Kirov II: Cauldron Of Fire (Kirov Series) Page 11

  Kapitän Helmut Rosenbaum of U-73 received the message from Untermittlemeer Squadron headquarters at La Spezia with real satisfaction. “Congratulations in order for our newest recipient of the Knight’s cross.” All he had to do now was stay alive to collect his medal, and he was glad that he could soon make use of his new radar sets once he got clear of the main enemy convoy and found some open water.

  U-73 was a very special boat, one of a very few to have the FuMO61 “Hohentwiel” radar installed. Named for a fortress constructed at the top of an extinct volcano in the year 914 by Burchard III, then Duke of Swabia, it became one of the most powerful fortresses in the duchy, and a watchful outpost on the mountain passes in the Baden-Wurttemburg region of Germany. The radar was perched atop the starboard side of the U-boat’s conning tower, scanning the area around the boat while she was surfaced to keep watch for enemy aircraft and surface units.

  Her Kapitän and commander, Helmut Rosenbaum, had put her to good use on seven sorties, sinking six merchant ships and causing the loss of two the smaller vessels that were being transported on one of these targets. The crew wanted to credit him with eight ships sunk for the feat, but he was reluctant to count those last two as kills.

  “No boys,” he told them. “I’m counting it at six, so now we go hunting for our lucky number seven.” Most of his kills were obtained while operating out of St. Nazaire and Lorient on the Brittany coast, but on one occasion the boat was deep in the Atlantic operating with the Grönland Wolfpack when she sighted a very odd looking warship that seemed to be the focus of a major operation. Rosenbaum had no intelligence indicating that the enemy was running any convoy at that time, so what was underway here in the icy North Atlantic, he wondered? He knew there were no German surface raiders out to sea at that time, but here was a warship of considerable size, with a lot of Royal Navy units thrashing about in pursuit.

  He peered through his periscope, noting how ominous and threatening her profile was, but perplexed by the lack of any big guns on the ship. Concluding that this must be an old British battleship that had been stripped of her guns and put to sea for maneuvers and drills, he decided to spoil the party and put the ship on the bottom of the sea. The ship accommodated him by sailing right into firing position as he hovered in the silent cold waters, and was preparing to set loose one of his last torpedoes when he suddenly saw the ship put on an amazing burst of speed and veer hard into a high speed evasive turn! He realized at once what had happened. One of the other boats in the wolfpack had seen the ship as well, and fired, probably U-563 operating on his right under Klaus Bargsten.

  “What are you doing, Klaus?” he breathed. The shot was far too long to have any chance of success. It was not like Bargsten to make a mistake like that, but the reaction of the target ship made Rosenbaum realize that this was no old battleship. The speed and precision of the evasive maneuver took his breath away. Then he saw something flash from the side of the dark ship and streak off at an impossible speed. Moments later there was an explosion, and he pivoted his scope to see a geyser of water in the distance, right on U-563’s line of fire. Something had lanced out and destroyed Bargsten’s torpedo! He wanted nothing more to do with this ship, and immediately ordered an immediate dive to reach a cold thermal layer and slip away. His comrade was not so lucky. The ship found U-563 sometime later and Rosenbaum’s boat and crew could feel the throbbing vibration in the sea when they killed the U-Boat.

  The Kapitän remembered how he had turned to his First Officer of the Watch, Horst Deckert, amazed. “That was a battleship if I have ever seen one,” he breathed. Or at least it was something easily that big. Yet the way it moved and turned, it was like a destroyer, and the damn thing…” He checked himself, unwilling to say more. “Get us out of here, Deckert. Get us out of here.”

  A year later, and now on her 8th sailing, U-73 would slip through the guarded gates of Gibraltar, her engines off, just drifting silently through the channel pushed by the swift ocean currents. She would join Unterseeboote Mittelmeer (Undersea Boat Group Med), with the 29th Flotilla, and make her way to a new operating base at La Spezia in Northern Italy. She had been out on patrol since August 4, this time in the Med, looking for another kill when Rosenbaum got word that a big British operation was underway and was vectored in as part of the initial U-Boat trip-wire defense north of Algeria. There he spotted the British convoy assembled for Operation Pedestal and slipped around to the rear to where the carriers were operating to provide air cover.

