Keynes' Cruisers

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November 19, 1941 Tehran

5,000 men were free. The Polish prisoners of war were now free again. Most of the men were junior officers or enlisted prisoners from the conquest of their country. A few senior officers had joined the convoy that brought them from the Siberian camps to the capital of Persia but most of the men who knew how to lead large formations had disappeared.

The Joint Anglo-Soviet condominium in Persia was holding. Trucks and trains were starting to head north while these 5,000 Poles were some of the first returns on Western investment. They had all volunteered to form another Polish division. They would be taken by rail to Bandar Abbas than by sea to Cairo to become the initial cadre for the division. By the end of 1942, the Polish government would be able to field an army with one corps in England and another corps in Egypt.

 

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November 19, 1941 southeast of Marsa al Brega

The Somaliland Camel Corps was going to war. They had been transported first to Egypt and then to Benghazi. The captains and bosuns of the coasters fought vehemently to keep the camels off of their ships. They were mean-spirited, evil-tempered beasts that were stressed out as soon as their routine was disturbed. Many would get seasick and their orneriness increased. Once they were unloaded at Benghazi, they were walked to the assembly camp. Bedouin herds had been bought and their former owners were now employed as handlers.


Seventeen hundred men and thirty-six hundred camels were heavily loaded. One thousand camels carried only water while the rest lugged tents, weapons, fodder and everything else the raiders would need.


As the sun was setting, the last line was cinched, the last swig of cold water enjoyed, and the men mounted up. They all knew the desert and the night. Fifteen miles to the north, artillery started to fire and aggressive nighttime patrols were out and about to fix the Italian attention on the observed flank that was hanging in the desert. As the artillery shifted their fire from mass concentrations to specific targets, the first camel and its rider passed the line of departure.


The entire column was scheduled to reach the first air-dropped supply dump seventy-five miles from the line of departure by dawn on the 21st. Once there, they would rest throughout the day and head to their final objective.

 

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November 20, 1941, Pearl Harbor

Task Force 8 formed up outside the narrow channel to Pearl Harbor. Enterprise and Saratoga were the centerpieces of the striking force. This was an experimental deployment to operate two Pacific Fleet carriers together. Each carrier had their normal air wing of twenty-four to twenty-eight Wildcats, a pair of squadrons shipping a total of thirty-six dive-bombers and twelve or thirteen Devastators. Four heavy cruisers and two light cruisers accompanied the force and eleven destroyers surrounded the carriers.


They would head south for three days of exercises near Johnston Atoll. After that, they were due to reinforce Wake Island. Enterprise would deliver the forward echelon of VMF-211 while Saratoga carried twelve Marine Dauntlesses. After the carriers had delivered the aircraft, they would rendezvous with two cargo ships and a liner. The liner would be full of civilian evacuees as the entire population of the fortified atoll would now be in uniform.

 

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November 20, 1941, Agana Harbor, Guam

Three Catalinas took off. Each had a squad of Marines on board. They were heading to Wake Island. In the harbor, USS Penguin, an old minesweeper that had been a guard ship for the outpost, was raising steam. She had on board sixty more Marines. They too were heading to Wake Island. The Marine garrison would be reduced by two thirds by the end of the morning.

Guam had always received an F rating and defensive priority. It was indefensible without at least an infantry division and several pursuit groups that had yet to be raised. The remaining garrison had orders to prepare workshops and engineering facilities for demolition. If there was an invasion, they were to surrender to a superior force. Hopefully, there would be enough time to withdraw more of the sailors attached to the Agana Harbor command as their skills would be valuable elsewhere rather than sitting in a prisoner of war cage.

 

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November 21, 1941 Corregidor

The CAST team was outgrowing its offices in the dank tunnel. Four more translators, seven additional clerks and two strange but useful analysts had been found over the past two months. The IJN interceptions had slowed to a trickle. The carriers were probably at sea on training exercises near Korea but the battleships of the Combined Fleet had disappeared.

 

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November 21, 1941 New Orleans

MV Teapa and MV Masaya had both arrived overnight to the shipyard. They were fast banana boats converted from old WWI destroyers. The Army wanted them back as fast transports to run supplies to isolated garrisons. Their sister was due in the next week. Over the next month, the sleek merchant ships would be prepared for war. Diesel engines would be overhauled, weapons re-mounted, fuel tanks enlarged, and cranes reinstalled. Each ship would also be repainted from their garish commercial colors to a dazzling array of grays. By the time they were refurbished, each could haul 1,800 tons at 18 knots for 5,000 miles.

