The C-in-C had in mind the modern cruisers of the so-called Vera Cruz Squadron of the Kaiserliche Marine, supposedly on an extended ‘good will’ cruise in the Caribbean and the South Atlantic was, to put it mildly, a loose cannon which now skewed every debate about naval policy south of the Gulf of Spain, which was presently through to be exercising with units of the Armadas of both Cuba and New Granada.
Fifty-five-year-old David Cuthbert Horatio, 9th Baron Collingwood was the direct descendent of the great admiral of the French Wars of the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the man who had smashed a Franco-French Fleet nearly twice the size of his own at the Battle of the Channel after that other legendary hero of the period, Admiral Lord Nelson’s flagship, the Temeraire, had suddenly blown up early in the action. Uncannily, people who cared to study, even momentarily, portraits of the 1st Baron invariably remarked upon the fact that he was the spitting image of his illustrious ancestor.
Like his illustrious forbearer he was also famous for his dour, no nonsense, methodically cautious approach to his duties. His peers called him the ‘Navy’s voice of common sense’, implacably unswayable when he had decided that the good of the Navy demanded a certain course of action. Oddly, it was this very trait which had allowed him, a career gunnery specialist, to appreciate much earlier than many of his contemporaries that the days of the big gun ship of the battle line, were numbered. In fact, he had been the man who, as Director of Naval Planning, had written the key directive cancelling the construction of four new ‘super’ Vanguards◦– the latest most formidable, fifty thousand ton-plus battleships◦– and placing, some six years ago, the orders for the first Ulysses class aircraft carriers; having spent the previous four years of his time as DNP fighting a bitter, thankless battle against the ‘battleship’ men who still, truth be known, were under the mistaken impression that they dominated the Board of Admiralty.
So, when he said he was worried about something it was usually as well to take note.
“Indomitable is at New Orleans,” Collingwood reminded the Governor of New England. “Invincible is about to come out of dry dock at Halifax after a routine period out of the water; I have drawn up provisional orders for her to steam south to the St John’s River anchorage in Florida. She can work up to full fighting trim down there. HMS Lion, as you know is undergoing a major refit and partial modernisation in Nova Scotia which is not due to complete until this coming autumn. The Queen Mary is currently based in Vancouver, at some stage thought may have to be given to reinforcing her squadron, especially, if the Russians start sabre rattling from their bases farther up the coast.”
Actually, ‘farther up the coast’ was Novo-Archangelsk◦– New Archangel◦– the capital of the Russian province of Russkaya Amerika, a huge almost entirely uninhabited tract of land in the north-western extremity of the continent which included the Aleutian Islands, the base of the Tsar’s Eastern Pacific Fleet. Other than at Novo-Archangelsk the only other significant ‘Russo-European’ settlements of any size were on Kodiak and Unalaska Islands, both garrisoned by Russian troops and the home to small naval flotillas.
“I think we can defer decisions on that score a little while yet,” Philip De L’Isle suggested wryly.
The C-in-C of Atlantic Fleet guffawed.
“True, whatever happens we’re hardly likely to be at odds with both the Kaiser and the Tsar at the same time.” Cuthbert Collingwood re-focused on more immediate matters. “Our only other available capital ship, Indefatigable, was to return to England in the coming months to pay off into the Reserve Fleet. As you know, she has been operating as Atlantic Fleet’s combined seagoing Gunnery School and Midshipmen’s ‘cruise ship’. At this time, she is perhaps, somewhat less than fifty percent operational. Her aft main battery is, effectively, de-activated and her electronics suite is minimal, stripped back to her 1950s rig. In her present state, even von Reuter’s cruisers might give the old girl a severe handling.”
Rear Admiral Parkinson grunted his displeasure at this juncture.
“If they came upon her unescorted, they’d mob her under in the most likely scenarios I can foresee,” he remarked.
The Governor of New England thought that sort of ‘scenario’ was straight out of a bad dream. That said, the one thing practically everybody agreed was that whatever the Germans were up to, sending a powerful cruiser squadron to the Caribbean under the command of Rear Admiral Edwin von Reuter, a favourite of the Kaiser and a close friend of Crown Prince Frederick◦– they had been naval cadets together at Kiel in their youth◦– no ship flying a German flag was going to deliberately fire on a British ship.
Because, if that happened there would be another general war…
No, the question at the moment was how big the ‘small war’ in the Caribbean and the borderlands of the South West was going to be? Or at least, De L’Isle hoped that was still the question.
If it was not, they were all in big trouble.
Collingwood was still unhurriedly contemplating his subordinate’s remark about the capabilities of the Kaiserliche Marine cruisers in the Caribbean, presently thought to be visiting the port of Vera Cruz, thankfully some fifteen hundred miles◦– some four to five days cruising time◦– from Jamaica, by dint of its proximity to Cuba and Santo Domingo effectively cut off from direct support from the north, the least defensible of all the Empire’s major Caribbean colonies.
“Two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers and a pack of destroyers would,” he conceded ruminatively, “be a bit of a handful for Indefatigable. If we sent her back to sea in earnest she’d be in company with escorts of her own, mind you. I’m sure they’d have something to say about the issue, Tony.”
“I’m sure things won’t come to that, sir,” Parkinson decided.
Even with two of its four modern fast battleships unavailable for operations in the Gulf of Spain-Caribbean theatre of operations and discounting Indefatigable, that still left the two Lion class ships and the two Indomitable class battlecruisers, each vessel boasting a main battery of eight 15-inch guns ‘in play’. Including the anti-aircraft cruiser Cassandra, the present Jamaica Station guardship and Achilles, soon to join her at Kingston, the C-in-C had eleven operational cruisers◦– five heavy and six light◦– several others which could be rushed back into service in short order if necessary, over fifty fleet destroyers and trade route protection frigates and corvettes, not to mention about two hundred other vessels, everything from tugs to fast motor gunboats to ammunition ships and fleet oilers with which to counter any threat posed by Spanish colonial naval forces.
Moreover, this accounting did not take account of the two new aircraft carriers joining the fleet: Ulysses, within days of being declared fully operational, and Perseus possibly only weeks behind her, albeit probably joining the fleet with a much smaller air group than the name ship of her class.
The problematic availability of ‘carrier-adapted’ modern aircraft and the crying shortage of qualified naval aviators was another matter altogether, one nobody seemed to have thought about until the two carriers were undergoing trials when, obviously, it was far too late to do much about it this side of the coming six to twelve months.
But for the present crisis the ‘air group’ question◦– which had been ‘parked’ temporarily by the decision to fully crew Ulysses and then ‘make and mend’ to get Perseus to sea◦– would never have raised its ugly head. It was no comfort to know that the Home Fleet was having similar problems putting together the CAWs for its newly commissioned carriers. The right aircraft had been ordered and the training programs to supply the necessary flow of ‘deck qualified’ aviators had been launched as long ago as last autumn; unfortunately, nobody in the Navy had been told that the politicians were going to let the international situation get out of hand so damned fast!