“Bismarck had been leading earlier?” asked Kelly.
“Yes,” Paul confirmed. “She was the principle unit involved and headquarters for Admiral Lütjens. So this little Pushpoint on the radar failure saw the ships changing position. That doesn’t sound like much but a few hours later it was to have a major effect on the campaign. The British had dispatched two battleships to try and intercept Bismarck. One was HMS Hood, the pride of the fleet and the terror of all the German war games when they simulated maneuvers prior to this battle. Admiral Holland commanded her as his flagship. She had eight fifteen inch guns, same as Bismarck, and she was accompanied by the latest addition to the British fleet, HMS Prince of Wales. That ship had ten fourteen inch guns, though being new she had teething troubles. Even put out to sea with dockyard workers aboard to screw down the loose bolts.”
“So the odds were building up in favor of the British,” said Robert. “They had two cruisers behind the Germans, and now two battleships vectoring in on them as well.”
“Exactly,” said Paul. “Well, the engagement that soon followed was the now famous Battle of the Denmark Strait. The two German ships engaged the two British battleships. The cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk were still shadowing but not yet in firing range. Now here’s what I meant about that radar fluke…. Spotting the Germans in the grey dawn, the British assumed that Bismarck was in the lead, just as the command ship Hood was leading the way in the British task force.”
“But couldn’t they tell the difference between a battleship and a cruiser?” asked Kelly.
“One might think so, given the experience of the men involved. But the two ship silhouettes looked very much alike, and with Prince Eugen leading she was much closer, so her silhouette appeared to be about the same size as Bismarck’s. Admiral Holland gave the order to fire on the lead ship, assuming it was Bismarck. See how this house of cards is stacking up? That radar glitch meant that Holland had selected the wrong target, as Bismarck was naturally the greater threat. But he was opening fire on Prince Eugen instead.”
“I see what you mean,” said Maeve.
“It goes on and on,” said Paul. “Thankfully, Prince of Wales realized the error and her captain decided to disobey Admiral Holland’s order and fired on Bismarck. But Hood was still targeting the smaller German cruiser throughout the battle. They never redirected fire.”
“So now we get one spotting error balanced out by one man’s choice to disobey his orders here,” said the professor.
“Yes,” said Paul. “The captain of Prince Eugen also should have fallen off to the leeward side and let Bismarck take the lead in the battle. This was standard procedure for a cruiser in this sort of engagement, but for some reason, he elected to keep station in the lead. So his ship ended up dividing the available British firepower between both German targets. Then Admiral Holland divided it further by turning at a steeper angle to try and close the distance between the two sides faster. Hood was an older ship, built in 1918, and she did not have much in the way of deck armor. This made her vulnerable to the plunging fire she would receive from Bismarck at longer ranges. Holland figured that if he closed range the angle of the arc on incoming enemy shells would be shallower, striking her side armor if Hood was hit. In the end his tactic was a textbook Royal Navy maneuver, but the result of the battle underscored the weakness of his deck armor. That said, this more direct approach weakened his firepower further, as his aft turrets could not engage effectively.”
“So the British advantage in big guns was rapidly diminishing,” said Robert. “Oh, I remember this now! The Hood blows up!”
“She does indeed,” Paul confirmed. “She was struck amidships by one of Bismarck’s big shells, and it went right through that wooden deck and ignited her main magazine. The resulting explosion broke her in two and she sunk within minutes, taking all but three survivors to a proverbial watery grave.”
“So Admiral Holland had the right idea, but couldn’t close the range before Hood suffered this fatal hit.” said Maeve.
“Now the odds shift dramatically to the Germans,” said Kelly.
