“That will soon change,” said Raeder. “You will see. Goring and I will put aside our many differences long enough to see to the successful outcome of Operation Merkur. I have Prinz Heinrich and the Goeben at Toulon. I have the Kaiser Wilhelm, and also one more ship—the Bismarck. It has completed repairs and is now ready for operations again, if you will permit me to use it.”
Hitler gave him a narrow eyed look. “The Bismarck? I never thought that ship would sail again. Will it do anything more than its brother ship Tirpitz?” There was an edge of sarcasm in Hitler’s tone.
“My Führer, Tirpitz has not sailed since the engagement with PQ-17, but it is now fully operational again. Its very existence there at Nordstern is a great psychological weapon. It forces the British to keep many of their newer battleships in Scapa Flow, when they might otherwise be in the Med supporting the Allied effort at strangling Kesselring’s armies in Tunisia. In fact, Allied intelligence undoubtedly knows Bismarck is ready for operations. They have tried to bomb it three times, but scored no hits. Now it is time to make that threat real again, and Operation Merkur is the perfect opportunity.”
Hitler nodded. “Very well, Raeder. After all, why should I moan and groan over the loss of a single destroyer? I will give you just a little more time to prove your worth, and that of the fleet. First, you must do as you now promise, and work with Goring to support our attack on Crete. Yet after that, I have one more task for you to undertake, and then let us see how well your ships can really fight.”
That got Raeder’s attention, for he wondered what the Führer could have in mind, and asked as much.
“The Russians,” said Hitler flatly. “The damnable Soviet Black Sea Fleet. It was driven from Sevastopol when we took the Crimea, but fled to Novorossiysk, and Ivan Volkov has been unable to take that place. In fact, Goring has already led the way for me on this new operation. Did you hear about the successful raid he launched on that enemy port? We have new weapons as well, Admiral. I have not been idle since the enemy first unleashed these naval rockets upon us. Perhaps you still see them as the main reason for your many setbacks at sea. Well, I can tell you that we have them now—radio controlled glide bombs, and rocket powered cruise missiles. That was what Goring tested for me in that attack, our new V-1 Sturmkrähe. Yes, the Storm Crows will soon do much more.”
“Admirable,” said Raeder. “But what is it you want concerning the Black Sea Fleet?”
“The six U-boats we have there are insufficient. I will tell you the same thing I told Halder before I threw him out of OKW. The Russian Black Sea Fleet still sits there on the coast and prevents us from shipping any of Volkov’s oil to Rumania as planned. It also guards the Taman Strait at Kerch, and the Army wants to cross there in conjunction with Operation Edelweiss to clear the last Soviet resistance in the Kuban sector. So after Crete, you will take all our remaining ships in the Med through the Aegean, and into the Black Sea. I have already obtained permission from the Turks. They see what we are doing with Operation Phoenix, and now they are quite amenable. So that is your major objective after Crete. The Russian Black Sea Fleet must be destroyed!”
This came as a real surprise to Raeder, something completely unexpected. “You want me to engage the Soviet fleet?”
“I see your hearing has not been effected, in spite of all the big guns you have fired to no good end in the Atlantic. Yes, destroy the Black Sea Fleet. You have it exactly.”
“But my Führer… The Soviet fleet has a battleship, five cruisers, eighteen destroyers and over forty submarines, not to mention eighty more motor torpedo boats.”
“Are you telling me you cannot do this? Because if you are, then after Crete, you can tender your resignation and I will mothball the entire fleet for the duration of this war.”
It was no idle threat, and Raeder knew it. Goring had so poisoned Hitler’s mind that his mood was very dark concerning the outlook for the navy. Most of the fleet was still in the north. He had only those few ships in the Med, two large raiders, three destroyers, and the two carriers. But he also had the Normandie, now Friedrich de Gross. He had been contemplating a daring attempt to send them all into the Western Med, raiding any Allied convoy they encountered along the way before attempting to break out into the Atlantic. Now Hitler was asking him to make the dangerous transit of the Bosphorus and enter that Soviet lake! He could see disaster looming in this request, but the tone in Hitler’s voice showed him to be deadly serious. There was no other course he could set.
“My Führer,” he said grimly. “ If you order this, I will do all in my power to do as you ask. Realize that this will expose the small flotilla I have available to grave risk of air attack, and we will need the full cooperation of the Luftwaffe to have any chance of success.”
“I have already spoken to Goring. He has four of our new Zeppelins at Odessa, and I will send them additional munitions of the sort I have already mentioned. He has naval strike bombers, Stukas at Sevastopol, good fighters, and there are already the six U-boats there to lend a hand. Döenitz has agreed that they can all go under your command. I will also transfer a number of E-boats by rail to Odessa, and they can help you with the enemy torpedo boats. Surely the Bismarck is a match for anything the enemy has there. We have already sunk the one battleship they had at Novorossiysk, along with a cruiser and two destroyers. Your fleet should be more than capable of handling the rest.”
“The surface ships, yes, I would agree. It’s those enemy submarines I worry about.”
“Half of them are probably not even sea worthy,” said Hitler.
“All the same, torpedoes sink ships,” Raeder cautioned. “Even twenty enemy submarines will present a grave risk. What I will need is more destroyers. If I could take some of the French destroyers along, that would help, and perhaps the Italians could contribute something from their Aegean Fleet.”
“I will speak to Mussolini today,” said Hitler.
And he did.
When Raeder left that meeting, grateful to still be in command, he realized that everything rested on the outcome of this mission. It will either prove the merits of my surface fleet, confirm my newfound belief in the carriers, or end it, he thought, unable to shake the feeling that this was to be his last dance.
Chapter 2
Kirov ran due south, with three hungry hounds at her back. They had identified the three Japanese destroyers, Kirishima, Kongo, Atago, though the latter had stopped at the location of Takami’s burning hulk to begin rescue operations. For the time being, Karpov had no immediate plan other than to move south at good speed and see what the enemy would do. At this point, he did not know all the cards in his enemy’s hand, how many ships were really out there, how many planes. They had taken one enemy ship down, surprising it with Kazan’s own inherent stealth and the deadly effectiveness of those lethal Zircon missiles. Takami was dead, but now Hercules was suddenly fighting a Hydra with many more heads.
Admiral Kita sent up his Merlin helos and Osprey aircraft to bring back the surviving crew members off Takami. He was pleased to learn that most got safely off the ship into the water, though the missile strike itself had killed 23 crewmen below decks. So all the bridge officers had survived, and he wanted Captain Harada on Kaga as soon as possible.