Knight's Move (Kirov Series Book 21)

by John Schettler

  So it was that the boom of big gun turrets would open what came to be known as the “Action off Gran Canaria.” It would decide, once and for all, who controlled the seas around that island, and by extension, who could sustain troops fighting ashore in the bitter contest of arms still underway. That action opened at just 7,000 yards, and the fate of the battle quavered in the sound of those 14-inch guns.

  Chapter 29

  7,000 yards isn’t much to speak of in a modern naval engagement. It was usually feasting time for the secondary batteries, and the lighter guns on cruisers and destroyers. Though main guns could do a good deal of damage, the flatter trajectories might often see those shells striking belt armor, with a limited plunging angle of fire that could make them so deadly.

  Four of the five British destroyers were out in front, and they soon encountered that French screen centered on Algerie. Signals called out “enemy sighted, cruiser and three destroyers—engaging,” and the action was on. The French were surprised by the sudden appearance of enemy ships. For days they had sailed unchallenged, thinking the Royal Navy would no longer risk an action under German air power. Now here was a pack of hungry destroyers rushing in at near top speed, their sole aim to get their torpedoes in the water, with Algerie the primary target.

  Following closely on their heels, the first of the British cruisers appeared five minutes into the action, with Kenya and Fiji leading the British main column. Even though Algerie threw heavier punches, the British ships had decent protection. The Colony class light cruisers had 83mm side armor compared to a 120mm belt on the heavy cruiser Algerie. The British had 51mm on their 6-inch gun turrets and decks, and 102mm on the conning tower, while the Algerie had only 80mm deck armor, with 70 to 90mm on her bigger turrets, and conning tower.

  At this closer range, the twenty-four 6-inch guns on the British cruisers were still going to hurt the French cruiser. They could penetrate her turrets, decks and conning tower, and the QF 6-inch gun was going to be throwing a lot of lead with a typical rate of fire at 8 rounds per minute, and flight time to target under 10 seconds at that range. The British gunners worked like white headed ghouls, their anti-flash bonnets tight over heads and shoulders as they fed in the shells and cordite charges, and they were getting hits from the very beginning of that action.

  But behind the fast cruiser battle, where the destroyers sped about in a chaos of white frothing wakes, there loomed the larger shadows of heavy warships. Duke Of York had a big contact on radar, and opened fire immediately, her 14-inch guns falling just short of the battleship Jean Bart. The fire helped the French gauge her position, and Jean Bart answered with both of her forward turrets, all eight 15-inch guns. A battle of these two “treaty battleships” was soon underway, and could most likely decide the action should one or another of these behemoths score a telling blow.

  Both ships carried the bulk of their firepower in those quad turrets, a design feature that was aiming to get the maximum firepower in the fewest possible turrets, and by so doing, reduce weight to meet the treaty restriction, and also work in the service of speed. Of the two ships, the French had achieved a near perfect balance of firepower, protection and speed, with a four knot edge over the Duke Of York, and a much longer sea range to go with it. The British ship could loiter at ten knots and coax 15,600 nautical miles out of their ship, but even increasing speed to only 18 knots burned fuel at an alarming rate, reducing that range to only 5,400 nautical miles. By contrast, Jean Bart had much better endurance, achieving over 9,000 nautical miles at that same speed of 18 knots.

  Yet a night action like this was not going to rely on range and speed. The real determining factors would be sighting, targeting and of course, those guns and armor at the much closer range. While the British ship had better side armor, a main belt of 370mm to 330 on the French ship, the French had taken several steps to protect those novel quad gun turrets.

  The risk in the design was that a single hit might knock out the entire turret, silencing half the ship’s main gun firepower in one blow. This was the reason the Germans had adopted a four twin gun turret design on their Bismarck class battleship, where no more than a quarter of the fighting power of the ship would be lost if a single turret was hit. First off, the French addressed this shortcoming by creating two gun pairs within that turret, and then building in a 25mm armored bulkhead between those two compartments. The thought was that a glancing blow to the turret might then only involve two of the four guns. More importantly, they gave these turrets solid, heavy armor, with 430mm face armor, and then further reduced risk by widely spacing the two turrets on that long forward deck. This was nearly 100mm thicker than the 324mm turret face and barbette armor on Duke Of York.

