Mames each. With our group, that’s four squadrons of Corsairs and ten of bombers. More than 200 strike aircraft. The officer checked a tally list, one that was a long, long column of numbers. “Sir, good place to stop, with Nan going in, we’ve launched exactly 1,776 sorties against the enemy fleet.”
Halsey grinned. That was a number that would make headlines. “Our losses?”
“So far, 254 aircraft lost due to enemy action, 186 lost operationally, 48 are badly damaged and will need major repairs. We have just over 1,672 aircraft left operational of the 2,160 we started with. Attrition is 22.6 percent of our totalled air groups.” The aide thought for a second. “I’ve no idea whether this is good or bad. Nobody has ever done what we did today.”
Halsey grunted. “What’s left out there?”
“Main formation has gone Sir. One battleship and a cruiser are left dead in the water, 58.3s Adies are closing on them now. Another cruiser and five destroyers tried to make a break south. The destroyers have gone, the cruiser is crippled and heading south.” The aide laughed. “She’s going backwards, her bows got blown clean off. Nan and a mix of Adies and Mames from TG54.3 are hitting her now. It’s over Sir, Washington got their clean sweep.”
“Any news?” Igrat’s voice reflected the tension that had been building in Washington all day.
“Nothing official. Last I heard, the Rivets are intercepting a lot of communications from the Germans and some from our aircraft. If they’re anything to go by, the Germans have lost a lot of ships and Halsey a lot of aircraft. Phillip says that means we’re winning, we can replace our aircraft a lot faster than the Germans can replace their ships.”
“He would. We can’t replace those pilots though.”
“Have you seen the output of our flying schools Iggie?” Naamah relaxed slightly. It had been a long day and she was tired. “We’re actually training more pilots than we can use at the moment.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. The boys who get shot down, we can’t be picking many of them up.”
“Don’t know. No word on that either. I know we’ve got Mariners and floatplanes out to recover as many of the splashed pilots as we can, but its winter and it’s the North Atlantic. I guess you’re right, we can’t be getting to that many of them. Anyway, we’ll know soon. Got any plans for the weekend?”
“Going up to stay with Mike on Long Island. Going to make it a long weekend. I’ve got a few days leave before we do the next run to Geneva.”
“Be careful with Mike, he tends to be over-emotional.” From Naamah, that was a serious criticism. She regarded Mike Collins as a playboy, essentially a lightweight who drank too much and didn’t keep his temper under control. There was a good reason why Stuyvesant hadn’t tapped him for either the Strategic Bombing Commission or the Economic Intelligence and Warfare Committee. As far as she was concerned, his only redeeming virtue was that he threw good parties.
“You’re not being fair, Nammie. He’s tired; tired deep down inside. The troubles in Ireland wore him out, disillusioned him, and what’s happening there now has finished the job. Seeing Protestants in the partisan-jaegers hunting Catholics and Catholic partisan-jaegers hunting Protestants, it really got him. He thinks nothing is worth doing, nothing is worth any effort, so he might as well have a good time. Anyway, he does throw good parties and you know what they say, a man in the bush is worth two in the hand.”
Naamah shook her head and went into The Seer’s office. “How’s it going?”
“Nothing since you asked ten minutes ago.” Stuyvesant smiled to take the edge off the remark. “And pass that to Lillith as well, It’s been fifteen minutes since she asked. Got to admire her self-restraint. We’re probably about an hour behind the loop though. Intel will go to Navy first, then the White House, then back down to us. All we can do is wait.”
At that moment, the red telephone on The Seer’s desk rang and he listened to the voice on the other end for a minute or so, no more. Then, he went out to where his assistant was sitting. “Lillith, round up the gang and spread the word. We’ve just had a message from Wild Bill. Message reads, and I quote. ‘Sighted German Navy. Sank Same.’”
CHAPTER SIX: WHITEOUT
“So, Sir, we are operating in the standard two up one back formation. We have 7th and 8th Infantry Brigades on the line; the 9th is held in reserve. Most of it anyway. C Company of the Cameron Highlanders are parceled out to the various rear area elements of the division. Those Vickers guns are marvelous defensive tools, especially in this climate. The Nova Scotia Highlanders are in deep reserve; they’re getting much needed R&R. That means our real, accessible reserves are the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders and the Highland Light Infantry of Canada.
“Two battalions in reserve for the whole Division?” General John M. Rockingham wasn’t impressed. “That’s very thin.”
“I know, John.” General George Rodgers sounded defensive even though he knew he had no reason to be. Rockingham was new to the Kola Front and had little understanding of the peculiar problems inherent in trying to fight a war up here. That’s why he had come in advance of his 6th Infantry division and was doing “The Grand Tour” as it was derisively known. It was the standard practice for a newly-arriving General Officer; send him on a visit to the units in place. Save him from having to re-invent the wheel. “And the front we’re covering is much too long for the number of troops we have available. We need at least three full corps here, not two. Guess how much chance we have of getting that third corps. Look, the front is like a great L. The Russians are holding the bottom horizontal where most of the enemy forces are concentrated. We’re holding the long vertical. Too much front, too few troops.”
“Can’t the Russians help? Take over a section of the front.”
“They’re tapped out. It’s all they can do to hold the southern end. Petrograd is a hell of a force commitment and they’ve got every warm body they can find either holding the city or working the munitions factories down there. You know they’ve got women in their combat units?”
Rockingham nodded, shuddering slightly at the thought.
“There’s a political angle to this as well of course. I guess you’ve had that explained to you? Well, from this end of the spectrum, it means we don’t push too hard and the Finns don’t either. It’s ‘All Quiet On The Western Front,’ I guess. Only the Finns have the Germans pushing them as well, demanding activity. So they go in a lot for rear area raiding and attacks on service units. At first, that hurt us. Those troops weren’t too well trained for combat and I guess that meant Finnish casualties were pretty light. They’re hurting for manpower just like everybody else. Anyway, after we lost a few units to those raids, we concentrated them into cantonments, trained guard units for them and gave them some Vickers guns for security. Once our rear echelon people could shoot back, the Finnish raids dropped right off. Guarding against them is still draining our front-line strength though. We could use those machine guns on the front line. One Vickers gun in the right place is worth a company of infantry.”
“We’ll be the southernmost division of II Corps.” Rockingham spoke quietly, absorbing the data he’d been given. “Our northern flank will be your southern. That’ll compress your frontage a little. Any chance of some of your people briefing mine on what to expect and how to defend against it? I guess the Finns will see a new unit and guess we have the same lessons to learn as you did. Some advance training will save a few lives.”
“That we can arrange.” Rodgers was more than slightly relieved. Rockingham had a good reputation, but all too often ‘a good reputation’ meant an over-inflated ego that wouldn’t listen to advice from anybody else. Obviously not the case here. “John, if I might give you some advice, take advantage of the positions of the lakes and rivers. They can cut the length of front you have to cover quite drastically.
Rockingham paused. There was something wrong there but he didn’t quite know what. His train of thought was interrupted by a dull rumbling sound that reminded him of an old motorboat. The thought had only just begun to form in his mind when the air raid sirens went off.
