November 28th, 1944; Off the coast of Wakayama Prefecture
Captain Toshio Abe did not share his crew's exhilaration.
His command staff scoffed at the attack, even as they could hear a faint sound of rushing water echo through the
Shinano's hull.
The
Shinano was the third of the Yamato's, the largest ships the world had ever seen. Her sister
Musashi required dozens of torpedoes and bombs to force her below the waves at Leyte Gulf. What nonsense! To believe that just 4 torpedoes, and those of an American submarine no less, of which everyone knew their torpedoes were subpar compared to Japan's, could sink her second largest ship.
But Captain Abe did not share their view of the matter. Many other ships had been lost due to their crew's lackluster damage control efforts, and many more had been lost due to their poor construction in the first place. Abe had learned of the stories of the
Kido Butai at Midway, specifically of the converted battleship
Kaga, whose enclosed hangers and Aviation Fuel lines that were built into her structure guaranteed that she was in a dangerous situation should bomb shockwaves hit her.
"Sound the general alarm," Abe ordered, cutting off his men from their excitement. "Slow to 15 knots and initiate the pumps. Have all civilians topside and begin closing as many of the watertight doors as possible."
His command staff looked at him in confusion as he began pacing across the room, to which he turned around and shouted, "Well? What are you waiting for, move!"
While Japanese planners had learned from their mistakes and opened up Shinano's hangers, as well as installed large ventilation fans in case of a gas leak, Abe still knew his ship had teething problems of her own. Though his crew was not green by sea-going standards, he had no time to train them in the portable pumps onboard her. In addition to that, he had noticed that many of the bulkhead doors that had been installed remained open, to allow for ease of movement across the ship for the rest of the crew. He feared they still may be open.
His concerns were proven correct when his head engineer came rushing in not 10 minutes later, having gone below deck on his orders, and assessing the situation.
"We've begun listing!" He shouted, exacerbated. "The torpedoes detonated in the outboard engine room, the third boiler room, and the 2nd damage control station! I've already ordered men to evacuate those areas and to close every bulkhead they can along the way."
"Have every man at the ready!" Abe shouted, his frantic crew scrambling to follow his orders now they were aware of the severity of the situation. "I don't care if they are part of the damage control teams or not, have them close every bulkhead in the ship and sent to the starboard side to assist in pumping out the water."
He called for his helmsman and his engineer, "Monitor our list, and begin counter flooding on the port side as needed," he told him.
"Helmsman," he ordered, "Make for the shore. If we can't get her list under control, we'll have to beach at Shiono Point."
Both men saluted and continued with their duties. Abe nodded feverishly, as he stepped outside of the bridge and looked out on deck.
There, the civilian workers began amassing aboard the deck, illuminated in the moonlight and confused at the frantic movements of the crew. Most of the crewmembers on the top deck, most of the time assigned to combat roles or the AA defensive armaments, began hurriedly running below deck on his orders to help with the damage control efforts. Not all of them were qualified or a part of the dedicated teams, but he needed every man below deck if they were to be able to control the listing. He knew he didn't have enough dedicated men to do that job.
The destroyers around him began to scour the waters, looking for the American submarine and dropping depth charges along the way. It likely submerged, but they still needed to deter it from launching more torpedoes at the stricken carrier.
The next few hours were a hectic mess of snap actions and emotions. The majority of the watertight doors had yet to be installed, though what ones were installed were hastily closed before the water could reach them. In addition, they had been forced to manually bail many of the rooms, due to the numerous holes in the hull for wiring and ventilation which had yet to be sealed allowing for water to flow through.
His crew barely knew how to run the pumps, though those that did know were quick to explain as best as they can to many of the other crew members while trying to rig them up to work. Abe ordered priority to be given to the remaining boilers, to avoid a loss of power in the ship, and to the engine rooms to allow for continued propulsion.
Counter Flooding measures were effective, but with so much power directed to the pumps, not efficient. She maintained a 19-degree list, a hair away from the capsizing limit.
Abe had ordered the removal of her 1-inch AA guns, and the rocket launchers to reduce weight on the starboard side. He also ordered that they remove the MXY7
Ohka 'planes' from the flight hanger to further reduce weight in the ship.
By morning, the ship was in a precarious state. The damage control measures had proven effective, but barely. They had initiated the pumps fast enough to stem the original flooding, though they could not enter the open compartments to try and seal them shut. This, combined with several AA mounts thrown overboard, meant that
Shinano was still going about at 17 degrees, more level from the early morning but still dangerously close to the limit.
The helmsman, at the order of Abe, had slowed to 15 knots to prevent pushing more water into the ship, though it left her wide open for an attack and unable to conduct defensive actions. He had also stopped anti-submarine zigzagging maneuvers, judging that the destroyers had already driven away the submarine at this point and electing to continue to shore at best haste as opposed to wasting more time.
Abe had radioed for air cover from the land and a ship sufficiently large enough to be able to tow
Shinano to safety. Unfortunately, as it had the entire war and long before then, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, being part of the Imperial Japanese Army, did not bother to heed his calls, and the Navy had no ships of sufficient size nearby to help him. Thus,
Shinano and her escorts were alone.
Not all was lost for the
Shinano.
Yukikaze had come alongside to provide power and additional pumps for the ship, slowly bringing the flooding water down to manageable levels for Abe and his crew. They've also managed to send off the rest of the civilians into the destroyers, to minimize their impediment to the crew and their duties.
By the afternoon, they had reached within 4 or so miles from the shoreline, close enough to be able to beach her if needed, but far enough to maintain her secrecy from any unsuspecting civilians with the naked eye.
They continued to crawl along the shoreline as the sun began to set, steadily following it through the night.
"Sir," his navigator called out, "We're approaching Shiono Point. Should we still beach there?"
Abe surveyed the condition of his ship. Progress was slow but stable.
Isokaze and
Hamakaze had taken up the port side to guard against any more submarines, while
Yukikaze continued to provide additional support for the
Shinano and her systems. While they have stemmed the flooding, the poor power of the pumps meant they could not expel the water faster than it comes in at their reduced speed. As long as this balance of the pumps was kept though…
"Make for Kure," he ordered. "We need to get her to the docks-"
BOOM BOOM
The bridge room shook, knocking Abe and his staff onto the floor of the bridge.
"Damage report!" Abe called out, pulling himself up and onto the map table.
"Two more torpedo strikes on the port side!" His head engineer called out, rushing up from the inside of the hull. "One struck the port outboard engine room, and we've lost power to the port shaft!"
"Boilers 5 and 6 on the port side have started to flood," another engineer informed him. "We've lost power to the starboard pumps."
"Belay that, make for Shiono Point!" He ordered his helmsman, who began to turn towards the shore. "Sound for the general evacuation, have the wounded begin to transfer to the destroyers."
Abe pursed his lips as his staff followed his orders. He decided to step outside and gaze out onto the deck of his ship. He could see smoke begin to rise from the port side, indicating the rough location of the torpedo strikes. In the distance, he could make out the searchlights of the
Isokaze and the
Hamakaze scouring the surface of the water, the sound of depth charges going off below the waves ringing in his ears.
He looked up towards the sky. The moonlight illuminated the group, as
Shinano began to slowly slip farther down the waters on the way to Shiono Point.
January 31st, 1946
Haruna sighed, as she brought the teacup to her lips.
It wasn't good tea by any means. It was a bagged one, a box of assorted ones which was given to her by some American destroyer that took pity on her, wasting away in the harbor. It was steeped in a jury-rigged boiling vessel hooked up to a car battery which she bought off a British transport ship. The teacup was, at least, a teacup.
But it was still tea, the dilated flavor of which brought back the few good memories she had before the war, where she and her sisters hosted daily teatime whenever they were in port together, and they did nothing but talk and laugh at all the new things that were going on in the world. Where they'd send letters to their half-sisters in the Royal Navy whenever there was a British ship passing by, and where sometimes they just let the tea steep and enjoy each other's company in the daylight.
Of course, those days are long gone now. Her sisters are gone, all of them having been taken by the war, and the Royal Navy held them in contempt for what they did to Repulse and Prince of Wales near Singapore. When she tried to converse with the entering British Pacific Fleet as they sailed for Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremony, only Duke of York, the middle child of the King George the Fifth-class, had bothered to respond to her. Georgia herself and the second youngest family member, Anson, had rebuffed her attempts at conversation, not going further than a nod of acknowledgment. The tea, as well, was still the bare minimum to be called tea.
She even ran out of the scones that Duke of York gave her.
She tried to pour more tea for herself, to alleviate her concerns. However, no water came out of the pail when she tipped it over to pour into the boiling vessel. Sighing softly, she stood up, clutching the pail in one hand, and made her way outside to the observation deck, where she had hitched a rainwater collector to the side. Kneeling, she set the pail below the spigot and twisted the knob to let the water flow out.
"Oi, 'runa, you awake?"
Haruna was snapped out of her thoughts by a voice calling out to her from below her bridge. Twisting the knob off, she put on a stolen American GI army jacket hanging on the railing and stepped off her bridge to the ground, and into the chilly winter air. "Jason, is that you?" She called out.
USS Jason, AR-8, a repair ship of the US Navy assigned to Japan and Okinawa, stood on the top of her deck as it sailed around Haruna's bricked hull, pulling into the pier. "Yes it is," she said, taking off her glasses and wiping them down while jumping onto Haruna's hull.
"Welcome back to Kure," Haruna greeted her, bowing. "Would you like some tea?"
"I thought you ran out of your officer's stock?" Jason asked as she set her glasses back on her nose.
"I had," Haruna acknowledged. "But I managed to buy a box of bagged tea from a passing destroyer. You Americans love your souvenirs."
"Yeah, we do," Jason giggled slightly. "There's a market back at home for the stuff, especially since we can only take souvenirs from other ship spirits, and nine times out of ten you girls killed yourself before we could come over."
Jason walked over and sat down, where she was presented with some tea in a classic Japanese cup from Haruna. "So, what'd you give the girl?"
Haruna shrugged, "I gave her a
sanshikidan, a beehive shell, that I took the primer out of. Not that she could fire it, given the size of my guns."
Jason nodded, "That's a prize there. What girl can claim to have an actual battleship-grade shell in their possession?"
"Yes, and I can tell she valued it. She ended up offering not just the tea, but also a few textbooks, a deck of cards, as well as several of those 'comics' you Americans were so fond of throughout the war." Haruna waved her hands, materializing a copy of
Captain America Issue No.1, and handing it to Jason. "I must say, I was surprised to find that comics depicting fighting the Japanese are not more prominent as opposed to fighting the Germans."
"Yeah, I never got that as well," Jason shrugged, taking the comic and flipping through it. "Seems people just hated Hitler more than you guys."
"It seems so," Haruna said, turning back towards the window overlooking the bay, and suddenly sighing.
"Something wrong?" Jason asked, walking up towards her, and looking out the window.
There, in the center of their view, lay the battleships
Ise and
Hyuga, having been sunk along with Haruna and what remained of the Japanese Navy in July of 1945. If Haruna squinted, she could make out the figures of the ship spirits sitting next to each other atop Ise's pagoda tower, as they watched a group of American civilian ships circle, beginning to drop flotation buoys around them.
"There was talk that they'd begin scrapping us as soon as Japan surrendered," Haruna said in dismay. "Compared to dying in combat, it is certainly a nicer way to leave, but…"
"You thought you'd have a bit more time?" Jason asked.
"No," Haruna answered. "We take up space along the port, so we all knew they'd get rid of us one way or another. It's just…I wish I did things a bit differently, you know?"
"Really?"
"Yeah," Haruna muttered, turning around and sliding down to sit against the wall. "I can regret a few things in life, can I?"
