Harvey Knight's las mission had been aborted when his flotilla had run into a German destroyer, and encounter that had left his boats seriously mauled even if they eventually sunk the enemy vessel. This it was that in terms of operational ships he could now only count on one MTB (Edwars Stewart's MTB 414) and the two MGBs (Lennox Dean's MGB 91 and Ewan McDonald's MGB 103). His own MTB 413 was still badly damaged, and the flotilla was waiting on two replacement MTBs.
So this was the perfect time for a war correspondent to turn up, looking for a chance to do a story about the flotilla by accompanying them on their next mission. To be fair Harvey felt that maybe his reputation could do with a boost. All he had to do was keep the journalist alive.
The much depleted flotilla was assigned the task of picking up a friendly agent from the Belgian coast. For a force that was primarily gunboats this wasn't a bad mission to be assigned, so long as they didn't run into any large enemy vessels.
It was a moonless night, so good for the kind of work they were doing. However as they approached the rendezvous it was obvious a large German patrol was in the area. The two MGBs sped towards the coast before the Germans could spot them, whilst MTB 414, commanded by Edward Stewart, but with Harvey Knight and the journalist on board as well, headed towards the patrol in order to act as a distraction.
The MTB bumped into an R-boat, which opened fire.
Meanwhile the rest of the German patrol had been worryingly active, and as MGB 103 reached the pick-up point a Vorpostenboot ranged up and opened fire, causing some light damage.
MGB 103 sheered away, and returned fire.
(This was a mandatory turn on the All At Sea table, so I assumed that it would cause the boat to break contact with the pickup.)
MGB 91 came up in support, but another Vorpostenboot appeared as well. Firing became general.
The fourth escort was another Vorpostenboot; the flotilla had obviously run into a major patrol. And Harvey had lost contact with his two gunboats in the general melee.
Under heavy fire from two V-boats Lennox Dean brought MGB 91 into the pick-up point. Amazingly he only suffered light damage; it helped that his small boat was hidden against the shoreline.
The R-boat was also coming up, hotly pursued by MTB 414. The MTB opened fire and badly damaged the R-boat, which began steering erratically.
Despite the fire being directed at them, Dean's crew picked up the agent, whilst their commander assessed how they would make their escape.
MGB was running close to the V-boats, and had even damaged one with gunfire. However it had taken another hit in return.
In desperation McDonald threw his boat across teh bow of one of teh V-boats, launching depth-charges as he did so, but they exploded too far away from the enemy vessel to cause any damage.
(An All At Sea roll caused him to turn directly towards the German vessel, so any move would have been a collision. But he had the two actions needed for a depth-charge attack, so went for that instead of shooting and then colliding.)
The R-boat ran into some rocks off the coast and was soon hard aground.
At the same time one of the V-boats ended up stuck on some nearby shoals. MGB 91 was now making a run for it.
Eager to impress the journalist, and at least contribute to the mission in some way, Knight got Edward Stewart to bring his boat around and make a torpedo run at the immobilised V-boat.
The torpedoes passed close, but missed.
Unfortunately at the same time MGB 103 ran aground on the same rocks as the R-boat. The two crews worked together to save their crews, but with two V-boats now turning back int the fight there was no change of a rescue for the British crew, and they would end the night as POWs.
Surviving long-range fire from the grounded V-boat the two other British boats headed for home.
The crews of both boats picked up some valuable experience. Indeed Stewart's crew are close to being Veterans now. But the loss of MGB 103 and its crew soured the mission. The journalist got his story, but Harvey Knight got no increase in reputation out of it. And things got worse. Harvey was invited by a neighbouring squadron to give a talk on tactics - he was an experienced officer with much action under his belt, after all. But still shaken from his recent adventures his talk was poor and his listeners learned little. Harvey was beginning to beginning to doubt himself, and both his mental and physical health were in a bad way now. To make matters worse there were still no replacement boats available.
On the plus side, the repair crews worked like Trojans and completed nearly all of the repairs, so Harvey got MTB 413 back. Only MGB 91 needed minor repairs still.
So for the next mission Harvey Knight can only call on two MTBs and a lightly damaged MGB.
Will things start to look up for Harvey Knight? Find out in the next episode.
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