Doppelganger

by John Schettler

  These were all things running through Tovey’s mind as Invincible kept on with its charge. If I turn, he thought, they’ll have all their guns available to sight on our full silhouette. For those minutes, the ship will be much more vulnerable, and when we run we can’t hit them as hard on those rear firing arcs. What I miss now is a good pack of hunting dogs! Fighting here without a destroyer escort was a clear liability, but there was no way they could trail along through the Med. I counted heavily on the Russian ship standing with me, and now our entire battle squadron has been scattered.

  If I turn here, what will Lütjens do? Will he follow and give chase, or merely take his shots and come round to finish Rodney? Why should I give him any choice at all? No. All our teeth are right up front, and thinking of the destroyers, I’ve another little surprise, a legacy of the era that saw this ship built, so let it roll.

  “Mister Bennett,” he said to the Captain. “Steady on, and make ready on all torpedo tubes.”

  The Captain raised an eyebrow, yet he knew what Tovey intended now. They were going in, hell bent, and the Admiral aimed to make this a fight to the death. The Invincible had a pair of submerged torpedo tubes forward of the A-turret, and carried eight massive 24-inch lances that were driven by oxygen enriched air. They had two speed settings and were already in range of the enemy ships. At 35 knots they could run out 15,000 yards, and at 30 knots that extended to 20,000 yards, the interval that now separated the two sides.

  Other ships had them from that era, including Rodney, which saw them become the liability that rent her hull open when the Tirpitz struck the torpedo magazine. Other ships would normally fire from the broadside, but Invincible had a rotating torpedo mount below decks, and could alter the angle of the tubes by up to 15 degrees. This gave him a little flexibility, and the innovation would allow him to fire as he continued to close the range, which was exactly what he intended to do.

  Tovey had no intention of turning full broadside. He was running all out, his forward silhouette still presenting a much more difficult target for the enemy as his bow was aimed right at them. All he had to do was make five or ten point zigzags to allow X-turret to fire, and with his slight speed advantage he was inexorably closing on his enemy. He was making a battleship sized torpedo run, as any destroyer might, only he had nine 16-inch guns to use on the way in.

  “Set torpedoes to mode one. Speed 35.”

  That was an obvious choice, as Invincible would literally outrun her own torpedoes at the longer range setting. Yet to use mode one, Tovey knew he needed to get well inside that 15,000 yard range marker to give the torpedoes any chance. So it was all or nothing now, and the Admiral was pushing all his chips out onto the table.

  The Germans were trying to cross his T, but at the last minute, he would swing hard to starboard to aim his nose at a point well ahead of the enemy formation, and then send four lances out at 35 knots, each one tipped with nearly 750 pounds of TNT. Then he would come hard to port and add four more torpedoes to widen his spread. Unless the German formation turned radically off their present heading, he knew they would face the prospect of taking a deadly hit. Captain Adler had insisted on coming to the ball, and soon, in that wild minute when the watchmen shouted out the torpedo warning, he and his ship would have to learn to dance.

  Chapter 9

  On came Tovey, standing like a carved statue on the Admiral’s bridge of Invincible, his face and eyes set. The long bow of the ship was carving through the sea, the wash of grey-green water high over the wet iron anchor chains stretched along the deck. Behind them the massive steel fingers of the guns reached for the enemy as the ship roared out its anger. Connors had shifted to a 6-3 pattern on his salvos, with both forward turrets firing together, while the X turret waited for the ship to turn and open its forward angle as Invincible jogged left and right.

  The battlecruiser remained a difficult target, even as the range closed inside 15,000 meters, about nine miles from the German formation. The death of Lütjens, and the damage slowly accumulating on the Hindenburg, had dampened Adler’s ardor for battle somewhat, yet he still believed the day must surely be his. When he saw Bismarck score a hit amidships forward of the twin funnels on Invincible, he took heart. Yet the damage was not as severe as it might have been on a ship with a more conventional design. The entire area was swept clean to give X-turret clear angles of fire. There was no superstructure built there, and so the 15-inch shell found only the hard steel of the 8-inch deck, and its shallow angle could not penetrate. Shrapnel flailed the turret, causing no harm, and scored the forward funnel, causing it to stream smoke in odd places, but otherwise the ship was not hurt.

