Brett Ashton - Vengeance - Hatred and Honor

“Come in and have a seat, Jake,” the XO said upon seeing me.

“Thanks, Joe,” I replied. “How can I help you?”

“I’ll spare you the time and get to the point right away, knowing how busy you are but also knowing how busy you are about to become.”

His last words “how busy you are about to become” hung on my mind for a moment. What could that possibly mean, other than I was about to be reassigned? But where, and what would that mean? I didn’t have long to wait to find out.

“What do you know about Cleveland-class cruisers, Jake?”

That’s it; I was being reassigned to another ship and that most likely meant no trip to the United States for Commander Jacob Scott Williams.

“Well, they have a lot of guns for a small cruiser; a dozen sixes, a dozen fives, and a large host of forties, twenties and sometimes fifty cals. They are very maneuverable, fast, and lightly armored. Also, their damage control systems are fairly good, so they can take a punch and keep hitting back,” I said.

“Great, Jake; you’re hired,” he replied.

“Hired? For what, exactly?”

“There is going to be a ship waiting for us in Pearl Harbor called the USS Buffalo ; she is a new ship on her way to support the campaign in the Philippines, from what I understand. Her skipper, Captain Albert Beck, is getting a promotion and going to work in the navy yard in Washington. The North Carolina is the taxi that is going to take him there.”

“What exactly does that have to do with me?” I asked, having some idea but still not completely expecting or understanding what was about to happen.

“You,” he said with a dramatic pause, which almost drove me crazy, “are going to take his place as the commanding officer of the Buffalo .”

I’m sure my jaw dropped at that point. I stared at him in disbelief, not knowing what to say. It wasn’t the first time I commanded a ship. Prior to my service on the Oklahoma , I had commanded a small “tin can” destroyer and a submarine. Normally, command of a ship the likes of a cruiser would be reserved for an officer holding the rank of captain, or at least someone who had been a commander for more than two years. But this was wartime, and things like this happen very rapidly.

“As CO?” I finally repeated, still not believing it fully.

“Yep.”

“Shouldn’t that post require a captain?”

“Normally, yes,” he replied, “but this is war and the navy, the captain, Admiral Halsey, and I all think you are capable enough to do it. Apparently, Bull Halsey pushed for this himself and convinced Vice Admiral Kinkaid of the Seventh Fleet you could do this, so the job is yours if you want it.”

Now, when you are a lifetime officer in the navy, and an admiral named “Halsey” is pulling for you, there really is only one answer to a question like that. You either accept the job offered and eventually get promoted to admiral or learn to become content, never getting promoted past your current rank and being stationed somewhere in Alaska for the rest of your life.

But goddamn it, there was still Susan and the kids! When would be the next time I would get to see them? I was really beginning to hate this war and what it was doing to my family. I felt it was just not fair to be so close to seeing them and yet not really having the chance to.

I was sure the orders for me to take command of the Buffalo were already written, and normally, I would have been very honored by the offer to command a new cruiser. Still, the urge to say no weighed heavily on my mind. Because of the war, I was trapped with no way out. Because of the Japanese, I couldn’t go home to see my wife and children, and I hated the Japs so very much more because of it.

“Damn, Joe,” I said shaking my head. “We both know I have to accept. But still, I wish our ships were heading in the other directions.”

“Family?”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen them since a month after the attack on Pearl.”

“Hmm… I understand Jake, and I wish I could help you.”

“You can, Joe,” I said.

“How?” he asked.

“Kill as many Nips as you can so we can all go home.”

“You got it, Jake. Happy hunting.”

So as the next several days passed, the Showboat turned east and steered a course toward home via Pearl Harbor. I began to gather together the very few things I kept on the ship with me and changed from studying the ship I was on to teaching the machine gun officer to replace me at air defense.

As we pulled into Pearl Harbor, I immediately noticed how well the area had been cleaned up. There was still the hulk of the Arizona , stripped of most of her superstructure, and the Utah had been rolled out of the navigation channel. All the rest of the destroyed ships were gone completely except for the Oklahoma , which had been refloated and pushed aside to one of the piers close to where we moored up.

I tried not to look at my old ship too much, but at the same time, for some reason, I couldn’t resist looking at the place where the war had started for me. Yard workers covered the main deck, evidently stripping off any excess weight they could remove. Haphazard patchwork had been installed over the torpedo damage along the port side to keep her afloat. I could tell she was being fixed up for a long tow to somewhere; the only reason I could guess was to cut her up for scrap.

I would have liked to go aboard to see if anything was left of my possessions, but time would not allow it. I had to spend all of my time in port transferring off of the North Carolina and taking command of the Buffalo .

The Buffalo was a brand-new ship. She was clean; everything was freshly painted and modern. The crew was new as well, and not unlike the crew of the North Carolina several years before—eager to fight yet untested by combat.

Captain Beck assured me all that could be done to ready the ship for combat had been done, but at nearly the same time he told me that, he also told me he had not been in combat himself. I had to guess this was the reason he was being moved to the shipyards in Bremerton, and I was being put in command of this ship. Not that he was an incompetent officer, just that he was accustomed to doing things by the navy’s book. The book has a tendency to mean less when people are shooting at you or trying to blow you up. Not because the rules are bad; it’s just that the one thing in combat you can count on is it won’t go the way you think it will. The rules in the book are written around what the engineers think will happen. One of the primary factors in combat is to bring about the unexpected; thus, the rules can rather quickly become obsolete. And I was relatively sure the Japanese didn’t check with the engineers who designed the ship to find out where and where not to shoot.

The change of command went smoothly and quite quickly because of the rapid departure of Captain Beck. My executive officer, recently promoted Commander Ward Thompson, had been well prepared to brief me on the operations of the ship. It was a pleasant surprise to find one of my old shipmates from the Oklahoma , Chuck Lewis, who had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander and was the air defense officer. Also I had a marine detachment on board, which was being commanded by a Guadalcanal veteran, Major Alex Johnson. It was a good thing to know at least several of my key officers had prior combat experience. And the major came with an extra bonus. He was an expert in the Japanese language and culture.

Normally, I would have been happy and proud to assume command of a vessel like this. As a career officer, it was a wonderful opportunity to prove myself, but I could not help resenting her somewhat. Finally, I assumed the attitude that it wasn’t the ship itself; it was simply pointed in the wrong direction. I wanted to go home, even for a short time, to my wife and kids. This ship, pointed west toward the Japanese, and standing in Pearl Harbor, where it all began, brought the sting of it to me more than anything else. And I thought to myself it was the Japanese that brought all of this to me, and I hated them even more for it as I looked across the harbor to the dead and rusted hulk of the Oklahoma . The only thing I could do about it was kill all of them as fast as I could in the hope that eventually I would be able to go home.