Untimely Designs

by gerald hall

  Who paid for all of this equipment that your Mister Cavill is sending us? Surely it must cost him a considerable fortune.”

  “I suppose that the Australian government has paid for it. I wasn’t told, one way or another, Sir.” The aborigine courier replied with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

  The British quartermaster was left wondering what to do with an entire battalion’s worth of tanks. But he didn’t have to wait very long as nearly a dozen lorries full of Australian troops roared up and stopped on the dock.

  “Sir, we understand that some cargo has arrived for us. The lads and I are here to fetch it.” Yelled out a soldier sitting in the passenger seat of one of the lorries.

  “Yes, Sergeant. It certainly appears to be the case. You might want to go talk to that dark-looking fellow over there. He seems to know what is going on.” Pointing towards Willie.

  “Fair Dinkin, Sir. We heard that Harold Cavill had something to do with this. So I’m not surprised if he put a bunch of Abos in charge. We’re just glad to have some new equipment in case that the Japs decide to come pay us a visit. Or perhaps, in case we decide to pay them a visit instead.” The Australian soldier said with a hearty laugh.

  Over the course of the next few hours, the Australian soldiers broke open the crates and began to drive out the tanks with the aid of the aborigines from Miraculous. Among the other pieces of cargo were a quartet of heavy trucks with semi-trailers designed for the transport of tracked armored vehicles.

  Soon, the trucks were driving off of the dock carrying the tanks. The semi-trailer could carry one of larger medium tanks or a pair of light tanks in a single trip. The use of the trucks saved considerable wear and tear upon the brand new tanks. Harold’s people had already advised the Australian soldiers that it would be a lot faster than driving the tanks back and would do a lot less damage to the roads in route.

  By the time the sun was setting, all of the tanks had been removed from the dock along with the many crates of ammunition and spare parts. The Australians had even taken the wooden crates along with them that the tanks had been shipped inside.

  Major Hamilton just stood there looking at the now empty pier. Gone were not only the tanks but also any opportunity to pilfer any equipment from the shipment for the benefit of the quartermaster’s wallet.

  “Bugger.” The port quartermaster said to himself as he shrugged his shoulders in disappointment and walked back towards his office. Something told him that when the next Cavill transport ship came in that things wouldn’t be much different either.

  Chapter Six:

  Battleship KMS Bismarck

  Grimstadfjord near Bergen, Norway

  May 21, 1941

  Admiral Gunther Lutjens stood on the bridge of the German battleship Bismarck while it sat at anchor. Within a few hours, he would be leading Bismarck and the three other heavy warships also anchored in the Norwegian fiord, the battleship Scharnhorst along with the heavy cruisers Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen, on a sortie to raid merchant shipping in the North Atlantic. A small flotilla of destroyers would also accompany Bismarck as well.

  “It is unfortunate that Gneisenau was also unable to join us. The damage from the Englander torpedo strike and subsequent bomb hits was simply going to take too long to repair. We would be quite a formidable force with her. We have already delayed the operation more than a month to gain Scharnhorst and Admiral Hipper as it is.”

  “At least the Kriegsmarine has decided to go ahead with the reconstruction of Gneisenau with new 38cm main guns and the upgraded secondary armament because of the amount of time that she will be in the shipyard anyway. The planned changes will make her extremely formidable once they are completed.

  In any event, we will still be a very powerful force against the Englander’s fleet with the vessels that we already have, Admiral. Scharnhorst was able to complete her refit to include the installation of torpedo launchers. They will help us to quickly sink enemy merchant ships that we have encountered. We will use all of these weapons to sweep away all of the merchant ships between America and England to finally starve the Englanders into submission.” Kapitän Ernsk Lindemann, the Bismarck’s commander replied.

  “Operation Rheinübung promises to turn the war in the Atlantic around, even with the presence of the new King George V battleships in the Englander navy. They are all inferior to Bismarck in my view. With the Americans keeping their few modern battleships at home, we will not have to worry about encountering any of them either.”

