Crescendo Of Doom (15 page)

Brandenburg
was a mere hull, but now they are taking
Oldenburg
from me, he thought grimly. The last status report clearly designated its status as being 75% complete. We are only waiting for the gun turrets to arrive, but given this order I have a strong suspicion they will be a long time coming. We will never get the ship ready before January. I need at least nine months. The repairs to
Scharnhorst
, and now
Bismarck
and
Hindenburg
, have slowed everything down. Who was behind this? Doenitz? Goering? Halder?

Doenitz has always been a strong advocate of his U-Boat arm, and frankly, not without good reason. He can claim the lion’s share of enemy tonnage sunk thus far in the war, and for
Oldenburg
we could easily build twenty more good U-Boats. But he would never advocate such a thing behind my back, not without coming to me with it first and hearing me out. No. This was not the doing of Doenitz.

Goering? That fat spider has his hand in everything these days, including the oil production plans for the entire war effort. My fleet allocations have been leaner and leaner with this big Russian operation imminent, and that line concerning increased production for the Luftwaffe is suspicious.

But again, he thought, where did I get my hits in all these early fleet actions? It was
Graf Zeppelin
that really made the difference in the engagements we fought. Those
Stukas
off the carrier delivered more damage to the enemy than all my capital ships combined! So I must do everything possible to protect
Peter Strasser.
Adding another carrier to the fleet may be the strongest possible thing we could do. For that matter, we must put every resource possible now into the conversion of that captured French carrier, and any other Flugdeck Cruiser close to completion. This means I will lose all the other keels for the remaining O-Class battlecruisers, and there will be no more
Panzerschiff
raiders commissioned. The five new ocean going destroyers I have ready for trials will be the last of that brood…

Raeder was running down the list of ships in his mind like a mother hen counting her eggs. Halder, he thought. It had to be Halder. He has been opposed to my Mediterranean strategy all along, and now that his brainchild in Barbarossa is ready to launch, he wants to secure all the supplies, steel, and oil he can for the Wehrmacht. And why not? The real barb in Hitler’s order is the sad truth that all my ships have accomplished to date is the bombardment of the Faeroes Islands and that one big convoy we feasted on. Doenitz delivers that same tonnage every week! Since
Hindenburg
broke out, and even with Gibraltar in our hands now, our battleships have been little more than targets for those damnable new British naval rockets.

The squall that blew in with that thought added a deeper shade of grey to Raeder’s mood, and he realized that these new weapons were the overture to the death knell of his battlefleet. What has
Hindenburg
done in the Mediterranean? It sailed with the French, the most powerful fleet the world has ever seen, and could still do nothing more than catch fire when these rockets were used. That is the real story behind this order—missiles are rendering all our existing naval thinking obsolete. The day of the big battleship is over, though old stubborn sea dogs like me will not wish to admit that. As for the carriers, that is another matter. Marco Ritter and his pilots have proven themselves, but again, that makes the
Graf Zeppelin
the real pride of the fleet, not
Hindenburg
. The battleship has been sitting in Toulon getting new armor welded and repairing her superstructure. In the meantime, the British have tried to bomb the place three times.

I would give my right arm if I could get my hands on one of these new enemy rockets. Word is that they now have two ships in the Med armed with these weapons, and together they were responsible for stopping Goering’s planes, and putting all that damage on the battlefleet. Then, when their work is done, along comes Admiral Tovey in HMS
Invincible
to pick up the table scraps. Look what they did to the Italian fleet! They have pulled most of their battleships back to La Spezia, and getting them out to sea again will be like pulling teeth. As for the French, the
Normandie
is a wonderful ship, but it has done nothing this year but shuttle from Casablanca to Toulon to Taranto. The British took a beating the first time they tangled with the French, but my ships have not been so fortunate.

