HMS Sealion Strikes Blow for Allies!
Early yesterday morning, the British submarine HMS Sealion launched a daring attack on the German battleship Tirpitz as she left her anchorage at Skelkin Fjord in Norway. The massive battleship sustained three torpedo hits to her port side, and was forced to head for the drydock at Wilhelmshaven, apparently to repair damage suffered to her props and steering equipment. The repairs are expected to remove her from action for some time.
HMS Sealion escaped the pursuit of the German escort vessels and returned to England, where they were flown to London to meet with Prime Minister Churchill, who awarded Capt. James Oliver the Victoria Cross for disabling the most powerful battleship in the North Sea.
It is unknown whether the loss of Tirpitz will delay the rumored sortie by the Kriegsmarine.
Iansisle
26-12-2003, 04:03
The good news about Sealion's valour was so well recieved in Ianapalis that the Admiralty forgot they disagreed with "any sort of under-water hijinks."
On board HIMS Behemoth off Malta, Commodore Martin Hansfield (who had been informed he would be made a Knight of Shadoran upon his return to the Commonwealth) worried that somehow Tirpitz would find her way past Gibralter, and he'd be in a right fix then without his marines...
...in the oddly unforeseen circumstance that somehow the German battleship would become disabled and he'd be quite unable to take her as a prize. His staff officers chuckled about it and his paranoid obsessiveness in the mess hall.
As Chiang Maï flyers appeared in the distance and the warm waters of the South China Sea rushed up to engulf His Iansislean Majesty's Submersible Invisible, the only one of her kind, Lieutenant-Commander Dunmore said a silent prayer that he'd get to kiss his wife just one more time.
Admiral Koeren had not taken the news of Sealion's attack well at all. Tirpitz had been en route to Kiel, where Koeren was to take command of her and the other ships sailing for the Atlantic; now, he had no flagship. Bismarck, despite all reports to the contrary, would never be ready in time to sail with the battlegroup, which left Admiral Koeren with two choices for a flagship, either Sharnhorst or Gneisenau. Koeren had been one of the distinguished captains of the High Seas Fleet, commanding the light cruiser Kaiserin Augusta at Dogger Bank; he found the idea of commanding a battle onboard an aircraft carrier (which he thought of as defenseless against enemy fire) appaling. While the twin battlecruisers were fine ships, Koeren had intended to make the Kriegsmarine's presence felt, and the loss of Tirpitz and her big guns would cut the power of his fleet considerably. The heaviest guns now available were the 11" ones carried by his battlecruisers, paltry compared to the 16" rifles of the British battleships he was sure to encounter. He would have to speak to Admiral Donitz about sending out some of his precious U-boats in a skirmish line, so that the fleet wasn't ambushed by the Royal Navy's heavier guns.