THE NEPTUNE STRATEGY: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 4) Read online

  Also by John J. Gobbell:

  A Call To Colors

  A Novel of the Battle of Leyte Gulf

  * * * * *

  The Todd Ingram series:

  The Last Lieutenant

  A Code for Tomorrow

  When Duty Whispers Low

  The Neptune Strategy

  Edge of Valor

  * * * * *

  The Brutus lie

  NEPTUNE STRATEGY

  A TODD INGRAM NOVEL BY

  John J. Gobbell

  THE NEPTUNE STRATEGY

  Copyright 2004 by John J. Gobbell, All Rights Reserved. Revised 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address: [email protected].

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003058186

  Printed in the United States of America.

  St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / March 2002 ISBN: 0-312-31170-2

  St. Martin’s Press Paperbacks edition / April 2004 ISBN: 0-312-98840-0

  StarboardSide Productions edition / September, 2014 (rev) ISBN: 978-0-9839138-5-6

  To the brave men and women of our Armed Forces

  Who so well carry the proud tradition and

  And spirit of those who have gone before.

  ...Hail, Liberty, Hail!

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  * * *

  U.S. Navy

  USS Maxwell (DD 525) (CRACKERJACK)

  Alton C. (‘Todd’) Ingram, Commander, USN, Commanding officer

  Henry E. (‘Hank’) Kelly, Lieutenant Commander, Executive Officer

  Jack W. Wilson, Lieutenant, USN, Gunnery Officer

  Eric L. Gunderson, Lieutenant, USN, Operations Officer

  Anthony M. (‘Tony’) Duquette, Lieutenant (j.g.) USN, Comm. Officer

  Dexter, ship’s mascot

  USS Morgan J. Thomas (DD 543) (FIRST EDITION) (Flag DESDIV11)

  Jeremiah T. (‘Boom Boom’) Landa, Captain, USN, Commodore DESDIV11

  Ralph R. Sorenson, Captain, USN. Interim Commodore DESDIV11

  Howard Endicott, Commander, USN, Commanding Officer, Thomas

  USS Lexington (CV 16) (flag TF 58)

  Marc A. Mitscher, Admiral, USN, Commander, Task Force 58

  Arleigh A. Burke, Captain, USN, Chief of Staff for Admiral Mitscher

  USS Dixie (AD 14)

  Theodore R. Myszynski ‘Rocko’, Rear Admiral, USN, Commander, Destroyer Forces, South Pacific

  Twelfth Naval District, San Francisco, California

  Jonathan H. Sorrell, Vice Admiral USN, Commander, Twelfth Naval District

  Oliver P. Toliver III, Lieutenant Commander USN, Deputy Intelligence officer.

