Sheppard and the French Rescue Read online

  “Good afternoon, you should be very proud of your husband. I can’t tell you the details, but his bravery and insight into the unfolding battle was critical to Britain’s and our ally’s great victory.”

  “Thank you, Admiral, for your kind words,” came the voice that had melted Rupert’s heart years before.

  “If you will excuse me, I must get back to Gibraltar as soon as possible,” injected Admiral Hardy.

  Both admirals departed engaged in hushed conversation. Rupert was congratulated by the other senior RAF officers present. As the crowd thinned, Rupert and Lois looked at each other. Lois planted a red kiss on his cheek, “And what shall we do for the rest of the day?” she seductively added.

  As they walked out of the palace Rupert congratulated himself on not embarrassing himself or the Royal Air Force too badly in front of the King. He was oblivious to the red lipstick on his cheek.

  “Schmitt, how hard would it be to quickly rig a green light over a white light after we surface from one of the periscopes?” Kapitänleutnant Kuhn asked.

  “It will not be hard, Herr Kaleu,” Schmitt quizzically answered.

  “Good! Let me know as soon as the electrician is ready.” He knew he would never be able to get to an attack position before the sun set. But the blackness of the night could be used as a weapon.

  “Schmitt, what does the chart say for the depth of water?”

  “About one-hundred-fifty meters, but shoaling fast, then it will flatten out on the shelf starting at about one-hundred meters.”

  Leutnant Dieter Werner, the first watch officer entered the control room looking like he had sensed something was up. “Herr Kaleu, you seem to be formulating a plan of attack. Should I wake the crew and get a meal ready?”

  “EinsWO, yes we are going to attack that capital ship after the sun has set and before the moon has risen. The hard part is not going to be getting into an attack position. The hard part will be trying to escape.”

  “Herr Kaleu, how are we going to see on a moonless night?” Dieter asked wondering if his Kommandant had the unthinkable in mind.

  Smiling Alfred told his second in command, “EinsWO, we will attack on the surface. I want you to prepare a torpedo tube load of garbage and items that will float, but do not load it until after we attack.”

  “Helmsman, come right to course three-two-five.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kaleu, Come right to course three-two-five”

  Now certain his new captain was in fact mad, Dieter, nevertheless, went off to carry out his Captain’s wishes thoroughly confused on what U-182 was about to conduct.

  Captain Jensen was pleased that the tow had been resumed. It was an odd arrangement, dictated by still being in the open ocean, but two fleet tugs Potawatomi and Wenatchee were now both pulling on the Belleau Wood. From the smoke gushing from their stacks, both tugs were at maximum power. The resulting 3 knots of progress was disappointing to Harvey, but adding another fleet tug would make it impossible for them to avoid collisions as they all pulled from the same point on his battle cruiser’s bow.

  Four other fleet tugs were standing by, in company. They also would begin pulling once his ship entered the mouth of the Delaware Bay and ocean swells no longer created an untenable risk of damage for the tugs secured alongside. Harvey hoped that would bring the speed of the tow up to 7 knots as the assemblage of ships worked their way up the Delaware River to Philadelphia. Only then could Jensen relax.

  He idly wondered who the service would tap to take over the Belleau Wood for what would inevitably be a long yard period to repair all the damage. He desperately hoped it would not be him—he hated shipyards.

  “Surface,” Alfred yelled from the conning tower.

  “Blow main ballast, full rise on both planes, both two-thirds power,” Dieter commanded in the control room, the roar of high pressure air filling the ballast tanks quickly making further communication difficult. As the sea water was forced out the bottom of the tanks, U-182 rose; the fair-water and conning tower breaking the surface.

  Kruger spun the hand-wheel of the conning tower hatch and pushed it open to a drenching shower of cold seawater. Both he and the Kommandant scrambled up to the small bridge of the U-boat. Alfred had a pair of Zeiss binoculars swinging from his neck as he climbed the short ladder.

  “Send up the electrician with the lights.” Alfred screamed over the noise of the two diesel engines starting to a full throated rumble. Their exhaust would first quickly empty the last of the sea water from the ballast tanks.

