Sentinels of Fire by P. T. Deutermann Page B

forcing me to grab the handrail as I climbed the ladder. If the Divine Wind was blowing, you did not steer a straight course and make it easy for them. But what was going on with the CO? He had never, ever flaked out like that. As I opened the door into Combat I heard raised voices out on the bridge and then the engine-order telegraph ringing up more speed.
    â€œBogeys, bogeys, composition two, low and fast, three-five-zero, sixteen thousand yards and closing!” one of the radar operators announced.
    â€œDesignate to director fifty-one,” Lanny ordered. I heard the director rumbling around on its roller path overhead while the gunfire-control system radar operators down in Main Battery Plot attempted to find and then lock on to the incoming planes. I wondered if I should go out to the bridge until the captain showed up, but then I heard the captain’s voice on the intercom. “We’re coming to zero eight zero, speed twenty-five to unmask, XO,” he said. “Open fire at five miles.”
    â€œXO, aye,” I responded. That was better, I thought. Much more like it. The guns could shoot a projectile out to eighteen thousand yards, or nine miles, but they were much more effective if we waited until the planes got into five miles, or ten thousand yards.
    â€œXO, Sky One. Director fifty-one is locked on and tracking.”
    â€œAll mounts, air action port. Commence firing when they get to ten thousand yards.”
    Almost immediately the five-inchers opened up with their familiar double-blam sound as they began hurling fifty-four-pound, five-inch-diameter shells down the bearing. Two of the mounts, fifty-one and fifty-two, were firing shells with mechanical time fuzes, set to explode in front of the approaching aircraft. Mount fifty-three, all the way aft, was shooting some of the new variable-time fragmenting shells. The VT frags were equipped with a miniature radar in the nose that detonated the shell if it detected anything solid coming at it or near it.
    â€œBearing steady, range eight-oh-double-oh, and still closing.”
    Eight thousand yards. Four miles. The guns were blasting away in irregular cadence now, their thumping recoil shaking the superstructure and stirring a light haze of dust out of the overhead cableways. The forties would join in next, but not until the range came down to about two miles, or four thousand yards. The twenties were good for about a mile. The individual gun captains were all experienced hands and would open up as soon as they thought they could do some good.
    â€œDirector fifty-one reports splash one bogey,” the JC circuit talker announced.
    One down, one to go, I thought. It was hell having to just stand here and wait to see if the guns were going to take care of business. Then the first of the forty-millimeter mounts opened up. They were noisy guns, firing as fast as the loaders could jam four-round clips of shells into their feed slots. One man, the trainer, controlled the direction of fire. A second man, the pointer, on the other side of the mount, controlled the angle of elevation. Both had to lead their targets, making split-second calculations in their heads as to how best to make that stream of white-hot steel heading out over the water intersect with the silvery blob that was coming in right at them.
    Suddenly, everyone in Combat felt a shock wave hit the ship, followed by a loud boom.
    â€œ Splash, second bogey,” the talker announced. “Director fifty-one says his bomb went off.”
    No kidding, I thought. Not that far away, either. Still, we were safe, for the moment.
    I felt the ship turning as the captain ordered her brought about so that we would not get too far off our radar picket station. Right now our job was to stay alive, but our mission, ultimately, was to detect any more air raids headed for the fifteen-hundred-ship armada assaulting Okinawa. That meant we had to get back on station. The radar picket stations were