by Stuart Slade
That sun had masked the aircraft’s approach. Four Corsairs came out of it, in tight formation. Their wings sparkled with the flashes of their .50 caliber machine guns. The hail of bullets swept through the men struggling to abandon ship on the sloping, burned out and wrecked decks, scything them down. The Corsairs dropped their bombs and passed over the fleet to where the settling hulk of Seydlitz steamed in the sea. They lashed her with their rockets and machine guns and were gone. They were probably orbiting round for another pass, that was something else that had changed, the hours when the Amis made a single pass across the fleet and left were gone. Now the ships were defenseless, their flak guns gone, their machinery useless. Their crews could only watch the Americans circled around them, placing their bombs and torpedoes just so. Coming back over and over again until their guns and bomb racks were empty.
Captain Mullenheim-Rechberg felt the battleship shudder under his feet. More internal explosions as the fires down below eat their way towards his magazines. He picked himself up; he’d ducked behind a wrecked anti-aircraft mount when the strafing pass had started. The men who’d been trying to abandon ship were sprawled around on the deck where the Ami jabos had cut them down.
“Why? Why? Couldn’t they see we are sinking, that the crew are abandoning ship?”
One of the junior officers was almost hysterical. For a moment Mullenheim-Rechberg had sympathy for him. He’s barely more than a boy and this wasn’t what anybody had expected. But panic and fear were contagious and had to be crushed quickly. “Get a grip on yourself. You are an officer, act like one.”
“Sir, Von Der Tann has gone! She just rolled over and went down.” That wasn’t surprising, she’d taken at least ten torpedo hits and twice than many of the heavy armor-piercing bombs. She was the first; but she wouldn’t be the last, Seydlitz and Derfflinger were as bad. Behind Bismarck, Tirpitz was shattered and sinking fast. That didn’t surprise him, by the time the last Ami bombers had finished with her, she’d taken a total of 13 torpedoes and a dozen heavy bombs. She would not last much longer.
Captain Mullenheim-Rechberg staggered as another internal explosion racked his ship, sending a fireball upwards out of the smashed ruin of her superstructure. She was rolling over more quickly, settling lower all the time. It was only a question of what would get her first, a massive explosion as her magazines went or flooding eating up what was left of her buoyancy. That decided him. There was one thing left he could do for the Bismarck. He cupped his hands around his mouth and put all the power in his lungs into the shout. “Scuttle the ship!”
Then, he turned to the young officer beside him, a supercilious smirk on his face. “Now the Amis can’t claim they sank her.”
AD-1 Skyraider Clementine Ninth Wave, Over the High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic.
The great German battleship rolling over had been a spectacular sight; her red belly contrasting with the black-gray sea, the tiny figures of men running down her hull trying to avoid the inevitable and fatal plunge into the ice-cold seas. Their efforts were futile, the ship’s stern vanished beneath the waves and she had slipped under, leaving them floundering in the water they had dreaded. Marko Dash circled the sight for a minute, then felt his aircraft rock savagely. A second German battleship had exploded. The fires must have reached her magazines although there were rumors that the Germans weren’t too bright when it came to storing fused shells in their magazines.
Clementine circled the sight below again. Two of the German battleships had gone. Another was at the last edge of extremity. He watched her slip under, faster and faster. He knew the mechanism, as the hull sank deeper, the pressure driving water through the holes in her hull increased and the flooding rate increased. Then, as the ship sank deeper, more holes in her hull became submerged and they too added their contribution to the mass of water that was sinking her. Finally, the shattered and riddled superstructure let the air out, leaving nothing to save the ship. That battleship, and the one behind her, were doomed.
Aren’t they all? The U.S. Navy had Chance-Vought, Douglas, Martin, Lockheed. They had aircraft carriers, the Germans had battleships. What had they been thinking? Over to his left, Dash saw a single battleship, slowly, painfully, turning south. She was listing, leaving a trail of oil in the water behind her, black smoke staining the sky behind her. Marko lead his formation over to the position of the ship and looked at her more closely. She was one of the smallest German battleships, two twin turrets forward, one twin aft. Scharnhorst class. What looked like her sister ship was way behind, dead in the water. The other eight aircraft from Marko’s squadron already making their attack runs on her. This one, the mobile one, was Marko’s.
