They moved at thirty-five knots CASTLE'S COMMAND

CHAPTER SEVEN

The weekend through Wednesday was quite due to storms and heavy seas, allowing Kate and Rick to return to Kate's flat at the end of the duty day, eating supper at home, then going to bed early, making love as much as they could, while still allowing them enough rest to do their jobs, the next day. Thursday an encrypted message was received that a large convoy would be entering the channel by 14:00 The convoy was heavily escorted by two destroyer escorts, two frigates four destroyers,

and a light cruiser. Despite the heavy escort, the Germans would put as heavy attack force as they could mount, Certainly the S-boats (E-boats) the four destroyers known to be in the area and possibly the light cruiser KMS Bamberg. Kate and her team were scrambling to get as much information as they could to present at the intelligence briefings. Rick and his officers were scrambling to get their boats ready to sortie. It really bugged Castle that he couldn't lead the group out as he had so stay back center to control both squadrons of his grout and coordinate with the British.

Kate walked to the dock ready to kiss him and wish him luck. She paused and grinned at LADY KATE painted on the forward super structure. She blew a kiss to the chief of the boat then kissed her husband thoroughly.

"Come home safe, to me, my Darling, I love you so much."

"I will do my best Sweetheart. I love you."

The PT group moved out ahead of the MTB's as they had newer, better radar.

They moved at twenty-five knots, fast enough to arrive timely at the rendezvous with the convoy yet conserving fuel for any battle that might occur. The two British squadrons soon came abreast of the American's, one on each flank. Although senior to Rick, the British commander ceded tactical control to Rick, as the PTCC had better communications equipment. The four squadrons were spread out in an arrowhead formation with Rick's boat and two others as the base of the arrowhead.

The Germans had scraped together everything they had in the area. Thirty S-boats, three destroyers, a light cruiser and six U-boats.

"Sir I have many surface contacts." Rick's radar operator reported

"Give me a count as soon as you can." A few minutes he said sir I had thirty-nine contacts but six disappeared. Probably U-boats. Rick had to respect the German's courage, outnumbered almost two to one. Respect their courage, yes. Admire them, no. He didn't worry about the U-boats; they wouldn't waste torpedoes on such chancy targets as PT boats. They would be the escort's problem, that was not to say that Castle wouldn't drop his depth charges if he thought he had a good target. The chances of a kill were not high, but harassing the U-boats might shake them up enough to aid the destroyers and subchasers.

"Give me the range to the targets."

"Twenty-seven thousand yards, sir."

"And to the convoy?"

"Thirty thousand."

Castle took the radio microphone.

"Blue command to all boats, come right to two-one zero degrees, increase speed to thirty-five knots. Load all guns."

Castle was fairly sure that the German cruiser and destroyers wouldn't waste time and ammunition on the "little boys" when they had the convoy's cruisers and destroyers to worry about.

He was right. The U.S.S. Cleveland opened fire on the KMS Bamberg at fourteen nautical miles while the destroyer H.M.S. Hermes engaged the leading German Destroyer, joined by the other destroyers, freeing the frigates and the destroyer escorts for anti- submarine work. The German S-boats, were badly outnumbered, thirty to forty-eight but kept boring in, anyway.

The Hermes drew first blood, getting four solid hits on the destroyer Z36 one on her foremost turret, blasting that turret out of action, the second, just aft of the bridge, taking out her radio room and one funnel, the third on her torpedo mount, wrecking it and the fourth damaging one of her turbines, cutting her speed in half. The U.S.S. Blackwell. A Gearing class destroyer was now in range and scored six more hits from her five- inch guns. The Z36 was now dead in the water, listing hard to port. Her crew, those who could, abandoned ship. Her captain lay dead, on his bridge. The Blackwell fired a torpedo into her to finish the job,

In less than half an hour, Castle's command had closed with the S-boats. Ryan's squadron engaged first, opening fire with their forward thirty-seven- and twenty-millimeter cannons. The Germans replying with their twenties. At extreme range for the light cannons, neither side was scoring hits yet.

The two American squadrons bored straight in, well, almost straight in, zigzagging, to spoil the German's aim. The Germans swung away, trying to bypass the PT's and MTB's, to get at the convoy. It didn't work. The MTBs on the flanks swung wide to contain them.

First blood for the torpedo boats was actually drawn by MTB 42, despite doctrine, launching a torpedo at S-216 and scoring a lucky hit in the engine spaces. S-216 sank by the stern. Onboard S-200, Commander Kurt Lange cursed. He hadn't expected the Americans and the British to be able to coordinate their attacks as if they were under one command. He had less control of his two squadrons. Some of his boats had commanders picked more for loyalty to the party, than for ability. Some of the boats had fanatic SS officers on board. As a professional naval officer with eight years' service, he couldn't understand how the Americans did so well with mostly reserve officers. Lange was a good officer. He would carry out his orders to the best of his ability but he wouldn't sacrifice his men if the situation became hopeless. It quickly became apparent that the allies had enough superiority in numbers to make the S-boats mission nearly impossible. Still Lange would do his best, hoping that the toughness of his boat's steel hulls would offset the allies' numerical advantage.

