Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) (22 page)

Ground controllers had heard the frantic
calls from the pilots, and they had already learned what had happened to the Italian
SM-79s. General Fiebig was coordinating the attacks, and was considering
calling off his second wave, until he was informed that the Italians were
mounting yet another effort, eager to avenge the beating their fleet had taken.

“Well,” he said. “If the Italians
can take losses like that and still be brave enough to fly, so will we. Get
everything we have into the sky, before that weather front makes further
operations impossible!”

Everything they had was another
twenty
Stukas
with an equal number of JU-88s, thirty operational BF-110
fighter bombers and seven more Heinkel-111s. Fiebig would put a second wave of
77 planes in the sky, and the Italians had another mixed bomber formation of 48
planes. So just as the brave survivors of the first wave were finally over the
British fleet, the long range radar sets were reporting another 125 planes
inbound. By sheer attrition, the enemy would wear its way through the SAM
defense.

80 planes were over the fleet
now, and among them the five planes that had risen from the deck of the light
carrier Goeben. They were a little late into the game, and on the extreme
northern edge of the attack, and so had managed to avoid the worst of the
missile shoot.

“Look at that!” Ritter called.
“Amazing! We had better get our business done soon, boys. We’re losing a lot of
good men out there today.”

The five planes would go in
together, Ritter leading in his Bf-109 in case the British had any fighters up,
and the other four planes were
Stukas
being flown by some of the best
pilots available, Rudel, Heilich,
Hafner, and
Brendel. They found the main British fleet and dove relentlessly on the
battleships and cruisers of Cunningham’s squadron. Heilich put his bomb right
into the guts of the heavy cruiser
Berwick
, still seeing missiles in the
sky aimed at other planes to his far left. Hafner’s bomb missed, but closely
straddled the
Malaya
. Brendel was a little better, staying in his dive
through blistering flak and feeling his plane shudder with a shrapnel hit. But
he scored his hit on
Malaya’s
foredeck, very near A Turret. It was Hans Rudel
that would again strike the most grievous blow, coming down right on top of
Queen
Elizabeth
in a screaming dive and putting his 500 pound bomb right behind
her large trunked funnels.

Captain
Claud Barry had just ordered hard a port and ahead full, but it did not fool
Rudel’s deadly aim. As the turbines of the big battleship spun up to maximum
rotation, there was an audible clatter, as though someone had thrown a spanner
in the works.

They
had.

Queen
Elizabeth
had spent time at Fairfield’s
Works, Glasgow, and there was a man there who was working for the other side. During
that maintenance overhaul, he had dropped not a spanner, but a long metal file
into the enclosure. It was a miracle the problem was not discovered for 18
months, and the British would only trace the sabotage to Fairfield’s Works when
another report was filed by the cruiser
Suffolk
, with turbine damage on
that ship as well. It also had maintenance there, and the Admiralty became
suspicious. Once the turbines were closed and sealed off, they were almost
never opened while in regular operations. The file had been there, but caused
no noticeable problem beyond occasional odd noises, but that was because
Queen
Elizabeth
had had a rather sedate start in her deployments, and she never
really pressed her engines to top speed. Now, with the seas rising and her
turbines running full out, the metal file raised havoc.

That
problem and the bomb which penetrated to one of her boilers, saw the ship quickly
slow to 16 knots and fall out of Cunningham’s formation. With the air duel
still thick about them, the Admiral ordered
Queen Elizabeth
to turn
about and make for the safety of open sea. He would detach a pair of destroyers
with the ship, but now would have to face the wrath of the combined Franco-German
fleet one battleship light.

The
action remained hot and furious over the fleet for another ten minutes, with
three more British ships taking bomb hits, and
Malaya
taking a torpedo
from a daring attack by a low flying He-111. Only twelve of an initial twenty
Heinkels had survived, but those that did accounted for two hits.
Calcutta,
Coventry
,
Orion
all took bomb hits from the remaining
Stukas
.
Invincible
was spared serious harm, as was the light cruiser
Ajax
and both
Kent
and
York
sailing close by. Of the 12 destroyers,
Echo
was unlucky enough to run right into the path of a torpedo and the ship was a
total loss.

When the action finally cleared,
and the ragged formations of enemy planes turned for home, they took stock and
realized they had come off better than might be expected. Being well behind the
action with the carriers now, neither
Kirov
nor
Argos Fire
were
found or attacked, and
Eagle
and
Hermes
were able to recover
their own strike planes unmolested.

It was mid-day, and Tovey had
just been informed by Admiral Volsky that another strike wave was inbound. He
went into the plot room and leaned heavily over the table, noting the last
known position of the Franco-German fleet. That was soon updated, and he could
see that he would shortly have another major fleet action on his hands. They
were just emerging from the maw of the Strait of Messina

The enemy’s second strike wave
was now just thirty minutes away, but the weather was clouding over much faster
than anyone expected. The collision of warm and cold air masses was causing
thunderheads to mushroom up well ahead of the planes now, and Tovey saw in them
a brief possibility of shaking the fleet loose from the hounding enemy
aircraft. Admiral Volsky communicated one last message. ANTI-AIR MUNITIONS LOW,
BUT WE ARE PREPARED TO CONTINUE DEFENSE. ADVISE YOUR CURRENT INTENT.

Munitions low… He knew there were
limits to the power of the sea gods that had come to raise their swords and
shields for the Royal Navy. This would not be the last time they might face the
enemy like this, but now Tovey realized it could not be here, so close to
Sicily and the airfields thick with German and Italian planes. He already had
achieved the victory he had come here to fight—giving the Italian Navy a severe
shock. Instinct now compelled him to end this engagement. If he persisted, and
now attempted to engage the Franco-German fleet, he might throw away everything
he had just won.

