by Steve Holmes
Reg sat alongside his Flight Engineer.
‘Probably a bit of tiny shrapnel somewhere fucking everything up.’
Just as John was about to answer there was a loud grinding noise beneath them. They looked at each other and grinned as the hydraulics kicked in and the huge wheels swung out from the underside of the plane.
‘Engaged Skipper. Wheels in place.’
Reg slapped him on the back.
‘Go, Sherlock go, that’s my boy. We’ve made it. I confess I’d almost given up.’
John Holmes grinned. ‘Yeah… only another five or six to go. I hope those Paras have sorted those fucking Jerry guns out by the time we get over there again.’
The combination of bad weather and poor visibility meant that many of the airborne troops had been dropped inaccurately throughout the divisional operational area. The casualties had been high, many picked off by German rifles before they had even hit the ground. The battalion assigned to the task of destroying the Merville Artillery Battery had been heavily depleted and was only able to gather up a fraction of its strength before it went into action. The German troops had dug in well and were well prepared as the Allied Battalion threw everything they had at the enemy. Casualties were high on both sides but after a battle lasting several hours the Allied troops were successful and the guns inside the battery were disabled. The continuous fighting in and around the Merville Battery also meant a reprieve for the RAF, the Stirlings and their crews as the troops of the German artillery division diverted their attention from the air to the land. More airborne troops had poured into the surrounding villages and a bridgehead had been formed by the division as it successfully repelled a number of German counter-attacks. The enemy were led by the Wehrmacht formations stationed in the area around Caen and the River Orne. The actions of the Allied division severely limited the ability of the German defenders to repel the RAF planes as they flew into France in waves. The troops who had flown with Vanrenen’s crew were part of the force that would liberate the first French village of Ranville.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Holmes, Vanrenen and the rest of the crew stared up at the underside of the damaged wing. Half a dozen members of the ground crew had swarmed over the plane like bees. One of them shouted down.
‘It’s fucked, chaps, you won’t be playing games with this little lady for a few weeks.’
A Wing Commander had mysteriously appeared and stood next to Vanrenen.
‘Don’t worry; we have another one for you. Grab yourselves a cup of tea and a bite to eat and you can be on your way again.’
The mess hall was full of air crew. The talk was all about Fred Gribble and his men, the only plane from 23 to have been lost.
John Holmes sat in silence, acutely aware that it could so easily have been their plane. They were lucky to be alive and Tammas and even Vanrenen had praised him on his quick and efficient actions when he’d feathered the engine and effectively saved the plane. He shrugged it off.
‘Any other casualties?’ he asked.
Chuck Hoystead spoke. ‘Unfortunately mate… Wing Commander Baker’s plane was badly hit and the Navigator and Bomb Aimer bailed out.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Fairhill and Evans, last seen floating towards the German lines. Incredibly, though, Baker managed to get the plane back. A shell hit the fuselage right where Fairhill sat. He was badly hurt but managed to get out through the hole in the plane, convinced she was going down. Evans followed him out and Baker was just about to give the command for everyone to get out when he asked the Flight Engineer to check his panel. The Flight Engineer was Harry Morgan, said that two of the engines were fine and Baker decided to try and make it back to Blighty.’
Chuck Hoystead took another mouthful of tea and John Holmes raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘come on, finish the story’.
Right on cue Chuck Hoystead spoke. ‘They crash landed at Ford. The Stirling broke in two on impact but they all survived. Lacerations and a few broken bones but otherwise they’re okay.’
‘But Fairhill and Evans are missing.’ He stroked Patch who sat on his knee fast asleep.
‘Missing in action Sherlock, I’m afraid. The new Winco has stood the whole crew down, they won’t be going anywhere for a while.’
As if by magic the Wing Commander he was referring to appeared at the table. He spoke to Vanrenen.
‘LJ 949 is ready and waiting Vanrenen, the troops and supplies are already on board, ready when you are.’
He told them to finish their tea and report to the new plane.
