Winter Warriors s-1

by Stuart Slade

  Lokken stopped himself in sheer shock at his own thoughts. The U.S. Navy hadn’t committed a single battleship to this action. It had never occurred to Lokken before, but he’d never even seen an American warship. They were staying safe, over the horizon, slaughtering their enemy with airstrikes. That made him think of them as being overwhelmingly powerful. The truth dawned on him. His battleship, the battleships, were obsolete, floating targets. The Americans had known it; that’s why they had built their carriers.

  Lokken allowed the terrible thought to roll around his mind. What was it the American showman had said? ‘Never give a sucker an even break.’ It was a chilling thought. This battle was showing them applying that as a strategic principle. If it was possible to destroy an enemy without risk to themselves, that’s what they’d do. The Fuhrer had cursed the Americans as businessmen but Lokken suddenly realized that was exactly correct. They treat war as a business problem. Minimize expenditure, maximize profits. Minimize risk, maximize gains.

  The insight suddenly told Lokken the truth. The Americans would be back to finish off Gneisenau. They would do it with aircraft and there was nothing he could do to stop them. Gneisenau was sinking, slowly but inevitably. There was nothing he could do to stop that either. That left only one order to give.

  “We will abandon ship. Order the men to prepare rafts. They must stay out of the water or they will freeze. They will use whatever they can find but we must get off this ship.”

  Lokken looked across the sea again, at the remaining 38s, disappearing off to the North. And at the dark blue cloud that was descending on them.

  Admiral’s Bridge, USS Gettysburg CVB-43, Flagship Task Force 58

  “Admiral, Sir. Reports are in from Formation Easy. Formation Fox is starting its attack now.”

  “How long to dusk?”

  The aide blinked. “Three hours, Sir. Twilight about another half on top of that. Formation Easy, Sir?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “They hit the left hand column of battleships, Sir. They’re reporting the loss of five aircraft. Claim seven torpedo hits; four on one battleship, three on the one following it. The Mames scored big Admiral. They’re claiming more than six hits on one battleship, four on another and three on a third. Strike leader reports the German formation has broken up. Sir; they’re scattered, at least four big ships are dead in the water and at least two of those are foundering. Only two battleships and a cruiser are left moving. They’ve split away from the main formation and are heading for us still, with five destroyers as screen. Formation Fox is hitting them now, Admiral.”

  “Formation Fox.” Wild Bill Halsey ran the figures through his mind. Four squadrons of Corsairs for flak suppression, two squadrons of Adies with two torpedoes each, two squadrons of Mames with three 2,000 pound rocket bombs per plane. This was TG58.2s heavy punch. The one that he was swinging at the last combat-effective German ships.

  AD-1 Skyraider Yellow Rose Seventh Wave, Over the High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic

  Yellow Rose was straining her engine to keep up with the rest of the formation. It wasn’t that her performance was sub-standard, her R-3350 engine was behaving above and beyond specifications. It was that she was carrying three torpedoes, not two like her sisters. Lieutenant George Herbert Walker Bush had promised that he was going to get himself a battleship and that was what he planned to do. He’d started by bribing and blackmailing his crew chief into hanging the extra torpedo under his aircraft. It hadn’t been hard. The crew chief came from Texas. That and a few appeals to state honor combined with a gentle reminder that the Bush family looked after its own had been enough. Overloaded, he’d been running his engine on the redline all the way to the German fleet.

  The battleships were in front of them now. A pall of black smoke from the flak suppression runs hid their superstructures. Six Corsairs had gone down in those attacks but their napalm and rockets had butchered the German anti-aircraft gunners. The red beads of tracer were still coming up, but only a small fraction of the fire they’d been prepared for. Bush took the throttles back from their maximum position and felt Yellow Rose slow down. The other Skyraiders were going in fast, pulling ahead of him. That reduced their exposure to the flak guns but their torpedoes had a greater chance of breaking up or sinking when they hit the water. At least one of the torpedoes broached surface and sank but his eyes were fastened on the center of the lead German battleship. Right between its two funnels.

