“There’s a Harrier over there,” Chubby informed her. The sky was devoid of other aircraft as the RN Sea Harrier tucked itself in on her port wing. Glancing across she saw its hard points were bare of ordnance and a cannon shell had left a jagged hole in its starboard wing. Chubby dialled up the Prince of Wales air groups frequency, “Harrier on my wing, this is Cobra One-Six, I owe you a beer fella!”
“Roger Cobra, this is Papa Zero-Two… right now I’d settle for a place to put down, Bravo Charlie has a hole in it and is closed for business at this time.” Bravo Charlie was the Prince of Wales; apparently it had taken damage from the air raid.
“I copy that Papa, are you alone, have the rest of your guys recovered to Alpha Charlie?” Meaning her own ship, the John F Kennedy.
“Cobra, I am not sure that there are any other Papa’s remaining.” The British pilot was calm and matter of fact. Nikki suddenly realised with a start that perhaps they too may be all that remained of their squadron.
“Roger Papa, hold still while we look you over for damage, then follow us home.”
The four Spearfish torpedoes had completed their turn eleven minutes before, approaching the invisible line, somewhere along which the enemy Alpha was still heading. Hoods captain was unconsciously drumming his fingers as he leant against a bulkhead, willing at least one of the weapons to acquire the Alpha on its passive sensors. A crewman handed him a mug of tea and held up the open end of a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits. Nodding his thanks the captain took one and dunked it in the tea, welcoming the distraction as he judged the right moment to remove the biscuit. Too long and the biscuit became soggy and broke off, leaving a soggy mess at the bottom of the mug.
“Still negative on all weapons, skipper,” a voice informed him. Distracted by the speaker, he removed the biscuit which bent limply where it had been immersed, he quickly tried to bite the endangered section but his teeth closed on air, the soggy section dropped back into the tea, splashing his white shirt as it did so.
“Bollocks!” he muttered.
“Run time remaining, please?” he enquired.
“Four and a half minutes on number four, skipper.” That had been the first torpedo launched, after that time the weapon would reach the end of its filament thin wire and be beyond their ability to send steering commands.
The captain took a sip of tea and came to a decision.
“What’s the heading of number four?”
“202 degrees, sir.”
He was going to take a chance and try to provoke the Russian into reacting.
“Change its heading to 340’ and go active on number four only.”
“Change heading on number four to heading of three-four-zero degrees and go active on number four only… aye sir.”
He was gambling that the Alpha would be between the furthest torpedoes heading and the second or third torpedoes out of the tubes.
“Skipper… firm fix on Sierra Two Seven, range 9250 yards, bearing 170’, heading 180’ speed… Transient! Transient!..torpedo in the water bearing 170’… Sierra Two Seven has launched along number fours bearing… skipper, number three and four have acquired, three has gone active!”
Aboard Gegarin her skipper ordered countermeasures launched and a torpedo launched along the approaching torpedoes heading, seeking the enemy submarine that had launched it. Unlike the Hood, and the rest of the world’s submarine fleets, her torpedoes were launched in a cocoon, to protect it from damage whilst a piston drove it from the tube. The deeper the vessel was the more compressed air was required to launched the torpedo from the tube in the conventional manner and so the piston system allowed it to launch from great depth. Once clear the cocoon was discarded and the weapon sped on its way. Air used to launch the weapon was not vented into the sea behind the torpedo as it left the tube but was released back into the vessel’s reserve through valves.
The Alpha’s power plant drove the single screw to higher revolutions and the deck heeled over as the boat turned hard to port, only to find itself head to head with a second torpedo approaching from a different bearing altogether. More noisemakers were ejected as the Alpha reversed its turn.
Hood’s torpedo number four had been dummied by the first noisemakers, diving through the right hand counter-measure and continued to turn in an attempt to reacquire. Number three also chased a noisemaker and the Gegarin’s captain, on hearing the danger pass, ordered their turn reversed once more, ejecting another pair of noisemakers into their wake.
There were now six counter-measures mimicking the sound of a submarine at high rate of turn and two torpedoes close by, manoeuvring at 60 knots. With their own vessel now at twenty-eight knots it was impossible for the Gegarin’s sonar operators to keep track of where everything was, had they been able then her captain would not have reversed their turn that second time. With only fifteen seconds fuel remaining, torpedo number four detonated against the Alpha’s titanium bow as they met at a closing speed of 88 knots. At a depth of 1600 feet, the dynamic change in air pressure, as the bow disintegrated, ignited the air within the vessel, immolating the crew and detonating the torpedo warheads in her after torpedo room.
Hood immediately reversed course and sprinted away at flank speed for five minutes, using the reverberations as cover, putting distance between herself and the scene that would surely attract attention on the surface.
Once clear the Hood resumed her stalk of the, not too distant carrier groups which had again turned north into the wind to recover its air wings. Hood was almost abeam the lead ships.
Not a problem, thought the captain as he went about amending his original plan of attack.
Blistered paintwork, bent, twisted radio and radar masts, marred the John F Kennedy’s looks. Seawater was drenching her superstructure from sprinklers and hoses, as crewmembers in NBC clothing carried out decontamination drills. One of John F Kennedy’s UH-60 Sea Hawks had lifted off to do a damage assessment and head count, they came up three short, soon to be four.
The frigates USS Timmings and Norwich Falls were gone, disappeared without trace. The destroyer USS Timothy Hughes, had been capsized by the nuclear blast wave, all that remained visible of her was ten feet of charred stern, protruding above the waves. Soon to join them was the Ammunition ship USNS Ponder, AE-59, lying far astern, dead in the water and her superstructure engulfed in flames. Helicopters from the group shuttled the survivors to safety. The group could not expend the time in trying to save her, nor to search for survivors trapped within the hull of the Timothy Hughes.
Admiral C. Dalton, commanding the carrier group, called a meeting of the command staff. The air wing had not yet begun to recover and until new antennas had been jury rigged; the flagship was employing one of the E-2 Hawkeye’s, sat on a decontaminated area of deck as a command and control centre.