Air Strike

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  The imminent invasion would be the biggest ever carried out by British and American forces. The troop convoys were already on their way. The main American assault fleet had left four days before, on the evening of 5th September, from Oran, and the main British force from Tripoli the following morning. Others were also streaming across the sea from North Africa and Sicily: from Algiers and Bizerta, Termini and Palermo.

  An Intelligence wing commander, standing on the stage of a small and partly ruined opera house, told the silently attentive assembly of air crews the plan of attack. “The landings will be made along a seven-mile stretch of coast to the south of Salerno, by the British 46th and 56th Divisions on the left and the American 36th Infantry Division on the right. These beaches are near the main road to Naples, which we intend to reach in four days.” He drew his pointer along the map behind him. “This road crosses the Sorrento peninsula through the Cava Gap... here. The Gap has to be secured immediately we are ashore, and this will be done by two British commandos and three American Ranger battalions. This objective has two purposes: to open the way for us to press on to Naples, and to stop German reinforcements from getting through. Our other immediate objectives, to be taken on the first day, are Salerno harbour, the road junctions at Battipaglia... here... and Eboli... here. And, of most importance to us personally, the airfield at Montecorvino.” He pointed the place out to them.

  “It has been decided that, in order to achieve the greatest possible degree of surprise, there will be no preliminary naval bombardment.” The wing commander of the Intelligence Branch did not add that the expectation of achieving any measure of surprise was futile; or that he was one of the many who felt, like Vice-Admiral Hewitt, U.S. Navy, in command of the naval task force escorting the convoys, that any hope of taking the enemy by surprise was fantastic and the British and American Navies should pulverise the assault area well in advance of H-hour. But the American General Clark, commanding the assaulting armies, demurred; and one of his reasons was, at least, defensible: namely, that preliminary bombardment would provoke the instant moving of enemy reinforcements to what must obviously be the invasion zone.

  Another thing the Intelligence Branch knew and kept to itself was that a Chinese cook on a British naval vessel sailing from Tripoli had broadcast the convoy’s destination by shouting a cheerful “see you in Naples” to friends in another ship as they left harbour!

  Even without this gratuitous hint, it was unreasonable to suppose that such large convoys and escorts could spend three days at sea without being spotted by the Germans.

  After the briefing, when Fiver O’Neill gathered his pilots in the canteen marquee on the airstrip near Messina, where they had been moved a week before, for his own briefing to them for the morrow, he made this point. And it was while he was talking that a signal was brought in for Tustin; who read it quickly and gave it to O’Neill. “You were right, sir.”

  “What’s that? Spotted them already, have they?” He, too, read the signal, then looked up and bared his teeth at his pilots with his familiar tiger-smile. “Jerry aircraft picked up the convoys half an hour ago: that means his troops will have been put on invasion alert already. This is not going to be so dull as Baytown after all, chaps.”

  They were drinking in the bar, listening to Radio Algiers, when at 6.30 p.m. General Eisenhower announced that Italy had surrendered and signed a separate peace treaty with the Allies. Everyone cheered and Yule said, “That’ll reduce the opposition pretty considerably. The landings won’t be so rough after all. And Jerry’s morale will be a bit shaken.”

  “You’re a clot, Toby,” Fiver told him. “The Italians were more ornamental than useful, anyway, and this surrender will make Jerry mad as hell: he’ll fight even harder.”

  They heard the news again from the B.B.C. at 7.20 p.m., just before sitting down to dinner. This time it was Warren, who, despite O’Neill’s demolition of Yule’s optimism, said, “Jerry’s going to have quite a problem of what to do with the Italian Army, Navy and Air Force: it’ll distract his attention at a time when he can’t afford to be distracted. Some of the Italians are bound to try to come over to our side — after all, we do know they aren’t all chicken, we’ve fought some pretty tough Italians in the desert — and Jerry will try to round them up and disarm them.”

  Fiver made no concessions. “Jerry wouldn’t use first class troops for a job like that: all he’d need is a few cooks and clerks and store-hashers and other non-combatants. By God! A troop of wolf cubs would be enough to disarm the entire Italian Army.”

