Manifest Destiny by James Philip

Author:James Philip [Philip, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Monday 27th October 1980

HMS Orion

Seven nautical miles ESE of Butaritari Atoll

Central Pacific

Captain Bertram ‘Bertie’ Lancelot Holland could not stop himself glancing at the bulkhead chronometer in the gloomy pre-dawn twilight of the compass platform in the seconds before the ships under his command unleashed Hell on the possibly still unsuspecting Japanese garrison of the seven small islands and tiny islets of Butaritari Atoll, the northernmost landfall of the Gilbert Islands. It was three hours since he had led Task Force 80.6’s two heavy cruisers, his own command and the Culloden of Battle of San Francisco Bay fame, and the destroyers Aisne, Poitiers, Long Island and Fortitude north from the holding area, seventy miles from the nearest landfall, of the rest of the fleet.

Orion’s target was Makin Island at the northeastern corner of the Butaritari Lagoon, Culloden would bombard the second largest land mass, Kiebu to the south, the destroyers had licence to go close inshore to hammer anything which survived, before withdrawing out to sea thirty minutes after the first round was fired. The carriers would mount an air strike once the dust had settled, just in case anybody was still alive above ground.

The Cairo had lost two Goshawks yesterday in the strike on Tarawa Atoll, one had skidded over the side of the carrier on landing, the other lost bird had ditched alongside the destroyer Minden after its engine had seized. The good news was that its pilot had been plucked from the sea. Notwithstanding, the raid had apparently been a great success and as many as twenty Reapers would be participating in the follow-up strikes on Butaritari Atoll later that morning.

Bertie Holland suspected that giving the Japs the ‘reaper treatment’ was probably over-kill, if a naval bombardment by sixteen 8-inch 50-calibre rifles hurling 260-pound high explosive shells, and four destroyers chipping in with their combined twenty or so 4.7-inchers did not do the trick then he for one, was going to be very interested to find out what did!

But then that was partly what OPERATION MUDLARK, with relatively small Task Forces mounting simultaneous strikes on carefully selected, isolated enemy outposts at the very edge of the despicable ‘Co-Prosperity Zone’, was all about. Giving the Japs a bloody nose out here on the edge of their foul empire was one thing; establishing exactly what it was going to take to start expelling them was another. A lot of these enemy-garrisoned and fortified islands were just sand dunes sitting on a coral reef sticking half-a-dozen feet above the high tide line. Would even 8-inch shells dig out the defenders?

Tarawa seemed pretty much dead when Goshawks had overflown it at dusk last night, if any Japs had survived yesterday’s strike, hunkering down in bunkers, they were going to get a nasty surprise when they emerged and started triggering the ADBL IIIs carpeting Betio, the main island….

Holland had mixed emotions about the use of ‘area denial’ munitions, although not so much moral reservations – the Japs had whatever they got coming

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