Altered States

Chapter 34

Tovey sat with the latest dispatch from the Admiralty, his mind heavy with foreboding. Operation Ariel, the final evacuation from France had just been dealt a heavy blow. The old Cunard steamship liner Lancastria had been crowded with both civilian and service and support troops, one of the last to leave St. Nazaire as the Germans closed in. With a stated capacity of 1300 passengers and 300 crew, the ship had packed in over 8000 souls, ready to sail for England. The Captain of the escorting British destroyer Havelock urged them to get out to sea, but a U-boat warning caused her Captain, Rudolph Sharp, to delay. It was a fatal decision.

At a little before 4pm the previous day, June 17th, the Germans sent in the Luftwaffe to attack the desperate flotillas attempting to flee the continent. JU-88s from Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 30 scored three direct hits on the lumbering steamship, causing her to list and then quickly turn over. One bomb had penetrated her fuel bunkers, and the sea around the stricken ship was soon black with oil. As if this heavy blow were not enough, the JU-88s made additional strafing runs, killing many as they struggled for life in the water and setting the fuel afire where thousands of desperate men and women were now adrift on the dark oily sea, burned and drowned in an agonizing death of fire and water. It was a brutal act of cruelty masquerading as a wartime operation, the most severe loss at sea ever suffered by a British ship.

“Most secret — Not to be disclosed or disseminated below flag level,” he read aloud, then lowered his head, sitting down, his hand covering his eyes. The loss was more than twice that suffered during the sinking of the Titanic, and it would account for a third of all casualties suffered by the British Expeditionary Force on the continent. Fearing news of the disaster would cut home morale to the bone, only the most senior officers were advised, and a blackout concerning the incident was imposed on all press and media.

It was one damn catastrophe after another, thought Tovey. France and Norway gone, the fate of the powerful French fleet still hanging in the balance, the threat of imminent invasion of the homeland, and now this. On top of it all we are now facing this powerful formation of German ships, easily a match for us, and who could foresee such a thing coming to pass? God help us if they do win through the straits and get at those convoys. I must immediately request HX-50 and HX-51 either re-route south or return to Halifax, and there can be no further sailings from that port until this issue is decided. There are ninety ships between those two convoys, and I also have TC-5 to worry about, another nine ships there, with the Empress of Australia carrying over 3700 troops. It’s another bloody disaster in the waiting, and all that stands between those ships and the bottom of the sea is Home Fleet.

At least that last convoy has some escort. Revenge is presently on station with TC-5. There’s another eight good 15-inch guns there that I could dearly use right now, but she can make only 23 knots and is too far south and east to matter now. Admiralty has already pulled Devonshire off of convoy duty to escort Illustrious. There simply isn’t anything left, and something tells me the Germans are coming in force this time. We’ll just have to face them down with what we have. But if we lose this fight…He did not want to contemplate the consequences.

The offer of friendship and support extended by the Russians seemed more inviting now, though he knew the matter would have to be sent on to the Admiralty first. What could they do, really? He had taken their testimony concerning the engagement with the Twins with a grain of salt. But being diplomatic, he had thanked the Russian Admiral, saying he believed his government would be most interested in further discussions on their mutual cooperation. In the end, however, he had to urged him to remain well south of the action he anticipated soon in the Denmark Strait. Their young Captain seemed troubled, still believing that this was a battle we might not win, but there is little help the Russians could offer us. As imposing as this new ship appeared, Holland was correct to point out it had only half the firepower of a small British light cruiser, in spite of their claims to the contrary. He was of a mind that the Russians had spun out a bit of a bender, stretching the truth concerning their engagement with the Germans.

Yet, as he stood on the weather deck watching the Russian ship haul in its massive anchor and slowly make way, that haunting feeling of déjà vu returned to him. He felt certain he had seen this ship before. It was completely irrational. There was no reason why he should feel this way, but he could not deny the clear sense of anxiety he felt to look on the long lines of the cruiser, easily as big as Hood or his own flagship.

So he issued his orders. Admiral Holland, with Hood and Repulse would continue to operate together and take up a position on the right. Tovey would take Invincible and the destroyers Fortune and Firedrake in the center, steaming some 18,000 yards west of Holland’s position. Vice Admiral Wells with the two British carriers would hold down the left flank, escorted by the heavy cruisers Sussex and Devonshire, with destroyers Tartar, Javelin and Jackal in escort, led by the redoubtable Lord Mountbatten aboard Jackal. This force would steam west-southwest of Tovey’s position, with the cruisers well out in front.

As for Kirov, Admiral Volsky offered to take a place in the line, but Tovey politely declined. The Russians were again urged to move off to the south pending developments.

“Well Admiral, we will be on your left should you need us,” the Russian had told him. Then he smiled. “I have heard there is good fishing near the ice this time of year. God go with you.”

