North Sea Raiders

October 31st, 1941

The infamous U-boot Ace Erich Topp sat perched in the conning tower of U-552 looking through his attack periscope. Convoy HX-156 was steaming East, South of Iceland preparing to rendezvous with British Escorts. The command room was silent as the weapons officer whispered up to the bridge. The firing solution that was entered would change the course of history.


 
At 8:34PM, U-552 released a salvo of two torpedoes and struck the USS Reuben James in the Powder Stores, blowing the Bow off the front of the Clemson Class Destroyer. The forward part of the ship sank immediately with all hands while the stern some how managed to stay afloat. Unsecured depth charges would kill some of the survivors as the stern slipped below the waves 5 minutes later.

In all, 46 men were rescued from the the Reuben James with one survivor dieing days later. 115 crewmen were dead and a sickened nation wanted answers, more over, revenge.



November 3rd, 1941

Roosevelt meets with his cabinet and the Joint Chiefs in the Oval Office. Public outcry pressures the United States to act as this wasn't the first American Vessel to be sunk by German U-boats, but the President remains hesitant.  He agrees that the Axis must be stopped, but insists the US is not quite ready for what is already seen as a possible three front war. It was agreed that some kind of retribution in the form of sneak attack was needed to bring the US into the war against Germany and most likely the rest of the Axis powers.

Numerous top-secret plans came across his desk, but he decided to go with Operation: Erinyes; Commander-In-Chief Atlantic Fleet Admiral Kings idea of a surprise attack on German capital ships currently under repair at Brest, France. The USS Hornet, Ranger, Wasp & Yorktown were all in the Atlantic and began steaming for Norfolk, Virginia per orders of Atlantic fleet. They took turns replenishing Diesel, Aviation Fuel and other provisions and by November 12th Task Force Fury was under way led by Rear Admiral A. B. Cook.



November 21st, 1941

900 miles North-Northeast of the Azores, a flight of VF-5 Wildcats from Yorktown shot down an Fw200 Condor maritime recon aircraft. Several of the crew managed to bailout and were rescued a few hours later by U-106 which was on patrol nearby. U-106 then radioed OKM (Oberkommando der Marine) and all U-boats in the general area started searching for the American Task Force. Two days later U-106 commanded by Oblt. Hermann Rasch picked up Task Force Fury on sonar and set an intercept course but was only able to view the escort ships and one Carrier in his periscope far off on the horizon as they steamed past him at over 25 knots.

November 23rd, 1941

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder contacted Hitler with grave concern about the American Task Force that appeared to be steaming for the Bay of Biscay. Hitler then directly ordered Vice Admiral Otto Ciliax to make as much of the necessary repairs to the Prinz Eugen, Scharnhorst & Gneisenau and have them sail through the heavily defended English Channel to Wilhelmshaven. Ciliax had no choice but follow Hitlers command and on the night of the 26th they left Brest for Wilhelmshaven.

The following morning, the morning RAF recon flight was shocked to see the heavy German Cruisers gone. The RAF scrambled and the Channel Dash was on. The RAF and Fleet Air Arm tried to sink the Cruisers on several different missions but failed to even damage the German ships. Upon learning this from the British, Task Force Fury immediately turned north and proceeded with the alternate mission plan. The new objective was to engage the German ships at Wilhelmshaven, Germany. This was much more dangerous as Task Force Fury would have to infiltrate the North Sea and get within close enough range to launch and recover the attack groups all while defending the Task Force from U-boats and air attack from the Luftwaffe in Norway, Denmark and Germany.



November 28th, 1941

The German Channel Dash was successful as the ships rounded Heligoland Blight and now were just hours away from Wilhelmshaven. Unfortunately things kept getting worse for Task Force Fury; the unpredictable weather of the North Atlantic forced all aircraft to be secured. The threat of attacks from U-boats were slim due to the weather but several U-boats reported high speed sonar contacts and were able to relay them to OKM. Raeder was afraid to identify them as the US Carriers, as they could have just easily just been Royal Navy warships on routine patrol. Just after sunset, the German ships steamed into Wilhelmshaven and were ordered to anchor.

December 3rd, 1941

Task Force Fury was still running headlong into blinding rain and huge swells, but passed between the Orkneys and Scotland with relative ease. As dawn broke, the weather began to clear in Southern England and the RAF was tasked with a daylight high altitude photo flight of Wilhelmshaven. The Allies were surprised to see that all three cruisers were anchored in various locations of Jade Bay.



It was decided that day that the RAF bomber command would try to strike Wilhelmshaven that night to try and damage or even sink the German cruisers. Wellington and Halifax bombers launched that evening and even though they suffered no losses, their bombs missed there targets and fell all around the harbor and dock works. At 2:30AM Ciliax phoned Raeder minutes after the attack and Raeder ordered them to prepare to depart. Raeder waited until 7:00AM to phone Hitler, but he could not be reached. With the current situation near Moscow turning sour, Hitler was not to be disturbed. A perturbed Hitler finally phoned Raeder later near Noon on December 4th, but refused to grant Raeder permission to move his battle cruisers. Raeder phoned Ciliax back and ordered him to stay ready to depart at a moments notice but they were to stay at Wilhelmshaven until further notice.

December 6th, 1941

As the sunset over the Jadebusen on the evening of the 5th, Ciliax sat and sipped his coffee on the bridge of KMS Scharnhorst. He was determined to stay up as late as he could to anticipate another attack by the RAF, shortly after 3AM on December 6th he retired to his quarters. With impeccable timing, he was awoken by the flak guns from Wilhelmshaven shortly after 4AM.

This time the German cruisers were not so lucky. Bombs from a No. 76 Squadron Halifax straddled the Scharnhorst and she was severely damaged below the waterline. Raeder this time phoned Hitler and after a brief but tense conversation he convinced Hitler to move his ships to Norway. Raeder then reached Ciliax and within a few hours the ships were bound for Trondhiem, Norway. But as they got underway, Ciliax realized that the Scharnhorst could not keep up with Prinz Eugen and Gneisenau. It was then decided that Tirpitz, sailing from the Baltic would meet up with the damaged Scharnhorst and proceed to Bergen, Norway.

250 miles away Task Force Fury was steaming at 25 knots South-Southeast towards Wilhelmshaven. The sun was rising and the sea was calm enough to resume air operations. Later that afternoon at 3PM VS-71 TBD-1 Devastators from Hornet spotted and sank U-84 commanded by Oblt. Horst Uphoff but not before he radioed OKM that they were attacked by American aircraft. Later that evening Rear Admiral A. B. Cook of USS Ranger was notified that RAF Photo Recon aircraft failed to find the German ships at Wilhelmshaven.


 
December 7th, 1941

Right before dawn all the American Carriers were arming attack aircraft and launching carrier defense groups. Luftwaffe squadrons based in Germany, Norway and Denmark were also preparing to provide escort to defend the Heavy Cruisers, but also to find the American Carriers and sink them before they could find the German capital ships.

After hours of searching with RAF and FAA bombers and USN and USMC carrier aircraft, they returned to their stations and the next group was launched. As the day progressed an eerily calm overcast began to build. Task force Fury was determined to launch one more group before evening.