Churchill's Band of Brothers

by Damien Lewis

  ‘You’ve got to hand it to them,’ whispered Jones, grudgingly, as he studied the ingenious getarnte Bäume – camouflaged trees. The fake woodland must have been placed there to obscure something from the air, and moments later one of the fugitives spotted it. ‘Look! There’s a plane!’ hissed Jones.

  Stealing through the ghostly terrain of this false forest, weapons very much at the ready, they crept towards the first massive airframe. Instantly recognisable, it was the distinctive form of a Junkers Ju 52 ‘Tante Ju’, a tri-engine transport aircraft that was the workhorse of the Luftwaffe, the third engine forming the plane’s stubby pug-like nose.

  The three men eyed it hungrily. It was just too tempting. ‘Mustn’t forget to blow that tomorrow,’ Vaculik whispered. He’d just given voice to what was on all of their minds.

  ‘It’s as good as done,’ confirmed Paddy Barker.

  ‘Mightn’t be a bad idea to put a match to it right now,’ added Jones. ‘Give us something to see by.’

  Beneath the bravado, it was fortune alone that had led them to the enemy warplane, which at anything other than close quarters would have been obscured by the fakery. Had they not headed for the ‘woodland’, they might never have found it. There were sure to be others, equally carefully concealed. But the three musketeers had to remind themselves of the purpose of tonight’s mission: it was to recce the airbase, to see how they might best be pulled out of there. They weren’t looking for targets. But still . . .

  ‘I wonder if we’ve got enough plastic?’ Vaculik mused. Plastic explosives. Surely they must have. Garstin was bound to have kept a little in reserve.

  They darted across to an adjacent ‘copse’, just to test their theory. Sure enough, the fake trees concealed a bomb dump. What more could any of them have wished for? As long as they had some explosives remaining, they didn’t doubt that Garstin would want to leave a little fiery carnage in their wake. He wasn’t the kind who could ever say no, especially when such juicy targets were so close at hand. It was also a truism that a few good men on the ground could achieve so much more than a fleet of aircraft at altitude. After all, that was exactly why the SAS had been sent in: to find, fix and destroy.

  Repeatedly in the run-up to D-Day, Étampes airfield had been targeted by the Allies, US bomber fleets leading the charge. In one such raid, on 14 June ’44, sixty-nine B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers had rained down munitions, but they’d only succeeded in destroying one Ju 52 and damaging one other. It was little wonder that the Germans had gone to such lengths to camouflage their airframes, but what the Allied bomber fleets had failed to do the SAS might have a crack at, with what meagre supplies of explosives they still had to hand.

  Either way, it was time to press on. They needed to check out the runway and any defences that might impede an incoming –mystery – aircraft. To do so involved breaking cover from the fake forest, and belly-crawling through a stretch of deep grass. Ten minutes of such work, and they had eyes on the runway itself. Before them lay a wide expanse of billiard-table-flat grass, a good 1,500 yards or more from end to end. Two separate flare paths were visible, delineating two distinct runways.

  They’d seen enough. With the right kind of warplane, flown by an aircrew with balls of steel, the way was clear to nip in and out again, pausing briefly to pick up a dozen shadowy figures dashing out from the cover of the long grass. If the RAF were crazy enough to try it, the three musketeers figured they had no option but to give it a whirl. And if they could spread a little carnage in the process, so much the better.

  Recce done, they retraced their steps. But as they stole back towards the perimeter, they feared that Murphy’s Law might well have come into play: if it can go wrong, it will. Thick cloud scudded across the moon, making it all but impossible to find the spot where they had cut their way in. They could of course slice their way out again, but that doubled the chances of being caught. Finally hands groped their way to where the strands had been severed and as quickly as possible they slipped through. As the others stood watch, Jones twisted the strands back together again, so the fence would appear as if it was still intact.

  It was 4 a.m. by now, and as they hurried away from the airbase the fatigue began to hit. The three fugitives longed for their sleeping bags ‘like a tired horse longs for the stables’. Perhaps for that reason – they were stumbling along minds intent on sleep –the first Vaculik, Jones and Barker knew of being back at their camp was when those on sentry rammed the muzzles of their Sten guns into their ribs. There was a password of course, but a string of the most colourful curses from Jones served just as well. Few were those who could master the accent and the sheer bloody-minded ribaldry of the former miner from Wigan, and for sure no German ever could.

