Knight's Move (Kirov Series Book 21)

by John Schettler

  It was a difficult decision, yet he signaled Goeben that they would change their heading to 320 degrees, coming well around to port. For the time being, the two ships would remain together. He would send a coded message to Group West, informing him of the missed replenishment window, and request tanker support at an alternate hover point. A few minutes on his charts would find the right location.

  As for the British, he had learned in the latest intelligence communiqué, that there was yet another convoy proceeding southeast from the Cape Verde Islands, bound for Freetown. If that is the case, thought Heinrich, then they are worried we are a threat to those ships. Under other circumstances, I would be a wolf indeed, and go after those sheep, but not now, not with those missiles and radar sets we’ve got hold of, and not with our fuel so low. I have no other choice now. We’ll break off to the west, keep looking for Ermland, and see what Group West advises.

  * * *

  Somerville had kept his promise that day when Captain Wells stepped off the Albacore that had flown him out to Formidable. A small company of the ship’s senior officers was waiting on the flight deck, all in dress whites, and he was properly piped aboard, with salutes, introductions and handshakes all around.

  “Well you’ve come at a most opportune moment,” said the Admiral. “Argos Fire has sniffed out a wolf off to our southwest. We’ve just received information on their last course and speed.”

  “A threat to the convoy?” asked Wells.

  “They’re 150 miles out at the moment. No immediate concern. We’ve no light for air operations tonight, and the weather is rather thick, as you’ve likely seen. I’ve ordered the convoy to move east, closer to the African coast. Newcastle and one of the destroyers will stand a watch on our right flank as we go south.”

  “They’ll likely be gone in the morning, unless they know we are here.”

  “It’s rather push pull on that question,” said Somerville. “The last place I want to see those raiders is within gun range of any of the ships in WS-16. That’s our primary charge. After that, finding those ships and bringing them to heel is the next order of business. Argos Fire has good radar, and they can keep us well advised if the enemy turns this way. I’ve contacted Captain Bellars on Norfolk. He’ll lead Suffolk up at the double quick, and I’ll feel a good bit better with a pair of heavy cruisers on the watch.”

  “Right sir, with your permission, I suppose I should get to the bridge.”

  “No need to rush off to work immediately,” said Somerville. “Get some dinner in the officer’s dining room, and a little sleep. Your Executive Officer has the watch tonight, Commander Liang. He’s come over from Furious.”

  “Ah… yes sir, I know the man.”

  “Very good then, the two of you can confer in the morning, but I think we’re likely to have a quiet night.”

  “How soon before we can expect Norfolk and Suffolk to come up?” Wells was already thinking ahead. The opening pawn moves had been made, and soon the Knights would sally forth.

  “Last word had them four hours to the south. I’ve informed Force C of this development, and Admiral Tovey. If we can assure the safety of WS-16, then we’ve a free hand to join the hunt.”

  “I’ll have that dinner sir,” said Wells, “but I’ll want planes spotted for operations first thing in the morning.”

  Somerville nodded, appreciating the man’s energy. He could see Wells was already contemplating the possible outcomes of this chance encounter. Good for him, he thought. The man who fights the battle in his head the night before may have the best chance of winning it come sunrise. But with WS-16 out there, I would be just as pleased to have this be a quiet episode of ships passing in the night. For the moment, darkness and silence is our friend.

  Part XII

  Flight of the Goeben

  “It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind;

  it is only by defying it that the brave escape.”

  ― Voltaire

  Chapter 34

  Captain Thomas A. Sanford was standing on the deck of the newest ship in the fleet, fresh from its commissioning ceremony at Scapa Flow just three days ago, and now already out to sea. If anyone saw her go, along with her sister ship off the starboard side, they might have thought Britain was sending out the last two battleships in the King George V class, Anson and Howe, but that was not the case. It would be an easy mistake to make, he thought, and a nice little war mask we can wear when first encountering an enemy at sea, seeming to be more than we are.

