Sherlock's Squadron

by Steve Holmes

  He leaned forward in his chair, and Herr Brauchitsch could smell his sour breath.

  ‘Within twelve hours it is estimated that 150,000 enemy troops will have landed on the beaches and we are powerless to stop them. You told me that the poor weather conditions meant an invasion would not be possible for several days. I’ve ordered some troops to stand down, and many of my senior officers are away for the weekend.’ Hitler wiped at his brow and frowned. ‘Even fucking Field Marshal Rommel is away for a few days leave to celebrate his wife’s birthday.’

  Hitler looked up and glared at his generals one by one.

  ‘I am surrounded by incompetence.’

  His right hand massaged his temples with his index finger and his thumb as his palm covered his eyes.

  ‘Get out of my sight… you useless fucking bastards.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was a well-deserved night off as the men sat in the Queen Victoria public house in Trowbridge. The talk was of D Day, as it had now been named, the biggest sea invasion in history, and cinema news reels across the country played back over and over again the pictures and moving footage of the incredible efforts by Allied civilians, troops, airmen and naval personnel.

  There were a lot of men from 196 Squadron out that night, only too aware that they were lucky to have made it. Vanrenen’s crew were luckier than most. More than one man cherished and appreciated the sweet taste of the ale, well aware some of their friends would never savour the moment again. They’d never spend another night in a pub, never laugh and joke the night away as the survivors were doing at that precise moment in time.

  ‘You have to hand it to the Aussie bugger,’ said John. ‘He absolutely mastered that plane flying on only two engines.’

  John sat next to Len with Patch fast asleep on the seat between them.

  ‘Yeah Sherlock, he might be a stuck-up prat but he’s our prat and I wouldn’t swap him for the world. I think we were more than a little lucky too.’

  Mark Azouz looked over at John and Len.

  ‘Hey guys, you need to concentrate more on the beer and less on what might have been. Tonight’s the night for letting our hair down, celebrating the fact that we were part of the biggest assault in history.’

  John and Len raised their glasses in the direction of their friend.

  ‘Cheers Mark, I’ll get another round in,’ John stood. ‘Who’s for another beer?’

  The hands flew up around the table, Lofty Matthews, Tammas, Taffy, Tickner, Handley and many others. Their mood was one of forced joviality as if they were determined to celebrate in some way and yet more than aware that one of their crew would never make it home.

  John called the round in, paid for it and the barmaid wandered over a few minutes later with a beer for everyone. As had been the protocol all evening long they stood and toasted absent friends. John hoped the deaths of the men would not be in vain. They had made a difference he reassured himself, the great deception had worked and the Allied troops were slowly but surely liberating France.

  They staggered out of the bar not long after one in the morning. For once the landlord hadn’t imposed drinking up time and for once the drivers of the four-ton lorries didn’t mind waiting. It was as if everybody knew that D Day had been a success, as if a major celebration was long overdue. Surely the war would be over by Christmas?

  John woke with the hangover from hell as he staggered into the bathrooms to ease his aching bladder. He stood and peed forever. George Humphrey came and joined him as he stood at the urinal. The air was permeated by the smell of stale beer.

  ‘I’m never drinking again, mate,’ said John.

  ‘Me neither Sherlock, I’ve a mouth like the bottom of a dirty budgie cage.’

  John laughed and immediately regretted his lapse of concentration as a thumping pain shot across his temples.

  ‘Oh shit… I haven’t felt like this in a long while.’

  After they’d finished they walked gingerly to the hand basins and poured copious amounts of water into their mouths.

  John turned to his friend as the water ran down his cheeks.

  ‘Good night though, wasn’t it?

  ‘You can say that again Sherlock, you can say that again.’

  Just then the bathroom door flew open and Lofty Matthews stood with a beaming smile on his face. John looked across in amazement; he appeared fresh as a daisy.

  ‘Bacon and eggs,’ he announced with a grin. ‘Scrambled eggs and black pudding, perhaps a sausage or two but definitely, definitely, definitely fried bread and tomatoes.’

