Second Front (Kirov Series Book 24)

by John Schettler

  The feast had begun, and all the drama and hand wringing of the surface action counted for naught. The heavy ships with their thunderous guns would not weigh in on this little battle. It was just a single U-boat, reveling in the midst of those merchant ships, and the torment of PQ-17 was only just beginning. Yet out on the glowering grey to the south, three British destroyers had seen the explosions, particularly when Hoosier was finally hit. Ashanti, Martin and Onslaught were racing to the scene as fast as their screws would turn. Reche would notch three kills, with Daniel Morgan and Hoosier still afloat and burning, near dead in the water, but his joyride through the convoy would soon come to a most unhappy end.

  Chapter 15

  Kapitan Krancke was still not satisfied, but things were getting a little better. After sinking the Hartlebury, he had turned to stalk the Allied convoy again from behind, coming upon yet another straggler, the Honomu. He wasted little time, engaging and sinking that ship with his 152mm guns. Yet the wireless operator had gotten off a distress call, warning that the German raider was back in the hunt, which now posed a real problem for the covering forces, just over 150 nautical miles to the east. There was nothing to be done in the short run, but Hood abandoned its planned rendezvous, and Holland decided to take his entire group west to investigate.

  In the meantime, the German surface group had passed on south, with Scharnhorst slowly towing the Tirpitz under good German air cover. Admiral Carls decided he could then detach his fast raiders, and sent Rhineland and Westfalen northwest. Two groups of Heinkels had sortied from Tromso an hour earlier, vectored in to the location of the convoy by Reche’s boat before it went missing. There they found and bombed the Winston Salem, which exploded spectacularly when its cargo of ammunition was set off by an 800 pound bomb. That ship would sink in short order, and though two of the six Heinkels were shot down, the remaining four headed home, surprised to find ships beneath them as they approached the Norwegian coast. They had found the British cruisers detached earlier, and now cruising about 130 miles off the coast.

  This sighting led to the sortie of yet another Kondor to keep an eye on them and fix their position, and when Kapitan Böhmer on the Peter Strasser learned their location, he decided to do something about it with his last six Stukas. They were up in short order, heading southwest where they were vectored in by the Kondor.

  The restless Captain of Sheffield, Wesley Clark, was getting quite uncomfortable with all these German planes overflying his position, and no friendly air cover in sight. He put in a coded message to the Ark Royal, complaining, and was soon told a pair of Fireflies were on the way… but they would arrive too late.

  Those six Stukas found the wounded warriors, and focused their attack on Kent, each with a pair of 500 pound bombs. With Kent slowed to 8 knots, unable to maneuver, four of the twelve bombs would score hits, with another near miss only 20 feet off the port side. That was going to end the war for that ship, and the doughty cruiser went down at a few minutes before midnight on the end of that very long day’s action.

  Clark stared at it, knowing he could not linger here, but seeing the men in the water, and realizing he had to do what he could to help them. But the trouble was only just beginning. Those two German raiders detached by Admiral Carls had sallied forth at good speed, just passing the British group in the murky grey. They spotted Sheffield, turned on a parallel course, angling in to close the range, which was about 27,000 meters at first sighting.

  The British cruiser soon had to abandon its rescue effort and put on all speed to make a run for it. Undaunted, the plucky minesweeper Halcyon would brave the enemy charge turning to fire with everything it had. It was a brave action, hoping to give Sheffield time to break away, but this time, Captain Singleton’s bluff would be called by the secondary guns of the Westfalen. His ship would take numerous hits, and was soon lost in the smoke they were trying to make, but would never be seen again.

  The combined fire of those two raiders was going to also put an end to Sheffield’s war, and the last hapless destroyer on that ill-fated group would die with her, the Marne. Captain Clark and Sheffield that had led the engagement the previous day, fighting bravely with Kent at her back. That cruiser had done what no man among them thought possible—it had stopped Tirpitz near dead in the water with that lucky hit. Now the two German raiders had their revenge, and Admiral Carl’s smiled when he got the news: “Sunk all ships in contacted group. Our compliments to the Admiral. Continuing on planned route.”