  Moments after reporting to Garstin on all they had found, Vaculik, Jones and Barker crawled into their sleeping bags and were dead to the world. While the three musketeers did their sleeping beauty act, Howard Lutton went a-hunting. By the time Vaculik, Jones and Barker were awake, he’d managed to trap four fat rabbits.

  ‘There’s no one can snare like he can,’ Lieutenant Wiehe told them, admiringly, of Lutton’s work. ‘He was a bit of a poacher before he joined the army, you know.’

  At times there was a strange otherworldliness to the Mauritian, a quaint naivety that seemed so at odds with this most bloody and brutal of wars. In a sense, it made the camaraderie between Wiehe and Jones, the born fighter from Wigan, seem all the more bizarre. But as David Stirling had averred, the ranks across the SAS were all of ‘one company’ and any sense of class was ‘alien and ludicrous’. In that spirit, Jones and Wiehe’s was a friendship that would endure, come what may. Equally, Wiehe had proved his mettle when it mattered most – dispatching the sentries back on the rail tracks at Dourdan. Beneath his courteous, old-fashioned demeanour there lurked a core of inner steel. He would need it for what was coming.

  It was around dusk that evening when the first of the sentries came dashing in to raise the alarm. ‘Make yourselves scarce! There’s a Jerry patrol coming!’

  Within an instant, the figures in that clearing had melted into the trees, hearts pounding, Stens at the ready. The seconds ticked by, before the heavy tramp of boots came echoing through the trees. Garstin had set their camp a good distance off a winding path, which was fortunate, for that was the way the column of grey-uniformed infantry came. They appeared alert and focused, scanning the undergrowth to either side, but equally they weren’t inclined to stray from the path. As they stomped past, it struck the watchers how easy it would be to wipe them out with a few well-aimed bursts. But they had neither the ammo to waste, nor the inclination, for that would only serve to draw the enemy’s ire.

  Not a minute after they had appeared, the column of German troops was gone, swallowed into the trees, and all was silence once more. Garstin gathered his men. It was time to head for the airfield. Tonight, either they would pull off the mother of all extractions, or they’d be ensnared within the mother of all battles. He was clear about one thing: whichever way it might go, they would be sure to plant the few charges that remained on the juiciest of targets.

  Whatever fate might hold in store, Garstin was determined that SABU-70 would go out with a bang.

  Chapter 9

  With unerring instinct, Jones had led the raiders right to the hole cut in the wire. It was a night like that which had gone before, with dark clouds blanketing a hidden moon – all the better for what Garstin and his men had in mind. There wasn’t a breath of wind in the skies, which should prove perfect conditions for what one adventurous – some might argue crazy – RAF aircrew had planned for tonight. Once all had crawled through the gap, Jones pushed ahead like a bloodhound on the scent. Otherwise something of a grouchy, unruly rebel without a cause, there was no one better when on the trail of the enemy.

  Moments later they were in amongst the fake trees. The stark, angular form of the Junkers Ju 52 loomed before them, the distinctive black cross superimposed upon a white backg
round seeming like a target emblazoned on the fuselage. Gathering his men, Garstin eyed the aircraft, appraising where best to plant his charges. With a wingspan just short of 100 feet, and a length of over 60 feet from the stubby nose to the swastika adorning the sharp tail, the three-engine Junkers was only a little smaller than a Stirling. On one level, it was almost beyond belief that no sentries had been placed on such a target. It looked to be a case of the Dourdan ammo dumps all over again: the enemy still could not conceive of Allied troops operating so far behind the front lines.

  ‘Give it a Lewes bomb with a four-hour fuse,’ Garstin ordered, in hushed tones.

  The Lewes bomb was one of the SAS’s very own inventions, a work of genius in terms of its efficacy and simplicity. During the earliest days, when operating in North Africa, the SAS had realised it needed a new kind of sabotage weapon, one light enough for a man to carry several in his pack, but potent enough to destroy a swathe of enemy warplanes – then their chief targets. It was Lieutenant John ‘Jock’ Lewes, one of David Stirling’s stalwarts, who’d found the answer, inventing a DIY blast-incendiary device, which combined plastic explosive, diesel fuel and thermite, a metal-based gunpowder.

