1943 (Kirov Series Book 27)

by John Schettler

  “Four or five syllables? You should just stay with Lion, or you might try something like Superb.” Tovey looked at his good friend and colleague, curious. “Well… Don’t just sit there with that smile on your face. What about this ship?”

  “Superb… I rather like that. Perhaps I’ll recommend it to the DNC, because it’s coming along nicely,” said Fraser with a wink. “The first two hulls were laid down before the war, and the DNC tried to cancel them shortly thereafter. That’s when I stepped up, and had my little chat with Churchill.” Fraser smiled.

  “What? You mean to say they’ve been building this ship for two years, and as a carrier?”

  “That’s the ticket,” said Fraser. “Fly over the damn thing and it looks like a battleship that will never be completed in any good time. Why, you could only see the beginnings of what might be the main superstructure, and one stack. But down deep, all the boilers and propulsion systems are finished, and the hangar decks have all been laid out. That bit of superstructure is the island, and now all it needs is a good armored flight deck. They’ll start building that out this week.”

  “My word… This hasn’t been in any of my fleet status reports.”

  “Churchill wanted it that way. He said that, if it came down to discussion at the Admiralty, there would be no end of change proposals and such, and the ship would simply never get built. So he gave the project to me, and I’ve been shepherding things along, nice and quiet like.”

  “Really quite irregular,” said Tovey, though he was inwardly pleased at this news. Nobody knows everything going on in this bloody war, he thought. Not even the Commander of Home Fleet.

  Chapter 5

  “Now,” said Fraser, “they had to thin out the belt armor a wee bit to get the speed we wanted, but she’ll still have 250mm through the gut, and 150 at the bow and stern. That will handle 8-inch rounds well enough, and the two forward turrets will handle anything that throws one at her.”

  “Two forward turrets?”

  “They never stopped work on those, as I’m sure you know—the 16-inch guns for the original Lion design. But that’s all they managed to build in two years, and it was going to take another two years to finish the job. That just would not do. Admiral, a bird in hand, that’s what we have now. So we just used the two turrets we had ready, and they went on last month. The Germans still think we have half a battleship there, and with no superstructure.”

  “Just as I thought,” said Tovey. “And one might think the Commander of Home Fleet might be better informed than the Abwehr!”

  “Sorry John, but this was all very hush hush. Churchill insisted. Not even Pound knows the details I shared with you here.”

  “And good that he doesn’t,” said Tovey.

  “So then, with only A and B turrets, it saves a good deal of weight, eliminates another barbette and magazine, and increases speed to 30 knots. The main elevator area is now aft where Y turret would have been.”

  “And the planes?”

  “Here’s the good part,” said Fraser with a smile. “You are certainly correct about the lack of capacity on our carriers. We need planes with folding wings, just like the Americans. Well, waiting for that is like waiting for spring in November, so I suggested we just buy them from the Americans. They have good folding wing fighters and dive bombers right now. We even have a few Martlet Squadrons deployed. Only this new plane we’re getting is even better than the Martlet. The Americans are calling it the F6F Hellcat, and they’re going to build them in droves. The wings can fold hydraulically, or manually if necessary. It promises to be a good rugged plane, just what we need.”

  “What about the Seafires?”

  “We got 30 of the Mark IIIs. Somerville even had a dozen at Ceylon, but not enough to matter. Oddly, the damn wings won’t fold on that lot. Now what was that all about? They build a carrier fighter with wings that won’t fold! Well, we got the matter corrected, and the Seafire will make a fine plane if we can get enough of the new version with folding wings. In the meantime, we’ll take these Hellcats and put them to good use. I’m told that given the current hangar and deck space on our old Lion, this new hybrid can still carry 24 of them, and have enough room left over for two dozen more strike planes.”

  “Why, that’s no more than Illustrious could carry.”

  “True, but Illustrious didn’t have those 16-inch gun turrets up front.”

  “I’m not sure they would have done her any good. She never saw the ship that launched the planes that sunk her.”

  “Well,” Fraser smiled. “With two such ships, side by side, we’ll throw 96 planes into the sky, and have more firepower than the French battleship Normandie at our disposal at the same time.”