  When Holland got the news he clenched his fist. They were still just over 90 miles to the northeast, and too late to intervene. But he had a good idea where the German raiders were going now, angry at himself for not anticipating what the enemy had just pulled here.

  Damn their shadows, he thought. They broke off and ran for the coast under their land based air power. When I moved north to look for the Americans, they snookered me, running south along the Norwegian coast and then turning out to sea again. But I know where they’re going now, don’t I. Yes, and I’m a good deal closer to the main body of PQ-17 than they are, so let them come. They’ll find me waiting there with Hood if they get bold enough to approach. Then we’ll see them pay for what they did to Sheffield and Kent. Yes….

  * * *

  Krancke was pacing on the bridge of the Admiral Scheer. Ahead of him lay the entire British convoy, and here were a pair of impudent destroyers thinking to try and stop him. The action had started five minutes ago, hot and furious, with the sharp report of the 152mm secondary batteries resounding with each rapid salvo. He would show them what they were dealing with, and shook his head as they bravely dodged and maneuvered to get after him. But his gunners were too good. He would get them both, two more trophies to set on the shelf in payment for Lutzow, but they would be very valuable kills, destroyers Martin and Onslaught.

  As he approached the convoy from behind, he had already left the Winston Salem burning in his wake, damaged the boilers on William Hooper and set that ship on fire, but he had paid a price. The destroyers had put damage on his own engines, and the engineers were frantically trying to get it repaired. In that interval, his speed fell off to six knots, and he clenched his jaw, seeing the hulking merchant ships ahead actually slipping away.

  “Come on!” he shouted down the voice tube. “Get those engines turning over!”

  It was a long twenty minutes before he could work up to 14 knots again, and he steered north to run parallel to the convoy where he could pick them off at his leisure. Those 14 knots were just going to be good enough to give him that position, and now he could even bring his torpedo tubes to bear.

  “Let’s put a nice straight runner into that ship there,” he pointed, and minutes later that is what he did—the Troubadour would sing its swan song that hour, her hull blasted open by that torpedo. He smiled at that, the smell of the kill in the air. There he was, single handedly doing what Tirpitz and all the others had set out to do. He could see five more ships in this group, and four more eight miles ahead. He could run right alongside their formation, gunning them down. But his plans were to be interrupted by yet another British destroyer, charging in from the south all guns blazing, the Oribi.

  Thinking he would deal with this ship as easily as he had dispatched the last two, he was shocked when the enemy got in the first telling blows. “What are you doing?” he shouted at his chief gunnery officer. “You let them strike us like this? Get after that ship!”

  Admiral Sheer rocked again, with yet another hit, and now it seemed that almost all the secondary batteries on the starboard side of the ship had been put out of action. Some had light damage, some heavy, but none could return that fire. Oribi was even putting hits on his aft main turret, guns he would not normally used against a small, fast moving target like this.

  The man racing about like a wild banshee on Oribe was Captain John Edwin Home McBeath. Educated in South Africa, he had come to the Royal Navy as a 23 year old Boatswain’s Mate in 1928. Now a Captain of 37 years, he had
learned the fate of Martin and Onslaught, and was determined to cut off a pound of flesh from the enemy. Elated when he got those first hits, he swung about, making a high speed turn at near 36 knots, his forward batteries continuing to fire. Like an angry bees stinging a bear cub, he was putting so much damage on the superstructure of Admiral Scheer that Kapitan Krancke cursed aloud, then ordered a 15 point turn to the north, and all speed possible.

