oscssw
Senior chief petty officer
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Post by oscssw on Aug 19, 2022 11:24:51 GMT
Good update but I'm missing the DD's torpedo attack??? Seems something missin in Paragraph 28 MAY 1941 2033. BTW You're American I understand but "Makes suicide much more sporting, don’t you think?"
Thanks 575 your disappointment has been noted.
Reread that passage and you will find the details of the torpedo attack have miraculously appeared. They are not pretty at all.
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575
Captain
There is no Purgatory for warcriminals - they go directly to Hell!
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Post by 575 on Aug 19, 2022 11:41:03 GMT
Good update but I'm missing the DD's torpedo attack??? Seems something missin in Paragraph 28 MAY 1941 2033. BTW You're American I understand but "Makes suicide much more sporting, don’t you think?"
Thanks 575 your disappointment has been noted.
Reread that passage and you will find the details of the torpedo attack have miraculously appeared. They are not pretty at all.
Ask and Ye shall receive! What miracle to view; though the ending of that attack certainly isn't pretty though at least the HMS Cambeltown lives to fulfill her destiny!  |
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oscssw
Senior chief petty officer
Posts: 967
Likes: 1,575
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Post by oscssw on Aug 20, 2022 15:28:46 GMT
Thanks 575 your disappointment has been noted.
Reread that passage and you will find the details of the torpedo attack have miraculously appeared. They are not pretty at all.
Ask and Ye shall receive! What miracle to view; though the ending of that attack certainly isn't pretty though at least the HMS Cambeltown lives to fulfill her destiny!  |
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oscssw
Senior chief petty officer
Posts: 967
Likes: 1,575
|
Post by oscssw on Sept 1, 2022 10:20:13 GMT
Sep 1 0600 UPDATE THE SHOWBOAT engages THE IRON CHANCELLOR Green is the new stuff Blue is old stuff I think is necessary to support new stuff
028 MAY 1941 2155 USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) was SouthEast of Greenland about 125 miles from HX-123’s survivors on station, transmitting current conditions every 4 hours to 1st CG District in Boston. Her Co Lt Dennis Moultron, 1931 graduate of the CG Academy, was in radio central along with the Commo and RMC “Wild BillY” Donovan and the rest of the 20-24 watch. Aside from the chatter of the Teletypes and the hum of the HF radio transcievers it was dead silent. The men, mostyly kids, had been listening to the death throes of HX-123 as in utter desperation the individual ships of the doomed convoy broadcast May Days, their position, the fact that they were under attack by a Nazi Capital ship and other frantic messages in the clear as they were summarily executed by The Prince.
WAG-48 was classified as a Patrol vessel and weather ship. Her one Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Company triple-expansion steam engine could push her at about 11 knots in the current moderate sea state. He could be at HX-123’s datum in about in 12 hours. She might be in time to save those merchy seaman who made it into life boats and rafts. WAG-48 did not have radar. But in May this far North she would arrive at about 1000 and that was broad daylight so his lookouts should be able to spot lifeboats and rafts in the general vicinity of the datum. He and his 116 officers and men were Coasties and saving lives at sea no matter the danger was what Coasties did. Commandant First CG District in Boston had been kept aware of what was going on and he was a Coastie also. He agreed with Lt Moultron 125 miles SE would still keep Muskeget in a position to monitor and report on the weather in her sector , her primary mission.
Muskeget was carrying a Doctor thanks to FDR’s state of emergency which was already filling the USCG with reservists including doctors. WAG-48 also carried a Chief (who had been a 2nd class with ten years service only a year ago) and two 3rd class Hospital corpsmen (green as grass), along with a well stocked, if little used sick bay . Moultron was pretty sure that would change in 12 hours.
There was no way he could take on that big Nazi raider with a single 4”/50, two single 50 Cal M2 HMGs and two Lewis machine guns; two depth charge rails and various obselescent small arms. Fortunately he would not have to. He didn’t think that bastard Hitler wanted war with the US and sinking Muskeget would certainly risk that. He also knew he could not initiate an engagement either. He prayed their would be work for BM2C Coxswain “Dean’s 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat-Type T. Muskeget, being a hasty conversion during an explosive increase in the size of the USCG, had to make do with whatever gear she could get and that included boats. Lack of the customary ship’s boats was partially rectified by the issue of an available 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat-Type T.
028 MAY 1941 2200 on the flag bridge of TG39.1 USS North Carolina BB-55 Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt had alot to think about. He also had spent some time listening to the butchery of HX-123 by that Nazi Capital ship. Was it Bismarck or Prince Eugene or both? He was sure His TG, barring very bad luck, would be able to put both those Nazis on the bottom. How many of TG39.1 would be left was anyone's guess. He did have great faith in Ching Lee's gunnery and that new TC was certainly making a big difference. His kids were trained but not even blooded yet. Aside from a few of his senior POs and Officers none had seen any real action, certainly not against major units of a modern fleet and that included himself and Ching.
He had received a back channel from Ernie king, who also was monitoring the situation and told to make for HX-123's datum and be prepared for whatever popped up. King was in contact with Lahey who was close to FDR and Lahey told him to "Hang tight and hang tough" because Franklyn was absolutely livid. Hewitt acknlowkledge King's order and requested a tanker to unrep TG39.1 no later than 1200 30 May. He would unrep his always thirsty cans from North Carolina and Brooklyn on the run in but he would need that tanker's fuel to keep his TG at sea for what was sure to come. So he gave the order to his TG39.1 to come to an intercept course at 25 kts for the datum of HX-123 with his DDs in a bent line screen and Brooklyn in column astern at standard distance from BB-35. His navigator estimated it would take 20 hours to reach the area, about 1800 tomorrow. He ordered TG39.1 to a modified EMCON Able, no radio transmissions they would signal by light or flag hoist for now with just one surface and air search radar radiating and that was from BB-35. He also ordered his BB and CA Cos to make their Scout planes ready for constant long range searches, objective? Find the German raiders before they found them. He then told his Duty watch officer the CoStaff and he were headed down to Ching Lee's TC to work out the next few moves.
28 MAY 1941 2210 Kapitäns zur See Lindemann’s Bismarck receives an update on the “convoy” he is to engage. Based on a very recent U-boat report it is a single, very large ship, probably a converted ocean liner transport, travelling at 25 kts. BdU provided Lindemann a new datum with a course of 300. Furthermore, info provided by agents in Halifax about not so secret preparations being made to receive one of His Majesty’s Transports (HMT), possibly Queen Mary, with a cargo of Free French and Polish recruits ( the equivalent of a fighting division), for training in Canada in a few days. BdU orders Vizeadmiral (Rear Admiral, upper half) Brinkmann to sink that ship if at all possible.
An urgent conference with his XO and Navigator at the chart table convinces Lindemann it will be close but they can intercept the HMT but not until after dark. He orders a course and speed to make contact with the HMT at 0500 tomorrow. Before engaging, he wants his Arado to make a thorough search of the area for enemy units. He wants the kill but not at the expense of damage to his ship. He totally agrees with Brinkman killing as many convoys as possible is still his primary mission.
28 MAY 1941 2215 Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR is not a happy man. The RN has been thrashed by those big bastards Bismarck and Prince Eugene who are somewhere between him and Nova Scotia. The Admiralty has ordered him to be vigilant but refused to provide him an escort (the damn bastards probably don't have any spare battleships at present). Their Lordships have graciously allowed him to use his own judgement in selecting a more southerly course for the present BUT his orders are still to get his ship to Halifax and under the protection of it's patrol aircraft as soon as possible.
His lovely Queen carried and he was totally responsible for 5,000 Free French, and 1,500 Norwegion and other recruits from all over occupied Europe coming to join there countrymen already training in Canada. She also had embarked 3,500 combat veteran Polish soldiers and another 6,000 Polish recruits who were to reconstitute the Polish First Grenadier Division. To that he added 700 wounded requiring extended convalescence before being returned to their Army, Navy and RAF units, all very valuable men, many experts in their fields and a medical staff of 68. HMS Queen Mary was over loaded, as usual. Well his passengers were soldiers, or almost soldiers and like his own crew, had to make the best of things.
Merle and The Queen were both press ganged into the RN in early 1940. He went through a short but valuable refresher course before being assigned as her "Jimmy The One" (XO); she went into the yards for a very fast conversion as an HMT. The captain had been too old for the man killing job and had been transferred to "command "a Stone frigate and he got bumped up to Captain. His Queen, a former Cunard Liner, was a very formidable ship. She was launched in 1936 a product of John Brown & Co., LTD., Clydebank, Scotland. She was powered by Sixteen geared turbines - Quadruple screws; her Length was 1,019.5 feet; Beam: 118 feet; of 81,237 GRT.
What he was counting on was her flank speed of 28.5 kts to save her. That speed convinced Their Lords at the Admiralty she did not require convoy escort. Against most U-Boat situations he agreed but these two murderous surface raiders were a different matter entirely. He had little faith in the few guns the yards had bolted on as an after thought. No radar of course but she still had the best “galley” and more than a few of her former chefs had also been “Forceably Recruited into “The Andrew”. It was a wonder to him what real chefs could do with RN rations. He also knew the meals for the ship’s crew and maybe the nursing staff would be excellent. These culinary pros, even when augmented (more like hampered ) by “passengers” with supposed cooking experience, could and did manage much more than the basic army chow for the rest of the Queen’s “guests”, probably the very best meals those soldiers would ever get at HM’s expense.
What he could do and the senior passengers wholeheartedly approved of was to train the best of their men in Firefighting and damage control under the tutalage of his long service RN petty officers. With luck, something the RN has not had much of lately, that just might save a lot of lives. He also was provided with “trained” artilerists and machine gunners to assist his own guns’ crews. Might be of value against aircraft but hardly make a differnce aghainst the surface raiders. If those big bruisers found them His Queen was dead meat. As a RNR commissioned RN officer commanding one of His Majesties “Warships” he was abliged to signal the admiralty of the locations and a description of his attacker. The ruthless Nazi’s, with their Teutonic efficiency, certainly would be ready to jam his signal and blow his beautiful but thin skinned liner out of the water at his very first radio transmission, probably not even heard by the RN.
All those souls were on his conscience. If he survived he’d be a damn hero to the RN but his merchant navy chums would never forgive him for wasting all those young lives for nothing. If he still had any courage he’d blow out his brains and if, more likely if he did not, there was always the bottle and a much more degrading and slower way of committing suicide. At that he took another pull at his double whiskey!
29 MAY 1941 0345 Oberleutnant (AKA First Lt & Flying officer) "Ritter" Willi von Klugermann having completed all his preflight checks along with his trusted observer with the eyes of a hawk Feldwebel (AKA Tech & Flight Sgt. ) Bruno Stachel awaited the signal to be shot off for their morning recon flight. The briefing made it clear they had a very big game today.
Aboard the HMT Queen Mary the last manned and ready report for dawn Battle Stations had just been recieved by Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR. As always securing the water tight doors in the passenger compartments took much longer than was acceptable. He'd tear a good strip of skin His Jimmy over that...again. The day was breaking as good as at got this far north in the Atlantic. He really could have done with some dirty weather to hide in but he was sure his passengers preferred it calm and sunny. Real fools in his opinion. His stewart had brought him his first mug of rum lightly laced Formosa Oolong tea. It was going down well, as always. At this speed and on this less than direct SW course it was three days until he sighted Sambro Light. His sister Phyllis had immigrated to
Fergusons Cove in '38 along with her Canadian boat building foreman Husband Bill and their son Willie. It would be a really great visit if the damn RN just gave him a few days in Halifax. He had no idea what his next "cargo" would be or where they would send His Queen next. Well time to sweep the horizon again.
29 MAY 1941 0400 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel began their head swivelling search after they were shot off Bismarck and began climbing to medium altitude for the moning's recon. It was known for something to appear close aboard that the ship's radar and lookouts had not noticed right after launch. It could well save all their lives so vigilance was the watch word. The navigator had given Stachel his best guess as to where the big HMT would be. Now "Ritter" was on that intercept bearing at his Arado's best cruising speed. He'd stay on this course until he was far enough out to make a 360 search around Bismarck of any value and then return to the intercept corpen. He had a full weapon's load out for this trip but the XO had warned him his Arado was more valuable than his skin (they had a few extra pilots) so don't risk the crate but it would be OK to drop Feldwebel Stachel onto the deck of any Handelswanne (Merchant Tub) with his swiss army knife.