“Right,” Paul went on. “After a moment of proverbial shock and awe, the Prince of Wales was also hit and decided discretion was the better part of valor here. She began to make smoke and turned away, but she did manage to score a hit on Bismarck as she disengaged. Amazingly, the shell penetrated one of the battleship’s fuel bunkers, contaminating it with seawater. It wasn’t a serious hit, but it cost Lütjens 200 more tons of fuel, and now his earlier decisions not to refuel at Bergen, or rendezvous with that oiler, become serious matters. He realized that he did not now have the fuel to make a successful sortie into the North Atlantic convoy zones, so after transiting the Denmark Strait, he decided to turn east and head for the safety of a French port.”
“I see what you mean,” said Maeve. “Bad choices, mistaken identity, a fluky fuel hose, lucky hits on both sides—“
“And that damn radar thing,” said Kelly.
“And I note that HMS Hood was the same ship that bombarded the port of Oran earlier. Correct?”
“I thought you’d note that little detail,” said Paul. “Yes, HMS Hood led Force H, and she was commanded by then Admiral Somerville at the time, with Captain Ralph Kerr. Somerville is also commander of Force H during the campaign against Bismarck, though Hood had been detached by then.”
“There’s no way we could ever know, but what if it was a shell from Hood that fell on Kasim’s house in Oran and killed his wife and daughter?”
“It has that spooky echo of rhyming history about it,” said Robert. “Are you suggesting that the Assassins had a hand in the outcome of this battle—that Hood’s loss was arranged for vengeance?”
“That would be hard to do,” said Maeve, “but the fact is, in a very quirky engagement rife with all these Pushpoints, the ship that led the attack on the French fleet goes down big time.”
They digested that for a moment, but no one could yet see any clear connection between the events at Oran in 1940 and this engagement the following year. As chilling as it seemed, they did not believe in curses.
“Let’s let that sleeping hound of paradox lie for now,” said Paul. “There’s more suspicious activity later in this campaign to consider. The British were shocked by the loss of the Hood, but true to form they just buckled down and pulled out all the stops to vector in more assets. Force H was still operating out of Gibraltar, so they brought that north with some cruisers, destroyers and the carrier Ark Royal. Then they still had King George V off to the southwest with another big lumbering battleship that was pulled off convoy escort duty, the HMS Rodney. She wasn’t fast enough to match Bismarck, but she did have big sixteen inch guns. If the British could team up those ships they could again get a fairly good advantage over the two German ships with any help from the lighter vessels they had at their disposal.”
“But wasn’t Bismarck alone when she was finally sunk,” asked Kelly, “at least in our history?”
“She was,” said Paul. “Admiral Lütjens made another questionable decision. Unwilling to accept that his convoy raiding operation was stopped, he decided to split his force and send the Prince Eugen on her way to raid convoys alone while he turned back for France. I suppose he reasoned that this would also divide the British assets, but in this case I think it was a stupid decision. The British usually had at least two cruisers or a battleship with every convoy. Prince Eugen could not prove a very serious threat against that defense. In fact, a cruiser raider had standing orders only to attack targets where she could expect no significant opposition. So Lütjens was after sour grapes, and all he did was weaken his task force and make each lone ship more vulnerable. Nonetheless, he turned Bismarck back to threaten Norfolk and Suffolk and covered the escape of Prince Eugen. Now the German Battleship was alone. He shook off the two cruisers shortly after that, and here’s another quirk, he did not even realize he had done so!”
“Well he already had a fairly significant
victory here,” said Robert.
“True,” Paul agreed. “But that made him careless. He sent a 30 minute radio signal to Germany to crow about his victory, and the British were able to use radio detection gear to re-locate his ship.”
“Get your laurels while you can,” said Maeve. “He was probably trying to also justify his decision to return to France.”
“That’s very likely,” said Paul. “Now, here’s where we get another big Pushpoint. As Bismarck steams east to Brest, she is well ahead of the pursuing British battleships, perhaps by 150 miles or so. But that annoying hit on her oil bunker slows her down again when the Brits launch a torpedo attack from one of their carriers.”
“Well hell,” said Kelly. “A carrier should be able to blast that ship out of the water.”