"You can," Jason agreed and shrugged. "But at the same time, you can't change what you've done already. The best you can do is live with the consequences of it all."
"The entire Empire knows that meaning," Haruna chuckled slowly. "I just…don't want to accept it though. I can't just lie down and die without doing anything to make up for my previous actions, whether or not I believe in them now."
Jason just sighed and went to sit down next to Haruna. Instead of saying anything, she took out a lighter, and lit up a cigarette using it, taking a drag and puffing out smoke.
Haruna cocked her head, "You smoke?"
"Blame Vestal," Jason answered, holding the cigarette in between her fingers and letting her hand sway against her knee. "She got us all into it, even if we're not coilers like her."
Jason continued to smoke the cigarette, sitting in silence with Haruna as they sat, contemplating. Eventually, she dropped the cigarette on the floor and stamped it out with the heel of her boot.
"Haruna, you know that none of it was your fault, right? We're shipgirls, we're not responsible for the actions of the men on our hull."
"I know that," Haruna agreed, then sighed. "I just wish I had the ability to make up for it, to try and make right by me and my sister's behalf."
"Oh, so that's what this is about," Jason realized. "Kongou."
Haruna nodded, "I had asked the American destroyer about her status since she did not return to Kure. I wish I could say I wasn't surprised when I learned of her death…"
"I heard about the news at Ulithi," Jason said. "Everyone was proud of Sealion, given it was seen as retribution for when you guys killed her namesake at the start of the war. I'm sorry Haruna."
"It's fine," Haruna said, not looking up. "It's war, isn't it? You're not special enough to live through it, and it's not a blessing to live through it. I doubt she'd like to have seen the end of the Empire anyways."
"You're special, Haruna," Jason argued. "You live this long with your record, you must be special in some way."
"Hah, yeah right," Haruna chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Me. Special."
In some office building in Manila
"Hey, Percival!"
"Yes, Mr. Farren?"
"Do we have the bid plan for the ships in the Kure Harbor? I want to hand it over to the government before the offices shut down for the weekend."
"Ah, yes, one sec."
Rifle rifle rifle
"Here you go, sir. We've submitted bids for the
Amagi, the
Ise, the
Haruna, the
Tone, and the
Iwate."
"Good job, man. I'll bring it over, you can clock out for the night."
"Thank you, sir."
"And congratulations on the engagement! I'm sure you'll make Bucky a very pleased gal."
"I hope to, sir!"
><
In some telegraph office in the Dutch East Indies
Beep beep beep
KURE HIROSHIMA FEB 1ST 743PM
JAVA STEEL BATAVIA
SABYER RADIOS BACK BEGINNING OPERATIONS TO DREDGE ISE HYUGA FROM KURE HARBOR RICHARDSON REQUESTS BIDS FOR SCRAP HAVE DECIDED ON OYODO HYUGA AOBA IZUMO
SERIKA
><
Beep beep beep
JAVA STEEL BATAVIA FEB 1ST 832PM
KURE HIROSHIMA
AGREED TO ALL SEND BIDS HAVE DOUBLE-CHECKED NAVY INVENTORY OF SHIPS IN HARBOR REQUEST BID FOR HARUNA AS WELL
KASTENDIECK
July 4th, 1954
Or so that's what her logbooks said. Shinano had no way of knowing if that was still the correct date, given the onboard clocks ran out of battery years ago and she probably skipped a few days in the log over the past decade or so.
But who cares, right? What's a day or two in the span of years when you aren't doing anything beyond rusting away on the shoreline?
Yeah, a decade since the wars ended and she was still stuck here.
After the Captain had beached her on Shiono Point, he had ordered the crewmembers to camp out on her while he called for the Navy to send a detachment to inspect her. After they got there, they judged that she was too damaged to be towed to Yokosuka, even if they had the oil to bring one of the larger ships over to do so, and even if they had the materials to repair her when she got there.
They decided like they did most times in the past for other ships, to label her as 'unmanned' and dispersed the rest of her crew to secluded postings or on the front lines to save face. The plan was to scrap her over time, to repurpose her for the war effort.
