Keynes' Cruisers

[fester]

August 10, 1941 west of Manila Bay

The slow, obsolete aircraft continued to fly in a straight line at 10,000 feet. This was the only thing going right in this exercise.


USS Houston and along with the destroyers USS John D. Ford and USS Pope had been on the firing range for the morning. The surface gunnery training was adequate at best. Houston’s salvos were widely dispersed and straddles were seldom maintained once achieved. The two destroyers were firing slowly, the ammunition loading procedures were inefficient and the crews had not spent enough time going through the motions to make them smooth.

The anti-air training was atrocious. Each of the destroyers had a single 3 inch gun and a pair of twin 1.1 inch guns as well as a handful of unauthorized but useful .30 caliber machine guns. Both 1.1 inch mounts broke down on Pope within ninety seconds of firing. The destroyers' 3 inch guns were firing low and below the towed target consistently. The fire control equipment was arthritic but at least the shells exploded roughly when expected. That could not be said for the shells carried aboard Houston. They worked roughly as often as a pitcher reached base safely.

The three ships were heading back to Cavite. Every officer responsible for anti-aircraft duties was being chewed out and corrective action plans were being demanded. Cables were being prepared to request new 5 inch shells fresh from American factories.

 

[fester]

August 11, 1941 East of Viipuri, Finland

Every man moved slowly, deliberately with their hands away from their bodies. No one wanted to risk an incident. The truck had dropped them off two miles from the border an hour ago and now a dozen men were walking towards the two officers and half a dozen border guards standing next to the recently built guard house.


The Finns stopped two meters short of of the short officer whose collar tabs indicated that he was in charge. They saluted and received a salute in return. Over the next hour, an inventory was taken of the guard house which was almost empty of everything except for a tea kettle. As soon as the inspection was done, all of the men shared a cup of warm, sweet tea. The Soviet border guards then started marching down the road to the new border and the Finnish squad followed them at a respectful distance.


By nightfall, the Finns had established a small camp two hundred yards west of the new border as the Soviets occupied the dirt and log border patrol post on the other side of a small stream.

 

[fester]

August 12, 1941 north of Kiev


“Momma...momma…. Momma” The wounded man screamed in chorus with the dozens of other men who had been caught out of cover. The flash barrage surprised everyone as the battalion was moving forward to counter yet another counter-attack. They had been trying to retake a cluster of farm houses that had fallen and been retaken four times already that afternoon and they would exchange hands six more times by midnight.

A veteran medic who had become numb to the pain and the screams paused as he looked at the fragment of the man below him. Machine guns had started to fling shells in his direction so he made himself as small as possible. Liver exposed, intestines perforated, a limb barely attached. The man beneath him would not survive the night. Enough supplies had arrived from the rear for an act of mercy.

Moments later, the fragment of a man faded as his voice got softer and he saw his momma waiting for him. The medic took a deep breath and made a dash to the next man that had a chance to last the night.

 

[fester]

August 12, 1941 Norfolk Naval Shipyard

Three American destroyers led the Royal Navy’s recovered pugilist down the James River. Illustrious had touched the muddy, brown water of the James River for the first time that morning. She had been released from the dry dock which had been her hospital bed for several months. A liner had brought replacements for the men who had either died during the attack or had been left behind in Alexandria. Her squadrons were still training at the cluster of naval air stations around Norfolk. The Fulmers were retired, she would only carry Albacores and folding wing Marlets now.

Today she would be joined by a pair of Royal Navy destroyers who had already cleared Fortress Monroe and begin shaking down again. Tonight she would dock again and the engineers and construction experts would speak with her officers and chiefs on the things that they needed to make right. Her pilots would buy beer for their American hosts as they discussed the challenges of attacking enemy ports and scouting for raiders. Her crew would sleep well tonight after a long day of labor and then corrections would start in the morning.


Illustrious was weeks from returning to her war. She would come back to Home Fleet tougher, more resilient and more aware of the air around her. She would come back, ready to the lead the fleet again.

