Raeder was keen to preserve the fighting power of his fleet, and he was very pointed on one matter. As Lindemann looked at the final message from Wilhelmshaven, he was in full agreement with the order. ‘Under no circumstances is Graf Zeppelin to be placed forward in any position where the ship might be sighted or engaged.’
The German Fleet commander knew the risk of what he was permitting now. Just days earlier he had lectured Admiral Donitz: ‘We will not sail out in one great sortie to seek battle with the British Home Fleet. That would be foolish…No. The virtue of the ships we have built still lies in the unique combination of speed, power and endurance. We will accomplish our aims with maneuver, not a set piece battle.’ Now the situation had changed and Rader was ordering the very thing he feared most—a direct challenge to the Royal Navy with the heart of the German fleet. But he had devised this strategy thinking his navy could never match the might of Britain’s fleet. If intelligence was correct on the composition of the enemy force, he now believed he could not only give challenge, but win!
The Germans formed three battlegroups as well. In the east was Group Böhmer with Graf Zeppelin and the two destroyers Beowulf and Sigfrid in escort. The carrier was kept well back, and had the advantage of ample sea room free of ice should it need to run from any pursuing ship. Lindemann set his mind on assuring that would not happen. He was steaming 20,000 meters to the west with Bismarck, Tirpitz, and the heavy cruiser Prince Eugen. The destroyer Heimdall was out in front as an early warning picket so that his heavy ships could not be surprised. An equal measure west, and very near the ice, was group Hoffmann, with Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Admiral Hipper. Fein was given orders that he should steam third in the line of battle, and break off immediately should Gneisenau sustain any further damage.
They steamed south, seeing pale floes of ice drifting on the still waters. It was a calm sea, but wisps of fog were forming over the ice and slowly migrating east. A fat gibbous moon rose over the scene, adding its cold light and painting the sea with its glistening ‘whale road.’ Unless the fog thickened, visibility would be good for battle.
Lindemann had told Hoffmann that if the British managed to concentrate against his main body, he was to detach Gneisenau to support the battleships, but if circumstances were favorable, he could take Scharnhorst and Hipper south and attempt to reach the Atlantic.
Close by the ice shelf, Hoffmann was on the bridge of Scharnhorst, cigar in hand, and feeling a cold hand of fate on his neck. There was going to be a battle here, he knew. Both sides are deployed on a front spanning some sixty kilometers. At one place or another, they will meet one another, and then it comes down to steel and blood.
As for that strange ship, let us hope it no longer waits for us to the south. Lindemann did not quite know what to make of my claim about this rocket weapon. He should have seen the damage on Gneisenau first hand, as I did. Well, soon we fight our battle, but not before we fill this lurid sky with bats off of Graf Zeppelin.
He looked at his watch. The action was about to begin.
* * *
Aboard the carrier Graf Zeppelin the last of the bats were spotted on deck and ready for takeoff. The entire contingent of 24 planes would go aloft tonight. One had been shot down in their last engagement with the British, and another crashed on landing. This left two dozen Stukas, and one was being flown by Hans-Ulrich Rudel again as a reward for his dramatic first hit on the Renown.
“First hit Rudel! That’s good luck!” Hauptmann Marco Ritter had been one of the first to congratulate him on his safe return to the carrier.
“Thank you for giving me the chance, sir.”
“Thank yourself. It took training, skill and plenty of guts to do what you did. Soon we go for the main event, and you will be right there again, Rudel. No more seaplanes for you!”
Rudel was elated. They were giving him a Stuka full time now, and he was eager to get airborne and put it to good use. Tonight they would fly south in a wide formation. The Arados were already well out in front, scouting the way. Marco Ritter would lead in the BF-109s, seven of the eleven fighters remaining. He liked those numbers too.
The midnight sun cast an eerie red glow as it dipped low to the horizon, but it would find no rest there this night. Soon they heard from their scout planes ahead: sighted two large capital ships! From the heading and bearing information they were steaming on a course to intercept Lindemann’s center group. Rudel decided he would pay them a visit first.
