Winter Warriors

by Stuart Slade

  “Orders going out by signal lamp now, Sir.”

  “Very good.” Knudson waited for the ‘message received and understood’ acknowledgments then gave the order he’d been waiting all his professional life to give. “To all ships. Battle stations.”

  CHAPTER FOUR: FIRST SNOWFALL

  F8F-1 Bearcat Eleanor Over the North Atlantic.

  He was hunting reconnaissance aircraft again. This time his prey was a very different type of scout bird with a different mission. The Me-264 he’d taken part in killing earlier had been a maritime patrol aircraft out searching the Atlantic for whatever was out there. Now, he was hunting scout planes from a carrier; launched to find his floating airbase for a follow-up strike. He and the other Bearcat pilots were being steered in by radio from the scouts of Task Force 58 to the north. A professional courtesy, really. Given the number of fighters TF58 had available, a few scout planes were hardly anything for them to worry about. For Hunter-Killer Group Sitka, with a total air group of 32 Bearcats and 22 Avengers split between the two CVEs, even a small strike was a significant threat. More than half those Bearcats were up now, trying to bring down the German scouts.

  One scout was below Eleanor. A Ju-87 cruised below the clouds, looking for an enemy task group. It was a reasonable certainty that it was hunting bigger game than a pair of CVEs and a handful of destroyers but that wouldn’t matter too much. Even experienced naval pilots had a hard time telling the difference between one class of a ship and another. There were too many stories of cases of mistaken identity, some amusing, others tragic. The German pilots were skilled and well-trained, but they weren’t naval pilots. To them, one aircraft carrier would look much like another and there would be precious little difference between a destroyer and a battleship. The little jeep carriers and their destroyers would look like much bigger game. So, the Ju-87s had to go.

  Pace took his Bearcat down in a long sweeping dive. The Ju-87 crew was scanning the sea below for the tell-tale wakes of the formation. They never saw the threat coming from above until it was almost too late. The rear gunner woke up to the two fighters closing in on him and grabbed his twin machine guns in a hurry. The first streams of tracer went wild, more of a threat to the gunner’s own aircraft than anything else. The second burst was much better aimed. It licked around the two diving Bearcats; tracers passed beside and between them. Pace aligned his pipper carefully, just ahead of the German aircraft’s nose, and squeezed off a burst. To his frustration, just as he fired, the Ju-87 slid to one side and appeared to drop out of the air. It was still as a dive bomber; diving was something it did well. Pace’s burst of fire went wild. A split second later, his wingman laced the air with his .50 calibers as well, equally unsuccessfully. That left only one option.

  The Bearcats followed the Ju-87 down. It pulled away from them in the wild dive but no matter how skilled the pilot, there was an absolute limit to how long an aircraft could dive. The German pilot left his pull-out as late as he dared and his plane skimmed the sea surface when he was in level flight. That was the idea of course, to get as low as possible so that the American fighters couldn’t get at him from below and behind. Pace was less reckless about how late he left his pull-out. Since he was going to be coming in from above again, there was no point in cutting things fine. Once again, he lined the pipper in his gunsight ahead of the Ju-87s nose. It was different now, the German aircraft was wallowing in the aftermath of its dive. His tracers stitched into the target’s nose and then Pace walked them along the fuselage, first shattering the glasshouse cockpit, then marching back towards the tail. The Ju-87 didn’t have far to go, the sea was only a few feet below.

  The ditching was good. The fixed undercarriage broke off on impact and the plane came to a halt bobbing on the waves. Pace and his wingman swept past then arched up and away, coming around for a strafing pass. They held their fire, there was no sign of movement from the settling aircraft. Before they overflew it, the aircraft rolled to port, one crooked wing lifting in a last gesture of defiance before the Ju-87 sank.

  “Sitka-One. This is Eagle-Three. Bandit is splashed. Say again, bandit is splashed.”

  “Acknowledged Eagle-Three. Return immediately to rearm and refuel.” Pace’s eyebrows went up at the message. Hunter-Killer Group Sitka was transmitting. That meant lights-on had been given and the group was radiating. Radar, radio, whatever was needed. Including the homing beacons which was a relief. However, lights-on meant the group had been spotted. That was very definitely not a relief. Stalingrad, aka Sitka-One, was calling her fighters home to face an expected attack. That was more than a lack of a relief; that was downright disturbing.

