THE LONE WOLF (2025 Edition) by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 21 – THE LONG WAY HOME

 

01:14 (South Pacific Time)

Wednesday, August 26, 1942

Turtle Bay Airfield, Espiritu Santo Island

New Hebrides, South Pacific

Private Joshua Hearst felt bored to death and not a little sleepy as he readjusted the sling of his rifle on his right shoulder. Right now, his guard duty in front of one of the aircraft hardstands of the only operational airfield on Espiritu Santo felt rather pointless to him. Apart from enemy air raids or shelling from submarines, what could happen on an island full of American soldiers, Marines and sailors? It was not as if someone would try to steal the PBY-5 amphibian patrol aircraft he was guarding tonight. Lost in his thoughts and made less vigilant by his fatigue, Joshua didn’t hear or see the dark silhouette that stealthily came out of the jungle behind the amphibian aircraft and then cautiously walked to it at a crouch. The intruder then silently entered the plane by one of its side doors, spending less than four minutes inside before coming out and returning inside the jungle, all with Joshua remaining blissfully unaware of the visit.

Just inside the jungle tree line, Obergefreiter Michel Drücker stopped and crouched beside Hugo Margraff, speaking to him in a whisper.

‘’Another charge set, Hauptmann.’’

‘’Good! We will wait for the others to return here, then we will move to another group of aircraft. Those six B-17 heavy bombers to our left sure look like juicy targets to me.’’

‘’They certainly are, Hauptmann. It is nice to be able to do some ground work again.’’

‘’I concur! With the good food and lack of opportunity to exercise on the U-800, we were in serious danger of becoming fat.’’

Both men had to wait only a few more minutes before their five other comrades came back to them through the jungle. Hugo grinned on getting their short reports: all ten PBY-5 amphibian patrol aircraft parked on the airfield, which were the most dangerous

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planes for the U-800, had now explosive charges with timers hidden inside them. Once the six B-17 heavy bombers would be prepared for demolition, his men would be free to go pour some refined sugar in the fuel tanks of the 26 F4F WILDCAT fighters parked on the main apron.

It was not yet three o’clock when the seven commandos were back aboard the U-800 and were pulling their inflatable rubber boat out of the water. As they deflated their boat in order to store it inside the submarine, a large group of sailors, including two of the Japanese torpedo specialists, came on deck as the big twin 12.8 centimeter gun mount rose from its under deck well, with the well cover plates sliding open to let it out while also providing a larger platform to stand on for the gunners who would operate the twin guns. At the same time, the electric motors of the U-800 came to life, quietly powering the big ducted propeller. With sailors manning the optical rangefinder and night fire director inside the two underwater observation domes atop the conning tower, the submarine slowly sailed down the eastern coast of Espiritu Santo, passing outward of the small Mafia Island and Aessi Island in order to stay as long as possible out of sight of coastal observers. On the open bridge of his boat, Otto Kretschmer shook his head at the lack of vigilance shown again by the Americans. Either they were still shell-shocked from their devastating losses at sea a week ago, or they were indeed slow learners. Well, maybe this time they would get the lesson. His bet was that the Americans had stationed their picket destroyers further away from the island, relying on their defensive minefields to protect their main anchorage areas. The problem was that Otto already knew where those minefields and their entrance gaps were situated, having both watched American ships negotiating them to enter or exit the harbor areas and also having used his high definition sonar earlier in the night to accurately pinpoint their locations. From radio intercepts and direction-finding triangulations made by Japanese stations in and around Rabaul, Otto knew that most of the surviving ships which had been off Ndeni had withdrawn afterwards to either Espiritu Santo or Noumea, the two most important American outposts in this corner of the South Pacific save for the bases in Australia. He thus counted on having plenty of choices as targets for his guns tonight. The trick would be to shoot both accurately and at a rapid rate, in order to do the maximum damage in the least amount of time, so that he could then submerge and disappear before the Americans could react. His gunners and pointers already had

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been told by him what were their priority targets. Now, he only needed to wait and observe.

‘’LOAD STAR SHELLS!’’

At Fritz Lent’s command, two sailors stepped forward and rammed the 12.8 cm shells they were carrying into the breaches of the twin guns, then stepped back to get more shells, this time of the explosive-fragmentation type. The U-800 was now sailing past the Pallikulo Peninsula, at the southeastern tip of Espiritu Santo, with the entrance to the main anchorage area now visible in the light of the full Moon. The submarine was apparently still undetected by the time it came in full view of the main anchorage area used by the American fleet. To Otto’s satisfaction, that anchorage area proved to be full of ships of various types, from heavy cruisers to transport ships. Wanting to keep the benefit of surprise for as long as possible, he pointed the bow of his U-800 towards the bigger ships visible inside the anchorage.

‘’Gunners, standby! We will start firing after launching our bow torpedoes. Torpedo fire control, prepare our eight bow torpedoes for a tight spread, center of aim at Heading 272, running depth of three meters.’’

‘’Bow torpedoes set and ready, Herr Kapitän!’’ replied via intercom after a few seconds von Wittgenstein.

‘’Fire all eight bow tubes in quick sequence!’’

‘’Firing bow tubes now!’’

The muffled noise of compressed air coming out of the bow torpedo tubes was heard in the next second, with eight separate discharges marking the launch of the deadly eels. Otto waited a few minutes, time for his torpedoes to cover most of the distance to their targets, then gave a brief order to his gunners.

‘’Main deck gun, open fire!’’

Barely two seconds later, the twin 12.8cm guns spit out their first two shells, fired high towards the night sky. A few seconds later, two intense points of light lit up in the sky, descending slowly under their parachutes and illuminating the dozens of American ships in the anchorage area with a dancing, ghostly light. With explosive-fragmentation shells already loaded, the chief gunner of the U-800 aimed his twin guns at one of the tanker ships now plainly visible. Since they wanted to do the most damage possible in the least time possible, the decision had been taken in advance not to waste shells on warships which would take dozens of hits to be taken out. Instead, tanker ships, being highly

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flammable and having no armor, would constitute the best targets for Lent’s gunners. The U.S.S. SABINE was hit by two 12.8cm shells nearly at the same time as the eight torpedoes fired by the U-800 started striking ships around the harbor. The heavy cruiser U.S.S. SAN FRANCISCO shook under the impact and explosion of three torpedoes, while the seaplane tenders U.S.S. CURTISS and U.S.S. MACKINAC received two torpedoes each. Hit in one of its fuel holds, which were full of aviation gasoline, the U.S.S. SABINE erupted into flames, soon turning into a floating bonfire. The fleet oiler U.S.S. KASKASKIA was hit next and also caught fire. Helped by a human chain waiting with shells already in their arms, the gunners of the 12.7cm mount delivered a withering fire on the remaining tanker ships inside the anchorage, shooting shells at a combined rate of 26 rounds per minute. Once the last shell carried by the human chain was fired off, Otto gave a command by loudspeaker.

‘’CLEAR THE DECK! PREPARE TO DIVE!’’

As his gunners and the shell carriers ran back inside the conning tower while the main gun mount lowered back in its well, Otto looked with satisfaction at the anchorage area: over six tanker ships and fleet oilers were now burning merrily and would soon sink, while two seaplane tenders and one heavy cruiser were listing severely and were in danger of sinking. As well, a number of PBY amphibian patrol planes and of torpedo patrol boats docked to wooden quays along the shore near the town of Lungaville had been either destroyed or seriously damaged in the last salvoes. The shocked and surprised Americans were slow to react and the U-800 had time to dive out of sight before anything but hurriedly aimed gunfire could be directed at it, with all American shells missing by a wide margin. The brief battle concluded with a series of explosions coming from Turtle Bay Airfield, as the charges placed by the Brandenburg commandos started exploding. Ten minutes later, the heavy cruiser SAN FRANCISCO capsized, victim of massive and rapid flooding caused by the fact that its watertight doors had not been closed at the time it was torpedoed. The two seaplane tenders which also had been torpedoed soon followed the cruiser to the bottom of the harbor, the aviation gasoline they carried having turned them into blazing wrecks.

In the control room of the U-800, as it sped away from Espiritu Santo underwater, Otto went to see Takeshi Nagaoka, who was waiting near the radio room.

‘’You may now send out the coded message ‘Shoho One and Two executed’, Commander.’’

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‘’Hay!’’ replied Takeshi with a most Japanese bow before going inside the radio room. Going to his navigation plot table, Otto briefly looked at the chart spread on it before shouting an order to his helmsman, Peter Schültz.

‘’HELM, STEER TO HEADING 175! MAKE YOUR DEPTH 300 METERS!’’

‘’AYE, HERR KAPITÄN!’’

Otto then went to his elevated command chair, situated a few paces behind the helmsman position, and sat in it, relaxing and letting out the tension of the last fight. However, the Americans in the South Pacific were not finished with him yet.

11:07 (South Pacific Time)

Thursday, August 27, 1942

Tontouta Airfield, five kilometers north of Noumea New Caledonia

‘’Nearly sixty planes destroyed on the ground by shelling! This is inexcusable! Even the radar station is destroyed.’’

Rear Admiral John McCain, who commanded the American land-based air forces in the South Pacific, gave a less than friendly look at Vice Admiral Ghormley on hearing his indignant exclamation.

‘’Admiral, what was inexcusable was the lack of coastal defenses against such a sea bombardment by a submarine. You were the one who insisted on concentrating our few guns to cover the approaches to the Great Road anchorage, in positions where the Ducos Peninsula was blocking their northward view.’’

McCain then looked critically at the fuel tank farm on the said Ducos Peninsula: it was still burning merrily after being hit by a dozen shells in the early morning.

‘’I now have only a handful of operational aircraft still available and little fuel for them. With the aircraft we lost yesterday on the ground in Espiritu Santo, I have only a pair of patrol planes left, not enough by far to cover the sea approaches to New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. If the Japanese battle fleet chose to show up today, we would know it only when its ships would open fire on us.’’

‘’Please don’t remind me of that, John.’’ grumbled Ghormley, who was looking at the burned-out or twisted remains of the fighters, bombers, transport aircraft and patrol amphibians which had been destroyed by heavy shells. The growing noise of aircraft

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approaching made him look up with curiosity, hoping that they would be reinforcement aircraft sent at last from Australia. What he saw instead froze his blood.

‘’ENEMY AIRCRAFT OVERHEAD!’’

John McCain snapped his head upward at once but had to quickly agree with Ghormley’s identification: he could see dozens of VAL dive bombers, KATE horizontal bombers and ZERO fighters, all planes that normally operated from carriers.

‘’TAKE COVER, EVERYBODY!’’

The two admirals, along with their small retinue of staff officers, sprinted towards the nearest cover available, a shallow drainage ditch some forty meters away, where they hurriedly lay down on their stomach. However, to the surprise of McCain, the Japanese aircraft, save for four ZERO fighters, continued on towards Noumea and its anchorage a few kilometers south of the airfield. The four ZEROs which dove down however shot up and destroyed on the ground three P-39 fighters, the only planes not destroyed in the previous shelling, which were attempting to take off in a hurry. As for the close to forty other Japanese planes, they started bombing and strafing the various ships anchored around Noumea and the shore installations. Ghormley banged his fist in the dirt of the ditch, furious. He was now liable to lose much of what was left of his fleet, something that would truly spell catastrophe for the Allied cause in the South Pacific. A strafing pass by one of the four ZERO fighters then forced him to lower his head and sink deeper into the ditch. What he couldn’t know yet was that another major Japanese air raid was also hitting Espiritu Santo, targeting the ships still anchored there.

11:21 (South Pacific Time)

Royal Australian Navy heavy cruiser AUSTRALIA Cruising off Ndeni Island, Santa Cruz Islands

Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, who now commanded what was left of the warships covering the troopships and various cargo ships supporting the American Marines landed on Ndeni, hurriedly moved to the port open bridge wing of his flagship when a lookout reported smoke trails on the northwestern horizon. Unfortunately, none of his aging cruisers were equipped with radar and his air cover had evaporated with the sinking of the U.S.S. HORNET and the destruction on the ground of the planes based in Espiritu Santo and in Noumea. The poor weather had also limited the use of the seaplanes based on his heavy cruisers. His force was thus down to the old eyeball

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technique. What he saw through his binoculars alarmed him at once: a numerous fleet was coming at him from the Northwest, meaning that it could only be an enemy fleet. From the panicked radio reports from Espiritu Santo and Noumea, it was evident that this enemy fleet probably comprised a number of aircraft carriers. Whatever else composed the enemy fleet, one thing was instantly evident to Crutchley: the transport ships which had carried the Marines and their equipment and supplies to Ndeni had to leave at once if they didn’t want to be utterly swept away. He thus called to a bridge officer.