29 MAY 1941 0407 Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt was sitting, bolt upright in his Flag Bridge chair aboard USS North Carolina BB-55, with a steaming cup of his own special blend of coffee spiked with a half shot of cognac (RHIP you know but he didn't push it too far). He was observing the station keeping of USS Brooklyn CL-40 , USS Kearny DD-432 Gleaves-class, USS Dunlap DD-384 Mahan class CO Lt.Cdr. Carl Hilton Bushnell, USN and USS Benson DD-421 Benson class that comprised his command TG39.1. One of his SOCs had just launched. He did not know it but it was piloted by LTJG Butch O’hare. Butch was a graduate from the Western Military Academy in 1932. The following year, he went on to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. After he graduated and was commissioned as an ensign on June 3, 1937, he served two years on the battleship USS New Mexico. In 1939, he started flight training at NAS Pensacola in Florida, flying the Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-1 "Yellow Peril" and Stearman NS-1 biplane trainers, and later the advanced SNJ trainer.
When Butch finished his naval aviation training on 2 March 1940, he was assigned to observation Squadron Three (VO-3) for type training in the Curtiss (SOC) Seagull. The Seagull was far from the hottest airplane in the US Navy and something of a disappointment to LTJG Butch O’hare but he'd work his way into Wildcats somehow. He knew the SOC was became operation in 1935 and there had been over 400 delivered to the navy to date. He also knew his rather dull steed's General characteristics., Crew of two, pilot and observer, Length: 31 ft 5 in,Wingspan: 36 ft 0 in, Height: 14 ft 9 in , Wing area: 342 sq ft, Empty weight: 3,788 lb, Gross weight: 5,437 lbs.
The Soc's performance was on the whole nothing to write home about with a Powerplantof 1 × Pratt & Whitney R-1340-18 singRate of climb: 915 ft/min, Maximum speed: 165 mph, at 5,000 ft , Cruise speed: 116 kn, Stall speed: 55.9 mph, Range: was not bad at all at 587 nmi at 5,000 ft , Service ceiling: 14,900 ft and Rate of climb: 915 ft/min. Were adequate.
However the SOC's armament certainly was not with only 1 fixed, forward firing 0.30 cal Browning M2 AN and 1 flexible mounted rear-firing 0.30 cal Browning M2 AN machine guns.
29 MAY 1941 0430 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel were at search altitude, had conducted their first 360 search, conditions were excellent and they found absolutely nothing but open ocean. Stachel gave "Ritter" a new intercept course and time to their search area.
Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR aboard Queen Mary gave permission to stand down from dawn battle stations. Now the 18 hour a day monotonous chore of feeding the passengers could continue. He was for a shower, breakfast and tackle the endless things that made the CO of a major ship a busy man. He would be a very busy man, for a while this fine moring, the last for many aboard His Queen but he wasn't to know that, quite yet.
29 MAY 1941 0600 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel had been flying an expanding "Box" searcgh pattern for 28 minutes when Stachel's extroadinary eyes spotted a bump on the horizon at about 9 O'clock. He informed the "Ritter" who imediately put the stick over and closed on the contact . Stachel had his excellent Ziess 7 by 50 binoculars on the the ship. Jah, she was a lone liner making about 25 kts and heading about 250 degrees. Another 5 minutes of ever closer observation convinced both of them it was the Queen Mary, now one of the RN's HMTs painted gray with a few pop guns. A "trooper" and one hell of a kill to mark up for The Prince. He was sorely tempted to put both his 110 lb bombs right down her funnels and then gun the bridge with his 20mm and MGs for good measure BUT Lindemann would nail him to the mast for disobeying HIS orders and risking HIS Arado like that. So, since he was under strict "Radio Silence" made a 50 mile wide circular search before he headed back to The Prince to deliver his sighting report. Last thing he wanted for the Price to show up only to find the RN was trailing Queen Mary with a cruiser of two. Feldwebel Stachel was wondering, while he maintained his usual excellent visul scan of his sectors if the Kreagsmarine was really as superior as recent ops had suggested or was the royal Navy just having a spell of bad luck? What he did not know was the RN was stretched much too far and was working it's much reduced number of ships and men half to death. Tired men and too few worn out ships were what the RN had here and now to fight with. The bright side for the RN was the "Hostilities Only" Officers and Ratings were proving to be much better "sailors" than anyone pre war would have thought. In fact they were fast approaching the point they could take up the strain from the RN Regulars.
29 MAY 1941 0610 Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville commanding Force H was watching Ark Royal steaming into the wind to launch another Recon sortie of 3 Fairey Fulmars, a damn good scout and absolutely terrible fighter but more than a match for any number of Arados, in search of Bismarck and Prince Eugene. The Admiralty, in their quite fallible wisdom, had originally positioned the TG to stop them if they made a run south of Land's End, though the Bay of Biscay for the French coast. The massacre of HX-123 had provided their Lordships with a "Flaming Datum". Admiral Tovey immediately ordered Force H to proceed, at best practical speed to that point. Tovey desperately needed as many aerial scouts as possible to reestablish contact with TG Lutgens ; now TG Brinkmann. His PBY's and Sutherland long range patrol aircraft had proven disappointingly ineffective in this hunt for those two damn Nazi raiders. He would arrange for a tanker rendezous on route so that Somerville could persue the Nazi Butchers at high speed for a long time.
Force H did appeared to the layman, junior officers and ratings to be a formidable obstacle. Both Tovey and Somerville knew otherwise. Renown was Somerville's flag ship and a battlecuiser like Hood , with similar fatally weak armor compared to a battleship. Tovey initially ordered her captain not to close within range of Bismarck alone; that order was rescinded as these were desperate times.
HMS Renown, "Refit" to her crew, was of 32,000 tons, 31 knots Battle Cruiser with 3 twin 15 inch guns, 10 twin 4.5 in DP guns, 3 octuple 40 mm AA guns and 4 float planes. She ,like Hood, was an "Eggshell armed with sledge hammers." Her armor was no match for Bismarck and might even be defeated by a lucky hit from The Prince
She had a splendid WW II war record From 1936-39 (thus her Nickname) the ship was completely rebuilt and re-engined at a cost of over £3,000,000, equal to the original expense of construction. Her first action after recommissioning was with the German battleship Scharnhorst and cruiser Admiral Hipper, off Northern Norway, in April 1940. After the Scharnhorst had been hit the enemy vessels managed to break off the engagement under cover of heavy weather. Not long afterwards the Renown became the flagship of Sir James Somerville in the Western Mediterranean. After engaging two Italian battleships at long range off Sardinia, she took part in the bombardment of Genoa.
The cruiser Sheffield was fast and agile enough to shadow the enemy and keep Tovey appraised of Bismarck's location, but was no match for the Bismarck and had only about an even chance against Prince Eugen.e
The third ship of Force H, Ark Royal Pennant number: 91, offered the best hope of engaging an undmaged enemy successfully but her Air Group was drastically under strength.
Force H also included the modern destroyers Duncan, Iris, Encounter, Jupiter, Jersey, Fortune, Firedrake, Fury, Foresight & Fearless. The cans were of different classes but they were all roughly the same excellent modern Destroyers. Take HMS Duncan with a speed of 36 knots and armament of 4 4 4 QF 4.7-inch Mark IX guns, 1 3 in AA) gun, 2 single QF 2-pounder Mk II AA guns, 20 depth charges, 1 rail and 2 thrower
AND
2 quadruple 21 inch torpedo tubes armed with the now deadly accurate and reliable MK IX.
Mk IX had a ship killing 750 lbs. TNT warhead but it's top speed of only 36 kts at 10,500 yards was outclassed by the 40+ kt average of many of the wrold's torpedoes. The gold standard Japanese Type 93 armed with a 1,080 lbs. warhead, made 36-38 knots at an astounding 43,700 yards, 40-42 knot at 35,000 yards and 48-50 knots at 21,900 yards.
Bismarck and Prince Eugene carried the steam powered G7 torpedoes with a standard torpedo warhead was 617lbs of TNT/HND/AL (a mixture of hexanitrophenylamine, trinitrotoluene and aluminum) and had three preset speeds – 44 knots at 5,000 yds, 40 knots at 7,500 ydsa dn 30 knots at 12,500 yds.
Asrk Royal was designed under the Washington Naval Treaty, built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead,England, and completed in November 1938. Ark Royal was the first ship on which the hangars and flight deck were an integral part of the hull, instead of an add-on or part of the superstructure. She was designed to carry a large number of aircraft and had two hangar decks. Ark Royal was modern and powerful warship her boilers making 102,000 shp driving 3 shafts from 3 geared steam turbines for a flank speed of 31 knots; she had a max range of 7,600 nmi at 20 knots at 30 kts it was greatly reduced hence Tovey's tanker support. 200 HP / 43,700 y Burner-cycle, 264 hp @ 41 kThe "Ark" was designed in 1934 to fit the restrictions of the Ark Roya Her Complement of 1,580 officers and ratings manned 8 twin 4.5 in DP guns; 4 quadruple 40 mms and 8 quadruple .50 caliber AA Mgs; Armor a 4.5 inch belt, 3.5 over Deck boiler rooms and magazines. So she was no match for the prince let alone Bismarck during darkness. Lucky for her there was only 5 hours of darkness where TG Brinkmann was doing it's murdering and therefore 19 hours of flight operations, unless the North Atlantic decided to throw some very dirty weather their way.
The Ark" was capable of operating 60 aircraft, she, like Victorious, had an incomplete complement of only 11 Fairey Swordfish biplane bombers. The upside for the RN was, these planes were flown by some of the most experienced airmen in the Royal Navy. Actually he was damn glad to carry the "Old String Bag" had proven herself in The Med, granted those were Italians not Germans, even if she looked like she belonged at Jutlland.
She was "designed" to carry 72 birds but actually could only manage 50–60. At this time she normally carried 36 Fairey Swordfish and 18 Fairey Fulmars but was very short handed now and only had 11 Swordfish. The Ops in the Med had taken a very heavy tole on the string bags and she had army Tomahawks aboard for a ferry mission cut short when Bismarck broke out.
Thanks Steve Good catch
Fairey Swordfish Mk.1 was Mid-sized biplane torpedo bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The The Fiaiey Swordfish employed a metal airframe covered in fabric. It had folding wings as a space-saving measure. In service, it received the nickname Stringbag; this was not due to its biplane struts, spars, and braces, but a reference to the seemingly endless variety of stores and equipment that the type was cleared to carry. Crews likened the aircraft to a housewife's string shopping bag, common at the time and which could accommodate contents of any shape, and that a Swordfish, like the shopping bag, could carry anything. She was used operationally for Scouting (now with her AVS set Radar search), ASW, Torpedo delivery and even a perfectly capable Dive bomber.
Fairey reasons for maintaining it's biplane configuration however at the time sounded reasonable and well-thought out. The biplane configuration was already well-known and ensured a quicker development than a brand new venture (a leap the company made already years ago with the Hendon, not a sucess). The biplane configuration advantages largely matched its role: Priority was range, not speed. It was believed at the time that reconnaissance aircraft needed to be either biplanes or parasol monoplanes to ensure the best visibility. Cantilever monoplanes were notorious for their poor all-round visibility, akin the extreme competition planes that were developed. A biplane had more range and also more stability, which was ideal, both for reconnaissance and dropping a torpedo perfectly in line. It was also a configuration ideal for the well-winded decks of aircraft carriers and landed more smoothly, and on shorter distances. 27,720 long tons full load; had a length of 800 of 94 ft and draft Ark Royal was a powerful, modern warship. The Ops in the Med had taken a very heavy tole on the string bags and she had army Tomahawks aboard for a ferry mission cut short when Bismarck broke out. Unfortunately, the Fulmars were not much help in attacking warships. Fulmars had very good endurance of six-hours at 140mph for reconnaissance, or three-hours at 175mph as an escort. Her top speed of 265mph at 10,000ft was nothing to brag about. She did a very good main armament of eight fixed forward 0.303in machineguns with at least 400 rounds per gun but no flexible mount aft for the observer. It was also supposed to carry two 250lb bombs but rearely did. The MK Is used at thsi time were not considered Dive Bombers and when used glide bombers they were very vulnerable to FLAK.
29 MAY 1941 0715 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel were in a tight low level circle of Bismarck. Feldwebel Stachel had just signalled posit, ID and course and speed of Queen Mary to Lindemann
029 MAY 1941 0800 Captain Lt Dennis Moultron orders USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) to general quarters . He then comes up on the 1MC (general annoucing over speakers) “This is NO DRILL. That is all. Carry on.” If there was anybody aboard Muskeget who did not know as much as he did about this little rescue mission he was far too stupid for the Coast Guard and should have joined the navy.
029 MAY 1941 0930 USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) arrives in the vicinity of HX-123’s last reported position early ( thanks to Cheng and his Black Gang squeezing more turns out of the old girl than anyone but them expected ) and finds nothing within visual range. Muskeget’s CO, Lt Dennis Moultron, orders a modified expanded square search favoring down wind, BM2C Coxswain “Dean” and his boat’s crew to muster at his Type T, 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat and for the davit crew to make all preps for an immediate launching.
