Seek Out and Destroy (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

  SEEK OUT AND DESTROY

  Alan Evans

  © Alan Evans 2014

  Alan Evans has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First Published in 1982 by Hodder and Stoughton

  This edition published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2014.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  1. Seek Out and Destroy

  2. ‘Attacking!’

  3. The Boats

  4. Hercules

  5. Night Action

  6. ‘What the hell is that?’

  7. The Marines

  8. Assault on Trieste

  9. ‘I need guns!

  10. Battleground

  11. A fine morning

  12. In the night

  13. ‘Like the divil was after him!’

  14. ‘It’ll be bloody murder!’

  15. ‘They’re shooting deserters and spies!’

  16. ‘For God’s Sake! Why?’

  17. The Gatecrashers

  18. Salzburg

  Epilogue

  Extract from Thunder at Dawn by Alan Evans

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to the staffs of the National Maritime Museum, Imperial War Museum, Public Records Office, and Walton-on-Thames Library.

  —Admiral Massimiliano Marandino, Commander C.F.E. Cocchi and staff of Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, Rome.

  —Museo Sacrario della Bandiere della Marina Militare, Rome, who hold Rizzo’s MAS boat 15.

  —Admiral Gottardi, Signor Ramelli and Chief Petty Officer Gottardo of the Museo Storico Navale, Venice.

  —The Marciana Museum, Venice.

  —Dott. Ing. Artu Chiggiato and Aldo Fraccaroli.

  —The Naval Attaché at the British Embassy, Rome, and the British Consul, Venice.

  —Dorde Mirkovic and the staff of the library at Pola now Pula.

  —Gianna Marchesi.

  But, as always, any mistakes are mine!

  Prologue

  In 1915 Italy joined the Allies and was plunged into war against Austria. They fought on the mountain frontier where the Alpine peaks rose ten thousand feet. After more than two years and eleven battles the Italians had gained little at a large cost and halted on the defensive.

  In the autumn of 1917 the Austrians were ready to attack. The Austrian build-up took a month and 2400 trainloads of supplies and ammunition, and the German High Command sent the Fourteenth Army of six divisions under General von Below to spearhead their attack. They looked with hungry eyes beyond the mountains to Venice and the Venetian Plain, but the real prize could be the defeat of Italy itself. Then the Austrian army would be free to hammer at the French back door, a France already drained and weakened by the bloodbath of Verdun and the mutiny in the army in 1917.

  1. Seek Out and Destroy

  HM Light Cruiser Dauntless eased her battered frame through the night at a cautious ten knots. Her captain, Commander David Cochrane Smith, stood on her torn bridge and thought the November darkness was kind to her, hiding the ravages of her recent action, but she could wear her scars with pride because she had fought her fight and won.

  He was thirty years old, a middle-sized, lean man, seeming frail, but that was deceptive. His thin face was drawn with tiredness now, the pale blue eyes narrowed by continual strain. But that night Dauntless was bound for the dockyard at Alexandria, only hours away, and the survivors of her crew were looking forward to leave in Cairo. Smith shared this anticipation, and there was a girl in Cairo who would share his leave...

  The signal yeoman broke into Smith’s reverie: ‘Escort’s signalling, sir! Making the challenge to somebody ahead!’

  Smith saw the winking light off the starboard bow where a destroyer patrolled, a black shape under her smoke. A second cruised to port, the pair then shepherding Dauntless. Another light flickered in the darkness ahead and the yeoman read the signal: ‘It’s the destroyer Harrier, sir.’

  Harrier was expected. Only hours before Rear Admiral Braddock had sent a wireless signal that he was sailing from his shore command in Alexandria to meet Dauntless. That had surprised Smith: Braddock was a grim, taciturn near-seventy and not the man to come bustling out to offer congratulations. A growled ‘well done’ from Braddock counted as fulsome praise.

  Smith paced across the bridge, halted to watch Harrier appear out of the night, slender and swift. No plodding ten knots for her. She ripped towards Dauntless at better than twenty knots with her big bow-wave a silver flame in the darkness, tore past her to port then turned neatly, reducing speed, to slide into station off the starboard beam. Again the light winked from her bridge and the yeoman reported, ‘Admiral’s coming aboard, sir.’

