Notes: The Sailing of the Hawaii

Notes: The Sailing of the Hawaii

1400 Words

This was the Fourth time that I wrote this story.  The concept started simply enough, a conversation with a friend dur a game of Axis & Allies War at Sea Miniature game.  What if they remade some of the older battleships?  Use newer materials, but keep a good deal of the original armament.  Since I the coolest mini I have is of the USS Alaska, a US Navy Battlecruiser from WW II, I decided to go with that.  When I researched it I saw there were three ships in the class, the last of which was the USS Hawaii.  Despite never having been completed, she became superfluous with the ending of the war, she would have been a heckuva ship.


So she sailed again in my story yesterday.  I was, I think, trying to do too much.  I had the sinister backstory of the Pentagon types spooking a ship into sailing up the Taedong River and into the very heart of Pyongyang's.  I also had what was happening on the ship itself.  And I had to lay the groundwork for the ship's existence in the first place.  And describe what happened to trick them.  And Explain who did the trick.  A lot.  Not necessarily too much for a 2,500 word Clancyesque short story, but just far and away too much for a Flash.

In trying to keep it to the barest of bones I lost much of those little details that always made the Clancy books so enthralling to me.  So in the end, it wasn't a very good flash, and, it wasn't enough description to acheive what I wanted to achieve anyway.  The fix is to either make it into a larger Short Story, or serialize it.  I kind of like the latter idea best.  Six episodes around 500-700 words would've done quite nicely. 

1. The ship as seen from the Captain's point of view when the "nuke" detonates.
2. The Pentagon.  Admiral Hutchinson sees the men and senses that there is something wrong. (It may be superfluous, but I am too enamored of "the world's most exclusive Starbuck's" line to let it go just yet.)
3. Back to the USS Hawaii. In the finest Clancy tradition they effect their plan.
4. Admiral Hutchinson confronts the men, and discovers their sinister plan.
5. The USS Hawaii does what it must, as does the First Officer.  The Captain may not survive, but his ship and crew will.  Demonstrating everything that the Pentagon bastards aren't.
6. Finally, Admiral Hutchinson is eliminated in, if not fine Clancy fashion, than at least in best of Shakespearean tradition.  And the twist when the men realize the Battlecruiser, and crew, might survive after all.

At least, that's my thoughts.  Any other suggestions?


(BTW, I used Google Maps to look at Pyongyang itself, but didn't bother to look at the head of the river, here.  Note the nice, sturdy sea wall to prevent exactly what the Hawaii did. *sigh*)