Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series) (34 page)

“But
would it end there sir? Would we also have to smash Orenburg and Volkov, and
then Karpov too? And what about Imperial Japan? Their empire begins from a much
stronger position in the Pacific than they had in our history. Might it not
take all our warheads to tame that dragon?”

“I see
what you mean,” said Volsky. “We get dropped into the midst of the greatest war
humanity has ever fought. Sometimes I feel like that fellow in the American shark
movie.”

“Shark
movie? Oh yes—you mean
Jaws?”

Yes,
the one where he is throwing chum over the side and the great shark suddenly
appears.”

“Who
can forget that scene.” Fedorov smiled.

“Well I
see this war,” said Volsky, “and in spite of all the power we have now, I
sometimes think we are going to need a bigger boat. Tovey and the British know
this to be true. They know they cannot defeat Germany on their own. All they
can do is try to hold on as best they can.”

“Agreed,
sir. They desperately need the Americans to enter the war as soon as possible.
They are the bigger boat I think you speak of. But if Karpov doesn’t get them
to declare war on Germany early as he did once, then it will be up to the
Japanese to light the fire that prompts the United States to enter the war.”

“Pearl
Harbor? Do you think it will happen in this time line, Fedorov?”

“That
is a very real possibility, but as Tovey said, it will be a long wait until
December of 1941, and we may have to face our hour of paradox before then.”

“So here
is something you can put that scheming mind of yours to work on, Fedorov.”
Volsky tapped his Captain on the shoulder. “How can we get the United States
into the war as soon as possible?”

“They
seem likely to sit for some time while they build up their armed forces, sir.
But America can be roused to sudden anger, as we have seen. When their old battleship
Maine
blew up mysteriously in Havana harbor, they used it as a pretext
to go to war with Spain. ‘Remember the
Maine
, to hell with Spain’ became
their battle cry in the Spanish-American war. Then there was the sinking of the
Lusitania
in 1915. It was a British ship, but there were 128 Americans
aboard, and it enraged the country, hastening their entry into WWI. Pearl
Harbor had an even more dramatic impact.”

“Indeed,”
said Volsky. “Then how could we create a similar incident here if the Japanese
do not take the matter into their own hands?”

“You
mean sink an American ship?”

“I know
it sounds treacherous, Fedorov, but we must consider all our options now. This
war is simply too big for us to manage. It is too big a weight for Britain to
carry. You know this. It will be a year or more before they can even
contemplate real offensive operations that could make any difference in this
war. And what will they do? They cannot invade France alone. In fact, they
could not even invade North Africa alone to deal with the Vichy French. Tovey
was just telling us that. We need a bigger boat, Fedorov, and there is only one
nation on this earth that can build it—The United States of America. Only they
can build the planes tanks and ships that will eventually stop Germany and win
this war.”

* * *

A
bigger boat… A bigger bomb. That had been the mentality that drove the nations
of the world to the edge of annihilation. General MacArthur would sum it up in
a speech to the nation after Japan’s surrender when he said of the use of war
to resolve disputes: “We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some
greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.”

Yet
here, in the year 1940, Armageddon was still impossibly far away, over years of
struggle and difficult sacrifice to be made by millions. For now, it was still
about that bigger boat, the ships that Germany and Great Britain had built in
their arms race before the outbreak of hostilities. And the largest and best
ships on either side were now locked on a collision course to meet in the
crucible of war.

Chapter 30

Admiral
Lütjens had signaled farewell to
Graf Zeppelin
two
hours ago, just before he made his bombardment run past the Faeroes. The vital
aircraft carrier would not be risked in an Atlantic sortie at this time. Its
role was restricted to provide air superiority on this mission, something Marco
Ritter delivered with his characteristic bravado and skill. The carrier would
return to Bergen with an escort of light cruisers and destroyers, and the heavy
units would press on at high speed to make their breakout run to the Atlantic.