  He strode over with purpose. George Humphrey had already started turning green.

  ‘Or how about some nice kippers? That’ll sort the old hangover out boys.’

  It was too much for George as he ran into the nearest cubicle and fell to his knees with his head suspended over the toilet bowl.

  John turned to face Lofty.

  ‘You’re a right bastard sometimes, Lofty, do you know that?’

  Lofty grinned. ‘Absolutely, now get yourself ready. I’m starving.’

  George never made breakfast; he lay on his bed most of the morning. Lofty sat with Len and John at breakfast as they discussed their next sorties.

  ‘We’re due up tomorrow by all accounts, we have the day off today,’ said Lofty. ‘I’ve already had a look at the duty sheets and we’re both up on Operation Mallard, briefing at 0700.’

  ‘Any idea where we’re heading?’ asked Len.

  Lofty spoke between mouthfuls of the biggest breakfast John had ever seen anyone tackle.

  ‘Ain’t got a clue mate but I suspect it’s somewhere around Normandy, that’s where the action is.’

  Len spoke. ‘I’ve heard it’s going well, the Germans are in disarray. They fell for the decoy invasion hook, line and sinker. There are a lot of the bastards left in France of course but I’ve heard they’re at sixes and sevens.’

  The breakfast lasted for hours as they were joined by Azouz and Tickner, Doug Handley and Tammas. Even Vanrenen put in an appearance to make sure everyone had made it back from Trowbridge. At one point John even thought he was about to sit down and take breakfast with them but as a plate was pushed in front of him he made his excuses and left.

  ‘What is wrong with that fucker, Sherlock?’ asked George Tickner. ‘He might be a good pilot but Jesus he can hardly pass the time of day with you guys. He’s not like one of us Aussies. At times I’m almost afraid to call myself an Australian.’

  Len looked at John and they grinned.

  ‘But we wouldn’t swap him for the world Sherlock, would we?’

  John shook his head.

  ‘Not likely.’ He grinned at George Tickner. ‘It’s just the way he is. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all an act.’

  ‘Well it’s not right,’ said Tickner. ‘He should at least show his appreciation; you’re a good bunch of lads. He may be a good pilot but you lot are good at what you do too.’

  John took a long drink from his tea cup.

  ‘It gets worse.’

  Tickner slapped at his forehead.

  ‘How come? How can it get any worse? Tell me.’

  John continued. ‘You know when you write a letter back home you have to leave the envelope unsealed so that some bugger in authority can read it and make sure you aren’t divulging sensitive information?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, guess who the reader in authority is?’

  George Tickner looked around for a second and then the penny dropped.

  ‘No… tell me no… not Vanrenen?’

  Len Jones spoke up. ‘Absolutely correct my friend. So you guys are fine if you want to bend the missus’s ear and sound off about some bastard who rubs you up the wrong way, but us lot,’ he pointed to John, ‘we can’t say Jack Shit because Vanrenen will be reading every bloody word.’

  George was shaking his head.

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  The second phase of Operation Mallard never took plac
e as all Stirlings were recalled halfway across the channel. 100 per cent cloud cover at the drop zone, they’d been told. LJ949 was beginning to be a bit of a favourite with Vanrenen as he put the Stirling through its paces on the way back throwing the aircraft into a series of steep dives and performing ridiculously tight turning circles.

  He spoke to John and Doug as they disembarked on landing, looking at the plane as they walked away.

  ‘This is the girl for me, chaps. It doesn’t make any logical sense but she handles better than any other Stirling I’ve ever flown, she has a nice feel to her.’

  ‘That’s what you want Skip, a girl with a nice feel to her.’

  Doug’s little joke was lost on Vanrenen or at least he refused to acknowledge it, let alone react with a smile.

  ‘You men make sure we are assigned this plane every time, don’t let any other bastards get their hands on it.’

  ‘How the hell are we going to do that, Skipper?’ asked John Holmes.