  Those 100mm were going to matter. When the first hits were registered, the British learned their 14-inch gun had decent punch at close range, capable of penetrating all of 396mm at 10,000 yards. They would do even better at 7,000 yards, and Jean Bart suffered an early side armor penetration slightly aft, and an internal explosion that came very close to setting off a magazine for one of the secondary batteries there. That said, the French guns had more penetrating power. They could pierce 393mm at 24,000 yards, while the British gun would only penetrate about 280mm at such ranges. Up close, the French 15-inch guns were going to hit much harder.

  They easily breached the conning tower armor on Duke Of York, starting a serious fire there that was soon threatening the bridge. But as the action ensued, the British then found their 14-inch guns had more liabilities than their lighter throw weight, protection, and penetration power—they jammed. The forward A turret suddenly had difficulties, and only one gun fired as planned on the fifth salvo. It was a nagging problem on these new quad turrets, which were much more complex than the older twin turrets or even the triple gun mounts on ships like Invincible and Nelson. In the heat of that action, where that firepower and rate of fire was crucial, Duke Of York had now lost 30% of her throw weight.

  To make matters worse, up came Dunkerque, following closely in the wake of Jean Bart, and adding another eight 13-inch guns to that duel. Shells were churning up the sea all around the battleship, and Captain Harcourt had no choice but to turn so he could bring his rear quad turret into play. As he did so, the French had a much wider target to aim at, and scored three hits in rapid succession. It was then that Harcourt realized his bold engagement was as good as over, and that he would be lucky even to save the ship. The 6-inch guns on his light cruisers were not going to seriously harm the heavy French ships. They hit those big turrets on Jean Bart several times, but to no effect. Everything depended on Duke of York getting her licks in early and often, but it would not happen that night.

  With great reluctance, he had to admit the Royal Navy had been run off again by the French. They were simply out-gunned, and so he flashed the signal to all ships to effect a withdrawal. It was here that the seamanship of the British Captains paid them good service. The destroyers immediately broke off their swirling attack around Algerie. Many already had torpedoes in the water, and Bedouin would get the lucky hit that night, putting a 21-inch Mark IX torpedo right into her bow. It would be enough to cut her speed in half, with flooding forward that would not be controlled.

  Then, with a well practiced precision, the four British destroyers formed up to lay a thick screen of heavy smoke. Fiji, Kenya and Duke of York turned into it, vanishing into the night. Trinidad and the two AA cruisers were bringing up the rear, and had not even engaged before the order to turn about was received. Captain Leslie Saunders aboard Trinidad shrugged when he saw the signal. “We’re missing those battleships now,” he said. “Things must have gone ill aboard Duke Of York. Without her, Force C is just a paper tiger, unless the F.A.A. can weigh in.”

  * * *

  Saunders was a bit of a prophet that night, for that statement was going to play out in the next two hours. Hovering off the west coast of the island of Tenerife, carrier Glorious was ready for a fight. Captain Christopher Wells was watching the pl
anes of 823 and 825 Squadron spotting up for takeoff. He had received the new Albacore torpedo bombers, faster, more durable than the older Swordfish, though the latter plane had turned in an outstanding war record in spite of its age. He was going to put all 36 planes up that night, along with 12 Seafires, leaving him only 12 more for CAP duties. Furious was with him, and she would throw in another 12 Albacores in 822 Squadron, and 12 more Seafires in escort. All told, he would throw 48 torpedo bombers and 24 fighters at the enemy, in a daring pre-dawn raid that would hopefully not meet strong enemy fighter strength.

  From the experience of the last several days, the German fighters that had been moved to Gando Airfield on Gran Canaria were operating with limited capacity, most likely due to fuel shortages, for it all had to come by sea. They would mostly take to the skies about thirty minutes before sunrise, and Wells was going to get to his target an hour before that.

