Authors: Anthony G Williams
‘They’ve sent the lot,’ one said, his voice an awed whisper.
There were transports in plenty, clear evidence of the Japanese determination to seize the East Indies with the minimum of delay, but it was the escorting warships which drew the attention.
‘Six carriers.
The two big ones must be the
Kaga
and
Akagi
.
The other two the new Shokako class.
And two smaller ones.’
‘Look at those battleships,’ another said.
‘Four twin turrets in close pairs; they must be
Nagato
and
Muts
u, with sixteen-inch guns.
The two with six turrets have to be the Fuso or Ise classes, with fourteen-inch.
There seem to be a couple of Kongo class battlecruisers with eight fourteen-inch – X and Y turrets are widely separated – and just look at that!’
Dwarfing the other battleships, the immense shape drew them all to peer in turn through the magnifying glass.
The ship’s huge beam tapered to surprisingly slender fo’c’sle before swelling out again to rounded bows.
The massive triple turrets were unmistakable.
‘It must be the new one, the
Yamato
.’
‘Yes, but look at the size!’
Somewhat to his regret, Somerville had just had time to study the photographs before the fleet left Singapore.
He was left, he reflected, between the devil and the deep blue sea.
He had to try to stop the invasion but he also had to try to preserve his fleet.
He would do very well to achieve either.
There was a strong chance that he would fail at both.
The silence in the Ops Room was sombre.
Don Erlang, Charles Dunning and Harold Johnson had spent several hours together in the claustrophobic space, collating the intelligence reports of the battle as they came in.
They had been obtained at some risk, Peter Morgan flying his Warwick over the South China Sea to radio the messages back to Geoffrey Taylor, who in turn sent them on to London.
‘That seems to be it, then.
It’s all over.’
Nobody felt inclined to add to Charles’s conclusion.
Johnson left the room for a while, and returned clutching a bottle of gin and some glasses.
He poured large measures into each and passed them round.
‘To Admiral Somerville and his men.
May they rest in
peace.
’
His companions murmured assent and drank.
Don pulled the paper towards him, studied the scrawled notes.
The Allied fleet’s advantages had been speed and radar.
They had used the latter to keep out of reach of the Japanese fleet until dark,
then
had raced in to launch their aircraft, following up with a flat-out charge by the gun ships while the carriers retired.
The radio-controlled bombs which had done such damage at Taranto had hammered the Japanese warships and had been followed up in a coordinated attack by torpedo planes.
The first waves had been concentrated on the carriers, to put them out of action before dawn.
Two had been sunk, another two badly damaged.
Attention had then switched to the battleships, especially the giant flagship.
Damage had been done, with one Kongo sunk and the other, plus an Ise, sent limping homewards.
By then, a third of the Beauforts were lost and the pilots of the remainder were collapsing with exhaustion.
Dawn had brought the response.
First, a melee of aircraft over the Allied fleet as the defending fighters fought off the vengeful Japanese aircraft from their surviving carriers.
As Don had expected, the Beaufighter had proved able to handle the Mitsubishi Zero.
The British aircraft’s greater weight and wing loading made it less manoeuvrable but faster in the dive, while the combination of armour and 20 mm cannon had proved decisive against the unprotected Japanese planes.
Then the gun ships were within range, the British battleships engaging their opposite numbers while the smaller warships tried to slip through to get at the transports.
No quarter had been asked or given, no pause in the action through a long hot morning, the faster British ships constantly manoeuvring, covered by destroyer-laid smokescreens through which their radar-directed guns could shoot.
In response the Japanese cruisers and destroyers constantly tried to close the range to launch their massive 24-inch ‘Long Lance’ torpedoes, which totally outclassed the Allied weapons in speed, range and destructive power.
The covering British destroyers were repeatedly hit and knocked out, leaving gaps in the smoke-screen through which the skilled Japanese gun crews immediately opened fire.
