The object of the attack, aimed at Alencon now, was plain to see, but there was no defense in the city at all. As an expedient, General Berlichingen sent his recon battalion there, leaving him only three battalions left in his Kampfgruppe .
Berg was in Remarlard when the news came in, and Kluge rushed in with a request. “Things have taken a turn,” he said diplomatically, a master of understatement. “Can we maneuver your brigade to a new breakthrough zone?”
“Of course,” said Berg.
“We many need to go some distance. They have shifted the axis of their attack towards Alencon. The city is screened by woodland to the south, and the 232nd is falling back there. But there is also a gap here, just north of Mamers, and it is only being held by the 711th Division. Those troops won’t hold long.”
“Then we jog west to back them up, and I can probably then move north of these heavy woods to approach Alencon from the east. But I will not want my troops in a city fight.”
“Don’t worry,” said Kluge. “Even if Patton’s troops get there first, they won’t stay there long. He’ll drive them on, right up this road to the Seine. As for the rest of the front, I’m afraid von Rundstedt will have to manage the general withdrawal he ordered. Hopefully it will allow us to extricate a few mobile divisions when the line shortens. I am told 10th Panzer will be here soon, but who knows when?”
Eisenhower’s order, and Patton’s masterful management of the situation, was the stroke that had finally broken the camel’s back.
Part V
Resurrection
“One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements… And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief, and all reflection on its origin, is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication, and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Chapter 13
Himmler was finally determined to unleash the full range of all the special weapons programs that had been in development for years. With the edge of war pushing ever closer to the borders of the Reich, like some great holocaust threatening to destroy the nation, he would hold nothing back. Hexenkessel had already been used, and a second raid was now being planned. The V-1 was ravaging London, unstoppable. The armories were producing as many of the new heavy tanks as possible, and now his secret jet fighter was about to make its debut.
After years in development, it was finally ready. Conceived before the war in 1938, plans had been drawn up in 1939 and test flights began as early as April of 1941, though at that time a standard Junkers propeller driven engine was being used simply to test the airframe. The first real turbojet engines ever mounted both failed in the initial flight, and they would remain finicky and unreliable ever after. In time, the plane reached the state where it could be shown off by Himmler to men like Ivan Volkov, and Gruppe 1 of KG51 finally had the plane. The fighter version was to be called the Schwalbe , or “Swallow,” but Hitler had ordered a fighter bomber version, thinking the plane would usher in his concept of a jet powered “Blitz Bomber” against England. That plane had a much more dangerous sounding name, the Sturmvogel , or “Stormbird,” and in this history that was the name that stuck.
The Stormbirds were finally aloft, faster than any Allied fighter they might encounter, and more deadly, with four 30mm cannons in the nose. Later, some would even be equipped with the Rheinmetall Mauser BK5 50mm gun, a monstrous weapon jutting ominously from the nose of the plane, and capable of firing 940 rounds per minute. Others would carry the new RM4 missiles, capable of blowing the tail right off a B-24 if a good hit could be obtained. And some would mount the new “Neptun” radar antenna on the nose to serve as night fighters.
On the ground, the plane looked like an awkward beast, its two turbojet engines seeming too large and heavy to be carried aloft. Indeed, the Achilles Heel of the aircraft was its sluggish performance at low altitudes, particularly takeoff and landing, a weakness the Allied fighter pilots would soon learn to exploit. Volkov had warned Himmler about it, and while 1500 of the new Stormbirds had been built, fewer than 200 were ever operational at one time, and of those, fewer than 100 would ever fly on a combined mission. Famed Air Ace Rudolf Galland claimed that if they could have kept 200 in continuous operation, they would have savaged the Allied bomber squadrons in a matter of months, forcing them to completely abandon daylight bombing.