He shook his head, clearly disturbed, and realized that he was now as useless as the
Hindenburg
had been. What have I done to prosecute this war, he thought? Here I have let this business in the Mediterranean run away with my best capital ships. I have divided my fleet, when I might have achieved a decisive engagement here in the north, particularly with Tovey away from Home Fleet. The war in the Med looked to be most promising. Then Rommel takes a pounding, and now the stalemate in Syria will make it impossible for us to achieve our aims before Hitler attacks the Soviets.

So what to do?

The British had detached two more battleships to reinforce their fleet at Alexandria. They were taken from Force H and sent round the cape with that big convoy of new supplies and material. Rommel is finally ready to move again, but he may find the British have more waiting for him than he believes. And what about this new British tank everyone has been talking about… yes! That is the real reason behind this order… ‘
Steel recovered from the shipyard cancellations is to be redirected to the Reichsminister for employment in construction of our new heavy tank programs…’

It seems the British have more tricks up their sleeve than these new naval rockets. While we were busy building these ponderous new battleships, they were working on tanks and rockets, and they have trumped my ace, damn them all. Rockets, advanced radars, a tank that is now impervious to our best AT guns… And now the Führer wants me to scrap the
Oldenburg
, collect all the steel, and send it to Goebbels and Todt for new heavy tank production. This was inevitable. I knew it from the first moment I laid out Plan Z for Hitler all those years ago. Back then he wanted the biggest ships in the world, and I had to plead with him to allow me to use 16-inch guns instead of the 18 or 20-inch guns he was demanding. Now look what has happened. The enemy has a weapon that can smash my battleships and set off raging fires on them from well over the horizon. Lütjens and Lindemann tell me they never even set eyes on the ship that inflicted all this damage.

So now the war comes down to tanks and rockets, but that has not been set in stone yet. I might still accomplish something if I set my mind to it, and stop bemoaning a fate that I could see coming long ago. What to do, Raeder, he asked himself? First off, collect your fleet. It is not big enough to rule the Mediterranean while also planning operations here in the North Atlantic. There is only one thing that matters to the Führer, victories. Unless I deliver one, and a victory that really makes a difference, then the navy is good for little more than coastal defense.

He shrugged, realizing the futility of all he had been working towards these many long years. Time to get
Hindenburg
and
Bismarck
home, he thought. I will order them to Gibraltar tonight, and then we will see about a little sleight of hand up north so they can break out into the Atlantic. These new rocket ships are at Alexandria. They will not be able to intervene without first sailing all the way around the Cape of Good Hope. That will take them three weeks, or even a month, considering they must stop along the way to refuel. Yet, at this moment,
Hindenburg
is a mere 36 hours from Gibraltar at 20 knots. If I plan this carefully, the British will not be able to react. Their Force H has been operating from the Ascension and Canary Islands.

He looked for a map now, mentally plotting out ship’s courses and headings in his mind. Somerville had most of his force at the Grand Canary harbor when those other battleships moved south with that convoy some weeks ago. From our latest reports, his capital ships still remain there, a single aircraft carrier and a few cruisers! He’s been mounting cruiser patrols north to cover the approaches to Gibraltar, but as we have nothing of consequence there, he has had no reason to sortie with anything else.

He took up a pair of calipers and walked them across the map.
Hindenburg
is 36 hours from Gibraltar, at 20 knots. Force H is 26 hours to the south at that same speed. That would give Somerville ten hours to react if I move to Gibraltar now. But at 25 knots I can trim a good bit off that. Yes, at 25 knots I can have
Hindenburg
to the straits in just 29 hours, and if I order all ahead full, and make a mad dash at 30 knots, I can get them to Gibraltar in just 24 hours, too fast for Somerville to react! Even if he got up steam and set out immediately, he would still be 2 hours late. Yes… It could be done.
Hindenburg
can run for the Atlantic this very moment. With any luck the British will be some hours, or even a day realizing what I am doing. By that time it will be too late.

