72. The Battle of the Three Navies
HMS Nelson
Scapa Flow Anchorage
2300 22 February 1942
Admiral Bruce Fraser was a desperate man - not for the usual reasons that British commanders were desperate in these times, but because Churchill had died. Fraser had pried command of the Coastal Command squadrons in the Highlands from the Royal Air Force, appealing to the unconventional and now deceased Prime Minister that their sole purpose was to screen him against the German fleet. Churchill had agreed, but that greement had vanished with his death and the appointment of the more conventional Clement Attlee. Churchill had kept Albert Victor Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty, well under his thumb, but Alexander had already begun to take the place which that position warranted. Through all of these factors, Fraser saw his freedom of action vanishing into a London-centered vacuum if he did not produce results quickly.
At least the
Nelson had been floated. The ship, put through a crash modernization as part of the repair process after her intentional grounding, was now at her most dangerous. She had been fitted with air detection radar, Fraser not caring whether it interfered with flying his admiral's pennant or not, rangefinding radar - all the conveniences of modern war-fighting. In addition to the eight battleships he had under his immediate command, he had been promised the Free French fleet out of Belfast was steaming north to join him in breaking the German blockade.
The plan was to locate and engage the German fleet, ideally their carrier squadron, and crush them against the French anvil. Every time he thought of the German carriers, his hands involuntarily balled into fists, and he remembered the wreckage that was Scapa Flow upon his arrival. When he imagined the
Graf Zeppelin in flames, a smile spread across his face. Now was such a moment. Finally, he shook himself from his reverie, gazing out across the flag bridge and turning to his flag captain. "Make signal to all ships, prepare for action, set course between Holm and Ronaldsay..." He paused, hesitating, worried that his next command might appear overly dramatic, too Nelsonian. Finally, he decided that, if there was a time to imitate Nelson, this was it. "Beat to quarters."
The order spread rapidly;
Nelson's captain, bleary-eyed and on his third cup of coffee already, translated the last command into the more appropriate
Action stations, but the ship's band obeyed Fraser's order. Thus, as the ship departed Scapa Flow, its decks were a curious mix of the drumroll of the old command, and the five-alarm klaxon of the new. Ashore, sailors saw Fraser's ships, prepared for action and sliding past the blockships, and cheered. On his flag bridge, he saw the shore crowd and solemly returned their collective salute, then got back to the important work of finding the Germans.
---
U-47
Wolfpack Prien
Between the Butt of Lewis and Cape Wrath
0200 23 February 1942
Günther Prien dreamed in battleships. Where Peter Volkmann had dreamt of sinking the
Hood, in the context of Scapa Flow, Prien dreamed of becoming a new Weddigen, though hopefully emptying his tubes before a British battleship ploughed over him. It was a dream that he could not voice to anyone, for fear of being seen as an idiotic stuffed-shirt heel-clicking Prussian militarist. In the U-waffe, it was far better to be seen as a little carefree, unconcerned with such things and more worried about when the next shore leave was. Still, the dream was there.
He suspected that today, if ever, was the day for his dream. Spread out before him was the entire panoply of the Free French fleet. He had been following them for a day and a half, since they departed Belfast, under orders from Admiral Dönitz and the northern U-flotte. He expected the order for general engagement any time now; he knew that boats from all over the area had been gathering in the largest of Dönitz's wolfpacks. There were a hundred and fifty-eight boats in this area, of which he could probably concentrate the overwhelming majority with almost two days' notice.
Ahead of him lay the French fleet in all its glory -
Richelieu,
Jean Bart,
Dunkerque,
Strasbourg,
Provence,
Lorraine, and
Bretagne... and
Bearn. The moment he saw the carrier, his breath caught, his hands trembled on the binoculars, and he changed his mind. There were seven battleships, but only
one carrier, and as of Scapa Flow, the carriers were in ascendance anyway. This was a chance he simply could not pass up.
Here at the limit of observation, they were able to pursue Admiral Muselier's forces by straining their diesels and braving rough seas. Otherwise, chances were very good that they simply would have lost the French. Tonight, though - tonight, Prien suspected that they would make up for two days of engine wear. He turned to his signal officer and quietly ordered, "Let the others know, close up. Listen on the wireless for Lion, let me know the moment the order comes down." A quick nod was all he got in response, and he went below, checking the torpedo room one last time to make sure all was in order.
---
SMS Hindenburg
1. Flugzeugträgerdivision
Between North Ronaldsay and Fair Isle
0400 23 February 1942
Peter Volkmann was a poor sailor in the best of seas. In the North Sea, in winter, he was absolutely miserable.