“These were not like the US carriers you may be familiar with from the Pacific theater,” said Paul. They might be no more than smaller escort carriers by comparison, and they were flying fairly rickety old by-planes, the main torpedo bomber being called the Swordfish. These looked more like older World War One planes, with linen canvas siding. They were still a threat, but far less capable than the planes flying from American carriers in the Pacific. Yet, in the end, it was one of these old Swordfish that sealed Bismarck’s fate. There were two Pushpoints stacked one on top of another for that to happen.”
“Two Pushpoints?”
“Right,” said Paul. “The first was another case of mistaken identity. When Force H headed north from Gibraltar the task force actually found itself north of Bismarck’s course to Brest. The hunt began, and this force detached a cruiser, HMS Sheffield, to steam ahead and see if it could find the German ship to the south, with orders to shadow her if she did so. Bismarck was spotted and the carrier Ark Royal launched fifteen Swordfish to go after her with torpedoes. As they approached they were saw a ship below, steaming alone, and thinking it must be Bismarck, they swooped in to attack—but it was Sheffield.”
“They couldn’t recognize their own damn ship?” said Robert.
“Well Admiral Somerville, the Commander of Force H, had ordered Sheffield to close and shadow Bismarck. He informed Ark Royal, but when the coded message came in it was set aside in a pile of signals awaiting translation. The pilots were briefed before takeoff and told the Bismarck was the only ship in the area. By the time the message was de-coded and sent down to the flight deck the Swordfish were already in the air. Ark Royal eventually signaled ‘look out for Sheffield,’ and they sent it out in clear uncoded English, but the strike flight didn’t receive it until after they had already made their attack on the British cruiser.”
“Damn!” said Kelly. “Another case of mistaken identity. Just like that stuff that happened in the battle of Midway. Ever read Miracle at Midway?”
“Sure,” said Paul. “And this was another little miracle right here. The Swordfish come in on attack. Sheffield holds her fire and tries to maneuver. As fortune had it, she was not hit, and a good number of the torpedoes exploded on contact with the water. Others exploded simply by encountering Sheffield’s wake. It appears they had been fitted with quirky magnetic detonators, called ‘pistols’ back then, and when the planes got back to the carrier the pilots reported the misfires, so the British decided to re-arm with older contact pistols for a second go at Bismarck. If these planes had found the German ship instead of Sheffield, it is likely their attack would have failed. But this second spotting error now meant they would be carrying more reliable torpedoes, dramatically increasing their odds of success.”
Maeve nodded gravely, amazed by the way all these small events were holding the tapestry of the whole campaign together. “So we get a bushel of stuff here,” she said—a message delayed ever so briefly results in a second case of mistaken ship identity, and then these quirky magnetic detonators.”
Nordhausen was reading something from his notes and he made as if to say something, but Paul went on with his story. “That’s the first Pushpoint cluster,” he said. “And actually, I think it is the most decisive lever on these events. This incident with Sheffield was essential to the action that followed.”
“I was going to say—“
“Now the second Pushpoint is in the final attack on Bismarck by these Swordfish.” Paul cut the professor off, eager to finish his tale. “They re-arm and another flight takes off. This time they have orders to first find Sheffield again, then follow her heading to locate the Bismarck. This they do, coming upon the German ship to make this last, desperate attempt to stop her so the pursuing British Battleships can catch up. Using the more reliable contact detonators, they score a couple hits. One strikes Bismarck amidships on her heavy belt armor and does little damage, but the second is a proverbial lucky shot that decides everything. It strikes Bismarck astern, damaging her rudder as she was turning to avoid it. In fact, if Bismarck had just maintained course this torpedo would have probably struck her side armor as well and done far less damage. But as it happened, Bismarck turned, and that sent the torpedo right into her rudder. It also damaged a propeller there. Her speed was immediately reduced and she was unable to steer. The mighty Bismarck was now simply steaming in circles with a jammed rudder.”
“And the rest is history,” said Kelly.