  Bridge, KMS Graf Zeppelin, Flagship, Scouting Group, High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic

  “Sir, we’ve lost contact with six of the scout aircraft. The ones covering the arc 240 to 312 degrees.”

  “That gives us a rough fix. They didn’t spot anything I assume?” Admiral Ernst Brinkmann didn’t have much hope of that. All too often, the rough fix given by their destruction was the only information a recon aircraft gained. That’s why it was called a flaming datum.

  “Sir, Metox reports enemy radar transmissions. Airborne radars; a lot of them. Same frequency as their search radar, the one the U-boatmen hate.”

  Brinkmann winced inside. That was news he didn’t want to hear. Back in’43, the snorkel had been the great hope of the submarine fleet. It would allow the U-boats to run submerged all the time and avoid the air patrols that had decimated them. Then, the Americans had brought in a new radar; one that could pick up a snorkel head at ranges of dozens of kilometers. Of course, that meant it could pick up larger targets at much longer ranges. There had been whispers that American scout planes had the same radar so they wouldn’t have to close with an enemy formation and die the way the German scout aircraft were dying.

  Brinkmann damned the Americans. Ever since they had entered the war, things had changed. They had an avalanche of material: tanks, guns, planes, ships. Everything needed to fight in such profusion it didn‘t matter how much was destroyed. A division of tanks gone? Call up Detroit and double production for next month. Need a radar for every scout aircraft? No problem, call the factory and tell them to get moving. There isn‘t a factory? No problem, build another one. Brinkmann had heard that Eastern Siberia was being filled with American-built factories; whole towns and cities created out of the open steppes, peopled by the refugees from the west. It was so unfair. We went to war with Russia knowing that Russian industrial might was in the west. Destroy or capture it and the war would be over. How were we to know that the Russians would move it? Or that the Americans would replace what had been lost ten times over.

  The Americans had even done the impossible; they’d rammed a railway through Afghanistan to feed munitions directly to the Russian troops fighting in the South. Oh, Brinkmann knew that the newsreels had shown the Afghan railway being built by the Indians alone. They’d shown tens of thousands of Indian laborers digging their way along the rivers and through the passes to build the tracks but he didn’t believe it. An engineering feat like that had to be the Americans; the Indians just didn’t have that ability. An uneasy thought stirred in his mind. If the Indians had built the Afghan Railway by themselves, if they did have that ability, then what did that say about Germany’s claim to Aryan supremacy? He squashed the thought down, even having such ideas was dangerous.

  “They’ve seen us. Get the strike off now. Tell the pilots to head out on course 270, find the enemy and attack. Once the strike is off and our decks are clear, get the reserve fighters up and off.”

  “Sir, we don’t have time. If the enemy have spotted us, they must be launching now. They’ll be with us within the hour. By the time we’ve launched our strike, got the fighters up on deck, warmed up their engines, and started to launch, they’ll be right on top of us. If

  we’re caught with armed and fuelled aircraft on our decks.....”

  There was no need for Dietrich to complete the
thought. Fire was the great fear of every aircraft carrier. German newsreels had been full of the U-boat’s greatest score. The American aircraft carrier Enterprise had been torpedoed almost within New York harbor itself. The pyre of smoke from her death-blaze had towered over the city. Great propaganda but also a terrible lesson. Fire killed carriers.

  “Then launch them cold.”

  Dietrich’s face froze. Launching the aircraft with cold engines meant that some wouldn’t make it. They’d lose power at the wrong moment, go into the sea and be ran down by the carrier they’d just left. The order to launch the aircraft with cold engines meant condemning some of their pilots to death. “But Sir......”

  “Not buts. Launch them cold.” Brinkmann softened; he knew what he was asking. “There is an Ami task group out there. Four carriers, almost 400 aircraft. We have to get our blow in first. We also have to have every fighter we can up. If our fighters are not up in time, they will be destroyed in their hangars. Launch them, Erich. We must have them up in time to meet the Americans. Whatever it costs.

