Turning Point

Chapter 1

The sun was low on the horizon, about to be swallowed by the blackness of the sea. There, sharply silhouetted in the distance and crowned in gold, were two enemy ships. Kapitan Heinrich had thought they were battleships, and knew his only course was to attempt to break away. He didn’t need orders for that, for even with Goeben by his side, he would be badly outgunned. Increasing to 30 knots had not been enough, which puzzled him at first, for he knew the British King George V class battleship topped out at 28 knots. Yet still they came, even closing the range at that speed, which told him his initial assessment of these ships had to be wrong.

But what could they be? They weren’t battlecruisers, as both Renown and Repulse had been dealt with off Fuerteventura. Could these be the new large cruisers Naval Intelligence had warned about? It was thought that those ships would not be commissioned for some months, but something was out there, firing at him with gunnery patterns that made it look like a King George V class ship, and a silhouette to match. Yet they were running like the wind. Even at his best speed of 36 knots, he had only barely edged away, opening the range ever so slowly. But he knew he could not hold this speed for very long. He had perhaps an hour, in which he would burn off all the fuel he had so greedily taken on from the Ermland before this encounter, and Casablanca was very far away.

At the urging of Kapitan Falkenrath on the Goeben, they had decided to split. It was the only thing to do. To begin with, an engagement here would risk the loss of all their valuable cargo in one place. Darkness and the coming storm would prevent any air operations off Goeben, and all her main gun turrets were mounted forward. At 36 knots, a scenario where she would need to fight a gun duel while in flight with an enemy riding her wake, never entered the minds of the designers who built her. The ship was built to hunt and kill, with all its teeth up front like a shark. The plans for the Goeben were drafted knowing the fastest British Capital ship was HMS Invincible, and the Goeben could even outrun the speedy British 8-inch gunned cruisers…. But not these cruisers, if that is what these ships were. If they had been County Class heavy cruisers, they should already be lost in the gathering darkness, left well behind the foaming wakes of the two swift German ships.

Yet there they were, the bright wink of their gunfire now barely discernible against that blazoning sun. The two senior officers on the German ships waited through tense moments, flashing lantern signals at one another until a decision was reached. They would go their separate ways, and the turning point was selected at a specific time. Kapitan Heinrich would wheel about, making a bold challenge to his pursuers, while Goeben veered off to the east. He wanted to hold the British here for a moment, giving the light carrier the chance to slip away, and it was looking like that was going to work.

Three booming salvoes were fired, with high golden water splashes illuminated by the last rays of the dying sun. He clearly saw the enemy guns answering, the big rounds falling very close off his port side. Then his ship passed into a squall line, the sudden rush of rain very heavy, the seas higher. Even though he was running full out, the ship’s true speed might be only 33 to 34 knots now in the choppy swells. But the gloom and rain imposed a protective masking curtain between the two sides.

“Can’t see a thing,” said his Chief Gunnery Officer, Schirmer.

“The same will be true for them,” said Heinrich. “Helm, bring us back on zero-six-zero northeast and steady on.”

“Aye sir, zero-six-zero northeast and steady, engines ahead full.”

But not for long, thought Heinrich, looking at his watch. I just don’t have the fuel to run like this. “Radar, do we still have them?”

“Aye sir, range about 16,200 and holding.”

Kaiser Wilhelm had a FuMO 23 search radar on her rangefinder tower, and a Timor antenna for the FuMO 4 Samos. That reported range was nearing the maximum for this equipment combination. The Germans were always tinkering with their radars, mating different sets with different antennae, and there was never any single standard from one ship to the next, even within the same class. This suite might range out to 18,000 meters for active surface search under ideal conditions, but that was not the case here, and Kaiser Wilhelm’s radar hold on the enemy was very tenuous.

The gunfire ceased, and now it was storm, sea, and darkness that would be the primary factors in the engagement. That and the minds of the two commanders involved.

Off to the southeast, Captain Sanford stood on the bridge, thick legs planted firmly on the deck, one hand on his field glasses, which were now useless, his eyes casting about, like a frustrated man who was looking for something he could not find.

“Curtains,” he said under his breath. “We won’t get a sighting in this mess.”

“No sir,” said Laurence, the steady Executive Officer at his side, and quite his opposite, a head taller, thinner, trim and cool under fire. He was a good balance to the Captain’s squirrel like energy, for he was never ruffled, always composed, a proper British gentleman. “It’s work for the radar now.”

The British cruisers had the latest Type 218 search radar sets, mounted high up on the mainmast. It was really an early warning radar, with a good range out to 220 kilometers for aircraft at high altitude, 20,000 feet or higher. That diminished if the planes came in lower. Aircraft at 10,000 feet might be detected out to 170 kilometers, or 120 kilometers at 5,000 feet. For surface contacts, it was just a bit better than the German system, capable of seeing another ship out to 22 kilometers. Under these conditions, with wind and rain batting the antenna about, they might keep contact out to 18 klicks.

“Yes,” said Sanford. “Work for the radar, and the boilers. How is our propulsion?”

