Kirov

Chapter 22

Karpov stood on the bridge, stiffly alert, yet with a taut, almost strained manner, like a watch spring that had been wound too tight. He had thought about the situation long enough. If he was ever to get to the place he saw himself going in his mind, the first step was necessary, compulsory. It was not a question of morals for him—it never was. Nor did he bother with useless speculation as Fedorov might, wondering where each round of his air defense Gatling guns was going, and which man’s heart it might rend open, spilling his life’s blood out as if it were no more than sludge in a gutter.

These considerations did not figure in the intricate workings of his mind at that moment. He was Captain of a ship of war now, and he looked at the situation from the perspective of simple tactics and strategy. He knew where the enemy was, and what his forces were composed of. Yet the enemy knew nothing of him. He could see the stumbling advance of his foe on Rodenko’s radar screens, illuminated by the clock-like sweep of the scan, round and round, pulsing out the position, course and speed of the British ships. He watched their steady approach on one side, where the British Home Fleet hastened to block his exit from the Denmark Strait, and on the other side where the chastened but dogged carrier group still followed him into that icy passage, intent on marking his shadow and blocking any possible return by the route he came. It was as if two men met in a crowded street, and one had to give way to the other to allow either to pass. Who would give way first?

The enemy was executing a well practiced drill as they smoothly vectored in the assets of the Royal Navy to find and destroy his ship. They had cut their teeth early on in 1940 when they hunted down the Graff Spee, and then learned from the mistakes made in chasing the Admiral Sheer. They had limited the effectiveness of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, eventually bottling them up in a French port to suffer the ignominy of nightly bombing raids. Then, by the time the Germans sent out their most formidable gladiator, the Bismarck, the Royal Navy had honed its skills to a fine art, like the well oiled mechanisms of a machine.

Kirov, however, was something altogether different. Yes, his ship was a mechanical wonder as well; a metal shark, sleek, fast and dangerous. The enemy had not even taken the measure of his ship, but they would soon learn more than they might ever hope to know. And just as the British set their ships out in hot pursuit, war machines that would not hesitate for one moment to fling their bombs, shells and torpedoes at him, so he, too, would be equally heartless. It was not merely a simple ship of war he commanded now, but time and fate itself, and Karpov was at the helm of both as he contemplated the action that was about to ensue at his command.

There was an odd reciprocity about war, he thought. One side goes tick, and the other goes tock. One drumbeat followed the next, in an inevitable cascade of escalation that ended in violence of the highest order, controlled rage, unrestrained anger made kinetic in the application of finely honed weapons of war. What was it Doctor Zolkin had said about it? The missiles were mindless, and gave not the slightest thought or feeling as they did their job. They were simple mechanisms, action and reaction, cause and effect. But war was the greater mechanism they all served, and man was the watchmaker of that clock. Why else were they all here aboard Kirov; why else were the British out there in their cold gray ships, their bows chopping into the sea as they surged forward in the chase?

Kirov had appeared, and within hours she was an object of military interest, perceived immediately as nothing more than a threat. The ship had spoken first with its voice, in Mister Nikolin’s plaintive calls for the other side to identify themselves, but the enemy had different ideas. So one thing led to another, tick-tock, tit for tat, action-reaction, cause and effect. This was the synapse and rhythm of war, and it seldom came to anything different.

The first blows of the enemy had been successfully parried, but the battle had only just begun. Now they were marshalling the forces they deemed necessary to find his ship and kill it, like ruthless whalers out to harpoon some ghostly leviathan. They were cutting off his escape routes, closing in with each passing sweep of the radar scope; with each passing tick of the clock. And in Karpov’s mind, the situation was entirely unacceptable, particularly since he had, at that very moment, the means of correcting it.

And he did.

Andy Doolan was the Leading Rate in the crow’s nest on Repulse that morning, or at least he hoped to be. He was up for promotion this very week, hoping to make that first step up from Able Seamen to one of the higher ratings before the ship was transferred to the Pacific. Today’s assignment was just the luck of the draw. His Chief Petty Officer had thumbed his duty roster and landed on his name that morning, and so Doolan was up high in the crow’s nest, the wind in his face as he settled in for the morning watch.

As the gray dawn gave way, the skies lightened with pink and mauve dappled clouds, and the first rays of real sunshine that they had seen in days pierced through. It wasn’t a bad lot, he thought. He could sit up there and chew on a biscuit or two, though he wished he had the presence of mind to fetch a flask of hot water or tea. Bundled up in his heavy greatcoat, gloves, and thick lined hat with ear muffs, he’d be warm enough until noon when someone else would climb up the metal mast ladder to relieve him. Yet this morning he was to have a front row seat to one of the most amazing spectacles he had ever seen.

Repulse was cruising along at high revolutions, her bow splitting the waves easily as the ship surged forward, her wake clear and white behind her. The air was cool and crisp, the biscuits just salty enough to have a little flavor, and no one would bother him for the next four hours. What could be better?

Sometime after second bell, a little after 09:00 hours, he was peering at the distant horizon when his eye caught the gleam of sunlight on metal in the sky. Surprised to think he would find a plane this far out in the Atlantic, he looked up and saw a remarkable sight. High up in the sky, something was streaking by, leaving a long thin white contrail that sliced through the clouds and vanished behind him, then fell swiftly towards the ocean. It was as if the Gods had hurled a great burning stone into the sea. It’s speed was amazing. It was there and then gone before he had half a moment to think what it might be. Two other streaks in the sky sped off to the north. There was no planes on earth that could move at a speed like that, and without making the slightest sound as they lanced through the sky above.

I’ve gone and seen a meteor, he thought, a bleeding, shooting star! Then he looked and saw another one diving in from the same place in the sky, descending at an incredible rate, as it looked it might careen right into the ocean well ahead of the ship. But as it swooped down, to his utter astonishment, the meteor leveled off and surged right over the wave tops bearing directly in on Repulse in a silent, deadly charge. Dumbstruck, he instinctively reached for the phone mounted on the main mast, but before he could even lay a hand on it something struck the ship a mighty blow, right amidships, just slightly forward of the place where he stood his watch.

There came a shuddering vibration and the ship seemed to rock violently to port, prompting him to hang on the side railings of his crow’s nest for dear life. Seconds later, as a column of thick, black smoke broiled up from below, he finally heard a long descending roar overlaid on the growl of the explosion, not knowing it was the sound of a hypersonic missile finally catching up with itself. Alarms were jangling all over the ship, and he looked down to see engineers quickly donning life preservers and running to the scene of the impact, the orange red flames licking through the heavy black smoke like the tongues of hundred dragons.

