Task Force Kawakaze

Ch. 05 : Operation " MI "

Kure, Hiroshima

30-04-1942

After waiting couple days for Mikasa to finish retrofit, she's finally ready. And at a very good time too, the men already began restless, since the fleet is already waiting for Mikasa, several captain and officer begs me, as the commander-in-chief of the operation to depart now and had Mikasa catch up in India, but in a sudden turn, IJN holds the fleet for Mikasa. I was on my mansion, eating bread when a letter from Tokyo arrive, telling me that Mikasa is out from drydock and ready for me to command. I were indeed thrill, in fact, i quickly packs my briefcase and get the car to Tokyo airfield and fly to Kure as soon as possible. And now, Mikasa is ready for her first mission after WW1, the crew were mixed of JMSDF and IJN. The foghorn in Mikasa rang as the new 4 shaft propeller – instead of 2 – began to twirling the shallow Kure waters, the workers and some citizens waving flag at us while the crew of IJN Mikasa lined on the deck and saluted them, some even bowed at her. After we reach open sea and joined the fleet that departed from Tokyo and Yokosuka, Tokyo also has made several changes to the fleet, another 4 aircraft carriers will join us, the Shoukaku, Zuikaku, Taihou and Akitsushima. However, this massive fleet isn't whole yet, the infantry transport ships carrying IJA and IJN SNLF troops will rendevous with us in the Philippine and Indonesia.

Few hours later...

South China Sea

We have made contact with the Philippine radio tower and we also reached the range of their seaplanes. But then, the sonar watcher in Mikasa reporting a US submarine, the submarine is in a shallow depth. I then told the crew to prepare for ASW and tell it to the fleet to standby and the Kawakaze seen preparing the Umidori with torpedoes and SH-60 with depth charges, but then, one of the Mirai reported that it wasn't a single submarine, it's an entire sub-pack, with about roughly 15 submarines in total, which shocked us all, but then, i said " observation unit ! surface report and air report ! " and the radar officer replied " i... it's clear, admiral, what is it ? " and i said " we might be about to enter a combat, this many submarine, i doubt they came in by themselves without any surface nor air units. So, all units, red alert, prepare for combat ! " and the alarm on Mikasa began to rang and so on the fleet, Kuwabara, and then, the radar officer said " Admiral ! we got flocks of US bombers inbound ! " and i shouted " all crew prepare for AA combat !! " and the CIWS operator began working, while at the same time, deck crew are preparing the depth charges since the depth charges still has to be operated manually by hands. Altough the weather is really bad right now, overcast with possibility of mild to heavy rain, it doesn't matter, the radar installed on the fleet can penetrated it, the Shinshin are seen taking off from Kawakaze armed with AAMs while the 4 IJN carriers are launching the Kyushu J7W Shiden, armed with 30mm autocannon and short-range AAMs ready to take those bombers down. Soon, i heard the depth charge operator saying " 50 metres depth ! medium intervals ! " meaning they picked a submarine and not so long, after several medium explosions, a large explosions occured few metres behind the Mikasa, along with a patch of oils and pieces from the submarine. Not so long after, Mikasa's CIWS began firing the bombers and it's bombs that passing over us, our main priority right now is the safety of our transport ships.

Several minutes later...

Rain finally began to poured in to our fleet, but it's not just water that came down to us, but tens of American shot down bombers, falling down like a bird with broken wings, parachutes were seen above, however, due to the importance of this operation, we have to let them go and had the IJN in Phillpine took them to shore. After dropping about 50 depth charges and firing 8 torpedoes, we sunk the entire submarine fleet, which turns out to be 20 of them ! both American and British made, but now, they are no longer poses a threat, 1 British submarine however, surfaced and raises a white flag, and so, we told them to go to Phillipine coast with that white flag, but, before that, several crews from Mikasa came there and disarmed it by taking away the ammunitions and the machine guns, they also welded a large piece of metal on the deck guns to make sure they weren't playing tricks on us. After the disarmament of the British sub, we headed straight to Indonesia to rendevouz with the 2nd batch of troops, the IJA troops and the Heiho units. I really hoped that this route will be a milk run, since this time, we'll be quite far beyond the reach of air cover.