Altered States -Volume III. Hinge of Fate

Chapter 30

Admiral Lutjens had signaled farewell to Graf Zeppelin two hours ago, just before he made his bombardment run past the Faeroes. The vital aircraft carrier would not be risked in an Atlantic sortie at this time. Its role was restricted to provide air superiority on this mission, something Marco Ritter delivered with his characteristic bravado and skill. The carrier would return to Bergen with an escort of light cruisers and destroyers, and the heavy units would press on at high speed to make their breakout run to the Atlantic.

Ritter lingered in the skies over the Faeroes until he was satisfied that the British had no surprises there. They had not seen a whisper of enemy carrier based aircraft, leading Lutjens to believe that they had caught the British by surprise. Satisfied that the operation was successful, it was now time to find a friendly deck to land his 109-T, but strangely he signaled to his two wing mates to follow him south.

“Where are we going?” Klaus Heilich called on the short range radio channel.

“Just follow me, and you will see in good time.” Ritter banked away, his wing mates following smartly, and all three planes dove to a lower altitude. It was not long before they broke through the low clouds, heading east away from the Faeroes, skimming right down on the deck above the fitful sea. The roar of his planes engine thrummed with reassuring power, and Ritter smiled as he rode the wave tops. Then, looming out of a fog bank ahead, he saw the ship he was looking for, laughing when he heard the surprised voices of his wing mates.

“A little secret, Klaus,” he called on his radio. “That is the Goeben, our Flugdeckkreuzer, and we are all going to join them. Some of our best pilots are on that ship for this mission, Hafner, Brendel, Ehrler, so you had better mind your business!”

The ship was one of Admiral Raeder’s little surprises, a hybrid between a fast cruiser and a light escort carrier, with a small air squadron of 12 planes. There were already six fighters aboard, and three Stukas. Ritter’s flight would complete the squadron and, as the three fighters gained a little altitude to overfly the ship, they gawked at the sleek lines and unusual design. The forward section looked like one of the new Panzerschiffe cruisers, with a typical conning superstructure, a single stack, and two twin gun turrets forward with 28cm guns, just like those on the Scharnhorst. The barrels had been designed as spares for the battlecruisers, but had been worked into this design and put to better use instead of leaving them in the warehouses. Aft of this section the remaining two thirds of the ship was a flight deck, about 20 % shorter than the deck of the Graf Zeppelin.

“That’s a short deck down there, so be careful,” Ritter called. “Now you know why I was drilling you on landings all last week. Make sure you don’t miss your hook up!”

The Goeben had been east of the main group, and much farther ahead, keeping a watchful eye on the Iceland passage in case there were any nosy British cruisers about. It was the only ship of its type built, out to sea for the first time after an extensive training run in the Baltic. Its four 11-inch guns would make it a match for most any 8-inch gun cruiser it encountered, but it also had tremendous speed on its long cruiser hull, and could work up to 36 knots to run from any ship it could not safely engage.

Designed as a scout ship, the Goeben had Germany’s latest naval radar on her mainmast, and its nine BF-109T fighters would provide a strong fighter shield over the battlegroup. The three Stukas would give the ship just a little more sting, one flown by Ritter’s newest recruit, Hans Rudel. The ship was already well south of the Faeroes, out in the vanguard to trailblaze the way for the battleships.

Rudel was on the flight deck when the last of Ritter’s three planes landed. “Good job in rough seas like this,” he said, congratulating Ritter as he jumped down from his cockpit.

“I’ve practiced that twenty times,” said Ritter. “Just as I made you do the same last week! Everyone wanted to know why they had to train for landing with a short hookup cable. Now you know.”

“I was not aware we even had this ship!” Rudel was elated to be among the elite team of pilots chosen for this mission.

“That’s because it was kept secret, Rudel, and listed as a seaplane tender. They had the ship in an enclosed berthing at Kiel, and even its trial runs in the Baltic were kept a secret. I was only told about it last month.”

“How do you hide a ship like this, Marco?”

“Ask the Russians how they hid that rocket cruiser of theirs, eh? Well, we have a few tricks up our sleeve too. Right about now the big ships will be pounding the British on the Faeroes. In thirty minutes we go up again, this time to look for the convoys. You’ll get all the fun, Rudel. I’ll have to be up there on overwatch again.”

“Good to know you’ll be there, Oberleutnant!

It was only Commodore Ritchie’s sad fate that his convoy, HX-69, was in the wrong place at the wrong time when Rudel and the other two Ju-87 Stukas came calling. Ritchie was on the weather deck of Ulysses with his field glasses supervising the detachment of all ships bound for Methil. They would have to go up and over Dunnet head on the north cape of Scotland, and were among the first detachments after receiving orders to scatter the convoy a day early.

