Turning Point (Kirov Series Book 22) Page 3

  Seas were still rough, too rough to spot planes, and now he wondered if they would be able to keep the ships steady enough to even take on fuel. Goeben had very long sea legs, some 18,000 miles, but by his estimate, they had come 8000 miles since last taking on fuel deep in the south Atlantic, and there had only been enough on hand to fill his bunkers al little over half way at that time. He was down under 10 percent remaining, enough for about 1700 miles at 18 knots. That was only half the ship’s top speed, and if he had to ramp up the power, that fuel could diminish very quickly.

  We might make Tan Tan if I were to turn now. Yet god only knows whether they have any fuel bunkered there, or even the means to get it onto my ship. Casablanca is about 1800 miles northwest, and I would have to reduce to 12 knots to make that. So we will have to try to fill our belly here and now.

  He could already see the German crews working to position the long fuel hose aft as Goeben crept into position astern of the tanker. An hour later, after trying to float back the line three times, they had to give up and reel it back in. The seas were simply too heavy and the hose was swamped half the time, or batted away by the waves. It could not be snared and secured, and even if they had managed that, sea keeping would have been near impossible. Under the circumstances, they had no choice but to cruise in formation and attempt to wait out the weather. And since every hour was another hour of valuable fuel lost, the two ships turned northeast on a heading of 060, a course that would take them towards the narrow channel between the Canary Islands and the southern edge of Spanish Morocco.

  That decision had just set up a very dangerous collision, for like a train coming from the opposite direction, Captain Sanford and his two Knight Class ships were now heading straight for the Germans. They had been close enough to Kaiser Wilhelm for the German radar on that ship to see them break off and take a new heading, and feeling just a little more secure, Kapitan Heinrich decided to break his radio silence and send Goeben a warning—be advised, two British cruisers now on a heading of 220 SW.

  That was good news for Kaiser Wilhelm, for it meant that there would be no battle that morning to decide the fate of the hidden cargo that ship carried, but it was now a very big problem for the Goeben and Ermland. The tanker signaled that they might attempt to cruise abreast of one another at 6 knots and try to secure the fuel hose that way, but it was soon found that they needed to maintain at least 12 knots in the heavy swells to prevent either ship from being batted about by the waves.

  After an hour of difficult navigation, they relented and tried one last time to attempt to receive the fuel hose, with the Goeben astern and very close to the Ermland. This time a burley crewman on the bow of the Goeben exerted himself and finally managed to snag the line, and six men leapt to the scene, ready to pull the hose up and get it attached. They battled against the tug of the sea to do so, but managed to prevail. Yet the connection was very dangerous, with the bow of the carrier rising and falling in the swells, and the line prone to tightening and loosening as the two ships moved.

  Once secured, Kapitan Falkenrath looked nervously at his watch. The sun was now well up, lightening the pale grey skies as the refueling operation began. They would need several hours to take on any significant amount of fuel, but anything that came to him now was most welcome. At one point, a rogue wave nearly threatened to sever the line, coming very close to snapping it from the fuel mount as the hose tightened. Yet it was not the sea itself that would be their undoing, but an enemy lurking in the silent depths below the turbulent waves above.

  HMS Trident had been dutifully following in the wake of Ermland, hanging on all through the night, though Captain Sladen did not believe they would ever catch up to the ship again. As dawn rose, his boat batted about by the heavy seas, he was about to submerge and run in the relative quiet below when the last watch shouted down the sighting—Ships ahead!

  That prompted an immediate dive order, and Trident slipped beneath the swells, soon finding that it was difficult to even maintain periscope depth. Sometimes the up-swells would swamp the periscope, and at other times the sub’s conning section would be dangerously exposed in the trough of a wave.

  Trident was a T Class Submarine, and had been operating off Norway with the Tigris, the very same boat that had ferried Admiral Volsky to the UK. She could make 15 knots on the surface, but no more than 12 in the heavy seas, and 9 knots submerged, which was barely enough to stay close, until the two ships altered their formation and heading and he saw they were approaching his position. A powerful boat, Trident had six internal forward facing torpedo tubes, and four more external tubes, which was a very severe bite as submarines went. Now this silent shark had what looked to be the perfect target ahead, a carrier and tanker.