  “They can do it,” he said to Lieutenant Commander Robert Woodfield, who was basking in the recent promotion that had put that word “Commander” behind his former rank. “Look Woody, we know exactly where the French fleet is now. I have it chapter and verse from Captain Harcourt on Duke Of York. If they come in low, approaching the western coast of the main island, then they can sweep right up through and over those mountains and come down on the Frogs like wailing banshees.”

  “Risky flying,” said Woodfield.

  “Maybe so, but the skies to the east will be nice and rosy soon, and that will silhouette that island. Our boys will be coming from the west, low on the shadows of the sea. They’ll come dancing in over the top of those peaks, and catch the French by surprise.”

  So that was the plan, and it was going to work—for the most part. What Captain Wells did not know was that the Germans had “Aunty Ju” out of bed early that morning, all dressed up and ready to lift troops of the 7th Flieger Regiment in an equally daring morning hop from Gando to the north coast of the island. The planes would barely have time to gain altitude before the jump would be made, and as it happened, the two formations ran right into one another. The morning stillness was soon a wild jig in the skies, for the Germans put 18 fighters up to escort that lift, and soon there was a battle underway over the high peaks of the main island.

  Fighters swooped and dove, falling through the more stable formations of strike planes and transports, some engaging in brief flashes of anger, others turning and diving just to avoid a pursuing enemy fighter. At one point, a squadron of Albacores flew right over a line of JU-52s, the pilots giving the Germans their middle finger, and wishing they could drop those long torpedoes to get after them, but they had bigger fish to fry, out in the troubled waters off the Grand Harbor.

  The 24 Seafires put up a very good fight, though the Bf-109 was still the superior fighter. They got three of the 109’s, losing five in the effort, but the swirling dogfight was enough to keep most of the German fighters off the Albacores, and vice versa—all but three of the Ju-52s would get up to their zones and the brave Falschirmjaegers jumped, in spite of the risk of being gunned down by enemy fighters.

  Of the 48 Albacores, 42 got through and found the French ships just a little east from the location last reported by Captain Harcourt. Admiral Gensoul was running low on ammunition. His ground support fire, and then the brief, violent engagement with Duke Of York, had compelled him to seek a safe port for replenishment.

  The Albacores saw the long line of ships, three destroyers in a wide fan forward of two large warships. Notably absent was Algerie, which had taken on so much water from Bedouin’s torpedo hit that she had to be abandoned and scuttled. Two destroyers were taking on survivors, and the British let them be, intent on getting after the bigger warships.

  “Come on, boys!” said Flight Lieutenant Alvin Williamson. “Let’s get that one there from behind!”

  They were running in on the Dunkerque, and finally alerted to the danger, the French gunners were sending up everything they had by way of AA gunfire. A curious ship, Dunkerque had all her main guns forward on two quad turrets, and all her secondary guns aft on three quad turrets mounting dual purpose 5.1-inch guns. They could elevate to 90 degrees to oppose dive bombing attacks, but that was not necessary here. With a good rate of fire, those twelve guns were soon filling the lightening skies with dark thorny roses as the rounds went off. Their accuracy was not all that good, but the British planes were coming in formation, and so several hits were scored from shrapnel flung off by the exploding rounds.

  Williams gave the sign, and the formation split, as much to confound those aft turret gunners as to get into position to hit the target from both sides. The torpedoes were soon in the water, a deadly fan on either side of the ship, running in at about a 30 degree angle to her course. It was a perfect attack, for if Dunkerque turned in either direction, she would be showing her broadside to those torpedoes. Her only chance was to put on speed and run dead on, hoping to outpace the deadly lances that were aimed at her.

  This is what Jean Bart did, putting on full speed, racing forward to evade the deadly steel trap, but Dunkerque had taken one last parting hit from that quad X turret on Duke Of York, and the damage was aft, low on the water line, where minor flooding was already causing her engines difficulties. She could only work up to 24 knots, and that would be her undoing.