Down on the bridge, Captain Tennant never saw the missile as it skimmed in silently over the glistening sea. Traveling at just under three times the speed of sound, the P-1000 Moskit-II “Sunburn” was one of most lethal missiles in the new Russian naval inventory, replacing the P-800 Yakhont/Bramos in 2016. It was the second missile to bear the NATO codename “Sunburn,” as its design and performance were much akin to that of its predecessor, the dreadful Moskit-I.

Shaped like a long, aerodynamic torpedo with a finely pointed nose, it had four small winglets in an X-scheme at mid-fuselage, with a series of small ramjet engines mounted between them that gave it the look of a sleek and deadly shark. It’s solid rocket booster would ignite upon firing, followed by two small stabilizing jets from the nose of the missile, one to incline it towards its target after its vertical launch, and the second to counter this thrust and keep the missile level. After these two short bursts, the solid fuel at the rear would rapidly accelerate the missile, expended in the first four seconds of flight as it reached its incredible speed of over 3600 kilometers per hour, quickly leaving the roar of its own engines in its wake. Liquid fuel would then power the missile along the remainder of its flight path. It would fly at altitude for all but the last ten percent of its course to the target, then would streak down to sea level accelerating right over the top of the ocean for the last deadly run.

It had been fired by Kirov just two minutes ago, gobbling up the 100 kilometers to the target with blistering speed. It could maneuver with precision and defend itself with a suite of electronic countermeasures as well, but its job today would not be difficult. It’s target was crystal clear ahead, its design giving no thought to minimizing its radar cross-sections. It was masked by no countervailing ECM, no infrared suppression system was in play, and there was no chaff in the air intend to spoof or decoy the missile away—nor was there any AA gun aboard the ship with the slightest chance of tracking and hitting it as it came on its final blistering sprint at Mach 3.0. It was like shooting a fish in a barrel.

When the missile struck Repulse, it delivered a 450 kilogram, armor piercing warhead that hammered against a belt of cemented armor measuring six inches thick just above the waterline amidships. Only her big 15 inch gun turrets had better protection, though this belt armor was relatively thin for a ship of her size. Some thirty kilometers behind her by now, the flagship King George V, had armor more than twice this thickness along her main side belts. The protection given Repulse was enough to impede, but not stop, the missile. It prevented it from completely burning its way deeper into the ship when the Sunburn exploded, but the remaining load of liquid fuel in its long fuselage ignited in a roaring fireball. The armor plating buckled and broke, seared by the explosion and considerable kinetic impact of the missile, which was enough to send a shower of metal fragments inward to pierce the inner sides of the hull in places, and claim the life of two Able Seamen who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. A jet of flaming hot metal seared through the breech, and started a major fire.

On the bridge, Captain Tennant could only think that he had been hit by a torpedo, and he immediately had his Chiefs check all the watches to see if anyone had spotted a periscope. Doolan’s phone rang and he blurted out his incredible tale of high flying meteors descending and skipping over the waves. Tennant thought the man was daft, but yet his ship was on fire, and he was clearly under attack. The eyes of every watch stander squinted at the horizon looking for any sign of an enemy vessel, but saw nothing. Then they heard a roar, the sound of the missile’s rocket engine finally catching up with it, well after it had already struck the ship. It seemed like the moaning of some demonic, unseen leviathan.

Captain Tennant shuddered with the sound and the sight of the awful fire now burning amidships. When he had taken stock of the situation, and heard from his engineers below, he turned to his signalman and said: “Make to Tovey on King George V. We are under attack, struck by a torpedo amidships on main belt. Ship on fire, but damage appears moderate and under control, and we are still seaworthy. No enemy surface contact, and no periscope sighted. No damaged to engines or plant, but slowing to twenty knots to assess possible breech below the waterline. Beginning zigzag pattern for the next hour.”

He turned and gave the orders to begin evasive maneuvers and scolded his watchmen to be on the lookout for periscopes, particularly on the starboard side of the ship where the blow had landed. As more reports came in it was soon made apparent to him that, while struck very near the waterline, all the damage to the ship was well above it. Unless this was a new torpedo that could leap out of the water like a swordfish, the damage had to be caused by something else.

Minutes later that ‘something else’ was again inbound on his position with evil intent. As before, it came in from above, then swooped down like an evil bird of prey to skim across the ocean at a scorching speed. This time he saw it, his jaw slack with amazement as the missile bored in on Repulse leaving a long thin white tail of smoke behind it. “Bloody hell,” he breathed. Then it exploded again, a little higher and slightly forward of the last hit.

The ship rocked with the second impact, and fire and smoke billowed up, obscuring his vision. A single fragment of near molten metal struck and pierced his forward viewport, shattering the glass there an jarring a nearby bulkhead with a metallic thud. Thankfully, no one was hit.

“What in blazes was that?” he said to his Executive Officer. His mind reeled, still replaying the image of the silent, swift approach of the weapon as it flashed against his ship. Thank god they were hitting us amidships, he thought. Any higher and that devil would have missed our side armor and run completely through the ship.

A com-link phone jangled, and the XO took it up. “Hull breech from that one, sir, and another bad fire… But well above the water line. No flooding. Burned out one of the new AA guns above the point of impact. Several casualties.”

“Make to Tovey,” he said to the signalmen. “Second hit amidships. Not a torpedo, yet no ship sighted. Weapon appeared to be a rocket. Repeat, not a torpedo.” He knew how unusual this would sound. He had heard of experimental rocket weapons, but had never seen one—until now. It was the only thing that could possibly explain what he had witnessed and also fit with the reports he had been receiving from the engineers below. That thing was flying. It came down at him from above until it hugged the sea before it hit. It was not a torpedo.

Tennant scanned the horizon with his field glasses, then removed them, squinting up into the sallow gray sky to look for any sign of an aircraft. There was nothing. He was like a blindfolded boxer in a ring with the heavyweight champion of the world. He would never see the punches coming, nor the man who threw them, but he would surely feel them. He had taken two hard blows to the gut, and his ship was doubled over with the pain. Yet as he looked about him, rushing from one side of the bridge to another, the sea was stark, cold and empty.

Wake-Walker was brooding on the Bridge of HMS Victorious. He had been delayed while detaching his destroyer screen to Iceland for refueling and sorting out his remaining planes into one new squadron. The enemy put on more speed and slipped away, and his radar lost contact with the phantom raider. Wanting to get back in the chase, he had planes up that morning spread out in a line abreast in two sub-flights of three each. One of each group was equipped with radar. The other two were, he realized, nothing more than decoys. If the enemy fired those damnable long range rockets at them, chances are they might target the wrong plane and he could re-acquire his fix on the enemy contact to the south. The planes were having fits with their radar, however, and his flight leader reported he could see nothing at all. Reluctantly, he gave the order to bring the ship about, turning on a heading to best recover his fighters. HMS Furious was out in front, all her planes but two gone now. He would send her off to Scapa Flow in due course, but for now she was nothing more than a forlorn scout ship.