029 MAY 1941 0953 (WAG-48) passes through a stinking. bunker oil slick dotted with debris and the obscene bodies of life jacketed dead seaman. Moultron orders the Motor lifeboat launched to look for life, not that there was much chance of anyone surviving for 10 hours in the North Atlantic without a lifeboat or a raft but he had to try. Against all odds they found Robert Squires AB, Crackers’ Rushall – born in New York but now an AB in the RN, Joseph Hill ‘The Pusser’(Supply Officer) and his number two, CPO Tom Hanlon, All from HMS AMC Derbyshire.
Muskeget’s 36 footer also picked up Pos John ‘Jack’ Barker, Harry ‘Tiddley’ Bonneyand and John Aylard (coder) from HMS Chelsea.
029 MAY 1941 1100 (WAG-48) CO Moultron ordered his boat recalled and directed the OOD to double the lookouts and resume a normal expanding square search at standard speed as soon as the boat was recovered. He knew HX-123’s commodore had ordered the convoy to scatter prior to contact with the raider so they or, their boats and rafts, could be anywhere accept in the direction the raider was coming from. He was going below to talk to the survivors, if any of them were in condition to. Got to figure these Lymies had to be damn tough to survive the massacre and 10 hours in the North Atlantic so there might be a chance of getting something useful out of them. The very newly commissioned USCGR LTJG “Saw Bones” now knew better than to argue with the CO. He came aboard with the insane ideas that he outranked Moultron in medical matters. The XO and his Chief disabused the brilliant young man of that notion.
29 MAY 1941 1430 Under Dover Castle at Commander-in-Chief Dover's HQ, Wren PO Pamela Lee answered Vice-Admiral Dover's private line. "This is Churchill get Vice-Admiral Ramsay on the line immediately." Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, MVO was summoned from his operations room and made it to his private, very secure line, in just under 9 minutes.
Ramsay " Ramsay here Sir, sorry for the delay."
Churchill "No time for regrets Bertie; not much time for any decencies these days. I am relieving Tovey. You will replace him. I want you in London Tomorrow. Turn over Dover to your second for now. We will talk more about this later. For now get cracking."
Ramsay "Aye, Aye sir." At that the line went dead.
"Ramsay" "Petty Officer Lee ring my aide, he's in operations, and have him assemble the staff chiefs in my office in 15 minutes." Ever since "Dynamo" and King George VI subsequently made him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath there had been talk that he would eventaully command "the whole Bloody Andrew" before he was finished. He had to admit he did think he had a fair chance but never thought it would happen this fast. After all he was only a Vice-Admiral and that was an Admiral's job surely.
10 downing St. London the PM's office. Winston sat back with a Whiskey and a good cigar. He really didn't like himself right now. John Tovey, a real friend and a very good Admiral had to go and he was the one who had to kick him in the crotch. The hue and cry after the Denmark Straight fiasco had not yet died down with recriminations flying everywhere and many of them lighting on him. Now the very public destruction of HX-123 was really feeling the flames and it was so bad he and his cabinet could well fall. In his opinion that would be a major diaster and possibly cost the UK the war. He had to have some raw meet to toss to the wolves at Question Time" today to survive.
The Hero of Dunkirk Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, , everyone thought the Navy had done something right that time, was for polticial as well as professional and practical reasons the best man for the job. God help the poor bastard because he would have to make good very quickly or he would be sacrificed. Well being PM was a right bastard's job, the nation was lucky they had one named Winston available.
29 MAY 1941 1500 RN HQ Bunker under the Admiralty in London Signal Wren answered Admiral Tovey's private line to Churchill's Bunker. "This is Churchill get Admiral Tovey on the line imediately." It took Admiral of the Fleet John Cronyn Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO less than five minutes to pick up the phone. "Tovey here Sir"
Churchill "I am relieving you John. Ramsay is your successor and should be there sometime tomorrow. I expect you to stay on the job for just as long as it takes for you and Ramsay to agree you have brought him up to speed on our current operations. I must announce your future departure at Questions Time tomorrow in the Commons at Noon.
Tovey "Aye, Aye sir . I will do everything in my power to assist Bertie.
Churchill "I want you to know John I am very sorry it has come to this. I would like to personally thank you for what you have done. Think about where you would like to serve next because we need you desperately. If at all possible I will see you get that job.
Tovey "That is very kind of you Sir. I must admit I was surprised you didn't "chuck" me after the Denmark Straight but I can see the all too public massacre of HX-123 and the damn Fleet Street hue and cry has tied your hands."
Churchill "John I have some experience being sacked for circumstances well beyond my control. I know your value and both weighed heavily in my decision to keep you on. When we have time, God alone knows when that will be, I would be delighted if you and Helen would join Clemmie and I at Checkers for a weekend."
At that the line went dead. The PM was on to other things and soon not to be Fleet Admiral John Cronyn Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO, hung up the hand set. Tovey told his aide to have the senior staff join him in his office in a quarter hour. Tovey smiled at the aide and added "I have a bit of news to give them." Tovey's mind then turned to how best he could ease Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, MVO into his new job as quickly as possible. Despite what the PM said he did not think it wise for him to be hanging around this headquarters as Bertie took up the reins of his new job. Just as a relieved skipper did no favors to his successor by being around to be compared to the former.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 1, 2022 10:43:25 GMT
Sep 1 0600 UPDATE THE SHOWBOAT engages THE IRON CHANCELLOR Green is the new stuff Blue is old stuff I think is necessary to support new stuff
028 MAY 1941 2155 USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) was SouthEast of Greenland about 125 miles from HX-123’s survivors on station, transmitting current conditions every 4 hours to 1st CG District in Boston. Her Co Lt Dennis Moultron, 1931 graduate of the CG Academy, was in radio central along with the Commo and RMC “Wild BillY” Donovan and the rest of the 20-24 watch. Aside from the chatter of the Teletypes and the hum of the HF radio transcievers it was dead silent. The men, mostyly kids, had been listening to the death throes of HX-123 as in utter desperation the individual ships of the doomed convoy broadcast May Days, their position, the fact that they were under attack by a Nazi Capital ship and other frantic messages in the clear as they were summarily executed by The Prince.
WAG-48 was classified as a Patrol vessel and weather ship. Her one Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Company triple-expansion steam engine could push her at about 11 knots in the current moderate sea state. He could be at HX-123’s datum in about in 12 hours. She might be in time to save those merchy seaman who made it into life boats and rafts. WAG-48 did not have radar. But in May this far North she would arrive at about 1000 and that was broad daylight so his lookouts should be able to spot lifeboats and rafts in the general vicinity of the datum. He and his 116 officers and men were Coasties and saving lives at sea no matter the danger was what Coasties did. Commandant First CG District in Boston had been kept aware of what was going on and he was a Coastie also. He agreed with Lt Moultron 125 miles SE would still keep Muskeget in a position to monitor and report on the weather in her sector , her primary mission.
Muskeget was carrying a Doctor thanks to FDR’s state of emergency which was already filling the USCG with reservists including doctors. WAG-48 also carried a Chief (who had been a 2nd class with ten years service only a year ago) and two 3rd class Hospital corpsmen (green as grass), along with a well stocked, if little used sick bay . Moultron was pretty sure that would change in 12 hours.
There was no way he could take on that big Nazi raider with a single 4”/50, two single 50 Cal M2 HMGs and two Lewis machine guns; two depth charge rails and various obselescent small arms. Fortunately he would not have to. He didn’t think that bastard Hitler wanted war with the US and sinking Muskeget would certainly risk that. He also knew he could not initiate an engagement either. He prayed their would be work for BM2C Coxswain “Dean’s 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat-Type T. Muskeget, being a hasty conversion during an explosive increase in the size of the USCG, had to make do with whatever gear she could get and that included boats. Lack of the customary ship’s boats was partially rectified by the issue of an available 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat-Type T.
028 MAY 1941 2200 on the flag bridge of TG39.1 USS North Carolina BB-55 Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt had alot to think about. He also had spent some time listening to the butchery of HX-123 by that Nazi Capital ship. Was it Bismarck or Prince Eugene or both? He was sure His TG, barring very bad luck, would be able to put both those Nazis on the bottom. How many of TG39.1 would be left was anyone's guess. He did have great faith in Ching Lee's gunnery and that new TC was certainly making a big difference. His kids were trained but not even blooded yet. Aside from a few of his senior POs and Officers none had seen any real action, certainly not against major units of a modern fleet and that included himself and Ching.
He had received a back channel from Ernie king, who also was monitoring the situation and told to make for HX-123's datum and be prepared for whatever popped up. King was in contact with Lahey who was close to FDR and Lahey told him to "Hang tight and hang tough" because Franklyn was absolutely livid. Hewitt acknlowkledge King's order and requested a tanker to unrep TG39.1 no later than 1200 30 May. He would unrep his always thirsty cans from North Carolina and Brooklyn on the run in but he would need that tanker's fuel to keep his TG at sea for what was sure to come. So he gave the order to his TG39.1 to come to an intercept course at 25 kts for the datum of HX-123 with his DDs in a bent line screen and Brooklyn in column astern at standard distance from BB-35. His navigator estimated it would take 20 hours to reach the area, about 1800 tomorrow. He ordered TG39.1 to a modified EMCON Able, no radio transmissions they would signal by light or flag hoist for now with just one surface and air search radar radiating and that was from BB-35. He also ordered his BB and CA Cos to make their Scout planes ready for constant long range searches, objective? Find the German raiders before they found them. He then told his Duty watch officer the CoStaff and he were headed down to Ching Lee's TC to work out the next few moves.
28 MAY 1941 2210 Kapitäns zur See Lindemann’s Bismarck receives an update on the “convoy” he is to engage. Based on a very recent U-boat report it is a single, very large ship, probably a converted ocean liner transport, travelling at 25 kts. BdU provided Lindemann a new datum with a course of 300. Furthermore, info provided by agents in Halifax about not so secret preparations being made to receive one of His Majesty’s Transports (HMT), possibly Queen Mary, with a cargo of Free French and Polish recruits ( the equivalent of a fighting division), for training in Canada in a few days. BdU orders Vizeadmiral (Rear Admiral, upper half) Brinkmann to sink that ship if at all possible.
An urgent conference with his XO and Navigator at the chart table convinces Lindemann it will be close but they can intercept the HMT but not until after dark. He orders a course and speed to make contact with the HMT at 0500 tomorrow. Before engaging, he wants his Arado to make a thorough search of the area for enemy units. He wants the kill but not at the expense of damage to his ship. He totally agrees with Brinkman killing as many convoys as possible is still his primary mission.
28 MAY 1941 2215 Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR is not a happy man. The RN has been thrashed by those big bastards Bismarck and Prince Eugene who are somewhere between him and Nova Scotia. The Admiralty has ordered him to be vigilant but refused to provide him an escort (the damn bastards probably don't have any spare battleships at present). Their Lordships have graciously allowed him to use his own judgement in selecting a more southerly course for the present BUT his orders are still to get his ship to Halifax and under the protection of it's patrol aircraft as soon as possible.
His lovely Queen carried and he was totally responsible for 5,000 Free French, and 1,500 Norwegion and other recruits from all over occupied Europe coming to join there countrymen already training in Canada. She also had embarked 3,500 combat veteran Polish soldiers and another 6,000 Polish recruits who were to reconstitute the Polish First Grenadier Division. To that he added 700 wounded requiring extended convalescence before being returned to their Army, Navy and RAF units, all very valuable men, many experts in their fields and a medical staff of 68. HMS Queen Mary was over loaded, as usual. Well his passengers were soldiers, or almost soldiers and like his own crew, had to make the best of things.
Merle and The Queen were both press ganged into the RN in early 1940. He went through a short but valuable refresher course before being assigned as her "Jimmy The One" (XO); she went into the yards for a very fast conversion as an HMT. The captain had been too old for the man killing job and had been transferred to "command "a Stone frigate and he got bumped up to Captain. His Queen, a former Cunard Liner, was a very formidable ship. She was launched in 1936 a product of John Brown & Co., LTD., Clydebank, Scotland. She was powered by Sixteen geared turbines - Quadruple screws; her Length was 1,019.5 feet; Beam: 118 feet; of 81,237 GRT.
