The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth (24 page)

The hits had initially slowed the Gneisenau down to 15 knots, but after an hour of desperate work her eng
ineers had got her speed up to 19 knots on her remaining undamaged shaft. It was hoped that this would allow them to get far enough south that the threat of the Luftwaffe would keep them safe until dark. However the attack and the damage had lost her a lot of time, and when they sighted smoke to the north, it was clear that this time had run out. Nemesis, in the form of HMS Warspite and her escorts, had arrived.

The time was 1530. Since it was rational that the Luftwaffe would, if possible, try and stop the Warsp
ite by an air attack, a CAP of six Goshawks was accompanying the force. Another eight were circling the fleet, just in case. It was already becoming clear that the carriers needed more fighters, especially if the Luftwaffe started to take a serious interest in them.

At first the Gneisenau crew hoped that they could outrun the battleship, but although the engineers, by dint of a suprem
e effort, got her speed up to 20 knots the Warspite was closing (if slowly), opening fire at 26,000 yards. A final hope that they would be under the cover of night, or at least the Luftwaffe, soon was dashed as the British ship, at a range of no less that 25,000yards, scored a direct hit on the Gneisenau. The heavy 15" shell drove down through the ship's deck armour easily, finally detonating just aft of the engine room, and as a result casing serious flooding aft. While no immediately disabling damage was done, this cost the ship a good three knots, the last thing the captain wanted at this time.

There was no sign of any Luftwaffe presence, and under the circumstances they were obviously not going to escape. Instead, the Gneisenau
turned to present all six of her 11" rifles to the approaching Warspite (A turret was immovable after the bomb damage, and could not be brought into action), and to allow at least some of her secondary armament to engage the accompanying cruisers. The battleship continued to close to 15,000 yards, apparently confident its thick armour would defeat the German shells. While one hit was obtained on the Warspite, it seemed to cause no critical damage, and she finally turned to expose her rear gun arcs. This doubled her rate of fire, and though the Gneisenau was armored more like a battleship than the battlecruiser she was designated, it was not sufficient to stop the shells, weighing nearly a ton each, both destroying her superstructure and penetrating her armor belt. The Warspite's fire remained accurate - terrifyingly accurate to the Germans, and in 30 minutes had reduced the ship to a burning, listing wreck, aided by a considerable number of hits by the cruisers 6" guns. The final coup de grace was given by one of the escorting British destroyers, HMS Acasta, which as the Gneisenau fire slowly ground to a halt amid the shattered steel and flames of her deck, fired three 21" torpedoes into her port side. This was the end, and the crew abandoned ship into the cold waters of the North Sea, their ship sliding downwards as the icy water poured into her, until 10 minutes later she slid under the surface of the North Sea.

While the engagement had been most satisfactory for the British ships, it had not been a completely one-sided battle. The Warspite had been struck by a total of five 11" shells during the engagement, although she had only received one hit before she closed to decisive range, which as early damage to the Gneisenau fire control systems had meant her guns were being fired under local control, was not a bad result. Two of the shells had hit on the Warspite's armoured belt, and this was thick enough to defeat the shells and thus taking only minor damage. Three more had hit her on her superstructure; one had wrecked her aircraft and hanger, causing a fuel fire that took some time to put out, while the second had destroyed two of her casemented 6" guns. The fifth shall had embedded itself between two of her 4" AA turrets, the fuse having failed.

HMS Sheffield had taken two hits from the battlecruisers secondary 6" armament; one had temporarily knocked out X turret, the other had hit her right forward and passed right through, destroying her cable locker and leaving an rather impressive exit hole.

