WesWorld

[size=1] some response to the Filipino news[/size]


Wednesday 15th July 1942; Fleetbase Tai-pei

The drive from the headquarters of the commanding admiral took 10 minutes. Marines at the front gate checked everything and every detail. Through feverish activity
they drove to the wharf. In the harbor, the car turned right, crossed the submarine piers and drove direct to the berths of destroyers.

HICMS Jingxing. The bow loomed above the quay like a guillotine. Li Wancai forgot his weariness, got out of the car and looked at his new ship with the silent passion
of a man who sees for the first time his newborn child.
Six four inches thick ropes were holding the ship on the quay, but the elegant ship seemed to stretch them already. The HICMS Jingxing was with her nearly 2,500 tons
a small but clearly a fast ship.
Sailors in blue shirts and jeans, hurried through the gangways. Supplies was brought on board, because the ship was due to expire soon. Li Wancai walked quickly to
the aft gangway. A marine soldier saluted, and on the deck of the destroyer an officer hastily arranged things for the reception of the new commander.

Commander Li Wancai accepted his new identity, first saluted the flag, then the officers on deck.

"Sir, we expected you -" said the lieutenant.

"How are things going ?" interrupted Li Wancai.

"A maximum of two hours, then we are ready for leaving the harbour, Sir."

"Good." Li Wancai smiled. "About all the paperwork, we'll take care later. Back to the work, Mr -"

"Ruan Chengfa, Sir. Ship control officer."

And what the heck is that ? Li Wancai wondered. "Well, Mr. Chengfa. Where is the IO ?"

"Here Sir." The first officer had lubricating oil on the shirt, and a stain on the face. "I was in the generator room. Excuse my appearance."

"My name is Li Wancai." Commander and first officer shook hands.

"Yang Song. There is nothing wrong with the ship. The crew is pretty young, but ready to go. In more than two or three hours we can run. Where is your luggage ?"

"Should be here in half an hour. What was going on below the decks ?"

"No Problem. On one of our diesel generators an oil line was leaking. Sloppiness in the yard, improper weld. Already been repaired. About the engine room, you will be glad, sir. In the first test runs we have done in five feet high waves 31.5 knots." Yang Song's eyebrows shot up "Fast enough ?"

"IO - pull away", ordered Li Wancai three hours later, watching every move which Yang Song did.

The maneuver went surprisingly smoothly. The wind was blowing from the land, pressed against the structures of the destroyer.
As the ropes were thrown off, the wind drove away the ship from the dock, then the machine on the destroyer started.

Li Wancai watched his new crew at work. The petty officers at the card table wrote the position carefully on the map, although
they were not familiar with the port. She quietly slipped past the piers of the naval port. One of his sailors looked in that
direction, a teenager who pulled on his cigarette and then threw the butt overboard. Li Wancai wanted to ask him what he thought,
but was himself hardly able to articulate his thoughts.
At the berth of the aircraft carrier they turned east and then under cloudy skies the gray and threatening ocean lay in front of them.

HICMS Jingxing; Monday, 20 July 1942; 0800

»Sir?« Li Wancai was startled when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He thought he had, after the night practice with torpedoes, only a brief rest in his chamber. He looked at the clock, shortly after 8 o'clock in the morning. He looked up at his first officer.

»What's up, IO?«

»We should check something. Probably a false alarm, but - it's better if you watch it once.«

Li Wancai took the message in his pocket, went to the laundry room and then quickly washed his face.

»Unusually contact - detection attempts failed ? What the heck does that mean ?« he asked during he was drying his face.

»I do not know, sir. Our sonar couldn't identify the contact. But we are sure that something is there.«

Li Wancai ran his fingers through his hair »Well, let's look at the problem on the bridge.«

HICMS Jingxing; Monday, 20 July 1942; half an hour later

»Sonar contact, possibly Submarine, at three-five-three«, announced the sonar man.

»Show me the contact«, ordered the ASW officer, whose function is to lead the fight against submarines. Li Wancai held back, watching his men at work.

So far they have only the direction and could not yet estimate the distance to determine whether they were dealing with a U-boat. The signal disappeared for a minute, then returned again. Then it faded away completely.

»Who knows what it might be«, said the ASW officer quietly.

»Admittedly«, agreed Li Wancai and went back to the sonar unit. The contact was still there.

