So Hindenburg turned and ran southeast, buying time, and intending to rally much closer to Algiers with the Italians and Fredric de Gross. By dawn the following morning, October 4th, the action would be well underway.
Chapter 15
Vice Admiral Hellmuth Heye Had been languishing on the coast of Rumania, ostensibly the Commander of all German naval forces in the Black Sea, which amounted to very little. Yet after the seizure of the French Fleet, Raeder was looking everywhere for competent officers and trained crews to man as many ships as he could. He had always liked Heye, who had commanded the heavy cruiser Hipper in the Norwegian Campaign, and sunk the destroyer Glowworm there. So Heye got the call, and to a posting he never imagined. They were giving him the captured French flagship Normandie, now flying the German naval ensign under the new name Fredric de Gross.
He had very little time to familiarize himself with the ship, which now had half the crew from the Bismarck aboard, and many men sent over from the Hindenburg. But Heye was a quick study, and he soon realized that if the crew could figure out the equipment, all he had to do was command, sail the ship as he might any other, and that he could do easily enough.
Now he was out as the southern wing of the naval screen covering Algiers. Hindenburg was calling the tune, having made contact with the enemy that night, pounding a pair of destroyers and dueling briefly with a ship Adler called a battlecruiser before breaking off east to rendezvous with the Italian battleships. Heye was now heading 080 to make that same appointment, and off his port side were three captured French Destroyers, all running with reduced crews, a mix of Germans, Italians, and even a few Frenchmen that had sworn continued allegiance to the Axis.
The Vice Admiral thought about the situation as he looked out over that long beautiful bow of the ship. There sat those two quad turrets, each really a pair of twin turrets sharing the same armored castle. He had eight 15-inch guns up front, and four more aft, more sheer throw weight than any other ship in the world. He glanced at the ship’s chronometer, noting the time at a little after four in the morning. In a few hours the sun would be up, and he did not like the idea that all the Axis fleet would be silhouetted. The British, cagey at sea as always, had chosen the time for the main engagement to occur at dawn, when they would sit out west and see the enemy ships starkly silhouetted by that rising sun. There we will be, battleships on either side, like fish in this barrel we call the Mediterranean Sea. Only the fish will be shooting at each other this time.
Well behind the main battle force, a little pre-dawn drama played itself out when the Italian Submarine Emo emerged inside the patrol station of the British carrier Formidible. She had been cruising with destroyers Sikh and Tartar, but when an undersea contact was reported, additional help was summoned, and DDs Gurkha, Matchless and Lightning came on the scene from the north.
After spending months as a training boat at the Italian Submarine school near Pula, Emo had been reassigned to wartime patrols when the Allied landings occurred. Now she was in for a little real time training by the Royal Navy, and these experienced destroyer Captains would be very hard schoolmasters. Destroyer Gurkha, under Lieutenant Commander Charles Lentaigne, was the first to pick up the scent. His ship was living an extended life, having avoided being sunk off Egypt by U-133. Now Emo was trying to get at this Zombie ship, but her first two torpedoes missed, running too deep, right beneath the British destroyer.
Gurkha had been an unlucky name, the third British destroyer to be so designated, with the first two Tribal class ships sunk earlier in the war. This one was an L-Class ship, again renamed Gurkha, and she was quick to lay down her depth charges, her commander elated when he saw obvious signs of damage come to the surface after his run. Just to be sure, he came round for another run, pressing his luck when he shouldn’t have. This resulted in a malfunctioning depth charge, which exploded much too soon and too shallow, putting damage on his own ship! Now he was forced to break off and head for a friendly port in Spain, but he had the consolation of knowing he had taught Emo a lesson when he was informed that submarine had been confirmed as sunk.
Meanwhile, off to the east, Admiral Tovey had given the order for his battle group to slow to 15 knots. He was waiting for the slower American battleships, trailing his formation by 16 nautical miles, and he was also waiting for the sun, which would not rise until 7:45 that morning. He reasoned that in another two hours, his force would be roughly 50 nautical miles due north of Algiers, and very likely in contact with the enemy just before dawn.
But Adler had other ideas, and after effecting his rendezvous with the Italians, he lined up like a steel squall line and headed west at high speed, intending to engage well before sunrise to neutralize the British advantage.
It was not long before Argos Fire reported a group of four contacts due east of Tovey’s position, no more than 18 nautical miles out. That was over 36,000 yards, and well beyond engagement range, but that would close very quickly as the two sides approached one another.
“Send word to HMS Formidible,” said Tovey. “We might want to give those new Barracudas a little night action.”
The two sides were now lining up against one another like two formations of heavy cavalry. On the Axis side, Hindinburg and Fredric de Gross were side by side, separated by a little over two miles. Roma and Impero were two to three miles further south. Tovey allowed the range to close, receiving regular reports from his own Type 274 radar now. At 05:00 he was about 12 nautical miles, or some 24,000 yards northeast of Hindenburg, still holding his fire at that range considering the darkness, but the tension was mounting as both sides came on.
“Mister Connors,” said Tovey. “You may begin finding the range. Target that closest ship.”
“Aye sir,” said Connors. “Type 274 is sending us good numbers. I have the range and bearing dialed in. Rangekeepers should have it in a second or two. The boom of those 16-inch guns was heard soon after. Hindenburg had fired at almost the exact same time, and the big shells passed one another in flight, steel demons of the night, off on their missions of mayhem. The British opening salvo would miss by 500 yards, but Bruno turret on the Hindenburg put its rounds very close, one a little over 100 feet off the starboard bow of the Invincible, which prompted Tovey to raise an eyebrow.
“Come left rudder, and five points to port,” he ordered. “Ahead thirty knots.” He had Duke of York and King George V in line behind him, and now he was turning not only to throw off the enemy fire and complicate their range finding for the next salvo, but also to give those ships a line of sight on the enemy ahead. “We’ll want to do a little better Mister Connors,” he said.