  Elated, Sladen moved off axis hoping to position himself to get a good spread of torpedoes into the water. Twenty minutes later, the hydrophone operator on the Goeben thought he heard something, and called out a warning.

  “Kapitan! I think I am hearing high rev motors in the water. Torpedoes sir!”

  “Damn!” Falkenrath swore and immediately passed an order for the watchmen to be on lookout. The refueling operation had to be immediately terminated, and crews that had labored so long and hard to secure that line, now rushed forward onto the heaving bow to release the hose clamps and set the fuel line loose. Unfortunately, the word was slow to reach the Ermland, and they did so before the flow of diesel pumps had been shut off at their end, which sent a wash of black fuel oil all throughout the narrow interval between the two ships.

  “Torpedo off the starboard side!” The shrill alarm sent men to the gunwales with fearful eyes looking seaward. One man pointed, aghast to see the sleek wake of a torpedo slice right through the dark oil between the two ships. Seconds later there was a loud explosion forward, and they saw the Ermland struck full amidships by a torpedo. Then a second explosion tore into the front of the tanker, and the forward fuel tanks erupted in a terrible explosion that was so fierce that it rocked the Goeben, well astern now as the carrier fell off and turned away to port.

  * * *

  Out on the far horizon to the northwest, Captain Sanford saw the thick smoke climbing up into the sky, like an ominous dark thunderhead.

  “My, my, have a look at that Mister Laurence. That’s not weather to my eye.”

  “No sir, must be a ship on fire. Possibly that tanker we were told to look after. Remember, HMS Trident is out here. That Admiralty order mentioned that boat as having made the original sighting.”

  They had turned in the pre-dawn hours, gone to 30 knots, and had been racing southwest ever since. Now it was nearing 11:00, and the stain of windy dark smoke was giving them a clear indication of where their prey was at that moment.

  “That’s a good deal of smoke, sir. It looks to be a very bad hit.”

  “Well, they might have left something for us to nibble on. Have the gunners ready in any case, and keep the lookouts handy for that carrier.”

  The Goeben would not be seen by the lookouts for some time, but the radar operator on Sir Lancelot soon called out a contact report bearing 15 degrees from their starboard side, which immediately prompted Captain Sanford to order his cruisers to make a swift coordinated turn in pursuit. Now he was bringing those twelve 10-inch guns he had forward between his two ships to bear on the point of contact, and the flight of the Goeben was about to become a very complicated and dangerous affair.

  * * *

  “Contact sir! Two ships off the starboard aft quarter. They should be on our horizon any minute.”

  Kapitan Falkenrath rushed to the weather deck to squint through the telescope, cursing under his breath. Damn the British and their constant meddling, and damn every cruiser Captain they ever put to sea. These have to be the ships Kaiser Wilhelm warned us about, and they followed that smoke like sharks swimming to the scent of blood in the water.

  After breaking off from Ermland, he had gone to 18 knots, and came round due north. The thought that he had to now abandon
the stricken tanker ate at him, but he had cargo aboard that simply had to be protected, more valuable than the lives of every man aboard that doomed ship. Ermland would not survive such a hit, he knew, and now, with the coming of those two cruisers, the crews on that ship were busy destroying coding equipment, charts, rendezvous books, ship’s logs, and preparing to scuttle the ship as per their orders. That was going to eliminate the only tanker now operating in the mid Atlantic, and put an end to German surface raider operations there for the foreseeable future.

  I had hoped to fill up and get well away from the convoy routes, he thought. Then, once I deliver that infernal rocket below, I could get out to sea and do some real hunting again with Kaiser Wilhelm. That is looking very chancy now. I could go to 36 knots and probably break off here, but that would burn up everything we’ve taken on in the last two hours in as little as twenty minutes time. I could probably run for another two or three hours at that speed if these cruisers give chase, and then I would have used up so much fuel that I would be lucky to get anywhere near our bases on the African coast at 12 knots after that.