‘’Advise at once Admiral Turner that a numerous enemy fleet is approaching from the Northwest and that I counsel that his transports leave at once.’’

‘’Right away, sir!’’

As the bridge officer ran away, Crutchley started wondering how badly outnumbered and outgunned his four cruisers and twelve destroyers would soon be.

11:23 (South Pacific Time)

Bridge of the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship YAMATO Main Japanese Battle Force, on approach to Ndeni

‘’Admiral, the scout seaplane from the cruiser TONE signals that the enemy covering force is composed of four cruisers and six destroyers, with six more destroyers staying behind with a fleet of transport ships anchored off Ndeni.’’

‘’Good! Tell Admiral Kondo to send his cruisers and destroyers around the enemy’s left flank and to go for the enemy transports. In the meantime, our destroyer screen is to deploy in extended line ahead of the battleships and prepare to deliver a torpedo attack at long range. Once they will have fired off their torpedoes, they will then block the enemy destroyers from approaching our heavy units.’’

‘’Understood, Admiral!’’

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, sitting in the command chair of his flagship, the mighty 70,000-ton battleship YAMATO, contemplated in his mind the naval battle to come. He could have stayed in his Central Pacific base of Truk and commanded this battle from afar, as he had done before in other battles. However, two main reasons had pushed him to lead this battle from the front. First was the need to put a new shine on his name, which had been severely tarnished by the costly defeat suffered at Midway, nearly three months ago. As a consequence of that defeat, his prestige had decreased considerably

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and his authority was now questioned by many in Tokyo, even though he now knew thanks to the U-800 that the Americans had been able to ambush him because they had been able to decipher his coded messages. However, Yamamoto had learned from that: apart from ordering that a new variant of code be used, he now refrained from sending extensive orders via radio, instead using couriers as much as possible. He had also learned the hard way at Midway that dividing his forces into widely separated groups only made each group unable to support each other and also complicated greatly ship deployments. His second main reason to lead from the front this time was that he had lost most of the confidence he had previously in Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, his carrier commander. Nagumo had proved too cautious on a number of occasions, notably during the attack on Pearl Harbor and at Midway, and Yamamoto was resolved to closely watch his performance today and to be ready to take over from him if need be. As a result of his ruminations, he was now coming at the enemy with a concentrated, powerful force arranged so that its elements could provide immediate mutual support to each other. If he succeeded in destroying the enemy fleet off Ndeni and in either chasing away the American Marines from the island or in cutting them off and starving them into submission, then he would be in a strong position to cut off the maritime supply link to Australia that came from the United States. With that done, there would then be a real prospect of being able to force Australia to abandon the fight in this war and to chase the United States Navy from the South Pacific, leaving Hawaii isolated in the Central Pacific. All in all, the strategic consequences of the battle to come would be profound indeed.

On the HMAS AUSTRALIA, Rear Admiral Crutchley paled when lookouts were able to give him the approximate composition of the enemy force coming at him.

‘’Six battleships and eight heavy cruisers, plus destroyers? May God help us! BRIDGE OFFICER, RADIO TO ADMIRAL TURNER: OVERWHELMING ENEMY FORCE OF BATTLESHIPS AND HEAVY CRUISERS APPROACHING. YOU MUST LEAVE NOW!’’

‘’Uh, yes sir!’’ replied the young officer, paling visibly. Next, Crutchley gave by radio an order to his six covering destroyers to leap forward and deliver a torpedo attack on the enemy battleships, with the hope of disrupting the enemy battle line and throw its aim off. He was however not very confident about the chances for success of such an attack: the general performance of the torpedoes used by the American destroyers and

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submarines in this war was still abysmal and was marked by low reliability and frequent failures to detonate on impact. In contrast, Japanese torpedoes didn’t seem to suffer such problems at all.

After fifteen more minutes, it became evident to Crutchley that the enemy commander had also sent his destroyers forward for a torpedo attack. The six American destroyers of his screen were now on a collision course with seven Japanese destroyers and one light cruiser. What he didn’t know was that the Japanese destroyers were armed with heavy, 61-centimeter-diameter Type 93 LONG LANCE torpedoes, whose performances were still mostly unknown to the Allied navies. The LONG LANCE had tremendous range and speed compared to the current American torpedoes and could reach out to 40,000 meters at 38 knots, or 20,000 meters at 48 knots, plus had a 490-kilo warhead which was nearly double that of the ones in American and British torpedoes. As a consequence, the seven Japanese destroyers started launching their torpedoes well before their American counterparts and were thus free afterwards to maneuver at will and engage them with gunfire before the American destroyers could launch their own torpedoes. That duel didn’t go well for the American destroyers, who were each armed with four or five five-inch guns, compared to the six five inch guns per Japanese destroyer. With the various ships maneuvering wildly to avoid enemy fire, most of the shells missed at first but, as the range decreased rapidly, hits started to register, splitting open the thin steel hulls and superstructures of the destroyers, destroying pieces of machinery, starting fires and inflicting atrocious wounds to the sailors on the destroyers that were hit. The U.S.S. BLUE was the first to sink, shells touching off a fire that reached its forward magazine and made it blow up. The U.S.S. RALPH TALBOT was next to sink, cut in two by a LONG LANCE torpedo delivered from short range. On the Japanese side, the AKIGUMO, on fire from end to end after an epic gun duel with two of the American destroyers, then went dead in the water, its engine room shot to pieces. Both the U.S.S. ELLET and the YUGUMO were forced to abandon combat as well, riddled with shells and on fire, but not before the YUGUMO launched a second, ultimate torpedo salvo towards the American heavy cruisers in the distance. None of the American destroyers got close enough to launch their torpedoes at the Japanese heavy units before they were either sunk or disabled and forced to withdraw. In contrast, a total of 82 LONG LANCE torpedoes sped towards their targets as the opposing destroyer squadrons fought their gun duels. Due to the long distance at which they had

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been fired and to the fact that the Allied cruisers had started zigzagging, precisely to avoid torpedoes, most of the LONG LANCEs missed but continued on towards the American transport ships, anchored well behind the line of cruisers. One unlucky transport ended up being hit by a stray LONG LANCE and was cut in two and sank, but that would prove to be only a beginning. As for the four Allied cruisers, they mostly managed to avoid the incoming torpedoes, save for the Australian light cruiser HOBART, which was unlucky enough to be hit by two torpedoes which sank it in minutes.

On the YAMATO, Admiral Yamamoto watched with apparent calm the destroyer duels ahead of his battle force, studying the enemy cruisers in the distance and watching their moves and how they deployed. He had much bigger guns than those of the enemy cruisers and could have started firing while still outside of the enemy’s reach. However, he knew from experience that such long-range gunfire wasted a lot of ammunition and ended causing comparatively few hits. He still had numerous targets for his fleet apart from that amphibious force and its covering cruisers, thus decided to close the range further before opening fire.

‘’SIGNAL THE FOLLOWING: BATTLESHIPS ARE TO SPLIT IN THREE PARALLEL DIVISION COLUMNS. EXECUTE NOW!’’

The six Japanese battleships took about twelve minutes to split and adopt the new formation. By then, the three surviving Allied heavy cruisers had turned to their starboard in order to form a single line across the path of advance of the Japanese, thus forming the classic ‘T’ tactic which allowed all the main guns to fire on the enemy. Yamamoto was however no beginner at that game and promptly gave another set of orders.

‘’SIGNAL OUR BATTLESHIPS TO TURN TO PORT BY 45 DEGREES IN COLUMN OF DIVISIONS! EACH COLUMN IS TO TARGET THE ENEMY CRUISER IN ITS ORDER OF SUCCESSION. START RANGING FIRE WHEN WITHIN 20,000 METERS. EXECUTE NOW!’’

The three pairs of battleships soon turned to port by 45 degrees, enough to unmask all their main turrets while still advancing towards the enemy. Despite this obvious move that put a crushing number of heavy guns to bear on them, the Allied heavy cruisers gave no signs of retreating, making Yamamoto nod his head and speak quietly to the captain of the YAMATO, who was standing beside him.

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‘’Those are brave men facing us. They know that they are going to their doom, but still will fight in order to give time to their transports to flee. Unfortunately for them, Kondo’s cruisers will be able to bypass them and get to the transports anyway.’’

On the HMAS AUSTRALIA, Rear Admiral Crutchley did see the start of the flanking move by the Japanese cruisers but, unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it: if he turned towards the Japanese cruisers to intercept them, then it would be the enemy battleships that would have a free path to the transport ships. His only hope was that Rear Admiral Turner could somehow pull a miracle and make his transports leave fast enough to escape. However, the chances of that happening were awfully low. He gulped hard on watching the six Japanese battleships bearing down on his three cruisers: his biggest guns were of eight-inch caliber, while the main guns of the Japanese battleships had a caliber of fourteen inch at a minimum. He was going to face 49 battleship main guns with 25 cruiser main guns, and this with much thinner armor on his ships. This could not end well, unless he used the slightly higher speed of his cruisers to escape. Crutchley however dismissed that option at once. Going to the nearest ship intercom box, he switched it on and spoke in as calm and firm a voice as he could muster.

‘’MEN, WE ARE ABOUT TO BATTLE A MORE NUMEROUS AND MORE POWERFUL ENEMY, BUT OUR ACTIONS TO COME WILL GIVE TIME TO THOUSANDS OF OTHER SAILORS AND MARINES TO WITHDRAW. I KNOW THAT YOU WILL FIGHT WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH AND COURAGE AND WILL HOLD THE LINE. MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL!’’

As he switched off the intercom, he had another look at the incoming enemy battleships and whispered to himself.

‘’A thin blue line indeed!’’

The YAMATO, with its main fifteen-meter baseline optical rangefinder situated higher than on the other battleships and thus having a better long-range view, opened fire first, using only one of its three main turrets to fire a ranging salvo from approximately nineteen kilometers to the Allied heavy cruisers. The leading battleships in the two other division columns, the KONGO and the KIRISHIMA, also started firing ranging salvoes a minute later. As for the Allied cruisers, they soon followed suit with their smaller guns. With the range closing constantly, it took about four minutes of slow

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firing for the gunners of the YAMATO to find the range to their target, the HMAS AUSTRALIA. With one salvo of three guns finally bracketing closely the Australian heavy cruiser, the chief gunnery officer of the YAMATO made a final adjustment in range and bearing, then gave a terse order.

‘’ALL TURRETS, FIRE!’’

