John Schettler - 9 Days Falling, Volume I

Ticonderoga was a very tough ship. An Essex class carrier, she was commissioned in May of 1944, and would see a brief but violent tour of duty in the Pacific before the war ended. The ship fought bravely in the Philippines Campaign, fending off kamikaze attacks on the fleet, launching fighter sweeps over Luzon and pounding enemy positions wherever they were found. She also rode out two punishing typhoons before fighting her way into the South China Sea where her task force sunk an amazing enemy 44 ships. On the 21st of January she was struck by two bomb laden kamikaze planes, just as Hayashi had struck Kirov , and was forced to limp home to Puget Sound for repairs. But by May she was back in the Pacific and running with the fast fleet carriers that had broken the back of the Japanese navy and inexorably rolled towards the Japanese homelands with unstoppable power.

Airmen off the Ticonderoga had found and sunk the last remnants of the once proud Japanese navy, sending battleships Ise, Hyuga and Haruna to watery graves along with the escort carrier Kaiyo as the United States systematically destroyed what was left of Japanese air and sea power. TF.38.3 had worked its way up Kyushu to pound Hokkaido by mid August, destroying a massed air division that was marshalling to plan a major suicide raid on the US B-29 bases in the Marianas. The ship had planes in the air over Tokyo when the word came in that Japan had finally capitulated. At the same time CV Wasp’s alert combat air patrol stopped a pair of Japanese planes from attacking the task force. The last sputtering embers of the war were still hot, but that evening the flyers celebrated in the air briefing room with several bottles of champagne that Ziggy Sprague had produced from his haversacks.

Then news came of the attack on Babe Brown’s cruisers and the loss of two destroyers in the Kuriles. Halsey was quick to tag his fighting Admiral to go and have a look, and Sprague was on the bridge that day, his eyes gazing at the sea.

While still a young man, his features were lined and weathered by the long war, and looking much older than his 49 years. And Ex-navy airman who trained in the days before the seat harness was installed, he had been thrown into more windshields and instrument panels than he could count over the years. Now he had the nose of a fighter that had seen one or two more rounds than he needed, and hound dog eyes that seemed to hold a cup of yearning in them. He wore a Navy garrison cap, eschewing the billed officer’s cap as he found it more comfortable and easier to use with field glasses, particularly in combat.

When it came to fighting at sea Sprague was tough as nails, cool under fire and determined. His actions off Samar with the escort carriers and destroyers of Taffy 3 won him long lasting fame, but also haunted him with the memory of the ships and men lost that day. 1130 men went into the sea and died off Samar, many taken by the sharks. Another 913 were wounded and bore the scars of that action. The rest lived with the memory of it all, as Sprague did. Now he was about to be put to the test yet again.

Sprague had a couple of DD pickets well out in front, just under a hundred kilometers ahead of his main force. They were a pair of Gearing class destroyers outfitted with radar to form an advanced screen. Each one had been specially modified for their new role by removing one of the torpedo tube mounts and altering the internal arrangement to make space for SP radar, IFF, and rudimentary ECM equipment.

Both ships were newcomers to the action in the Pacific, laid down in 1944, with Southerland commissioned in December of that year and Benner joining the fleet in February of 1945. Their SP system was a light weight fighter direction control radar on a parabolic antenna that rotated six times per minute. With a range of 30 to 65 kilometers for surface contacts, depending on their size, and 65 to 130 kilometers for air contacts, they were nearly in range of Kirov and the small Russian flotilla to the north. They had been sent to look for any sign of trouble that morning, cruising due east of Nemuro Peninsula on Hokkaido, though all seemed quiet and calm.

Commander John Mulholland was aboard Benner when his radar operators called out contacts to the north, emerging from the long chain of the Kurile Islands. He leaned over the operator’s scope, watching the slow sweep of the radar circling every ten seconds.

“Looks to be three ships, sir. They’re right between those two big Islands. I’ll send the position to the plotting board.”

“Very well,” said Mulholland, wondering what he was seeing here. He knew the US now had nothing in that area after Admiral Brown had withdrawn his task force. The reports circulating on Brown’s encounter were dim at best. Two destroyers went down, hit by something they figured to be a rocket powered glider the Japanese would called the Okha , or Cherry Blossom. It was a suicide rocket, piloted and dropped from bombers at altitude before its solid fuel rocket engine would send it on to the target. But the odd thing was that there had been no reports of any air contacts before that attack, and the approach came in from the north, well out in the Sea of Okhotsk. Mulholland could not imagine that the Japanese had anything left afloat up here, and so the sudden attack on Babe Brown’s light cruisers was a bit of a mystery.

Three ships… He got on the radio at once to inform the Task Force flag and was told to continue tracking the contacts until the fleet could send up a flight of Hellcats to have a closer look. He decided to radio Commander Williams on Sutherland as well, and pass on their marching orders.

A half hour later they could detect the Hellcats coming up from the main body, a tight fist of five fighters designated Redeye One passing overhead about 50 kilometers south of the contacts they were to investigate. Mulholland watched the planes disappear, taking over point duty on this long range recon operation, and he waited on the open channel for a report. He did not like what he heard next.

“Redeye one to Bullfrog, we have the contacts in visual range. Confirm three ships, and one is a big fellow. Over”

“Roger Redeye, get down and have a closer look. Bullfrog Over.”

Mulholland was on the radio himself, a personal habit. He wanted to hear what was reported directly, not through a watchstander, and if he said anything in return he wanted the other fellow to get it right from the horse’s mouth where there was no chance of misinterpretation. He listened to the flight leader chatting with his mates.

“Fan out and get down on the deck boys. Let’s go make some noise.” The planes were going in low and fast. If they could ID a rising sun on any flag those ships were flying they had authorization to open up in a strafing run. The war might be officially over, but any Japanese warship still found to be at sea was still fair game.

“Those planes are getting close,” said Rodenko, an edge of warning in his voice.

“I’m hearing them on radio, sir,” said Nikolin. “Something about frogs with red eyes.”

“Frogs with red eyes?” Karpov grinned at him. “Your translation skills are slipping, Mister Nikolin.”

“I have it now, sir. Redeye…that must be their designation for the incoming aircraft. The frogs are the two ships.”

“That’s makes a little more sense.”

“They’re dropping down below 5000 meters,” said Rodenko. “It’s most likely a reconnaissance run.”

“Most likely,” said Karpov, but the ship was on Air Alert One nonetheless, and Samsonov had both the medium range Klinok and also his Kashtan close in Missile defense systems ready as ordered. The Captain had instructed the other two ships in his flotilla to stand ready, but to hold their fire and allow the flagship to handle the matter.