What he was counting on was her flank speed of 28.5 kts to save her. That speed convinced Their Lords at the Admiralty she did not require convoy escort. Against most U-Boat situations he agreed but these two murderous surface raiders were a different matter entirely. He had little faith in the few guns the yards had bolted on as an after thought. No radar of course but she still had the best “galley” and more than a few of her former chefs had also been “Forceably Recruited into “The Andrew”. It was a wonder to him what real chefs could do with RN rations. He also knew the meals for the ship’s crew and maybe the nursing staff would be excellent. These culinary pros, even when augmented (more like hampered ) by “passengers” with supposed cooking experience, could and did manage much more than the basic army chow for the rest of the Queen’s “guests”, probably the very best meals those soldiers would ever get at HM’s expense.
What he could do and the senior passengers wholeheartedly approved of was to train the best of their men in Firefighting and damage control under the tutalage of his long service RN petty officers. With luck, something the RN has not had much of lately, that just might save a lot of lives.
He also was provided with “trained” artilerists and machine gunners to assist his own guns’ crews. Might be of value against aircraft but hardly make a differnce aghainst the surface raiders. If those big bruisers found them His Queen was dead meat. As a RNR commissioned RN officer commanding one of His Majesties “Warships” he was abliged to signal the admiralty of the locations and a description of his attacker. The ruthless Nazi’s, with their Teutonic efficiency, certainly would be ready to jam his signal and blow his beautiful but thin skinned liner out of the water at his very first radio transmission, probably not even heard by the RN.
All those souls were on his conscience. If he survived he’d be a damn hero to the RN but his merchant navy chums would never forgive him for wasting all those young lives for nothing. If he still had any courage he’d blow out his brains and if, more likely if he did not, there was always the bottle and a much more degrading and slower way of committing suicide. At that he took another pull at his double whiskey!
29 MAY 1941 0345 Oberleutnant (AKA First Lt & Flying officer) "Ritter" Willi von Klugermann having completed all his preflight checks along with his trusted observer with the eyes of a hawk Feldwebel (AKA Tech & Flight Sgt. ) Bruno Stachel awaited the signal to be shot off for their morning recon flight. The briefing made it clear they had a very big game today.
Aboard the HMT Queen Mary the last manned and ready report for dawn Battle Stations had just been recieved by Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR. As always securing the water tight doors in the passenger compartments took much longer than was acceptable. He'd tear a good strip of skin His Jimmy over that...again. The day was breaking as good as at got this far north in the Atlantic. He really could have done with some dirty weather to hide in but he was sure his passengers preferred it calm and sunny. Real fools in his opinion. His stewart had brought him his first mug of rum lightly laced Formosa Oolong tea. It was going down well, as always. At this speed and on this less than direct SW course it was three days until he sighted Sambro Light. His sister Phyllis had immigrated to
Fergusons Cove in '38 along with her Canadian boat building foreman Husband Bill and their son Willie. It would be a really great visit if the damn RN just gave him a few days in Halifax. He had no idea what his next "cargo" would be or where they would send His Queen next. Well time to sweep the horizon again.
29 MAY 1941 0400 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel began their head swivelling search after they were shot off Bismarck and began climbing to medium altitude for the moning's recon. It was known for something to appear close aboard that the ship's radar and lookouts had not noticed right after launch. It could well save all their lives so vigilance was the watch word. The navigator had given Stachel his best guess as to where the big HMT would be. Now "Ritter" was on that intercept bearing at his Arado's best cruising speed. He'd stay on this course until he was far enough out to make a 360 search around Bismarck of any value and then return to the intercept corpen. He had a full weapon's load out for this trip but the XO had warned him his Arado was more valuable than his skin (they had a few extra pilots) so don't risk the crate but it would be OK to drop Feldwebel Stachel onto the deck of any Handelswanne (Merchant Tub) with his swiss army knife.
29 MAY 1941 0407 Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt was sitting, bolt upright in his Flag Bridge chair aboard USS North Carolina BB-55, with a steaming cup of his own special blend of coffee spiked with a half shot of cognac (RHIP you know but he didn't push it too far). He was observing the station keeping of USS Brooklyn CL-40 , USS Kearny DD-432 Gleaves-class, USS Dunlap DD-384 Mahan class CO Lt.Cdr. Carl Hilton Bushnell, USN and USS Benson DD-421 Benson class that comprised his command TG39.1. One of his SOCs had just launched. He did not know it but it was piloted by LTJG Butch O’hare.
Butch was a graduate from the Western Military Academy in 1932. The following year, he went on to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. After he graduated and was commissioned as an ensign on June 3, 1937, he served two years on the battleship USS New Mexico. In 1939, he started flight training at NAS Pensacola in Florida, flying the Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-1 "Yellow Peril" and Stearman NS-1 biplane trainers, and later the advanced SNJ trainer.
When Butch finished his naval aviation training on 2 March 1940, he was assigned to observation Squadron Three (VO-3) for type training in the Curtiss (SOC) Seagull. The Seagull was far from the hottest airplane in the US Navy and something of a disappointment to LTJG Butch O’hare but he'd work his way into Wildcats somehow. He knew the SOC was became operation in 1935 and there had been over 400 delivered to the navy to date.
He also knew his rather dull steed's General characteristics., Crew of two, pilot and observer, Length: 31 ft 5 in,Wingspan: 36 ft 0 in, Height: 14 ft 9 in , Wing area: 342 sq ft, Empty weight: 3,788 lb, Gross weight: 5,437 lbs.
The Soc's performance was on the whole nothing to write home about with a Powerplantof 1 × Pratt & Whitney R-1340-18 singRate of climb: 915 ft/min, Maximum speed: 165 mph, at 5,000 ft , Cruise speed: 116 kn, Stall speed: 55.9 mph, Range: was not bad at all at 587 nmi at 5,000 ft , Service ceiling: 14,900 ft and Rate of climb: 915 ft/min. Were adequate.
However the SOC's armament certainly was not with only 1 fixed, forward firing 0.30 cal Browning M2 AN and 1 flexible mounted rear-firing 0.30 cal Browning M2 AN machine guns.
29 MAY 1941 0430 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel were at search altitude, had conducted their first 360 search, conditions were excellent and they found absolutely nothing but open ocean. Stachel gave "Ritter" a new intercept course and time to their search area.
Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR aboard Queen Mary gave permission to stand down from dawn battle stations. Now the 18 hour a day monotonous chore of feeding the passengers could continue. He was for a shower, breakfast and tackle the endless things that made the CO of a major ship a busy man. He would be a very busy man, for a while this fine moring, the last for many aboard His Queen but he wasn't to know that, quite yet.
29 MAY 1941 0600 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel had been flying an expanding "Box" searcgh pattern for 28 minutes when Stachel's extroadinary eyes spotted a bump on the horizon at about 9 O'clock. He informed the "Ritter" who imediately put the stick over and closed on the contact . Stachel had his excellent Ziess 7 by 50 binoculars on the the ship. Jah, she was a lone liner making about 25 kts and heading about 250 degrees. Another 5 minutes of ever closer observation convinced both of them it was the Queen Mary, now one of the RN's HMTs painted gray with a few pop guns. A "trooper" and one hell of a kill to mark up for The Prince. He was sorely tempted to put both his 110 lb bombs right down her funnels and then gun the bridge with his 20mm and MGs for good measure
BUT Lindemann would nail him to the mast for disobeying HIS orders and risking HIS Arado like that. So, since he was under strict "Radio Silence" made a 50 mile wide circular search before he headed back to The Prince to deliver his sighting report. Last thing he wanted for the Price to show up only to find the RN was trailing Queen Mary with a cruiser of two. Feldwebel Stachel was wondering, while he maintained his usual excellent visul scan of his sectors if the Kreagsmarine was really as superior as recent ops had suggested or was the royal Navy just having a spell of bad luck? What he did not know was the RN was stretched much too far and was working it's much reduced number of ships and men half to death. Tired men and too few worn out ships were what the RN had here and now to fight with. The bright side for the RN was the "Hostilities Only" Officers and Ratings were proving to be much better "sailors" than anyone pre war would have thought. In fact they were fast approaching the point they could take up the strain from the RN Regulars.
29 MAY 1941 0610 Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville commanding Force H was watching Ark Royal steaming into the wind to launch another Recon sortie of 3 Fairey Fulmars, a damn good scout and absolutely terrible fighter but more than a match for any number of Arados, in search of Bismarck and Prince Eugene. The Admiralty, in their quite fallible wisdom, had originally positioned the TG to stop them if they made a run south of Land's End, though the Bay of Biscay for the French coast. The massacre of HX-123 had provided their Lordships with a "Flaming Datum". Admiral Tovey immediately ordered Force H to proceed, at best practical speed to that point. Tovey desperately needed as many aerial scouts as possible to reestablish contact with TG Lutgens ; now TG Brinkmann. His PBY's and Sutherland long range patrol aircraft had proven disappointingly ineffective in this hunt for those two damn Nazi raiders. He would arrange for a tanker rendezous on route so that Somerville could persue the Nazi Butchers at high speed for a long time.
Force H did appeared to the layman, junior officers and ratings to be a formidable obstacle. Both Tovey and Somerville knew otherwise. Renown was Somerville's flag ship and a battlecuiser like Hood , with similar fatally weak armor compared to a battleship. Tovey initially ordered her captain not to close within range of Bismarck alone; that order was rescinded as these were desperate times.
HMS Renown, "Refit" to her crew, was of 32,000 tons, 31 knots Battle Cruiser with 3 twin 15 inch guns, 10 twin 4.5 in DP guns, 3 octuple 40 mm AA guns and 4 float planes. She ,like Hood, was an "Eggshell armed with sledge hammers." Her armor was no match for Bismarck and might even be defeated by a lucky hit from The Prince
She had a splendid WW II war record From 1936-39 (thus her Nickname) the ship was completely rebuilt and re-engined at a cost of over £3,000,000, equal to the original expense of construction. Her first action after recommissioning was with the German battleship Scharnhorst and cruiser Admiral Hipper, off Northern Norway, in April 1940. After the Scharnhorst had been hit the enemy vessels managed to break off the engagement under cover of heavy weather. Not long afterwards the Renown became the flagship of Sir James Somerville in the Western Mediterranean. After engaging two Italian battleships at long range off Sardinia, she took part in the bombardment of Genoa.
The cruiser Sheffield was fast and agile enough to shadow the enemy and keep Tovey appraised of Bismarck's location, but was no match for the Bismarck and had only about an even chance against Prince Eugen.e
The third ship of Force H, Ark Royal Pennant number: 91, offered the best hope of engaging an undmaged enemy successfully but her Air Group was drastically under strength.
Force H also included the modern destroyers Duncan, Iris, Encounter, Jupiter, Jersey, Fortune, Firedrake, Fury, Foresight & Fearless. The cans were of different classes but they were all roughly the same excellent modern Destroyers. Take HMS Duncan with a speed of 36 knots and armament of 4 4 4 QF 4.7-inch Mark IX guns, 1 3 in AA) gun, 2 single QF 2-pounder Mk II AA guns, 20 depth charges, 1 rail and 2 thrower
AND
2 quadruple 21 inch torpedo tubes armed with the now deadly accurate and reliable MK IX.
Mk IX had a ship killing 750 lbs. TNT warhead but it's top speed of only 36 kts at 10,500 yards was outclassed by the 40+ kt average of many of the wrold's torpedoes. The gold standard Japanese Type 93 armed with a 1,080 lbs. warhead, made 36-38 knots at an astounding 43,700 yards, 40-42 knot at 35,000 yards and 48-50 knots at 21,900 yards.
Bismarck and Prince Eugene carried the steam powered G7 torpedoes with a standard torpedo warhead was 617lbs of TNT/HND/AL (a mixture of hexanitrophenylamine, trinitrotoluene and aluminum) and had three preset speeds – 44 knots at 5,000 yds, 40 knots at 7,500 ydsa dn 30 knots at 12,500 yds.
Asrk Royal was designed under the Washington Naval Treaty, built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead,England, and completed in November 1938. Ark Royal was the first ship on which the hangars and flight deck were an integral part of the hull, instead of an add-on or part of the superstructure. She was designed to carry a large number of aircraft and had two hangar decks. Ark Royal was modern and powerful warship her boilers making 102,000 shp driving 3 shafts from 3 geared steam turbines for a flank speed of 31 knots; she had a max range of 7,600 nmi at 20 knots at 30 kts it was greatly reduced hence Tovey's tanker support. 200 HP / 43,700 y Burner-cycle, 264 hp @ 41 kThe "Ark" was designed in 1934 to fit the restrictions of the Ark Roya Her Complement of 1,580 officers and ratings manned 8 twin 4.5 in DP guns; 4 quadruple 40 mms and 8 quadruple .50 caliber AA Mgs; Armor a 4.5 inch belt, 3.5 over Deck boiler rooms and magazines. So she was no match for the prince let alone Bismarck during darkness. Lucky for her there was only 5 hours of darkness where TG Brinkmann was doing it's murdering and therefore 19 hours of flight operations, unless the North Atlantic decided to throw some very dirty weather their way.