Nine eighteen-inch guns erupted in one massive volley, sending out nine giant shells towards the HMAS AUSTRALIA. All of them landed in the waters around the cruiser, missing it, but one exploded near enough underwater to violently shake the heavy cruiser and deform some of its hull plates, creating a leak that flooded a few secondary compartments. The gunners of the AUSTRALIA, who had rangefinders with a much smaller optical baseline than those of the Japanese battleship, were still trying to get the correct range on the YAMATO when another full salvo from the behemoth landed around it. This time, one shell clipped the top of the cruiser’s main mast, while another shell exploded in the water close to its stern, jamming one of its two rudders and deforming one of its propeller shafts by enough to make it start to vibrate wildly. The engineering officer of the AUSTRALIA had no choice then but to stop that propeller shaft before it could rip off its bearings. Losing speed and also being difficult to steer with a jammed rudder, the AUSTRALIA became an easier target for the YAMATO and the NAGATO, the battleship following the flagship. Two 1,460 kilo armor piercing shells slammed into the Australian cruiser a minute later, arriving at a velocity of 550 meters per second, and easily penetrated its side armor before detonating. One of those shells exploded in the forward port side boiler room, instantly killing the men working there, wrecking the boilers and cutting the pressurized steam pipes. The other shell blew inside the forward crew quarters section and ripped open the upper part of the hull like a tin can. Thankfully, all the men were at their battle stations and that hit caused only a couple of casualties. As the eight-inch shells from the Australian cruiser were finally scoring a couple of hits on the YAMATO, but without being able to penetrate its thick armor, four sixteen-inch shells from the NAGATO slammed into the AUSTRALIA. Two of them exploded inside the turbine rooms, one hit the base of the forward funnel and collapsed it and the last one punched into the forward superstructures, exploding just below the command bridge. The blast from below propelled the bridge’s steel deck upward, smashing the bridge occupants, including Rear Admiral Crutchley, between the deck and the ceiling. With the command staff and fire control systems gone, the gunners of the AUSTRALIA found themselves reduced to local control, aiming with their

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turrets’ secondary rangefinders. Still, as their ship slowed down to a stop, without steering and with minimal power available, the Australian gunners kept firing at the incoming Japanese battleships, even managing a few hits on the NAGATO and the YAMATO. However, their shells caused only minor damages and a few casualties, most of them exploding against the Japanese armor plates without penetrating. Five sixteen-inch shells and three eighteen-inch shells then slammed into the heavy cruiser, along its hull and superstructures. Two of the four main turrets were taken out of action, while the antiaircraft gunners were decimated, with fires starting everywhere. With the

AUSTRALIA now burning nearly from end to end, an ultimate eighteen-inch shell struck it, penetrating the forward eight inch ammunition room. A huge explosion followed, cutting the heavy cruiser in two and blasting away a fourth of the ship. The two mangled parts then sank quickly in a couple of minutes, with only a handful of sailors able to jump into the water.

On the HMAS CANBERRA, the bridge crew had little time to ponder the fate of the AUSTRALIA, as their ship was also in a desperate situation. Seven hits by fourteen-inch shells had already cut its speed by half and had taken out two of the four main turrets, on top of killing or wounding hundreds of men. The KONGO and HARUNA were keeping a steady and accurate fire on the CANBERRA, creating more damage and casualties with every salvo. As for the U.S.S. CHICAGO, it had fared badly against the HIEI and the KIRISHIMA, its flimsy three-inch-thick side armor belt proving to be little protection against fourteen-inch shells. Riddled from bow to stern with heavy shells fired from the sixteen fourteen-inch guns and 28 six-inch guns of the two Japanese battleships opposing it, the CHICAGO was soon on fire, with all the main turrets taken out and with most of the bridge staff dead or wounded. The Japanese light cruiser NAGARA, the flagship of the destroyer squadron screening the battleships, then delivered a salvo of 61-centimeter-LONG LANCE torpedoes from a distance of 9,000 meters. Three of the big torpedoes hit their mark, opening wide the hull of the American heavy cruiser. The CHICAGO then capsized and sank in minutes, with few of its crewmembers being able to jump into the sea. The CANBERRA was the last to sink after absorbing fifteen fourteen-inch shells and over 28 six-inch shells. On the Japanese side, the much thicker armor of the battleships had saved them from suffering any major damage, but dozens of hits from eight-inch guns on their superstructures and more

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lightly armored hull sections had caused quite a few casualties and had forced the Japanese damage control and firefighting teams into action.

On the U.S.S. McCAWLEY, Rear Admiral Turner could only watch the destruction of his covering force while frantically getting his fleet of transport ships to raise anchor and start withdrawing before the arrival of the Japanese cruiser force. He however had little hope for success, as the enemy cruisers were both much faster than his transport ships and much more heavily armed, on top of having at least some armor protection, contrary to Turner’s transports. His only possible salvation lay in his screen of five destroyers: if they could hold the Japanese cruisers off for long enough, maybe some of his fastest transport ships, notably the APDs, which were old destroyers converted into fast troopships, could have a chance of escaping. That however left the Marines of the First Division landed on Ndeni high and dry and at the mercy of the Japanese Navy. Turner was twisting that bitter thought in his mind when he got word that a first group of four APDs were now on their way to Noumea, with one lonely destroyer as their escort. The sinister howl of heavy shells passing overhead, followed by three big geysers rising from the sea 200 meters past his ship, then reminded him that he was about out of time. Looking for his covering destroyers, he saw that they were already heavily engaged by the ten Japanese destroyers acting as screen for the eight approaching heavy cruisers. The American destroyers were obviously

overwhelmed by such a numerous opponent and would probably last less than half an hour before the Japanese cruisers broke through. When that happened, then Turner could say goodbye to his transport ships, unless some kind of miracle happened.

The Japanese actually managed to punch through the American destroyer screen faster than Turner had feared, thanks to a liberal use of their heavy LONG LANCE torpedoes. Most of Turner’s transport ships were moving now, but their top speed of eighteen knots at the most would make them easy to catch by the enemy cruisers, who all could attain top speeds well in excess of thirty knots. Either way he looked at it, Turner could expect to lose all of his transport ships today…plus his life. That last thought then planted an idea in his head, an idea that no sane man would normally consider. However, this was truly a do or die moment. Walking quickly to the bridge’s TBS set, he grabbed the microphone and activated the radio.

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‘’To all ships of the Transport Force, this is Admiral Turner speaking. The enemy cruisers are about to break through our destroyer screen and will soon be in our midst. The transport ships that still have Marines on board will start an immediate withdrawal at top speed towards Noumea. The transport ships which have only equipment and supplies left aboard will form up now on the McCAWLEY. I will then lead a charge at the Japanese cruisers and destroyers, with the ultimate goal of ramming them. If we are to be sunk, then let’s go down fighting! Acknowledge by order of division!’’ With the men present on the bridge now looking at him with shocked expressions, Turner noted down the responses from his transport divisions commanders as they stated which ships were empty of troops and would withdraw and which ships would come as part of the charge. He ended up with a total of seven transport ships ready to withdraw behind the four APDs already on their way, while ten troop transports would follow the McCAWLEY. There were a lot of whispered prayers around the empty transports as Turner gave his ultimate order on the TBS.

‘’This is Admiral Turner. We will now charge directly at the enemy heavy cruisers at top speed, following individual zigzag courses to make ourselves more difficult targets, and with all our guns manned for battle. If a Japanese destroyer gets in your way, then ram it! I count on all of you to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save our comrades in the departing transports. NOW, FULL STEAM AHEAD AND DAMN THE

TORPEDOES!’’

Now knowing what was in the balance and accepting their bitter fate, the men around him got into action, either giving orders or executing them. Soon, eleven troop transport ships, each of them displacing close to 12,000 tons or more and armed with a collection of four-inch, three inch and light anti-aircraft guns, formed into a long, extended line while accelerating towards their top speed of eighteen knots.

On the battle bridge of the heavy cruiser ATAGO, Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo was watching the American ships through his binoculars, standing beside the captain of the cruiser. The latter lowered his binoculars at one point, his face reflecting incredulity and incomprehension.

‘’What are the Americans trying to do? Half of their transport ships are withdrawing, while the other half is now coming at us.’’

Kondo also lowered his binoculars, his expression somber, before replying to him.

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‘’They are sacrificing part of their ships in order to give a chance to the others to escape, Captain Ijuin. Those Americans truly possess the warrior spirit. Tell our destroyers to torpedo them while our cruisers continue to pursue the transports now fleeing: I don’t want any of them to escape.’’

‘’Hay!’’

The task of stopping the charge by eleven big troopships soon proved a lot more difficult for the Japanese destroyers than they had expected. Having already suffered some battle damages in the previous duel with the American destroyers and having expended many of their torpedoes, the Japanese destroyers had to face a withering fire from the deck guns of the troopships, while their own five inch guns could not inflict catastrophic damage on such big ships, even if they were unarmored. The fact that each troopship was zigzagging on independent courses also made it very difficult to hit them with torpedoes. The Japanese destroyers thus had no choice but to close the range in order to shoot more accurately. The destroyer HAYASHIO, getting maybe too close to its chosen target, ended up in the crossfire of the five inch and three-inch deck guns of the PRESIDENT ADAMS and of the PRESIDENT HAYES and found itself sandwiched between the two big troopships. The captain of the HAYASHIO, already having his hands full replying to the American gunfire, suddenly felt his hair rise on his head when he saw the big steel bow of the 16,000-ton PRESIDENT ADAMS swing towards his much smaller destroyer.

‘’THEY ARE GOING TO TRY TO RAM US! HELM, HARD TO PORT!’’ The helmsman, a veteran NCO, obeyed quickly and threw the HAYASHIO into a tight turn to port that forced the captain to grab a hold in order not to be thrown around his bridge. All the Japanese on the small bridge watched anxiously as the menacing bow of the troopship passed by the starboard side, way too close for comfort. At the same time, the American gunners kept pouring down 20mm fire from their light anti-aircraft cannons on the HAYASHIO, raking its superstructures and killing or wounding a number of Japanese sailors. The bow of the PRESIDENT ADAMS actually connected with the HAYASHIO but only scrapped against the hull plates of the destroyer’s stern in a loud shriek of metal grinding against metal. Just as the captain of the HAYASHIO thought that he was now safe, the alarmed shout from a lookout made his head snap to port.

‘’SECOND TROOPSHIP TO PORT!’’

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Commander Kiyoshi Kaneda only had time to stare for a few seconds at the massive bow of the PRESIDENT HAYES before it sliced into his destroyer, hitting it behind its main mast. The troopship suffered only moderate damage from the collision and was able to resume its suicidal charge at the Japanese cruisers after another turn, but the HAYASHIO was not as lucky. Cut in two, its two parts sank quickly, dragging to their death most of its crew, including its captain.

On the ATAGO, Vice Admiral Kondo grimly watched the resolute charge of the American troopships and the frantic attempts of his destroyers to stop it, with little success to show for their efforts. The sinking of the HAYASHIO finally decided him to change his tactics.

‘’SIGNAL TO ALL OUR CRUISERS: OPEN FIRE ON THE TROOPSHIPS AND SINK THEM! WE WILL CONTINUE PURSUING THE OTHER TRANSPORT SHIPS LATER.’’

A total of 76 eight-inch and 78 five-inch guns soon pointed at the eleven incoming troopships and opened fire from a range of 11,000 meters. Despite their size and bulk, the cruisers’ fire quickly hurt the big troopships, holing hulls, mangling superstructures and starting fires. The gunners on the troopships responded in kind, using their five-inch and three-inch deck guns and achieving hits which caused some damage to the Japanese cruisers. One by one, the troopships succumbed to the cruisers’ gunfire, their machinery spaces shot to pieces and their compartments flooding from shell holes, stopping dead in the water, on fire and sinking. None of the American ships actually got close enough to attempt ramming the cruisers, but one of them was finally stopped by the gunners of the ATAGO only when it came within 3,000 meters from the heavy cruiser. Kondo, having watched the fight with hidden but growing emotion, went out on the open bridge wing to examine the doomed troopship as the ATAGO sailed past its burning hulk. Looking at the bridge of the American transport ship with his binoculars, Kondo saw that the American survivors were scrambling to get into the few life rafts and boats still available. A group of four men then attracted his attention. It consisted of three men carrying cautiously an apparently wounded man wearing a service cap decorated with gold braid. Kondo looked at Captain Ijuin and gave him an order in a soft tone.

‘’Captain, have the crew line the railings and blow the whistle to pay honor to a valiant enemy.”

‘’Right away, Admiral!’’

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Kondo then resumed his observation of the sinking American ship, calling the cruiser’s crew to attention and saluting the Americans as the ATAGO passed close to the troopship. Kondo had the satisfaction of seeing the group carrying the wounded senior officer stop, with the wounded officer slowly and painfully raising his right arm to his temple to return Kondo’s salute. As the ATAGO sped away from the sinking troopship, intent on catching the fleeing transports, Kondo was able to read the name of the troopship before it sank beneath the waves: the U.S.S. McCAWLEY. Captain Ijuin approached him then with a question.

‘’Admiral, there are now hundreds of American sailors floating on the surface of the sea, either swimming or in rafts. Should our destroyers take care of them?’’ By ‘taking care of them’, Ijuin most probably referred to the Japanese custom of either shooting at survivors or capturing them for interrogation. Kondo shook his head in response.

‘’Negative! Our destroyers are to join us in pursuing the remaining American ships. Those survivors in the water are relatively close to the island of Ndeni: let them row ashore to join their naval infantry now trapped on the island.’’

‘’Hay!’’

