551 pounds of high explosives went careening into the target and blasted up in to the vibrating sky. Rudel got the hit, square amidships on HMS Renown, and the bomb went right through the battlecruiser’s thin deck armor and exploded three decks down in a boiler room, blowing everything there to hell. Renown turned, her speed falling off rapidly, and tall geysers of water falling to port and starboard with another two near misses. A second bomb struck further aft blowing the Walrus seaplane and its lifting crane to pieces and starting a raging fire there from residual fuel in the plane.
Rudel pulled out of his dive to see the billowing smoke and fire amidships. My God, he thought. I hit a battleship! It would not be the last he would have in his sights. Hans-Ulrich Rudel wasn’t supposed to even be aboard Graf Zeppelin that day, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to be aboard that Stuka, but the experience would serve him well. He would go on to become one of the most highly decorated combat pilots in history, flying over 2500 missions and stacking up awards and medals encrusted with oak leaves and diamonds throughout the war. No other pilot would match the tally of wreckage he would leave behind him, burning ships, planes, trains and warehouses all to be smashed by the thunder of his Stuka.
But all that yet remained to be lived. Now he was just a recon pilot snatched up in a wild minute by Ritter’s roving eye. He was just Luck Eighteen, and that was enough.
Chapter 24
Far to the west HMS Birmingham was sailing close astride Manchester in the midst of the storm. They had sought the shelter of the oncoming front, and now the light cruisers rolled in the heavy swell, and rain lashed the viewports making it almost impossible to see anything. Outside on the weather deck, Captain Madden was braving the elements, his heavy overcoat drenched as he watched for the lamp signals coming from Manchester. He could have stayed in the conning tower waiting for the signalmen to bring him the news, but he wanted it fast to make a decision on their present course. The news was not good.
Manchester could not make any more than 15 knots and her Captain Packer was requesting permission to return to Reykjavik. Madden knew he would have to let the cruiser go. There was nothing more they could do in shadowing the German ships, and the wounded cruiser was now a liability. So he reluctantly gave the order to signal farewell and headed for the relative warmth and shelter of the conning tower.
It was then that he heard what he first took to be a distant peal of thunder, but something in the sound rankled his well trained ear. It was gunfire, eight inchers or better. He looked toward the sound, but saw nothing, though well honed instinct had him counting the seconds, as one might wait out the interval between lightning and thunder to measure distance to a storm at sea. Thirty seconds on he heard the whine of shells overhead and was amazed to see water splashes off his starboard bow. They were under attack.
Bloody hell, he thought, racing to the wheelhouse. Here we are sitting at twelve knots in a storm and the Germans have snuck up like a thief in the night.
“Make speed,” he shouted. “Ahead full!”
“All ahead full, aye sir.”
“Did anyone see the shell flash?”
Lieutenant Robert Ward still had the watch, but they had seen nothing. “We’re blind as bats out here, sir. Visibility is down to five cables.”
Yes, thought Madden, but bats had their own makeshift radar in the dark, and the Germans had to be tracking him. Their resolution wasn’t good enough to get those shells much closer than they were, and thank God for that, but we’re on our own now.
“Signal Manchester to make their best speed home and we’ll try to keep the Germans busy here while they slip away.”
A 30 second shell fall time might put that cruiser inside 15,000 yards. It was going to be a long, sleepless night.
* * *
They were huddling near the radio aboard Kirov, and Nikolin was translating what he was hearing and recounting a speech given by Churchill that was being broadcast by the BBC. Two days ago France had formally signed the Armistice with Germany and capitulated, leaving Britain alone to face the emerging wrath of the German war machine. In all the history Fedorov knew, Britain’s survival was a near run thing, and largely would depend on whether or not the United States would join the war on her side. In that dark hour England’s continued existence was in real jeopardy. So they had called the senior officers together one last time to finalize their course of action, and Pavel Kamenski was invited as well.
Nikolin discovered that a segment of what would have been the Soviet Union had now formally declared itself as an ally of Germany—the Orenburg Federation in the central heartland and south into Kazakhstan. Kirov’s Russia remained neutral, and nothing was heard from the Siberian East. But the news that Orenburg was siding with Hitler was grim indeed.
“From what we have determined,” said Fedorov, “the Orenburg Federation comprises all of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and the Caucasus, and even extends north to the Urals. It is sitting astride the vast oil reserves of Kazakhstan and the Caspian region, and the mineral wealth of the Ural mountains.”
“Why not join them?” Orlov spoke up, tentative at first.
“Explain yourself, Mister Orlov.” The Admiral invited the Chief to speak his mind.
“As Fedorov says, they have the oil, the resources, and we know those things become essential in the future. Besides, Georgia is my home, and I would feel better fighting for them, if that means anything.”
“A good point,” said Volsky. “There may be others in the crew who feel the same way, particularly if they hail from those provinces.”