“Running smoothly, sir. 34 knots, though we’re likely making less in this weather.”

“Same for the enemy,” said Sanford. “A pity we couldn’t get to them sooner. We had three ships on radar earlier. In my mind, that third vessel was most likely a tanker.”

“A reasonable assumption, sir.”

“That ship broke off due east. We could double back and have it for a late supper, but the real action is right in front of us. We’re good in a chase, Mister Laurence—six guns up front on each ship. If that is Kaiser Wilhelm out there as we suspect, then they’ll only have two guns aft. Is Galahad keeping pace?”

“That they are, sir.”

“Good… Good… I’d expect nothing less. The Germans have pulled a fast one on us just now. They’ve split up. That must be the carrier we’ve heard about, the Goeben. They’ll have nothing aft that can bother us at all, and they can’t put those damnable Stukas up in this weather; not at night.”

“A good read on the situation, sir.”

“Yes it is… A very good assessment. Well, we have a decision to make now then, don’t we.”

“We do indeed, sir.”

“Which ship would you get after, Mister Laurence?”

“Well sir, two guns aft isn’t much, but they are 15-inchers, and if they do get lucky, our deck armor won’t stop those shells. In effect, their main battery is Bismarck class, and we were trained to avoid engagement with battleships. They turned just now to warn us off, and if we do press them, they’ll likely turn again if they have to give battle. Then we’ll be facing all six 15-inch guns. Under the circumstances, gunnery is likely to be less than accurate, but it is a risk we’d have to consider. That ship is running up towards the cape at La Guerra, but the carrier had to break away to the east. They’re going to run out of sea room there, and eventually turn north.”

“Right,” said the Captain. “Then if we persist as though we were after this other ship, it would still leave us in a good position to cut that carrier off when they turn, correct?”

“I would think as much, sir.”

“And I as well. Very good then, we’ll keep after the Germans on this heading. Ignore the carrier for the moment, but I think that will be our real quarry later.”

“You intend to turn soon sir?”

“That remains to be seen. A turning point in an action like this is a rather delicate thing. Get it wrong and you can muck up the entire works. What I do intend, however, is getting up towards the cape at La Guerra and putting myself right astride the route that carrier will have to take. We’ll get well north of them as they run east now. I think we can cut the bastard off. How does that sound?”

“A good plan, sir. I’d advise it. And let’s not forget that HMS Formidable is still off to the south. Yet they’ve an appointment in the Indian Ocean to keep. I wonder if Admiral Somerville can afford to come north now?”

“He might not,” said Sanford. “In which case the whole job is in our lap. Let’s keep after this Kaiser Wilhelm, and we’ll see what the situation warrants, hour by hour.”

They were going to have to play it that way, play it by ear, assuming the radar could keep a hold on the speedy enemy ahead of them. The Germans were already getting within range of their air cover out of lower Spanish Morocco. That area had once been called Rio de Oro and Spanish Sahara closer to the Canary Islands, and the Germans southernmost airfield was at El Aaiun, about 15 kilometers inland from the coast. Another hundred kilometers to the north, they had more planes at Tarfaya.

Sometime later, Captain Sanford went over to the chart table. “Let’s have a look at the situation,” he said, with Laurence following in his wake.

“The Germans will have planes here,” he pointed. “We’ve no worries tonight. It’s thick as a brick out there, and the moon will be down at about 02:00. That closest enemy field is about 500 miles northeast of our present position.”

“They may have Ju-88s there sir, and we’ve seen them used in a shallow angle dive bombing role before, with decent accuracy.”

“I’m not worried about those,” said Sanford with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They won’t hit a fast ship like this. It’s the Stukas that bother me. Now, where will we be in the morning? I suppose that depends on how long we run full out like this… Five hundred miles to that airfield…. That’s about 800 kilometers. We’re running at about 60KPH now. When is sunrise tomorrow, Mister Laurence?”

“05:40 sir.”

“Then we would gobble the distance up and be approaching that airfield by the time the moon sets. It will get very dark after that, weather or no weather. Those last three hours before sunrise will be pitch black.”

“No need to bother with the threat from aircraft in that interval,” said Laurence.

“Then at sunrise we would be roughly 720 kilometers further on at this speed. Right under their noses by the time they can get planes up. That must be what Jerry is planning. He’ll run up there and then they’ll stick it to us with anything they have, rain or shine, tomorrow morning.”

“That sounds likely, sir.”

At that point the radar watch sounded a warning. “Sir, range decreasing. My contact is much stronger now, I make it just under 18,000 meters, and closing.”

“Closing? Then they’ve fallen off in speed.” The Captain’s eyes narrowed. He wondered if his enemy had turned to give battle again. “How fast is that range diminishing?”

“Very slowly sir. I’d make their current speed at about 24 knots.”

“24? Then they’ve gone to ahead two thirds. Steady on at this speed for the moment….” He looked at Laurence. “What do you make of this? He hasn’t turned, because the range would be diminishing much faster if that were the case, but why reduce speed like this? Might he have difficulties with his engines?”