But what was its distance? Water transmits sound much better than air, but obey other laws.

The commander, his officers and the ASW sonar operator watching the screen carefully for ten minutes. The anomalous sound indicator did not reappear. In an exercise in peacetime they would come to the conclusion that it is a pure anomaly concerned, the water generated noise, which vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, perhaps a small swirl. But since the war with the Philippines was all that they located wore the insignia of the Philippines and a periscope.

"If there is still reason to believe it could be a submarine," Li Wancai said to the ASW officer.


»I think now no more, sir.« The officer asked himself, whether it was right to inform the commander about the contact.

»Well, that was certainly not the last false alarm. Back to the normal work«

HICMS Jingxing; Friday, 24 July 1942; 1950

"Apparently the enemy U-boat, to which we had the past few days several times a contact, left this area.", said the ASW officer.

"It looks that way," agreed the IO.

"Maybe or not. We should keep our eyes and ears in any case open." said Li Wancai

18th September 1942; Minor Fleetbase Kaohsiung

Aboard of HICMS Zigong 106

"What's going on, IO"

"Message from the headquarter, we should check something. One of our patrol planes reported a possible submarine contact.
They have been reported an approximate position, but could not identify the contact."

"That's quite a way away," Captain Zu noticed after he has read the position.

"Yes, Sir. Round about 25 miles", the IO agreed "And in shallow water, it will be hard to find something."

"It doesn't matter. We will run as fast as possible to this position and look at the matter. Fortunately, due to the fleet
maneuvers in front of Dairen the base is almost completely deserted. "

20th September 1942 early morning; in the Strait of Luzon

On this day, there was perfect flying weather. The sky was almost cloudless blue. Winds and turbulence were very weak, which was in this height of round about twelve thousand feets rather unusual. The flight of the for high-altitude reconnaissance specially modified F6B went according to plan. "80 miles to Y'Ami Island." Colonel Kao Chih-Hang radioed to the headquarter "Nothing to report." Hopefully it goes well and the Filipinos are still sitting at breakfast, he thought to himself.

Cruiser Surigao, Luzon Strait, Sunday, 20 September 1942, 0755 Hours Local

Jorge Robles, seconded from the Armada de Chile to teach the principles of dradis operation to personnel of the Philippine Navy, had been working non-stop for months now; as new ships emerged from Philippine shipyards, their crews needed hands-on instruction in the new electronic equipment. The cruiser Surigao was a step up from the Pinatubo-class destroyers he had previously worked aboard – a fine ship for a small light cruiser – and her dradis installation more extensive.

“Senor Robles,” called the student manning the dradis unit. “I have an air contact, I think.”

“That’s odd,” thought Robles. “Let me see,” he said as he stood to look over the student’s shoulder to gaze at the signal autoplot scope. There was no doubt, there was an air contact.

“Notify the bridge,” Robles suggested, “tell them we have an unknown contact. Let’s begin tracking this – it will be a great test of your skills.”

-----

They tracked the contact for five minutes – it was coming towards them from the north-northwestt, flying at four to five thousand meters.

Captain Alejandro Borromeo came down to the dradis station personally to check the situation. “Senor Robles,” he began, “you are certain of this contact?”

“Sir,” the Chilean replied. “The equipment is functioning normally. We’ve tracked the contact for several minutes – it appears to be a single aircraft, at altitude, heading south.”

Borromeo knew that the Chilean magic box could tell him much but…

-----

Borromeo considered his options while he returned to the bridge. As far as he knew, there were no commercial flights in this area – and certainly none approaching from the northwest. The air strips on the Batan Islands were not yet operational. Could it be a patrolling PBY? He had his doubts.

“Take a signal for Commander, Northern Fleet; copy to Commander, Northern Sea Frontier. Dradis contact with unknown aircraft approaching from northwest, estimated course 170, estimated height four thousand meters. Give them our position, course and speed.”

The message was quickly radioed to naval headquarters in Cavite, where its receipt caused some consternation and confusion.

His mission was clear - to make photos of the constructions and airstrips on the Batan Islands. Closer he came to the islands, Chih-Hang is getting more and more nervous. He kept on the lookout for filipino aircraft and fly unswervingly on his course.

"Reaching Y'Ami Island - making some photos - set course to Itbayat" he nearly whispered in the microphone.

