Although still powered by twin turboprops – supercharged Derby-Royce Wyverns rated at over 2,500 horse power – by constructing eighty percent of the airframe from wood rather than metal to minimise weight, the Albatross was capable of flying at nearly four hundred miles per hour in level flight at altitudes of up to forty-two thousand feet. It was as fast or faster than any other propeller driven aircraft in service in any air force anywhere, and higher-flying than practically any other aircraft other than the first generation ‘turbojet’ powered test beds, the majority of which were still just twinkles in their designers’ eyes.
Several pre-production prototype bomber variants of the Albatross (type B-1), capable of carrying a two-thousand-ton payload to a target over a thousand miles away had been delivered to the RAF late last year for operational testing in Scotland and Nova Scotia.
“Where the Devil did that Mainz class cruiser come from?” Alex inquired, whistling softly.
“It has to be one of von Reuter’s ships,” the CAW, Commander Andrew Buchannan grunted.
“Probably one of the cruisers that took part in the bombardment of Kingston…”
“Well, we’ve got her bloody number now!” Buchannan decided, grim determination in his voice. “This just gets better and better. There must be three or four other warships in the bay, including that ironclad anchored out in the bay opposite the German port.”
“The lazy beggars haven’t even put out anti-torpedo nets!”
There were at least two large vessels, possibly old-fashioned ironclads, in dry docks, and other smaller, more modern frigate-type vessels moored within the main tidal basin of the Santo Domingo Naval Dockyards to the north east, across San Juan Bay from the German Concession.
And if that was not good enough news, the Albatross had made a possible sighting of one of the Dominican coal-burners plaguing the Lesser Antilles which had killed so many people on Antigua, coaling some twenty miles east of St Kitts and Nevis. Task Force 5.11 was already working up to its best speed, about twenty-nine knots in the relatively benign Atlantic swells east of the Leeward Islands, dashing to ‘pin’ the enemy squadron between its gunline and the rising sun at daybreak tomorrow morning.
On board the Perseus, the CAW and his henchmen, were very nearly salivating over the prospect of catching one of the ships of the despised Vera Cruz Squadron tied up alongside a quay, helpless in their sights!
“That bloody ironclad out in the bay is going to make life difficult for our Sea Eagles to mount torpedo runs on the German cruiser. The waters of that part of the inner bay are too shallow for a normal ‘drop’,” Percival, a solid, pragmatic man belying his aristocratic lineage – he was the third son of a Viscount – who had transferred over from the Ulysses only last week, remarked thoughtfully.
Air-launched torpedoes, no matter what fancy fins one fitted them with, or how low or slow a ‘dropping aircraft’ flew, tended to dive several tens of feet deep before ‘finding’ their ‘set’ running depths. In a harbour with a relatively shallow, sandy bottom, they could easily ‘plug’ or hit the bottom and ‘porpoise’ wildly off course.
The carrier’s Captain, Patrick Bentinck stroked his beard.
“Let’s not get over-excited about this, gentlemen,” he guffawed. “We’ve got the Dominicans on a decidedly tricky wicket here. Let’s not get carried away and start bowling too many full tosses, what!”
The other men in the day room listened respectfully.
“We can’t have all our torpedo-carriers concentrating on that damned ship to the exclusion of all the other juicy targets moored alongside or anchored elsewhere in the harbour. And I certainly don’t want our bombers drawn away from their targets in the docks and the government complex in the heart of the city. By all means detail off a couple of Sea Eagles to attempt torpedo runs at that cruiser but otherwise, I plan to recommend that we leave that ship to the tender mercies of Princess Royal and the Indefatigable.”
Two eight-gun 15-inch broadsides dropping one-ton shells in and around the quayside of the German Concession were likely to cause almost total devastation for hundreds of yards, perhaps a mile or so, all around the target. But that was not their problem; it was the Germans’ problem.
“With your leave, I’d like to assign two or three dive bombers to have a go at that cruiser before the big ships open up, sir,” Andrew Buchanan responded, simply registering his point of view.
Patrick Bentinck thought about it.
“Two aircraft only.”
The final decision would be adjudicated by the Task Force Commander, Rear Admiral Parkinson. That said, thus far Parkinson had not demonstrated the least propensity to countermand or in any way disregard the expert advice of men under his command who were self-evidently, well-qualified in their fields.
The Princess Royal and the Indefatigable would jump at the opportunity to rain Hell on one of the ships of the Vera Cruz squadron, the harbingers of this evil war, already covered in the blood of the men of the Achilles and the rape of Jamaica.
Presently, the ships of Task Force 5.1 were running without lights with the gun line still in company. The big ships would break away a little after midnight for their high-speed run to within as close as six or seven miles of the Santo Domingo coast. At one stage two escorting destroyers were to be detached to lay mines at the mouth of San Juan Bay; a scheme abandoned shortly before sailing because to be effective the mines would have to be laid inordinately close in shore – perhaps as near as two hundred yards from known shore battery locations – and whatever else Operation East Wind was about, it was not about presenting thin-skinned targets to Dominican gunners shooting over open sights at point blank range!
A month ago, nobody would have blinked an eyelid at taking a chance of the Dominican’s being caught napping; but a lot of things had changed in the last few weeks and no more unnecessary hostages to fortune were to be offered until further notice.
The command group meeting broke up a few minutes later.
Alex knew he ought to try to grab a couple of hours sleep; but also knew it was not going to happen. Every single aircraft under his command was going to be in the air tomorrow morning, and nobody was getting much shut-eye tonight!
The Dominicans and their foul Triple Alliance friends must be thinking that they had their God on their side. To date the war could hardly have gone much better for them, at sea, in the air and on land, not to mention beneath the waves if the Indomitable’s fate was anything to go by. Well, around dawn tomorrow morning the enemy was going to get a very, very rude shock!
One-thousand-pound semi-armour piercing bombs were being slung under the bellies of Sea Eagles, and an additional pair of two-hundred-and-fifty-pound high-explosive ‘eggs’ under each bomber’s wings. Eighteen-inch air-launched torpedoes, each with a warhead of over four hundred pounds of high-explosives, and capable of racing through the water at upwards of forty knots, were lined up on dollies to be maneuvered under the fuselages of the ‘fish carriers’ parked menacingly in the midships section of the hangar deck, while most of Alex’s Goshawks were already topside, their gun boxes stuffed tight with bullets, with lightweight fuel ‘drop’ tanks topped off and hanging beneath cockpits or in the case of Alex’s aircraft, also on two underwing hardpoints in lieu of the rocket pods mounted by twenty-three of his other scouts.
Those pods packed a fierce, short-range punch, fourteen 2-inch missiles armed with a three-pound high-explosive or anti-personnel fragmentation warhead, with a range of up to fifteen hundred yards. In practice, the unguided munitions were only accurate up to about two to three hundred yards and best unleashed only when one could literally see the whites of ones’ enemies’ eyes.