Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series) (18 page)

Schubert
was dumbfounded. “But that would mean they would have had to fire from a range
of 175 kilometers! That’s impossible! How could they even see the target or
know where to aim, even if a rocket could travel such a distance?”

“That
is what is so astounding, Schubert. But they did see it. They knew the location
so precisely that they would have put that rocket right into the belly of
Böhmer’s ship.
Sigfrid
just got in the way. Böhmer tells me they had
just sent over a case of beer and sausages, compliments of the Kapitän, to
congratulate
Graf Zeppelin
on their successful strike on the British.
They were keeping station just a couple hundred yards from the carrier. Then
hell came from the sky. A lot of good men were lost when that destroyer went
down.”

“Sir,
they must have had a U-boat nearby to spot that ship. Maybe they have some way
of sending course corrections via radio.”

“That
is my suspicion,” Hoffman nodded. “If
Altmark
was hit by a torpedo, then
that says the British had a submarine lurking nearby. It might be working in
cooperation with this rocket cruiser.”

“Rocket
cruiser?”

“That’s
a good name for it,” said Hoffmann.

“Then
what happened?”

 “Böhmer
launched everything he had, but the initial squadron was cut to pieces. When
Lindemann gave the order to break off the engagement, the remaining planes
scattered like crows in a cornfield when you put a good 12-gague shotgun to
work. They searched the immediate vicinity, but found no sign of an enemy ship.
Of course not, I saw where that rocket came from. It was south of us I tell
you, and I have told Lindemann that as well, but he did not believe me.”

“Who
could believe such a thing?”

“Yes,
that puts your finger right on the heart of it, Schubert. We saw things that
were completely unbelievable, and yet
Sigfrid
was sunk,
Gneisenau
and
Bismarck
both hit by these rockets, and don’t forget what happened
to
Altmark!”

“I
thought it was hit by a U-boat.”

“Possibly,
but did you hear what that oiler man said?
Fritz Kürt. We pulled him out of the flotsam
after
Altmark
went down, and I spoke with the man at some length. He
says it was a torpedo, though no one saw any sign of a U-boat on the surface or
periscope. But what he did see was a big fat battlecruiser, dark on the
horizon. The man thought it was our ship, but then it turned away.”

“Then it had to be British, sir.”

“I think it was the same ship that fired those rockets. I’ve had
this odd feeling about it since we first engaged those two British cruisers. At
least we sent them packing, and sunk one to start things off. Everything was
going so well, Schubert. Then the dominoes began falling.
Altmark
is
sunk, we find this strange ship Fritz was trying to describe, and look what
happened to
Gneisenau!
Don’t you see? Everything that went awry had
something to do with that ship.”

“Perhaps you are correct, Kapitän.”

“I can feel it, Schubert. I had the feeling something was watching
me, watching our ships from a distance, something lurking behind those grey
clouds. It was stalking us, nipping at our heels, taunting us, and when we got
close, it punched my battlegroup right in the nose. We must find out what this
ship is, and then we must sink the damn thing or this new navy we’ve built will
be good for nothing. Lindemann should have continued the engagement. Now look
at us, stuck in this miserable fiord, sitting here waiting for the British to
sneak up with a couple aircraft carriers and launch those damn
Swordfish
at us again.”

“We’ll get another chance soon, sir.”

“It may be a while.
Gneisenau
was ordered back to Kiel
along with
Bismarck
. They left
Tirpitz
at Bergen, but Topp
departs for Kristiansand and Bremen tomorrow if the weather is bad. They’re
pulling our horns in, Schubert. It’s just us up here now, and a couple
destroyers.”

“What about
Nürnberg
, sir?”

“That light cruiser? What good is that?”

At that moment a signalman stepped onto the weather deck,
saluting. “Message from Wilhelmshaven,” he said smartly, and handed off the
note to Hoffmann.

The Kapitän read it slowly, shaking his head. “Look here,
Schubert. They managed to complete the refit on
Admiral Scheer
, and they
are sending it up here tonight from Kristiansand as a distraction for the
withdrawal of
Tirpitz
south. It’s going to make a run west, as if it
might be headed for the Iceland Faeroes gap, then it turns north to join us
here.”

“Here sir? What for?”

“Have a look, Schubert.” He handed his artillery officer the
message. “Read it yourself. Raeder must be getting curious about this ship
we’ve been talking about. One of our U-boats reported a large warship moved
north around the cape, and a plane out of Narvik spotted it again. That’s why
Nürnberg
arrived last night. Misery loves company, eh? Now they are sending up the
Admiral
Scheer,
and Raeder wants to have a look up north. They’re calling it
Operation Wunderland.”

*
* *

Wunderland
was conceived to do exactly what Hoffmann had
surmised—have a good long look up north to see what the Russians were up to.
Naval intelligence had not been sleeping since the abortive engagement with the
Royal Navy in the Denmark Strait. Information had been developed that suggested
the strange ship reported by Hoffmann and other German assets may not have been
a British ship at all! That seaplane out of Narvik got more than a sighting
report that day—it got a photograph as well, and naval analysts could clearly
discern the Russian naval ensign flying from the ship’s aft mast.

Raeder
needed time to consolidate the fleet after their ill-fated sortie—time for
repairs, and more importantly time to refuel. The fleet had burned through
months of petrol supplies, and the dwindling oil stocks were going to hobble the
navy if the storage depots were not soon replenished. He could not afford to
send out his big ships now, not with Hitler scheming over Operation Seelöwe,
the planned invasion of England. So he sent the light cruiser
Nürnberg
north to Trondheim where there was enough fuel in store to replenish, and now
that
Admiral
Scheer
had completed her refit with a new Atlantic clipper bow and
a lighter conning tower with new flak guns to give her more air defense, that
ship was a perfect choice.

