OOC/sign up thread
Somewhere on the Norwegian Coast. March 6th 1944, roughly 0200
A man in civilian clothes lay on a bluff overlooking the entrance to a fjord, next to him lay a British made submachine gun. In his hands he held a pair of German field glasses, as he gazed intently out to sea. The man had been there for over three hours, watching the expanse of water at the mouth of the fjord intently. It was raining and visibility was poor, the conditions were generally miserable; but the job the man did was of the utmost importance. The notebook, which he desperately tried to keep dry, contained a set of short but detailed notes going back to roughly 11PM. Since then, a steady stream of warships had been cruising, from well concealed berths, out into the open water under the veil of rain and darkness. It seemed that the entire German battlefleet, that had been hiding under the very noise of the Norwegian resistance for months, was finally putting to sea. It was simply by chance that the resistance had been there to watch the fleet leave, the man who lay on the grass had been out on patrol when he spotted a massive ship moving slowly out to sea.
By 2AM, the man had decided he'd seen enough. More than thirty ships, including massive vessels which he presumed to be battleships, had moved past his position. Taking care to keep low, as not to be spotted, he moved off down the path up which he'd trekked some hours ago. It was his bad luck that a German infantry company happened to be in the area at the time and it was his worse luck that allowed them to spot him. As the man trudged the several miles home, a German platoon stalked him in the night.
Once he arrived at home, he placed his weapon down on the kitchen table and stooped down to move a loose floor board. Under this board, was hidden a Morse code machine which he quickly hooked up to telephone wires. He tapped out his message quickly, but no where near quickly enough. The Germans burst through the front well before he finished the message. The infantry caught him red handed, with weapon on the table and Morse code device in plain sight. The resistance fighter died in a hail of sub-machine gun rounds as he lunged for his weapon. Ironically, the information he'd died trying to sent to the allies was already known to them. Some hours previously, the highly classified ULTRA program had intercepted the enigma coded order which had ordered the Germans to sea. It hadn't taken long to decipher and the generated intelligence had been passed onto the units at Scapa Flow, home port of the British Home Fleet and it's auxiliary formations.
Admiralty, at roughly the same time
The Admiralty control rooms, despite the lateness of the hour, was in total overdrive. They'd been worked hard in the preceding months by the invasion planning, convoys and drawing up a plan to find and destroy the Kreigsmarine. Now with the reception of half a telegram and a decoded German order, the room was positively exploding. On the massive map table, just off Norway, a little ship, flying the Imperial German battle ensign, had appeared.
The telegram had read
German battleships spotted leaving Fjord. Stop. Confirmed Tirpitz, Bismarck and Scharnhorst Stop. Accompanied by Cruisers and Des.
The message had abruptly been cut off, presumably the sender had been killed or captured in mid sentence. The half telegram would have been enough to wake the Prime Minister, but the growing frenzy was only added to by the report from Bletchley. This report had confirmed the Admiralty's suspicions. The Germans were at sea, presumably they would try to avoid a direct action but the Navy had no doubt that they could be forced into on somehow.
The Officer in command of the room was an older man. He'd captained a cruiser at Jutland and moved up through the ranks. When he retired he took command here. He placed another little ship on the map, this one at Scapa Flow. It was flying the White Ensign. This represented the Home Fleet.
That ought to give them something to think about.
He thought to himself.
HMS King George V, Scapa Flow, 0400 local time
Sir Bruce Austin Fraser stood on the bridge of HMS King George V, better known around the fleet as KG5. She was the lead vessel of her class of fast, modern battleships. Armed with ten 14" guns, touting thick armour and top end speed the KG5 class was a force to be reckoned with. It was from this ship that Sir Bruce Fraser, Admiral of the Home Fleet, flew his flag. He looked out from the bridge, around Scapa and in the darkness his eyes struggled to pick out the ships around him. Directly next to KG5 and in plain view even in darkness was her sister ship, Prince of Wales. To the other side, a third KG5, HMS Anson. Scattered around Scapa, under an umbrella of anti-aircraft batteries and virtually impenetrable anti-submarine defences were the ships of the Home Fleet, which encompassed ships from a wide variety of nations.
The Admiral wasn't simply on the bridge to survey his fleet. Like any other officer in the Navy, he usually hoped to be asleep at such an ungodly hour. Orders had come from the Admiralty. Encrypted Kreigsmarine data had been picked up at Bletchley Park and it seemed the Germans, all of them, were at sea. This meant that the chance for a decisive victory was at hand, which would finally allow the Allies to land in France without the risk of being intercepted. The Admiral, sat in the Captain's chair, leant over to one of the communication pipes on the virtually deserted bridge.
"Signals room, this is Admiral Fraser." he began "Signal all ships. All Squadron commanders to report to board room aboard flagship as soon as is possible."
The Admiral stood and stretched, it was going to be a long week. He retired to the board room, to wait for his Squadron commanders.
