very best, he thought, and I must not let my nation and my people down.
It had already started in the darkness of the East China Sea, and now it would continue, with this proud man in his proud ship, with a proud heritage at stake-and much, much more. Pride, it is said, goeth before the fall, and the abyss that was now yawning open in the Pacific was impenetrably deep. Captain Yoshida was sailing swiftly towards its edge.
He would to rendezvous with the Kirishima, and he would bring the new destroyer Ashigara along, one notch up on the Kongo Class ships with the new Type-90 SSM and a suite of good SAMs to give him some solid air defense beyond his seven fighters. At 10,000 tons, she was the largest surface combatant in the navy, only a seventh the displacement of the last vessel class to hold that distinction, Yamato. That said, Ashigara would have ripped the superstructure of Yamato apart, piece by piece, just as Kirov had, and the great menacing battleship of old would have never come in range to once fire her guns in anger.
Following third in line was the older DDH Hyuga, a true helicopter carrier commissioned in 2009 and drawing near the end of her useful life now that the four Class 22 ships had been built to take over their role. Yet Captain Yoshida was glad the ship was still active and in his wake, for she carried another eleven Seahawks, with a second platoon of Naval Marines, should they be necessary.
One more ship completed Yoshida’s flotilla that day, SS Soryu, the quiet Blue Dragon already well out in front of his task group, riding the ocean currents at a 300 foot depth. It had slipped out of its moorings at Myakojima sub base on a small island outpost 225 kilometers southeast of the Senkaku Islands group. The boat carried Type-89 torpedoes and the deadly UGM-84 Harpoons which could also be fired from her six 21 inch torpedo tubes.
Information was now being received an analyzed from a lone P-3C early warning plane near the disputed islands. The Chinese still had warships there holding the cutter PS-206 Howo hostage, and more ships were reported approaching the islands. What would this come to today, he wondered? Yoshido had been ordered to put his Marines on those Islands, remove the Chinese flag and the troops that brought it there, and oppose any and all Chinese naval units attempting to interfere with this operation. If he needed more force than he now commanded, Kadena and Naha airfields were a scant 450 kilometers to the northeast, just a few minutes cruising time for an F-15 Eagle or an F-22 Raptor. The nearest Chinese Air assets would be at Shuimen, Longtian or Fuzhou airfields, an equal distance to the west-but they were not Eagles or Raptors. Yoshida liked his cards this morning.
The roar of the first JF-35 split the air as it took off, the second plane maneuvering smartly to the ready line and waved off right on its heels. His top cover would be up at angels thirty in minutes. He would then spot and launch a third plane for any contingency that might present itself, his first shotai of three planes aloft and ready for battle. A strange thought came to Yoshida as he watched the operation. This could be the very first launch of carrier based aircraft in the third world war! A moment of bumbling misrecognition had prompted the Dragon Pearl to fire those torpedoes at Oyoko, and now it had begun. As the three planes climbed into the bright sky overhead Yoshida imagined how Admiral Nagumo must have felt as he watch the first three Zeros climb into the pre-dawn sky off the northern Philippine Islands at the outset of World War Two.
It was always so clean and simple in the beginning, he thought. All the uniforms were fresh and white, the well starched collars laden with pips of gold and silver, and no stain of blood or the darkened burn of flash and powder. It started with flags and honor, and national pride, and music, and it always ended in the same old thing-death and destruction.
It would not be long before he would see the true face of war with his very own eyes, and it would not be pretty.
Chapter 14
Aboard the Lanzhou, Captain Wang Fu Jing was the fortunate king of the Diaoyutai Islands for the moment. A small detachment of five naval marines had landed by swift boat, a helo perched overhead for additional cover, and the men stormed up the rocky shore, where a series of stony outcroppings looked like stairs climbing up to the shark fin outcrop of rock that made up the bulk of the island. There they found a statue of Matsu, the Chinese Goddess of the Sea brought by a Taiwanese fishing vessel in 2013 to protect the fishermen who worked these waters, for Diaoyutai meant the ‘fishing island’ in Chinese. The first attempt to land the statue had been driven off by a water cannon from a Japanese coast guard cutter, the second won through later that year.
Taiwan also laid its claim to the disputed islands, though it had wisely remained at the edge of the growing dispute between China and Japan. But now the rising clamor of war was again in the air, as China renewed its claim that Taiwan was also one of its long disputed Islands, and long overdue for its return to mainland control. The Taiwanese never really believed the Chinese would press their claim in earnest, but the recent military buildup they had watched was making men nervous in military headquarters and political situation rooms all over the globe.
China now had ships at sea to the northeast near the Diaoyutai Islands, and to the southwest out of Shantou harbor. Both surface action groups were small, but they were nonetheless positioned right astride the most obvious sea lanes any outside force would have to use if it wished to approach Taiwan.
Wang Fu Jing’s Marines were now ashore on the southernmost Island of Nanxiaodao, setting up a small encampment and surveillance station there beneath a tall black outcrop of stone that sat like a great rocky Buddha in serene silence. A few sea terns perched indifferently on the nearby rocks, mixing peacefully with gulls and an occasional pelican. It was said that birds of a feather flocked together, but these had at least reached some unspoken accord to share the rocky shore with one another, where the men in uniforms and metal ships and planes could not.
The remainder of Wang Fu Jing’s squad was on the main island of Diaoyudao, or Uotsuri Jima to the Japanese, clearly visible in the distance. It was the only island in the little archipelago really worthy of the name, about four kilometers long, a green emerald jewel in an otherwise barren crown of stone. There were just eleven men here. Their small military footprint was more symbolic than anything else, but it was enough for the moment and China now controlled the Diaoyutai Islands.
The troops quickly ranged along the shore, finding and tearing down any vestige of Japanese occupation. There was not much to find. A group of right wing activists had managed to plant a few rising sun flags weeks ago, and a small white tower that looked like a miniature oil derrick. Beneath it they had gathered stones and rocks scattered on the shore and piled them up into a makeshift wall, a stubborn symbolic fortress that the Chinese soon tore down along with the flags.
There was very little else to speak of on the islands…the birds, the rocks, the scattered vegetation. Later, when the dispute was decided, men would come with survey ships, drilling rigs and other gear, and plans to erect more steel framed oil platforms that might dwarf the smaller islands in the group. That was the essence of it all. The islands really had very little to do with it.
At the moment, however, other men were on the way in two flights of Seahawk helicopters launching from the Akagi. Two F-35 Lightings would lead the way in with a third on high top cover and a second shotai of three more ready on short notice. The helos were coming in low on the water to minimize and hide their radar cross section as much as possible, but 150 kilometers to the west the Chinese had a KJ-2000 Airborne Early Warning plane up, with third generation technology that even allowed it to find and track the Japanese F-35s-or so it was claimed. The helos were seen on approach, and a warning relayed to Wang Fu Jing aboard the Lanzhou. Now it remained to be seen whether China would treat the coming incursion as just another standoff, a show of force by the other side to pacify national sentiment back home, or if it would be treated as an imminent threat to his assets and troops already deployed in the region.
His orders were also very clear and in certain conflict with those of his adversary: occupy the Diaoyutai Islands, establish a signals and observation post there, remove all accouterments and personnel of any foreign national, oppose or detain any force attempting to violate the territorial waters of the People’s Republic of China.
Modern air/sea warfare was not what it once was. The concept of intercepting an enemy at sea and closing the range to fight a gun battle or even launch an air strike was long ago obsolete. The first battle opponents would fight was one of knowing exactly where the opponent was and what assets he brought to the fight so they could be