  Amazingly, the Oribe had driven off the German raider to lick its wounds and see if they could get those secondary batteries back in order. Then, realizing that the convoy was also being stalked by enemy U-boats, McBeath came about, not wanting to press his luck when he had the enemy on the run. He steered the ship south, and then a watchman spotted a periscope, very near the stricken merchant ship John Witherspoon. It looked as though the U-boat was diving deeper, intending to get right under the ship it had just torpedoed, and that was exactly what Kapitan Brandenburg was up to. It would not work—not with Oribi fired up and racing in for blood. Another explosion resounded to the northeast, where Bolton Castle was being hunted by Kapitan Timm on U-251.

  “Come on lads!” shouted McBeath. “Let’s get the bloody devils before they sink the whole lot!”

  He would.

  Oribi made a perfect ASW run, heedless of the risk to John Witherspoon, which was a doomed ship in any case. McBeath dropped numerous depth charges, shaking U-457 from stem to stern, until a bad leak started in the engine room, then another, and a third on the bridge. Flooding badly, Brandenburg had no choice but to surface, and when he did, Oribi was waiting for him.

  Just when it seemed that the defense was collapsing and the convoy would be ripped apart, this single British destroyer had pressed such a gallant and persistent attack that Oribi would drive off Scheer and sink U-457. A DSO was in order for McBeath, and one day, well after this war, they would place thick gold stripes on his cuff, call him “Admiral.”

  A lull settled over the action, the oil thick on the sea, the fires licking at it, and the men in the water rolling over with their suffering, the cold stopping their breath. Some died in those flames, others died from the frigid chill of the water. The group now under attack was an amalgam of PQ-17C and 17D. There had been 16 ships between them, but now there were only eight still underway. Among the stricken ships were Bolton Castle, Daniel Morgan, Grey Ranger, Hoosier, William Hooper, Winston Salem, Troubadour, and finally John Witherspoon. The stragglers Hartlebury and Honomu had also died that day, along with Kent, Sheffield, and three destroyers, Martin, Onslaught, Marne. The minesweeper Halcyon, her final bluff called, was also never seen again.

  It was as black a day as there had ever been in the war at sea, save the terrible losses off Fuerteventura. Added to these was the fact that Anson had also been forced to retire, but so had Tirpitz. With all those supply ships weighing heavily on the scales, the Admiralty was chilled to the bone when the day’s report came in, Admiral Pound excused himself from the conference table, retired to his private office, and locked the door. That would not spare him from receiving the final report on PQ-17. Of the 32 ships that had set out to make that dangerous run, only six would eventually make a Russian port with their cargo intact. What the German surface raiders had failed to destroy, was left for the planes out of Tromso, Petsamo and Kirkenes. The damage was so grave that the British immediately cancelled PQ-18, and all further Murmansk convoys for the foreseeable future.

  * * *

  Another man contemplated the day aboard the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst, Kurt Hoffmann. He was on the aft weather deck off the bridge, smoking a cigar as he often did, and thinking things over. Now he stood there, leaning on the gunwale and watching the wide dark shape of Tirpitz in his wake.

  Topp and the Admiral must be fit to be tied, he thought. Who would have thought I’d be towing Tirpitz home like this? We’ve also lost Lutzow, and more than one U-boat won’t be coming home. Yet there’s one consolation we take from this—not a single naval rocket was fired in all these engagements—not one. So the latest rumors on that demon we faced last year must be true. It’s gone to Murmansk, and from there to the Pacific. The damn thing was a Russian ship all along, and not British at all! But what was it doing there, sinking its teeth into us before Hitler even invaded the Soviet Union last year, fighting us in the Atlantic as well? That was the ship that got our tanker, the same ship that chased Krancke and Admiral Scheer out of the Kara sea.

  Well… While the cat is away….

  I’m told Krancke is getting a few kills today, feasting on the herd while I’m stuck here towing the mighty Tirpitz. Raeder will be none too happy to hear about this. Yet considering the situation, it will make my ship the best surface combatant in the northern fleet. Where will they plant the flag the next time we go out, on Scharnhorst or Peter Strasser? I’d just as soon give the honor to the carrier. The last thing I need is a troublesome Admiral aboard.

