War Brothers

by Patrick Slaney

  He went across the bridge to Hales to pay them for repairing the engine, and forty minutes later I walked over to the ferry with him and shook his hand as he left me to go on board.

  With his departure, I now felt that my mission had started. The umbilical cord had been cut.

  Chapter 39

  The Sergeant and I had a meal together in the pub where we were staying before we returned to Olympus to prepare the boat for its trip across the Channel. It was an impenetrable darkness that enveloped us when we left the pub, and it took us time for our eyes to adjust to the night. The blackout meant that there were no lights showing, even at the ferry terminal. The main thought going through my mind was - how was the skipper going to find his way out to the Needles Lighthouse in this dark.

  In discussions with Sergeant Young, it was decided that I should leave everything I didn’t need for the final trip to Cherbourg, in a bag with the Landlady of the pub we had been staying in. If a German patrol vessel did happen to come close to the trawler then the Olympus would be pushed off with me in it, and they wanted nothing connecting me with the trawler to be left on board.

  All hatches on the yacht were sealed shut, and it was tied up to the trawler and towed astern. We crept our way out of the harbour, turned to port, and headed for the Needles. I was amazed at how the skipper found his way as I couldn’t see the lighthouse. When we had chugged past the cliffs at the western end of the Isle of Wight which were just visible on the port side of the trawler, we turned again and headed for France. Even though it was a fairly calm night, there was a swell that made the trawler roll slightly. I started to wish that I hadn’t eaten so well. I felt decidedly queasy.

  ‘You don’t look too good?’ the Sergeant commented.

  ‘The rolling of the trawler is making me seasick,’ I replied.

  ‘That will make your story even better when you are eventually picked up. It is reasonable to assume that a Me 109 pilot stuck in a boat for several hours is going to get seasick and be totally miserable.’

  ‘It won’t be terribly clever if I am unable to sail the yacht,’ I said, slightly annoyed at his comment.

  ‘I am only being realistic. If you had sailed your yacht Olympus all the way from the English coast, which you are supposed to have done, then you would be in poor shape and suffering, so it is better if you suffer now.’

  ‘Thanks; that makes me feel a lot better,’ I added. I clearly wasn’t going to get any sympathy from the Sergeant.

  We heard the noise of a fast launch. The loud engine noise died.

  ‘Whoever it is has cut their engines because they think that they have heard another boat. We can expect visitors,’ the Sergeant whispered in my ear.

  As suddenly as the engines had gone silent, they roared into action again, and a dark shape approached us. The beam of a spotlight suddenly cut the night air and illuminated the trawler. If this is a German vessel, then we were in trouble as we hadn’t had time to release the yacht.

  ‘Stop and cut your engines, we are coming over to inspect you,’ a voice called out in English. Relief flooded me as I realised that it was an English patrol boat.

  A rubber inflatable approached and came alongside. Two men, an officer and a rating climbed aboard while their colleagues in the inflatable covered us with their guns.

  ‘Can I see your papers please,’ the officer asked.

  The sergeant handed over the papers authorising our mission.

  ‘That seems all in order. We will just inspect the boat to make sure that there is nobody else on board, and you aren’t carrying anything illegal,’ the officer added.

  They gave the boat a quick once over and then got back into the inflatable.

  ‘You can proceed and good luck on your mission.’ The officer saluted and went back to the patrol boat. We all breathed a massive sigh of relief.

  ‘We had all better have a swig of whiskey after that,’ the skipper said as he handed us a flask. ‘I keep this on board for medicinal purposes.’

  At 3:30 am, Sergeant Young informed me that it was time that I got ready as I would be released in about twenty minutes. He explained that the distance to Cherbourg was approximately five miles and that they were releasing me in a position to allow for the strong current that flows in Channel.

  ‘So all I have to do is head due south, and I will get close to Cherbourg.’

  ‘Yes, but I imagine that as soon as it gets light you will be spotted and picked up.’

  ‘I have no idea how to navigate a boat, so I hope that you are right.’

  ‘Watch your compass and you can’t miss. There is nothing but France in the direction that you are going.’ He smiled.

