John Schettler - Lions at Dawn

Dear Readers,

‘Tis now the very witching time of night…’ A most appropriate quote for the way this volume will begin. We finally came to New Year’s Eve, 1942, and entered the critical middle year of the war in the last volume. 1943 was a year where both sides launched bold new offensives, punching and counterpunching in the decisive battles that would eventually decide the course of the war.

We’ll begin to see some of these new operations here, many as desperate as they are daring, as both sides attempt to ride the storm tide of war to some favorable end. And true to the general premise of this entire series, we will also see new challengers emerge to threaten the aspirations of all our principal players. Yet now I begin with another twist in the knotted rope of this story that will dramatically complicate the plans being laid by Fedorov and Karpov. It will see this book conclude with another tense six chapter naval duel in the Pacific involving the full range of all the most deadly modern weapons of war. Yet before that happens, there is much more story to relate as the war flares up in the West.

The principle action of this volume will rest in North Africa, as the combined Allied forces in Algeria attempt to push the Germans back into Tunisia, while our Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel, again locks horns with General Richard O’Connor in Tripolitania. Yet Adolf Hitler also gets into the act here, his mercurial mind reaching for new opportunities in the Middle East when the Russian Front is frozen solid in the coldest winter seen in over 200 years. This will lead the Führer to revisit old plans and operations, and dramatic make changes at OKW needed to carry them out.

Just for spice, we will also see two other smaller operations here. One takes place in the Med, in the waters off Tunis and Bizerte, and another will take us to the skies above the Black Sea. There, the Führer’s new airships are launched a most surprising mission, as Germany unveils the first of its deadly “Wonder Weapons” of WWII.

They moved north with as much stealth as possible. Captain Harada ordered all sensors except passive sonar to go into EMCON mode, as they wanted to be certain there was no chance they might be detected by the Russian battlecruiser. The news of the attack on Truk had not been well received. It underscored just how vast the canvas of the war was, and Takami could not be everywhere. Yet even when the ship was on station, they realized they had little real clout as their missile inventory had diminished considerably. The had only 30 SAMs left, enough for one more intervention that would likely just thin out the attacking enemy squadrons. After that, they were no more than well-educated observers in the war, with very good ears and eyes.

The Captain had been flipping through a copy of a magazine that had been found on Fiji by a Japanese soldier and sent up through channels, all the way to Yamamoto, who had then casually passed it to Harada at their last meeting. “I have become somewhat of a monster these days,” the Admiral had said to Harada. “Look at the dour and devious expression they attribute to me.”

It was the cover of Time Magazine, the December 22nd issue, in 1941, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The caption beneath Yamamoto’s caricature read: ‘Japan’s Aggressive Admiral Yamamoto.’ Inside, the cover story set the same tone as the image:

‘A humble wireless set trembled last week with quasi-divine vibrations as the Son of Heaven himself sent Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Combined Imperial Fleets, congratulations for the daring execution of a brilliant treachery.

Congratulations from Emperor Hirohito fix upon their recipient an incredible joy; but also a certain uneasiness. This is because they not only bestow praise; they also adjure the congratulatee to continue the good work—or else.’

Or else… Harada knew the feeling now. They had made their bold approach, entered into this impossible scenario thinking they could make all the difference, yet every success made him feel the weight of that statement. Keep up the good work—or else you find yourself sent home to Yokohama.

The order to steam for Yokohama took both Harada and his XO Fukada by surprise. They thought that they would be recalled to Rabaul to provide fleet defense there, particularly after the raid on Truk. Instead they were called home, and ordered by Admiral Ugaki to report directly to Fleet Chief Admiral Osami Nagano.

“I don’t like it,” said Harada. “While we were operating down south, we at least had a lid on things. Steaming into Yokohama is going to get a lot of people talking. We’ll undoubtedly have visitors, which is the last thing I want.”

“When poisoned, one might as well swallow the whole plate,” said Fukada. An Englishman might well have said, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound. “You know it was inevitable that we’d draw attention here from the moment we fired that first SM-2 in the bay off Davao.”

“Yet so much for all our grand notions of influencing the course of this war,” said Harada. “We couldn’t persuade Yamamoto, we couldn’t handle the Russians, and now we can’t even protect the Kido Butai. We’ve been benched, Number 1, and I’m not immune to the great bane of most Japanese—shame.”

“We’d be wise to limit or prevent any more boardings by men from this era,” said Fukada.

“And what if we get a direct order from someone like Nagano? How does one say no politely to the only man in the Navy senior to Yamamoto?”

“With great caution. We’ll have to be very Japanese about it. Bow and scrape, smile a lot, say the arrangements will be made directly, delay, reschedule, ask for a postponement due to an issue with the ship. You know the drill.”

“That’ll only get us so far. We might delay a few days on a technical matter involving the ship, but not much longer. Perhaps we can say we want to make certain the ship is properly presented to his lordship. And now that we get into royalty, what if the Emperor himself is behind this request? Ugaki was very tight lipped when he gave me these orders.”

“That would certainly be something,” said Fukada, “an audience with Hirohito!”

“Be careful what you wish for,” said Harada. “How do we explain this ship to Nagano? That’s our first real problem. Are we going to tell him the truth?”

“That would be… difficult,” said Fukada.

“That’s half a word for it,” said Harada. He rubbed the back of his neck, as if he might rub away this whole nightmare, his mind haunted by second thoughts, regrets, and the realization that they were slowly becoming a little fish in a great steaming pot on the boil, and one he knew the end of only too well.”

“XO,” he said. “We’ve gone an hitched our wagon to a falling star,” he said.

“It isn’t over yet,” said Fukada, thinking to bolster the Captain’s spirits. “We still have some fight in us.”

“Not enough,” said Harada. “The Russians called our bluff and we had to back down. Kurita took our shame upon himself, and we’ve gone and made one dangerous enemy of that man. Now it seems that Yamamoto is losing faith in us as well. Mister Ikida, how soon do we make Eniwetok?”