“Possibly,” said Laurence. “But they’re running into the thick of that foul weather out there, so he may have reduced in rougher seas. Then again, it might be a fuel issue sir. We don’t know how much they might have taken on before we interrupted the party.”

“I’m inclined to think that,” said Sanford. “Let’s close up to about 16,000 meters and then reduce to match their speed. If we do keep on at our best, then we’ll catch him in about two hours. If he is in the thick of that storm, we would be too. It would be all gunnery by radar, and we haven’t a lick of training under our belts with that. Those salvoes we fired back there were the first gunnery trial we’ve had. Engaging a cagey enemy in a close quarters gun duel by radar doesn’t seem advisable.”

“I would agree.”

“So we’ll ease up to get a better fix on his position with our own radar, and then fall off to match his speed. In the meantime, we’ll have to keep an eye over our shoulder for that carrier.”

In another twenty minutes, they fell off to 24 knots, and the range to contact held steady. There was no sign of any contact to their south or east. The Goeben had made a clean break, but they knew it was out there somewhere, and it could come only one direction soon—north. Captain Sanford’s plan of getting astride that route was a good one, and it was going to toss the hot potato to the Germans in short order, and force some difficult decisions on them.

Chapter 2

“Are they still closing?” Kapitan Heinrich was getting concerned now. It seemed that he was going to have to fight, one way or the other here. They had fallen off to 24 knots, and had been watching the enemy slowly close the range. Even at this speed, he was burning more fuel than he wanted to, but now his plan had changed. There was no way he could run all the way to Casablanca, but soon they would have daylight, and a good possibility of strong air cover, depending on the weather. He had already messaged the Luftwaffe to demand any support they could fly, and when Admiral Raeder seconded that request an hour later, the local commanders at those southern airfields were already planning to get crews out in the rain to prep the aircraft.

Then he got the answer to his question. Their pursuers had also fallen off in speed. The range was now holding steady at about 16,000 meters. Just to discourage them further, he had Schirmer fire off one salvo by radar, but nothing came back at them. At their present speed, it would be another 16 hours cruising time to the German held coast of Spanish Morocco, about 740 kilometers northeast now. By sunrise they would cut 500 kilometers off that distance, and be just within Stuka strike range. Every minute after sunrise favored his game, but he wondered what the Goeben was doing.

The carrier had gone radio silent, knowing the British had Huff Duff teams all along the African coast, and not wanting to let them triangulate to get a fix on their position. But the Goeben had to be well south, the distance being determined by how far they ran to the east before they would have to turn north. This was what Kapitan Heinrich was assuming, and it would mean that the pursuing British cruisers would probably get themselves into a position to cut the carrier off. Goeben would not be able to fly her aircraft in this weather, not off that small flight deck in these seas. If they were caught, they would be badly outgunned.

That would put a tough choice before him. It was agreed that if either ship was again engaged in what looked to be a fixed battle, they would send a signal to that effect, as their position would already be known to the enemy. If he got such a message from Goeben, should he then come about to render assistance? Or should he cut cards with the enemy, and continue north at his best speed, hoping to save at least one half of his precious cargo? That was the dilemma. Admiral Raeder had told him to avoid combat, but the thought of abandoning Goeben in her hour of need galled him.

Yet you accepted this risk when you agreed to Falkenrath’s request to separate, he thought. As it stands, neither one of us can make it to Casablanca at anything over 18 knots now. Every minute I run north, even at 24 knots, I come closer to the moment when I might find this ship dead in the water, with all our fuel exhausted. I will have to reduce to 18 knots in an hour, and that might get me to Agadir with a little left in the bunkers, assuming the British don’t get to us first.

Then he got a strange coded message. It was just one line. “FM: GW, TO: KW — 005 – 022642 / 21:42 — MEET YOURSELF OFF SPANISH MOROCCO – ZZZZ.” The first two code words were simple plays on initials. GW was Group West, and KW was the designation for Kaiser Wilhelm. The number 005 indicated the number of words in the message segment, followed by the date, and time. Then came the message…

Meet himself? Of course! The German carrier Prinz Heinrich was still up there, and Raeder had been using it to run aviation fuel out to the Canary Islands. They had installed fuel pumps and hoses on that ship. If we could make a rendezvous with the carrier, it could serve to refuel us enough to reach Casablanca. But again, what about the Goeben? Perhaps I could make that rendezvous, transfer my cargo to Prinz Heinrich and take on enough fuel to turn south and give battle. That was going to be his hope and plan, though he still wondered if the Goeben could survive an engagement with those two new enemy heavy cruisers long enough for his effort to matter.

He did not know it then, but he was worrying for no reason. The Goeben broke off to the east, but it was not coming north now as both Heinrich and Sanford expected. Like a falcon on the wing set free by its handler, Kapitan Falkenrath had run due east until he was out of radar range of the enemy, then he made a wide turn, not to the north, but to the south. He came about, and then took a course due west again, back-tracking, about 20 kilometers south of the position where the two ships first separated. All the while the two British cruisers ran northeast at high speed after Kaiser Wilhelm, and Goeben was now free to ease on out into the Atlantic.

