The second half of this Chapter has been co-written by an accquaintance of mine, known as Markus on AH.com and M.Becker on the TBO-verse Forums.
Chapter 262
The Battle of Singapore had one element that the Japanese planners had failed to anticipate at first. The convoys that brought much-needed supplies and replacements to the beleaguered British Fortress were given a much stronger escort than anyone had thought, and with the Naval war in Europe reduced to Light Forces battling away in coastal territories the British had sent most of their Capital units east and each time the Singapore Express left Australia the escort was stronger. Still, the existence of the scattered units of the German Navy in the Baltic Ports and the existence of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, each with nothing bigger than a Heavy Cruiser actually fully operational and a Fleet in Being more than anything else prevented the Admiralty to send the pre-war Carriers to the Far East, even though Admiral Cunningham would have gladly sent Ark Royal on the supply runs to Singapore, for some reason believing that the Ark was more than capable of doing this.[1] Due to this Air cover for the Convoys was always very, very weak and even though the Canadian and Australian Carriers (HMCS Vimy Ridge and HMAS Melbourne) were expected to become operational by the end of the month, he had no inclination of sending two top-modern Carriers into the gauntlet when he needed every deck he had in the ongoing battle against the Kido Butai around the Carolinas even discounting the fact that the Australian and Canadian Governments would have screamed blood and murder.
Air cover as it was was provided by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force and the RAF/RAAF units in the unoccupied parts of the Dutch East Indies and now that the Dutch had handed over their last Boomerangs to others and were equipped with the CAC 17/Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vc (tropical) now, much to the horror of the Japanese flyers on Borneo and Sumatra who often had to make do with second-line equipment. This was partially due to the buildup for the massive Naval/Air battle that everyone expected in the central Pacific in the 1943 campaigning season but also due to the demands of the Russian Front and the almost constant, annoying and increasingly strong air attacks flown from the British carriers which also forced the Japanese High Command to keep part of the best of the Naval Aviation Squadrons at a position where they could do nothing to attack the irregular but strongly escorted British convoys that constituted the lifeline of the fortress of Singapore. However while the Allies wouldn't risk their Carriers, the Japanese simply couldn't, as due to the Army's influence and effective complete rule over Japan the Navy's budget for new construction had been reduced so much that they were forced to concentrate on the most necessary hulls, Carriers, Light Cruisers and Destroyers, in fact even the third and fourth Yamato-Class Dreadnoughts were re-ordered as Carriers on the basis of the original hull in July 1942. This left both sides with the Surface forces and this was one are where the Allies were at a disadvantage. Commitment to Carriers as an idea was all well and good, but the production capability of the Empire in that regard was limited and the second wave of Implacable Class Carriers wouldn't arrive until...1943, which was fast shaping up to be the year in which the war in the Far East would take a new direction, whatever that might be on sea and on land.
For the moment though this meant that the Japanese Battle-line was theoretically free to intervene in the southern Convoys (as the Japanese called them) from their bases in the area but in effect only a part of the Japanese Battleline was stationed there, with the oldest ships being held back for Home Defence, only a Battlegroup centred around Yamato and the 'Nagato Sisters' was permanently stationed in Cam Rahn Bay, and while Yamamoto hated dispersing his assets like this (which would indeed later come back to haunt the Japanese) there simply was no other choice.
HMS Hood had formed the escort flagship for convoy SPS-49 and run the gauntlet successfully, loosing one of eight merchants and a Destroyer of the escort force, with no damage on herself and slight damage on HMS Belfast, the biggest damage being a knocked-out turret and two missing secondary guns on one of the other Cruisers. Overall the escort Force was still very much in action, and since they were heading back towards friendly waters and air cover from western Java the enemy surface forces would have to work hard to catch them, even in daylight and...
“Action Stations! Action Stations! Prepare for Air action!” Many would die or be wounded on this day after all.
“There they are Sir, eight Boomerangs straight ahead. I guess we are out of the woods now.”
Lieutenant Commander Pertwee lowered the binoculars and made a mental note to commend Lt. McNaulty for his on the mark navigation. They were indeed within range of the fighter escort from RAAF Milikapiti at the time he calculated. HMS Hood was out of the woods indeed. His thoughs were interrupted by one of the lookouts:
"What are they? That´s no RAAF-roundel. Looks like a sun ... not the Japs´s."
Aircraft recognition manuals were pored over as the "strange" Boomerangs kept a respectful distance to Hood.
"I got it. They are the Free Chinese Air Force it says here."
"Free Chinese? Nice to see at least some of them are on our side."
Some twenty hours after this rather odd encounter Hood crept into Darwin, again with the punctuality of of a London commuter train. Before the lines had been fully fastened she was swamped with medical personal from Darwin who quickly evacuated the badly wounded to Darwin´s hospitals including one irate Captain Beattie who insisted on staying aboard Hood. To no avail, the medical officer in charge calmly stated Doctor Smith´s orders were leaving him no choice and that he´d rather fight Hood´s crew armed with a spoon than incur the wrath of Doctor Smith: “Whatever you do, you don´t mess with the doctor!”