He heard the planes before he saw them, craning his neck up to scour the grey clouds. Then the sound of the engines increased, gathering strength and power, and he heard a chilling wail when he saw the first plane diving out of a cloud bank like a falcon. It was Hans Rudel, leading in his birds of prey, and he bored right in on the number three ship in the first line, Voco, a small 8600 ton tanker carrying lubricating oil. True to form, he put his 500 pound bomb right on the target, blasting right through the deck and igniting the volatile cargo below in the holds with a broiling explosion.

Kelbergen, the number one ship in the second steaming row was the next to be hit by Rudel’s wing mate, a Dutch freighter carrying steel scrap. The 500 pound bomb missed and straddled the ship, but the pilot had also dropped the two smaller 100 pound wing mounted bombs, and one struck home to start a fire on the aft section near the main cargo access. The third Stuka straddled the Lylepark with its 500 pound bomb, and the hit was close enough to hole the hull.

“Where in blazes did they come from?” Richie kept looking nervously about, dreading more planes falling from the sky, but none came. If Graf Zeppelin had been ordered in, the heavier strike wing aboard would have had a real feast here, but in Ritchie’s mind the damage to Voco was bad enough.

“Send to R.A.F. Stornoway,” he said to his First Watch Officer. “Tell them we bloody well need fighter cover out here. Jerry has pulled a rabbit out of his hat. Those were Stukas!”

R.A.F. Stornoway got the plaintive call, but they had little more than a few Avro Anson bombers at hand to do anything about it. The base was still under construction, being built on a former golf course in the windy northern Isle of Lewis off the coast of Scotland. There were also 12 Fairy Albacore bi-plane torpedo bombers stationed there in 827 Squadron, but neither plane was likely to be sent to mix it up with German fighters or Stukas.

The storm crows were just the heralds of more trouble to come. An hour later Ritchie heard a strident call from the forward watch. A ship had been sighted on the horizon, and now he was staring through his field glasses at what was obviously the rising silhouette of a warship. His one hope was that it was a Royal Navy battleship sent to bolster their escort. What else would be at large on these waters? HMS Arrow, out in front, was sent to see about it, advancing at high speed and signaling by lantern.

What they got back was the bright roar of distant guns, and the unwelcome plumes of heavy shells, two big rounds falling into the sea ahead of the destroyer. The battleship Hindenburg had just fired its first shots in anger.

“Signal all ships, emergency turn! Thirty points to starboard!”

The signal flags went up, followed by a frantic message from the W/T room: HX-69 under attack by German dive bombers and large enemy warship. It would soon have to be amended. There was more than one wolf in the pack that had found his sheep. Krutschmer’s U-99 had signaled the position of the convoy, and the information was quickly passed on to Lutjens.

Now the hunt began.

HMS Winchelsea was the first ship to be hit. The old Admiralty W Class destroyer had been laid down in 1917, and had little more than four QF 4.7-inch guns to challenge the oncoming enemy. But it did have speed at 34 knots. The ship had done little in the war thus far, except to pick up stranded sailors sunk by German U boats in the Western Approaches. Now it faced a real minute of horror as it realized the size and nature of the enemy threat. Hindenburg turned its extensive secondary batteries loose on the British, and the destroyer was soon hit and burning from three 5.9-inch guns. Winchelsea thought it might get close enough to get a few of its 21 inch torpedoes in the water, but that was not to be. The destroyer was suddenly struck by a bigger round, and not from one of the battleships.

A sleek, dark ship came surging ahead of the main German force, its battle ensign snapping stiffly in the breeze as it took the lead position in the formation. It moved so quickly that the British thought it was a fast light cruiser, but it was something quite more, the new German battlecruiser Kaiser. At 35,400 tons, it was as heavy as a Revenge Class British Battleship, yet could work up to the amazing speed of 36 knots. Designed like a pocket battleship, it had two twin-gun turrets forward and a third aft. Originally meant to be an improved Deutschland Class ship, it was supposed to get the same 11-inch guns, but soon evolved into something better when Raeder proposed they use the same turrets that had been designed for Bismarck, with a total of six 15-inch guns assigned to the ship.

Raeder had originally planned to build twelve Panzerschiffe, each with 11-inch guns, but the larger weapons simply proved to be much more effective, and the shipyards could not build out the whole Kreutzer program. Only two had been built, Rhineland and Westfalen, and they were now escorting Graf Zeppelin home. But Kaiser had been born of the same litter, bigger, faster, more powerful, and it was the ship that broke the back of HMS Winchelsea with one smashing 15-inch round.

When Commodore Ritchie saw the destroyer blow up, he knew the fate of his convoy was sealed. HMS Arrow launched herself bravely at the oncoming German ships, but soon got pummeled by the combined fire of forty 5.7 inch guns between the three German warships. Ritchie gave the frantic order for all ships to scatter at once, and the feeding frenzy was on.

