Altered States -Volume III. Hinge of Fate

Chapter 34

Lieutenant Dawes had spent two hours at the hospital and finally had his shoulder wound cleaned up, stitched and bandaged. The medic seemed upset to be bothering with him, and Dawes had the distinct feeling that the man bore him some animosity. This was confirmed when he slipped on his officer’s jacket and began making his way to the door, pressing through the crowded room past men with much more serious wounds.

“Bloody officers,” he heard the medic mutter under his breath. “Sit about while the rest of this lot carries the burden, eh?”

Dawes gave the man a look over his shoulder, but said nothing. In fact he felt a bit wilted by the remark, and resolved to try and find something more to do. There were men here that looked like they would surely lose an arm or leg, and others with head wounds that still darkened the bandages with clotted blood. Then there were those silent stretchers, where men lay with their faces covered with woolen blankets, and all too many of them.

Dawes had retreated from the hospital as the Germans closed in, the harsh tang of blood and death on the air, and was soon swept up in the general withdrawal south through the town towards the Main Wharf. It was there, by Dock Number 3, that he finally came across a senior officer, a colonel in the 9th AA Regiment. He stepped up smartly and saluted, but the Colonel was too busy shouting at a 3.7-inch gun crew to notice him. Finally he gave him a sour look.

“Yes?”

“Lieutenant Dawes, sir. I was Duty Officer on the North Mole Tower, but have no assignment now.”

“North Mole? The German’s took that this morning.”

“Right sir. Well I’ve been pushed out with all the rest, and I’m looking to take a new post.”

“Well you might get up Breakneck Stair, or down to Europa Point to see what’s going on. They’re moving the 25 pounders north, and you could lend a hand.”

“Good enough sir. I know the Windmill Hill area fairly well.” Dawes saluted again and was off, feeling just a bit better now that he had some sense of direction and purpose again. He remembered there was a battery of 25 pounders sited near the Georgian building known as “Bleak House,” which had become the R.A. Officer’s Mess. He had eaten there a few times, but had come to feel it was too posh for his liking. Some of the officers even took to dining in their dress uniforms, which he felt a bit odd given the more casual atmosphere of Gibraltar, where one was just as likely to see a subaltern running about bare headed and shirtless on the job.

Breakneck Stair was well named, a circuitous and sometimes steep route up the flanks of a long plateau that sat beneath Saint Michael’s Cave. As the road doubled back on itself, you would just keep craning your neck and looking up to see how much more of a trek it was before you got to the top. But Dawes decided to head for Windmill Hill by taking the road down past the other two military hospitals, and the Naval Signals Station. It would take him right up through a notch to the Windmill Hill, and from there he knew of a rickety old ladder down the side of the ridge that would land him very near the battery he had in mind.

The farther he got from the town and docks, the better he felt, and he realized the sound of the fighting, and sight of the wounded men, had jangled his nerves a bit. He went down the road past Buena Villa east of Rosia Bay, mixed in with a stream of men slogging their way towards the Naval Hospital. The sun was low and dusk at hand, and he realized how very hungry he was. It was worth taking a peek at Bleak House to see if anything was being served, and he didn’t think anyone would be swanking about there with a war on today.

Before he got there, however, he passed by the Naval Signals Station where there seemed to be quite a stir. Men were cheering and seemed well worked up over something, so he stuck his nose in through the door to see what was happening.

“What’s up here?” he ask a ranker by the door.

“Royal Navy’s coming, sir!” The private gave him a toothy grin. “Just got the signal in a moment ago. There’s to be no searchlights switched on after midnight.”

Dawes raised an eyebrow. “Good show,” he said. Then he was on his way again. The Royal Navy had scooted out 24 hours before the Germans launched the attack. That told him the up and ups knew what Jerry was about, and now, with this news, he realized the move must have been well planned all along. He smiled, his steps just a little lighter, and soon became part of the news bustling south along the cobblestone roads as he made his way towards the ladder down to Europa Point.

The Royal Navy was coming home again! Let’s see how the Germans like it when old Rodney and Nelson let loose with those big 16-inch guns.

