“Now awful it is to be without,
as blood-red rack races overhead;
and the welkin sky is gory with warriors' blood
as we Valkyries war-songs chanted.”
— Njals Saga
Chapter 22
Iceland-Faeroes Gap ~ 17 June, 1940
Admiral Tovey was restless that day, still bothered by his abortive attempt to investigate that Russian cruiser. He did not know why it left him feeling like he had an untied shoe or missing button, but it did. He was a careful, meticulous man, and did not like leaving things unfinished. Yet word from the Admiralty on the movement of Bismarck and Tirpitz trumped everything else and forced him to turn about south of Reykjavik and head east, then northeast along the coast of Iceland. He had bigger fish to fry.
Now he was in the Flag Plot Room, looking at the map like a butler checking to see if the silverware had been set properly. There were the cruisers Sussex and Southampton on forward patrol in the center of the Iceland-Faeroes Gap. Coming up on their right flank was Force F with Nelson and Rodney, the cruiser Devonshire and three destroyers.
Nelson had just been pulled out of her refit at Greenock after sustaining serious hull damage the previous December when she ran over a magnetic mine at Loch Ewe. The hull was buckled four feet on her starboard side, sixty bulkheads ruptured and there was flooding over 140 feet of her 710 foot length. Thankfully no one was killed, but the incident was later called “the ball buster” by members of the crew. It seems a good number had been seated on the porcelain throne when the mine went off and the official report read that: “52 suffered lacerating injuries to delicate parts of their anatomies when ceramic toilet pans shattered in the blast.” Nelson had taken a hard kick in the pants, and was down for some time.
Most of the repair work was done at Portsmouth before the ship was moved to avoid possible German air attacks. There she was fitted with Type 279 long range air warning radar, and was to have work completed for the Type 282 Gun director radar at Greenock before she was called to action again. The kits were still aboard, with a bevy of workmen to see the work on as she sailed, and there had been no time for her to contemplate or complete working up exercises. The crews were quick running new 16-inch shells aboard over the wooden decks in their shell bogeys, and additional canisters of cordite charges which made up the full charge for firing the guns. They soon had her up to snuff with 100 rounds per gun, 80 being APC and 20 HE with a total of 900 rounds on board. The veteran ship and crew would just have to muddle through, and Tovey had every confidence that they would.
Big slow Nelson and Rodney, thought Tovey. The Germans had danced around them in the Norwegian campaign, as they could make no more than 23 knots on a good day. Even the guns were slow to hoist, load and fire after the ready ammunition in the turret was used up. The 16-in guns might only average one round per minute compared to twice that for the more common 15-inch guns in the fleet. Aside from Rodney and Nelson, HMS Invincible was the only other ship in the fleet to use the16-inch guns-good throw weight and range, but not as efficient as the15-inch.
Force F will be late to the party, he knew. By the time they get up north the Germans will have slipped west. The only question is where will they go? If they turn east of Iceland then it’s my watch. If they run further west for the Denmark strait I’ll also be in a good position to give chase or possibly cut them off. Then we have a battle, and while I think Invincible would give a good account of herself, Renown is lightly armored. We’ll also be outgunned, but at least we have Ark Royal handy with her Swordfish and Skua bombers. We’ll have to see what the Germans do, but the job now is to find them.
He eyed the young Lieutenant Commander Wells, where he was quietly watching him, curious as to what he was thinking. “Your mind looks very active, Mister Wells. Any thoughts?”
“Sir? Oh, I was just thinking about the Germans, sir. They say Bismarck is a fairly formidable ship.”
“That remains to be seen, but I remind you that you are presently standing on a ship christened HMS Invincible.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Learn nothing from that, Wells. Any ship afloat can be hit and sunk in a battle at sea-even this ship. Bismarck is just made of steel and iron as our ship is, and crewed by men of flesh, blood and bone. When it comes down to it, quick thinking and quick shooting decides the hour. You would do well to remember that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But unless we find the rascals first none of that matters. Get off to the W/T room and have them signal Ark Royal to get a search mounted out ahead of us. 150 mile radius should be sufficient.”
