Strike From The Sea by Formosa Vincent

Author:Formosa, Vincent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

25 – Mystery Is A Problem To Solve

Campbell saw the WAAF come into the office with the folders with little enthusiasm. He was going slowly crazy here, and he was finding it difficult to contain his frustrations. Every day was the same. There was no variety like there was at an operational station. He missed the drone of engines and the energy of debriefing. Campbell missed that most of all. As he made notes, he could almost imagine he had done those things himself. For just a moment, it was him killing the Germans.

He did his best to keep himself busy. Boredom was dangerous and Campbell knew it. He would slack off if he was bored, become casual, and that was when mistakes were made. He needed something to capture his attention.

The WAAF put some of the folders on his desk and he took the top one off the pile with a sigh. He looked at the title and opened it, pulling out the bundle of photographs inside. It was the Baltic port of Swinemunde. It was crowded, and he picked out a cruiser and a number of destroyers moored next to each other. There was an aircraft carrier visible, and Campbell ringed the large flat deck.

He’d heard about the Graf Zeppelin for years, but he’d never actually seen it. Abandoned, the Germans had never come close to getting the carrier into active service. After the failures of the Bismarck, the Kreigsmarine had almost given up the idea of challenging the Royal Navy at sea. Periodically, there would be some new information that they were tinkering with it, but it never came to anything. With the current state of the war, it would be a waste of bombs to sink it now. If the Germans wanted to waste resources maintaining it, then they were welcome to do so.

He saw a row of submarines tucked away in a corner of the harbour. That was a much more worthwhile target. The Royal Navy might have gained a measure of superiority, but the war in the Atlantic was by no means decided. The convoys to Russia were still under threat and barely a day went by that a ship wasn’t sunk by a marauding submarine.

He’d seen intelligence that a new type of U-boat was coming into service, something that was faster underwater than anything yet seen. Combined with the new homing torpedoes, that could upset the apple cart. A large submarine next to all the others drew his attention. At first he thought it was a Milch Cow, a resupply U-boat, but he didn’t think so when he looked at it under a magnifying glass. The proportions were all wrong, for one thing.

Milch Cows were not much longer than conventional submarines, but they were chunky in the beam. They had a number of external tanks that carried fuel to extend the patrol time for other submarines. The U-boat in the photograph was long and sleek, almost double the length of those alongside it. There were some strange shadows on the deck as well.

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