Hindenburg's sea characteristics did not help; she had not been built as a carrier, but rather as a pre-dreadnought battleship under the name
Hannover. Thus, the alterations made to turn her into a carrier had made her more mobile than usual in high seas, and made it exceptionally unlikely she would ever launch aircraft in winter. He had asked Admiral Langsdorff why they had not been peeled off and posted to, say, launch attacks on Dover or something useful, and Langsdorff had looked at him like he had grown a separate head and told him to stick to running the ship. Relations between the two had been strained for days.
It had not improved Peter's general situation that his only conversational companion had not particularly wanted to speak to him. He was lonely. He had heard of the "loneliness of command," but had never really seen it, since pilots were closer-knit than most naval personnel, and he had never been in command of a ship before. Now, he found that when he sat down to eat with his officers, no one moved, no one ate, no one drank until he did. It was exceptionally depressing for a man who by nature was fairly shy that he had to begin every conversation.
Right now, he was asleep in
Hindenburg's cramped captain's cabin, luxurious compared to his usual shipboard berth, but still tiny even compared to Charlottenburg. A knock sounded at the door, and a discreet moment later, a messenger entered with a sheet of onionskin. Only Langsdorff would wake the captain like this without him first giving permission, so Peter did not even bother mumbling a reprimand, just flicking on his lamp and squinting at the message.
FRENCH FORCE SPOTTED HEBRIDES - FLEET IN PURSUIT - DETACHING 1 CARRIER DIVISION FLEET REARGUARD - C
So that was it. Canaris had decided to leave behind his two slow, under-armed carriers as a rearguard, and was instead joining Raeder in pursuit. Peter could not blame him, but he was certain that Langsdorff upstairs was despairing of getting into the action again. He rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head, moaning as his stomach lurched in time with the ship.
---
U-47
Wolfpack Prien
Off Cape Wrath
0600 23 February 1942
The first phase of the Battle of the Three Navies did not occur according to Grossadmiral Raeder's plans. It occurred according to Vizeadmiral Karl Dönitz's. Dönitz chose to engage his U-boats in a vast wolfpack the likes of which had never been seen, as much to prove the submarines were viable in numbers against a surface force as to steal the glory before Canaris and his carriers could arrive.
At the tail of the French fleet, the seven boats of Prien's pack were given exceptionally favorable attacking circumstances: the fleet before them was in disarray, the escorts haring off after the lead boats, and the
Bearn had just begun to turn broadside when Prien began his attack run. Standing on the conning tower, he gazed out through the Zeiss lenses at the French carrier. It was to his north, ink-black against the dim, overcast sky, its lights doused, and he pursed his lips. "Load tubes one through four, fuse for contact,
no magnetics. Seal tubes one through four. Open outer doors, tubes one through four. Fire on my mark, five-degree spread, three, two, one, mark,
Aale los! Log, four wakes, running hot, straight, and clean, all stop, bring us about and load tubes five and six, fuse for contact." The boat obediently reversed its position, Prien anxiously watching the four torpedo wakes. Moments later, two more shudders told him that the aft tubes had fired, and the boat picked up speed again, at an oblique angle to the wakes.
He watched the silver phosphoresence of the torpedo wakes as they sped away, fingers unconsciously gripping the binoculars ever tighter. "Come on... come on... come
on!" he ground out, almost hopping foot-to-foot. The crew pretended not to notice their normally easygoing captain on the verge of nervous breakdown, and then the sea split around
Bearn. Two great orange fireballs opened in her starboard side, one forward, opening a fuel tank and lighting its contents to throw the entire scene into sharp relief, one aft in her delicate engine and steering areas. Immediately, the ship began to list, though it was not down yet -
Bearn was, after all, a converted battleship.
The
Bearn was fatally damaged, and obviously so. The rest of the French fleet could not stop to pull off its crew, leaving them to fend for themselves as the wolves circled. The most that Muselier could do for his crippled aircraft carrier was to sink it himself. It was in the center of his formation, hindering his ability to maneuver, and eventually, he gritted his teeth and gave the order. The cruiser
Primauget launched a textbook-perfect torpedo run into the stricken ship, marred only by the fact that they were scuttling their own carrier.
Bearn sank at 0715 Paris time, 0815 Berlin.
Prien, watching this from a distance, readying for his second pass, laughed and joked with his crew:
Well, least it proves that Admiral Raeder was wrong, the French can
sink a ship with scuttling charges!