17:53 (South Pacific Time)

Submarine tender U.S.S. ARGONNE (AG-31)

Docked in the port of Noumea, New Caledonia

Rear Admiral John McCain didn’t even bother to knock on the door before charging inside the cabin that served as a work office for Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley, the commander of the South Pacific Area, shouting angrily at his surprised superior.

‘’HOW COULD YOU GIVE SUCH AN ORDER? YOU CAN’T ABANDON ESPIRITU SANTO, EFATE AND NOUMEA LIKE THIS!’’

From surprised, Ghormley became irritated, admonishing McCain while staying sitting in his work chair.

‘’How dare you enter my office and shout at me like this?’’

‘’How dare I?’’ replied the old naval aviator, containing his fury with difficulty. ‘’Because you just gave a cowardly order for all of our remaining ships to leave the New Hebrides and New Caledonia and withdraw to Australia, leaving behind the Army and Marine Corps soldiers and aviators alone to defend our bases in the South Pacific.’’

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‘’Did you see what those Japanese planes did here today, thanks to our lack of air cover? A third of the ships in harbor were sunk by them and we have nothing to oppose more air raids. On top of that, a Japanese battle fleet of battleships and heavy cruisers is now off Ndeni and about to head our way, if it is not already on the way. I took the only possible decision that could prevent thousands of needless deaths.’’

‘’By abandoning our soldiers, aviators and Marines stuck on these islands? Do you have any idea of the dishonor you are about to bring on the Navy?’’ Stung by McCain’s tone, Ghormley shot up from his chair.

‘’Those soldiers and Marines are staying because they are refusing to obey my order to leave!’’

‘’WHICH PROVES THAT THEY ARE REAL MEN! GO! LEAVE FOR BRISBANE IN YOUR COMMAND SHIP! I WILL BE STAYING HERE TO TAKE CHARGE OF THE LOCAL DEFENSES.’’

‘’I FORBID YOU TO DO SO, McCAIN: I WILL NEED YOU TO REBUILD OUR AIR FORCES IN AUSTRALIA.’’

‘’THEN, FEEL FREE TO COURT MARTIAL ME, ADMIRAL!’’ Replied the old officer before turning around and storming out of the office.

To McCain’s anger and shame, nearly all the captains of the ships still intact around Noumea, Efate and Espiritu Santo obeyed Ghormley’s evacuation order and left for Australia after hastily loading aboard thousands of Navy shore support personnel. Those support personnel in turn left so hastily that they neglected to destroy the installations and equipment they were leaving behind. By the next morning, not a single American ship was left in and around Noumea. As for the troopships which had initially escaped from the Battle of Ndeni, they were hunted down and sunk to the last by a combination of airstrikes, submarine strikes and naval gunfire from pursuing Japanese cruisers and destroyers. Over 8,000 Marines and 1,300 Navy survivors were now trapped on Ndeni itself, blockaded by the Japanese Navy and with only limited amounts of food and supplies available to them. Seeing nothing else they could do; those men grimly went down to the task of fortifying their positions while waiting for some hypothetical rescue and enduring occasional Japanese naval and air bombardments. The only thing that saved them from an amphibious landing by the Japanese was the fact that the Japanese Army was short of troops everywhere, its mad stampede across China, Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies having eaten up all its reserves. The

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one immediate thing the Japanese did as a profit from the victory off Ndeni was to finish building and fortifying its new airfield on Guadalcanal. By the end of September, Japanese bombers and fighters would start operating from that airfield, now in good position to strike at Australia itself.

08:19 (Eastern Australia Time)

Sunday, August 30, 1942

Port of Brisbane, Australia

Having just scanned with his binoculars the dock at which his ship was due to tie up, the captain of the U.S.S. ARGONNE turned his head to speak to Vice Admiral Ghormley, who was standing with him on the open bridge wing of the submarine tender.

‘’I see an official staff car and a few escort jeeps parked along the dock, while a small group is waiting beside the vehicles, Admiral. I believe that the staff car has a four-star bumper plate on its fender.’’

‘’MacArthur!’’ said Ghormley in a less than enthusiastic tone. ‘’He will probably want to use our defeat in Ndeni to grab more power for himself in the South Pacific.’’ The captain of the tender gave Ghormley a guarded look then but didn’t reply to that. There had been a lot of often heated private discussions and talks aboard concerning the wisdom of abandoning Noumea, Efate and Espiritu Santo, with many being disgusted by the way the Navy had left behind the Army and Marine Corps personnel alone to defend the islands. The reception they would get in Brisbane was probably going to be a rather cold one.

With a tug to help its approach, the submarine tender docked and tied up about twenty minutes later, with an access ramp put in place nearly at once. Ghormley, expecting General MacArthur to come aboard, waited in vain for a good ten minutes before understanding that MacArthur was instead expecting him to disembark. Thus, accompanied by a small group of his staff officers, he walked down the ramp and went to MacArthur, who was still standing and waiting beside his staff car, biting on his trademark corn pipe. Ghormley stopped at attention two paces in front of the big, graying general and saluted him.

‘’General MacArthur, I am happy that you could greet me on arrival. I believe that we have a few urgent things to discuss.’’

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MacArthur, his expression cold, didn’t return his salute, instead addressing Ghormley in a near contemptuous tone.

‘’Vice Admiral Ghormley, on the direct orders of the President and of Admiral King, I relieve you of your command as of this instant. Vice Admiral Spruance will soon arrive in Australia to take your place. As for you, you are to leave for the United States today by seaplane to report in Washington, where you are to face charges of dereliction of duty and of abandonment of post.’’

Ghormley was left speechless for a moment before he could find back his voice to protest.

‘’But, General, the loss of our airplanes and warships left me no choice but to withdraw what was left of my fleet. Hell, you yourself withdrew from the Philippines when you became surrounded by the Japanese.’’

The mention of the Philippines, which was still a painful subject for MacArthur, positively enraged him and he stared down hard at Ghormley.

‘’I left the Philippines on a direct order from the President to do so and after I protested that order vigorously, Admiral Ghormley. In contrast, you decided yourself to abandon the soldiers and Marines now defending New Caledonia and the New Hebrides without the support of the Navy. Don’t expect a warm reception in Washington.’’

08:40 (South America Time)

Wednesday, September 16, 1942

Sonar room, U-800

Navigating due East at depth of ninety meters

Passing south of Cape Horn, Drake Passage

Gerhard Hoepner looked up from his cathode display when Otto Kretschmer entered the semi-dark, cramped space of the sonar room.

‘’Anything around us, Herr Hoepner?’’

‘’One lone contact coming towards us from the East at moderate speed, Herr Kapitän. It sounds like a cargo ship of some kind. I would estimate the distance from us at about twelve nautical miles. From the sounds I get, it seems that the weather on the surface is still quite bad.’’

Otto made a grimace at those words.

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‘’Well, that’s the Cape Horn to you, Hoepner. It is not for nothing that it is about the most feared place in the World for most sailors. At this time of the year, wandering icebergs and thick fog make navigation particularly difficult. As for surviving more than a few minutes in these frigid waters, good luck! The one good point is that the risks of encountering a patrol aircraft here are about zero.’’

Hoepner nodded his head at that: increasingly during the last months, Allied long range patrol aircraft had become a real pest and would have caused lots of problems to the U-800, if not for the fact that the U-800 had an excellent schnorchel system and tremendous underwater endurance, thanks to its huge battery cells capacity, two things which allowed it to stay under the surface for a few days at a time if need be. Otto was about to leave the sonar room when he saw Hoepner wince while his hands went involuntarily to the earpieces of his headset. Knowing better than ask questions right now, something that would distract the sonar operator from analyzing what he was hearing, Otto instead kept quiet and waited patiently. Hoepner finally spoke after a few seconds of playing with his controls.

‘’I heard a sudden, violent collision, Herr Kapitän. All machinery noises from that contact ahead of us have stopped now. This doesn’t sound good for whatever ship was ahead of us.’’

‘’Activate our bow active sonar and ping a number of times, to see what is on the surface around us.’’

‘’Right away, Herr Kapitän.’’

Now concentrating his attention on the display screen of their active low frequency sonar system, Hoepner sent out at intervals of a few seconds a series of powerful sound bursts and waited for return echoes. He grimaced when his display screen showed him over a dozen echoes within ten nautical miles, most of them quite big.

‘’You were right, Herr Kapitän: the surface is dotted with floating icebergs, most of them much bigger than us. That solitary cargo must have hit one of them in the fog.’’

‘’Then, it is probably in big trouble now.’’ said Otto before going back into the adjacent control room, where he grabbed the microphone of the nearest intercom box.

‘’Attention all hands! This is the captain! A ship ahead of us apparently collided with an iceberg and may be about to sink. I intend to go see and to possibly rescue survivors, if there are any. Hauptmann Margraff’s men are to start donning their diving suits right now in order to be ready once we arrive at the scene of that collision. I also want a deck rescue team to get ready. That is all!’’

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He then turned to look at the helmsman and ballast operators.

‘’BLOW THE BALLASTS! SURFACE! SURFACE!’’

08:50 (Chile Time)

Australian hospital ship AHS ORANJE

120 nautical miles southwest of Cape Horn

Drake Passage

The young Dutch merchant marine officer who came to the small group of Australian Army nurses gathered along the railing of the promenade deck of their hospital ship had to nearly shout to make himself heard over the fierce, freezing wind which blew in from the West.

‘’LADIES, WE HAVE TO EVACUATE, NOW! THE SHIP IS SINKING FAST. I WAS SENT BY THE CAPTAIN TO LOAD YOU INTO ONE OF OUR LIFE BOATS.’’ Sister Mary Cummings, the most senior nurse in the group, looked at the young officer with both disbelief and indignation.

‘’ABANDON SHIP? BUT WE MUST SAVE THE PATIENTS FIRST!’’

‘’CREWMEN ARE ALREADY IN THE PROCESS OF GETTING THE PATIENTS TO THE BOAT DECK, MISS. MAJOR SCOTT HAS ASKED THAT YOU GO MAN ONE OF THE BOATS AND BE READY TO RECEIVE THE FIRST WOUNDED THERE.’’ Mary Cummings hesitated for an instant but finally nodded her head: Major Henry Scott was an Australian Army surgeon who commanded the medical staff aboard the converted Dutch passenger liner. If he said to go man a life boat, then she and the other nurses could only obey him.

‘’VERY WELL! WHICH BOAT WILL WE TAKE?’’

‘’I WAS PUT IN CHARGE OF YOUR ASSIGNED LIFE BOAT, MISS. FOLLOW ME!’’

The four Australian nurses thus followed the young ensign, a very handsome blond man who had made more than one nurse’s heart race during their trip from Egypt, and climbed up to the boat deck. The big, 24,300-ton hospital ship was already listing severely to port, making the climb difficult and also making the nurses realize that their ship was truly in imminent danger of sinking. Once on the boat deck, the ensign led them to one of the large life boats suspended from davits along the railing. Four Javanese crewmembers had already lowered the boat from its stowed position, putting

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its side level with the deck in order to facilitate its loading. The life boat however kept banging against the hull side of the ship, thanks to the huge, ferocious waves that were hitting constantly the hospital ship. The ensign pointed the inside of the life boat to the nurses.

‘’GET IN, LADIES! YOU WILL NEED TO INSTALL THE PATIENTS AS COMFORTABLY AS POSSIBLE ONCE THEY START ARRIVING.’’

‘’YOU HEARD THE MAN! GET IN, GIRLS!’’

Sister Nora Moyers was the first to get in the life boat, an exercise that prove quite perilous thanks to the swinging motion of the boat. Young Staff Nurse Angela Black followed, then Sister Cynthia Forrester. Mary Cummings was last in, just as a group of walking patients escorted by Major Henry Scott arrived on the boat deck. By then the ship’s list had become even more severe, with high waves crashing against the port superstructures of the hospital ship. To the nurses’ horror, a wave stronger than the others crashed over the boat deck, washing to sea most of the patients who had been with Major Scott and filling many of the life boats with seawater. Scott was able to keep a hold on a young Australian soldier with an arm held in a cast and sling and pulled him towards the boat occupied by the nurses.

‘’GET THAT MAN IN YOUR BOAT, NURSES! I WILL GO GET MORE PATIENTS NOW.’’