  “Two such ships?”

  “My dear man, we always build them in pairs. Hood and your G3 Class being the only exceptions. I like Superb… Think of a good name for the second one, will you?”

  Tovey shrugged. “I suppose if I won’t get a new fast battleship any time soon, the hybrids will have to do.”

  “I wouldn’t be so pessimistic,” said Fraser. “All the delays regarding the Lion class gave birth to yet another proposal. You see, the difficulty was in getting those new 16-inch guns ready—all new turrets. Yet we had perfectly good 15-in turrets stored from Glorious and Courageous when they were converted to carriers. Why not use them, or so the logic went. Those guns are tried and true.”

  “Yes, I was in on that meeting,” said Tovey. “Churchill supported it as well, if I’m not mistaken—an all new fast battleship, but armed with her grandmother’s teeth.”

  “They’ve made some modifications on the new project for Vanguard,” said Fraser. “The guns can now elevate to 30 degrees to improve range, and they’ve added additional faceplate armor and also mounted gun directors.”

  “You make it sound as though the ship is already built. The last I saw of it there were still four big holes fore and aft where the turrets should be.”

  “Yes, she’s not quite finished, but the guns are ready, and they might mount those turrets very quickly. So you see, you just might get one more fast battleship before long, HMS Vanguard.”

  “I won’t hold my breath, for that ship or these hybrids you’re so fond of. The new Knight Class has been useful. A few more of those would fill the bill.”

  “Don’t worry, the Admiralty is firmly committed to filling out the Round Table.”

  “Good,” said Tovey. “If I had all these ships now, I would feel a good deal better, but more to the immediacy of our present situation, and speaking of both the Former Naval Person and Admiral Somerville, we have to consider what to do about Ceylon. The Indian Ocean Squadron is toothless now. Somerville has retreated all the way back to Madagascar and Kenya, and he can now barely serve to put out a thin cover for Cape Town and Durban. The Japanese have Trinco and Colombo, and Churchill is at his wit’s end over these developments.”

  “Somerville deployed too far forward,” said Fraser. “His effort to cover Port Blair was ill considered. He should have withdrawn southwest of Ceylon, perhaps operating from Addu instead. He was lucky to save Indomitable and those three old battleships.”

  “And the cruisers,” said Tovey.

  “What do you propose we do about Ceylon?”

  “The Japanese have settled in there, with land based planes at both bases, so that won’t be an easy proposition. Yet the loss of Ceylon has made all the convoys around the Cape, and into the Red Sea, a hazardous undertaking. We’ve had to double down on destroyer escorts, because the Japanese have based submarines at Colombo. Thankfully, they withdrew their carrier squadron for operations in the South Pacific, so while the cat is away….”

  “Yes,” said Fraser, “but what can we possibly do?”

  “We have a lot of troops on Madagascar, and there is certainly plenty of shipping in the region. We still have a presence at Addu and Diego Garcia, as well as Mauritius—seaplane bases, fuel for the navy, and a few fighters at each outpost. Thankfully t
he Japanese haven’t moved a lot of bombers to Ceylon yet. They could do a good deal more than they have to interdict our sea lanes, but they have their own difficulties to contend with. It isn’t easy to keep their troops and planes on Ceylon supplied. They’ve been sending weekly convoys from Singapore, but we’re on to them now, and our subs have been lingering in the strait of Malacca and off Batavia, now that Krakatoa has settled down. Churchill doesn’t think that’s enough. The rubber shortages are beginning to be felt at home, and that has forced us to look to South America for new supplies. The oil shipments from the Persian Gulf are also in some jeopardy, and now Churchill wants a plan for a counterattack on Ceylon.”

  “You mean by sea? An invasion?”

  “My,” said Tovey. “It seems Churchill doesn’t confide all his secrets. This is one he whispered in my ear, as I’m the man who’ll have to arrange things. We pulled it off on Madagascar well enough.”

  “Yes,” said Fraser, “but that was against the Vichy French, and without having to worry about the Japanese navy or air force. Somerville is down to Indomitable, and little Hermes. That’s enough deck space for an air raid, but not to cover an amphibious operation.”

