“Sound general quarters!” ordered Commander Shepherd. “Send a message to the fleet admiral and let him know what’s happening.” He hoped that somehow the frigates and other ships would be able to launch enough decoys to confuse the enemy submarines.
“How could the Russians have gotten so close to us?” he wondered in awe. He figured that there was no way that all five contacts were enemy subs — there had to be decoys. There was simply no other way to explain how an enemy threat had been able to penetrate so far into their perimeter.
Lieutenant Nibs finished a phone call. “Sir, the Lancaster is engaging the enemy submarines with their torpedoes, and the Somerset is moving to engage the enemy as well.”
Before either man could say anything else, Petty Officer Davies signaled for their attention again. “What is it, Petty Officer?” demanded the captain. He and Lieutenant Nibs quickly walked over to his sonar station.
“I’m picking up more torpedoes, Sir,” he answered. “They appear to be from one of our submarines. It’s engaging the underwater contacts. After listening more closely, it sounds like there’s probably only one Akula, not five. It sounds like the other Akula noises were decoys launched by the original submarine to confuse us.”
Both officers let out an audible sigh. Commodore Shepherd wiped his forehead. The volume of torpedoes five submarines would have been able to shoot at them would have certainly guaranteed some hits. As it was, they still had eight torpedoes heading toward the fleet.
They waited anxiously through every second for the next several minutes. One by one, they received reports from the sonar officer on whether or not the torpedoes hit their intended targets.
“Sir, I can confirm that the torpedo launched at the Lancaster went after the decoy and blew up harmlessly,” announced Petty Officer Lee Davies.
Several seamen nearby let out an excited half-yell, half-grunt. However, the battle was far from over.
Davies had another announcement. “Sir, the Portland wasn’t so lucky. The torpedo missed the decoy and definitely connected with the ship.”
Lieutenant Nibs got on the horn to find out what their status was. He looked a bit pale when he hung up. “Commodore, they did pick up the phone, so at least they weren’t immediately sunk. However, the torpedo sheared off most of the front part of the ship, and they’re taking on a lot of water. They don’t know for sure if the engineers will be able to repair the Portland enough for them to make it.”
Petty Officer Davies spoke again. “One of the French destroyers must have been able to move their decoy into the path of one of the torpedoes that was headed toward the Charles de Gaulle. It just exploded harmlessly.”
Every second felt like an eternity at this point to Commodore Shepherd.
“Commodore, the second torpedo headed toward the Charles de Gaulle did connect with the ship,” explained Davies.
Moments later, Lieutenant Nibs announced, “That last torpedo that hit the Charles de Gaulle must have been a wave runner since it traveled right in their wake. It blew up against the stern. There’s a small fire in engineering, but so far, they seem to be stable.”
One of the radar operators suddenly waved for attention. “Sir, the Kent—it’s moving right in the path of those torpedoes!” he shouted.
“My God, he must’ve realized that there was a wave runner and now he’s trying to obscure the torpedoes’ guidance picture,” thought Shepherd. It was a very risky move, and he wasn’t sure if he’d have had the stomach for it himself.
Petty Officer Davies announced, “Sir, the Kent just took a direct hit.”
Seconds later, everyone heard an enormous blast.
The XO called down from the bridge.
“What just happened?” asked Shepherd.
“Sir, the first hit must have damaged the boiler room. As soon as that icy water hit, the entire stern was blown clean off. There’s a third of the ship missing. There is no way they’re going to make it. Let’s just pray that some of the men can make it onto the life rafts before the Kent sinks beneath the waves,” the XO explained.
“We’re going to need to organize a rescue party,” Commodore Shepherd said.
However, before any action could take place on that matter, Petty Officer Davies announced, “Sir, the second torpedo that had been headed toward the Queen Elizabeth just connected with the hull.”
“What do you see, XO?” asked Shepherd.
“This does not look good, Sir,” responded the commanding officer. “The torpedo hit the underbelly of the ship, and she’s likely taking on a lot of water. She’s already starting to keel over to one side. They’re slowing down. They must have a lot of flooding. I see fires springing up all around. My God… I hope I’m not watching while the pride of British fleet is sinking.”
A knot formed in the pit of Commodore Shepherd’s stomach. He had never anticipated that this day could ever end this way.
Over the next few minutes, he learned that the Akula had been destroyed by the Allied torpedoes and that the Italian ship had skated by without any damage. However, it didn’t remove the awful feeling of knowing that many lives had been lost and that Her Majesty’s namesake was in danger of slipping to the bottom of the ocean.
Vice Admiral Mitch Lindal sighed. The fleet was four days into their operation, and already, they were experiencing a number of problems. Aside from the storm that was battering the aged ships that comprised his fleet, the Kitty Hawk was experiencing a series of engine problems that under any other situation would have meant she would have returned to port. But her aircraft — even the limited ones she was carrying — were needed for the coming operation. Two of her eight boiler rooms were experiencing problems that were affecting her propulsion systems. She was unable to maintain full speed, and while that wasn’t a problem right now, when it came time to launch their aircraft, it could become an issue.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be here,” he thought in one of his rare pessimistic moments.
After thirty-two years of military service, Vice Admiral Mitch Lindal had been five days away from starting his terminal leave and his retirement from the Navy when the war with Russia had started. His retirement had been postponed for ninety days to allow the Navy to determine how serious this new war was. Once the Bush carrier strike group had been destroyed, a second carrier sunk by the Chinese, and a third severely damaged, it had quickly become clear the US was going to need to pull several of their older carriers out of retirement to fill the gap. World War III had arrived, and it was all hands on deck to defeat the powers bent on destroying them.
Once Admiral Lindal’s retirement had been rescinded, he’d been placed in charge of creating a new carrier strike group that would defeat the Russian Navy and help end the war. In that pursuit, he was placed in charge of reactivating the USS Enterprise, which had recently been stripped of her electronics, reactor fuel rods and most of her other critical systems. An army of nearly three thousand contractors had been brought in and had worked around the clock to get the ship brought back up to speed.