Air Strike

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Sgt. Ferugino consoled himself with the thought that, at least, he had never been sent to Africa. There had been one narrow squeak when his name appeared on a draft for Eritrea, but an uncle in the Orderly Room had removed it and substituted someone else who did not enjoy the protection of the Family. Later, another narrow shave had almost seen him on his way to Libya; but, again, a sergeant medical orderly who ranked quite high in Cosa Nostra had averted it by sending him to hospital for an appendicectomy that he didn’t need.

  He watched the sixteen Spitfires weave their way through the anti-aircraft shells bursting around them — as many of these were American as German and Italian — and his plump face broke into a smile. God knew there was little enough to be pleased about, these days, but an invader daring enough to operate fighters from an airstrip that was almost surrounded by the enemy must really be determined on a swift conquest. He knew the British hadn’t as much money as the Americans, but if he could make contact with these new arrivals before anyone else got to them there must be some useful pickings to be had. He had heard from his Soho cousins that the British never went anywhere without taking along a stock of Scotch whisky and tea. Both of these were highly marketable commodities and even small quantities would bring him a handsome return if he could but lay his hands on some.

  He would never forget the horror with which he and his comrades had woken that morning to find the sea from beach to horizon a mass of enemy warships and landing craft. After many nights on the alert they had gone wearily and thankfully to bed the night before when the storm blew up, convinced that if an invasion were imminent it could not be carried out in such weather. By the time they were roused from their exhausted sleep it was too late to retaliate effectively. He had watched the beach defences being wiped out and wave after wave of Allied soldiers come sweeping ashore to overrun strong points and gun sites. His own regiment formed part of a force that was isolated as the Allies swept by in their hurry to penetrate inland. It was ordered hastily to move some twenty miles further back to join the renowned Hermann Göring Division, which, with its new 56-ton Tiger tanks, was holding a line near Caltagirone in the hills above the Gela plain. With the Sicilian artillerymen went an Italian regiment equipped with obsolete light tanks, which fought its way with great gallantry through the American 1st Infantry Division’s flank and saw the gunners — among whom Sgt. Ferugino was an unhappy cipher — safely sited in their new positions. If the word “safely”, he thought, could be applied to such a hair-raising situation.

  The next day the Hermann Göring Division, with Sgt. Ferugino’s regiment, was shifted again: this time to the British front to try to hold the rapid advance there. These were replaced by two Battle Groups of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division which had been hastily transferred from western Sicily; and Sgt. Ferugino once more counted himself lucky, for although the ferocious Hermann Göring Division frightened him even more than the enemy did, the very idea of having to fight alongside any Panzergrenadier unit was enough to induce him to shoot off his own foot in order to escape from battle.

  By the day on which Toby Yule was shot down by American guns, the British had driven the enemy out of south-eastern Sicily and begun the vital assault on the Primasole bridge across the Simeto river.

  On the following day the bridge was captured in a brilliant and courageous feat of arms by the 1st Parachute Brigade.

  Three days later Sgt. Ferugino was contemplating his immediate future on a hillside north of Catania. To the south, the landscape was low-lying and malaria-ridden. The marshes were latticed with dykes and embankments and the flat, boring view was relieved only by ridges on which stood olive groves, vineyards and the usual dark cypress and poplar trees around farm buildings. To the north a blue-purple plume of smoke drifted from the conical summit of Mount Etna and in the middle ground lay the rugged hills between his regiment’s positions and the volcano. The outlook was not encouraging. The Germans had 90,000 men on the island and the Italians had 315,000. He did not know the exact strength of the Allied armies but it seemed to him that there was a large enough Axis force to delay their advance for a considerable time: particularly in the mountainous north-eastern area in which he, unfortunately, found himself. He prayed hourly for a miracle that would produce a redoubling in the number of the enemy so that the Germans might be quickly driven out of Sicily. Once the Germans were forced to retreat the Italians would give in at once: they already hated the Germans more than they resented the British and Americans. If there were no miracle he must resign himself to weeks or months of danger, destruction of his homeland; and delay in carrying out the plans to which he had devoted so much cunning, time and even some money.

  It hurt him deeply to ponder on those empty warehouses and the girls left idle, the recriminations of his Mafiosi partners; while only a few miles away lay the fat supply dumps of the Allies, and soldiers whose pockets were stuffed with money that could bring them so much delight if only they would hurry up and at least capture Catania.

  He heard the drone of approaching aero engines, and, raising his eyes, saw a formation of Spitfires high overhead, twinkling in the sun reflected from wings and fuselage, which at this distance did not show their mottled camouflage or sky blue undersides, but looked cheerfully silver.

  Chapter Four

  Eighteen thousand feet above the enemy positions, his eyes following a line of sight reciprocal to Sgt. Ferugino’s, Toby Yule looked down at the squadron’s target with his usual pleasurable anticipation. He, like the rest of Fiver’s Lot, had acquired a taste for dive-bombing that quite surprised them: it almost made them feel traitors to the fighter pilots’ union; but not entirely, for as soon as they had released their bombs they were free to revert to their original function and seek enemy aircraft to shoot down; unless they had been briefed to ground-strafe as well as bomb. And they were finding ground-strafing surprisingly attractive too.

