by Hall, Gerald
High up in Ark Royal’s bridge, her captain and First Officer looked down upon the aftermath of the attempted attack on their ship.
“I am very bloody glad that you suggested that we prepare for a possible attack here, Sir. I would hate to think about what might have happened if one or more of those boats had managed to ram and explode next to us.” Commander Collins noted.
“I’m sure that our sailors will be even more alert to the possibility of it from now on too. Still, that was a damned close run thing. I guess that the people behind the kidnapping figured that we were a lot more vulnerable than King George V and not as big of a prize as one of our escorts.” Captain Stewart replied.
“We still need to keep our eyes open just in case these bloody fools try something else.”
“I agree completely. Let the crew know that they did well out there, but remind them that the threat still exists.”
Just then, a signalman darted in and quickly handed Commander Collins a message.
“Captain, we just got a message from the Hong Kong police. They think that they have narrowed down where they think that the kidnappers are.”
“Excellent! Immediately pass that information along to the Cavill folks. Hopefully, they can employ their wizardry now to locate the precise location of the Prince before his captors do something terrible to him. I don’t know if our negotiators are going to be able to stall these bloody kidnappers for much longer, I fear”
Two hours later, Ark Royal received a new message from Derby. This time, the message was handed directly to the captain. When Captain Stewart read the message, the broad smile on his face told everyone on the carrier’s bridge that it was good news.
“We have found where those bastards are keeping the Prince.” He immediately announced.
“Are you sure, Sir?”
“Based on the message here, the Cavill folks were able to pinpoint the exact location of the building. I know better than to ask exactly how they know this. Right now, I need for Major Simms to get his people ready as quickly as possible. We already have maps of Hong Kong that the Crown office had supplied to us earlier. I need an assault plan from the Major within the hour. If we wait any longer, we will be sending his people in during daylight. I’m sure that will destroy any element of surprise that we might have.”
“I’m ready to get our people moving out there. All that I need are the aircraft and the deck space to load them up from.”
“We don’t have enough capacity with just two Hummingbirds to quickly move our Marines in to both cordon off the area and decisively hit where the kidnappers are holding the Prince. We have a few Westland helicopters, but they are much slower. Speed will be a must if we are going to successfully rescue the Prince.” Captain Stewart noted.
“I think that we have a solution to that problem. The Australians anchored just offshore have a significant number of rotary-wing aircraft onboard their ships. They have already offered to provide some of them to assist us, Sir.”
“How many can the Australians offer?”
“The Australians have offered ten Hummingbirds in addition to six CM-3 tandem-rotor helicopters. They also have several platoons of their own Marines that are ready to assist if needed.”
“Well, I am not about to turn down any help that I can get. It is still bloody amazing what those Cavills were able to do with their orbiting space cameras and those drone spy planes. I think that they just might have given us the edge that we need to successfully pull this off. We better let the Admiral know what we are going to do, not that he has been much help in the matter, I’m sorry to say.”
Chapter Forty-Three:
HMAS Melbourne
Twenty miles east of Hong Kong
January 25, 1958
The commander of the Australian aircraft carrier was summoned to the wireless room by a junior rating. Then Captain Hawthorne was informed that Ark Royal’s captain wanted to talk with him over the radio. A couple of other senior officers followed behind him.
“Hello, Captain Hawthorne. We need that assistance now that you offered.” Captain Stewart simply said.
“We will have it on the way as quickly as possible.”
“Captain Hawthorne, I thank you in the name of the Queen for your help.”
“Happy to help, Captain. The Australian officer replied before turning and nodding towards Melbourne’s air wing commander
“I’ll get them flying right away, Sir. I know that Ark Royal can handle four vertical takeoff aircraft at a time from her flight deck, Captain.” Commander Atworth explained to the British captain.
“Very good. We will send you eight of our tilt-wings plus all six of our CM-3’s. We will use four of our Hummingbirds to transport our own Marines to supplement your force.” Captain Hawthorne told his counterpart on Ark Royal.
“Very good, Sir. If necessary, we can operate some of your aircraft from our two fleet support ships’ flight decks. They have the space to handle your aircraft. We do appreciate all of the help that you are giving us in this delicate matter.” Captain Stewart replied.
“What will your Admiral Harris be doing?”
“His staff has been coordinating with the Hong Kong authorities on the search for the Prince and First Sea Lord. He has delegated authority for any rescue operations to Captain Stewart. Our people are the most likely to be involved if we are going to conduct a rescue mission at all since we have most of the task force’s aviation assets.” Ark Royal’s captain informed the Australian naval aviator over the radio.
People moved frantically along the flight decks of the British and Australian vessels as they landed, loaded and launched multiple rotary-wing aircraft. In less than thirty minutes, all of the heavily armed Marines were loaded onboard aircraft and were now on the way to their destinations in Hong Kong.