Ritter
lingered in the skies over the Faeroes until he was satisfied that the British
had no surprises there. They had not seen a whisper of enemy carrier based
aircraft, leading Lütjens to believe that they had caught the British by
surprise. Satisfied that the operation was successful, it was now time to find
a friendly deck to land his 109-T, but strangely he signaled to his two wing
mates to follow him south.

“Where
are we going?” Klaus Heilich called on the short range radio channel.

“Just
follow me, and you will see in good time.” Ritter banked away, his wing mates following
smartly, and all three planes dove to a lower altitude. It was not long before
they broke through the low clouds, heading east away from the Faeroes, skimming
right down on the deck above the fitful sea. The roar of his planes engine
thrummed with reassuring power, and Ritter smiled as he rode the wave tops. Then,
looming out of a fog bank ahead, he saw the ship he was looking for, laughing
when he heard the surprised voices of his wing mates.

“A
little secret, Klaus,” he called on his radio. “That is the
Goeben
, our Flugdeckkreuzer,
and we are all going to join them. Some of our best pilots are on that ship for
this mission, Hafner, Brendel, Ehrler, so you had better mind your business!”

The
ship was one of Admiral Raeder’s little surprises, a hybrid between a fast
cruiser and a light escort carrier, with a small air squadron of 12 planes.
There were already six fighters aboard, and three
Stukas
. Ritter’s
flight would complete the squadron and, as the three fighters gained a little
altitude to overfly the ship, they gawked at the sleek lines and unusual
design. The forward section looked like one of the new Panzerschiffe cruisers,
with a typical conning superstructure, a single stack, and two twin gun turrets
forward with 28cm guns, just like those on the
Scharnhorst
. The barrels
had been designed as spares for the battlecruisers, but had been worked into
this design and put to better use instead of leaving them in the warehouses.
Aft of this section the remaining two thirds of the ship was a flight deck,
about 20% shorter than the deck of the
Graf Zeppelin
.

“That’s
a short deck down there, so be careful,” Ritter called. “Now you know why I was
drilling you on landings all last week. Make sure you don’t miss your hook up!”

The
Goeben
had been east of the main group, and much farther ahead, keeping a watchful eye
on the Iceland passage in case there were any nosy British cruisers about. It
was the only ship of its type built, out to sea for the first time after an
extensive training run in the Baltic. Its four 11-inch guns would make it a
match for most any 8-inch gun cruiser it encountered, but it also had
tremendous speed on its long cruiser hull, and could work up to 36 knots to run
from any ship it could not safely engage.

Designed
as a scout ship, the
Goeben
had Germany’s latest naval radar on her
mainmast, and its nine BF-109T fighters would provide a strong fighter shield
over the battlegroup. The three
Stukas
would give the ship just a little
more sting, one flown by Ritter’s newest recruit, Hans Rudel. The ship was
already well south of the Faeroes, out in the vanguard to trailblaze the way
for the battleships.

Rudel
was on the flight deck when the last of Ritter’s three planes landed. “Good job
in rough seas like this,” he said, congratulating Ritter as he jumped down from
his cockpit.

“I’ve
practiced that twenty times,” said Ritter. “Just as I made you do the same last
week! Everyone wanted to know why they had to train for landing with a short
hookup cable. Now you know.”

“I was
not aware we even had this ship!” Rudel was elated to be among the elite team
of pilots chosen for this mission.

“That’s
because it was kept secret, Rudel, and listed as a seaplane tender. They had
the ship in an enclosed berthing at Kiel, and even its trial runs in the Baltic
were kept a secret. I was only told about it last month.”

“How do
you hide a ship like this, Marco?”

“Ask
the Russians how they hid that rocket cruiser of theirs, eh? Well, we have a
few tricks up our sleeve too. Right about now the big ships will be pounding
the British on the Faeroes. In thirty minutes we go up again, this time to look
for the convoys. You’ll get all the fun, Rudel. I’ll have to be up there on
overwatch again.”

“Good
to know you’ll be there, Oberleutnant!