“Right away, Admiral.”
Wells was off with that message, thinking about the blood and bone he had seen on the bridge of HMS Glorious when he returned. Yes, it had been quick thinking on his part that saved the ship, but he had never been on a battleship before, where you deliberately sought to bring yourself under the guns of the enemy so as to deliver your own fire upon him. This was something entirely different, to be seeking the enemy in battle instead of skirting along behind on the carrier, but Ark Royal was the eyes of the fleet for the moment.
He could imagine the planes being spotted on deck, up from the elevator and ready to go. And realizing that he was now carrying the word that would send them aloft was somewhat exciting. I’m to give the order that starts this battle! Well, the Admiral’s given it, but it is now in my hands until I get to the W/T room-entirely in my hands.
He thought he might take his time getting there, just to let the moment distill a bit in his head, like good Earl Grey, but he soon discarded that notion and let his excitement drive his feet on. Orders were orders and it was, for the moment, all depending on him to get those planes up off the deck and headed north. We will not be caught flat footed out here like Glorious was. No sir, not on my watch.
* * *
Far to the north, the foxes those planes would be out hunting were surging west through rising seas. Foxes indeed, they were more like big muscled cats, moving easily in the heavy swell, their wide beam providing exceptional stability, the sharp Atlantic bows easily parting the waves as they sailed at 28 knots. Bismarck and Tirpitz were an awesome sight together, with the squadron commander Kapitan Lindemann leading aboard Bismarck.
Vice Admiral Marschall had bristled at the notion of the operation being handed to a mere Kapitan, but Raeder explained that he wanted to season Lindemann for the Battleship Squadron.
“I want you to meet with Lütjens, Wilhelm,” he had said in a placating tone. “I want you aboard Hindenburg, the fleet flagship. See to the progress of those sea trials. Put your head together with Lütjens and make Hindenburg the finest ship in the fleet when she sails. I want her ready for battle, which is why I send you to see to the details-fuel, munitions loads, lubricants, quartermaster stores. Only you have the mind for such things.”
Marschall was still not happy, but the thought of stepping aboard the Hindenburg was enticing, and made up for the loss of his Battlecruiser Squadron. It had been enough to deftly move him aside for this operation, and now Raeder was counting on his fighting sea Kapitans, Hoffmann with the battlecruisers, Lindemann with the battleships, Böhmer on Graf Zeppelin.
That morning Kurt Böhmer was riding the fading froth of Lindemann’s wake in the German carrier, some three kilometers behind the battleships, waiting on news from his scout flights. They had seen a pair of old British battleships earlier, well to the south and in no position to intercept.
Böhmer briefly contemplated paying them a visit with his Stukas, his Valkyries as he now called them. But soon discarded the notion. The German fleet could easily evade those ships, and there was no reason to engage them whatsoever. It would be better to get further west before a decision was made on their final breakout course, and Lindemann agreed. If Hoffmann did his job the British would be out in the Denmark Strait, leaving the east coast of Iceland a good place to contemplate a quick breakthrough. So his mission today was to scout that area, and mak
e certain the way was still clear.
It was not long before one of his Arado 196 seaplanes emerged from a cloud and spotted a formation of British aircraft heading north. That set alarm bells jangling on the carrier, and Böhmer immediately called down to the hanger deck.
“Ritter! What do you have ready?”
“Anything you need, Kapitan. I have six 109s and twelve Stukas fully armed, two of the fighters are on deck now.”
“Get the other four up. We may be having company soon. The Arados have spotted British planes.”
Something was about to happen that had never occurred in the Atlantic, the first carrier to carrier air duel ever to be fought. The Germans had tangled with the RAF and Fleet Air Arm before, but always with land based planes, and with the British deciding where the action would be fought, their fleet carriers hovering off the coast of Norway. This would be the first German attempt to intercept and stop the FAA carrier planes before they could start buzzing round the fleet like bothersome flies.