* * *

Far to the north, the German fleet winked goodbye to the tanker Nordmark at 18:00 hours as planned. The sun was low on the horizon, but it would not set this day, up to bear full witness to what was now about to transpire. Lindemann had received permission to attempt to force the strait on the condition that he should break off the engagement if any of the capital ships were heavily damaged and in danger of being sunk.

Raeder was keen to preserve the fighting power of his fleet, and he was very pointed on one matter. As Lindemann looked at the final message from Wilhelmshaven, he was in full agreement with the order. ‘Under no circumstances is Graf Zeppelin to be placed forward in any position where the ship might be sighted or engaged.’

The German Fleet commander knew the risk of what he was permitting now. Just days earlier he had lectured Admiral Donitz: ‘We will not sail out in one great sortie to seek battle with the British Home Fleet. That would be foolish…No. The virtue of the ships we have built still lies in the unique combination of speed, power and endurance. We will accomplish our aims with maneuver, not a set piece battle.’ Now the situation had changed and Rader was ordering the very thing he feared most-a direct challenge to the Royal Navy with the heart of the German fleet. But he had devised this strategy thinking his navy could never match the might of Britain’s fleet. If intelligence was correct on the composition of the enemy force, he now believed he could not only give challenge, but win!

The Germans formed three battlegroups as well. In the east was Group Böhmer with Graf Zeppelin and the two destroyers Beowulf and Sigfrid in escort. The carrier was kept well back, and had the advantage of ample sea room free of ice should it need to run from any pursuing ship. Lindemann set his mind on assuring that would not happen. He was steaming 20,000 meters to the west with Bismarck, Tirpitz, and the heavy cruiser Prince Eugen. The destroyer Heimdall was out in front as an early warning picket so that his heavy ships could not be surprised. An equal measure west, and very near the ice, was group Hoffmann, with Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Admiral Hipper. Fein was given orders that he should steam third in the line of battle, and break off immediately should Gneisenau sustain any further damage.

They steamed south, seeing pale floes of ice drifting on the still waters. It was a calm sea, but wisps of fog were forming over the ice and slowly migrating east. A fat gibbous moon rose over the scene, adding its cold light and painting the sea with its glistening ‘whale road.’ Unless the fog thickened, visibility would be good for battle.

Lindemann had told Hoffmann that if the British managed to concentrate against his main body, he was to detach Gneisenau to support the battleships, but if circumstances were favorable, he could take Scharnhorst and Hipper south and attempt to reach the Atlantic.

Close by the ice shelf, Hoffmann was on the bridge of Scharnhorst, cigar in hand, and feeling a cold hand of fate on his neck. There was going to be a battle here, he knew. Both sides are deployed on a front spanning some sixty kilometers. At one place or another, they will meet one another, and then it comes down to steel and blood.

As for that strange ship, let us hope it no longer waits for us to the south. Lindemann did not quite know what to make of my claim about this rocket weapon. He should have seen the damage on Gneisenau first hand, as I did. Well, soon we fight our battle, but not before we fill this lurid sky with bats off of Graf Zeppelin.

He looked at his watch. The action was about to begin.

* * *

Aboard the carrier Graf Zeppelin the last of the bats were spotted on deck and ready for takeoff. The entire contingent of 24 planes would go aloft tonight. One had been shot down in their last engagement with the British, and another crashed on landing. This left two dozen Stukas, and one was being flown by Hans-Ulrich Rudel again as a reward for his dramatic first hit on the Renown.

“First hit Rudel! That’s good luck!” Hauptmann Marco Ritter had been one of the first to congratulate him on his safe return to the carrier.

“Thank you for giving me the chance, sir.”

“Thank yourself. It took training, skill and plenty of guts to do what you did. Soon we go for the main event, and you will be right there again, Rudel. No more seaplanes for you!”

Rudel was elated. They were giving him a Stuka full time now, and he was eager to get airborne and put it to good use. Tonight they would fly south in a wide formation. The Arados were already well out in front, scouting the way. Marco Ritter would lead in the BF-109s, seven of the eleven fighters remaining. He liked those numbers too.

The midnight sun cast an eerie red glow as it dipped low to the horizon, but it would find no rest there this night. Soon they heard from their scout planes ahead: sighted two large capital ships! From the heading and bearing information they were steaming on a course to intercept Lindemann’s center group. Rudel decided he would pay them a visit first.

The dark shapes of the Stukas drifted across the white moon, their fixed landing gear jutting beneath them like the legs of a bird of prey. Rudel looked up to see the fighters accelerating to take the lead. The Arados had spotted a squadron of British fighters flying cover, and the fight was on.