  Hindenburg also scored a second hit, this time on the belt of the ship. While the flatter trajectory of the shell gave it much more penetrating power in a side armor hit, the angle of the blow was very small given the fact that the target’s bow was very nearly pointed directly into the line of fire. This caused a glancing blow instead of a more damaging direct hit had the round come in perpendicular. Again, it was the unorthodox design of the ship, and the way Tovey had boldly chosen to fight with it, that made these hits far less serious than they might have been.

  The British gunners had also put additional damage on both German ships. The two forward turrets in Connors’ 6-3 salvos had concentrated on Hindenburg, and scored yet another hit amidships that smashed a secondary battery and started a bad fire. X-turret also managed to strike Bismarck forward on her bow, and very low, with the shell penetrating near the water line in that less protected area, and causing flooding from the wash of the forward bow. A second shell plunged into the water very near this point, struck the ship, but did not detonate, a bit of luck that saved Bismarck from serious harm.

  The running battle had seen his formation steaming almost due east at about 90 degrees, with Invincible coming up from the southwest, steering a jogging course that varied from 30 to 50 degrees. At times the Germans were at 28 knots, and sometimes surged at their top speed of 30 knots, and the angle of convergence was gobbling up the range quickly. Tovey was inside the 12,000 meter range mark in minutes, dangerously close, and he could see the Germans were about to turn to cross his T, which is just what he expected. Now he began to maneuver the ship to prepare for his torpedo launch.

  He made his sharp turn to starboard, with the intention of coming quickly around to expose the port side torpedo tubes and fire a spread of four lances at a point well out in front of the enemy ships. It was then that Adler made his first real mistake. He saw the sudden turn, just after that inconsequential hit amidships, but his mind saw much more in the maneuver than Tovey intended.

  “Got him amidships!” he shouted. “Good shooting Eisenberg! Look now, he’s coming around in a hard turn. He’s thinking twice about trying to get any closer. We’ve crossed his T and he’s trying to come around and run with us at the broadside. He’s making a bad mistake!”

  Eisenberg beamed down from his perch above with the main gun director, and the next three seconds would decide the battle. Adler snapped out an order, thinking he would easily frustrate the British maneuver by turning to starboard himself, using the slight lead he still maintained, and persisting in crossing the enemy’s T. It had never occurred to him that Invincible was about to fire torpedoes, and if he knew this was happening, he should have turned hard to port instead of starboard, for now he was maneuvering right into the path of the torpedo spread, and actually closing the range even more.

  Adler’s eyes were lost behind his field glasses, intently watching the other ship and seeing his own shellfall straddle the British behemoth yet again. The torpedoes streaked from beneath the waterline on Invincible, and then, to Adler’s surprise, he saw the British ship execute yet another sharp turn, this time hard to port.

  “What is that fool doing?” he said aloud, looking over his shoulder and pointing. Then he answered his own question. “Ah, he does not want to come to starboard after seeing us turn, because if he comes all the way around he w
ill have to turn his back side to us and all his guns are forward.” In his mind the British now looked like they wanted to steer due north as his own formation came round to the south, so the two sides could run parallel to one another in opposite directions instead of running together. He knows he can run with us and exchange broadsides, thought Adler. It never occurred to him that the enemy ship had turned only to present its starboard side and fire yet another spread of deadly 24-inch torpedoes.

