Great Lakes Campaign: The British are Coming.

An idea that popped in my head last night, so I wrote this up to go with it.



The British are Coming
Lieutenant Commander Edward Fitzgerald countered the steel silhouettes steams across the calm water of Lake Huron. Three battleships—probably two of them were battlecruisers—three cruisers and nine destroyers. All of the ships were flying either British or Canadian colors. It looked as if every Limey and Tory ship on the lake was making their way to Mackinac Strait. Not only that, but the whole enemy fleet on Lake Huron presented Fitzgerald with a target he could not resist.

Since the war began a week ago, the USS Swordfish managed to send exactly one ship to the bottom of the lake. The lack of spectacular explosion lead the captain to believe it was just a freighter full of grain. That helped the war effort too; Canada would have a hard time fighting a war with its industrial east cut off from the bounty of the west. Some of his crew found it difficult to believe that something as remote as a succession crisis in Poland-Lithuania could spark a world war.

“Twenty degrees port,” Fitzgerald commanded, never taking his gaze away from the periscope. His brother told him he was nuts volunteering for submarines, and doubly so for volunteering to operate one of the Great Lakes boats. There was no place to run to on such a small body of water. The only advantage is, if he hit bottom near enough to shore, there was a fair chance of having less than a hundred feet of water between his crew and the surface.

“Twenty degrees port,” his helmsmen, another one of the lunatics that the submersible service attracted, echoed. Actually, the helmsmen was less a volunteer than most of the crew. A judge back in Ohio made him an offer he could not refuse.

Swordfish was the only boat standing between the enemy and Mackinac. If the British land there, as they had in the two previous wars, they could bottle up Vreeland’s fleet on Lake Michigan. Word had to be sent to Chicago that the British were on their way. Before Fitzgerald would send that message, he aimed to give a report with at least one less ship on it. He ordered his boat on an intercept course with the lead Limey. A second ship sailed between him and the battleship. Fitzgerald could make out the Tory flag and snorted in derision. How could any self-respecting nation use a maple leaf as their symbol?

“They don’t have a clue,” Fitzgerald muttered.

“Sir?” asked Lieutenant Elliot Fitzpatrick, his XO. There was a running joke back in port that the Swordfish was really an Irish boat in disguise. It was not far from the truth; every man on the boat had at least one grandfather come from the Emerald Isle, and his engineer was born near Dublin. Not a man onboard would shed a tear if the Limeys were finally ejected from Ireland.

Still not taking his eye of the prize, Fitzgerald explained. “The Limeys don’t have a clue there’s a submersible stalking them.” If he were commanding that small fleet, he would use the destroyers as a screen. Not that he was complaining by the British Admiral’s choice; he would just as soon not have those dropping ash cans on his head.

“How many of them you see?” Fitzpatrick asked.

The submersible commander listed his findings. “I aim to make it one less battleship when I have the report wired back to Chicago.” Fitzgerald knew his boat would only get one shot at the enemy. Even if the destroyers were not screening now, it would take them very little time to learn what happened. If one torpedo struck home, they might think it a mine long enough for Swordfish to make good on its escape. The only problem to that logic is that he wanted the ship sunk, not damaged.

“Prepare all tubes,” his order was carried out quickly. Though they only had a single kill under their belts, his crew trained tirelessly throughout the spring of 1913. Fitzgerald felt his fingers tingle with excitement as the adrenaline began to flow. Ahead of him lay a target about which skippers in his service dreamed. “Port three degrees.”

As soon as the lead battleship and its battlecruiser partner steamed into his arc of fire, Fitzgerald gave the order. “Fire torpedo one.” Though his fighting instincts were up and running, he forced himself to remain calm and professional. Immediately after hearing the hiss of compressed air, he order the second torpedo fire, followed by a third and fourth.

“Come on, hit home,” he prayed beneath his breath. Watching his fish steam forward was one of the hardest duties he performed. Even when he sank that freighter, it pained him to just stand there and watch. He let out a sharp curse the moment the enemy ships began to change course. They spotted the fish. So much for making a break. The first two torpedoes missed their mark completely; the British battleship turning before they could intercept.

He slammed his fist against his leg as one fountain of water erupted next to the battlecruiser, followed by a second. “Two hits! That Tory ship ain’t going anywhere for a while.” Despite their training, the crew let out their own whoop of joy. Fitzgerald would allow them their short celebration; after all, it was not as if the ships above could hear them. The Canadian battlecruiser slowed to a crawl as flames spouted from its stacks. When it did not list or break in half, Fitzgerald decided the hit was not fatal.

