They had already delivered their ordnance, and now an operator in one of the Zeppelins guiding them in towards the harbor. Fafnir had already lowered its launch ramp and had the honors of sending the first three V-1s into action that day. It then descended to a lower altitude to become the guide ship for the six Fritz-X bombs.
The entire forward gondola had been cleared to mount the equipment in the nose area of the ship. There, two rows of operators sat at the viewports, each with a high powered telescopic range finder, and radio controls operated with a small joystick. The first three V-1s would broadcast on a specific frequency, and each one had its own operation to guide it in. Meanwhile, the remaining three Zeppelins dropped their V-1s from a higher altitude at phased intervals, allowing the operators to pick up their signals, with an illuminated yellow light on their equipment indicating the handshake had been made. They would then turn a frequency dial toward the position of that yellow light on a circular display, and that would lock them onto that particular missile. The light would turn red, and the operator could then guide that missile in towards the target area.
On the morning of January 5, 1943, history would be made as these Chariots of Fire fell inexorably towards their targets. Down they came, like the dark crows they were named for, streaking right past the first flight of six La-7 Soviet fighters that had been scrambled on alert. The pilots saw them flash by at over 400 MPH, not knowing what these dark fighters could be. The Do-17s had already turned to run for the protection of German fighters up in escort, so the Soviet pilots had their eyes fixed upwards on the great mass of Fafnir. It had descended to under 30,000 feet to control the bombs, which was well within reach of the Soviet fighters.
When they made their approach to Fafnir, however, they were suddenly greeted by a hail of gunfire. The German 20mm cannons were mounted on the gondolas, sides, and top platforms of the Zeppelin, and they put out a withering fire. Three of the six planes that made attack runs were blown from the sky. One got in a burst from its own two 20mm guns, the other two were simply driven off by the intense AA fire and dove away, hoping to wait for more support before trying their attack again.
Meanwhile, the twelve V-1s descended inexorably towards the harbor, where the bulk of that Black Sea Fleet rode at anchor. The Soviet sailors heard the air raid alarm, and they were only just rushing to their action stations when the first three V-1s off the Fafnir came in.
Two overflew the harbor and went crashing into the city, sending twin fists of dark smoke rising up when they exploded. The third had been expertly guided, right towards the high mainmast of the light cruiser Chervona Ukraina. A near perfect hit, it struck the 8400 ton cruiser right amidships, its 850kg warhead smashing through the superstructure to explode deep within the ship. That was a very heavy blow for a sip to endure, nearly 1900 pounds of explosive Amatol-39. The short range of the attack also saw a lot of that 600 gallon gasoline fuel tank ignite with the blast, and like the Russian missiles that had so plagued the Kriegsmarine, Hitler now had his own flying firebomb to use against enemy ships.
In came the six Fritz-X glide bombs, which had much smaller warheads at 320kgs, but they were all armor piercing. Two would splash harmlessly into the sea, sending wild geysers of seawater up into the morning air. One struck the hull of the destroyer Bezposhchadny (Merciless), ripping through to gut the ship with its fire. The fourth hit that same pack of destroyers, moored side by side, and hit the forecastle of Sposobnyi, (Capable), killing everyone on the bridge and striking with such force that it plunged right on into the lower compartments, nearly piercing the bottom hull before it exploded. The destroyer’s sides were ripped open by the blast and it began to sink.
The last two Fritz glide bombs were near misses on the cruiser mooring station, but now the last nine V-1s were falling in eerie silence, their engines cutting out unexpectedly, even though they remained on target as guided by Fafnir above. Down came the black crows, with five smashing into the harbor facilities on land, one striking a main quay, another blasting into a fuel tank farm, a third merely blasting warehouses by the wharves.
Of the last four, two would miss, falling into the bay, but two were on target for the big squat shape of the Sevastopol. The first would strike the forward deck, the heavy warhead easily penetrating the 50mm armor and plunging deep into the ship. The explosion sent raging fires right through the open door to the magazine of the forward turret, and there was another large secondary explosion.
