“Trouble, Mister Fedorov?”
“What else? These are fleet movement orders, Admiral. These words here are ship units being ordered to sea-a major fleet movement, sir. The shocking thing about it is that there are only two ships on that list which might have been active at this time in the war, Scharnhorst and Bismarck. Unless they are code names, there are others listed that I’ve never even heard of. They must be code for something else, because the Germans could not possibly have this many ships operational in 1940.”
“I suppose we should not be surprised, Fedorov. Admiral Tovey has a new ship. Yes? So the Germans may have been busy in the shipyards as well.”
“Indeed sir. But it’s this last word here that I’m worried about.” He pointed to his application screen. “Felix.”
“A new German battleship?”
“No sir. The battleships on the list are Bismarck and Hindenburg, more than enough to worry about. But this last word comes later, after a series of movement orders. It refers to an operation name-Operation Felix. That was the German plan to attack Gibraltar! But it never happened in the real war.”
“The real war, Mister Fedorov? This one isn’t convincing enough for you?”
Fedorov forced a smile at that. “This would indicate a major point of divergence, sir. At this time the Germans had three options for prosecuting the war. One was to strike directly at Great Britain with Operation Seelowe. That plan was discarded when Goering failed to break the R.A.F. and secure airspace over the Channel. The second option was to open hostilities against Soviet Russia with Operation Barbarossa, but that did not happen until 1941. The third was to pursue a Mediterranean strategy, striking indirectly at Britain by driving a wedge right through the heart of her empire. Remember our discussion when we were down there, Admiral?”
“How could I forget it? I still get headaches from that fall I took.”
“Yes, well there are three places Britain needs to hold to have any chance of prevailing in the Mediterranean and eventually knocking Italy out of the war. Suez in Egypt is the heart of their operation in the east, Malta is the lynchpin in the center, and Gibraltar the key outpost in the west. It’s the gateway to all future offensive plans there-Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa, the Tunisian campaign and invasion of Sicily and Italy-these all depend on Gibraltar standing as a viable British base of operations. Up until now the war in the West has followed a fairly familiar course. The campaigns in France and Norway have turned out much as they did in our history. But if Gibraltar falls we could be looking at a radical change in the entire course of the war. It would have to mean that Spain is either invaded by Germany or that it becomes an active belligerent against England. If this is so the Germans will have access to ports from Tromso to Gibraltar.”
“These German ships plan to sail all that distance? That does not make good sense to me.”
“Agreed. But I don’t think that is their objective. These orders simply indicate the Germans are planning to put battlegroups out into the Atlantic. Operation Felix would be undertaken by the army, but a sudden sortie by the Kriegsmarine like this would certainly strain British resources. It would mean Admiral Tovey could not send reinforcements to Force H at Gibraltar.”
“That at least makes sense. Does it say where the Germans are planning to break out?”
“No specific locations are mentioned, but there are references to rendezvous points. The names for battlegroups appear to be Jotnar and Alfar. I looked those up. They refer to giants and elves in Norse mythology. And the whole operation is being called Fimbulwinter.”
“Codes within codes.”
“It appears so, sir, but I do not have to think too hard to interpret this. Fimbulwinter was the name of a harsh north wind that comes before the end of the world. Jotnargruppe would probably be the heavy battleships, Alfargruppe the lighter supporting ships.”
“I see…” Volsky pursed his lips, considering all this. “A cold wind blowing from the north… We had best pass all this on to the British, Mister Fedorov.”
“With your permission, I will have Nikolin send a report to Sheffield, and they can transmit to the Admiralty on their normal channels.”
“Agreed,” said Volsky. “And we should notify the Ice Watch that the weather in the Denmark Strait may be taking a turn for the worse. They may soon be picking up this contact the Narva spotted. In the meantime, let us steer to the southern end of the Denmark Strait. We may have unexpected guests for dinner, though I do not think they will like what we have on the menu. If the Germans bother my watch, I’ll be serving up missiles in short order.”
Chapter 26
More than one dinner was going to be bothered by uninvited guests that night. Phones jangled in the Admiralty, and alarms leapt over the wires from Whitehall to Scapa Flow. The British already had wind of the operation, the first rising swells of a cold north wind. There was movement in the Norwegian Sea, and reports of much activity on the waterfront and berthings at Kiel. The berth for Germany’s formidable new battleship Hindenburg was reported to be empty from the latest R.A.F. overflight. The Bismarck was also missing, and presumed to be on the move north. Giants were on the loose again, and British Sunderlands took off, flying north of Dogger Bank to scour the sea even though sighting was hampered by thick clouds and fog. the Germans had deliberately chosen this weather as the perfect cover for their operation.
One Sunderland pressed on north towards Kristiansand and got into trouble when a pair of Me-109s found it and riddled the plane with gunfire. The signalman got off a plaintive S.O.S. before he went down into the sea for a forced water landing.
High above, Oberleutnant Marco Ritter banked his Me-109 and came around with a grin.
“Somebody is getting curious!” he said over his short range radio to his wing mate.
“And someone else gets credit for another kill,” came the return.
“Not for me, Heinrich,” said Ritter. “I don’t count fat seaplanes. If you want it you can chalk it up on your account. I’m just counting British fighters.”
Ritter was flying top cover again for the Graf Zeppelin, operating now to clear the airspace around the carrier and its escorts as the ship waited the arrival of her principle battle units, Bismarck and its big brother, the new flagship of the German fleet, the Hindenburg. Admiral Raeder’s heavy chess pieces were on the move. Their mission was to first link up with the carrier, then move at high speed up to Bergen. From there they were to continue north into the Norwegian Sea, eventually turning west towards Iceland.
The two ships that had been reported by the Narva west of Narvik were the battlecruiser Scharnhorst and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, a bishop and a knight taking up their posts south of Jan Mayen. Kurt Hoffmann led Alfargruppe, and its mission was to demonstrate towards the Denmark Strait in advance of the main breakout attempt by the heavier battlegroup, Jotnargruppe under Admiral Lutjens. It was Raeder’s shadow play, as he called it. With a big operation slated to begin soon in the Mediterranean, he wanted to draw the British Admiralty’s eye north to the cold Norwegian Sea, and thereby prevent any further reinforcement of Force H.
The Kriegsmarine had licked its wounds over the last several months, refueling and repairing ships damaged in the abortive Operation Valkyrie. Of the bigger ships, only Gneisenau was still in the docks, but the Bismarck and Tirpitz were ready for operations again, though the latter was being held in reserve at Bremen. The second aircraft carrier, Peter Strasser, was not yet operational as hoped, and it would be another six months fitting out and running through trials in the Baltic. Graf Zeppelin was therefore out on her second major operation of the war, and Marco Ritter and Hans Rudel, both survivors of the first engagement, were out for blood again.