Kirov Saga: Altered States (Kirov Series) (27 page)

Taking off from a moving carrier at sea was always easier than landing, which was a lesson the Germans were soon to learn when one of the six fighters they had aloft misjudged the approach and came skidding in to lose a wing against the carrier’s armored 5.9-inch deck gun turrets. Thankfully the pilot was saved, but the plane was a total loss and had to be pushed overboard, which sent Böhmer pacing on the island bridge. There had been too little time to for training.

It took another half an hour to clear the deck and reset equipment for the launch, and the weather was worsening rapidly. Böhmer looked at the charcoal skies, where the light of the setting sun was glowing blood red, like embers burning in coals. The words of the Nordic poem he had read so often ran though his mind as he smelled the cold air and heard the distant rumble of far off thunder.

“Now awful it is to be without,

as blood-red rack races overhead;

and the welkin sky is gory with warriors' blood

as we Valkyries war-songs chanted.”

He briefly considered whether to cancel the mission in these darkening skies, with the wind up and the chances high that his planes would not find anything at all. But war was war, and risks had to be taken. The Valkyries would fly. The strike would send the whole of
Trägergruppe
186, out to look for the British fleet.

Soon he heard the first growling overture of the opera, as one engine after another sputtered to life and revved up on the flight deck below. The BF-109s took off first, all six forming up over the carrier before the
Stukas
went aloft. One by one the dark crows lifted off the rolling deck. In spite of the heavy swells,
Graf Zeppelin
was a large ship, displacing nearly 34,000 tons with a 118 foot beam, and it provided good stability. The long flight deck, over 800 feet, also gave the pilots plenty of room for takeoff. The
Stukas
were formed up, their engines howling on the flight deck as they waited for final clearance to begin takeoff. Hauptmann Marco Ritter had already returned and was out on the flight deck waiting for the air crews to refuel and rearm his Messerschmitt, eager to get back into the sky. He was counting the planes, seeing that only seventeen had been spotted.

“Where’s number eighteen?” he asked an airman.

“Still on the elevator. The pilot is sick and doesn’t think he can fly. But seventeen should do the job well enough.”

“That’s an unlucky number,” said Ritter. “Let me go and see about it.”

He went below, only to learn that the remaining six
Stuka
pilots were all busy performing pre-flight checks on their planes, which were being armed in the event they were needed later. Frustrated, he spied a lone pilot leaning dejectedly on a bulkhead, enviously watching the crews work on the dark flock of crows.

“You there, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, sir. I have no assignment.”

Ritter shook his head. “No assignment? Here I am looking for a pilot and there you are right in front of me. Isn’t that a flight jacket you are wearing?”

The Air Maintenance Chief heard the men and yelled at Ritter as he worked on one of the planes. “Don’t get excited, Hauptmann Ritter, he’s just a recon pilot.”

“Recon pilot?”

“Yes, sir,” said the Airman. “I fly the
Arado
.” The man was the number four
Arado
196 pilot, still waiting for assignment, listless and brooding below decks. “But I can fly that too,” the man pointed at the last
Stuka
on the elevator, a dejected, hungry look on his face.

“You can fly a
Stuka?”
Ritter remembered the man now.

“Yes sir. I trained with
Sturzkampfgeschwader 3
before volunteering for my assignment here.”

“Excellent! You’re my lucky eighteen.”

“Me sir?”

“You can’t send him, Ritter,” the maintenance Chief protested.

“Mind your spanner, Chief. I am head of air operations on this deck, and if this man can fly a
Stuka
he’s as good as any of the others.”

Most of the
Stuka
pilots were young and still relatively inexperienced. They had fought briefly in Poland before being drafted into the special units for training with the new carrier based model.

 “Just get in the plane,” said Ritter. “You can ride it up on the elevator.”

Rudel’s eyes glowed with thanks. “Right away, sir!” And he leapt for the plane, scrambling up and into the cockpit as the lift started.

“You’ll get him killed, Ritter. He’s never flown a real combat mission in a
Stuka
, just training.”