In fact, that had been her role when first laid down in 1915. She was one of three ‘oddball’ ships, a light battlecruiser with just two massive guns, one in each of two turrets mounted fore and aft. But she was soon to lose the cumbersome weapon up front and have it replaced with a seaplane flight deck that converted her to a hybrid cruiser-carrier. A year later the aft turret was removed for another seaplane deck there, and by 1925 both of these decks had been removed and replaced with a single flight deck that ran nearly the whole length of the ship. Two other old ships had undergone similar reconstructive surgery, the Courageous and Glorious, but the former was torpedoed and sunk by U-20 on 17 Sept 1939, and the latter sunk by gunfire from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 8 June 1940 during the evacuation of Norway. Furious was the last of the oddballs, a strange, anachronism from the First World War bridging the way to a new era. Yet she was fated that morning to be struck by a nemesis from a time no man aboard her could imagine, let alone comprehend.

Two Moskit-II Sunburns arced up into the sky and sped north, accelerating to lightning speed over the first 90 kilometers, then descending rapidly to skim just above the sea. They had each been targeted at one of the two British carriers but, for some reason, both now homed in on the lead contact, hapless and forsaken, the odd man out of the fleet, HMS Furious. Midshipman Bill Simpson saw them coming, just by chance when he was out on the flight deck that morning with Albert Gibson laying lines.

“Look there, Al,” he pointed, and the two men saw something blur silently in from the starboard quarter, impossibly fast, then turn with a suddenness that astounded them and flash in against the ship. There was a thunderous roar as the first missile struck, blasting through the thinner three inch side armor and flaming into the guts of the ship as its remaining fuel igniting in a holocaust of fire and smoke.

The delay off Iceland had seen the task force fall nearly 200 kilometers behind the enemy, and that ended up being a bit of a saving grace. The missiles had expended much of their liquid fuel before they hit home, and there was less to ignite the fires. Seconds later the other missile struck, literally reeling the ship to one side as it thundered home and sent both Simpson and Gibson sprawling onto the deck. Luckily, they were in the aft quarter of the ship, and when the second explosion blasted up through the thin flight deck, they were saved from the flying shrapnel, fire and debris. But Furious had been struck a heavy blow, immolating her vacant, empty forward hanger area, with chunks of twisted steel shot gunned clean through the other side of the ship. Fire and thick, black smoke were everywhere.

Aboard Victorious, Wake-Walker’s head was jerked around as he looked, aghast at the scene. He had been in the plot room a moment ago, and did not see the missiles approach. So he, like Captain Tennant on the Repulse, surmised that this had to be a torpedo attack or enemy air strike off the Graf Zeppelin, and he shouted the order for all hands to stand to battle stations. What was wrong with the ruddy radar sets today? There had been no sign of aircraft about at all. Then he noticed the strange contrails high in the distance, two thin tracks from the south aimed right at his ships.

Thirty kilometers behind Repulse, Admiral John Tovey knew exactly what Tennant was speaking of when he sent his frantic messages. King George V had been struck in exactly the same place, dead amidships, and just above the waterline, though thankfully on the thickest portion of her main belt armor, all of fifteen inches there, with newer cemented armor that was even more resistant to shock. While the missiles had managed to storm through the side armor of Repulse, Tovey’s newer ship was jarred, set afire by exploding fuel, but was otherwise unharmed. The shock, however, was more mental than physical. Both he and his bridge crew were astounded to think that the Germans could have a weapon of this speed and accuracy. There was no enemy ship anywhere in sight, and nothing whatsoever between his ship and Repulse, which meant that this rocket must have been fired from a range of over a hundred kilometers, many times the range of his big main 14 inch guns. In fact, it had been fired at a range of 130 kilometers, running that distance in just two and a half minutes.

Tovey’s mind reeled with the shock of the attack, unable to comprehend it. How could they even see his ship to know how to aim and fire such a weapon? He called to his air watch radar sets and yet no one had seen anything more than snowy static on their screens. No watchman had reported any sign of a spotting plane. Then, just as he was getting an assessment of the damage below, another rocket contrail could be seen overhead, swooping suddenly down to the ocean and skimming right in over the wave tops to shudder against the side of his battleship in another thunderous explosion.

The big ship rocked, then steadied herself, but there was more smoke and fire than actual serious damage. “God, almighty,” said Tovey. “Thank our lucky stars we’re taking these on the main belt armor.” His ship had been designed to take potential hits from the main guns of opposing battleships and survive intact to keep fighting. In fact, his sister ship Prince of Wales had been hit several times by large 15 inch shells fired by the Bismarck weighing all of 1760 pounds. While damaged and penetrated, the ship had remained seaworthy and was even now at sea ferrying the Prime Minister to Newfoundland.

By comparison, the missiles fired that morning from Kirov delivered a warhead weighing just under 1000 pounds. This alone was not sufficient to penetrate the battleship’s main armor when struck full on, though the kinetic power of the full missile itself when it struck, delivered an incredible shock that buckled the armor at the point of impact. Yet it held, the strongest outer wall of the citadel that was the armored shell around the ship’s most vital inner compartments.

In her first incarnation Kirov had carried an even bigger weapon, the P-700 Granit “Shipwreck” missile that delivered a warhead twice the size of the Sunburn on a missile that was nearly twice as heavy. These had been removed and replaced by lighter, faster weapons designed to defeat the real armor of a modern ship, which was its suite of electronic countermeasures and missile and gun defenses. The warheads on the new Sunburns would have been enough to make a shipwreck out of most modern destroyers or frigates with one or two hits, but they were now striking targets with heavier armor they had never been designed to defeat.

When Samsonov and Rodenko reported a perfect six out of six hits, Captain Karpov was elated. “That will let them know we are not to be fooled with,” he said proudly.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Fedorov. “If our missiles struck as they should have, and hit the targets amidships, then it is very likely they have not seriously harmed the battleships. The carriers were probably hurt, and Repulse will be damaged, though I believe she would survive and still be seaworthy. As for King George V, if we hit her belt armor it would feel like a good stiff jab, but she would shrug it off.”

“What are you saying?” said Orlov. “The Germans sunk battleships with guided flying bombs in this war, did they not? Our missiles are much more lethal.”