As Scott and the Dutch ensign helped the wounded man to step inside the life boat, a noise of tortured, ripping metal made the ensign twist his head around, horror on his face.

‘’THE SHIP IS BREAKING UP! WE WILL SINK VERY SOON WITH THESE WAVES. WE MUST LOWER YOUR BOAT NOW!’’

‘’NO! WE CAN’T LEAVE NOW, NOT WITH ALL THE OTHER PATIENTS STILL ABOARD.’’ protested Mary Cummings, making Major Henry Scott shake his head bitterly.

‘’MISTER DeRoot IS RIGHT! IF YOU DON’T CAST OFF NOW, YOU WILL SIN…’’

Another giant wave then came in and propelled the nurses’ life boat upward while washing over the boat deck. Both Major Scott, the Dutch ensign and the four Javanese crewmen were swept to sea as the life boat came back down and brutally slammed against the ship’s side. The nurses then understood that they had no choice left but to cast off. The hospital ship actually decided for them, starting to slowly capsized on its port side and thus lowering the life boat to the surface of the sea as Mary Cummings and Cynthia Forrester hurriedly took off the blocking mechanisms of the ropes and pulleys

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system holding their life boat. Slamming hard on the surface, the nurses then had to grab the oars stored inside their boat and start rowing hard to avoid being crushed by their sinking ship. As they were barely clearing the overhang formed by the

superstructures of the rolling AHS ORANJE, Angela Black suddenly shouted excitedly.

‘’THERE, TO OUR LEFT! I SEE SOMEONE IN THE WATER, CLOSE TO US.’’ Looking all in that direction, the nurses saw two heads close together on the surface. One man was actually dragging another man while swimming hard with one arm and both legs towards the life boat.

‘’IT’S MISTER DeRoot! HE HAS MAJOR SCOTT! HELP ME GET THEM IN, GIRLS!’’

Thankfully, the two men had been quite close to the life boat when spotted and the young Dutch ensign quickly got to it, then handed the back handle of Major Scott’s life vest to the waiting nurses.

‘’GET HIM IN THE BOAT, QUICKLY! I WILL MANAGE BY MYSELF.’’ Despite his statement, Angela Black still helped him get inside the boat, while the three other nurses pulled in a coughing Henry Scott. With a last look at the hospital ship about to capsize, Wilhelm DeRoot took place at one of the oars and shouted to the nurses.

‘’ROW, LADIES, ROW, BEFORE THE SHIP CAN SUCK US DOWN!’’ With a still coughing, shivering Major Scott also taking an oar, the small group started rowing with the energy of despair as the AHS ORANJE lay down on its port side, large air bubbles coming out of its hull while big waves kept crashing over it. The physical exercise actually helped DeRoot and Scott warm up a bit after being in the freezing water for a couple of minutes, something that saved them from quick hypothermia. They were however still not out of danger, and this by a long shot. After four minutes of mad rowing, and with the hospital ship having disappeared under the waves, the two men and four nurses collapsed on top of their oars, utterly exhausted. Tears then came to Nora Moyers as she looked at the spot where their ship had been.

‘’We had over 400 wounded and sick men aboard, plus the crew and sixty other medical staff. Now they are all gone!’’

She then broke out crying, imitated by Angela Black and Cynthia Forrester. Mary Cummings, while having tears flowing down her cheeks, managed to keep a better control of herself and looked at Ensign DeRoot.

‘’Where are we, Mister DeRoot? Is there any land nearby where we could beach?’’

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DeRoot slowly shook his head, doom on his face.

‘’We are over a hundred miles from the nearest shore, in one of the most savage sea expanses on Earth. I’m afraid that we are totally on our own now.’’ He then looked around him, as much as the big waves and thick fog allowed it. The towering iceberg which had claimed the AHS ORANJE was still visible, barely, about 300 meters away. The wind howled around the boat, blowing at a minimum of fifty kilometers per hour, and was freezing, while the seawater temperature had to be close to zero degrees centigrade. Their situation was about as hopeless as one could get. Still, he was not ready to give up, not as long as they were alive, so he went to the small storage compartment of the life boat and inventoried its content. He found in it a grand total of four water bottles, four chocolate bars, a sealed plastic bag with strips of dried beef, one compass, a signal flare pistol and six red signal flares. As he was about to tell Major Scott about what they had, the sharp sound of a ship’s horn made him jerk his head around, newfound hope coming to him.

‘’A SHIP? HERE AND NOW? THIS MUST BE A MIRACLE!’’ Grabbing the signal pistol, he hurriedly loaded one signal flare in it, then pointed the pistol skyward and fired it, sending a bright red flare high above the life boat. His heart nearly skipped a beat when the unknown ship horn blew again, this time twice in quick succession.

‘’THEY SAW OUR FLARE! WE ARE ABOUT TO BE SAVED, PEOPLE.’’ Frantically reloading his pistol, he fired a second flare, then waited after loading a fresh flare. Sister Cynthia Forrester suddenly shouted while pointing to their starboard side.

‘’THERE! I SEE A SHIP COMING OUT OF THE FOG!’’

The occupants of the life boat, including the wounded man with the arm in a cast, cheered as one on seeing that Cynthia was right. Henry Scott then noticed first something about the newcomer.

‘’HEY, IT’S A SUBMARINE!’’

‘’A SUBMARINE? THAT WOULD EXPLAIN HOW IT COULD GET HERE WITHOUT ITSELF HITTING AN ICEBERG.’’ said in turn Wilhelm DeRoot over the howling wind. The seven survivors watched with growing hope as the submarine, a big one, got closer and closer to them, to finally stop beside them when its high conning tower came level with the life boat. The Dutch ensign’s heart suddenly sank when he saw the national insignia painted on the side of the conning tower.

‘’IT’S A GERMAN SUBMARINE!’’

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The others didn’t have time to express their dismay before a side door on top of the conning tower opened and a man wearing a diver’s suit appeared in it, a rolled rope in his hands. That man spoke in good English, contrary to DeRoot’s expectations.

‘’I AM GOING TO THROW YOU A ROPE! GRAB IT AND TIE IT TO YOUR BOAT. I WILL THEN THROW YOU A SECOND ROPE, WHICH YOU WILL USE TO TIE YOURSELVES ONE BY ONE TO IT, SO THAT WE COULD PULL YOU UP TO SAFETY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?’’

‘’WE DO, MISTER!’’ replied Henry Scott, who then caught with DeRoot’s help the rope thrown down by the diver. Quickly tying the rope to their boat, they then caught the second rope thrown down. Scott was about to pass it around Angela Black but she firmly stopped him and pointed at the wounded man in the boat.

‘’NO! HIM FIRST!’’

Understanding that she was right on that, Scott tied the rope around the wounded man’s torso, passing it under his armpits, then tugged three times on the rope.

‘’YOU CAN PULL HIM UP NOW!’’

With a number of men inside the open bridge atop the conning tower pulling on the rope, the wounded man was pulled up to safety in seconds, using his intact arm to avoid banging hard against the steel plates of the conning tower while on his way up. The rope was then thrown back down and tied to another survivor. The second one up was young Angela Black, followed in order by Nora Moyers, Cynthia Forrester and Mary Cummings. Henry Scott was the last to go up, by which time their life boat was half full of seawater and was about to sink. Once on the open bridge, which was actually covered by a curved, transparent canopy reinforced with steel frames, Scott noticed that most of the bridge’s deck space was taken by a large steel tower topped with a thick, transparent dome. The diver pointed at a thick steel hatch that was opened on the side of the tower, through which a sailor was presently guiding Wilhelm DeRoot.

‘’STEP INSIDE AND GO DOWN THE HATCH YOU WILL FIND IN THE OBSERVATION DOME.’’

‘’THANK YOU FOR SAVING US, MISTER.’’ shouted Scott over the wind’s howl before obeying the diver and bending forward to get through the hatch. Inside, he effectively saw a second opened hatch, situated on the deck beside a central pedestal supporting some kind of large optical instrument. Shivering in his wet clothes, the surgeon went down the hatch, climbing down a steel ladder and stepping inside some kind of compartment with padded benches facing outward and with two portholes with

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thick transparent covers. Two hatches, one on the deck and the other against one side, were visible. That most unusual arrangement baffled Scott, who couldn’t help ask a question to the sailor waiting beside the opened deck hatch.

‘’This compartment is weird. What kind of submarine is this?’’ The sailor, apparently unable to speak English, shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the opened deck hatch before saying something in German. Resigned to waiting before getting some explanations, Scott went down that hatch, climbing down to a sort of large storage compartment with multiple hatches. A naval officer was waiting there with the six other survivors from the AHS ORANJE and four German soldiers, fully armed and equipped, including steel helmets. The officer, a solidly-built man of fair height with a youthful face, spoke up in English as soon as Scott had stepped on the steel deck.

‘’Welcome on the U-800, ladies and gentlemen. I am Korvettenkapitän Otto Kretschmer, captain of this submarine.’’

Young Angela Black couldn’t help open her eyes wide on hearing the German officer.

‘’The U-800! My God, we are on the Devil’s Boat itself!’’

Otto Kretschmer smiled, apparently amused by her choice of words.

‘’The Devil’s Boat? Is that how the British call my submarine?’’

‘’Uh, yes, mister. I didn’t mean it as an insult, though.’’

‘’That’s alright, miss: I have a thick skin. I can however guarantee you that I am no devil and that you will all be well treated aboard my submarine…as long as you don’t do something stupid, like trying to sabotage some piece of machinery or attacking one of my crewmembers.’’

Otto then looked at Henry Scott, who wore his rank insignias on his vest.

‘’You seem to be the highest-ranking member of your group, mister. Could you present yourself?’’

‘’Of course, Captain! I am Major Henry Scott, of the Australian Army Medical Corps. Me and my nurses were convoying wounded and sick Australian soldiers back to Australia on the hospital ship ORANJE. Unfortunately, our ship hit an iceberg in the thick fog and quickly sank. I am afraid that we are the only survivors.’’ Scott saw a momentary look of pain and regret in Kretschmer’s eyes before the latter spoke again.

‘’We will have ample time later on to talk about the disaster that struck your ship. You look frozen to the bone and need to warm up and get some dry clothes. Hauptmann Margraff, to my left, will guide you to our emergency quarters compartment,

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where you will be able to take a hot shower. Don’t worry about the intimacy of your nurses: no man will be present when they will take their shower. We will then give you coveralls and rubber boots to wear afterwards and will provide you with bunk beds in our emergency quarters’ cabins.’’

‘’Cabins, on a submarine?’’ said Wilhelm DeRoot, truly surprised. ‘’Your

submarine decidedly sounds like no other submarine I know of, Captain Kretschmer.’’

‘’Of course!’’ replied Otto, smiling. ‘’Isn’t this the Devil’s Boat? Now, please follow Hauptmann Margraff.’’

Going down two sets of steel staircases, the group of survivors went through two decks before stepping inside a vast compartment filled with rows of long tables, fixed seats, counters and cupboards. Hugo Margraff then proudly pointed the compartment around him as the survivors stared with disbelief at all that internal volume aboard a submarine.

‘’Our crew cafeteria, with the galley in that corner. Just aft of the galley is our infirmary, where Doctor List will examine you after your shower. Please follow me down to our emergency quarters, meant to lodge shipwreck survivors.’’ He then guided to a deck hatch next to an elevator cage situated in the center of the cafeteria and climbed down its inclined stairs, ending in a surprisingly large lobby on which a number of large doors were visible.

‘’This is our foodstuff storage compartment, which includes a walk-in freezer, a cold room and three separate dry storage rooms. Our emergency quarters are just aft.’’

‘’A walk-in freezer, on a submarine?’’ exclaimed DeRoot. ‘’Decidedly, I will have seen everything.’’

Margraff smiled at that, then led the group aft through a watertight door, where he entered a cabin furnished with six double bunk beds, a small table with four seats and a large locker. Going to the locker and opening it, he took out a number of folded grey coveralls, pairs of rubber boots and underwear of various sizes.

‘’Please, each select one set of clothes that fits you, then we will go to the passengers’ bathroom for your shower, with women going first.’’ The four women and two men took only minutes to go through the pile of clothing, which Margraff had put on the small table of the cabin, grabbing what fitted them best. The Brandenburg officer nodded when the survivors declared themselves ready.