  “The Americans do not have the stomach to fight another war in Europe. The French have fallen except for a few stubborn fools in Indochina and some others scattered around the world. All we have to deal with are the Englanders now. The Englanders will not be able to mass their ships quickly enough to stop us from sinking any convoy that we choose. The German Navy will be the instrument of our final victory against them, not that fat fool Herman Goering and his vaunted Luftwaffe.”

  “I’m sure that Herr Goering will have something to say about that. But we will show him otherwise.” Admiral Lutjens laughed.

  “It is unfortunate, that our aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin will not be complete in time to join this mission. It would have been good for us to be able to have our own aircraft support like what the Amerikaners, Englanders and Japanese fleets do.”

  “Perhaps so. But it will be our guns that will be the decisive element here.” Admiral Lutjens defiantly declared.

  “Now if we could simply get the damned Italians to show a little backbone in their ‘Mare Nostrum’. The Englanders have the Italians cowed into inaction by the use of a few old battleships and aircraft carriers operating biplane relics. Now, the Italians mostly sit in port, afraid to come out and fight in decisive combat for fear that the paint on the sides of their ships might get scratched.”

  “Careful, Kapitän. Those are our valued allies that you are talking about.” The admiral sarcastically said with a laugh.

  “It would be nice if they actually demonstrated some value on the battlefield occasionally. I can’t wait to get back to sea now. It is time for us to go into battle and to show the Englanders that we now control the high seas. We will erase the shame that our sailors brought upon us a generation before when they mutinied rather than go out and face the Englanders in glorious battle once more. Our ships instead met their end scuttled at the bottom of Scarpa Flow.”

  “Soon enough, my friend…..soon enough.”

  A yeoman walked up to Kapitän Lindemann and handed him a piece of paper that he quickly read.

  “Kapitän Kurt-Caesar Hoffmann has invited us to come visit him aboard Scharnhorst. I guess that he has something that he wants to show us.”

  “Of course. I’m sure that Kapitän Hoffmann is very proud of his command and wants to show her off a bit before we leave. I see no reason why we should decline his invitation. Do you?”

  Royal Navy Admiralty Headquarters

  Portsmouth, UK

  May 25, 1941

  “Sir, we have just received confirmation from Intelligence that a major German fleet operation has begun. There are at least four large warships and several escorts involved.” A senior Naval Intelligence officer reported to the Admiral of the Fleet.

  “Who do we have closest to them?” Admiral Pound asked.

  Captain Edwin Wellington pointed to a spot on the map southeast of Greenland. “We have Hood, Prince of Wales, the light carrier Frobisher and four destroyers here. They are commanded by Vice Admiral Holland. We also have the heavy cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk on patrol near the northern part of the Denmark Straits. Rodney is providing escort for MV Brittanic about two hundred miles southwest of Holland’s force.

  The battleship King George V, and the carrier Victorious are at Scapa Flow, but are prepared to sail at short notice. We also have the battle cruisers Repulse and Tiger available there. The battle cruisers are faster than King George V, but we dare not have them engage the Germans without significant capital ship support becaus
e of their inferior armor protection. Finally, we have Force H with Renown, the carrier Ark Royal and the cruiser Sheffield, Sir. Of course, Renown operates under the same handicap as her sister ship Repulse.”

  “Let’s bring them all. If Bismarck is indeed accompanied by additional capital ships, then we cannot afford to underestimate them. We will also want as many destroyers as can be made available to provide our capital ships with an adequate screen against U-Boats. We might as well take advantage of Prime Minister Churchill’s prewar push for the production of more escort vessels. It would be a hell of a thing if any of our battleships were to be sunk by a U-Boat while hunting Bismarck.”