The dark shapes of the Stukas drifted across the white moon, their fixed landing gear jutting beneath them like the legs of a bird of prey. Rudel looked up to see the fighters accelerating to take the lead. The Arados had spotted a squadron of British fighters flying cover, and the fight was on.
Heinrich Jurgen was swiveling his neck in all directions looking for clouds to hide in. The British Skuas had seen his Arado and two had broken their patrol formation to come after him. The rattle of his rear gunner opening up with his MG-15 broke the silence, the very first rounds fired in anger as the battle began. He was firing at Midshipman R. W. Kearsley in plane 6Q off the Ark Royal, but Kearsley would have nothing of it, banking deftly to evade the hot streamers as they whizzed by his plane.
The British pilot opened up with his Browning .303s riddling the Arado’s tail and send it into a fluttering spiral as it plummeted downward and into the sea. First kill had gone to the British airmen, but Marco Ritter was quick to the scene, leading a sub-fight of three BF-109s in the vanguard of his fighter formation.
“Tommy wants a cracker,” he said to his mates on the radio. “Let’s see that he pays for it first.” He banked his fighter and dove for the Skua as it was climbing after its run on the seaplane. The Messerschmitt growled in, wings blazing with fire that took the right wing off plane 6Q and sent Kearsley and his gunner/signalman Eccleshall into the drink to join the Germans. Tit for tat.
The remaining four Skuas rumbled into action, but the swift 109s were simply too agile for them. Two were down in short order, but Lieutenant Commander John Casson was wheeling and swerving in the sky, his stunt pilot skills making him the equal of the Germans even though his plane could not match them. He hit his flaps, watched a Messerschmitt flash by, and then quickly lined up on it for a kill.
“There’s one for your white heather, Hornblower,” he said to his mate in the rear seat. Peter Fanshaw, the squadron navigator had been busy tapping out his contact signal, and now he was on the rear machine gun. It was three Skuas to the two BF-109’s, which Casson saw as even up. Petty Officer Wallace Crawford was on his right wing, finding him again after losing a German plane in a bank of clouds.
“Tally Ho, Johnny! But watch out above. Jerry’s throwing the whole kitchen sink our way.”
Casson looked up to see a full squadron of six more 109s and he knew the jig was up. “Signal Hood to get her dander up. There’s bound to be Stukas behind those fighters. Where the hell is 800 Squadron?” He put on all the power he could and started to climb for some heavy gray clouds, looking for cover to try and get into a position to look for the Stukas. A wash of rain greeted him, then he broke through to see the dark formation ahead, some two dozen planes.
“Signal the lads, Hornblower. Large formation of enemy planes right off their starboard bow!”
Crawford had tried to follow Casson up. But Marco Ritter found him climbing and made a vicious pass. The heavy rounds shattered his canopy and he was hit in the right shoulder, thrown against the side of the plane as he lost control. He would not make it back to Ark Royal that night.
It was nigh on the witching hour and the vampires were on the wing. The Stukas looked down to see the same scenario they had been presented with earlier, two battlecruisers, one slightly bigger in the van, and they tipped their wings over and came screaming down like banshees, dark things in the glowing night, shadows on the face of the watching moon.
Below them Holland’s battlegroup, with Hood in the van and Repulse following, threw up everything they could o
n defense. Hood’s twin QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns joined with her 2-pounder pom-poms, which began puffing up the sky as the planes came in. But soon the 4-inch guns could simply not elevate high enough, as the Stukas could come in at a near vertical dive.
The ship swerved right, beginning a hard zig-zag to try and throw off the enemy’s aim. There were three near misses, two other bombs falling wider off her bow as she put on all the speed she had, plowing through the glimmering seas at over 30 knots. Then one bomb caught her flush on B-turret. While the turret face was all of 15-inches thick, the roof was only five inches and the bomb blasted through, putting two of her eight 15-inch guns out of action. That single blow reduced her standing in any fight at sea quickly from that of a battleship to that of a battlecruiser, now the better of HMS Repulse behind her only in stature and reputation.
