The Admiral shook off these impossible thoughts. They could only lead him down inexplicable corridors, into shadow and uncertainty. He had to focus on the here and now. Yet those odd magazines were pretending to know the future, to predict Germany’s inevitable fate. They were so utterly persuasive, every photo, every line of text, right down to the silly advertisements. What would I do differently now if that was our future?
That might be a long list. In the meantime he had another list in front of him, and it needed his thought time and attention.
I must get Hindenburg back into fighting trim as soon as possible. The superstructure repairs can finish up at Toulon, but after that, I need a good dry dock to look at the hull and see to that torpedo damage. It will be no good trying to run the ship home to Germany. Hindenburg is a serious threat right where it is in the Med, or at Gibraltar. Thankfully, the Normandie Dry Dock at Saint Nazaire can easily accommodate the Hindenburg. So as soon as we tidy up Kaiser Wilhelm and the Goeben, I will send all three out to that port.
That will be a strong knife at the throat of the Western Approaches, and I will use that task force exclusively for commerce raiding now. Then, in the south, I stage Normandie, Jean Bart and Prinz Heinrich at Casablanca with strong French destroyer escorts. Another knife to support our continued efforts in Operation Condor.
To keep the British spread thin, I must see that our operations at Trondheim are given high priority. The Nordstern base there must be complete as soon as possible, a city of a quarter million citizens of the Reich, and a strong naval / air base—our North Star. It will be our Singapore of the north, only we will not squander such a marvelous base, like the British did in the Pacific.
From Nordstern I will stage Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, the fast cruisers Rhineland and Westfalen, and our new destroyers. To that I can add the carrier Peter Strasser, another star in the north to plague the British. And I still have the two older pocket battleships there as well. Once Nordstern becomes a self-sufficient naval base, that entire fleet can be staged there, freeing us of the necessity to transit the North Sea. It will be tasked with shutting down the Allied convoys to Murmansk. Doenitz will have his own u-boat bunker there as well—Dora 1.
But what about Operation Condor? That is my most immediate concern. I could dearly use Heinrich and Falkenrath down there now, but Hindenburg will need a good escort to Saint Nazaire. He sighed, thinking about the stalemate operation in the south.
We have taken Arecife, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria, yet the naval engagement was so costly to both sides that a lull has fallen over operations. It has taken us much more time than we realized to move in fresh supplies, and to repair the airfields and get aviation fuel, munitions, and service crews there. My use of Prinz Heinrich as an aviation fuel ferry ship was quite clever, but we need more tankers. The loss of Ermland was difficult to bear. I must get another tanker into the Atlantic as soon as possible.
Then what? We have enough troops to proceed with Operation Condor, even though Rommel still has one of the Mountain Regiments I requested. Now he is bellyaching about our use of ‘all his planes’ to support Operation Condor. He will undoubtedly say the very same thing to Hitler as an excuse for being pushed out of Cyrenaica. That is a dangerous omen. He cannot advance, and now it seems that he cannot even stop the British. If we lose Libya, then the Enemy will be poised to invade Tunisia, and all because the Führer is still so obsessed with the campaign in Russia. Five divisions would settle the matter in the Mediterranean…. If we could only keep them supplied.
At the moment, Rommel is still holding on to Benghazi, but that port will soon come under attack from Allied air power. The Americans are shipping the British a lot of aircraft now. Rommel will soon want ‘his planes’ back, but those Stuka squadrons are the key to maintaining our hold on the Canary islands. We’ve caught that bird, but now we must swallow it. The British will undoubtedly attempt to use their sea power to interdict our supply operations to the islands. Against that, my great trump card is air power.
Now we have good airfields on the islands. The British have already had to re-route convoys well out into the Atlantic, and Doenitz is already asking me to get a U-boat pen set up there, perhaps on Fuerteventura. The British won’t like that, and the hard fact is that they can make bombardment runs by night to attack those airfields. That was where they inflicted the most harm to the Luftwaffe, when they shelled that damn airfield down south. So I must fight for each and every squadron, and what we need now is the development of a good long range night fighter, and more planes for my aircraft carriers.
Look what the Japanese have done in the Pacific! Here we struggle to support the occupation of these islands, while their navy has overrun the entire South Pacific! They are in a very good position to cut off Australia now, and I wonder if they can manage it. But I could take good lessons from their conduct of naval operations in these last several months. Their ability to project power and sustain it with their navy is absolutely superb, the equal or better of the Royal Navy, and that says a great deal.
The key to all their operations is the aircraft carrier. My god, they brought over 300 aircraft to strike Pearl Harbor. They only use their battleships to support amphibious operations, and as escorts for their carriers, and their cruisers are fine ships. What would the Royal Navy do in the Atlantic if they had to face a fleet built like the Japanese Navy? Yes, I was a fool to dream of 70,000 ton super battleships, though the Japanese have them. They are probably wishing they had invested that money and steel in more aircraft carriers, just as I am now converting the hull of the Oldenburg to a new carrier, and renaming it Brandenburg. The island superstructure and deck armor is now complete. Soon we will be installing the cranes and hanger elevators. Building a carrier is far easier than constructing a ship like the Hindenburg.
Yes, Brandenburg will be my Ace in the hole. It will be a marvelous ship, 175 feet longer than the American carrier Enterprise, and more than 60 feet wider abeam. Without having to install all those heavy barbettes and turrets, and most of the superstructure, the displacement lightened up considerably. The battleship would have displaced well over 60,000 tons, but the carrier no more than 38,000. Since the power plant and propulsion systems were already finished and built to drive the heavier ship at 30 knots, the much lighter carrier will achieve even faster speeds. All that interior space now gives Brandenburg a massive series of hanger decks, and plenty of room for aviation fuel. The ship will have very long legs, tremendous endurance at sea. And now we believe we can get at least 90 aircraft aboard, possibly even more. We can crate spares and easily store them below the hanger deck. The American carrier Enterprise carries that many, and it is a much smaller ship than Brandenburg.