  The resulting ‘Lewes Bomb’, as it became known, proved highly effective. Encased in a small canvas bag, it could be secreted inside a cockpit or on the wing of an enemy warplane, in close proximity to the fuel tank, so that when it detonated the resulting fire spread with dramatic consequences. Made up by hand in the field, the Lewes bomb didn’t look like much – a stodgy lump of plastic that resembled bread dough and was distinctly oily to the touch, stuck with a timer pencil. But when detonated in the vicinity of the fuel tank, it would render the aircraft into a seething fireball.

  That was exactly what Garstin intended now, with the Ju 52. Or at least in four hours’ time, as that was the length of fuse they would set – hopefully giving them plenty of time to be whisked away, prior to the real fireworks getting started. With the Ju 52 rigged to blow, Garstin asked Jones to lead them to the ammo dump, plus any other targets that might be close at hand, after which they’d crawl into the cover of the long grass to await whatever miracle might materialise out of the dark skies.

  ‘Supposing our plane doesn’t come?’ Lieutenant Wiehe whispered, as the men set about lacing the ammo dump with charges.

  It was a reasonable question. If the RAF failed to show, presumably the twelve fugitives would be triply hunted, once the Lewes bombs went off, and with almost nothing left – no bullets nor bombs – with which to fight.

  ‘If it doesn’t come, it doesn’t,’ replied Garstin, fatalistically. ‘That’s all. You can only die once.’

  That last remark – you can only die once – epitomised the SAS captain’s steely resolve. After the long years at war and his numerous brushes with death, the Grim Reaper had become something of a constant companion for Pat Garstin, as it had for many of the more experienced SAS commanders. Death lurked on your shoulder, scythe at the ready, especially when on operations deep behind the lines, and in particular when bearing in mind the intent, if not the fine detail, of Hitler’s Commando Order.

  It was twenty minutes to midnight by the time all their remaining charges had been set: time was running, and Garstin needed to get his men into position. As they crawled through the long grass, weapons at the ready and making for the runway, there was the distant grumble of what sounded like an aircraft high in the heavens.

  ‘What’s that?’ Garstin hissed. ‘Sounds like a plane.’

  Sure enough, there was an aircraft up there somewhere. If it was their RAF pick-up, it was a good quarter of an hour early. Garstin urged his men onwards, worming their way towards the very fringes of the mown strip. But as they hurried ahead on knees and elbows, the air above Étampes airbase was filled with a deep, throbbing thunder. It wasn’t just one aircraft that was inbound, that was for sure.

  ‘That’s not a plane,’ a voice whispered. ‘It’s a whole ruddy squadron!’

  In rapid order the lights of the airbase were doused, as the German defenders must have realised what was coming. Moments later, the air was rent by the sharp reports of gunfire, and explosions erupted high above Étampes airbase. The anti-aircraft batteries had kicked into action, the ferocious barrage creeping ever closer, as the gunners tracked the inbound fleet of warplanes.

  The very heavens seemed to scream in agony now, as the first sticks of bombs plummeted down, blinding flashes pulsing across the airfield and throwing all into stark relief, the air ringing with powerful detonations and the ground beneath shaking with each blast. It looked as if the RAF had mounted some kind of diversionary raid, during the chaos and confusion of which Garstin and his men were supposed to get plucked to safety. Or at least, so the twelve fugitives had to presume.

  Mayhem engulfed Étampes aerodrome, as the guns of the Luftschutz-Rgt zur besonderen Verwendung – the air defence units – blazed away and the air howled with bombs raining down, the twelve fugitives finding themselves caught right in the very heart of it all. As the staccato flashes seared across their place of hiding, Garstin kept checking the dial of his watch. With one hand he readied the flare gun with which he intended to call the RAF warplane in – a guardian angel descending from the war-torn skies.

