by Colin Gee
The message went on another journey.
1127 hrs, Monday 10th March 1947, Justizzentrum, temporary government building #3, Magdeburg, Germany.
Its destination was a desk in the Justizzentrum, one belonging to Horst Pflug-Hartnung.
In his hands he held the information requested and he grunted at its completeness.
Without taking his eyes from it, he lifted the receiver and spoke briefly to his secretary, summoning one of his officers.
Eight minutes later, Vögel was admitted to the room.
“Ah Vögel. We have the information. Here.”
Pflug-Hartnung slid the original paper across the desk and it was immediately swept up by the Abwehr’s premier hatchet man.
The piercingly intense eyes drank in every detail, assigning each piece of the itinerary a marking of ‘no’, ‘yes’, or ‘maybe’.
There were many no’s… two maybes… and two yesses.
“Your thoughts, Vögel?”
“Two opportunities, Sir. Friday looks best to me. More time to plan and get organised.”
“Really? I would have thought Wednesday would have been better.”
Vögel re-examined the itinerary.
“Understand what you mean, Sir. But I think not. Too many people about… too many armed personnel who would be alert. Friday will be best.”
“And the other two named?”
“Not known to me, Sir. If they’re not known to you either, I can suggest we don’t need to worry.”
“A fair point. I’ll leave it up to you, Vögel, but…”
He leant forward to emphasise his point.
“… it’s absolutely essential that we’re not associated with this in any way. There must be no comeback against us whatsoever… do I make myself clear, Maior?”
“Yes, Herr Generalmaior. It shall be so.”
“An aircraft. I assume you mean to use a bomb?”
“I may well do, Sir, but with some subtlety of course. Aircraft crash all the time. This one will simply carry someone important.”
“Advise me when you are ready to proceed. I’ll obtain the necessary authorisation. We need codewords…”
“If I might suggest, Sir?”
“Please. Go on.”
Vögel, ever conscious of gaining favour with his masters, selected words of meaning to his superior, who was formerly of the Kriegsmarine.
“For stopping the mission, Falklands.”
Pflug-Hartnung stared at his man.
“For holding the mission, Jutland.”
He understood where his man was going and completed the trio of code words.
“And for proceed, Coronel?”
“Yes indeed, Herr Generalmaior.”
“Excellent. And the other matter?”
“Much easier, Sir. A simple robbery. There’ll be a small delay as nature takes her course, but it’ll be done without problems.”
“Excellent, Vögel. Get them done efficiently and I think I can find you a different office.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Promotion was only a small part of Vögel’s motivation, but he accepted the offer with good grace.
He left the room without another word as Pflug-Hartnung consider the choice of code words.
Victory, followed by defeat, followed by a draw.
Named for naval engagements, the Falklands was a decisive defeat for the Imperial Navy, and Jutland had been a bloody draw.
Coronel had been a glorious win.
It had come first, the 1st November 1914 if his memory served, but Von Spee and his armoured cruisers, having smashed the British at Coronel, paid the ultimate price just over a month later when, on 8th December, they were destroyed at the Falklands, with only Dresden and Seydlitz surviving.
There was a delicious irony in the selection that was not wasted on him, an old sailor from the Kaiser’s navy
The Dresden had later been cornered and sunk by British warships, acting in violation of Chilean national waters.
The captain had tried to preserve his vessel by sending a negotiator to the British, a man Pflug-Hartnung had known and admired.
That man was Wilhelm Canaris, former head of the Abwehr, then an Oberleutnant zur See.
The same Wilhelm Canaris who was rumoured, during his numerous trips to Spain, to have met Allied contemporaries such as Stuart Menzies of MI-6, William Donovan of the OSS, and Kenneth Strong, then Deputy Intelligence chief for the Allied Armies in Europe.
He mentally doffed his hat to his old friend and wondered if he would support the present course of action.
‘Not a hope. You were always too much of an idealist, Wilhelm. An honourable man for sure, but not capable of sacrificing for the common good, or for the glory of the Fatherland. Now’s the time for strong and decisive men to act… and act we will.’
Horst Gustav Friedrich von Pflug-Hartnung stood and tidied his desk, ill at ease with his final thoughts.
‘All that’s needed after that is a sieg heil’
The phone rang, dragging him back into the real world.
2204 hrs, Monday, 10th March 1947, the Straits of Gibraltar.
It was an unusually busy night for the officers and men of the vessels monitoring the route from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, or vice versa.
Usually they could expect no more than ten vessels at one time, something that peace now permitted, and also travelling at night with full lights on, something that would probably have brought instant death in the bloody days of 39 to 45.
This night there were, not including naval vessels, some thirty-one vessels in or approaching the Straits.
It was still a peaceful night, although death was abroad and riding the waves, by design, not by accident.
The Bogata, a German freighter, fired a distress flare and the radio crackled into life with warnings of broken steering.
The monitoring station ashore passed word to the Straits controller, who had already noted the flares and heard the distress messages.