Once at altitude, the plane was found to handle extremely well, though it took a very experienced pilot to manage the craft and learn how it should be flown. The higher it flew, the faster it could go, obtaining a speed of 530 MPH at 10,000 feet, and adding another 10 MPH for every 10000 feet of elevation gained, until the plane topped out at just under 560 MPH. That was over 100 MPH faster than a speedy P-51 Mustang. No Allied propeller driven fighter would ever reach even 500 MPH during the war. Only the few Komet prototypes built, and summarily cancelled, would ever fly faster, and fifteen other designs that promised to do so were all scrapped on Volkov’s advice.
Capable of reaching a service ceiling of about 37,000 feet, the Me-262 was able to get at the highest flying Allied bombers. The B-24 could reach 28,000 feet, and the B-17, 35,000 feet. But up there, it was found that the turbojet engines had a nasty habit of flaming out. So like Icarus, the plane was vulnerable if it flew too high, and particularly if it flew too low. Allied pilots learned to linger near enemy airfields to get after the speedy jets as they attempted to land, with flaps down and sluggish air speed. It would force Himmler to order flak corridors set up on the landing approach patterns to discourage the tactic, and fly FW-190’s as top cover for launch and recovery. It would happen just as Volkov had told him.
So as promising as they were, the Stormbirds would not be the war winners that men like Himmler, Willy Messerschmitt, and Rudolf Galland had hoped. In the old history, however, they would claim 542 Allied aircraft shot down, for the loss of only 100 in combat, a kill ratio of 5.6 to one. Their achievement here, aloft two months early, would be about the same, but this new Wonder Weapon was not yet casting its shadow on the Allied cause in May of 1944. Its numbers would not grow for several more months.
It was the V-1 Buzz Bomb, a speedier version that could not be intercepted, and those high flying airships that had Churchill and the War Cabinet up late at night. Too often they would find themselves working deep underground, but those that ventured out would never forget the roar of the Hexenkessel bombs when they exploded, and the ominous glow of fires at night in London.
* * *
When Volkov learned of the staggering loss of five airships in that first raid over London, he was outraged. 25% of the entire airship fleet had been destroyed, all mid-sized beasts, which struggled to reach 40,000 feet in elevation. Their volatile cargo had made them easy pickings for the fighters that could reach them, and they died horrible deaths, every man aboard incinerated before the twisted remains of the duralumin frames would finally plummet to earth.
Of the larger ships that could fly over 50,000 feet, not one was scratched. The decision was therefore reached to commit only the very high flyers to any future mission. This meant that Volkov would now only send the Orenburg, Omsk, and Baku their three biggest airships, and they would be accompanied by all the newer German airships, Fafnir , Baldr, Heimdall, Angatyr, and Fenrir. This reduced the throw weight of the fleet, but it would do little good to send ships loaded with the volatile air fuel and thermobaric bombs, only to see them destroyed in spectacular explosions over London. The next raid would be untouchable, flying higher than any of the planes the British so boldly launched to intercept, or so the Germans believed.
The British had been warned by Himmler, yet they persisted, sending a massive night raid of nearly 1000 RAF Bombers to strike Berlin on the 15th of May. Among those public buildings hit that night were the Herman Goring Luftwaffe Barracks, and those of the Leibstandarte SS Divisio
n, empty now, as the unit was in the Pas-de-Calais. The Propaganda Ministry was also hit, and the Opera House, so there would be no singing from either facility for a good number of days. The university fell prey to fire bombing. Three hospitals were hit, along with seven schools, six banks, four warehouses. The list grew ever longer. Nearly 3000 structures in all were destroyed, leaving another 175,000 people homeless.
Listening to the bombs pounding the city, watching the searchlights scraping the sky, hearing the ceaseless flak guns firing, the SS leader, now nominal Chancellor of the Reich, was infuriated. That very night he sent a coded message to Nordstern where the airship fleet was still gathered. One word would say what he intended—Feuersturm —Firestorm.