Don tried to imagine what it had been like for Admiral Somerville, standing on the bridge of his flagship, perhaps seeing the rippling flash of the distant
Yamato
’s gunfire, waiting an eternity before the gathering roar signalled the arrival of the massive shells.
Could he even have seen them before they struck, he wondered?
Somerville must have known that the KGV’s armour was not designed to resist such an assault.
Reports from British survivors had described the duel, the KGV’s old guns firing quickly and accurately at the Japanese flagship, shell splashes almost hiding the towering superstructure.
It seemed that it had been the
Yamato
’s fifth salvo that had finally caught the KGV and slowed her.
Three full broadsides had then straddled the British flagship.
When the spray settled, she was already sinking.
Then the great guns had turned onto the other British capital ships, already locked in battle with the
Nagato
,
Mutsu
and the Ise class battleships.
The
Ise
had been sunk and the
Mutsu
left dead in the water, but two more British battleships had been hammered to the sea floor by a hail of sixteen- and eighteen-inch shells before the Japanese Admiral broke off the action.
At last, it had finished.
Strategically, the result of the Battle of the South China Sea had been a victory for the Allies.
Persistent attacks by cruisers, frigates and Beauforts had inflicted such losses on the invasion fleet that it was forced to withdraw, covered by the remaining Japanese warships, among them the
Yamato
, battered but unbeaten.
The British carriers, staying well back from the action, had been spared as the Japanese concentrated their power on defending their fleet against the onslaught of the gun ships.
But the cost had been appalling.
Initial estimates were that at least five thousand British, Commonwealth and Dutch sailors had died.
Japanese casualties had probably been five times higher, mainly among the troopships.
Johnson slowly and deliberately swigged another large gin,
then
began reciting the names as if in prayer, his voice shaking with weariness and emotion.
‘King George the Fifth.
Duke of
York
.
Anson.
Glasgow.
De Ruyter.
Canberra.
Six frigates and at least nine destroyers, God help me but I don’t yet know their names.’
The others stood silently. Outside, a winter’s dawn was breaking.
CHAPTER 8 - SECOND FRONT
Spring 1942
A slow churning noise disturbed the evening air, followed by the shattering roar of a high-powered aero engine.
A second engine joined in, then a third and a fourth.
Still more added to the cacophony, until the air
itself
seemed to be shaking.
After a few minutes, the huge shape of the first Manchester bomber began to move slowly from its dispersal area to the end of the runway.
Don Erlang watched with mixed emotions.
Excited in his childhood by the stories of epic heroism in the fight over Germany, he had carefully assembled the Airfix kits in his bedroom before recruiting his father’s aid to hang them from the ceiling.
The Wellington, Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster had cast shadows on his imagination for years afterwards.
Later, he had found out that it wasn’t quite as simple as that.
The controversy which had gathered around Bomber Command’s devastating raids on civilian populations had been the subject of his doctoral thesis.
He could not help reflecting on the irony of the situation.
In the hope of minimising the horrors of the war to come he had used his influence to counter the ambitions of Bomber Command, to give priority to the unfashionable Coastal Command and to developing army co-operation – even more hated by an RAF which saw its future in independent action, divorced from the other services.
In the meantime, he had encouraged the development of precision night bombing techniques which would allow the small force of bombers to concentrate their efforts on military and strategic targets, sparing the cities the horrors of area bombing.
Then disaster had struck.
Once Churchill had decided that it was essential to Britain’s survival to deflect the Luftwaffe from attacking ports and dockyards and had launched the first attack on
Since then, the desperate plight of the Soviet Union had kept up the pressure to be seen to strike hard at Germany, to encourage the Soviets to keep on fighting.
The wind created by the dozens of propellers chilled him, and he snuggled more deeply within his greatcoat.
A more urgent roar came from the first of the Manchesters, and Don watched as it slowly gathered speed.
There was enough light left to reveal a shape very different from those which had hung from his ceiling.
The fuselage was sleek and slender, unmarred by gun turrets, the wings narrow and long, the four highly supercharged Merlin engines tightly cowled.