  He was falling further behind by the second and Bush suddenly realized that he felt lonely, flying straight at the gray giant while the other members of his squadron had passed over it and were already heading home. He counted the columns of water erupting along the side of his target; three widely spaced and then two very close together. The first three were beautifully placed, one under each of the forward turrets and the third under the rearmost mount. All purely by chance, it was hard enough to hit a ship with a torpedo. Placing a torpedo exactly was too much to expect. The last two hits were almost beside each other, under the aft funnel. That had to hurt.

  Bush was suddenly aware that there were lights flashing round his cockpit. A German quad twenty crew had either escaped the carnage or their gun had been manned by some replacements. There was no time for distraction. He slowed down a little more, nestled closer to the water and hunched down in his seat. A little closer, just a little… Then he punched the release, dropping his centerline torpedo first followed by the two under his wings. They were heading for the target now, in a tight group with his first fish following the others. Now, if it went just right, that really would hurt.

  As Yellow Rose cleared the German ship, the 20mm gun got the range. Its shells, explosive and armor-piercing incendiaries lashed at the aircraft’s wings and belly. They tore out large lumps, slashing into her systems and ripped open fuel and hydraulic lines. Yellow Rose staggered in the air, mortally injured by the long, raking burst. As the crippled Skyraider turned away, her torpedoes crashed into the battleship’s side.

  The anti-aircraft gun had shot Yellow Rose to shreds but the three torpedoes did damage that far outweighed the shells. The leading pair of torpedoes hit directly under the bridge, barely 30 feet apart. They blew a hole more than 150 feet long in the ship’s side. The torpedo defense system had already been compromised by the earlier hits and failed completely under the stress of the twin explosions. A split second later, the third torpedo exploded in the middle of the failing structure. It turned the torpedo bulkhead into shards of razor-sharp steel that slashed inwards, raking the engine room behind with fire and fragments. The concussion from the three hits blasted open the internal bulkheads separating the diesel machinery rooms. That opened the way for the floodwaters that followed.

  Limping away from the ruptured battleship, Bush had no way of telling just how much damage he had caused. He’d seen the explosion. From his viewpoint it looked like one massive blast. He was too busy keeping Yellow Rose airborne to worry about it anymore. His engine was banging and coughing. The front of his canopy was coated with oil and the only gauges that weren’t registering far into the red danger zones were the ones that didn’t work at all. The rear section of his canopy was clear of oil. That let him see the wings, their control surfaces ripped up and hanging loose. Objectively, Lieutenant Bush realized there was no reason why his aircraft should still be flying.

  Yet, Yellow Rose was still flying. Even more impressively, she was heading home. Bush did the calculations in his head; he was losing altitude very slowly and could do nothing to stop it. He was losing fuel as well and couldn’t do much to stop that either. He didn’t think he was losing oil; by his estimates it had already gone. Why his R-3350 was still working was beyond him. But, if things didn’t get any worse, he’d just about make it back to his carrier. What he’d do when he got there was another matter. Still, it was time to concentrate on flying, what happened later could wait for later.

  “Hey, Shrub. What’s with that German ship? How did it get you that mad at i
t? Blow up one of your pappy’s oil wells or something?”

  Bush looked around. Two Skyraiders from his squadron were forming on him, escorting his crippled bird. He waved at them and one pilot waved back.

  “Damage report, Shrub. You know the panel, square one on the side, just above the tailhook? It hasn’t got a bullet hole in it. All the rest have. You’re streaming black and white smoke, I think the white is fuel, and there are bits falling off now and then. Guess Pappy’s going to have to buy you a new bird after this.”

  Bush waved again. His family was rich enough to buy him a new aircraft but he suddenly found he had an intense desire to keep Yellow Rose. Almost as if she was responding to the thought, the engine surged a little and he was able to regain a little altitude. Then the surge died away and the temperature gauge was climbing up again. The aircraft staggered onwards as the minutes ticked by; as if she was grimly determined to get her pilot back home.

  “Yellow Rose, this is Kearsarge. You’re around ten miles out. You’re clear for landing straight in, come to course oh-one-five.”

  “Negative Kearsarge. If I put this bird on the deck, she’ll pile up. Too many other birds coming in for that. Permission to ditch her?”