“All Sugar aircraft, split into two groups of four. Hit her from either side of the bows. 45 degrees off centerline; first flight hit port, my flight hit starboard.” Marko’s voice was confident as he rapped out the orders. TG58.5 had only enough aircraft and munitions left for a single strike and this wave was a mixture of serviceable aircraft from the squadrons on board the carriers. One good strike.
He took his plane down, skimming the waves in the now-familiar pattern of the torpedo-bomber pilot. There was some flak; a tiny amount, a few tracers here and there. Nothing like the storm that had greeted them when they’d hit the enemy carriers that morning. He knew it was a perfect hammerhead attack. The torpedoes would interlock to form a web from which even a fully-mobile ship found it hard to escape. This cripple didn’t even have that chance. Marko’s rockets streaked towards the target. The battleship’s battered bridge vanished under the flashes of the impacts, then his torpedoes were gone. His wing cannon added to the chaos on the target. Then his formation flashed over the ship and their work was all done.
Behind him, seven columns of water rose from the ship. Two up by the bows severed the raking structure, causing it to collapse downwards. Two more hit portside, just under the funnel; three more starboard side, under what was left of the aft superstructure. That had to hurt. Marko watched the battleship lose the last vestige of movement. She went dead in the water, her wake faded away as she lost speed.
Marko’s formation had got in and out clean. Eight aircraft had gone in, eight come out. He led the formation higher, ready for the return flight home. Below him, he saw the battleship he’d watched foundering had already gone and the one behind her was on her beam ends. That made it time to report.
“Saber control, this is Ink Five-Two Leader. Have seen two battleships sink, one explode. Fourth is on her beam ends. Attacked one battleship heading south, estimated seven hits. All torpedoes released.” Marko paused. “Control, we’re doing murder out here.”
“Ink Five-Two leader, Washington wants a clean sweep on this one. Do a circuit of the area, see if any other hostiles are heading south.”
“Roger, sweeping south now.”
Marko’s group swung south and started its search arc. It didn’t take long. They didn’t have to go very far. There was a formation beneath them; a capital ship, five escorts. For a second, Marko debated whether to call the sighting in. Hadn’t enough ships been sunk, hadn’t enough men died? That doubt lasted only a second.
“Saber Control. Ink Five-Two leader here. Sighted enemy formation. Estimated one capital ship, five destroyers, about 20 miles south-east of main formation.”
“Acknowledged Five-Two Leader.” There was a long pause. “Be advised that one squadron of Adies from your group is being diverted to hit them. We are contacting Excaliber and Knife to have Formations Jack and King diverted to take down that group. Come on home. The sun’s going down.”
Admiral’s Bridge, USS Gettysburg CVB-43, Flagship Task Force 58
“Sir, Word from Saber.” Halsey grunted. Shangri-La and her task group had opened the battle and her crews now had more experience at attacking ships than his other pilots. “Sir, Formation Ink reports that three enemy battleships have sunk. One more is going down now, the other four are dead in the water. The survivors, one large ship reported as a battleship
but we think it’s a cruiser, and five destroyers heading south. Saber requests Jack and King hit them. They’re all-Corsair waves, Admiral. So are Log and Mike. We’re ready to launch Nan now Sir, but we’re running out of time. We’ll be well into dusk by the time they recover.”
Halsey thought for a minute. “Nan is Able reloaded. Get them off. They started the battle, they can finish it. Then get the Tigercats loaded up for a night torpedo attack. They’ll go in if any of the Germans survive the daylight strikes.” He broke off, another messenger had arrived on the bridge.
“Sir, final report from Ink just in. Two more battleships gone down, total is now five. Confirmed losses are identified as two Derfflinger class, two Bismarck class, one Scharnhorst class. Smaller units wiped out. At least three cruisers and twelve destroyers sunk.
