Winter Warriors

to mention Scheer, her screws smashed, her stern hanging off, limping along behind the formation. Waiting for the Amis to finish her off. Just don’t mention her, hope everybody will forget that she was a dead ship.

The Signals Officer spoke, his voice shaking. “Admiral, Sir, it’s not just four waves. At least three more have joined the plot. There are five waves at least more to come.”

Admiral’s Bridge, USS Gettysburg CVB-43, Flagship Task Force 58

“Sir, Formation Able has reported in. Claiming a heavy cruiser and two battleships hit and seriously damaged. They’ve lost at least 11 aircraft, have 13 more with varying degree of damage.” A signalman rushed up with another message flimsy. “Formation Baker, Sir. They claim a battleship sunk, another one seriously damaged and four destroyers sinking.” The lieutenants voice became grim. “Baker has lost more than 21 aircraft shot down, Sir. We’ll be recovering Able in 40 minutes, Baker in an hour.”

Halsey nodded, absorbing information. The days up here were short. It was already past noon and we are racing against the setting sun. “TG-58.3 launching?”

The Flag Lieutenant nodded. “Message just in, Sir. Formation How is on its way; 58.4 will be launching Formation Ink in 15 minutes. We’ll be recovering Able while 58.5 launches Formation Job.”

“Very good. Take one of our Corsair groups and the remaining Adie squadron, and the CAP Corsairs from Essex, Franklin, Hancock and Bon Homme Richard. That’ll give us a strike of six groups. Formation Key. All Corsairs, they’re to carry Tiny Tims. If anybody’s running low, 1,600 pound APs instead. The other groups are to use the groups they’re holding on deck for CAP when their turn comes up. CVLs as well. We’ll use the surviving Flivvers for CAP. That’ll buy us another two hours to rearm and refuel. Then Able goes in again. Clear?”

“Clear, Sir.”

Wild Bill Halsey looked over the sea again, south to where his prey was lurking. And to the west, the sun was beginning to sink towards the ocean. At dusk the carriers would turn north, away from the German fleet, if it still existed. And, in case it did….

“Admiral Lee is forming the Battle Line?”

“Sir, it’s assembling now. The battlewagons are detaching from the Task Groups as per your orders. Uhh,” the officer was about to risk the legendary wrath of Wild Bill. “The Large Cruisers Sir? Should they go too?”

Halsey shook his head. “They stay with us. They’ve no place in a gunnery duel.” He looked out again. Is it my imagination or has the sun sunk a little more already? Time was the enemy, he realized that, but how little of it he had scared him. The constant stream of fighter-bombers and torpedo planes from his carriers could sink the German fleet. Of that, he was confident. As long as they had enough time.

AM-1 Mauler Conestoga. Third Wave, Over the High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic

The Germans had made a catastrophic mistake. In maneuvering to avoid the torpedo planes, their formation had started to break up. Their anti-aircraft fire had lost its cohesion, it was wild, uncoordinated, ineffective. The FV-1s streaked straight through it, unloading rockets and machine gun fire into the lead pair of battleships. Those gray monsters staggered under the blow and their defensive barrage faltered under the rippling wave of rockets. The pilots off the Randolph and Bunker Hill were some of the most experienced in the fleet and their tally of missions over France and England had paid off. None of the jets had been hit. They’d curved away at the end of their runs, leaving their targets nicely softened up for the Corsairs and their napalm.

Lieutenant-Commander Raymond Searle absorbed the position as he saw the superstructures of the two leading battleships in front of him erupt into flames. The Corsairs swung around slightly and made their runs from directly ahead of the four huge battleships. It cost them. The anti-aircraft fire from the lead ship had been degraded badly by the flak suppression runs but the following ship had not. Two Corsairs were nailed as they passed over the lead ship and tried to make their runs at the one behind. Ten Corsairs had deluged the German battleship’s superstructure with 3,000 gallons of napalm, sticking to everything and everybody.

