Authors: John Schettler
“Go west? Through the Mediterranean? Surely you mean you must go South around the cape.”
“That will be a three week affair. By the time I get into the Atlantic,
Hindenburg
will have raised hell and will be long gone. I must signal Home Fleet at once. Holland is about to have his hands full, but Somerville with his Force H will be the man of the hour. Yet his main body is well south off the Canary Islands. He’ll need to move at once.”
“And your ship?”
Tovey bit his lip. “I know I may be an old fool, but I’m looking at making a run west.”
“Through the straits of Gibraltar?”
“I know it sounds like madness, but this ship has damn good armor, and the speed to run like the wind. Yes, the enemy will have air power at Gibraltar. That, I suppose, is my worst problem if I attempt this.”
“But it is over 3000 kilometers east to Gibraltar from here, and that takes you under enemy air power for most of that distance. They’ll have planes on Sicily, Malta, possibly all along the French African coast.”
“Yes. It is just over 2400 nautical miles to our new refueling base in the Azores. That’s roughly 4400 kilometers. At 20 knots I can be there in five days—three days if I go all out.”
“You are more likely to find yourself at the bottom of the sea, Admiral. That is a perilous course.”
“Possibly, the safe play would be to go round the cape, but that stretches those three days to at least three weeks.”
Volsky nodded. “Mister Nikolin, thank you for your able service here. I hope you don’t mind having these cold cuts for lunch, because it seems Admiral Tovey and I have a lot more to discuss. But first, please get that
mishman
back here and tell him to get a message off to Captain Fedorov. He is to return to the ship immediately, and the Marines are ordered back as well. Something tells me our port of call here has now run its course.”
“Admiral,” said Tovey. “I don’t mean to drag you and your ship into this.
Invincible
can make way alone if need be.”
“Yes, and then you will have to rename your ship, Admiral. I do not think you will survive. Yet I have been thinking we must get back to the Atlantic for some time now, and so I hope you will not mind the company.”
“You mean to come along? Well I won’t insist otherwise.”
“I think we had best throw all our key assets into this little venture,” said Volsky. “With my ship along, and possibly the
Argos Fire
, we will have good air defense for you.”
“Then all we must concern ourselves with is enemy U-boats in the straits,” said Tovey.
“Ah,” said Volsky, raising a finger. “I have one of those too! Don’t forget my submarine,
Kazan
. I do not think we will have any trouble from the enemy U-boats if Captain Gromyko is with us.”
“It will be dangerous,” Tovey warned.
“Yes,” said Volsky. “It will be a run of the gauntlet, but we will be dangerous too. Let the enemy beware! Together I think we can do this, Admiral. So let the race begin!”
Chapter 15
Admiral
Somerville was a very busy man that morning. The news that the German
Hindenburg
battlegroup had left Toulon heading west was a shock, and the fact that it was already six hours old when he received it made that even worse. The threat the Germans posed from Gibraltar had been minimal since Britain lost her Rock. The airfield there was small, and was mainly being used for naval search planes, and the harbor itself had become a way station for U-boats. But otherwise,
Hindenburg
had made only a brief stop there before moving east into the Med. Now it seemed he would finally get his day of reckoning.
Weeks ago, when he got the news that Admiral Tovey was ordering both
Rodney
and
Nelson
round the cape to the Med, he had raised an eyebrow, somewhat perplexed. They’re taking things from me that I don’t even own! Yes, I was told I would have the services of
Rodney
and
Nelson
here for some time, but then
Rodney
was recalled home. Admiralty says they want her to sail for Boston, and get fitted out with all new boiler tubes! Can’t that wait? I know the old girl has been limping, but we need every ship that can fire a gun now. I suppose Tovey hasn’t got the word yet, but when he does, it will most likely mean I’m to send both
Nelson
and
Valiant
to Alexandria.
That was exactly what had happened, and now Force H had been reduced to the status of another cruiser command. The biggest ship at my disposal will be HMS
Glorious
, thought Somerville. That’s fine and dandy with things as they were, but not with this news about
Hindenburg
coming for tea!