  While I do run, those damn enemy ships will probably take pot shots at me, and I’ve no guns aft to answer them. This ship was meant to chase and kill the enemy, not to run. The only sting we have to bother those cruisers in a situation like this is our aircraft, but look at that flight deck pitching about now. That will be worse if we put on more speed.

  It was then that Marco Ritter strode grimly onto the bridge, his greatcoat wet with sea spray. “I’ve been down on the flight deck,” he said. “I think we should try to spot a few planes and attempt a launch.”

  “In these seas? The planes would careen right off the deck if you try to spot anything now.”

  “We can keep them cabled to the deck while I run up my engine full out, then release just as we start our takeoff. There are still intervals in these wave sets. If we time it right….”

  “Assuming you do get off in one piece, you’ll never get back. A landing would be impossible in these conditions.”

  “Possibly. If need be we could ditch in the sea, or run for the coast.”

  Falkenrath shook his head in the negative. “Have a look here,” he said, striding over to the chart table. “We’re 780 air miles from our nearest field at El Aaiun.”

  “Look,” said Ritter. “My 109s can make that easily. As for the Stukas , they have an internal 780 liters of usable fuel, but this model can carry two 300 liter drop tanks. It will limit weapons load to only one 250 kilogram bomb, but we’ll have a full four hours flying time with that extra fuel, and at 350KPH in this weather, that would take us 1400 kilometers, nearly 870 miles. We’ll have just enough fuel to get to the African coast.” He looked at the Kapitan, waiting, ready, like a hawk on the other man’s arm, chaffing to fly.

  Damn, thought Falkenrath. We’re an aircraft carrier. That’s how we scout, and how we fight, and the fact that I have kept these planes below deck is the reason Ermland is burning out there now. If Ritter had been up there we would have seen those damn cruisers long ago and taken evasive action. Now here he is, ready to attempt this impossible launch operation, and saved Ermland at the same time. Yet it is either that or my falcons sit below decks while I turn and try to fight off those two cruisers with the forward deck guns. One good hit to our flight deck and Ritter’s proposal would be off the table. It’s now or never. Decide!

  “How long would it take you to get armed and fueled for takeoff?”

  “I ordered that last night. We’re ready to go now.”

  “You had planes below deck armed and fueled all night? What if that damn British submarine had put a torpedo into us?”

  “What if? That horse never won a race, Kapitan, but I’m telling you I can win this one now. I can get those planes up, and we can damn well get after those British cruisers, weather or no weather.”

  He gave Ritter a stern look, his eyes expressing both his admiration and the anxiety inherent in what he was now ordering. “Go,” he said. “But I do not think you can even contemplate trying to return to this ship. You’ll have to run for the coast.”

  Ritter smiled, nodding as he turned and hastened away. “Your worries are over, Kapitan. My boys will do the job. You’ll see.”

  It was no idle boast. These were some of the best pilots in the Luftwaffe, Ritter, Heilich, Hafner, Brendel, Ehrler, and Hans Rudel, all itching to get off that ship and up into those grey skies. That flight would be the first to go, three Messerschmitts and three Stukas. The flight deck was a wild place, but the ship came into a very stiff wind and it was going to provide the planes with a good deal of lift. Ritter insisted he be the first, grilling the flight deck crews on how to hold his plane cabled while he revved up to full power. We should have a catapult installed, he thought, but they didn’t, and so he would do this the old fashioned way, with one plane spotted and launched at a time to make maximum use of the available flight deck. They timed the takeoff attempt right when the Goeben was tipping over the crest of a high swell and heading down into the trough.

  When the flagman waved him off, the roar of his plane’s engines was loud in his ears. The Messerschmitt went careening down the pitching flight deck, until it fell away beneath the fighter, and Ritter gunned his engine for all it was worth. He was airborne, climbing up and over the next high ocean swell, and even waving his wing tips with glee.