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‘’Excellent! Gentlemen, I will ask you to wait here for a minute while I show our shower room to your nurses.’’

Going out of the cabin and crossing a narrow hallway, Margraff entered the bathroom compartment meant to serve passengers and pointed to a curtain visible at the back.

‘’You will find a small shower room with three shower heads behind that curtain. You have clean towels, soap and shampoo in these overhead shelves above the sinks. I will now leave you so that you could shower in intimacy.’’ The nurses didn’t have to be told twice and eagerly went inside the shower section, pulling close the curtain behind them and then shedding their wet, saltwater-impregnated uniforms before stepping under the shower heads. The warm water felt like a gift as it rolled down the bodies of the cold nurses, washing away the salt on their skin and in their hair and stopping their shivering. Mary Cummings had to remind her nurses not to abuse in their use of hot water, so to leave some for Scott and DeRoot. Going out of the shower section and into the section containing a toilet stall, two urinals and two sinks, they toweled themselves dry and put on their fresh underwear, coveralls and boots before Mary Cummings stuck her head out of the bathroom.

‘’We are finished here, Mister Margraff!’’

‘’Good! Please return to your emergency cabin while Major Scott and Ensign DeRoot take their shower. Once you will be all clean and dry, we will go back up to the cafeteria for some hot food and coffee.’’

‘’Uh, what about our wet uniforms, mister? Would it be possible to wash them later on? They are the only uniforms left to us.’’

Margraff nodded his head soberly at that request.

‘’That can be arranged, miss. Let me just get your male companions to the shower section first.’’

Calling out Scott and DeRoot and showing them the showers and reserves of towels and soap, he then joined back the four nurses in the hallway and went to a nearby intercom panel on one wall, where he spoke in German for a moment before switching it off and looking back at Mary Cummings.

‘’The petty officer in charge of our laundry room will come to collect your wet uniforms and will then wash and dry them for you.’’

Those words made the four nurses look at him with disbelief, with young Angela Black exclaiming herself.

‘’You have a laundry room on this submarine? I don’t believe it!’’

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Margraff smiled with amusement at her exclamation.

‘’Hey, this is the U-800, miss: expect the unexpected while aboard. I will show you our laundry room after you will have eaten and after Doctor List will have examined you all.’’

The four women could only exchange befuddled looks then.

Before Scott and DeRoot came out of the bathroom, wearing their coveralls and boots, a German sailor showed up, pushing in front of him a large laundry bin mounted on small castor wheels. After exchanging a few words in German with Margraff, he then proceeded to collect the wet, salt-impregnated clothes of the nurses and of the two male officers, putting them in his laundry bin before leaving the way he had come. The nurses followed him with their eyes and he left with his bin.

‘’Well, I’ll be!’’ could only say Cynthia Forrester. ‘’He will wash our uniforms by hand, I suppose?’’

‘’You suppose wrong, miss: our laundry room is equipped with two automatic washing machines and four drying machines.’’

‘’WHAT? But we didn’t have such things aboard our hospital ship, while I don’t know anybody in Australia who owns washing machines and dryers.’’ A malicious grin appeared on Margraff at her remarks.

‘’Aah, but Germany is quite advanced in that domain, miss: the Miele Company in Gütersloh has been producing a wide range of high-end electric home and commercial appliances for many years already. After you are all done eating and getting examined, I will give you a limited guided tour of our submarine. You will however understand that our engine room, torpedo rooms and control room will be kept off limits for you during your stay.’’

‘’Talking of our stay,’’ said Mary Cummings, ‘’do you intend to bring us to Germany as war prisoners, mister?’’

‘’Captain Kretschmer will be the one to decide about that, miss.’’

Some seven minutes later, Major Scott and Ensign DeRoot came out of the bathroom, wearing coveralls and boots, with Scott asking at once a question to Margraff.

‘’Somebody took our wet uniforms, Mister Margraff. What did you do with them?’’

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‘’They were picked up in order to be washed and dried at our laundry room, Major. We will now go back to our cafeteria, where you will get a hot meal before being examined by Doctor List. If you will now all follow me.’’

With the five Australians and one Dutch starting to relax on seeing that they would be well treated, the group went up by one deck, returning to the cafeteria, where Margraff allowed his prisoners to have a peep inside the boat’s galley, where a smiling Dieter Hannig bowed his head in salute to them before continuing to work over his stoves and hot plates. Next, Margraff led the group to a side counter used as a hot beverage counter, where they were able to pour for themselves a cup of either hot coffee, tea or hot chocolate, then walked them to one of the long tables in the cafeteria, where they sat on swiveling seats fixed to the deck. While not remarking on it, Henry Scott discreetly counted the number of seats available in the cafeteria, arriving at the mind-blowing number of 78. As they enjoyed their hot drinks, the cook came to their table a few minutes later and hooked over their table a service pot containing a nice-smelling beef and vegetable stew, to then serving them generous portions with a large ladle spoon.

The prisoners were wolfing down with delight the stew when five sailors entered the cafeteria, intent on getting some food. Nora Moyers’ eyes opened wide on seeing that one of the sailors was Asian.

‘’G…God! Is this man a Japanese?’’

Hugo Margraff, who had stayed with the group, answered her in a neutral tone.

‘’Yes, he is, miss. He came aboard with three other Japanese sailors during our stop in Japan. A Japanese Navy officer is also travelling with us for this trip. You don’t need to fear them but you would be wise not to antagonize them. Japan is after all an ally of Germany in this war.’’

The prisoners absorbed that information with some difficulty before continuing their meal.

Some twenty minutes later, Margraff led the six prisoners aft, to the boat’s infirmary, where they found the patient from the ORANJE, lying in one of two medical beds of the infirmary, prompting Major Henry Scott to speak with him.

‘’How are you, soldier? Were you treated properly up to now?’’

‘’I have, sir. I have no complaints up to now, sir.’’

‘’Good! My nurses will visit you periodically to check on you while we will be aboard this submarine.’’

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‘’Do you know if we will end up in Germany, sir?’’

‘’I don’t know yet, soldier. I will inform you about it as soon as I will know.’’ Letting the wounded soldier rest in his bed, Major Scott went to shake hands with the German doctor who was waiting to examine his group.

‘’Major Henry Scott, Australian Army Medical Corps.’’

‘’Doctor Konrad List, Kriegsmarine. I am happy that we have been able to save your group. How many people were there on your hospital ship, if I may ask?’’

‘’We had 406 patients aboard, plus 65 medical personnel and a crew of over twenty. Unfortunately, we seven were the only survivors.’’ List, pained by these numbers, lowered his head and stayed silent for a moment, while Scott looked around at the small but well-equipped infirmary.

‘’A nice-looking setup, I must say. This would be worthy of a large destroyer or even a cruiser as ship sick bays go.’’

‘’I must say that I was agreeably surprised myself when I first looked at this infirmary on the U-800. The designer of this submarine truly did his best to make its crew feel comfortable at sea. In comparison, crew facilities are next to non-existent on our other types of submarines.’’

‘’And how many submarines like this one are there in the German Navy?’’ asked Scott in an innocent tone of voice. List then gave him a cautious look and shook an index at him.

‘’Even if I knew that, I wouldn’t tell you, Major. Nice try, though!’’

20:02 (Falklands Time)

Friday, September 18, 1942

Aft access airlock of the U-800

Surf Bay, four kilometers east of Stanley Harbor

East Falkland Island, South Atlantic

‘’Good luck to you and your men, Hauptmann Margraff. We will anxiously await your radio call.’’

‘’We will succeed, as usual, Herr Kapitän. You should hear from us in about six hours at most. If not, conduct your own attack as if we were not there. Either way, the enemy will hurt tonight.’’

‘’Still, don’t take foolish chances: better be late than sorry.’’

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On those words, Otto Kretschmer and Hugo Margraff split up, with the latter joining his six soldiers on the aft deck of the U-800, on which they had laid and then inflated their rubber assault boat. The seven Brandenburg Regiment commandos soon had their boat in the water and were paddling towards the shore of Surf Bay, faintly visible in the light of a half-moon. The sea was a bit rough tonight, but the wind blew towards the shore, helping the commandos to go faster. Hoping with all his conviction that Margraff and his men would be okay, Otto returned inside his submarine and went to the control room, where he gave the order to dive and proceed at silent speed towards nearby Cape Pembroke and Port William, the gateway to Stanley Harbor.

Landing undetected on the desolate shore of Surf Bay, the seven German soldiers then grabbed their rubber boat by its transport handles and physically lifted it, carrying it at a quick step across the pebble beach. Taking a pause once in the long grass, both to catch their breath and to listen for any noise of nearby movement, the Brandenburg men then lifted again their assault boat and started their foot trek across the land bridge that separated Surf Bay and the open sea from the waters of Stanley Harbor. They proceeded cautiously, speed being less important than stealth right now, but they met no one, nor any building on their way. The Germans could however see to their right the lights of the camp on Cape Pembroke, where an American construction unit was building an airfield. The U-800 had arrived off East Falklands over a day ago and what they had seen since then had confirmed what Otto Kretschmer had bet he would find: a hastily set up refueling point for Allied convoys on their way to round the Cape Horn or coming round it from Australia or Hawaii. With the Panama Canal out of commission and with the huge extra distances a detour via the Cape Horn implied, Otto had reasoned that the Americans would want to set a number of refueling points along the way, but preferably on friendly territory rather than on neutral shores, with the diplomatic uncertainty around the latter making them less than ideal as refueling bases. That had left about one possible point in the South Atlantic, close to the Cape Horn: the Falkland Islands, a British possession with an existing port, albeit a small one but one with a deep anchorage. The U-800 had already detected via its hydrophones, passive radar detector and radio direction-finding two American destroyers which were constantly patrolling around the entrance of the bay leading to Stanley Harbor. One more destroyer had also been detected at anchor across the entrance of the bay, pinging actively its ASDIC set at intervals. Inside the waters of Stanley Harbor, the lights

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of dozens of anchored ships could also be seen beside the lights of the small British settlement of Port Stanley. That had decided Otto and Hugo into attempting a repeat of their raid on Miami Harbor, in last December. A lot would now depend on what exactly the German commandos would find at anchor in Stanley Harbor.

23:46 (Falklands Time)

American cargo ship M.V. ALAMEDA

At anchor in Stanley Harbor

The graying American Navy reservist shook his head in disgust as he surveyed with his eyes the small British town of Port Stanley, actually little more than a big village. There was not a single tree to be seen in the surrounding countryside and the wind that blew nearly constantly was quite cold.

‘’What a hole! They really couldn’t find a better place than this for their damn refueling station? They don’t even have a single airfield here…yet.’’

‘’Aw come on, Bernie! Quit complaining!’’ replied the other reservist on deck guard duty. ‘’It is not as if we are going to stay here for weeks. In fact, we should raise anchor tomorrow, once all the ships of our convoy will have filled up their fuel tanks.’’ The two men, conversing casually while standing near the top of the access ladder of their armed cargo ship and looking towards Port Stanley, never saw or heard the two dark shadows which silently approached them from the back, until those shadows sprang into action and stabbed them in the throat while slapping one hand over their mouths. The two American sailors then collapsed after a few spasms and were dragged out of sight to a dark corner of the open deck. Hugo Margraff had a quick look at the big five-inch deck gun fixed nearby and at the aircraft stored on deck under protective tarps before giving orders in a whisper to his six men.

‘’Alright, men! Stein, you go with Weiss and Lang and go clean up the crew quarters. Drücker and Bayerlein, you go to the engine room. I will go with Haussmann to the bridge. Be clean and quiet! We will meet back on the bridge.’’ The seven German soldiers split up and quietly went their respective way, intent on covertly grabbing control of this ship. The M.V. ALAMEDA had caught their eyes from the shore thanks to the dozen or so aircraft stowed on its open deck and also thanks to its visible armament of one five-inch gun and one three-inch gun, which they would be able to use to their profit later on.

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Less than forty minutes later, all the crewmen of the ALAMEDA who could be found aboard were dead, either stabbed or shot with silenced pistols. Hugo Margraff was able to find quickly the ship’s cargo manifest and was happy to see that the ALAMEDA, on top of carrying fourteen Douglas SBD dive bombers on its open deck, also carried an extensive cargo of aircraft spare parts. Denying such spare parts to the enemy was liable to be truly painful for the Allies in the Pacific. Reviewing more carefully the cargo manifest as his men started arriving on the bridge, he suddenly froze on seeing a particular entry.