  He took another long drag on his cigar. Things could be worse, he thought, far worse. So back to Nordstern we go, where Tirpitz will likely sit in the new dry dock they’ve built there for a good long while. Who knows, perhaps the British will think twice about these convoy runs to Murmansk after we’ve finished with this one. Rhineland and Westfalen were the lucky ones. They got cut loose to do some hunting while I play footman to that battleship. But one day I’ll get my chance, and with no damn naval rockets in the mix.

  However, with my luck, I’ll probably run into the Hood. He smiled, grimly, not knowing then just how much of a prediction he had just made. Time had a way of balancing her books, and she was thinking… thinking….

  Part VI

  Page 117

  “The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip…”

  ― Paul Coelho

  Chapter 16

  All through the spring of 1942, the Allies were possessed with the decision of what they could do that year, if anything, to open a Second Front. Roosevelt was particularly keen to see US troops involved in the war that year, and against the Germans as a top priority. Marshall and many other Joint Chiefs wanted action on the European continent as soon as possible, and they were betting on one of two plans associated with the operation already underway to build up forces in the UK—BOLERO—yet the plans kept getting tangled in negotiations, and never seemed to get any traction.

  The problem, from the point of view of men like General George Marshall and Admiral King, was not the enemy, but the Allies involved. In spite of Churchill’s eagerness for a second front, the British seemed adamantly opposed to both plans teed up by the Americans. The first was called SLEDGEHAMMER, a plan to seize either Brest or Cherbourg in the summer of 1942, but when it came to Montgomery’s attention, he quickly called it an “unsound operation of war.” He picked the plan apart, declaring the five brigade frontage too narrow, leading to insufficient power in the assault, and slow buildup of forces after. Beyond that, it was simply too soon to contemplate such an attack. There were not enough landing craft to support it.

  Marshall was sent by Roosevelt to hammer with that sledgehammer on the British, and see what the problem was. Along the way he opted to forego a meeting with Churchill at his private residence in Chequers, much to the chagrin of Churchill himself. Roosevelt’s close civilian advisor, Harry Hopkins, was sent instead, and he got a tirade from Churchill on protocol.

  “Where is this General Marshall?” said the Prime Minister, puffing about his sitting room with a cigar in one hand, and a book of British law in another, which he was reading loudly from as he went. He asserted his position at the very top of the chain of command in Great Britain, the single authority that all his Admirals and Generals answered to, and then he ripped the relevant passage right out of the book and threw it on the floor.

  “If this General of yours would care to read it, there it is,” he said with a huff. Hopkins listened until Churchill had fired his broadside, then closed the range to engage himself.

  “Mister Pr
ime Minister, you know damn well that this is nothing more than an effort to throw too much salt in the stew concerning Sledgehammer.”

  “I wouldn’t waste my breath on such,” said Churchill with just the right level of indignation in his tone. “The truth is, Mister Hopkins, the decision making authority on this side of the pond resides here, in me, and you had better realize it. If your General Marshall thinks he can bypass me as easily as he diverted his train this morning to bypass Chequers, he is sorely mistaken. Now then, aside from the fact that Sledgehammer would be primarily a British Operation, it is entirely premature. It is our belief that it would have little chance of success, easily bottled up by the Germans, and leave all of Spain and Vichy France unscathed. The enemy would still hold Gibraltar, all of North Africa, and it would do nothing to directly challenge their current operations in the Canary Islands, or put any pressure on Rommel. Our Generals will tell you the very same thing, but I can assure you, they heard it from me first and foremost.”

  He began reading from another passage in his law book, establishing responsibility for overall strategy and war aims in the office of the Prime Minister, whereupon he ripped that page out as well and threw it in Hopkins’ lap. Then a mood fell over him, and his eyes seemed to be seeing things far ahead, distant things to come, and there was both fear and anticipation in his gaze.