and the welkin sky is gory with warriors' blood
as we Valkyries war-songs chanted.”
He briefly considered whether to cancel the mission in these darkening skies, with the wind up and the chances high that his planes would not find anything at all. But war was war, and risks had to be taken. The Valkyries would fly. The strike would send the whole of Trägergruppe 186, out to look for the British fleet.
Soon he heard the first growling overture of the opera, as one engine after another sputtered to life and revved up on the flight deck below. The BF-109s took off first, all six forming up over the carrier before the Stukas went aloft. One by one the dark crows lifted off the rolling deck. In spite of the heavy swells, Graf Zeppelin was a large ship, displacing nearly 34,000 tons with a 118 foot beam, and it provided good stability. The long flight deck, over 800 feet, also gave the pilots plenty of room for takeoff. The Stukas were formed up, their engines howling on the flight deck as they waited for final clearance to begin takeoff. Hauptmann Marco Ritter had already returned and was out on the flight deck waiting for the air crews to refuel and rearm his Messerschmitt, eager to get back into the sky. He was counting the planes, seeing that only seventeen had been spotted.
“Where’s number eighteen?” he asked an airman.
“Still on the elevator. The pilot is sick and doesn’t think he can fly. But seventeen should do the job well enough.”
“That’s an unlucky number,” said Ritter. “Let me go and see about it.”
He went below, only to learn that the remaining six Stuka pilots were all busy performing pre-flight checks on their planes, which were being armed in the event they were needed later. Frustrated, he spied a lone pilot leaning dejectedly on a bulkhead, enviously watching the crews work on the dark flock of crows.
“You there, what are you doing?”
“Nothing, sir. I have no assignment.”
Ritter shook his head. “No assignment? Here I am looking for a pilot and there you are right in front of me. Isn’t that a flight jacket you are wearing?”
The Air Maintenance Chief heard the men and yelled at Ritter as he worked on one of the planes. “Don’t get excited, Hauptmann Ritter, he’s just a recon pilot.”
“Recon pilot?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Airman. “I fly the Arado.” The man was the number four Arado 196 pilot, still waiting for assignment, listless and brooding below decks. “But I can fly that too,” the man pointed at the last Stuka on the elevator, a dejected, hungry look on his face.
“You can fly a Stuka?” Ritter remembered the man now.
“Yes sir. I trained with Sturzkampfgeschwader 3 before volunteering for my assignment here.”
“Excellent! You’re my lucky eighteen.”
“Me sir?”
“You can’t send him, Ritter,” the maintenance Chief protested.
“Mind your spanner, Chief. I am head of air operations on this deck, and if this man can fly a Stuka he’s as good as any of the others.”
Most of the Stuka pilots were young and still relatively inexperienced. They had fought briefly in Poland before being drafted into the special units for training with the new carrier based model.
“Just get in the plane,” said Ritter. “You can ride it up on the elevator.”
Rudel’s eyes glowed with thanks. “Right away, sir!” And he leapt for the plane, scrambling up and into the cockpit as the lift started.
“You’ll get him killed, Ritter. He’s never flown a real combat mission in a Stuka, just training.”
“Every man gets his first chance, Chief. And nobody lives forever.” He watched the young man go, eager, happy to serve, and also noted how he correctly fixed his harness in little time at all. He will have to do, he thought.
Ritter’s lucky number eighteen was Hans-Ulrich Rudel, and he had joined the School of Air Warfare right out of high school to learn to fly. There he found the work challenging, and was thought to be ill suited for combat missions by his instructors, which is why they gave him the role of reconnaissance pilot. Determined, he applied himself rigorously, shunning alcohol and cigarettes, and maintaining a rigid discipline in his studies. It was to be a case of sheer will that saw him succeed, and he made numerous requests to be transferred to a fighting unit.
Begging for a more active role, he was sent over to the Kriegsmarine for training on the Arado 196 his experience in recon operations saw him assigned to the Graf Zeppelin as Number Four pilot in the AradoAnerkenung Squadron. Two of his mates were already up there joining in the excitement as they loitered to help vector in the strike wave once it got aloft, but Rudel was sulking below decks when fate, in the form of Marco Ritter, placed a hand on his shoulder.
