Coventry scored the first kill when one of her 3-inch guns caught a German plane a little too eager to get in close, and blasted off the right wing, taking the engine off in the bargain and sending the plane into a cartwheeling splash into the sea. The lead destroyers danced ahead, too nimble for the Germans to get any hits on them, but Valiant was another story. A venerable old Queen Elizabeth class ship, Valiant had fought at Jutland in her youth, but now found a strange new foe in the Ju-88s.
The bigger ship was running full out at 23 knots, all her AA guns firing, but was soon straddled by a string of bombs falling along her port side. The ship rocked away from the blast, her heavy side armor taking most of the damage and shrugging it all off as Valiant labored on. Her gunners took down another Ju-88 before the next near miss fell just forward of the ship, but her Captain Rawlings pressed on and ran right over the fuming spray, heedless.
The squadron was now coming in range of Gibraltar and Captain Rawlings heard the call from his mainmast watch, the range finders calling out 28,000 yards. The ship’s main 15-inch guns had recently been modified to allow them to elevate to 30 degrees, allowing Valiant to fire out 32,000 yards, and seeing that the target was stationary, Rawlings ordered the guns into action at a few minutes before midnight on the 16th. The boom of the main batteries was indeed heard in far off Gibraltar, like the rumble of thunder heralding a fast moving storm of steel.
Valiant had been sent to do more than buck up the morale of the beleaguered garrison. Somerville had been discretely told that the main wharf and docks were fair game. Seeing as it was well behind British lines that night, however, Rawlings was reluctant to fire at that target from any great range. The British had spotters up on Signal Hill and the Weather Station up on Devil’s Tower, and they called the shots as it were, seeing the first salvos coming in four enormous splashes right in the harbor itself near the North Mole.
Sergeant John Miller of the 4th Battalion Black Watch saw the first rounds fall. He had been ordered as part of his company to reinforce the battered positions near the old Moorish Castle, which was still under assault from the Grossdeutschland Regiment at that time. When he saw the big geysers of water shoot up in the bay he rallied his squad. The troops on the front line thought they were German bombs at first, having been hit the last several nights. Then someone else realized what was happening and shouted out that the navy was back.
“Right mate! It’s the bloody Navy!” Miller called out. “Listen to that, me Boyos! Those are nice fat fifteen inch guns, and the sweetest sound in the world to my ears tonight.”
Chapter 35
Lieutenant Dawes did not see the first shells land, as it was well after sunset and he was already down the ladder to Europa Point, with no view of the main harbor. But he certainly heard them, a loud roar and the long whistling fall of the heavy shells. He also thought it was a German bomb falling at first, thinking to find any cellar at hand to get under cover. The Stukas had been pounding the hill all day off and on but, from the sound of the planes overhead, these were the twin engine German bombers at hand. Then he caught a bright flash to the south, where the dark Straits of Gibraltar became the gateway that had long been known as the Pillars of Hercules. It suddenly seemed as though Hercules was there himself, roaring in anger, and Dawes immediately knew what he was seeing now.
The Royal Navy had kept its appointment. That was a battleship firing out in the channel, and he ran to the edge of the ridge to get a better look.
“Bloody marvelous!” he said to a Gunnery Sergeant there. It was Sergeant Hobson, the same man he had huddled with in the bomb shelter the previous night, the one who had the cheek to suggest the officer’s planning to watch the horse races that morning might hope they had fast steeds. He had stopped his loading of a nearby lorry to gawk at the ships out on the moonlit waters to the south.
“Lucky the Germans didn’t get smart and put artillery over there on Spanish Morocco,” said the Sergeant. “The Navy’s doing it right this time. They snuck in right in the lee of those hills.”
“Let’s see how the Germans sleep tonight under the guns of Rodney and Nelson.” Dawes smiled with an eager nod of his head.
“Oh, that’s not Rodney, sir. And it looks to be only one battleship that I can make out. That other ship is most likely a destroyer. My guess is that HMS Valiant is out there tonight, with a pair of valiant souls stuck on the Rock here to watch her do her business.”