Allied code breakers would decipher that word, and came to believe that a second airship attack was now in the works, but it was really a code within a code. A very famous U-Boat commander that had retired to train other officers in the Marineschule Mürwik , rejoined his last U-Boat for a very special mission. Himmler had asked for it, requesting an officer of the highest possible experience, and one fervently enlisted in the Nazi Party to complete the mission. Döenitz knew just the man, one Wolfgang Lüth, who had accumulated a staggering toll of 46 ships sunk for 225,204 tons, second only to the legendary Otto Kretschmer, who was not available—as he was now a prisoner in the UK. So Lüth would join Kapitan Kurt Freiwald aboard the last boat he had taken to sea, U-181 .
This time they were not going hunting. Instead he would be making a special delivery run to Nordstern, where the stealth of the U-Boat was better than sending the item in a vulnerable aircraft, or on a surface ship, which would have needed a strong escort. U-181 was a big type IXD2 boat, displacing a little over 1600 tons, with a surface speed a whisker over 19 knots, and about 7 knots submerged. They were roomy, with 6 torpedo tubes, five external containers for reloads and the ability to carry up to 66 mines. Some modified models could carry 250 tons of cargo.
The boat had been laid down in March of 1941 and launched that December. Lüth had won his Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, with Oak leaves, Swords, and Diamonds in that boat, which was as good as it gets. Coming aboard in Kiel, Lüth was pleased to see and recognize many of the crewmen he had fought with, including Kapitänleutnant Karl-August Landfermann, the Chief Engineer, and a promising Watch Officer, Leutnant zur See Johannes Limbach, who had been with him on his previous command, U-43.
“Karl,” he said, shaking Landfermann’s hand warmly. “They can’t chase you off this boat, eh?”
“I was supposed to go to U-188 ,” said Landfermann, but when I heard you were coming, I stayed put.”
“Good to see you, Kapitan,” said Limbach, coming forward from a group of younger men. “Now that you are back, we’ll surely get lucky again.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” said Lüth, pointing to his forehead. “Keep your wits about you, and you make your own luck.” The Kapitan had always run a very tight ship, obsessed with minding the wellbeing of his men, and making sure morale was always good. They had come to love him, in spite of his strict rules on the long sea voyages, and needless to say, morale ticked up considerably as whispers spread the length and breadth of the ship that Lüth was back.
“How long will we be out this time, sir? Will we try and break our own record?” U-181 had been noted for an incredible 205 day odyssey in the summer of 1943.
“Eager to get started on a new beard?” said Lüth with a smile, for the men would leave clean shaven, but return from these marathon patrols sporting long curly beards. “No, I’m afraid we will be making a very quick run, up north, to Nordstern. We have a delivery to make.”
“What was that loaded into the number one external container?” asked Kurt Freiwald, pleased to stand aside as Lüth would take temporary command of the boat again for this single mission. “It looked like a new kind of torpedo.”
“Never mind that, Kapitan,” said Lüth. “Perhaps the less said about it, the better, but I do know one thing, it’s not for us. Old Gross Löwe pulled me right out of the classroom for this one. No, it’s something for the Luftwaffe—top secret.”
“The Luftwaffe? In Norway? Why would they be sending anything important way up there? Something for those fat airships perhaps? I hear a lot of new bombs are being sent to Nordstern. Could that even be one of the new V-1’s?”
“Herr Freiwald, ours is not to reason why…”
“Understood, sir. We have everything loaded, and we should be underway shortly. Happy to have you aboard.”
‘Old Gross Löwe’ was, of course, Döenitz himself, the Great Lion now commanding the Kriegsmarine. It was no longer the navy that these men had signed on to, but they were still fighting as if it was. That was the mark of a good sailor, and every man aboard was dedicated, and willing to give their lives for any mission they undertook. This one was very special, and the boat would put out from Keil, with an escort, U-673 , which had just been fitted with a new experimental 37mm AA turret. More and more U-boats were getting upgraded AA armaments now that Allied air power was so effective in using both radar and HF/DF (Huff Duff) to locate the U-boats on the surface. Some had even been converted into U-Flak boats, with multiple quad 20mm AA guns, intended to lure in unsuspecting Allied planes and then surprise them with a hail of deadly fire.
“That’s quite a fancy new turret on our escort,” said Lüth .