Hauptmann Marco Ritter is just the man to do the job, thought Böhmer. He is already and ace many times over, with many confirmed kills in his tally. The rules for German airmen were very strict. The kill had to be filmed or observed by someone in the air, on the ground, or aboard a ship. The mere claim of a kill was not enough. If there was no witness then there was no kill. But Ritter’s work was well observed, for he flew with expert skill, lighting fast, and with surgical precision in his dog fights with Spitfires. He had six kills there, three on bombers, four more for auxiliary craft, two more Swordfish over Norway for fifteen in all. Five more and he would get his Knight’s Cross with Iron. Now he was out to make his bones as a carrier airman, Germany’s first and best.
So Böhmer watched again as Ritter led his squadron of Messerschmitts up, posting three on continuous patrol over the fleet and taking the remaining three south to the heading reported by the Arado 196. The Stukas were then brought up and readied for quick takeoff in the event the Arados could find the ship those enemy planes had taken off from.
Ritter did not disappoint. He had opened the throttle to lead his fighter section out at good speed, and was soon scanning the low scudding clouds from 18,000 feet. There, down below at an altitude he took to be 11,000 feet, was a lumbering flight of three Skua fighter/bombers.
“Hans, Leo, have a look at one o’clock low! We have company. Let’s show them the door.”
He tipped his wing and leaned over into a dive, and soon the three BF-109s fell on the Skuas like hawks.
* * *
Lieutenant Cecil Howard Filmer in Plane 7F was the first to see them. He was immediately on the short range radio to alert the other members of the subflight. These three planes had been kept in a tight fist to respond to any sightings by the four Swordfish down below, fanned out in a wide search formation. The occasional He 115 seaplane torpedo bomber might be out here snooping for the Germans, but now the Skuas were being bounced by planes they did not expect to find.
“Bloody hell! Those are Messerschmitts! Get on the rear gun Tommy. Beware the sting, boys!” He was shouting out the squadron motto, their emblem blazoned with a yellow hornet, but the sting they needed to beware was coming from above. Filmer craned his neck at his gunner and signalman, Midshipman Thomas McKee, hoping he was ready.
The Skua was a dual purpose plane, with the ability to perform as a fledgling fighter or a light dive bomber, though it accomplished neither role with any real authority. The absence of any German carrier threat at sea had not spurred development of Royal Navy planes. They knew they were fielding interwar models, largely obsolete against a plane like the BF-109, but there was nothing much in the pipeline to redress that issue at the moment. They were stuck with the slow, rugged Swordfish as their sole torpedo bomber, and until the Fulmars started arriving, the Skua was left holding down fighter duty and bombing runs.
“I’m going to jink left, Tommy!”
The rattle of the rear facing.303 Vickers MG punctuated the drone of the Skua’s engine as Filmer began his evasive maneuver, but the Skua was not an agile fighter. It was capable of a maximum speed of only 225 MPH and the 109s were over 120 MPH faster. If one got on your tail that single.303 MG was not enough to bother it unless the gunner was very good, and the Messerschmitt would unload with a pair of MG 131 guns in the wings and a 20mm Motorkanone in the nose. The MGs would rattle their cage, but that 20mm gun would skewer just about any bird it hit.
Ritter got his first kill on plane 7F in that heedless, headlong diving pass. The 109 thundered by, leaving Tommy McKee dead in the rear seat and the plane on fire. Harris and Stevenson in plane 7L fared little better, caught by Hauptmann Hans Frank, who had come over from the newly formed Night Fighter NJG-1 unit to join Graf Zeppelin. Only Lieutenant Commander John Casson and his mate Peter Fanshawe escaped. Casson was a bit of a stunt flyer, and he could get maneuvers out of his plane that the designers never thought to put there. He jogged left, scudded into a cloud, then wheeled around hoping to emerge with guns firing, but the BF-109s had flashed past to take down the other two planes in short order.
Outnumbered three to one, Casson knew his only chance was to get into low cloud and make a run for it. “Get the warning off, Pete!” he shouted. “What in bloody hell are these 109s doing out here?”
He knew the worst even as he spoke those words. They were 600 miles northeast of Trondheim, and the 109 had a combat radius of only 310 miles, and that was with drop tanks. If these planes were here, then they had to be off a carrier, and that meant that all the rumors in the hanger deck about the Graf Zeppelin were true…It was real, and it was here.
