flung at them, and they hoped they never would again. They had flown bravely threw enemy flak, dodging the mindless rounds as they puffed and exploded in the sky around them. But these things came at you as if they knew your name. They were death in a steel cased shell with wings on it, and frightening beyond belief.
~ ~ ~ “Torpedoes in the water!” shouted Tasarov on sonar. His system immediately went to active rapid pulse detection mode, beeping in ever shortening intervals to indicate the closing range of the oncoming threat. “I have three contacts.”
“Come right, thirty degrees hard!” shouted Fedorov.
The ship heeled over with the high speed turn, but Karpov could see that they would easily avoid the barbs Intrepid had hurled at them on this course, yet that turn would put them dangerously close to the last torpedo, the fish that had fallen from Tom Wales Albacore II.
“Shkval!” said Karpov reflexively.
The fast rocket torpedo was fired, acquiring a target in seconds and racing with impossible speed to destroy it. Karpov looked back out the port view panes and saw the explosive dome of seawater slowly subside, and the threatening streaks of two more torpedoes leaving cold white wakes behind them. Then the scene grew quiet again, and there was only Kirov’s churning wake, and the distant glow of fire on the heavy British ships. Tasarov signaled that all was well.
The ship had turned on a heading of 292 degrees northwest now, still running at full battle speed. They had raced past the Almeria bay in the last forty minutes, coming around past another flat headland that jutted south into the Alboran Sea. Ahead Fedorov could see the wrinkled shadowy highlands rising from a rocky coastline and climbing steeply to heights up over 1800 meters. The ship was heading straight for them on this course, in spite of the danger posed by submarines that might be lurking near the coast. It was the only sea room they would find off their starboard quarter for a while, and he knew he would soon have to come left again to get round Cabo Sacratif looming in the distance. Yet they had finally pulled well ahead of the British battleships, and the range was now increasing with each passing minute.
They saw one last bright orange belch of fire from their pursuers, and then the British Guns fell silent. Nelson was still burning badly, with her smoke so thick that the entire conning tower was engulfed in the black plume and the ship had to turn to get the prevailing wind off angle so the weary bridge crew could get air and function. Rodney had hurled one last vengeful salvo at them, and now the rounds came soaring in from her A turret and fell in a tight spread so close to the aft section of the ship that they could feel their rump jostled by the near impact. She would not find the range again.
The British ships knew that the sea devil they had been chasing would now escape them. Kirov was opening her lead steadily, and there was no way they could possibly catch up. The intercept course they had wisely chosen allowed them only this brief window for engagement. So now they turned thirty points to port, the command of the battle squadron falling to Admiral Fraser on Rodney. Syfret had been hustled off the bridge of Nelson, alive but still unconscious below decks. Fraser also got word from Admiral St. Lyster that Indomitable had been hit by one of these rockets, and took some heavy damage below the fight deck amidships. They couldn’t stand to lose any more carriers. Eagle was enough, so he wisely decided to turn his battered ships southward to cover the carrier force. Most of the destroyers were fairly well beaten up, except for Intrepid, who came out remarkably unscathed, though she had gotten in closer to this devil than any other ship.
Slowly the rumble of guns and roar of the missiles subsided, and the night once again settled heavily over the scene. The ‘Battle of Almeria Bay’ had been fought for well over an hour and was now concluded. Though Rodney and Nelson had clearly taken the harder blows, they would say that they were not the first to turn from the heat of battle, and that their enemy had fled into the night, breaking off with her superior speed to escape the grasp of their 16 inch guns. It was an old story for the Nelson class battleships. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had escaped them in the past, and they were not fast enough to chase either Bismarck or Tirpitz until the former was stopped by planes off the Ark Royal so Rodney could catch up. Their day had come and gone, and they survived to be eventually folded into laborious convoy escort duty later in the war, still a stalwart threat, but well past their hour of glory.
When the destroyer attack failed and the air strike suffered such grievous losses, Fraser knew his men had suffered enough for one night. They had all done their best, and a good many DSOs would be awarded for this action—but too many of them posthumously. As destroyer Intrepid led the remnant of the flotilla south, he gave the order to turn and effect a rendezvous with the carriers. Then he tramped listlessly into the wireless room to get a message off to Tovey. It was just three short words, and they would carry the whole of what his men and ships had striven for and failed to win in the end.
‘Geronimo… Geronimo… Geronimo…’
~ ~ ~ Submarine Talisman had been lying quietly in the cool still waters off the coast of Adra, her Asdic operator listening to the churning sea battle above. Lieutenant Commander Michael Willmott had drifted the boat up to periscope depth. He had come to this boat in time to get in on some exciting North Atlantic patrols. His boat had hunted for the cruiser Prince Eugen and was also engaged in the hunt for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and thought he had them in his sights on March 12, diving to begin his attack. But as he lined up on the targets he suddenly realized he was looking at HMS Rodney and King George V! He made the best of an embarrassing moment and used the situation as a drill for a practice attack before surfacing and signaling his presence to the battleships.
Now he was listening to the rumble of Rodney’s guns off to the southeast, their massive report still audible at this shallow depth, a dull boom resounding through the sea. The old girl still has a temper when she wants to, he thought. He was glad he had not stupidly fired on her those months ago. It seemed his boat had been fated to run afoul of his own side far too often in this war. A year ago he had fired on what he thought was an enemy submarine and later learned it was Favell’s boat, HMS Otus. Thankfully all his torpedoes missed. Most recently he had been stalking a U-Boat in the Bay of Biscay, and when he surfaced to get up some speed he was quickly pounced upon by a British Sunderland and depth charged!
Talisman was knocked about quite a bit, and put in to Gibraltar for repairs on the morning of 13th of August. Operation Pedestal was in full gear and he was gratefully spared that duty while the engineers worked feverishly on his boat at the docks—a little too feverishly, he thought. He remembered pulling a mate aside and asking him what all the haste was about.
“Can’t say as I know, Lieutenant,” the man said. “We were just to have this boat seaworthy by sunset, and that’s all I know.”
“By tonight? Well look at her—look at that hull buckling there.”
“Don’t worry none sir, we’ll patch her up nice and good… But I’d keep to shallow water if I was you, sir. None of that deep diving and such.”
Willmott was flabbergasted, but he had orders in hand by 15:00 hours that afternoon and was told to get out into the Alboran Sea and lurk in the coastal waters off Spain to look for a renegade French battlecruiser. And here he was, at a little before 04:00 hours on the morning of August 14th.
At least it was a little excitement. He could be stuck in an office in the bowels of the Rock answering a raft of tedious questions about that Sunderland incident. Now he had a shot at another fast capital ship, and by god, there the bugger was! He spied the threatening silhouette of what looked like a battlecruiser, the ship his Asdic operator had been listening to for the last half hour, and she was running fast and furious right in his direction. All he had to do now was fire.
“Down scope! Load tubes one and four. On the double quick!”
The crews rushed to battle stations and he had his fish ready to fry in record time. He raised the periscope again to check his alignment. There it was, still barreling in at high speed, some 3000 meters out. He could take a long shot, or he could wait silently in the shallows until it came just a little closer, he thought. While he was considering his options his luck ran out. Something came out of the murky depths with lightning speed and found his
