“I see what you mean,” said Maeve. “Bad choices, mistaken identity, a fluky fuel hose, lucky hits on both sides—“
“And that damn radar thing,” said Kelly.
“And I note that HMS Hood was the same ship that bombarded the port of Oran earlier. Correct?”
“I thought you’d note that little detail,” said Paul. “Yes, HMS Hood led Force H, and she was commanded by then Admiral Somerville at the time, with Captain Ralph Kerr. Somerville is also commander of Force H during the campaign against Bismarck, though Hood had been detached by then.”
“There’s no way we could ever know, but what if it was a shell from Hood that fell on Kasim’s house in Oran and killed his wife and daughter?”
“It has that spooky echo of rhyming history about it,” said Robert. “Are you suggesting that the Assassins had a hand in the outcome of this battle—that Hood’s loss was arranged for vengeance?”
“That would be hard to do,” said Maeve, “but the fact is, in a very quirky engagement rife with all these Pushpoints, the ship that led the attack on the French fleet goes down big time.”
They digested that for a moment, but no one could yet see any clear connection between the events at Oran in 1940 and this engagement the following year. As chilling as it seemed, they did not believe in curses.
“Let’s let that sleeping hound of paradox lie for now,” said Paul. “There’s more suspicious activity later in this campaign to consider. The British were shocked by the loss of the Hood, but true to form they just buckled down and pulled out all the stops to vector in more assets. Force H was still operating out of Gibraltar, so they brought that north with some cruisers, destroyers and the carrier Ark Royal. Then they still had King George V off to the southwest with another big lumbering battleship that was pulled off convoy escort duty, the HMS Rodney. She wasn’t fast enough to match Bismarck, but she did have big sixteen inch guns. If the British could team up those ships they could again get a fairly good advantage over the two German ships with any help from the lighter vessels they had at their disposal.”
“But wasn’t Bismarck alone when she was finally sunk,” asked Kelly, “at least in our history?”
“She was,” said Paul. “Admiral Lütjens made another questionable decision. Unwilling to accept that his convoy raiding operation was stopped, he decided to split his force and send the Prince Eugen on her way to raid convoys alone while he turned back for France. I suppose he reasoned that this would also divide the British assets, but in this case I think it was a stupid decision. The British usually had at least two cruisers or a battleship with every convoy. Prince Eugen could not prove a very serious threat against that defense. In fact, a cruiser raider had standing orders only to attack targets where she could expect no significant opposition. So Lütjens was after sour grapes, and all he did was weaken his task force and make each lone ship more vulnerable. Nonetheless, he turned Bismarck back to threaten Norfolk and Suffolk and covered the escape of Prince Eugen. Now the German Battleship was alone. He shook off the two cruisers shortly after that, and here’s another quirk, he did not even realize he had done so!”
“Well he already had a fairly significant victory here,” said Robert.
“True,” Paul agreed. “But that made him careless. He sent a 30 minute radio signal to Germany to crow about his victory, and the British were able to use radio detection gear to re-locate his ship.”
“Get your laurels while you can,” said Maeve. “He was probably trying to also justify his decision to return to France.”
“That’s very likely,” said Paul. “Now, here’s where we get another big Pushpoint. As Bismarck steams east to Brest, she is well ahead of the pursuing British battleships, perhaps by 150 miles or so. But that annoying hit on her oil bunker slows her down again when the Brits launch a torpedo attack from one of their carriers.”
“Well hell,” said Kelly. “A carrier should be able to blast that ship out of the water.”
“These were not like the US carriers you may be familiar with from the Pacific theater,” said Paul. They might be no more than smaller escort carriers by comparison, and they were flying fairly rickety old by-planes, the main torpedo bomber being called the Swordfish. These looked more like older World War One planes, with linen canvas siding. They were still a threat, but far less capable than the planes flying from American carriers in the Pacific. Yet, in the end, it was one of these old Swordfish that sealed Bismarck’s fate. There were two Pushpoints stacked one on top of another for that to happen.”
“Two Pushpoints?”
“Right,” said Paul. “The first was another case of mistaken identity. When Force H headed north from Gibraltar the task force actually found itself north of Bismarck’s course to Brest. The hunt began, and this force detached a cruiser, HMS Sheffield, to steam ahead and see if it could find the German ship to the south, with orders to shadow her if she did so. Bismarck was spotted and the carrier Ark Royal launched fifteen Swordfish to go after her with torpedoes. As they approached they were saw a ship below, steaming alone, and thinking it must be Bismarck, they swooped in to attack—but it was Sheffield.”
“They couldn’t recognize their own damn ship?” said Robert.
“Well Admiral Somerville, the Commander of Force H, had ordered Sheffield to close and shadow Bismarck. He informed Ark Royal, but when the coded message came in it was set aside in a pile of signals awaiting translation. The pilots were briefed before takeoff and told the Bismarck was the only ship in the area. By the time the message was de-coded and sent down to the flight deck the Swordfish were already in the air. Ark Royal eventually signaled ‘look out for Sheffield,’ and they sent it out in clear uncoded English, but the strike flight didn’t receive it until after they had already made their attack on the British cruiser.”
“Damn!” said Kelly. “Another case of mistaken identity. Just like that stuff that happened in the battle of Midway. Ever read Miracle at Midway?”
“Sure,” said Paul. “And this was another little miracle right here. The Swordfish come in on attack. Sheffield holds her fire and tries to maneuver. As fortune had it, she was not hit, and a good number of the torpedoes exploded on contact with the water. Others exploded simply by encountering Sheffield’s wake. It appears they had been fitted with quirky magnetic detonators, called ‘pistols’ back then, and when the planes got back to the carrier the pilots reported the misfires, so the British decided to re-arm with older contact pistols for a second go at Bismarck. If these planes had found the German ship instead of Sheffield, it is likely their attack would have failed. But this second spotting error now meant they would be carrying more reliable torpedoes, dramatically increasing their odds of success.”
Maeve nodded gravely, amazed by the way all these small events were holding the tapestry of the whole campaign together. “So we get a bushel of stuff here,” she said—a message delayed ever so briefly results in a second case of mistaken ship identity, and then these quirky magnetic detonators.”