by Lee Jackson
Stony Stratford, England
Claire was delighted to see her little brother waiting for her when she descended from the bus that afternoon. “Jeremy, you’re here. What a surprise.” She glanced up at the skies. “This must be a side benefit of the blitz coming to an end.”
“It is,” Jeremy replied, laughing. “I have all weekend to spend with you and Timmy, and then I’m returning to the army.”
Claire’s eyes had started to widen with happiness, but just as suddenly, they clouded over. “Timmy will be ever so thrilled, but the last part of what you said doesn’t sound good.”
“No more night flying,” Jeremy prodded, shaking his head close to her face. “I’ll have my feet firmly planted on the ground.” He looked down the street. “Let’s stop in at The Bull. I’ll buy you a drink and tell you all about it.”
Claire’s face clouded over even more. She cast a worried look down the street. “I haven’t been back in there since—” She caught her breath. “Well, since we commemorated Shorty. I’m not sure I can—”
“Sure, you can,” Jeremy assured her. He took both of her hands in his own. “We have friends there who cared about Shorty and care about us. He wouldn’t want to think that what happened to him would cast such a dark shadow that you forgo seeing them, and they wouldn’t either.” He tugged her arm. “Come on.”
Reluctantly, Claire gave in. The Bull’s manager greeted them at the door and guided them to their favorite table. “It’s so good to see you,” he said. Several patrons also greeted them as they made their way to their seats. They ordered drinks, and several minutes later, a waiter brought them.
Claire looked around at the familiar bar and piano, and the deeply polished wood-grained finishes with brass fittings. The sadness of her last visit to the pub held her momentarily, but she set the memory aside in favor of the first time Red had brought her there to meet Shorty and Andy, and then to celebrate Christmas. “We’ve had some good times in here,” she murmured. Then she brightened up. “So, enlighten me on what you’re up to. You’ve left the RAF?”
Jeremy nodded. “That will become official on Monday when I also become Captain Littlefield.”
“Why Jeremy! I’m so proud of you. You survived the Battle of Britain and the blitz. And now you’re a captain.”
“Thank you, sister. I’m pleased to be alive and in one piece.”
She cradled her face in her hands, supporting them with her elbows on the table. “I suppose I should be pleased for you, but the war’s still on, just farther away. I imagine you’ll be jumping into France at night again.”
“The good news is that I’ll be on the ground training here in Great Britain for three months. And I won’t be jumping into France. Major Crockatt told me this morning of a new program that’s in development using Lysander aircraft to land in France. It’s supposed to be in operation by the time I complete training.”
“So you’ll be flying them?” Claire asked worriedly.
“No, no. But when I go, I’ll be flown in one and climb down a ladder to the ground when it lands rather than jump out with a parachute. I’ll return the same way.”
Claire closed her eyes and held one hand to her forehead. “I guess that is some small comfort. Will you see Amélie?”
“I hope to, but Major Crockatt warned me to keep my focus on the mission.”
“That’s good advice,” Claire said, pointing a playful finger in his face. “I love Amélie, and I don’t want either of you to get killed. I’m curious about something, though. I’ve read about the Lysander. It’s been around for several years. If the aircraft already exists, why does it take so long to put the program in place?”
Jeremy sighed and gave his sister a rueful look. “You’re not going to want to hear this. The flights will go at night and land on unimproved fields. Informing the enemy of where we’ll come in by putting in a lot of work on landing strips would never do. So, we have to identify the fields and train local partisans how to set up to receive the flights. And of course, not everyone in France is our friend, so anyone on the receiving party will have to be vetted. All of that takes time.”
“I see. Then you don’t know any detail about your first mission, not even when?”
“That is correct.”
Claire breathed in deeply and closed her eyes. “Just please come home safely.” When she reopened her eyes, she finished off her drink. “Enough sad talk. Timmy will be thrilled to see you.”
51
May 25, 1941
Bletchley Park, England
An ache formed in the pit of Claire’s stomach as she stared at the headlines of the Sunday Dispatch.
HMS HOOD SUNK
“Blown Up, Feared Few Survivors,” Admiralty States
World’s Largest Warship
Hurriedly, she read the article:
“The Admiralty announced last night that the battle cruiser Hood, the world’s largest warship, blew up in a fight off the coast of Greenland when British forces met the Nazi battleship Bismarck. The Bismarck was damaged and British ships are carrying on the pursuit. It is feared there will be few survivors from HMS Hood. The battle cruiser received an unlucky hit in a magazine, which exploded. She was commanded by Captain R. Kerr, C.B.N., R.N., and was flying the flag of Vice Admiral L. E. Holland, C.B. The Hood had a normal complement of 1,341 officers and men. She was fitted with eight 15in. guns, twelve 5in. guns, and other armament. She also had four 21in. torpedo tubes above the waterline and one aircraft.”
Claire skipped down to the description of the German ship:
“The Bismarck—a 35,000-ton battleship—was launched in Hitler’s presence in 1939. It has an armament of eight 15in. guns, twelve 5.9in. guns. It carries four aircraft and had a top speed of 30 knots.”