 

[fester]

August 13, 1941 South of Marsa al Brega, Libya

Fifty yards in front of the sergeant the point man froze. His eyes scanned rapidly back and forth even as his head was deathly still. His nose took in the cold night air, a mixture of the smell of the desert, the salt of the nearby sea and the detritus of mechanized warfare. A hint of tobacco and soap tickled his nostrils. He pushed the air emptily with his hand. The rest of the patrol silently went to the ground. The sergeant nodded. The scout began to advance slowly forward on his belly after taking off his pack and leaving his rifle behind.

Ninety three minutes later, the scout came back to the patrol. A flurry of whispers and then a map was roughly drawn in the ground. The edge of the Italian line was just where they expected it. The position was the standard dense company defensive position with a string of two and three man outposts. There was a single outpost on the far edge of the line that was not quite as mutually supported as it should be. Two men were in it. That would be the target.

The patrol crept forward until they were within 100 yards of their target and they put down their packs. Knives and bayonets were made ready. Rifles were loaded and grenades accessible but the goal was to be in and out silently. As they began their final approach onto the Italian listening post, the clouds cooperated and hid the moon for the last forty yards. Every man barely moved but steadily moved. There would be a four man snatch team and then a fire team to cover them if something went wrong.

The snatch team was in position, and then they rushed forward as the lone Italian sentry looked to his north instead of his south. One, two, three, four strides and the sentry was seized with a bag over his head, a strong hand over his mouth and a knife barely penetrating his skin along his ribs:

“Silenzio o morte! Silenzio!”

The man stuttered, “Si” and relaxed. The other man in the trench woke up startled and was never given the choice as a sharp knife cut across his neck and his life bled from him even before the snatch team left. The prisoner's hands were bound as the snatch team escaped to the first fold in the earth beyond the defensive line. The fire team followed a few minutes later. They started to march back to the rally point where the truck and the radio had been left. An hour later, the soldiers relaxed as the prisoner had been loaded onto the truck. As they drove back to their battalion headquarters, a battery of artillery fired a harassment mission over their heads towards the company position that they had just raided.

 

[fester]

August 14, 1941 Leningrad

She pulled the uniform cap low over her eyes. Her rifle with six clips of ammunition rested on the far side of the trench. Her shoulders no longer ached as she had become strong over the past month of building the anti-tank defenses south of Leningrad. She and her friends had enlisted in a People’s Militia division for better food to do the same work that they had been doing already. Little had changed except that instead of carrying a shovel or a pick-ax everywhere, they also carried their rifles with them.

The first elements of the 7th Army had arrived on the reserve stop line the night before. The regular soldiers and their officers were sighting their heavy weapons and improving local defenses around their positions by finding camouflage. The ground shook as artillery battles were being fought to the south and the west of the city. Every morning the ground shook a little more as the battles became closer.

Ten miles behind Tatianna, another train full of old women and young children who had been left behind pulled to the side of the track as a supply train had priority to enter the city. Once the wheat and oil and shells had been unloaded, the supply train would take another thousand lives and twenty four heavy tanks out of the future fortress.

 

[fester]

August 15, 1941 Singapore

The roads were busy. A brigade of the Australian 8th Infantry Division had arrived on a pair of liners. Their heavy equipment had arrived the day before. At the same time, the 5th Indian Division convoys were also unloading. They were confident veterans of the victory in East Africa. Almost as soon as they disembarked, their sergeants and field officers were looking for someplace to make their men run and rebuild their legs after the long slow sea journey. 1,000 Ghurkas singing as they ran scared some of the Fortress troops.

Even as the men were still shaking out, the ground forces commander, General Montgomery and the overall commander of the colony, General Percival, called all of the new officers colonel and above to a long meal and briefing. The forces in Malaya were growing even as the threat had increased dramatically. The Japanese had airfields near Saigon and they were applying an incredible amount of political pressure on Siam. Royal Navy forces were inadequate with some cruisers occasionally escorting convoys in the region and old destroyers the only locally controlled forces. The RAF was slowly building up in the region although most of their fighters were obsolete American Buffaloes. A few squadrons of Hurricanes were on the way as well as a new squadron of American fighters would stand up over the fall.