  ‘Very good. Stop both.’ That last to the men at the engine room telegraphs. The destroyer’s motor-boat was already dropping down to the sea as the way came off Dauntless. Smith left the bridge to Ackroyd, the First Lieutenant, and went to meet Braddock as he came aboard, broadchested, his black beard streaked with grey. He saw the Admiral’s sweeping glance along the upper deck where the entire superstructure was twisted wreckage and not a gun survived, saw Braddock scowl. Dauntless had been a lovely ship and Braddock remembered her so. But then he turned on Smith and said abruptly, ‘I’ve got orders for you.’

  ‘Orders?’ Smith could not believe it. ‘Sir, with respect, Dauntless is in no condition —’

  ‘Not for Dauntless. For you. Ackroyd assumes command of this ship now. Tell somebody to pack your kit and he’s only got ten minutes. Where can we talk?’

  Smith wondered numbly if he had misheard or misunderstood. He was tired out — could his mind or his ears be playing tricks? Leave Dauntless in ten minutes? Why?

  Braddock grumbled, ‘Come on, man! We haven’t got all night. Is that Buckley?’

  It was Leading-Seaman Buckley, hovering discreetly close by, a big shadow in the gloom. Smith told him, ‘Pack my kit. All you can find. You’ve got ten minutes.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir!’

  Smith turned to Braddock. ‘We can talk in the sea-cabin, sir.’

  It was at the back of the bridge, a small steel cubicle holding a desk, a chair and a bunk, Braddock hung up his cap, took the chair and Smith sat on the bunk. Braddock dug a fat envelope out of his pocket and tossed it on to the desk. ‘Your orders are in there, but I’ll tell you what they are. Admiral Winter commands the British cruiser squadron in the Adriatic. The operation’s his idea and he’s asked for you.’

  The Adriatic. Italy was Britain’s ally there and she faced the Austrians across the Adriatic, fought them in the Alps in the north. This was the beginning of November. Smith tried to remember what he knew of weather in the northern Adriatic. There would be snow in the mountains, of course, a cold wind, plenty of fog.

  Braddock said, ‘You probably know the Austrian fleet is not as strong as the Italian so since the start of the war they’ve followed a policy of maintaining a fleet-in-being, staying in their bases either at Trieste or at Pola, just across the northern Adriatic from Venice, knowing that that ties up the Italians who have to keep a similar fleet-in-being in Brindisi and Taranto in the south just in case the Austrians come out. Obviously the Italians can’t blockade Pola any more than we could mount a blockade of the German High Seas Fleet. Any attempt at that would leave the blockading ships wide open to attack by U-boats. So, stalemate. But now —’ He paused, then asked, ‘Have you heard of a Kapitan-zur-See Erwin Voss?’

  Heard of him? More than that, Smith had met the man. But what had Voss to do with him now?

&
nbsp; ‘He has the reputation of a daring and aggressive officer.’

  The admiral nodded his grizzled head. ‘The Germans have sent him to the Austrians as an “adviser”. Winter believes that’s eye-wash and Voss is there to instil dash and aggression into the Austrians, to set the Adriatic alight. We’ve had several attacks of jitters over the years when it looked like the German battlecruiser Goeben might break out of the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean, and that was just one battlecruiser. The Austrians have half a dozen battleships, three of them newish dreadnoughts. If they start rampaging up and down the Adriatic and that long Italian coastline, then the fat will be in the fire! The Italians should settle them but God knows what damage they might do first.’

  Smith could imagine it. A force of capital ships like that could sink whole convoys and be back in port before any pursuing battle squadron could come up with them.

  Braddock said grimly, ‘You take the point. The Austrians have a battlecruiser, too. Salzburg. She’s big, new and fast. Voss is aboard her and, Winter believes, effectively commanding her. He’s also convinced that Voss, in Salzburg, will give a lead in aggressive action.’

  Smith thought that sounded more than likely. Salzburg was a fine ship and Voss was a fighter. But where was this leading?