“Very well. Transmit the following message to Washington.” Halsey took a message blank and scribbled a few words on it.
The messenger read the five words and grinned broadly. “Yes SIR!”
Captain’s Bridge, KMS Lutzow, High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic
One of Captain Becker’s secret vices was that he was a hopeless addict to American cowboy films. He particularly loved the endings where the good guys were holed up, either cavalry in a fort or a wagon train drawn up in a circle, hoping for rescue but determined to sell their lives dearly. That was his situation now, except he knew no rescue was coming. He’d seen the cloud of smoke on the horizon as Seydlitz had exploded. He’d heard the reports as von der Tann and Tirpitz had capsized. Bismarck and Gneisenau had gone as well, they’d just taken too much damage, too many hits, and had foundered. No, there was no rescue coming, that left only selling their lives dearly. At least, Lutzow still had her anti-aircraft guns working. She could still fight.
“Maximum power. It doesn’t matter what the gauges say, get this ship moving.” That was a decisive enough order. There were 16 torpedo planes coming in, already splitting into two groups of eight to catch him in a scissors attack. “Concentrate fire on the portside group. Hard to starboard.” Try and shoot down as many of the torpedo planes on one side as possible, try to take the other group head on.
His anti-aircraft guns ranged in on the formation he’d selected. He was rewarded, first one Douglas erupted into flame and plowed into the sea, then another blew up. Probably a direct hit form his 105s. His 20mm guns chewed up a third, sending it spinning into the sea. The remaining five dropped at perilously close range, then passed overhead. Becker heard the roar of their rockets but his whole attention was focused on the tracks of the torpedoes. Only eight? Two must have broken up or sunk, perhaps a Douglas hit by 20mm fire at just the wrong second? His ship was turning hard, the tracks were slowly drifting aft of him. Seven missed, somehow, the last caught his ship under his rear turret. Becker braced himself for the explosion that never came. A dud?
His relief lasted only a second. Lutzow shuddered as two explosions up forward racked his cruiser. He cursed the bad luck that had brought them. He’d dodged the deadly beam attack that should have raked his ship with hits, only to get hit twice by torpedoes from a bow-on attack, where the book said the chances of getting hit were but slight. He could feel the ship slowing, her movement in the water changing as the buoyancy of the bows were lost. The torpedoes had hit either side of the ship, precisely between the peak of the bow and Anton turret. Now, the whole bow had gone, sheared off just forward of Anton turret.
“Report.”
There was an interminable delay from up front as the damage control crews tried to get a handle on the effects of the hits. Meanwhile Becker looked around at the rest of his squadron. 2-38 and 2-29 were burning, the Douglases must have hit them with rockets as they passed. It looked like they’d hit at least one more of the Ami bombers though.
“Damage control. The forward bulkhead is holding, we’re reinforcing with timbers and sealing off now. We can’t move though. If we get any way on, the bulkhead will split wide open.”
Becket grimaced. Staying here meant death. Then inspiration struck. “You mean we can’t get any forward speed on. No reason why we can’t go backwards.” He flipped to the engine room telegraph. “Full power astern. If we have to, we’ll back all the way home!”
Admiral’s Bridge, USS Gettysburg CVB-43, Flagship Task Force 58
“Nan is making its run now, Sir. It’s the big finale. 58.2 and 58.3 got off four full squadrons of Adies and Mames each. With our group, that’s four squadrons of Corsairs and ten of bombers. More than 200 strike aircraft. The officer checked a tally list, one that was a long, long column of numbers. “Sir, good place to stop, with Nan going in, we’ve launched exactly 1,776 sorties against the enemy fleet.”
Halsey grinned. That was a number that would make headlines. “Our losses?”
“So far, 254 aircraft lost due to enemy action, 186 lost operationally, 48 are badly damaged and will need major repairs. We have just over 1,672 aircraft left operational of the 2,160 we started with. Attrition is 22.6 percent of our totalled air groups.” The aide thought for a second. “I’ve no idea whether this is good or bad. Nobody has ever done what we did today.”