  “And stop the Air Force and Navy from decamping, sir?” Vincent put his usual loaded question, managing to be highly offensive without actually running himself in danger of a reprimand or a swift kick up the posterior channel. “I’ll lay anyone tens about the Regia Aeronautica having landed some of their aircraft on British or American-held airfields already; and their Navy being on its way to Palermo and Catania and Augusta, to surrender.”

  “We haven’t got any airfields yet in Italy.”

  “No, sir, but we’ve plenty in Sicily.”

  “What do you think, Tusty?” O’Neill asked.

  “I think we’ll see for ourselves in a couple of days’ time, sir: the Germans simply won’t have the facilities to put the entire Italian Army under arrest; and it won’t be necessary, anyway, because the first thing the average Italian soldier will want to do is go home. I believe we’re going to see hordes of them trekking back to mamma when we go across; and singing all the way.”

  Before they went to bed Tustin gave out the news that the approaching convoys had been under air attack throughout the afternoon and were still being bombed by the light of flares.

  Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill announced that he was going to do an air test, had the flare path lit, and took off to get himself a Hun or two to add to his score. But Spitfires were not meant for night fighting, and he quartered the sky around the convoy fruitlessly, but nearly got himself shot down by the defensive fire the naval pom-poms were throwing up.

  They slept only a few hours that night, and while they slept the invasion began.

  The leading troop transports had arrived at their release points between seven and ten miles offshore, at midnight, a shadowy concourse on the star-dappled surface of the Tyrrhenian Sea. With a rush of rattling chains the anchors splashed into the calm water, sending out phosphorescent swirls and throwing up sparkling drops and foam. At once the gaunt flat-bottomed landing craft fell from their davits to hit the sea with loud slaps and send out their own pretty phosphorescent eddies. But these scenic effects had no appeal for the soldiers who crowded them, humping their heavy kit and clutching their heavy weapons, wondering where they would be this time tomorrow, whether they would be alive six hours from now and when they would eat their next hot meal.

  An hour or so after the convoys had dropped anchor the Germans opened fire on the most northerly of them, the left flank, from a coastal battery they had seized from the Italians. There was no warning. The night’s silence was abruptly ended by the thud of the great guns, the whining rush of shell and the thunder of nearby detonations. On shore, a line of red flashes flared at regular intervals as each salvo was fired. At sea, tall fountains of seething water reared up where shells were falling.

  Men crouched lower in the boats, shrugged their shoulders involuntarily in an instinctive sheltering motion and touched their steel helmets for reassurance.

  Some of those shells did not drop harmlessly into the sea. They landed among boatloads of men and filled the air with flying pieces of dismembered human beings, with screams and groans and profanity. Some burst close enough only to make craft capsize and fling their occupants into the sea, many to drown in the bloody water where limbs and bodies floated among bobbing life jackets and packs.

  The destroyers which had brought the convoy here counterattacked, sending their shells whistling towards the shore batteries with whiplash cracks and dazzling muzzle-blast.

  The Royal Navy used
a new weapon for the first time, that night; the rocket. Landing Craft, Rocket, lying off the Salerno beaches, joined the destroyers with dramatic effect. It was as if each craft became incandescent as her rockets fizzed away landward with a sheet of flame and a loud report, the hard white light leaping out of the blackness and leaving a shuddering image on the retina to dazzle the eye long after the awful moment.

  In a short while the enemy battery ceased firing.

  When O’Neill led his squadron on its dawn sortie over the battle area, smoke was drifting along the seven miles of invasion coast, interspersed with tall, thicker pillars of the stuff where a building, a group of vehicles, an ammunition dump or supply store burned. Tongues of flame showed through the grey and black fog covering the battle.

  The fight for possession of the Cava Gap was taking longer than the planners had anticipated.

