Altered States

Chapter 9

Aboard HMS Glorious Lieutenant Commander Wells heard the first rounds strike the ship and felt their jarring impact. He was up the ladder to the deck above, and soon shocked to see nothing but smoke and fire. If he had spoken his mind earlier, voicing his concerns about the lack of air cover, and the shamefully absent watch on the mainmast, he had little doubt that he would be right there on the deck where he could now see the bodies of the Captain and almost every senior officer, struck dead by that fated salvo the German ship had fired at extreme long range.

That hit was supposed to have struck only the forward deck in one recording of this history, yet this time it was more than the hesitation and restraint of Wells that was amiss. Something more had happened that no man then alive could see or know. It had served to guide that salvo unerringly to its target with even better accuracy. Instead of one 11-inch shell through the foredeck, two of the six rounds fired found their mark, and the second struck here, where Wells should have been himself, lying dead, but for his inner tussle that saw him delay his trip to the W/T signals room just long enough to matter.

That and the confusion over what signal wavelength to use had kept him there, safe from harm, for just long enough. Now he was back, seeing the bridge crew dead or stunned senseless, and Executive Officer Lovell there among them, alive but wounded on the deck. He ran to his side, only to hear his rasping voice telling him to take command.

“The ship is yours, Mister Wells. God save us…” He slumped unconscious, and Wells stood up, eyes wide, his face ashen white. There was no time for hesitation now. He had to act, and that quickly, or the ship would surely be lost. They were still steering 180, due south, and he knew their only chance in hell was to turn and put the wind at their backs, along with those pursuing German ships.

“Helm! Come to one-two-zero and all ahead flank!”

No one answered and he ran to the wheel himself, seeing the helmsman down and bleeding on the deck. One-two-zero it is, he said to himself, wrenching the wheel over and hoping their speed would hold up now.

The turn would take him right into the thick smoke screen that had been laid by destroyer Acasta, still in dutiful attendance out in front of the carrier. Brave Ardent had charged in alone, guns and torpedoes firing, making smoke and doggedly doing everything possible to buy the carrier the time it needed to get up those last six boilers and make speed for a getaway run.

One look at the forward deck told Wells that there was no chance to launch any planes. Yet the crews had managed to bring up two of the Swordfish there, albeit with ASW bombs mounted on one instead of torpedoes. That was all they would be able to spot, for he could see by the smoke from the hole in the flight deck that there was obviously a fire below in the hanger.

Yet hole in the deck or not, Lt. Commander Charles Stevens was not about to wait. He had his co-pilot Basil Wise get up several men from the RAF ground crews and put them to man-handling a single Swordfish around the damaged section of the deck and pointed aft! He was going to try and take off using the long, undamaged section of the deck behind him, and with little more than hope and the plucky nature of the aircraft itself for any chance at getting aloft.

The engine sputtered to life as Wells watched, spellbound. He saw Stevens leap aboard the plane, quickly settling into his harness and giving a thumbs up. Then he set the engine roaring and the plane began to move, lumbering down the deck, the wheels scudding over debris as it went. Every man on deck cheered him on and, by god, he pulled back on the yoke and got the nose of the plane up just as he ran out of runway. It howled in protest, very near a stall, but managed to pull through and get aloft.

Three things had now happened to set history off on a decidedly different course. A moment of doubt and restraint that saved the life of Christopher Hayward Wells, who then set the ship’s course on the only one that offered any hope of escape for the ill fated Glorious. Then came the narrowing of fate’s focus on that third salvo from Scharnhorst, bettering it to smash the bridge and place the ship into his able hands. The third was Lt. Commander Charles Stevens’ pluck and courage in getting his plane aloft, which was soon spotted by the watchmen aboard Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and became an omen that changed their thinking about the battle at hand.

The Twins were still steering 170 when Glorious turned from within the heavily effective smoke screen that Acasta had laid for her. Hoffmann picked up the course change to 120, and he thought both German ships should have turned on that same heading in pursuit. As it now happened, they continued to run almost due south, and with her boilers now running full out, Glorious began to get up speed. If the Germans had turned with her the two sleek panthers had both the speed and the range to take down the gazelle, but they did not turn, and each passing minute opened the range until it was again beyond 26,000 meters.

All the while brave Ardent was still fitfully firing torpedoes at the oncoming German ships until Scharnhorst riddled the destroyer with numerous hits from its secondary batteries. Yet the hand of fate moved with the second hand of the clock that day, with each second slowly wedging a lever in time and setting events of the war off another course, even as Glorious had come about in that fitful moment of smoke and fire on the bridge. Wells saw the Swordfish wheel about and gain altitude, coming round to make an attack run at the German ships. There was a chance, a fleeting chance now, that the ship might be saved, and Wells yelled to the signalman to get off yet another frantic message in the hope someone would hear and come to their aid.