The 8th Australian Division with their two brigades were tasked to cover east coast airfields. The 9th Indian Division had swapped a brigade with the 10th Indian in the spring. They were covering the northern portion of the east coast. The 11th Division was concentrated in northwestern Malaya with its main base at Penang. The freshly arrived 5th Indian would also move north to reinforce the 11th Division. As soon as the next tranche of reinforcements, including the 6th Australian and 18th East Anglia Divisions along with a brigade from the 7th Armoured Division arrived in the fall, the command arrangements would be altered. An east coast corps would form under Australian command, III Indian Corps would be responsible for the northwest and there were would be a central command and reserve near Kuala Lumpur. General Montgomery would be in charge of all land forces while General Percival coordinated the fleet and air forces as well as collaborated with allies and the Americans.

Five hours after the meal started, each brigade commander left, well fed and even better briefed. They had a detailed itinerary of training commands as well as drafts of locally experienced men who would liaison into their brigades.

 

[fester]

August 17, 1941 Kiev

The Southwestern front was bowed. It had not yet broken, yet.

Another hammer blow from the 2nd Panzer Group had been indicated by the radio intercept teams. The Red Air Force had a success that morning. Two dozen Tupelev SB bombers had caught a fascist logistics convoy stretched out on the road. A remnant of a rifle regiment had been able to count the forty seven burning trucks full of fuel and shells that blocked one of the main supply routes. Instead of six armored regiments being able to slam into a weak point, five regiments had been able to jump off on time. Hopefully the fragments of tank brigades and artillery groups and rifle regiments that had been pulled from the line to backstop the exhausted and broken rifle divisions would be enough.

And if it was enough today, what could be scraped together to address tomorrow’s crisis?

 

[fester]

August 18, 1941 Rosyth, Scotland

Sleipner led Tor down the river. Two minesweepers joined the predatory destroyers and they moved forward down the loch and towards the open sea. Aboard the destroyers were two platoons from the 6th Norwegian Division. They were to liberate the first section of their homeland. The ships soon turned north and joined with their covering force of the cruiser Nigeria and two Home Fleet destroyers before they started their long journey into the Norwegian Sea.

 

[fester]

August 20, 1941 West of Strasbourg 0300

He stretched in bed. He looked out the window and saw the pale strands of moonlight dance among the leaves of the tree in his backyard. Two minutes later, his bladder was empty and he was tucking himself back into bed.

A heavy, impatient hand pounded on his door. The doctor in him was roused. Someone had to have gotten hurt tonight. As he went to the door, three German soldiers were waiting there.

“Herr Doktor, you are needed at the base camp”

Seven minutes later, he was adequately dressed and had his brown leather bag of supplies in his hand. As he stepped out of the door and towards the motorcycle side carriage, he wondered what the problem was.

The two motorcycles took off at high speed. The driver had minimal care for his life as he whipped around the rural roads hoping that no farmer was industrious and moving his milk to market early. At the camp, there was a commotion and screams of pain. Half a dozen men were in various states of shock and pain. A large van had tipped over, crushing one men and wounding the rest. First aid had been applied, but the camp had no one else with more training as one medic was among the injured and another medic was on leave.

Seven hours later, the doctor had stabilized all of the wounded men. Four would need to be shipped to the hospital, ambulances had been summoned for further care. The other two men would be on light duty. As he was cleaning up his supplies, the reserve officer in charge of the site thanked the doctor for his assistance to the Reich and invited him to come back for dinner and drinks at his convenience. The doctor agreed.

The ride back to his house was far less harrowing than the ride to camp. He was taken past Anna Marie’s parent’s farm. Half a dozen foreign laborers were working the near field. They were well fed and evidently well treated. He had examined them a month ago when they had been sent to the family. Besides the trauma of capture, they were in good enough shape. Now as the motorcycle entered the village, he wondered what was happening at the camp and how he could develop a relationship with the commander of the Luftwaffe installation.

 

[fester]

August 21, 1941 Straits of Messina

Two battleships, four heavy cruisers and three light cruisers were steaming in three columns. Fiume led Conte de Cavour and Caio Duillo while the other two columns were homogeneous. A half dozen destroyers were in front of the powerful force pinging the sea bottom wildly in a vain search for British submarines. Minesweepers had cleared the channel the night before and they were re-certifying the route now.