The destroyers were busy picking up survivors when, belatedly, the Luftwaffe arrived. This sadly caused the destroyers to break off rescue operations in order to reform around Warspite and take evasive action. There was only limited warning of the attack as the Sheffield's radar had been temporarily damaged by blast and shock action during the surface engagement. This was to be the Royal Navy's introduction to the Ju87R

The observers on the ship were in fact rather surprised; they recognised the Ju87 - it's distinctive shape could hardly be mistaken for anything else - but they had thought they were well out of range. In fact, the raid hadn't been intended for them at all. The Ju87's were carrying their long range drop tanks, and had intended to attack the main fleet. However due to the increasingly desperate pleas for help by the Gneisenau, they had diverted slightly in the hope of supporting her. But as a result of the distance to the fleet, they were only carrying 250kg GP bombs; this had been considered sufficient to damage or destroy the carriers which had been their intended target, but were going to be far less useful against the Warspite.

The attack cons
isted of 12 Ju87's escorted by six Me110's (while Me109's were now established in southern Norway, the fleet was at the moment out of their range to escort a strike). The force was still being covered by six Goshawks, but with the limited warning time they were barely able to close the raid before it arrived. As it was, they were intercepted by the escorting Me110's, allowing the divebombers to attack unmolested by fighters. The Goshawks had been concentrating on the Stukas, and as a result two were shot down in the initial attack by the heavy forward armament of the Me110's. The fighters then turned into the Me110's to attack, then end result of which was three Me110 shot down for the loss of two more Goshawks.

While the fighters were dog
-fighting, the Stuka's calmly made their approach before settling into the dives. While the fleets HA AA was as enthusiastic as ever, only one Stuka was hit, forcing it to attempt a landing in the sea. The other 11 split up, seven attacking the battleship while the remaining four went for HMS Sheffield. The pilots knew their bombs were not heavy enough to cause serious damage to a battleship, but they hoped to damage her severely enough that a new raid or U-boat attack might finish her off.

The observers on the ships watched with a professional detachment as the Stukas peeled off one by one to attack them, noting the extreme angle of their dives - even steeper it seemed than the FAA's Cormorants managed. Meanwhile the Warspite's captain tried his best to emulate a destroyers agility, not the easiest of tasks with 34,000 tons of WW1 battleship.

Of the seven planes bombing, two achieved hits - a worrying high percentage which the ships hoped was not typical for the Stuka crews. The Warspite's deck armour was too heavy for the 250 kg bombs to penetrate, but they did do considerable damage. One hit directly on top of Y turret; while the heavy armour on the turret roof defeated the bomb, the concussion put the turret out of action. The second bomb hit close to the already destroyed hanger - the Captain was starting to wonder if ships aircraft arrangements were exhibiting some sort of perverse attraction for attacking planes, destroying one 4" AA turret and killing and injuring a number of men. Despite a hail of fire from the ships close AA guns, only one of the attacking planes was shot down.

The four planes attacking the Sheffield found that a cruiser was a more difficult target than a battleship, and indeed
Sheffield managed to dodge all four bombs, although one fell close enough to cause some underwater leakage and splinter damage that riddled the port side of the ship. All the attacking Stukas escaped damage from the cruisers AA.

W
hile the satisfying news was coming in of the Warspite's demolition of the Gneisenau, work was going on preparing a new strike for the Scharnhorst. This was complicated by the worry about the possibility of air attack; a carrier with a hanger deck full of loaded planes was very vulnerable indeed.

Pre-war FAA doctrine had been to keep the hangar deck as non-inflammable as possible. Aircraft were unfuelled, unarmed, and there was no fuel in the refuelling system. This fitted in with the concept that a bomb, if it hit, would explode in the hangar deck, and if a major fire was avoided (a minor one was thought unavoidable), the hangar could be quickly repaired and no additional damage to the ship would ensue.

The problem was that this doctrine clashed with the ability to launch continual strikes (an ability which had been miss-estimated before Norway). So there was, in this case, a compromise. Illustrious continued to control the CAP while Formidable ranged a torpedo strike. To minimise the danger in case of attack, the planes were armed and fuelled in small groups, which added to the time needed to assemble the strike, but meant that as long as there was radar warning, the loaded planes could be brought on deck and the hangar closed (a loaded plane on deck was of course still a vulnerability, but less so that in the hangar).

