“A Bronze Star, Captain?” In CAG’s mind, a higher decoration was merited. The thought was interrupted by an orphaned cripple from Moskva landing. He recognized it; the Indian Chief nose art was very distinctive. “That’s Darkshade’s aircraft. One of the planes shot up by the F4Us. You know, I wouldn’t care to be a Corsair pilot on an Apache reservation any time in the next twenty years.”
There was a gaping hole overhead, ripped clean through the flight deck. That wasn’t altogether a bad thing. The bad part was that it allowed a constant supply of air to the fires from the crashed Ju-87. The good part was that it also allowed the heat and smoke to escape. That made the jobs of the firefighting crews much easier. Another good thing was that the damage was contained within and above the hangar deck. The tough tanker design of the Commencement Bay class had stood Moskva in good stead. The bad news was that the hit was much further aft than on Stalingrad among the parked Avengers. Most were destroyed or so badly damaged that they were fit only to be pushed over the side. Men had been working on those aircraft, getting them defueled and sealed down. They’d almost succeeded and their efforts made the fire much less catastrophic than it could have been. More than fifty of those men had paid the price. They’d been caught in the explosion and fires as the wreckage of the Ju-87 had crashed down on top of them.
Chaplain Frank Westover was working his way through the chaos. He was helping where he could, keeping out of the way where he couldn’t. Mostly he was keeping out of the way because the area of the fire was reserved for those with the right gear. Westover concentrated his work far forward, away from the heat of the fires, where the casualty evacuation station had been set up. Most of the men caught in the explosion and fire were dead. They’d died quickly but agonizingly as they had been soaked in blazing gasoline. Any Chaplain who’d served on a carrier knew the terrible burns caused by raw gasoline. These were as bad as any he’s seen.
Two medics were working on a hideously burned man. They’d pumped him full of morphine and were trying and keep him alive even though it was obviously hopeless. Westover saw them losing the battle and he slipped in to administer the last rites. He had no idea who the man was, which religion he belonged to or anything else about him. The burns were far too bad for that. He knew that the words would be a comfort to the dying man no matter who he was and the just and merciful God that Westover believed in wouldn’t refuse a man absolution because the words weren’t quite the right ones. As Westover finished, the man gave his last sigh, a little puff of smoke coming from his mouth.
“Any more mortally wounded?” Westover asked quietly.
“No, we’ve got the ones who have a chance down in sickbay and the rest didn’t make it. I’m not sure how to say this Father, but you might have a word with Smitty. He’s over there, by the bow 40mm quad. His friend bought it and he’s taking it real bad. You know why.”
Westover nodded. He made his way forward, where the hangar deck led out to the quadruple 40mm mount on the bow. The dead had been moved there, out of the way of the battle against the fires further aft. In one corner a sailor was knelt over a burned corpse, the charred head cradled in his lap while the man prayed over him.
“Mind if I pray with you, sailor?” Westover spoke quietly.
The man, Smith, started at the voice. Westover looked down at the burned body and marveled at the love that could lead one friend to tolerate the hideous sight of what had once been another. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you, but I’d like to pray with you, if you don’t mind.”
“He was my friend Father. Now he’s gone.” It could have come out wrong, a rejection of either Westover or the truth but it didn’t. It came out as what it was, an anguished plea for help and understanding.
“And your love honors him. And us.” Westover knelt quietly beside the body, made the sign of the cross and started to pray quietly.
“You don’t understand, Father. Nobody does. He was my special friend.” There was almost defiance in the word special.
“I know. Smitty, everybody knows. Just because nobody said anything doesn’t mean they didn’t know. And your shipmates care enough about you to make sure I came over to help you in your time of grief.”
Westover left it there; more words would have been meaningless. There were many things he could have said, many that he would not; it was neither the time nor the place. Instead he quietly started to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, hearing Smitty pick up the words and join him. The prayer might be a comfort; it might not. At least Smitty knew now that he hadn’t been left alone, that he was part of a crew who looked out for him.
Only the pumps were keeping the Voss afloat. The damage control crews did everything they could but the situation had been dire even before the last strike had put three more torpedoes into the Werner Voss. Rockets and bombs had added damage but it was the torpedoes that were doing for her. To be more precise, the ship’s appalling construction hindered all attempts to control the flooding that had finished her.
Lieutenant Commander Siegfried Ehrhardt felt for the damage control crews. He’d seen their frustration as they closed and dogged the “watertight” hatches, only to see water leaking around the supposed seals or spraying through cracks where the hatch didn’t fit its frame properly. As a result, flooding spread constantly. Nowhere in any great amounts; just enough to slowly and surely eat away at the ship’s stability. Even worse, all the torpedo hits had been on the same side. She’d taken at least five torpedoes; only one had been amidships where it directly threatened the engine rooms. That torpedo had struck the cemented armor of the lower strake of the ship’s side protection. The armor had been brittle; it had had fractured under the stress of the heavy explosion. Pieces of plating were blasted right through the torpedo protection system and into the portside boiler room. Needless to say, the room was flooding. The spread into the machinery spaces was proving impossible to stop.
Two more hits had been up by the bows; the remaining pair dead aft. The ship’s stern and screws were gone; now a tangled mass of wreckage, her shafts bent and twisted beyond repair. The Good Lord alone knew how much damage they’d done before their rotation could be stopped. From the way the ship was settling by the stern, a lot. A bent shaft could rip a ship’s guts out. Ehrhardt had an uneasy feeling they had.
“List has reached 30 degrees, Sir.” The talker in the engine rooms gave the message but his voice was shaking. A 30 degree list meant a sinking ship. Ships might make transient rolls to greater degrees than that, but a set list that great meant that the game was up. As if in answer to his thoughts, the internal phone rang again. Ehrhardt answered it then put the phone carefully back in its slot.
“The order to abandon ship is to be given. Internal communications have broken down. One of the officers called us in case we did not get the word when the order is made. We are to secure down here, set the scuttling charges, and then make our way out.”
“The pumps, Sir?” With the screws gone, the pumps and generators were the only things left of value.
“Forget them, the Vossie is done for.”
“How are we going to get out?” The stoker’s voice had an air of panic in it; discipline in the engineering spaces was breaking down fast. There was a reason for the question. Water was already seeping through the overhead hatches and down the bulkheads. That meant there was flooding above them. Ehrhardt could guess what was happening. The uptakes from the port and center boiler rooms ran across the ship to the funnel on the starboard side. As the Werner Voss settled and rolled, water flooded those uptakes and then poured down into the machinery spaces. At a guess, rockets and bombs from the Ami jabos had lacerated the sections above them and that flooding was spreading uncontrollably. Still, there was an answer.