  He was standing aboard the heavy cruiser Sir Lancelot, the first of the Knight class, and Sir Galahad was keeping pace, her clipper bow cutting the sea, a white bone of water in her teeth as the two ships ran their engines at high speed for sea trials.

  “Mister Laurence,” he said with just an edge of warning in his voice. “Are you certain we’re running full out? It looks like Sir Galahad is creeping up on us. Their bow is almost amidships now.” The Captain was short and heavy set, full chested with sandy hair, and sea blue eyes that always seemed to be moving, always seemed alert, shifting out to sea, then up to rigging on the mainmast to watch the new Type 281 radar spinning there. They were the outward sign of the active mind behind them, always thinking, considering, evaluating.

  “Full ahead sir,” said Laurence, a capable Number One, the perfect foil to complement the Captain, even in appearance. He was lean and academy trim, with dark hair and just a flash of grey at his temples. Cool in demeanor, Laurence was the calm to balance the Captain’s busy temperament, the ice to his fire, and the two men got on quite well together. “I’ll ring up the engine room to see if they can coax another knot of two out of the turbines,” said Laurence, knowing that a simple ‘yes sir’ would not suffice with Captain Sanford. It would only frustrate him, and leave him thinking that nothing more could be done to push or nudge the ship along, drive it just a little harder, because that was what they were doing out there on Sir Galahad, running for all they were worth.

  “Thirty-four knots!” said Sanford with a smile, seeing his ship maintain the slight lead she had.

  “I’ll make it a whisker over that sir,” said Laurence to put a little icing on the cake. “We’re breaking through thirty-five knots even now.”

  “Thirty-five bloody knots,” Sanford beamed, “even in choppy seas and with a good stiff wind in our nose. By god, we’ve a real warhorse here, Mister Laurence.”

  “That we have, sir.”

  “Galahad is keeping pace, but just barely. I think they look a little worn out, wouldn’t you say?”

  “We’ve run them ragged, sir. Look at that halyard amidships, the flagman has the wrong ensign up. He’s run up the red code flag sir.”

  The other ship had been flying the “A” flag, a blue chevron on white, indicating she was running full out. But now they ran up a red and white pendant beneath that, indicating they were taking on a signal.

  “What is he talking about? Anything from the W/T Room?”

  In came Ensign Willard, message in hand, and the Captain turned about, one hand still holding his field glasses, the other reaching into his pocket for the mints he was fond of. “What’s this, Willard?”

  “Just came in, sir.”

  “Just came in? Then why is that ship out there flying a code flag? They would have had it minutes ago to get that hoisted. By god man, I should have had it minutes ago as well! This is the flagship of this squadron.”

  “Sorry sir, I slipped on the ladder up and scuffed me knee.”

  Sanford gave him a look. “That knee looks to be in perfect order. Here, give me that, and off with you. Just be damn certain you get the latest signal up here quick as a cat next time.”

  “Aye sir. Sorry sir.”

  “Mister Laurence, answer that pendant.”

  “Already done, sir. They’ve hoisted again, and want to fall off to two thirds.”

  “Send the affirmative, but we hold our present speed until they reduce. I’ll not fall for that old tri
ck. Just the sort of thing Everett is likely to pull. He’ll wait for us to fall off and then nose ahead.”

  “Not on your watch, sir,” Laurence agreed.

  Now the Captain was actually reading the message he should have had minutes ago, his eyes alight. “Well now, WS-16 had a contact to our south. We’ve been ordered to cancel scheduled sea trials and proceed directly to the Cape Verde Islands.”

  “Might it be that German raiding group sir?”

  “We haven’t heard a peep out of them since they popped off at Ascension Island,” said Sanford. “Some thought they were heading for the Indian Ocean, but I’ve heard intelligence that they were just down there to harass Ascension and Saint Helena. They could be heading home. Somerville is out with that convoy, and that means the Admiralty was on to something.”