There was no way the Goeben would ever reach Casablanca now, or so Falkenrath had deduced. But he had no intention of taking the course the enemy most expected. He was heading west instead, intending to find Ermland again, and then he would drink his full and slip out into the Atlantic, looking for fair skies and open seas.

“A sticky situation,” said Somerville to Wells aboard HMS Formidable. “The Germans are making a run to the northeast. It appears they have no intention of operating against our convoys. The last message from Captain Sanford indicated they had been attempting a refueling operation with a tanker at sea. He broke that up, and then got into a footrace northeast with the Germans.”

“He should have taken out that tanker first,” said Wells, which prompted Somerville to smile. He liked this young man. Wells was thinking like an Admiral here, and not a hot headed cruiser Captain. Get that tanker and you have hurt the enemy’s ability to operate here by a good measure. Yet Sanford, probably eager to blood his ships in battle, had elected to get after the German warships, and had been exchanging occasional salvos with them at ranges too long to matter in the present sea conditions.

“Yes,” said Somerville, “get the pawn the enemy offers you first before you think to exchange Knights. That is what I would have done. The question for us now is whether we can delay here any longer. Mountbatten is in the Indian Ocean southwest of Java, and there are rumblings of trouble brewing there. My orders were to assure the safety of this convoy to Freetown, then get down around the Cape to join the Eastern Fleet. I’m afraid we’ll have to leave these German ships to Captain Sanford and his two new cruisers.”

“Then we’re heading south sir?”

“That will have to be the order, Mister Wells. Admiral Tovey has been after me to get moving, and so it’s down to Freetown with us tonight. Godspeed Captain Sanford, and wish the man luck.”

That decision was going to take HMS Formidable out of the equation in the little drama shaping up off the African Coast. The weather was going to render carrier operations null and void for the next day in any case, or so it seemed. Unable to wait, Somerville turned south in haste now, as he had a very long way to go. Formidable had 6400 nautical miles to travel before reaching Mountbatten. At 24 knots, and with one stop at the Cape to refuel, he was looking at 12 days to the Java coast. Now he was worried he would arrive too late to lead the Eastern Fleet in any meaningful way to stop a planned enemy invasion of Java. He might not get there until the 9th or 10th of March, and by that time, the Japanese might already be well established on that island.

He expressed these concerns to Wells, wondering what the young Captain thought. “Well sir,” said Wells, “if Monty is hard pressed, we may end up having to cover his evacuation to Australia.”

“Possibly,” said Somerville. “But getting him to Darwin might be difficult at that point, particularly if the Japanese have managed to get planes on Timor and Bali, or even Java itself. In that instance, and considering the enemy is fond of covering their invasions with carriers as well, we may have no other choice but to fall back on Perth to the south, or simply pull out to Colombo.”

“I don’t think Montgomery would like that,” said Wells. “The action is likely to move to Darwin after that, which is where he’d want to be.”

“Precisely, but we may not be able to get him there. If this does come to pass, then Churchill will probably send his Rock of the East back to North Africa. Wavell wants him back there for his next operation, or so I’ve heard—the Rock of the Middle East.”

“He’s a good man, east, west, or anywhere else,” said Wells, and Somerville agreed.

Yet events were soon about to change near Java, and in a most unexpected way. At the moment, the little chase then underway in the Atlantic was going to matter more than either Somerville or Wells knew. For they had no idea what Kaiser Wilhelm and Goeben had hidden below their heaving decks….

Pitch black. There was still heavy cloud cover, and the moon was long gone, the sun still more than an hour off. Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad continued to probe their way northeast, slowly creeping up on the German raider by occasionally increasing speed. Radar was the only thing with a hold on them now, and Captain Sanford closed to 14,000 meters, risky as that was. He reasoned that the shorter the range, the flatter the trajectory for those heavy 15-inch rounds. His 152mm belt armor might then take the hit instead of the 50mm deck armor.

Though it had fewer guns, Kaiser Wilhelm was still a much bigger dog at 35,500 tons full load. The German ship had 200mm armor on the main belt and conning tower, with 120mm on the decks. From every account, their optics and gunnery were also very sharp, and they had already put a good number of ships under the sea, Suffolk being the last victim to feel their hard bite.

Cruisers have no business in a fight with a battleship, thought Sanford. That’s what I might have in front of me in another 90 minutes with the sun. Yet by God, I’m one hell of a cruiser, and with Sir Galahad at my side we’ve twenty 10-inch guns to bring to that argument, while they have only six. We’re going to get hits, and our throw weight will hurt that ship, I’m sure of it. The weather is still overcast, but the rain is abating, and the dawn promises clearing skies. That may not be good.