Enemy destroyers began to fan out in search of the submersible they were certain lurked below. For the first time since spotting the enemy, the skipper of Swordfish stepped away from the periscope. Any minute now, those destroyers would start rolling depth charges off their stern. He would have an uphill battle to keep his own ship from being cracked open like a walnut by a half-dozen angry tin cans. Only one task was left before he could go about saving his own crew’s hides.

“Take us up to transmitter depth,” he ordered. No matter what his fate was to be, Rear Admiral Vreeland needed to know what lay in store for him. He would not have much time for his wireless operator to tap out a message. It would mostly be numbers and types of ships. “Tell the Admiral—“ Fitzgerald paused for a second, trying to sum up the day in a short sentence. “Tell him that the British are coming.”
 
How did the little short story flow?

And here's the actual campaign:


The Great Lakes Campaign
The decisive campaign for control of the Great Lakes during the equally Great War has its genesis in the British/Canadian camp. Though the United States and British Empire knew the lakes would be a battleground when war came, it was the British assault on Mackinac Island that opened the path for American domination of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The Battle of Mackinac, or Battle of Fort Mackinac, this battle was the first British-Canadian counter-offensive following the declaration of War. Part of Britain’s own war plan against America called for it to drive American Naval forces from the Great Lakes. This called for bottling up much of the American Great Lakes’ Fleet on Lake Michigan while the British took control of the other four lakes. Not only would this allow the British, and the Canadians, uninterrupted supply lines between the western grain belts and eastern population centers, but it would also force the Americans to withdraw from the York Peninsula and cut off their iron mining regions in the west from the steel mills in the east.

Under the command of Vice Admiral Walter Cowan, a British fleet of three battleships and battlecruisers, the HMS Port Royal, HMS Tarsus and HMCS Leopard three cruisers, nine destroyers and ten smaller vessels, sailed ahead of a marine flotilla destined to occupy Mackinac Island. The British plan called for surprise, which was shattered on June 30, 1913, when the submarine Swordfish, commanded by Commander Edward Fitzgerald, spotted the British fleet and moved in to attack. A torpedo managed to hit the Leopard, but caused only slight damage, a rupture amid ship that was easily patched. In return, British destroyers hunted down the primitive submarine and sank it. At the time, Cowan was not aware if U.S. subs were equipped with the newly invented wireless transmitters. Like Paul Revere more than a century before, Fitzgerald’s message simple warned “The British are coming.”

On July 2, the British fleet entered Mackinac Strait and began to bombard the fortress upon Mackinac Island at 1133. A century ago, a British fleet made the same move and forced the fort to surrender before taking control of Lake Michigan during the Second Anglo-American War. Fifty years later, during the Third Anglo-American War, the British again attacked the fort, but this time took it by assault. Cowan planned to be the third to take the island in just over a century. Unbeknown to the British, the American fleet sortied from Chicago upon hearing Fitzgerald’s message.

The United States Navy split its forces on Lake Michigan into two columns. The western column, commanded by Rear Admiral Charles Vreeland, consisted of the battleships Oregon, battlecruiser Susquehanna, cruisers Omaha and Tacoma, four destroyers, seven frigates and torpedo boats. The eastern column, commanded by Commodore Robert Doyle, consisted of a lone battlecruiser Columbia, the cruiser Salt Lake City, and three destroyers along with the fleet’s torpedo boat squadron. When the two columns converged on Mackinac Island, midday on July 3, Vreeland took overall command for what would turn out to be a short battle.

Given British superiority in overall firepower, Vreeland played his own gambit. He would send ahead the torpedo boats and smaller craft to launch their torpedoes at the British. He expected to lose many of the boats; after all, Destroyers were designed to destroy torpedo boats. However, he had hoped to open a breach in the British formation to exploit. At a distance of ten kilometers, the British guns began to open up on the Americans. At that distance, their aim was poor, and only a handful of near misses gave the Americans cause for alarm. The U.S.S. Columbia, a battlecruiser, did have a shell land close enough to cause minor damage to its hull.

In design, the British and Canadian Great Lakes Battleships were fifteen percent larger than their American counterparts, and sported 300mm guns, as opposed to the 253 mm used by American Great Lakes Battleships. Their armor was thicker as well. British cruisers had close to the same advantage against their American counterparts. American warships were lighter armed and armored, but also traveled faster than their enemies. American gunnery tended to be better on the Great Lakes, as was shown when shells from the Oregon made contact with a British destroyed that strayed too close, splitting the HMCS Albacore in half and sending it to the bottom of the strait with all hands.