“Respectfully, sir,” Fedorov knew he was on thin ice, but he needed to make his point. “You are referring to the Fritz-X, and yes, they sunk and damaged battleships, from above. They did not strike flush against the main armor belt of those ships as our missiles would do coming in at just above sea level. They penetrated the deck armor, which was much thinner. If you want to truly hurt a well armored ship, then you must reprogram your angle of attack on our missiles and have them strike well above the hull line, or at a much steeper angle on impact from above. If you bring them in at sea level, as we would do to defeat modern ship defensive weapons, they will burn and break armor in places, but will not penetrate to the interior of a battleship to do serious damage. Our Sunburns were simply not designed to penetrate this kind of armor. They were built to penetrate thin hulled modern ships of our day, and that they can do well enough. Yet we know that at least two hits are thought necessary to disable a modern American destroyer. Three for their Ticonderoga class cruisers, and as many as five hits for their carriers. Our missiles are powerful, but we need to hit the ship’s deck and superstructure, not its belt armor.”

Orlov scowled at him. “You know so much, eh?” But even his own thick skull had been penetrated by the navigator’s argument. “Samsonov,” he said quickly. “Can we reprogram the angle of attack?”

“We can, sir, but it will take some time. I cannot do this while presently engaging targets. I have two more missiles primed for firing.” He look at the Captain, waiting.

“Hold fire, Samsonov,” said Karpov. “Disengage your system and begin reprogramming for a top down approach to the target. Eliminate the final sea skimming run. Mister Fedorov is correct. Our Sunburns used as low altitude sea skimmers will not be as effective as they could be. As the enemy cannot see us, let alone catch us, we will take the time to make these adjustments. But I want all our offensive weapons optimized as quickly as possible. Report on your progress in four hours. For now, secure from battle stations. Mister Rodenko, let me know what our contact is doing now. Perhaps this attack has at least given them something more to think about.”

Chapter 23

Admiral Tovey was still in a state of shock and disbelief. He was trying to sort through what had happened with Brind, collating reports that were now coming in fast and furious. They had turned about, and were running south until he could gather his ships, and his wits, and determine what to do. He shook his head solemnly as he pointed at the chart.

“Wake-Walker is over 200 miles to the north, Brind, up above Reykjavík. If this enemy ship is where we think it is, how in the world could he have been struck up there? Furious has been gutted with fire. She took two hits just as we did, but we were lucky enough to have five times her armor protection. They’ve managed to put the fires out, but I’m afraid she’s no good to us now—no planes and a shattered flight deck due to the explosions.”

“Best to get her into Reykjavík and then off home for repairs,” said Brind. “But the real question is this: what do we do about the Victorious? She’s just as vulnerable, sir, and with little more than a few Fulmar fighters aboard, she’s not much good as a strike asset now. In fact, her planes can’t even reacquire the enemy ship on radar. Everything’s gone haywire. None of the equipment seems to be working from these latest reports. Walker believes the Germans are using some kind of powerful jammer.”

“You’re probably right. Signal Wake-Walker that he is to transfer his flag to cruiser Suffolk and make for Reykjavík as well to refuel his ships. It’s likely I’ll leave Victorious there. Without an air wing she’s just a target.”

“That pairs down Force P to just the two cruisers, sir. Unless you suggest we refuel the destroyers as well.”

“As soon as possible,” said Tovey. “We were fighting this threat as if it were a battleship, Brind. But it’s a carrier, or at least it fights like one. It stands off and strikes at us from extreme range, as any carrier would, but instead of planes it’s throwing these damnable rockets at us. So we can’t go steaming about like this, unescorted and without a proper screen. Yes, I want those destroyers along as well. And anything else in the harbor that’s in any way seaworthy.”

“The Canadians were going to send out three destroyers to pick up Prince of Wales, sir.”

“The more the merrier,” said Tovey. “And we’re going to rendezvous with that ship as well. It’s entirely too lonesome out here. Home Fleet is bloody well going to start looking like one again. Signal Force K and Vian’s two light cruisers and put them on a course to join with us. We need to form a larger task force, and the cruisers were made for screening duty.”

“Right, sir, but what about Repulse? She took two hits as well, and they bruised her quite a bit. Who knows how many more of these long-range rockets the Germans have aboard that ship? My god, sir, how in the world did they develop this weapon without us knowing about it?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Brind. Lucky for us that they gave us a couple of body shots. If King George V had been slapped about the head and shoulders, the damage would’ve been far more extensive. Not that we have a weak chin, mind you, but I’d hate to take one of those rockets here on the bridge. All things considered, we haven’t really been hurt that much. Repulse is seaworthy, and Tennant says he can still make thirty knots. Should we risk her further?”

“As it’s been demonstrated the enemy rockets can penetrate her side armor sir, I’d think twice about that.” The two men still had dark thoughts over the fate of HMS Hood. Tovey thought about it for a moment, and then decided.

“She can still fight, but I don’t want her out in front on her own like this. Let’s reel her in and put her in our wake again. Tennant won’t like it, but there it is. We’ll bring Walker and Vian down to join with us with their cruisers and destroyers, and then we’ll swing south. I’m afraid it’s an entirely new game now. As amazing as it sounds, we’re are on the defensive. I want to steer in such a way as to put our ships between the enemy and Prince of Wales’ route to Newfoundland. Our best play now is to form a covering force for her until we can make a proper rendezvous with the rest of the fleet.”

“We might simply send Prince of Wales home, sir,” Brind suggested. “Then we can stay in the hunt a while longer.”

“And we might try getting the Prime Minister to agree to that,” said Tovey, somewhat frustrated. “It’s time we called in the heavy cavalry. Let’s get a message off to Admiral Somerville and bring Force H out from Gibraltar into the Atlantic. He’s got Ark Royal, Nelson, Renown, and several more cruisers he can sortie with. Strength in numbers. The pilots aboard Ark Royal have considerably more experience than Wake-Walker’s boys did. After all, she stuck a few torpedoes into Bismarck, didn’t she? We could use her, even if we utilize her aircraft for spotting purposes only.”

“Yet she’ll be vulnerable to these German rockets, sir; so is Renown. As for Nelson, she can’t make much more than twenty knots, and that will slow down Somerville considerably.

“Twenty knots will have to do for the moment,” said Tovey. “I need ships with big guns and the armor to stand in a fight for a time. Nelson may not be able to catch this German ship, but we might, and if we get her by the ankles and hold on tight enough, then Nelson can come up join the party, just as Rodney did against Bismarck. Let’s get on a heading to the south. This German ship is not likely to try steaming into the Labrador Sea. They’ll be heading south as well. Eventually we can work our way to join up with Prince of Wales. As long as Somerville will be making no more than twenty knots, if he has a fast tanker in port at Gibraltar, tell him to bring it along. Vian’s cruisers would be in need of fuel by the time we get down south. It’s either that or we send them home soon.

