With a sudden squeal of fear, the girl slid down the deck and slammed into the bulkhead. Seawater then rushed inside the bridge as she flailed and cried in anguish. Her cries soon stopped, and Takei sensed the water level stabilize two meters below him. Hōshō was on its beam, beyond saving, and deep inside he heard the wrenching of steel and the muffled explosions as his ship groaned in its death throes.
Take me, now!
With a lurch, the water rose up to submerge him in the cold sea. Struggling to the surface, he was carried behind his bridge wing chair and was soon pinned against an intact bridge window. He gulped a final breath as the water covered him.
Through the glass Takei was given one last glimpse of the sky.
Unsure if the enemy destroyer was racing to attack him or to save survivors of the stricken carrier, Shen was not going to wait to find out.
“Down scope! Right full rudder. New course one-one-zero. Engine ahead full. Make revolutions for 21 knots. Dive, take us down to 300 meters!”
As the gut-wrenching gravity of what they had done gripped him, Shen’s face radiated fear. No, not what they had done. What he had done. He breathed through his mouth, and his crew sensed his growing panic. His First Officer stepped to him and whispered in his ear.
“Shen Ju-Long. What… happened?”
Shen pulled back and let his eyes fall to the sonar display. He leaned toward his First Officer, having to tell someone.
“The forward part of the ship… gone. Just a… I mean… a massive explosion, and the carrier is already on its side. Did we have good guidance all the way?”
“Yes, Comrade Captain. Per your orders.”
Shen struggled to control himself, but he had not been prepared for the cataclysmic force that ripped an 800-foot warship in two. “We probably sank it. Let’s get out of here.”
A victorious Changzheng 8 turned away, and, as water rushed into her ballast tanks, a subdued Shen contemplated how he would report this action to Headquarters. Then another horror hit him: He had transmitted that he was attacking an American, and as Changzheng 8 dove deeper, he knew it would be some time before he could update his report.
CHAPTER 32
Shen’s torpedo hit right where it was aimed.
It detonated at Frame 53, the intersection of two compartments. Forward of the frame was a void, but aft was a fuel bunker that supplied fuel to the marine gas turbine engines. The explosive power tore an 18-foot hole in Hōshō 20 feet below the waterline. This serious wound was not enough to doom her, but with the crew still dogging all watertight doors and hatches, the ship was not buttoned up to resist battle damage. With the forward magazine doors open to receive weapons transferred from the ship alongside, the fuel explosion from the nearby bunker set off exposed weapons in the magazine. A second after the torpedo exploded, the forward magazine cooked off.
The guided-missile destroyer next to Hōshō, JS Sazanami, was 6,000 yards abeam when word came of a torpedo approaching the helicopter carrier. The bridge team and sailors on the weather decks were surprised to see the largest ship in the Japanese Navy lift as if on a rogue wave. Their surprise then turned to horror when the first half of the 800-foot vessel vanished into bright flame and smoke. The shock wave knocked sailors off their feet, and the water around Hōshō was pelted with debris as fires broke out on the tanker. Sazanami turned hard toward their stricken mates and the assailant to the east. Hōshō was still moving forward from the inertia of her twin screws at full power, and, as it cleared the smoke, the destroyer crew saw that the entire bow from keel to flight deck was gone. Flames and smoke poured from the break forward, and, as Sazanami passed in front of Hōshō, the sickened crew could look into the ship, now on its side, and count the flaming and smoking decks as fire spread on the water around it. The destroyermen knew they could not stay to render assistance lest they be next to suffer the same fate. The tanker slowed, and the wounded ship turned to give what help it could to the dying carrier next to it, the crew struggling for survival. Eight minutes after impact, Hōshō, settling on her right side, lifted her stern into the air as she sank into the blue Pacific in 14,000 feet of water. The concussive force of the magazine blast killed most of her crew where they stood; 172 survivors were rescued.
A crewman on Sazanami was video-recording Hōshō with his smart phone when the torpedo hit. He was knocked down by the shock, but resumed his recording until the carrier disappeared into a gurgling cauldron of giant bubbles.
Within ten minutes, Self Defense Fleet Headquarters was informed. Five minutes later Tokyo was notified.
Twenty minutes after Hōshō sank, Cactus Clark received notification of the attack. As his staff passed the word to the Pentagon National Military command Center, Clark called the Secretary.
The President was informed ten minutes later.
Twenty minutes after the White House notification, national and world media broke the story, and Beijing learned of the attack. Within ten minutes, their Defense Ministry denied responsibility; they had received no reports from their forces of any hostile actions.
Soon after, Shen, who was able to evade the single Seahawk that Sazanami sent to locate him, raised his radio mast and sent another burst transmission to get word to Southern Fleet HQ before he submerged and retired again to the southeast. This message was received.
FROM: 408
TO: SUBFLOT SOUTH
SUBJ: SECOND REPORT
DISREGARD MY INITIAL REPORT. ATTACKED WITH SINGLE DISABLING SHOT TORPEDO JS HOSHO CLASS CVH ESCORTED BY JS BURKE CLASS DDG 2524N 13442E. SEVERE SECONDARY DAMAGE TO CVH; SONAR INDICATIONS CVH SANK. DDG PURSUED/BROKE OFF PURSUIT. RETIRING SE.
Admiral Qin monitored the translated world media reports. They showed dramatic video of the Japanese helicopter carrier exploding on the horizon, giant pieces of the hull blown skyward. This was followed by shocking video images of the capital ship as it burned and then plunged below the waves. Reports claimed the ships were operating inside the 200-mile territorial sanctuary China had promised would be safe from attack. With the Japanese and American media molding world opinion, the PLA, and specifically the PLA(N), now had another PR challenge to deal with amid unclear reports from frontline units.
Qin was furious. After plotting the position reported by Changzheng 8, the Japanese were operating inside the promised sanctuary; the isolated island of Kitadaito that could have been overlooked on a chart. The Japanese had called their bluff, and a PLA(N) sub captain had attacked them just inside the sanctuary based on this “rock” out in the middle of nowhere. First, the midair collision with the American patrol plane in the Southern Sea, and now this, the unauthorized destruction of a Japanese warship — with probable heavy loss of life — that would bring Japan into the war as an active belligerent on the American side. This is not what the People’s Republic needed now as they worked to strengthen defenses and sway world opinion.