Of course, that never happened, and the war ended within the next year if the American troops sent to survey her were correct.
Shinano didn't care for the end of the Empire. A differing opinion than those of her friends in the Navy, and those of the population, but she had seen her captain's reports and communications with the leadership, and the true state of the country at that point. They were starving, running out of supplies and materials for everything, and the Allied powers were ready to send the rest of the country to hell and beyond if they didn't surrender at that point.
She just wished her sisters were still around.
Now, she had assumed that the Allies would have likely scrapped her, or used her as a gunnery target for their ships. As it stands, they did neither, and simply left her on the point. Why? She had no clue, but here she was, a decade later and slowly succumbing to the elements on the shoreline.
Overlooking her deck, she surveyed the state of her ship. She walked out onto the deck, stepping in front of the most glaring damage that she possessed, a collapsed section of her deck running from her stern elevator to her bridge, having folded in half and fallen inwards to her hanger. Her funnel had also fallen over after a particularly fearsome storm, bringing down part of her bridge on top of her radar set and crashing onto the shoreline as well.
Her bow overhang had collapsed as well, lying haphazardly across her hanger deck and creating a sort of ramp on her bow. Seawater had entered her through the torpedo holes and rusted her entire inside, enough that her boiler rooms had snapped off and fallen onto the beach.
In short, she was wrecked.
Sometimes she wished the Allies had just shot her and killed her off. It would save her the shame of seeing herself in such a shoddy shape.
*doot doot*
"Hey!" someone shouted from below. "Is anyone there?!"
Shinano perked up at the voice and slowly stood up from her seat on the bridge. She made her way to the window and looked outside. "Who's there?" she called back.
She looked down, at the surf, and there was a small destroyer, with some of her crew jumping off onto the sand, waving at her. She had a half-eaten tub of ice cream in one hand and was waving around a shortsword in the other one.
"Oh, sweet! We thought shipgirls died if they were scuttled, so I didn't know if you were still there."
"We die if we want to," Shinano said, dryly. "Unfortunately, I quite like living. Who are you?"
"I'm Macomb!" the girl exclaimed, cheerfully. "Or, I suppose you can call me Hatakaze, but I haven't been re-christened into the Japanese Navy yet."
"Rechristened into the…
what?" She swore she heard they disbanded the Imperial Navy.
"Well,
technically it's called the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force," Macomb said, ignoring Shinano's question. "but that'd be like calling me an armed fishing trawler."
"
What?"
July 4,
1954
Conference Room, Kure
Kunomi Serika, an agent of the scrapping and shipbreaking company Java Steel, smoothed out her dress and stepped into the room. "Gentlemen, thank you for waiting," she said, to the two men.
The younger one, Mr. Percival, stood up and shook Serika's hand. "The pleasure is ours, ma'am," he said, as he sat back down. The other one, Mr. Farren, only nodded in acknowledgment at Serika's entrance.
"The pleasure is mine as well, gentlemen," she said. "Now, can we get to the topic of our discussion today?"
"Let's," Mr. Farren said and opened his folder to the necessary documents. Serika sat down next to the two and opened her files.
"As it stands, my company is still offering the twenty million should you withdraw your bid for the
Haruna," she stated, looking back at the two.
"We can't accept that," Percival responded, bluntly.
"Oh please, she's almost 40 years old," Serika scoffed. "That steel isn't worth as much given she's already been at the bottom of the harbor for a decade."
"That doesn't mean the steel is worthless," Mr. Farren explained. "Plenty of countries and companies still want the scrap, especially all of those new countries popping out in South East Asia."
"Like your own Philippines?" Serika asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Of course," Mr. Farren said, nonchalantly. "And with American investments due to the communists, they will be willing to pay much more than twenty million for the rest of her."
"I'm sorry I'm late," a man burst into the room, holding a silver briefcase in one hand. He nodded at the two Filipino men and sat down with Serika.