Before the opposing capital ships could get into more effective range, Cowan had to run the gauntlet of small torpedo boats. As was typical of a Royal Navy man, Cowan looked upon these lightly armed, glorified fishing boats with disdain. The idea that a boat could damage, much less sink, a Royal Navy battleship struck the Admiralty as absurd. This did not, however, prevent the Canadians from building their own torpedo boats to ply the Great Lakes. Cowan’s history in Britain’s blue water navy did not adequately prepare him for naval warfare on the confined space of lakes. As such, Cowan’s pride was about to receive a deep bruise when the American boats entered firing range. As was doctrine, the larger ships ignored the boats while the destroyers dealt with them. Two torpedo boats were destroyed before they could launch their torpedoes, but an addition thirteen breached British lines and launch two torpedoes each before retreating. Of these, and addition three boats were destroyed.

Many of the torpedoes missed, either dodged, or simply sailing beneath the enemy bows. However, the bulk of the torpedoes were aimed at the largest ships; battleship Port Royal, battlecruiser Leopard and a cruiser steaming close to them. Seven torpedoes did hit, including one that took out the HMCS Leopard’s rudder. Two more torpedoes ruptured the battleship’s hull, reducing its speed by half. The cruiser Edmonton received such a lashing, that it began to list. Before the day was out, it would be abandoned and capsized. With one capital ship mortally wounded and another crippled, Cowan now had to face the Americans at a disadvantage. No British admiral had ever retreated from battle against the Americans on the Great Lakes, and Cowan did not wish to be the first.

When the American battleships and battlecruiser came into range, they quickly changed his mind. Shells from the Oregon and Susquehanna destroyed three destroyers and broke an addition cruiser in half. The death of the destroyer HMCS Sealion was the most spectacular of the death of the day. One 253 mm round penetrated the ship’s magazine, setting off its aft store of munitions. Pieces of the destroyer were said to have landed seven kilometers away, and the sound was heard well over the horizon. The ship’s destruction had a very public eulogy in Canadian papers by the poet Marcus Sanders in his tribute to the ship, and a cousin who died that day.

British shells caused their own damage, sinking the American destroyer Alder and crippling two more. Columbia received four hits, knocking out two of its three turrets. It was only the fact that the Royal Marine transports would be within range of American guns within a day that caused Cowan to retreat. The transports were lightly armed, fast destroyers that would have stood little chance against the Americans. He would not condemn so many marines to their death just to save his own pride. At 1605, Cowan gave the order to withdraw. Not retreat, but to withdraw. He had every intent on returning as soon as his ships were repaired, and reinforced by ships from Lake Superior and Huron.

The Americans would not give Cowan, or any British admiral, a second change to seal Lake Michigan. Within a week, addition torpedo boats have arrived on seen, and damage to most of the ships was repaired. The Columbia did have to return to Chicago for repairs, but it would be replaced by ships arriving at Mackinac from Lake Superior. Addition soldiers were rushed to reinforce Fort Mackinac, and a small airstrip was built on the island. It could not project power against the Royal Navy, but would serve to base scouts. Addition guns were placed on the island in the following month, as were fortifications on either side of Mackinac Strait. Admiral Vreeland would not give the British a second chance to take Mackinac. As soon as he was reinforced, he took the fight to the British on Lake Huron as soon as he was convinced Mackinac could fend for itself without his fleet nearby.

In the month following their victory at Mackinac, the America Great Lakes Navy took up pursuit of their British counterparts. By September of 1913, Vreeland set his fleet out, reinforced by the cruiser Toledo and the battleship Minnesota, across Lake Huron to hunt down what was left of Cowan’s fleet. Seaplanes launched from the northern shores of Michigan scoured the lake for the British fleet for a week before the first signs were detected. On September 7, Cowan’s fleet was spotted nearing Georgian Bay. Cowin spent much of the previous month repairing his ships in the docks at Owin Sound. At this point in the war, scouting planes were, if armed at all, very lightly armed. Bombers did not come into serious play for a couple more years. Had the Americans had these bombers, they might very well have sunk the British fleet from the air.

Instead, Vreeland ordered his fleet to sail across Lake Huron towards Georgian Bay. Cowan’s own scouts learned of the American’s approach. A lone patrol ship steamed within visual range of the American ships. The boat never ventured close enough to count the American ships, relying on plumes of exhaust visible on the clear day. The patrol boat returned to Owin Sound with word of an American fleet approaching. The term fleet is used very loosely on the Great Lakes, for what Vreeland commanded would have been a glorified squadron on the high seas. Cowan had little choice but to put his whole fleet to sail, including the still damaged Leopard. The British Admiral had no reinforcements aside from a few gunboats that nominally defend the naval base at Owin Sound. These followed Cowan towards their destined fate.

