A Dawn Like Thunder by Robert J. Mrazek

Author:Robert J. Mrazek [J. MRAZEK, ROBERT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS000000
ISBN: 9780316040983
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2008-12-08T05:00:00+00:00

Over the Pacific

Torpedo Squadron Eight

Swede Larsen

1725

Unable to locate the nineteen-plane Enterprise group in the confused sky, Swede led his seven-plane formation north toward the previously reported position of the enemy carrier.

On the way, he radioed the other Avenger pilots to find out who was flying with him. The crews might have gotten mixed up, but it didn’t matter. Things always went wrong in combat situations. He had spent months training them to do their jobs, regardless of the conditions.

Of more concern was the fact that he was the only pilot who had brought his plotting board to compute their course and direction. The C6B was primitive but effective, a little wheel inside a piece of plastic that a pilot could use to log in each course change as he went along. Swede told them to stick tight with him through the mission. After nightfall, they would be flying virtually blind, and the plotting board might be critical to their survival.

They had been flying north for more than an hour and the sun had dropped to the edge of the horizon when Swede looked down at the darkening sea and saw a warship coming toward them.

It was Japanese. More warships emerged beyond the first one. They were destroyers, eight of them in a forward screen. Behind them came a phalanx of cruisers, three light ones, then four heavy cruisers all abeam, followed by another three light cruisers.

One of the two Dauntless pilots flying above the Avengers radioed that he had sighted a battleship farther back in the column, and they were going after it. Not seeing a carrier in the task force, Swede ordered an attack on the four heavy cruisers.

Off to the northwest he spotted a large cloud formation. It was vivid purple in the glow of the rapidly setting sun. Swede thought it might give the Avengers good cover for a low-level attack. As he led Taurman, Barnum, Ries, and Fayle toward the cloud formation, a flight of Zeroes raced to intercept them.

The purple cloud swallowed the Avengers long enough to escape the Zeroes, and Swede led them back out of the mist close to the surface of the sea. To reach the heavy cruisers, the Avengers had to first penetrate the screen of destroyers and light cruisers, all of which began hurling salvos at them as they came in.

To Bob Ries, it looked like the Christmas lights in a city building all being turned on at once. His plane was buffeted back and forth and up and down as the massed gunfire reached out for him. His only advantage was that the sky was already dark between the ships, making it harder for the gunners to find his plane against the sea.

Each pilot was on his own, selecting his target and lining up the run. As the Avengers closed in, the heavy cruisers broke formation and scattered. After dropping their torpedoes, that’s exactly what the Avengers did, too, scattering into the dusky gloom. If there were any hits, no one saw them explode.

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