My First Carrier!

[gollum65]

Thought I'd share my story of my first carrier sinking as I was quite pleased with myself.

Operating out of Surabaya in Feb. 1942 I got sent to do a couple of patrols in the Banda Sea area. The second (and last) assigned patrol was near Kendari, which I knew was a rallying point for the IJN but after 96 hours there I had no contacts.

Once I completed that second patrol I was told to do what I wanted as long as fuel and ammunition held out so I decided to just sit near the bottom just SE of Starring Bay for a few days to see if anyone came around.

Around 2300 hours on the 2nd night I started to get warship contacts. I surfaced to see if I could spot them without being spotted and sure enough it was a destroyer screen. I got lucky in that I was still out of their visual range so I took off heading NW to try to angle myself in front of the task force in order to get into better firing position. I still didn't know what they destroyers were escorting but after a few minutes I knew there were quite a lot of them.

I reported the contacts to HQ and their response was "We didn't even know that task force was underway. Engage if possible". I found that answer quite interesting.

So I continued to skirt NW at flank speed until I finally figured out what was behind those destroyers: 1 heavy cruiser, the Soryu, the Hiryu, and one other carrier (don't remember the name offhand). I was really excited but of course also very worried. I'd never gone up against anything bigger then a destroyer and hadn't had much luck against them.

Once I got close enough that I thought I could be detected I dove deep under the thermal layer and turned due north. After 15 minutes I knew I was pretty much right under the pack and since I wasn't hearing any sonar pings I figured I was still undetected.

At 2340 hours I went to 2/3 and quietly made my way up to periscope depth. Upon raising my scope there was the Hiryu, 25 degrees off my starboard bow at 2500 yards, along with 2 destroyers right next to her. The Hiryu was setup for a direct flank attack once I lined her up. Almost couldn't believe what I was seeing. One destroyer appeared to be heading right for me and the other started maneuvering to try to get in between me and the Hiryu and both started pinging away immediately.

I turned 20 degrees, set my torps for 20 feet and fired all 4. I figured it was an all or nothing shot and with all the destroyers around I wouldn't get a second.

As soon as the fish were out of the tubes I lowered the scope, went to flank and dove deep.

At 2347 hours all 4 torpedoes found their mark and down went the Hiryu!!

Of course I then had to spend the next 90 minutes playing cat and mouse with a swarm of angry destroyers but they never got so much as a scratch on me and I finally got away and headed back to Surabaya.

Wasn't sure if I'd ever get a carrier but I must admit it was a real thrill to do it. I'll have to admit I got a bit lucky, especially in my manuevering that I was able to get off an attack before being detected. But I'll take that kind of luck any day.

So in my alternate history the Hiryu was sunk on 21 February 1942, a full 3 months before the real Hiryu went down in the battle of Midway.