I’d rather fight it out in the haze grey, ship to ship. But come sunrise we’ll be just 100 kilometers south of that enemy field at El Aaiun. They’ll likely have recon planes up, no matter what the weather holds in store. That hardly matters. Kaiser Wilhelm will have radioed our position, and they bloody well know we’re coming. So the Bofors may be just as important as my 10-inch guns at dawn. With Somerville off to Freetown and points south, we’ll have no air cover ourselves, and can’t even launch our seaplanes with the sea running this high.

So it will come down to the guns and armor, unless we get swarmed by enemy planes. The sun will be in front of them if they run east for the coast, and they’ll be silhouetted. This time we’ll have the blanket on, at least until the sun gets up a bit.

He looked for his coffee mug, finding it cold after the long night. He managed about four hours sleep, in the small ready/rest room he kept off the bridge, just big enough for a cot. They had fired three salvoes from A turret that night, just to check gun ranging, and harry their quarry. As they could not see the shell falls to judge range, that exercise was fruitless, and did more to jangle the nerves of the crew than anything else. The enemy never altered course, and continued on, now at an even more sedate 18 knots. It was as if they were daring him to come on up and have a go.

That was what Sandy Sanford planned to do at first light. But he kept a rabbit’s foot in his pocket just the same. He had it thirty years now, and it always brought him good luck. He was going to need it that morning if he persisted on this course, but as fate might dictate, this time expressed in the will of the Admiralty, he would soon find himself on another heading.

The flight of the Goeben did not pass without notice. There, lurking on the convoy route south to the Cape Verde Islands, the British submarine Trident under Commander Sladen had been diverted from a planned sortie into the North Atlantic to serve as a security patrol between the Canary and Cape Verde Islands. The boat should have been hunting Prinz Eugen and Admiral Sheer as they thought to transfer to a Norwegian port, but the former was sunk, and the latter was quietly sleeping at Kiel in this history. So Trident was well south of the Canaries when it came across a solitary merchant ship, moving in great haste to the southeast.

It wasn’t part of any convoy in the region, as warning concerning the German raiders had diverted most of that traffic. After reporting the sighting, Sladen soon received an Admiralty order to follow, with an indication that this ship might be a German auxiliary that was known to be operating in the same region. The British had made a very good guess, for Sladen was now slowly creeping in the wake of Ermland, en route to its planned rendezvous with the Goeben. A little faster in the heavy seas, Ermland slipped away, and Trident radioed its last reported position. Realizing that Captain Sanford’s cruisers were very near the location, the Admiralty sent him a perplexing order on the morning of Feb 27th. He was to turn about and pursue this contact.

“What?” Sanford could scarcely believe it. “Break off and pursue this other contact? My god, man, we’re just about to head into battle here!”

It was another occasion where Sanford was killing the messenger, and Ensign Bob Willard stood there with a sheepish look in his face, not knowing how he could respond. Thankfully, the Captain realized the Ensign was not the man he needed to confer with now, and stormed off to find his First Officer.

“Mister Laurence,” he said. “What in the world do you make of this?” He handed the man the signal, and Laurence read it dispassionately.

“Admiralty order,” he said. “They must have wind of something sir.”

“Yes? Well, while they’re sniffing about in the wind, I’ve had my hand on the tail of this German raider all bloody night! Now what’s this all about?”

“Might it be that third contact we had on radar sir? We know there’s a German tanker out here somewhere. They’ve been trying to refuel their ships, and it may be that the carrier broke off last night to do exactly that. Whatever the case, HMS Trident made the sighting, and tickled the Admiralty’s fancy.”

“Right, and now they want us to leave the bird we have in hand and go running off to look for another in the bush!”

“Two in the bush, sir. The German carrier must be out there planning to meet up with this tanker. Didn’t you say that ship would likely be our best prey? If we can catch them in the act, we might have a better time of it than we would running up north after this battlecruiser, and under German land based air cover.”

“But that carrier broke off to the east. This order will send us southwest.”

“Indeed,” said Laurence. “The carrier might have doubled back,” he suggested. In any case, Trident must have seen something of interest…” He let that dangle there, eyeing the Captain to gauge his reaction.

Sanford thought about that. It was, in fact, the same assessment the Admiralty had made, and the recent loss of Suffolk had also weighed in their decision. These were two shiny new heavy cruisers, and they reasoned the crews had little or no time to cut their teeth for battle. In spite of Sanford’s arithmetic on the disparity in guns for the prospective engagement in front of him, Kaiser Wilhelm had already amassed a fearsome record at sea, with a proven, battle hardened Captain and crew. The gallant charge Sanford was planning to make seemed much more appealing to him, but as his First Officer had just pointed out, it was also going to be much more dangerous. And here was an Admiralty order in hand, compelling him to turn about and make his best speed to the southeast to look for this tanker.

“Damn,” he said unceremoniously. “Well orders are orders. We’ll come about to the heading indicated in that message. The Admiralty knows damn well what I have in hand now, and instead they give me this business to attend to. So it seems we’ll have time for breakfast after all. Be certain Sir Galahad gets the message, if they bloody well didn’t get it first, like the last time. The turning point will be in ten minutes.” He looked about for Ensign Willard, but he had also made an abrupt change of heading after handing off the signal, and was already well on his way back to the W/T room.