  San Pedro, California

  Helen (Duran) Ingram, Captain, US Army, Todd Ingram’s wife

  Emma Peabody, Helen’s next door neighbor

  Hollywood, California

  Laura West, pianist, NBC Symphony Orchestra , Landa’s betrothed

  Arturo Toscanini, NBC Symphony Orchestra Conductor

  Roberta Thatcher, Business Manager, West Coast, NBC Symphony Orchestra

  Imperial Japanese Navy

  I-57

  Hajime Shimada, Commander, IJN, Commanding Officer

  Shigeru Kato, Lieutenant Commander, IJN, Executive Officer

  Koki Matsumoto, Lieutenant, IJN, Engineering and Diving Officer

  Fumimaro Ishibashi, LT (j.g.) IJN, Communications Officer

  Kenyro Shimazaki, Superior Petty Officer IJN, Chief enlisted electrician

  Takano Masako, seaman second class IJN, guard

  I-49

  Norito Yukota, Commander, IJN, Commanding Officer

  Kreigsmarine

  Martin Taubman, Korvettenkapitän, Kreigsmarine – attaché’ Tokyo

  Conrad Blücher, Kapitan-Lieutenant Commanding Officer, U-581

  Rudolph Krüger, Fregattenkapitän Commander 7th U-boat Flotilla, Lorient

  Other Germans

  Wolfgang Schroeder Standartenführer (Colonel) SS, TAD, 7th U-boat Flotilla,

  Dieter Hauser, Stabsfeldwebel (Warrant Officer), Luftwaffe, Storch Pilot

  Geneva, Switzerland

  Walter Taubman, Managing Director, Martin Taubman’s half brother

  French - Vichy French

  Henri Dufor, Head of French Red Cross -- name used by Taubman

  Pierre Labarrie -- Noumea Nord gendarme

  FOREWORD

  June 6, 1944 was a day marked by the largest movement of arms and fighting men the world has ever known. In Europe, nearly 7,000 ships sailed the English Channel. This force consisted of two battleships, two monitors, twenty-three light and heavy cruisers, one hundred and five destroyers, 1,076 support ships, 2,700 merchant vessels and 2,500 landing craft. Under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, this armada delivered 162,715 allied troops and their equipment to the beaches of Normandy on that one day.

  One the same day, halfway around the world, seven fleet carriers, eight light carriers, seven fast battleships, eight heavy cruisers, thirteen light cruisers, and sixty-nine destroyers of the United States Navy, got underway in the Marshall Island’s Majuro Lagoon. Designated Task Force 58 under the command of Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, this armada, albeit smaller than the D-Day invasion fleet, was decidedly a more powerful naval force. The heavy cruiser Indianapolis, part of Task Force 58, was also the flagship for Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, commander of the entire Fifth Fleet. It was the largest group of capital ships ever accumulated under a single flag.

  It took five hours for Task Force 58 to weigh anchor, clear the reef and stand out to sea where they formed up into groups, spanning the Pacific from horizon to horizon. From Majuro, they headed northwest, shaping course for the Marianas and the Philippine Sea.

  About the same time, Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa’s Mobil Fleet of five fleet carriers, four light carriers, five battleships, eleven heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and twenty-eight destroyers, weighed anchor at Tawi Tawi in the Sulu Archipelago and headed east.

  From one standpoint the developing Battle Of The Philippine Sea, as it came to be known, was similar to the 1942 Battle of Midway. Except now, the balance of power was reversed in terms of ships and aircraft available. Spruance (who commanded the U.S. naval forces at the Battle of Midway) and Mitscher had the upper hand in absolute numbers of ships: Spruance had 112, Ozawa only 55. Also at Midway, Spruance had parity with Japanese aircraft. Now, he had far more of every type than Ozawa: 956 vs. 473. But as the offensive force, the American strategy was far different. At Midway, the Japanese were bent on drawing out the American fleet and annihilating it; Midway was secondary. With the Marianas invasion, capturing and securing Saipan, Tinian and Guam was the primary objective, wiping out the Japanese fleet was secondary.

  Behind Task Force 58 was the V Amphibious force of Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner. This was composed of 535 ships of all sizes, carrying and supporting 128,000 combat troops, two-thirds of them marines.

  Spruance’s orders from Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-In-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, were succinctly stated in CincPacFlt Operation Plan 3-44: Capture, occupy and defend Saipan, Tinian and Guam and develop bases in those islands. It was up to Spruance, the strategic thinker and Fifth Fleet Commander, to figure out how to do it. It was up to Mitscher’s Task Force 58 to carry out his plan.

  The 112 ships of Task Force 58 would have been an unwieldy armada had it not been divided
into five task groups. Three groups, labeled Task Group 58.1, 58.2 and 58.3 composed Mitscher’s striking power. Twelve fleet and light aircraft carriers were divided among them and each group was separated by twelve miles on a north-south axis. These three groups each had a screening force equally distributed on a 4,000 yard circle around the carriers consisting of about fifteen destroyers and three to six cruisers.

  Another group, TG 58.7, was set up as a surface striking force and was composed of seven fast battleships screened by four cruisers and fourteen destroyers. A fifth task group, 58.4, consisting of three carriers, three cruisers and seventeen destroyers was responsible aerial defense for the striking group, TG 58.7. The five task groups were arranged in a reverse “F” pattern. At the two prongs were TG 58.7 and TG 58.4, positioned fifteen miles ahead of TF 58.1, 58.2 and 58.3.