He spoke to Reg. ‘Same co-ordinates navigator, better luck this time.’
Within fifteen minutes they were in the air and heading for France once again, but this time flying in a formation of only five. John wondered how the Allied airborne troops were doing and if they’d managed to have any effect on the Merville Battery on the ground. He couldn’t help but play with the figures. They’d lost one of their formation on one sortie with at least another two or three to complete. The odds weren’t stacked in their favour. John gazed out into the night skies. He pointed above them as he spoke to his navigator.
‘Look Reg, there’s a couple of mosquitoes.’
‘On the lookout for Hun fighters, no doubt. They’ll know what’s happening by now. They’ll be on their way from every air base in France.’
John was well aware of the fact. Even though the Paras would do their level best to take out the Merville Battery, the Luftwaffe would now be mobilised and on their way.
Towards the east around Calais and Boulogne the ‘dummy invasion’ was also well underway. Operation Glimmer and Titanic consisted of six Stirling Bombers of 218 Squadron who conducted a window dropping operation to simulate an invasion convoy approaching Boulogne. They’d fly over the area and then appear to head for home only to about turn; ten miles out to sea and return to the area again and again. To the German troops on the ground and military intelligence it would appear that wave after wave of planes were dropping paratroopers and their equipment. The Stirlings were among a force of 40 aeroplanes, Hudsons and Halifaxes but they were only dropping dummy parachutists. The dummy parachutists were crude cloth representations of a human figure to give the impression of a parachutist. They were equipped with a device that would explode on impact and set the cloth and figure on fire, which suggested that the man had burnt the parachute and lay hidden ready for action and sabotage. Two SAS teams were also simulating airborne landings away from the real invasion area. The SAS even allowed some of the enemy to escape to spread alarm by reporting landings by hundreds of parachutists. The deception worked well, so much so that when the Germans discovered the second invasion in Normandy they assumed that it was the ‘decoy’ invasion and although they sent a few divisions to the west they concentrated most of their men and equipment in and around Calais.
The first Messerschmitt loomed out of the darkness and began firing indiscriminately at the formation of Stirlings. A mild panic set in within the confines of plane LJ 949.
Tammas screamed; John was taken completely by surprise but Len Jones on the rear gun had already released a burst of fire in the direction of the enemy craft. The Messerschmitt dived and John looked around at the other Stirlings checking for tell-tale signs to see if any them had been hit; wisps of smoke, or worse flames.
‘Where is he, where is he?’ Came the shout and for a few seconds there was only silence as every crew member watched the skies.
‘There! There! There! Eight o’clock, he’s coming in at eight o’clock.’
Before Reg had finished his sentence six or seven rounds had burst through the fuselage. The damage was minimal as most of the bullets continued through the plane and out the other side as the Messerschmitt flew on to attack the other planes. The Mosquito had followed in pursuit and John watched the initial engagement before they flew off into the darkness.
‘Eight minutes to drop zone.’
It was Reg who miraculously had retained his
composure and focused on his duties despite what was going on around him.
The Messerschmitt appeared out of nowhere, directly in front of them heading straight for the cockpit. John braced himself and waited for the hail of bullets that would surely come. Just then the mosquito powered in from behind them and the Messerschmitt turned to face up to its aggressor. For no more than a few seconds the sky was alight with tracer fire and John noticed a wisp of smoke coming from an engine of the Messerschmitt. That sound again, the sound that signified that the aircraft was in trouble, that same sound that he’d heard from the Stirling piloted by Fred Gribble.
Len Jones was cheering from the Perspex bubble of the rear gun. ‘We got the bastard, we got him.’
John couldn’t believe how quickly things happened. The Messerschmitt went into a dive as flames took hold. He was out of control and the radio waves were filled with the sound of the other crews cheering and rejoicing as the stricken plane hurtled towards the ground. Every member of the crew who could see out of a window watched the flight of the German plane as it continued downwards and hit the ground in a ball of flames that lit up the whole of the area.
