“Except for the guns?”
“That’s just it, sir. He said he couldn’t see any large guns or turrets, except a few smaller caliber secondary batteries. He claimed the forward decks were largely empty. And another odd thing was the fact that the ship held its fire. If it was a German cruiser they would have lit up with everything they had.”
“No photographs?”
“In the heat of the moment the plane was not properly fitted out. Wake-Walker was hurrying off to the east, but thank god he at least had the presence of mind to have a second look by sending out a scout detachment, though I can’t say much for his choice of ships. He sent the mine laying cruiser Adventure up with a destroyer yesterday, and it seems they bumped noses with this contact this morning. Destroyer Anthony took three hits on her bow, putting a gun turret there out of action, and the scout force wisely broke off action. This is looking very suspicious, sir.”
“Well, they damn well fired on the ships, even if Walker’s planes caught them napping,” said Tovey. “Yes. It has all the markings of another Atlantic sortie. Strange that they didn’t blow that destroyer out of the water.”
“German radio traffic has been very quiet. It looks like Jerry is making an effort to keep his cards close to his chest this time around. What do you make of it, sir?”
“Damn bloody business,” said Tovey. “And just when we've got convoys spread out over half of the Atlantic, with Mr. Churchill due in next week on the hush, hush.”
It was going to be a long night, thought Tovey. Weather was bad across the board, seas were rising, and the crews on the ships riding fitfully at anchor in Scapa Flow were ever more edgy. The fleet was put on yellow alert, with eight hour steam up, meaning his main battleships could be ready to put to sea first thing in the morning.
“We haven't got a solid fix on this ship’s position yet,” said Brind. “If it is Tirpitz we've got a real witches brew again. Do you really think they would risk this last battleship in a major operation now, sir?”
“It could be a feint,” said Tovey. “They might have gotten wind of our Russian convoy planning, and could be running this about just to get our attention. Our last fix on Tirpitz had her at Kiel three days ago. They would have had to move very quickly after that if she’s up near Jan Mayen now. We'll have to watch this very closely, and of course we'll have to take Home Fleet to sea as well, just in case.
“Aye, sir,” said Brind. “The crews are restless enough as it is. Time to put some of that energy to good use. I've taken the liberty of informing Captain Leach on Prince of Wales as to our intentions. He’s still shining the decks for that official visit next week, so I’m afraid we may have to leave her in port, sir. But we've a few other knights we can put in the saddle as it stands. Repulse is available, and she has the speed we need for something like this.”
“What in the world is Winston up to this time?” said Tovey. “All we have is this notice to hold Prince of Wales for an official visit. Damn inconvenient when Hitler and the Germans have other ideas.” He sighed, resigned to the machinations of command after all these years. “I suppose we'd best start rattling the sabers here and get the cavalry up in good order. It’s a pity Duke of York isn’t ready for action yet. After what we went through with Bismarck, I won’t risk a battlecruiser like Repulse in another engagement like that. Thank god for Rodney. The old girl gave Bismarck quite a pounding. Where are Nelson and Rodney?”
The Admiral wanted to know where his big 16 inch guns were. The Nelson and Rodney had been built between the two wars to an odd looking configuration that saw three big 16 inch gun turrets mounted on the forward end of the ship. The weight of the big guns made for slow going, which made them very suitable for convoy escort duty. Yet with nine 16 inch guns, they had more firepower than any ship in the fleet. In a tight spot, a well armored ship like that would come in very handy.
“ Rodney is still in Boston for a refit and scheduled for sea trials again on August 12, sir. Her sister ship Nelson is presently at Gibraltar with battlecruiser Renown, preparing to escort another Winston Special convoy out to Malta.”
“Yes, Sir Winston has too many chips on the markers for our battleships these days, doesn’t he? It may be prudent to inform Admiral Somerville of this development. That operation may have to be delayed if we need those ships. We had better take a look at the Atlantic convoy situation as well. We may have to pull some ships off escort duty if it comes down to it. But I want to make sure those convoys have all the protection we can give them.”
