Kirov (43 page)

Of
the 1600 men aboard
Wasp
that day, 572 died within the first five
minutes of the explosions. The remaining crew scrambled for life preservers and
desperately tried to fight the fires. Fifteen minutes later, secondary
explosions blew a hole in her thin hull and she began shipping water at an
uncontrollable rate, listing fifteen degrees in a matter of minutes. Her
captain, John Reeves, gave the order to abandon ship and struggled with his
bridge crew to find a way out of the growing inferno, forced to exit via a side
hatch and literally leap from the ship to save his life. Hundreds of other men
were already in the cold Atlantic waters, and the death toll would rise to 1127
before the day would end.

The
destroyers
O’Brien
and
Walke
had been churning about dropping
depth charges at an enemy that was not even there. The cruiser
Vincennes
was firing at the last wayward survivors of Army Pursuit Squadron 33, until she
was also struck by two more of the deadly Sunburns. One bored in at sea level,
it’s own pinpoint accuracy again working in favor of the target when the missile
struck the thickest part of her belt armor. Yet even that was only 5 inches of
steel, less than the British battlecruiser
Repulse
that had been damaged
by a similar attack. This time the missile warhead was able to penetrate a
little deeper, and the resulting explosion was far more serious on a smaller
ship, only a third the displacement of
Repulse
.

The
second missile, however, was one of Samsonov’s reprogrammed Sunburns where he
had eliminated the sea skimming leg of its flight path. Instead the missile
flew in at just under Mach 3, then simply dove directly down into the ship. It
struck the forecastle, blasted clean through, and gutted the ship, igniting two
secondary magazines and then blowing a hole in the bottom of the hull for good
measure. Another 568 men of her compliment of 708 would die. While the
Wasp
was deepening her list and sagging lower in the sea,
Vincennes
was a scorching
wreck.

The
remaining two destroyers stopped their anti-submarine runs and desperately
tried to rescue as many men as they could pull out of the water, their crews
fearfully eyeing the horizon.
Walke
had nets and ropes down, and
launched every boat and life raft she had aboard, but those unlucky enough to
have found a rope were out of the frying pan, into the drink and then back in
the fire within minutes. One final Sunburn missile, a sea skimmer, came lancing
in at the destroyer where it lingered near the stricken cruiser, and the impact
easily penetrated the small unarmored ship, igniting one of her quadruple
torpedo mounts, which joined the explosion and literally broke her in two. She
sunk within minutes, taking 163 of her 192 man crew with her, along with every
man she had managed to pull out of the sea.

Seeing
this, the skipper of the last destroyer
O’Brien
quickly maneuvered his
ship behind
Wasp
and used the burning carrier as a screen while his men
tried to pull in as many souls as they could. He was lucky that day. Captain
Karpov, satisfied with his kill, had decided to fire only one section of his
lethal Sunburn missiles, six in all, and in doing so Task Force 1 was all but
destroyed. The death toll mounted up to 1882 killed, another 460 wounded;
almost as many as the Japanese attack might have killed at Pearl Harbor four
months later. The date was August 5, 1941, and it was the greatest peacetime
disaster in US naval history, and a new “day of infamy” when the American president
finally learned the gruesome details of the surprise attack three hours later.

~
~ ~

It
was just
after a
late lunch aboard the heavy cruiser
Augusta
, and President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt was resting on the bed in his sea cabin. He was enjoying one
of his favorite pastimes, examining a few new stamps with a magnifying glass
and thinking where he would add them to his collection once he returned home. On
December 8, 1934, the dirigible
Graf Zeppelin
, named in honor of Graf
Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a German inventor of hydrogen airships, departed from
its home base at Friedrichshafen, Germany, bound for Recife, Brazil. It was
Christmas and the airship carried 19 passengers, a load of freshly cut
Christmas trees, and bundles of postcards and other holiday mail. Roosevelt was
looking at one such card, Luftpost, Par Avion, and noting the distinctive circular
green stamp showing the dirigible overlaid with a Christmas tree, when there
was a knock at his door.