* * *

That message was received by Senior Telegraphist T. Jenkins, who was in charge of the W/T Remote control office aboard HMS Devonshire, a cruiser steaming little more than 40 miles to the west northwest of Glorious at that very moment. He did not know it then, but the two German ships were even closer, no more than 24 miles away between Devonshire and the carrier. The flagship of Vice Admiral J. Cunningham, Devonshire was on a very guarded mission that day, transporting King Haakon and the Norwegian Royal Family, cabinet ministers, a trove of documents, and a considerable store of gold bullion as well.

When the sighting report was handed to Jenkins it looked like a long string of unintelligible characters:

VE MTA V OW2 O-U 2BC 308 15 030 154GQOX 11 BT 1615 IMI.

To Jenkin’s trained eye, however, the message was plain as the fair day around them. It read: “To Scapa W/T from Glorious — Most Immediate — Two Battle Cruisers, Bearing 308° — 15 miles, course 030.” The bearing to reference grid point GQOX followed that with the final request to repeat the message if received. It was sent up to the bridge in the raw where it soon caused quite a stir.

Vice Admiral Cunningham, turned quietly to a warrant officer and asked that the location of the sighting be plotted, and minutes later a young Midshipman named Corkhill showed the plot to the senior officers. The Admiral’s eyes darkened as he studied it, a squall of trouble there. It was very close, so very close that the probable position of the German ships was just over the horizon.

Cunningham ran his hand over his chin, thinking deeply. Thirty points to port and he might be on the scene within minutes, but what would he do when he got there? He had good speed, but the notation of two battlecruisers was most troubling. Which battlecruisers, certainly not Lutzow and the Admiral Scheer? He was privy to knowledge of their position and knew the Admiral Scheer was in for refit and now being reclassified as a heavy cruiser. Lutzow had her stern nearly blown off by the Royal Navy Submarine HMS Spearfish and was laid up for at least a full year. Neither ship could be anywhere near the action, though it could be a sighting of the Admiral Hipper, known to be operating in these waters, but the report designated two ships.

Two battlecruisers…He knew what this meant, and also knew of the warnings made by a staffer at Bletchley Park regarding the possibility of German heavy units moving to interdict this very operation. It had not been confirmed but here it was…two battlecruisers. This could only be the Twins, and that would mean Devonshire would be facing eighteen 11-inch guns to her eight 8-inchers if he turned the ship now.

“Anything further? Nothing from Ardent or Acasta?”

“No sir, just this one message.”

Sighing heavily, the Admiral knew his current charge was vital and that he had to see it safely home. “Mister Hughes,” he said to a staff Flag Lieutenant. “Kindly go to the W/T room and collect all copies of this message and the operator’s logbook, if you please. I want to have a closer look at them.”

“Very good, sir.” Hughes saluted and was off as directed. Then Cunningham gave the order for engines all ahead full, with the ship’s main guns to stand ready, but no change of course followed. The eyes of the bridge crew were on him, yet none dared to meet his gaze directly. He knew what they were waiting for, but there were charges laid on him now that were as heavy as the gold in the lower holds of the ship.

The message was unintelligible, he said to himself, knowing otherwise. Yet that would have to be the official report. Would it be heard by any other ship in the region? Ark Royal was behind him to the north with a good air wing and an escort of cruisers and destroyers. With 8000 men at arms in the convoy she was covering, there would be no way the carrier could intervene. Her charge was heavy as well.

“Sir,” came a report from another watchstander. “Top lookout reports two mast heads to the east.”

“Very well,” said Cunningham. “Go Below, Mister Owens, and see to the condition of the boilers. Tell them we’ll have need of all the speed we can make shortly.”

“Shall I send that over the voice pipes, sir?”

“No, Mister Owens, see to it personally. That will be all.”

The man gave him an surprised look, then saluted and went below as ordered, thinking the ship would soon be hot in the chase and riding to the rescue. Two battlecruisers were more than the Admiral could risk now, though he hated what he had to do just then, knowing the speed he was counting on would take his ship away from the fight that must now surely be underway with Glorious and her light escort of only two destroyers. He wondered if his decision might sign the death certificates of hundreds of men that day.

* * *

Aboard Scharnhorst, Kapitan Hoffmann received a message from Gneisenau with another smile. It read simply: ‘Congratulations for having sunk the destroyer north.’ The dogged British destroyer Ardent was now listing over and slipping beneath the sea. But where was the carrier? It was still lost in the thick smoke and well ahead. We should turn on 130 he thought, but with those boilers acting up below I won’t get any closer than I am now unless we hit this carrier again. The main guns of both ships had been silent for some time, unable to sight their target in the thick smoke.