Seemingly oblivious to the out-of-control freighter was the hospital ship, Hikawa Maru 2, a well-known sight in Gibraltan waters, constantly plying back and forth between Africa and Europe with refugees and casualties.
The radio howled more warnings, as the German captain declared he was carrying old submarine munitions.
Ashore, the admiral in charge sent a clear warning to all vessels in the area.
“All stations, all stations. Clear the channel, repeat, clear the channel. Remain as close inshore as possible and clear the area.”
The Bogata bore down upon the highly illuminated hospital ship, which seemed to simply accept its fate without an ounce of effort to avoid the collision.
The two vessels came together in a tortured grind of metal that could be heard on two continents.
And then there was a flash.
The sound wave came next, and the pressure wave followed as quickly as it could.
Bogata had exploded.
In fact, there was no Bogata worth the name, simply a twisted something that somehow still floated.
In fact, there was precious little Hikawa Maru either, and what there was wreathed in orange flame.
Fire at sea…
The stricken vessel reportedly carried over two thousand souls, plus any that had survived from the Bogata.
That drove the rescuers forward and the naval vessels descended on the scene like bees round honey.
More explosions came from the Bogata, some sending playful rockets into the night, 105mm semi-armour piercing rockets that would be wholly deadly if they struck an approaching vessel.
Aware of the risks, the Straits admiral ordered fast responding Vosper MTBs to put to sea, to provide some sort of security as the rescue attempt went on.
He followed that with an order for two corvettes to raise steam and get out of the harbour to reinforce the flimsy security ring he was now presented with.
The first reports came in from a French frigate that slowly edg
ed through the packed waters.
“Hundreds dead… hundreds badly burned… water full of dead and injured… more survivors still aboard… fire uncontrollable…”
It was the stuff of nightmares, and the Allied sailors braved many perils to do their duty.
Nachi Maru and Tsukushi Maru, both outbound to the Atlantic, radioed in and offered their assistance but the Admiral rightly reasoned that the area was crowded enough and that the continued explosions would pose a major risk to any vessel.
Other merchant vessels offered their help too, but all were declined.
On the outbound side, eight ships ran almost nose to tail as they moved closer to the African shore, as directed by the Straits admiral, safely putting distance between them and the fiery explosive hell that was the Bogata and Hikawa Maru.
That Admiral’s fears became a tragic reality as the Royal Hellenic Navy’s Apostolis, a Flower-class corvette, came apart in an instant, the flash, the sound, and the shock wave coming in close sequence as before.
Prior to feigning steering issues, Bogata had dropped a few mines overboard, all to help with the confusion if they struck home.
They were supposed to be moored mines, so they had a corroded and severed cable piece attached, all to maintain the illusion of accident should any be discovered.
Apostolic was beyond help and, cut in half by the magnetic mine, she quickly slid under the water, taking all but three of her crew with her.
The remaining naval vessels redoubled their efforts, but also set watches for anything suspicious in the water, and started working with any detection apparatus capable of doing any job underwater.
In short, in a dozen minutes, the Straits of Gibraltar had gone from tranquillity to mayhem.
Which suited the two Japanese surface vessels, both of whom nestled in between other merchant ships, two of which were there by coincidence, and four of which were there by design.
The commander of HMS Fowey, one of His Majesty’s Shoreham class sloops, decided he could not presently contribute to the rescue efforts and laid off the scene, returning to his search duties.
In the sonar room, there was only one subject of conversation, and it wasn’t the burning wrecks.
“Whatever that is, it ain’t natural, Number One.”
The First Lieutenant listened in on a repeater headset and could not help but agree.
“Ye gods, White. That sounds like a canteen of cutlery being turned in a butter churn. I grant you… there’s some other sounds there too.”
The hydrophone operator tried to clean up the sound but failed miserably, as even more incredible noises made themselves known.
“Now that’s something going whizzbang… the wrecks for sure… but…”
He concentrated and then had a ‘road to Damascus’ moment.
“Bearing, White?”
“Bearing one-seven-zero, Sir.”
“Bridge, sonar.”
“What have you got, Jimmy?”
“Skipper, bearing one-seven-zero. What have you got in sight?”
There was a delay as a number of pairs of binoculars concentrated down the designated bearing.
“I’m guessing you have a bagful of spanners on the hydrophones, yes?”
“Too true, Skipper.”
“There’s six merchies over there, including both of those bloody Nip ships that you can hear coming from Iceland. Not surprised you can hear World War Four, Jimmy.”
“There are some other weird sounds too, Skipper.”
“Very possibly, Jimmy. Keep sweeping but I’m going to cut back into the channel now. Looks like our Gallic cousins have pulled off. We may have an opportunity. Come back up as soon as you’re satisfied that there’s no battlecruisers amongst the merchies.”
“Aye, aye, Skipper.”
The First Lieutenant replaced the phone and picked up the repeater headset again.
“What do you reckon, Chief?”