  One hundred twelve ships: a mighty sea-going fortress, nearly impregnable. By sunset that day, Task Force 58 settled on a formation course of 342 headed for Kwajalein and Eniwetok Island, the outermost of the Marshall Islands. One thousand miles ahead lay their objective: the Marianas and her four main islands, Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan. With the destroyers pinging for submarines and the combat air patrols orbiting overhead, all was secure as the sun sunk toward the horizon.

  * * * * * *

  Japanese submarines had long legs, some built for carrying cargo over enormous distances; the naval planners taking into account huge supply problems for conquests in far-flung islands and territories. In spite of this, the Allied anti-submarine network, ranging across three major oceans, seriously nullified Japan and Germany’s exchange program via submarine. Each new perturbation of the Freedom of Information Act provides further clues on how this was done through Allied code-breaking and how they tracked German and Japanese shipping. Also amazing was the American development of the Mark 24 passive acoustic homing torpedo. Spearheaded by Bell Telephone Laboratories and the (then) Harvard Underwater Sound Lab, the Mark 24 was code-named FIDO and was first conceived in November of 1941. Just eighteen months later, the Mark 24 FIDO sunk its first U-boat in May, 1943. Thus, the Mark 24, helped break the back of the Axis submarine effort, sinking thirty-seven submarines and damaging eighteen. The incident described herein is from an actual occurrence. The IJN submarine I-52, en route to U-Boat pens in France, was sunk in the South Atlantic on June 24, 1944. A FIDO dropped from a Grumman TBF off the escort carrier USS Bogue (CVE 9) did the job.

  The Odyssey of Todd Ingram and Martin Taubman are based on those events.

  * * * * *

  One’s essence is a direct product of God, family and friends. And this writer has been richly blessed in all three categories. My thanks go to Commander George A. Wallace USN (ret.), submarine skipper and novelist in his own right, Dr. Frederick J. Milford, Dr. Russell J Striff, Dr. Robert L. Jones, James D. Bailey and Hugo Fruehauf.

  Special tribute goes to and the late Gordon Curtis, Naval fighter pilot of World War II, who patiently explained to this surface squid, characteristics of naval aircraft of the time. Another dear friend and World War II vet has joined Gordon in heaven. He is Al Cluster, PT boat skipper and squadron commander in the 1943 Solomon Island campaign. Later, Al was a destroyer exec during the battle for Okinawa. I miss them both. Sailors, rest your oars.

  And always, never ending thanks to my wife Janine, who not only does a great job editing my manuscripts, but has stuck through the hard times with love, encouragement and understanding.

  A wonderful surprise comes from my readers who contact me via e-mail at [email protected] . Many have gotten into it and some of us have had marvelous exchanges. Thank you all for your kind thoughts and please don’t forget to visit my website at www.JohnJGobbell.com for charts and images. Any mistakes herein are mine.

  JJG

  Newport Beach, California

  September, 2014

  THE NEPTUNE STRATEGY

  PROLOGUE

  We knew thee of old,

  O divinely restored,

  By the light of thine eyes

  And the light of thy sword.

  From the graves of our slain

  Shall thy valor prevail

  As we greet thee again --

  Hail, Liberty! Hail!

  Hail to Liberty

  Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857)

  PROLOGUE

  11 February, 1944

  IJN I-49

  Arafura Sea

  It was a hell Yukota could never have imagined. Truly, it sounded as if a fifty foot giant were outside his submarine, pounding the hull with a five ton sledge hammer. Non-stop, the depth charges thundered all around, lifting him and his men off the deck, casting them about. Glass shattered. The entire submarine vibrated like a huge tuning fork.

  Yukota hadn’t counted on this. He thought he’d taken the I-49 deep enough. One hundred meters should have done it. And yet, the damn things hammered his boat, unleashing ten thousand agonies at once. His mind flashed with another image: this one a dragon ripping at them, trying to open a seam with sharp teeth. How did the Americans know how to set those charges so deep?

  “Coming in for another run, Captain.” It was Kosuga, the sonar man, seated at the aft end of the conning tower.