  The Allied advance had gone at such speed that the seaport of Syracuse was captured on the first day and another important harbour, Augusta, on the 13th July, three days later. General Patton and his American 7th Army were smashing their way round to Palermo, in the north of the island, by the western route; while General Montgomery’s British 8th Army, the heroes of the North African campaign, fought their way up the east coast.

  But on the morning when Sgt. Ferugino was trembling in his boots on a hillside overlooking the Catania plain, and Fiver’s Lot were about to devote their attentions to a target in that area, the advance had been held up.

  The Primasole bridge, having fallen to a small force of British paratroops, was retaken by the enemy, who sent great numbers of his 1st Parachute Division to do so. The British were now battling for its repossession, which was the key to the opening of the Plain of Catania and an advance that was intended to sweep right through to Messina, in the north-east tip of Sicily, from where an invasion of the Italian mainland would be launched. Heavy concentration of German forces in the Primasole area meant that, instead of driving steadily up the eastern route to cover the sixty miles to Messina, the 8th Army had to make a diversion through the hills to the west, and go around Mt. Etna on that side. At the same time the American 7th Army shifted some of its weight eastward to join in this move through the interior instead of around the coasts.

  Some of the consequences were that Fiver O’Neill’s squadron found itself operating over the hills near Etna which dominated the Plain of Catania; Major Corrado’s battery of the 975th Regiment of light anti-aircraft artillery was in action in the same region; and the field artillery regiment of which Sgt. Ferugino was so unhappy a member was engaged in shelling both British and American positions with a heartfelt pang of remorse, as each round was fired, for the destruction it was doing to its own countryside and among its own people.

  There had been some lively debate in the squadron officers’ mess, the evening before, to which the N.C.O. pilots had been invited after dinner. It was not that Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill was too undemocratic to invite
his sergeants and flight sergeants to dine with him and his officers, but simply that they were all living on Service rations for the time being; until they could supplement them by local purchase, barter or plain poaching and theft. This precluded hospitality at meals but there was no such limitation on drink.

  The pilots gathered around the bar discussed the technique of taking off with, and accurately delivering, 500 lb of bomb load without getting themselves killed in the process.

  “To start with,” Fiver said, “I don’t want anyone to delude himself that he can take off in less than the extra 150 yards we know we need when we’re carrying bombs.” He looked severely at young Yule as he said this, for Toby had lately made caustic comments on the state of the far end of the runway, which had been hastily lengthened and was now getting rutted, and suggested that if they revved up harder before releasing the brakes they could get off the ground in only 100 yards more than they needed without bombs. “Remember that, Toby.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I mean it. You’ve already bent one Spit. I don’t want you to wrap up another.”

  This was unfair Toby told himself: he hadn’t pranged, he’d been shot down. And the damaged aircraft had already been made serviceable again. But he had the wisdom to keep his counsel.

  Warren, with his misleadingly guileless air of earnest enquiry, which was usually a preparation for tripping up the unwary, asked: “Any change in climbing speed, sir? Still 160 indicated, at 2,600 revs? And plus four boost?”

  “That’s all it needs for the rest of us to make 18,000 ft in twenty minutes, Bunny: if it’s a struggle for you, I suggest you either get some weight off or swap that enormous piece of ordnance you carry for a thirty-eight like the rest of us.”

  The squadron appreciated the taunt. Bunny Warren ran naturally to fat and no amount of food rationing seemed to reduce him. His propensity for beer made it no easier for him to slim. And he was proud of a huge, heavy Colt .45 automatic which he had swapped with an American bomber pilot for a bottle of Scotch: he wore it in place of the official British .38 revolver and was used to having his leg pulled about it. Nevertheless he felt that Fiver had scored off him this time.

  Vincent, in a parody of the pedagogic manner he and the others sometimes detected in their C.O., spoke to a sergeant pilot who had just rejoined the squadron after a spell in hospital with a wound. “And don’t forget, Sammy, although the bombs make no speed difference when you’re flying level, the extra wing loading means you dive faster: we don’t want you flying up Bunny’s chuff tomorrow.” The sergeant he had called Sammy had been detailed to fly as Warren’s No. 2 on the next day’s first sortie.

  Sgt. Sampson, who was a lively Geordie with a physique to match his name and the Tynesiders’ abundant good nature, had an uncanny accuracy in dive-bombing. This was an art in which fighter-bomber pilots had to rely on timing, experience, and instinct if they were lucky enough to possess it, rather than a mechanical sight; or, indeed, any scientific device.

  Early dive-bombing by R.A.F. fighter-bombers had consisted of flying to the target at between 18,000 and 20,000 ft, and, when dead overhead, stall-turning through a half-circle to dive vertically on the objective. Pilots released their bombs at 10,000 ft. It was essential for the dive to be truly vertical, and Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill had, typically, told his pilots to check that they really were in this attitude by doing a roll on the way down. If they felt the pull of gravity which was a familiar feature of flying inverted, they knew they were diving at less than 90 degrees! There was then time to correct. This method of attack was highly accurate but had the disadvantage of being vulnerable to both heavy and light flak. Sammy Sampson invariably dropped his bombs at least 10 yards closer to the centre of the aiming point than anyone else.