The Ark" was capable of operating 60 aircraft, she, like Victorious, had an incomplete complement of only 11 Fairey Swordfish biplane bombers. The upside for the RN was, these planes were flown by some of the most experienced airmen in the Royal Navy. Actually he was damn glad to carry the "Old String Bag" had proven herself in The Med, granted those were Italians not Germans, even if she looked like she belonged at Jutlland.
She was "designed" to carry 72 birds but actually could only manage 50–60. At this time she normally carried 36 Fairey Swordfish and 18 Fairey Fulmars but was very short handed now and only had 11 Swordfish. The Ops in the Med had taken a very heavy tole on the string bags and she had army Tomahawks aboard for a ferry mission cut short when Bismarck broke out.
Unfortunately, the Fulmars were not much help in attacking warships. Fulmars had very good endurance of six-hours at 140mph for reconnaissance, or three-hours at 175mph as an escort. Their top speed of 265mph at 10,000ft was nothing to brag about. She did have a very good main armament of eight fixed forward 0.303in machine guns with at least 400 rounds per gun but no flexible mount aft for the observer. It was also supposed to carry two 250lb bombs but rearely did. The MK Is used at thsi time were not considered Dive Bombers and when used "glide bombers" they were very vulnerable to FLAK.
Fairey Swordfish Mk.1 was Mid-sized biplane torpedo bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The The Fiaiey Swordfish employed a metal airframe covered in fabric. It had folding wings as a space-saving measure. In service, it received the nickname Stringbag; this was not due to its biplane struts, spars, and braces, but a reference to the seemingly endless variety of stores and equipment that the type was cleared to carry. Crews likened the aircraft to a housewife's string shopping bag, common at the time and which could accommodate contents of any shape, and that a Swordfish, like the shopping bag, could carry anything. She was used operationally for Scouting (now with her AVS set Radar search), ASW, Torpedo delivery and even a perfectly capable Dive bomber.
Fairey reasons for maintaining it's biplane configuration however at the time sounded reasonable and well-thought out. The biplane configuration was already well-known and ensured a quicker development than a brand new venture (a leap the company made already years ago with the Hendon, not a sucess). The biplane configuration advantages largely matched its role: Priority was range, not speed. It was believed at the time that reconnaissance aircraft needed to be either biplanes or parasol monoplanes to ensure the best visibility. Cantilever monoplanes were notorious for their poor all-round visibility, akin the extreme competition planes that were developed. A biplane had more range and also more stability, which was ideal, both for reconnaissance and dropping a torpedo perfectly in line. It was also a configuration ideal for the well-winded decks of aircraft carriers and landed more smoothly, and on shorter distances. 27,720 long tons full load; had a length of 800 of 94 ft and draft Ark Royal was a powerful, modern warship. The Ops in the Med had taken a very heavy tole on the string bags and she had army Tomahawks aboard for a ferry mission cut short when Bismarck broke out. Unfortunately, the Fulmars were not much help in attacking warships. Fulmars had very good endurance of six-hours at 140mph for reconnaissance, or three-hours at 175mph as an escort. Her top speed of 265mph at 10,000ft was nothing to brag about. She did a very good main armament of eight fixed forward 0.303in machineguns with at least 400 rounds per gun but no flexible mount aft for the observer. It was also supposed to carry two 250lb bombs but rearely did. The MK Is used at thsi time were not considered Dive Bombers and when used glide bombers they were very vulnerable to FLAK.
29 MAY 1941 0715 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel were in a tight low level circle of Bismarck. Feldwebel Stachel had just signalled posit, ID and course and speed of Queen Mary to Lindemann
029 MAY 1941 0800 Captain Lt Dennis Moultron orders USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) to general quarters . He then comes up on the 1MC (general annoucing over speakers) “This is NO DRILL. That is all. Carry on.” If there was anybody aboard Muskeget who did not know as much as he did about this little rescue mission he was far too stupid for the Coast Guard and should have joined the navy.
029 MAY 1941 0930 USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) arrives in the vicinity of HX-123’s last reported position early ( thanks to Cheng and his Black Gang squeezing more turns out of the old girl than anyone but them expected ) and finds nothing within visual range. Muskeget’s CO, Lt Dennis Moultron, orders a modified expanded square search favoring down wind, BM2C Coxswain “Dean” and his boat’s crew to muster at his Type T, 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat and for the davit crew to make all preps for an immediate launching.
029 MAY 1941 0953 (WAG-48) passes through a stinking. bunker oil slick dotted with debris and the obscene bodies of life jacketed dead seaman. Moultron orders the Motor lifeboat launched to look for life, not that there was much chance of anyone surviving for 10 hours in the North Atlantic without a lifeboat or a raft but he had to try. Against all odds they found Robert Squires AB, Crackers’ Rushall – born in New York but now an AB in the RN, Joseph Hill ‘The Pusser’(Supply Officer) and his number two, CPO Tom Hanlon, All from HMS AMC Derbyshire.
Muskeget’s 36 footer also picked up Pos John ‘Jack’ Barker, Harry ‘Tiddley’ Bonneyand and John Aylard (coder) from HMS Chelsea.
029 MAY 1941 1100 (WAG-48) CO Moultron ordered his boat recalled and directed the OOD to double the lookouts and resume a normal expanding square search at standard speed as soon as the boat was recovered. He knew HX-123’s commodore had ordered the convoy to scatter prior to contact with the raider so they or, their boats and rafts, could be anywhere accept in the direction the raider was coming from. He was going below to talk to the survivors, if any of them were in condition to. Got to figure these Lymies had to be damn tough to survive the massacre and 10 hours in the North Atlantic so there might be a chance of getting something useful out of them. The very newly commissioned USCGR LTJG “Saw Bones” now knew better than to argue with the CO. He came aboard with the insane ideas that he outranked Moultron in medical matters. The XO and his Chief disabused the brilliant young man of that notion.
29 MAY 1941 1430 Under Dover Castle at Commander-in-Chief Dover's HQ, Wren PO Pamela Lee answered Vice-Admiral Dover's private line. "This is Churchill get Vice-Admiral Ramsay on the line immediately." Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, MVO was summoned from his operations room and made it to his private, very secure line, in just under 9 minutes.
Ramsay " Ramsay here Sir, sorry for the delay."
Churchill "No time for regrets Bertie; not much time for any decencies these days. I am relieving Tovey. You will replace him. I want you in London Tomorrow. Turn over Dover to your second for now. We will talk more about this later. For now get cracking."
Ramsay "Aye, Aye sir." At that the line went dead.
"Ramsay" "Petty Officer Lee ring my aide, he's in operations, and have him assemble the staff chiefs in my office in 15 minutes." Ever since "Dynamo" and King George VI subsequently made him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath there had been talk that he would eventaully command "the whole Bloody Andrew" before he was finished. He had to admit he did think he had a fair chance but never thought it would happen this fast. After all he was only a Vice-Admiral and that was an Admiral's job surely.
10 downing St. London the PM's office. Winston sat back with a Whiskey and a good cigar. He really didn't like himself right now. John Tovey, a real friend and a very good Admiral had to go and he was the one who had to kick him in the crotch. The hue and cry after the Denmark Straight fiasco had not yet died down with reciminations flying everywhere and many of them lighting on him. Now the very public destruction of HX-123 was really feeling the flames and it was so bad he and his cabinet could well fall. In his opinion that would be a major diaster and possibly cost the UK the war. He had to have some raw meet to toss to the wolves at Question Time" today to survive.
The Hero of Dunkirk Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, , everyone thought the Navy had done something right that time, was for polticial as well as professional and practical reasons the best man for the job. God help the poor bastard because he would have to make good very quickly or he would be sacrificed. Well being PM was a right bastard's job, the nation was lucky they had one named Winston available.
29 MAY 1941 1500 RN HQ Bunker under the Admiralty in London Signal Wren answered Admiral Tovey's private line to Churchill's Bunker. "This is Churchill get Admiral Tovey on the line imediately." It took Admiral of the Fleet John Cronyn Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO less than five minutes to pick up the phone. "Tovey here Sir"
Churchill "I am relieving you John. Ramsay is your successor and should be there sometime tomorrow. I expect you to stay on the job for just as long as it takes for you and Ramsay to agree you have brought him up to speed on our current operations. I must announce your future departure at Questions Time tomorrow in the Commons at Noon.
Tovey "Aye, Aye sir . I will do everything in my power to assist Bertie.
Churchill "I want you to know John I am very sorry it has come to this. I would like to personally thank you for what you have done. Think about where you would like to serve next because we need you desperately. If at all possible I will see you get that job.
Tovey "That is very kind of you Sir. I must admit I was surprised you didn't "chuck" me after the Denmark Straight but I can see the all too public massacre of HX-123 and the damn Fleet Street hue and cry has tied your hands."
Churchill "John I have some experience being sacked for circumstances well beyond my control. I know your value and both weighed heavily in my decision to keep you on. When we have time, God alone knows when that will be, I would be delighted if you and Helen would join Clemmie and I at Checkers for a weekend."
At that the line went dead. The PM was on to other things and soon not to be Fleet Admiral John Cronyn Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO, hung up the hand set. Tovey told his aide to have the senior staff join him in his office in a quarter hour. Tovey smiled at the aide and added "I have a bit of news to give them." Tovey's mind then turned to how best he could ease Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, MVO into his new job as quickly as possible. Despite what the PM said he did not think it wise for him to be hanging around this headquarters as Bertie took up the reins of his new job. Just as a relieved skipper did no favors to his successor by being around to be compared to the former.
Senior Chief, do you need to borrow one of mine spacing trolls because this is a lot of wall of text. |
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stevep
Fleet admiral
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Post by stevep on Sept 1, 2022 11:41:16 GMT
A couple of points: a) Hood was an outdated design and had known weaknesses in its armoured layout but it had been armoured up to BB standards, at least for 1916-20 when it was being constructed so I don't think its accurate to compare it to Renown and Repulse which were seriously under-armoured. It was outdated but not a eggshell armed with an hammer.
b) I think when you discuss the Ark Royal's a/c you duplicate the info about the Fulmar either side of talking about the Swordfish.
Back luck on Tovey although given the state of play at the time I can't really see Churchill doing this as his administration was never really under threat after the BoB victory. Even with defeats such as in Greece or the loss of Malaya and Burma there was very little support for ending the war and no other clear leader. Plus most people with any knowledge of the forces would know that the problem was the restrictions imposed on the RN by the treaties in 1921, 1930 and 1936 albeit that the last one the British leadership made a rod for its own back by trying to go for a 14" design then changing it to drop two guns which delayed matters further. Loss of control of the Atlantic is a big blow to Britain however given how much the country's survival relies on it.
Anyway a good if very grim story with a lot of luck continuing to go to the Germans but hopefully the Queen will escape, especially with its current cargo.
Steve
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oscssw
Senior chief petty officer
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Post by oscssw on Sept 1, 2022 12:35:33 GMT
Sep 1 0600 UPDATE THE SHOWBOAT engages THE IRON CHANCELLOR Green is the new stuff Blue is old stuff I think is necessary to support new stuff
028 MAY 1941 2155 USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) was SouthEast of Greenland about 125 miles from HX-123’s survivors on station, transmitting current conditions every 4 hours to 1st CG District in Boston. Her Co Lt Dennis Moultron, 1931 graduate of the CG Academy, was in radio central along with the Commo and RMC “Wild BillY” Donovan and the rest of the 20-24 watch. Aside from the chatter of the Teletypes and the hum of the HF radio transcievers it was dead silent. The men, mostyly kids, had been listening to the death throes of HX-123 as in utter desperation the individual ships of the doomed convoy broadcast May Days, their position, the fact that they were under attack by a Nazi Capital ship and other frantic messages in the clear as they were summarily executed by The Prince.
WAG-48 was classified as a Patrol vessel and weather ship. Her one Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Company triple-expansion steam engine could push her at about 11 knots in the current moderate sea state. He could be at HX-123’s datum in about in 12 hours. She might be in time to save those merchy seaman who made it into life boats and rafts. WAG-48 did not have radar. But in May this far North she would arrive at about 1000 and that was broad daylight so his lookouts should be able to spot lifeboats and rafts in the general vicinity of the datum. He and his 116 officers and men were Coasties and saving lives at sea no matter the danger was what Coasties did. Commandant First CG District in Boston had been kept aware of what was going on and he was a Coastie also. He agreed with Lt Moultron 125 miles SE would still keep Muskeget in a position to monitor and report on the weather in her sector , her primary mission.