To the northeast, Raeder himself dispatched his scout squadron, consisting of the two fast
Bismarck-class battleships, the
Scharnhorst-class battlecruisers, and all of the
Deutschland-class cruisers, under Admiral Günther Lütjens. Raeder privately envied Lütjens; the last time he himself had been in combat, it had been at Jutland, serving exactly this same role with the I. Aufklarungsschwadron as Admiral Hipper's Chief of Staff. Lütjens was being sent in to complete the disarray before the massive guns of the
Kaiser Wilhelm III-class superbattleships could finish the French.
---
HMS Nelson
Off Fair Isle
0700 23 February 1942
As the first reports of the French debacle came in, Fraser grew desperate, deciding to attempt to draw Raeder and, ideally, Canaris in to him. He gave the order for radar to switch to active mode, sending a radio pulse out, sweeping the sea in the hopes both of locating the Germans and of letting them know where he was. With an hour of darkness left, it paid off.
"Captain Vian's compliments, sir, and he wishes to report a radar contact, bearing two-ninety, range twenty-five miles, sir," bobbed the messenger on the flag bridge. Admiral Fraser nodded, replying, "My thanks to Captain Vian, and ask him if he would bring the ship to bear on that course with all speed. Signals, pass the message to the rest of the fleet - form battle line and make all steam on two-nine-zero. Galleys to serve breakfast by runner, and strike up 'Hearts of Oak.'"
Fraser's last eccentric order went to the ship's band, and the Royal Navy swung to do what it did best. In an eerie, off-key bellow, thousands of sailors' voices struck up their march in response to the bandsmen, shoving mouthfuls of oatmeal and bacon down when they could.
Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
---
SMS Hindenburg
45 Kilometers West-Northwest of HMS Nelson
0700 23 February 1942
Peter had arrived on the bridge relatively late, drawing Langsdorff's disapproving glare and making an apologetic face as he got a cup of coffee. The sun was just starting to threaten to peek above the eastern horizon, lightening that part of the sky, and Langsdorff was gazing out in that direction, frowning. "Sir?" Peter asked, sipping. "What is it?"
"Smoke," Langsdorff replied absently. "Radar?"
"Sir... large contact bearing one-ten. Surface contact, too numerous to count."
Langsdorff's eyes goggled. He knew exactly what that meant - that the rearguard was in fact going to be needed today. Immediately he spun to Peter. "Captain Volkmann. Bring your ship into the wind and throw everything in the air." Peter had already calculated the moves required, and nodded, yelling into the ship's intercom. "All hands, battle stations, prepare for surface engagement. All aircraft to prepare for action, launch as they bear, that is all."
Belowdecks, the men of the Kaiser's oldest carrier heaved their aircraft onto the elevators, often strapping bombs into place even as they rose to the deck, and the fuelers cursed and swore every time a set of tires crimped a hose. It was a madhouse, but it was the only way to get a single aircraft airborne in what rapidly promised to be a massacre. Peter, for his part, was in the wireless shack, banging the operator's shoulder as he fired off message after message to Canaris. By 0715, as the
Bearn was sinking and Langsdorff was attempting to determine ship identities through his binoculars, Peter was transmitting in plain text:
WHERE ARE YOU? IN GOD'S NAME SEND HELP!
---
HMS Nelson
25 Kilometers East-Southeast of SMS Hindenburg
0730 23 February 1942
Fraser, for his part, was gazing grimly at the two ships they pursued. He recognized them from the Coronation Review and Kiel Week -
Hindenburg and
Germania. In other words, the ships the Kaiser could most afford to lose. Still, their presence, and the frantic radio traffic they were emitting, might draw Raeder back. "Signals. Make flags for 'England Expects, et cetera.'" Without looking, he picked up the intercom to call down to the bridge. "Captain Vian. Yes. Thank you, maintain present course, do not pull parallel. You may fire at discretion. Your guns lead the fleet, Captain."
"Signals. 'Cruisers to engage at discretion, battle line to fire in order.' Thank you."
The flags snapped up, Nelson's famous signal followed by the first orders of the battle. Below, Vian relayed his orders, the
Nelson's rangefinders seeking out the two German carriers as the first aircraft left their decks, mere specks at this long distance, certainly no threat to the battleships. Between them, they carried perhaps sixty planes, including both bombers and fighters. Fraser grunted in amusement. He had about that same number of planes in catapult-launched float planes spread across his ships.