"Y'Ami Island reached - first photos taken - continuing flight to Itbayat" the HQ repeated

Maybe I should go higher, thought Chih-Hang and began to climb. On the island he might again fly at this altitude and make the pictures, if the opportunity arises. Yard by yard, he ascended into the blue heaven.

Cruiser Surigao, Luzon Strait, Sunday, 20 September 1942, 0825 Hours Local

Robles, the Chilean dradis specialist aboard the Surigao and the ship’s own dradis operators tracked the unknown aircraft and updated their plot.

“On this course it will over-fly the Batan Islands in maybe twenty minutes – given the rough bearings we have,” Robles reported to Captain Borromeo on the Surigao’s bridge.

“Senor Robles,” the dradis operator interjected, “the contact has faded.”

“Damn,” thought Robles. “Captain, the contact is no longer in range.”

“Acknowledged,” replied Borromeo glumly, “Alerting headquarters is all we can do.”


Del Carmen Air Force Base, Pampagna, Sunday, 20 September 1942, 0825 Hours Local

It had taken valuable time for the contact report from the cruiser Surigao to be routed from naval headquarters in Cavite to Air Operations at Del Carmen, but little time was lost in dispatching the ready flight of the 32nd Fighter Squadron in an attempt to intercept.

Captain Eduardo Villanueva let his section of four North American P-51 fighters aloft within two minutes of receiving the order to scramble, but given the distance to the contact he doubted that even their new mounts would fail to get them to the area in time. “It has to be the Chinese,” he thought. “Probing for weaknesses… well, if we get lucky…”

Villanueva knew that he would need a lot of luck. He had heard about the electronic devices that the Navy had aboard their ships to detect aircraft – it was rumored that one had even been installed in the mountains above his own airfield to detect incoming enemy aircraft. But without observers on the ground to tell him where the mystery aircraft was, or without continuous updates from dradis, the chances of his flight encountering anything was slim.

somewhere in the sky near Itbayat

He was almost there. Chih-Hang recognized the outlines of Itbayat among his aircraft, and was very happy that he had not encountered by a filipino air patrol. Okay, he was not defenseless, he could rely on his four machineguns, with his Gangchuan F6R was equipped. His biggest advantage, however, was the level he was meanwhile flying. He would already be back on the way home, till any filipino aircraft would reach him at nearly 12,000 meters. But now he had to give up this advantage in order to achieve first-class pictures. He had decided for himself, to make multiple flyovers at different heights.

Interesting developments, though I did have a question. I was reading this yesterday and couldn't find anything about the Gangchuan F6R. Could you put that in your encyclopedia please?

Naval Station Itbayat, Sunday, 20 September 1942, 0855 hours local

The alert order from Naval Headquarters in Cavite had send to garrison to General Quarters nearly fifteen minutes ago, and the Marine antiaircraft gun crews were standing by their weapons itching for a chance to take a shot at the unknown aircraft. From its course it was clear that it was not a Philippine aircraft, and the position of all known flights had been double-checked. Regular commercial traffic had been eliminated from consideration. The unknown was to be regarded as hostile – and that meant only one thing – the Chinese…

Sun glinted off the wings of the aircraft as it cruised above Itbayat, betraying its position as it swung on a crisscross course.

“Come a little bit closer,” said the captain of the antiaircraft detachment. “Just a little bit lower…”

“Range Nine-zero-zero-zero,” barked the corporal manning the rangefinder. “Target within range.”

“Let’s give him a little more rope…” said the captain in charge of the heavy guns.

“Range eight-eight-zero-zero” added the corporal.

“Just a bit more…”

“Range eight-four-zero-zero”

The captain rang the field telephone that linked him with his batteries. “Set fuzes for eight thousand meters. Repeat, eight thousand meters. Advise when ready.”

The responses came back quickly. The big 75mm antiaircraft guns were at maximum elevation, and they’d need luck to hit their target at that height, but they were ready.

“Range eight-zero-zero-zero” said the corporal for the final time.

“FIRE AT WILL!!!” ordered the captain.

From their pits around the unfinished airfield the twelve heavy antiaircraft guns barked quickly, sending their shells aloft in rapid succession. In seconds their first detonations blacked the sky with smoke and fragments of steel sliced through the air. Unfortunately, the shells burst too low, and their detonation merely rocked the single aircraft. From the ground, however, it looked far more impressive.