The Invasion of 1950

Chapter Forty-Eight

Atlantic Ocean

Admiral Fraser stared into the darkening ocean as the sun slipped below the horizon, not even casting a golden glow in the distance, as high above the stars came out. The three battleships, one battle-cruiser and a number of smaller ships that made up the remains of Home Fleet were sailing away from the Clyde, hopefully without the Germans being aware. The Germans probably had a U-boat or two — maybe more — watching the fleet, but even the latest electric-powered boats had problems keeping up with warships moving through the water at high speed. Fraser was confident he could lose them before he rendezvoused with the remainder of the fleet.

They said that Admiral Jellico was the only man who could have lost the Great War in an afternoon, Fraser thought, staring down at the King George V’s massive turrets. They were still now, but he could make out faint signs of where the hasty repairs had been completed, mending the damage the Germans had caused as much as possible. When he met up with the Eastern and Mediterranean Fleets, he would be much stronger, but even so, the odds weren’t necessarily going to be on his side.

The Germans should know that the Royal Navy intended to get into the Channel and sink everything flying a German flag. Their intention would be to stop the Royal Navy before it got too close. There was a vast difference between attacking a fleet at anchor and a fleet in motion, and even though the Germans probably had many more of their guided bombs, they would know that they would be much less effective against his second fleet. They would also be aware that the ten battleships of the fleet had radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, while the carriers were loaded with fighters for the defence of the fleet and torpedo-bombers for attacking the German carriers. The Germans would have to focus everything on destroying the fleet. If they sunk Fraser and his fleet, they would have won the war.

It was something that made him think, grimly, of the days when he had been a young midshipman. They had known that as long as Home Fleet remained in being, it was impossible for Britain to be defeated completely, but now the rules had changed. They had been changing back even then, when the Royal Navy had discovered what air power could do under the right circumstances, but it had taken the Germans to discover how they could use air power to break the back of the British fleet. Fraser couldn’t just remain a lurking fleet-in-being, not when the Germans were rushing supplies from France into Britain. He must cut that supply line, once and for all. He couldn’t lurk out of range, forever poised to lunge forward. He had to move as soon as possible. The Germans knew that, and they would be coming out to do battle.

They would be wiser, perhaps, to husband their own units, but they knew as well as he did that this battle would be for all the marbles. If they lost their fleet completely, as they had come close to doing back in 1940, they would still be immensely strong and continue to dominate Europe; if Fraser lost his fleet, the Germans would be able to reinforce at will and eventually crush Britain by sheer weight of numbers. They might even abandon their self-imposed reluctance to attack ships with an American flag; if they sunk the Royal Navy, the Americans wouldn’t be able to make a real impact on the war until it would be too late for Britain. Rommel would build up, crush the British Army, and force Britain to sue for peace.

He flicked his cigarette into the water, watching the glowing ember fall away into the darkness, and straightened up. The crew of the mighty battleship were carrying out their duties as if they were unaware of the massive dangers they were about to face, but then, they had been though the hell of the Battle of Scapa Flow. They all knew how much their world had changed in the last month and they had prepared as best as they could; Fraser had privately promised himself to bring as many of those boys home as possible. He wasn’t sure if it was a promise he would be able to keep; the Germans were tough, determined, and believed that they had better technology. In far too many areas, they were right.

“We need a victory,” Churchill had said, when Fraser had faced the Prime Minister. He had expected to be relieved for his failure at Scapa Flow; the mood of the country had been such that heads would need to roll, but instead Churchill had put him in command of rebuilding as much as possible of the fleet. Home Fleet would never be the same again, but he’d managed to get most of the surviving craft back into action… as well as preparing his own surprise for the Germans.

Churchill had been sceptical. “Are you sure that this plan will work?”

“Yes,” Fraser had said as he tried to keep his doubts hidden. Churchill probably hadn’t been fooled. “We will present them with a tempting target, one that they cannot fail to notice, and use it to lure them into making a mistake. Once they make that mistake, we will jump on them and wreck their fleet.”

Churchill’s eyes had narrowed. “And what if they don’t make that mistake?”