Fraser predictably scored the first blood of the engagement. At 0742,
Nelson's guns began to fire, at the long but not impossible range of twenty thousand meters. The initial salvo splashed up red water well short of
Hindenburg, still frantically launching her aircraft. For one terrible minute, the German crews endured those great guns marching toward her, splashes closing to within three hundred meters of the
Hindenburg's fantail before the last Messerschmitt was airborne, leaving behind only the Storks. It was now the turn of HMS
Renown, a beneficiary of the Royal Navy's massive modernization of the late 1930s.
Fed gunnery information from
Nelson,
Renown laid her guns and began to fire. Her B turret put two rounds through the hangar deck, but the gun crews registered them as misses, because the thin-armored
Hindenburg merely let the rounds pass right through, creating splashes on the far side.
Hindenburg was exceedingly fortunate that the last aircraft were away and the deck clear of munitions; as it was, the 380mm shells tore furrows through the steel deck and punched through the ship's laundry before blowing out the other side.
There was every reason to think the cruisers would end the two German carriers. As he watched them, Fraser's lips pursed. His eyes widened in sudden shock as his cruiser line, rather than continuing their attack run, wheeled back
into his formation, a critical blunder. Moments later, he saw why.
Against all odds, the Stuka pilots did their jobs, and did it well. Despite appalling casualties, for of the forty launched, only ten would land at day's end from both torpedo and bomber runs, the German bombers came in low and slow against the British cruiser line, the immediate threat to their home ships. Even the survivors had no clear idea who gave the order; the entire thing resulted in the Iron Cross, First Class being collectively awarded to the bomber squadrons. They registered eight hits against three vessels, the treaty cruisers
Norfolk and
Northumberland and the light cruiser
Enterprise. In the confusion,
Northumberland ploughed into
Norfolk's stern, dooming them both, and the two German carriers began blowing smoke as if their lives depended on it - which, in point of fact, it did.
Fraser cursed and ordered his ships to continue west, firing as they bore on the two German carriers, trying desperately to seek the main German line before day broke completely. He had lost three cruisers, the French had lost a carrier, and the German baby carriers were fleeing for Germany with their wings clipped, transmitting their panic the whole time. It was, he decided grimly, in danger of becoming another Jutland - a tactical victory for the strategic loser.
Sadly for Fraser, these thoughts, and the distraction of the German rearguard, held his attention a moment too long.
---
Eagle Flight
10 Kilometers Above, 50 Kilometers West of HMS Nelson
0815 23 February 1942
Wilhelm Canaris had heard Peter's pleas; it had just taken him time to respond to them. He had wheeled his four ships into the wind just as the two baby carriers had done, and thrown the aircraft he had planned on sinking the French with into the air in what even he admitted was probably a quixotic gesture to save Langsdorff and Volkmann.
Hans-Ulrich Rudel, for his part, did not believe in quixotic gestures, or for that matter waste of any kind. When he went aloft, he fully intended to find and sink
something. As
Zeppelin's new air group commander, he had drilled this into his people as best he could, but it was not until today that they had really had a chance to put it to the test. "All units, Eagle lead, we have smoke bearing one-two-zero, proceed that bearing, over," he ordered in short, clipped tones.
Thus guided by the two smoking cruisers, Rudel's pilots homed on the battle. His dive bombers first spotted the British fleet, and unlike the pilots from
Hindenburg and
Germania, he made a conscious decision. "Flight leaders, pick your battleships. Sink them all. God save the Kaiser. Eagle lead out."
Rudel's planes hit their apogee, then tipped over. If Fraser's fleet detected them, it was only at the last minute, on the assumption that they were from the two fleeing carriers. Still, Rudel was a dive-bomber pilot, not a torpedo pilot, and the dive bombers learned the hard way that ships on the move, under a curtain of anti-aircraft fire, were difficult targets. The bombers stooped and dove into a much denser cloud of fire, under fear of Coastal Command Hurricanes appearing any moment, and it showed in their accuracy.
He led a hundred and eighty attack aircraft; of those, exactly eight hit. Six of those hits were on HMS
Malaya. Only one of those hits mattered, penetrating to her magazine and destroying the ship in a catastrophic explosion that could be felt even in the retreating bombers. Aboard
Nelson, Fraser gritted his teeth and ploughed on, certain that there could at least be no follow-on strike.
---
U-47
Off Cape Wrath
0900 23 February 1942
Prien's boat submerged and pulled back as the sun rose, watching Lütjens at work instead. The German battle line came out of the dawn like ghosts against the smoke of the
Bearn's oil slick, led by
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau, then the two
Bismarck-class, followed by the three
Deutschlands. Prien frowned, puzzled, as he watched through the periscope - why the battlecruisers first? Perhaps it was because of their speed, he eventually decided.