Muskeget was carrying a Doctor thanks to FDR’s state of emergency which was already filling the USCG with reservists including doctors. WAG-48 also carried a Chief (who had been a 2nd class with ten years service only a year ago) and two 3rd class Hospital corpsmen (green as grass), along with a well stocked, if little used sick bay . Moultron was pretty sure that would change in 12 hours.
There was no way he could take on that big Nazi raider with a single 4”/50, two single 50 Cal M2 HMGs and two Lewis machine guns; two depth charge rails and various obselescent small arms. Fortunately he would not have to. He didn’t think that bastard Hitler wanted war with the US and sinking Muskeget would certainly risk that. He also knew he could not initiate an engagement either. He prayed their would be work for BM2C Coxswain “Dean’s 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat-Type T. Muskeget, being a hasty conversion during an explosive increase in the size of the USCG, had to make do with whatever gear she could get and that included boats. Lack of the customary ship’s boats was partially rectified by the issue of an available 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat-Type T.
028 MAY 1941 2200 on the flag bridge of TG39.1 USS North Carolina BB-55 Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt had alot to think about. He also had spent some time listening to the butchery of HX-123 by that Nazi Capital ship. Was it Bismarck or Prince Eugene or both? He was sure His TG, barring very bad luck, would be able to put both those Nazis on the bottom. How many of TG39.1 would be left was anyone's guess. He did have great faith in Ching Lee's gunnery and that new TC was certainly making a big difference. His kids were trained but not even blooded yet. Aside from a few of his senior POs and Officers none had seen any real action, certainly not against major units of a modern fleet and that included himself and Ching.
He had received a back channel from Ernie king, who also was monitoring the situation and told to make for HX-123's datum and be prepared for whatever popped up. King was in contact with Lahey who was close to FDR and Lahey told him to "Hang tight and hang tough" because Franklyn was absolutely livid. Hewitt acknlowkledge King's order and requested a tanker to unrep TG39.1 no later than 1200 30 May. He would unrep his always thirsty cans from North Carolina and Brooklyn on the run in but he would need that tanker's fuel to keep his TG at sea for what was sure to come. So he gave the order to his TG39.1 to come to an intercept course at 25 kts for the datum of HX-123 with his DDs in a bent line screen and Brooklyn in column astern at standard distance from BB-35. His navigator estimated it would take 20 hours to reach the area, about 1800 tomorrow. He ordered TG39.1 to a modified EMCON Able, no radio transmissions they would signal by light or flag hoist for now with just one surface and air search radar radiating and that was from BB-35. He also ordered his BB and CA Cos to make their Scout planes ready for constant long range searches, objective? Find the German raiders before they found them. He then told his Duty watch officer the CoStaff and he were headed down to Ching Lee's TC to work out the next few moves.
28 MAY 1941 2210 Kapitäns zur See Lindemann’s Bismarck receives an update on the “convoy” he is to engage. Based on a very recent U-boat report it is a single, very large ship, probably a converted ocean liner transport, travelling at 25 kts. BdU provided Lindemann a new datum with a course of 300. Furthermore, info provided by agents in Halifax about not so secret preparations being made to receive one of His Majesty’s Transports (HMT), possibly Queen Mary, with a cargo of Free French and Polish recruits ( the equivalent of a fighting division), for training in Canada in a few days. BdU orders Vizeadmiral (Rear Admiral, upper half) Brinkmann to sink that ship if at all possible.
An urgent conference with his XO and Navigator at the chart table convinces Lindemann it will be close but they can intercept the HMT but not until after dark. He orders a course and speed to make contact with the HMT at 0500 tomorrow. Before engaging, he wants his Arado to make a thorough search of the area for enemy units. He wants the kill but not at the expense of damage to his ship. He totally agrees with Brinkman killing as many convoys as possible is still his primary mission.
28 MAY 1941 2215 Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR is not a happy man. The RN has been thrashed by those big bastards Bismarck and Prince Eugene who are somewhere between him and Nova Scotia. The Admiralty has ordered him to be vigilant but refused to provide him an escort (the damn bastards probably don't have any spare battleships at present). Their Lordships have graciously allowed him to use his own judgement in selecting a more southerly course for the present BUT his orders are still to get his ship to Halifax and under the protection of it's patrol aircraft as soon as possible.
His lovely Queen carried and he was totally responsible for 5,000 Free French, and 1,500 Norwegion and other recruits from all over occupied Europe coming to join there countrymen already training in Canada. She also had embarked 3,500 combat veteran Polish soldiers and another 6,000 Polish recruits who were to reconstitute the Polish First Grenadier Division. To that he added 700 wounded requiring extended convalescence before being returned to their Army, Navy and RAF units, all very valuable men, many experts in their fields and a medical staff of 68. HMS Queen Mary was over loaded, as usual. Well his passengers were soldiers, or almost soldiers and like his own crew, had to make the best of things.
Merle and The Queen were both press ganged into the RN in early 1940. He went through a short but valuable refresher course before being assigned as her "Jimmy The One" (XO); she went into the yards for a very fast conversion as an HMT. The captain had been too old for the man killing job and had been transferred to "command "a Stone frigate and he got bumped up to Captain. His Queen, a former Cunard Liner, was a very formidable ship. She was launched in 1936 a product of John Brown & Co., LTD., Clydebank, Scotland. She was powered by Sixteen geared turbines - Quadruple screws; her Length was 1,019.5 feet; Beam: 118 feet; of 81,237 GRT.
What he was counting on was her flank speed of 28.5 kts to save her. That speed convinced Their Lords at the Admiralty she did not require convoy escort. Against most U-Boat situations he agreed but these two murderous surface raiders were a different matter entirely. He had little faith in the few guns the yards had bolted on as an after thought. No radar of course but she still had the best “galley” and more than a few of her former chefs had also been “Forceably Recruited into “The Andrew”. It was a wonder to him what real chefs could do with RN rations. He also knew the meals for the ship’s crew and maybe the nursing staff would be excellent. These culinary pros, even when augmented (more like hampered ) by “passengers” with supposed cooking experience, could and did manage much more than the basic army chow for the rest of the Queen’s “guests”, probably the very best meals those soldiers would ever get at HM’s expense.
What he could do and the senior passengers wholeheartedly approved of was to train the best of their men in Firefighting and damage control under the tutalage of his long service RN petty officers. With luck, something the RN has not had much of lately, that just might save a lot of lives.
He also was provided with “trained” artilerists and machine gunners to assist his own guns’ crews. Might be of value against aircraft but hardly make a differnce aghainst the surface raiders. If those big bruisers found them His Queen was dead meat. As a RNR commissioned RN officer commanding one of His Majesties “Warships” he was abliged to signal the admiralty of the locations and a description of his attacker. The ruthless Nazi’s, with their Teutonic efficiency, certainly would be ready to jam his signal and blow his beautiful but thin skinned liner out of the water at his very first radio transmission, probably not even heard by the RN.
All those souls were on his conscience. If he survived he’d be a damn hero to the RN but his merchant navy chums would never forgive him for wasting all those young lives for nothing. If he still had any courage he’d blow out his brains and if, more likely if he did not, there was always the bottle and a much more degrading and slower way of committing suicide. At that he took another pull at his double whiskey!
29 MAY 1941 0345 Oberleutnant (AKA First Lt & Flying officer) "Ritter" Willi von Klugermann having completed all his preflight checks along with his trusted observer with the eyes of a hawk Feldwebel (AKA Tech & Flight Sgt. ) Bruno Stachel awaited the signal to be shot off for their morning recon flight. The briefing made it clear they had a very big game today.
Aboard the HMT Queen Mary the last manned and ready report for dawn Battle Stations had just been recieved by Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR. As always securing the water tight doors in the passenger compartments took much longer than was acceptable. He'd tear a good strip of skin His Jimmy over that...again. The day was breaking as good as at got this far north in the Atlantic. He really could have done with some dirty weather to hide in but he was sure his passengers preferred it calm and sunny. Real fools in his opinion. His stewart had brought him his first mug of rum lightly laced Formosa Oolong tea. It was going down well, as always. At this speed and on this less than direct SW course it was three days until he sighted Sambro Light. His sister Phyllis had immigrated to
Fergusons Cove in '38 along with her Canadian boat building foreman Husband Bill and their son Willie. It would be a really great visit if the damn RN just gave him a few days in Halifax. He had no idea what his next "cargo" would be or where they would send His Queen next. Well time to sweep the horizon again.
29 MAY 1941 0400 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel began their head swivelling search after they were shot off Bismarck and began climbing to medium altitude for the moning's recon. It was known for something to appear close aboard that the ship's radar and lookouts had not noticed right after launch. It could well save all their lives so vigilance was the watch word. The navigator had given Stachel his best guess as to where the big HMT would be. Now "Ritter" was on that intercept bearing at his Arado's best cruising speed. He'd stay on this course until he was far enough out to make a 360 search around Bismarck of any value and then return to the intercept corpen. He had a full weapon's load out for this trip but the XO had warned him his Arado was more valuable than his skin (they had a few extra pilots) so don't risk the crate but it would be OK to drop Feldwebel Stachel onto the deck of any Handelswanne (Merchant Tub) with his swiss army knife.
29 MAY 1941 0407 Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt was sitting, bolt upright in his Flag Bridge chair aboard USS North Carolina BB-55, with a steaming cup of his own special blend of coffee spiked with a half shot of cognac (RHIP you know but he didn't push it too far). He was observing the station keeping of USS Brooklyn CL-40 , USS Kearny DD-432 Gleaves-class, USS Dunlap DD-384 Mahan class CO Lt.Cdr. Carl Hilton Bushnell, USN and USS Benson DD-421 Benson class that comprised his command TG39.1. One of his SOCs had just launched. He did not know it but it was piloted by LTJG Butch O’hare.
Butch was a graduate from the Western Military Academy in 1932. The following year, he went on to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. After he graduated and was commissioned as an ensign on June 3, 1937, he served two years on the battleship USS New Mexico. In 1939, he started flight training at NAS Pensacola in Florida, flying the Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-1 "Yellow Peril" and Stearman NS-1 biplane trainers, and later the advanced SNJ trainer.
When Butch finished his naval aviation training on 2 March 1940, he was assigned to observation Squadron Three (VO-3) for type training in the Curtiss (SOC) Seagull. The Seagull was far from the hottest airplane in the US Navy and something of a disappointment to LTJG Butch O’hare but he'd work his way into Wildcats somehow. He knew the SOC was became operation in 1935 and there had been over 400 delivered to the navy to date.
He also knew his rather dull steed's General characteristics., Crew of two, pilot and observer, Length: 31 ft 5 in,Wingspan: 36 ft 0 in, Height: 14 ft 9 in , Wing area: 342 sq ft, Empty weight: 3,788 lb, Gross weight: 5,437 lbs.
The Soc's performance was on the whole nothing to write home about with a Powerplantof 1 × Pratt & Whitney R-1340-18 singRate of climb: 915 ft/min, Maximum speed: 165 mph, at 5,000 ft , Cruise speed: 116 kn, Stall speed: 55.9 mph, Range: was not bad at all at 587 nmi at 5,000 ft , Service ceiling: 14,900 ft and Rate of climb: 915 ft/min. Were adequate.
However the SOC's armament certainly was not with only 1 fixed, forward firing 0.30 cal Browning M2 AN and 1 flexible mounted rear-firing 0.30 cal Browning M2 AN machine guns.
29 MAY 1941 0430 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel were at search altitude, had conducted their first 360 search, conditions were excellent and they found absolutely nothing but open ocean. Stachel gave "Ritter" a new intercept course and time to their search area.
Commander Merle Ronald Haggard RNR aboard Queen Mary gave permission to stand down from dawn battle stations. Now the 18 hour a day monotonous chore of feeding the passengers could continue. He was for a shower, breakfast and tackle the endless things that made the CO of a major ship a busy man. He would be a very busy man, for a while this fine moring, the last for many aboard His Queen but he wasn't to know that, quite yet.