  If Lütjens had been alive, he might have seen what the British were really doing. His first command had been aboard torpedo boat T-68 in the 6th Torpedo Boat Demi-Flotilla. He served in these squadrons throughout the First War, and dueled with other British torpedo boats off Dunkirk, as well as French destroyers in his first combat actions at sea. Between the wars he had trained on the pre-dreadnought battleship Schlesien, again for torpedo firing exercises. In 1936, Lütjens had been appointed Führer der Torpedoboote (Chief of Torpedo Boats), planting his flag aboard the German Destroyer Z1, Leberecht Maass. It wasn’t until the outbreak of the war that he eventually transferred to the bigger ships, commanding the covering force for the Norwegian campaign with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

  So the old torpedo man at heart might have seen much more in Tovey’s unorthodox maneuvers than Adler, and in that critical moment, he may have certainly turned to port instead of starboard. But Lütjens was dead, and all of that seasoned experience was gone with him.

  “Now we will have him badly outgunned,” said Adler, a jubilant edge to his voice. “He cannot trade broadsides with us and hope to survive. Get him, Eisenberg!”

  Tovey knew the Germans were not going to be able to come round on 180 for very long. It was only a matter of a few minutes before they would discover their peril, and soon the high mainmast watch on Hindenburg shouted out the warning.

  “Torpedoes!”

  The word shocked Adler, for it was the last thing he expected. In fact, he had no idea that the British ship even carried such weapons, and there had not been a single instance of a battleship using torpedoes since the first world war. The Hindenburg had initially included six similar submerged torpedo tubes in her design, but they had been removed in the final construction, thought to be an anachronism. That torpedoes would be used here, in the heat of this intense gun duel, never entered his mind.

  Yet now he had to quickly find the danger and maneuver the ship. To do so he rushed outside to the weather deck, where Lütjens body still lay in his unceremonious death, crews only just arriving with a stretcher. Adler had heard the Admiral had fallen, but it was only now that he would see him in his death pose, one arm plaintively extended on the cold metal deck, as if he were desperately trying to point out the impending danger in those oncoming torpedoes.

  It was a grizzly sight that shook the Kapitan in spite of the urgency of this moment, for he had to stand on the deck still wet with the Admiral’s blood. He looked frantically to the sea, trying to find the wakes of the enemy torpedoes and finally saw that he had steered directly into their approach. Apparently Lindemann on the Bismarck had already seen them, and he took it upon himself to turn hard to port. Adler tried to do the same, shouting the orders at the top of his voice, and watching the heavy bow of the Hindenburg cutting the sea with the sudden turn.

  It would not be enough. The two salvos off Invincible had set loose a spread of eight torpedoes, and two were going to strike Hindenburg amidships, a third passing behind the ship and narrowly missing Bismarck. The combined weight of the blows sent 1500 pounds of TNT against the underwater bulkhead, which was a tremendous shock.

  German ships were sturdy vessels, and they had been built with ingenious armor schemes with one single minded aim—survivability at sea. “Steadfastness” was the primary aim of German ship designers, a combination of strength, durability and survivability. To achieve this they combined an excellent system of armor, both above and below the water line, clever watertight subdivisions all along the hull, and the best trained damage control teams at sea. Hindenburg had been struck a hard blow, but it would not be fatal to the ship.

  The interval between the outer skin of the ship’s hull and the main torpedo bulkhead was over 5 meters, a design feature that aimed to absorb the explosive shock of the torpedo. The Germans had tested out their design theory by using the old battleships Kaiser Wilhelm II and Hannover as torpedo targets. Their work would be so skilled that, in another telling of these events, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would easily shrug off numerous hits by 500 pound bombs, and the Bismarck would still be floating after being pummeled for hours by heavy guns of British battleships, and struck by no less than nine torpedoes. It would take a bomb weighing over 12,000 pounds, and two of them, to finally sink the Tirpitz.

  So the mighty Hindenburg was not fatally damaged, but the dint to Adler’s psyche was more pronounced. He now found his ship had sustained three 16-inch shell hits, fifteen hits from 6-inch guns and now these two torpedoes. The crews were rushing to contain the flooding, and he did not yet know that the damage would be controllable. The battle he had so ardently sought had not turned out to his liking, and now his thoughts soured.