The next five days were a blur in Lieutenant Commander Pertwee´s memory as he felt he was needed in three different places at any time. One event was standing out clearly though. On the third day the Captain had decided to check himself out of the hospital … only to be (almost) dragged back by several Military Policeman who were send by and showing a lot of respect for the doctor. And they did not come a minute too some. Inevitably some of the Captain´s wounds got infected and now he was being pumped full with penicillin, while his room was allegedly guarded 24 hours a day by the MP. Considering how upset Admiral Cunningham was at the prospect of loosing Beattie “to a bloody bug”, MP keeping the Captain in and visitors out was probably a good idea.
HMS Hood´s temporary Commanding Officer was waking up, seeing the sunlight shine thought the bulleye´s shades, turned around … and was almost standing in the bed! Sunlight? How long had he been sleeping? A quick lock at the alarm clock:
“Miller! God damn it! It´s almost 10 a.m. You were supposed to wake me at six.”
“Doctor´s orders, Sir! You had been sleeping too little for too long.”
“I wonder if there is one man on the entire base who is not afraid of that doctor.”
“I doubt it Sir. But this will cheer you up.”
Pertwee glanced at the papers.
“Give me the summary and a tea.”
“About that Sir”
“I know, I know. Bloody coffee it is.”
“Here Sir. Y-turret has been fixed and we have restored electricity to all parts of the ship. And the engineers were finally able to take a look on the drive shaft. It´s not nearly as bad they they first thought.”
Seeing the CO flushing down a sandwich with a mug of coffee, while going through the detailed reports Able Seaman Miller stopped and stepped out of the room.
Two hours later on the bridge Lieutenant Commander Pertwee got confirmation things were going back to normal. For the first time since the battle against Yamato he had nothing to do. All the departments were once again running smoothly on their own, so he decided to take a stroll around Hood. At first everything seems normal, the sound of hammers, sparks from blowtorches, hoses and cables coming out of every bull-eye and door. Than he noticed something was missing, the Mark IV HACS Director that had somehow survived the battle was missing.
“Yes Sir, they removed it this morning. Damage to X-turret will keep us here long enough to get a new anti-aircraft fire control system. This and most of the HACS was unrepairable anyway, See the blue boxes on the train? That´s the new one.”
Down at the dock a Warrant Officer was making a surprising discovery:
“I´ll be damned if that´s not a Mark 19 director. Modified but clearly an old Mark 19. Didn´t expect to see one of the babies again.”
The Canadian Lieutenant supervising the delivery and the WO exchanged knowing looks.
“Petty Officer Third Class Erwin J. Clark, Yangtze Patrol, USS Luzon”
“Ensign Joseph M. O´O’Donnell, USS Houston”
“The Galloping Ghost of the Florida Coast?! It´s an honour to meet you Sir! And now you need to tell me everything about this. Is it a true, tachymetric anti-aircraft FC we are about to get?”
“It is indeed. Basically we -IBM Canada- tried to sell it to the Navy in 35 but the Admiralty wasn´t interested until after Norway and Dunkirk but that it was why-hasn´t-it-been-delivered-yesterday!”
The WO was nodding emphatically.
“We tweaked it a bit here and there and now it´s good for targets with a speed of up to 340 knots or 390 miles per hour. Unlike the old Mark 19 it´s just fine against diving targets too and it´s but one part of completely new FCS.” Pointing to the blue boxes the Lieutenant continued, “The Tachyometric, RDF-based, Air-Defense and Identification System. Once set up TRADIS will...”
Later in the afternoon Hood was getting even better news. The penicillin was showing its effect and the doctor was finally allowing visitors. Lieutenant Commander Pertwee thus headed to the hospital right away. Once arrived he noticed the rumour of MP watching the Captain was no rumour. There were two MP guarding the door to the Captain´s room. The Captain -very much bandaged and having an infusion in his arm- was in a good mood and as far as LtCdr. Pertwee could tell at least the rumour of him having been handcuffed to the bed was false.
“Now if that isn´t Commander Pertwee. I see you have brought me some reading Commander Pertwee and I hope and pray there is a file in that briefcase too, so I can get out of here, Commander Pertwee.”
All that “Commander Pertwee” visibly confused Lieutenant Commander Pertwee. Much to the amusement of the Captain.
“Talk of a breakdown of communications. You really don´t know you have been promoted?”
“Umm, no Sir. So far nobody has bothered to tell me” he was so off-balance that he gave the Australasian nurse who also was in the room no more than passing attention, “about the file, there are so many files in the briefcase, I could even put in a nail file. I´ll get you one tomorrow, so you can escape from the dastardly doctor´s captivity.”
That statement amused the Captain even more.
“May I introduce, Commander Pertwee, acting CO of HMS Hood. Captain Smith, MD. Chief Medical Officer of HMNB Darwin.”
“You´re The Doctor?”
[Notes:
]
[1] Of course there being no Force H to speak of...
[2] I know it isn't Hood, but bear with me here...