Searle watched and reflected grimly that, in this case, antiaircraft fire dying had a very literal meaning. For a brief second he had a picture of the nightmarish inferno on the decks of the stricken battleships. Then he swept it from his mind. They were Germans, who cared what happened to them? Searle’s younger brother had been one of the prisoners murdered at the Battle of the Kolkhoz Pass. That made hammering the German fleet personal.

The Maulers were making their runs a lot higher than the previous aircraft. There was a good reason for that. Searle had named his aircraft Conestoga for a reason; it could lift loads no other single- engined aircraft could equal. There was a lot of rivalry between the Adie and Mame squadrons. Mame was a bit faster than the Skyraider and it could carry more. On the other hand, Adies were easier to fly and had shown an incredible ability to survive damage. Searle had seen Adies that had no right to be in one piece, let alone still flying, bring their pilots back alive before finally giving up — after landing on the decks of the carriers. Both planes were new; both had their problems. It was the Adies that had won the pilot’s trust.

The Mames had something new for the Germans to chew on. They carried a 2,000 pound rocket-boosted armor-piercing bomb under their bellies, another one on the inner hardpoint under their wings and ten 200 pound parachute-braked fragmentation bombs under the outer hardpoints. Searle flew ahead of the battleships, then swung to run down their length. Errors were usually in range, not bearing. This plan would minimize the effect of range errors. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his squadron dropping into place. The formation had been worked out to maximize the number of bombs hitting the target. His eyes flipped down to his bombsight. Through its lens in the bottom of the fuselage he could see the sea. He changed course slightly and the bow of the lead German battleship appeared. His cross ran along it. The forward turret appeared, then, as the second turret eased into view, Searle dropped his entire load. As soon as they saw him do so, the other pilots released simultaneously.

Searle swung away and headed north. His pilots were behind him. 11 of the 12 Maulers in his squadron had survived. Beneath and behind him, he could see the Adie torpedo planes hadn’t been so lucky. The two German battleships at the rear of the formation had concentrated on them. Three planes down? That’s what it looks like.

Behind and beneath him, the 2,000 pound bombs dropped by the Maulers worked as advertized. Each was equipped with a parachute and, as they’d been dropped, a lanyard opened that chute, effectively stopping the bombs dead in mid-air. The weight of the bomb under the chute swung the assembly down to vertical. As the bomb passed 80 degrees, a simple inclinometer fired the six 5 inch rocket motors welded around the outside of the bomb. They boosted it to speeds far beyond anything a normal bomb could achieve. Pre-war analysis had been based on the assumption that, to gain any degree of penetration, a bomb had to be dropped from high enough to pick up speed on the way down. The higher the altitude, the faster the bomb descended and the greater the thickness of armor it would penetrate. That applied all the way up to terminal velocity. Beyond that, the rate of descent stabilized and wouldn’t cause any further increase in penetration. Of course, the higher the bomb was dropped from, the less the chance of it hitting the target. If the thickness of armor was such that a bomb of given weight had to be dropped from a height where the chance of it hitting the target was negligible, the needs of protection were served.

The rocket-boosted American bombs didn’t need altitude to accelerate. The rockets drove them. The bombs dropped from 2,000 feet up were moving far faster than terminal velocity by the time they hit the decks of the ship. They were still accelerating even after they had punched through the thin steel of those decks. That was something the Derfflinger’s designers had never anticipated. Nor had any other battleship designer, but it wasn’t their products that were under attack.

Nine of the bombs hit Derfflinger; ten hit Moltke. More hit the sea alongside the two ships, diving deep underwater before they exploded. In a way, those near misses did more damage than the direct hits. The shock waves pummeled the two ships, springing plates and bursting open welds. The armor piercing rocket bombs were something even the battered German ships had never experienced before.

Two of the direct hits were from Connestoga. One hit B turret. It sliced through the 130mm armored roof and scythed down the long steel barbette. The bomb’s delayed action fuse was initiated by the impact and methodically counted away the milliseconds before the time came for it to destruct. The fuse