  “Raise the attack periscope to my mark,” he ordered as soon as the lights had been lashed to the scope. “Mark! … On running lights, on new lights.” Soon Alfred was satisfied that he had turned his surfaced warship into something far more innocent to fool the stupid Americans.

  He shouted down the hatch to his first officer, “Action stations.”

  “Surface lookouts report a trawler bearing three-four-zero.”

  “Very well,” Harvey Jensen acknowledged. I guess I should expect that there might be a few still out trying to make a living, especially if they are too small to be of use to the Navy. There was no need to worry.

  T … twang! startled him. What had happened? He turned to his JA phone-talker, “Forecastle report status of tow.”

  It wasn’t long in coming and the news was not good. Potawatomi’s towing hawser had parted where it had left Belleau Wood’s bow chock. Wenatchee’s was also fraying. The tow was going to have to stop while new hawsers were rigged or other fleet tugs in company would have to take over pulling his battle cruiser to safety.

  Harvey turned to his JA talker, “Do you have the signal bridge on the circuit?”

  “No, sir”

  There was nothing to do except grab a signal pad and write out what he wanted sent to the tow master. “Messenger of the watch, take this to the signal bridge and have them man the JA phones.” Another example of the lousy training and micro management of Kevin Bailey, without a functioning 21MC, the signal bridge had not seen the necessity of manning the phones continuously or perhaps there were just not enough signalmen left. Shortly though the one remaining signal light on Belleau Wood began clattering out the message.

  “Signal bridge is on the phones,” reported the JA talker. “Tow master is ordering Lakhota and Navajo to take over the tow. Potawatomi’s towing winch was damaged by the rebounding hawser. It will take about a half-hour for the new tugs to prepare their hawsers. He requests that our forecastle be lit with the signal light to assist.”

  “Very well, Make to DESRON Thirty. Tow will have to stop while towing tugs are changed.” After this message was sent, his only signal light would have to be trained on the forecastle for illumination. His ability to command the tow would have to wait until the replacement tugs had passed their hawsers and were ready to proceed.

  So far, so good, thought Kapitänleutnant Alfred Kuhn, those stupid Americans must have bought my ruse, as he clipped his binoculars into the bearing transmitter on the bridge. He could just make out the capital ship before him. There was a destroyer on his port bow about fifteen hundred meters away and he dared not approach it closer.

  Suddenly a blinding light illuminated the bow of his target. God this ship was huge!

  “Herr Kaleu, that destroyer is moving off,” Schmitt reported.

  Alfred looked up, but his night vision had been destroyed looking at the magnified illuminated bow of his target. He could not see the destroyer. He would have to rely completely on Schmitt as his lookout.

  “Attack procedures,” he yelled down the hatch. He wanted to get closer but dared not for fear of other escorts. Based on size alone, he judged he was within range of the G7e torpedoes he had onboard.

  There was another shape moving past his field of view illuminated by the light. What was it? The silhouette did not remind him of any warship. How far away was it? Were there others? The few other surface attacks he had made were on moonlit nights. Even in that dark, he had been able to see muc
h better. How much should he risk? Should he get any closer?

  Suddenly another light illuminated the aft end of a small ship off the bow of his target. What was that? What were they doing? Why did these ships suddenly need lights?

  Dieter yelled up from the control room, “Ready, Herr Kaleu.”

  “We will fire four torpedoes spread from aft to forward two degrees offset between torpedoes. Set running depth at fifteen meters!” Alfred hoped that running depth which was the deepest setting available would be sufficient to run under his target and detonate under the torpedo defenses.

  “Jawohl, Herr Kaleu, aft to forward, two degrees between shots, run depth fifteen meters,” Dieter answered barely audible above the diesels trying to cram as much energy into the battery as time on the surface would allow.

  “Set target speed at two knots.”

  “Target speed set.”

  “Final bearing; Mark!” Alfred pressed the buzzer on the bearing transmitter. The next command was the simplest. “Torpedos Los!”