  There was a long pause and the voice on the radio came back, loaded with quiet respect. “Granted Yellow Rose. Be advised there is a plane guard destroyer bearing oh-three-oh, four miles out. Ditch close to her. She’s getting a boat out for you.”

  Bush reached up and opened his canopy. Light from the afternoon sun flooded in, telling him just how blackened his canopy had been. He tightened his straps, then tightened them again. Finally, he exhaled as far as he could, the yanked the straps another notch tighter. Ahead of him he could see a Gearing class destroyer had slowed right down to pick him up. Lose the little altitude I have left, then drop the plane onto a wave. There was a brutal slam as the crippled Skyraider plunged into the waves. Then, another series of blows as it bounded along, spinning as one wing dipped and grabbed a wave. Then, there was a dull wump noise as the flotation bags in the wings inflated. Bush knew they wouldn’t last long; they must be full of holes as well. He looked around and saw a ship’s boat closing in on him.

  Yellow Rose was sinking slowly. Bush felt that somehow he’d let her down. She’d fought hard to bring him back and now she was going to die out here. Well, he could do something about that, he took his kneepad and started to write out the story of what she had done to get him home. That way, his Pappy would buy him a new bird to carry on the name. He was so involved in writing it, that he didn’t feel the bump as the rescue boat hit the sinking Skyraider.

  “Jeez, look at that, guys.” One of the seamen in the crash boat was incredulous. “Sits there, as cold as ice, writing up his reports. Damn.”

  Captain’s Bridge, KMS Lutzow, High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic

  It was unbelievable, incredible. All around him, ships were writhing. They burned from bomb hits and the infernal jellygas, listed from the relentless waves of torpedoes that ripped their sides. Captain Martin Becker couldn’t believe his old cruiser was still afloat. Already, according to the raid count, more than a thousand of the dark blue Jabos had raked the fleet with rockets, torpedoes and bombs. The radar showed still more enemy formations coming in, at least five. Possibly six. As soon as one wave cleared, the next had arrived; a perfect conveyor belt of death and destruction. The last wave raked the two surviving ‘forties’ with bombs, rockets and torpedoes. Both were now dead in the water, von der Tann was settling fast. She’d taken eight torpedo hits all along one side and six of those lethal rocket bombs. One had smashed the bridge, burst it open with the same casual ease as an over-ripe tomato thrown at an unsuspecting victim. Admiral Lindemann had transferred his flag to Von Der Tann only a few minutes before. He’d managed the dangerous task of transferring his flag under fire, only to put himself directly under an Ami 2,000 pound bomb. All went to prove that one couldn’t trick the Grim Reaper.

  The wave overhead was different. The previous groups of Ami jabos had come in low, slashing at the formation from only a few dozen feet above sea level. This group were higher; five or six thousand feet at least, probably more. Were the Amis getting tired of the casualties from the flak? Or did they have a new trick in their book?

  It was a new trick, and it was being used on a new target. Previous waves of jabos had concentrated on the big ships. Now they were helpless and could be finished off almost at leisure. High overhead, the aircraft in this latest wave were peeling off in the traditional curve of the dive bomber, heading down in chains at the destroyers underneath. It was a familiar enough sight. The German crews had seen it often enough during newsreels of the glory days of 1940 and 1941 when nothing seemed able to stop the German steamroller. Obviously, the Amis had decided it was their turn to suffer. Not that the destroyer men hadn’t paid a grim price already. Seven of the sixteen had been bombed and rocketed. Five had already sunk, the other two wouldn’t last much longer. Those attacks though had been afterthoughts, incidental to the main weight of attack that had been hurled at the battleships. Now the Amis were targeting the destroyers for destruction.

  Far away, at the head of the formation, Z-30 vanished under a hail of bombs. The Ami Voughts had gone for her, firing their rockets in the dive; then releasing bombs. Not jellygas, the destroyer men had been spared that horror. It was a grim comment on this battle that the prospect of freezing to death in the icy seas was a mercy compared with burning in Ami jellygas. Would Z-30 make it out of the pattern of bombs that had been hurled at her? She did, but she was burning and losing way. How many bombs had hit her? Three? Four? According to the books the Ami Voughts could carry two 500 kilo bombs each in addition to their rockets. They would make short work of an unarmored destroyer.