“Joining Orenburg means we join with Germany too, and Hitler will be a very unreliable friend,” said Fedorov. “Didn’t he already prove that?”
“Volkov may be equally unreliable,” said Volsky. “What will he do when he learns we are here with this ship? He will welcome us, that is certain, and then I think he will do everything in his power to get control of this ship and the weapons we possess. And I do not think the fact that I once ranked him in the chain of command will matter. Hitler and Volkov…They may prove friends in the short term and be two birds of a feather. In the end, however, only one can remain the dominant power, and Volkov will know this.”
“But Hitler cannot get at Orenburg now,” said Orlov. “Not without going through Soviet Russia or the Ukraine first. We could sail through the Med and into the Black Sea, and close that southern route if Hitler becomes a problem. I know the way well enough.” He smiled as he said that. “I was there in 1942!”
“That is another concern,” said Fedorov. “A good number of us were there, Chief. What happens if we do not leave here before late July of 1941? We have never really determined that. I know that Mister Kamenski suggested things may be different now, but that remains uncertain. Our time here may be limited.”
“We still have a long year to decide that,” said Kamenski. “Perhaps more information will come to light. Who knows, we may even learn the fate of Captain Gromyko and Kazan. Yet for now we cannot become frozen with inaction knowing something may happen to us before the date of the ship’s first arrival here anymore than a man refuses to live because one day he must die.”
“A good point,” said Volsky. So let us look to this day and learn what we may to make a final decision. We have already waded in to the pond by jamming the German radars and firing a few warning shots to try and bother them, but soon I think we must jump in one direction or another.”
“Mister Nikolin has some further news to share,” said Fedorov.
“Yes sir, I have been monitoring the BBC and following all the news. I recorded a speech today read by a broadcaster on that station and I took a moment to translate it. Shall I read it?”
“What speech is this?”
“Churchill, sir. He was speaking to the British Parliament today.”
“Yes,” said Fedorov. “Churchill would have only recently been appointed Prime Minister.”
The news of that appointment had been received in th
e House of Lords in near silence, as they had little confidence and less use for the man at the time. But through this dark month of June 1940, the new Prime Minister’s voice echoed through the halls of Parliament and rose on the airwaves to stir and bolster the flagging spirits of the nation. He said he had come to the government with “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” but he brought with him his indomitable spirit and a gift for giving it flight in some of the most eloquent and rousing oratory the world has ever heard. Earlier he had vowed that England would fight on in a speech that would echo through the decades ahead when he said: “We shall go on to the end...we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”
But this night they heard his declaration to the house of Commons on June 18, 1940, and Nikolin read the translation aloud to the officers all gathered on the Bridge.
“…The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour.”
The broadcast signed off with salutations to the fleet at sea and all men at arms serving the British Empire in her far flung colonies all across the world. There was silence on the bridge for a moment, and then Admiral Volsky spoke.
“An eloquent man,” he said “and one I could easily embrace as an ally. Who’s side do we choose in this war? Such words make it clear to me that our decision to support Great Britain here is a wise one. The issue is laid bare in this man’s words. We all know the British Empire will not last another a thousand years, but I think that if it should fail here in this dark hour as he says, then the Third Reich might last a good long while in its place. We all know what Germany will be making ready to do to our homeland soon if that part of the history holds true. Yes, we suffered much in the cold war against the West, but perhaps that can be prevented, and it was nothing compared to the horror the Germans brought in the few years they ravaged our homeland. Perhaps our real mission was never to destroy the West as Karpov desired, but to join it, embrace it, and make it a friend.”
“Yes,” said Kamenski, “hearing that speech, who could disagree? And that is saying quite a bit coming from my mouth, an ex-Deputy Director of the KGB! I will say that I have learned much of this world in that capacity, perhaps more than I ever wished to know. Yet what we do know now is that we are here in the middle of this decisive era, this great world war, and the outcome may now be as uncertain as the weather appears to be outside as this moment. If I am correct and everything is made new here, then Germany could prevail as the Admiral suggests, and we have in hand the evils of that dark science that Mister Churchill mentioned. We know how this war could end. With Russia divided and perhaps still locked in an internal civil war, the Rodina will not be the great force that eventually beat back the Nazi war machine.”
“If I may, sir,” said Fedorov. “If Germany does decide to attack Russia, they will most certainly strike as they did against the Soviet state that is presently led by Sergei Kirov, just as Orlov has said. Their long term aim may be to control the oil and natural resources Orenburg controls, but even if Volkov cooperates, getting those resources to Germany is the problem. If Kirov controls the Crimea, then he may also control the Black Sea, so they will not get out that way. The only overland routes lead through Kirov’s Soviet state as well. Mark my words—Hitler will attack there soon enough.”
“For now the drama is here in the West,” said Volsky. “We polled the bridge officers earlier, and it was decided to aid those two British cruisers. Now, however, we must contemplate further intervention. What is the tactical situation, Mister Rodenko?”