  Rosenbaum skillfully escaped detection, in spite of a close escort of four British destroyers in his immediate vicinity, and worked his way stealthily into a perfect firing position on the old British carrier HMS Eagle, ripping her open with four hits and sending her to the bottom in a matter of minutes. In the ensuing chaos he eluded detection and withdrew from the slowly advancing Allied convoy. In time he would work his way north to hover off the Balearic Islands. For the sinking of HMS Eagle he soon learned that he was to be awarded the Knight’s Cross and given a new assignment—command of the Black Sea U-Boat flotilla, Hitler’s “lost fleet” in the inland waters of southern Europe.

  In an ingenious and daring operation, the Germans had partially disassembled a flotilla of six Type IIB Coastal U-Boats at Kiel, removing their conning towers by oxyacetylene torches before they moved them overland on the most powerful land haulers and tractors in Germany. They eventually reached the Danube where they were packed in pontoon crates and then made their way slowly by barge to the Black Sea! Originally scheduled to arrive there in October of 1942, they were two months early, and the newly decorated Helmut Rosenbaum would now take command as soon as he returned from his current mission.

  He rubbed his hands together, grateful for the new assignment where he could now command a flotilla of six U-boats. Yet in a strange twist of fate, he would have one more chance encounter at sea before he made it home to collect his laurels, and one more chance to best his lucky number seven kill. U-73 seemed to have some strange magnetic attraction to the center stage of danger where Kirov was concerned, for she was to soon come once more within firing range of the very same ship Rosenbaum had seen a long year ago in the North Atlantic…

  Part IV

  Geronimo

  “We took an oath not to do any wrong, nor to scheme against one another…I was no chief and never had been, but because I had been more deeply wronged than others, this honor was conferred upon me, and I resolved to prove worthy of the trust.”

  ~ Geronimo

  Chapter 10

  Aboard Kirov Rodenko was watching his long range radar screens with some concern. A small flotilla of five contacts continued to move east from Cagliari, and with the ship now slowed to just 10 knots while the divers were working astern, this put the contact on a direct intercept course. Fedorov seemed lost in his research, trying to ferret out any information he could concerning the details of the Italian presence gathering in the Tyrrhenian Sea. He began to make notations on the Plexiglas at the Nav station, and Karpov watched him out of the corner of one eye while he received reports from Byko on the status of the damage control operation.

  Apparently a sizable piece of the exploding KA-40 had been flung against the side of the ship, causing some minor buckling, though water tight integrity was not lost on the hull. Kirov had a shrapnel wound there as well, but the divers were able to seal it off, and also clear some debris that was dangerously near their starboard propulsion shaft and rudder. Two hours later Byko was pulling his men out of the water, and he called up to the bridge to report that he could certify normal cruising speed in ten minutes.

  “As for the Horse Tail sonar unit,” he said. “I will have to replace the retraction motors and a few cowling plates, but that will take another eight to twelve hours.”

  “Well put your grandpa on it! We’ll need that system up as soon as possible.” Karpov was referring to the ship’s chief mechanic, often called the “Grandpa” when it came to all things mechanical. He passed the inform
ation on to Fedorov.

  “Good enough,” he said. “I think we will have no major concerns for the next several hours. That contact to the west out of Cagliari will continue to make a gradual approach, but if we take no overtly threatening action we may just be able to slip by. I expect visitors from the north and east as well, but not for some time. The men need rest. Can you stand a watch until midnight?”

  Karpov gave him assurances, and so he went below with several members of the senior bridge crew. Dusk gave way to a clear, dark night, returned to them at last since it was so rudely stolen, and the time slipped towards midnight. Karpov was grateful that Fedorov had enough faith in him to let him stand a command watch, though the Marine guard still remained at his post as a precaution. Still, he had the bridge for the first time in a long while, and slipped into the Admiral’s chair, remembering how it felt when he was the unchallenged master of the ship, and thinking how foolish he had been, how blinded by his own ambition.