“Yes,” said Paul. “The British harass her with destroyers all night, and the following morning the British show up with two battleships King George V, and Rodney, and an number of smaller ships. They were too much for the exhausted crew of the Bismarck to contend with. She was hit several times, and after losing all her main guns to battle damage, the Germans scuttled her. The British thought they had finished her off with torpedoes from their cruisers and destroyers, but James Cameron took an ROV down to the wreck and discovered that none of those hits caused internal flooding damage.”
Robert cleared his throat to get attention at last. “Well I hate to break it to you,” he said “but in the data I harvested with the Arion system there is no case of mistaken identity concerning the Sheffield.” He was confirming the data on the history module even as Paul finished.
The others looked at him, and Paul raised his eyebrows. His gut assumption had been correct, and the professor went on, confirming his suspicions.
“Yes,” said Robert. “That first flight never attacks Sheffield in the altered history. They go right on to strike Bismarck instead. And just as you have indicated most of the torpedoes misfire and they score only one insignificant hit. The German ship shrugs it off and steams on for Brest. By the time the Swordfish get back to the carrier and rearm the worsening weather and darkness force them to call off a second strike. Bismarck escapes.”
“And she lays up for repairs at Brest to sortie out six weeks later,” said Maeve.
“Where she sinks the Prospector in Convoy OS-85 bound for Alexandria,” said Kelly. “Taking Lieutenant Thomason to the bottom of the sea.”
“And so one Kasim al Khafi survives his stint with the Afrika Korps and lives on to sire an illegitimate son who takes down the flank of Cumbre Vieja on Palma and the world we know changes forever.” He put his hands in his pocket, fingering his key ring as he often did when thinking. “I think we found our mission,” he said calmly. “It’s just that I’m not exactly sure how we can put things back the way they were. Sinking the Bismarck, as we have seen, is no small matter.”
Chapter 6
Lawrence Berkeley Labs, Arch Complex – Tuesday, 7:20 PM
“What happened to Sheffield?” said Paul. “That seems to be the key question now.”
“There are only a few possibilities,” said Maeve. “Either she doesn’t get sent to shadow the Bismarck by Somerville, or the planes get that message decoded before they attack her.”
“Somerville may be a Prime,” said Paul. “An officer of his rank made too many key decisions to try and meddle with him. His choice to dispatch Sheffield was wise and probably not something anyone could talk him out of, unless there was a pressing need for the ship to be elsewhere.”
“Nothing that I noted in the history,” said Nordhausen.
“Are you checking everything? All the books on the subject and the web sites as well?”
“Shirer, Forester, Kennedy, the lot of them,” said the professor. And I’ve got a search programmed for the web sites, both German and British sources. They just don’t mention much about Sheffield. There was no threat to Force H either, as far as I can see.”
“That’s very odd,” said Paul, quite troubled now.
“OK,” said Maeve, “if we leave Somerville alone then we’re probably looking farther down the pecking order on Ark Royal.”
“The radio room,” said Paul. “There was a lot of message traffic, and the message informing Ark Royal that Sheffield was going hunting was set aside for a time. There’s several sources on that. See if you can find anything on it, Robert.”
“That does sound like a good intervention point,” Maeve agreed. “You would just want to get that message to the top of the stack—just a shuffling of paper in the radio room.”
“Yet there would be no guarantee that the decoders would act on it,” said Paul. “They could pick it up, note it as being of a routine nature, and then just set it aside if there were more urgent messages—spotting reports or changes in ship position for example.”
“What about that message that was broadcast in the clear,” said Maeve. “Look out for Sheffield! If it were to be sent out a few minutes earlier, then the planes may have been forewarned.”
“That sounds promising as well,” said Paul. “It would mean someone would have to have access to the radio room, on one ship or another.”
“What, just waltz right in to an obviously busy radio room and say, excuse me gentlemen but I’ve got to make an unauthorized transmission—in the clear, uncoded, if you please.”
Golem 7 (Meridian Series) Page 5