“Wish I could say I belonged to that club,” said Dawes, just a bit dejected. “I’ve bounced about from the North Mole to the Hospital to the Signals Station, and then down here. Jerry took a whack at me this morning near the mole, but I haven’t done much of anything since.”
“I shouldn’t worry about that, sir. We’ll all have more than enough to do before this gets settled one way or another.”
That suddenly put a new fear into Dawes’ head, and he realized that this would have to resolve somehow, and he wondered how it would all turn out. The Germans had hit the Rock very hard that day. They had chased him from his tower, nearly put a bullet into him and set him on line with what looked to be sixty other men waiting for medical care. Now, with Valiant firing out there, her massive volleys rolling out with bright orange fire and a terrible roar, it was easy to think he might wake up tomorrow and find the Germans gone, but he knew that was not likely.
That thought jangled his nerves again. My God, he thought, what if we lose? What happens to every man jack of us here if those guns aren’t enough to make the difference? We’ll either be killed or taken prisoner and marched off to Berlin… and that thought gave him no comfort at all.
“What do you say, Sergeant?” he asked. “Will the Germans take a good knock tonight and give up the ghost?”
The Sergeant grimaced. “Not bloody likely,” he said heavily. “I was at Dunkirk…” He didn’t need to say anything more.
Dawes watched the battleship firing, trying to take heart with every salvo, but the ache of fear was on him now, and he found himself worrying about his fate, and the lives of everyone else in Gibraltar. The Sergeant seemed very calm, however, and so he asked his question again.
“Do you think we’ll hold, Sergeant?”
“We’ll do our bloody best.”
“But will it be enough?”
“If it isn’t then you can join the Royal Engineers, sir, and dig yourself a nice little tunnel under the Straits. Either that or you might get lucky and find the one already there.”
“Already there? You mean we can get out that way?”
The Sergeant winked at him. “Just a legend, sir. But find me the right Barbary Ape and stay on its tail when things get hot. You might be surprised!” He was up, rolling up his shirt sleeve on the warm late summer night.
“Well I’d best see to my lorry. The boys will be needing this ammunition soon enough.”
Dawes nodded, but he sat there, spellbound with the sight of the battleship firing and finally realizing what a horror this war was going to become. We build these massive steel leviathans to hurl shot and shell at the enemy, and all the while the Germans are coming out of the night in those planes like banshees. His pulse was up and there was a thrill of excitement, edged with yawning anxiety. Here he was watching the battle being joined, with the issue still gravely in doubt. HMS Valiant probably never thought she would be directing those guns at the very harbor she would drop anchor on. The Navy is out there bawling away like someone who’s come home from the town and found a burglar has broken into his home.
Now the fight was on, and at least all he could see of it was good British steel firing away for a change. Yet that doubt was still there, a cold spot in his stomach that made him very afraid. He was not a fighting man by nature. Dawes had come in an officer, and the most rigorous thing he had ever done in his brief time in the service was a good long workout on the “Hardening Course.” Pushups and sit ups were one thing, the shock and sound of real combat quite another.
He remembered how he had looked forward to settling into a comfortable bed after that long workout. He had been stuck on the course with the rankers, and on the morrow he would swagger back into the Bleak House and belly up for a good breakfast, basking in the privileges that came with his Lieutenant’s rank.
The thought of food invariably led him to think of what might happen to them if they got holed up in those dark, dusty tunnels. If the Germans don’t kill us all first, they’ll bloody well starve us in time. He knew they had nearly nine month’s supplies laid in, but that would be a long and agonizing haul. The thought of becoming a tunnel rat did not seem at all appealing. He watched HMS Valiant get off another salvo, and then got up on unsteady legs. He needed a smoke, reaching into his pocket to fish about for his cigarette pack and lighter, and when he had them out he realized his hand was shaking so badly that he could barely get one lit. The words of a poem by Rudyard Kipling came to his mind with their sad, mournful song.