The second, and last V-1, plunged into the sea just four feet from the hull, and the explosion was severe enough to buckle the sides of the battleship and send seawater careening in through three shattered hull plates. It was that first hit that had done the real damage, and within ten minutes, Sevastopol was down at the bow, shipping water and doomed to go nose first into the silt and mud of the harbor bottom. The long column of heavy smoke billowed up into the clear sky, and the crewmen aboard Fafnir cheered with elation.
Now, high above the city, the other three Zeppelins hovered at high altitude. Soon their aft mounted bomb racks opened, and down came a rain of traditional unguided bombs. They might have delivered all of 8000 kilos of bombs, but the 2000kg weight of each of those three V-1s had reduced this final bomb drop to just 2000kg. Yet that was going to send eight 250Kg bombs down from each of the three airships, mostly directed at the harbor area of the city. They had been modified to carry incendiary warheads, and now the whole harbor began to explode with fire, the smoke darkening and thickening as the bombs fell.
It was nowhere near the devastating blow that Japan had delivered at Pearl Harbor, but on that Tuesday morning in the sleepy cold city, it was enough to severely shake the enemy with the shock of what these new weapons could do. The Germans believed they had just announced that turnabout was fair play, unaware that their Soviet enemies had never designed or deployed the devastating naval rockets that had gutted the Graf Zeppelin—at least not in 1943.
So the Germans had the ironic satisfaction of seeing their own aerial Zeppelins deliver vengeance for the carrier that had been named for one of their ancestors. Fafnir, Fraenir, Asgard and Aegir had struck a fateful blow, sinking Sevastopol, damaging the cruiser Chervona Ukraina so badly that it was out of the war, and gutting those two destroyers. Hitler was elated when he got the news that his new wonder weapons had actually worked, and when he was handed photo recon images of the burning harbor, he smiled.
Fat Hermann Goring was at his right arm, his baton tucked under one arm, beaming. Hitler turned to him, a fire in his eyes, as if he was seeing something far away, but now so near that he could grasp it in his right hand.
“Build more,” he said. “Double the production budget for your Zeppelin program immediately. I want all the first twelve to be ready for service by June of this year, and another dozen by year’s end. Do you know what this means, Herr Reichsmarschall? With those Zeppelins I can deliver seventy-two Sturmkrähe to the heart of London like one mailed fist, right in Churchill’s face. If I can do this to one harbor with only four such ships, imagine what two dozen Zeppelins could do to New York! Build them, as fast as you possibly can.”
“I will do so,” said Goring. “But there will be an issue with helium. Our supplies are very limited.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Hitler. “I am told where we can find all the helium you will ever need, and I have already taken steps to secure it. I intend to redouble efforts to secure the Caucasus, so we will get to Maykop and Baku soon. We already have a rail line linking up to Volkov’s oil production sites near Astrakhan and the Caspian Basin. But now we will take all the rest.”
“All the rest?” Goring raised an eyebrow.
“The oil!” Hitler exclaimed. “That was the whole point of all our Armeegruppe South operations in the first place. I was on to the right idea long ago when I sent troops into Syria, but we were unable to support a large enough force logistically at that time. I have corrected that deficiency. Now I can support Armeegruppe Irak over the improved
Turkish rail lines, and we are already positioning troops for the invasion.”
“Syria? Again?”
“Where else? The first units have already assembled at Aleppo. My Brandenburgers put the light garrison there to flight in a half a day, and the city is ours. Now we move south into Syria, and more, we move east to Irak—to Baba Gurgur, where we can get all the helium we require.”
Hitler had his Amerika Bomber, and now he was going after the helium and fuel oil he would need to sustain that Zeppelin fleet. Twenty-four this year, he thought, then we double production again next year. I will burn London, New York, and Boston. My Black Crows can fly, and they will wreak havoc when I let them loose over those American cities. They want war with Germany? I will give them one, because there is one more arrow in my quiver that they know nothing about. Yes, that strange ship that Kaiser Wilhelm delivered… and so much more….
Part V
Humbugged
“Napoleon has humbugged me, by God; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me!”