He smiled, feeling like a fresh breeze of good ocean air had cleared the trouble from his mind. We built this fleet to fight in the Atlantic. We built it to be strong enough to bull our way past the Royal Navy and then find and sink those nice fat convoys. Sending
Hindenburg
to the Mediterranean was a good operation, but the enemy has reacted well enough. With the combined might of the Italian, French and German ships, we should have crushed the Royal Navy, but they were able to engage our flotillas piecemeal, beating the Italians before we could get east to coordinate operations with them. In the meantime, the British have had nice quiet days in the North Atlantic. Doenitz has been carrying the fight to the convoys, and now we see the results of my lassitude in these new orders from the Führer. I must correct that, and soon, or I can see the death of the entire surface fleet in the years ahead. The old maxim is true—use it or lose it. The Führer’s words still burned in his mind, …
our capital ships have made no significant contribution to the war effort….
Well, all that is about to change!

Now it is time to steal a march on the enemy, and get my big ships into the Atlantic where I at least have a chance to win some victories. Only then can I have any chance of saving what remains in the shipyards. Yes, I need a victory, and a substantial one.

He smiled, feeling like a naval commander again, and not a logistician calculating oil tonnage deliveries and steel allocations. Doenitz has been fighting his war all along, while I have been sitting on my thumbs, ignoring the convoys. He turned, his resolve mustering, and called for a staffer.

“Send Enigma encoded orders to Admiral Lütjens at Toulon.”

* * *

Lütjens
was in his stateroom when those orders came. There was a soft knock on the door, and Kapitan Karl Adler came in, removing his cap and saluting.

“New orders sir. We are to get up steam for immediate departure.”

Lütjens gave him a surprised look. “What’s this? Immediate departure? The work crews are still welding those new deck plates. What is happening, Adler? Are the British up to something?”

“No sir, from all reports their fleet is still off Alexandria.”

“Ah,” said Lütjens, with the tone of realization in his voice. “It’s Rommel again, yes? He’s finally got his tanks and fuel oil and now he wants to move east again. I was expecting this. Usually it is the Royal Navy bombarding the coast road along that desert, but now they have work for our 16 inch guns. Yes?”

“I’m afraid not sir. We’ve been ordered back to Gibraltar.”

“Gibraltar? Whatever for?”

At this point Adler thought it best to simply step over and hand off the decrypt he was holding. He watched as Lütjens scanned it, the lines of his brow deepening as he did so.

“Your entire force is ordered to Gibraltar at the best possible speed… What do you make of this, Adler?”

“Something for us in the Atlantic?”

“Most likely. These orders come directly from Admiral Raeder, and reading between the lines, I see more here than may appear at first glance. We are to make our best speed? That can only mean that he is trying to get us out into the Atlantic before Somerville can do anything about it. Very well, I will take it on faith that the Grand Admiral has some earnest business in mind. How soon before we can get up steam for operations?”

“I had us on four hour steam, sir. But I think I can speed that along. Let me get down to the boiler room and see what Schultz can do about it. Shall I signal the other ships in the task force?”

“Of course. I assume
Bismarck
is also on four hour steam?”

“Repairs are well in hand there, sir. And the new crews arrived some weeks ago. The ship will be ready.”

“Very well. Then get all the geese lined up and ready to fly, Kapitan.
Bismarck, Kaiser, Goeben,
we pull anchors and head east in four hours, midnight. What is the moon doing?”

“An evening crescent will be an hour above the horizon at midnight, but the weather calls for low clouds. We should be able to slip away unnoticed.”

“Just the same, the British may have eyes in this port, and our departure may be reported. In that case, I want you to leak an order that we will be moving east to support this business Rommel is stirring up again. The British will likely come to that same conclusion anyway. It could buy us just a little more time. We’ll make our course due south at the outset. Get a signal off to Malta. Tell them they are to clear a berthing in the Grand Harbor there. If the British think we are dusting off a chair there for
Hindenburg
, all the better.”

“What do you make of these orders, sir?”

“What else, Adler? The convoys! That is why this ship was built, was it not? Something tells me Admiral Raeder has had a revelation. The British have just reinforced their fleet at Alexandria with two more battleships. I hate to slip away without paying the tab here, but I think Raeder has seen a good opportunity for us to do some hunting.”