Admiral Somerville had taken Force H out into the western approaches to the straits, where the twelve fighters off HMS Hermes had sparred briefly with the Luftwaffe that day. When the Germans had achieved their primary goal in driving the British fleet off, they then turned the weight of their air power on Gibraltar itself. As darkness fell on the first day Somerville paced on the bridge of the battleship Nelson.

The news coming from the Rock was grim after the first day of battle. The Germans had overrun the airfield and cemetery, seized the North Mole, Grand Casemates, and were blasting away at the old Moorish Castle. Some few had managed to scale the precipitous north face and were inside the upper gallery, though that incursion had been contained by the timely arrival of troops from the Black Watch. It was the British position along Devil’s Road and the high ground behind it near the old Windsor Battery that seemed to be the focus of German attention now, along with continuing house to house fighting in the town itself.

To make matters worse, the French had sortied with the battleship Normandie from Dakar, and this ship had sailed north with lighter escorts to join with Jean Bart off Casablanca. Somerville believed the move to be defensive in nature, and an attempt to forestall any possible British move against Casablanca, but the fact remained that these two dangerous ships were at large to the south, and Force H would have to post a watch. The Admiralty had already been forced to cancel O.A. and O.B. series convoys out of the UK, and several already at sea had been ordered to disperse over 100 ships. There were also 97 merchantmen at sea in three northbound convoys in the SL series out of Sierra Leone and bound for Liverpool. That was a lot of merchant traffic to look after, and there would be no help coming from Home Fleet. The Germans were also on the move.

Now the Admiralty was in a quandary over what to do about Gibraltar. The situation reports, and plans already underway to occupy the Azores, were ample testimony to the fact that Their Lordships did not believe Gibraltar could be saved. Though Churchill bristled at the thought of losing the Rock, a long time symbol of British power, the practical necessities of war now weighed heavily in the matter. He first lobbied to advance the scheduled October departure for WS3, a “Winston Special” troop convoy planning to deliver reinforcements to Egypt. Might these troops get down to the Rock instead?

The Admiralty was of a mind that they would be at grave risk trying to reach Gibraltar and laid out the situation in no uncertain terms. The convoy was comprised of fast troop liners, like Georgic, Duchess Of York, and other smaller liners like Oropesa, Dorset, Highland Brigade and Perthshire. The harbor was presently contested, and so the ships would have only lifeboats available to try and put troops ashore, all under German air attack from Stukas and also exposed to shore batteries in Spanish Morocco.

The memory of the great disaster during the evacuation at Brest was still too fresh in the Admiralty’s mind. There the liner Lancastria had been sunk by German bombers with her decks packed with troops, and over 5800 died in one awful blow. It could not be allowed to happen again. A reinforcement for Gibraltar was therefore deemed impossible at this time, and quickly put out of the question.

Churchill then turned his eyes on further operations against the Cape Verde and Canary Islands with these troops, but the Admiralty argued that the reinforcement might best remain on schedule for Egypt, which would now need all the support it could get. What about the forces still lodged at Freetown from the aborted attack on Dakar? Might they have another go there? At this the Admiralty reminded Churchill that the battleship Richelieu was still anchored at Dakar from the latest intelligence reports, making a landing there another chancy prospect.

Churchill was at his wits end. “Here we have two Royal Marine Brigades sitting about on their thumbs in this dire hour, and doing nothing!” He continued to demand that every effort be made to make use of these troops, and so all the plans that had been spun out for Operation Puma and the Canaries, and Operation Shrapnel for the Cape Verde Islands were suddenly being put in motion.

In the meantime, Somerville rankled at the thought that he had been forced to slip away with Force H just when Gibraltar most needed him. He knew that he had to keep a strong force at sea, but he had three battleships, and proposed that he send one in a daring night raid to pound German positions and at least make a showing. The Admiralty waffled at this, pointing out that the moon was full and the Germans had been mounting continued night raids with JU-88s. They finally gave their grudging approval, urged on again by Churchill, who saw the move as almost a necessity. “The thunder of the guns of the Royal Navy must be heard to echo through the corridors of that embattled fortress, and will resound on through all the years to come,” he argued with styled elegance. HMS Valiant was therefore selected and ordered to detach on the night of the 16th of September.