Somerville had been living hand to mouth ever since Force H had been evicted from its home at Gibraltar. His dwindling battlefleet had to make do with any port in a storm. They had posted three destroyers at Funchal Island, more in the Azores group, which was being built up to a naval refueling station with daily tanker calls.
Sitting astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the Azores Island Group was comprised of nine volcanic islands, possessions of neutral Portugal. Churchill had wrangled for them diplomatically, producing an old “Treaty of Eternal Friendship” between Great Britain and Portugal, signed in 1373. With that foot in the door, he summarily kicked it open with Royal Marines after Germany took Gibraltar. It was one of three operations that saw the newly formed Marine Commandos also land on the Cape Verde and Canary Islands, securing those vital outposts as wergild for the loss of the Rock.
From April to August, the ‘Azores High’ produced clear balmy weather over the islands, which made them ideal for the establishment of naval air bases for search operations until the weather turned foul in the autumn. It was these planes, and later airships to be sent by the Americans, that filled the “Black Hole” in the Atlantic, a place where the Allies once had no air cover, and U-boats ruled the sea. Now the odds in those waters were at least even. There were already a bases at Lajes and Achada on Terceria Island, and naval facilities at Horta and Ponta Delgada.
In the beginning the air bases were just bare grassy fields, where the locals called the planes “aerovacas,” or “air cows,” seeing them right alongside their own livestock grazing in the area. Ports were not good, but the British had concluded that the narrow channel, no more than three miles between two of the islands, Pico and Faial, would serve as a good anchorage for larger ships. It would only have to be patrolled on the north and south to keep a watchful eye out for enemy U-boats.
The Portuguese Prime Minister Salazar put in a vigorous protest, and refused to allow use of the best air base in the islands, all as a cover to try and persuade the Germans that he had not been complicit in allowing British forces to operate in the Azores. Hitler had been too busy with preparations for operation Barbarossa to bother with Portugal’s islands, though plans had been drawn up to use troop carrying U-boats setting out from French Ports in a secret attack. After the successes at Malta and Cyprus, Student’s vaunted 7th Flieger Division was also considered as an option, but it was still mostly on Cyprus, and the 22nd Luftland was in Syria.
Raeder had hoped all these islands, and the Cape Verde and Canary Island groups, would now be in German hands, but never proposed a viable plan to deliver them. Instead he had committed the only force he had outside of northern waters to the Mediterranean in a bid to defeat the Royal Navy in the Med, but the stunning setback posed by these new British naval rockets had prevented that. As for Hitler, he never saw the real virtue of the islands, thinking they might only be a good base for his fanciful plans for a long range “Amerika Bomber,” the Me-264, though only one was ever built.
So the British had their refueling and patrol bases in the Azores, and in Las Palmas on the Grand Canary Island, they had another good port to stand a watch on the French forces remaining in Casablanca. While it was 480 nautical miles to the south, that was only a long day at sea cruising at 20 knots if battleships had to get to Casablanca. Airbases on Funchal Island further north would provide early warning of any renewed French activity, but, for the moment, all their big ships had been recalled to Toulon.
The news of
Hindenburg
heading west was the first real alarm since the
Normandie
had been recalled to the Med, and now Somerville was keen to respond—but with what?
Rodney
had been sent home, and
Nelson
and
Valiant
were off to the Eastern Med. So all he could do for the moment was get the carrier
Glorious
out to sea under Captain Wells. A good man, Wells, but he’s nothing to face down the
Hindenburg
.
Home Fleet is sending me a pair of battlecruisers, he thought. Good fast scout ships in
Renown
and
Repulse
, the former with all new boilers after those bomb hits she took last June. Yet they are not much good in a fight with the
Hindenburg
either. I think the Germans have pulled a fast one on us here. Tovey doesn’t think we can stop the Germans from transiting the Straits and getting out into the Atlantic, so he’s sending me ships with good legs in the hope that we can at least find the enemy and shadow them. Holland has kept
Hood
, and the two
King George V
class ships under his hat, and I’ve no word on what the rest of the German fleet might be up to. So I go with what I have. I’ll get
Glorious
out to sea and heading north towards Funchal Island. That will be a little over twelve hours sailing time at 20 knots, and from there they would be in a good position to maneuver against anything transiting the straits of Gibraltar.