‘Four minutes to drop zone.’
Reg’s voice brought them back to the present.
‘Paratroopers ready.’
It was no more than a slight commotion in the body of the aircraft but almost immediately John sensed something was amiss.
His colleagues of the 6th Airborne Division had assumed he had simply dozed off but as they tried to wake Sergeant Roger Hill they realised he was dead. A bullet had passed through his heart and he had died instantly, without a murmur.
His body was left in the plane. John had insisted they laid him out on the crew sick bed. They covered his face with a towel as one by one his former colleagues leapt out into the abyss.
The five crews of Vanrenen, Azouz, Tickner, Hoystead and Prowd all made it back to base just before daybreak. Prowd and Tickner’s planes suffered a little light flak damage but there were no major incidents. Their final night flight landed back at RAF Keevil at around 5.30 in the morning. They were told to eat and grab an hour’s sleep. They would be taking off again at 7.00, thirty minutes after the first Allied troops had landed on the beaches of Normandy.
The operation was the largest amphibious invasion ever undertaken, with over 160,000 troops destined to land on the beaches codenamed Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah. There were more than 5,000 ships involved. The assault took place along a 50 mile stretch of the Normandy coast.
‘Come on Sherlock, wake up we’ve work to do.’
John had slept like a baby, albeit for less than an hour. Patch was curled up on the pillow beside him.
‘Jesus, Lofty. Let me sleep won’t you; I need my eight hours just like the next man.’
Lofty pulled at the blanket that covered John, dragged it from him and rolled it up in a ball before throwing it onto the bottom of his bed.
‘Eight hours’ flying perhaps, my friend. No time to sleep, we’ve a war to win.’
Lofty nudged Patch.
‘You too my little friend, up you get, where do you think you are the bloody Ritz?’
It was 0734 when they took off. Within ten minutes John was looking down on the flotilla of boats, small craft and ships crossing the channel. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. For once the aircraft was silent, a combined stunned silence from the crew of LJ 949. John stood looking down onto the English Channel alongside Reg. Eventually he spoke.
‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing, mate. I didn’t think there were that many boats in the world.’
‘Awesome Sherlock, absolutely bloody awesome.’
They were flying relatively low. John could make out a flock of Canada geese flying in a V shape in the opposite direction. They were majestic, their wings beating in a kind of ghostly slow motion and John wondered if they realised how free they were.
Ships, boats, tankers, cruisers, yachts and barges. It appeared that every craft in England had heeded the call as they ferried the fighting men across the English Channel to the beaches of Normandy. John turned to the section leader in charge of the paratroopers sitting patiently in the hold of the plane.
‘Sergeant, do you want to come up here and take a look?’
The sergeant rose and made his way through the assembled men, standing between Tammas and John. His jaw fell open as the sight registered with him. He turned and shook his head. Tears were in his eyes as he tried to speak. Eventually the words came.
‘How can we possibly lose this war, Flight Engineer?’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said John. He looked at his watch. ‘We have time enough for every one of your lads to come up here and see this incredible sight. It’ll give them a boost if nothing else.’
The sergeant placed a hand on John’s shoulder. ‘You bet it will Flight Engineer, you bet it will.’
The Paratroopers filed up in pairs and looked down into the English Channel. To a man they returned back to their seats with a renewed confidence, with inspiration and adrenalin coursing through their bodies. John felt he had done his bit, somehow contributed to the assault on Sword Beach even though he wouldn’t ever set foot on it. The paratroopers would run faster, fight harder and hopefully come through the day unscathed. Some wouldn’t make it, he knew that, but those that did would remember what he had showed them till their dying day. All around Stirlings, Hudsons and Lancasters, some towing Horsa Gliders, while Mosquitos and Spitfires were patrolling the sky on the lookout for enemy fighters. John made a vain attempt to estimate how many planes he could see from the window above his seat.
It was impossible. There were thousands above, below and to each side.
