As for Kapitan Adler, given the command of Germany’s most formidable battleship, his yearning for battle had finally been quenched. He had seen his mentor, Admiral Lütjens die in combat, and now he would join him, shaken by the sudden hammer blow his ship had been struck, and the massive damage that was caused by that magazine explosion. Once he had felt his ship to be invulnerable, and after he had smashed HMS Invincible in the jaw when they last met, and sent the pride of the Royal Navy wallowing to the corner on unsteady legs, he had every confidence that he would prevail. Yet the body punch delivered by Tovey’s ship was so heavy, that Adler’s ship would die that hour, and he would die with it….
There came a lull in the action as Tovey’s three battleships continued their turn to the north. Then they heard the thunder rolling up from the south, where the American Battleship Massachusetts was in much a similar situation as the Hindenburg. Impero and Roma had come on the scene, and now they joined Fredric de Gross, putting in enough fire to force that ship to turn and attempt to disengage. The American ship took five main gun hits, three on her side armor, which held up well, but two on the superstructure, seeing damage to secondary batteries, her seaplane bay and launchers, and lifeboats wrecked and on fire amidships.
Yet the awareness of what had just happened to Hindenburg finally sunk in all down the line, and it prompted Admiral Heye to make a sharp turn to the south. He did not want his ship to be next in the line to receive the attention of those three British battleships. Seeing the American battleship turning to break off, he ordered the same. Roma and Impero saw his ship turn, and they began to come around to keep formation.
Off to their south, the American cruisers Tuscaloosa, Wichita and Philadelphia had come upon three French destroyers, sinking two of them, and sending the last one running for Algiers. Now they turned to come round with the Massachusetts, damaged but still running soundly at 21 knots.
That was the battle. The bang became a whimper, and all that remained on the scene were a flight of six Barracudas, finally making their way in the dark and swooping over the stricken carcass of the Hindenburg like vultures. They could see that ship was doomed, and so broke off to try their luck on Fredric de Gross, but the AA defense on the ex-Normandie was fierce and unrelenting. Four of the six planes would be shot down, the last two breaking off and running for HMS Formidable.
The result of this action would send all the heavy metal on the Axis side back to home ports. Heye would sail for Toulon, the Italians back to La Spezia, and by so doing, the Axis fleet would concede the Western Med to the Allies for the near run, and possibly forever. The convoy then at sea carrying British troops to Oran would arrive in good order, and days later, the US 34th Division near Algiers would get some much needed help.
The battler for Algeria was on.
Raeder took the news very hard. The damnable Royal Navy had triple teamed the pride of the fleet, he thought, and this was a very heavy blow. Hitler would likely go through the roof, and rail on and on about the useless battleships he ordered me to build. If we could have built six of them as originally planned, then the Royal Navy would be weeping tonight. This time the tears are mine, and the bitter dregs. My only consolation was the fact that both our carriers, and Kaiser Wilhelm, were far from the scene of this action.
What was Adler thinking fighting a pre-dawn battle like that? He was worried that the sun would silhouette him, but with that same sun the Stukas and He-111s would have launched in droves from Algiers. He could have fought his battle under good air cover, but now all is lost. Without Hindenburg, holding the Med will be most difficult. And as usual, the Italians were of little help. They reportedly drove off that American battleship, and those new British heavy cruisers, but sunk nothing. Fredric de Gross survived, but now the loss of Hindenburg sends my spirits to their lowest ebb in this war. The Canaries are gone, all my plans there shattered. We’ve lost Casablanca, and the French are gone, leaving us a few good ships we can struggle to man.
Damn, he thought. I will be lucky to retain command of the fleet, and luckier if Hitler doesn’t order all my building programs to halt. Hindenburg is lost, and there will never be another like it, but its brother Brandenburg will soon be ready, only as the finest aircraft carrier the world has ever seen. Will it suffer a similar fate?
We shall see….
Part VI
Tigers East!
Chapter 16
After his successful defensive action on the line of the Don, Balck’s 11th Panzer Division, and 23rd Panzer had been in reserve at Millerovo, but he was soon handed a new mission. Von Knobelsdorff came in and told him he was heading south.
“We need to secure the bridgeheads in the Donets Bend, Kamensk and Belaya Kalivta. The enemy has been stubborn at Voroshilovgrad, and we haven’t the infantry to conduct a street fight with them there. They have been relying on the fact that the Donets Bend is not threatened at the moment, and so they only have light screening forces there. We are about to change that.”
“You realize our Korps is the only mobile reserve behind the entire line of the lower Don?”
“Of course I realize that, but your intervention earlier, and the arrival of 14th Panzer Korps, has stabilized this front. Von Wietersheim will hold the line now. We must be off to other business.”
“Very well,” said Balck. “Where do you want my division?”
“Totenkopf has pushed over the river at Belaya Kalivta. They were supposed to be refitting back there, so you will relieve them, cross at Kamensk and push on to Sukovo. That will clear the rail line, which dips below the river before it heads west for Volgograd. Steiner’s supply situation there is not good, so we must open that rail line. No less than nine railway engineer regiments have been sent to get that line up and running before the weather turns bad. We will need it this winter.”
It was still high summer, the early September heat heavy on the steppe, but Balck understood. General Winter had been very hard on the Army in 1941, and he would be campaigning again, and all too soon.
“We still have six to eight weeks,” said von Knobelsdorff. “In that time I want to secure the east end of the Donetz Basin, and move on Rostov from that direction.”
“Will Totenkopf operate with us?”
“I’m afraid not. They are being recalled to the Kalach bridgehead, along with the Wiking Division for the push on Volgograd. Steiner needs everything he can get his hands on. But 16th Motorized has been operating independently there, and it will now be added to our Korps. I intend to take Rostov.”