To guard against the possibility of U-boat attack, Valiant would be given a strong escort of destroyers, and a light AA cruiser, Coventry, for added air defense. The mission was to make a quick run through the straits, let the guns roar in reprisal against German positions in the north and La Linea, and then get out with equal alacrity. They were on their way at 20:30, just after sunset, with the full moon already rising low above the horizon to the east and painting the way in a shimmering glow on the sea.

The move actually caught the German Luftwaffe by surprise, as they did not expect the British would risk capital ships in the strait under these conditions. A Ju-88 raid with 36 planes based at Seville had been scheduled for midnight, which is when the British ships planned to be south of Gibraltar after a four hour run at Valiant’s best speed from their starting point about 120 kilometers east of Tangier. When shore watchers there reported sighting the British raiding force approaching the strait, it was moved up an hour to attack the British ships as they approached.

The planes found the British squadron steaming on the moon drenched sea and began their bombing runs. The Ju-88 had been designed as a fast heavy dive bomber, or Schnellbomber, which became a workhorse of the Luftwaffe, affectionately called Madchen fur Alles, the maid of all work. The Germans would press it into service in great numbers as a reconnaissance plane, dive bomber, level bomber, night fighter and even a torpedo bomber, but tonight it was the heavy dive bomber role that was called to task. The fast twin engine planes came roaring out of the dark sky, and the air alert was raised throughout the squadron.

HMS Coventry was quick into action with her five 6-inch guns able to double as AA guns, augmented by two 3-inchers, and two 2 pounders. Valiant herself had even more firepower, with ten twin 4.5 inch dual purpose guns that soon began to blaze away with four octuple QF-2 pounders, and four more quad Vickers machine guns chattering away.

The destroyers added their wrath to the flak with Hotspur leading in the van, keen to get back at the Germans after her ignominious eviction earlier. Greyhound followed in her wake like a faithful hunting dog, while Fearless, and Forester flanked the big battleship, screening Valiant from torpedo attack, and the destroyer Fury churned in the wake of the entire formation on ASW watch.

Coventry scored the first kill when one of her 3-inch guns caught a German plane a little too eager to get in close, and blasted off the right wing, taking the engine off in the bargain and sending the plane into a cartwheeling splash into the sea. The lead destroyers danced ahead, too nimble for the Germans to get any hits on them, but Valiant was another story. A venerable old Queen Elizabeth class ship, Valiant had fought at Jutland in her youth, but now found a strange new foe in the Ju-88s.

The bigger ship was running full out at 23 knots, all her AA guns firing, but was soon straddled by a string of bombs falling along her port side. The ship rocked away from the blast, her heavy side armor taking most of the damage and shrugging it all off as Valiant labored on. Her gunners took down another Ju-88 before the next near miss fell just forward of the ship, but her Captain Rawlings pressed on and ran right over the fuming spray, heedless.

The squadron was now coming in range of Gibraltar and Captain Rawlings heard the call from his mainmast watch, the range finders calling out 28,000 yards. The ship’s main 15-inch guns had recently been modified to allow them to elevate to 30 degrees, allowing Valiant to fire out 32,000 yards, and seeing that the target was stationary, Rawlings ordered the guns into action at a few minutes before midnight on the 16th. The boom of the main batteries was indeed heard in far off Gibraltar, like the rumble of thunder heralding a fast moving storm of steel.

Valiant had been sent to do more than buck up the morale of the beleaguered garrison. Somerville had been discretely told that the main wharf and docks were fair game. Seeing as it was well behind British lines that night, however, Rawlings was reluctant to fire at that target from any great range. The British had spotters up on Signal Hill and the Weather Station up on Devil’s Tower, and they called the shots as it were, seeing the first salvos coming in four enormous splashes right in the harbor itself near the North Mole.

Sergeant John Miller of the 4th Battalion Black Watch saw the first rounds fall. He had been ordered as part of his company to reinforce the battered positions near the old Moorish Castle, which was still under assault from the Grossdeutschland Regiment at that time. When he saw the big geysers of water shoot up in the bay he rallied his squad. The troops on the front line thought they were German bombs at first, having been hit the last several nights. Then someone else realized what was happening and shouted out that the navy was back.

“Right mate! It’s the bloody Navy!” Miller called out. “Listen to that, me Boyos! Those are nice fat fifteen inch guns, and the sweetest sound in the world to my ears tonight.”