It was an obvious reaction, the only thing Somerville could do, but he was running late.
Hindenburg
left Toulon at midnight, slipping away in the first minutes of the new month of May. With every ship in the task force capable of 30 knots or better, the Germans would reach Gibraltar by noon on the 2nd of May. Somerville got his warning two hours before sunrise on May 1st, and had Wells out to sea at dawn, a little after 08:00. That sun would not set until 21:30, so Wells and his pilots aboard the carrier
Glorious
would have good light and weather for air search operations.
But they were late.
Admiral Raeder had not been idle after issuing his orders to Lütjens. He immediately coordinated with Doenitz to get any U-boats available in the area into his operation. The U-boat commander was eager to cooperate. In recent months he had been enjoying a spate of good luck against the allied convoys. Otto Kretschmer on U-99 had logged five kills against Convoy HX-112 for 34,505 tons on March 16. Faithful to his motto—one torpedo, one ship—he had used only five shots to get his kills. Unfortunately, his boat was lost the following day when the British destroyer HMS
Walker
caught it east of the Faeroes, and a depth charge attack put enough damage on the boat that it had to be scuttled. The British had Kretschmer now, one of 40 survivors in his 43 man crew that day. His capture had removed a real thorn in their side, for Otto was the most successful U-boat commander of them all, logging a total of 274,333 tons before the
Walker
got him.
As if in answer to his capture, George Schewe in U-105 got another five ships in Convoy SL-68 for 27,890 tons the following week. And most recently, Heinrich Willenbrock in U-96 sunk three fat ships in Convoy HX-121 for 27,606 tons on the 28th of April. So Doenitz was not in a selfish mood when Raeder came calling. He agreed to provide scouting reports on the movement of British ships from the Canaries, and Lütjens soon knew what he might expect.
* * *
“Good
news, Admiral,” said Kapitan Adler when Lütjens appeared on the bridge. “The ship is running smoothly, in fine fighting trim, and Schultz tells me the engines are thrumming like tigers. We are as good as new.”
“Glad to hear that, though our speed seems slightly off.”
“It’s that new deck plating,” Adler explained. Between the armor and the hydraulics, we are a thousand tons heavier. Yet we can still run a whisker shy of 30 knots, and the best news is this. We are well ahead of the British. We reached Gibraltar in good time, just 24 hours.”
“And the British?”
“We received word from Kapitan Gunter Hessler on U-107. He was operating south of the Canary Islands, and was sent north to have a closer look at the British base there. A squadron got up steam and sailed north at dawn—three cruisers, a carrier and five destroyers.”
“What? No battleships?”
“None sighted.
Seekriegsleitung
Schniewind indicates they were sent south around the cape to reinforce the British at Alexandria.”
“Good news,” said Lütjens. “But that aircraft carrier will be a nuisance. Where is this squadron now?”
“A Condor out of Casablanca spotted it off Funchal Island two hours ago. They are presently steaming northeast of Porto Santo.”
“Show me,” said Lütjens, walking to the plot table as Adler came quickly to his side.
“Here sir, Madiera Island. The British have a small base at Funchal which they use to keep an eye on Casablanca. Yet from that position they are at least 20 hours sailing time to the Western Approaches. That leaves us time to top off fuel here tonight and still get into the Atlantic without interference.”
“Refuel? This ship can sail all the way to Germany with the fuel we presently have.”
“Yes sir, and both
Kaiser
and
Goeben
have long legs as well. But
Bismarck’s
endurance is no more than 8800 nautical miles, and it will be 5400 if we take our normal return route west of Iceland. And that range is for a speed of 20 knots. We’ve been all ahead full for 24 hours, and so that will mean
Bismarck
has burned a good deal more. Yes, the ship could probably still reach Kiel, but at 20 knots, and with very little time for operations in the Atlantic.”