This was an aircraft designed to travel far, fast and high, a kind of giant Mosquito relying on speed, altitude and the cover of night to keep above the flak and avoid the attentions of the Luftwaffe.
Don thought back to the briefing he had attended as an observer.
The crews had been told that the target for tonight was an armaments factory in
The name of this most distant and heavily defended of targets always had a sobering effect, according to the Intelligence officer who had chatted to him afterwards.
The night sky over Germany was the scene of a constantly fluctuating battle, as first one side then the other seized the advantage.
The current odds were that of the forty-eight aircraft which had taken off from this airfield, one or two would not return.
Don waited until the last of the huge machines had vanished into the gathering gloom, leaving behind the smell of engine oil and high-octane fuel.
Then he slowly walked back to his car, deep in thought.
The young mother groaned in exasperation as she tugged her unwilling daughter back from the shops.
It wasn’t as if they were poor, but with her husband away in the army she had to be careful about money.
And despite nearly three years of war, there was still plenty in the shops – enough to tempt her daughter, at any rate.
She at last returned to the small flat she rented in the city suburbs.
It wasn’t much, but it was adequate and it had the benefit of a large basement with room for all the residents during the occasional air raid.
She dumped her shopping on the kitchen table, passing her daughter a sweet to suck.
She checked her watch.
Time to catch the news.
She switched on the wireless and waited patiently as the set warmed up.
The news was much the same as usual.
Encouraging news about the fighting, exhortations from some minister about the need for more efforts to save, to produce,
to
economise.
Nothing of interest.
She sighed and started her housework, leaving her radio on for the illusion of company it gave.
She wondered if the RAF would come to
The navigator read the battle order again, just to be sure.
Unlike the early part of the War, when each aircraft had found its own way to the target, their route was carefully specified.
It did not follow a straight path, but zig-zagged in order to confuse the enemy about their intended target.
In addition, they had been informed of diversionary raids being mounted by other units, all designed to draw the German night-fighter force away from them.
There would also be some pressurised Serrate Mosquito night-fighters accompanying them on this trip, waiting to pounce on their opposite numbers.
He knew that the timing of the raid had been carefully calculated to ensure that the ten squadrons taking part passed over the target area in quick succession.
The worry was always that the bombers would collide or bomb each other, but the Operational Research boffins had assured them that the risk was much
lower
than that of being attacked by a night-fighter, and the denser the stream of bombers, the harder the task for the German defences.
The navigator settled back in his seat, reflecting on the dramatic changes since he had first trained in an old Whitley.
On a night like this he would have been chilled to the bone in the drafty fuselage despite an immense swaddling of clothing.
Then
came
the Mosquito, which at least was kept warm by the engine radiators, buried in the wings on each side of the cockpit.
And now the
Manchester
.
He looked around the small, pressurised and air-conditioned compartment, kept comfortable despite flying seven and a half miles high and with the outside temperature sixty below.
The crew numbered only four: the pilot, flight engineer, radio/EW systems operator and himself, the navigator/bomb aimer.
As they headed into the danger zone, the flight engineer would be spending much of his time on his stomach, peering through the small ventral observation dome, straining to spot any night-fighters trying their favourite trick of slipping underneath to use the upward-firing cannon they had been warned about.
He sighed.
There was a distinct chance that either they, or another crew in the squadron, would be shot down in flames over the target.
The Germans had some new night-fighters that could fly as high as they could, and even faster.
It was rumoured that they had recently shot down some Mosquitoes, a remarkable achievement given the difficulty in tracking the “wooden wonder” on radar.
Still, he consoled himself, it could be worse.
As usual at such moments, he thought of his brother, serving in a sloop on Atlantic convoy work.
Now there was a grim task, trapped for weeks on end in a pitching, heaving hull, forever cold and wet, and waiting for the next torpedo.
He reflected again on how unreal his own war seemed.
Living a normal life at the base, with the local pub to visit on off-duty evenings, flying off at dusk to unload several tons of bombs over Germany,
then
returning to sleep the rest of the night in his own bed.