  Battleship KMS Bismarck

  Greenland Sea

  May 26, 1941

  Bismarck was awaiting its turn to refuel from the prepositioned German tanker Weissenburg after her consorts had refueled. The four large destroyers had been first to refuel, having nearly expended half of their fuel already. After the destroyers, came the two fleet torpedo boats, then the cruisers Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen. Finally the Scharnhorst was refueled before Bismarck. All of these ships had very limited ranges compared to the Bismarck.

  “We will very nearly drain Weissenburg dry once we get our fill of bunker fuel from her.”

  “I know, but once we are fueled, we will be have a considerable latitude in terms of movement to hunt down enemy merchant convoys. If we had not stopped to refuel, our Zerstörers would have had to return to base in only a few more hours. We will need their eyes and torpedoes to help us with enemy escorts.”

  The destroyers Z20 Karl Galster, Z23, Z24 and Z25 and the fleet torpedo boats T-25 and T-26 together formed a protective screen around the heavy cruisers and battleships after the former had finished refueling. With their fifteen-centimeter caliber main guns, Z23, Z24 and Z25 were almost as well armed as the older Royal Navy light cruisers, but were far faster and more maneuverable.

  The German destroyer captains had spent enough time practicing against their own U-Boats. They were at this point more worried about British submarines than about Royal Navy battleships. The latter will be enough of a threat when the German capital ships finally go into combat against their British counterparts.

  All of the German destroyer commanders wanted to have a chance to sink a British capital ship themselves. That would be fitting revenge in their minds for the destruction that HMS Warspite inflicted upon so many German destroyers during the Norwegian campaign.

  Battle cruiser HMS Hood

  Denmark Straits

  May 29, 1941

  HMS Hood surged through the ocean waters at nearly twenty knots, followed by the new battleship HMS Prince of Wales. The latter had just finished her working up period after being commissioned.

  The great battle cruiser was still the largest warship in the Royal Navy. Hood herself had not been long out of the shipyards after spending eighteen months there undergoing a massive refitting. The work had started at the beginning of 1939 before war with Germany was considered likely. When Great Britain declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, the decision was made to continue with Hood’s refit, mostly because it was too far along to be stopped.

  HMS Tiger and HMS Repulse were also just finishing up similar reconstructions within the next couple of months after the beginning of the war. They, along with HMS Renown, would comprise the 1st Battle cruiser Squadron while Hood’s refit was being completed. Renown had been the first of the battle cruisers to go through the refit program.

  All four battle cruisers, when completed, would have the same twenty medium-caliber dual-purpose guns in BD Mark II mounts as secondary armament as did the rebuilt Queen Elizabeth-class and the new King George V-class battleships. The reconstructed battle cruisers all also had substantially increased numbers of light anti-aircraft guns as well.

  Hood’s boilers and turbines were all modernized during the refit. Few people knew the role that Harold Cavill’s English subsidiary played in the design of Hood’s new power plant. The newer technology incorporated into Hood’s engines saved a couple of thousand tons of weight over the older units and reduced overall fuel consumption. This savings was plowed back into the modernized secondary armament, a reconstructed superstructure and upgraded horizontal armor protection.

  Hood and Prince of Wales had finished their shakedown cruises at virtually the same time. They were immediately assigned together to patrol the North Atlantic. Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland commanded the powerful force from Hood’s bridge.

  “Admiral, HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk have picked up several ships on their radar. They say that four of their contacts appear cruiser-size or larger. I’m surprised that our carrier hadn’t spotted them first though.” Captain Ralph Kerr, Hood’s captain reported to Admiral Holland.

  “These new contacts must have been trying to take advantage of that fog bank rolling in off of the Greenland coast. Frobisher has been keeping her aircraft relatively close at hand to help protect us against U-Boats rather than actively hunting for surface ships. It appears that has allowed our opponents on the surface to slip in a lot closer to our convoy routes before being detected.”

  “What are your orders, Sir?”