The truth was that
Bismarck had lost her fire-control radar for reasons unknown, so Lütjens had simply pulled her back in line. Instead, the two battlecruisers, generally felt to be more than a match for the French, sped forward to take her place. The French fleet, in utter disarray and just starting to recollect, were unprepared for them. Rather than slowing to maneuver at all, Lütjens punched straight across the mass of the French fleet, then wheeled to the north again. In that first pass, the Germans scored hits on the three old
Bretagne-class dreadnoughts, but were unable to bring the two great prizes,
Richelieu and
Jean Bart, to ground. Then began the circling, with the French frantically trying to withdraw and Lütjens doing everything in his power to keep them trapped between him and Raeder's line.
Raeder appeared at ten, just after
Gneisenau's A turret was knocked out by
Richelieu. Rather than risk the battlecruiser further, Raeder ordered it eastward under escort by the cruiser
Lützow. The final stage of the battle, as far as the French, began to unfold. Admiral Muselier, aboard
Jean Bart, sent one last wireless signal:
The battle is lost. Save your ships. Vive la France. Destroyers and light cruisers fled aimlessly, whichever direction they saw no Germans.
Jean Bart pointed her bow straight on at the
Kaiser Wilhelm III and pulled every last measure from her overtaxed turbines in an apparent death ride.
It did her no good. The 480mm guns fired regularly, three times a minute, as the meters closed, and inside ten thousand meters, there was simply no missing. The
Jean Bart took one massive round between the fore turrets, dropping into the forward magazine and detonating catastrophically. Afterwards, there was simply nothing left of the ship.
Their jobs done, Raeder's ships turned serenely away from the sinking wreckage of the French fleet. In three hours of intense ship-to-ship fighting, the longest naval battle in memory, they had sunk all seven of the French battleships, a tremendous triumph for a navy not even ten years old. Raeder was already preparing his dispatch for Berlin when the word came back: The battle was not yet over.
---
HMS Nelson
Northwest of Westray
1100 23 February 1942
Fraser had received Muselier's last signal. He was quietly furious. So far today he had lost a battleship and three cruisers, and the French had lost their entire bloody navy. He might as well walk forward and jump off the bow, get towed under, and be cast through the propellers for all the good he would do here. These were his thoughts as he stalked
Nelson's flag bridge.
"Sir," the messenger coughed nervously, the entire ship on edge after twelve hours at stations, "Captain Vian's compliments, and we have two contacts at two-one-zero, thirty miles." He wheeled on the messenger, biting back the immediate reply, and said instead, with infinite, icy patience, "Then by all means, give chase, please!"
Because
Gneisenau was damaged, the
Lützow took the lead. Thus, Fraser was momentarily disappointed, thinking he had found only a cruiser squadron, doubtless to report his position to Raeder and bring the battleship line crashing down on his head. Instead, to his delight, he saw moments later that one of the two ships was part of the battle line. Today might be salvaged yet!
The British battleships, disdaining the cruisers which had performed so abysmally against the two baby carriers, formed line again,
Nelson beginning the relentless pounding. The two German ships were simply outclassed.
Gneisenau was victim to the full, vindictive wrath of his battleship line, with official credit for the sinking going to HMS
Wiltshire. Lützow was
Nelson's own, with the ship capsizing and sinking after only three salvoes. Fraser pressed relentlessly onward, determined to come to grips with Raeder.
Raeder evaded him, withdrawing northwards, quite certain that Fraser outgunned him - after all, it was the Royal Navy, and reports from the reclaimed carrier planes told him with absolute certainty that there were at least a dozen battleships remaining in the force, plus cruisers. The truth was far more prosaic, that numerically the battle lines were evenly matched, but Rudel's pilots over-reported the British force. Thus, Fraser was forced to content himself with one of Raeder's picket ships, set to watch for his approach as night drew on, the
Nürnberg, which was sunk by HMS
Renown. Raeder fled north of the Faeroes; Fraser proceeded, dispirited and tired, to Liverpool.
The end result was thoroughly mixed, as far as Whitehall was concerned: Fraser had sunk three cruisers for the loss of four of his own and one battleship, but he had escaped Scapa Flow, effectively ending the stalemate in the north. All in all, it was not enough to cost him his fleet command - though it certainly cost Muselier his, and cost Giraud a tremendous deal of respect in Britain. Fraser still had a fleet-in-being; what he lacked was an effective presence on the east coast of Britain.
The North Sea, for all intents and purposes, belonged to Germany.