  Another technique was to approach the target in the customary V formation, in threes, and so that the target was on a flank. The pilots, when nearing the target, watched the port or starboard wing and steered so that the target appeared between the wingtip and the cannon which projected from the wing about 9 ft inboard. The target then disappeared briefly, obscured by the wing, and reappeared in the same relative position but behind the trailing edge. At that moment they turned towards it, went into a 75 degree dive, and, releasing their bombs at 13,000 ft, pulled upwards to avoid the heavy flak. By this method they avoided going down into the light flak area at all. It was accurate, but a new technique had since been adopted.

  Sgt. Sampson hadn’t had time, since his return from hospital, to practise the recently introduced technique, and he remarked now, “Everyone’s been reminding me not to forget to trim the kite nose-heavy before starting to dive.”

  “Wind back the rudder bias,” Yule said. “You won’t have time to trim her once we’re in the dive.”

  “You should know, Toby,” Vincent said quickly and there was some laughter; unkind. Yule had been overeager the first time the squadron had tried the new bombing method, and was so far out of the vertical that he had lost formation and his bomb drifted far from its target. To remind him even more forcibly of the occasion was the memory of a very close brush with eternity: for, trying to re-trim his aircraft on the way down, when both hands were needed on the controls, he had almost bunted right over on to his back in an outside loop from which he would have had slim hope of recovery.

  But Yule wasn’t slow to redress the position. “Just do what Bunny does, Sammy, and you’ll be all right,” he advised. Bunny Warren was going to lead a section comprising also himself and Sgt. Sampson; and Fg. Off. Warren was rather notorious for thinking himself God’s gift to aviation, certainly to fighter handling. That took the heat off Yule for a bit, while Vincent and others made jokes at Warren’s expense.

  And now here they were over their target; a tank park, they had been told, for at that height they could not see the camouflaged armour. Also, the tanks were hidden among trees. The dive-bombing technique they were using had been intended for attacks on enemy airfields and was suitable only for area-bombing. Pilots could pick out individual targets such as buildings or groups of aircraft, but not scattered tanks. It was a valid technique against barracks, factories, railway yards or farms occupied by enemy troops; useless for attacking a troop of tanks on the move, a road convoy or a train. Intelligence had said that there were at least ten Tiger tanks leaguered in this wood, and all they could do was drop a blanket of bombs with the certainty that they would do severe damage.

  The squadron was in full strength for this operation: two flights, each of six aircraft in two Vs of three. The flights were separated by a mile, to give the second one time to see the effects of the leaders’ work and to confuse the flak gunners.

  On reaching 20,000 ft Fiver ordered them to re-form in echelon starboard, and a few seconds later five Spitfires were neatly stepped back at close intervals on his right. Behind, the other flight flew similarly streamed out to starboard of its Flight Commander.

  Yule liked the next part best of all. It never failed to appeal to his aesthetic sense and emphasise the beauty and rhythm of patterns a formation of aeroplanes could create, when they made the manoeuvre which changed their direction in a couple of seconds so that they were suddenly in echelon port instead of starboard. The Spits looked very pretty, with their slim fuselages and beautiful elliptical wings, sharp-tipped, when they rolled half-over and pointed their long, graceful noses down.

  The Squadron Commander led them into a shallow dive, first, to 18,000 ft, their air speed building up to an indicated 220 mph. He flew at this height over the outer limit of the target area until the wood came in sight just astern of his port wing root. At that instant he half-rolled to the left on to his back and pulled through into a vertical dive, followed by the other two men in the leading section; who, by this aerobatic, were now echeloned on his port side. Warren, leading the second section of the first flight, carried out the same action, so that Yule and Sampson were, in turn, on his left. Using the reflector sights they used for aiming their cannon and machine
-guns, they released their bombs at 10,000 ft, by which time their indicated air speed had reached 450 mph. At 8,000 ft they eased out of the vertical but continued diving steeply to tree-top height and left the target area skimming the tree-tops and ground so closely that it was almost impossible for flak or heavy machine-gun to hit them. Almost, but not quite.

  The second flight did exactly the same as the first, with the exception that it bombed a different part of the wood.

  Yule was enjoying himself. He had seen Warren’s bombs burst on the fringe of the wood instead of within it, and Sgt. Sampson’s explode in a clearing where soldiers were at work around two tanks. The smoke from the explosions and from burning trees and vehicles rolled black and grey among the foliage. Dismembered Germans were tossed above the tree-tops, an arm going one way, a leg another and a torso somewhere else.

  His own bombs struck deep in the wood and he watched with some awe as trees were uprooted and, amidst the billowing smoke, he saw a tank hurled on to its back with tongues of flame dancing around it.

  He did not feel any bullets, cannon shells or shrapnel hit his aircraft and was surprised when oil suddenly sprayed over his windscreen. Unable to see directly ahead he peered through the sides of his canopy, doing his best to hold formation while keeping a look out for the hillside on his starboard.