Ritter took the ladder up, back on the flight deck to watch the Stukas take off. When the last plane was ready, he gave Rudel a thumbs up, and a wide smile, remembering his own very first combat mission over Poland. He watched as Rudel’s plane roared off the deck, eager for the sky. A nice takeoff, he thought.
Soon the strike wave was up and on its way, only twenty minutes out from the target at their present cruising speed of 225 MPH. They threaded their way through drifts of clouds, moving fast on the wind, and far to the south the alarms were clanging hot and loud on the ships of Tovey’s Home Fleet.
* * *
Lieutenant Commander John Casson was back, his Skua just landed on the Ark Royal as they began to spot the decks with new planes for a hasty takeoff. He leapt out and down from the cockpit, checking on his signalman gunner before he hit the deck. There was a line of bullet holes in his left wing, but it had not caught fire and the low clouds and his acrobatic flying had saved the plane, and undoubtedly his life as well. He spied the Squadron Leader, Captain Richard ‘Birdy’ Partridge, of Peartree fame on the ship. He was huddling with his gunner’s mate Bostock as they made ready to mount their planes.
“Jerry 109s,” he said flatly. “Jumped us from above, and had two planes down before we could tip a wing.”
“That means they’ve come off a carrier, Johnny. So we get a crack at Graf Zeppelin.”
“Yes, well you had better hop to it! Those planes were no more than fifteen minutes out when they found us. They could be right on my heels.”
“Who went down?”
“Filmer and Harris.”
Casson patted the chest pocket on his flight jacket where he kept a silver brandy flask given to him by his wife. He could use a swig now, but was only glad to have made it home in one piece.
Squadron navigator Peter ‘Hornblower’ Fanshaw came running up, breathless as he gathered himself. “I’ve just got the latest position report. One of the Swordfish got clean away and they’ve spotted the Germans up north.”
“Good show, Hornblower. Let’s get airborne!” Partridge was keen to get up and about his business, but he could not help but notice the sprig of white heather that Hornblower always liked to set on the dash for good luck. They were going to need it. Every man among them knew their planes were beyond their prime, and no real match for the German BF-109. But in the end the skill of the pilot counted for much in any encounter, and the British were veterans all.
They were sending six Skua fighters from 803 Squadron, and another six from 800 Squadron. With no time for loadouts of bombs, the planes were tasked with combat air patrol over the fleet until they could bring up the Swordfish for a go at the Germans. Then they would serve as escorts. Ark Royal could spot no more than fifteen planes for takeoff at any one time, and the Skuas were first up, with Bartlett and Gardiner already climbing into the wind.
Partridge watched all of 803 Squadron go before he ran for his plane. As was customary, the Senior Squadron Leader would be the last to take off. Once aloft he gave the signal to get the Skuas up to 11,000 feet while they waited for the Swordfish, but they soon had uninvited guests for dinner. The Valkyries had arrived.
Petty Officer Henry Monk saw them first in plane 6C from 800 Squadron. “Trouble at three o’clock he calle
d.” He looked to see long, dark lines of planes flying in formation as they broke out of a cottony grey-white cloud. “Look there, boys. Those are Stukas!” They were planes they could fight with a good chance of beating them, but Monk had not seen the six BF-109s on overwatch. As the Skuas tipped their wings and rolled into action the Messerschmitts suddenly appeared, streaking down from above as before with their wing guns snarling.
The fight was soon on, a dizzy whirl of man and machine in the grey skies, with planes wheeling and firing at one another. The Germans scored a quick kill on Finch-Noyes, but they saw at least one parachute get safely away from his smoking Skua as it went down. Partridge, Gallagher and Martin had formed the last sub-flight, and they tore into the Stuka formation, riddling two planes with their four wing-mounted.303s A kill went to the Squadron Leader, and he yelled a ‘Tally Ho’ as he brought his Skua around with Gallagher on his right wing in a wide turn.