“Very good, sir,” said Brind, thinking. “What about the Americans?” he said at last. “Don’t they have a convoy headed for Iceland at the moment? They’ll have warships bound for this meeting in Newfoundland as well. It would be wise if we brief them as to the nature of the threat, sir.”

“Yes, they’ll run right afoul of this rogue and won’t have any idea what the Germans are capable of. We’d best warn them as soon as possible.”

“Admiral Pound is aboard Prince of Wales with the Prime Minister,” said Brind.

“Let’s leave the Admiral to his tea and crumpets for the time being,” said Tovey. “He’s likely to sit on things if we go through channels. We’d best let the Yanks know directly. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Very well, sir. I’ll see that the orders are sent out at once.”

Kirov raced south, passing the distant Cape of Greenland to the west and heading into the North Atlantic. She pushed on through the Denmark Strait without the slightest scratch from the enemy. Karpov was pleased when Rodenko informed him the British battleships had turned about, heading southeast for a time until they vanished, beyond the range of his surface radar. The British carriers that had been following also disappeared from Rodenko’s screens.

Tovey was steaming south on course almost parallel to that of Kirov, but Karpov could not know this unless he sent his KA-40 helos up to extend his sighting range. For the moment however he was content to have shaken off his pursuers. He had given the British another hard lesson, demonstrating that he could strike them heavy blows well outside the range of their guns. They had turned tail and sped away, bruised and battered by his missiles. Yet before he had too much time to gloat, he needed to handle a maintenance problem that had come up at a most inopportune time.

Chief Dobrynin in engineering had called up and asked him to make slow revolutions on the turbines again while they investigated a reactor cooling problem. There was no immediate danger, but Karpov knew that a ship’s reactors at sea could be temperamental pieces of equipment, and there had been more than one ‘incident’ in the navy over the years. What had happened to the Orel? As much as he wanted to get down south quickly, his better judgment led him to slow the ship to a sedate 10 knots while the engineers investigated. There was nothing wrong with Kirov’s radars, and she could defend herself from any and all threats well before they became a problem. Yet he wanted speed when he needed it, and so he decided to linger on the 5th of August and effect repairs. It would put the ship in its best, battle worthy condition, and also give him time to think as he set his mind on bigger fish to fry.

Somewhere to the east there was another British battleship at sea, he knew, and she carried a gaggle of high-ranking officials, and officers from every arm of the military, including fat Winston Churchill himself. He thought what a tempting target Prince of Wales would make for his Sunburns. Then again, he could allow the ship to complete its journey and see all the eggs in one basket, there in Argentia Bay of Newfoundland, where he could keep them as long as he wanted, or deal with them in any way he saw fit.

With the American president and the British prime minister holed up, he had any number of choices. One was to join the negotiations himself, standing in for his uninvited countrymen and assuring that the Soviet Union would not be marginalized in the postwar environment the two Western powers were now scheming to build.

He passed a moment imagining his arrival, with all three helicopters used to ferry in an honor guard of marines, led by the formidable Kandemir Troyak. He pictured them in their dress olive greens, long double breasted trench coats with gold buttons and collar tabs, braided gold belts and the brilliant red sash strap from shoulder to waist, where a six inch tasseled gold horsetail tied it off. Their black Ushankas rose proudly as they marched, stiff backed, their pace timed precisely to the beat of black jack boots polished to a mirror like finish. Each man would carry a bayoneted rifle, and the squad leader would hold a long silver sword, gleaming balefully in the morning light. Behind him would come the flag bearer, with the tricolor of the new Russian Federation snapping proudly in the wind. The symbolism would be apparent to all those who watched them come, their eyes glazed with awe, jaws slack with fear and surprise. They would be the sword of Mother Russia. They would seem a phalanx of doom as they marched, with the Captain strutting boldly in their midst as commanding officer.

Karpov smiled to himself, dwelling on the image. But it would not be mere theater, he mused. The considerable weight of Kirov’s firepower, and the nuclear weapons he could demonstrate on some empty forsaken tract of Newfoundland would be his big sticks in the negotiations, sure to bend the minds of both heads of state. If they gawked at his helicopters, he could only imagine their shock at the sight of a nuclear detonation, and their fear as he calmly told them his ship was laden with a hundred similar warheads, lozh to be sure, but a lie that would surely be believed after his demonstration. What would the duplicitous titans of the West do, he wondered?

Roosevelt and Churchill had given their assurances time and time again, toying with Stalin throughout the war as they promised to eventually open a second front in Europe, while in fact they left most of the fighting to the Russian army. They might do the very same with him, he thought, promising him the world with sweet tongued graces, yet delivering nothing in the end. What would he do with the ship in the meantime, while the British and Americans most likely gathered every fighting vessel they could get their hands on and vectored them in? He needed to know more about the enemy capabilities to make a firm decision one way or the other. As much as he disliked Fedorov, the navigator was the only man on the ship he could rely on for the information he needed. The book he had been reading was in no way comprehensive.

“How many more ships might we expect to encounter if we proceed south now,” he asked.

Fedorov was grateful for the opportunity to speak. Perhaps he could persuade the Captain to alter his course and avoid further combat. “I’ve done some research, sir, and we are fortunate that many British capital ships are laid up for repair and refit at this time. They have four or five more aircraft carriers available, but two are in American ports for refit, and one is in the Indian ocean. Aside from the two we have just driven off, that will leave them only the Ark Royal at Gibraltar. This is a more experienced ship and could pose a threat.”

“It will serve only as a good target for our Sunburns,” said Karpov. “And we have already seen what happens to their aircraft should they dare strike us again. But what about battleships?”

“Well, sir, we’ve driven off Home Fleet for the moment, but as I said earlier, I don’t think we seriously damaged either Repulse or King George V. The Prince of Wales is at sea, and that ship will likely be on Admiral Tovey’s mind. Given the shock and surprise they must have experienced with your missile attack, I believe they have probably fallen back to consolidate and reassess the situation. But they are out there sir, and they’ll have several heavy cruisers to throw in the mix as well. If Ark Royal sails from Gibraltar, she will most likely be escorted by the battlecruiser Renown, and possibly the battleship Nelson with several more cruisers. Nelson is slow, however, but given what has happened, I would have to believe the British would put everything they have to sea. In a few weeks time her sister ship Rodney will also be on the list. She was refitting at Boston and was ready for action again later this month. They could bring her out early in great need. If, however, we turn east, I think we could safely slip through the net and out to sea to get in a better tactical position.”

