Against the Tide Imperial: The Struggle for Ceylon (The Usurper's War: An Alternative World War II B by James Young (story reading txt) 📕

Whatever fired at Nashville clearly thought better of that plan.

The Arethusa’s captain, after briefly engaging the Nashville, had indeed determined that discretion was the better part of valor. Setting a course due south, the light cruiser quickly accelerated to her top speed. Remaining unsighted by the southernmost division of advancing Allied destroyers, the vessel vanished into the gloom.

The other escort vessels were not so lucky. The Euor and Pegaso, after blundering into the salvo meant for the convoy, to torpedo impacts with heavy loss of life. Their compatriots aboard the R.M.S. Carlo Mirabello and Augustus Riboty, initially saved by virtue of being on the far side of the convoy, had been illuminated by the Nashville attack on a hapless collier and the burning Trento. That had been enough for the Garland, Griffin, and Hasty to engage. The subsequent arrival of the Porter, Phelps, and Winslow had sealed the two destroyers’ fate, the Italian crews barely getting off a handful of salvoes before both vessels’ guns were silenced. As they were pounded into helpless wreckage, first the Mirabello, then the Riboty burst into flames.

With the escort dispatched, the destruction of the remaining merchant vessels was simply a matter of firing a shot across their bow. After pointed discussion with signal lamp, each merchantmen’s crews took to their boats as prize crews boarded each vessel from the Allied destroyers. Moving quickly and surely, these men lay scuttling charges on each Italian vessel, then returned to their destroyers. Ten minutes later, over 50,000-tons of shipping was headed for the bottom of the Mozambique Channel.

The destroyer crews were returning to their parent vessels when the Trento’s fires reached the heavy cruiser’s forward magazines. The brief inferno that followed the fireball was swiftly quenched as the heavy cruiser plunged bow-first into the depths. As her flaming stern slipped beneath the waves in the rolling cacophony of shattering bulkheads, sizzling decks, and escaping steam, the crews of the Porter and Phelps could hear survivors crying out in the darkness. Hurried consultation with the bridge and Repulse led to the two destroyers cutting free rafts and floatation nets for their Italian counterparts, but the pair of destroyers soon joined the rest of the Task Group in heading northeast.

“Sir, the Repulse is signaling for all vessels to set course for point Wideawake,” the talker said, his words slurring slightly with fatigue as the adrenaline began wearing off.

That was intense and violent. I hope the flyboys do as much damage to the French when the sun comes up in a couple hours.

“Officer of the Deck, I’m going to look at the plot,” Jacob said. “You have the con.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Lieutenant Mitchell, the current OOD, replied.

“We didn’t quite manage to follow your plan, Captain Morton,” Commander Farmer observed as he entered the darkened compartment a few moments later. “Still, I’d say that your theory about letting the destroyers attack first would probably have worked if the rest of the task force had been slightly further away.”

“Well, to be fair, we weren’t facing an enemy with radar,” Jacob replied. “But yes, if I was writing the suggestion again, I’d recommend 10,000 yards’ range along the line of advance, 15,000 yards lateral separation might work better.”

Farmer pursed his lips.

“The risk of getting confused as to who is who increases a great deal at that range,” the RN officer pointed out. “Doesn’t do much good to get torpedoes off if that’s immediately followed by one’s own heavies blasting you to smithereens.”

Jacob nodded at the man’s words.

“Well that’s always the risk, isn’t it?” he observed grimly. “I do wish we’d had time to engage whomever fired upon the Nashville.”

“I am reasonably certain we do not want to be in this channel come daylight,” Farmer said. “Those two squadrons of bombers in Mozambique could make us rather uncomfortable with the carriers busy striking Madagascar.”

Blue One

VB-11

40 Miles North of Diego Suarez

0710 Local (0010 Eastern)

Dammit, finally, Lieutenant Eric Cobb thought, chaos swirling around him. After the Germans nearly kill me, the English make me sit through a surface battle, and the Japanese nearly paralyze me, here I am getting to dive bomb some assholes at last.

“Thach you son-of-a-bitch, get these fighters off us!” Lieutenant Commander Eric Hitchcock, the squadron commander, shouted over the radio. Eric didn’t hear the response from Commander Jimmy Thach, Fighting Five’s commander, but he could see why Hitchcock was incensed as yet another French fighter slashed through Bomber Squadron Eleven’s (VB-11’s) formation. The Frenchman's slipstream buffeted Eric’s bomber, the wind chill in his face through the Dauntless’s cockpit.

It’s cold as hell out here. He grunted in amusement at the relatively inane observation in the middle of a battle. Yes, being in a different hemisphere took some getting used to, but he was going to be plenty warm if someone set his Dauntless on fire.

“Red, Blue flights, we have the heavy cruiser!” Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock, barked, tagging the squadron’s first six bombers to go after the French vessel below. “Green, Yellow, get those damn destroyers.”

VB-11 planes had lifted off the U.S.S. Yorktown’s deck barely an hour before. As the reserve squadron for Task Force 24, VB-11 had been armed with armor-piercing 1,000-lb. bombs and ordered to stand by for launch orders. According to Commander Montgomery, the Yorktown’s CAG, they were either to be committed against any harbor installations that survived the onslaught from the U.S.S. Enterprise, H.M.C.S. Victorious, and H.M.C.S. Ark Royal’s initial attack against the French naval base at Diego Suarez, or attack units attempting to flee. When reconnaissance aircraft had sighted a heavy cruiser and two destroyers just outside the harbor’s mouth, the latter had clearly been decided.

“Red One, bogey at your five o’clock!” someone warned.

“Goddamit Green Four, get the hell back into formation!”

“Yellow Two is hit!”

The insanity of VB-11’s squadron net was a distant distraction as Eric looked down at the French heavy cruiser turning wildly beneath them. He