Six miles to the south of the Straits, HMS Upholder started to creep east to a spot where a lucky zig instead of a zag might allow her to line up a shot on the fast moving enemy fleet. If nothing else could be accomplished, she could radio in a sighting report for Malta and the Fleet. The fleet zagged and nothing heavier than a second class destroyer entered torpedo range of the small submarine. They proceeded at high speed around Calabria before turning to the northwest at a sharp twenty knots. They would refuel at Otranto and then dash to Corfu to creep to Planos before they had to make their final run-in to their target.

 

[fester]

August 22, 1941 Hong Kong

She was an oddity. An armed yacht that had been brought into service as an expedient measure in 1917 and then never released. USS Isabel had been busy over the past six months as she had spent time on the French Indochina coast during the Japanese invasion, and also went through the Formosa Straits on a round-about journey to deliver mail and men to the 4th Marines in Shanghai. She was the eyes and ears of the Asiatic Fleet with more sea miles underneath her hull than any other ship.

Her skipper gave his compliments to the officer of the deck for the fine job he did in bringing her against the dock. Fifteen minutes later, the first work crews were already ashore to buy fresh food and arrange for a refueling from Royal Navy supply tanks. Ten minutes behind the chief supervised work gangs, the skipper and the primary passengers, Colonel Fertig of the Army and Commander Slocum from Admiral Hart’s staff, ambled down the gangway to the waiting staff cars. They were due to meet with their counterparts of the Hong Kong garrison.

The yacht left the next morning. The meetings were pleasant but the passengers learned little useful. The garrison of five battalions of mostly second line troops was sufficient to maintain law and order in the colony and create enough of a ruckus that accidental conquests were out of the picture but they could do little else. The garrison commander, after several gin and tonics, broached the question of evacuating some of his forces to Manila if his position was untenable and there were no other viable options. That was worthy of discussion.

 

[fester]

August 23, 1941 Sevastopol

The long runways north of the fortress were busy. A full regiment of heavy bombers stumbled forward into the sky, their engines straining to lift the bombers full of fuel and overloaded with bombs to altitude. A regiment of fighters was circling at 12,000 feet waiting for the dawn raid that the Luftwaffe preferred. There were no raiders this morning. The fighters waited until the bombers departed and then they turned north and dove for the deck. Thirty minutes later, they strafed a Romanian infantry company that was attempting to cross the Dnieper Delta near Kherson. Flak claimed one fighter.

The rest of the regiment landed at the small, improvised strip. Mechanics climbed on a dozen machines that either had new problems or were due for a rapid maintenance check. The rest of the planes were refueled, re-armed and new pilots climbed into the machines for another mission.

Six hours laters, most of the regiment of heavy bombers returned. They had been jumped by several Romanian fighters near the target of Ploiesti. Two had been shot down by the fighters, and another two had been lost to flak. One just disappeared. They had managed to drop their bombs onto the refinery in good weather from 12,000 feet. Secondary explosions were seen and at least three large black, billowing clouds were visible from 30 miles away as the regiment flew home.

 

[fester]

August 24, 1941 Alberta

Shipments had been delayed. The tank regiment was supposed to have received the last Montreal built Valentine tanks two weeks ago. Instead those seventeen tanks along with twelve tanks that were due to be shipped to Australia for their nascent armoured formations had been diverted. Instead of having enough modern tanks for the entire regiment to train on, they were still doubling up. A and B squadrons had Valentines on even number days while C squadron had to use old American surplus vehicles from the First War before switching on alternating odd number days. Those diverted tanks were heading to Vancouver for shipment to Vladivostok.

 

[fester]

August 25, 1941 Sydney, Nova Scotia

The small port was overflowing with ships. SC-42 had been assembled and waiting. SC-41 had left several days ago and so far they had been directed around a U-boat pack without loss. Sixty eight merchant ships were waiting for the local escort group to assemble. Once they had gone to sea and traveled to Belle Isle, they would meet up with the 24th Escort group consisting of one River class destroyer, a transferred American four-stacker, and three corvettes. Three other corvettes were to be in the general vicinity of the convoy as they conducted independent operations. The convoy plan assumed that the single squadron of six new Liberators would maintain at least one bomber over the convoy until they had arrived near Greenland. At that point, there would be a two day dash to come under the air cover of 120 Squadron in Iceland and then they could head to Liverpool and other West coast ports.