  “Captain, that trawler is still on a collision course.” Belleau Wood’s Officer of the Deck reported. “Should we turn on navigation lights red over red to have them bear-off?”

  Harvey Jensen thought for a moment. Yes it was a good idea; with his forecastle brilliantly illuminated two red lights even though high up on his mast would not make much difference even if they were only on for a few minutes. “Energize red over red navigation lights.”

  Captain Jensen went out on the port walkway and raised his 7 x 50 binoculars to gauge the trawler’s reaction to his navigation lights. What was he looking at—a low pilot house with a mast; the trawling lights clearly visible, but was the foredeck that low, were the swells actually breaking on it? There was something dimly visible ahead of that pilot house, what was it? Harvey was wracking his brain when suddenly those navigation lights went out. Was it his imagination or did it seem that the masthead lights had gotten lower?

  Why did that trawler suddenly turn off their navigation lights just after he had turned his on? It was a deck gun!!!

  He leaped into the secondary conning station. “JA talker. Signal bridge use anything and make to COMDESRON Thirty. Submarine bearing three-four-zero. Range four thousand yards.’’ Officer of the Deck, “Man battle-stations, sound the collision alarm.” He didn’t even have a functioning announcing system; well maybe the alarms still worked.

  “Alarm!” Alfred yelled down the hatch. The bearing transmitter was below and the electrician had just dropped into the conning tower with the “navigation lights”. Schmitt was next, then Alfred too dropped into the small conning tower, pushing the electrician out of the way. Schmitt pulled the lanyard of the hatch until it shut with a clang and the Kommandant spun the hand-wheel to lock it shut against the inevitable depth charges.

  “Depth fifty meters. Full ahead both.”

  “Fifty meters, aye, Kapitän,” Dieter answered as both planesmen had their control surfaces on full dive.

  “Motor room answers both full ahead,” the helmsman next sang out.

  Alfred had to wait half a minute until U-182 was fully submerged before he could order the rudder over and a course change to three-zero-zero. “Quartermaster, take a sounding.”

  “Ah … depth of water seventy-five meters, Herr Kaleu,” as Kruger converted the depth beneath the keel from the fathometer into water depth based upon the depth gauge reading at the time of the sounding.

  “Torpedo room load the garbage, mattresses, and floatable objects into tube one.”

  “On ordered depth Herr Kaleu,” Dieter reported a smile growing on his face as he realized what his Kommandant had been planning all along.

  Alfred and Dieter stared at each other. Would the course change be enough to get clear? Would the Americans think that they would try to escape to the northeast rather than to the west-north-west? The move to shallower water was illogical. Only time would tell and what of his four torpedoes, each with two hundred kilograms of hexanite wakelessly running toward that capital ship?

  Commander John Badger had been in command of the destroyer James Lawrence for a little less than a year, since he had formed up the new construction crew, taken his ship through shake down, and finished the training program specified by Rear Admiral Gregory Tuttle (Commander Destroyer Force Atlantic) under the critical eye of Captain Jones and his team. The Lawrence had done well enough to now be assigned to Destroyer Squadron Thirty.

  That was all behind his ship and he was currently snoozing in his cubbyhole of a sea cabin aft of the bridge, fully dressed in long sleeve khakis but without tie and shoes; he lay under a grey blanket. His current assignment was to patrol on the aft starboard quarter of the battle cruiser Belleau Wood, while the fleet tugs Lakhota and Navajo rigged towing hawsers to recommence moving the capital ship toward the entrance of the Delaware Bay.

  The buzzer near his head woke him. Instantly alert, John grabbed the sound powered phone handset from its metal holder and spoke, “Captain” as the mouthpiece came near his lips.

  “Captain, Commodore is signaling,” his Officer of the Deck reported.

  “Very well, I am on my way,” was all he needed to say; quickly replacing the handset in the dull red illumination of his sea cabin. He slipped on his black leather sea boots (much faster than shoes that needed tying), opened the cabin door and was on his destroyer’s bridge in less than thirty seconds.