Repulse took one hit near her fantail, a glancing blow that blew off the gunwale, dented her hull and threw splinters across the deck to kill three unlucky seamen there. There were four other close calls, but the agile battlecruiser was running at 32 knots, determined not to suffer the fate of her sister ship Renown. She would escape further damage but the venerable Hood would not. The last of the uninvited guests hurtling out of a blood red sky that night was Hans Ulrich-Rudel. He was lined up on the target and put his bomb right down on Hood’s number two funnel, dead center on the ship. The resulting explosion blew the funnel apart, riddled the forward stack with hot shrapnel and sent an enormous billowing black cloud up as if all her boilers had vented in one mighty belch. He was the thirteenth plane to make the attack, and Rudel’s luck was still good. He was now two for two.
The flak defense was good enough to get a pair of Stukas that night, and drive three others off, their pilots aborting their runs when the heat was too thick in the sky. Of the six remaining, John Casson got on the tail of one and blew it clean away before dancing off into another cloud. The remaining five had circled wide to look for other targets, but found nothing.
Casson looked to see another squadron of Skuas hastening to the scene. 800 squadron was joining the action. “It’s about bloody time,” he yelled, but one look at Hood told him it was already too late.
Chapter 35
Aboard Kirov, far to the west, Rodenko was able to use the long range radar to see the action beginning to unfold. He noted the airborne attack underway and the sudden change in speed and direction on the lead British ship told him a hit had been scored there.
“Looks to be some fairly hot action on the British far right,” he reported. Volsky and Fedorov were consulting the situation map, and the Admiral did not like how things were shaping up.
“The German center force has just executed a turn to port. They are vectoring in on that same location.”
“This Admiral Tovey has a good deal of trouble on his hands now. A pity he did not enlist our aid!” He looked at Fedorov.
“Frankly, I do not think they believed us, Admiral.” Fedorov shrugged as he spoke. “They did not see that we could be of any use to them.”
“The British center column has turned,” said Rodenko as he received the new radar data on the map. “They are heading northwest. There’s a battle underway there as well. Looks like a pair of British cruisers have found those battlecruisers we sent packing yesterday.”
“This is not good, eh, Fedorov?”
“These are heavy cruisers this time, Admiral. They’ll have eight 8-inch guns, enough to stand in a fight, but they’ll be overmatched in time by the Germans there.”
“Not a very satisfactory situation for the British,” said Volsky. “Admiral Tovey is being hit on both flanks, now he must choose which to support with his center column. I think we had better put on speed and get north, gentlemen. The ship will come to 28 knots and steer zero-one-zero.”
“We can strike with missiles now, sir,” said Fedorov.
“Yes, we have the range, but missiles do funny things at times, Mister Fedorov. We could send in a salvo and find one selects a British cruiser for its target in a close action like that. No, I think we will see if we can close the range a bit and find a better firing solution. Something tells me that the German center column is where their best ships are, correct, Rodenko?”
“Yes, sir. I read four contacts there, one out in front—most likely a destroyer picket—then a column of three ships about five kilometers behind it, two heavy contacts, one lighter.”
“That is the battlegroup that Tovey must concern himself with now. Let us get north and see if we can render assistance.”
* * *
Hoffmann lowered his field glasses, smiling. “Look there, Huber, a pair of British cruisers! It looks like they did not learn their lesson earlier, eh?”
“Apparently not,” Huber folded his arms. “I make the range about 18,000 meters.”
“Let us close to 15,000. If they fire first, however, instruct Schubert that he may answer immediately. Now… Hard to port and come to 100 degrees east southeast. We will get all our guns into the action that way, and move to a conjunction with Lindemann at the same time.”
The crews were at the action stations, guns trained in the ruddy light, which presented an eerie setting, with drifts of grey fog over a blood red sea lit by the low crimson sun on one side and then washed over by the cold white moonlight. Here and there ice floes scudded along, some taken head on by the sharp bow of the ship, the shattered fragments clattering along the hull as Scharnhorst surged forward. The winds were calm, and it would make for good action by the guns.
