December 27, 1941Truk atoll
It became a very hot day, but then again, every day was hot in the sun and moist of the Central Pacific, this close to the equator. Northern latitude: 7 degrees. At least the wind helped a bit. Truk had been built up into a huge amoeba-like fortress of 11 islands, some islets and a coral reef. The insides of the reef provided a perfect anchorage to a fleet of any size: shallow, protected by the islands and with just a few mined entrances. These days, Truk also hosted the headquarters of the Combined Fleet, and to protect this strategically highly important base, its facilities and its supply and fuel storages, the Navy had located several coastal defense gun batteries on the outer islands, laid a massive minefield and constructed several airstrips on multiple islands.
As a part of Truk's defenses, there were naturally air units. A squadron of float planes operating from a shore base kept an eye out on the surrounding waters up to a distance of 320 nautical miles. There were also 2 fighter units operating the latest Type 0 Carrier Fighter, or the A6M. These were the 9-plane Okamoto Detachment and Chitose Ku S-1.
Truk:
Long before daybreak the first 4 Zeros had been towed to the end of the short runway built along the beach. For maximum endurance, each fighter was equipped with a droptank. The "white men", the mechanics, had been working on them for hours already. They were all fueled, armed and warmed up by the time the pilots had woken up and eaten their breakfast, in their huts several hundreds of meters away up the hill from the beach. Only 4 pilots would take off and 4 more were assigned to 2-minute readiness, but Truk was no holiday resort. The pilots who would not fly would still be in 10 minute readiness near the airfield.
Nishizawa, Muranaka, Minami and Shiga were the ones to take off. The mission would be simple: keep flying around the atoll in 2-plane pairs at 15,000 feet and follow any orders from the ground station. The Zeros would be allowed to engage any enemy intruders or air patrols met, and the patrol leader would alert the rest of the squadron and the ground station upon an enemy contact.
The entire group including Commander Igarashi had not received news since the first few days of the war. For over 20 days there had been no newspapers spread and the local political officer had taken the radio receiver with him. The pilots and mechanics alike had been informed about only a few major events, such as the invasion of Rabaul far to the South and the events in Malaya, Burma and Sumatra. But in the first rays of light 15,000 feet above the anchorage, the importance of this Zero group was obvious to Shiga: the lagoon was filled with ships of all kinds. Hundreds of transports, small warships in the dozens, and a 8-strong task force with a massive battleship in the middle entering the lagoon, guided through the gap in the coral reef by small tugs and its integral float plane wing. It was probably the
Hyuga, that had departed on its mission 5 days ago. To the North he could see smoke in the horizon: more ships on their way to Truk. They would be here in a couple of hours. Near one of the islands, small boats and landing craft kept unloading troops and equipment from 3 huge ocean liners. How many men could each of those over hundred ships hold? 200, 300, 500 men?
3 carriers had departed Truk 8 days ago, but Shiga was sure that they would be somewhere nearby. Surely the Navy would not leave this many ships and what was obviously a staging base for important operations to be protected just by a couple of fighters, a single battleship task force and some small warships? Something would be bound to happen here, and the Chitose group would be part of it.
The dawn patrol was released at 1030 hours. Shiga and the 3 others landed and the field crew immediately took the Zeros to be refueled and moved ready to take off again. It seemed that new orders had been given while he had been airborne: there were now 4 pilots in cockpit readiness. Large white blankets on top of bamboo sticks shadowed them: it would otherwise be too hot to sit in the cockpits wearing full flight gear.
The rest of the pilots were found in their usual place: the "Officer Club", one of several actually, was in a small hut at the end of the runway. IJN pilots did what IJN pilots always did when they had spare time and were not eating, sleeping or swimming: they played bridge.
-"Hai! What do you all think about that fleet in the lagoon? It's growing every day. The Navy must be really confident in having just us to protect it from American bombers."
-"It's about time they sent more troops here, now we can finally truly defend this base!"
-"Hah! They are ARMY troops not and Marines you baka! They sure wont be here to defend the Navy! They must be soon leaving to Australia, or maybe even Hawaii!"
-"And if we go with them... Chitose fighter group in Hawaii!?! Maybe we do get to send the post cards home from Hawaii if the Americans start fighting back better than the English have so far! Remember when Igarashi said a Zero unit had scored nearly 60 victories to 2 loss over Philippines?!? Americans must be really shocked to see their planes are not as good as their cars!"
-"Say, do you think the Americans play bridge too?"
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Topic: War in the Pacific: PBEM, apparently closed, see last posts (Read 39462 times)