On September 15, 1913, just a few days over a hundred years since the Battle of Lake Erie, the American and British Great Lake Navies clashed some twenty kilometers of the northwest tip of the Bruce Peninsula. The battle was joined at 1103, when the Port Royal fired the first shots of the battle. The shells scored hits on a destroyer, ironically named the USS Oliver Perry. The destroyer was knocked out of action by hits from the Canadian destroyer Williams, and began to list at 1108. Seven minutes later, the Perry rolled over, taking a hundred sailors to the depths.

By 1145, the playing was over and both formations began battling each other at ranges less than two kilometers. Just before midday, Vreeland passed between Bruce Peninsula and the British Fleet, crossing Cowan’s ‘T’. All heavy caliber guns fired upon the lead ship, the battleship Port Royal. Of the shots fired, seven hit the battleship, including one just below the bridge’s superstructure. Cowan and his command staff were all killed in the explosion. More hits punctured the aft and destroyed the rudder. The Port Royal began to turn to the port, no longer under human control. Seeing this, the following ships changed course, not fully realizing just what happened.

Both fleets lined up broadsides against each other. Several of the British shots hit their mark, damaging the Minnesota and killing its own captain, Daniel McCoy. Over a hundred were killed when a boiler exploded onboard the Susquehanna. The damage to the Americans was painful, but not life threatening. Three destroyers were gutted during the exchange, with the loss of several hundred more sailors. The British losses were far worse. The earlier wounds on the Leopard were opened again by a torpedo run by one of the American destroyers lost. Explosions below the water line broke the back of the battlecruiser, which snapped in half at 1205. Only a handful of survivors, and none of them officers, were plucked from the lake. The out-of-control Port Royal was hit five more times, with two shots ripping open spontoons and causing the ship to enter a dangerous twenty degree list to its port. At 1211, the battleship capsized and went down. An addition cruiser, the HMCS Ontario, and four destroyers were lost in the fight. By 1300, the British fleet on Lake Huron was effectively annihilated, and the remaining wounded ships limped away from battle. Two destroyers, the Gregory and Peerless, steamed towards Detroit in hopes of breaking through to Lake Erie, but the remainder of the ships headed towards Owin Sound.

The two destroyers were sunk by shore batteries attempting to cross over to Lake Erie, and the remaining ships were bottled up in Owin Sound. Vreeland sailed his own fleet within range of the Sound and began bombarding the naval base. Little damage was caused to the base, and none of the warships suffered any more serious damage, though a light cruiser was hit and ended up beaching itself. Vreeland sailed back towards Lake Michigan, victorious in clearing Lake Huron of British forces. Several American submarines set up a blockade of Owin Sound, and supply ships used the Huron side of the York Peninsula to resupply American forces in Canada. The Great Lakes were cut in half, and British and Canadian naval forces on Lake Superior remained isolated. Just as damaging to the war effort as the loss of the ships, Canada was forced to divert manpower away from the fronts in order to hastily complete railroads to bypass the now severed lifeline on the lakes. Commissioned when war appeared imminent, the railroad would not be completed until after the snows melted in 1914. The winter of 1913 proved to be hungry times for the population of Ontario.
 
No, i'm just shocked. Never heard of said...well, engagement.

Perhaps my map will help-- the one that I should have posted with report.

Great Lakes 1913.jpg
 
Continuing in the wrong order...


The British are Coming
The warm June sun shown down upon Lake Huron out of a nearly cloudless sky. Only a few white puffs of cotton could be seen to the north from the conning tower of the USS Swordfish. For the past week, Lieutenant Commander Edward Fitzgerald patrolled the Great Lake in search of prey. One week after a great war erupted across the surface of the Earth, and all he had to show for it was one lousy freighter. The lack of explosion and its leisurely descent to the lake’s bottom meant it was a grain shipment. Toronto or one of the other cities of Ontario would be going without some wheat or corn. Sink enough of those freighters, and the eastern Province goes hungry. It would, if Quebec would enter the war on America’s side.

Thus far, the Republic of Quebec has remained neutral. It was not part of either great alliance, and saw no reason to embroil itself in a war that has nothing to do with the Quebecois. Unless and until they decide one way or another, Quebec will permit Britain to ship cargo up the St. Lawrence. From his vantage point of Manitoulin Island, Quebec might as well be on the other side of the planet. For now, the British were a big concern. The Great Lakes fleet still sat in Chicago, preparing to sortie. For the moment, Rear Admiral Charles Vreeland had no target. To find Britain’s fleet, and he supposed Canada’s too, he sent a half-dozen submarines out on patrol. Nominally, Fitzgerald was supposed to be scouting, but if chance comes to send another freighter the bottom, he would seize it.