  Braddock went on, ‘Catching Voss at sea will not be easy and beating him something else again. That’s where you come in.’ He paused a moment, then finished: ‘Your orders are to seek out and destroy Salzburg — in harbour.’

  Smith stared at him. ‘In harbour?’

  Braddock nodded. ‘Don’t ask me how. I don’t know. But something’s planned, I’m sure. Your orders come from Admiralty and you have an independent command. That was at Winter’s insistence, oddly enough.’ It was very unusual for a senior officer to insist on a junior being given an independent role in waters where he commanded. Braddock continued, ‘The operation is most secret and the senior officer, that’s Winter, of course, is instructed to give you all assistance possible in his judgment. In other words, whatever command you get will come from him. There’s a letter from Winter with the orders, promising his support. He doesn’t say how the job is to be done but I’m sure he has ideas. Any questions? Though I warn you, I’ve told you all I know.’

  There was one. ‘You said he asked for me, sir. Why?’

  Braddock shrugged heavy shoulders. ‘I’ve known Jack Winter for donkey’s years. We keep in touch. He knows my opinion of you.’

  Smith said incautiously, ‘I’ve heard one or two of your comments myself.’

  Braddock scowled. ‘That’s right. You’ll hear more of the same, if necessary. I told him about some of the scrapes you’ve got into and been damn lucky to get away with. At sea — and ashore.’

  He was talking about the women. There had been affairs: one of them scandalous, but that was in the past. Smith started angrily, ‘Sir!’ But he stopped there, Braddock’s eye on him. Few men argued with Rear Admiral Braddock.

  Braddock sniffed, then grinned. It made him look younger. ‘Cheer up! He’s a good man, one of the best and you’ll have a command.’ He reached for his cap. ‘I’m looking to have a sea command myself before long. I’ve set up an organisation in Alexandria for convoys that’s virtually running on its own under my second-in-command. Fact is, he can probably do the job better than I can. So I’m making urgent requests to their Lordships for a sea appointment. Jack Winter has that squadron and I’m only five years older — and a sight fitter; I hear he’s in poor health. There was a time a sea appointment would have been out of the question at my age but the longer the war goes on the more men they need.’

  He stood up. ‘You’ll transfer to Harrier now and she’ll take you to Venice. That’s at Winter’s order. His squadron is based at Brindisi but for some reason he wants you in Venice and quick. You’ll take Buckley, I suppose?’

  Smith was surprised by the question. He had unthinkably assumed that the big leading hand would go with him. ‘Yes, sir.’

  A startled Ackroyd was told he now commanded Dauntless and Braddock would go with him to Alexandria. The motor-boat took Smith to Harrier, Buckley with him, carrying Smith’s valise and his own kit-bag. Buckley had packed that on his own initiative. Where Smith went...

  Harrier spun away and hastened north-westward, bound for the Adriatic and Venice. Smith stood on her bridge beside Lieutenant Commander Bennett, her captain, and watched Dauntless fade into the night astern. He was leaving a ship and men he knew for an unknown command. He had lost his leave in Cairo. He was sorry about the girl and felt a twinge of conscience then. He was fond of her and he told himself she deserved better than himself and this treatment. But soon the thought of his orders and what lay ahead drove her from his mind. Seek out and destroy...

  2. ‘Attacking!’

  At the start of the passage Smith slept a great deal aboard Harrier, the weariness of weeks soaking out of him, but the second day found him. poring over the charts and the silhouette book in his box of a cabin. In the late afternoon he became restless, knowing the short journey was nearly over; Harrier would lie at Venice that night.

  He got up from the table and the chart and began to pace the cabin, the silhouette book in his hands, head bent over it. There was just room for two strides one way, two strides back. He was not studying something new but refreshing his memory. Salzburg was a carbon copy of the German battlecruiser Seydlitz and Smith had studied her silhouette and the notes on her many a time when he served with the Grand Fleet in the North Sea. Salzburg was the spit and image of Seydlitz and there was no other ship like her in the Adriatic, no Italian or Austrian battleship had the long, lean, greyhound look of this battlecruiser.