Heinrich Jurgen was swiveling his neck in all directions looking for clouds to hide in. The British Skuas had seen his Arado and two had broken their patrol formation to come after him. The rattle of his rear gunner opening up with his MG-15 broke the silence, the very first rounds fired in anger as the battle began. He was firing at Midshipman R. W. Kearsley in plane 6Q off the Ark Royal, but Kearsley would have nothing of it, banking deftly to evade the hot streamers as they whizzed by his plane.

The British pilot opened up with his Browning.303s riddling the Arado’s tail and send it into a fluttering spiral as it plummeted downward and into the sea. First kill had gone to the British airmen, but Marco Ritter was quick to the scene, leading a sub-fight of three BF-109s in the vanguard of his fighter formation.

“Tommy wants a cracker,” he said to his mates on the radio. “Let’s see that he pays for it first.” He banked his fighter and dove for the Skua as it was climbing after its run on the seaplane. The Messerschmitt growled in, wings blazing with fire that took the right wing off plane 6Q and sent Kearsley and his gunner/signalman Eccleshall into the drink to join the Germans. Tit for tat.

The remaining four Skuas rumbled into action, but the swift 109s were simply too agile for them. Two were down in short order, but Lieutenant Commander John Casson was wheeling and swerving in the sky, his stunt pilot skills making him the equal of the Germans even though his plane could not match them. He hit his flaps, watched a Messerschmitt flash by, and then quickly lined up on it for a kill.

“There’s one for your white heather, Hornblower,” he said to his mate in the rear seat. Peter Fanshaw, the squadron navigator had been busy tapping out his contact signal, and now he was on the rear machine gun. It was three Skuas to the two BF-109’s, which Casson saw as even up. Petty Officer Wallace Crawford was on his right wing, finding him again after losing a German plane in a bank of clouds.

“Tally Ho, Johnny! But watch out above. Jerry’s throwing the whole kitchen sink our way.”

Casson looked up to see a full squadron of six more 109s and he knew the jig was up. “Signal Hood to get her dander up. There’s bound to be Stukas behind those fighters. Where the hell is 800 Squadron?” He put on all the power he could and started to climb for some heavy gray clouds, looking for cover to try and get into a position to look for the Stukas. A wash of rain greeted him, then he broke through to see the dark formation ahead, some two dozen planes.

“Signal the lads, Hornblower. Large formation of enemy planes right off their starboard bow!”

Crawford had tried to follow Casson up. But Marco Ritter found him climbing and made a vicious pass. The heavy rounds shattered his canopy and he was hit in the right shoulder, thrown against the side of the plane as he lost control. He would not make it back to Ark Royal that night.

It was nigh on the witching hour and the vampires were on the wing. The Stukas looked down to see the same scenario they had been presented with earlier, two battlecruisers, one slightly bigger in the van, and they tipped their wings over and came screaming down like banshees, dark things in the glowing night, shadows on the face of the watching moon.

Below them Holland’s battlegroup, with Hood in the van and Repulse following, threw up everything they could on defense. Hood’s twin QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns joined with her 2-pounder pom-poms, which began puffing up the sky as the planes came in. But soon the 4-inch guns could simply not elevate high enough, as the Stukas could come in at a near vertical dive.

The ship swerved right, beginning a hard zig-zag to try and throw off the enemy’s aim. There were three near misses, two other bombs falling wider off her bow as she put on all the speed she had, plowing through the glimmering seas at over 30 knots. Then one bomb caught her flush on B-turret. While the turret face was all of 15-inches thick, the roof was only five inches and the bomb blasted through, putting two of her eight 15-inch guns out of action. That single blow reduced her standing in any fight at sea quickly from that of a battleship to that of a battlecruiser, now the better of HMS Repulse behind her only in stature and reputation.

Repulse took one hit near her fantail, a glancing blow that blew off the gunwale, dented her hull and threw splinters across the deck to kill three unlucky seamen there. There were four other close calls, but the agile battlecruiser was running at 32 knots, determined not to suffer the fate of her sister ship Renown. She would escape further damage but the venerable Hood would not. The last of the uninvited guests hurtling out of a blood red sky that night was Hans Ulrich-Rudel. He was lined up on the target and put his bomb right down on Hood’s number two funnel, dead center on the ship. The resulting explosion blew the funnel apart, riddled the forward stack with hot shrapnel and sent an enormous billowing black cloud up as if all her boilers had vented in one mighty belch. He was the thirteenth plane to make the attack, and Rudel’s luck was still good. He was now two for two.

The flak defense was good enough to get a pair of Stukas that night, and drive three others off, their pilots aborting their runs when the heat was too thick in the sky. Of the six remaining, John Casson got on the tail of one and blew it clean away before dancing off into another cloud. The remaining five had circled wide to look for other targets, but found nothing.

Casson looked to see another squadron of Skuas hastening to the scene. 800 squadron was joining the action. “It’s about bloody time,” he yelled, but one look at Hood told him it was already too late.