Charts of Casablanca harbor, the mouth of the Mediterranean, and 106 a W.E.H. URIFFIN the eastern Atlantic had been thumbtacked to the walls.
The halves of a Ping-Pong table, resting on folding chairs, now held large sketches drawn from memory –of the battleship itself, Deadly serious, the admiral had used the charts and drawings to show Canidy how the vessel could be seized by a small force and by judicious use of watertight doors, and how the vessel could afterward be refueled under way at sea. By the time the admiral finished outlining his plan to steal the sixth or seventh-largest naval vessel in the world from under the noses of the German forces in Casablanca, Canidy was no longer convinced that the old man was living in cuckoo land. Improbable was not quite the same thing as insane. First of all, the admiral had made it dear that his chief and only reason for stealing the jean Bart was as a symbol.
Removing the ship from the shaming control of the Germans would not just humiliate them; More important, it would Profoundly challenge the belief now held by most Frenchmen that since nothing could be done against the Bodies, the logical thing to do was accommodate them. And Admiral de Ver beys plan to seize the battleship met the first test of any good naval tactic: simplicity, In compliance with the terms of the Franco-German armistice, the battleship still remained in French hands with her full crew and enough ammunition for both her main turrets and her extensive complement of antiaircraft cannon and machine guns. In the event of an attack by any enemy-read English or American-against the sovereign soil of neutral France, the jean Bart was expected by the Germans to respond with all its firepower. For several reasons, the Germans were not particularly wo tried that her crew would turn the jean Bart’s weaponry on them or suddenly decide to let loose the lines and go to sea. For one, the honor of the French Navy was at stake, France had signed an armistice with Germany. Marshal P6tain, as Chief of the French State, had through official channels ordered her captain to remain in port, and to defend French soil, More practically, the jean Bart’s fuel tanks were virtu y d She was all ry regularly refueled, but with only enough oil to run one of her four engines at steaming speed for twelve hours. That was not nearly enough fuel for a dash for the open sea. A dash like that would require all four engines running at full power. It was, however, sufficient fuel to provide electrical services and THS SECRFT WARRIORS 0
101 wer for her turrets and separate cannon and their ammunition hoists. Po ing order.
Each of her four engines was run in turn, which kept all four in good runnaccording t o the admiral, there were thus only two major problems to be overcome in the “liberation” of the Jean Bart. The first was the question his orders. of the willingness of her captain to fly in the face of his honor and violate The presence of Vice Admiral de Verbey on the scene would handle that problem. He was not only the former captain of the jean Bart, but was also now the senior admiral not under the German thumb.
If he ordered her to sea, his orders would be obeyed. The second problem, fuel, was by no means as hopeless as it might first appear.
Though the main tanks were officially empty, there was still residual fuel-many tons of it-in each tank, left there because it was beyond the reach of her between-the-tanks fuel-transfer pumps. But by setting up portable pumps, the “empty” tanks could rather easily be pumped dry of their “residual” fuel, and that fuel transferred to the “active” tank.
The admiral’s calculations had determined that there would be enough fuel in the “active’ tank to run all jean Bart’s four engines at full power for almost two hours. That would see her out of the harbor and into the Mediterranean. There she would be met, the admiral planned, by an American tanker and an escort, preferably of destroyers and a cruiser.