PT 606 was the first PT lost. Hit by multiple thirty-seven-millimeter rounds from two S-boats, her fuel tanks blew up. The two S-boats didn't last much longer, one taking four forty- millimeter shells in quick succession, one of them finding her magazine, which blew up, splitting the boat in two. The second boat, like PT-606 was hit in her fuel tanks. Diesel not being as volatile as gasoline, the tanks didn't blow, they simple caught fire. The boat went dead in the water as she burned. Most of the crew got off before the flames reached her magazine and she too, exploded.

PT-516 with Ryan aboard and PT-517 converged on the S-209, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Joachim Muller, Lange's executive officer in a short, but viscous exchange of fire PT-516 was raked by twenty-millimeter fire. Ryan was wounded by shrapnel in both legs, but neither femoral artery was hit, nor bones broken. The wounds were serious and painful, but not life threatening as the pharmacist's mate got the bleeding under control. The chief of the boat was not as lucky. He took a hit in the chest and was dead in minutes. The boat took hits in the engine room, damaging both port and center engine but not hitting fuel lines or tanks. Limping along on one engine, she withdrew.

PT-517 put a pair of forty-millimeter shells into the bridge of S-209, killing Muller and the helmsman and destroying the helm and a second pair into the engine room. S-209 went dead in the water, but still floated. Muller's XO surrendered the boat. He knew that even if he could still work his guns, an unmoving boat had no chance at all. This way, most of his men would survive.

Lange cursed at the loss of S-209. Not only had he and Muller served together since 1941, they had been class mates at officer's school. To make matters worse, the four boats with party loyalists on board, ignored orders and charged straight at the allied boats, believing in the superior German mythos. All four were destroyed without creating allied losses.

Badly outnumbered, the loss of even one boat was critical Lange lost four in under five minutes. The whole PT to S-boat ratio was growing rapidly worse. The MTBs sank three more S-boats for one of their own.

Another S-boat, S-210 under the control of one of the SS officers was lost to incompetence. Trying for the convoy, at all costs made the mistake of giving a clear broadside shot to Semmes. At three hundred yards, Semmes launched two torpedoes and made a ninety degree turn to starboard. Both were hits. S-210 sank in less than a minute.

PT-610 was damaged badly enough that the crew barely had time to launch her raft, with only seven men aboard. The fight between the light craft ended when with sixteen of his boats sunk or captured and three more unaccounted for, Lange's last order was for the surviving boats to break it off and return to port. That order was given just before he surrendered his own badly damaged boat and allowed his medic to treat his wounds. He would survive to become a prisoner of war, though he would lose his left hand.

The U-boats were not having much luck the new and better sonar and the Hedgehog systems on all the escorts allowed only two of the submarines to lunch torpedoes accounting for two merchant ships. But as they had to come to periscope depth to make their attacks, they both were sunk, in turn by the escorts. One submarine, having a little battery trouble was forced to surface and was hit by forty- millimeter shells. Her conning tower holed, she dove again and fell victim to depth charges dropped by MTD 40 and PT-609. The German's lack of experience in her surface fleet was showing. The British and American crews were far more experienced and it showed in their superior gunnery.

Destroyers Z-38, Z-40 and Z-41 gave as good of account of themselves as they could but all three were sunk while only able to severely damage HMS Staghound and damage the other three to greater or lesser degrees HMS Staghound managed to limp back to port, but was so badly damaged that her guns, instruments and radios were removed for use on other ships and the rest broken up for salvage.

KMS Bamberg was hotly engaged with U.S.S. Cleveland. The German cruiser's total focus on the American cruiser gave Castle his second major coup of the war Undercover of smoke and confusing radar images, Castle was able to close to two thousand yards and launch all four torpedoes in a clear broadside shot All four torpedoes hit, fairly well spaced along the port side. The Bamberg lost fire control to her number one turret and lost three of her portside secondary mounts. She began a sharp list to port. It wouldn't be a singular kill this time, as PT-514 put two more torpedoes into the cruiser. Both into her engine spaces. Power out, pumps failed, the captain ordered abandon ship. About half her crew were rescued.

It was a disastrous day for the Kriegsmarine, losing a light cruiser, four destroyers, three submarines and sixteen confirmed S-boats and three unknowns.