  He still struggled inwardly with it all, and his mind offered up arguments and justifications as it had so many times while he languished in the brig. But here he was given a second chance by the man he had betrayed, and that came to few men in the Russian Navy, particularly those charged with mutinous conduct. In any other circumstances he realized he would still be in the brig, and facing severe disciplinary action, or even a desultory court martial and possible death sentence.

  Kalinichev was at radar when he noted that the contact he had been monitoring to their west, which had been steaming at fifteen knots, had suddenly increased speed. “It looks like that have increased to twenty knots, sir,” he reported, “And they are now within 15 kilometers.”

  “Still bearing on an intercept course?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Range to horizon?”

  “From the top of one of those ships, sir?” Kalinichev made a hasty calculation. “I would say we are probably on their horizon now, sir, but it is very dark.”

  “Shut down all running lights,” said Karpov, concerned. “Rig the bridge for black.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  He considered what to do as the night seemed to flow into the bridge, the phosphorescent glow of the radar and sonar screens the only illumination. He could put on speed and race north to outrun the contact. This is what Fedorov would advise, he knew. But something in his bones refused to give way to these ships, galling him. He decided, in the end, to advise Fedorov and avoid any suspicion or charge that he was again attempting to engage the ship in combat, even if that was what he might prefer. He had given his word to Volsky, a man who had little reason to grant him the grace of his present position, and so he would honor it.

  Ten minutes later Fedorov returned to the bridge, still bedraggled with half-sewn sleep.

  “Captain on the bridge!” a watch stander called, announcing his arrival. He took a moment, adjusting to the darkness, then found Karpov near the radar station. “I relieve you, sir,” he said politely, taking formal command of the ship again.

  “I stand relieved,” Karpov repeated the forms, still fighting off his inner demons in having to relinquish command to a former navigator. Yet he stood to one side, waiting as Fedorov studied Kalinichev’s screen.

  The ship’s new captain had expected the contact would occur right around midnight, and he was gratified that events seemed to be unfolding as the history was recorded, like the well oiled mechanism of a clock. He made the decision Karpov had predicted.

  “Helm, maintain course and give me thirty knots.”

  A bell rang and the helmsman echoed the order. They could feel the powerful surge of the ships twin turbines as the Kirov forged ahead. Fedorov went to the forward view pane, noting Karpov’s field glasses. “May I?” he asked gesturing to the binoculars.

  “Of course,” Karpov nodded.

  Fedorov looked off their port quarter for a few moments, but was not satisfied. “The moon is still down,” he said. “Not that there will be much of it when it arrives. It is very dark. Nikolin, please activate the port side Tin Man and scan the horizon at 315 degrees.”

  The Tin Man rotated and deployed its special night optical filter, with infrared capability, moments later they were staring at an enhanced HD video of a small task force to the northwest. The ships were right on schedule, cruisers Savoia and Montecuccoli, and destroyers Oriani, Gioberte and Maestrale.

  “The contact is increasing speed to twenty five knots,” said Kalinichev. “Thirty knots now, sir.”

  Karpov gave Fedorov a hard look. “They would not be making that speed for a casual rendezvous,” he said. “I suggest we come to general quarters, Fedorov. I can smell trouble here.”

  “Anything else on the screen?” asked Fedorov. “Use your extended range systems.”

  “Sir, I have two contacts at 25 degrees northeast at a range of 62 kilometers and three contacts at 55 degrees northeast at a range of 120 kilometers.” Kalinichev adjusted his screen, using their long range over the horizon radar system to report these additional sightings. Fedorov was suddenly concerned.

  The numbers and bearings of the contacts did not surprise him, but their timing did. The first would be the heavy cruiser Trieste and a destroyer escort, the Camica Nera, the latter would be light cruiser Muzio Attendolo and two more destroyers, the Aviere and Geniere. They seemed to be early and he went to his old desk at the navigation station to study his notes again while Karpov fidgeted, his eyes watching the overhead Tin Man Display.

