“Why? Why? Couldn’t they see we are sinking, that the crew are abandoning ship?”
One of the junior officers was almost hysterical. For a moment Mullenheim-Rechberg had sympathy for him. He’s barely more than a boy and this wasn’t what anybody had expected. But panic and fear were contagious and had to be crushed quickly. “Get a grip on yourself. You are an officer, act like one.”
“Sir, Von Der Tann has gone! She just rolled over and went down.” That wasn’t surprising, she’d taken at least ten torpedo hits and twice than many of the heavy armor-piercing bombs. She was the first; but she wouldn’t be the last, Seydlitz and Derfflinger were as bad. Behind Bismarck, Tirpitz was shattered and sinking fast. That didn’t surprise him, by the time the last Ami bombers had finished with her, she’d taken a total of 13 torpedoes and a dozen heavy bombs. She would not last much longer.
Captain Mullenheim-Rechberg staggered as another internal explosion racked his ship, sending a fireball upwards out of the smashed ruin of her superstructure. She was rolling over more quickly, settling lower all the time. It was only a question of what would get her first, a massive explosion as her magazines went or flooding eating up what was left of her buoyancy. That decided him. There was one thing left he could do for the Bismarck. He cupped his hands around his mouth and put all the power in his lungs into the shout. “Scuttle the ship!”
Then, he turned to the young officer beside him, a supercilious smirk on his face. “Now the Amis can’t claim they sank her.”
The great German battleship rolling over had been a spectacular sight; her red belly contrasting with the black-gray sea, the tiny figures of men running down her hull trying to avoid the inevitable and fatal plunge into the ice-cold seas. Their efforts were futile, the ship’s stern vanished beneath the waves and she had slipped under, leaving them floundering in the water they had dreaded. Marko Dash circled the sight for a minute, then felt his aircraft rock savagely. A second German battleship had exploded. The fires must have reached her magazines although there were rumors that the Germans weren’t too bright when it came to storing fused shells in their magazines.
Clementine circled the sight below again. Two of the German battleships had gone. Another was at the last edge of extremity. He watched her slip under, faster and faster. He knew the mechanism, as the hull sank deeper, the pressure driving water through the holes in her hull increased and the flooding rate increased. Then, as the ship sank deeper, more holes in her hull became submerged and they too added their contribution to the mass of water that was sinking her. Finally, the shattered and riddled superstructure let the air out, leaving nothing to save the ship. That battleship, and the one behind her, were doomed.
Aren’t they all? The U.S. Navy had Chance-Vought, Douglas, Martin, Lockheed. They had aircraft carriers, the Germans had battleships. What had they been thinking? Over to his left, Dash saw a single battleship, slowly, painfully, turning south. She was listing, leaving a trail of oil in the water behind her, black smoke staining the sky behind her. Marko lead his formation over to the position of the ship and looked at her more closely. She was one of the smallest German battleships, two twin turrets forward, one twin aft. Scharnhorst class. What looked like her sister ship was way behind, dead in the water. The other eight aircraft from Marko’s squadron already making their attack runs on her. This one, the mobile one, was Marko’s.
“All Sugar aircraft, split into two groups of four. Hit her from either side of the bows. 45 degrees off centerline; first flight hit port, my flight hit starboard.” Marko’s voice was confident as he rapped out the orders. TG58.5 had only enough aircraft and munitions left for a single strike and this wave was a mixture of serviceable aircraft from the squadrons on board the carriers. One good strike.
He took his plane down, skimming the waves in the now-familiar pattern of the torpedo-bomber pilot. There was some flak; a tiny amount, a few tracers here and there. Nothing like the storm that had greeted them when they’d hit the enemy carriers that morning. He knew it was a perfect hammerhead attack. The torpedoes would interlock to form a web from which even a fully-mobile ship found it hard to escape. This cripple didn’t even have that chance. Marko’s rockets streaked towards the target. The battleship’s battered bridge vanished under the flashes of the impacts, then his torpedoes were gone. His wing cannon added to the chaos on the target. Then his formation flashed over the ship and their work was all done.
Behind him, seven columns of water rose from the ship. Two up by the bows severed the raking structure, causing it to collapse downwards. Two more hit portside, just under the funnel; three more starboard side, under what was left of the aft superstructure. That had to hurt. Marko watched the battleship lose the last vestige of movement. She went dead in the water, her wake faded away as she lost speed.
Marko’s formation had got in and out clean. Eight aircraft had gone in, eight come out. He led the formation higher, ready for the return flight home. Below him, he saw the battleship he’d watched foundering had already gone and the one behind her was on her beam ends. That made it time to report.
“Saber control, this is Ink Five-Two Leader. Have seen two battleships sink, one explode. Fourth is on her beam ends. Attacked one battleship heading south, estimated seven hits. All torpedoes released.” Marko paused. “Control, we’re doing murder out here.”
“Ink Five-Two leader, Washington wants a clean sweep on this one. Do a circuit of the area, see if any other hostiles are heading south.”
“Roger, sweeping south now.”
Marko’s group swung south and started its search arc. It didn’t take long. They didn’t have to go very far. There was a formation beneath them; a capital ship, five escorts. For a second, Marko debated whether to call the sighting in. Hadn’t enough ships been sunk, hadn’t enough men died? That doubt lasted only a second.
“Saber Control. Ink Five-Two leader here. Sighted enemy formation. Estimated one capital ship, five destroyers, about 20 miles south-east of main formation.”
“Acknowledged Five-Two Leader.” There was a long pause. “Be advised that one squadron of Adies from your group is being diverted to hit them. We are contacting Excaliber and Knife to have Formations Jack and King diverted to take down that group. Come on home. The sun’s going down.”
“Sir, Word from Saber.” Halsey grunted. Shangri-La and her task group had opened the battle and her crews now had more experience at attacking ships than his other pilots. “Sir, Formation Ink reports that three enemy battleships have sunk. One more is going down now, the other four are dead in the water. The survivors, one large ship reported as a battleship but we think it’s a cruiser, and five destroyers heading south. Saber requests Jack and King hit them. They’re all-Corsair waves, Admiral. So are Log and Mike. We’re ready to launch Nan now Sir, but we’re running out of time. We’ll be well into dusk by the time they recover.”