“Then we continue down into the Channel and wreck as much as possible of their shipping,” Fraser had answered. “The German bombers will have difficulties hitting moving ships in the dark, even with their radar-guided bombs, and we should be able to shell their ports and sink a few of their ships before the sun comes up. They have to engage us or we will continue to cut their supply lines and cripple their ability to reinforce their army on the mainland.”

He considered lighting another cigarette as the dark mass of Britain slipped away behind them. It would be a few hours before they met up with the other elements of the fleet, but by then, it would be daylight… and then they would advance again towards Scapa Flow. The Germans had learned, now, that the new defenders of the harbour were on the alert… and, after they’d lost a carrier, would know to be careful around Scapa Flow. They had too many other air commitments to launch heavy attacks on the harbour now. Both sides had lost grievous numbers of aircraft as the war raged on. Would they seek to attack the fleet again, or would they wait until the fleet emerged to challenge the German Kriegsmarine for command of the seas?

One way or another, it would all be over soon.

It was quiet in the conning tower of U-453 as the electric-powered U-boat moved to follow the British fleet. In theory, any electric-powered boat could remain on station for weeks, but Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Heidelburger had been reluctant to remain on station for too long, grimly aware that the British destroyers that patrolled the mouth of the Clyde would catch a sniff of them if they remained. They’d already come far too close to being caught. Only a long period of complete silence, hiding and cowering, had saved them from a hunting British ship.

Heidelburger hadn’t seen combat service before the war, but he had drilled with German destroyers… and the British were much more persistent. Several U-boats had been sunk trying to slip into British anchorages and repeat the Royal Oak success back in 1939. Heidelburger had no intention of losing his boat and his crew out of a thirst for glory.

“Take us after them and monitor their course,” he said very softly. The close quarters of the U-boat tended to encourage both informality and quiet. There was no way to maintain the mystique of command when everyone practically lived in each other’s pockets; the twenty-one men on the U-boat knew everything about him, as he knew it about them. They respected him, followed his orders, but they knew that he was human too. “Radio?”

The radio operator looked up from his own console. They were monitoring British radio signals as well, but the British fleet wasn’t sending any signals, not even a message back to port to say that they had left the outer limits.

“Yes, sir?”

Heidelburger considered.

“Encode a message informing Fleet Headquarters that the British fleet has left on course heading 255, 55.6° north, 6.7° west, speed 12 knots. Add that we will follow them as long as we are able,” he ordered. The British fleet, at least, made enough noise that following it would be easy without having to stick up a periscope and watch it from a distance. The submariners back in the Great War had done just that and it had cost them many lives. “We will attempt to confirm strength and disposition as soon as we are able to do so.”

He stepped back as the boat moved slowly in pursuit of the British. It wasn’t a safe tactic at all but there was really no other option. He had considered risking an attack, but getting into firing position on one of the bigger ships would be difficult without one of the smaller ships getting in the way and the destroyers coming after him. The British fleet was zigzagging, moving in an pattern that would make it hard to score a hit at this range except through sheer luck.

“Message encoded, sir,” the radio operator said.

“Transmit,” Heidelburger ordered, grimly. “Kurt, keep an eye out for them turning and sending destroyers after us.”

The tension rose sharply. There were no secrets on a submarine, and every man knew that by sending the signal, they risked detection and destruction. The British would definitely maintain a listening watch and even though they wouldn’t — Heidelburger hoped — be able to decode the message.

“Signal sent,” the radioman said. For a brief few moments, they would have extended an antenna out of the water, into the air. Even in darkness, a radar sweep might pick it up, giving the British a direct line on their location. “Berlin acknowledges.”

“The British fleet is continuing on its course,” the sonar operator said. “If they heard us, they’re not bothering to give chase.”

Heidelburger nodded grimly. The British fleet was moving at a respectable speed; if they hadn’t been concentrating on evasive tactics, they would have out-raced the U-boat by now and left Heidelburger unable to relocate them. The time was ticking by slowly. He waited as the British fleet got further and further ahead, before it finally vanished over the horizon.

