Kirov II: Cauldron of Fire

Part VIII

THE BEST LAID PLANS

“The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy.”

~ Robert Burns

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

Chapter 22

Word came to Syfret in a brief respite in the middle of a very hard day on the 12th of August. It was marked highest priority, direct from the Admiralty, and he was to respond and confirm these new orders at once. It was more than he needed just then, as the Germans and Italians had been throwing everything they had at him. There was a relatively small attack that morning at 08:00 hours, easily beaten off with the substantial flak his escorts could put up. At noon, however, a stronger attack came, some seventy aircraft. It was just as the intelligence had indicated after intercepting and decoding orders sent to the Italian 77th Wing at Elmas, Sardinia. Yet there was also some odd chaff in that message about an engagement farther north, at Bonifacio Strait. What was that about? It was the only bright spot in his day, as it indicated that the Italian Naval units that had been gathering like a flock of black crows in the Tyrrhenian Sea had suddenly turned north, and were now well away from the planned convoy route.

It was clear from the intelligence that the whole operation was being taken in deadly earnest by the enemy. There were opinions expressed that the Germans now believed there was a direct threat to Benghazi, Tripoli or even to Crete, with the threat of Allied troop landings prompting them to reinforce all these areas with any available air and ground units.

Lord, he was having enough trouble simply trying to protect fourteen merchant vessels carrying supplies to Malta, let alone the notion of mounting an amphibious operation behind Rommel’s back. He knew that was coming, but for the moment those plans were still hush, hush. Now he looked at his new orders, curious as to what might be so urgent in them.

‘IMPERATIVE YOU WITHDRAW FORCE Z AT EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY — RETURN TO GIBRALTAR AT BEST SPEED — REPEAT — WITHDRAW IMMEDIATELY — ACKNOWLEDGE — END’

He frowned, noting how “at his earliest opportunity” had been duly strengthened by the addition “withdraw immediately.” Here the Germans and Italians were doing everything possible to impede his progress—high level bombers, dive bombers, low level torpedo planes, submarines, minefields, some twist on a new aerial torpedo dropped from planes that would circle in the midst of the convoy to seek out targets. The Italians would call them ‘motobombas.’ He had even heard they had packed a seaplane full of high explosives and planned to fly it by radio control and crash it into one of his carriers. Thankfully the plane could not be controlled and flew harmlessly across the Mediterranean Sea to crash in the desert, leaving a large crater where it exploded but doing no other harm. The Italians, he thought, shaking his head.

Now the Admiralty simply wanted him to turn about with the heart of the surface escort fleet, and run off home to Gibraltar. For what? He knew he would have to turn back in any case, as they were very near the Skerki Bank now, and the channel narrowed there to make a transit by his battleships an unwise operation in these circumstances. It had always been planned that Force Z would turn back at this point. The question was merely how long to hold with the convoy before he turned it over to Admiral Burrough and Force X with his cruisers and destroyers.

They would have the worst of what was yet to come, he knew. He was taking the carriers, and both Rodney and Nelson home with him, and Burrows was left with whatever they could spare him.

“Rodney reports she’s having difficulties with her steering, sir,” said a watch stander. The ship had been having trouble that way for the last month, Syfret knew, and now it was all she could do to make just fifteen knots. If the Admiralty wanted them home directly, he had little choice in the matter. He had to turn back now.

“Very well,” he said with a heavy heart, and gave an order to the midshipman at his side. “Signal Admiral Burrough Godspeed, and we’ll turn about at once and head east for Gibraltar.” He looked at his watch. It was 16:00 hours, some three hours before he was planning to make this turn.

So it was that the carrier Indomitable, which might have sailed on into the teeth of the enemy air attacks for another three hours, did not receive three critical bomb hits when the Axis air forces mounted a large and well coordinated attack with JU-88s, JU-87s, and Italian Cant 1007 torpedo bombers. Rodney was also spared three near misses and the crash of an Italian aircraft on her bow. The order from the Admiralty had changed the history—Kirov had changed the history by her very presence in this region, and by prompting those urgent orders.

Now Syfret sailed east chasing the setting sun, even as Kirov was beginning to put her first divers into the water north of Menorca Island. While Rosenbaum’s U-73 was taking that long torpedo shot and prompting Karpov to churn up the sea with his ASW rockets and initiate his search with the KA-40, Syfret was receiving bad news over his shoulder and burdened with considerable regret. Burrough was under attack, and his cruisers Nigeria and Cairo had both taken torpedoes, along with the one ship he had dearly hoped to protect, the American oil tanker Ohio. He was inclined to split his force and send Rodney on home to satisfy this order from the Admiralty, while taking Nelson back east to cover the eventual withdrawal of Burrough’s Force X. Yet he received further orders clarifying his options in no uncertain terms. He was to return to Gibraltar at his best speed, and with as much force as he could spare. At the very least he felt obliged to detach some of his escorts and send help to Force X, come what may. So he gave orders that cruiser Charybdis and destroyers Eskimo and Somali should be signaled by lantern to break off and return to the fray. It would end up doing little good.

In the next twenty-four hours the British would see two more cruisers torpedoed, Kenya and Manchester, and of the 14 ships they had mustered all this naval power to protect, only five would make it through the terrible gauntlet of fire and reach Malta. The Ohio was saved by a handful of dispossessed crewman who manned her AA guns while they watched the ship sink so low in the water that the waves were right at the height of the deck. Two British destroyers lashed themselves to either side of the beleaguered tanker and literally dragged her to port.

Five ships… only five made it through, but it was enough to keep the garrison and population of Malta from starvation, and the vital oil and fuel in Ohio’s holds was pumped out in the nick of time before she finally settled on the bottom at her berth, a ruined wreck. She would never sail again.

As the haggard Royal Navy ships fell back on Gibraltar, Force Z would limp home with the two big battleships, carriers Indomitable and Victorious, two light