It was
only Commodore Ritchie’s sad fate that his convoy, HX-69, was in the wrong
place at the wrong time when Rudel and the other two Ju-87
Stukas
came
calling. Ritchie was on the weather deck of
Ulysses
with his field
glasses supervising the detachment of all ships bound for Methil. They would
have to go up and over Dunnet head on the north cape of Scotland, and were
among the first detachments after receiving orders to scatter the convoy a day
early.

He
heard the planes before he saw them, craning his neck up to scour the grey clouds.
Then the sound of the engines increased, gathering strength and power, and he
heard a chilling wail when he saw the first plane diving out of a cloud bank
like a falcon. It was Hans Rudel, leading in his birds of prey, and he bored
right in on the number three ship in the first line,
Voco
, a small 8600
ton tanker carrying lubricating oil. True to form, he put his 500 pound bomb
right on the target, blasting right through the deck and igniting the volatile
cargo below in the holds with a broiling explosion.

Kelbergen
, the number one ship in the second steaming row was the
next to be hit by Rudel’s wing mate, a Dutch freighter carrying steel scrap.
The 500 pound bomb missed and straddled the ship, but the pilot had also
dropped the two smaller 100 pound wing mounted bombs, and one struck home to
start a fire on the aft section near the main cargo access. The third
Stuka
straddled the
Lylepark
with its 500 pound bomb, and the hit was close
enough to hole the hull.

“Where
in blazes did they come from?” Richie kept looking nervously about, dreading
more planes falling from the sky, but none came. If
Graf Zeppelin
had
been ordered in, the heavier strike wing aboard would have had a real feast
here, but in Ritchie’s mind the damage to
Voco
was bad enough.

“Send
to R.A.F. Stornoway,” he said to his First Watch Officer. “Tell them we bloody
well need fighter cover out here. Jerry has pulled a rabbit out of his hat.
Those were
Stukas!”

* * *

R.A.F
. Stornoway got the plaintive call, but they had little
more than a few Avro
Anson
bombers at hand to do anything about it. The
base was still under construction, being built on a former golf course in the
windy northern Isle of Lewis off the coast of Scotland. There were also 12
Fairy
Albacore
bi-plane torpedo bombers stationed there in 827 Squadron,
but neither plane was likely to be sent to mix it up with German fighters or
Stukas
.

The
storm crows were just the heralds of more trouble to come. An hour later
Ritchie heard a strident call from the forward watch. A ship had been sighted
on the horizon, and now he was staring through his field glasses at what was
obviously the rising silhouette of a warship. His one hope was that it was a
Royal Navy battleship sent to bolster their escort. What else would be at large
on these waters? HMS
Arrow
, out in front, was sent to see about it,
advancing at high speed and signaling by lantern.

What
they got back was the bright roar of distant guns, and the unwelcome plumes of
heavy shells, two big rounds falling into the sea ahead of the destroyer. The
battleship
Hindenburg
had just fired its first shots in anger.

“Signal
all ships, emergency turn! Thirty points to starboard!”

The
signal flags went up, followed by a frantic message from the W/T room:
HX-69
under attack by German dive bombers and large enemy warship.
It would soon
have to be amended. There was more than one wolf in the pack that had found his
sheep. Krutschmer’s U-99 had signaled the position of the convoy, and the
information was quickly passed on to Lütjens.

Now the
hunt began.

HMS
Winchelsea
was the first ship to be hit. The old Admiralty W Class destroyer had been laid
down in 1917, and had little more than four QF 4.7-inch guns to challenge the
oncoming enemy. But it did have speed at 34 knots. The ship had done little in
the war thus far, except to pick up stranded sailors sunk by German U boats in
the Western Approaches. Now it faced a real minute of horror as it realized the
size and nature of the enemy threat.
Hindenburg
turned its extensive
secondary batteries loose on the British, and the destroyer was soon hit and
burning from three 5.9-inch guns.
Winchelsea
thought it might get close
enough to get a few of its 21 inch torpedoes in the water, but that was not to
be. The destroyer was suddenly struck by a bigger round, and not from one of
the battleships.