 

[fester]

August 25, 1941 0300 near Souda Bay, Crete

The seven cruisers began to curl northwards. The lead cruiser shifted her rudder hard as her rear turret barked one last salvo at the British control harbor. As each cruiser came to the swirling water where the ship in front of her had turned, their rear turrets fired one last salvo. Within minutes, the cruiser force was out of range of the harbor and the airfield near Maleme. Half a dozen ships including a pair of landing craft and a submarine were either on fire or already settling on the bottom after being subjected to a forty five minute bombardment. The airfield would not be able to launch any of its half dozen suriviving planes for at least a day. Time would be needed to treat the wounded, bury the dead, extinguish the fires dancing on fabric and aluminum wings and fill the holes in the runway.

Thirty minutes later, the Italian fleet had reformed and they broke for the north at a hasty twenty four knots. They knew the British battlewagons and carriers were at sea somewhere between Malta and Gavdos. The Italians were faster and had a head start. Within hours they could be under dense fighter cover, so they ran to the northwest having accomplished their mission

 

[fester]

August 26, 1941 Near Spitsbergen Island

The two small Norwegian destroyers lowered their ships’ boats. Tor had the 1st Platoon while Sleipner carried the 2nd Platoon and the invasion headquarters aboard. Each man carefully climbed into the boat. Even in the height of the Arctic summer, the water was a death sentence if a man was not rescued within minutes. Rescue would assume that a man who fell in could shed his combat pack before he was dragged too deep into the calm sea’s depths to make it to the surface.

Further offshore, the Royal Navy patrolled. Nigeria and a pair of Tribal class destroyers were ready for combat, they were ready to support the landings with gunfire, they were ready for trouble. The only distraction was a pod of orcas who were trying to drive seals into the wakes of the warships to make catching their prey slightly easier and more enjoyable.

Finally the boats were fully loaded and carefully lowered into the water. They quickly ran aground where they were needed and the youngest men leapt out and pulled the boats ashore as the rest of the assault group hurried ashore. By noon time, the initial objectives were secured. By evening, a meteorology party had been established and the supplies to support the two platoons and the scientists for three months had started to land.

 

[fester]

August 27,1941 Reykjavik

“Full restitution is to be made, thirty days in the brig on bread and water with a full ration every third day, and demotion in rank to E-2.”

The Marine colonel banged his gavel. The two young Marines in front of him were ash-fallen as they had been convicted of larceny of a sheep. They had shot a sheep while on patrol outside of the capital city and brought it back to the platoon for some fresh meat. The Icelandic farmers normally had their sheep roam most of the countryside with minimal fencing. The two privates thought they were wild sheep.

Within hours of the shooting of the sheep, a dozen angry Icelandic farmers had marched up to the brigade headquarters. They demanded action. And within hours, they had received their satisfaction. The two culprits were now paying full restitution while their lieutenant and sergeant were waiting in the colonel’s personal quarters to be dressed down. They had been too lax on supervising their men and it is costing them good will. The colonel looked at the map. There was an observation post that needed to be established along the Denmark Strait. That platoon would be a good garrison for the position.

 

[fester]

August 28, 1941 Rabaul

Three transport ships, two small cargo coasters and the light cruiser Adelaide swung at anchor in Simpson Harbor. One transport edged up to the docks where native and settler work gangs were ready to start unloading the ships that carried a reinforced infantry battalion of the 8th Division.

Over the course of the next three days, the small convoy unloaded. The prize possessions were unloaded last. Half a dozen eighteen pound field guns, four six inch coast defense guns and five bulldozers were dragged out of the bottom of the cargo holds. The coast defense guns would be placed on the ridge of the Mount Baai and the slopes of Vulcan. The field guns were the central reserve of the defense force while the bulldozers and a pair of steam shovels would improve the jungle airstrip into a fully functional airbase as well as carve out defensive positions and supply caches for the defenders.

 

[fester]

August 29, 1941 Labrador Sea

The Lockheed Hudson wiggled its wings. She was heading back to her airfield. Nothing had been seen in her long slow patrol over convoy SC-42. She had expected to see nothing as the Germans seldom came this far west. Every ship was accounted for and they continued to move towards Europe at a steady eight knots. The signal light from HMCS Skeena flashed “CU2MRW”. As the Hudson headed home, the convoy started a planned zig fifteen degrees off the base course as the escorts prepared for their nightly watch.