The
president’s Scottish terrier, Fala, barked at once, and bodyguard, Mike Riley, got
up and went to the door. His son, Franklin Junior, looked over his shoulder,
seeing the shadows of three men outside and hearing the distinctive voice of
George C. Marshall speaking softly to the guard. The door swung open and in
came Marshall with Admirals Stark and King, their faces grave and set. Marshall
was the first to speak, getting right to the point.

“Mister
President,” he said, “we’ve been hit.”

Roosevelt
looked up at him, a perplexed look on his face. “The Japanese?” He had been
expecting trouble in the Pacific for some time now, but so soon? What had
happened?

“No,
sir,” said Marshall. “The Germans. Task Force 1 with the carrier
Wasp
was ferrying a squadron of P-40s to Iceland this morning. Apparently the
British have been chasing down another German raider that broke out through the
Denmark Strait.”

“We
just got word of this, sir,” said Admiral King.

“It
looks like
Wasp
ran afoul of this ship,” Marshall went on. “She’s been
hit and is badly damaged. It’s likely that we’ll lose her within the hour.”

“I
see…” Roosevelt put down his magnifying glass.

“There’s
more, sir,” said Admiral Starke. “Cruiser
Vincennes
and destroyer
Walke
were also hit. Both sunk, sir.”

“My
Lord,” said Roosevelt. “What was this ship, a U-boat?”

“No
sir. It’s a surface raider of some kind. The British seem to think it may be
the
Graf Zeppelin.”

Roosevelt’s
face registered real surprise. He looked down at his postcard, eyeing the stamp
of the airship he had been examining just moments ago. “I don’t understand,” he
said. “Our ships were attacked by an old blimp? How is that possible?”

“I’m
sorry, sir,” said Admiral King. “The
Graf Zeppelin
is also the name of
the new German aircraft carrier—a converted cruiser—and the British say this
ship has a new weapon… some kind of rocket system, very accurate and capable of
hitting ships and planes at extreme ranges. We just received word, sir. We
don’t know how they’re launching them, or even seeing the targets, but the
devil is in the details.”

Roosevelt’s
eyes darkened. “What did we do to the enemy?” he wanted to know, but the three
men were silent for a moment.

Admiral
Stark cleared his voice. “Well, sir. It appears our boys never even
saw
this German ship. It was over the horizon. They had no visual or radar contact
of any kind. In fact, the Germans hit our P-40 Squadrons shortly after they
launched from
Wasp
for the run out to Reykjavík. They never knew what
hit them, sir. It was a complete surprise—a deliberate attack against a neutral
country.”

“I
see…” Roosevelt’s face suddenly looked a hundred years old. His cheeks were
sallow and drawn, eyes deep set and shadowed, with a distant, icy look in them.
It was a look one might only describe as an ominous calm, as if he was suddenly
seeing events that would now be set in motion the world over, cascading down
through the days, months, and years from this moment, years of fire, and
struggle, and the smoke and destruction of battle and war. And something in
those eyes spoke to his own renewed awareness of his own mortality, as if some
final, inner clock had tolled, and his own days were now to be counted off,
like leaves falling from a tree, the long, lazy autumn of his life gone, and
the winter of cold death waiting for him just ahead.

“Mister
President,” said Marshall. “The casualties were… rather high. We don’t have the
final numbers yet but there were well over two thousand men on those ships and
planes. In light of the situation, I advise that we turn about and return to
Washington.”

Roosevelt
thought. “Where is Churchill?”

“His
still at sea, sir. Apparently the British got a bit of a bloody nose when they
went after this raider as well. Just like the
Bismarck
incident. Their
ships are consolidating around
Prince of Wales
now, sir. That’s the ship
presently transporting the Prime Minister.”

“Well
is he coming or not?” asked Roosevelt.

