Arctic Sea, 28th March 1942

Only being in the air and shot at truly reinforced the fact that the F5W torpedo was a

miserable weapon to use.

“Kommandant! We are beginning to descend!” His navigator yelled at him two people

down, voice strained above the banshee-like screams of flak. “6000 meters!”

Scheer nodded, beginning a sharp dive with the nose pointed forward. In a mere

instant, the layer of cloud cover evaporated, revealing an enormous convoy: Empire

cargo ships sailing straight, their smokestacks belching streaming black puffs as

their engines were pushed at full steam. Between them, nimble destroyers and

corvettes spun around like frenzied dancers, fierce orange tracers erupting from their

anti-aircraft guns like haphazard streams of fire. In the midst of it all, the biggest ship

of all roared along the ice-laden surface, its bastion of anti-aircraft guns creating a

storm of tracers that raced for the heavens, hammering Germany’s grey angels like

flies. He never thought he would see it here— one of the Royal Navy’s newest Fiji-class cruisers.

“2000 meters!”

By now the anti-aircraft fire wasn’t simply around them; it enveloped them,

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bracketing the seemingly infinitely small plane in intermittent flashes of black and

yellow. The Kriegsmarine had never tried torpedo bombing in large numbers before,

their planes having been ill-suited. As flak exploded around them, tracers flew near

horizontal as the enormous bomber came level, no more than ten meters above the

water’s surface. From here, Scheer could see the panicked crew of the Empire ship,

arms waving in a frenzy and mouths shaped in muted screams, desperately yelling

for more ammo.

Behind him, his crew could no longer keep calm. Never before having conducted a

torpedo attack, this was little more than suicide— volunteering to fly into the maws of

hell itself.

Reaching the shaking control stick, he finally steeled himself and dropped a single

torpedo. With an agonising lurch, the suddenly lighter aircraft ascended above the

Empire ship, it’s tall masts nearly close enough to scrape the bomber’s belly.

“Up! Up! UP!”

Even as the aircraft made its shaky ascent towards a layer of clouds that seemed

impossibly far away, his crew’s eyes were all averted backward, watching the path of

the torpedo they dropped in renewed silence.

The small bomb swam undisturbed toward its target, the Empire ship trying

desperately to turn to port in order to avert its fate. Scheer knew it was no use.

Connecting to its target, it exploded, raising a geyser of water akin to a swan’s

plume. The ship broke in half as if it was merely a plank of wood, Scheer watching

the crew jump into the water, its surface on fire as slicks of oil seeped into an

unforgiving ocean.

“They’re gone,” whispered his co-pilot, his eyes stuck to the aircraft’s rear window,

panes sooty from flak.

“They’re gone.” repeated Scheer.