Three of his crewmen were moving about the submersible’s deck, one of them cleaning the two inch deck gun. If the coast were clear, Fitzgerald would order that hypothetical next freighter sunk with the deck gun. Two inch shells were far cheaper than torpedoes, and the supply office loved that sort of accounting. As far as the Swordfish’s skipper was concerned, it saved him a fish to launch at a truly dangerous target. The thought of dangerous targets took his eyes back to some high bluffs on Manitlouin Island. Those heights were an excellent place to put naval guns. If his one hundred ton boat took a hit from an eight inch gun, then Lake Huron would have several chunks of steel littering its floor in a hurry.

Fitzgerald moved aside as he heard a sharp curse from below. Seaman Earl Montgomery, possibly the only man on board with no Irish ancestors, rubbed his head as he climbed out of the stuffy coffin. “Pardon me, skipper,” he said as he squeezed past him.

“The same pipe?” Fitzgerald asked almost unnecessarily. He hit his head on that pipe a few times when he first took command, and he would eat his hat if Montgomery tried to deny it. He was the newest crewmember on the Swordfish, transferring a day before the submersible left Chicago. The man had to be running from something to want the transfer. Submersibles attracted the wrong crowds, as far as the polite society of the surface fleet was concerned.

“Aye sir, I know it’s there, but the bloody thing doesn’t seem to care that I’m there,” Montgomery had a slight accent, immigrating to American with his family when he was young. Despite more than a century of rivalry and hostility, plenty of Limeys still sought freedom and a chance to start over in America. Of course, most of those that flee the mother country either land in Canada or Australia, with Patagonia in a distant third.

“If you don’t mind me saying, skipper, this is great fishing weather,” Montgomery served a time or two on board fishing boats out on Lake Ontario.

Fitzgerald nodded. It was good weather for catching fish. Clear skies, calm waters, what else could one ask for? The boat still had fresh food on board, and the crew would not resort to beans and sauerkraut for a couple more weeks. When that time came, Fitzgerald would cast his own line into the lake along with the rest of the crew. For now, he was more interested in launching fish than catching them.

He knew that the Limeys and their Tory lackeys had to have sortied from Owin Sound by now. Aeroplanes flying over the lake reported the bulk of the ships missing from port a couple days ago. Stupid flying machines—Fitzgerald did not care where the ships were not. The pilot reports that the Lake Huron squadron is missing from port, well that is just swell. Now how about telling us exactly where it has steamed? Too bad there was not a way to mount a bomb or something on those canvas and balsa wood kites; that would scare the Tories out of a years’ growth.

No, that was a bad idea. Do that a few times and the enemy will start mounting bombs on their kites. Bad enough it one flew over and spotted the Swordfish, but the thought of them dropping explosives on the boat made Fitzgerald shiver. Most sailors would say aerial bombs were a dirty way to fight wars, but then again, most would say torpedoing the enemy from underwater was underhanded as well. Fitzgerald could only shrug at the sentiment; he for one, would like to live to see the war won. Aside from a brief war with Spain over control of some Pacific islands, the United States had not won a war in decades. It was high time to knock the British Empire down a peg.

“Ahoy skipper!” called out the man at the two inch gun. “Smoke dead ahead!”

Fitzgerald brought his field glasses up to his ears and peered in the direction. Sure enough, he counted several dozen individual plumes of black smoke. There was no way that was just regular shipping. “Good eye O’Donnell,” Fitzgerald called back. “I think you just found the whole Royal Navy.”

“Aye?” O’Donnell looked pleased with himself, no small feat for a man convinced of his own greatness. “What do I win?”

“You have just saved the lives of a lot of sailors of the surface Navy, and probably the soldiers at Fort Mackinac, if I miss my guess.” The British always attacked Mackinac in every war it ever waged against America on the Great Lakes, so why would this time be any different?

“Those miserable bums!” O’Donnell let out a disgusted snort.

Fitzgerald did not inquire into which were miserable bums, the surface fleet or the Army. Or both. He had more pressing matters at hand. Those smoke plumes were headed along the shore of Manitoulin directly towards him. If the Swordfish submerged, then the Limeys and Tories would steam right over head. He would have the perfect seat for observing the enemy, and perhaps sticking them with a fish or two. “Alright men, get below and prepare to dive.”
 
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