A dozen Hummingbird tilt-wings raced just above the tops of the buildings towards their objective. It was a dangerous move in the middle of the night, even with all of the garish lighting that nighttime Hong Kong was famous for. A couple of times, a Hummingbird very nearly missed one of the taller buildings that was not quite as well lit.
The CM-3’s also sortied at the same time, but they were heading in a different direction as a diversion. They flew much higher so that they could be more easily be seen by the entire city.
At three in the morning, most of Hong Kong was still asleep. But there were some people that were still more or less awake. Many of these people were onboard the Royal Navy warships sitting at anchor in Hong Kong harbor. But there were some others with much more malicious intents out there at the same time.
“Hey, what the hell is that in the water?” An alert sentry called out, pointing towards a swirl of water and spot of phosphorescence when the plankton had been stirred into brightness in the water.”
More people on the carrier began to shout and point towards that same spot. Quickly, several searchlights were turned on and directed towards the spot.
Warning shots were fired towards the location of the sighting. Then several dozen grenades were thrown into the water between Ark Royal and whatever was seen moving in the water. For the first minute of shooting, there was no indication that anything had been hit.
Suddenly, there was a huge explosion about one hundred meters away from Ark Royal. A massive tower of water then rose from the point of the explosion. The carrier shook for a moment from the shock. Then everything fell silent. Ark Royal’s sailors standing by the railing saw hundreds of dead fish beginning to pop up to the surface of the water, killed by the concussion of the explosion.
“Bloody hell! There must have been more swimmers out there carrying limpet mines with them.” A shaken Captain Stewart gasped.
“I doubt that there are any of them left out there now, Sir. That explosion would have killed anyone nearby in the water.” Commander Collins replied.
“We need divers right now to check the ship’s hull to make sure that there are no other limpet mines attached to us. Have our da
mage control parties check below desks to ensure that we haven’t taken any damage from that explosion as well.”
“Yes, Sir. I will also pass along your recommendations to the flagship. I’m sure that Admiral Harris will pass it along to the rest of the task force. Any of our ships could have been targeted.”
“Somehow, I think that we were the primary target though. This was the second time that we have been targeted already. In any event, our battleship would have been relatively undamaged by a limpet mine because of her heavy armor. Not only are we are not as heavily armored, our aircraft are far more useful in this situation than King George V’s big guns. Whoever is holding the Prince captive has to realize this too.” Commander Collins answered.
“You’re probably right. But we still need to be cautious just in case.”
As the sailors onboard Ark Royal were dealing with the aftermath of the latest attack and more than a hundred Royal Marines were en route to affect a rescue. The people they were determined to rescue waited nervously. They did not hear the sound of the Hummingbird tilt-wing transports hovering over the building where they were being held. Other Hummingbirds also landed Marines around the targeted building to set up a perimeter so that no one would be able to escape.
Young Prince Charles was still bound hand and foot inside of a small room when the Marines slipped in towards the warehouse where he was being held captive. Most of the Royal Marines were armed with silenced Sterling submachine guns, though a few were designated snipers armed with scoped Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles.
The Chinese guards watching the entrance to the warehouse were quickly hit and neutralized by the Sterling-armed Marines that had crept in during the early morning hours before daybreak. The Marines had acted so quickly that none of the kidnappers guarding the building exterior was able to send out the alarm to the others inside.”
The dark of the Hong Kong night helped the Marine attackers close undetected to the kidnappers’ stronghold. But it also made it very difficult to identify friend from foe at the same time. The Marines had marked their webgear with a single luminescent tab so that they could prevent shooting their own people. But the Marines had one other problem as well. They had to be very careful to not shoot the very people who they were trying to rescue.
The justified hesitation cost the lives of nearly a dozen Marines as they searched the building, room by room. The kidnappers used the hesitation to fire the first shots or throw a grenade during the surprise encounters with the assaulting Marines. But the Royal Marines continued to advance. A captured kidnapper was quickly and very roughly interrogated, giving the British a location where the captives were being held.
But time was running short as the kidnappers realized the force that faced them. They would not allow their captives to leave that building alive.
Lord Mountbatten heard the loud reports of nearby gunfire. He knew that potential rescuers had to be very close. The two guards standing between the captives and the door to freedom were obviously growing more nervous as the sounds of the gunfire grew closer.
“Are they coming to rescue us?” Charles quietly asked.
“Yes, Sire. They are. We just have to be patient now.” Mountbatten replied.
The First Sea Lord saw one of the Chinese captors begin to aim his submachine gun towards Charles. With all of the firing going on between the kidnappers and the Royal Marines that had started to assault the captors’ stronghold, Lord Mountbatten knew that this meant only one thing. In spite of his own bonds, the older man managed to lunge out to interpose his own body between Charles and the Chinese gunman just as the latter pulled the trigger on his weapon.
Louis felt the hammer of 9mm rounds as they struck his body. As his thoughts faded, he saw the Chinese gunman also being struck by multiple rounds fired by British guns. The last thing that the First Sea Lord heard before everything turned black was the sound of Royal Marines calling out. At the end, he took comfort in having done this duty. A few moments later, Charles was able to crawl out from underneath Lord Mountbatten, calling for him to wake up and wrapping his arms around the gravely wounded man.
