Hunter Sniper

Aboard the Nashville, he had experienced more than one general quarters. Those alarms had always been due to air raids. Usually they hadn’t amounted to much. General MacArthur’s staff found those alarms to be little more than an annoying interruption of their work.

Oatmire figured that it would be more of the same here on Kalinin Bay.

The other officers he’d been bunking with scrambled to get dressed.

Oatmire rubbed his head and took his time getting his pants on. As a visiting army officer, he had no real duties on the ship. Eventually, he followed the others up on deck.

O’Connell was waiting to shove a helmet and life vest at him. The serious look on the normally jovial Boston Irishman’s face told Oatmire that something was going on even before O’Connell explained.

“We have Japanese ships on the horizon,” O’Connell said.

“Anybody have binoculars?” Oatmire asked, some boyish part of him not a little excited. He had yet to see a Japanese ship.

“You don’t need binoculars,” O’Connell said, pointing.

Oatmire looked in that direction and saw not a lone ship, but several. “It looks like an entire Japanese fleet!”

“This is one time I wouldn’t argue with a ground pounder,” O’Connell said. “That definitely looks like a Japanese fleet.”

“Where the hell did they come from?”

“Sneaked right up on us from the other side of Leyte. I’ll tell you one thing, that took some sailing.”

“Damn” was all Oatmire could manage in response. Even from this distance, he could see the telltale Japanese pagoda silhouettes of the ships and even a glimpse of the Rising Sun flag.

Water foamed at the bows of the enemy ships. They were headed right for the US task force.

“Better get that helmet on. Maybe put your fingers in your ears.”

“What—”

Oatmire was suddenly deafened by the firing of the Jeep carrier’s five-inch gun. A jet of flame shot out toward the enemy fleet.

He could feel the ship turning under his feet, struggling to make itself a more difficult target. But a big, floating shoebox like Kalinin Bay was not nimble. It did its best.

He soon understood why. There was a roaring sound like a freight train or maybe a tornado, and then an enormous geyser erupted off the stern of the ship. That was soon followed by more roaring and splashes as an entire Japanese salvo arrived. Oatmire suspected that if the ship hadn’t managed to maneuver, those shells might have turned the carrier into swiss cheese.

The small carrier was also getting her bow into the wind. Across the deck, pilots raced for their aircraft. Even as more shells came in, first one plane, then another and another, managed to claw their way into the morning air and head toward the enemy vessels.

The Jeep carrier was accompanied only by a couple of destroyers. They were hopelessly outclassed and outgunned by the big enemy ships headed their way.

In an almost suicidal attack, one of the destroyers raced toward the Japanese, every gun firing. Oatmire had borrowed some binoculars and watched, amazed, as the destroyer made a direct hit on the nearest Japanese vessel. He whooped, expecting to see the enemy ship go up dramatically in flames.

To his astonishment, the shell from the US ship exploded but bounced off, doing no more harm than a firecracker makes against a sidewalk. The Japanese ships were just too heavily armored for the destroyer’s smaller gun to penetrate.

“Look at those brave bastards go,” O’Connell muttered in amazement.

Oatmire was reminded of a mouse trying to fight a bunch of cats. “Who are they?”

“That’s the Johnston.”

The destroyer had gotten right in among the Japanese fleet, firing in all directions, hitting them with everything from its five-inch gun to antiaircraft weapons. The feisty ship even hurled depth charges whenever it came close enough to an enemy vessel.

Other destroyers followed the example of USS Johnston, but held back from getting right in among the Japanese fleet. The attack had slowed the enemy onslaught, enabling Kalinin Bay and the other escort carriers nearby to get their planes into the sky. These were not nearly the numbers of aircraft — or the savage dive bombers — that USS Enterprise and the rest of the Third Fleet carriers could have launched. However, the Third Fleet was much too far away to help them now.

Even a small number of planes was more than the Japanese possessed. Theirs was strictly a naval force. The aircraft attacked furiously, as if their lives depended on it — which they did.