“Send a second signal,” he said. He was surprised to feel his heart beating so rapidly. It wasn’t a failure, or at least not one that could be blamed on him, but he hated losing track of the enemy ships. “Contact lost. Will attempt to relocate enemy force.”

He privately doubted that they would succeed.

The Eastern and Mediterranean Fleets were a sight for sore eyes, Fraser decided as his personal autogyro settled down on the deck of HMS Impervious. The Impervious was the most modern fleet carrier in the Royal Navy; the ‘Imp,’ as her crew called her, had been serving with Admiral Sir Philip Vian and the Eastern Fleet for several months, watching the Japanese. It had been a risk, pulling her and her sisters out of the Far East, but as Churchill had said, it was a risk that must be borne.

Japan would have real problems assaulting Australia, and the defence of India and Burma was in the hands of the Indian Army. He somehow doubted that they would risk moving south with such a large American commitment to the Philippines. The War Cabinet had decided that the Japanese had too many problems in China to risk opening up a further war front, but even so, Fraser would be relieved when he could send the Eastern Fleet back to Singapore. The Japanese were not always capable of behaving in a rational manner.

“Welcome aboard the Impervious,” Admiral Vian said. His reputation for taking firm action while all others were confused had preceded him. Fraser knew that the man wouldn’t hesitate to do what was necessary to defeat the Germans. The only black mark on Vian’s record was a well-known hatred of the Norwegians, something that had resulted in a number of incidents before he had been packed off to the Far East to command the Eastern Fleet. “What are my orders?”

Fraser allowed Vian to lead him and Admiral Somerville into his stateroom. “The Germans trailed us for some distance and know we’re here, so I want to take advantage of them knowing our rough location.”

“That rarely helped the Italians,” Somerville said. The commander of the Mediterranean Fleet was the oldest of the three, but as a known Churchill partisan had been denied his shot at becoming First Sea Lord. He was competent enough to take what was, in theory, an inferior fleet and dare the Italians to try to destroy it. After the brief and lethal encounter in 1943, the Italians hadn’t dared to challenge the Mediterranean Fleet again and, even now, remained in their harbours rather than fight. “The Germans, of course, are another matter.”

“Yes,” Fraser said. The two admirals would have read the reports from Scapa Flow with care and attention, but it was important to ensure that they understood the clear dangers in treating the Germans like the Italians. The Italian Navy worried endlessly over a clearly-inferior enemy fleet; the Germans had set about destroying a superior force and they’d damn near succeeded. “We have, however, an operating plan to redress some of our disadvantages and hopefully crush the German fleet when it comes out to do battle. Our priority, of course, are the carriers.”

“Of course,” Somerville echoed. Once the German carriers were sunk, the British battleships or aircraft would finish off the German battleships. Fraser found himself, against all logic and reason, hoping for a chance to fight it out with the seven German battleships and their escorts on the surface. He would have the advantage for once. Fraser spoke for twenty minutes, outlining the plan and answering the questions they put to him.

“I like it,” he said finally. “How far advanced are the preparations for it?”

Fraser nodded.

“I have the modified carriers ready at Scapa Flow,” he said. He hadn’t risked taking those ships to the Clyde. The German submarine that that been trailing them might have risked putting a torpedo into one of the modified carriers, suspecting that it was one of the fleet carriers. “Once we reach Point Alpha, those carriers will move into action.”

Somerville smiled. He was more of a battleship admiral than a carrier admiral, like Fraser himself and unlike Vian, who loved new technology, but he understood the plan. The Germans would have to act in a certain way, but the beauty of the plan was simple. If the Germans didn’t react as expected, the British could simply break off the engagement and withdraw back to Scapa Flow, now heavily fortified against all possible German attacks.

“Clever,” he said. “When do we move?”

Vian produced a bottle of scotch and three glasses.

“Once we’ve had a drink,” he said and poured them all a generous measure. “Admiral, what’s the toast?”

Fraser lifted his glass.

“A willing foe and sea room,” he said. They clinked their glasses together and drank. “One way or another, whatever happens, Great Britain will never forget this coming battle.”