  “Captain, the Commodore has ordered us to investigate the trawler bearing three-one-eight and warn them off of the tow.”

  “Very well, acknowledge! What do we have on the SG radar?”

  “That’s odd, the trawler’s lights went out and the radar contact has disappeared,” his OOD reported.

  “Man battle stations.” John Badger knew that it had to be a submarine and a German one at that since he had used a ruse to get close on the surface. He punched the sonar button on the 21MC (Captain’s command announcing circuit). “Sonar, search a sector forty degrees each side of the bow. Officer of the Deck, come to course three-one-eight at two-thirds speed.” The last thing he did was start his stop watch.

  This was the hard part. It was easy when you could see what was around you. On the surface, everything was clear and his U-boat’s small silhouette made an easy assumption that what he could see would not, in all likelihood, see him. Even submerged at periscope depth, he could see and gain that priceless perspective on what was around U-182; but now, at fifty meters, everything was guesswork. His ears, actually those of Oberfunkmaat Ehrlichmann, now could only estimate the actions of his enemy.

  “Herr Kaleu, one contact is growing louder, bearing about two-two-five. Probably one of the escorts, but he is not increasing speed. I only get a turn count of about eighty.”

  That would be a destroyer, investigating and searching. “Can you tell how the bearing is changing?”

  “The contact is drawing to the left I think. I can’t tell for certain, but he appears to be on a steady course.”

  Alfred knew from experience that this was actually bad. He could not tell if his enemy had contact or not. He was acting as if he did not, but now the British had learned not to charge immediately—lull the U-boat into thinking they did not have contact while they carefully evaluated attack options.

  “Battle-stations manned and ready”, the new OOD reported.

  “Very well,” John Badger answered. He had moved over to the plot where one of his petty officers was marking the destroyer’s position on a sheet of paper taped to the top of the DRAI (Dead Reckoning Analyzer Indicator) as the “bug” moved in response to inputs from the gyro compass and the underwater log for his course and speed.

  “Conn, Sonar, contact bearing three-four-five relative, range one-six-hundred yards, down Doppler.”

  “Sonar, conn, aye”, the Officer of the Deck answered while John looked at the location laid down from his own ship’s position on the DRAI. What to do, he could turn and run right at the submarine and immediately attack or could he lul
l his enemy into thinking that he had not been found? Doctrine recommended an immediate attack.

  He punched the 21MC for the signal bridge. “Signal Bridge, make to Belleau Wood. Submarine bearing three-three-five from you. Make to COMDESRON Thirty. Submarine contact bearing three-zero-three, range one-six-hundred from me; request additional destroyer.”

  “Conn, Signal Bridge, Belleau Wood and COMDESRON Thirty acknowledge.”

  The TBS (Talk between Ships) speaker began to bark. It was the Commodore of Destroyer Squadron Thirty, “Foxhound (the call sign for the James Lawrence), Beagle (the call sign for the Jesse Elliot), this is Hunt-Master, coordinate, prosecute the contact.”

  John Badger waited a moment to be sure the Commodore had stopped talking and then keyed the mike for the TBS, “Foxhound roger.”

  Quickly he heard Mike Siegel’s voice, “Beagle roger.” The Commodore had picked the Elliot even though she was on the other side of the formation so that the remaining destroyers could cover the gaps. It did not matter to John, but he was senior and would do the coordination.

  “Beagle, this is Foxhound; come up on my port side. Expedite.” It wouldn’t take Mike long at the 24 knot stationing speed the Commodore had specified earlier. He just prayed that the Elliot didn’t collide with anything as she wove her way through the maze of the tow and escorts.

  “No!” Harvey Jensen inadvertently screamed as the first towering water column rose just forward of Number I main battery turret. Belleau Wood’s deck heaved and shook as the force of the explosion dissipated into her bowels. No sooner than the first column of water began to fall on the main deck, than it was replaced by a second farther forward, and then a third nearer still to the bow. “JA talker, is Damage Control Central on the line?”