Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Chapter 1

Tovey watched his new flag staff officer turn and hasten away with his message to the bridge. Yes, he thought, now you may run. The time is come. All the planning and maneuvering and deployment was finished now. The bow of HMS Invincible was pointed, the ship’s course set, her guns manned and ready with battle at hand.

The ship had cleared her throat in the Norwegian campaign, providing shore bombardment briefly, though she mainly ran with the carriers as their primary covering force against the possibility of German intervention at sea. Thus far only the Twins had dared to engage, but now the Germans were bringing out a pair of much stronger ships. Let us hope we live up to our name, he thought as he took a last look at the plotting map. Then he straightened his hat, adjusted the fit of his jacket and started for the bridge himself. He would walk, not run. His order to turn for battle had already proceeded him on the swift footfalls of Mister Wells. Now he would follow, a steely calm settling over his mind. It was the witching hour.

“Admiral on the Bridge!”

Captain Bennett was waiting in his chair in the armored conning tower, his eyes lost in the cups of his field glasses. HMS Invincible was a truly novel design, Britain’s heavyweight at just under 54,000 long tons full load, she was in fact the heaviest ship by displacement in the Royal Navy. With three triple turrets mounting 16 inch guns, she had tremendous firepower and an unusual turret arrangement that saw two mounted forward of the conning tower, and the third directly behind it, amidships. This meant her engineering sections and twin funnels were pushed aft in the latter third of the ship.

Her main armor began at A turret and stretched to C turret with all of 356mm or 14 inches of hardened steel. Behind this it thinned to 305mm and eventually tapered to 254mm in the stern. Yet this gave good cover to the engineering plant and vital propulsion systems. Even the boiler room and funnels were surrounded by an armored box. With armored decks between five and eight inches, the ship had a tough shell against air attack or plunging fire. And the business end of the ship saw turret face armor of 17.5 inches and 9 to 12 inches on the conning tower. Her anti-torpedo bulge could withstand a blast from a 340kg warhead. All in all she had better protection than any other British ship of her day, and the oblique 18 degree angle of that heavy armor made it even more effective in stopping plunging fire at longer ranges.

What Hood lacked, Invincible had in abundance, and to go with it she could hit harder, range farther, and even had better speed than Hood, a truly remarkable design considering it was conceived in the 1920s. There was only one other ship in the world at that moment with a more innovative design- Kirov, and only the secret mega ships being built by Japan and Germany, Yamato and Hindenburg were bigger.

To be standing in the armored bridge of a ship like this gave one a heady feeling. This is the best we have, thought Tovey. If I could have hastened the workout of the King George V class ships I would dearly love to have them at hand now, but this ship is the might and sinew of the Royal Navy. We are facing Germany’s newest designs as well, unproven, but fearsome on paper. Now we will put them to the test. I’m going to come in at just the right angle, with all guns blazing. We’ll outgun Bismarck if we find her, but Tirpitz has been reported as well, and that is a tall order indeed.

There had been no further word from Admiral Holland on Hood, and they were no doubt engaged at this very moment. Yet that ship was already hit by those damnable Stukas off Graf Zeppelin. Tovey nonetheless believed he could still outgun the Germans-if only he could get Invincible to the fight in time. The Twins were also vectoring in behind him, set to arrive like Blucher at Waterloo… He did not like the thought of casting himself in Napoleon’s shoes, but there it was.

He was rushing to the scene like Napoleon’s Old Guard to restore order, but those damnable Twins were on his heels, and he would have only a brief time of advantage when he came into range of the heavier Germans ships before those two battlecruisers were nipping at his flank with their 11 inch guns. Let’s see what C-turret has to say about it, he thought, turning to Captain Bennett.

“Captain, let us train C-turret on those two wolves bearing on our flank. Perhaps we can discourage them.”

“Aye sir, that we can. Mister Connors!”

“Sir!”

“You heard the Admiral. Give the Twins our calling card.”

“Very good sir.”

Half a minute later the roar of all three 16-inch guns on the amidships turret shook the ship with their anger as Invincible engaged the shadows lurking to the northwest. Forty seconds passed and then Tovey heard a jubilant shout, prompting him to raise an eyebrow as he turned to Captain Bennett.

“Am I to assume we’ve a hole in one, Captain?”

“Aye sir, right amidships on the number two ship. Straddled the bastards with the first salvo!”

Tovey knew that was a proverbial long shot, and a bit of very good luck, but the Twins had done the same when they crept up on HMS Glorious, and now Britain had evened the score when it came to long range gunnery. The hit was obtained at just over 24,000 yards.

“They’ve had enough of that, sir,” said Bennett. “Both ships are breaking to the north.”

“I shouldn’t count them out of the game just yet, Mister Bennett. They’ll undoubtedly slip over the horizon, but will still be running parallel to our track. Make sure the lookouts are sharp.”

“Let them peek into the shop window again, sir, and we’ll give them another black eye.”

They were running full out, and even the two destroyers in the van, Fortune and Firedrake, were laboring to keep up speed at a whisker under 32 knots. This ship is the pride of the fleet, thought Tovey. She is one of a kind, with no siblings, and there is nothing like her for raw power and speed in the entire fleet. Look how she just sent the Twins off with one good stiff jab. She’ll outgun the German Bismarck class battleships, and she can outrun them as well, and all with armor every bit as good as the protection the Germans gave their ships.