Schubert reported all ready and awaiting permission to fire. “Range 16,000,” he called down from the upper gun director’s position.” The British soon obliged him by firing their first ranging salvo, and they could now see the dark shapes of the two cruisers turning east on a near parallel course, unwilling to have their T crossed and not eager to close the range more than it was.
“They will want to get ahead of us if they can,” said Hubert. “That way they will put the sun at our backside.”
“We have the speed to prevent that. Answer them Schubert. Permission to open fire. Hoffmann gave the order, raising his field glasses to watch the result.
The ripple of fire from the German ship came in three sharp reports, and only from the forward turrets. Schubert had an unusual ranging pattern, firing the centermost barrels of his two forward triple turrets first, then the remaining two barrels of each turret in a second and third salvo, all in rapid succession. In this way he aimed to frame the target quickly, as each salvo of two rounds was set to alternate ranges, plus or minus a hundred meters on the computed target position.
He quickly saw that he had a near straddle on the lead ship, close enough to order fire for effect, and before the minute had ended all nine of Scharnhorst’s 11-inch guns were ready for action again, the lights winking on in his director tower.
“Ready! Good!” The next salvo added fire to the ochre night, the blast from all nine guns shaking the ship and sending anything unsecured careening to the decks. Seconds later Hoffmann, out on the weather bridge and heedless of the danger there, heard the whoosh and fall of the enemy’s second salvo. The shots were short and slightly wide, and he knew the spotters there were rapidly calling in the sighting corrections while crews labored to service the guns.
Schubert’s first big salvo fell all around the lead ship now, and bright fire lit up the fantail where Hoffmann saw the first hit of the action. The gunnery officer saw it as well through his powerful optics and made a small correction before giving the order to fire again. Then the second salvo came in, this time mostly fired by the trailing British cruiser, and Hoffmann heard its incoming wail even louder.
There came a hard knock, the ship shaking with the hit, right amidships on the heavy armor there. Two other rounds dolloped up the sea in a red and white geyser, the water glistening as it reached almost as high as Hoffmann’s chin on the upper bridge.
“Starboard fifteen!” he shouted. The score was even, but Schubert was quick to
reply. This third full salvo roared in reprisal, and it was quickly followed by the sharp crack of Admiral Hipper’s 8-inch guns where that ship trailed the lead battlecruiser by about a thousand meters. Hoffmann steadied himself, one leather-gloved hand on the outer hand rail and the other holding his binoculars. Seconds later he saw the sea erupt again near the lead British cruiser, and hits sent up bright fire and smoke, both fore and aft.
Now more smoke, thick and very black enveloped the ship, and he knew it was artificial. The British were turning, ready to run behind a smoke screen if they could. Hipper had found the range on the second cruiser with a near straddle, and Gneisenau had put a set of three 11-inch rounds right astride its bow, with one hit on the forecastle near the A-turret.
The two cruisers were still firing, and were lucky enough to score yet another hit, this time low on the water line against Scharnhorst, where they had both concentrated their effort. They were narrowing the score, yet the difference in this game was not the guns, but the armor. With 14 inches of heavy Krupp Cemented steel that could shrug off a 16 inch shell at any range over 11,000 meters, Scharnhorst was invulnerable to hits against her belt armor. With the action running at 14,500 meters, the 8-inch shells fired by the cruisers could simply not penetrate, nor even seriously damage the German ship.
By contrast the bigger rounds being fired by Scharnhorst found only 4.5 inches of hull plating, a measly one inch siding on the turrets, and deck armor of only 1.375 inches—and they were doing grave harm anywhere they struck the British ships. Sussex in the lead had taken three hits, Devonshire following had taken two, though one of these was a lighter 8-inch round from the Admiral Hipper.
Though the action was only seven minutes old, it was clear that the British had had enough. They were challenged to face Scharnhorst alone, and now found both Hipper and Gneisenau looming out of the fog, guns blazing. The British cruisers steered hard to starboard, coming around nearly eighty compass points in a churning turn to run south at their best speed before either ship might sustain damage to their engines that would mean certain doom.
Kirov Saga: Altered States (Kirov Series) Page 30