29 MAY 1941 0600 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel had been flying an expanding "Box" searcgh pattern for 28 minutes when Stachel's extroadinary eyes spotted a bump on the horizon at about 9 O'clock. He informed the "Ritter" who imediately put the stick over and closed on the contact . Stachel had his excellent Ziess 7 by 50 binoculars on the the ship. Jah, she was a lone liner making about 25 kts and heading about 250 degrees. Another 5 minutes of ever closer observation convinced both of them it was the Queen Mary, now one of the RN's HMTs painted gray with a few pop guns. A "trooper" and one hell of a kill to mark up for The Prince. He was sorely tempted to put both his 110 lb bombs right down her funnels and then gun the bridge with his 20mm and MGs for good measure
BUT Lindemann would nail him to the mast for disobeying HIS orders and risking HIS Arado like that. So, since he was under strict "Radio Silence" made a 50 mile wide circular search before he headed back to The Prince to deliver his sighting report. Last thing he wanted for the Price to show up only to find the RN was trailing Queen Mary with a cruiser of two. Feldwebel Stachel was wondering, while he maintained his usual excellent visul scan of his sectors if the Kreagsmarine was really as superior as recent ops had suggested or was the royal Navy just having a spell of bad luck? What he did not know was the RN was stretched much too far and was working it's much reduced number of ships and men half to death. Tired men and too few worn out ships were what the RN had here and now to fight with. The bright side for the RN was the "Hostilities Only" Officers and Ratings were proving to be much better "sailors" than anyone pre war would have thought. In fact they were fast approaching the point they could take up the strain from the RN Regulars.
29 MAY 1941 0610 Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville commanding Force H was watching Ark Royal steaming into the wind to launch another Recon sortie of 3 Fairey Fulmars, a damn good scout and absolutely terrible fighter but more than a match for any number of Arados, in search of Bismarck and Prince Eugene. The Admiralty, in their quite fallible wisdom, had originally positioned the TG to stop them if they made a run south of Land's End, though the Bay of Biscay for the French coast. The massacre of HX-123 had provided their Lordships with a "Flaming Datum". Admiral Tovey immediately ordered Force H to proceed, at best practical speed to that point. Tovey desperately needed as many aerial scouts as possible to reestablish contact with TG Lutgens ; now TG Brinkmann. His PBY's and Sutherland long range patrol aircraft had proven disappointingly ineffective in this hunt for those two damn Nazi raiders. He would arrange for a tanker rendezous on route so that Somerville could persue the Nazi Butchers at high speed for a long time.
Force H did appeared to the layman, junior officers and ratings to be a formidable obstacle. Both Tovey and Somerville knew otherwise. Renown was Somerville's flag ship and a battlecuiser like Hood , with similar fatally weak armor compared to a battleship. Tovey initially ordered her captain not to close within range of Bismarck alone; that order was rescinded as these were desperate times.
HMS Renown, "Refit" to her crew, was of 32,000 tons, 31 knots Battle Cruiser with 3 twin 15 inch guns, 10 twin 4.5 in DP guns, 3 octuple 40 mm AA guns and 4 float planes. She ,like Hood, was an "Eggshell armed with sledge hammers." Her armor was no match for Bismarck and might even be defeated by a lucky hit from The Prince
She had a splendid WW II war record From 1936-39 (thus her Nickname) the ship was completely rebuilt and re-engined at a cost of over £3,000,000, equal to the original expense of construction. Her first action after recommissioning was with the German battleship Scharnhorst and cruiser Admiral Hipper, off Northern Norway, in April 1940. After the Scharnhorst had been hit the enemy vessels managed to break off the engagement under cover of heavy weather. Not long afterwards the Renown became the flagship of Sir James Somerville in the Western Mediterranean. After engaging two Italian battleships at long range off Sardinia, she took part in the bombardment of Genoa.
The cruiser Sheffield was fast and agile enough to shadow the enemy and keep Tovey appraised of Bismarck's location, but was no match for the Bismarck and had only about an even chance against Prince Eugen.e
The third ship of Force H, Ark Royal Pennant number: 91, offered the best hope of engaging an undmaged enemy successfully but her Air Group was drastically under strength.
Force H also included the modern destroyers Duncan, Iris, Encounter, Jupiter, Jersey, Fortune, Firedrake, Fury, Foresight & Fearless. The cans were of different classes but they were all roughly the same excellent modern Destroyers. Take HMS Duncan with a speed of 36 knots and armament of 4 4 4 QF 4.7-inch Mark IX guns, 1 3 in AA) gun, 2 single QF 2-pounder Mk II AA guns, 20 depth charges, 1 rail and 2 thrower
AND
2 quadruple 21 inch torpedo tubes armed with the now deadly accurate and reliable MK IX.
Mk IX had a ship killing 750 lbs. TNT warhead but it's top speed of only 36 kts at 10,500 yards was outclassed by the 40+ kt average of many of the wrold's torpedoes. The gold standard Japanese Type 93 armed with a 1,080 lbs. warhead, made 36-38 knots at an astounding 43,700 yards, 40-42 knot at 35,000 yards and 48-50 knots at 21,900 yards.
Bismarck and Prince Eugene carried the steam powered G7 torpedoes with a standard torpedo warhead was 617lbs of TNT/HND/AL (a mixture of hexanitrophenylamine, trinitrotoluene and aluminum) and had three preset speeds – 44 knots at 5,000 yds, 40 knots at 7,500 ydsa dn 30 knots at 12,500 yds.
Asrk Royal was designed under the Washington Naval Treaty, built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead,England, and completed in November 1938. Ark Royal was the first ship on which the hangars and flight deck were an integral part of the hull, instead of an add-on or part of the superstructure. She was designed to carry a large number of aircraft and had two hangar decks. Ark Royal was modern and powerful warship her boilers making 102,000 shp driving 3 shafts from 3 geared steam turbines for a flank speed of 31 knots; she had a max range of 7,600 nmi at 20 knots at 30 kts it was greatly reduced hence Tovey's tanker support. 200 HP / 43,700 y Burner-cycle, 264 hp @ 41 kThe "Ark" was designed in 1934 to fit the restrictions of the Ark Roya Her Complement of 1,580 officers and ratings manned 8 twin 4.5 in DP guns; 4 quadruple 40 mms and 8 quadruple .50 caliber AA Mgs; Armor a 4.5 inch belt, 3.5 over Deck boiler rooms and magazines. So she was no match for the prince let alone Bismarck during darkness. Lucky for her there was only 5 hours of darkness where TG Brinkmann was doing it's murdering and therefore 19 hours of flight operations, unless the North Atlantic decided to throw some very dirty weather their way.
The Ark" was capable of operating 60 aircraft, she, like Victorious, had an incomplete complement of only 11 Fairey Swordfish biplane bombers. The upside for the RN was, these planes were flown by some of the most experienced airmen in the Royal Navy. Actually he was damn glad to carry the "Old String Bag" had proven herself in The Med, granted those were Italians not Germans, even if she looked like she belonged at Jutlland.
She was "designed" to carry 72 birds but actually could only manage 50–60. At this time she normally carried 36 Fairey Swordfish and 18 Fairey Fulmars but was very short handed now and only had 11 Swordfish. The Ops in the Med had taken a very heavy tole on the string bags and she had army Tomahawks aboard for a ferry mission cut short when Bismarck broke out.
Unfortunately, the Fulmars were not much help in attacking warships. Fulmars had very good endurance of six-hours at 140mph for reconnaissance, or three-hours at 175mph as an escort. Their top speed of 265mph at 10,000ft was nothing to brag about. She did have a very good main armament of eight fixed forward 0.303in machine guns with at least 400 rounds per gun but no flexible mount aft for the observer. It was also supposed to carry two 250lb bombs but rearely did. The MK Is used at thsi time were not considered Dive Bombers and when used "glide bombers" they were very vulnerable to FLAK.
Fairey Swordfish Mk.1 was Mid-sized biplane torpedo bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The The Fiaiey Swordfish employed a metal airframe covered in fabric. It had folding wings as a space-saving measure. In service, it received the nickname Stringbag; this was not due to its biplane struts, spars, and braces, but a reference to the seemingly endless variety of stores and equipment that the type was cleared to carry. Crews likened the aircraft to a housewife's string shopping bag, common at the time and which could accommodate contents of any shape, and that a Swordfish, like the shopping bag, could carry anything. She was used operationally for Scouting (now with her AVS set Radar search), ASW, Torpedo delivery and even a perfectly capable Dive bomber.
Fairey reasons for maintaining it's biplane configuration however at the time sounded reasonable and well-thought out. The biplane configuration was already well-known and ensured a quicker development than a brand new venture (a leap the company made already years ago with the Hendon, not a sucess). The biplane configuration advantages largely matched its role: Priority was range, not speed. It was believed at the time that reconnaissance aircraft needed to be either biplanes or parasol monoplanes to ensure the best visibility. Cantilever monoplanes were notorious for their poor all-round visibility, akin the extreme competition planes that were developed. A biplane had more range and also more stability, which was ideal, both for reconnaissance and dropping a torpedo perfectly in line. It was also a configuration ideal for the well-winded decks of aircraft carriers and landed more smoothly, and on shorter distances. 27,720 long tons full load; had a length of 800 of 94 ft and draft Ark Royal was a powerful, modern warship. The Ops in the Med had taken a very heavy tole on the string bags and she had army Tomahawks aboard for a ferry mission cut short when Bismarck broke out. Unfortunately, the Fulmars were not much help in attacking warships. Fulmars had very good endurance of six-hours at 140mph for reconnaissance, or three-hours at 175mph as an escort. Her top speed of 265mph at 10,000ft was nothing to brag about. She did a very good main armament of eight fixed forward 0.303in machineguns with at least 400 rounds per gun but no flexible mount aft for the observer. It was also supposed to carry two 250lb bombs but rearely did. The MK Is used at thsi time were not considered Dive Bombers and when used glide bombers they were very vulnerable to FLAK.
29 MAY 1941 0715 Oberleutnant "Ritter" and Feldwebel Stachel were in a tight low level circle of Bismarck. Feldwebel Stachel had just signalled posit, ID and course and speed of Queen Mary to Lindemann
029 MAY 1941 0800 Captain Lt Dennis Moultron orders USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) to general quarters . He then comes up on the 1MC (general annoucing over speakers) “This is NO DRILL. That is all. Carry on.” If there was anybody aboard Muskeget who did not know as much as he did about this little rescue mission he was far too stupid for the Coast Guard and should have joined the navy.
029 MAY 1941 0930 USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) arrives in the vicinity of HX-123’s last reported position early ( thanks to Cheng and his Black Gang squeezing more turns out of the old girl than anyone but them expected ) and finds nothing within visual range. Muskeget’s CO, Lt Dennis Moultron, orders a modified expanded square search favoring down wind, BM2C Coxswain “Dean” and his boat’s crew to muster at his Type T, 36-Foot Motor Lifeboat and for the davit crew to make all preps for an immediate launching.
029 MAY 1941 0953 (WAG-48) passes through a stinking. bunker oil slick dotted with debris and the obscene bodies of life jacketed dead seaman. Moultron orders the Motor lifeboat launched to look for life, not that there was much chance of anyone surviving for 10 hours in the North Atlantic without a lifeboat or a raft but he had to try. Against all odds they found Robert Squires AB, Crackers’ Rushall – born in New York but now an AB in the RN, Joseph Hill ‘The Pusser’(Supply Officer) and his number two, CPO Tom Hanlon, All from HMS AMC Derbyshire.
Muskeget’s 36 footer also picked up Pos John ‘Jack’ Barker, Harry ‘Tiddley’ Bonneyand and John Aylard (coder) from HMS Chelsea.
029 MAY 1941 1100 (WAG-48) CO Moultron ordered his boat recalled and directed the OOD to double the lookouts and resume a normal expanding square search at standard speed as soon as the boat was recovered. He knew HX-123’s commodore had ordered the convoy to scatter prior to contact with the raider so they or, their boats and rafts, could be anywhere accept in the direction the raider was coming from. He was going below to talk to the survivors, if any of them were in condition to. Got to figure these Lymies had to be damn tough to survive the massacre and 10 hours in the North Atlantic so there might be a chance of getting something useful out of them. The very newly commissioned USCGR LTJG “Saw Bones” now knew better than to argue with the CO. He came aboard with the insane ideas that he outranked Moultron in medical matters. The XO and his Chief disabused the brilliant young man of that notion.
29 MAY 1941 1430 Under Dover Castle at Commander-in-Chief Dover's HQ, Wren PO Pamela Lee answered Vice-Admiral Dover's private line. "This is Churchill get Vice-Admiral Ramsay on the line immediately." Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, MVO was summoned from his operations room and made it to his private, very secure line, in just under 9 minutes.
Ramsay " Ramsay here Sir, sorry for the delay."
Churchill "No time for regrets Bertie; not much time for any decencies these days. I am relieving Tovey. You will replace him. I want you in London Tomorrow. Turn over Dover to your second for now. We will talk more about this later. For now get cracking."
Ramsay "Aye, Aye sir." At that the line went dead.
"Ramsay" "Petty Officer Lee ring my aide, he's in operations, and have him assemble the staff chiefs in my office in 15 minutes." Ever since "Dynamo" and King George VI subsequently made him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath there had been talk that he would eventaully command "the whole Bloody Andrew" before he was finished. He had to admit he did think he had a fair chance but never thought it would happen this fast. After all he was only a Vice-Admiral and that was an Admiral's job surely.