Sir, the two German battlecruisers broke of that action and they moved southwest. We turned due west to avoid them in the storm, but they detached a cruiser and it is presently running on a parallel course.”
“Then the Germans are ready to make their breakout with the two battlecruisers?”
“Perhaps, sir, but I have picked up another contact off near Greenland, and the battlecruisers have just turned on a heading toward that position.”
“Could this be a convoy they wish to attack?”
“No, sir, it is a single ship.”
“Admiral,” said Fedorov. “My guess is that this is a German oiler. The two ships will want to refuel before heading into the Atlantic, They have broken through here, and probably sent the cruiser Admiral Hipper to see that the British cruisers are no further bother. Now they will refuel and then head into the Atlantic.”
“So if we wish to stop them, now is the time,” said Volsky. “But I think it will take something more than a poke on the nose with the deck guns. These are strong ships, are they not, Fedorov?”
“Yes, sir, and they have very good armor.”
“So we are looking at more than one or two missiles to do the job. If our experience is any guide, it may take several well placed hits to disable these ships.”
“We have programmed many of the Moskit-IIs to strike at a slightly higher elevation, sir,” said Rodenko. “There has been no time to do that with the missiles we received from Kazan, but it may be possible. They have a popup maneuver option.”
“Yes, it is no good wasting our missiles against the side armor of these ships, eh, Fedorov?”
“Scharnhorst class had 350mm belt armor, sir. That tapered forward of her A turret and aft, but that is fourteen inches of Krupp Cemented steel. It was designed to defeat a 16-inch shell at longer ranges. That’s the equivalent of a 1000 pound warhead. But I have a one missile solution for you, Admiral.”
“We will not contemplate special warheads at this time, Fedorov, I’m surprised you even suggest this.”
“No sir, you misunderstand me. Of course I would not suggest nuclear weapons at this time or any other. The missile would simply use a conventional warhead. One of the smaller P-900s from Kazan, or even a fast MOS-III should do the job.”
“But you just expounded on the virtues of this German armor, Fedorov.”
“Neither Scharnhorst nor Gneisenau will be the targets, Admiral. If I am correct and that last contact Rodenko spotted is a German oiler, then all we have to do is put our missile there, or even some good long range gun fire. Sink that tanker and the Germans will not have the fuel to proceed.”
Part IX
Altmark
“Sacrificial animals think quite differently from those who look on:
but they have never been allowed to have their say.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Chapter 25
All over the UK the invasion watch was up, and now the news was filtering in to the Admiralty that the German Navy was at sea in a major operation and had done what no one there had any idea they might ever achieve. HMS Renown was attacked from the skies, with planes flown from the deck of a German aircraft carrier, and they pushed right through the veteran fighter cover of the Royal Navy’s most experienced and capable fleet defender, the Ark Royal.
The British had learned a hard lesson. Their pilots were good, certainly brave and determined, but the plane they were flying was clearly outclassed, and the German fighter pilots were equally ha
rdened by their experience in Poland and France before coming to train for carrier operations. Britain desperately needed a new carrier borne fighter, and the Fairey Fulmar was all they had in the pipeline now, with no replacement in sight for the Swordfish torpedo bomber either.
The stricken battlecruiser survived the attack, but with twenty of her forty-two water tube boilers destroyed and her speed cut to no more than twelve knots. The ship had to be detached from Admiral Tovey’s squadron and sent home with a pair of destroyers cruising to either side for protection against U-boats, and the light cruiser Southampton in the van for additional air defense. Darkness and the onset of bad weather aided her getaway, and she would make it safely home, but now Tovey was in a bind. He had lost six big 15-inch guns and thirty-five percent of his squadron’s fighting power. With only HMS Invincible, the cruiser Sussex and two destroyers left in his force, engaging Bismarck and Tirpitz was now a tall order, particularly if the Germans had more Stukas to throw at them.
Tovey paced in the Flag Plot Room, uncertain, yet determined. We took one hell of a beating today, he thought. The mere sight of a British capital ship used to put ice in the veins of a German raider, but not after this. Holland sends that the Twins have blown through our cruiser screen in the Denmark Strait. Now we’ve lost Renown here, and we were damn lucky the Germans had only two Stuka pilots that seemed to know how to hit what they were aiming at.
There had been several near misses, but aside from splinter damage, neither Ark Royal nor Invincible were hit. Tovey decided the wisest course in the short run was to put range between his fleet and the German carrier. Vice Admiral Carriers reported that they had lost six Skua fighters in the action and four Swordfish trying to find and strike the Germans. Nobody got torpedoes in the water, and now this bloody weather shut the game down. They were just lucky they got most of their planes back safely. Another Swordfish was forced to ditch.
Kirov Saga: Altered States (Kirov Series) Page 21