Adolf Hitler sat in a big leather armchair as his generals looked on nervously. He seethed with anger, it was written all over his face. He knew the news was grim, he could tell by the reactions of his generals, the body language. Every picture tells a story. Brauchitsch stepped forward; the side of his mouth flicked an involuntary twitch. There were no twitches at their last meeting as he confidently warned of an invasion centred on Calais. Halder and Blomberg looked on.
Hitler spoke. ‘Tell me the news, Brauchitsch. Have they fooled us?’
Brauchitsch shuffled his papers as he sat down opposite Hitler at the huge table. He tried to look at Hitler directly but as the Fuhrer’s ice cold eyes bored through him he glanced down at the papers as if studying the information.
He had been handed the intelligence report only thirty minutes earlier. It was the stuff of nightmares. Only a few days before, he’d sat there with Keitel, Halder, Blomberg and Hasso von Manteuffel and they’d assured their Fuhrer that the invasion would land in Calais and the surrounding area. Hitler had ordered a massive offensive to meet them.
‘There are two invasions, Herr Fuhrer.’
It was a weak opening and Hitler saw right through it.
He stood up and spoke sarcastically as he walked around the Austrian pine table.
‘Two invasions Herr Brauchitsch, two invasions you say.’ He folded his hands behind his back and gazed up into space. ‘Two invasions… very interesting analogy. And tell me, Herr Brauchitsch, where are the bulk of our forces and what ratio have we split them into?’
Brauchitsch was being led into a trap. Hitler had already been informed of the scale of the Normandy invasion, well aware that the bulk of his forces were positioned around Calais.
Brauchitsch referred to the map in front of him. He spoke, he almost stuttered, as he pointed a shaking finger to the cross on the map at Calais.
‘Our troops are in position here… and here.’
His finger hovered over Cherbourg as he looked up at Hitler for some sort of approval. Hitler stopped and leaned on the desk. He pointed at the map.
‘Here and… here you say Herr Brauchitsch.’
‘Yes Fuhrer.’
‘And tell me Herr Brauchitsch, where are the troops concentrated? Is it here o
r… here?’
‘Herr Fuhrer the bulk of our troops are massed around Calais as we believed…’
Hitler slammed his fist on the table. ‘We, Herr Brauchitsch? We?’
Hitler raised his voice a decibel or two. He pointed to the generals sitting around the table. ‘You believed, not me, I let you guide me and my sources tell me we have been fucking fooled.’
Hitler was shouting now, little drops of spittle had gathered at the side of his mouth and as he grew angrier and screamed ever louder the small droplets flew across the room and onto the uniforms of his terrified generals.
‘We have twenty motorised Panzer divisions and twenty five light infantry divisions in place here.’ He jabbed his finger at the map.
‘My sources tell me they have found empty boxes and dummy parachutes, there is no invasion here, the real invasion has begun in Normandy.’
Hitler fell back into a seat. Still he bellowed at the men.
‘Why did I listen to your fucking shit?’ He shook his head before composing himself slightly. He spoke almost in a whisper, he spoke slowly and deliberately.
‘The British and American troops have dug in around Caen… they have concentrated their fire on the Merville Battery… as we speak they are securing the bridges from Ouistreham to Caen. Their troops are landing on the beaches almost unopposed.’ He laughed out loud and looked up. ‘We cannot get our troops across the fucking river to help them.’
‘Herr Fuhrer we have mobilised the Luftwaffe and the divisions in Normandy are holding their own, we are inflicting heavy casualties on the troops that are landing.’
Herr Brauchitsch waited for the Fuhrers reaction to his positive outlook on events.
Hitler rose again. He opened up a file on the desk and took out a sketch.
‘Herr Brauchitsch, this was given to me less than an hour ago.’ He positioned the diagram on the desk and turned it to face Brauchitsch and the other generals. ‘See here, this is an estimate of the boats and ships that are crossing the English Channel as we speak. They are heading for Normandy… not Calais.’