He passed a moment of regret, thinking he should have deployed the ship together with Admiral Holland on Hood, but there was simply too much sea room to cover. At least the two battlegroups were not too far apart. He’d get there in time, he knew. Last notice from Hood had her steering 280, coming towards his own ship now. They could already hear the distant boom of naval gunfire, rolling like the low rumble of thunder on the horizon. He expected that the mainmast watch would see the smoke of that battle any moment now, and the tall spires of Hood’s mast soon after. They had already seen planes on radar all throughout the battle zone as pilots from Ark Royal mixed it up with the Germans off Graf Zeppelin.

“Air alert!” The call came in with strident alarm, a bell ringing to underscore the urgency. “Formation low off the starboard aft quarter!”

Invincible had four 2-pounder gun mounts, each with ten barrels, the same pom-poms Hood had deployed against the Stukas, but this alert was for low flying planes, and her six 4.1-inch quick firing deck guns could also be brought to bear. Crews were already at action stations and, as Tovey went to look over his shoulder at the direction of the sighting, he could see the guns beginning to train on distant targets.

Not very sporting of Jerry to jump right in with an air strike again, he thought, but something about this one didn’t seem to fit. As far as he knew the Germans had not yet deployed a torpedo plane capable of operating from a carrier. The modified Stukas were their only strike asset, and they would certainly not come in this low. He went to the nearest viewport to have a look and was soon convinced these were British Swordfish. They had been ordered north to look for the German fleet, and here they were, but at this altitude he had the sickening feeling they might have mistaken Invincible for an enemy ship. He turned swiftly, with every second counting now.

“Belay that air alert and send up recognition flags and flares, gentlemen. Those are Swordfish off the Illustrious, if the mainmast would care to have a better look at them. Mister Wells, kindly go to the W/T room and see that those planes are vectored northeast on a heading of 040.”

“Right away, sir!”

Wells walked briskly off the bridge until he was out of the Admiral’s sight. Then, seeing he had a clear ladder down, he hastened away at a run. Tovey heard the man’s footfalls echo from the open hatch and smiled.

Lt — Cdr. Williamson was leading in 815 Squadron with two sub-flights of three Swordfish each, and his planes were lined up well on the target ahead. They were coming in on the aft quarter after descending from 4,000 feet to make their attack run. Lt. Scarlett was ready on the rear gun mount, and fussing about with his W/T headset.

“Signal the lads, Mister Scarlett. Target ahead. Sub-flight B to the right. We’ll swing round the other side.”

Scarlett was fated to win a Distinguished Service Cross later that year over the Italian Navy at Taranto, and Williamson would be admitted as a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, but instead they would get their medals early for the events that were now about to unfold. John Scarlett thought he heard something in his headset, tapping it again and thinking he had a dodgy wire. Then a voice came through and his eyes widened. At that same moment, Williamson saw two flares go up, an expedient measure that was seldom used by a warship in combat, as it would clearly mark its position. He counted them, one… two… three… blue! “What the hell? Hold on, Lieutenant. Belay that order! That’s Royal Navy up ahead!”

Scarlett looked over his shoulder, saw the flares, passed a fleeting moment thinking the Germans may have worked out their signal sequences, but he had heard a frantic voice in his earpiece, right in the clear. “Lookout ahead! HMS Invincible!” The message came in just as the planes were beginning to swerve off to make their attack approach. “They want us to fly on zero-four-zero, sir. It’s HMS Invincible up ahead!”

“Good of them to introduce themselves,” said Williamson. “Thought we had already passed the Fleet Flagship long ago! If this is Invincible, what was that ship we left in our wake, Johnny?”

“Might have been Sussex or Devonshire, sir. They’re both off to the southwest.”

“What about those other ships up ahead at ten-o-clock?” Williamson had spotted two more dark silhouettes on the horizon.

“The message says our target is on 040, sir.”

This was the first combat mission Illustrious had been handed, and just three days after she had finished initial trials on air wing operations. There seemed to be ships everywhere, and the men had not had enough time over the fleet to drill on ship recognition profiles, or anything else. He would have seen what was in front of him in time, as Invincible had a profile that was impossible to miss, but they had been coming in on the ship’s aft quarter, making identification more difficult. He took a long look at the contact at 10:00, thinking it had to be German ships, but orders were orders and so he steered 040.

Several sub-flights had already fluttered off to their attack headings, as per training, but Lieutenant Scarlett was quickly signaling them to reform. Sub-Lieutenants Sparke and Macaulay were quick to respond and maneuvered off either wing. Lieutenants Kemp, Swayne and Maund were already down at a thousand feet, but he saw them nose up to rejoin. The last two sub-flights in his squadron were well back and got the message before they broke to attack. A few minutes later Williamson had his eggs in the basket again and the Swordfish came up and then veered right to bypass Invincible, wings wagging in salutation. Thankfully not a single round came up for them, but it was a near run thing.

“Did Hale get the message?”

“Right, sir,” said Scarlett. “819 Squadron is coming up behind us and will follow our heading.”

High overhead a sub-flight of three Fulmars surged ahead. They were accompanied by six Skuas of 824 Squadron under Lieutenant Commander Charles Evans, off to sweep out in front in case the Germans were waiting with more Messerschmitts, though no sign was seen of enemy planes.

The whole formation veered right, roaring away toward the spot on the horizon where Invincible hastened to join the battle, and within seconds they saw the smoke and fire of battle. Zero-four-zero it is, thought Williamson. Now that we’ve sorted out our target heading, let’s hope the lads can remember how to make a decent attack. This time the Germans won’t be shooting off flares.