To escort all these ships, he needed destroyers, and he had three of the new German built SPK Beowulf class ships, Odin, Agir and Thor. They were fast at 38 knots, each with 12 dual purpose 4.7-inch guns, and six torpedoes. To these he would add as many of the French destroyers as could be spared from the supply run duties to Tunisia—only three. Yet he selected the best they had, the Fantasque class ships, again renamed and fully re-crewed by sailors sent from Germany. It had been necessary to completely de-crew the remains of the French Navy and send all those experienced sailors home. Now any ships that could be kept serviceable were being crewed by sailors from Germany and Italy, and others impressed from the Balkans. The three French ships were renamed for ships listed in his building program that would now most likely never be realized. They would be dubbed Hildr, Sigrun, and Mist.
Two battleships, the carriers, a fast battlecruiser, and six destroyers, thought Raeder. I could use six more destroyers, but they cannot be spared. Yet the Italians have promised me support from their fleet. I will pick up Maestrale, Alpino and Ascari when we enter the Tyrrhenian Sea. There will also be three superb fast light cruisers, Regolo, Mario and Silla. This is a fleet that can confidently meet any other at sea, well balanced, very fast, with far ranging strike power in the carriers, and the murderous fire of those heavy guns up close.
The mist rolled over the flight deck of the carrier now, and the air smelled cool and clean. They were hoping to move unnoticed, but even if they were seen, a cover story had been circulated in humdrum signals traffic meant to be snooped by Allied ears. It would indicate that plans were in the offing to relocate certain ships from Toulon to the Italian ports of Genoa, La Spezia and Livorno, so as to make them more secure against Allied bomber attacks.
The Allies had occupied the strategic islands of Mallorca and Menorca for exactly this reason, replacing Malta with these superb bases for air operations that could be projected into the waters off the Algerian coast and also the Ligurian Sea. Britain was also sending bombers to the vicinity of Barcelona, which was only 212 miles from Toulon. It seemed that no stone would be left unturned in this war.
The fact that Spain was now an Allied occupied state presented the Allies with many places to build up aerodromes for their bombers. England was still a much better place for Bomber Command, but some units had been sent down to Spain to support operations there.
I warned Goring that Toulon would soon come under increasing air attack, thought Raeder. This move would have been inevitable in time, but it does cede control of the Central Med to the enemy. Up until now, with the fleet at Toulon. The Allies would not contemplate trying to risk the Sicilian Narrows. Now that might change. Goring says he can keep that channel closed with his Luftwaffe, but I will file that away with many of his other broken promises. The Reichsmarschall has enough to deal with keeping Kesselring supplied, let alone this new operation dreamed up against Crete.
I told them we should have taken Crete in 1941. They did not listen, so now we fight that battle anyway. I do suppose it is necessary. Hitler has launched this amazingly ambitious Operation Phoenix, and his life line for that depends on keeping the Allies from interdicting the Bosphorus. That is only 475 miles from Crete. He is also striving to clear the Kuban this winter—for the oil, of course. And he frets that the Allies will use Crete to bomb our main oil facilities at Ploiesti, only 660 air miles from that island.
Has anyone told him that the British can still strike the Bosphorus from Alexandria, not to mention Palestine and Syria? Perhaps he has it in mind to conquer all of that in Operation Phoenix as well, but I think not. No, he is really reaching this time, all the way to Baba Gurgur, Baghdad, even Abadan on the Persian Gulf. Will our troops ever get there?
Admiral Raeder ran all this through his mind. His first objective would be the surprise attack on another outpost showing signs of buildup for RAF units, the Island of Crete. Operation Merkur had been delayed to allow time for the troops withdrawn from Algeria to refit. It was now rescheduled for Mid-February, and that was his first stop on the journey east. His fleet would transit the Ligurian Sea, above the long finger of Corsica for a stop at Livorno in keeping with their deception plan. There they would take on more Italian sailors, and pick up those three destroyers. They would then leave at dusk the next day for a high-speed 12 hour run down the Italian coast through the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Straits of Messina—about 430 nautical miles in all. That would put them in the Ionian Sea after dawn, and it would be one more high speed daylight run to the invasion support zone off Crete.
If all went according to plan, they would arrive on the 20th of February as scheduled, those big guns waiting to blast the British defenders on the northwest corner of the island. Hopefully, Cunningham and his Med-Force ships would not realize what was happening until it was too late to interfere.
Let them try, thought Raeder. What do they have left at Alexandria? They have the Nelson, and the Valiant, and I can outrun and outgun them both. No. I do not think I need to worry about Cunningham. We will make our planned stop, punish the British on Crete, then turn north into the Aegean Sea. It is a brilliant and audacious plan. I will enter the Dardanelles a day later. All the arrangements have been made with the Turks. One more day to transit the narrow Bosphorus, and the world will read my name in every paper on this earth.
The Russians will certainly know why I am coming, won’t they? Yet there will not be anything they can do to escape their fate. There is no place they can run. Once in the Black Sea I will join Rosenburg’s little squadron of U-boats which will already be deployed in a defensive arc when I transit the straits. We will have lavish support there, ports at Varna, Constanta, Odessa, and the excellent forward base at Sevastopol, which is under 200 nautical miles from the main base of the Black Sea Fleet at Novorossiysk.
The Führer has promised me those four Zeppelins with our new special munitions, and I will see what that is all about. Goring has promised me bomber support and long range patrols against the numerous enemy submarines. On paper, their fleet looks quite substantial, but I will destroy it easily, and finally regain the respect and honor which I am due. I will show the Führer what a combined arms fleet can do at sea, and set the template for operations I have been planning in the West. So very much is riding on this now, not only my personal fate, but that of the entire surface fleet.
Failure is simply not an option.
Part II
Sturmflut
“Time and Tide wait for no man.”
Chapter 4
Rommel’s retreat after the battle of Bir el Khamsa had been inevitable, or so he now believed. He had broken through British lines, sweeping south and east through the lonesome bir as he moved to reach Mersa Matruh on the coast. He had chased General Richard O’Connor’s Western Desert Force all the way from El Agheila after his final crushing blow to the hapless Italians at Beda Fomm. The time and tide of his fortune was running high.