‘Get a Flash to Mother,’ Gamble ordered ‘Breaking silence can’t hurt now ‘
Captain Trevellion and the ASW group commander had been watching the fast attack craft attack developing ever since the Norwegian Neptune’s first sighting and 826’s report at 0246 The Norwegians had come up also, stating that their own FACS, eight Hauks, had attacked from ten miles with their Penguin missiles and were returning to Haakonsvern to rearm Results weren’t known, but two of the enemy, presumed to be Osa IIs, were thought to have blown up The radar echoes had not faded and were still on a steady bearing of 028°, range thirty-one miles and closing.
The captain looked at the ops room clock: 0355. Dawn must be on its way; the Soviets had judged things well.
‘They must have come from Narvik,’ Druce said. -They’ve got a range of only eight hundred miles at cruising speed.’
‘They’re lucky with the weather, sir,’ Trevellion said. ‘This fog’s in their favour. They’ll be refuelling at sea.’
‘Standby Sea Cats,’ the PWO (Air) rapped. ‘Take the Styx at one decimal five.’
‘They’ll open fire at maximum range,’ Druce said. ‘They don’t know we’ve only one mounting.’
‘Thank God Gloucester could ammunition from Oileus, sir,’ Trevellion said. ‘The destroyer’s well on the up-side.’
‘Phoebe’s well placed too and she has the advantage of seventy-five per cent ammunition remaining.’
Their dubious sense of security did not last long. The fighter controller was chipping in: ‘Forty-plus bogies taking off, range one-twenty, coming in from the east, sir. Buda gives another regiment rounding North Cape: Backfires.’
They watched the coordinated attacks. Illustrious was scrambling her Sea Harriers, all five of them. Even if they met them head-on and reached the scene in time (at height, the Backfires were doing Mach 2.5) the Harriers could not cope with the numbers. But where were the Bears and Badgers? Satellite mid-course guidance, possibly? Hopefully this fog might make things more difficult, and our ECM might be more effective this time.
‘Standby chaff,’ Trevellion ordered. ‘It’s a pity the RAF’S so engaged elsewhere.’
‘Being your Group Commander,’ Roderick Druce said, the lights flickering in his dark eyes, ‘I must point out that we have one great advantage: Flag Officer First Flotilla is between the Backfires and the convoy. I presume that we’re the prime target.’
Trevellion found it difficult to grin back: Old Fury must always be high on the high value target table.
‘CINCEASTLANT confirms maximum jamming, sir.’
‘Very good,’ Trevellion acknowledged. ECM from ashore, at sea and from the satellites were our best hope against these swamping tactics.
‘Gloucester’s engaging, sir. She’s fired her birds.’
Trevellion nodded. He touched the command computer buttons.
‘Range of the Osas?’ he snapped. ‘Could Phoebe take them with her Exocets?’
‘Twenty miles, sir.’
Another three miles and Phoebe would be within range. Surely the Osas wouldn’t make that mistake…?
‘FACS opening fire. Standby Sea Cats,’ the PWO (Surface) called. ‘Alter course to 020° to open A arcs, sir.’
‘Bring her round, officer of the watch,’ Trevellion ordered over the intercom, ‘Course 020°.’
What defence could one Sea Cat mounting put up against the coming rain of missiles from the Osas and Backfires? Even if the after Sea Cat had not been knocked out in the convoy battle, the carrier’s own defence could not begin to cope.
‘Phoebe engaging with Exocets, sir.’
The Backfires would be launching at any second. He watched them, fascinated, crawling across the air display, while the PWO (Air) tracked them in.
‘Low bogies, sir. 020° and 070°. Range, one seven.’
And then he listened to Gloucester being overwhelmed while attempting to reload … ‘She’s on fire and sinking, sir. They’re abandoning ship.’
The missiles were streaking towards Old Fury. Trevellion watched them until the Sea Slug began to take them.
‘I’m going on the bridge, sir,’ he called to Druce. ‘I can do nothing more here.’
He sprang from his chair and rushed out to the port wing, yelling at the officer of the watch to relay his orders: he could try to con his ship away from the murderous missiles. He glimpsed one, winging in from the starboard bow.
‘Hard-a-starboard!’ He’d meet it head on, give the Sea Cats and the Bofors their only chance … He watched the yellow and crimson flames streaking nearer and nearer through the fog, heard the Bofors banging away, smelt the fumes from the Sea Cats. Then the missiles were exploding in mid-air, disintegrating with a sharp crack! He could even see the bits flying, the blast imprinting a fern-like pattern on the calm sea.
It was so still out here, when the guns and the Sea Cats were silent — just the soughing of the breeze as the old carrier ploughed on through the glassy calm, the fog a dirty brown against the moon.
‘Alarm starboard, sir!’ the lookout was yelling across the bridge from the open door.
Trevellion had no time for a bearing: the thing exploded, shattering the bridge windows and slicing the lookout in half. The captain staggered back into the bridge and took over the con himself:
‘Tell me where they’re coming from!’
But it was no use. Again and again, he felt that sickening thud, the shuddering of her hull as the missiles struck. A fire was raging abaft the bridge; the Sea Cat had ceased firing, but the Bofors were still barking defiantly. There was a flash and a strange fluttering sound … then the bridge exploded in his face and an excruciating pain stabbed in his right thigh.
In Sea King 826 they had been listening to the battle from the moment the Norwegian FACS broke away. They cheered when the Lynxs from STANAVFORLANT and Flag Officer First Flotilla had got in among the Osas after the surface action.
Their Sea Skuas had wreaked fair old vengeance — at least four of the FACS were burning wrecks and two would never reach Narvik. But the exuberance ceased when they listened to Goeben’s Lynx falling in flames into the sea. They flew back to Mother in silence, after the attack on Illustrious by the Backfires which had sheered off from Furious. They had streaked straight for the ASW cruiser and sunk her, a blazing wreck, while her Harriers were still clawing after the second wave of Backfires.
And then, from fifteen hundred feet, Hob spotted Old Fury, the grand old ship who had fought so hard. He saw the smoke first, trailing to leeward in the breeze which had got up with the dawn to waft away the fog. She lay stopped, on fire from stem to stern, Phoebe standing guard and tearing around under continuous rudder.
‘Charlie-time again?’ Hob demanded.
‘0640 — and that’s the latest possible,’ Dunker replied. The clock on the panel showed 0628.
‘We’ll have to risk it — or ditch,’ Hob said. ‘All ready in the back? Harnesses all round?’
‘Checked!’ Grog said, glancing at Hob.
‘Yeah,’ Dunder called. ‘Ozzie’s strapping in.’
In silence Hob took the cab down, to take a closer look at the flight deck. The HCO was still in contact, taking him down calmly, vectoring him for a ship control approach: no fire danger right aft, he had commented, between the round-down and the wrecked lift. The other two cabs of the sortie were to follow 826 in…