Claire hurried into Hut 8. Gloom cast a pall throughout its long interior, evidenced in the drooping shoulders and long stares of the decoders working at the tables. They continued their work, albeit with expressions varying between confusion, dismay, anger, and determination.
Denniston had entered the room from the other end and now conversed with Alan Turing. Then together, they turned to scan across the room.
“May I please have your attention,” Turing called. “Commander Denniston has an announcement.”
When everyone had turned to listen, Denniston stepped forward and cleared his throat. His face was taut; his voice shook. “I won’t belabor the bad news regarding the HMS Hood,” he said, “nor the impact of her loss on both our war-fighting capability and public morale. To those of you with family and friends lost in the battle, my sincere condolences.”
He looked at the floor as his jaw trembled. Then he took a deep breath and continued. “Two hours after the attack, Prime Minister Churchill sent out a command instructing every ship and aircraft within attack distance of the Bismarck’s last known position to join in the search for her. In his own words”— Denniston drew a sheet of paper from his jacket and read from it—“‘There is nothing more vital to the nation in this moment as the destruction of the Bismarck. I don’t care how you do it. You must sink the Bismarck.’”
The commander paused and drew himself up, his eyes piercing as he scanned his audience. No one spoke. No one stirred.
“The prime minister’s directive implies tasks for us in this room. We now have the Kriegsmarine’s Enigma machine, and we have their disks with scheduled setting changes. Our task is clear. Whatever effort we’ve put into breaking German radio traffic to date, we will now double and triple it until the Bismarck is found and sent to the bottom of the North Atlantic.”
When Denniston finished speaking, the room remained deadly quiet. He acknowledged his audience with a quick nod, then turned to leave the way he had come.
Claire hurried to follow him. “Sir, may I have a word with you?”
“Can we talk while we walk, or should this conversation be in my office?”
“It’s probably best in your office.”
They covered t
he distance through the halls quickly, and when they were seated, Claire began. “I think you’re requesting more from Hut 8 than it can deliver at present.”
The commander cast her a quizzical look and leaned forward. “Go on.”
“It’s a practical matter. We have one Enigma configured for Kriegsmarine messages. We’ll have more soon, but that takes time, and only two weeks have gone by since we captured it. And there’s another element.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve been watching the frequency of German naval radio transmissions and where they originate. They’re not like the Wehrmacht or the Luftwaffe. Unlike those, the Kriegsmarine’s are infrequent and short; and what we know of their origin and course is that being sea-based, they move—quickly.
“I’ve also been back to my old haunts at Hut 6 and discussed with the analysts in Hut 3. I think the naval Enigma will do wonders for us going forward, but expecting a lot out of it right now could lead to disappointment and missed opportunities.”
“How so? I understand what you’re saying about our new tool’s limitations, but how will we miss opportunities.”
“By looking for data from a place that can’t give it. But intel is still available from where we’ve been receiving it all along, and that’s Huts 3 and 6. It won’t be perfect or as much as we’d like, but seeing cross-communications between the German services is not all that unusual, and of course, if they pertained to the Kriegsmarine and we read it, then it was most definitely sent in Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht codes. We might find something that could help track the Bismarck until we can pinpoint its location.”
Denniston stared at Claire. Then he broke into a smile and leaned forward. “Miss Littlefield, I knew that bringing you over to Hut 8 was a good idea. Go to work. If you find anything, let me know immediately.”
Claire swallowed hard when she left the commander’s office as the implications of what she had just done descended on her. I have him thinking I can produce something.
She entered Hut 6, where she had begun work at Bletchley early the previous year. Most of her former coworkers still occupied their same seats, and she cast a glance wistfully to where she had sat during her days there. She had visited since joining the analysis team in Hut 3, as recently as this morning, but her status had just changed yet again. She had brought with her a note from Denniston that directed her previous supervisor to take instruction from Claire for the next few days and to give her project the highest priority.
The woman read the message, flashed her eyes at Claire, and announced the circumstances to the cryptologists. The atmosphere had already altered into one of urgency with the news of the Hood. Now it took a decided leap as the sense of what information was being sought settled onto the group. They went to work with set jaws.
Late that evening, Claire knocked on Denniston’s door again. “I think we might have a start,” she said on entering his office.
“How is that?”
“Hut 6 intercepted a very peculiar message from the Luftwaffe chief of staff this morning. It had been sent to one of his generals in Athens, Hans Jeshonnek. The chief implied that he had a son on board the Bismarck and wanted to know where it was going. Jeshonnek passed the message along to Admiral Lutjens aboard the Bismarck, who received the message and replied to it via the naval Enigma. The transmissions to and from Lutjens were in naval code. Hut 8 intercepted those messages between Jeshonnek and Lutjens but couldn’t yet break them. But Jeshonnek converted them to Luftwaffe code and forwarded them back to the chief in Berlin.
“We had a little difficulty decoding the response at first because the German operator had made an error while keying in the—” Claire stopped talking, seeing that Denniston was gaping at her, and then continued, “But we figured out the mistake and the message translated clearly.”
Denniston’s face turned red, his eyes wide with excitement. “Are you saying that you’ve decoded a message containing the whereabouts of the Bismarck?”