  A realization hit Becker. Lutzow was the only capital ship left in the formation that was even partly operational. She’d tried to make the break north with Seydlitz and Von der Tann but she’d been too old, too slow, and her diesels hadn’t been up to it. She’d been floundering along, left further behind every minute. Now, there was enough separation between her and the main group that she might, just might, be overlooked.

  “Helm, come to course one-six-zero. Maximum speed, hold nothing back.”

  “Sir?”

  “You have a problem Commander?”

  “Sir, the….” The First Officer was trying to find a tactful way of phrasing this. “The Admiral’s last orders were to head on zero-zero-zero straight for the Ami fleet.”

  “Admiral Lindemann’s orders died with him. Do you think he survived that?” Becker pointed at the sight of von der Tann, a pyre of black smoke marking a hull that already had more than a thirty degree list. The ship wasn’t recognizable. Both funnels were down. The fore bridge was a mass of burning wreckage. All the turrets were at strange angles, some with their barrels up, others down. If ever a ship was a floating wreck, it was von der Tann. Only she wasn’t the worst off from what had once been the Second High Seas Fleet.

  Becker winced as, on the horizon, Z-23 exploded. A rocket bomb? Probably not, more likely a normal five hundred kilo that had punched through the destroyer’s thin plating and touched off a magazine. A split second later Z-25 followed her. The eruption from her magazine formed a strange mushroom-shaped cloud. For a second, Becker shuddered with a cold horror he couldn’t explain. Something much more frightening, on a much deeper level, than the death of a ship and her crew of 340 men could explain. Looking at the cloud marking the magazine explosion that had destroyed Z-25, Becker could only think of the expression ‘somebody had walked on his grave.’ But this was Germany’s fleet that was dying under the relentless air attacks. Did that mean that Z-25 had walked on Germany’s grave?

  “One-six-zero, NOW. We are Germany’s last capital ship. As long as we can stay afloat, the fleet still lives. The day is lost, hopelessly, irretrievably. We have a chance to turn around and save something from this disaster. Signal what other ships still can to head fo
r home. Night is just two hours away. If we can survive until then, the Ami carriers will have to wait for dawn. Nobody can fly from carriers at night.” Lutzow answered her helm and her bows swung south, heading for home.

  “Sir, over there.” The first officer spoke quietly, apologetically. Across the sea, Scharnhorst and Moltke, probably the last battleships left even partly mobile, were also turning for home. Far behind, Scheer was struggling with her wrecked rudder and single remaining shaft to do the same.

  KMS Bismarck, High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic

  The American tactics changed. Instead of the waves hitting a few ships in concentrated blows, now they were spreading out, finishing off the cripples. Bismarck was down by the bows. Her foredeck was already underwater with the sea lapping around the base of Anton turret. At least what was left of Anton. It was burned out, the barrels, blackened and drooping in the water. None of the other turrets were in any better condition. Bruno was completely off its barbette, lifted into the air and dropped back. For all the world it resembled a blackened shoe thrown carelessly into a pile. The ship was listing heavily to port. The last wave of Ami bombers had put six torpedoes into her port side, adding to the four that had already hit her. Now the port edge of her catapult deck was also level with the water. What there was left of her superstructure had been raked with more bombs. Fortunately none of the rocket bombs since she’d already taken six of those. Just a mix, 500 kilos, 750 kilos, thousand kilos, some high explosive, some armor piercing. They churned her superstructure to scrap. After a while the hail of hits had just been rearranging the wreckage.

  It was a mark of how much water the ship had on board that the submerged bow and heavy list hadn’t raised her stern or starboard side clear of the water. Not that the ship still had a stern to expose. An Ami Douglas had put both its torpedoes into the screws and the entire stern section had dropped clean off. A sheer, cliff-like wall now marked the point where the structure had failed. The incredible thing was, with all the holes in the hull and the thousands of tons of flood water that was surging through the battleship’s insides, she was still burning down there. A huge plume of black smoke rose above the sinking ship, half-masking the blood-red sun that was slowly setting in the west.