Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History by Peter Tsouras Read Free Book Online

only calm man in the room. ‘I call your attention to the obvious answer to all these bewildering coincidences in the loss of so many boats.’ He read on,
    ‘The British Naval Intelligence Office are giving a lot of help to the Royal Navy in the fight against the U-boats. A special office has specialized in dealing with codebreaking since war broke out. For several months it has been very successful. They can now read German Admiralty orders to the U-boat commanders. This is a great help when it comes to hunting for U-boats.’
    I would say that last sentence is an understatement. In light of this, meine Herren, it would seem reasonable to assume that this is exactly what has happened. The enemy has taken possession of the keys and reads the orders currently for the U-boat rendezvous. 11
    He looked at the staff. ‘Change the damned codes.’
    Then he turned to his aide and said, ‘Get me Heydrich on a secure line at once.’
    Heydrich was in the air from Prague within the hour after receiving Dönitz’s call. The admiral was waiting for him as his car sped to the naval headquarters at two in the morning. Dönitz whisked him to his office and showed him the reports. Even Heydrich’s impassive expression was broken as he read on.
    ‘You know, Dönitz, we can turn this to our advantage. I destroyed the best of Stalin’s senior officers with just such an opportunity to deceive the enemy.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘You know, that if the enemy has broken the naval Enigma code, they surely have broken the less complex Luftwaffe and Army Enigmas. Oh, how dicke [fat] Hermann will squirm.’
    The irony was that Heydrich was only half right. Indeed, the British had broken Enigma and were reading the Luftwaffe and Army’s traffic, but the addition of a further rotor to the naval Enigma machines had slammed the door shut for the British codebreakers at Bletchley Park. Since February they had been unable to read any naval Enigma messages.
    It did not occur to Dönitz that all the coincidental losses he cited had occurred before the upgrade of naval Enigma only two months before. For Heydrich, though, the thought of what this knowledge could do to his enemies within the Reich leadership was like a sweet taste on his tongue. Dönitz was struck by how vulpine the man looked at that moment; his normally ice blue eyes burned like those of a carnivore closing in for a kill.
    Arctic Convoy PQ-16, 25 May 1942
    The pilots of Kampfgeschwader 30 (KG30 - Bomber Group 30) exulted in another victory. Below them the SS Empire Elgar staggered under the hits by their Ju 88 dive-bombers. It went down quickly, the British Valentine tanks filling its hold breaking loose and crashing into the bulkheads.
    For the first time, the Germans had made a concerted effort to stop an Arctic convoy. The death of the Empire Elgar was one of nine out of thirty-five ships lost to aircraft, U-boats, and mines. The Ju 88 crews boasted six of the kills. None of the losses, however, compared to the destruction of the Empire Elgar in importance. This ship was a 2,847grt heavy lift vessel. It had been launched early in the year and completed in April at West Hartlepool in the United Kingdom. This was its first voyage. It was a very special ship, equipped with powerful derricks to unload heavy cargo, such as tanks, locomotives and aircraft, from other ships. It was intended to stay in the Russian northern ports where its derricks would be vital in unloading operations. The Russians had nothing like it in the way of heavy unloading derricks. Without it, getting cargoes ashore would be a time-consuming effort when every day counted in getting supplies and equipment to the hard-pressed Soviet forces.
    North Atlantic, 25 May 1942
    The crew of U-103 were preparing the nine pennants, each signifying a sunk ship, to fly on their return to Lorient. The men were in the best of moods. They had had a gloriously successful voyage in the Caribbean, and they were heading home