  “Then it looks like our stint with Force C has also been cancelled?”

  “Apparently so. Very well, Laurence. Run up ‘follow my wake,’ and then ahead two thirds. I see Sir Galahad has fallen off as they requested. Good to know there’s certainly nothing wrong with our engines. Note we’ve achieved 35.2 knots in trials, and see that it’s properly logged. On our way south, I intend to conduct live fire exercises to make certain the guns are sorted out as well—three salvoes, all main batteries. If we’re going to get lucky and find some action out here, we’d best clear our throats before we sing.”

  “Aye sir. 35.2 knots it is, and properly logged. Now ahead two thirds.”

  The Captain brought the ship around on 190 southwest, reassured by the responsive rudder and smooth turn. At 20,500 tons full load, she was quite a bit more than a heavy cruiser. The County Class she was designed to replace weighted in at about 14,150 tons average full load, so this was a super cruiser, to be sure, though not as large as a full battlecruiser like Renown had been, which displaced 32,740 tons full load. In spite of her size, she was a remarkably quick ship, and those 35 knots at trials would have left any County Class cruiser in her wake.

  The extension of her forward segment, and clipper bow, had done wonders for her speed. King George V had always shipped a lot of water over her squarish bow, but that was corrected here, and the Knight class deftly parted the sea as it ran. While it would be rare for the ship to go full out at 34 knots for more than a few minutes, achieving that speed at trials meant she could easily give the Captain 32 knots when desired. Better yet, her sea keeping was steady as a rock, and like most large cruisers, she had good endurance, about 12,000 nautical miles at 18 knots.

  When seen in profile the ship also looked a good deal more threatening than a typical heavy cruiser. The conning section looked almost identical to King George V, though smaller, and the ship also had two stacks right amidships, with their truncated angled tops being the only noticeable difference that would make her easy to spot. They had been adapted from a design penned for a future battleship, HMS Vanguard, and in many ways this ship was a hybrid of old ‘treaty era’ ideas, and new wartime ideas free of that restraint and born of that experience.

  The main battery that Sandy Sanford would test that afternoon was composed of ten 10-inch guns, configured exactly as in the King George V series. In one stroke, the Royal Navy had bettered the ten gun Japanese heavy cruisers, and made the German cruiser killing Deutschland class obsolete. They were also better gunned than the new German Rhineland series, which still had only six 11-inch guns. That 10-inch gun was entirely new, designed before the war, and had performed very well in terms of durability, range and reliability all through early testing.

  Added to that, the ship would also get three twin QF 5.25-inch turrets per side, the same guns that were on the King George V class, though not as many. The 2 pounders were then switched out for eight 40mm Bofors, and another sixteen 20mm Oerlikon AA guns. Add in a quad 21 inch torpedo tube to either side, and it was a most formidable ship, one that might easily tangle with the likes of Scharnhorst, though it was not as heavily armored.

  That was where the weight had been saved in the interest of speed. While the Knight class occupied that grey zone between heavy cruiser and battlecruiser, the designers had kept her cruiser attributes uppermost in mind. Yet they also wanted a design that could stand confidently with any cruiser then in existence. So where the likes of the existing County Class cruisers had no more than 110mm belt and turret protection at 25mm, the Knight class would live up to its name and put on some real armor. They would have 152mm at the belt, (5-inches), the same protection given to Renown. Her turrets and conning tower were lighter at 100mm, but well protected relative to any other British cruiser, and her deck armor was a half inch thicker than the County Class at 50mm. All of this was a third of what a battleship might have, but significant for any ship primarily designed to fulfill the role of a cruiser.

