“Why Admiral, I thought you’d never ask. It will be off the Clyde tonight, and the two of us have a dinner appointment. In fact, they’ll send out one of those helicopters to give us both a lift over. I would like to introduce you to a most interesting Captain and crew, and the CEO of the ship is really quite charming herself.”
“Herself? And did I just hear you say CEO?”
Tovey smiled.
Chapter 30
“Virtually all of France’s modern capital ships were built in the Brittany ports,” said Tovey, “Brest in the north and Saint Nazaire in the south. Between them is Lorient, a major site for German U-boat pens. They have them at Saint Nazaire as well, but they won’t be the objective of this mission. We want to shut down the big Normandie Dry Dock—blast away those steel gates and render it useless, and before the Germans move the Hindenburg there.”
“I’d think you might want it there,” said Mack Morgan, the black bearded intelligence master aboard Argos Fire. “Isn’t that a good spot for the RAF to find that ship?”
“You might think as much,” said Tovey, But Bombers come at a premium these days. We asked for them, but only 28 remain allocated to the Channel Ports and Brittany. To hit Saint Nazaire, they either have to fly over all those nasty German fighter fields on the Brittany Peninsula, or go well out to sea to get past them. So Jerry gets plenty of warning, and a good portion of their Ack Ack guns are dedicated to stopping a raid coming in from the sea.”
They were all meeting in the private stateroom aboard Argos Fire, Admirals Tovey and Fraser, with Captain MacRae, Mack Morgan, and of course the cordial host, Elena Fairchild.
“I know this raid,” said MacRae. “It was the stuff of legend as these operations go, and the plan works, I can tell you that much. Unfortunately, it costs you more than half the raiding force, to say nothing of that old destroyer.”
“Yes,” said Tovey, “Campbeltown. Well, it’s to be considered expendable. What we are here today for is to see about that other liability, the loss of so many good men. I was thinking you might lend a hand.”
“Anything to get us off those long boring convoy runs,” said Morgan. “All I ever find time to do on them is grow this beard.”
“Well you’ve done us a great service there—not a single merchantman lost under your watch, and you’re to be commended. Once we get more escort carriers, your ship will become the primary command center for the Battle of the Atlantic, that is if you don’t mind taking on that job. With those radars and sonars of yours, you can vector in the escort carriers and they’ll do the job. For now, we’ve got something a little more exciting in mind.”
“How can we help?” asked Elena. “I’m afraid we’ve not much in the way of missile power to strike a hard target. How many are left, Captain?”
“Just the ten Harpoons. We threw every last Gealbaum we had at Hindenburg and Bismarck in that scrap off Fuerteventura. I like to think we hurt them, but I’m not sure we really did. It’s more likely those big battleship guns that did the real damage.”
“In this case,” said Tovey, “it was a torpedo fired by a lucky submarine, the Seawolf, and that ship still has residual torpedo damage that I put on it during our first real engagement. That’s why the Germans want to move Hindenburg to Saint Nazaire. They can repair that torpedo damage very quickly there, and trying to do the same job with divers would take a good deal longer. We want to take that option away from them.”
“Just to keep Hindenburg laid up a few more weeks, or perhaps a month at best?”
“Yes,” said Tovey. I know it seems callous, but there it is. Gentlemen, Miss Fairchild, I’ve got two battleships operating from Funchal, and two more watching the Iceland-Faeroes passage. We’ve one more coming off sea trials soon, and another right behind it, the Anson and Howe. I need time to get them into the game.”
Mack Morgan had a pad device, and he had tapped up the history on this raid. “Admiral, it says here that you sent 622 men into that raid. Only 228 made it back to England. That’s a high price for that time.”
“Well that’s where you come in. You see, a good many of those men were to come in on Motor Launch boats to engage and eliminate flak gun positions around the southern quays, with a few auxiliary targets assigned to them. If you could find a way to take those targets out, these men would not have to be sent.”
“Why send good men when a missile could do the job,” said MacRae. “Aye, we could certainly help out.”
“We also wondered about those helicopters that gave us a ride over this evening. They could be very handy in a pinch when it comes time to get the men out.”
“Aye, that’s a fact,” said MacRae. “Just how many targets are we looking at here, considering I’ve got only ten harpoons for this whale.”
“We’ve identified five shore battery sites—and a dozen other AA batteries and machinegun bunkers. We may not have to get them all, but some will definitely have to be engaged and destroyed if at all possible. I’m afraid naval bombardment by our own ships would be both risky and inaccurate.”
“But not naval bombardment by my ship,” said MacRae with a smile. “I assume the risk is from enemy aircraft, well we can stop those easily enough. Now I’ve been laughed off more than once by the blokes on the docks in the Azores when we replenish. They call us the ‘Toothless Wonder,’ and aye, that deck gun we have up front doesn’t look like awful much. But I can put good penetrating rounds on just about any target you name, and from well over the horizon. Our helicopters can spot for us. We wouldn’t even have to use the Harpoons.”
“Speaking of the X-3s,” Mack Morgan put in, “one of those supply ships in that replenishment convoy we happened upon was meant for underway replenishment at sea, and also to support British ground and air units ashore. It’s helped Brigadier Kinlan’s Brigade in the fight stay in North Africa, though I’m afraid those stores are wearing thin. But they did have a couple dozen Hellfires.” He looked at MacRae now. “I took the liberty of requisitioning them. Our X-3s can make good use of them. We have six each of the AGM-114s, M and N series, and a dozen Romeos.”
Tovey had no idea what those were, but the name Hellfire certainly sounded good to his ear. “I presume they are every bit as deadly as your other rockets,” he said.
“These are short range missiles, up to 8,000 meters range, but they were developed to take out armored targets, bunkers, hard positions. The bunker busters can put a hundred pounds of blast fragmentation incendiary punch on any target we hit, and believe me, we won’t miss. There’s also a thermobaric round for tough bunkers that will literally suck the oxygen right out of the air—a nasty little Hellfire, that one. The Romeos have multi-function warheads, depending on the job.”
“Aye,” said MacRae. “Between the Hellfires and our deck gun, we can certainly raise a little hell. So all the men you’ve assigned to engage those targets can stay home.”
“Excellent,” said Tovey. “Just what we were hoping. Can we count on your support?”
“You’ve got it,” said Elena.
“Thank you, Miss Fairchild, we are much in your debt. And considering that, I think I can make a little repayment, if you’d be so kind as to have a moment with me later. I’ve some news to convey.”
“You may not know all the details,” said Tovey later when he had that moment alone with Miss Fairchild. “But I owe my life and breath here now to Admiral Volsky. Jerry got lucky, and put a nice fat round smack on the conning tower, only we got lucky too, at least for a while. You see, that round penetrated, but didn’t explode immediately. This happens more often than you might think. Well, it put me down for the count. Had I been farther forward on the bridge, I wouldn’t be here now. Admiral Volsky dragged me to safety, into the ready room off that bridge, and closed the hatch there, putting another good wall of steel between me and what happened next. Then he took the wheel, and somehow managed to steer Invincible to safe water.”