“We’ve found them! The Prince is alright. But we need a corpsman immediately!” A Marine called out as he looked over Charles and the limp, bleeding form of the First Sea Lord.
Prince Charles held onto Lord Mountbatten’s still body even as the medic’s attempted to save the First Sea Lord’s life. A pair of Marines finally were able to pull the sobbing young boy away. It was Charles’ first experience with war and death. It would deeply mark him for the rest of his life
A few hours later, the sun began to rise in the east, silhouetting the warships from both the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy against the brilliant horizon. The last of the helicopters and tilt-wing transports were finally landing on the flight decks of their ships while the senior officers of those ships tried to assess what had just happened.
Most of those leaders were exhausted and staying conscious mostly due to the consumption of vast quantities of strong tea and coffee. But they could not wait to determine what had occurred in Hong Kong and why.
“It’s a damned shame about what happened to the First Sea Lord, Sir. He will be a very difficult man to replace.” Commander Collins bitterly noted as he sat in Ark Royal’s officers mess along with Captain Stewart.
“I know. Lord Mountbatten was a fine officer and a very good man. He gave his life to save the Heir to the Crown. I’m sure that he will be honored accordingly. But you’re right, he will be very difficult to replace.”
“I hope that the folks in Whitehall don’t replace him with some damned fool who doesn’t know anything about real sea duty, Sir.”
“You know that it is not our place to make that choice, Commander.” Captain Stewart sadly replied.
They were interrupted by a pair of uniformed officers that had just entered the compartment, one from the Royal Navy and the other in the uniform of the Royal Australian Navy.
“We captured a treasure trove of documents when our Marines overran the kidnappers’ hideaway, Sir. They were only able to destroy a relatively small number due to the surprise that we were able to achieve.” Lieutenant Commander Isaiah Penderton, the King George V’s chief intelligence officer reported to Captain Stewart and Commander Collins after the former had flown onto Ark Royal aboard one of the Australian tilt-wings.
“I read your initial report, Commander. The kidnappers seemed to make it appear that they were aligned with the Nationalist Chinese, especially with all of their demands.” Captain Stewart noted.
“I know. But I still believe that these are not Nationalists. Look at what they have here on these messages that we recovered from the site where the kidnappers were holding the Prince and the First Sea Lord. The kidnappers had tried to destroy these documents by burning them. But we caught them by surprise before they could destroy them all before being killed.
First, the messages are not in Mandarin, they are written in Cantonese. Secondly, they are talking about evacuating south towards Hainan. That’s where the Cantonese Front has been operating from.” The intelligence officer reported.
“So they were planning on killing the Prince and placing the blame on the Nationalists?” Captain Stewart asked.
“Yes, Sir. That is what it appears. But I wonder if that is all that is going on here.” Isaiah noted.
“What do you mean, Commander?”
“We have noted a pattern of provocations and armed attacks all along the South China Sea. MI-6 has been working with its Australian counterparts concerning these suspicious activities for the last several years. Australia naval vessels have fought several naval engagements with refitted naval and commercial vessels that had been equipped with some very sophisticated weapons. Officially, they were declared pirates operating from Cantonese territory.
But we and the Australians both believe that these ‘pirates’ are not only allied with the Cantonese side of the Chinese civil war, but that they are also aff
iliated with the kidnappers here. We also strongly suspect that they have been receiving significant support from outside Asia with the intent to further destabilize the area. These outside elements have been supporting both the Cantonese and the Vietminh in French Indochina.”
“That is pretty frightening, especially with our remaining colonies in Singapore and Hong Kong. But why foment so much unrest out here?”
“I can’t be certain. We have a lot of intelligence gaps out there concerning who is involved and why they are doing it. But my suspicion is that they want to get one or both the French and we involved in the Chinese civil war. That would tie us up and drain billions of Pounds Sterling from other programs into sustaining a potentially unwinnable military conflict in East Asia.”
“Killing the Heir Apparent to the British Crown certainly could get us deeply involved in the war here. The British people would demand retribution.” Commander Collins replied.
“Quite true. But who would benefit by maneuvering the French and the United Kingdom into a military conflict in East Asia? Surely, none of the nations in the area would want an even greater presence from either of us. They have been anxious to eliminate the European colonial presence from here for decades.” Captain Stewart queried the intelligence officer.
“Although I have no concrete proof, I personally believe that it has to be another European power. It certainly would not be the Americans. They have chosen to return to a Fortress America mentality. Nor are there any of the developing nations in either Africa, South America or even the South Asian subcontinent who have a stake in what happens in China. The Islamic world has quite a few grievances with us. However, this does not fit their style, in my view. But any nation that is trying to rebuild a power base in Europe could have a vested interest in degrading the United Kingdom’s military and economic resources.