But the BF-109s had also taken their toll. Riddler was down, his plane a smoking wreck, and no one got out alive. Spurway was hit and had one wing on fire. Partridge came around only to find he was in a fight for his life. A Messerschmitt on his tail had put a round right through his canopy, but it luckily missed, prompting him to kiss his leather glove and pat the sprig of lucky white heather on his dash. He managed to lose the German fighter in the clouds, but when he emerged he could see that the Stukas were now tipping over into screaming dives. The fleet was under attack.
* * *
Hans Rudel saw the first two Stukas go down, his pulse up, heart pounding as much from excitement as anything else. Combat! At long last he was on a real mission against the enemy. He knew the Stuka well enough, having trained with it in France for over six weeks before he came to the carrier disheartened to learn he would be flying an Arado seaplane. They do not think I’m any good, he thought, but his iron will was going to prove them all wrong today. Right here, and right now.
As he started his dive he could see the formation of British ships below, and now the skies were puffing up with the sharp muffled explosions of Ack-Ack fire. There were two big ships, and he found himself in a perfect position to line up on the number two vessel in the line. Now he tipped his plane in earnest, pointing the nose down in a near 90 degree dive. He could hear the wail of the Jericho Trumpets as the Valkyries dove to either side. The sound was terrifying, an awful wail of wrath from the welkin sky. The planes ahead of him scored a near miss on the big leading ship, which was now turning in a hasty evasive maneuver.
Rudel could see that his target was forging straight on, and he lined up perfectly on the ship, remembering the bawling cajole of his flight training officer. ‘Line up and hold for ten seconds. Don’t move a muscle, then let your bomb fly and pull out fast.’ And that was exactly what he did. His hands were like ice on the stick, and flack was exploding all around him, jarring his plane, but he kept in line, heedless of his own personal safety. Then he released the bomb and pulled out of his howling dive, light headed with the G-force of his recovery.
551 pounds of high explosives went careening into the target and blasted up in to the vibrating sky. Rudel got the hit, square amidships on HMS Renown, and the bomb went right through the battlecruiser’s thin deck armor and exploded three decks down in a boiler room, blowing everything there to hell. Renown turned, her speed falling off rapidly, and tall geysers of water falling to port and starboard with another two near misses. A second bomb struck further aft blowing the Walrus seaplane and its lifting crane to pieces and starting a raging fire there from residual fuel in the plane.
Rudel pulled out of his dive to see the billowing smoke and fire amidships. My God, he thought. I hit a battleship! It would not be the last he would have in his sights. Hans-Ulrich Rudel wasn’t supposed to even be aboard Graf Zeppelin that day, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to be aboard that Stuka, but the experience would serve him well. He would go on to become one of the most highly decorated combat pilots in history, flying over 2500 missions and stacking up awards and medals encrusted with oak leaves and diamonds throughout the war. No other pilot would match the tally of wreckage he would leave behind him, burning ships, planes, trains and warehouses all to be smashed by the thunder of his Stuka.
But all that yet remained to be lived. Now he was just a recon pilot snatched up in a wild minute by Ritter’s roving eye. He was just Luck Eighteen, and that was enough.
Chapter 24
Far to the west HMS Birmingham was sailing close astride Manchester in the midst of the storm. They had sought the shelter of the oncoming front, and now the light cruisers rolled in the heavy swell, and rain lashed the viewports making it almost impossible to see anything. Outside on the weather deck, Captain Madden was braving the elements, his heavy overcoat drenched as he watched for the lamp signals coming from Manchester. He could have stayed in the conning tower waiting for the signalmen to bring him the news, but he wanted it fast to make a decision on their present course. The news was not good.
Manchester could not make any more than 15 knots and her Captain Packer was requesting permission to return to Reykjavik. Madden knew he would have to let the cruiser go. There was nothing more they could do in shadowing the German ships, and the wounded cruiser was now a liability. So he reluctantly gave the order to signal farewell and headed for the relative warmth and shelter of the conning tower.