“Yes, sir. We have the position and course set out clearly.” She held out a piece of paper to him.
The commander leaped to his feet with such force that his chair fell backward. “Is that it?” He snatched it from her and stared at it. “Is this the message?”
Claire nodded. “That’s it.”
“Stay there,” he said, and reached for the phone.
For the next twenty minutes Claire sat as Denniston made a series of calls while ignoring his overturned chair, and she heard him repeat her story several times. Finally, he hung up the phone, righted his seat, and sprawled into it, exhausted but obviously content. “Early tomorrow morning, our Coastal Command is sending up one of the American Catalina flying boats we have on loan to the area specified in this message to see if it can spot the Bismarck.” His brow creased with incredulity. “It’s being flown by a US Navy pilot, Ensign Leonard Smith. It’s flying out of Londonderry.” Then, he smiled at Claire. “Good work, Miss Littlefield.”
Rockefeller Center, Manhattan, New York
Seeing the headlines that blared up at him from the newsstand, Paul was so shocked that he almost forgot his coffee.
1300 Dead As Hood Sinks In Battle
Death of a Titan
He grabbed his coffee and newspaper and began reading as he hurried to the elevator. He kept reading as it ascended.
“Britannia, self-proclaimed ruler of the waves, made one of its most somber announcements of the war yesterday. London acknowledged the German claim that the British battle cruiser Hood had been sunk…somewhere between Iceland and Greenland…”
Stephenson was already in his office with General Donovan when Paul arrived. The two sat in the area in front of the desk in deep discussion. Stephenson waved at Paul, summoning him to join them, and turned back to Donovan. “As I was saying,” he told the general, “a Brit waking up and reading that the Hood had been sunk will be as traumatized as an American learning that the Statue of Liberty had been bombed and toppled. It looms that large in the British psyche. For twenty years, it has been the British Empire’s flag-bearer around the globe, a symbol of her military might.
“She was sunk in two minutes.” Stephenson leaned back in his seat and stared trancelike at the ceiling while all three men contemplated the event in silence. “The mightiest ship in the world was sunk in two minutes from nine miles away,” he said at last, breaking the quiet. He shifted forward in his seat. “There was a lot of skill and luck in that shot. Reports filed by British officers on nearby ships say that the killing round struck just aft of the mid-deck. That’s the only place it could have struck to have had such an effect.”
“How’s that?” Donovan inquired.
Stephenson sighed. “Originally, the Hood was lightly armored. Several years ago, as the Bismarck and the Tirpitz went into production, she was brought into drydock for re-fitting with heavier armor. But they only did the forward part of the ship. They intended to do the aft sections as well, but the Hood was so busy traipsing around the world to show the flag that the job never got done.” He shook his head, failing at an attempt to hide disgust. “The ammunition magazines were immediately below where the killing round struck.”
Silence descended again.
“What does that mean for our overall strategy?” Paul asked at last.
Stephenson stared at Paul absently and then shook himself out of his reverie. “It can’t be allowed to change anything,” he said after a moment. “We still must win the Atlantic, or Britain will starve.” He took a deep breath. “Churchill is pulling out all the stops, and beyond soothing British sentiment, he really has no other choice. With the Bismarck loose in the Atlantic and the Tirpitz probably preparing to run the blockade...” He shook his head, leaving his obvious thought unspoken.
“Do we know the extent of damage to the Bismarck?” Donovan said.
Stephenson pursed his lips. “No, but it was streaming fuel oil as it left the battle site.” He displayed rare disgust as he continued. “Our brand-new ba
ttleship, the HMS Prince of Wales, was also damaged in the encounter and couldn’t follow. So, the Bismarck disappeared in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, waiting, I imagine, to be joined by its sister while the crew makes repairs.”
Donovan stood, preparing to leave, and turned to Paul. “I had no idea about the stature of the Hood to your countrymen,” he said. “I’m sorry for its loss and that of your seamen.”
Paul rose to his feet to acknowledge Donovan and escort him to the door. Stephenson also stood, shook hands with the general, and circled round to sit at his desk.
After Donovan had left, Paul returned to stand in front of Stephenson’s desk. He held the newspaper in his hand. “Sir, if I may—”
Stephenson, who had begun perusing a document, looked up inquisitively. “Yes?”
“There’s another article here that should interest you. It’s short. I’ll read it to you.” He scanned down the paper’s front page to the article with his finger. “The headline reads, ‘US Months Ahead of Schedule,’ and it goes on, ‘“The American industrial machine is performing marvels,” says Lieutenant Commander R. Fletcher, M.P. Parliamentary Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, at Ramsgate yesterday.
“‘The American steel industry,’ he added, ‘is producing at all but a fraction of capacity at one-hundred million tons, and in twelve months, military plan production has risen from four hundred and fifty to fourteen hundred a month and is still rising.’”
Paul finished the article and looked up to meet Stephenson’s gaze.
“That’s quite impressive,” Stephenson said. “Thanks for showing it to me.” He picked up the document he had begun reading and started studying it again.
Paul remained standing in front of the desk. “Sir—”
Stephenson looked up, puzzled. “Was there something else?”