“Every man gets his first chance, Chief. And nobody lives forever.” He watched the young man go, eager, happy to serve, and also noted how he correctly fixed his harness in little time at all. He will have to do, he thought.

Ritter’s lucky number eighteen was Hans-Ulrich Rudel, and he had joined the School of Air Warfare right out of high school to learn to fly. There he found the work challenging, and was thought to be ill suited for combat missions by his instructors, which is why they gave him the role of reconnaissance pilot. Determined, he applied himself rigorously, shunning alcohol and cigarettes, and maintaining a rigid discipline in his studies. It was to be a case of sheer will that saw him succeed, and he made numerous requests to be transferred to a fighting unit.

Begging for a more active role, he was sent over to the Kriegsmarine for training on the
Arado
196 his experience in recon operations saw him assigned to the
Graf Zeppelin
as Number Four pilot in the
Arado
Anerkenung
Squadron. Two of his mates were already up there joining in the excitement as they loitered to help vector in the strike wave once it got aloft, but Rudel was sulking below decks when fate, in the form of Marco Ritter, placed a hand on his shoulder.

Ritter took the ladder up, back on the flight deck to watch the
Stukas
take off. When the last plane was ready, he gave Rudel a thumbs up, and a wide smile, remembering his own very first combat mission over Poland. He watched as Rudel’s plane roared off the deck, eager for the sky. A nice takeoff, he thought.

Soon the strike wave was up and on its way, only twenty minutes out from the target at their present cruising speed of 225 MPH. They threaded their way through drifts of clouds, moving fast on the wind, and far to the south the alarms were clanging hot and loud on the ships of Tovey’s Home Fleet.

* * *

Lieutenant
Commander John Casson was back, his
Skua
just landed on the
Ark Royal
as they began to spot the decks with new planes for a hasty takeoff. He leapt out and down from the cockpit, checking on his signalman gunner before he hit the deck. There was a line of bullet holes in his left wing, but it had not caught fire and the low clouds and his acrobatic flying had saved the plane, and undoubtedly his life as well. He spied the Squadron Leader, Captain Richard ‘Birdy’ Partridge, of Peartree fame on the ship. He was huddling with his gunner’s mate Bostock as they made ready to mount their planes.

“Jerry 109s,” he said flatly. “Jumped us from above, and had two planes down before we could tip a wing.”

“That means they’ve come off a carrier, Johnny. So we get a crack at
Graf Zeppelin.”

“Yes, well you had better hop to it! Those planes were no more than fifteen minutes out when they found us. They could be right on my heels.”

“Who went down?”

“Filmer and Harris.”

Casson patted the chest pocket on his flight jacket where he kept a silver brandy flask given to him by his wife. He could use a swig now, but was only glad to have made it home in one piece.

Squadron navigator Peter ‘Hornblower’ Fanshaw came running up, breathless as he gathered himself. “I’ve just got the latest position report. One of the
Swordfish
got clean away and they’ve spotted the Germans up north.”

“Good show, Hornblower. Let’s get airborne!” Partridge was keen to get up and about his business, but he could not help but notice the sprig of white heather that Hornblower always liked to set on the dash for good luck. They were going to need it. Every man among them knew their planes were beyond their prime, and no real match for the German BF-109. But in the end the skill of the pilot counted for much in any encounter, and the British were veterans all.

They were sending six
Skua
fighters from 803 Squadron, and another six from 800 Squadron. With no time for loadouts of bombs, the planes were tasked with combat air patrol over the fleet until they could bring up the
Swordfish
for a go at the Germans. Then they would serve as escorts.
Ark Royal
could spot no more than fifteen planes for takeoff at any one time, and the
Skuas
were first up, with Bartlett and Gardiner already climbing into the wind.

Partridge watched all of 803 Squadron go before he ran for his plane. As was customary, the Senior Squadron Leader would be the last to take off. Once aloft he gave the signal to get the
Skuas
up to 11,000 feet while they waited for the
Swordfish
, but they soon had uninvited guests for dinner. The Valkyries had arrived.