  Their Intelligence officer had seen the squadron off with a bulletin on the latest situation. “The American Ranger battalions were lucky,” he said, looking more than ever like a disapproving sheep, his eyes heavy-lidded from lack of sleep, his nose shiny with sweat, stubble on his cheeks and chin. “They landed unopposed on their beach.” He put a finger on the map to point out the place, Maiori. “They’ve established themselves at the Chinzi Pass, from where they have a good view of the main road to Naples. Our own Commandos also made an almost completely unopposed landing, at Vietri, where, as you can see, the road climbs inland. Unfortunately Jerry reacted very fast and the Commandos have been stopped a couple of miles north of Salerno, in La Molina Pass at the southern end of the Cava Gap. We’ll be supporting them: it’s our job to help clear their way ahead.”

  Yule, always a slow waker, longing for a second mug of hot tea, thought it was all right for Tusty to say “we”, but he’d be spending the day here, 170 miles away from the action. Tustin knew he would get his lunch that day. He himself didn’t know whether he’d be coming back for breakfast. He didn’t often have these mildly resentful or pessimistic moments, but had slept uneasily through dreams of the day he had spent in the cave and of the night-long bombing of the invasion fleet confused in a gallimaufry of turbulent images and sensations. He had no superstitions but woke this morning with an apprehension about the coming day: in an unexplained way Ferugino and Anna and the whole strange episode with them seemed to be associated in his mind with shame. There should be no reason for this. He had been lucky that he had been sheltered from capture. But an indefinable sense of disquiet lingered in him. He connected this with his dream about the Luftwaffe operating all night over the convoy, and it added up to an expectation of a very hot welcome for the landings. He thought that if he did get shot down — he avoided words like wounded and killed — it would be his fault for not having made a determined effort to escape that day instead of waiting until he was allowed to go. If he were shot down today it would serve him right for being chicken. His thoughts were irrational and the result of considerable tiredness and staleness, but he went to war that morning thinking poorly of himself and his luck. Perhaps his luck had run out when he survived being shot down twice, bailing out, and eluding the Germans. Perhaps he ought to get himself a lucky charm like some of the other types on the squadron: Vincent had his; typically, a silk stocking which he said he had bought for a girl at home who let him both put it on and take it off her beautiful leg. He carried it tied to his mae west. Revoltingly characteristic of Vincent also was his smirking assertion that its luckiness lay in the fact that it had not been washed since she wore it. Warren’s charm was a silver identity bracelet on which hung a medallion of Minerva: he said it was logical to expect protection from the goddess of war. Yule was beginning to fancy the idea of wearing a St. Christopher medal on the string around his neck with his two Service identity discs. One was red and circular, the other green and octagonal: some people said one was fireproof and the other proof against destruction by water. Others said that the first was left on you and the second removed as proof that you’d “had it”. Neither theory had much place in Yule’s thoughts; he found them both gruesome. St. Christopher was the patron saint of travellers, and as he travelled every day, mostly at around 350 mph, he reckoned he qualified for the old boy’s guardianship. He presumed the Italians knew about St. Christopher. He had been to Taormina for forty-eight hours’ leave soon after Catania was captured, and spent a couple of hours sightseeing. Holy medals seemed to be much on sale, so no doubt there would be a St. Christopher or some other equally genial saint to be found.

  A pre-dawn sortie from a temporary airstrip meant taking off along a flare path lit by goosenecks, oil lamps with long spouts down which tow wicks were stuffed. The lamps flared and wavered, yellow and smoking, giving an air of primitive, adventurous aviation. The twelve Spitfires raced in quick succession over the rattling steel plate of the runway, chasing each other’s tails, and every pilot hoping that nobody in front would have a tyre burst or engine failure, or swerve on a bump; each man felt the slipstream of the one ahead.

  At 20,000 ft they saw the lurid signs of battle twenty minutes before they reached Salerno. From the sea, eight miles offshore, ships’ guns blazed as they bombarded the hills behind the landing beaches. On land, the countryside was pockmarked by fires and the stabbing flames at the muzzles of field artillery. Bombs burst where troops of both armies suffered continual harassment.

  The squadron was escorted by another squadron of Spitfires, conventional air superiority Spits, not fighter-bombers. Fiver’s Lot could well look after themselves once they had released their bombs, but while hampered by them, in speed although not in aerobatic performance, these others would deal with any interfering enemy fighters.