Kaiser began blasting away at the slow merchant ships, striking the British ships Barrdale and Martland soon after the Arrow went down. Then came Bismarck, next in the line with her eight 15-inch guns feasting on the gasoline tankers Tornus and Pontfield, and ripping them apart with raging fire consuming the ships when they were hit. Finally came the Lord of the Manor, looming up like a massive steel castle, the mighty Hindenburg.

Now 16-inch guns were turned on the convoy, blasting the steel carrier Penrose, and three other merchant ships. Tall columns of thick black smoke rose into the grey sky, as the carnage continued. They died in great numbers, Beaverdale, Roxby, Bridgepoole, blasted away and keeling over in fiery wrecks. Lord Byron would not make its appointed delivery of grain to Methil, and the Benzene in Dosina was burning on the sea.

Commodore Ritchie watched in horror as one ship after another came under those fearful guns, blown up, burned, their cargo and crews scuppered into the sea. As the heavy rounds began to fall near Ulysses, he called out in desperation. “Where’s the bloody navy! God help us!”

A 5.7-inch round struck his ship, jarring the bridge. Another gave the ship a hard thump amidships, and a bigger 15-inch round fell just twenty yards off his port side, the blast enough to rock Ulysses with its heavy swell and splinter the weather decks with shrapnel. The W/T room was still sending out its frantic S.O. S when another round silenced the radio, killing every man there. Ulysses was burning, and tears streaked the face of Commodore Ritchie as he watched his flock cut down, ship by ship.

Kaiser had put on speed to get down near the last ranks and was busy sending the crude oil tanker Taron to its fiery doom, and the sulfur on Olympos would never reach Belfast, nor the fuel oil on Tricula. It would be the greatest single tonnage lost for cargo ships in the war thus far, with 28 ships lost before Commodore Ritchie spotted even more misery bearing down on them. Another dark silhouette was on the horizon, coming up behind the German ships, and he saw the glow of fire from them as well. To his great relief and surprise, the shells they fired were not aimed his way, but at the German battleships instead!

All that night Captain Patterson’s task force had been laboring through the heavy seas, and the long hour of agony when the Germans slowed to feast on the convoy had given him just the break he needed. King George V and Prince of Wales were on the horizon, and the Royal Navy was coming to fight.

Aboard battleship Hindenburg, Lutjens had been watching the carnage unfold, not unmoved by the plight of the men he was putting into the sea, but this was what he had come here to do, the hard edge of war. When the first rounds came in they were well short, but he turned and studied the fall of the shells. Very strange, he thought as he saw the close pattern of four shells abreast. Two twin-gun turrets would almost never land their shells with such precision in a single line like that. He first thought he was dealing with the older British Battleships in the Revenge Class, but the British ships were getting closer, and coming much too fast. He turned to Captain Adler with a question in his eyes.

“These look to be something new, would you agree?”

“They do, sir. Most likely the new British King George V class ships we’ve seen working out on trials. Shall we turn and give battle?”

“Those ships have twenty 14-inch guns,” Lutjens considered.

“And we have fourteen 15-inch guns with Bismarck and Kaiser, and our eight 16-inch guns will make all the difference,” said Adler.

“Possibly,” said Lutjens, “but our orders were to get after the convoys, and this we have done. Look, Adler! There must be thirty ships burning and sinking out there. No. We have done enough for one day, and a fight with the Royal Navy here is not part of our operational plan. Come to 220 and give me thirty knots at once. Signal all ships to follow.”

“But sir!” Adler’s eyes were sharp and on fire as well, his dark hair and aquiline features grim and set. He wanted to sink his talons into something more than a merchant ship, and saw great advantage here. “We outgun them!” he complained. “We should fight!”

“Yes, we certainly do, but you do not outgun me, Captain, unless I have miscounted the stripes on my jacket cuff. Second my order! We are moving south into the Atlantic.”

Adler stiffened under the polite but pointed rebuke, and turned to his Executive officer. “Come to 220 and thirty knots. A pair of British battleships has the Admiral worried he might miss his tea.”

Lutjens turned slowly, eyeing the Captain with an unfriendly look. “It may interest you to know that there is more going on here than a Sunday jaunt through this convoy. There is a war on, Captain, and a major operation is getting underway even as I take the time to explain myself here. We have a part to play in that campaign, and that is exactly what we will do. And if you ever make such a remark to me again, particularly on this bridge, I will have you sent down to the brig for insubordination!”

Adler raised his chin, lips tight, but knew better than to say anything else.

“I beg your pardon sir, I only meant-”

“We both know what you meant, Adler. Don’t worry, something tells me you will get your battle with the Royal Navy soon enough.”