He was hoping this array of ships would give the Captain second thoughts about keeping on this heading, but Karpov was simply stacking these ships up in his mind. They were nothing more than names to him. Unlike Fedorov, he could not quote their speed, gun caliber, armor thickness, but these things did not matter, as his navigator was always close at hand. For now they were nothing more than targets to him, and he was mentally pairing them with various missile systems aboard ship, deciding how he would engage each task force the enemy was likely to assemble against him. Then the same question occurred to him that Brind had asked Tovey.

“What about the Americans, Fedorov? They’re not yet involved in this war, yes?”

“Officially, they are noncombatants. They’ve only just begun to relieve the British garrison on Iceland, and to take responsibility for the sea route we are sailing on at this very moment. In fact…” Fedorov thought hard for a moment. “If I’m not mistaken they have a convoy ferrying more troops, planes, supplies and equipment to Iceland even now.”

“I saw such a notation in your book,” said Karpov, “but the dates were vague.”

Fedorov wished he had never told the Captain about that book but nothing could be done about it now. “Just a second, Captain. I think I can get more specific information.” He was hoping that the added weight of the American presence in the region would be enough to tip the argument in his favor. He reached for another volume from the shelf above his station, and quickly looked up a reference while Karpov watched with some interest, his eye drawn to Fedorov’s small book collection, noticing them for first time. “Here it is, sir. Two groups: Task Group A with the carrier Wasp, the heavy cruiser Vincennes and two destroyers. They were ferrying those Army P-40 fighters to Iceland—” His eyes widened. “They’re due to arrive on August 6th, Captain! They must be just south of us, and very close by now. It would be best if we steered to avoid them.”

“Rodenko has seen nothing south of us for hours.”

“We may pick them up soon, sir. And behind them will come Task Force 16 with the battleship Mississippi, heavy cruisers Quincy and Wichita, five destroyers and several transports.”

“Another battleship?”

“An older ship, sir. Her keel was laid down in 1915. She’s slow, perhaps no more than 21 knots, but had decent protection with belt armor just over 340 millimeters thick, and she has twelve 14 inch guns and fourteen more 5 inch guns. We cannot get anywhere within twenty kilometers of that ship, sir. The carrier may pose no immediate threat, given that she is on a ferry mission and probably not at full battle readiness.”

“Well we’ve already beaten off the professionals,” said Karpov, speaking of the Royal Navy. “I suppose it’s time to send the amateurs packing as well. Rodenko!” He shouted at his radar Chief. “Let me know the moment you have any contact south of our position. Samsonov, how is the missile reprogramming progressing?”

“The men are working on it now sir. I have a few Sunburns reset to disable their low altitude descent. They’ll just come right down on the target, sir.”

“A few? How many, Samsonov?”

“Four, sir,” the Chief said sheepishly. “But we’ll have another four ready in a few hours. As for the other missiles, some will have to be taken out of their firing tubes to get at the guidance module. It may take a while.”

Karpov was not happy. All his ship’s weapons were still largely calibrated to fight another class of warship altogether. “Will the Americans be hostile?” Karpov turned to his navigator again.

Fedorov was thinking what to say. Was the Captain seriously thinking of engaging the Americans too? What could he say to dissuade him?

“If they believe us to be a German raider, I fear they will treat us that way, sir. As I explained earlier, there were policies in place at this time to treat any hostile contact within a hundred miles as an enemy and sink her. There was a great deal of discussion about it, but the end of it was that the Americans decided to consider any German surface raider or U-boat as a hostile threat if found in these waters. Their naval forces were given the orders to engage and destroy such contacts if encountered.”

“Then we must consider any American ship hostile as well,” said Karpov. “What else may lay ahead?”

“But sir, you don’t want to engage the Americans, do you? I thought your plan was—”

”What else is out there, Fedorov. Don’t concern yourself with my plans.”

“Well, sir, they’ll have two battleships anchored in Argentia Bay, the Arkansas and New York. And they will also have another available on the East Coast, the Texas. The Carrier Yorktown is also operating with the Atlantic Fleet at this time, but she is in the Caribbean at the moment. The heavy cruiser Augusta is already en route to Newfoundland with the American president aboard. There will be other ships in that group as well.”

“My, my,” said Karpov. “Their entire Atlantic Fleet, and most everything the British can put to sea on top of it! And they are all within a few days cruising distance from us at this very moment. Get busy, Samsonov. We’ll be needing those missiles as soon as possible.”

“But sir,” said Fedorov. “We must be very cautious now. There were several incidents involving German submarines and American destroyers in these months leading up to Pearl Harbor. None of them were serious enough to force an early American entry into the war, but if we engage any of these American ships and do any significant damage, that could change everything. Sink an American capital ship in these waters and it could have the same effect as the sinking of the Maine before the Spanish-American War. Give the Americans a rallying cry and they will become implacable enemies.”

“Are they not already our enemies?” said Karpov. “They have worked ceaselessly to impede, degrade, and humiliate the Russian Republic for decades. Make no mistake, Fedorov. The Germans may be our enemy now, but we handled them well enough. It is the Americans who will make an end of us later.”

“I understand, Captain, but if the Americans enter the war early against Germany, then they will also have to declare hostilities against Japan. This could preclude the Japanese from having to plan or execute their attack on Pearl Harbor. It could change everything, sir. The entire course of the war could be altered.”

“Has it not already occurred to you, Fedorov, that is exactly what we are here to do? You think I can tiptoe quietly past all these ships out into the Atlantic to find that comfortable tropical island the Admiral was speaking about? This is war. These are our enemies. I am the Captain of a ship of war, and I intend to use her for exactly that purpose. We’re heading south. They are cruising north. Let us see who gives way. If you don’t have the stomach for it, then go below and I will put someone else in your station.”

Fedorov was silent, realizing now that every bit of information he revealed to Karpov was dangerous—that Karpov himself was dangerous, and without the Admiral available as a countervailing force, there was no telling what he might do next.

Chapter 24

On the 23rd of July, the warm sun dappled the waters of Willoughby Bay and Hampton Roads where the carrier USS Wasp, moved with the gentle incoming tides at dock seven of the American naval operations base at Norfolk, West Virginia. The stevedores had been working all day, loading long wooden crates up on to the ship where they were quickly unpacked to reveal several squadrons of Army P-40C fighters earmarked for deployment at the new American airfields on Iceland. Curious sailors watched the planes being brought aboard with three PT-17 trainers, all assigned to the 33rd Pursuit Squadron out of Mitchel Field, on Long Island, New York. And with them came a gaggle of Army Air Force pilots, saluting as they came aboard reporting for temporary duty on the big navy ship, and seeming just a little bit out of their element.