  Kapitan-sur-See Erwin Voss, because he had served in Seydlitz, would have little to learn about his new command. Smith could recall him too, saw the man in his mind’s eye as he stared at the silhouette of the ship. He had met Voss at Kiel before the war when Smith was serving in a visiting ship, and the man impressed him then. Voss was tall and darkly handsome with a lean strength about his face and a piercing glance, but a man ready to smile and mean it. He was good company. He would be a good man to serve with and under; men would follow him. And Voss would lead, no doubt about that. He was no man to sit in his cabin and wait for orders while his ship swung around her anchor. He would look for action.

  Seek out and destroy... The orders might refer to Salzburg but implicit in them was the destruction of Voss as well. Smith was not being sent head-hunting, but the Austrians had given Voss the pride of their navy and if he lost Salzburg he would be so discredited that his mission would fail before it started. That was how Voss was to be destroyed — if it could be done.

  Seek out... That was the first plan. Salzburg had to be found and that should be possible. Destruction was another matter. Aircraft would help him to find Salzburg but they could not destroy her. Bombsights were inaccurate and bombloads small: in the course of a hundred attacks aircraft would be lucky to score a single hit and then the damage would be minor. Whether Salzburg’s base was Pola or Trieste it would be well defended and Voss would leave nothing to chance. Smith would have to find some way to break into the harbour and then — what? He did not know the answer to those questions and the letter from Winter promised support and demanded haste but that was all. Nevertheless he was certain, like Braddock, that Winter could enlighten him when he reached Venice.

  He stopped at the desk and stared down at the chart spread on it. Pola and Trieste were strong, well defended bases but both were in the north of the Adriatic. If he were Voss and he wanted the Austrians to attack he would — his finger traced down the chart, stopped — he would move the Fleet to Cattaro, three hundred miles to the south with a deep, landlocked harbour, far stronger even than the others and that much nearer to the Mediterranean. Voss could raid out from there all along the Italian coast and into the Mediterranean...

  The deck tilted beneath his feet and he staggered, then snatched his cap, threw the book on his bunk and
dived for the door as the klaxons blared, ran for the bridge.

  Lieutenant-Commander Bennett, captain of Harrier, turned as Smith came up the ladder. He was a cheerful young man given to a casual attitude but fearsomely efficient. Now he said laconically, ‘Masthead’s sighted a force to eastward of us, sir. Their course is due north and they’re steaming twenty-five knots or better. We’ve no

  report of friendlies around here so I thought I’d turn and take a look-see. Thirty on the bow.’

  Smith nodded, tried to control his panting breathing as he set the glasses to his eyes and looked out over the starboard bow.

  Bennett went on, ‘We can only see smoke at the moment but the masthead claims he can see three destroyers and more smoke further east.’

  Smith lowered the glasses. Like Bennett he could see only smoke on that distant horizon but the man high above them at the masthead would see further and better. Also Harrier was working up to her full speed of twenty-eight knots and headed on a course to intercept the other ships. In a minute or two they would know more. He saw Buckley standing at the back of the bridge, gave him a quick grin.

  Bennett said, ‘I’ve wirelessed a sighting report, of course.’

  Smith grunted acknowledgment, waited, once glancing astern where there was only the empty sea, the coast of Italy out of sight over the western horizon. Forward the crew of the four-inch on the fo’c’sle were bringing the gun into action, the barrel training around to point like a finger at the distant ships, the shouted orders coming faintly up to the bridge. The men staggered as they worked about the gun because Harrier was leaping and pitching now through the lumpy seas. Clouds scudded on the wind across a leaden sky and rain mixed with spray that drove over the bow.

  ‘Masthead reports three four-funnel destroyers an’ a big ship!’

  ‘Thank you. ‘Bennett glanced at Smith. That clinches it. The Italians don’t have any four-funnel destroyers but the Austrians do. Tatra class; bigger than us and faster, better than thirty knots. Yeoman! Wireless: “Three enemy destroyers and one possible capital ship bearing due east ten miles course due north speed twenty-five knots. My position — Get that from the pilot. — In pursuit.”’