Kirov III: Pacific Storm

Iwabuchi gave the helm an order to turn north so he could bring his two aft turrets into action. He had not yet come to the Torres Strait itself, so there was plenty of sea room for him to maneuver. But by the time he had effected the turn, and the fire control parties had lessened the thick black smoke shrouding the ship, Mizuchi has slipped north as well, out of the narrow channel and into more open waters beyond.

Koro Ono was back on his feet, clutching a bleeding right arm where he had been grazed with shrapnel. “Sir,” he said. “Those rockets must be piloted. It is the only way they could dance over the sea like that and then turn to hit us so accurately! The channel ahead is too narrow to fight here. We will have to slow to ten knots or less to navigate the strait. If they send more…”

“Don’t bother me with navigation,” Iwabuchi batted the remark away. “Koshino! Are the aft batteries ready to fire? What is taking so long?”

“The smoke has made it difficult to plot the range, sir.”

“Fire anyway. Fire both turrets at once! Then do your spotting, you fool!”

“Aye sir.” Koshino rushed to a voice tube and gave the order to fire, the aft turrets answering soon after with a mighty roar.

Iwabuchi smiled when he heard the guns, and his eyes found Ono’s. “We must let them know they have not hurt us,” he said darkly. “You say the British must be piloting those demon rockets? Yes, it seems so, though I find it hard to believe. Where are Hara’s planes now? Let his pilots show the same bravery and smash this ship. This is a perfect time to strike from the air while they are at reduced speed in these restricted waters.”

Ono blinked away the smoke, coughing. “Hara’s planes are mostly at the bottom of the sea, sir, as we may be if you do not proceed with more caution here. I remind you that we must sail these same waters if we are to continue this chase.”

Iwabuchi turned on the man, a rage in his eyes, but he said nothing. His body language was enough.

~ ~ ~

“That hurt them,” said Karpov. “Those fires will make it very difficult for their gunnery officers.”

They watched yet another salvo, this time four shells, but it was very wide, the rounds falling well beyond the Warrior Reefs to their port side.

“I have an idea,” said Fedorov. “Do we have any mines in the magazine, Captain?”

Karpov’s eyes lit up at the suggestion. “We may have some MDM-7s. Good Idea, Fedorov! I must be slipping. I should have thought of it myself. Let me call down to Martinov and I will see about it.”

The MDM-7 was a ship launched mine that could be dropped in their wake, activating two minutes later to give the ship time to avoid its own weapon. It could be rigged to explode by contact, or by acoustic trigger, which was a preferred method, and the large 1500kg warhead was a powerful explosion that could cause severe damage if it detonated anywhere near a ship. In the narrow channel, they could prove a perfect weapon against the pursuing enemy ships.

Martinov called back minutes later. They had ten MDM-7 mines and six older MDM-3s, which were an air dropped version. “Let’s lay some eggs,” said Fedorov. “I want the KA-40 up at once, and have them lay all six MDM-3s in the Prince Of Wales Channel. We can also drop five or six MDM-7s around these islets as well.” It was a perfect defensive strategy, and it would mean they would not have to use any more missiles if the enemy ships chose this same route.

“Once we reach the Bligh Entrance ahead we’ll be turning south to take the Outer Channel past the Portlock Reefs to Pandora Passage. We’ll drop the last of the MDM-7s there. It’s the last narrows before we get out into the Coral Sea.”

“Pandora’s Passage,” said Karpov. “What are we sailing into there, I wonder?” The ancient warning concerning ‘Pandora’s Box’ was in his mind, the jar that contained all the evils of the world.

“That jar was opened long ago,” said Fedorov. “Just look at this war we’ve been sailing through these last weeks. We crossed the whole of the world and still it finds us. But there was one thing left at the bottom of the jar after Pandora opened it,” he smiled at Karpov now. “Elpis, the Spirit of Hope. We will have to hold fast to that once we Get into the Coral Sea. Work out the mining operations, Mister Karpov. I’ll have to keep my eyes on these navigation charts for the next forty minutes to an hour.”

Chapter 18

Pandora had yet one other thing in the bottom of her jar, the Japanese Kaichu Type submarine Ro-33. She was a double hulled sub, K-5 class and she packed a dangerous sting with four forward torpedo tubes firing the deadly Type 95 torpedo, the submarine variant of the dread ‘Long Lance.’ Ro-33 was a prototype model, 960 tons, with a large planned rollout, but only two boats were ever built in the K-5 series, the Ro- 33 and her sister Ro-34, though there were twenty K class boats in all, mostly designated the K-6 variant. The sub could make nearly twenty knots with her two diesel engines on the surface, and 8 knots when submerged on two 1200 horsepower electric motors. Only one of the twenty would survive the war.

Her number was the same as the year of construction at the Kure naval yard when she was laid down on August 8, 1933. Seven different men commanded the sub in her early pre-war years, and she was eventually designated the flagship of SubDiv 21 in May of 1941.

To date number 33 had had little luck in the war. She had been involved in patrols supporting the Malay campaign, and in the Java Sea earlier that year. Out in the Indian Ocean she took a shot at the destroyer USS Whipple when she came up on it involved in a rescue mission for a damaged oiler Pecos, but the nimble destroyer evaded her lance. Some months later she was instrumental in scouting out the Russell and Deboyne Islands for anchorages prior to Operation MO and the successful seizure of Port Moresby.

Lt. Commander Shigeyuki Kuriyama took over the boat after that operation and on August 6 he was out on the fourth war patrol for Ro-33 when he happened across the Australian merchant ship Mamutu off Murray Island. The shallow waters and reefs in the area prompted her to surface and start a merry chase, using her 3 inch deck gun to hunt down the hapless 300 ton motor vessel, and she immediately scored two hits, one silencing the radio room and the second killing the ship’s Master. A half hour later Mamutu was listing in the water, easy prey, with many of her 108 passengers already in the sea. Kuriyama was merciless, ordering his boat to sail past the burning ship and machine gun the survivors, killing many passengers as he went by. It was the only notch in the sub’s belt after four long patrols, and the crew was eager to put their torpedoes to better use.

They got their chance in the early evening of August 26th, 1942 while they were hovering just off Pandora’s Passage. A coded message bearing the name Mizuchi had come in three hours earlier, and it ordered the boat to leave off its defensive patrol near Port Moresby and make haste for the Torres Strait. A big enemy ship was running the gauntlet of reefs and shoals there, and attempting to break out into the Coral Sea. Ro-33 was to assume a blocking position and wait for the beast, and she was in position well before the looming silhouette of Kirov was sighted by her commander, his eyes alight with the first opportunity to fire on an enemy warship in nearly six months.

Three days from now in the history Fedorov might have read in his Chronology of the War At Sea, Ro-33 was supposed to have been in the Gulf of Papua west of Port Moresby where she would spot the 3300 ton merchant ship Malaita escorted by the Australian destroyer Arunta. She would put a torpedo into the Malaita, but later be found ten miles southeast of Port Moresby by the Arunta and hit with Mark VII depth charges, sinking the boat and killing all of her 70 man crew. Yet fate had ordained that she would not make that appointment on the 29th. The Australians had lost Port Moresby and neither the Malaita nor the Arunta were anywhere near the area now. Instead Ro-33 was three days early to the grinning smile of death,