The feint was the delay that forced the RAF fighter to return to the airdrome, twenty-five miles south of the flow on the Scottish mainland. When half the fighters were refueling, the Luftwaffe struck the Home Fleet.
The sky above the flow suddenly filled with enemy dive-bombers. Even as the planes began their runs, sailors aboard the Royal Navy ships doubted their eyes. The massive cranked wings and spatted undercarriages meant these were Stukas. But Stukas simply could not be over Scapa Flow.
Oberleutnant Franz Stenzel’s bomber powered almost vertically out of the sky. His target, HMS Rodney, was dashing south toward the Sound of Hoxa and the open sea of the Pentland Firth, white water churning behind it. Stenzel had memorized the battleship’s features. Three triple sixteen-inch turrets, all forward of a massive superstructure. Twelve six-inch guns, all aft. A peculiarly high freeboard.
“An ugly ship,” he said into his mask.
His weapons officer, Sergeant Fritz Cohausz, replied over the engine’s whine, “It’s in my sights, ugly as it is.”
Stenzel told me after the war that he was glad for the engine noise. It hid the tension and fear in his voice. The air in his mask smelled of engine oil. Engine vibration rattled Stenzel’s teeth. He had a cramp in his buttocks.
The oberleutnant was posted to Staffel 4 of II StG (Stukageschwader, or dive-bombing wing) of Luftflotten 5 (Air Fleet 5), stationed at Herdla. Stenzel knew as well as the sailors he was falling toward that a Stuka could not possibly be over Scapa Flow. That is, he knew his plane would not make it back. The small belt of flare-gun cartridges around his calf was little comfort. He was also wearing a cloth and leather flying jerkin, much easier to take off than a flight suit, should his uniform become water-logged and begin to pull him under.
His plane was of a masterful design, carefully balanced and a delight to fly. As he plummeted toward the Rodney, Stenzel changed trim, which automatically adjusted the air brakes. The Stuka produced an unnerving scream, the plane’s hallmark. The dive-bomber’s vertical approach was fairly slow, allowing for precise aiming. Stenzel glanced through the window in the floor of his cockpit, then at the lines inscribed on the canopy to gauge the angle of his dive. The Rodney’s multiple pompons hammered the air around him, but because of the steep dive, could not draw a bead. The battleship grew in front of him.
At the last possible instant before a pull-up would have been futile, Sergeant Cohausz released his 1,100-pound bomb from the cradle beneath the fuselage. Stenzel pulled back on the stick. He rolled the plane to starboard as he climbed, hoping to confuse the Rodney’s gunners.
The bomb soared into the forecastle, forward of the first sixteen-inch battery, tearing open the six-inch steel plating, mangling the decks below and setting them on fire. The Rodney would have survived the blow, had not the rest of Staffel 4 followed Stenzel in. The next two bombs hit midships between the tower and the funnel, almost tearing the battlewagon in two.
The fourth bomb missed aft. The pilot, with a Spitfire on his tail, probably lost concentration, and when he tried to pull up, he crossed into the Spitfire’s tracers. The Stuka disappeared in a ball of flame, which quickly blew itself out, leaving parts of the wings and fuselage fluttering toward the sea.
Stenzel and Cohausz still had a 110-pound bomb under each wing. The pilot banked his Stuka south, thankful the British pilot had chased after someone else. A Stuka was almost helpless against a Spitfire. He skimmed over the water, turning in a tight circle. This time he came at the Rodney from sea level, at an angle toward her damaged foredeck where AA fire would be less. At three hundred yards he began firing his two 7.92mm machine guns in the wings.
The Rodney’s decks were blanketed with oil-fed black smoke from the blazes, and the ship was losing speed. Stenzel lifted the Stuka’s nose, and Cohausz released both bombs. They detonated against the control tower and bridge, showering the deck below with fire and metal shards. Other Stukas followed Stenzel’s plane as it cruised over the crippled ship and through the wall of smoke, then raced east. They left the Rodney a burning hulk.
Early that morning, Oberleutnant Stenzel had been assured by his wing commander that the genius of the plan would reveal itself to the pilots after they were safely rescued. Stenzel doubted it then, and he doubted it thirty minutes after his bombing run when he pancaked his plane into the sea. The Stuka was risky to ditch, since waves tended to catch the wings and flip the plane. Stenzel told me after the war that his successful water landing was due only to luck, as it wasn’t a maneuver the Luftwaffe allowed one to practice. He and Cohausz quickly pushed themselves out of the cockpit and jumped into the water, knowing the plane would sink rapidly. Bobbing in the chop, they inflated life jackets, and Stenzel opened a dye packet he carried in his suit. The orange color spread over the water. By the time Stenzel looked over his shoulder, his plane had disappeared.
Unlike the RAF, the German air force had a dedicated sea-rescue service, the Seenotflugkommondos. Most of its float planes, Heinkel He 59s, had been moved to the Norwegian coast for this operation. Within ten minutes, Stenzel heard the drone of a Heinkel, sonorous compared to the wail of his Stuka engine. The plane landed nearby, and within moments Stenzel and Cohausz were lifted aboard, where they joined four other Stuka pilots and weapons officers.
His wing commander was a good judge of his pilots. Only then, safe in the belly of the Heinkel, did Stenzel fully appreciate the Luftwaffe’s plan. To reach Scapa Flow, his Staffel had been sacrificed, but the maneuver caught the British completely unprepared. Stenzel laughed suddenly and shook Cohausz’s hand.
U-502 led the pack through the Strait of Hoxa. Its commander, Kapitänleutnant Hans Fromm, had been assured that the submarine nets across the Strait would be removed at 1:30, but he was not told how or by whom. Sub nets conveniently disappearing? It didn’t sound likely. He swung his periscope to starboard, then port. The sub was midway between Stranger Head and Hoxa Head. His U-boat would not be the first to enter the flow. During the night of October 13–14, 1939, Günther Prien and his U-47 slipped into the basin and sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak, a major blow to British prestige.
“Sub depth?” Fromm asked.
“Two meters, Herr Kaleun,” the chief engineer answered, using the abbreviation for Fromm’s rank.
“Prepare to surface.”
A bell rang throughout the submarine. The stokers jumped to their diesel engines.
“Blow the tanks, Chief,” Fromm ordered. He heard a long hiss of compressed air.
“We’re up, sir.”
“Horizon report.”
His arms over the periscope handles, the second officer replied, “Land to the west, eight hundred meters. Some distance to the east. We’re dead center, Herr Kaleun.” A moment later, the officer exulted, “I’ve found the lights, sir.”
“Open the hatch.”
North Sea air spilled into the submarine. Fromm gulped it gratefully. First up the ladder were three lookouts. The commander followed them.
He stood forward on the bridge, leaning against the magnetic compass. The sky and sea in front of him were filled with what Fromm knew would be recorded as one of history’s most ferocious battles. Luftwaffe planes—there must have been a hundred of them—filled the sky, diving in and out of curling black smoke. A few were being chased by Hurricanes and Spitfires. Tracers arced across the sky, and clouds of AA fire dappled it. The flow boiled with the battle.