An unusual night visitor

 December 30, 1942, early evening - A middle-class residential neighborhood near Yokosuka Naval Base, Tokyo, Japan

Retired Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa walked casually through the evening twilight, looking for a particular apartment building. He was alone, with no guards or escort. Considering he had been the target of several assassination attempts over the years, this was most unusual. However, one of the reasons he had survived those attempts was that he held the personal trust of the Emperor. Indeed, he was considered by many of those in power to be the last of the Genrō, the unofficial, but powerful, advisors of the Imperial Court. Such men were not trifled with lightly.

The reason he was out in the evening was that he did not wish to be discovered in his current task. He was seeking a man who was currently in bad odor with the senior commanders of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He stopped, double-checking the address his contacts had given him. This was the right building. He entered, walking up to the third floor to one of the apartments. He knocked on the door.

Inside, Captain Takeda Moriji was having a quiet evening after a long day in the supply offices of the Navy base when he was surprised by a knock at his door. He answered, but did not open the door.

“Who is there?”

“That is not important. Let me in, now” was the quiet, but emphatic reply.

Takeda hesitantly opened the door, his eyes going wide when he recognized who was there. “Please come in, sir.” He opened the door just enough to allow Yonai in, showing him to the small dining room table. “May I offer you some tea, or perhaps sake?”

“Sake, please. And bring a cup for yourself, you will need it.”

Takeda’s eyebrows rose again. He brought an unopened bottle and two cups, showing the seal to Yonai before he opened it. He poured two cups. They sipped. “May I ask why you have honored my humble home with your presence, Admiral?”

“You have certain information that has become of the utmost importance to the war. Tell me everything you know about the Republic of Texas, and it’s Navy.”

Copyright 2025 D.A. Brock

1942 ends with a bang

 December 26, 1942, 04:00 hours - Aboard TNS San Jacinto, 175 NM northeast of Truk Atoll, Caroline Islands

It had taken another two days to work out all the details, then another three days of joint exercises to work out the kinks in the final plan. The circuitous route required to avoid tipping off the Japanese had needed another ten days. Aboard the Texan ships, there had been a somber all-faiths service on the 21st in memory of the Christmas Sunday attacks in 1940, then Christmas celebrations with their American counterparts on the 25th. But now, the time for war had returned.

The combined Texan / American force sailed in three groups, each just visible to the others, to allow room for flight operations. First to launch were San Jacinto’s Hailstorm dive bombers, along with Tampico’s Harpoon torpedo bombers, all loaded with a mix of fragmentation and thermobaric bombs, because their job was to attack the many airfields in the atoll, to suppress the air defenses. They were escorted by roughly half of each carrier’s Hurricane fighters. The attack was timed to hit just at dawn.

About thirty minutes after the first wave headed for Truk, the second wave launched from Enterprise and Saratoga, the TBF Avengers and SBD Dauntlesses loaded with torpedos and armor-piercing bombs, respectively. To them would go the honor of the first strike against the Japanese fleet in the atoll.

After another thirty minutes, a third wave was launched, again from San Jacinto and Tampico, using the other half of their striking forces. They, too, were armed for anti-shipping work, to clean up anything the Americans might have missed. In dividing their striking forces the way they did, the Texans were unknowingly duplicating the Japanese carrier strike doctrine, each carrier in a pair providing half of a combined strike group to minimize launching time.

The two remaining carriers, William B. Travis and James Bowie, would provide the Combat Air Patrol and scouting planes for the fleet. Davy Crockett had been left behind to provide air support for the ground forces on Guadalcanal.

There was one more attack force headed for the Japanese island fortress. Several hours earlier, Willis Lee’s battleships, along with Ignacio de Zavala’s First Cruiser Division, the four Galveston class armored cruisers, had parted company with the carriers and were now running at flank speed toward Truk. If things went to plan, they would arrive between the second and third waves of the air assault, ready to apply their own special brand of pain to the enemy.

Copyright 2025, D.A. Brock