Winter Warriors

Pace walked them along the fuselage, first shattering the glasshouse cockpit, then marching back towards the tail. The Ju-87 didn’t have far to go, the sea was only a few feet below.

The ditching was good. The fixed undercarriage broke off on impact and the plane came to a halt bobbing on the waves. Pace and his wingman swept past then arched up and away, coming around for a strafing pass. They held their fire, there was no sign of movement from the settling aircraft. Before they overflew it, the aircraft rolled to port, one crooked wing lifting in a last gesture of defiance before the Ju-87 sank.

“Sitka-One. This is Eagle-Three. Bandit is splashed. Say again, bandit is splashed.”

“Acknowledged Eagle-Three. Return immediately to rearm and refuel.” Pace’s eyebrows went up at the message. Hunter-Killer Group Sitka was transmitting. That meant lights-on had been given and the group was radiating. Radar, radio, whatever was needed. Including the homing beacons which was a relief. However, lights-on meant the group had been spotted. That was very definitely not a relief. Stalingrad, aka Sitka-One, was calling her fighters home to face an expected attack. That was more than a lack of a relief; that was downright disturbing.

Bridge, KMS Graf Zeppelin, Flagship, Scouting Group, High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic

“Sir, we’ve lost contact with six of the scout aircraft. The ones covering the arc 240 to 312 degrees.”

“That gives us a rough fix. They didn’t spot anything I assume?” Admiral Ernst Brinkmann didn’t have much hope of that. All too often, the rough fix given by their destruction was the only information a recon aircraft gained. That’s why it was called a flaming datum.

“Sir, Metox reports enemy radar transmissions. Airborne radars; a lot of them. Same frequency as their search radar, the one the U-boatmen hate.”

Brinkmann winced inside. That was news he didn’t want to hear. Back in ’43, the snorkel had been the great hope of the submarine fleet. It would allow the U-boats to run submerged all the time and avoid the air patrols that had decimated them. Then, the Americans had brought in a new radar; one that could pick up a snorkel head at ranges of dozens of kilometers. Of course, that meant it could pick up larger targets at much longer ranges. There had been whispers that American scout planes had the same radar so they wouldn’t have to close with an enemy formation and die the way the German scout aircraft were dying.

Brinkmann damned the Americans. Ever since they had entered the war, things had changed. They had an avalanche of material: tanks, guns, planes, ships. Everything needed to fight in such profusion it didn’t matter how much was destroyed. A division of tanks gone? Call up Detroit and double production for next month. Need a radar for every scout aircraft? No problem, call the factory and tell them to get moving. There isn’t a factory? No problem, build another one. Brinkmann had heard that Eastern Siberia was being filled with American-built factories; whole towns and cities created out of the open steppes, peopled by the refugees from the west. It was so unfair. We went to war with Russia knowing that Russian industrial might was in the west. Destroy or capture it and the war would be over. How were we to know that the Russians would move it? Or that the Americans would replace what had been lost ten times over.

The Americans had even done the impossible; they’d rammed a railway through Afghanistan to feed munitions directly to the Russian troops fighting in the South. Oh, Brinkmann knew that the newsreels had shown the Afghan railway being built by the Indians alone. They’d shown tens of thousands of Indian laborers digging their way along the rivers and through the passes to build the tracks but he didn’t believe it. An engineering feat like that had to be the Americans; the Indians just didn’t have that ability. An uneasy thought stirred in his mind. If the Indians had built the Afghan Railway by themselves, if they did have that ability, then what did that say about Germany’s claim to Aryan supremacy? He squashed the thought down, even having such ideas was dangerous.

“They’ve seen us. Get the strike off now. Tell the pilots to head out on course 270, find the enemy and attack. Once the strike is off and our decks are clear, get the reserve fighters up and off.”

“Sir, we don’t have time. If the enemy have spotted us, they must be launching now. They’ll be with us within the hour. By the time we’ve launched our strike, got the fighters up on deck, warmed up their engines, and started to launch, they’ll be right on top of us. If

we’re caught with armed and fuelled aircraft on our decks….”