A
Deutschland
class ‘Pocket Battleship,’ the ship was now reclassified as a heavy cruiser in
the shadow of so many other more powerful ships now in the German fleet. Hitler
was of two minds on what to do next with his war machine. On the one hand he
had Britain on her knees and waiting to receive the death blow. A successful
invasion of England would probably decide the war in the West within six
months, and the Americans would never get their foot in the door. On the other
hand, Orenburg had just joined with Germany, creating a situation where the
Soviet Union under Kirov was now badly flanked and already at war all along the
Volga.

This,
along with the fall of France and Italy’s entry into the war, made it seem that
Germany was now invincible, and destined to become the dominant power on earth.
Eventually the Americans would have to be dealt with, but they had no army to
speak of at the moment, and posed no threat to Germany.

In
spite of all this, Raeder was suddenly edgy about the situation. If these
reports were true, if this was a Russian ship fighting alongside the British,
it could upset all his carefully laid plans. With Europe prostrate at his feet,
Hitler had to believe, at Raeder’s urging, that he could crush the Soviet Union
any time he wished—but this was not the time.

“Why
not now?” the Führer had asked him. “Half the Soviet army is already tied down
on the Volga. My Generals tell me they can take Moscow in two months and knock
the Russians out of the war!”

“We do
not know that for certain, my Führer. The Russians may not capitulate as easily
as the French. If there are complications, delays, then we would find ourselves
bogged down in a two front war, repeating the mistakes of 1914. At the moment
England is reeling from hard blows. Now is the time to finish them!”

Raeder
argued that any invasion of Russia now would give England a respite. Could the
British regain their balance and dig in well enough to hold out until the
Americans came to their aid? This was the real strategic question that hung in
the Balance in mid 1940. The issue of Russia could be decided later. Hitler seemed
to agree, albeit reluctantly, and turned his thoughts to Operation Seelöwe.
There might be enough time to finish the job against the British and still
invade Russia before the winter set in.

But now
this—a Russian ship perpetrating an act of war! Was it true? It could change
everything, and Raeder had to know more. Operation Wunderland would be a
reconnaissance in force to test the strength of the Russian Navy. Raeder
proposed to send the heavy cruiser
Admiral Scheer
and the light cruiser
Nürnberg
from Trondheim to Narvik, and then around the North Cape. They would make a run
for Svalbard, sneak across the upper Barents Sea while the ice was thin. Then
they could scout the Kara Sea to see what the Russians might have hidden there.

If war
came with Russia, Germany planned to move into Finland to flank Leningrad from
the north. To do so Raeder knew that the Russian Fleet would have to be neutralized,
and the main port of Murmansk occupied by German troops. Operation Wunderland
was the first tentative probe north, a light shove on the shoulder of the Russian
state to see what they might do, and to determine if the reports were true
about this ship.

Admiral
Scheer
was capable of facing down anything
the Russian Navy had, or so it was believed until this new ship had been
sighted. So
Scheer
would head north, see what this mystery ship was up
to, and test the mettle of the Soviets at the same time.

What
the Germans did not know was that a ferocious bear was now sleeping in the long
Kola Fiord that led to Murmansk, a ship with capabilities that would soon shock
and mystify more men than Kurt Hoffmann. Events were now about to unfold that
would set the course of the war off in a startling new direction, and as
always, the battlecruiser
Kirov
would have its hand on the twisting gyre
of fate.

Chapter 17

July 2, 1940

Admiral
Scheer
was the second
of three
Deutschland
class heavy cruisers launched and commissioned by
the Kriegsmarine in the mid 1930s. Dubbed ‘pocket battleships’ when they
appeared, they were built to be able to outrun most every battleship in the
Royal Navy at the time, and outgun any of the fast British cruisers that could
catch the ship. The ill fated sortie of the
Graf Spee
in 1939 proved
that it would take at least two, and possibly three British cruisers to stand
with these ships, and it was only because he believed they were facing even
higher odds that the Germans elected to scuttle the ship in a neutral South
American port.

With
six 11-inch guns,
Admiral Scheer
was not as powerful as Hoffmann’s
Scharnhorst
,
nor even as fast, but Raeder did not want to risk any more of his better ships
in the operation, though he felt the heavy cruiser would be capable of handling
anything the Russians had. Light cruiser
Nürnberg
would sail with her on
the planned mission to scout out the Arctic seas and determine the degree of
Soviet naval buildup there. The ship was lighter, a bit faster, and fitted out
with the latest Germans FuMO 26 radar. The Kapitän of
Admiral Scheer,
KsZ Theodore Kranke, came over to visit
Scharnhorst
at Hoffmann’s
request.

“So
what is all this business about a rocket cruiser, Hoffmann?” he said flatly.

Hoffmann
heard the same incredulous tone in his voice as the other officers had.
Undoubtedly Raeder was even more dismissive of the claim. Well let him have a
look at the damage to
Gneisenau
and
Bismarck
, and let him listen
to survivors off the
Sigfrid
. Perhaps then he will understand.

“There
is no other way to describe it,” said Hoffmann. “We sighted what appeared to be
a large battlecruiser, though it wasn’t moving at anything more than ten or
fifteen knots by our estimation. We engaged and it stuck a fast moving rocket
right into
Gneisenau’s
belly. It was astounding, Kranke! You would have
to see it to believe it, but I saw the whole thing with my very own eyes, and I
will never forget it. This was the same weapon that sunk
Sigfrid
, and
hit
Bismarck
. We had the heart of the fleet with us, yet this ship
forced Lindemann to back off. Now they are sending you? Be careful!”