  The desperate turn made by the German ships to port now sent them both off on a heading of about 80 degrees east. Meanwhile, Tovey’s last turn to fire his starboard side torpedoes had taken him around to 270 degrees west. The two sides were now running away from one another at a combined speed of over 60 knots, which increased the range by 1850 meters per minute, taking the interval from about 12,000 meters to just over 17,000 meters in three minutes.

  Invincible then turned hard to starboard again, as Tovey needed to get his main guns into action. The ship swung around in a wide turn until he was heading nearly due north, but the Hindenburg ran on to the east still opening the range.

  This entire action was still well to the southwest of the position where Rodney was foundering, and slowly capsizing into the sea. For another ten minutes, the two sides exchanged fire, with no further hits being scored. During that interval, the range opened another 8600 meters, before the thick smoke of the long running gun duel shrouded the entire scene with heavy haze. The gun directors and spotters could no longer get an accurate sighting, and the last salvo fired by Invincible, her 48th, ended the action.

  Aboard that ship, a runner came with messages from Captain Patterson. Flag Lieutenant Villers took it and went to Tovey, his expression hopeful. “King George V and Prince of Wales report they are now thirty miles to our northwest. And better yet, sir, they say they were just overflown by planes off our carriers. Apparently Powers and Tuck are getting close enough to matter.”

  He was referring to Captain Gerald Tuck on Illustrious and Captain Arthur John Powers on Ark Royal. Both these carriers had been following in the wake of the oncoming battleships, and were only now coming in range to get their planes off.

  “It’s starting to feel like I’m actually commanding a fleet again,” said Tovey, inwardly relieved that he had come through the mad rush and fire of the battle with relatively little damage. He had been outgunned, yet he fought his ship to take advantage of every innovation in her design, and battled two strong German ships to what must now be considered a draw here. But what to do?

  “Radar has the Germans coming around towards 180 sir,” said Villers.

  “South?” Tovey seemed surprised. Either the Germans were unaware of what was happening further east with Rodney, or Lütjens had some other reason for making this turn. He did not know that Lütjens had nothing to do with the decision, and that Adler had decided to look for the Tirpitz.

  That ship, along with Scharnhorst, had fought another inconclusive running duel with the two British battlecruisers that took them well away from Hindenburg’s action, eventually forcing them to break off. Topp had then turned, thinking he might again eventually find the Rodney, but soon seeing that his squadron was now well south of her last reported position. He sent a message to the Hindenburg advising him of his status, and Adler had a good long w
hile to think things over. He decided to rendezvous with Topp, call in Prinz Eugen and the destroyer Thor from their rescue mission near the sinking Graff Zeppelin, and then proceed to the Bay of Biscay. The loss of most of his air cover, and the report that British planes had been spotted by the few fighters he had aloft from the Goeben, both weighed heavily in his decision.

  Adler was now looking to get closer to land based air power, and the safety of ports on the French coast. In doing so, he would also be keeping well east of the remaining British battleships, for after his engagement, he did not now relish the thought of four more British heavyweights coming on the scene if he lingered here.

  Tovey waited, thinking to shadow his enemy now until the remaining battleships under Patterson and Holland could join him. He soon received a message from the Argos Fire that gave him the exact positions of all the German ships, and he was able to quickly see what they were now doing.

  “By Jove, I think we’ve beaten them, Villers,” he said with a smile as he leaned over the plotting table. “From the look of these course tracks, I would say they are running for France now.”

  “Apparently so sir,” said Villers. “Will we give chase?”

  Tovey thought for a minute. The gladiators had met, and fought the good fight in the center of the ring. Both would survive to fight another day, though both had wounds to heal.

  “Patterson and Holland have been at sea a good long while.” He said. “A pity those ships don’t have longer legs. They’ll be needing fuel soon, and chasing the Germans into the Bay of Biscay would also neutralize our current advantage with air cover. No. I think if we can get in a few licks with the carriers, all the better, but otherwise the fleet will be needing fuel to continue operations. We’d do better to consolidate and head for our base in the Azores. Then we stand our watch again, and see if Lütjens wants any further argument with the Royal Navy.