The Wasp was a scaled-down version of the Yorktown class carrier, but lighter, with smaller engines, virtually no armor, and a displacement under 20,000 tons with full load. The Navy had been looking for ways to cut corners while adding another carrier to its inventory, trying for a smaller ship that still had the same aircraft capacity of the larger Yorktown class. Wasp was the result. She wasn’t rigged for battle yet. Most of her VF-7 flyboys would sit this one out on nearby airfields, as her mission was just a ferrying operation. A few days later, she cast off her moorings and eased quietly away from her berthing to slip out into Chesapeake Bay and make her way into the North Atlantic. There she rendezvoused with the heavy cruiser Vincennes, and destroyers O’Brien and Walke for the run up to Iceland.

Along the way she encountered a larger US task force also bound for Reykjavík. Task Force 16 was led by the hulking presence of the battleship Mississippi with cruisers Quincy and Wichita, and five other destroyers. They were escorting three transport ships and a naval maintenance ship, Semmes, carrying Army Air Corps gear and supplies, heavy road building equipment, and other personnel assigned to duty as America took up its watch on this distant, cold outpost. The Marines were already there, setting up in the abandoned Nissen huts the British had left them, but they needed planes to provide air cover and secure their lodgment on the island. As Yorktown was still down in the Caribbean, Wasp got the job.

Now, on the morning of August 5th, she and her escorts were just a long day’s cruise from Iceland at the leisurely speed of 15 knots they were making. Wasp signaled farewell to the Mississippi, and angled away, out to sea where she could get some maneuvering room, turn into the wind, and begin launching those Army P-40s. The planes would then fly into Reykjavík on their own, a little over 400 miles to the northeast.

When the P-40s were spotted on the flight line, the navy crewmen razzed and called to their army brethren, telling them that now they would finally learn what it takes to fly off a flattop. As the first plane spun its engines up to full power and was flagged for takeoff, the sailors hooted and cheered when they saw the P-40 dip and finally rise into the sky. Then, one by one, the other twenty-nine fighters were spotted and launched, until the whole wing of thirty were circling noisily overhead. When they had assembled into their squadrons and sub flights, Captain Jim Reeves aboard Wasp radioed his best wishes and bade them farewell. The planes started north by northeast on a heading of about 45 degrees and slowly winged away toward the horizon.

“Message, Captain,” said a signalman.

“What is it, Yeoman?”

“It says to look out for a German raider exiting the Denmark Strait, sir.” The yeoman looked down at his signal decode, reading it now. “Presume hostile and very dangerous. Proceed with caution.”

“A German raider? I thought the limeys had everything under control out here. Well, there’s nothing those Army flyboys can do about it. They’re not even armed. But signal them to be on the lookout, just in case. Maybe we can spot the damn thing and send in the Mississippi to see about it.”

“Aye, sir.”

Minutes later the American planes appeared on Rodenko’s long-range air detection radars aboard Kirov, and he immediately notified the Captain. “Con, radar air contact bearing on our position, speed one-eight-five at 10,000 feet, range 180 kilometers I read a large group of aircraft, sir, possibly twenty-five or thirty discrete contacts.”

That got the Captain’s attention immediately. He moved quickly to Rodenko’s side looking at the scope, his eyes dark and serious. “Chief Orlov, bring the ship to battle stations. Mister Samsonov, ready on the S-300 SAM system.” This was the same long-range missile-defense system that the Admiral had used so effectively against the first British strike launched by Victorious and Furious three days ago. The Captain thought to get off a missile barrage as soon as possible, before the enemy had a chance to close with his position. There would be no repeat of the near run torpedo that had nearly struck the ship.

As he gave the order, Fedorov turned, the anxiety clear on his face. He had been reading more about the American presence in the North Atlantic and knew what these planes were and where they were bound. “Excuse me, sir,” he called, but Karpov waved him off.

“Not now, Mister Fedorov, this is a man’s work.”

Fedorov ignored the insult, for he knew he had to speak. “Sir, this is not a strike wave!” he said emphatically. “These are the American P-40 fighters that I told you about earlier. They are simply being transferred from the carrier to their bases in Iceland. They are unarmed, sir!”

Karpov scowled at him. “And how might you know this? Simply because it is written in that book of yours? You expect me to put this ship and its crew at risk? The British may have contacted the Americans and advised them of our position. The history you are reading may have changed, Mister Fedorov. You were just worrying about that a moment ago. So don’t bother me with these silly details, we have another battle to fight. If you are afraid of wolves, don’t go to the woods, but that is where we find ourselves.”

The Captain ordered Samsonov to begin programming his barrage, locking acquisition radars onto the targets. “This is a large group of planes,” he said. “I want no mistakes here. I assume you have completed your maintenance checks on these missiles?”

“We have, sir,” Samsonov was sitting upright in his seat, his back and shoulders taut, eyes bright, his hands quickly adjusting the dials and switches of his Combat Information Center. He turned and gave an order to a junior mishman, watching until he was satisfied the command had been carried out properly. Karpov could see the heat of battle was on him, and it was exactly why Samsonov was the perfect warrior for a situation like this. He didn’t think, he simply acted. He was like a spring in a well crafted mechanism, and would do his job the instant Karpov pushed on the right lever.

Rodenko interrupted, calling out a new target. “Con, I have surface contact, extreme range, reading four ships bearing two-two-five, speed approximately 20 knots.”

“Captain—” Fedorov tried again, but Karpov spun about, pointing at him.

“There,” he said starkly. “What are these ships doing, Mister Fedorov, delivering milk?”

“That will be the carrier Wasp and her escorts. They should be turning about soon and heading south. They pose no threat, sir.”

“They most certainly will pose no threat when I have finished with them,” said Karpov.

“But, sir, you cannot attack these ships! Remember what the Admiral said? What if the Americans react by entering the war early?”

“Mister Orlov…” Karpov turned to look for his dour Chief of Operations. “Please escort Mister Fedorov from the bridge. He is relieved.” Karpov had other plans for the Americans. Whether they entered the war now or four months from now was no longer his concern. He would see to it that they never reached the Rhine River before Russian troops got there first. This was only the beginning.