“Right, sir,” said Brind. “We've got at least one battleship with every convoy over 24 ships. Anything less gets an escort of at least one cruiser. We've been moving most of the OB series well north of Ireland after departure, so that's going to put them in a rather vulnerable spot if the Germans push anything down into the Atlantic in the near run. These are rather large convoys, sir. Upwards of 40 to 50 ships each. Their official designation is to move on to the Middle East and reinforce Cunningham.”
Something told the Admiral that the ships in those convoys would have more to do along the way than they bargained for. “If Jerry is planning another raider operation, then they'll certainly have to coordinate with their U-boats as well.”
“Which means we may have to assign more destroyer squadrons to convoy traffic from this point forward, sir.”
“Indeed.” The Admiral’s mood was darkening with the weather this morning. The war was finally heating up. 1940 had seen little more than a few enterprising raids by the pocket battleships Graff Spee and Admiral Scheer. They gave his cruiser squadrons a fit for a time, and sunk well over 150,000 tons of shipping before the first was sunk and the latter slipped back home to German waters. Then came Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, even more dangerous ships. They were faster and more powerful than the pocket battleships, which were really little more than heavy cruisers in Tovey's mind. Finally Bismarck decided to join the party and was thankfully sunk, but at great cost.
Now, if the Germans were sending Tirpitz into the fray, they would again be escalating the conflict to a whole new level. If that ship managed to get into the Atlantic and link up with the other two battlecruisers at Brest, the Germans would have the most formidable task force they had put to sea since Dogger Bank. He had little doubt that this was what they had originally planned for Bismarck, and perhaps they were out to have another go at it. He had no choice in the matter now. He would have to put major warships out to sea again, throwing in his last reserve to forestall any potential breakout by this new German raider, whatever it was. What else did Admiral Raeder have in the cupboard, he wondered? He’s planned this very well, because my cupboard is rather bare for the moment.
Aside from his flagship, all he had was Repulse and Prince of Wales in hand, and the latter was sweeping the decks for this visit involving the Prime Minister. He looked over his list… The only other battleship available was the Revenge, presently at Halifax and scheduled join the Royal Sovereign for convoy duty in the Indian Ocean. The latter was at the Clyde getting fitted out with all the new radar sets and was not scheduled to have that work completed until September. All of his active carriers were already up north with Wake-Walker. The rest, Illustrious and Formidable, were in US harbors undergoing repairs. He still had Ark Royal with Force H at Gibraltar, and Hermes in the Indian Ocean. Other than that, the only new carrier coming on line was Indomitable, just starting her sea trials last month.
Tovey leaned back, stretching and scratching his head. “Well,” he said. “It looks like I’m headed out to sea with King George V and Repulse then-and first thing in the morning. We can't assume this new raider is all the Germans will bring to the party,” he warned. “We’ll have to keep a close eye on Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as well.”
“Whatever Jerry is up to, we’ll give him another bloody nose for it, sir.”
“Yes, Raeder may be taking on more than he can chew, Brind, but we'll have to plan for every possible contingency.”
An orde
rly rushed in, handing Brind a freshly decoded signal. The grey haired chief of staff read it with obvious frustration.
“Thick cloud cover over Kiel,” he said. “Fleet Air Arm says they can’t see a thing in this weather, and won’t be able to confirm the situation regarding Tirpitz until things clear up, sir.”
“Damn,” said Tovey. “We’ll have to assume the worst then. That’s what Admiral Pound will do.”
“That we will, sir,” said Brind. “May I suggest that we get orders off to Wake-Walker as soon as possible? We can’t very well have him dancing off to the North Cape in this light. Vian is up there as well, sir.”
