“From a ship?” Now it was Goering who spoke, a look of astonishment and disbelief on his face, cheeks red, and the light of enjoyment in his eyes flickering behind it all. “You expect me to believe that the British have a missile that can fire at such range and still hit anything? This is ridiculous! If they could fire such a missile from a ship, then they could line them up all along the English Channel and rain them down upon our troops in France, yet we have seen nothing.”
“The survivors from the destroyer Sigfrid will beg to differ with you, Aviation Minister Goering. They clearly saw something. That was the reason Sigfrid was sunk. It was cruising right alongside the Graf Zeppelin and took the blow that was intended to strike the carrier. Yet there was no enemy ship within 100 kilometers at the time. Bohmer’s planes searched for an hour, and yet saw nothing. It has been suggested that the ship was sunk by a submarine, yet reports from over 100 eyewitnesses all clearly state that the weapon was airborne, a rocket. Admiral Doenitz has assured me that no submarine in the world today could have carried or launched a weapon with sufficient fuel to achieve that range, and a warhead heavy enough to do what we saw happen to Sigfrid.”
“The British have these weapons on all their ships?” Hitler tapped the table impatiently, looking from Raeder to Canaris.
“We were not certain,” said Raeder. “At first we believed at least one ship was equipped with them, perhaps one of their battleships being held in reserve, or even one of their carriers. This is what we thought-until the loss of Nurnberg.” There is no way around the ice pond now, thought Raeder. I will just have to skate across.
“Sunk by a British ship?” Hitler waited.
“Not the British, my Fuhrer,” Canaris said quietly. “We believe this ship was Russian.”
“Russian? You are telling me that Russians have these weapons? They cannot build anything that would remotely challenge our battleships. How could they do this?”
“The question of how is no longer relevant, my Fuhrer. It is becoming more and more apparent that they were, indeed, behind these missile attacks which so confounded Admiral Raeder’s plans here. And they were clearly responsible for the Nurnberg incident. Air Minister Goering may shed some light on this.”
Goering nodded. “We had planes out from Narvik and Tromso, covering the withdrawal of Raeder’s ships after his failed operation.” Goering twisted the barb a bit, his eyes alight. “A ship continued north, shadowing our own units and eventually moving around the North Cape to Murmansk, and was photographed during that transit on two occasions. The naval ensign of Soviet Russia was clearly evident. I have the photographs with me if you would care to see them. More photos were obtained during Operation Wunderland, which was undertaken, in part, to obtain more information on this ship and the new weapons it employed. Am I not correct, Raeder?” Goering tossed the hot potato back, smiling.
“Of course we were suspicious. We knew there was a ship, but it was not clear as to the nationality. So yes, I told Kranke to see what he could find out with Operation Wunderland.”
“And we paid a very high price for that information,” Hitler was not happy. “The loss of Nurnberg was shameful-an embarrassment! Now to hear this may have been a Russian ship makes the sting and the insult even worse. This is clearly an act of war! Are you telling me the Russians have now openly sided with the Royal Navy in combat against our ships?”
“That appears to be the case, my Fuhrer,” said Raeder. “Yet the incident can also be interpreted as a simple act of self-defense. Kranke was given no order to engage Russian shipping in the far north-at least not by me. In fact, I ordered him to avoid engagement. If he was given those orders by someone else then let that man account for the loss of Nurnberg.” He glanced at Canaris now, his suspicion obvious. “If Kranke had followed my instructions we would not even be discussing this.”
“Oh, but we would be discussing it, Raeder,” said Hitler. “The damage to all those other ships was more than enough reason. If it was caused by a Russian ship, then I will have the head of Sergei Kirov on a platter!”
Hitler seemed to simmer with that, his eyes shifting from Goering, to Canaris, to the map on the table in front of them. He knew that Raeder had long opposed open hostilities with the Soviet Union. The Admiral much preferred a strategy that would see the navy lead the fight against England. He had been given Operation Seelowe to chew on, but nothing was discussed concerning Barbarossa, and Hitler did not want to open that can of worms now.
“Are you certain this was a Soviet ship?” asked Hitler, folding his arms again.
“Admiral Doenitz concurs with the assessment of our analysts in section I-M,” said Canaris, referring to the naval intelligence arm. “The ship is not of British design. It is something entirely new, completely unexpected. We can only conclude that it was a highly secret project, perhaps being tested on a maiden voyage even as we thought to blood our ships with this operation.”
“Not quite,” said Hitler. “We thought to blood the enemy’s ships.”
“And this we did,” said Raeder quickly. “One of their fast battlecruisers, HMS Hood, was battered to a near hulk in the engagement with Bismarck and Tirpitz. It was also struck by our Stuka dive bombers! Another, HMS Renown was sent to the shipyards in a successful air strike by the brave pilots and air crews of Graf Zeppelin. Hoffmann had good hunting with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as well. His detachment sank Birmingham and heavily damaged the Manchester, a pair of cruisers to put on the scales for Nurnberg. Dorsetshire and Sussex were driven off as well, and with damage. The battle would have been a complete victory, were it not for the sudden appearance of this mysterious ship-this Russian ship, as we now have come to believe.”
“Then why was it not sunk?” Hitler was struggling to contain his anger, but it was apparent.
“These weapons it deployed, missiles with such accuracy and power, were not something to be trifled with. Until we could learn more about them I wisely chose to cancel the planned breakout into the North Atlantic and return our fleet to friendly ports. I stand by that decision, because this development concerning the rocket weapons deserves our most serious consideration. If the Russians have such weapons we must learn everything possible about them, particularly if war may come of this incident. But I must advise extreme caution here, gentlemen. Until we know what we are up against, no open declaration of war should be made against Soviet Russia. Remember also that Britain is isolated. If the war moves East, Soviet Russia will surely choose to ally with the British…” The implications were obvious and did not need to be spoken.
There, thought Raeder, a little butter on the bread at last. For that is the point of all this. Someone got to Kranke to stir things up, but now I have said it, as plainly as I could. This war must not move East.
Chapter 24
“This was not a defeat,” Raeder continued. “Quite the contrary. It was a strategic decision to preserve the fleet until such time as we can determine the nature and scope of this new threat. I would have been foolish to proceed in any other manner, just as it would also be foolish to consider war with Russia now when we have the British on their knees waiting for the death blow.”
“What do you think, Doenitz?” Hitler looked to the head of his U-Boat fleet now, sitting quietly, saying nothing.
“I must agree with Admiral Raeder, my Fuhrer. When facing an unknown threat such as this, caution and discretion are well in order. Now we have some idea what we're up against. We know these weapons are sufficiently powerful to damage and sink a destroyer, and with the loss of Nurnberg even a light cruiser.”