10 downing St. London the PM's office. Winston sat back with a Whiskey and a good cigar. He really didn't like himself right now. John Tovey, a real friend and a very good Admiral had to go and he was the one who had to kick him in the crotch. The hue and cry after the Denmark Straight fiasco had not yet died down with reciminations flying everywhere and many of them lighting on him. Now the very public destruction of HX-123 was really feeling the flames and it was so bad he and his cabinet could well fall. In his opinion that would be a major diaster and possibly cost the UK the war. He had to have some raw meet to toss to the wolves at Question Time" today to survive.
The Hero of Dunkirk Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, , everyone thought the Navy had done something right that time, was for polticial as well as professional and practical reasons the best man for the job. God help the poor bastard because he would have to make good very quickly or he would be sacrificed. Well being PM was a right bastard's job, the nation was lucky they had one named Winston available.
29 MAY 1941 1500 RN HQ Bunker under the Admiralty in London Signal Wren answered Admiral Tovey's private line to Churchill's Bunker. "This is Churchill get Admiral Tovey on the line imediately." It took Admiral of the Fleet John Cronyn Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO less than five minutes to pick up the phone. "Tovey here Sir"
Churchill "I am relieving you John. Ramsay is your successor and should be there sometime tomorrow. I expect you to stay on the job for just as long as it takes for you and Ramsay to agree you have brought him up to speed on our current operations. I must announce your future departure at Questions Time tomorrow in the Commons at Noon.
Tovey "Aye, Aye sir . I will do everything in my power to assist Bertie.
Churchill "I want you to know John I am very sorry it has come to this. I would like to personally thank you for what you have done. Think about where you would like to serve next because we need you desperately. If at all possible I will see you get that job.
Tovey "That is very kind of you Sir. I must admit I was surprised you didn't "chuck" me after the Denmark Straight but I can see the all too public massacre of HX-123 and the damn Fleet Street hue and cry has tied your hands."
Churchill "John I have some experience being sacked for circumstances well beyond my control. I know your value and both weighed heavily in my decision to keep you on. When we have time, God alone knows when that will be, I would be delighted if you and Helen would join Clemmie and I at Checkers for a weekend."
At that the line went dead. The PM was on to other things and soon not to be Fleet Admiral John Cronyn Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO, hung up the hand set. Tovey told his aide to have the senior staff join him in his office in a quarter hour. Tovey smiled at the aide and added "I have a bit of news to give them." Tovey's mind then turned to how best he could ease Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, MVO into his new job as quickly as possible. Despite what the PM said he did not think it wise for him to be hanging around this headquarters as Bertie took up the reins of his new job. Just as a relieved skipper did no favors to his successor by being around to be compared to the former.
Senior Chief, do you need to borrow one of mine spacing trolls because this is a lot of wall of text. That would be very helpful. Please do. Anything to make my hen scratching more legible 
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 1, 2022 12:38:14 GMT
Senior Chief, do you need to borrow one of mine spacing trolls because this is a lot of wall of text. That would be very helpful. Please do. Anything to make my hen scratching more legible I will send him out to work if it is no problem. |
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oscssw
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Post by oscssw on Sept 1, 2022 12:48:32 GMT
A couple of points: a) Hood was an outdated design and had known weaknesses in its armoured layout but it had been armoured up to BB standards, at least for 1916-20 when it was being constructed so I don't think its accurate to compare it to Renown and Repulse which were seriously under-armoured. It was outdated but not a eggshell armed with an hammer. Steve I really like that phrase; it stays in. 
b) I think when you discuss the Ark Royal's a/c you duplicate the info about the Fulmar either side of talking about the Swordfish. Thanks I'll correct that.
Back luck on Tovey although given the state of play at the time I can't really see Churchill doing this as his administration was never really under threat after the BoB victory. Even with defeats such as in Greece or the loss of Malaya and Burma there was very little support for ending the war and no other clear leader. Plus most people with any knowledge of the forces would know that the problem was the restrictions imposed on the RN by the treaties in 1921, 1930 and 1936 albeit that the last one the British leadership made a rod for its own back by trying to go for a 14" design then changing it to drop two guns which delayed matters further. Loss of control of the Atlantic is a big blow to Britain however given how much the country's survival relies on it.
Although you are correct steve, that stays in also. After all this is my ATL, which sort of makes me a demigod and I really like Winston and want to show him in the best possible light.
Anyway a good if very grim story with a lot of luck continuing to go to the Germans but hopefully the Queen will escape, especially with its current cargo. Sorry Steve, the Queen must die but her passing will bring on an engagement between Bismarck and Force H. All is fodder for FDR's decision to pit TG39.1 against the German TG in an epic surface battle.
Steve
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oscssw
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Post by oscssw on Sept 1, 2022 12:53:27 GMT
That would be very helpful. Please do. Anything to make my hen scratching more legible I will send him out to work if it is no problem. No problem at all. You are being a true friend The Rock. I am interested to read your comments on this update, after you have had a while to digest my latest helping of novice writer efforts.
What really bothers me is this writing crap uses up a lot of my time that I could be enjoying more reading what our friends here have been posting. Feels like I am selfishly not contributing to the general good of my "Home" site.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 1, 2022 13:53:38 GMT
I will send him out to work if it is no problem. No problem at all. You are being a true friend The Rock. I am interested to read your comments on this update, after you have had a while to digest my latest helping of novice writer efforts.
What really bothers me is this writing crap uses up a lot of my time that I could be enjoying more reading what our friends here have been posting. Feels like I am selfishly not contributing to the general good of my "Home" site.
Well your family is priority number one Senior Chief, everything else is second. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 2, 2022 13:03:54 GMT
A couple of points: a) Hood was an outdated design and had known weaknesses in its armoured layout but it had been armoured up to BB standards, at least for 1916-20 when it was being constructed so I don't think its accurate to compare it to Renown and Repulse which were seriously under-armoured. It was outdated but not a eggshell armed with an hammer. Steve I really like that phrase; it stays in.
b) I think when you discuss the Ark Royal's a/c you duplicate the info about the Fulmar either side of talking about the Swordfish. Thanks I'll correct that.
Back luck on Tovey although given the state of play at the time I can't really see Churchill doing this as his administration was never really under threat after the BoB victory. Even with defeats such as in Greece or the loss of Malaya and Burma there was very little support for ending the war and no other clear leader. Plus most people with any knowledge of the forces would know that the problem was the restrictions imposed on the RN by the treaties in 1921, 1930 and 1936 albeit that the last one the British leadership made a rod for its own back by trying to go for a 14" design then changing it to drop two guns which delayed matters further. Loss of control of the Atlantic is a big blow to Britain however given how much the country's survival relies on it.
Although you are correct steve, that stays in also. After all this is my ATL, which sort of makes me a demigod and I really like Winston and want to show him in the best possible light.
Anyway a good if very grim story with a lot of luck continuing to go to the Germans but hopefully the Queen will escape, especially with its current cargo. Sorry Steve, the Queen must die but her passing will bring on an engagement between Bismarck and Force H. All is fodder for FDR's decision to pit TG39.1 against the German TG in an epic surface battle.
Steve
Well I don't think Churchill looks better using Tovey as a scapegoat rather than keeping him and I was mentioning the other as a point of accuracy. After all other people who read the story, especially if its posted elsewhere may not realise its hyperbola.
With the Queen Mary one alternative is that the USN intervenes to rescue it rather than not doing anything until after its sunk. After all the Germans have been amazing lucky so far so its got to run out.
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oscssw
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Post by oscssw on Sept 2, 2022 15:34:48 GMT
Well I don't think Churchill looks better using Tovey as a scapegoat rather than keeping him and I was mentioning the other as a point of accuracy. After all other people who read the story, especially if its posted elsewhere may not realise its hyperbola.
With the Queen Mary one alternative is that the USN intervenes to rescue it rather than not doing anything until after its sunk. After all the Germans have been amazing lucky so far so its got to run out.
Steve I asked for your comments and appreciate the fact you took the time to respond.
As for Winston's treatment of Tovey; I disagree with you. My version of the basket Screw in the Denmark Straight should have got him hung from the "Highest yardarm in the fleet". By USN standards he was treated remarkably leniently by HIS political masters. Look what happened to Kimmel and his senior staff. Look what happened to Gormley at Guadalcanal. So that is my perspective.
Queen Mary must die. IMO even if she were loaded with civilians, primarily UK evacuee mothers and their children, FDR would have wanted BB-35 to protect her BUT would not. That was an act of WAR. According to the US constitution ONLY CONGRESS could declare war. Congress has always jealously guarded it's prerogative to Declaring war.
Furthermore, that illegal action really violating the wishes of the US still very, very isolationist general population.
If she carried American Women and children your suggestion would be fine FDR could order BB-35 to "Protect Queen Mary to the point of attacking Bismarck and be pretty sure of Congress, especially with FDR's party in power, bowing to the righteous will of the now POed American people and pass a toothless censure of POTUS. BUT she as a commissioned HM Transport, loaded with troops and as such a legitimate combatant.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 4, 2022 9:59:17 GMT
Well I don't think Churchill looks better using Tovey as a scapegoat rather than keeping him and I was mentioning the other as a point of accuracy. After all other people who read the story, especially if its posted elsewhere may not realise its hyperbola.
With the Queen Mary one alternative is that the USN intervenes to rescue it rather than not doing anything until after its sunk. After all the Germans have been amazing lucky so far so its got to run out.
Steve I asked for your comments and appreciate the fact you took the time to respond.
As for Winston's treatment of Tovey; I disagree with you. My version of the basket Screw in the Denmark Straight should have got him hung from the "Highest yardarm in the fleet". By USN standards he was treated remarkably leniently by HIS political masters. Look what happened to Kimmel and his senior staff. Look what happened to Gormley at Guadalcanal. So that is my perspective.
Queen Mary must die. IMO even if she were loaded with civilians, primarily UK evacuee mothers and their children, FDR would have wanted BB-35 to protect her BUT would not. That was an act of WAR. According to the US constitution ONLY CONGRESS could declare war. Congress has always jealously guarded it's prerogative to Declaring war.
Furthermore, that illegal action really violating the wishes of the US still very, very isolationist general population.
If she carried American Women and children your suggestion would be fine FDR could order BB-35 to "Protect Queen Mary to the point of attacking Bismarck and be pretty sure of Congress, especially with FDR's party in power, bowing to the righteous will of the now POed American people and pass a toothless censure of POTUS. BUT she as a commissioned HM Transport, loaded with troops and as such a legitimate combatant.
OK I'll bite. Leaving aside as you say your made it a Britscrew to get the battle as you want it what could Tovey have done differently given that he's sitting in London, over a thousand miles away from the actual battle? Even OTL with a fair chunk of bad luck the RN managed to get key damage on the Bismarck, which proved vital to its destruction. Without the loss of contact at a key time by the chasing cruisers it and Prince Eugen could well have gone down in Denmark Straits.
Also, while accepting its your story I disagree with your assumption that Queen Mary must die. A stern chase, especially with the fuel issues the Germans would have is a long one when the prey is barely slower than the hunters and that could have gotten the ship close enough to the US neutrality zone that a clash occurs. Or the Germans in hot pursuit detect the US force but either mis-identify it or assume given previous US actions that its going to intervene and open fire on it triggering the clash you want.
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575
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Post by 575 on Sept 4, 2022 10:30:14 GMT
'nother fine update Chief! As Stevep I too am longing for some luck for the opressed but do carry on with Your work - its a joy reading and a wealth of Naval information. Aside note regarding the F. Fulmar: The Danish Navy had by 1934 carried out a bombing excercise on the old Coastal Defenceship "Herluf Trolle" having all Navy and Army bombers bomb away while the ship circled in the Køge Bay; suffice to say a hit rate of 4% not being impressive the Danish Navy began a search for a new Observation/Light Bomber-Attacker/Torpedobomber A/C finally by 1939 buying a licence to build 12 F. Fulmar prototype P4/34's. The Navy had the good sense to also secure the engines with the licence and getting it all delivered just in the nick of time prior to declaration of war. (The Army was to build 20 Fokker G1 Observation/Attack/Hwy Fighter but didn't secure the livery of engines..) None of the planned builds were finished prior to occupation on 9. April 1940. Proposed Danish Armament of P4/34: 1x 20mm Madsen Autocannon in one wing, 4x 8mm Madsen MGs in other, 1x Observer 8mm Madsen MG, 500 pds. bombs under wings or 1 45cm Torpedo - added dive-brakes. The 20mm was an assumed must and party to rejecting the Junkers Ju87 and other designs. |
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