‘’DMS-1000 airborne centimetric radar set assembly, quantity: 8…’’ Hugo looked at Karl Haussmann, who had been a radio repairman in civilian life.

‘’Hey, Karl, this ship carries a few radar sets. Do you think that this could interest

Die Alter26?’’

‘’Uh, could I see that list, Hauptmann?’’

‘’Sure! Here you go!’’

Haussmann read twice the line on the manifest pointed by Hugo before speaking.

‘’I’m not sure, sir, but I think that we should check with our own radar technician on the U-800, Hans Zimmer. This certainly sounds interesting, though.’’

‘’I’ll take your word for it!’’ replied Hugo, who then moved to the radio room at the back of the bridge. There, he tuned one of the HF radio sets to the frequency of the U-800 and sent a short message in covert terms, while speaking in English in order not to attract immediate attention to his transmission.

‘’Shark, this is Wolf, over!’’

‘’This is Shark! Send, Wolf!’’

‘’From Wolf: we are now in a dominant position. We have a technical question for you: is centimetric radar a priority item, over?’’

There was a delay of a couple minutes before an answer came back in a quite excited tone.

‘’Did you find such a radar, Wolf?’’

‘’Affirmative, Shark! It is part of a cargo of spare parts, over.’’

‘’Secure that cargo and once and see how easily it can be carried off, Wolf. In the meantime, keep a low profile and safeguard your find. Shark out!’’

26 Die Alter: The Old Man, in German. Common nickname given to the captain of a ship.

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Hugo put down his microphone, quite surprised at how his find seemed to have rattled their own radar specialist on the U-800. Well, if he deemed that find to be so valuable, then Hugo would make sure that those centimetric radar sets would get intact to the submarine. But first, he had to find them among the rest of the cargo.

That actually proved less difficult than he had feared, the cargo manifest being quite detailed about which cargo was in which hold or sub-hold. He found eight wooden crates, each less than two cubic meters in volume and weighing approximately 160 kilos, marked ‘DMS-1000 Radar Antenna Assembly’. Hugo also found next to those crates eight other crates marked ‘DMS-1000 Radar Receiver/Transmitter and Display Set’. Excitement mounting in him, he used a crowbar to pry open a crate of each of the two kinds of sets to look inside them. What he found made him swear quietly to himself. The radar assembly and antenna were extremely compact compared to the few German radars he had seen before, or on reconnaissance photos of British radars. As for the control boxes and receiver/transmitter set, they were surprisingly light and small. There was also a detailed technical user and maintenance manual in the second crate, along with a blueprint showing how to install the radar set on a patrol aircraft. Now suspecting that he had just found the proverbial golden egg, Hugo closed back the crates and went to get four of his men, bringing them to the hold and showing them the crates.

‘’Men, I believe that we got something here that could be of crucial intelligence value for us. I want you to haul up to the open deck this big crate here, plus that smaller crate over there. Ideally, we will be able to take out all these radar sets when the U-800 will come aside, but I want us to be able to secure at least one complete set, in case things go bad.’’

Thinking about it as his men grunted while lifting the first big crate and carrying it up, Hugo reopened one of the smaller crates and grabbed the technical manual and assembly blueprint inside, then stuffed them in his small, waterproof haversack. If things really went badly, then he would at least have those documents with him.

02:27 (Falklands Time)

Saturday, September, 1942

American armed cargo ship S.S. DOUGLAS HOLT Anchored in Stanley Harbor

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‘’Sir! Sir! Wake up!’’

Awakened slowly by gradually stronger shakes, Rear Admiral Joseph Reubens groggily looked up at the third officer of the DOUGLAS HOLT, who was bending over his bed.

‘’Uh… What is it, Mister Wright?’’

‘’Something very bad, sir: the three destroyers guarding the entrance to the Port William Bay were just torpedoed and are sinking.’’

Those words acted like lightning jolts on Reubens, who was in charge of the convoy presently stopped for refueling in Stanley Harbor. Throwing away his bed sheet and blanket, he swung his legs out and sat up, shaking his head to fully wake up before looking again at Wright.

‘’When did that happen?’’

‘’The first torpedo hits were only four minutes ago, sir, but they were very accurate and deadly. The EBERLE broke in two, while the LIVERMORE and the KEARNY were hit in their machinery spaces and are out of power.’’

‘’What about the ERICSSON? Has Captain Hoel, on the USS MELVILLE, been alerted?’’

‘’The ERICSSON was still waiting to be refueled and was at anchor but is now putting on steam in a hurry and has gone to battle stations. Captain Hoel has been alerted, sir.’’

‘’I’ll be on the bridge in four minutes. Dismissed!’’

Wright saluted him before turning around and leaving Reubens’ small cabin. The latter had dread in his heart as he quickly dressed: as an old Coast Guard officer, he had been put in charge of one of the first convoys going around the Cape Horn instead of using the now blocked Panama Canal. His convoy was also only the second one to use the new refueling station in Port Stanley, which had been hastily set up on orders from Admiral King. The facilities in Port Stanley had proved to be very limited and rudimentary, but the Navy had compensated that by posting a small flotilla of tanker ships, along with a destroyer tender and three destroyers to guard the entrance of the harbor. Everybody in Washington had believed that the remoteness of the Falkland Islands and their apparent lack of facilities would have kept German submarines away from Stanley Harbor, but it now seemed that they had been wrong about that, dead wrong.

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Reubens arrived on the bridge of his flagship, a large armed cargo ship, only to be greeted by more bad news from the captain of the DOUGLAS HOLT.

‘’Admiral, the destroyer ERICSSON was just torpedoed as it was starting to move out of Stanley Harbor. The destroyer tender MELVILLE was also hit by torpedoes and is in trouble.’’

‘’For God’s sake, how could the enemy know our defensive deployment in detail like this? Is the ERICSSON still able to fight?’’

The captain of the cargo ship shook his head and pointed out at a ship that was burning fiercely near another burning ship.

‘’No, Admiral! The ERICSSON is burning, and so is the MELVILLE. Our other three destroyers have either sunk or are out of action as well. Our convoy is now trapped in Stanley Harbor, defenseless except for the deck guns on some of our merchant ships.’’

‘’Those deck guns won’t do much good against a submerged submarine, Mister Burnaby. Have we alerted the Atlantic Fleet Headquarters yet about this attack against our convoy?’’

‘’Not yet, Admiral.’’

‘’Then send immediately a coded message to Norfolk, stating that our four destroyers and the station’s destroyer tender have been torpedoed. Ask for any help that could be sent quickly.’’

‘’Yes, Admiral.’’ replied Captain Burnaby without much conviction before walking out of the bridge. Due to the same factors that had made Washington select Port Stanley as a refueling point for convoys rounding the Cape Horn, there were no other American or British warships within a good 3,000 nautical miles, while the Falklands were presently out of range of the American patrol bombers based in the Caribbean Basin. Help would not arrive for many days at the least, something that Rear Admiral Reubens had to know.

Reubens could do little more once he had ordered his convoy to battle stations, so he had ample time to watch his destroyers disappear one by one under the waves, along with the destroyer tender MELVILLE. All the ships which had been equipped with radar or sonar were now gone, leaving him only with the deck guns of the armed merchant ships in his convoy. Those deck guns however had no sensors left to direct their fire other than their optical sights, which would be next to useless against a

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submerged submarine or submarines. Maybe half an hour after the U.S.S. KEARNY had gone down, one of the lookouts on the open bridge of the DOUGLAS HOLT suddenly shouted in an excited tone.

‘’SIR, SOMEONE IS SENDING US A MESSAGE BY LAMP!’’ Grabbing at once his binoculars and running to the port open bridge wing facing the Port William anchorage and the open sea, Reubens deciphered out loud the optical Morse code message blinking from a point in the dark sea, a few kilometers away.

‘’From U-800: you have thirty minutes to start transferring all your crews and passengers aboard your hospital ship. If you don’t comply or if you fire on me, then I will start sinking your ships one by one. Acknowledge!’’

As the sender of the message started repeating it, Reubens slowly lowered his binoculars, dread washing over him. The U-800 had become in the last few months a true scarecrow for both Allied warships and merchant ships and possessed a terrifying reputation as a ruthless, efficient war machine. To have to face such a powerful opponent now, with no true warships left to defend his convoy, was as if doomsday had just knocked at his door. That also placed him in an impossible dilemma: if he complied with the U-800’s demands, he would probably end up being court-martialed for having abandoned his convoy in the hands of the enemy. However, if he resisted, he had no doubt that the U-800 had the means to make good on its threat. Then, he would still lose his ships, but would also suffer hundreds of human casualties. As for sinking the U-800, unless the legendary Kretschmer would make a grievous tactical mistake, that sounded most improbable. Reubens suddenly became conscious that all the men on the bridge were now staring at him quietly, expecting orders from him. The problem was that he couldn’t decide yet what to do. Going back inside the wheelhouse, Reubens activated his TBS radio set tuned to the convoy’s frequency. What he couldn’t know was that German ears were also listening to that frequency.

‘’Attention all ships, this is Admiral Reubens speaking! All ships are to keep their present position for the moment, but be ready to sail at a moment’s notice. All gunners are to stay at their weapons but no one is to shoot without my express order. Reubens out!’’

Reubens then put down his radio microphone. He now could only wait and hope that the U-800 was bluffing and would not fire on near defenseless merchant ships.

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His pious wish was literally blown away thirty minutes later, when the Navy seaplane tender U.S.S. SANDPIPER suddenly shook under the impact and explosion of two torpedoes. As the seaplane tender started settling down by the stern, a lookout on the DOUGLAS HOLT shouted a warning.

‘’NEW LAMP MESSAGE INCOMING!’’

Already guessing what that message would be, Reubens again raised his binoculars to his eyes.

‘’From U-800 to Allied convoy: you were warned. Until you start transferring all your crews and passengers to your hospital ship, I will sink one new ship every ten minutes. If you scuttle your ships before evacuating them, then I will open fire. The choice is yours. Acknowledge!’’

Cold sweat appeared on Reubens forehead: he was now truly backed to a wall.

‘’Captain Burnaby, send an acknowledge to this message.’’

‘’Yes, Admiral!’’

Reubens felt very old as he debated what to do next. He was going to lose either way now. The only thing he could still do was to limit the human casualties among his convoy. As for the ships and their various cargo, they were anyway going to get destroyed by the U-800. The shout of a lookout then made his head snap around.

‘’THE TASMANIA IS ATTEMPTING A RUN TO THE OPEN SEA!’’

‘’WHAT DOES THAT IDIOT THINK THAT HE CAN ACCOMPLISH?’’ raged Reubens while changing position on the bridge to see the ship trying to leave Stanley Harbor. The TASMANIA was a small Australian liner converted into a troopship and carrying half a brigade’s worth of Australian soldiers. Being a free-runner heading to Egypt, it was not under Reubens’ command. This idiotic move was probably the product of the obtuseness of Colonel James Hobart, the ranking Australian Army officer aboard the TASMANIA. Reubens had met him briefly yesterday and had not been overly impressed by him. That nonsense ended exactly the way Reubens expected: the TASMANIA was torpedoed once it had gone out of Stanley Harbor and was in the middle of Port William’s anchorage. The troopship, its hull ripped open by two torpedoes, quickly capsized and sank, throwing hundreds of Australian soldiers into the frigid water. Reubens could only watch the drama while damning Hobart’s stupidity as those soldiers quickly died from hypothermia. A third lamp message was then seen from near the wreck of the troopship.

‘’You were warned. One more ship will go down now.’’

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To Reubens’ helpless despair, the 11,000-ton tanker FULTON received one torpedo less than two minutes later. The explosion ignited at once its cargo of bunker oil and turned the tanker into a floating inferno. Reubens then cracked, having had enough.

‘’TRANSMIT VIA LAMP TO U-800: HOLD FIRE! WE WILL START

EVACUATION NOW! CAPTAIN BURNABY, CONTACT BY LAMP THE FREE-

RUNNING SHIPS IN THE HARBOR AND TELL THEM THAT THEY SHOULD EVACUATE NOW TOWARDS THE U.S.S. STORK.’’

