The cold water continued with its anaesthetising effect, but the German was still in a lot of pain and moaned constantly.
It had taken Istomin a little while to realise that the enemy pilot had also broken his arm when he hit the water, and so he took over the duty of passing the man water from his supply.
Extracting a cigarette from his waterproof container, Istomin lit it and slid it between the lips of his recent adversary.
The man’s eyes responded in thanks.
The extreme cold played its part, and soon the German was dead, leaving Istomin to try and survive.
He pulled the jacket from the corpse, wrung it out as best he could, and wrapped himself in it to keep the growing wind away from him.
The cold gnawed at him, reducing him to a shadow ,and eventually he fell in unconsciousness.
He did not feel the hands that grabbed hold of him, and lifted him the short distance into the rowing boat.
The lifeboat, a cutter, the sole boat launched from the stricken destroyer Gremyashchy, contained the sixteen survivors of the dive-bombing attack that had sunk their ship.
Three men had succumbed to their injuries, and Istomin was laid on their bodies and covered a tarpaulin as the oarsmen took up the stroke once more.
The commanding officer, an engine room Lieutenant, leant over the side and stabbed the life rafts four times each, releasing the air, and letting Feinsterman’s body slip below the waters.
To the southwest, HNoMS Utsira had moved to the mouth of the Øresund, ordered to watch for any Soviet naval penetration northwards, in pursuit of the retiring Force V.
Whilst running silently, her crew celebrated the sinking of the Soviet submarine with a bottle of Pils each, specially laid up by the Captain for such an occasion.
Even as the First officer and the Navigator clinked their bottles together, a low metallic sound rang through the hull.
Some knew what it was and prayed.
Others knew what it was and drank their beer.
The rest died in ignorance.
L3, or rather one of her mines, claimed the last victim of the day, a day that had destroyed Soviet Naval Aviation in the Baltic, destroyed many Air Force bomber Regiments and, as Vice-Admiral Tributs candidly said shortly afterwards, left the Baltic Fleet just about capable of policing a children’s swimming pool.
Had it not been for Trieste and the Yugoslavians, Eisenhower and his staff would have been elated.
The USAAF Colonel sat comfortably, sharing a coffee and pastries with the Danish Air Force officer.
“Well, as you said, Oberst Lauridson. The Germans have done much of our work but, that being said, my birds have some very special requirements. Shall we?”
He wiped his fingers on a napkin and pulled out a large blueprint, unrolling it on the Danish Colonel’s desk.
“These are the works that’ll need to be completed before the base is considered ready, but they sure don’t amount to a hill of beans, and won’t take more than a month tops, depending on the weather.”
Quickly considering the sketch work, Lauridson shrugged.
“Sooner, Colonel. Two weeks at the most… depending on the weather”
“No Sir. Most can be done in two weeks, yes, but not these.”
He pointed out two pit-like structures to be installed on the south side of the base.
“These need to be very robust, and are of special construction, Colonel. Four weeks for them. I’ve built some before, so I know what I’m talking about.”
Finishing his coffee, curiosity overcame Lauridson.
“Whereabouts, Colonel.”
The USAAF officer’s eyes hardened for the briefest of moments before he realised he could speak openly.
“Somewhere much warmer, Colonel Lauridson. Little place called Tinian. Now, shall we get our engineering people fired up?”
Chapter 119 – THE CONFUSION
If we lose the war in the air, we lose the war, and we lose it quickly.
It was a bad day.
The orders had gone out to the Air regiments, and those that were left had risen into the morning sun and, yet again, found no armada, save for one that was airborne.
Casualties were not as heavy as the day before, mainly because fewer aircraft had been available to attack.
Allied heavy bombing attacks along the Baltic coast, all the way to Leningrad, were relatively unopposed, although the claims from the anti-aircraft units were impressive.
The simple fact was that the enemy fleet could not be found, over a third of Soviet Denmark was lost to ground attack, and that Soviet blood had been spilled at an alarming rate, even for men used to heavy losses in the cause of victory.
The hierarchy of the Red Navy was in a state of shock, so bad were the figures that had arrived from airfields and naval bases surrounding the Baltic.
The destroyer force simply wasn’t any more. Those at sea who engaged in the fight had been slaughtered. Those in port had received close attention from Allied heavy bombers, and many would need raising from where they had sunk at their moorings, and most of the rest would need months of repair.
The venerable battleship, ‘Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya’, sunk by the Germans in September 1941 and subsequently raised, was sunk permanently by Lancasters operating in daylight with Tallboy bombs, the RAF planners understanding that her significance was more in the hearts of the Soviet people than in her effectiveness in combat.
The cruisers Gorky and Kirov were damaged, the former by a German mine left over from the previous war, the Captain falling foul of the minefield as he attempted to drive his charge out of Kronstadt.
Kirov had been bombed in place, and the fires were still raging.
The Baltic submarine force had taken a beating, but was the nearest thing to a force that could be considered relatively effective.
Almost as if a higher authority conspired to heap woe on woe, the overdue elektroboote B-29 was now considered lost, which, when combined with the sinking of the Golden Quest the previous day, eliminated the Soviet naval presence in the Atlantic.
The Air Force leaders was almost in a daze as reports of whole bomber regiments lost filtered through. Escorting fighters had experienced heavy losses too, and the efforts to restore some sort of reasonable air power in Northern Germany and Poland were consuming them, as they worked hard to pull in replacement units from all over the USSR.
The arguments flowed back and forth.
“We cannot attack that which we cannot find!”
A fair statement, particularly when the Soviet air reconnaissance force was a shadow of its former self.
“There have been no landings on any shore.”
‘Does that mean they are still sailing?’
More than one wondered it, but Vice-Admiral Tributs assured everyone that the Gulf of Bothnia was enemy free.
Nazarbayeva’s report had been taken over the phone whilst Stalin enjoyed early morning tea.
It dovetailed with that of the NKVD, increasing the mystery. Both agencies had now identified a large enemy carrier force in the North Sea, not that Soviet aviation or the navy could now interfere with it. In any case, that snippet of information supplied some answers as to where the huge numbers of Allied fighters had come from. Only one land asset had been identified as possibly being part of an invasion force, a German formation embarked in the southern Norwegian ports.
In short, there was nothing to support the report from Saltholm regarding a hundred ships.
So, the big question was clear. What was the possibility of a large invasion fleet, or any large force of ships for that matter, at sea in the Baltic?