  HMCS “Ontario” Flagship, Troop Convoy WS-18 en route from Churchill to Murmansk

  “What are the plans if it all goes wrong Admiral?”

  Captain Charles Povey had every reason to be concerned. There was no pretence about the situation out here. Troop Convoy WS-18, Winston’s Special 18, was bait. Only part of the bait, that was true. The main portion was supply convoy PQ-17, no less than 250 merchant ships packed into a box 16 ships wide by 16 deep. Not all the ships in that box were merchantmen. There were two battleships in there, Arizona and Nevada. PQ-17 was a slow convoy; it could afford to have the battleships along. WS-18 was a fast convoy, very fast by merchant ship standards. The five liners, carrying the 40,000 Canadian soldiers that were the whole reason for the convoy, were holding a steady speed of 25 knots. That was fast enough to give even the German Type XXIs a very hard time. Only, that meant no battleships as escorts, only cruisers and destroyers.

  “We scatter the convoy of course. The liners will run for it, they’re faster than the battleships anyway. Then, we take Quebec and the destroyers to attack the German fleet. Buy the liners time to get clear. God willing, it won’t come to that. Not with all the carriers and planes the Yanks have waiting.”

  It sounded hopeful; it was a reasonable hope. The Americans had their entire carrier striking force moving into assault the German fleet. If nothing went wrong, if the strikes found their target, the German ships would never see either of the two convoys. Even if they didn’t, the Germans would run into PQ-17 and its battleships first. Not that those two ancient battlewagons would stand much of a chance against the German monsters. They’d die fighting, just like WS-18’s escort would die fighting, if they had to.

  Ontario had a score to settle. She’d started life as HMS Kenya and had ran for Canada as part of the Great Escape. There had been two sister-ships for the Canadian Navy building in British yards, neither complete enough to make the run. The original Ontario had still been on the slips at Harland and Wolff: she’d been very thoroughly blown up. The original Quebec had a more unusual fate. She’d been fitting-out at Vickers-Armstrong’s Tyneside yard when the Germans seized her. They’d fussed around her for a few days while the dockies carried on with their work.

  Then, the Germans had ordered them all off; apparently intending to tow her to Germany for completion. She’d left under tow. A few hours later, she foundered, sinking beyond any possible recovery given the resources available. Nobody knew officially what had happened. She’d been in the hands of a prize crew who had supposedly secured her for sea. There had been courts-martial over that. The rumor was that the rivets fastening the hull plating under her engine rooms had been drilled out, replaced by soap and painted over. As the ship moved, the paint peeled away, the soap dissolved and a large section of the bottom of the hull had dropped off. It was only a rumor of course.

  Anyway, the Royal Navy had offered the Canadian Navy Kenya and Fiji to replace the lost ships. The Canadians had accepted; the Royals had too few men to provide them with crews. But there was a strange air about Kenya that her Canadian crew had noticed as soon as they had taken her over. The ship had an atmosphere of bitterness; as if she knew of tasks left undone. Ontario was a good ship. She seemed pleased to put to sea, reluctant to return to port. Povey just hoped he wouldn’t have to take his ship in to fight the whole German battlefleet. Finishing off a few destroyers, or pounding a German cruiser to scrap, that would be good. Perhaps it would make Ontario feel better.

  Admiral Vian looked at the five stately liners plowing through the waves behind him. If everything did go wrong, he would have to come up with a battleplan that gave two light cruisers and a dozen ASW destroyers a fighting chance against the whole German Navy. That was a interesting professional challenge.

  Over the Scouting Group, High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic.