 

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November 21, 1941 Alexandria

The Fleet was at sea again. Three aircraft carriers with replenished air wings were being circled by anti-aircraft cruisers and destroyers. The battle line of three modernized battleships next emerged. The fleet flag of Admiral Cunningham flew in Warspite. Behind the battleships and their fleet light cruisers was the amphibious striking force. They soon were heading west.

In Benghazi, six transports carried two Royal Marine commandos as well as two dozen tanks and forty anti-tank guns. These ships left the harbor at dawn and they also began heading west at a steady seven knots. Hurricanes orbited overhead to force snoopers away as old, twin engine bombers circled the convoy to keep submarines down.

Over the course of the day, the major elements of the fleet converged towards Point Shuttlecock.

 

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November 21, 1941

General MacArthur was in a hurry as his august person was needed at a staff meeting with the Far East Air Force (FEAF). The FEAF has been pushing for a more aggressive posture against Japan as recent radio intercepts had detected an increasing concentration of naval units in Formosan ports. These naval units were covering potential troop convoys. The FAEF, in conjunction with the Asiatic Fleet’s patrol wings, wanted to maintain twice daily patrols up to the limits of Formosan territorial waters and if any major naval concentrations went to see, they want constant prowlers on the edge of anti-aircraft range. This would be escalatory and threaten the independence of the Philippine Islands as any incident could lead to war, and the Islands could not be held yet.

These thoughts were going through the general’s head as he sat in silence aboard the B-18 which was ferrying him from Del Monte Field to Clark Air Base. He had met the garrison commander at Del Monte and toured the facilities. They were adequate at best as a secondary facility for heavy bombers could use them in a pinch. There was a constant whirl of new construction as a recent convoy had arrived from Pearl Harbor with an additional 8,000 tons of concrete, steel matting, bulldozers, drummed fuel and a radar set to improve the base into a hard surface base that could safely operate several bomber squadrons.

Suddenly the steady growl of engines stopped, the pitch on the starboard engine changed, while the port engine continued to sputter along. The aircraft was going down as a hose connecting the main fuel tank to the starboard engine broke, spraying high octane gasoline over the hot engine surfaces of the right engine. Flames started to flick onto the wing, burning the fresh coat of olive drab paint. The pilot was struggling mightily to bring the airplane under sufficient control for a safe emergency landing, but the damage to the wing was too much, too fast and growing catastrophically until the transport plane began to pinwheel, throwing all of its occupants around the fuselage, crashing bodies, crushing bones until final impact with the tranquil waters of Leyte Gulf.

A training flight of B-17s was quickly diverted by controllers to search for survivors in the shark infested waters. They saw an inordinate amount of wreckage and bodies amidst the oil slick, but no movement.

USS Grau and USS Norfolk were among the escorts for five bulk cargo ships and a tanker that had dropped off supplies on Mindanao and now were heading to Manila. Norfolk launched her Seagull scout plane as they made a six hour high speed run to the north to look for the general and his party. Thirty hours of intense searching aided by local patrol boats and a Filipino crewed minesweeper recovered wreckage and the bodies of all eleven men on board the Bolo.

 

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November 21, 1941 Brooklyn

The final acceptance trial had been completed. His ship was now his ship along and all his instead of a Solomonic adoption between the Navy and the shipyard. Captain Jenkins looked out of the bridge and over his cup of steaming coffee and saw a work gang practicing heaving dummy shells into a 5 inch manual loading drill. The crew was coming together. Most of Atlanta’s plankowners were fresh from schools and their initial training. A small cadre of experienced petty officers and career officers were holding the crew together and carving off the roughest edges while shaping its strengths.

She was a beautiful ship; her engines on the last trial pushed her to slightly more than a knot over design speed. Her sixteen five inch guns would devastate aerial attackers and torpedo attacks. The late addition of a pair of radars had mandated a re-working of the Combat Information Center, but the gains were far greater than the longer walks in the ship’s citadel.

He had a few more minutes before he was due to respond to an invitation to join the rest of the ship’s officers in the wardroom for a celebratory meal. Tomorrow they would begin their shake-down training. By early spring, Atlanta would be ready for combat and could join the Fleet.