  Vanrenen furrowed his brow. ‘I’m not sure Flight Engineer, but I’m sure you’ll think of something… have a word with ops.’

  At 0715 on the morning of 10th June 1944, 196 Squadron were briefed on Operation Rob Roy, which would fly out at midnight. It was another French Resistance drop in the Limoges area of France and would involve eight crews.

  The 2nd SS Panzer Division was on the move. They’d received their instructions and were ordered to make their way up country to stop the Allied advance. The French Resistance fighters however were doing everything in their power to stop them. They had been well supplied in recent weeks by 196 Squadron of the British Royal Air Force. Their attacks had been concentrated in the countryside around the Limousin villages of Oradour-sur-Vayres and Oradour-sur-Glane. They had tormented the 2nd SS Panzer Division who wanted to head north and help their fellow countrymen. There was little tactical importance being pinned down in that particular part of France.

  Louis-Leonard Chapelot and Henri-Pierre Raynaud sat in the small cafe in Oradour-sur-Glane, more than pleased with their recent skirmishes with the occupying forces. They shared a cognac together, toasting the fact that they’d taken out a strategic rail link and blown a huge crater in the road outside the Chateaux that housed the 2nd SS Panzer Division and for a few days, effectively confined the whole SS Division to barracks.

  Early on the morning of 10th June 1944, Adolf Diekmann, commanding the first battalion of the 4th Waffen-SS Panzer-Grenadier Regiment, sat with Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger at regional headquarters in Limousin. They shared a coffee together but Diekmann had grave news. Not only had the 2nd SS Panzer Division been stopped in their tracks yet again but a rumour was now circulating that a Waffen SS Officer was being held by the French Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby village. The captured German was Helmut Kämpfe, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Division.

  Weidenger confirmed that the officer was indeed missing. At first it had been presumed that he’d gone absent without leave. Now Diekman and Weidenger knew the truth.

  ‘We must make an example of these French peasants once and for all, Otto; they are getting too big for their boots.’

  On 10th June, Diekmann’s battalion sealed off the town of Oradour-sur-Glane. Incredibly he had confused it with nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres, where the German officer was rumoured to be held. It mattered not where the town was, Diekman was on a mission to show the French exactly how the soldiers of The Third Reich dealt with such insubordination. He ordered all the townspeople – and anyone who happened to be in or near the town – to assemble in the village square. It was a ruse; the villagers were told to assemble there simply to have their identity papers examined.

  Once he was satisfied that every man, woman and child in the village were there he read the riot act to them and demanded that they disclose the whereabouts of the missing officer. He was met with a wall of silence that infuriated him even more.

  He ordered all of the women and children into the local church where they were locked in. The soldiers of the SS then searched and looted the village looking for the missing officer. He was not located and Diekman ordered the French men into six barns on the outskirts of the village advising them they were to be locked up until Kämpfe was found.

  It was a lie.

  An hour earlier Diekman had ordered his machine-gunners to take up strategic hidden positions in the dark recesses of each barn. As they lined the men up the machine gun nests were revealed and the soldiers began shooting at them. They had been ordered to shoot them in the legs so that they would die more slowly. It was absolute carnage; each barn resembled a lake of red as the femoral arteries of the victims pumped the blood onto the dusty ground. Only a few men had died but the rest were unable to move or escape as they begged for mercy. The Waffen SS 2nd Panzer Division showed none.

  They covered the stricken bodies with fuel, walked outside and set the barns on fire.

  Only six men escaped. One of them was chased down a road heading to the cemetery leaving a trail of blood in his wake. When the SS caught up with him he was beaten to a pulp and executed on the spot.

  190 men died in the six barns, among them Pierre-Henri Poutaraud, Louis-Leonard Chapelot and Henri-Pierre Raynaud. But the worst was yet to come.

