John Schettler - Altered States

The midnight sun cast an eerie red glow as it dipped low to the horizon, but it would find no rest there this night. Soon they heard from their scout planes ahead: sighted two large capital ships! From the heading and bearing information they were steaming on a course to intercept Lindemann’s center group. Rudel decided he would pay them a visit first.

The dark shapes of the Stukas drifted across the white moon, their fixed landing gear jutting beneath them like the legs of a bird of prey. Rudel looked up to see the fighters accelerating to take the lead. The Arados had spotted a squadron of British fighters flying cover, and the fight was on.

Heinrich Jurgen was swiveling his neck in all directions looking for clouds to hide in. The British Skuas had seen his Arado and two had broken their patrol formation to come after him. The rattle of his rear gunner opening up with his MG-15 broke the silence, the very first rounds fired in anger as the battle began. He was firing at Midshipman R. W. Kearsley in plane 6Q off the Ark Royal , but Kearsley would have nothing of it, banking deftly to evade the hot streamers as they whizzed by his plane.

The British pilot opened up with his Browning.303s riddling the Arado’s tail and send it into a fluttering spiral as it plummeted downward and into the sea. First kill had gone to the British airmen, but Marco Ritter was quick to the scene, leading a sub-fight of three BF-109s in the vanguard of his fighter formation.

“Tommy wants a cracker,” he said to his mates on the radio. “Let’s see that he pays for it first.” He banked his fighter and dove for the Skua as it was climbing after its run on the seaplane. The Messerschmitt growled in, wings blazing with fire that took the right wing off plane 6Q and sent Kearsley and his gunner/signalman Eccleshall into the drink to join the Germans. Tit for tat.

The remaining four Skuas rumbled into action, but the swift 109s were simply too agile for them. Two were down in short order, but Lieutenant Commander John Casson was wheeling and swerving in the sky, his stunt pilot skills making him the equal of the Germans even though his plane could not match them. He hit his flaps, watched a Messerschmitt flash by, and then quickly lined up on it for a kill.

“There’s one for your white heather, Hornblower,” he said to his mate in the rear seat. Peter Fanshaw, the squadron navigator had been busy tapping out his contact signal, and now he was on the rear machine gun. It was three Skuas to the two BF-109’s, which Casson saw as even up. Petty Officer Wallace Crawford was on his right wing, finding him again after losing a German plane in a bank of clouds.

“Tally Ho, Johnny! But watch out above. Jerry’s throwing the whole kitchen sink our way.”

Casson looked up to see a full squadron of six more 109s and he knew the jig was up. “Signal Hood to get her dander up. There’s bound to be Stukas behind those fighters. Where the hell is 800 Squadron?” He put on all the power he could and started to climb for some heavy gray clouds, looking for cover to try and get into a position to look for the Stukas . A wash of rain greeted him, then he broke through to see the dark formation ahead, some two dozen planes.

“Signal the lads, Hornblower. Large formation of enemy planes right off their starboard bow!”

Crawford had tried to follow Casson up. But Marco Ritter found him climbing and made a vicious pass. The heavy rounds shattered his canopy and he was hit in the right shoulder, thrown against the side of the plane as he lost control. He would not make it back to Ark Royal that night.

It was nigh on the witching hour and the vampires were on the wing. The Stukas looked down to see the same scenario they had been presented with earlier, two battlecruisers, one slightly bigger in the van, and they tipped their wings over and came screaming down like banshees, dark things in the glowing night, shadows on the face of the watching moon.

Below them Holland’s battlegroup, with Hood in the van and Repulse following, threw up everything they could on defense. Hood’s twin QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns joined with her 2-pounder pom-poms, which began puffing up the sky as the planes came in. But soon the 4-inch guns could simply not elevate high enough, as the Stukas could come in at a near vertical dive.

The ship swerved right, beginning a hard zig-zag to try and throw off the enemy’s aim. There were three near misses, two other bombs falling wider off her bow as she put on all the speed she had, plowing through the glimmering seas at over 30 knots. Then one bomb caught her flush on B-turret. While the turret face was all of 15-inches thick, the roof was only five inches and the bomb blasted through, putting two of her eight 15-inch guns out of action. That single blow reduced her standing in any fight at sea quickly from that of a battleship to that of a battlecruiser, now the better of HMS Repulse behind her only in stature and reputation.

Repulse took one hit near her fantail, a glancing blow that blew off the gunwale, dented her hull and threw splinters across the deck to kill three unlucky seamen there. There were four other close calls, but the agile battlecruiser was running at 32 knots, determined not to suffer the fate of her sister ship Renown . She would escape further damage but the venerable Hood would not. The last of the uninvited guests hurtling out of a blood red sky that night was Hans Ulrich-Rudel. He was lined up on the target and put his bomb right down on Hood’s number two funnel, dead center on the ship. The resulting explosion blew the funnel apart, riddled the forward stack with hot shrapnel and sent an enormous billowing black cloud up as if all her boilers had vented in one mighty belch. He was the thirteenth plane to make the attack, and Rudel’s luck was still good. He was now two for two.

The flak defense was good enough to get a pair of Stukas that night, and drive three others off, their pilots aborting their runs when the heat was too thick in the sky. Of the six remaining, John Casson got on the tail of one and blew it clean away before dancing off into another cloud. The remaining five had circled wide to look for other targets, but found nothing.

Casson looked to see another squadron of Skuas hastening to the scene. 800 squadron was joining the action. “It’s about bloody time,” he yelled, but one look at Hood told him it was already too late.

Aboard Kirov , far to the west, Rodenko was able to use the long range radar to see the action beginning to unfold. He noted the airborne attack underway and the sudden change in speed and direction on the lead British ship told him a hit had been scored there.

“Looks to be some fairly hot action on the British far right,” he reported. Volsky and Fedorov were consulting the situation map, and the Admiral did not like how things were shaping up.

“The German center force has just executed a turn to port. They are vectoring in on that same location.”

“This Admiral Tovey has a good deal of trouble on his hands now. A pity he did not enlist our aid!” He looked at Fedorov.

“Frankly, I do not think they believed us, Admiral.” Fedorov shrugged as he spoke. “They did not see that we could be of any use to them.”

“The British center column has turned,” said Rodenko as he received the new radar data on the map. “They are heading northwest. There’s a battle underway there as well. Looks like a pair of British cruisers have found those battlecruisers we sent packing yesterday.”