“What about Nurnberg, sir?”
“That light cruiser? What good is that?”
At that moment a signalman stepped onto the weather deck, saluting. “Message from Wilhelmshaven,” he said smartly, and handed off the note to Hoffmann.
The Kapitan read it slowly, shaking his head. “Look here, Schubert. They managed to complete the refit on Admiral Scheer, and they are sending it up here tonight from Kristiansand as a distraction for the withdrawal of Tirpitz south. It’s going to make a run west, as if it might be headed for the Iceland Faeroes gap, then it turns north to join us here.”
“Here sir? What for?”
“Have a look, Schubert.” He handed his artillery officer the message. “Read it yourself. Raeder must be getting curious about this ship we’ve been talking about. One of our U-boats reported a large warship moved north around the cape, and a plane out of Narvik spotted it again. That’s why Nurnberg arrived last night. Misery loves company, eh? Now they are sending up the Admiral Scheer, and Raeder wants to have a look up north. They’re calling it Operation Wunderland.”
Wunderland was conceived to do exactly what Hoffmann had surmised-have a good long look up north to see what the Russians were up to. Naval intelligence had not been sleeping since the abortive engagement with the Royal Navy in the Denmark Strait. Information had been developed that suggested the strange ship reported by Hoffmann and other German assets may not have been a British ship at all! That seaplane out of Narvik got more than a sighting report that day-it got a photograph as well, and naval analysts could clearly discern the Russian naval ensign flying from the ship’s aft mast.
Raeder needed time to consolidate the fleet after their ill-fated sortie-time for repairs, and more importantly time to refuel. The fleet had burned through months of petrol supplies, and the dwindling oil stocks were going to hobble the navy if the storage depots were not soon replenished. He could not afford to send out his big ships now, not with Hitler scheming over Operation Seelowe, the planned invasion of England. So he sent the light cruiser Nurnberg north to Trondheim where there was enough fuel in store to replenish, and now that Admiral Scheer had completed her refit with a new Atlantic clipper bow and a lighter conning tower with new flak guns to give her more air defense, that ship was a perfect choice.
A Deutschland class ‘Pocket Battleship,’ the ship was now reclassified as a heavy cruiser in the shadow of so many other more powerful ships now in the German fleet. Hitler was of two minds on what to do next with his war machine. On the one hand he had Britain on her knees and waiting to receive the death blow. A successful invasion of England would probably decide the war in the West within six months, and the Americans would never get their foot in the door. On the other hand, Orenburg had just joined with Germany, creating a situation where the Soviet Union under Kirov was now badly flanked and already at war all along the Volga.
This, along with the fall of France and Italy’s entry into the war, made it seem that Germany was now invincible, and destined to become the dominant power on earth. Eventually the Americans would have to be dealt with, but they had no army to speak of at the moment, and posed no threat to Germany.
In spite of all this, Raeder was suddenly edgy about the situation. If these reports were true, if this was a Russian ship fighting alongside the British, it could upset all his carefully laid plans. With Europe prostrate at his feet, Hitler had to believe, at Raeder’s urging, that he could crush the Soviet Union any time he wished-but this was not the time.
“Why not now?” the Fuhrer had asked him. “Half the Soviet army is already tied down on the Volga. My Generals tell me they can take Moscow in two months and knock the Russians out of the war!”
“We do not know that for certain, my Fuhrer. The Russians may not capitulate as easily as the French. If there are complications, delays, then we would find ourselves bogged down in a two front war, repeating the mistakes of 1914. At the moment England is reeling from hard blows. Now is the time to finish them!”
Raeder argued that any invasion of Russia now would give England a respite. Could the British regain their balance and dig in well enough to hold out until the Americans came to their aid? This was the real strategic question that hung in the Balance in mid 1940. The issue of Russia could be decided later. Hitler seemed to agree, albeit reluctantly, and turned his thoughts to Operation Seelowe. There might be enough time to finish the job against the British and still invade Russia before the winter set in.
But now this-a Russian ship perpetrating an act of war! Was it true? It could change everything, and Raeder had to know more. Operation Wunderland would be a reconnaissance in force to test the strength of the Russian Navy. Raeder proposed to send the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer and the light cruiser Nurnberg from Trondheim to Narvik, and then around the North Cape. They would make a run for Svalbard, sneak across the upper Barents Sea while the ice was thin. Then they could scout the Kara Sea to see what the Russians might have hidden there.
If war came with Russia, Germany planned to move into Finland to flank Leningrad from the north. To do so Raeder knew that the Russian Fleet would have to be neutralized, and the main port of Murmansk occupied by German troops. Operation Wunderland was the first tentative probe north, a light shove on the shoulder of the Russian state to see what they might do, and to determine if the reports were true about this ship.
Admiral Scheer was capable of facing down anything the Russian Navy had, or so it was believed until this new ship had been sighted. So Scheer would head north, see what this mystery ship was up to, and test the mettle of the Soviets at the same time.
What the Germans did not know was that a ferocious bear was now sleeping in the long Kola Fiord that led to Murmansk, a ship with capabilities that would soon shock and mystify more men than Kurt Hoffmann. Events were now about to unfold that would set the course of the war off in a startling new direction, and as always, the battlecruiser Kirov would have its hand on the twisting gyre of fate.
Chapter 17
July 2, 1940
Admiral Scheer was the second of three Deutschland class heavy cruisers launched and commissioned by the Kriegsmarine in the mid 1930s. Dubbed ‘pocket battleships’ when they appeared, they were built to be able to outrun most every battleship in the Royal Navy at the time, and outgun any of the fast British cruisers that could catch the ship. The ill fated sortie of the Graf Spee in 1939 proved that it would take at least two, and possibly three British cruisers to stand with these ships, and it was only because he believed they were facing even higher odds that the Germans elected to scuttle the ship in a neutral South American port.
With six 11-inch guns, Admiral Scheer was not as powerful as Hoffmann’s Scharnhorst, nor even as fast, but Raeder did not want to risk any more of his better ships in the operation, though he felt the heavy cruiser would be capable of handling anything the Russians had. Light cruiser Nurnberg would sail with her on the planned mission to scout out the Arctic seas and determine the degree of Soviet naval buildup there. The ship was lighter, a bit faster, and fitted out with the latest Germans FuMO 26 radar. The Kapitan of Admiral Scheer, KsZ Theodore Kranke, came over to visit Scharnhorst at Hoffmann’s request.
“So what is all this business about a rocket cruiser, Hoffmann?” he said flatly.
Hoffmann heard the same incredulous tone in his voice as the other officers had. Undoubtedly Raeder was even more dismissive of the claim. Well let him have a look at the damage to Gneisenau and Bismarck, and let him listen to survivors off the Sigfrid. Perhaps then he will understand.