—Arthur Wellesley, 2nd Duke of Wellington
On the occasion of The Dutchess of Richmond’s Ball
15 June, 1815
Chapter 13
Hitler remembered all too well the long discussion he had with Manstein over Raeder’s plan to move deep into the Middle East. Manstein had laid out all the possibilities, and the logistic difficulties, as well as the countermoves he expected from the enemy, even before Barbarossa was launched.
“If I were the British commander, I would use Cyrenaica as a defensive buffer, and move as many troops against Syria as possible. Once I eliminate the French there, I secure my right flank, effect a conjunction with Turkey, protect the oil in Iraq and Iran, and open all those lines of communication even into Persia. Where is the largest oil field in the world? Right there in Iraq at Baba Gurgur near Kirkuk. That is what the British wish to hold, or at the very least deny us access. Where else can Britain operate? They certainly won’t invade Portugal any time soon, or attempt any campaign against French West Africa. Your buildup in Libya will prevent them from entering Tripolitania. So they will have no choice but to operate as I describe, and seize Syria and Irak before the notion to do so enters our minds.”
That notion finally did enter the Führer’s mind, yet his initial invasion had been countered exactly as Manstein said it would happen. The British Operation Scimitar had been decisive, delivering Damascus and Beirut to the British, and largely destroying the Vichy French forces in Syria. The Germans held on in northern Syria, where the British simply kept a guarded watch, not expecting any further developments after the two German mobile divisions were withdrawn for Operation Barbarossa. Now Manstein’s words echoed again in the Führer’s mind…
“This is a bold and imaginative plan,” he said, speaking of the German movement into Syria. “It would augment the southern emphasis for Barbarossa very well. Yet would even this knock Great Britain out of the war? I do not believe so. It may knock them out of the Middle East, but they will continue to fight on. The British Empire would still have strong outposts in India and the far east. Taking Egypt would be a severe setback, but they will fight on no matter what, and wait for the Americans to get involved. Then we will be moving troops west again, because instead of us planning to invade England as we should have in 1941, they will be planning to invade French colonies in West Africa, or even France itself. You see, my Führer, Ivan Volkov is not the only man who can make predictions.”
Manstein had been completely correct. The Allies did invade West Africa, and Portugal as well. They had overthrown Franco, toppled the Spanish Government and set up a puppet state there. They had retaken the prize Hitler won with Operation Felix, recapturing Gibraltar. They had driven the Germans out of the Canary Islands, foiling Operation Condor, seizing all of Morocco, and most of Algeria. Germany had been forced to disarm the remaining Vichy French forces in North Africa, and send an entire new army there under von Arnim.
Yet if he returned to the strategy that had been foiled by Operation Scimitar, he might accomplish a great deal now. He could force the British 8th Army to halt its offensive towards Tripoli, looking over its shoulder at the new threat Operation Phoenix posed. He would prevent any further possibility that Turkey would fall under Churchill’s spell. He would pose a grave threat to British oil supplies and infrastructure in Syria and Iraq, and also to Palestine and Egypt, forcing the enemy to defend ground it now held with rear area formations.
And he would get to the oil—to Baba Gurgur near Kirkuk. That goal was uppermost in his mind. The locals referred to the place as the “Father of Fires,” where low smoldering flames had been burning in a small crater for centuries. In 1927, when a gaggle of geologists were summoned from all over the world, it became one of the first major gushers in the region when drilled, emitting a tall geyser of black oil over 140 feet high that drenched the derrick and surrounding area in an evil black rain. The well was capped after gushing over 95,000 barrels per day, disaster was averted, and the geologists had tamed the demon that would both feed and haunt an energy hungry world for the next hundred years, the “Age of Oil.”
By 1941, Baba Gurgur was considered the single largest reserve of oil on the planet, as the mighty Ghawar fields of Saudi Arabia would not be discovered until 1948. Ivan Volkov would claim he sat on vast resources in the Kashagan fields of the north Caspian Sea, but none of that had been developed as yet. The British, however, were quick to the tap, and soon pipelines extended from oil fields northwest of Kirkuk, through Iraq to Haditha, where the lines split, one transiting northern Syria to Tripoli, and a second flowing through the Trans Jordan to Haifa in Palestine. They also had seized Abadan in Iran and controlled all the oil in the northern Persian Gulf.