“As
far as we can determine, Mister Churchill seems intent on getting here to meet
you, but we can advise him of this decision and postpone the conference until—”

“No,
no, no, General. That won’t be necessary. If Mister Churchill is steaming on in
the face of this threat, we’ll do the same. That’s a battleship out there with
us, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Right,
sir,” said Admiral King. “But the British inform us that two of their
battleships were also damaged when they tangled with this new German ship. In
the interest of safety, sir, I second the General’s suggestion.”

“And
I veto it,” said Roosevelt bluntly. “That settles the matter. Put on speed,
gentlemen. I don’t care how you do it, but get me up to Newfoundland as soon as
you possibly can. And tell Churchill I’ll be waiting for him.”

Marshall
had seen Roosevelt this way before, and he knew that once the President had
made up his mind like this, there was no persuading him otherwise.

“Very
well, sir,” he said. “If we increase to full speed I believe we can get you to
the conference site a day early.”

“Good…”
Roosevelt allowed himself a wan smile. Then his face was set and grim again.
“Get word over to Mister Welles and the others. Also send a coded telegram to Secretary
of State Hull back in the states. Tell him I’ll want a joint session of
Congress convened immediately upon my return—sooner if he can learn to herd
cats before that. This isn’t some U-Boat playing with a destroyer on convoy
watch, gentlemen. This is something entirely different.”

There
came another knock at the door, Roosevelt’s other son Elliot came in, his hat
under his arm and eyes alight. “We just got word,” he said, a bewildered look
on his face. “The
Wasp
has been sunk!”

Roosevelt
leaned over, reaching for his pipe and tobacco. “Pull up a few chairs,
gentlemen. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

~
~ ~

Aboard
Prince of Wales
, the
doughty prime minister received the word of the American president’s resolve
with great satisfaction. He clapped his hands, his eyes alight with an inner
fire and renewed hope. It was as if a new sun was finally rising on the gray
horizon, dispelling the heavy fog of war and promising a blazoning new hour
that would save his embattled nation and assure the eventual defeat of Nazi
Germany once and for all.

He
was with General Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Admiral
Sir Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff. News of the
engagement by his forces reached him the previous day, just as he was about to
depart on the destroyer
Oribi
and slip out to
Prince of Wales
where she waited at anchor, her decks swept clean, guns and forecastle shining
with a fresh coat of paint. The Admiralty had not been pleased to hear the
results of Wake-Walker’s air strikes against this troublesome German raider,
and when Tovey reported his big ships were under attack as well, from an enemy
no one had even set eyes on, there was talk of keeping the Prime Minister at
home.

Churchill
would hear none of it, and insisted on boarding and departing for his long
awaited conference with the American president at Argentia Bay. Admiral Pound
reluctantly agreed, and the battleship cruised from Scapa Flow a few hours
early, wanting to get out to sea as soon as possible. It was not long before they
ran into foul weather and the three destroyers escorting
Prince of Wales
lost contact with the bigger ship, but Churchill demanded that they steam on,
determined. “Full steam ahead,” said the ‘Former Naval Person,’ as he oft
referred to himself. Churchill had once held the Admiral’s post as First Sea
Lord himself.

By
midnight,
Prince of Wales
was well out to sea and some miles east of
Ireland. They soon received word of the attack on
Repulse
and
King
George V
, and Tovey’s intention to gather all his ships and form a strong
covering force to insure the Prime Minister’s safety.

“Why
doesn’t he just get after this German ship and make an end of it?” Churchill
grumbled.

“Under
normal circumstances I would agree with you, sir,” said Admiral Pound. “But
considering the situation, I rather tend to second Tovey’s decision. You
insisted on putting yourself in harm’s way, sir. It’s our duty to see that you
reach your destination safely. Tovey’s got a sound head on his shoulders. I
expect he’ll want to join up with us in due course. And then, when we have you
safely off to Newfoundland, we’ll get out there and settle the matter, just as
we did with
Bismarck
, sir.”