“We’ll need the support,” said Kapitan Freiwald. “The loss of all the Brittany ports has forced all our U-boats up here, and the RAF goes fishing every day. A Sunderland got U-240 two days ago, and today they sunk U-241.”
“Arno Werr’s boat,” said Lüth, “a fresh faced young Leutnant. He put out from Kiel just last month.”
That was the routine these days, boats moving from Kiel, to Kristiansand, then Bergen. Some would then launch themselves into the Norwegian Sea, bound for the Atlantic, and run the gauntlet of Allied air power. The Catalinas, Sunderlands and B-24 Liberators were all up hunting this week, with a concerted effort being made by Number 18 Group, RAF. In addition to those two boats, they would get U-476, U-990, U-675, and U-292 in the recorded history of the next few days. So Lüth’s little two boat squadron would be sailing into dangerous waters.
“The Happy Time is long over,” said Lüth. “I remember the days when we had the boat out in the Indian Ocean. We would get the Wagtail up, and see what we could find, and the tonnage just kept adding up and up.”
The “Wagtail” was the Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 Bachstelze, named after the Wagtail songbird. It was a single seat gyro kite, with a rotary blade like a helicopter. Attached to a U-boat running on the surface, it could fly like a kite, getting a man aloft to increate surveillance range considerably. Plans were being made to mount radars on them, which would give the boats long range electronic eyes in their hunt for convoys and stray shipping. But things were not easy now, not with Allied escort carriers on the prowl.
“Lean pickings these days,” said Freiwald. Now these constricted waters are overflown by enemies, 24 hours a day. If it isn’t the Sunderlands by day, it’s the Mosquitoes by night. Only the snorkel boats are getting through.”
“Don’t worry,” Lüth reassured him. “We have two new models ready to go. The Type 21 and Type 23 boats will be here soon—the Electroboats. The first were launched just days ago, and we will have three or four hundred of them by the end of this year. But they require new tactics, and a lot of training for that. It’s all I’ve been doing this last year, ever since the Hindenburg was sunk and Raeder was killed. When Döenitz took over, it was a new direction, with all the production put into the U-Boats. That should have been done years ago, but at least we will have this new boat in good numbers soon.”
“What is so different about them?”
“They have a revolutionary new design, enabling them to stay submerged for a very long time. The Type 21 is a boat this size, over 1600 tons, and with six tubes forward. The battery power is three or four times what you have here, and
so it can run at 18 knots submerged, for up to 90 minutes. Slow down to 12 knots, and you can run at that speed for ten hours. Creep at five knots, and you can stay down there for 60 hours. Imagine that—300 miles submerged! We can get through the Kattegat easily enough under our own air cover, then submerge in the Skagerrak off Kristiansand and make the whole trip to Bergen submerged. We’ll move nice and slow, a shadow beneath the sea, and they won’t hear a whisper. Make a night surface run out of Bergen, and you can submerge north of the Shetlands, then run right through the Faeroes Gap. There is our solution to those Allied planes. They won’t even see us.”
“But we’ll have to come up to recharge.”
“These new batteries can complete a full recharge in just two hours. Beyond that, we can use the schnorkel, and can make over 10 knots with that while recharging.”
“Sounds like a fine boat.”
“You will have one in good time, Freiwald. Come down to the Marineschule, and learn the new tactics. This could change everything. Now, see if you can get me to Nordstern in one piece, eh?”
“Aye sir.”
Chapter 14
It was a simple case of the Merchant Marine getting in on a little revenge. For years they had herded their ships together in convoys, patrolled by sheepdog escorts, and preyed upon by the wolves. Now that airborne radar made it possible to find the stealthy U-boats on the surface, the German favorite attack method, the night surface attack, was taken away from them. More and more small escort carriers had been built to find and fight the wolf packs, and they had done an increasingly good job. Eager to get these ships into service, some older merchant ships were selected out as fine candidates for quick conversion to an escort carrier.
Breakout (Kirov Series Book 38) Page 11