“Now where has that infernal signalman gotten himself to?”

Ten minutes later the two ships made a graceful bow and turned away, and with that one simple maneuver the war itself reached a grim turning point, and one that no man involved on either side could perceive in any way at that moment.

Orders were orders…

Chapter 3

Falkenrath lowered his field glasses, satisfied to have verified the watchman’s count of four men on the upper weather deck of the ship ahead. All the other signal lights had been proper, and so he was confident that they were slowly coming up on the Ermland.

Seas were still rough, too rough to spot planes, and now he wondered if they would be able to keep the ships steady enough to even take on fuel. Goeben had very long sea legs, some 18,000 miles, but by his estimate, they had come 8000 miles since last taking on fuel deep in the south Atlantic, and there had only been enough on hand to fill his bunkers al little over half way at that time. He was down under 10 percent remaining, enough for about 1700 miles at 18 knots. That was only half the ship’s top speed, and if he had to ramp up the power, that fuel could diminish very quickly.

We might make Tan Tan if I were to turn now. Yet god only knows whether they have any fuel bunkered there, or even the means to get it onto my ship. Casablanca is about 1800 miles northwest, and I would have to reduce to 12 knots to make that. So we will have to try to fill our belly here and now.

He could already see the German crews working to position the long fuel hose aft as Goeben crept into position astern of the tanker. An hour later, after trying to float back the line three times, they had to give up and reel it back in. The seas were simply too heavy and the hose was swamped half the time, or batted away by the waves. It could not be snared and secured, and even if they had managed that, sea keeping would have been near impossible. Under the circumstances, they had no choice but to cruise in formation and attempt to wait out the weather. And since every hour was another hour of valuable fuel lost, the two ships turned northeast on a heading of 060, a course that would take them towards the narrow channel between the Canary Islands and the southern edge of Spanish Morocco.

That decision had just set up a very dangerous collision, for like a train coming from the opposite direction, Captain Sanford and his two Knight Class ships were now heading straight for the Germans. They had been close enough to Kaiser Wilhelm for the German radar on that ship to see them break off and take a new heading, and feeling just a little more secure, Kapitan Heinrich decided to break his radio silence and send Goeben a warning—be advised, two British cruisers now on a heading of 220 SW.

That was good news for Kaiser Wilhelm, for it meant that there would be no battle that morning to decide the fate of the hidden cargo that ship carried, but it was now a very big problem for the Goeben and Ermland. The tanker signaled that they might attempt to cruise abreast of one another at 6 knots and try to secure the fuel hose that way, but it was soon found that they needed to maintain at least 12 knots in the heavy swells to prevent either ship from being batted about by the waves.

After an hour of difficult navigation, they relented and tried one last time to attempt to receive the fuel hose, with the Goeben astern and very close to the Ermland. This time a burley crewman on the bow of the Goeben exerted himself and finally managed to snag the line, and six men leapt to the scene, ready to pull the hose up and get it attached. They battled against the tug of the sea to do so, but managed to prevail. Yet the connection was very dangerous, with the bow of the carrier rising and falling in the swells, and the line prone to tightening and loosening as the two ships moved.

Once secured, Kapitan Falkenrath looked nervously at his watch. The sun was now well up, lightening the pale grey skies as the refueling operation began. They would need several hours to take on any significant amount of fuel, but anything that came to him now was most welcome. At one point, a rogue wave nearly threatened to sever the line, coming very close to snapping it from the fuel mount as the hose tightened. Yet it was not the sea itself that would be their undoing, but an enemy lurking in the silent depths below the turbulent waves above.

HMS Trident had been dutifully following in the wake of Ermland, hanging on all through the night, though Captain Sladen did not believe they would ever catch up to the ship again. As dawn rose, his boat batted about by the heavy seas, he was about to submerge and run in the relative quiet below when the last watch shouted down the sighting—Ships ahead!

That prompted an immediate dive order, and Trident slipped beneath the swells, soon finding that it was difficult to even maintain periscope depth. Sometimes the up-swells would swamp the periscope, and at other times the sub’s conning section would be dangerously exposed in the trough of a wave.

Trident was a T Class Submarine, and had been operating off Norway with the Tigris, the very same boat that had ferried Admiral Volsky to the UK. She could make 15 knots on the surface, but no more than 12 in the heavy seas, and 9 knots submerged, which was barely enough to stay close, until the two ships altered their formation and heading and he saw they were approaching his position. A powerful boat, Trident had six internal forward facing torpedo tubes, and four more external tubes, which was a very severe bite as submarines went. Now this silent shark had what looked to be the perfect target ahead, a carrier and tanker.

Elated, Sladen moved off axis hoping to position himself to get a good spread of torpedoes into the water. Twenty minutes later, the hydrophone operator on the Goeben thought he heard something, and called out a warning.

“Kapitan! I think I am hearing high rev motors in the water. Torpedoes sir!”