There was no need for Dietrich to complete the thought. Fire was the great fear of every aircraft carrier. German newsreels had been full of the U-boat’s greatest score. The American aircraft carrier Enterprise had been torpedoed almost within New York harbor itself. The pyre of smoke from her death-blaze had towered over the city. Great propaganda but also a terrible lesson. Fire killed carriers.

“Then launch them cold.”

Dietrich’s face froze. Launching the aircraft with cold engines meant that some wouldn’t make it. They’d lose power at the wrong moment, go into the sea and be ran down by the carrier they’d just left. The order to launch the aircraft with cold engines meant condemning some of their pilots to death. “But Sir….”

“Not buts. Launch them cold.” Brinkmann softened; he knew what he was asking. “There is an Ami task group out there. Four carriers, almost 400 aircraft. We have to get our blow in first. We also have to have every fighter we can up. If our fighters are not up in time, they will be destroyed in their hangars. Launch them, Erich. We must have them up in time to meet the Americans. Whatever it costs.

HMCS “Ontario” Flagship, Troop Convoy WS-18 en route from Churchill to Murmansk

“What are the plans if it all goes wrong Admiral?”

Captain Charles Povey had every reason to be concerned. There was no pretence about the situation out here. Troop Convoy WS-18, Winston’s Special 18, was bait. Only part of the bait, that was true. The main portion was supply convoy PQ-17, no less than 250 merchant ships packed into a box 16 ships wide by 16 deep. Not all the ships in that box were merchantmen. There were two battleships in there, Arizona and Nevada. PQ-17 was a slow convoy; it could afford to have the battleships along. WS-18 was a fast convoy, very fast by merchant ship standards. The five liners, carrying the 40,000 Canadian soldiers that were the whole reason for the convoy, were holding a steady speed of 25 knots. That was fast enough to give even the German Type XXIs a very hard time. Only, that meant no battleships as escorts, only cruisers and destroyers.

“We scatter the convoy of course. The liners will run for it, they’re faster than the battleships anyway. Then, we take Quebec and the destroyers to attack the German fleet. Buy the liners time to get clear. God willing, it won’t come to that. Not with all the carriers and planes the Yanks have waiting.”

It sounded hopeful; it was a reasonable hope. The Americans had their entire carrier striking force moving into assault the German fleet. If nothing went wrong, if the strikes found their target, the German ships would never see either of the two convoys. Even if they didn’t, the Germans would run into PQ-17 and its battleships first. Not that those two ancient battlewagons would stand much of a chance against the German monsters. They’d die fighting, just like WS-18’s escort would die fighting, if they had to.

Ontario had a score to settle. She’d started life as HMS Kenya and had ran for Canada as part of the Great Escape. There had been two sister-ships for the Canadian Navy building in British yards, neither complete enough to make the run. The original Ontario had still been on the slips at Harland and Wolff: she’d been very thoroughly blown up. The original Quebec had a more unusual fate. She’d been fitting-out at Vickers-Armstrong’s Tyneside yard when the Germans seized her. They’d fussed around her for a few days while the dockies carried on with their work.

Then, the Germans had ordered them all off; apparently intending to tow her to Germany for completion. She’d left under tow. A few hours later, she foundered, sinking beyond any possible recovery given the resources available. Nobody knew officially what had happened. She’d been in the hands of a prize crew who had supposedly secured her for sea. There had been courts-martial over that. The rumor was that the rivets fastening the hull plating under her engine rooms had been drilled out, replaced by soap and painted over. As the ship moved, the paint peeled away, the soap dissolved and a large section of the bottom of the hull had dropped off. It was only a rumor of course.

Anyway, the Royal Navy had offered the Canadian Navy Kenya and Fiji to replace the lost ships. The Canadians had accepted; the Royals had too few men to provide them