  The last of the German fighters never really made it into the battle. They were still climbing after launch, their cold engines laboring with the effort, when the American FV-2s slashed into their formations. The American pilots had already firewalled their throttles. In terms of initial position, they had the speed and height advantage. The price they paid was that they were fighting with one eye on their fuel gauges. The gas-guzzling jets had nothing like the endurance of the piston-engined birds. The Shooting Stars were designed to carry wingtip tanks, the FV-1 had small ones that actually made a slight improvement on the performance of the aircraft in addition to the fuel they carried so the pilots had kept them on when dogfights started. Range was still too short though; so when the FV-2 had arrived, the smaller tanks had been discarded in favor of an improvised “Thule Tank.” Those had twice the fuel capacity but its length and weight over-stressed the wings. So the American aircraft had dropped their tanks as they approached the German ships. That left them short on fuel compared with the Corsairs but there were plenty of those bent-wing, piston-engined birds following behind. They’d finish the job if the Flivvers left anything behind them.

  The German CAP had 32 aircraft up. Two had been lost when their engines had faltered on takeoff. One pilot had drowned under the Voss as she plowed over the sinking Ta-152. The other had better luck. He’d managed to swerve to one side and the destroyer Z-16 picked him up. Those 32 aircraft were hit by twice that number of FV-2s. Protecting the ships underneath was quickly forgotten as the German pilots fought to survive.

  The odds against them, bad to start with, were escalating fast. The FV-2s picked off the weakest and most vulnerable of their foes. The days of chivalry, of a seeking a ‘fair fight,’ had long gone. The Navy pilots in their dark blue Flivvers did what all skilled fighter pilots did; they picked out the most vulnerable of the possible targets, separated him, then swept in and scored the kill. Twelve of the Ta-152s died that way, their aircraft ripped up by the concentrated firepower of the six .50 machine guns closely grouped in the Shooting Star’s nose.

  FV-2 Shooting Star Flicka

  The fighters that hit the climbing Ta-152s had scored big, but their dive had taken them out of the battle. It would take the more than two dozen FV-2s time to climb back up and rejoin the dogfight. In the meantime, the remaining American fighters were on their own. Lieutenant James Talen was painfully aware of that. His section of FV-2s had picked out a group of four Ta-152s and tried to bounce them but they’d been spotted on the way in. The German pilots had hit their throttles and kicked in the GM-1 and MW-50 boost that made up for some of the performance deficit inherent in trying to fight jets with piston-engined aircraft. Ahead of him, the section of Ta-152s had split, trying to scissor the attacking FV-2s. Well, there was an answer to that. Talen dipped his speed brake causing the jet to slow sharply. Then he yanked his bird around in a sharp, savage turn that made his vision start to gray out. The gray went red as he reversed his turn and through the changing colors he saw a Ta-152 drift across his nose.

  The German fighters were going for the lead section of FV-2s and
had already scored, their heavy cannon armament tore two of the lead FV-2s apart in mid-air. Talen’s section evened the score on the spot. His own machine guns shredded a Ta-152s from nose to tail as it flashed past. His wing man scored a less spectacular but equally deadly kill. His burst was short and sharp and it scored exactly where it mattered most. The enemy cockpit disintegrated in shower of shattered Perspex and ripped metal. Somewhere in that mess, the German pilot died with his aircraft.

  Talen heaved back the stick and poured on as much power as he had, climbing out of the dogfight. Nobody hung around in a furball, none who wanted to live anyway. The smart guys got in, scored their kills and got out. That’s what Talen did. His FV-2 outclimbed the Ta-152s by almost 1,000 feet per minute and they were left behind. His section was out and clear. Time to look for another victim.

  Ta-15 2F Blue-Three

  Jets were fast, but they had a problem. Their speed and their wing loading meant they were less agile than the Ta-152s. Lieutenant Meissen was well aware of that. He also knew that the surging power from his engine wasn’t going to last much longer. He had five minutes worth of GM-1 boost and about twice as much MW-50. Once that was gone, his Ta-152 would be weighed down by the empty tanks and now-useless boost equipment. Most skilled German pilots preferred the older FW-190D-9 to the Ta-152. When both aircraft were without the engine boost, the Dora-nine was a lot more agile. The problem was there were so few skilled German pilots left. The experten, Hartmann, Marseille, Molders, were all gone, swallowed up by the Russian Front. So, the novices and the average pilots who were left, they flew the Ta-152 and hoped its engine boost would let them survive. The boost also wrecked the engines but Meissen had a shrewd suspicion that wasn’t going to matter too much.