“Well,” Fraser smiled. “With two such ships, side by side, we’ll throw 96 planes into the sky, and have more firepower than the French battleship Normandie at our disposal at the same time.”
“Two such ships?”
“My dear man, we always build them in pairs. Hood and your G3 Class being the only exceptions. I like Superb… Think of a good name for the second one, will you?”
Tovey shrugged. “I suppose if I won’t get a new fast battleship any time soon, the hybrids will have to do.”
“I wouldn’t be so pessimistic,” said Fraser. “All the delays regarding the Lion class gave birth to yet another proposal. You see, the difficulty was in getting those new 16-inch guns ready—all new turrets. Yet we had perfectly good 15-in turrets stored from Glorious and Courageous when they were converted to carriers. Why not use them, or so the logic went. Those guns are tried and true.”
“Yes, I was in on that meeting,” said Tovey. “Churchill supported it as well, if I’m not mistaken—an all new fast battleship, but armed with her grandmother’s teeth.”
“They’ve made some modifications on the new project for Vanguard,” said Fraser. “The guns can now elevate to 30 degrees to improve range, and they’ve added additional faceplate armor and also mounted gun directors.”
“You make it sound as though the ship is already built. The last I saw of it there were still four big holes fore and aft where the turrets should be.”
“Yes, she’s not quite finished, but the guns are ready, and they might mount those turrets very quickly. So you see, you just might get one more fast battleship before long, HMS Vanguard.”
“I won’t hold my breath, for that ship or these hybrids you’re so fond of. The new Knight Class has been useful. A few more of those would fill the bill.”
“Don’t worry, the Admiralty is firmly committed to filling out the Round Table.”
“Good,” said Tovey. “If I had all these ships now, I would feel a good deal better, but more to the immediacy of our present situation, and speaking of both the Former Naval Person and Admiral Somerville, we have to consider what to do about Ceylon. The Indian Ocean Squadron is toothless now. Somerville has retreated all the way back to Madagascar and Kenya, and he can now barely serve to put out a thin cover for Cape Town and Durban. The Japanese have Trinco and Colombo, and Churchill is at his wit’s end over these developments.”
“Somerville deployed too far forward,” said Fraser. “His effort to cover Port Blair was ill considered. He should have withdrawn southwest of Ceylon, perhaps operating from Addu instead. He was lucky to save Indomitable and those three old battleships.”
“And the cruisers,” said Tovey.
“What do you propose we do about Ceylon?”
“The Japanese have settled in there, with land based planes at both bases, so that won’t be an easy proposition. Yet the loss of Ceylon has made all the convoys around the Cape, and into the Red Sea, a hazardous undertaking. We’ve had to double down on destroyer escorts, because the Japanese have based submarines at Colombo. Thankfully, they withdrew their carrier squadron for operations in the South Pacific, so while the cat is away….”
“Yes,” said Fraser, “but what can we possibly do?”
“We have a lot of troops on Madagascar, and there is certainly plenty of shipping in the region. We still have a presence at Addu and Diego Garcia, as well as Mauritius—seaplane bases, fuel for the navy, and a few fighters at each outpost. Thankfully the Japanese haven’t moved a lot of bombers to Ceylon yet. They could do a good deal more than they have to interdict our sea lanes, but they have their own difficulties to contend with. It isn’t easy to keep their troops and planes on Ceylon supplied. They’ve been sending weekly convoys from Singapore, but we’re on to them now, and our subs have been lingering in the strait of Malacca and off Batavia, now that Krakatoa has settled down. Churchill doesn’t think that’s enough. The rubber shortages are beginning to be felt at home, and that has forced us to look to South America for new supplies. The oil shipments from the Persian Gulf are also in some jeopardy, and now Churchill wants a plan for a counterattack on Ceylon.”
“You mean by sea? An invasion?”
“My,” said Tovey. “It seems Churchill doesn’t confide all his secrets. This is one he whispered in my ear, as I’m the man who’ll have to arrange things. We pulled it off on Madagascar well enough.”
“Yes,” said Fraser, “but that was against the Vichy French, and without having to worry about the Japanese navy or air force. Somerville is down to Indomitable, and little Hermes. That’s enough deck space for an air raid, but not to cover an amphibious operation.”
“Quite so,” said Tovey. “So if this plan does get teed up, it will mean Somerville will need more carriers. We only have five fast carriers left. Eagle and Hermes are too slow for something like this. In fact, I’ve recalled Hermes to join Force H in the Med, along with Furious, and the American carriers. That should be sufficient to cover those operations as we make the push towards Tunisia. I need at least one carrier for the Norwegian Sea, and I’m turning that beat over to Glorious. Cunningham still has the Argus and Eagle in the Eastern Med, so we get no help there.”
“Ark Royal,” said Fraser with a glint in his eye. “That’s the perfect ship for the Indian Ocean. Why, she can carry over 60 planes, and even more if we utilize the deckpark strategy the Americans use. She’s fast, nimble at sea, tough in action with all the AA defense we put on her, and she has a fairly thick skin as well.”
“That’s what it came down to in my mind as well,” said Tovey, “Ark Royal and Victorious. We don’t need them for Force C in the Canary Islands any longer, so they can go to Somerville. They have better endurance and carrying capacity for this Ceylon business. Damn if we don’t miss Illustrious and Formidable now, but I’m told I shouldn’t complain.”
“Oh? By who, if I might ask?”
“That young Russian Captain, Fedorov. We spoke on that secure encrypted radio of his last week and I mentioned these difficulties. He then let slip that in the history he knows, we had already lost five carriers by this time in the war, not three. He told me our Captain Wells was never supposed to have saved Glorious as he did, and was in fact killed in that incident.”
“Really?” said Fraser, feeling just a touch of the macabre in that revelation.
“Yes, and he went on to say that Ark Royal was to have been sunk by a German U-Boat, and that the Eagle went down in the Med. For that matter, HMS Invincible was never built, and I’d wager that Lion, or that ship by any other name, was never commissioned in his version of these events—as a battleship or a hybrid carrier. He’d probably say the same about this Vanguard project you mentioned.”
“Very strange,” said Fraser. “I mean to think that this man can quote us chapter and verse like that, about things that haven’t even happened yet. It gives me the shivers.”
“Yes, but things are different here—the history. We’re writing it all anew. He tells me Ceylon was never taken by the Japanese, and a lot of other things have been turned on their head.”