“Better get them both moving west as soon as possible. Even if they can’t cover the Denmark Strait, at least they can seal off the Faeroes Gap.” Tovey thought for a moment. “And Brind,” he said, “I suppose we should also cable the Americans at Reykjavik. They’ve only just begun relieving our garrison there, and they’ll likely be in for a big surprise if this raider is heading for the Denmark Strait.“
“Indeed, sir. I nearly forgot about the Yanks. They’re not in it yet, but there’s a considerable naval presence assigned to the convoy routes between Newfoundland and Iceland. That’s going to be their watch now sir.”
“Yes, well whether they’re in the war or not, the Germans may have something to say about it soon enough.”
“I believe they’re planning to send a couple of PBY flying boat squadrons to Reykjavik,” said Brind. “If we put the word out those planes could come in very handy. And with that in mind, I’ll order Home Fleet to prepare to get underway first thing in the morning.”
Chapter 15
August 1, 1941
Wake-Walker was having a terrible day. His whole operation had been turned on its head by this unexpected new contact. He should be up at the North Cape by now, but he was still southeast of Jan Mayen, and heading back along the track he had taken from Iceland. What he thought to be a wayward steamer with loose lips had since mushroomed into the considerable threat of a big German surface raider heading for the Atlantic. His scout detachment had found the ship, as he feared it might, and the destroyer Anthony had been a little too bold, getting a bit of a bloody nose for her effort, but managing to report the contact’s position nonetheless.
Just hours ago his only real worry was a few long range German Kondor recon planes nosing about. Now this! It was the same nightmare he had just gone through with Bismarck a few months ago. He was at least glad that his own instincts had prompted him to hold station the last two days. Something told him there was trouble afoot, and when the frantic reports came in from Anthony and Adventure he took it upon himself to turn about and render assistance, knowing this would most likely compromise his mission up north. Orders came in a few hours later advising him to head for the Denmark Strait with all possible speed. Now he was racing west at 28 knots, and he had Grenfell’s pilots up out in front of him with their type 279 aerial radars to try and re-acquire this phantom ship.
The Admiralty was all in a dither about it, and Admiral Tovey wanted him to do everything possible to ascertain the nature of the threat. It was a pity his destroyer captain could not provide a positive identification. If he determined it to be a Hipper Class Cruiser, he was authorized to engage. If however, he believed this ship to be Tirpitz, his orders were to attempt to maintain contact and shadow. There was nothing in his task force that was a match for the big German battleship. He could launch an air strike, but apparently Tovey wanted to coordinate this with his capital ships, only now getting up steam at Scapa Flow.
The boys at Bletchley Park missed something, he thought. They had been so busy rounding up German auxiliary oilers and weather ships after getting hold of the German enigma code boxes that they let something slip through the cracks.
~ ~ ~
Miles away, up a country lane outside Milton Keynes, the men at work on the estate known as Bletchley Park were wondering much the same. Naval intelligence was on the phone, curious as to any ciphers that might indicate the Germans were again planning some sort of breakout into the Atlantic with a commerce raider. A few of the analysts over in ‘Hut 8’ were kibitzing over a chess problem, just the sort of thing to delight a code breaker. Chess problems were said to be the church hymns of mathematics, and the brilliant Alan Turing had led the effort against Nazi Germany through the artful music of his craft.
“Riddle this,” said Atkins, a former student and close associate of Turing at the Park. Sir Dudley thinks the Germans have pulled another rabbit out of their hat. It seems there’s a been a sighting up north of what appears to be a large warship.”
“Odd,” said Turing, fiddling with the chess pieces. “Let’s see what it could be.” He was familiar with all the intelligence that had been passed on to the Admiralty late, and had the German Navy all set up in his head like the pieces on the board.
