Not wanting to be seen just yet, he noted the position and quickly climbed for an overhead bank of clouds. He would signal this first sighting at sea, the opening action of the campaign that was now unfolding. Then, his fuel tanks nearing the point of no return, he banked and turned for home, making sure his initial heading was well away from the real position of the German fleet, just in case he had been spotted.
Böhmer received the news with some elation, and quickly passed in on to Brinkmann and then Lindemann ahead of him in Bismarck. At last, he thought. We have the one thing the Kriegsmarine never had before when facing the British-situational awareness. No more waiting on the U-boats to search and scout for us. Now we have eyes in the sky…As long as I can keep this ship afloat. Well, before anything can get within arm’s reach of Graf Zeppelin, they will first have to run the gauntlet of my 26 Stukas, and then face down Bismarck and Tirpitz.
He was feeling very confident that morning, but there was one factor left out of his war equation that no man alive that day could have possibly considered or planned for, a fate that was wholly unaccountable, and yet one that would be decisive in the balance of the scales of time. The mirror of history had indeed cracked, and something had come through that fissure that would soon change everything.
* * *
“Those British ships have turned,” said Rodenko. “In fact they are now moving east on a heading to the Iceland-Faeroes Gap.”
“Perhaps they got wind of the same message Mister Fedorov intercepted.”
“Not likely, Admiral,” said Fedorov, “though the British had other means of intelligence at their disposal. They could have simply sighted the Germans battleships by air search.”
“We do not yet know what this breakout point is, do we Fedorov?”
“No sir, but it does not surprise me the British are turning east. Their first order of business will be to make sure nothing gets through the Iceland-Faeroes Gap. That accomplished, the Germans would have only one route to the Atlantic, and that would be the body of water directly ahead of us, the Denmark Strait.”
“So it looks as though we will not have our close encounter of the third kind with the Royal Navy just yet.”
“There are still two ships to the south maintaining their original heading, sir,” Rodenko warned.
“They may be dividing their force and sending a reinforcement east,” said Fedorov, realizing that he had to guess and conjecture now, and could no longer read the answer in his books. “That will mean they will most likely move the aircraft carrier out of this sector for the time being.”
“Then we will simply continue on this heading, move north, and keep to our plans for a visit to Severomorsk. It is somewhat strange, sailing home like this, is it not? The last time we passed through this strait I was having an extended stay in the sick bay and Karpov was in command. Now the Captain is dead and we are finally heading home, the only hitch is that we're eighty years early!”
Fedorov seemed restless and bothered as Volsky watched him. The Admiral realized what must be running through his young ex-Navigator’s mind. “I know what you are feeling now, Fedorov. None of this is written in your history books. We have hit a crack in your mirror. In fact, perhaps our very presence here has cracked it even further. The British will soon find out that we are not the cruiser we claimed to be, and they will be very curious. For the moment, however, something to the east is of much greater concern to them, and your clever Enigma code application has told you what it was. So do not look so forlorn. You see, in that way you can still read the history, and in other ways we may find that simply sitting back and reading it may no longer be a luxury we have here. We may have to make our own history here soon-at least this is what my instincts begin to tell me.”
Fedorov gave him a half hearted smile, understanding what he was trying to tell him, but still feeling somewhat adrift. “You are very wise, Admiral,” he said. “I do feel like I have lost my compass, and for a Navigator that is a very serious matter.”
“But even if that is so you could still use your eyes and head to navigate by the stars, yes? Like the British, you have other means of intelligence at your disposal.”
“I suppose I could, sir.”
“Then that is what you must do here. Just use that good head of yours, all the knowledge you have stored away up there, and use the eyes in your head to find your way now. I have every confidence in you, books or no books. You have never steered us wrong.”
“Thank you, sir.” He felt better hearing that from the Admiral. They were no longer Gods at sea with omniscient knowledge of all the events to come in a sure and certain order. This was a new world now, strangely familiar, recognizable in so many ways, yet entirely new. It was a kind of déjà vu, feeling like he had been here so many times before in his mind, in the quiet reading he would do each night, lost in days of yore. Yet now he was living in them, and the cold light of reality was more challenging than anything he could possibly have imagined when he thought to place himself in the history he read about so often.
Yes, it was challenging, but also exciting in many ways. He wasn’t reading it now, or watching it like a movie. He was living it! Before he had labored always to keep some impassable barrier between himself and the history, so as not to tamper with it, or contaminate it, tainting it with his greed or wanton actions as Karpov had. He thought he could preserve it, as a kind of sacred ground, inviolate, unchanged, like the reflection of the room as he peered into a mirror, always there, but untouchable. Yet now he knew that was no longer possible, if indeed it had ever been possible. Now he knew what Karpov had embraced from the very first-that if this was the life they found themselves in, they had the power to act and strut boldly onto that stage, and take up their role in the play.
Karpov always wanted to steal the lead, he thought. Was he the villain or the hero? I suppose only time will tell. And what role do I play here now? We have two choices, to flee from the events of these days and cloister ourselves away on some deserted island, hoping the world never finds or bothers us, or to take our role here, as any man alive today might. Yes! That was what he finally understood now. Any man alive today, from the highest to the lowest, always had one thing that Fedorov had denied himself, the power to act, the right to exercise his will and take a stand, one way or another.
I wanted to do that all along, he knew. What was I doing at the railway confronting Surinov and his NKVD thugs? What did I do with that whisper in Mironov’s ear?
He sighed, letting the trouble in his mind go. He could not save the world, nor hold back the tide of fate and inevitable change, and it was beyond his power to ever put this broken world back together again as it was. All he could do was look at this world with the eyes in his head and accept it as it was. He was no different than any other man alive now, a mere mortal after all and not a titan adrift in time. Other men faced the cracks in the mirror of their lives, did they not? Now he knew what that mirror was-a reflection of the world as he wished it could be. Yes, all men carried that, and then came loss, failure, pain, illness, divorce and they shattered the mirror and forever changed the reflection of the world they hoped to live in. To be alive was to be able to face that reality and still act and live, unfettered by the lost hopes and the wish to live in the world he may have inwardly desired.
Yes, he realized. Suffering is not the affliction of pain and loss. No, it is wanting things to be other than the way they are! Now he smiled, keenly aware of this new realization and feeling strangely light. No man’s mirror was perfect. They were all cracked, and the happy men in this world were the ones that knew that, accepting it without regret and living on as best they could.
So here he was. Here they all were, sailing for Severomorsk with the whole of history to live over again in this eternal déjà vu. Now he knew that at least a part of that history was his to determine and shape. Yes, he could make history instead of simply reading about it now. The Admiral, God bless him, was correct.
I have
been standing there looking into the mirror to see the reflection of the world around me, he thought, seeing it there but thinking I could not touch it, that it was forever beyond my reach. Now I suddenly realize that I am standing right in the middle of it, the whole of it, and anything is possible.
A bit of an Anglophile all his life, the words of one of his favorite poems, a rhyme by John Masefield, resounded in his heart and soul now.
‘I must go down to the seas again
to the lonely sea and sky
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by…
Yes, now he answered the call of the running tide, wild and clear. Now his was the gull’s way, the whale’s way, a vagrant gypsy life. He breathed in deeply, and the air seemed sweet and cool, fresh and unburdened with his worry and fear. They were here, and yes they just might change things, and that was fine. There would come a day, just a little more than a year on now, when they would have to face the impossible prospect of being here at the very moment the ship was supposed to appear in late July of 1941. At that moment they might face their own annihilation in the all consuming maw of paradox-but that was not today. He suddenly had ‘the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song’ in his heart again, and it felt grand.
Part VII
Intervention
“…Destiny's interventions can sometimes be read as invitation for us to address and even surmount our biggest fears. It doesn't take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstance to do the one thing you have always most specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
Chapter 19
Iceland was only recently occupied ground for the British in June of 1940. They had stuck a fork in it just a month earlier in “Operation Fork,” which saw the landing of Royal Marines at key airfields and port facilities. Meeting no real resistance from the local population, they quickly rounded up any vestige of German citizenry and braced themselves for a possible counterattack that was really quite impossible at that moment. There were plans drawn up by Germany, dubbed “Fall Ikarus” for the occupation of Iceland, but it was not deemed possible for several months time, and by then winter would be seizing the island in its icy grip, making further operations there impractical.
It was not likely the Germans would then attempt an invasion by sea, and it was too far to contemplate an air drop by Falschirmjaegers that would eventually have to be supported and supplied by sea. First they had to control those seas, and that was not likely to occur in 1940, or so the British believed.
Yet in those dark days, caution still ruled the day, and the British prepared, weathered the inevitable protest voiced by the Icelandic government over this ‘flagrant violation’ of their neutrality, and began to dig in for the long haul. When the first Marines reached Reykjavik, they seized the post office to put up a flyer asking for local cooperation, then went to the German Consulate, knocking politely.
“What is the meaning of this?” said Colsul Gerlach, an indignant look on his face, eyes wide and laden with recrimination. “Iceland is a neutral state!”
The Royal Marine officer saluted politely and spoke in a quiet voice: “May I remind you, sir, that Denmark was also a neutral state. Would you care to cable Berlin and kindly ask the Wehrmacht to withdraw? If so I would be happy to round up my Marines and be off home as well.”
His point was well made. Just 746 Marines has seized this valuable prize, soon to be reinforced by 4000 Army troops from the 147th Brigade of the 49th West Riding Infantry Division a week later, with the occupation force eventually growing to just over 25,000 men. There they would sit in a long, lonesome watch until the duty would be handed off to the United States a year later. In the meantime, all they would have to comfort them for such a bleak posting were the bolstering words of the new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill:
‘Possibly the most trying circumstances in which an army can be placed are those where it is isolated from home and friends in a rigorous climate and confined to the monotonous role of watching and waiting. His Majesty’s Government are thoroughly aware that Iceland Force is so placed and is fulfilling its role with fortitude and cheerfulness. The security of Iceland is of the first importance and I am confident that it is placed in trusty hands.’
At that moment, on the 16th of June, more trusty hands were arriving on the former liner Empress of Australia in Reykjavik Harbor as elements of the Canadian Royal Regiment of Canada arrived. Known as “Z Force,” this first element was commanded by Brigadier General L. F. Page, and his force had sailed from Halifax, arriving right in the wake of Kirov’s passage north. In fact, they had spotted what looked to be a large cruiser the previous day, steering north into the Denmark Strait, and passed the word on to the British.
Another pair of trusty hands that day belonged to Lieutenant Bonnell, who had welcomed the Canadians ashore and tried to accommodate them as best he could. Word of the cruiser sighting was somewhat disturbing, and so he quickly passed the word to the modest air detachment, which consisted of no more than a single big Sunderland four engine flying boat and a smaller single engine bi-plane Walrus. These two planes were the first elements of the Fleet Air Arm’s 701 Squadron, that would later be replaced by 98 Squadron RAF with eighteen planes.
For the moment, however, those two planes were all the British had, and they got the Sunderland up to have a look around. It made what it thought was a periscope sighting and quickly alerted the Canadians, prompting them to quickly offload their forces from the Empress of Australia. Then the big plane lumbered north into the Denmark Strait, and soon found the ship in question, shadowing it briefly and sending the new position and heading up the newly forged chain of command.
So it was the Admiral Lancelot Holland aboard HMS Hood was informed three hours later in a message from the Fleet Flagship. “Regret that we must be on our way. Please investigate contact information to follow.”
He read the message with routine purview, one of twenty he might get this day, but took a brief moment to visit his navigator and have the sighting plotted.
“It’s well up north and heading into the Denmark Strait, sir,” said the young Warrant officer.
“Just how far off would that be?”
“I make it a good 330 nautical miles, sir.”
“Good lord, that’s eleven hours off even at our best speed, and that is assuming the ship is standing still.”
Holland turned to Captain Glennie, folding his arms as he considered the situation. An old hand with battleships, Holland had served aboard HMS Revenge and HMS Resolution before moving to command the 7th Cruiser Squadron. That duty was handed off to Tovey briefly and Holland was recalled to take over the Battlecruiser Squadron. He was somewhat surprised when Tovey was subsequently recalled from the Med to replace Admiral Forbes at the helm of Home Fleet, and then equally surprised when Tovey decided to plant his flag in the Battlecruiser Squadron aboard HMS Invincible. To ease the sting he was still made the nominal commander of that squadron, and second in command of Home Fleet.
Now Tovey was heading off east to see about that sighting of Bismarck and Tirpitz, he thought, and so the Denmark Strait is left to me. He had taken passing notice of the initial sighting of what was described as a Russian cruiser up north, but now he was being asked to have a closer look.
“Well it’s not bloody likely that we’ll catch up to this ship, but just to please the new Fleet Commander, lets nudge it up to 26 knots, shall we?”
“Very well, sir. We might also get word out to Manchester and Birmingham. That’s their watch and they’ll be well north of that ship’s last reported position.”
“Indeed, and with eyes puckered north for any sign of the Germans. Now we’ll have to tell them to watch their back side as well. I suppose it can’t be helped. Have the message sent, Captain.”
“Right away, sir.”
* * *
The Denmark
Strait ranged from 300 to 500 kilometers wide, and with ice year round off the Greenland coast, though by June it receded somewhat, giving ships a little more open sea for passage. It was still a lot of sea room for a pair of light cruisers to cover, but Manchester and Birmingham had been on patrol for several days, with little to see but an occasional wide ranging gull or ghostly bergs looming like broken ships amid scattered floes of lighter ice.
The two ships had served ably in the Norwegian campaign and they were paired up again for invasion watch duty in the Humber before being sent out to sea again on this watch. At 32 knots they had good speed, but even with twelve 6-inch guns each, they were no match for what was now heading their way. The Sunderland that had made that sighting of the Russian cruiser to spur Holland on his way was now busy with more pressing matters and scouring the seas at the north of the Denmark Strait. They made another lucky sighting at 15:00 hours and soon tapped out the warning in Morse code.
‘MOST IMMEDIATE — RKS 1 — SIGHTED TWO HVY CRUISERS, ONE DESTROYER — 67.49,-27.02 APP BEARING 312 ISA — SPEED 24’
Birmingham was Daddy Brind’s last command before he was hastily moved to his current position as Chief of Staff, Home Fleet in early March of 1940. Now the ship was captained by Alexander Madden, destined to rise to command of the battleship Anson later in the war and to eventually hold the lofty position of Second Sea Lord. Now, however, he was a light cruiser Captain, huddled in the cold upper bridge in spite of the milder temperatures at this time of year.
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