The pipelines that crossed those parched deserts were the life lines of the British war effort. Hitler reasoned that he did not have to kill Britain if he could choke it into submission. Doenitz was doing his best in the Atlantic with the U-boat campaign, but now Hitler believed that a truly serious commitment to Operation Phoenix could yield much more than his fruitless obsession with a place like Volgograd.
I had to commit ten divisions to take that single city, he thought, and all to control the commercial traffic on that river. Yes, I removed it as a source of supply and manufacturing. My troops are sitting right outside their factories even now, but what good did it do me? Perhaps, in six months when the lines of communication to Volkov have been secured, that battle might be worth the cost, but look what I can do now with ten divisions in the Middle East!
The British have pipelines and pumping stations all over those deserts. They have long been considered trophies of war for whoever could secure and control them, but why not simply go to the source itself, the Father of Fires, Baba Gurgur? On the 9th of January it would all begin again….
* * *
Lieutenant Hans Gruber was well out in front of the division, as he should be, for he now led the Brandenburg Reconnaissance Battalion. He had taken over the battalion from Hauptmann Beck when the division underwent conversion to a fast motorized force. Beck had led it with armored cars, and there were still a few attached to the battalion. Now Gruber would lead with light motorcycle troops, though they were backed up with a good mix of other vehicles and equipment.
Gruber had three 88s mounted on halftracks, sixteen SdKfz 231-8 armored cars, and another twelve of the lighter 221s. He also had three Pak 47mm guns on a mobile chassis, three mobile 20mm flak guns, nine Kubelwagons, and other support vehicles and trucks. Half his infantry would ride the motorcycles, the other half would deploy in those trucks, and he could build two heavy companies by dividing up all those vehicles between the two infantry groups, giving him a little more flexibility.
The division had pulled out of the fighting near Volgograd long ago, moving to help stop the big Soviet offensive aimed at Kursk. It had been instrumental in stopping the enemy’s left pincer, holding the river line of the Donets at Stary Oskol east of
Prokhorovka to keep the lines of communication open to Model’s 2nd Panzerarmee. Yet look where he was now!
A young man at just 24 years, he was tall, powerfully built, and every bit the Aryan warrior that he looked, a blonde haired statue of a man, with flashing blue eyes.
Hitler finally came to his senses, he thought, though that remains to be seen. I was as surprised as everyone else to hear we were pulling out again. Hitler finally gave Model permission to abandon Voronezh and with draw, and that freed up all those divisions to hold a much shorter line.
Of course it will also free up the Soviet units that were forming the pocket Model was in, but I don’t think they have any more fight in them. The arrival of Steiner’s Korps was the key, and getting all those units out of that hell hole at Volgograd was essential, Manstein is not stupid. He never wanted Steiner to push for that city, and it was only circumstances that forced him to do so. Now Steiner’s units will get a little rest, and we go south. That was good news, but I had no idea just how far south we would end up!
It will be much warmer here, he thought. January overnight lows might reach 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and perhaps 55 degrees by day. That is a paradise compared to what the troops will endure in Russia this winter. But they say it is the rainy season now, from December through March. In the summer we get to feel like Rommel’s desert troops, but until then, the weather here gets progressively better week by week.
He raised his field glasses, surveying the dry terrain to the east and west. The long thin road led due south from Aleppo, where the bulk of the division was cleaning up the last pockets of local resistance and getting ready to form regimental shock columns to begin Operation Phoenix.
The Brandenburg Division was now a large Motorized Division with a massive structure. While the typical German Motorized Infantry Division would consist of two Motorized Regiments, this division had four, part of the restructuring at Volgograd where it gave up its armor and converted to an infantry formation for the street fighting. When it did so, it increased in size dramatically with the infantry components, and now, as a special addition for this operation, it had a fifth regiment attached, the Lehr Regiment Brandenburg, which was a fast moving scouting unit for general reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. Many of the elite commandos that had been the root of the division long ago were assigned to that unit, and Gruber operated closely with them now.
Lions at Dawn (Kirov Series Book 28) Page 11