“Let's not worry about the pawns,” he began. “The two Rooks, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, are down at Brest taking a pounding night after night from the RAF. So no real threat there. The two bishops, Admiral Scheer, and Lutzow, are both down at Kiel with the Queen. That's where Tirpitz is as well, all three neatly on the back row. Now, there were only five Hipper class cruisers built. The Russians bought one, another's being converted to an aircraft carrier, and Blucher is sunk. So that just leaves the Admiral Hipper and Prince Eugen, the two knights. And guess what, the former is laid up at Kiel, and the latter is laid up at Brest! Jerry's got all his pieces on the back row; nothing is developed at all. So unless Bismarck truly is unsinkable, and has somehow miraculously refloated herself, I don't think we need put much credence to this report.”
“But we did get one cable saying that Admiral Scheer’s refit was just about complete,” said Atkins. She was the most successful of the German raiders, and since we put a torpedo into the Lutzow the last time she tried to break out, I don't think the Germans could have her fit for duty anytime soon. So I'm putting my money on Admiral Scheer.”
“Tirpitz would certainly be a surprise if she were out and about,” said Turing. “But I rather tend to agree with you, Atkins. One doesn't sortie with the Queen before there's been proper development of the minor pieces. And the minor pieces all appear to be coming apart at the seams these days. If I were the Germans, I'd keep Tirpitz safe and sound for a while. Just the fact that she's sitting there on the back row is enough to keep Admiral Pound on his toes and give John Tovey a case of indigestion every time the subject comes up. Yes, I rather tend to agree with you. If this contact is anything at all, it would most likely be the Admiral Scheer. Suppose we say so and get a message off to the Admiralty so they will leave us alone for a while and we can have a weekend in the country.”
Young Turing indeed had a brilliant mind, but it didn't take a genius to put these clues together and determine the ships most likely to be available for duty on the German roster. He would go on to lead the effort at crypto-analysis throughout the war, instrumental in deciphering and breaking the German Enigma code which they used to send and decode signals through a deviously complex machine, a kind of analogue computer with wheels and levers and rods that would all work in a harmony, like the inner workings of a clock, to plot the machinations of war.
Turing had been busy with his own similar machines for some time. He devised clever systems where variables could be represented on a long tape and fed into a machine that could execute instructions and subroutines based on the state of any given variable it was “considering.” It was, in fact, some of the first serious groundbreaking development for digital computers, a device he came to call his “universal machine.”
“Mark my words,” he had told Atkins one day while they were working on it. “These machines will do everything for us in time. Imagine an infinite memory capacity obtained in the form of an infinite tape like this, with a symbol for everything that matters printed out on these little squares. Why, it could do anything, anything we told it to do.”
“Everything that mat
ters, Alan? I’m not sure you could possibly manage that, but I suppose you’ll try. Just be sure we’re the ones doing the telling in that story. I’d hate to think what might happen in a world where these things have a mind of their own.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Turing. “They can only know what we tell them to know, and it’s just a mechanism, Atkins, like a clock-only it will tell us much more than the simple time of day. Yes, it will have an intelligence about it, not a conscious intelligence, mind you. There’s no heart or soul in the thing. That’s our part. The logic and intelligence of this machine will just help us to better use our own. After all, it’s intelligence that will eventually win this war, not the bombs in and of themselves, but knowing where to drop them. That’s the main thing, right?”
Little did he know that the children of his genius would one day defeat the greatest human chess master alive, and that they were already hard at work that same day, aboard a ship he would have a most difficult time placing on his chessboard or fitting into the equations chalked on his blackboard.
Kirov had sailed west away from Jan Mayen, and then turned southwest towards the Denmark Strait on the 1st of August. Radar man Rodenko watched with amusement as the two British ships, Adventure and Anthony, scurried away.
The Admiral had the ship steaming quietly at about twenty knots, just enough to stay ahead of the oncoming weather. They had a long three day cruise at that speed if they were to run the Denmark Strait down into the North Atlantic. Karpov wanted to increase speed to thirty knots and get out quickly, but the Admiral thought it best to give the junior officers time take in the news of what happened and prepare them for the action that might lie ahead. In doing so he sacrificed some advantage of speed and surprise in order to secure his ship and put it on the best possible footing.
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