Story 1431
South Atlantic, July 10, 1942
Four liners moved through the waves at eighteen knots. Aboard the ships were the men and some of the equipment of two heavy engineer and construction brigades. They had left New York thirteen days ago and would be landing in Durban in nine days. The flag aboard the escorting cruiser, USS Cincinnati went up and flapped sharply in the wind. The old cruiser led the two pairs of liners and the trailing cruiser, USS Milwaukee, into a fifteen degree turn to port as part of the zig-zag routine that the convoy had been following since leaving the defensive minefields south of Staten Island.
As an engineering company completed their calisthenics aboard the pool deck of the liner, they saw USS Milwaukee peel out of formation. In between toe touches and deep squats, they watched the cruiser turn so that the gunpowder catapult that a seaplane sat on pointed into the wind. As they completed their sixty-seventh jumping jack, the Vought seaplane jumped into the sky and began to head south to scout the convoy’s path for the day.
Ninety minutes later, that engineering company was climbing up and down the superstructure of the liner in full gear. Men were sweating, men were swearing and men were focusing solely on the rope in their hands and the burn in their legs as they worked upwards, inchworming their way into the sky. As a private reached the look-out platform near the bridge, he clambered over the railing and saw the rearguard cruiser accelerate rapidly pass the liner.
USS Milwaukee’s captain looked at the liners he was charged to protect. The Kingfisher had spotted a very suspicious looking ship ninety miles away. Per orders, the pilot maintained radio silence and flew back to the cruiser. Another plane would be in the air in a minute to hold the contact even as the second line cruiser accelerated to thirty one knots. This was a good 10% less than her design speed and and 5% less than her actual flank speed, but she would gallop across the waves to close the distance to the shifty suspect. That ship could be a neutral merchant ship taking its chances going through the broad south central Atlantic where almost no ship had reason to be. Her master could be gambling on an inefficient course as protection from submarines and raiders. Or it could be a raider.
Two hours later, the other Vought had started to circle the suspicious looking ship that was trying to crawl to the east at fifteen knots. Thick smoke was pouring from her stacks even as a radio message in an old Allied code started screaming out there was a raider in the area. Milwaukee continued to close and as her scout aircraft used the radio to allow the fast scout cruiser to cut the corner, her men went to battle stations.
Inside the forward turret, the twin six inch guns were empty. High explosive shells were readied for the guns but they stayed in the magazine as the engagement would be at least another forty miles away.. Experienced gunners mates had by now triple checked every knob, every moving part and every piece of glass in the turret. The gun crews were waiting in the cramped space as they felt the ship begin to leap between the small waves, as she had turned slightly to run against the waves. Young men, some who had never seen a body of water larger than a mid-summer piss puddle the previous year held on inside the turret. And then the signal to accept shells and load the guns was given.
All over the cruiser, organized chaos started when the seaplane called out that they were no more than 25,000 yards from the suspicious ship. The radio operator aboard the float plane had ordered the merchant ship to heave to and prepare to be boarded. The ship never stopped running nor did it stop transmitting a distress signal. A close listen to the signal saw that the radio operator had transposed the location, which indicated that the ship was several hundred miles further north than it actually was.
As Milwaukee closed to 12,000 yards, she slowed. Her forward guns increased their elevation. The turret skewed slightly and the case mate guns tracked the suspicious ship and then a single shell left the long barrel of the turret and splashed three hundred yards in front of the still fleeing ship. Another shell was being made ready when a large black and red flag unfurled. Even as the flag was still shaking out, three medium guns fired back at the American cruiser.
The young boys and barely experienced sailors inside the gun turrets and the forward case mates heard the order to fire back and the breeches cleared knees and fingers by inches as heavy shells arced skyward. The cruiser began to snake along a baseline course, accelerating by a few knots and then slowing again. Guns fired on an almost metronome schedule, not quite rapid fire, but quickly, four times a minute as the observers saw the first few salvos miss wide and long. The German auxiliary cruiser was trying to close the range for her guns and presumably for her torpedoes. The smoke was blowing away from the American cruiser and into the eyes of the German directors. Most of the shells had missed, but a pair of American shells had exploded in the forward third of the German cruiser after a dozen salvos.
Fifteen minutes into the gun battle, the American cruiser had opened the range to 18,000 yards and was firing with near impunity. The smoke and the sun was her shield even as the sun gave her gunnery officers a near perfect view of the German ship. Every fifteen seconds the firing buzzer sounded and then half a dozen shells reached for their target. Not every salvo was a straddle, but most salvos were, with the steady certainty of probability, leading to a hit on the burning converted merchant men.
The order to cease fire was soon issued as the spotters aboard the seaplane as well as the men straining their eyes in the director saw the large German battle flag descend to the deck and men were lowering boats. The cruiser advanced on her prey with all of her guns leveled at the hulk. When she was within 4,000 yards of the cluster of boats in the water, a large explosion shook the German ship and a gash opened up. She started to quickly sink and the last of her living crew jumped into the cool water and frantically swam away.
USS Milwaukee slowed to lower boats to pick up the survivors from the raider Kormoran.
Last edited:
