John Schettler - Golem 7

“Load that last torpedo!” he shouted. “Make ready to fire!” The claxons sounded and the small boat was suddenly alive with activity and men leapt from rest stations, fell from swinging hammocks, and squirmed through narrow passages and up ladders to reach their action stations. For the next breathless minute Wohlfarth struggled to get a bearing. “Starboard fifteen,” he ordered, and his navigator responded.

“Starboard fifteen sir, coming around as best we can.”

“Fire now! Down scope. Make your depth 150 feet.”

The whoosh of the torpedo was followed immediately by the dive claxon, and U-556 plunged into an oncoming wave, nearly thirty feet in height, and did not emerge. She slipped beneath the sea to a safer depth and immediately changed heading again to confound any possible response from the enemy. Wohlfarth wanted to get as far from his torpedo track as possible, as any escorting destroyer would sight down that track to range on his position. Once safely away he would surface and see if his last torpedo had been lucky after all.

It was.

AboardHMS Repulse the warning call of the leeward spotters came too late for the ship to maneuver. “Torpedo off the Starboard side!” Astonished at the alarm, all her captain could do was put on speed by ordering all ahead full. Had he not done so the torpedo would have struck his battlecruiser full amidships, where the belt armor was thickest and the anti-torpedo bulge was designed to shield the inner hull and divert the explosion up and away from the ship. Yet every captain would do his best first to avoid a hit, and he had no clear sighting of the torpedo’s wake to make any better judgment at the time. As it happened, the increase in speed caused the torpedo to strike him astern, very near his rudders, where the armor was much thinner and the potential for serious damage much greater.

Repulse had been struck a fateful blow. The explosion was heard as a mere thump on the bridge when it struck, but moments later the captain had his report on the damage, for his ship veered to starboard almost immediately, his speed falling off considerably.

Aboard King George V Admiral Tovey was informed of the trouble at once. “A U-boat attack?” he said to his Chief of Staff. “At this speed?”

“Must have run right afoul the bastard,” said Brind. “Report from Repulse indicates her rudders are badly damaged, sir. She’s had to fall off to 14 knots and is steaming in circles until they can get divers in the water to have a closer look at the situation.”

“Damn,” said Tovey. “Of all the bloody bad luck!” he fumed. Yet his mind immediately took stock of what he must now do. “We’ll have to leave the destroyers here with her, now. They’re running low on fuel in any case. Better they stay here with Repulse than just set off homeward. They can draw fuel from her if need be.”

“And may I suggest we detach a cruiser as well, sir?”

Tovey thought for a moment. He also had to consider the carrier Victorious , surely a prize target if there were U-Boats about. He had little worry for his own ship, believing the hit on Repulse to have been nothing more than sheer luck at the speed they were making. Yet, where there is smoke, there is fire. How many other U-Boats might be near? He may have run right over wolf pack in a picket line, deliberately deployed here to assist Bismarck .

“Detach Aurora , but the rest of the fleet will keep station. I’m afraid we’ll have to zig-zag now, at least for the next hour.”

The signalman sounded off with a new message. “Admiralty reports Coastal Command has a sighting, sir.”

Tovey read the message: Two ships sighted; presumed Bismarck and Prince Eugen, heading 200 Degrees south, southwest. Cruisers Manchester and Birmingham now maneuvering to shadow contact. He noted the position and time, leaning over his navigation chart with Brind, Captain Patterson and two staff officers, Lloyd and Bingley.

“He’s altered course after the sighting, sir,” said Lloyd, as he did some quick calculations with his ruler and plotting pen. “We’ll have to steer due west to intercept now.”

“Make it so,” said Tovey, still broiling at the loss of Repulse at a crucial time like this. Now his battle fleet had been reduced to the King George V and a handful of light cruisers. Victorious would bring up the rear, but she would steer well away from any potential surface action if they found the enemy. He was haunted by the thought that just a few degrees bearing to port or starboard, his task force would not have encountered the hidden U-Boat and this could not have happened.

“Can Victorious hope to launch anything in this weather?” said Brind. “If we could get some further confirmation on Bismarck’s position from the shadowing cruisers it would surely help matters. We might even return the favor and put a torpedo or two into her gut, sir.”

“Wind near forty knots, seas at forty feet… I very much doubt it,” Tovey replied. “But things change,” he breathed. “Things change…”

“Aye, sir. Coming round to course 270 degrees west.”

“Signalfrom Home Fleet Sir,” a signalman on the bridge took the message and handed it to Captain Kerr. He read it briefly and handed it off to Admiral Holland, the grey haired TF commander. They had been steaming all night since first learning that Bismarck was sighted off the eastern coast of Iceland, their best intercept course plotted at 135 degrees southeast.

“We’ve received a further sighting report,” said Kerr. The admiral read the message. “Catalina CA-12 out of Loch Ewe, eh? Has the sighting been confirmed?”

“ Manchester and Birmingham have come down and moved into position behind the Germans,” said Kerr. “And then there’s this—“ He handed the admiral another message, the look on his face telegraphing bad news.

“ Repulse stuck by a torpedo?”

“It appears so, sir.”

“Bad bit of luck there. All the more reason to put on speed and see if we can get into the fight.”

“We’re making a steady at 26 knots, sir. Prince of Wales is still having teething trouble with her number two turbine, but she’d holding station well enough.”

“Tovey is steering due west.” The admiral pointed to his chart table. “Assuming Bismarck holds her course, he should meet up here in about three hours.” He drew a circle where the lines intersected. “Where will we be?”

“About here, sir.” Kerr pointed to a spot a half inch or so off the eleven o’clock position from the expected engagement.

“That would put us some 20 minutes to half an hour late to the party,” Holland shrugged. “See what you can do to squeeze a few more knots out of this old lady.”

“We can try, sir, but it’s those leaky steam pipes. We’re still diverting fresh water to the boilers as well.”

Holland nodded. “Hate to think of Tovey going it alone,” he said quietly. “If he were to steer another fifteen degrees to port we might all arrive together.”