Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Chapter 2

Aboard Bismarck, Captain Lindemann knew he was not firing flares. The 15-inch guns had opened the action at a little over18,000 meters, with both his own forward turrets firing along with Anton turret on Tirpitz behind him, the first spotting salvos to see if they had the range. True to form, the shots were very close, good enough to begin firing for effect with only minor adjustments.

“Port ten and steady on,” he ordered, swinging around a bit to allow his aft turrets to begin training on the targets. “Looks like our Stukas had the first dance,” he smiled. “That second ship is already burning. What do you make of it, Mister Oels?”

Fregattenkapitan Hans Oels was the Executive Officer aboard Bismarck, making ready to go below decks when Lindemann turned to him. Tall and straight, he was a man of few words, but a strict disciplinarian and not one to cross in the line of duty. Oels stepped up and took the field glasses Lindemann handed him.

“Hood,” he said calmly. “And trouble with one of their forward turrets from the look of it.”

“There’s another battlecruiser leading her,” said Lindemann.

“It would have to be Repulse. Werner says Graf Zeppelin drove off Renown and its back in Scapa Flow by now.”

“There’s no way it could be out here then. Excellent! Two battlecruisers. Good guns but they haven’t the armor to stand with us in a fight like this. Today we prove what the Kriegsmarine can do, Oels. It looks like Schneider already has the range.” He was referring to Korvettenkapitan Adalbert Schneider, the ship’s First Artillery Officer.

“Good shooting, sir,” said Oels. “I had better get down to the Damage Control Center.” Oels action station was the central damage control command post, deep in the bowels of the ship. If anything happened on the bridge he could have an overall view of the situation by reading the lights winking on the damage control panel, and he could command the ship from there if necessary. It was, in effect, Bismarck’s equivalent of a reserve bridge.

“Don’t worry, Oels, I won’t keep you busy. Hood is already burning!”

The roar of Bismarck’s second salvo punctuated his remark, rattling the bridge with its power. Oels was not there to see the results a short minute later when Lindemann saw the tall water splashes straddle the target. “A hit!” he said jubilantly. “Right on the conning tower! That will give them a headache or two, and let them know just who they are dealing with.”

Now we get our chance, he thought. I have the two finest ships available in the German navy. When Hindenburg is ready we will be even stronger, but at this moment we are more than a match for Hood and Repulse. The Invincible is another matter. If that ship is close by, as I believe it is, then the odds will be even. So we must reap every advantage while we can just now. Schneider has the range. Let us sink these ships before the British can do anything about it!

“Watch reports aircraft bearing two-one-zero, Kapitan.” It was Korvettenkapitan Kurt Werner, the ship’s Intelligence Officer, who had just come up from the signals deck. “Low altitude, sir. Most likely Swordfish.”

“Then they must have another carrier nearby,” said Lindemann. “Signal the fleet to repel air attack. It would be nice if Graf Zeppelin had left a few fighters over us.”

The Kapitan would get his wish, for Marco Ritter had lingered after the Stuka attack and still had two wing mates with him of the seven fighters that had broken up much of the strike wing off Ark Royal. There they had tried their hand against the veteran British pilots, but now the wing from Illustrious was tasting combat for the first time. Lindemann saw what looked like a flight of falcons drop out of a cloud bank and come swooping in on the low flying Swordfish, their wings lit up with machine gun fire. Trails of thin smoke bled from the tails of two British planes, then he saw that a Squadron of enemy fighters came on the scene from above and the German planes were soon in a swirling dogfight.

The flak guns were firing now, filling the sky with dark grey puffs of smoke as their rounds exploded, but the Swordfish were so lumbering in their approach that it actually threw off the sighting mechanisms on the German guns, which had been calibrated to oppose more modern aircraft flying much faster. He saw six, then twelve planes coming right in at the center of his battle line, and on their right another ragged line of planes appeared, slightly behind, all flying low on the deck as they began their attack run.

Bismarck was heavily provisioned with anti-aircraft defenses. The ship had sixteen 4.1-inch guns arrayed in eight twin turrets, another sixteen 3.7-inch guns, and twelve more 20mm flak guns, which were perhaps the most effective guns against the Swordfish. The 3.7s were only semi-automatic, with a fairly slow rate of fire. If they hit a plane it would probably knock it down, but those hits were few and far between. By contrast, the 20mm guns could rattle out a good stream of lead, the tracers clearly marking the firing path to allow the gunners to get a better aim. With Tirpitz in her wake, all this fire was doubled, and Prince Eugen had also opened up with everything she had. Many of Bismarck’s bigger 5.9-inch secondary batteries joined the fray, and the sound of all these weapons firing at once was deafening, a crescendo of doom punctuated by the enormous roar of the main turrets as they fired their third salvo.

The German gunners had some success, particularly against Lieutenant Commander Hale’s 819 Squadron where Lt. Lee and Sub-Lt. Jones went down after luck favored the Germans and they took a direct hit from a 3.7-inch round. Diving into their attack, Lieutenants Wellham and Humphreys were found by the 20mm guns off Bismarck, which set them afire and caused severe aileron damage. Wellham struggled with the yoke, the aircraft out of control for a time, but he managed to kick his tail around and straighten out.

“Let’s get that fish in the sea!” he yelled to his mate, and they dropped the torpedo at about 900 yards aimed right at the Bismarck, but it was clearly too late and bound to miss, running into the ship’s wake. Wellham kicked himself for aiming directly at the ship and not leading it properly, but in the heat of the moment, struggling for control on the yoke and stick, it was the best they could do. As he banked away, his plane received further wing damage from AA fire and it was only good fortune that allowed him to get his heavily damaged Swordfish back to Illustrious in one piece.