Then he received the report of enemy aircraft aloft and on a bearing to attack, and that was the news that changed his mind. One destroyer was down, but it fired six or seven salvos of torpedoes and I had to dance like a clown to avoid them. Now here comes the second destroyer, and the carrier is launching torpedo planes as well. This is no longer a good situation.

“Signal Admiral Marschall,” he said quietly. “Advise him we are having boiler problems and cannot stay in the chase.”

“Very good, sir.”

There was nothing wrong with the engines on Gneisenau. What would the Admiral do? The Kapitan was aware that he had orders to avoid action with British surface units and seek only unescorted transports and supply ships. Yet this qualified as a good potential target. Thus far there had been no cost for this engagement. A single British destroyer had put a scratch on his ship with a 4.7 inch gun, but paid with its life. A single Swordfish came at them like a mad hornet and put its torpedo in the water before being chopped to pieces by the ship’s anti-aircraft guns.

When the word came back to steer for Trondheim he found himself in agreement. There was no longer any point in risking the ships in action against a British operation that had already failed. So Hoffman ordered the ship to fly its flag at half mast, knowing he could not stop to rescue any of the men he put in the sea off that British destroyer. Brave men, he thought. We’ll lower our flag and tip our hats to them this time around. Because the next time it may be my men in the water. This war is only beginning.

* * *

HMS Glorious slipped away that day, speeding southeast and then eventually south to escape her fate. Almost 1500 other men were spared a watery death that day as well, and they would be much needed in the months and years ahead. One of those men was Lieutenant Commander Wells, still on the bridge of the embattled carrier and lucky to be alive. He would bring the ship from the edge of almost certain destruction and sail her home, gaining considerable laurels for his action in the heat of combat.

Lieutenant Woodfield found him some time after at Scapa Flow when the ship was safely at anchor. “See here, Wells,” he said extending a hand to his friend. “Look what I’ve got!” He handed Wells the morning paper, beaming. “You’ve been mentioned in dispatches, my man!”

“What? Me?”

“Right there, mate…” Woodfield pointed, reading. “Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hayward Wells, R.N. has been mentioned in dispatches for seamanship, bravery and good leadership and his name appears on the Honors List for June. It’s all right there, Welly. Your gallant and selfless effort in the face of enemy fire to assume command of the embattled HMS Glorious and steer her safely home under the most arduous circumstances. And there she sits.” He pointed to the carrier where it rode at anchor, safely home in Scapa Flow. “Good show, Wells. Bit of a broken nose, she’s got, eh? But otherwise all in one piece.”

“Lucky to have only that,” said Wells, his eyes glued to the newspaper, a smile on his lips.

“You were right after all, Welly,” said Woodfield. “The Germans did have more out there than a few U-boats.”

“It’s not the first we’ve seen of their surface fleet,” Wells warned him, “and by god, it will not be the last either. Those were just a pair of battlecruisers. Word is they’ve got Bismarck and Tirpitz ready now-real battleships.”

“RAF has been hot to get a look at them.”

“That they have. The Twins were bad enough out there, Woody. Put Bismarck and Tirpitz together and then we’ve a real nightmare on our hands.”

“You may be right, Wells. Say, have you heard about Cunningham?”

“What of him?”

“He’s to be mentioned in dispatches and then sent off to Africa.”

“Africa?”

“Well more likely Gibraltar first. Things are not exactly going our way on the continent, my friend. The Germans have given us the boot! We’re pulling the last of everything we have out and using ports from Cherbourg to Bayonne. That will mean the Germans will get them all in due course.”

“My god, the Germans with all those French ports?”

“That’s about the size of it. We’re finished in France, Wells. We won’t get back there for a good long while.”

Wells shrugged, disheartened with the news. “Kicked out of Norway and France in less than a year. It’s damned embarrassing.”

“Certainly,” said Woodfield. “But we’re still masters of the sea. This Bismarck and Tirpitz haven’t pushed their bows into deep water yet like we have, and winter will make a skating rink of the Baltic soon. I think things should quiet down for a while.”

Wells looked at the gaping hole in the flight deck of HMS Glorious, a bad feeling coming over him as he stared at it. Something about the moment haunted him for years after. It was as if he did not belong there, Woodfield too, and not even the ship.

“We damn near lost her, Woody,” he said at last.

Woodfield was going to say something more, but the look on his friend’s face was enough to quiet him.

Now that France and Norway were secured, the Germans could get on with plans for even more ambitious operations in the deep water Woodfield had spoken of, thought Wells. We very nearly went into it today…And I tell you what I think, the Germans won’t be content to spar with us in the Norwegian Sea for very much longer. They have their minds set on the Atlantic, and something tells me I’m going to be in the thick of it-right up to my hatband in no time at all.