  After they’d massacred the men of the village the soldiers proceeded to the church. They locked the doors of the 17th century building and boarded up the windows. Petrol was poured through the gaps in the windows until the wooden church floor was awash. The women and children were crying and screaming, begging to be set free, only too aware of what was about to happen to them. The church was set on fire.

  After it was ignited, some of the women and children managed to break gaps in the windows but they were met with machine-gun fire as they made their escape. A total of 247 women and 205 children died in the carnage. Two women and one child survived; one was 47-year-old Marguerite Rouffanche. She had managed to slip out of a window. Soon after a young woman and child followed her through. They escaped into the rear of the church gardens but were quickly apprehended when the screams of the child alerted two SS soldiers. They were lined up against the back of the church wall and shot.

  The young woman and child died instantly. Marguerite Rouffanche slumped to the floor but miraculously she survived. She played dead. After the German soldiers disappeared she managed to crawl into the undergrowth behind the church where she remained overnight, bleeding heavily, flirting with death. The Germans were determined to extinguish all forms of life and to hide any evidence of their atrocity as best they could. That night, every house and building in the village was set on fire. The church burned for two days and two nights, the heat so fierce and the flames so intense it melted the huge church bells in the belfry.

  A group of about 20 villagers had fled Oradour-sur-Glane as the German soldiers had appeared. The following morning some of them returned and rescued Marguerite Rouffanche, taking her to a nearby hospital where she was treated for gunshot wounds and burns. A few days later, villagers from a nearby town were ordered to bury the dead. 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane had been murdered in a matter of hours. Incredibly Adolf Diekmann would later claim that it was a just retaliation for recent French Resistance activity and of course for the kidnap of Helmut Kämpfe.

  Everyone heard the instruction from RAF Keevil as it came through the radio. The eight crews were flying south of Paris.

  ‘Return to base, 196 Squadron, all eight crews. Repeat, return to RAF Keevil immediately.

  ‘Awwww bloody hell,’ shouted Chalky, ‘I wish they’d stop bloody doing this to us – that’s two in a row. We’ll never win the war at this rate.’

  Vanrenen was frustrated too, and although he knew that there was a very good reason for any recall and 38 Group would not be persuaded to change their mind, he asked the question regardless.

  ‘Vanrenen here Sir, LJ949. Any particular reason, Sir? The weather looks ideal where we are at the minute.’

  The reply came in a second or
two later.

  ‘Weather ideal Vanrenen, that’s not the problem. Apparently the French resistance chaps won’t be there to intercept us. As simple as that. Return to base, repeat return to base.’

  ‘Roger Sir. Over and out.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  July and August were frustrating times for 196 Squadron. Everyone wanted the war to be over by Christmas and all the reports were good. They wanted to do their bit to help bring the war to a swift conclusion and the reports and briefings all seemed positive. They’d heard that Caen had been taken by the Allies. All over France there were almost daily reports of towns, villages and cities liberated as the Allies pushed the German troops back ever further and on the other side of the world the defeats on the Japanese military forces continued to mount.

  Listening to the reports John wondered what effect it would have on Allied prisoners of war. There had been no letters from Dorothy’s brother Cliff in Burma; just how would the Japanese respond if defeat looked imminent?

  The news for Hitler appeared bleak and information about an attempted assassination filtered back to London. The plotters in the bomb plot against him were hanged in Berlin on August 8th, their bodies suspended on meat hooks and pictures circulated around the world.

  Wing Commander Baker smiled as he delivered even more positive news.

  ‘The French Resistance has begun an uprising in Paris gentlemen. They’ve been inspired by our approach of the River Seine. Jerry’s on the run men, there’s no doubt about it.’

  Mark Azouz raised his hand.

  ‘Yes, Warrant Officer, what is it?’

  ‘It all seems good news, Sir, but why can’t we be a part of it? We haven’t been up for over a week now and when we do get up and on our way we are recalled halfway there. Surely the French Resistance could do with a little help?’

  Wing Commander Baker hung his head. His face took on a strange look, a little worry perhaps but sympathy too. Then it seemed to change to anger.