  Some argued the effort made here was fruitless, even as the Renown Class, and to some extent HMS Hood, had been seen as having inadequate protection to face another strong battleship. That thin deck armor would make the ships vulnerable to plunging fire from bigger guns, but the Knights were never meant to stand in a fight with a true battleship. Instead, they were conceived as fast carrier escorts, fleet scout and patrol ships. Their job was to find, engage, and shadow the enemy, just as any cruiser might. With over 34 knots proven in Captain Sanford’s little race with Sir Galahad, there were few capital ships in the world that could outrun the Knights, and if pressed they had the firepower to blast away any cruiser they might encounter, and even threaten other ships large enough to hurt them.

  All these ideas were soon to be put to the test, as the first two Knights of this new round table in the Royal Navy were now to be thrust into the middle of a desperate sea chase.

  * * *

  Kapitan Heinrich finally got a message back from Group West that night. He learned that Ermland had been delayed by an unexpected rendezvous with U-68, a lone wolf out from Lorient on the 11th of February, the boat was commanded by Korvettenkapitan Karl-Friedrich Merten. He had skirted west of Madeira, and then made a run in towards the Canary Islands to serve as a reconnaissance picket during the recent operations there. After the British evacuated Gran Canaria, things settled down, and both sides consolidated on the islands they held, needing supplies and reinforcements.

  Merten took a few shots at merchantmen trying to make runs down to Tenerife, but had no success in that month. Receiving orders to proceed to his regular planned patrol, he then moved south, when an unexpected oil leak threatened to compromise his entire mission. The boat lost many tons of fuel before the Engineers could get that leak stopped, and for a time the visible oil slick on the sea was a liability that was most hazardous. After repairs were completed, Merten requested tanker support, and diverted to meet up with Ermland about 300 nautical miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. It was that replenishment operation that kept Ermland from being at its regularly scheduled hover point, and Group West had not informed Heinrich until they received his request for tanker support on the 24th of February.

  Now Kaiser Wilhelm was heading northwest to find the tanker, making 18 knots in grey seas with low overcast on the morning of the 25th. Unbeknownst to Heinrich, Argos Fire was nipping at his heels when he turned, just far enough off for that Sampson radar to keep an eye on the ship and confirm his new heading. Captain MacRae reported this to the British, who then diverted Norfolk and Suffolk to take up that patrol while Argos Fire returned to its assigned picket duty with Convoy WS-16.

  Another U-boat, number 505 under Axel Loewe, had taken a shot at the tail end of the convoy, narrowly missing Cuba in row four, which was carrying personnel bound for Batavia. The British escorts, destroyers Boreas, Brilliant and Wild Swan, which had come up from Freetown, went into action, but they could not locate the enemy. So a message was sent to Argos Fire to lend a hand with its very capable sonar. With the German raiders apparently heading out to sea, MacRae left to go hunting for that submarine.

  The weather was too low, and the hour too early to contemplate even launching a seaplane
off the Goeben, which also carried a pair of crane launched Arado 196 float planes. At 08:20 hours they began to get enough clearing to permit air operations, but the question remained as to whether any planes should fly.

  “Falkenrath wants to get eyes up to look for Ermland,” said Dieter Jung. “Shall I give him that authorization?”

  Heinrich had been considering this for the last hour. The situation seemed quite calm. There had been no further sign of enemy activity the previous night, and their radar had cleared up as well. They had no contacts out to a range that would mark their horizon, so the only way to extend their situational awareness would require an air search.

  “Very well,” he said. “Send an Arado. Have him spot a pair of fighters on deck as well in case we get any more visitors.”

  That was the order, and the Goeben had that seaplane aloft, with Marco Ritter insisting he be right there on the flight deck on ready alert should there be any sign of trouble. The loss of Eulers galled him, and he was eager for revenge, rockets or no rockets. Jurgen Hafner would be his wing mate if they had to go up, but it would not prove necessary. The Arado found the Ermland just over the horizon, flying very low and seeing the distinctive lines of the ship. Kaiser Wilhelm turned to intercept, and soon Kapitan Heinrich was out on the weather deck with his field glasses, studying the light sequence flashing from the ship’s mast.