By 1600, Formidable had ranged 15 torpedo bombers, which took off heading for the Sch
arnhorst, accompanied by six Goshawks.

The planes sighted the fleeing battlecruiser at 1655; by which time she was well south of the fleet and, although not realised at the time, inside the cover of Me109 fighters (while the Luftwaffe was still not terribly enthusiastic about donating aircraft to protect the Kriegsmarine, the obvious disaster happening to the German fleet off Norway had wrung some of the fighters they had only just based close to Bergen free for use
). However they still did not have any land-based warning, and as the Me109 didn't have a long range, they were held ready until the ships radar detected a raid and asked for cover.

Indeed, the Scharnhorst's radar had detected the incoming flight at 1640 (at this point in time, the Royal Navy was still very uncertain if the Kriegsmarine had radar - the prevailing opinion was that they did not, so the incoming flight was at 10,000 feet to acquire the target, and easy target for the ships radar). An immediate call had gone out for fighter protection, and the fi
ghters had started to take off two minutes later. It wasn't clear which would arrive first, the torpedo planes or the fighter cover.

In fact, the torpedo planes arrived first. They circled around to attack the target in two groups, while their protecting fighters stayed at 10,000 feet to cover them if needed. As usual the planes were attacking in flights of three, and the first six (attacking from both sides) were at low level and had started their attack runs before the Me109's had arrived. As a result they were the most successful. The Scharnhorst managed to evade five of the torpedoes, but she took a hit forward from one. The torpedo did not do any serious damage, but it did cause hundreds of tons of icy water to flood into the ship close to B turret, and although the guns themselves were not
damaged, the flooding forced the magazine to have to be evacuated.

Before the next planes could attack, the Me109's finally arrived - 12 of them. They split up into two formations, six attacking the defending fighters, the other six going for the torpedo planes. This was the first time the Goshawk pilots had encountered the Me109, and it proved a far more difficult opponent than the Me110 they were getting used to. The Me109 was not much faster, but it was more manoeuvrable, and the Luftwaffe pilots highly skilled. As a result, the attackers shot down four Goshawks for the loss of two of their own planes (one of the Goshawk pilots managed to ditch close to a rather surprised Norwegian fishing boat - to end up being delivered to Narvik a week later, safe but smelling rather strongly of fish).

The other six Me109's had dived on the torpedo planes. They weren't quite as easy a target as they first assumed - the SeaLance was fast for a torpedo plane, and a plane jinking and swerving a few feet above the waves was an awkward target, however an evading torpedo plane wasn't a very accurate delivery system. Of the first three planes attacked, two were shot down before they could release, the only one that got in a shot missing the battlecruiser.

The remaining two flights fared little better. Three more planes were shot down , with no torpedo hits on the ship. One Me109 did hit the water as it tried to close with one of the planes, its pilot obviously not used to flying so low over water, but the result of the action was very unfavourable to the FAA.

The Me109's didn't chase the planes as they headed off to the North, at full speed and just above the waves; the action had already left them low on fuel, and as soon as the attackers left they were heading back to their base.

The carrier planes made it back at 1815; after hearing the radio reports of the attack, it had been decided that the Scharnhorst was now too far under fighter cover to attack without proper preparation. It was hoped that the torpedo damage might be serious enough to make her take cover in Bergen, where a full strength attack with fighter cover could be made tomorrow, but in fact the ship kept on going (her speed had only been reduced to 25 knots), obviously reluctant to stay anywhere near the British carriers for any longer than absolutely necessary.

11th April, Midnight, North of Denmark.

The pocket battle
ship Lutzow (nee Deutchland), was on her way home from Oslo after taking part in the invasion. The last heavy German warship involved in the Norwegian invasion found that while the water between Norway and Germanys was free of British carrier aircraft, itwasn't free of their submarines.