  “Quite so,” said Tovey. “So if this plan does get teed up, it will mean Somerville will need more carriers. We only have five fast carriers left. Eagle and Hermes are too slow for something like this. In fact, I’ve recalled Hermes to join Force H in the Med, along with Furious, and the American carriers. That should be sufficient to cover those operations as we make the push towards Tunisia. I need at least one carrier for the Norwegian Sea, and I’m turning that beat over to Glorious. Cunningham still has the Argus and Eagle in the Eastern Med, so we get no help there.”

  “Ark Royal,” said Fraser with a glint in his eye. “That’s the perfect ship for the Indian Ocean. Why, she can carry over 60 planes, and even more if we utilize the deckpark strategy the Americans use. She’s fast, nimble at sea, tough in action with all the AA defense we put on her, and she has a fairly thick skin as well.”

  “That’s what it came down to in my mind as well,” said Tovey, “Ark Royal and Victorious. We don’t need them for Force C in the Canary Islands any longer, so they can go to Somerville. They have better endurance and carrying capacity for this Ceylon business. Damn if we don’t miss Illustrious and Formidable now, but I’m told I shouldn’t complain.”

  “Oh? By who, if I might ask?”

  “That young Russian Captain, Fedorov. We spoke on that secure encrypted radio of his last week and I mentioned these difficulties. He then let slip that in the history he knows, we had already lost five carriers by this time in the war, not three. He told me our Captain Wells was never supposed to have saved Glorious as he did, and was in fact killed in that incident.”

  “Really?” said Fraser, feeling just a touch of the macabre in that revelation.

  “Yes, and he went on to say that Ark Royal was to have been sunk by a German U-Boat, and that the Eagle went down in the Med. For that matter, HMS Invincible was never built, and I’d wager that Lion, or that ship by any other name, was never commissioned in his version of these events—as a battleship or a hybrid carrier. He’d probably say the same about this Vanguard project you mentioned.”

  “Very strange,” said Fraser. “I mean to think that this man can quote us chapter and verse like that, about things that haven’t even happened yet. It gives me the shivers.”

  “Yes, but things are different here—the history. We’re writing it all anew. He tells me Ceylon was never taken by the Japanese, and a lot of other things have been turned on their head.”

  Fraser nodded. “Has he told you who wins this damn war?”

  “Yes, we pull through, though from my perspective, it will be a long hard slog before we get there.”

  “That’s at least encouraging.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Tovey. “If all these other things never came to pass in his version of the war, then we might not be able to take his prediction to the bank just yet. In any case, we must never be so complacent as to think we have a sure thing on our hands here. I tell myself that every day, just to keep my mind sharp.” Tovey pointed to his forehead. “We could still lose this war, and must never forget that.”

  “Alright then,” said Fraser. “Victorious and the old Ark go to Somerville, so let’s do the math. I’d say that would bring about 160 planes to the fight between the three carriers. That’s twice what we brought to cover the operation at Madagascar. Is that going to be enough?”

  “It will have to do,” said Tovey. “Intelligence says the Japanese may have no more than 36 fighters on Ceylon now, but they could always send more from Rangoon, so we should go heavy with our own fighters. If you can get hold of any of those new American planes, all the better. With good intelligence, we’ll hopefully get in there without Japanese naval opposition. It seems they have their hands full with the Americans. A remarkable recovery they’ve made this year! They had six fleet carriers in the Pacific last year, lost four of them, and now, as the new year dawns, they still have five, and two new little hybrids to boot.”

  “Interesting mathematics,” said Fraser. “If only we had that kind of shipbuilding capacity.”

  “If wishes were horses,” said Tovey.

  “Will the army bring enough to do the job?”

  “16th and 29th Brigades—both for Colombo. That’s the place we want. The Japanese will have only their 21st Brigade there, so we’ll outnumber them two to one.”

  “Numbers never seemed to matter before when we were up against the Japanese,” said Fraser with a cautionary tone.

  “There’s still the 21st East African, 27th Rhodesian, and the 7th South African Motorized—three more Brigades at hand on Madagascar if we need them. They could also recall one of the good British brigades from the Burma sector. I’m told that front settled down a bit.”

