Damn it, King thought. The Brits couldn’t do anything right. They couldn’t even lose a war without screwing it up.
After a shaken and despondent Vian left, King was left to confront another problem — how to clear Lakes Ontario and probably Lake Erie of German presence so that an invasion of Nazi-held Canada could commence. There were no American warships on the Great Lakes and hadn’t been since the war of 1812. Even then those had been wooden ships built on the lakes, a total impossibility given the needs of modern shipbuilding, which included guns and armor plate.
It seemed so simple to armchair strategists, and that included Roosevelt. All the navy had to do, they thought, was steam up the St. Lawrence and insert American warships where there were none. The President had to be reminded that it was almost eight hundred miles from Halifax to Toronto and warships would have to make their way up a narrow river with a hostile enemy on both shores.
Some bright mind had suggested arming smaller ships, even yachts, with depth charges and deck guns along with anti-aircraft guns and this was being done. But how long would it take for them to clear out the damned German E-boats and submarines, and how many enemy ships were there in the first place? Besides, wasn’t this more of an army operation? King smiled as he recalled that a number of B24 bombers had been assigned to the Tenth Fleet to hunt Nazi submarines, and had been fairly successful.
Perhaps, Marshall thought, they would do just as well on the Great Lakes.
Canfield and his men were ready this time. Bunkers had been built and now would withstand anything other than a direct hit by a very large bomb. Given the state of bombing accuracy, the targeted bunker was likely a very safe place. Radar systems were up and operating, and a recent attack by German planes had been met by a horde of American fighters that had chased them back across the lake. Several German planes had been shot down while the men on the ground cheered. A couple of chutes had opened but the enemy pilots had drowned before anyone could get to them.
Still, the area wasn’t safe. The Germans liked to send their high speed E-boats across during the night, just like the Japanese had done to American marines on Guadalcanal. The Germans, however, kept their motors muzzled and ran slowly until the very last minute, then they would open up with their small but deadly cannon and machine guns. It didn’t take much of a raid to keep a thousand men from sleeping. Just a few hundred machine gun rounds and a dozen or so rapid fire cannon shells would keep everyone’s nerves frazzled.
“Why the hell don’t we have radar that can pick out ships?” Canfield muttered.
Dubinski laughed softly in the night. “If the army thought we should have good radar, they would have issued it, just like they don’t issue brains. In the army you don’t need brains.”
“Up yours, sergeant.”
Canfield didn’t like the bunkers they’d been ordered to build. Despite their strength, he thought they were traps. Along with being traps the bunkers were poorly hidden, which meant they could be seen from both the sky and the lake.
Canfield was further annoyed by the passive stance taken by the army. Armies should be on the move, seeking out the enemy and bringing an end to this strange new war. All he wanted to do was go home to his wife and his job as sheriff. In his opinion, digging in and waiting was what got France whipped in 1940 when they found that their vaunted Maginot Line wasn’t worth squat. At least this General Patton seemed to have the right idea. Too bad his army appeared to be stalled out west.
Canfield was beginning to have serious doubts about their own Corp Commander, Lloyd Fredendall. At least their new regimental commander was aggressive and had given his implicit blessing to this latest brainchild of Canfield’s. The colonel was regular army and had replaced their original colonel who had suffered a nervous breakdown. The colonel liked what he’d heard about the skirmish between Canfield’s men and the E-boat a while back and gave the okay to give it another shot.
Another shot, Canfield thought and laughed. He assumed that the krauts were pretty well aware that the American forces were building up a supply of landing craft that could have only one purpose — the invasion of Ontario. Canfield had a dozen dummy boats built of plywood and had camouflaged them in what he called an intentionally very half-assed manner. The Germans would be sure to notice them and would try to do something about it. At least that’s what he hoped.
Canfield yawned and checked his watch. It was almost three in the morning. If the krauts were going to come, it would have to be soon. He’d been up the last few nights and didn’t know how much longer he could keep up this pace. If the Germans didn’t come in the next couple of nights, he was going to give up and dismantle the decoys and get some sleep.
It was hell getting old, he thought. Maybe he should have some more coffee and take another walk around the guns that had been sited to surprise his unwelcome guests.
“I hear something,” said Dubinski, “How about you?”
“Maybe I could if you’d quit talking.” Canfield grumped.
Both men were silent, straining to hear. There. It was a distant humming. They recognized the throbbing of an E-boat’s engines, maybe two of them. Once again, they’d been heavily and skillfully muffled. Canfield suddenly realized they might be a lot closer than he first thought. There was mist on the water and the enemy boats could be hiding in it.
“Should we turn on our lights?” Dubinski asked.
“No, not yet. Let them go first.”
Seconds later, two offshore searchlights flared on and lit up the shore, quickly finding the “landing craft.” Almost immediately, machine gun and anti-aircraft shells began ripping through the fragile dummies. Gasoline from five gallon cans placed in the boats exploded, adding to the realism.
“Now,” Canfield ordered and his own searchlights reached out and found the two German E-boats. They were only a couple of hundred yards from the shore.
Tracers from American machine guns lit the way to the Germans and quickly found the range, ripping into their hulls. Canfield could see chaos on the two boats.
“Where the hell are my tanks?” he yelled.
The M3 might be obsolescent, but it packed a 75mm gun and he had two of them. Their cannon barked and kicked up splashes just a few yards away from the boats that were now turning and frantically trying to get away from the hornet’s nest they’d disturbed.
A 75mm shell struck one of the German boats, rocking it and sending men and debris into the water. Canfield was about to say something when the E-boat exploded with a roar and a shock wave that they could feel.
“I think we just set off a torpedo,” Dubinski commented. “Ain’t that tough shit?”
One German torpedo boat was sinking rapidly and the other had high-tailed it out of range. The battle was over and it was suddenly, shockingly, quiet. Canfield waved for rescue parties in their own small boats to go out and rescue German survivors, if there were any.
It didn’t take long for the motorboats to reach the debris and begin pulling people in. The second German boat was barely visible and staying just out of range, watching the Americans work.
“What the hell are they doing?” asked Dubinski.
“They’re looking to see what we do with their comrades,” Canfield answered. “If it looked like we were going to kill survivors, I think they would have attacked our rescue boats. As it is, I think they’ll leave them alone.”