January 11, 1941 North Atlantic
HMS Queen Elizabeth was again a warship. She had been released from the yards a month ago and her guns had been strong, long and true even as her crewed was worked back up again to peak efficacy. The mission, her first mission back with the Fleet, was to escort a large convoy of mostly ballasted merchant ships to Canada and then steam to Boston in order to drop off the new ambassador, Lord Halifax. Thirty seven ships were her charge. Most were survivors of at least three journeys to west coast ports since the war. A quartet of lighter escorts paced the outer perimeter as they hunted for U-boats, the silent killers whose presence was often announced with a flaming ship. So far, none had been seen near the convoy.
A single Walrus amphibian circled the force. The seaplane was mainly flying to work on procedure for radio-less spotting corrections as the pilot and observer were new men, fresh from training programs and the gun crews had not built the trust needed yet. They were also on the lookout for submarines but they had seen nothing yet as the convoy headed into yet another line of snow squalls.
Off, two points to starboard there was a pair of bumps on the horizon. They were maybe twenty miles from the convoy. The pilot pulled up to gain altitude and entered into a pylon turn as the observer looked through his binoculars
“Triple Turrets, two forward, one aft, big, pole mast… mate, those are battle cuisers” Radio silence was broken as the pilot called in the sighting.
The Walrus continued its turn as coordinated chaos began beneath it. The convoy and two corvettes as escorts started to turn south. A destroyer, a sloop and Queen Elizabeth surged forward towards the threat. The four turrets were quickly manned and the heavy guns reached their maximum elevation. Even as the escorts prepared for battle, the two Germans also began to prepare for battle. The lead ship unfurled a thirty meter long battle flag and white clouds of steam escaped from the stacks as speed was brought up. They angled slightly to cut across the path of Queen Elizabeth, one ship five hundred yards closer to the convoy than the other, trailing ship in echelon.
Minutes later, the range had closed to twenty nine thousand yards. Queen Elizabeth was in range with her new guns in her new turrets. Her unmodernized sisters would still be waiting. The four guns of her forward turrets barked in unison. 7,700 pounds of steel and explosives arced skyward. The blast of the guns could not be hidden as the two German battle cruisers had dozens of men looking intently to the south east where they knew a convoy had to be if there was a Walrus amphibian radioing their location. The guns gave the position of the size of the escort away even as they had been detected as fuzz on the radar. No destroyer would shoot from that far away. No cruiser would shoot from that far away. Both types would try to sneak as close as possible to threaten heavy raiders with torpedoes. An armed merchant cruiser would be wallowing in the heavy seas. Only a battleship would challenge them from fifteen miles.
The shells had tipped over and screamed as gravity asserted its power over them. They dove fast, fighting the thickening air. One hundred yard high splashes provided a clear correction for the Walrus.
“Short nine hundred, right eight hundred”
Fifteen seconds later, the rear turrets fired.
By the time those fifteen inch shells hit the sea four hundred yards short and three hundred yards to the right of the lead ship, the two German raiders had already started a sharp turn to disappear into the murky emptiness of the storm tossed North Atlantic.