"Mr. Kastendieck," Percival introduced. "You're fine. We've just restarted our conversation from last night."
"I hoped so," Lee sighed and popped open his briefcase. Inside was a manila envelope, with the words 'JAVA STEEL-MANILA DUEL OFFER' scribbled on its top in permanent marker. "As it stands, we have a new offer for us-the
both of us."
"The both of us?" Mr. Farren asked, an eyebrow raised.
Lee took out the folder and opened it up, spreading the contents onto the table for the four to read. There were several forms, all of which detailing not scrapping plans, but
construction deals. Offers for shipbuilding yards in Kure, a cash deposit for both companies, and all were signed by a department the first three haven't heard about.
"What's the...Gey-Emm-Ess-Dee-Eff?" Serika asked aloud.
"From what I gathered," Lee replied, "It's the new Japanese Navy."
"You're kidding me," Percival stated, dumbfounded.
"Nope, created just…three days ago as a matter of fact," Lee revealed to them. "Ever since the Americans left for Korea, the Japanese have armed themselves with the remaining equipment in a 'self-defense' manner. The US doesn't care, it seems. They even gave some destroyers to them. They have more pressing matters to stop the Reds in Korea."
"Alright, what does that have to do with us?" Mr. Farren asked, putting the paper down.
"The problem is," Lee explained, "the Americans signed over everything the former Imperial Navy owned to the new Navy. That means bases, buildings, ports, and most importantly, ships."
"But there's no more Japanese ships?" Serika wondered aloud. "They gave the rest of them to the Soviets or the Chinese."
"There's two," Lee stated, bluntly.
…
"Oh, you've gotta be fucking with us," Serika swore. "
Haruna still counts?!"
"And that one half-done flattop beached somewhere in the southern tip of Honshu, but that doesn't matter," Lee muttered, but nodded. "What matters is, legally, she did, and now, belongs to the Japanese."
"So, now we need to deal with this new navy instead of the Americans, is that it?" Mr. Farren said, sighing.
"Not necessarily," Lee said, and produced another paper. This one details that
both companies were contracted to work on Haruna together.
"Wait, we're supposed to
split the scrap?" Percival asked. "That's almost certainly going to be a net loss for the both of us."
"Nonono," Lee said, pointing back to the contract offered. "Not scrapping,
repairing."
"...they want us to
repair her?!" Percival clarified, incredulous. "That's insane!"
"It is," Lee agreed. "But they're offering $400 million to refit both of them.
"$400 million.." Serika said, wistfully.
"
Each," Lee emphasized.
The duos looked at each other for a moment, debating this new offer for the both of them. Of course, with that much money on the line, there wasn't a question of it.
"We own a dockyard in Kure already," Mr. Farren offered, sticking out his hand. "We'll float Haruna up and start work on her, and you find a way to drag the flat deck to Yokosuka and work on her, does that work?"
"I'll take that offer," Lee agreed, and both men shook on it.
AN:
So, who by some miracle remembers me writing Mountain Ranges?
No? Perfect.
Anyways, this is basically like that, except I burn even harder into ripping off people's fanfics XD.
In any case, this idea was dreamt up after I had finished re-reading New Ironsides and returned to the concept of shipgirls being NTR'd into other navies. I had thought 'what if I can try something like that?'. At the time, I dismissed it because I didn't know what ship I wanted to use, then I read through the Kongou-class Wikipedia page, and found out Haruna did, on a technicality, survive the war. Good for her!
Then, while I began working on Haruna's end, I went back to a separate idea that involved Shinano, and thought 'Hey, why can't I stick her in here as well?' At the time, I thought it was impossible. And, well, it still is impossible, but so is refloating a sunken fast BB from the Interwar Period post-World War 2 in an era that they've mostly been surpassed by carrier and land-based aviation, so hey. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And thus, we end up with Shinny and Haruna, old, bored, and ready to screw with the Cold War 
Enjoy!
Obligatory disclaimer to who needs it, this is in no way historically plausible. I won't try to pretend it is.
