suggesting that this must be a new British radar controlled naval gun. Then his own ship was struck with a hard thud and black explosion, just below the main superstructure foreword.

“Fire below decks!” said Harada when he receive the report over the voice tube. “Not serious, however.”

Kiyota nodded, raising his field glasses. It would take them another ten to fifteen minutes to close the range on this ship before his own 8 inch guns could even come into play! Before that happened he would stand there, furious to see more and more hits being scored on his cruisers. Myoko had taken two more hits amidships, one on her aft funnel. Haguro was on fire at the bow. He gave the order for the formation to begin a ziz-zag approach, now estimating the range at 32,000 yards, but to no avail. The enemy rounds still found them, dogging their every maneuver. Haguro had just taken another hit forward on her number one turret and it looked like a bad fire there.

Kirov was fighting them like a skilled boxer, at a long arm’s range but with a stinging jab to the face. Finally, in great frustration, Kiyota gave the order to fire before the enemy put more of his own guns out of action. The boom of Nachi’s 8 inch guns sounded the charge: “Ahead full!”

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