Halsey grunted. “What’s left out there?”
“Main formation has gone Sir. One battleship and a cruiser are left dead in the water, 58.3s Adies are closing on them now. Another cruiser and five destroyers tried to make a break south. The destroyers have gone, the cruiser is crippled and heading south.” The aide laughed. “She’s going backwards, her bows got blown clean off. Nan and a mix of Adies and Mames from TG54.3 are hitting her now. It’s over Sir, Washington got their clean sweep.”
United States Strategic Bombardment Commission, Blair House, Washington B.C. USA.
“Any news?” Igrat’s voice reflected the tension that had been building in Washington all day.
“Nothing official. Last I heard, the Rivets are intercepting a lot of communications from the Germans and some from our aircraft. If they’re anything to go by, the Germans have lost a lot of ships and Halsey a lot of aircraft. Phillip says that means we’re winning, we can replace our aircraft a lot faster than the Germans can replace their ships.”
“He would. We can’t replace those pilots though.”
“Have you seen the output of our flying schools Iggie?” Naamah relaxed slightly. It had been a long day and she was tired. “We’re actually training more pilots than we can use at the moment.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. The boys who get shot down, we can’t be picking many of them up.”
“Don’t know. No word on that either. I know we’ve got Mariners and floatplanes out to recover as many of the splashed pilots as we can, but its winter and it’s the North Atlantic. I guess you’re right, we can’t be getting to that many of them. Anyway, we’ll know soon. Got any plans for the weekend?”
“Going up to stay with Mike on Long Island. Going to make it a long weekend. I’ve got a few days leave before we do the next run to Geneva.”
“Be careful with Mike, he tends to be over-emotional.” From Naamah, that was a serious criticism. She regarded Mike Collins as a playboy, essentially a lightweight who drank too much and didn’t keep his temper under control. There was a good reason why Stuyvesant hadn’t tapped him for either the Strategic Bombing Commission or the Economic Intelligence and Warfare Committee. As far as she was concerned, his only redeeming virtue was that he threw good parties. Still Iggie had always liked dancing on a knife edge. At least she never whines when she gets cut.
“You’re not being fair, Nammie. He’s tired; tired deep down inside. The troubles in Ireland wore him out, disillusioned him, and what’s happening there now has finished the job. Seeing Protestants in the partisan-jaegers hunting Catholics and Catholic partisan-jaegers hunting Protestants, it really got him. He thinks nothing is worth doing, nothing is worth any effort, so he might as well have a good time. Anyway, he does throw good parties and you know what they say, a man in the bush is worth two in the hand.”
Naamah shook her head and went into The Seer’s office. “How’s it going?”
“Nothing since you asked ten minutes ago.” Stuyvesant smiled to take the edge off the remark. “And pass that to Lillith as well, It’s been fifteen minutes since she asked. Got to admire her self-restraint. We’re probably about an hour behind the loop though. Intel will go to Navy first, then the White House, then back down to us. All we can do is wait.”
At that moment, the red telephone on The Seer’s desk rang and he listened to the voice on the other end for a minute or so, no more. Then, he went out to where his assistant was sitting. “Lillith, round up the gang and spread the word. We’ve just had a message from Wild Bill. Message reads, and I quote. ‘Sighted German Navy. Sank Same.’”
CHAPTER SIX: WHITEOUT
Headquarters, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, Kola Peninsula, Russia
“So, Sir, we are operating in the standard two up one back formation. We have 7th and 8th Infantry Brigades on the line; the 9th is held in reserve. Most of it anyway. C Company of the Cameron Highlanders are parceled out to the various rear area elements of the division. Those Vickers guns are marvelous defensive tools, especially in this climate. The Nova Scotia Highlanders are in deep reserve; they’re getting much needed R&R. That means our real, accessible reserves are the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders and the Highland Light Infantry of Canada.