It was then that he heard what he first took to be a distant peal of thunder, but something in the sound rankled his well trained ear. It was gunfire, eight inchers or better. He looked toward the sound, but saw nothing, though well honed instinct had him counting the seconds, as one might wait out the interval between lightning and thunder to measure distance to a storm at sea. Thirty seconds on he heard the whine of shells overhead and was amazed to see water splashes off his starboard bow. They were under attack.
Bloody hell, he thought, racing to the wheelhouse. Here we are sitting at twelve knots in a storm and the Germans have snuck up like a thief in the night.
“Make speed,” he shouted. “Ahead full!”
“All ahead full, aye sir.”
“Did anyone see the shell flash?”
Lieutenant Robert Ward still had the watch, but they had seen nothing. “We’re blind as bats out here, sir. Visibility is down to five cables.”
Yes, thought Madden, but bats had their own makeshift radar in the dark, and the Germans had to be tracking him. Their resolution wasn’t good enough to get those shells much closer than they were, and thank God for that, but we’re on our own now.
“Signal Manchester to make their best speed home and we’ll try to keep the Germans busy here while they slip away.”
A 30 second shell fall time might put that cruiser inside 15,000 yards. It was going to be a long, sleepless night.
* * *
They were huddling near the radio aboard Kirov, and Nikolin was translating what he was hearing and recounting a speech given by Churchill that was being broadcast by the BBC. Two days ago France had formally signed the Armistice with Germany and capitulated, leaving Britain alone to face the emerging wrath of the German war machine. In all the history Fedorov knew, Britain’s survival was a near run thing, and largely would depend on whether or not the United States would join the war on her side. In that dark hour England’s continued existence was in real jeopardy. So they had called the senior officers together one last time to finalize their course of action, and Pavel Kamenski was invited as well.
Nikolin discovered that a segment of what would have been the Soviet Union had now formally declared itself as an ally of Germany-the Orenburg Federation in the central heartland and south into Kazakhstan. Kirov’s Russia remained neutral, and nothing was heard from the Siberian East. But the news that Orenburg was siding with Hitler was grim indeed.
“From what we have determined,” said Fedorov, “the Orenburg Federation comprises all of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and the Caucasus, and even extends north to the Urals. It is sitting astride the vast oil rese
rves of Kazakhstan and the Caspian region, and the mineral wealth of the Ural mountains.”
“Why not join them?” Orlov spoke up, tentative at first.
“Explain yourself, Mister Orlov.” The Admiral invited the Chief to speak his mind.
“As Fedorov says, they have the oil, the resources, and we know those things become essential in the future. Besides, Georgia is my home, and I would feel better fighting for them, if that means anything.”
“A good point,” said Volsky. “There may be others in the crew who feel the same way, particularly if they hail from those provinces.”
“Joining Orenburg means we join with Germany too, and Hitler will be a very unreliable friend,” said Fedorov. “Didn’t he already prove that?”
“Volkov may be equally unreliable,” said Volsky. “What will he do when he learns we are here with this ship? He will welcome us, that is certain, and then I think he will do everything in his power to get control of this ship and the weapons we possess. And I do not think the fact that I once ranked him in the chain of command will matter. Hitler and Volkov…They may prove friends in the short term and be two birds of a feather. In the end, however, only one can remain the dominant power, and Volkov will know this.”
“But Hitler cannot get at Orenburg now,” said Orlov. “Not without going through Soviet Russia or the Ukraine first. We could sail through the Med and into the Black Sea, and close that southern route if Hitler becomes a problem. I know the way well enough.” He smiled as he said that. “I was there in 1942!”
“That is another concern,” said Fedorov. “A good number of us were there, Chief. What happens if we do not leave here before late July of 1941? We have never really determined that. I know that Mister Kamenski suggested things may be different now, but that remains uncertain. Our time here may be limited.”
“We still have a long year to decide that,” said Kamenski. “Perhaps more information will come to light. Who knows, we may even learn the fate of Captain Gromyko and Kazan. Yet for now we cannot become frozen with inaction knowing something may happen to us before the date of the ship’s first arrival here anymore than a man refuses to live because one day he must die.”
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