The Squadron Leader, Hale, could see several of his pilots had fired much too soon, doing exactly what Wellham had done and taking aim at the broad side of the big leading German ship. They would have to be in at 500 yards to have any chance of a hit, he thought, the bloody idiots. So he pressed on through the flak, determined to get his torpedo in the water at the last possible moment and get that second ship in the line. Lieutenants Hamilton, Skelton and Clifford followed him in, but Morford and Sub-Lt. Green in plane L5Q developed engine trouble and had to abort, dropping their torpedo to gain altitude and limp off to the south.

It was Hale’s group of four planes and an equal number of intrepid pilots from 815 Squadron on their left that got the right idea and bored in to take aim at the gap between the two big German battleships. The flak gunners got two of eight planes in this sector, but the remaining six all got their torpedoes away and they were well aimed, right ahead of Tirpitz, which was running on at high speed.

Lindemann looked to see Tirpitz make a hard emergency turn to port, her bow frothing up the sea, the blood red water awash and gleaming on her forecastle. The ship turned smartly, but her forward momentum was too great to allow it to get inside the line of enemy fire.

Topp’s only chance now was to see if he could run with the torpedoes, thought Lindemann. Tirpitz was surging along their same bearing to present a slimmer target. In doing so he was dangerously exposing his turbines and rudder to the line of fire, but in this case he was lucky enough to avoid damage there. It was the great beam of the ship, 118 feet wide, that ended up being his downfall. Tirpitz was right between the wakes of two torpedoes after making the turn, and the gutter between them was too narrow for the mighty ship to avoid the deadly lances. Both torpedoes hit, one on either side of the ship, but Lindemann saw only one tall water splash on the starboard side indicating a successful detonation. The second torpedo had failed to ignite on contact, scudding off the side of the ship and angling away off to the left.

Lieutenant Commander Hale got credit for the hit, just below B turret but in a place that saw Tirpitz well protected by the anti-torpedo bulge and good armor. The second torpedo from Williamson’s 815 Squadron struck well aft, on the port side in a much more vulnerable spot, but had no teeth. Hale’s planes veered right, taking murderous fire from Bismarck in reprisal that saw Skelton and Clifford’s planes shot to pieces. The other two planes, including Hale would make it back to Illustrious alive. Williamson’s Squadron banked left over the broad frothing wake of Tirpitz and had only the lighter flak fire from Prinz Eugen to deal with. They would all make it home alive.

The gallant attack had begun with 24 planes. Marco Ritter got two before he was embroiled in a fight with the British fighter cover, the flak gunners got four more, and only nine of the eighteen remaining got torpedoes in the water that had any chance to score a hit. Yet it was enough to send Tirpitz wheeling off the battle line, where Lindemann knew damage control parties were now rushing to inspect the starboard hull.

“Signal Tirpitz and see if they have any real damage from that torpedo hit.”

Lindemann had the heat of battle on him now. The fourth salvo from Bismarck boomed out again as the flak gun fire subsided, and the Kapitan swerved back to the real battle at hand. He could see that Hood was damaged in three places, her B turret, conning tower, and a bad hit amidships after the Stukas came in. Thus far his own ship had not been struck by enemy fire, though two big geysers had wet his bow with a rain of glittering seawater. The sense of power under his feet was overwhelming as the Bismarck forged ahead, her turrets blasting away at the enemy, engines running smoothly.

Smoke shrouded the scene, but Kurt Werner was back with a signal from Prince Eugen. “Another ship sighted,” he said, “coming in on the same bearing those planes hit us from-two-two-zero.”

Lindemann peered through his field glasses, unable to see anything in the dim light, with smoke from his own guns rolling out of the side of the ship as Bismarck fired again. We should have launched a seaplane, he thought. I am relying too much on Bohmer and his planes aboard Graf Zeppelin.

“And what about Tirpitz?”

“They report minor damage on the starboard side torpedo bulge. Nothing serious. The second torpedo failed to detonate.”

“Then they got lucky. Good, we can always use a good throw of the dice, because now it comes down to armor and guns, Werner.”

“ Tirpitz is coming around again to match our heading, but we are between their ship and the enemy now. Shall we have them fall back into line with us?”

“No. Leave them where they are. It will force the British to split their fire at two different ranges, while all our gunfire can focus on one point.”

He raised his field glasses again, and some thirty seconds later he saw another bright flash and explosion down his line of fire. The plot was thickening with the arrival of another British ship, but Hood had been hit again.

He looked at his watch. It would probably be another half hour before he could expect more air support from Graf Zeppelin. How many more planes were out there on those British carriers? Where were the rest of the German fighters? Don’t worry about the planes, he chided himself. You’re a gunnery officer, the best in all Germany. You’ve taught most every lead Artilleryman of any note. See to the guns, that’s what will do the job here. See to the guns.

The Nordic poetry he so often read was running through his mind now. It was Ragnarok, the clash of the gods in a mighty battle to decide their fate. Here we decide the fate of nations at sea, he thought. If we can defeat the Royal Navy here, then anything is possible in this war. The echo of the guns pounded out the tempo of the battle, and the words of the Poetic Edda ran through his mind like the hot pulse of blood at his temples.

“Axe-time, sword-time, shields are sundered,

Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls;

Nor ever shall men each other spare.”