 

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November 21, 1941 Cape Town, South Africa

Two slab sided heavy cruisers led the troop convoy out past Table Mountain. The harbor was full of ships. A Winston Special had arrived the night before and the escorts were busy refueling and replenishing their larders. The American heavy cruisers, Quincy and Tuscaloosca, had arrived earlier in the month after escorting two dozen American merchant ships from New York and Miami to South Africa. Most of those ships were destined for Aden or Bombay to supply the Commonwealth armies and air forces fighting the Axis. Now three troopers carrying 10,000 Commonwealth soldiers were headed to Trinidad. The men would take over garrison and training duties from other battalions that were fully formed and needed elsewhere. While the current garrison went to reinforce the edges of the empire, the raw troops would be hardened and trained into useful units.

 

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November 22, 1941 0741 North Atlantic

The longboat quartered the water. Two sailors in the bow threw a rope and dragged an oil-covered man aboard the wooden craft. A loud keening broke the noise of the sea as the last boiler of USS Kearny was submerged in the cold water of the North Atlantic. The cold water hit the hot metal of the boiler and more steam escaped.


Twenty minutes later, the last man was pulled aboard another American destroyer as the rest of the convoy escort hunted for the U-boat that sank an American warship.

 

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November 22, 1941 MCAS Ewa, Oahu

“Gentlemen, we will be shipping out for overseas duty on December 20th. We will be the garrison for Samoa. Our mission will be to hold the island against all attack while also improving the facilities to guard the sea lanes between the United States and Australia.

The 2nd Marine Brigade is ready for war. Accompanying us will be VMF 111, VMS 87, Defense Battalion 3, A Company, 1st Marine Tank Battalion and 3/11 Marines. The Navy is chopping to us Naval Construction Battalion 12, Patrol Squadron 33 and PT Squadron Seven.

This is a powerful force. We have been training hard together in Hawaii against the Army and Army Air Corps, but over the next three weeks, we will be at war. Tomorrow until December 1st is a maintenance stand-down. Between December 2nd and December 11th, Samoa Force will act as if we are under siege. Dawn patrols will be flown, unidentified aircraft will be intercepted, defenses will be dug, and every contact will be treated as hostile until positively identified as friendly. On December 12th, we will stand down to repair our equipment and review the lessons that we will have learned. Our men will get a few days of liberty in Honolulu before we load our equipment at Pearl Harbor on the 15th. We depart on the afternoon tide on the 20th.

Live ammunition will be carried by all aircraft, and live fire exercises are being arranged for all units. We will be ready when our country asks us to do our duty.


Any questions?”


The room erupted with noise as the rumors had been confirmed. They would be going to war, or at least getting ready for a war that almost everyone knew was coming. Bets would be paid off. Samoa had been the leader around the turn, but Luzon, Guam and Australia had been seen as reasonable bets. One man had placed a month’s salary on New Caledonia and he was lucky that his girl turned down his offer of marriage.

 

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November 22, 1941 near Marsa Al Brega

Nine miles from the coast was when the Royal Navy became far less dangerous. HMS Terror and the three battleships could throw one-ton shells further inland but the shallows forced the cruisers and gunboats to stay far enough out to sea that they could no longer influence the land battle. The New Zealanders had counted on a division of light cruisers to throw more heavy shells in three minutes than an entire Murder concentration could fire in ten minutes to keep Italian and German concentrations on the ground and under cover.

As day broke, the sun was hidden behind dunes and low fog. Two hundred tanks and thousands of infantrymen were advancing behind a rolling barrage of high explosive and smoke shells. The Italian infantry soon came to grips with the New Zealander outpost line. They had been able to move far enough forward that pre-planned defensive fires could not be called in as the artillery would be danger-close. The fight soon evolved into the nastiest fighting possible as bayonets and butts were used as often as shovels and fists. Grenades were too powerful and dangerous to use as the explosions would kill squad and section mates just as the enemy was wounded too.

Italian tanks pushed forward. Some stopped seventy-five yards from a hard point and fired their machine guns at hold-outs. Others just advanced and crushed the crunchy infantrymen who were not fast enough to get out of their way. By mid-morning, the spoiling attack had penetrated three miles into the New Zealanders and had forced reactions. The Australians were also being pressed by an Italian infantry division while the 4th Indian Division held their position against aggressive patrolling and light probes. The 3rd Indian Motor Brigade which held the corp’s unanchored flank reported late in the afternoon that they saw two columns of Panzers forty miles from the coast. Those Panzers bulled through an anti-tank ambush and were heading east.