Petty Officer Henry Monk saw them first in plane 6C from 800 Squadron. “Trouble at three o’clock he called.” He looked to see long, dark lines of planes flying in formation as they broke out of a cottony grey-white cloud. “Look there, boys. Those are
Stukas!”
They were planes they could fight with a good chance of beating them, but Monk had not seen the six BF-109s on overwatch. As the
Skuas
tipped their wings and rolled into action the Messerschmitts suddenly appeared, streaking down from above as before with their wing guns snarling.

The fight was soon on, a dizzy whirl of man and machine in the grey skies, with planes wheeling and firing at one another. The Germans scored a quick kill on Finch-Noyes, but they saw at least one parachute get safely away from his smoking
Skua
as it went down. Partridge, Gallagher and Martin had formed the last sub-flight, and they tore into the
Stuka
formation, riddling two planes with their four wing-mounted .303s A kill went to the Squadron Leader, and he yelled a ‘Tally Ho’ as he brought his
Skua
around with Gallagher on his right wing in a wide turn.

But the BF-109s had also taken their toll. Riddler was down, his plane a smoking wreck, and no one got out alive. Spurway was hit and had one wing on fire. Partridge came around only to find he was in a fight for his life. A Messerschmitt on his tail had put a round right through his canopy, but it luckily missed, prompting him to kiss his leather glove and pat the sprig of lucky white heather on his dash. He managed to lose the German fighter in the clouds, but when he emerged he could see that the
Stukas
were now tipping over into screaming dives. The fleet was under attack.

* * *

Hans
Rudel saw the first two
Stukas
go down, his pulse up, heart pounding as much from excitement as anything else. Combat! At long last he was on a real mission against the enemy. He knew the
Stuka
well enough, having trained with it in France for over six weeks before he came to the carrier disheartened to learn he would be flying an
Arado
seaplane. They do not think I’m any good, he thought, but his iron will was going to prove them all wrong today. Right here, and right now.

As he started his dive he could see the formation of British ships below, and now the skies were puffing up with the sharp muffled explosions of Ack-Ack fire. There were two big ships, and he found himself in a perfect position to line up on the number two vessel in the line. Now he tipped his plane in earnest, pointing the nose down in a near 90 degree dive. He could hear the wail of the Jericho Trumpets as the Valkyries dove to either side. The sound was terrifying, an awful wail of wrath from the welkin sky. The planes ahead of him scored a near miss on the big leading ship, which was now turning in a hasty evasive maneuver.

Rudel could see that his target was forging straight on, and he lined up perfectly on the ship, remembering the bawling cajole of his flight training officer.
‘Line up and hold for ten seconds. Don’t move a muscle, then let your bomb fly and pull out fast.’
And that was exactly what he did. His hands were like ice on the stick, and flack was exploding all around him, jarring his plane, but he kept in line, heedless of his own personal safety. Then he released the bomb and pulled out of his howling dive, light headed with the G-force of his recovery.

551 pounds of high explosives went careening into the target and blasted up in to the vibrating sky. Rudel got the hit, square amidships on HMS
Renown
, and the bomb went right through the battlecruiser’s thin deck armor and exploded three decks down in a boiler room, blowing everything there to hell.
Renown
turned, her speed falling off rapidly, and tall geysers of water falling to port and starboard with another two near misses. A second bomb struck further aft blowing the
Walrus
seaplane and its lifting crane to pieces and starting a raging fire there from residual fuel in the plane.

Rudel pulled out of his dive to see the billowing smoke and fire amidships. My God, he thought. I hit a battleship! It would not be the last he would have in his sights. Hans-Ulrich Rudel wasn’t supposed to even be aboard
Graf Zeppelin
that day, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to be aboard that
Stuka
, but the experience would serve him well. He would go on to become one of the most highly decorated combat pilots in history, flying over 2500 missions and stacking up awards and medals encrusted with oak leaves and diamonds throughout the war. No other pilot would match the tally of wreckage he would leave behind him, burning ships, planes, trains and warehouses all to be smashed by the thunder of his
Stuka
.