  It wasn’t long before they heard the American’s sonar. Soon, their eyes grew wide and they fixed on the overhead, beseeching the destroyer to go away. Louder, louder; the pinging becoming more rapid. Then it stopped, as the destroyer charged overhead. Soon--

  WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

  The 2,500 ton, 358 foot submarine shook violently. More gauges ruptured; light bulbs shattered, plunging the conning tower into total darkness. Yukota turned to the bulkhead and screamed. Instantly, he covered his mouth. What have I done? He was glad he was up here, not as many people. The men in the control room below surely would have noticed.

  Then the death above them was gone. They were alone. They were alive.

  Yukota shouted down the hatch into the control room, “Emergency lights, quickly!”

  It became quiet. A man sobbed down in the control room and the odor of vomit ripped at Yukota’s nostrils. There was something else: someone had lost control of his bowels. Yukota reflected that at least he hadn’t done that. Something clanked; a sailor trod on broken glass; water gushed from a ruptured valve. “Sasaki, damnit! I said>emergency lights.’“

  “Yes, Captain.” As Diving Officer, Lieutenant Ryozo Sasaki was closest to the emergency panel. It was a standard drill practiced many times.

  After a moment, the lights mercifully flicked on.

  “Sasaki, take her down to one hundred twenty meters.”

  Sasaki stepped under the hatch and looked up, the question obvious on his face. Test depth on the type C-2 attack submarine was one hundred meters.

  Yukota said hoarsely, “Do it, Lieutenant. Do you want to keep living?”

  Sasaki gulped, “Yes, Captain.” Turning to the bow planesman, he ordered, “Make your depth one hundred twenty meters.”

  “He’s coming back, Captain,” said Kosuga.

  Yukota shouted down the hatch, “Sasaki. Destroyer’s coming back. Get ready.”

  Sasaki’s eyebrows went up. “What?”

  “Sasaki, damnit! Get ready. That’s why we’re here, you fool.”

  A light seemed to go on in Sasaki’s eyes. He turned to his talker and said, “Engine room, torpedo room, stand by, on my mark.”

  Once again, the destroyer rumbled overhead.

  Grabbing a stanchion, Yukota ordered, “Right full rudder. Steady on three-two five.”

  They had just taken up the new course when the first depth charge exploded, throwing the I-49 almost onto her beam ends. Yukota had to shout as more charges went off. “Now, Sasaki, now!”

  Sasaki concentrated, trying his mightiest to think through the destruction going on about him. Finally, he yelled at his talker, while Yukota prayed that the word had been passed quickly enough, so their pumping noises would be suppressed by explosions.

 
The destroyer was gone. Yukota couldn’t see the gauges -- they were shattered anyway -- and he hadn’t heard the hiss of high pressure air, so he didn’t know if they had brought it off.

  Their eyes snapped to the talker.

  The man clamped a hand to his earphones, listened, then leaned toward Sasaki, mouthing his report.

  With a nod, Sasaki relayed it up the conning tower hatch. “Engine room reports 200 gallons of fuel oil pumped to sea. Torpedo room reports tubes one, two, three, and four fired successfully.”

  “Excellent. Now to get out of here. Sasaki, one hundred forty meters.”

  “Sir,” Sasaki began, “WeBA

  “One hundred forty, damnit! We’re not done, yet.”

  Sasaki gave the order; the I-49 took on a five degree down-bubble, then groaned and rattled her way to the new depth.

  Kosuga raised a hand, then turned to Yukota.

  “What?”

  “I think...”

  “Say something, damn you.” Yukota’s temper was short, not because of their current predicament, but because he was embarrassed at his earlier loss of control. Desperately, he hoped no one had heard him. Fortunately, there had been so much noise.

  Clamping his hands to his head phones, Kosuga said, “Rain squall. Two six-five.”

  Salvation! Yukota ordered, “Come left to two-six-five. How far Kosuga?”

  Kosuga shrugged, “Five hundred, a thousand meters. I can’t tell.” Then he sat up. “We’re making noise, Sir.”

  Wrenches clanked forward and a sailor cursed as he slogged in bilge water, trying to fix something. Yukota said quietly, “Mr. Sasaki. Remind the crew we are rigged for silent running -- that it’s important to minimize noise.”