So he decided, collaring an aid
and sending him off to the W/T Room. “Signal all fleet units. Come about and
steer one hundred degrees southeast at best speed. The fleet will reform at
point B as planned at 18:00.”

He was going to live to fight
another day. Point B was also Plan B, which stood for Benghazi. It was a
fallback operation they had chosen should it seem impractical to proceed to
Malta for the fire support mission there. Instead they had chosen a coordinate
off Benghazi to give the Italian garrison there a taste of some good naval
gunfire. By moving south now, Tovey hoped to get out from under the immediate
threat of enemy air strike, and possibly compel the Franco-German fleet to pursue
him into waters where they would not enjoy the advantage they now possessed.

As it happened, the Italian
planes followed a vector that took them much too far to the north, thinking the
British had continued that way in pursuit of their own fleet. The second German
strike of 77 planes reached the scene 35 minutes later, but by then the fleet
had already dispersed as per prior orders, so as not to present a single
target. Both
Kirov
and
Argos Fire
decided to commit another 12
medium range missiles each if necessary, but the worsening weather was enough
to keep the enemy from doing any serious harm. The German pilots realized the
British were on the run, and seeing the thunderheads rising all around them
now, they turned back for their bases. So the missiles stayed in their silos
this time around.

What Tovey did not realize,
however, was that the enemy also had a plan. It had been partly foiled by the
impatience and hubris of Admiral Iachino, who had decided he had the strength
to engage the Royal Navy on its own. Lütjens had strongly argued that all three
fleets should combine before facing their enemy, but that was foiled. Now the
German Admiral was also looking at his map aboard
Hindenburg
, with
Captain Karl Adler at his side.

“What do you make of this, Adler?
All reports from Tenth Fliegerkorps indicate the enemy has dispersed and is now
withdrawing.”

“They had more than enough from
the Luftwaffe,” Adler said calmly.

“I’m not so sure. The British are
very cagey, and they seldom do anything without good reason. They have been
very aggressive here, and in past operations, always so eager to get into the
hunt.”

“But now we are the hunters,
Admiral. They may have taken significant damage in either the naval battle, or
from this air strike. The pilots are claiming their hits in the squadron rooms
by now, and we may soon know more.”

“Their last reported course was
southeast. Do you believe they are retiring to Alexandria?” Lütjens tapped the map
with his pencil, pointing the route they would be likely to take.

“Where else?” said Adler. “We
showed them that we now control the Central Mediterranean. There’s only one
place where they can sail with any confidence now, and they will head for the
safe shores off Egypt.”

“And we will follow.”

Adler raised an eyebrow at that.
“Into the Eastern Med?”

“Of course not, but I am not so
sure that is where the British are heading just yet. Signal the fleet to steer
for Crete as planned. That way we’ll be shadowing the British if they are
heading for Alexandria, and Operation Donner may proceed as planned.”

“And shall I inform Fiebig?”

“Of course. We’ll want his
squadrons redeploying to airfields on Greece as soon as this weather clears. For
now it will provide us with welcome cover as we make this move east. We’ll
steer southeast, then east to muster in the Messenian Gulf off Greece. That
will give Fiebig time to move his air strength to Greece to cover us again.
Then we visit Crete as planned to begin softening that place up for the planned
air operations. We’ll hit the ports and airfields around Chania, Souda Bay and
possibly even Heraklion if things go well.”

“Has the Führer approved?”

“I hear he was more than pleased
with how the attack went in against Malta. So yes, we have authorization to
carry out Donner as a preliminary operation. As to the invasion plans for
Crete, that remains to be seen. In the meantime, we’ll show the British they
are not the only ones able to utilize sea power in the Mediterranean now. This
is a whole new kettle of fish here, Adler. Now we fight in fleet actions like
the British, not as solo raiders trying to sneak past Iceland and joust with
the convoys. We leave that to Doenitz and his U-Boats. So we will carry out
Operation Donner as planned. Let’s see if the British have the stomach to come
up and do anything about it.”

Finally, thought Adler. Lütjens
has found his backbone after all. This is good. If we make a strong show of
force here, we demonstrate that they are no longer masters of this sea while we
remain a strong force in opposition. Yet he had one misgiving. They had thought
to achieve complete sea dominance with this action, but the Italians were now a
most questionable element in their equation.

“You realize we may not be able
to count on the Italians,” he said with the obvious reservation in his voice.

“When have we ever been able to
count on the Italians?” Lütjens smiled, but the point Adler raised was going to
matter more than he realized, because the British fleet wasn’t sailing for
Alexandria, and it would not be long before they would find that out.

Part
VII

The Battle

“There’s only one principle of
war and that’s this. Hit the other fellow, as quick as you can, and as hard as
you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain’t lookin!”

―
British
Sergeant Major:
Unknown

Chapter 19

Hauptmann
Hans Kummel had a frustrated look on his face that
morning. He was commander of 1st Company. I/8th Panzer in Cramer’s regiment,
but thus far his war in the desert had been a headlong rush east over tractless
sand and limestone gravel, through occasional briar scrub and camelthorn, and
over parched, wrinkled wadis barring the way. The mid-day heat was intense,
even now in the winter, so he had one consolation knowing the coming fight
would be in the morning, with the chill of the desert night still heavy on the
barren landscape. He was eager for it, a real fight at last with a British
Armored force, or so the rumors had it.

“So the
British found their backbone,” he said to his driver, a man named Kruschinski.
“See that ridge line there? They will have to flow to either side of that. It
will split their force, and when they come, we’ll take the company on a wide
swing to the east and catch them on the flank. Our job is to get at their
support group. The Panzerjagers will engage the tanks.”