Altered States

Chapter 26

The ship rode out the bad weather well enough, and Fritz Kürt was on the aft deck seeing to some hose lines as the skies cleared and the ocean swells began to calm. The weather was breaking up just in time for the refueling operation. That was good. There was nothing more difficult than trying to keep station with a hungry warship in high seas and bad visibility, but now the skies were brightening and the light was fine. He looked east to see the last trailing edge of the passing squalls, off to Iceland now to make rain or snow there, and good riddance, but he knew that this break would not last long. The cool foggy days of June and July were legendary here, where there was cloud cover 90 % of the time in those months.

It came out of the storm like a bolt of thunder. The UGST was Russia’s most modern standard 533mm torpedo, utilizing a water jet propulsor to travel up to 50 knots and achieve a range up to 50 kilometers. With a wakeless approach, it was very difficult to spot as it homed in on its target to deliver a 300kg warhead, which was 660 pounds of high explosives.

No man saw it, but every man aboard knew what had happened the instant after it exploded. Altmark shuddered amidships, where gun munitions had been stored to replenish the battlecruisers if needed. The magazine had been hit dead on and the explosion broke her back in one mighty blow, as though the fist of Poseidon had hammered the keel of the ship. Fritz was thrown from his feet, barely managing to get to his knees when the everything blew amidships. Then he was thrown completely off the ship, scuppered into the sea and flailing to get his hands on anything around him that was thrown into the water with him.

There were 365 men aboard that day, and most were going into the sea with him soon after that explosion…those that were still alive. There was not even time to get off one last plaintive S.O.S. on the wireless for aid before the ship began to sink. A residual of thick black oil was coating the water all about the stricken vessel, some of it already burning and filling the air about the scene with thick, acrid smoke. Fritz knew he had to get as far from it as he could if he wanted to survive.

Torpedo, he thought grimly. Someone noticed us out here and got suspicious. The British have U-boats too. Yes, it had to be a torpedo. Nothing else breaks the back of a ship like that with one hit. Will they surface and turn the machine guns on us? Thank God it’s June and the water is not so cold. And thank God the battlecruisers are close by, due in a another three hours. So hold on Fritz, you’ll make it through this one. They can sink Altmark but they’ll never sink Fritz Kürt.

He could still see crews scrambling on the sinking ship, trying to get to any lifeboat they could float, but Fritz was soon glad to be pulling his tired wet body onto a wide section of broken deck plank. The jinx that seemed to follow the ship had struck again, he thought. Well that is the last we’ll ever see of Altmark. Yes…It must have been a torpedo.

He drifted for some time, shivering with shock and cold, yet knowing all would be well. Some inner sense told him he would live through this, that he had been through much worse before this and survived. Then he saw what looked to be one of the battlecruisers, a dark ship on the horizon coming from the retreating edge of the storm. He smiled, weary and tired, but knowing that rescue was close at hand. But to his chagrin, the ship turned away and slowly slipped beneath the horizon.

What are they doing? He could not believe that their comrades would abandon them like this. Why? Was it fear of the submarine that had attacked them here? That was the grim logic of war. He could see the Kapitan of Scharnhorst making such a decision. His ship and crew were all that mattered to him. We are no more than a burden to him now. He passed a moment of quiet despair, then shook himself, bolstering his will to survive. Someone will find us, he knew. I will not die here. He was correct, because the ship he had seen was not one of the German raiders.

Two hours later when Hoffmann arrived on the scene with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, he swore quietly under his breath. They had seen the smoke from some distance after they broke through the back edge of the weather front. He did not know what he was looking at then, but he had misgivings at once. The smoke soon became fire, and then they saw the dark stain of oil on the sea, the flotsam of wreckage, and men clinging to floating crates and shards of deck wood. There were three lifeboats afloat, crowded with weary wet survivors, and they were shouting and waving at his battlecruisers as they approached.

And there is my oil, he thought grimly, there it sits, burning on the sea. Now how can I continue south with my belly half empty and the nearest friendly port over 3500 kilometers away? If I make it we’ll be running on fumes when we get to the French coast, and there will be no fuel for hunting convoys. Now I must look for another tanker, and this will upset the timetable of the entire operation.

He looked for Huber, his face set, eyes resigned. “Make to Wilhelmshaven. Tell them Altmark has been sunk and we have been unable to refuel.” See what Raeder thinks of that one, he thought, but for the moment it was his problem, and now he had to decide what to do about it. He was sitting at the point of no return. Sail on and there was no guarantee that he would get his ships to a safe port, though he knew there were other German oilers in the Atlantic for this operation. He would wait two hours, three at the most, to hear from Wilhelmshaven.