  “Seems adequate, and I assume we’ve got the shipping to lift all these troops?”

  “We’ll make do,” said Tovey.

  “Who’s to lead the invasion? Surely not the Rock of the East again. Not Montgomery.”

  “No, he’s busy enough in the West these days. This time it goes to Slim, and I think they’ll work in Mountbatten. There’s another man who’ll support these crazy ideas for new aircraft carriers. I’m told he was even in on that plan to build one on an iceberg.”

  Tovey was referring to a hair brained idea proposed by one Geoffrey Pike, Project Habbakuk. He literally proposed that an iceberg, natural or manmade, could be reinforced with a wood pulp material called Pykrete and even refrigerated to keep it from melting. Hangar space for planes and an air strip could be carved out, and motors attached so the “Bergship” could actually sail about on its own power, with a hull composed of 40 feet of ice on either side that was reinforced and deemed to be torpedo proof. Mountbatten would eventually pitch the project to Churchill, Roosevelt and Admiral King, drawing a pistol and shooting at a normal block of ice, which shattered, and then at one reinforced with Pykrete, which ricocheted off the block and almost struck Admiral King’s leg. None too fond of the British to begin with, the irascible King was not amused. It was later determined that the cost of a full-scale ship would exceed that of many conventional aircraft carriers, and Mountbatten discreetly withdrew from the project.

  “Whether we build them on battleship hulls or ice bergs,” said Tovey, “I’m beginning to think that the more carriers we can put to sea, the better off we shall be. Since we aren’t likely to get our own naval rockets any time soon, planes will have to do, and we need to stop thinking like battleship commanders, and start thinking like aircraft carrier commanders. That’s what the Japanese taught Somerville, and I hope we’ve learned the lesson. I suppose these new carrier projects are a step in the right direction, but frankly, I’ll miss the day when it was just good steel, guns, and a little backbone in a battle at sea. When that Stuka pilot put his bomb on HMS Hood, he went and ruined everything.”

 
“That he did,” said Fraser. “And Pearl Harbor showed us just what might happen at Scapa Flow one day if the Germans ever catch us napping. Admiral, I think we’ll name this new hybrid carrier Superb, just as you’ve suggested. Then you can take her out yourself—the best of both worlds, guns, steel, and planes alike.”

  “Indeed,” said Tovey, but he still liked his seat on the bridge of HMS Invincible, though it felt different now, particularly after that round from the Germans had nearly put an end to him. Thank God Admiral Volsky was there, he thought, his mind resting fondly on the man, and wishing he could sit down with him again and sort all this business out.

  He did not know just how soon that would happen, for miles away, gliding beneath the cold arctic ice, a man was sitting on a stealthy submarine with more on his own mind than he could handle.

  Chapter 6

  Volsky awoke.

  He never could sleep on a submarine. The dreams always bothered him, but nothing like this. He awoke with a start, sitting up with a gasp, as if he had stopped breathing in his sleep, and nearly hit his head on the bunk above. A bright light glared at him, and he blinked, holding up his hand to ward it off.

  “Sorry to disturb you sir,” came a voice… He knew that voice, the quiet, steady tones, the sureness when it spoke. Then his eyes adjusted to the light, and he could see the other man’s face, framed in the open hatch to his room. It was Captain Gromyko.

  “The officers were going to have a little New Year’s celebration in the wardroom, and we thought you might want to join us. If you’d rather sleep sir, that’s fine. Sorry to disturb you.”

  Gromyko looked at him now, his face suddenly registering concern. “Are you alright sir?”

  Was he alright?

  His mind was spinning with sudden recollection. Gromyko… the submarine… Kazan…. The mission…. It was all coming back, a flood of images that washed over him like a tidal wave, saturating his mind in a confusing and disorienting rush. Yet the mission was over, was it not? They had found Karpov in the Sea of Japan, or at least they found the ship. They had slipped beneath it like an unseen denizen of the deep, and the workings of that arcane magic in the reactor room had saved the day… yes…. Rod-25. How could he be here now, back on the submarine; back on Kazan?