  Jacobsen, McNamara, Falkson, Purdy and Bently would all score hits, the tall fountains of white water washing up on either side of the battlecruiser. Three others narrowly missed the frothing wake of Jean Bart, which now executed a 30 point turn to starboard, seeing open seas and no sign of torpedo wakes there. Five more torpedoes hit the water to get after her, but Admiral Gensoul was quick to resume his original heading, and his ship fast enough, and agile enough, to make the evasive turn in time.

  Dunkerque was not so fortunate, rocked from one side to another as the blows were struck. With two of those hits aft, just outside the protective reach of her belt armor and anti-torpedo bulwark, the ship was doomed. Water cascaded in through the breached hull, adding to the flooding already underway. Captain Deramond could see that he was shipping heavy water astern, with fires below decks there from the explosions that were also threatening the magazines of the port side 5.1-inch turret. When the engineers called the bridge with the news, he knew Dunkerque would not survive. If he tried to flood the magazines, he would only make the situation worse.

  It was as if a pack of jackals had just fallen on their prey, their sharp teeth on the flanks and calves, intending to hobble their victim and put it to ground. That was what was going to happen, for the last flight of Albacores came in and saw the big ship wallowing, her stern awash, and starting to list to her starboard side. That was where they put the last of their torpedoes, three shuddering hits that would seal the fate of the sleek battlecruiser once and for all. Now she would join her sister ship, Strasbourg, put under the sea months ago by a similar torpedo attack, only that time by Ivan Gromyko on the stealthy modern Russian submarine Kazan.

  The French had very little time to gloat that day, for the Royal Navy was much more than it’s battleships. The F.A.A. was out there, bold enough to rise to the challenge, and Captain Christopher Wells would continue his extraordinary war record of sinking French capital ships at sea by torpedo attack. And so, even though they were driven from the field, the British won the battle where tonnage was concerned, by a wide margin. They would not lose a single ship that day, while the French would see both Algerie and Dunkerque lost forever.

  These sharp, costly battles had suddenly reduced the field to only one battle worthy heavy ship on either side. Duke of York rejoined the carriers, which recovered 38 of the 48 strike planes sent out that morning, and 18 of 24 Seafires. The entire flotilla then turned northeast, to get as far from German land based air power as possible. As for the Falschirmjaegers, they made it to ground and began to assemble. The move was like a Knight leaping inside the third rank on a chess board, posing a grave threat for the beleaguered defenders on that island. Their presence i
n the northwest was going to cut all the supply lines to the smaller ports on the west and southern coasts, and effectively trap the main body of British troops. That day the complexion of the battle would change dramatically.

  Chapter 30

  “See here,” said General Alexander, leaning heavily over the map. He had assembled his Brigadiers for a final strategy session. General Thomas was not in attendance, being with his troops in the south. Colonel Frost was there, along with 29th Brigade Commander, Hugh Stockwell.

  “Jerry has what looks to be a full regiment on the ground near Galdar. Needless to say, that’s a problem. He’s gone and jumped right over the Santa Brigida line, and cut off our route to the west coast, and by extension, the south coast as well. We can’t very well lug supplies up over the high country. Now… A Royal Marine battalion from Madeira landed at Puerto Sardinia here, on the northwest tip of the island. We’ve also got Puerto Nieves four miles to the south, but there’s no more than a company of Royal Marines there. I’m afraid there’s no help further south. We’ve two more companies of engineers near San Nicholas minding the supply stores there, but they won’t be much help. Opinions, Gentlemen?”

  “We’ve got San Mateo, but just barely,” said Colonel Frost. “Those mountain troops pulled back late in the afternoon yesterday.”

  “Good show,” said Alexander, “but it’s all of 50 miles from that place to the southern coast over the mountain roads.”

  “Yes, but if we hold San Mateo, we at least close the main road into the highlands if we decide to move west with the main force.”

  “And give up La Palma? Give the Germans the Grand Harbor?”

  “Well, begging the General’s pardon, isn’t that why you’ve called this meeting—to decide whether we hold here, or try to get the men off to Tenerife?”