The British know we are here, and if one of their submarines sunk Altmark, then they will know where we are as well. There will be more than a few cruisers about shortly. The Royal Navy may be gathering like a pack of crows further south.

“And Huber,” he said quietly. “Signal Admiral Hipper and tell them to come to this point at their best speed. As soon as we get any survivors aboard and get some rum into them we must get out and find some sea room. Post submarine watches on every quarter. Get boats out all along our starboard side and drop the anti-torpedo nets. That British U-boat may still be lurking here.”

* * *

Rodenko watched the two German battlecruisers on radar as they reached the rendezvous point with the tanker. Kirov was hovering just over the horizon now, the ship Fritz Kürt had seen. He updated the tactical situation board on the electronic map, briefing Fedorov and the Admiral.

“We are here, sir, about 20 kilometers from their refueling point. As we moved to this location the German battlecruisers were on a parallel course to our north, just over the horizon. We’re still jamming their radar, so I don’t think they will find us unless we show ourselves. Even for a large ship, we are relatively quiet, and they may not even hear us on hydrophones. As for the British, we’ve lost our track on them for the moment. They would be well to the east, and still in the weather front based on their last position and our predictive plot.”

“We could re-acquire the British with the KA-40, Admiral.” Fedorov was looking at the map, considering the situation. “They turned in our direction just before we diverted west to make this intervention. If that predictive plot holds true I think it would put them about 200 kilometers east of us now.”

“The two cruisers?”

“No sir, I was referring to the stronger contacts we had earlier, most likely capital ships. I believe the cruisers are still well to the northeast.”

“And we also have this track here,” said Rodenko.

“That will be Admiral Hipper,” said Fedorov. “It appears to be steering to rejoin the battlecruisers.”

“And so what can we deduce from this? Will the Germans proceed into the Atlantic even without refueling here as they planned?”

“That remains to be seen, Admiral. It would be my guess that they are recovering survivors now and possibly awaiting further instructions.”

“And if they do proceed? What then, gentlemen? In that event we will have wasted a torpedo here and achieved nothing but the addition of a little more misery to this cup of war.”

“If they do proceed it will mean they have decided to attempt a refueling rendezvous in the Atlantic.”

“So then we either leave them to the British and head north as planned or we continue this intervention and stop them.”

“From their present position I believe they will evade the British and make a successful breakout, sir.” Fedorov was all business now, his sharp mind looking at every side of the question.

“If we are to engage,” said Rodenko, “we are in a fairly good position now. They will most likely come due south and right across our bow when we spot them.”

“Yes, and at first blush they will think they have sighted a British battleship.”

“They have shown a tendency to try and avoid such an encounter, sir. When they sunk the British auxiliary cruiser Rawalpindi between Iceland and the Faeroes they even ran from the cruiser Newcastle, and that was a ship in the same class as the two they just engaged here. In the Norway operation they ran into the battlecruiser Renown and choose to run again when engaged.”

“But they did not run this time,” said Volsky. “It has been my observation that it is that man that runs, not the ship. He is either cautious or aggressive at sea. Perhaps this German squadron has a new commander.”

“That is possible, sir.”

Hearing mention of Renown, Nikolin turned and spoke now. “Excuse me, Admiral, but that ship you are discussing, I intercepted a message half an hour ago. Renown was damaged in an engagement off the east coast of Iceland and is now returning to Scapa Flow.”

“A sea engagement?” Fedorov was surprised to hear this.

“No, the signal mentioned an air attack.”

“Air attack? That is fairly far from the Norwegian coast to have German planes make a successful attack. Very strange.”

“Thank you, Mister Nikolin,” said Volsky. “Keep listening with those sharp ears of yours, but we are still left with the question of what to do here at the moment. We must either engage or break off and head north as planned, but Fedorov believes the Germans might just have their cake and eat it too, despite our attack on that tanker.”

“We can still stop them,” said Rodenko, “but if we break off I agree with Fedorov. They will get down into the Atlantic if the British are where we believe them to be.”

“At the moment they are still at that rendezvous point,” said Fedorov, “probably recovering survivors and waiting on Hipper, or else orders from higher up the chain of command. We have jammed their radar. Could we not also jam their communications?”

“What are you thinking, Fedorov?”

“Suppose they are waiting for new orders, and suppose they never receive them?”

Volsky thought about that. “Then I think we will learn the character of man in command there, whether he is cautious or aggressive. Make it so, Mister Nikolin. Jam their communications bands if possible. I want to test the mettle of this German Captain.”