By nightfall, XIII Corps was moving to located and blunt the German panzer columns. Hurricanes and Tomahawks had already started to shoot up the petrol lorries that those columns needed to sustain themselves.

 

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November 22, 1941 Klin, near Moscow

The frozen ground had allowed the 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups to resume their advance. Soviet counter-attacks at the start of the month had been brushed aside but the lack of supplies had not allowed for a rapid counter-attack to take advantage of the temporary defeats. The Red Army was fighting harder and far more importantly, smarter in the past week. The few T-34 and British infantry tanks at the front had to be dealt with by swarms, but the Reds would retreat when the tactical situation warranted it and they would unleash a division’s worth of artillery when the German main body exposed themselves.

Now the fighting in Klin was the grinding, bloody and slow fight of infantry and engineers against each other. Victories were measured by apartment blocks. The German infantry regiments were forcing the Russian infantrymen further back every other rush. One of the greatest delays of the advance was that each time a room had been cleared, German infantry took the time to grab the warm winter gear that their opponents were fighting in. Some units had received coats and gloves but not all. Frostbite was almost as dangerous as landmines.

One hundred miles south of Klin, the 2nd Panzer Group had masked Tula and the first elements were over the Upa River. As night fell, a fresh from training tank brigade counter-attacked and it was supported by a fresh infantry division that had detrained from the Trans-Baikal three days earlier. Valentines and Churchills blunted the bridgehead even as the German anti-tank defenses extracted their own toll on the raw defenders.

The next morning, the attacks on both sides continued even as the German lorries that were supposed to carry fuel to the spearheads dwindled in numbers and were delayed by weather, partisans and air raids. Fuel and shells arrived at the front but the replenishments were insufficient to replace all of the prior day’s consumption.

 

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November 23, 1941 near Ras Lanuf

Exeter and two light cruisers pressed closed to the shore. Their guns were tracking targets that photo-recon planes had found. Three thousand yards east of them and two thousand yards closer to the shore were the assault transports. Men had already started to scramble down the cargo nets into the assault boats.

A single coastal defense battery fired first. The Italian crews had not been expecting an amphibious raid. The first two shells were several hundred yards long and over Exeter. She, along with Gloucester, returned fire. Six eight inch shells erupted from the gun barrels every fifteen seconds while twelve lighter six inch shells were being fired every six seconds. The weight of fire was soon smothering the coastal defense guns. Overhead, four squadrons of biplane bombers flew over the cruisers and dropped their loads amongst the tents and barracks of the garrison.

As dawn became morning, the first wave of the 51 Commando came ashore. Luftwaffe ground personnel had managed to turn their four heavy flak guns into an impromptu strong point supported by a dozen heavy machine guns and a trio of light anti-aircraft cannons. The fliers and ground crews at the temporary landing field were tough but brittle. They had pinned down two companies of Marines but as 53 Commando landed further east along with a squadron of tanks, they were overwhelmed by the flanking attack. The tanks made a made dash to the coastal road six hundred yards inland before they stopped and the crews began to string netting and arrange for cover for their now hull down tanks.

By noon time, two air raids by the Luftwaffe had been flown. The twin engine bombers had contested drops on the Commandos as Fulmars ripped into their formation. Martlets were outclassed by BF-109Es but they were able to keep the escorts away from the interceptors. As the second raid departed, the fleet turned to the north for sea room even as the five still floating transports continued to unload equipment over the beach east of the town.

 

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November 23, 1941 Libya

Six Lysanders and four recently arrived Dakotas flew low over the Libyan desert. Off to the east a trio of red lights flashed. Five seconds late, the flash sequence repeated itself. The drop zone had been secured. The Dakotas climbed for some altitude and slowed down as the drop masters pushed cargo crates out the rear door. Most of the parachutes worked and most of the crates were mostly intact as they bounced off the sand dunes. The Lysanders prepared to land on a hard sand surface. Five made clean landings. Their cargoes were quickly unloaded and the light aircraft were back in the air and flying through the dark, cold night. Burning tanks, and blazing fuel dumps acted as guides that signaled where the transient, permeable front line was.

 

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November 24, 1941 1623 east of Benghazi

Corallo fired four torpedoes at the string of Royal Navy battleships at point blank range. The first torpedo missed while the next two torpedoes exploded against the side of HMS Valiant. The final torpedo exploded in the stern wake of the leviathan. The veteran of Jutland quickly began to list as three thousand tons of water poured into the holes on her port side. As she was listing, the race to save her was recognized to be futile and now the ship was being abandoned.