  “Something is wrong,” Fedorov muttered to himself, confirming his misgivings. “The Muzio Attendolo should not have received its orders to move this soon. Something has changed…”

  Karpov overheard him, drifting in his direction. “Look to the screen Fedorov, not your history books. Something has changed? Most likely. Who knows what, eh? We lit up like a candle when that fire started earlier, and the British are obviously aware of our presence. Do not surprise yourself if the Italians have discovered us as well. All I can say is that the movement of those ships does not look friendly.” He pointed at the Tin Man Display, which was now good enough to zoom and show that forward turrets were rotating on the lead cruiser and coming to bear on their heading.

  Fedorov stared at the display, his heart beating faster. The history had changed! As much as he might want to slip quietly away, Kirov’s presence was a shaft of fire and steel in the very heart of the Italian Navy’s innermost exclusion zone—the Tyrrhenian Sea. Now he realized that the early arrival of these other contacts and the sudden movement of the nearest group had to be related to their presence here. To make matters worse, Kalinichev spoke up again, in a loud clear voice.

  “Sir, I now have airborne contacts in a large group at 255 degrees southwest, range 92 kilometers. They just emerged from the landform clutter of Sardinia. I’m reading twenty discrete contacts.”

  Fedorov immediately knew those had to be Italian planes out of airfields around Cagliari. The situation was now spinning out of control and it was obvious to him that the ship was under coordinated attack. Karpov had been waiting impatiently, an exasperated look on his face. He was about to speak again when Fedorov cut in quickly with the words he hoped he would not have to speak this early in the campaign. “Battle stations! Sound general quarters!” The alarm was sounded, much to Karpov’s relief, and he nodded his head in agreement.

  “Mister Karpov,” Fedorov turned to his Starpom, activate our 152 millimeter deck gun systems and prepare to engage the near contact on my order to fire.”

  “At once, sir!” And Karpov was quick to pass the order to Gromenko, who was now filling in for Samsonov in the Command Information Center. “Feed your targets to the CIC, Kalinichev!”

  “Aye, sir. The data is active and we have radar lock.”

  Fedorov bit his lip, very disheartened now but committed. “Prepare to repel incoming aircraft,” he said quickly. “Expect 20 planes for a low level torpedo attack.”

  Da Zara was also impatient tonight. The Italian Admiral
squinted through his field glasses at the shadow on their horizon, wondering what he was getting himself into now. One of Italy’s most capable fighting admirals, he set his flag on the light cruiser Eugenio di Savoia, and was out from the division base at Cagliari to rendezvous with numerous other ships in preparation for an attack on the British convoy near Pantelleria the following day. In fact, he had pulled off this very same maneuver against the last British attempt to relieve Malta, leading the charge in a fast air and sea action that sent the British destroyer Bedouin to the bottom and heaped misery on the decimated convoy just as it was within smelling distance of its objective. He planned to do the same this time, until a priority message from Regia Marina changed everything.

  He was ordered to hold his course and search out a suspected British cruiser that had been sighted near dusk by the Italian submarine Bronzo returning to port with mechanical problems, unable to take up its post on the inner picket line. The report was very odd. For a British ship to boldly entered the Tyrrhenian Sea was one thing that immediately jarred naval authorities. When the sub sighted it there appeared to be a fire aft. Was it damaged somehow? Thinking that Naval Aeronatuica already had its teeth into the intruder, the sub captain simply wired in the sighting and continued on his way.

  “One ship?” Da Zara had said in disbelief when he received the message. There must be an error, he thought. It could not have come from their main convoy escorts, or our submarines would have surely detected it long before now. What has Mussolini been drinking tonight? Could it have sortied from the east as a diversionary operation? If so, it would be a sly devil to get this far in without being sighted. But yes, a fast cruiser could do this, particularly since all our planes, have been piling up out west on Sardinia for the initial round of air strikes on this British convoy. Who would think to look right here in our own back yard?