  It was the leader of the escort, flying 5,000 ft above O’Neill’s formation, who first spotted the Me 109s. His “Tallyho! Two o’clock, ten miles... twenty thousand” snatched Yule’s attention from the arena below to his own danger.

  Fiver’s command came at once, unperturbed: “Tighten it up, chaps.” They were in four Vs of three aircraft and now each wing man edged closer to his section leader while their escort opened throttles to spurt ahead and into a dive towards the enemy. The Messerschmitts were approaching from the north-east, not up-sun but at this early hour when the sun had barely topped the horizon it was the uncertain light more than glare which made them difficult to see.

  The squadron had grown so used to operating in a sky where no enemy aircraft any longer intruded, that this sudden interception seemed almost an infringement of the rules. In a few seconds the other Spitfires were mixing it with the Messerschmitts, guns twinkling along their wings, smoke sliding back from the gun ports. A Me 109 plunged out of the fight vertically with smoke pouring from it... another burst into flames... a third tumbled into an inverted spin... a Spitfire side-slipped down the sky with a trail of smoke dribbling from its engine... another half-rolled and its pilot fell out... in a moment his parachute opened...

  Fiver told them to prepare to break formation. Then, as four 109s, with four Spitfires on their tails, closed with them, he said with no more urgency than if he were ordering a round of drinks, “Break!” and the four sections peeled off to port and starboard alternately, whipping under the gunfire and the pale blue bellies of the 109s.

  Yule was flying No. 2 to Warren, with Vincent as No. 3, forming Green Section. He was flung violently from side to side by the turbulent air boiling around the four 109s tearing towards him and the Spits close behind. The stream from Warren’s starboard wing and propeller wash hit him. His aircraft rocked and yawed and he forgot to glance at his mirror.

  “Behind you, Green 2!” It was Vincent’s voice. Yule jerked his head away from his leader to his mirror and saw the familiar winking of a Messerschmitt’s gun ports 200 yards astern. Tracer rushed just above his head. He followed Warren in a tight turn, greying out, wondering where the pursuing enemy would be when they eased out of the steep bank. There was an explosion. It thundered at his ears above the roar of his engine and the air around him was
lit by a brilliant flash and after-glow of burning yellow light. He flew into a patch of coiling smoke, the reek of it thrusting even into his cockpit and seeping inside his mask. A voice said, with mild pleasure discernible through the deliberate casualness, “O.K.... all clear...” followed by Warren’s “Levelling out, Green”, and Yule’s eyes began to see again through the dark greyness as the section came out of its steep turn and his brain cleared.

  Looking down, the three pilots of Green Section saw the remains of the Me 109 which had attacked them fluttering earthward.

  “Re-form at angels 15, over the town,” said Fiver. “Thanks, Hakka Leader. Are you going to pancake now?”

  “Some of us have got some ammo left, Banco Leader,” the leader of the escort answered. “We’ll stay with you as long as we can.” They had jettisoned their drop-tanks before starting the dogfight and it was a long way back to their base.

  When the whole squadron had rejoined Fiver, he took them on a heading towards their target. In the clear early morning light they had no difficulty in discerning it: Mark IV tanks of the 16th Panzer Division and self-propelled armoured assault guns which had temporarily replaced the Division’s battalion of Panther tanks. Eight tanks had attained the summits of two hills straddling the main axis of advance of the Allied armies. With the armour, four self-propelled guns shelled the Commandos’ forward positions, pinning them down.

  Fiver divided his force, one to each hill, flew them round the area once to perfect their bearings, and then they attacked. He himself led A Flight, Blue and Green Sections, and as ever Yule unreservedly admired the impeccability of his judgment and the precision of his approach. But, at the same time, he had part of his mind on the possibility of another gaggle of 109s butting in to spoil their performance. However, once he tilted into a vertical dive he couldn’t let his mind stray to enemy fighters; not if he wanted to live. At 515 mph true air speed, lack of concentration would mean no breakfast for him that morning; or any other morning.