“I have another alternative,” said Fedorov. “We could contact the British right now and send them the position of the German ships. If they turn soon they may have a chance to cut them off. It all depends on when, or if, the Germans move.”

“Contact them?” Volsky smiled. “Well we have already tipped our hat to that plane once. I suppose we could do this. We could say we are that Russian cruiser as before. I like this idea Fedorov! Very well, I hope you’ve been polishing your English, Nikolin.”

* * *

Able Seaman Hubert Witte was standing by in the wireless room aboard Scharnhorst, ready to run the next message to the bridge as per his assignment there. But he had a very long wait. The Radio Chief was surly, fussing with his equipment, selecting this band and that, listening, tapping at his headset, and getting more and more unhappy as the time went by.

“This is not the storm,” he said finally. “We are being jammed. I have tried three separate communications bands now, and I get the same interference on all three. Get to the Kapitan and inform him, Witte. Tell him if he is waiting for orders from Wilhelmshaven they just might never come. Yes. We’re being jammed.”

The message was not well received by Kapitan Hoffmann. “Jammed? That would have to mean another ship was very close. Anything on radar, Huber?”

“No sir. They can’t shake this interference either. Perhaps that storm has the atmosphere all charged up.”

“This is not from the storm, Huber. The front is well past us. Now we can’t even receive a goddamned radio message.” He wondered if that British submarine was still out there somewhere, surfaced, unseen on some quarter and operating new British jamming equipment. Suddenly the cool air after the storm seemed hot at his neck, and he frowned, deciding.

“Anything on the hydrophones?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Well, we are sitting ducks here. Have the last of the survivors been taken aboard?”

“They have, sir.”

“Then we’re heading south as planned.”

“But Kapitan, what about the fuel situation?”

“What about it? You think this was the only tanker assigned to this operation? We’ll find something in the Atlantic if I can get off a message to inform Wilhelmshaven of this development. The British got to Altmark before we did. Now that submarine is out there radioing our coordinates and jamming us, by God! We leave now. Helm, come to one-eight-zero south and ahead two thirds. Signal Gneisenau to follow. Hipper will have to either find us or fend for itself.”

They snookered us good on this one, he thought. Two damn cruisers and a good submarine Captain. Well, at least I put a heavy round into that cruiser. But the scales have not yet been balanced. If they thought sinking Altmark was going to cancel this operation then they will now get the bad news.

He went to his Flag Bridge, sitting down at a small desk there and removing a plain brown leather folio from the drawer. There were his original orders, to be destroyed should the ship ever be placed in a compromising position.

By now Kapitan Lindemann will have pushed his nose towards the Iceland-Faeroes Gap to see what the British have waiting for him there. He is either running the gap as I sit here, or perhaps shifting further west to take the Denmark Strait on our heels.

He flipped ahead to his support schedule. There it was: Altmark — 0:600 hours, June 18. Too bad we were just a little late. Running his finger down the page he looked for his alternate refueling point. Nordmark, DHRX — Discretionary — Currently holding: diesel, lubricants, armament stores, victuals. On station through 21-6-40 before moving to grid location 3C.

He noted the planned operations zone of the ship, somewhat discouraged. It would require him to backtrack to the north if he wanted fuel now. Otherwise it could be three or four days before he could find another tanker in the Atlantic. He would keep Nordmark in his back pocket. It was a long way back to Trondheim. Even if Bismarck and Tirpitz do get through, they will be hungry as well when they get into the Atlantic. That was the one thing Hitler and Raeder should have thought a little more about when they built the fleet-the goddamned fuel! Where do we get the fuel to keep all these ships at sea? The Russians are sitting on top of half the oil, and the British in Persia have the other half. Yes, Orenburg has declared itself and joined Germany this week, but getting any oil from them will be no easy matter.

The ship was already turning, moving, the powerful engines building up speed. He did not like the feeling settling in his gut now. Something was not right here. That engagement with the British cruisers still galled him, and he had the lingering suspicion that there had been a third ship nearby when that action was fought. No cruiser he had ever heard of could score two direct hits like that at over 18,000 meters in bad visibility. Something else hit them, hidden, unseen in the concealing mist and fog. Then there was the strange interference affecting the radars and now even his ship to shore transmissions. And was that attack on Altmark just a chance occurrence, the fortunes of war, or was there something more sinister behind it?

Settle down, he told himself. You are tired, cold, hungry now. A man never thinks right when he’s hungry. What you need now is a good cup of coffee and a little food. That will set your mind right. …But why do I have the strange feeling that someone is watching me, reading me like a book, gauging my every move?