“Aye, sir.” Orlov’s looming presence was a shadow over Fedorov a moment later, and though he knew the Captain was about to make a terrible mistake, there was nothing more the navigator could do. Orlov would make a point of making his life miserable for the next month, he knew, if any of them lived that long. He gave the Captain a long, sullen look, then started for the rear hatch of the bridge citadel, receiving a not so gentle nudge in the back by Orlov as he went. The Chief looked over his shoulder, grinning at the Captain. “I’ll send up Tovarich,” he said. “He’s not so talkative.”

The 33rd Pursuit Squadron was a part of the larger 33rd Fighter Group defending the East Coast of the United States. Its pilots proudly wore the shoulder patch of a blue shield with a flaming sword above the moniker, “Fire From the Clouds.” Yet they were to encounter exactly that as they flew in formation, when the barrage of eight S-300 missiles suddenly clawed through the morning sky in front of them. 2nd Lieutenant Joe Shaffer saw them first, calling out the sighting on his radio.

“Hey, what’s that coming up at twelve-o-clock?” It looked for all the world like a flaming sword, long, sleek and burning in the sky with a fiery tail and fuming exhaust. He only had a second to think this, however, for the high speed missiles closed the distance at a frightful rate and soon the sky ignited with fire and a hail of lethal metal fragments ejected from a series of tightly packed metal rods in the exploding warheads. Shaffer was dead before he could say another word, his plane riddled with shrapnel. So were Dunks and Bailey, his two wing mates. His sub-flight of three planes extinguished by a single missile.

Far back in the formation, Lt. Commander Boone watched with amazement and horror as six more violent explosions took down the old P-40s as if they had been flies swatted from the sky. Six, then eight more were flaming their way down towards the sea, Meeks, Hubbard, Walker, Huntsdorf and Freeman dead as they fell; Bethel, Bradley and Riggen all unlucky enough to still be conscious as their planes crashed. The Warhawks, the famous planes of the Flying Tigers, were falling.

Boone’s only instinct was to push hard, open the throttle, and put the plane into a sudden dive. There was no way he would ever out climb the fiery streaks that had devoured his fellows, so he would get down as low as he could. Only those who had the same idea in those frantic first few split seconds would survive. Anyone who thought to bank left, right, or to put on power and climb was caught up in the wild spray of searing razor-like shrapnel that had gutted the heart of the formation, just as the missiles had skewered the planes off Furious. At least then, the British pilots may have had some expectation that they were flying into danger. For the Americans, their sunny morning, after having had the thrill of taking off from an aircraft carrier, was suddenly transformed into a blazing nightmare.

Eighteen planes were destroyed by the missile salvo, with six others damaged so badly that they also went down into the sea. Of these only one man would be rescued. The remaining six, who had thought to dive hard to the deck along with Boone, were the only planes to make it back to the carrier Wasp. Not knowing what was ahead of them, they wisely turned back towards the naval Task Group, shaken with fear and alarm, and careening low over the wave tops. Boone had the presence of mind to get on the radio and shout out the only warning Wasp would receive. “Mayday! Mayday! We’re under attack!”

Along the way back there was one last harrowing moment when he looked over his shoulder and saw yet another fiery contrail streaking in toward his position, high overhead, yet it went on by, ignoring the tiny fighter planes below, intent on other prey. Another followed it, then a third, and when he and his hapless comrades finally saw the distant silhouettes of the task force he could see the anger of fire and smoke darkening the horizon. What had happened? His mind had no reference point for the things he had seen in the sky that morning, and as he drew near the task force and began to pull up to gain altitude, he could see that the cruiser Vincennes and destroyers O’Brien and Walke were spitting out flak from every gun they had—at him! A moment later he saw why. Behind them the carrier Wasp was a mass of broiling flame and smoke.

“Hey, lookout you navy rats!” he shouted into his radio set. “We’re friendly!” The navy was taking no chances, he knew. They had been hit, saw incoming aircraft, and they were sending up a wall of flack in reprisal. The destroyers were up at high revolutions, dropping depth charges in their churning wakes, but Boone knew this was no U-boat attack. The cruiser was lighting up the sky with all of her eight .50 caliber machine guns, two 37mm AA guns, and even her 5 inch secondary batteries, which doubled as AA guns, were getting into the fray. Friendly or not, he wasn’t sticking around.

Boone banked sharply away, a few of the other planes tailing after him, and he headed away from the navy ships until cooler heads could prevail. He’d get on the radio and find out what to do later. He reasoned he could head west and reach the coast of Greenland soon enough, or just ditch his plane later near a friendly ship if it came to it. One look at Wasp told him he wasn’t going to get a chance to complete his carrier qualification ticket and make a landing there. He looked over his shoulder and saw the ship heeling over to one side in a bad list, and thought he saw men jumping from her flaming decks into the sea.

God almighty. It wasn’t the Japs, and it certainly wasn’t the Brits that had attacked them. It had to be the Germans, but with what? When he had gained a little altitude he saw them again, angry red sharks streaking in and diving for the navy ships. One came in on the deck, accelerating to an impossible speed, another just dove in from above, both knifing into the cruiser Vincennes with pinpoint precision, igniting a shuddering explosion.

He watched the orange fire ignite amidships on the cruiser, a black fist of smoke punching up into the sky above her. What was the enemy firing? It looked like torpedoes were streaking through the sky, but this was no U-Boat, he knew. He had never seen anything like it in his life.

“God Almighty!” There was nothing else he could say.

His presence over the ships was a cause for much alarm and confusion. The sailors thought they were being attacked by enemy planes until one finally spotted a white star on the wings of the last plane high tailing it off after Boone.

“Hey, that’s one of our P-40s,” he said. “Hold your fire!”

Fifteen miles to the southwest, Task Force 16 plodded along at a sedate 15 knots, a fan of five destroyers out in a wide forward arc followed by the cruisers Quincy and Wichita. Behind them came the lumbering hulk of the old battleship Mississippi leading four other steamers in columns of twos, the transports bearing equipment and supplies for the newly established garrison on Iceland. Mississippi led her four steamers on like a fat mother goose, not realizing that what they would come to call a deadly “Nazi raider” was moving south like a bad weather front, bringing the rumble of thunder, lightning and war with her. The men on the bridge had heard the frantic radio calls of the P-40 pilots. Now they looked anxiously forward, scanning the horizon until they saw a pillar of dark smoke, far too large to be coming from a ship’s stacks.

“Sound General Quarters,” said the Captain. “That’s a ship on fire ahead. Better get the destroyers revved up. There could be U-Boats about.”

Captain Jerald Wright had tipped his hat to the new light carrier Wasp when she pulled away some time ago, and now he looked through his field glasses to see the carrier burning on the near horizon, a long column of charcoal smoke staining the sky ahead. Whether they knew it yet or not, the Yanks were at war.