‘’UNDERSTOOD, ADMIRAL!’’

Reubens next went back to the TBS radio set and grabbed its microphone.

‘’To all ships of the convoy: abandon ship now! The crews and passengers are to reembark on the hospital ship STORK. Do not, I say again, do not attempt to scuttle your ships before leaving, or the U-800 will fire more torpedoes. Simply destroy your codes and leave! All ships, acknowledge!’’

Grabbing a message pad, Reubens then wrote down the names of the ships which sent back an acknowledge, then compared them to a list of his convoy’s composition: all of them had received his orders. Not being familiar with all the ships’ captains in his convoy and being under near shock, he didn’t notice the slight accent in one of the responses.

Just before twilight, at around six in the morning, the transfer of crewmembers and passengers to the U.S.S. STORK was completed, with Rear Admiral Reubens being last to come aboard. The hospital ship then started slowly moving out of Stanley Harbor. To Reubens’ surprise, he received another lamp message from the U-800 as the STORK was clearing the entrance of Stanley Harbor.

‘’Stop by Gypsy Cove in order to pick up seven more passengers? What the hell?’’

What the STORK found near Gypsy Cove was a motor launch from the cargo ship ALAMEDA with four men and four women aboard. Three of the men and the four women promptly climbed up, with the man at the helm of the motor launch then speeding away, watched by the confused sailors on the hospital ship. One of the men, an Australian Army Medical Corps major presented himself to Reubens as soon as he came aboard the STORK, saluting him smartly.

‘’Major Henry Scott, Australian Army Medical Corps. I have with me four Australian nurses, one wounded Australian soldier and one Dutch merchant marine

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officer. We were on the hospital ship ORANJE when it collided with an iceberg in thick fog and sank south of Cape Horn. The U-800 found us and saved us then.

Unfortunately, we were the only survivors from the ORANJE, out of more than 500 people aboard our hospital ship.’’

Reubens’ shoulders sagged under that extra sad piece of news.

‘’And…were you well treated aboard that German submarine, Major?’’

‘’We were treated decently and with respect at all times, Admiral. I must say that what we saw inside that submarine deeply impressed me.’’ Reubens made a bitter smile at those words and patted Scott’s shoulder.

‘’I will be happy to hear your tales later on, Major. Now, we have to return to the United States with our new load of passengers. Explaining this fiasco to my bosses won’t be fun.’’

‘’I can imagine so, Admiral.’’ replied Scott in a cautious tone.

The U.S.S. STORK was below the horizon, heading north, when the U-800 finally surfaced and entered Stanley Harbor, having received by radio confirmation from the commandos on the ALAMEDA that no movement could be seen aboard the abandoned American and British ships. Standing on the open bridge atop the conning tower of his submarine, Otto visually surveyed the collection of 22 merchant ships swinging at anchor inside the harbor. Those merchant ships were no doubt loaded down with tens of thousands of tons of cargo whose loss would constitute a painful blow to the already severely diminished Allied forces based in and around Australia. On the other hand, some of that cargo, like the radar sets found on the ALAMEDA, would be considered about as precious as gold back in Germany, which was facing a tight maritime blockade by the British Navy and where the lists of items in short supply kept growing by the month. His mind made, he directed his helmsman towards the ALAMEDA, with the submarine coming alongside the cargo ship fifteen minutes later. Hugo Margraff climbed down the access ladder of the cargo ship and met Otto on the forward top deck of the U-800, saluting him.

‘’Hauptmann Margraff, reporting back from mission, Herr Kapitän. We suffered no casualties and have full control of this cargo ship.’’

Otto saluted back, then shook hands with Hugo, smiling to him.

‘’You and your men did a superb job, as always, Hauptmann Margraff. So, those radar sets really look interesting?’’

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Hugo nodded his head soberly at those words.

‘’You certainly can say that, Herr Kapitän. I believe in fact that such centimetric radar sets, when mounted on patrol bombers or amphibians, could constitute a mortal danger to our submarines, including the U-800. They should be examined by our radar experts in Germany as soon as possible.’’

‘’I believe so too. I will send up a work party to help you transfer two complete sets of these radars aboard the U-800. On your part, I would like you and your men to accompany three of my officers who will start inspecting and inventorying the content of those captured merchant ships. God knows what kind of treasures we will find aboard them. We will also of course replenish ourselves in fuel and fresh food at the same time. Since it will take at least a few days to the enemy to react to our raid here, I figure that we will have a good two days of peace to do what we want to do here.’’

‘’And may I ask what exactly we want to do here, Herr Kapitän?’’ A devilish smile appeared on Otto’s lips at that question.

‘’We will select a couple of worthy prize ships and will put aboard them what we deem interesting or valuable enough as extra cargo, then will sail for our home port. I intend to make a grand entrance indeed in Lorient, my dear Margraff.’’

10:15 (Paris Time)

Monday, September 21, 1942

Headquarters of U-Boote Command, Lorient

Coast of Brittany, France

Admiral Karl Dönitz’ aide entered after knocking on the door of his commander’s office and walked to his desk, stopping at attention and saluting before presenting him a printed message.

‘’We just received a message from the U-800, Admiral, for your eyes only.’’

‘’Thank you, Werner! You are dismissed!’’

Once his aide was gone, Dönitz started reading with voracious interest the message sent by Otto Kretschmer. Even by Kretschmer’s stingy standards of reporting, his present war patrol had produced only a handful of messages sent to Lorient. However, in view of his special and very delicate mission to Panama and Japan, Dönitz had arranged in advance with Kretschmer a special set of cryptic sentences and terms that only both of them would know how to interpret. That was in addition to the use of what

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was known in intelligence work as ‘one-time pads’, basically booklets of random pages of codes which never repeated themselves and were used only once, making them impossible to decipher. That system was unfortunately very voracious in paper, making it impractical to use it on a large scale. However, with the Kriegsmarine now knowing since May that its Enigma encoding system, along with the Japanese diplomatic code, was being deciphered by the Allies, Dönitz had switched his command to a new code system, something that had paid handsomely and quickly, as the British and the Americans had since then been much less successful in avoiding German submarines. That, and the obvious good results from Kretschmer’s radio discretion, had finally convinced Dönitz to change his command habits and to cut on his own transmissions. All that had in turn resulted in less submarine losses for him and much more success in sinking Allied ships.

‘’Hum! From U-800, to BdU27 Headquarters, Lorient. Met three nice dates at 91, Horst Altmark Strasse. Am looking for appropriate dance partners for them. Please advise the others that we are on our way.’’

Dönitz grinned as he made sense of Kretschmer’s message and consulted a World map on his desk that was covered with letter-coded squares.

‘’So, the U-800 has attacked the Falklands Islands, probably Port Stanley, and captured three prize ships worthy of the taking that he is now escorting back to Lorient. He is however concerned that those prize ships could be sunk by mistake by our planes or submarines while heading to France. Well, I can certainly arrange for that to be avoided. I wonder what he found down in the Falklands that would be worth bringing all the way to Lorient.’’

04:49 (New York Time) / 10:49 (Paris Time)

Cryptographic Section, U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet Headquarters Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.A.

‘’SIR, WE INTERCEPTED A TRANSMISSION FROM THE U-800!’’

‘’Aah, at last! That Kretschmer truly can be as quiet as a clam. Show me what you got.’’

 

27 BdU: Befehlshaber der U-Boote, or Submarine Command in German.

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Taking the message form from the young ensign, Lieutenant (Navy) Jeff Reed read it once before looking crossly at the ensign.

‘’Is this a joke? Nice dates? Dance partners? This is crap! How the hell are we supposed to make any sense out of this?’’

02:50 (Paris Time)

Tuesday, October 20, 1942

Keroman I submarine pen bunker complex

Lorient, France

‘’Do we know what those three captured ships carry, Admiral?’’ Dönitz turned his head to answer the question from the Minister of War Production and Armaments, Albert Speer, who stood beside him on the quay of the submarine pen in which the U-800 was now slowly entering.

‘’The patrol boats which met and escorted them said that they were two large tanker ships and one large cargo ship. However, from the covert terms used by Kapitän Kretschmer in his last message, I believe that these captured ships are very significant prizes. He wouldn’t have insisted on that point if it would be something mundane, like foodstuff. However, I can surmise that the two large tankers must be loaded with refined fuel. At close to 10,000 tons of fuel capacity each, I believe that those two tankers alone would have justified your trip to Lorient.’’

‘’I believe so too, Admiral. 20,000 tons of refined fuel would do nicely to take some pressure off our overworked refineries. That said, even without those captured ships, Kapitän Kretschmer’s voyage was truly epic.’’

‘’Very true indeed, Herr Minister.’’

The two men, with aides and senior officers at their backs, then waited patiently as the U-800 stopped against the quay, with ropes thrown and tied, while a military band started playing the German national anthem. A gangway was soon put in place, allowing Dönitz, Speer and their principal aides and officers to step on the forward deck of the U-800, where Otto Kretschmer met them with a salute.

‘’Welcome aboard the U-800, Admiral and Herr Minister!’’

‘’And it is a pleasure to see you again, my good Kretschmer.’’ replied Dönitz, who then noticed Otto’s red eyes and the fatigue showing on his face. ‘’But you look positively exhausted!’’

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‘’That’s because I am, Admiral, along with my crewmembers. We had to cut the manpower on each work shift to the bone in order to provide prize crews for the three ships we brought back with us.’’

‘’And may I ask what those ships contain, Herr Kapitän?’’ asked politely Albert Speer. Otto smiled to him before answering in a proud voice.

‘’Over 12,000 tons of high-octane aviation gasoline on the American tanker SAM HOUSTON, 11,000 tons of diesel fuel on the tanker KALAMAZOO and nearly 11,000 tons of aluminum metal products that I am sure could help the production of aircraft for our Luftwaffe, Herr Minister.’’

Albert Speer opened his mouth from happiness on hearing those figures.

‘’Eleven thousand tons of aluminum metal? We will be able to produce thousands of aircraft with all that aluminum! And that aviation gasoline will provide the needs of the Luftwaffe in the West for over two months. I suppose as well that Admiral Dönitz will be able to make good use of all that diesel fuel you brought him for his submarines.’’

‘’Indeed!’’ added Dönitz, quite happy himself. ‘’You performed true miracles during your war patrol. I can’t wait to hear the details of your voyage.’’

‘’Aah, but I do have another miracle for you, Herr Admiral, and for our radar specialists. We grabbed on one of the Allied ships we captured in Port Stanley eight complete sets of a new type of airborne radar that functions in the ten-centimeter band. We also have the technical manuals that go with them, along with a stock of spares for those radar sets. I believe strongly that our experts should examine those captured radar sets as soon as possible, as they may give us a way to counter those maritime patrol aircraft that pester our submarines at sea.’’

Dönitz sucked air in on hearing that.

‘’Mein Gott! Centimetric radars? The Allies are this advanced in their radar technology?’’

‘’It now appears so, Herr Admiral. From looking through the captured technical manuals on these radars, it seems that the key to their advances is a new radar wave emitter called a ‘magnetron’. We have a good dozen spares of those magnetrons with us, on top of those incorporated in the radar sets we grabbed. We have as well captured a large number of American Army portable radios which seem to use a technology superior to ours.’’

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‘’This is truly major!’’ then pronounced Speer before calling one of his aides to his side and giving him a firm set of directives.

‘’Get Luftwaffe radar experts here at once! I also want our civilian experts in Germany, especially our experts at Telefunken and Siemens, to come and examine those captured radar sets. However, be discreet about the way you contact them: we don’t want the enemy to learn that we have captured their latest radar technology.’’

‘’I will get on it right away, Herr Minister!’’ replied the senior officer before nearly running up the gangway to the quay. Speer then looked gravely at Kretschmer.

‘’What you just brought us could have a major impact on this war, like the way you proved that the Allies were able to read our encrypted message traffic. The nation owes you, a lot.’’

‘’Herr Minister, the only thing I want right now is to be able to rest for a few quiet days. My U-800 is also due for a major maintenance check after such a long voyage.’’

‘’And you will get an extended rest period, you and your valiant crew, my good Kretschmer.’’ promised Dönitz, not knowing that he was soon going to have to break his promise to Otto.