“Damn!” Falkenrath swore and immediately passed an order for the watchmen to be on lookout. The refueling operation had to be immediately terminated, and crews that had labored so long and hard to secure that line, now rushed forward onto the heaving bow to release the hose clamps and set the fuel line loose. Unfortunately, the word was slow to reach the Ermland, and they did so before the flow of diesel pumps had been shut off at their end, which sent a wash of black fuel oil all throughout the narrow interval between the two ships.

“Torpedo off the starboard side!” The shrill alarm sent men to the gunwales with fearful eyes looking seaward. One man pointed, aghast to see the sleek wake of a torpedo slice right through the dark oil between the two ships. Seconds later there was a loud explosion forward, and they saw the Ermland struck full amidships by a torpedo. Then a second explosion tore into the front of the tanker, and the forward fuel tanks erupted in a terrible explosion that was so fierce that it rocked the Goeben, well astern now as the carrier fell off and turned away to port.

Out on the far horizon to the northwest, Captain Sanford saw the thick smoke climbing up into the sky, like an ominous dark thunderhead.

“My, my, have a look at that Mister Laurence. That’s not weather to my eye.”

“No sir, must be a ship on fire. Possibly that tanker we were told to look after. Remember, HMS Trident is out here. That Admiralty order mentioned that boat as having made the original sighting.”

They had turned in the pre-dawn hours, gone to 30 knots, and had been racing southwest ever since. Now it was nearing 11:00, and the stain of windy dark smoke was giving them a clear indication of where their prey was at that moment.

“That’s a good deal of smoke, sir. It looks to be a very bad hit.”

“Well, they might have left something for us to nibble on. Have the gunners ready in any case, and keep the lookouts handy for that carrier.”

The Goeben would not be seen by the lookouts for some time, but the radar operator on Sir Lancelot soon called out a contact report bearing 15 degrees from their starboard side, which immediately prompted Captain Sanford to order his cruisers to make a swift coordinated turn in pursuit. Now he was bringing those twelve 10-inch guns he had forward between his two ships to bear on the point of contact, and the flight of the Goeben was about to become a very complicated and dangerous affair.

“Contact sir! Two ships off the starboard aft quarter. They should be on our horizon any minute.”

Kapitan Falkenrath rushed to the weather deck to squint through the telescope, cursing under his breath. Damn the British and their constant meddling, and damn every cruiser Captain they ever put to sea. These have to be the ships Kaiser Wilhelm warned us about, and they followed that smoke like sharks swimming to the scent of blood in the water.

After breaking off from Ermland, he had gone to 18 knots, and came round due north. The thought that he had to now abandon the stricken tanker ate at him, but he had cargo aboard that simply had to be protected, more valuable than the lives of every man aboard that doomed ship. Ermland would not survive such a hit, he knew, and now, with the coming of those two cruisers, the crews on that ship were busy destroying coding equipment, charts, rendezvous books, ship’s logs, and preparing to scuttle the ship as per their orders. That was going to eliminate the only tanker now operating in the mid Atlantic, and put an end to German surface raider operations there for the foreseeable future.

I had hoped to fill up and get well away from the convoy routes, he thought. Then, once I deliver that infernal rocket below, I could get out to sea and do some real hunting again with Kaiser Wilhelm. That is looking very chancy now. I could go to 36 knots and probably break off here, but that would burn up everything we’ve taken on in the last two hours in as little as twenty minutes time. I could probably run for another two or three hours at that speed if these cruisers give chase, and then I would have used up so much fuel that I would be lucky to get anywhere near our bases on the African coast at 12 knots after that.

While I do run, those damn enemy ships will probably take pot shots at me, and I’ve no guns aft to answer them. This ship was meant to chase and kill the enemy, not to run. The only sting we have to bother those cruisers in a situation like this is our aircraft, but look at that flight deck pitching about now. That will be worse if we put on more speed.

It was then that Marco Ritter strode grimly onto the bridge, his greatcoat wet with sea spray. “I’ve been down on the flight deck,” he said. “I think we should try to spot a few planes and attempt a launch.”

“In these seas? The planes would careen right off the deck if you try to spot anything now.”

“We can keep them cabled to the deck while I run up my engine full out, then release just as we start our takeoff. There are still intervals in these wave sets. If we time it right….”

“Assuming you do get off in one piece, you’ll never get back. A landing would be impossible in these conditions.”

“Possibly. If need be we could ditch in the sea, or run for the coast.”

Falkenrath shook his head in the negative. “Have a look here,” he said, striding over to the chart table. “We’re 780 air miles from our nearest field at El Aaiun.”

“Look,” said Ritter. “My 109s can make that easily. As for the Stukas , they have an internal 780 liters of usable fuel, but this model can carry two 300 liter drop tanks. It will limit weapons load to only one 250 kilogram bomb, but we’ll have a full four hours flying time with that extra fuel, and at 350KPH in this weather, that would take us 1400 kilometers, nearly 870 miles. We’ll have just enough fuel to get to the African coast.” He looked at the Kapitan, waiting, ready, like a hawk on the other man’s arm, chaffing to fly.