  As the second hand swept around to midnight, Garstin lifted the gun and fired. In rapid succession three green Very lights sailed into the sky, forming three distinct arcs like the fronds of a palm tree, the trunk of which was rooted in the SAS team’s place of hiding. Nothing like advertising their presence to an enemy already on high alert. But this was it now: do or die.

  Twelve figures waited with bated breath for something to happen, for some sign that their signal had been seen; that the pick-up was due, and that they hadn’t by some bitter twist of fate been caught up in an Allied air raid simply by coincidence . . . and forgotten. All of a sudden, a ‘great black mass appeared out of the darkness’, executing a dramatic pass over the heads of Garstin and his men. To the watchers it had the unmistakable silhouette of a C-47 Dakota, although it had almost the exact same dimensions as a Junkers Ju 52, and they’d have to hope the troops manning the airbase might mistake it for one of their own.

  A signal lamp blinked from the C-47’s open side door: ‘PEACH to ROMO 47, can we land? PEACH to ROMO 47, can we land?’ ‘Peach’ was the aircraft’s agreed call-sign, ‘Romo 47’ that of the waiting SAS party.

  Wiehe lifted a powerful torch, flashing a reply skywards: ‘ROMO 47 to PEACH, you can land. Wind nil.’

  The dark form of the C-47 swept low across their position, before swinging around to line up with the runway. But as the shadowy warbird dropped towards the strip, the utterly unexpected happened: twin beams of light speared out from the Dakota, harshly illuminating the length of grass ahead of it. The pilot had switched on his landing lights, each set midway along the wings. It looked as if rather than trying to sneak in under the cover of the air raid, he’d decided to bluff his way down, as if he had every right to be there.

  By the fierce glare, the watchers could see that the C-47’s landing gear was already lowered. Moments later, the aircraft’s wheels bumped once or twice on the grass strip, before it settled, the nose lifting as it slowed, and it came to a rest on the single tail wheel situated at the rear. Like that, the C-47 taxied across the grass, the pilot coming to a halt no more than a hundred yards from Garstin and his men, the open side door just aft of the wings offering a tantalising promise of safety.

  Somehow, the RAF warplane was down and waiting, without a shot having been fired.

  But as Garstin ordered his men to their feet, there was the grunt of heavy engines and the distinctive forms of several German Army trucks powered out of the darkness. Their headlamps speared the gloom, nailing the C-47 in their glare, the telltale red, white and blue insignia of the RAF clear for all to see now. A machine gun opened fire, a blaze of bullets tearing up the airstrip in a cloud of blasted dirt and grass all around the warplane. The C-47 was a
sitting duck, unless Garstin and his men could do something, and fast. The time for hiding – of remaining covert – was over.

  ‘FIRE!’ roared Garstin. ‘Stop them destroying the plane! Whatever you do—’

  His last words were lost in a deafening blast, as Jones levelled his trusty Bren and opened up, emptying an entire magazine into the lead vehicle. The truck’s headlamps erupted in a shower of shattered glass, as bullets raked the chassis from end to end. Within a matter of seconds, Jones had unleashed all four of the remaining Bren mags, hosing down the enemy convoy with murderous fire. Presumably the soldiers riding in those vehicles had had no idea that a British patrol was positioned in the heart of their airbase, so getting hit by this mystery force must have added to all the chaos and confusion.

  Seizing the advantage, Garstin ordered one man to make a dash for the C-47’s open doorway, to get the pilot to hold steady, as they dealt with the enemy. All they needed were a few precious seconds. It would be such a bitter disappointment, to be so close, ‘and to be stopped by a handful of Germans!’ As one of his men broke cover and dashed across the airstrip, Garstin ordered those remaining to redouble their attack on the trucks, although they were desperately short of ammo by now.

  ‘Anyone got a grenade left?’ he yelled.

  By way of answer, his men lobbed the last of their pineapple-shaped projectiles, one falling directly onto the nearest lorry, where it detonated in a searing blast. The enemy truck ‘burst into flames, casting a sinister, flickering light all around’. Other vehicles were raked by a storm of shrapnel as grenade blasts tore into them. Even as the last of the explosions died away, Garstin ordered his men to make a run for the waiting aircraft, at which all eleven broke cover and took to their heels.