Robert Conroy - 1920 - America's Great War

Lieutenant Commander Jesse Oldendorf was seated alone at a small table in the large but half empty dining hall stuffing food into his mouth. Despite shortages, the cooks had done their usual excellent job and the aromas were enticing.

Josh envied the man. Almost every day, he was out there on the noble former trawler, the Shark , laying or inspecting the minefields. And just to keep things interesting, every now and then the distant Germans would lob a shell in his direction. They’d never come close, but a lucky hit was always a possibility. Even a near miss would send water a hundred feet into the air and create pressures that would crush the Shark ’s hull.

Oldendorf saw him and waved him over. “How are things with the gods on Mount Olympus?” he asked cheerfully. “And how are you with the beautiful Miss Elise? Still seeing her or has she come to her senses?”

Josh laughed. “The gods tell me very darn little, and Elise has not yet regained consciousness.”

“Then don’t let her. She’s a prize.”

“She doesn’t want me out on any more combat missions.”

“And smart, too.” Oldendorf finished devouring a slightly overcooked pork chop which was just the way he liked it. “Of course, the Navy hasn’t had much to do with half a dozen Kraut battleships watching us like German hawks.”

The German warships patrolling Puget Sound had arrived and four had promptly departed in pairs. Obviously, their job was to try to search out the Arizona and the Pennsylvania . If the American warships stayed together, any battle with a pair of German ships would be fairly even, but the Americans could not afford to lose any ships, while the Germans could replace their losses. If the American ships split up, which Josh considered likely, then they would be outnumbered two to one if they met up with either German squadron.

Of course, it was a very big ocean, and intercepted intelligence said the German ships would return in a few days. That news was ominous. There was only one reason for them to return and that was to attack.

“At least you are doing something useful, Commander.”

Oldendorf looked at him curiously. “And just what am I doing, Lieutenant?”

Josh was puzzled. “Why, you’re out their laying mines for the time when the Germans try to bull their way through the Golden Gate.”

“You think they’ll try to do that?” he asked with a grin.

“They have to, sir. The Kraut officers want action and they won’t get it sitting out there while the army takes San Francisco. No, sir, they will bull their way in and we will try to stop them with our shore guns and your mines.”

Oldendorf pushed his empty plate away. “And how many mines have you seen the Shark lay?”

Now Josh was truly confused, “Maybe hundreds.”

Oldendorf smiled sadly. “I am now going to let you in on a little secret, Josh. You haven’t seen me lay a single mine. They’ve been rocks, Josh, rocks. You’ve seen the Shark and her loyal crew throw rocks overboard every day. Both you and the Krauts think we’ve been mining the entrance, which means they’ll come in real slow and cautious. When they do, our shore guns will try to pound the crap out of them. If we’ve fooled a man as keen as you, then we’ve fooled them as well.”

Josh felt his jaw dropping, “Rocks? And you’re not kidding?”

“Nope. We only had a handful of mines when the war started, and we used them all trying to stop the Krauts from leaving San Diego. You do remember that little escapade, don’t you?”

Josh shook his head, “I still can’t believe that was all of them.”

“Every last stinking one, young Lieutenant. Now, Josh, I’ve gone and told you a deep dark military secret. I want you to tell me something.”

“Shoot.”

“What the hell is ‘Operation Firefly’?”

Captain Heinz Muller was commodore of the convoy and its escorts. It consisted of a dozen transports, freighters, and fuel tankers all traveling slowly and in formation. Neat and tidy like good little Germans, Muller liked to think. Muller had a decent sense of humor and his crew, except for the Communists and anarchists among the enlisted men, liked and respected him.

Muller had retired from active duty five years earlier and held the rank of captain in the naval reserves. At age sixty, he fully expected to finish his life in a rocking chair with a beer in his hand and a buxom young fraulein to hop off his lap and keep the glass full. He was a bachelor and the fantasy came easily to mind. But then came the war and the surprise order from the kaiser to take command of both the ancient pre-dreadnaught battleship Preussen and the hastily gathered convoy.

Four destroyers and the light cruiser Pillau accompanied him and his battleship as additional escorts.

The fourteen thousand ton Preussen was a virtual museum piece. She’d been commissioned in 1905. She was primitive in comparison with modern ships, such as the Bayern or, he shuddered, the American Arizona or Pennsylvania . Since the 1906 launch of the British super-ship, the Dreadnaught , naval architecture and warship design had been revolutionized. It was ironic that the Dreadnaught herself was now considered obsolete after only fifteen years of existence.

The Preussen carried a mere four eleven-inch guns and a number of 6.7 inch guns, none of which could stand up to the Americans who had escaped from Puget Sound. If it hadn’t been for the damned American submarines, now long dead, Muller and his ship would have been back in Germany and the transports steaming on their own. The destroyers were there to herd the civilian ships and the light cruiser’s job was to watch over the destroyers. The Pillau could steam at twenty-seven knots, but carried only six-inch guns. Nobody had expected that they would have to look out for American battleships.

The Yank submarine menace was gone, but, even before the escape of the Americans, there was the fear of Yankee surface raiders. Not every destroyer or cruiser had been accounted for and the Americans certainly had other subs, but they were in the Atlantic. At least that’s where German intelligence said they were. He harrumphed to himself. German intelligence had been far from perfect so far.

“Ship on the horizon!” a lookout yelled and Muller cursed.

“Two ships,” the lookout corrected.

Scores of telescopes and binoculars were instantly trained on the distant smudges, upperworks just beginning to appear over the horizon. Muller’s heart skipped a beat. They were large and their design wasn’t German. Please let a merciful God make those ships British and not American, he thought.

God was not merciful. A few moments later and Muller’s worst dreams had been realized. He had found the Arizona and the Pennsylvania . “Order the convoy to scatter and run for their lives. The destroyers and the Pillau will follow me.”

They were two hundred miles away from Los Angeles, and, while his radio was broadcasting the alarm, he knew it was a fruitless gesture. Were there any German warships in the vicinity? Highly unlikely, he admitted to himself.

Flashes on the American ships showed that their great fourteen-inch guns had fired. A moment passed and shells fell short of the Preussen . Muller fired his forward turret. His own shells fell well short. He had fired just to show the Yanks that the Preussen had teeth. Maybe it would delay the Americans and give his sheep a chance of escaping. The Americans fired again and this time the shells landed long. They were bracketed.

“Tell the destroyers and the Pillau to try to escape,” Muller ordered sadly. “And keep trying to raise our fleet. They have to be out there someplace, damn it.”