He shook his head and turned back to his charts.
One hour to the target.
Back in their flat, Don poured Mary and himself a large scotch before settling down with a sigh in his armchair.
‘How’s she been?’ he asked.
Mary had insisting on returning to London as soon as Hope had been born.
She appeared as cool, calm and competent as ever, but Don was still trying to get used to the idea of being a father for the first time at the age of forty-eight.
‘Fine.
She went to sleep an hour ago.’
She took a slow sip of the drink.
‘How did it go?’
‘More or less as expected.
We went to Bomber Command HQ first and then on to an airfield to see the crew briefed.
The takeoff was impressive…’ his voice trailed away.
‘Penny for them?’
He shook his head as if to clear it.
‘I lived with all of this for years, when I was researching my thesis.
It feels peculiar, to put it mildly, to watch it in real life, and know that it is radically different because of my own contribution.
Different technically, at least.
I doubt that the…’ he groped for a word, gesturing vaguely, ‘atmosphere, the mood, is different – I think that would have been pretty much the same in my time.’
‘Does that ease your mind about what’s happening?’
He sighed.
‘I really don’t know.
At least the more rapid development of the navigation aids and bombing techniques means that the planes can virtually always find their targets, and I’ve been able to persuade Churchill to go for specific military targets rather than just flattening cities.’
He snorted.
‘Not that that was easy.
The belligerent old so-and-so wanted to bomb them back into the Stone Age until I pointed out that history would say very unkind things about him if he didn’t show more restraint.’
He settled deeper into his chair and closed his eyes.
‘Not that the Germans on the receiving end are necessarily aware of the difference.
Many of those military targets are surrounded by housing, such as tonight’s target factory in Berlin, and all the navigation aids in the world won’t stop the bombs from falling on a wide area around.’
He grimaced.
‘Collateral damage, they used to call it in my time.’
‘Göring isn’t showing such restraint,’ she pointed out, ‘we are still getting raided every night.’
‘True enough.
Although if you look at the pattern of their attacks, they’re very focused on ports, dockyards and the like.
My oppo will be aware that the only chance they have of defeating us is to starve us into submission.
And that’s still not out of the question.’
There was a gloomy pause,
each thinking
of the implacable struggle spread across thousands of miles of ocean.
Convoys with fast escort ships and merchant aircraft carriers, supported by long range patrol aircraft and the specialised hunter-killer groups, against the elusive new electroboats firing homing and pattern-running torpedoes, aided by the very long range radar-equipped four-engined Dorniers which fed sighting reports directly to them.
Very occasionally, Dornier met Warwick or Sunderland and a strange battle took place, the gunners hammering away at each other as their ponderous craft manoeuvred for advantage, rather like sailing ships in Nelson’s time, Don reflected.
The Battle of the Atlantic see-sawed this way and that, each side gaining a momentary advantage as some technical subtlety was fielded, only to lose it as soon as a counter was designed.
So far, they were surviving.
‘It seems that your “oppo” has so far succeeded in persuading Hitler not to declare war on America, despite Dönitz’s best efforts.’
Don sighed.
‘
True,
and there’s nothing that Roosevelt can do about that even though he recognises that Nazism is the greater long-term danger, the American people are too outraged by Pearl Harbor to want to hear about Germany.
Their fleet got some revenge, but that hasn’t satisfied them.’ The USN’s carrier force had located the battered Japanese fleet as it returned to base after the Battle of the South China Sea and the resulting slaughter had effectively eliminated the Imperial Japanese Navy as a major threat. ‘Still, at least he’s stepping up the anti-submarine patrols in the Atlantic, and calling for volunteers to help us with non-combat tasks.’
A knock on the door interrupted them.
‘That’ll be the babysitter.
You’d better get changed.
We’re going out to dinner tonight.
Peter and Geoffrey finally made it back from the Far East and want to catch up with the news that doesn’t appear in the papers.’
Don brightened.
‘Great!
We’ll have a lot to talk about.’