  “Please ask our carrier to launch some more aircraft to see if they can get a better view of our ‘friends’ out there.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Obviously, we don’t want to try to take on the Germans with equal numbers. While we naturally want to be sporting gentlemen, this now is war. The last thing that we want to give ‘Jerry’ is a fair fight. We are going to call for reinforcements. In the meanwhile, let’s have HMS Frobisher keep our German friends under surveillance with her aircraft. We also want her to keep a close eye for any U-Boats as well. We aren’t the only ones who can call for reinforcements, you know.”

  A few minutes later, a young signalman ran up to the Hood’s captain, dispatch in hand. Captain Kerr took the dispatch, glanced over it before handing it to Admiral Holland.

  “We’ve had a visual report from one of our scout aircraft, Sir.” Captain Kerr said. “There are two battleships, two heavy cruisers and several escort vessels. One of the battleships has three triple turrets. That means she is either Scharnhorst or Gneisenau. But the other battleship is definitely larger and has four twin turrets in her main battery. That has to be Bismarck.”

  “This is the fight that we have been waiting on since the beginning of the war. Well, let’s be at it, gentlemen.” Admiral Holland told the others.

  Now, the grand old lady of the Royal Navy was preparing to go into battle against an enemy battleship for the first time.

  Battleship KMS Bismarck

  Denmark Straits

  May 29, 1941

  “We are facing a King George V-class battleship and the battle cruiser Hood. There also appears to be a pair of County-class heavy kruizers and at least several zerstörers accompanying them.” Kapitän Lindemann reported as he quickly glanced over the latest report from Bismarck’s spotters.

  Admiral Lutjens bared his teeth with a smile that made Kapitän Lindemann think of a wolf contemplating his prey.

  “Well, now we get to see how capable the newest and the grandest of the Englanders’ capital ships are in combat. It will be a glorious victory for us, I am certain.”

  The British were less celebratory and more businesslike concerning this situation. Hood’s bridge was busy but calm as they prepared for battle.

  “Sir, I think that other battleship is Scharnhorst. Look where her main mast is located. It’s aft of the aircraft hangar and catapult. Our intelligence photos show that Gneisenau has her main mast attached to her funnel.” Captain Kerr said after looking out at the two German battleships through a pair of powerful naval binoculars.

  “That makes sense with the reports from Bomber Command about having hit one of those ships in port and inflicting heavy damage upon it. Intelligence said that she was Gneisenau. I guess that they were both right.

  A call from Hood�
��s main battery director came in to the bridge. Bismarck was now in range of Hood’s fifteen-inch main guns.

  “You may fire when ready, Captain.” Admiral Holland calmly said.

  The four fifteen-inch guns from Hood’s two forward turrets fired at once with a deafening roar. A few moments after Hood fired, Prince of Wales fired a salvo from her six forward fifteen-inch guns as well. It sounded like half a dozen train locomotives roaring overhead as the British battleship’s heavy shells passed over Hood on the way towards Bismarck.

  A sailor on Hood’s bridge could be heard through the silence after Hood’s initial salvo quietly saying as everyone awaited Bismarck’s first salvo.

  “Lord, may we be truly thankful for what we are about to receive.”

  This bit of dark humor dated back to the days of sail as brave men stood and helplessly waited for an enemy ship to finally make its turn and fire a broadside of shot and shell that would surely unleash untold death and devastation upon them and their ship.

  Finally, a series of brilliant flashes on the horizon announced that Bismarck and her companions had fired their main guns at the British force. It could be as long as twenty seconds before the heavy German shells would arrive.

  Half a dozen massive fountains of water surrounded Hood at the same time a pair of loud explosions rocked the massive battle cruiser. Smoke could be seen issuing from just aft of the starboard secondary battery. More shell splashes could be seen around Prince of Wales and the two British heavy cruisers as well.

  “The Germans are still devilishly good shots, I’m afraid. How badly are we hit?” Admiral Holland quickly asked.