The Allies losses were two cargo ships and eventually one destroyer, the three surviving destroyers and the cruiser received light to medium damage four PT-boats and five MTBs lost or severely damaged and most of them damaged to some degree. Castle and his boat were, for a change, unscathed. Castle would receive his second Navy Cross, as the commander of 514 got his first.

Kate and O'Leary were waiting on the dock when Castle and Esposito walked up to them. Kate snuggled into husband, kissing hm like she'd never stop. O'Leary put a comradely arm about the smaller man's shoulder and said;

"Let's head for the club, Mate"

Kate stayed snuggled in to her husband's side.

"Let's go home, my Darling. You're too tired to write an after- action report and I'm too tired to interpret intelligence data. The morning is soon enough for both tasks. You'll have to visit your wounded men and sum up the "butcher's bill."

"And I'll have to write the families." Rick said.

"No, you don't, that's the job of each boat's skipper. We're going home to a nice supper, a warm bath and a warm bed, in that order. A warm bed didn't always mean sex, it often meant one partner or the other massaged tired body parts.

After a simple supper of sausages, mashed potatoes and peas, Kate ran a warm bath and they shared the small tub, letting the warm water first relax aching muscles, then each gently bathed the other. Kate had talked the hospital out of some lotion and had Rick lie on the bed as she massaged his back and legs.

Finished she switched places with Rick, enjoying his strong hands on her own tired body. Sex, tonight was not as important as cuddling together and falling asleep in each other's arms.

Back on the base, O'Leary and Esposito as well as several other chiefs were doing their best to empty the kegs, some were celebrating their victory, others mourning lost friends. Esposito was in the latter group. He'd lost two good friends, Chief Boatswain Mate Charley One Dog of -PT-516 and Chief Harry Nelson of PT-606.

He tried, vainly, to match pint for pint with O'Leary, which was a hopeless job. The big man could probably hold half a keg, all on his own. Two hours in, Esposito was wasted. O'Leary got him back to his quarters and into bed. He looked at the sleeping man and smiled, with amusement. He was gay, in a time when not only was it not accepted, but was generally considered a perversion and looked upon with contempt.

O'Leary was an ethical man with a long- time friend that he was deeply committed to, another principled man, a fellow career non-commissioned officer. Both men and in fact their circle of friends gave the lie to the general perception of gay men. None of them would even think of "recruiting".

He envied Esposito. Nine years in the navy and he'd never seen real action. He was simply too good at his job. Every request for sea duty had been turned down flat.

The PT and MTB squadrons were granted two days of rest after the grueling battle but then it was back to long hours and gallons of coffee.

PT-516 would be repaired and returned to duty, but there would be no immediate replacements for the lost boats, so he was two boats down. Also wounded crewmen would have to be replaced and healthy crewmen shuffled around to leaven out the new men. Ryan was out of action for two weeks and on desk duty for another month. His XO was appointed temporary skipper and acting group XO.

Most nights, both Castles were so tired they just came home, ate showered and fell into bed. To sleep. After a week of this, Kate rebelled. She marched into Castle's office and said;

"Enough of this! I'm a new bride and I'm being neglected, I want my husband to leave his office at normal end of the duty day, come home on time, clean up and take me to the O-club for drinks and dinner, then take me home and perform his husbandly duties!"

Rick smiled as he raised his hands in mock surrender. Happy wife, happy life. As it was the end of the duty day, the Castles left together

Needless to say, she got her wishes and walked in the next morning with a look on her face that told the other ladies I got laid and it was good.

Rick, in turn strutted into headquarters looking entirely too pleased with himself and his current lot in life, drawing envious looks from several of his officers. A week later, with repair crews working around the clock all castle's boats had been repaired refitted and rearmed as had the British flotilla Both groups were down two boats that wouldn't be replaced before the invasion.

The time passed quickly with little action, a combination of very heavily escorted convoys and the Germans conserving their resources for the actual invasion fleet. One convoy was an example. Twenty-five merchant ships, four fleet oilers and four LST's escorted by eight destroyers, six destroyer-escorts, two frigates, two light and two heavy cruisers and a battleship, the U.S.S, California. The Germans didn't even stick their noses out of port.

Three days before D-day, a squadron of PT's and one of MTB's arrived from the Mediterranean.

With over 1200 warships involved in the invasion. There was little for the PT's and MTBs to do after an early morning clash with the remanent of the S-boat force. The Germans could only muster twenty-four boats and with the new arrivals the allies had a nearly three-to-one advantage.

The Germans lost six boats, before withdrawing, without any losses to the allies. Castle spent three days at sea, rotating his squadrons, one day at a time.

As he expected, Kate was waiting on the dock. When Rick pulled in.

They had a month of relatively quiet times, until Rick's group was ordered to the Mediterranean to support Operation Dragoon. The invasion of Southern France. The "second D-Day."

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