Damn, thought Falkenrath. We’re an aircraft carrier. That’s how we scout, and how we fight, and the fact that I have kept these planes below deck is the reason Ermland is burning out there now. If Ritter had been up there we would have seen those damn cruisers long ago and taken evasive action. Now here he is, ready to attempt this impossible launch operation, and saved Ermland at the same time. Yet it is either that or my falcons sit below decks while I turn and try to fight off those two cruisers with the forward deck guns. One good hit to our flight deck and Ritter’s proposal would be off the table. It’s now or never. Decide!

“How long would it take you to get armed and fueled for takeoff?”

“I ordered that last night. We’re ready to go now.”

“You had planes below deck armed and fueled all night? What if that damn British submarine had put a torpedo into us?”

“What if? That horse never won a race, Kapitan, but I’m telling you I can win this one now. I can get those planes up, and we can damn well get after those British cruisers, weather or no weather.”

He gave Ritter a stern look, his eyes expressing both his admiration and the anxiety inherent in what he was now ordering. “Go,” he said. “But I do not think you can even contemplate trying to return to this ship. You’ll have to run for the coast.”

Ritter smiled, nodding as he turned and hastened away. “Your worries are over, Kapitan. My boys will do the job. You’ll see.”

It was no idle boast. These were some of the best pilots in the Luftwaffe, Ritter, Heilich, Hafner, Brendel, Ehrler, and Hans Rudel, all itching to get off that ship and up into those grey skies. That flight would be the first to go, three Messerschmitts and three Stukas. The flight deck was a wild place, but the ship came into a very stiff wind and it was going to provide the planes with a good deal of lift. Ritter insisted he be the first, grilling the flight deck crews on how to hold his plane cabled while he revved up to full power. We should have a catapult installed, he thought, but they didn’t, and so he would do this the old fashioned way, with one plane spotted and launched at a time to make maximum use of the available flight deck. They timed the takeoff attempt right when the Goeben was tipping over the crest of a high swell and heading down into the trough.

When the flagman waved him off, the roar of his plane’s engines was loud in his ears. The Messerschmitt went careening down the pitching flight deck, until it fell away beneath the fighter, and Ritter gunned his engine for all it was worth. He was airborne, climbing up and over the next high ocean swell, and even waving his wing tips with glee.

There were no bombs on his fighter, but he had plenty of MG ammunition, and his cannons, and he was damn well going to use them to give those two cruisers a piece of his mind. Even as he banked to make his first turn, he saw the sea erupt well in front of the Goeben with the telltale splash of heavy shellfall.

Minutes later he was over the enemy ships and into a screaming strafing run, which caught the AA crews by surprise. He riddled the forward deck of the lead ship, seeing his rounds snap off the armored main gun turrets, but as he did so he was surprised by the configuration, a quad forward turret with a twin gun mount above and behind, just like the King George V series. Battleships! Should he radio Falkenrath that information? While Kapitan Heinrich had already solved the riddle on Kaiser Wilhelm, word never filtered down to Ritter on the ready deck where he huddled with the flight crews. If he told Falkenrath he was up against a pair of battleships, he would certainly run, but that was what he was going to do in any case, as soon as the last plane made it off the flight deck.

He pulled up, elated with his attack, his blood up, and seeing Heilich and Hafner coming in to make the same strafing run. The skies were pocked with AA gunfire now as the enemy ships fired. Then he saw the first Stuka laboring up from the Goeben off in the distance.

“Is that you Hans?”

“One and the same,” came Rudel in his headset ear phone.

“Well take your pick, another pair of battleships for you to send to the dry docks.”

“Dry docks? I’ll put the damn things right under the sea! But those aren’t battleships, they aren’t fat enough. They have to be those new enemy cruisers. No matter, I’ll get busy here in just a moment.”

That was a boast Rudel would not be able to make good on this time, though he would try his best. He had only one 250kg bomb amidships, his wings being laden with those two 300 liter drop tanks. Up he went, climbing to at least 5000 feet to line up on the targets ahead with his flaps and elevator at cruise position. Then he tripped his rudder to cruise, put the contact altimeter in the ON position and set it to his desired release altitude of 1500 feet. He put the supercharger on automatic, closed his throttle, shut his cooler flaps and opened his dive brakes. That sent his nose down at once, and he was into that screaming 600kph dive in to the target, the Jericho trumpets wailing with his approach.

His single bomb was away, but he held on, refusing to toggle the knob on his control column that would trigger the automatic pull out from that six G dive in the event he blacked out. He grunted and swore, and then did something that shocked Ritter when he saw it. Rudel released both his 300 liter drop tanks, intending to jettison them just as if they were wing mounted bombs, adding fuel to the fire he was certain he was going to start amidships on the lead ship in that formation.

His 250 KG bomb was right on target, coming down behind the aft stack on Sir Lancelot. Then the two fuel tanks came in right after, with one striking the ship and exploding in a broiling mass of fire when it did. The second was a near miss, but one was enough. Sandy Sanford was going to have a very bad day.