“Strange sounds, not like I’ve heard before. But it’s a weird night, Sir. All sorts of harmonics at work out there.”
As if to emphasise his point, something else let go on board the sinking Bogata.
“Keep on it for as long as you can, Chief. Good work… good work, White.”
“Tell you what, Sir.”
“Chief?”
“If you’re thinking something like a sub is out there, think again. No self-respecting submariner would be anywhere near one of those merchie rust buckets, and we all know they spook easily. The sound of yonder bonfire party would have sent them off in a tizzy by now.”
“You’re probably right, Chief. Still, stay on it. “
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
He and White did so, but without hearing anything specifically.
Maybe an active sonar search might have found something, but the order was never given.
The six merchant men cleared the area as quickly as the labouring engines allowed, although, had they been closely observed, an experienced eye would have noted near-perfect station keeping.
Their six charges worked to the same strict pattern and speed, all perilously close to their protective vessels, but all confident that they would escape into the open Atlantic and their rendezvous with destiny.
I-1, I-14, I-401, I-402, J-54 Soviet Vozmezdiye, and finally J-51 Soviet Initsiativa had carried out the most dangerous part of their mission.
That men willingly sacrificed their lives to ensure their success was the subject of ceremonies to honour the dead and recognise their selfless acts.
That over fifteen hundred innocent civilians and wounded military personnel also perished was of absolutely no significance whatsoever.
Two nights later the final legacy of their breakthrough visited itself upon the Dutch vessel Macoma, a tanker converted to a MAC ship by adding a flight deck over the top of its hull.
The single mine detonated alongside forward on her port beam and her plates opened up like they were papier-mache.
Tankers died hard and Macoma took two days to go down, despite the best efforts of Portuguese naval ships who responded to her desperate pleas for help.
One of the Greek merchant ships that had formed part of the breakout effort responded, resuming its normal duties to avoid too many questions.
The two Marus and one other vessel, a non-descript Turkish steamer, stayed in relative close company, heading for a rendezvous with old comrades at Deserta Grande in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira.
1143 hrs, Wednesday, 12th March 1947, the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.
Stalin and the rest of the GKO listened in varying stages of concern and genuine horror as the ramping up of Allied military readiness was laid bare by Zhukov, ably supported by Kaganovich and Nazarbayeva.
The simple question posed that the General Secretary posed lay hanging in the air.
“Why?”
Carefully choosing his words, Zhukov took the agreed step and deferred to the two intelligence officers.
Kaganovich followed suit and stuck to the script the three had hastily prepared.
“Comrade General Nazarbayeva is better equipped than I to answer that question. Comrade General Secretary.”
“So?”
“Comrades, the NKVD and ourselves have pieced together some information. I stress that this is not yet confirmed, but the GRU sources are normally reliable, and Comrade General Kaganovich vouches for his own agents in this matter.”
The two exchanged professional nods.
“It would appear that there’s some concern about a submarine that was sunk in the Baltic, one that was broaching declared Allied waters and was sunk, as per their rules of engagement.”
“Preposterous… absolutely prepost…”
Stalin’s raised hand stopped Nikolai Voznesensky’s loud objection in its tracks.
“Let her finish, Nikolai!”
Tatiana waited for an appropriate moment and then continued.
“It’s our belief that the Allies are more concerned about what
the submarine might have been carrying than the submarine itself.”
She looked directly at Admiral Isakov, who avoided her gaze, something that told her all she needed to know.
The men to her left already knew, something they had failed to share with her for reasons known best to themselves.
Bulganin, a member of the very inner circle and privy to all things Raduga, shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Voznesensky, on the outside of the inner circle, stayed silent and confused.
“We know for a fact that one of the British patrol vessels responsible is presently tied up in Holland and under quarantine. Lots of civilians, who we believe to be scientists, are going back and forth, and extremely tight military security is in place all around the whole area. According to Comrade General Kaganovich’s agent, the security faces both ways, which tells us that they’re concerned about what’s on board that vessel.”
Khrushchev, a recent appointee to the GKO, raised his hand to speak.
Stalin saw the gesture and, having brought him into the GKO as a trusted comrade and advisor, gave him his opportunity.
“Comrade?”
“Comrade General Secretary. I think that we must first establish if this was one of our submarines.”
‘Nicely done, Nikita… not that we don’t know of course.’
Stalin declined to ask Isakov outright, as they both knew that it was, but chose to continue the farce for the benefit of those members of the GKO who had been excluded from important decisions and for the naive woman.
“Comrade Nazarbayeva?”
She may not have been the sharpest politically, but Nazarbayeva understood that the simple of question would have been better put to Isakov, and she suddenly realised that she was stood in the middle of some grand game.
“Comrade General Secretary, our sources inform us that survivors wearing Soviet naval uniform were recovered, along with a number of bodies… similarly attired.”
Eyes turned to Isakov.
He knew his position was not under threat, but played the cornered fox to perfection.