That news was soon in the hand of young Christopher Wells, hastening back from the W/T room with a heavy heart. So you fancy that you carried that order to send those fighters up, do you? Well look what’s in your hand now, boyo. Two Skuas lost, a Swordfish shot to hell, six men dead and the skies swept clean in ten minutes by German BF-109s. Now you can carry that…and he felt the weight of it all the way back, somewhat relieved when he finally reached the Flag Plot Room with the message and handed it off to the Commander Villers as he had been told when entering the room to find both the Admiral and his Flag Lieutenant present.
“There’s been an air battle, sir. We’ve lost three planes!”
Villers took the message in hand reading dispassionately. “Calm yourself, Mister Wells,” he said quietly. “If I require your interpretation of a message I shall ask for it.” Then he walked slowly to Admiral Tovey. “Confirmed, sir. Two Skuas and a Swordfish down approximately here.” He moved a small model plane out onto the situation map to mark the spot. “BF-109s, sir.” The tone in his voice was evident as he placed emphasis on this and it got Tovey’s attention.
The Admiral looked at the message briefly, handing it back to Villers. “Confirm the message was also received by the Vice Admiral on Ark Royal. I think he’ll want the balance of 803 squadron up at once. And signal RAF at Wick to see about support.”
Chapter 23
The Junkers JU-87C was adapted from the workhorse of the early Luftwaffe ground attack planes, the very successful JU-87B-1. For carrier operations it had been modified with folding wings, a stronger fuselage, arrestor hook, and ejectable landing gear to permit possible emergency landing in the sea. It was rigged to carry bombs only, as the Fieseler Fi-167 was on the drawing board for a dedicated torpedo bomber on the German carriers, though they were not yet ready. But the Stukas were ready, and even as dedicated dive bombers they could still win a race against the British Skua, being about 25MPH faster while cruising and almost as well armed with two 7.92mm MGs forward and one MG-17 facing the rear. Their real punch was the 250 KG bomb, over 500 pounds, and four 50kg bombs mounted on the broad vulture-like wings. The ‘Jericho Trumpets’ were also retained to give the dive bombers that awful screeching noise when they dove on attack. Their one limitation was range, with an effective combat radius of about 300 miles.
Ritter’s fighters had disrupted the British
search to the north, and one of the Arado 196s followed a hunch and pressed on through the low clouds until the pilot was surprised to burst out into a clear patch and find the sea below him crowded with warships. There was a carrier in the distance, ample reason for the seaplane to be quick in its reconnaissance here, but the real find was the sighting of HMS Invincible and Renown with a pair of destroyers. Elated at the lucky discovery, he skipped into the clouds and turned tail for home, urging his signalman on the wireless to send out the coordinates.
Kapitan Böhmer was equally pleased to hear the news, and immediately notified Lindemann that the British fleet was no more than 125 kilometers southeast of their present position. He asked if he should attack, and Lindemann quickly gave him his blessing. The Valkyries were about to sing in the first German carrier borne air strike of the war. A formation of 18 of his 26 Stukas was selected, three squadrons of six planes each, and they were to be escorted by the six reserve BF-109s as soon as Ritter’s group could be recovered.
Taking off from a moving carrier at sea was always easier than landing, which was a lesson the Germans were soon to learn when one of the six fighters they had aloft misjudged the approach and came skidding in to lose a wing against the carrier’s armored 5.9-inch deck gun turrets. Thankfully the pilot was saved, but the plane was a total loss and had to be pushed overboard, which sent Böhmer pacing on the island bridge. There had been too little time to for training.
It took another half an hour to clear the deck and reset equipment for the launch, and the weather was worsening rapidly. Böhmer looked at the charcoal skies, where the light of the setting sun was glowing blood red, like embers burning in coals. The words of the Nordic poem he had read so often ran though his mind as he smelled the cold air and heard the distant rumble of far off thunder.
“Now awful it is to be without,
as blood-red rack races overhead;
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