John Schettler - Golem 7

“She suffered two minor hits from smaller caliber guns off that phantom cruiser. Strange we could not see the damn ship. The fires were put out and she is both seaworthy and battle ready, sir.”

“Good. Have her increase speed at once and take station ahead of us. I assume her radar is still functioning?”

“Aye, sir.”

Minutes later the watchmen spotted something on the horizon and soon signaled enemy planes inbound. The crews were still at action stations, but now the smaller AA batteries were swinging round to the port aft bearing, taught hands cranking the chrome aligning wheels to bring the pom-poms to bear, others pulling levers and letting the smooth hydraulics swing the turrets around. Her aft quarter had six single barreled 20mm AA guns, and four more twin 37mm batteries as well.

As the enemy planes made their slow approach they split into three sections, one swinging to port, another starboard and the third bearing straight in on Bismarck’s aft. The rippling fire of the flak batteries raked the sky in front of them, but the planes kept on coming, lumbering through the puffs of exploding shells as bigger secondary batteries joined the fire.

Lindemann went to the side windows and out through a hatch to a watch bridge to have a look. He was back in an instant, ready to maneuver if the enemy got torpedoes on track. “May I, sir?” he asked Lütjens.

“The ship is yours, captain. You may indulge yourself.”

Lindemann expected to see his considerable AA gun protection score several hits on the planes, but they still lumbered on, their ponderous sloth secretly confounding the predictor sighting element on the German guns, which had been calibrated to oppose much faster, more modern aircraft. Most of the shells were exploding well in front of the planes. Then he saw something fall from the lead Swordfish, lancing down toward the turbulent sea. Just as he made ready to give the order to turn, he was surprised to see three explosions. The torpedoes had all gone off the instant their sleek, round noses hit the icy water!

The aft subflight veered away, shorn of their teeth and able to do little more. Now Lindemann rushed back into the bridge, keen to observe the approach of the remaining six planes. Again they launched and two of three torpedoes exploded as they hit the ocean off his port side. One ran true.

“Starboard twenty,” he shouted, maneuvering his ship to avoid the oncoming torpedo. On the other side of the ship one more torpedo exploded harmlessly on contact with the ocean, and two slipped into the sea, running true. One of the oncoming planes went so far as to overfly the ship, raking her with machinegun fire as it went by, in a furious but fruitless outburst that injured no one.

The first torpedo missed, and Lindemann maneuvered smartly to try an avoid the second, yet realized he could not do so. It struck Bismarck amidships, on her thickest armor with an audible plunk, but it did not explode. The captain looked at Lütjens, amazed. “That’s the lot of them,” he said, relieved. “Not a single hit. Half their torpedoes exploded when they hit the ocean, and the only one that got through to strike us failed to go off!”

The admiral was very pleased. He watched the planes flutter off into a bank of low clouds like frustrated moths, pursued by a horde of stinging bees. The flak still chased them, but no plane was hit.

“Signal Prince Eugen and make your turn now, captain,” said Lütjens. “Come round to 230 degrees southwest.”

Wohlfarth was elated.He had put a torpedo into a Royal Navy battlecruiser! His seventh ship would not be credited as a kill, but the fact that he took such a ship out of Admiral Tovey’s battle fleet at a crucial moment would assure him the Knight’s Cross for sure.

He turned to his navigator, all smiles after they had successfully evaded the British destroyers. “Souvad, you’re a genius! A true seer!”

“Thank you, captain.” The man made a genteel bow, accepting his laurels as given, and satisfied that the whole crew would share in their moment of glory once they reached the U-boat pens at Lorient.

“Let’s get home then,” said the captain. “That big ship is still steaming in circles, and the British destroyers are hovering around her like fitful hens. “Set the course, Souvad. We’ll run deep for a while and surface in an hour.”

They crept away all that day, and the following morning the signalman reported message traffic when Tovey made his report to the Admiralty. Wohlfarth read the message with even greater satisfaction. “There’s been a battle,” he said. “ Bismarck has brushed aside the British Home Fleet and is steaming south for the Atlantic.”

“All the more reason to celebrate, captain,” said Souvad.”

“I told you I would keep Bismarck from harm,” Wohlfarth boasted. “And that is exactly what we did. The British could have used the big guns on that battlecruiser. We may have tipped the scales just enough to assure Lindemann and Bismarck prevailed.”

“No doubt, sir.”

They had been sailing south all night, and the news of the battle that morning ran through the boat, heartening the crew. Wohlfarth issued special rations, and even a round of brandy for all his officers. The men seemed cool, relieved, and very glad to be heading home now on their first major outing of in this new boat.

The seas were rough as they traveled on the surface that day, the lookouts keenly searching every horizon for any sign of enemy planes. They were now in the zone designated “Western Approaches” by the Royal Navy command. It was often thick with heavily escorted convoy traffic, though Wohlfarth did not regret that he had no further torpedoes. Taking on a convoy here was usually a bad move. Air patrols out of the U.K. were another dangerous threat. The best thing for a U-boat captain to do was to get well out into the Atlantic, where the short legged British destroyers would be thinned out, then look to find a lightly guarded convoy such as HX-126 and have a feast.

That afternoon a message came in from Group West congratulating U-556 and informing him that the ship he had successfully torpedoed was HMS Repulse . He was given immediate clearance to return home and a full month’s leave for his entire crew.

As the evening approached, the boat was forced to dive when the watch spotted an incoming plane, a big lumbering Catalina out of Ireland. Far from being mere spotter planes, the Catalinas now carried four lethal depth charges and could make immediate attacks against any target they spotted. Wohlfarth was taking no chances. He dove at once, quickly altering course, and praying that he had not been seen.

An hour passed without incident and he decided to move to periscope depth again to have a look around before surfacing. To his great surprise, he was amazed to spot yet another large British warship silhouetted against the gloaming horizon, and this time he needed no cable to identify the ship.

“Good lord,” he said. “That’s the Rodney!”

HMS Rodney , an interwar build, was a massive lumbering battleship with an unmistakable silhouette because all of her big guns were on the forward segment of the ship, with her armored superstructure and bridge con well back of the huge turrets, like a solitary iron tower, where the ship’s captain surveyed all his guns at once. Slow and heavily armored, the Rodney was often used in convoy escort roles, as her best practical speed was in the range of eighteen to twenty-one knots, though she normally cruised at fifteen to eighteen knots. From the size of her bow wash Wohlfarth estimated the ship was in a hurry. Many a U-boat captain had seen her at sea, in one convoy or another, though none had dared to challenge the pack of hounds she usually had in tow, hungry fast destroyers that would be a nightmare when they were set loose on the hunt.