She would be joined by her assassin on the seabed floor an hour later as three destroyers prosecuted the contact and another three destroyers took off most of Valiant’s crew.

Quick thinking and some luck had led to the forward magazines being flooded which prevented an explosion according to the Board of Inquiry. Her crew would be landed at Alexandria and serve as a replacement pool for the Mediterranean Fleet.

 

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November 24, 1941 27 miles north of Moscow

Two Panzer Armies, all 276 tanks, lurched forward once more. Some of their comrades were lost to Russian anti-tank guns, more were loss to mines, most were lost to cold and distance. Mechanics working in barns and tents heated by green wood burning swore that they could restore fifteen tanks a day to combat conditions. They had performed miracles during the offensive’s interludes to rebuild the spearheads but spare parts seldom were emerging from the rail heads in the quantity or specificity that was needed. A single Panzer III that left the workshops could contain parts from seven other tanks as it went back to the front.

As the armored troops pressed forward through the cold, resistance strengthened. Red Army infantry divisions, now mostly composed of veterans, knew when to hold firm, and they knew when to hedgehog. Artillery would lash down on exposed columns and flanks would be threatened by well sited anti-tank guns. Soviet armor still was not being well handled although there were more and more tanks that were not be driven by drunk farm boys.

The attack would continue as smoke from the factories and power plants of the objective were now in sight.

 

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November 24, 1941 East of Ras Lanuf

The Bren gunner waited. He rested his cheek on the side of his gun and slowly tracked the German motorcyclist. The German scouts were 1,000 yards from the road block. Two troops were on the north side of the road. Three troops covered the south, and the Commando reserve covered their back. The other assault battalion had seized the mole of the port.

They had the pleasure of already destroying thirty seven Italian trucks and capturing a mobile kitchen. The tanks as well as the anti-tank batteries and mortars were between the two infantry forces. Offshore, a pair of H-class destroyers were available for fire support.

The motorcyclists dismounted and put their bikes behind a small rise. Over the next two hours, a deadly game of cat and mouse began as the German scouts crawled through the illusions of cover and attempted to draw fire so that their overwatching elements could trace out the British positions. Further east, a battalion of Panzers along with a regiment of truck mounted infantry had been pulled from the main battle that had stalemated in a bloody slugfest along the entire line. The battlegroup was coming back to clear their supply line even as an Italian infantry regiment was moving towards the front from Sirte.

The Bren gunner waited some more until the major gave the order and the entire troop opened fire on half a dozen German scouts who were getting too ambitious and brave. Within minutes, a battery of German 105 millimeter guns started to pour shells against the now exposed positions and the Royal Navy’s destroyers pressed to locate those guns to fire counter-battery against them.

Twenty-seven German tanks pushed forward with infantry closely supporting them. As they got closer, British two pounder guns could score the occasional hit. Some penetrated, but most were harmlessly defeated. As night was falling, the Commandos were being forced back to the mud brick houses of the port. The few surviving British tankers would creep out of ambush, fire once or twice at brutally short ranges, pop smoke and then retreat into the congested warrens of the city.

Medics scrambled to perform their brutal sorting function. Men who had no hope, no chance, were given morphine and allowed to die quietly. Others whose bodies were shattered but had a chance were quickly sedated and thrown on a dimly lit table as the battalion surgeon worked feverishly. A few men were evacuated to the Royal Navy ships off-shore. Force K arrived late in the evening and laid down a barrage of fire that broke up another German attack. Ships’ boats ferried the wounded to the waiting cruisers while sending more ammunition and food ashore.

Slowly, the raiders were being pushed back to the port. Once the German and now Italian infantry got into the village, the naval rifles could not support the outnumbered and outgunned Commandos. Just before midnight, the decision was made to withdraw the surviving raiders. By 3:00 in the morning, the small fuel dumps that had been captured were on fire, and the commander of the raid scrambled aboard the last destroyer leaving the mole. The town was back in Axis hands but the raiders had blocked the supply line for two days.

 

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November 25, 1941 west of Carnarvon, Australia

The small Greek tanker’s crew had been taken prisoner. She had been carrying a mixture of aviation fuel, diesel and heavy bunker oil. Kormoran’s bunkers were now full. As the tanker’s seacocks were opened and she descended to the depths of the sea, the raider headed west at a steady 11 knots and began her hunt again for new prey.