  There were no bombs on his fighter, but he had plenty of MG ammunition, and his cannons, and he was damn well going to use them to give those two cruisers a piece of his mind. Even as he banked to make his first turn, he saw the sea erupt well in front of the Goeben with the telltale splash of heavy shellfall.

  Minutes later he was over the enemy ships and into a screaming strafing run, which caught the AA crews by surprise. He riddled the forward deck of the lead ship, seeing his rounds snap off the armored main gun turrets, but as he did so he was surprised by the configuration, a quad forward turret with a twin gun mount above and behind, just like the King George V series. Battleships! Should he radio Falkenrath that information? While Kapitan Heinrich had already solved the riddle on Kaiser Wilhelm, word never filtered down to Ritter on the ready deck where he huddled with the flight crews. If he told Falkenrath he was up against a pair of battleships, he would certainly run, but that was what he was going to do in any case, as soon as the last plane made it off the flight deck.

  He pulled up, elated with his attack, his blood up, and seeing Heilich and Hafner coming in to make the same strafing run. The skies were pocked with AA gunfire now as the enemy ships fired. Then he saw the first Stuka laboring up from the Goeben off in the distance.

  “Is that you Hans?”

  “One and the same,” came Rudel in his headset ear phone.

  “Well take your pick, another pair of battleships for you to send to the dry docks.”

  “Dry docks? I’ll put the damn things right under the sea! But those aren’t battleships, they aren’t fat enough. They have to be those new enemy cruisers. No matter, I’ll get busy here in just a moment.”

  That was a boast Rudel would not be able to make good on this time, though he would try his best. He had only one 250kg bomb amidships, his wings being laden with those two 300 liter drop tanks. Up he went, climbing to at least 5000 feet to line up on the targets ahead with his flaps and elevator at cruise position. Then he tripped his rudder to cruise, put the contact altimeter in the ON position and set it to his desired release altitude of 1500 feet. He put the supercharger on automatic, closed his throttle, shut his cooler flaps and opened his dive brakes. That sent his nose down at once, and he was into that screaming 600kph dive in to the target, the Jericho trumpets wailing with his approach.

  His single bomb was away, but he held on, refusing to toggle the knob on his control column that would trigger the automatic pull out from that six G dive in the event he blacked out. He grunted and swore, and then did something that shocked Ritter when he saw it. Rudel released both his 300 liter drop tanks
, intending to jettison them just as if they were wing mounted bombs, adding fuel to the fire he was certain he was going to start amidships on the lead ship in that formation.

  His 250 KG bomb was right on target, coming down behind the aft stack on Sir Lancelot. Then the two fuel tanks came in right after, with one striking the ship and exploding in a broiling mass of fire when it did. The second was a near miss, but one was enough. Sandy Sanford was going to have a very bad day.

  Part II

  Winter War

  “Colder by the hour, more dead with every breath.”

  ― John Green

  Chapter 4

  When the long overdue Soviet counterattack finally came it was still a great shock to the Germans. They had been huddling in the charred and broken remnants of Moscow, controlling two thirds of the massive city, which then settled into a nightmarish quagmire of fighting from cellars and sewer lines to rooftops and attics, block by block. And as Russia stretched on for thousands of kilometers, the city never seemed to end. It became work for small assault teams, engineers, snipers, with the entirety of the war being reduced to small and bitter contests over a particular house or building that promised decent shelter, a commanding view of some important intersection, or fresh furniture that could be used for firewood. Through it all, one of the coldest winters in a hundred years had descended over the land, and it would stay that way for longer than any realized.

  From Moscow the lines stretched west to the Baltic and south to the line of the Don, and the German assault sat frozen in Fahrenheit temperatures that often reached 30 to 50 degrees below zero. On January 26th it reached 63 degrees below. It was so cold that the oil froze in the Panzers, and to even start the tanks, the crews had to kindle fires beneath them to warm the engines. Needless to say, that was not going to make those units capable of any rapid reaction to an enemy attack. At other times, field mice found their way into the vehicles, and chewed on electrical cables and rubber hoses, rendering them unusable.