Chapter 301
With Singapore effectively neutralized in spite of the failure of the Japanese to actually take the Island they could speed-run through the slot between Singapore's Artillery range and Borneo without Carrier escort. The troop convoy had red-lined it's engines and was thus already nearing the area where the Allied fleets were operating. The forward Vanguard consisted of the Heavy Cruisers Maya and Kumano, supported by the Light Cruiser Nata and six Destroyers of DesRon 25, the group that was permanently stationed at Cham-Rhan bay to combat the few Allied Submarines that dared venture that far north. It normally consisted of eight ships, but one had run into a French seamine that were still encountered occasionally and the other had sprung a bearing in one of her shafts and was currently under repair.
Still, Rear Admiral Kurita was confident, after all the Imperial Japanese Navy was a world beater in night combat and the Allies would never risk their battlefleet in these confined waters at night. Intelligence had plotted the Allied Battleforce steaming eastwards when last encountered, probably retreating behind their submarine screen. In any case, the main force was several hours behind and would enter these waters early in the next morning during daylight. Kurita didn't ponder the wisdom of this overmuch as he had a job of his own to do. He was to find out what, if any, enemy Naval Forces were in the area. This was somewhat hard to do in standard Battle Formation, but he was not inclined to take any risks, the death of Admiral Yamamoto was still far too close on everyone's mind.
He contemplated turning in for the night but he had had trouble sleeping for some reason and was thus still pacing the deck, consuming what had to be the fifteenth cup of tea of the day.
“Any contacts?” he asked his Bridge crew.
“None, Sir.”
“Good.” Kurita nodded. Maybe a change in formation was needed after all. They were north of the western end of Java now and it was here that the Allied Fleet often operated.
“Signal to DesRon 6. Tell them to engage in a standard sweep pattern ahead of our course.”
The Destroyers acknowledged the signal via blinker lights and dashed ahead to sweep the seas and Kurita was cursing at himself for not having ordered that move earlier. The problem was that DesRon 6 was a backwater unit, a mixture of ships of four different classes and not very experienced at full-strength operations, however that none of his ships, cruisers included, had RDF was not a matter. Was not the IJN the master of night combat?
Continuing on for another two hours no ships were encountered but that was about to change because some twenty miles to the east Battle Group Able Two-One was steaming towards them, spaced out over less than two miles.
HMS Euryalus, a Dido-Class Light Cruiser and the Destroyers HMS Battle, HMS Hotspur, HMAS Albania[2] and HMAS Gallipoli were it. Battlegroup Able Two-One was the forward van of the the Allied Fleet, and Commodore Blackwood, fittingly in Euryalus, was well aware that the contacts his RDF operators had detected a few minutes ago were bound to be just the Vanguard of a larger fleet and his orders prevented him from seeking an engagement anyway. Van Doorman and Somerville had been insistent that he was to lure the Japanese towards the Allied fleet if at all possible, but he first had to make sure that these ships were Japanese. He couldn't possibly think of them being anything else, but he had to make sure.
Hotspur and Battle were the picket of the picket and slowy but surely they made their way towards the contacts.
Aboard Hotspur her Captain always had one ear on the passage to the compartment back of the bridge where two men were huddled over the screens of their RDF system and another straight ahead to where he half-expected the entire Japanese Line of Battle coming at them any second.
“We're almost within range.” the XO said.
The Captain opened his mouth and was about to give an order, but the muzzle flashes stopped him. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed instead and then: “Open fire!” even as the forward turrets twin guns spewed fire and hurled their shells at the enemy flashes. The number of them told him that he was facing more than a picket and frantic calls for help resulted.
It came in the person Euryalus and the two Australian Destroyers who were less than a mile to the south of Hotspur and Battle. Blackwood turned ordered a turn and even as Euryalus settled and her turrets turned towards the enemy large splashes fell between her and the two British Destroyers. The British were aware of them but not that they were fired from Kurita's cruisers.
“Sir, these new targets are too large for Destroyers.” came the voice of his XO. Blackwood wasn't surprised that he was running into Japanese Cruisers and he was sure that these were some of the fearsome Japanese Heavy Cruisers.
“Signal to Group. Disengage and withdraw towards Point Luck at best speed.”
Point Luck was wherever the main force of the fleet was located and Blackwood would feel immensly better when he was under the guns of Richelieu and her consorts. But alas, it was not going to be this easy. A shell from Maya slammed into her rearmost turret, not by skill or accuracy but sheer bad luck for the British. It didn't slow the British down one bit, but the explosion illuminated the ship for a few precious seconds and told the Japanese exactly where she was.
The Allied ships however were determined to continue their withdrawal and simply red-lined their own engines while the Destroyer Battle descended into a murderous fistfight when even the light anti-aircraft weapons fired at each other. Battle was had a small fire astern but was still under way, Albania had lost her bridge and was steered by the Third Lieutenant from the after conning position and was limping eastwards in the general direction of allied waters to a long stay at the docks of Australia.
Hotspur had so far escaped damage and was already out of range of the Japanese cruisers that were still lagging behind their Destroyers, Gallipoli was only a few yards behind her. Battle meanwhile was circling around to the rear of Euryalus as her momentary loss of control had put her on a course exactly opposite to the rest of the Battlegroup. When she was hidden behind shell splashes from one of the Japanese Cruisers but emerged without significant additional damage, and five minutes later the guns fell silent as the Japanese charged off in the direction the British Cruiser had taken when last seen.
Right towards the waiting Allied ships , and ten miles farther west Yamato and her consorts were changing course to do the same.
For the next four hours the Japanese Squadron charged eastward and Admiral Kusaka was slowly becoming ever more worried. The British van had near disappeared, even the six crippled Destroyers that had been reported where nowhere to be seen and nor was the Battlefleet that the sunk Cruiser had been covering. Where were the British? They had to be around here somewhere, but the RDF scopes aboard Yamato were clear of any surface contacts.
Where were they? Had they fallen back after the annihilation of their van? Were they somewhere to his south, where Allied Aircraft could more easily support them? Were were they?
He craved the Battle, a battle that would not only sweep the seas clean and lead to the eventual conquest of Java but that would also make his name and the weak Allies were shrinking away from it. He supposed that this was to be expected by a European alliance of multiple nations, but he still was personally offended. They had strong forces here, and he himself would have fought.
So where were they?
The Allied Battlefleet was around forty miles ahead of Kusaka's force and racing for the Javanese coast at best speed to make way for a whole other kind of Allied Naval presence. Another sixty miles to the north-east of the Allied Battlefleet five Allied ships with flat decks and few guns turned into the wind and began launching their planes.
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