  Shortly afterwards the trawler cut its engines, and the forward motion stopped. My yacht Olympus was pulled alongside, and I got in. The Sergeant came aboard with me to help me haul up the sails and to get the engine running. The skipper of the trawler kept us head to wind while we got the boat ready.

  ‘Keep the engine running in case you need it, other than that I think that you are ready to go.’

  He shook my hand and stepped back on board the trawler taking the tow rope with him. I cast off and was under way towards France, leaving my mother hen, the trawler, behind me. The engines engaged, and the trawler turned one hundred and eighty degrees and motored back to England with a last wave in my direction. I was now totally on my own. A German pilot shot down and captured by the British in July 1940 and now returning to fly for the Luftwaffe in an ingenious escape. Would they believe me?

  Compared with my experience of sailing the Firefly on Derwent Water this was a doddle and quite uninspiring. Sunset would be at 6:30 am and by then I should be extremely close to the French coast. I started to enjoy the experience although I was still suffering from sea sickness.

  I had plenty of time to think of what faced me in the morning. One of my main thoughts was - what if there is fog and I can’t see the French coast and also if the visibility is poor, the patrol boats won’t be able to see me?

  I needn’t have worried as dawn brought a beautiful sunny morning with exceptionally good visibility, and I could see the port of Cherbourg in the distance.

  So far so good.

  Chapter 40

  I heard the sound of a fast boat before I saw it. Focussing on where the noise was coming from, I eventually saw a heavily camouflaged vessel emerge from the background of the coast. In fact, I spotted the large bow wave before I made out the shape of the boat.

  I steeled myself for the encounter with my fellow countrymen that was about to take place. The bow wave headed straight towards me until the patrol boat stopped about forty meters away. An officer shouted to me through a loud-hailer.

  ‘Turn around and get away from this area, it is protected and no civilian boats are allowed to enter Cherbourg.’

  I stood up in the boat and shouted back to him, ‘I am a German pilot who was shot down and captured. I have escaped from custody in England. Can you take me on board?’

  He obviously didn’t hear me and continued to shout, ‘Turn around and go away, or we will have to sink your boat with you on it.’

  I took off my jacket and pointed to my Luftwaffe trousers and my shirt. ‘I am a German Officer, please take me on board.’ I put my two hands together in a mock prayer.

  He obviously still couldn’t hear me, so he ordered his vessel to move closer to try and find out what I was saying. The sinister grey patrol boat with its powerful throbbing engine moved to about ten meters away from where I was standing in the cockpit of Olympus. It towered over me.

  The officer came down to the guard rail and leant towards me. ‘What was it that you were trying to tell me?’

  ‘My name is Oberleutnant Markus Bekker, and I am a Luftwaffe officer who has escaped from England and I have just sailed across the Channel in this stolen
boat.’

  He quickly realised that I was speaking flawless German. We will come alongside and decide what we are going to do with you.

  I had been so absorbed in my rescue that I hadn’t heard the aircraft. In the same way, the crew of the patrol boat had been focusing so much on me that they had also missed it. Too late we realised that we were about to be strafed. A Spitfire came in a dive out of the sun towards us with its guns blazing. Panicking as I had no cover, I jumped over the side and swam as hard as I could away from the yacht. The patrol boat took off with its engines flat out.

  Olympus took a direct hit and bits of timber flew in every direction. If I had stayed on board, I would now be history. By jumping in the water and swimming away from the boat, I had survived.

  The Spitfire climbed and then swooped back down to attack the patrol boat. I watched the action from the water where I was bobbing in my life jacket. Was I going to drown so close to the land, or would the patrol boat escape and come back for me?

  The Spitfire eventually gave up its sport of chasing the patrol vessel, and it, in turn, came back for me. They used a boat hook to unceremoniously drag me from the water soaked through and unusually heavy from the wet clothes. I looked around the patrol boat, checking what the damage to the patrol boat was like. I was informed that none of the crew had been injured, and the patrol boat would be able to make the port of Cherbourg, under its own power.

  The officer took me down below and found some dry clothes which miraculously fitted my large frame. He then organized some coffee for us.

  ‘That was too close for comfort,’ he said to me as we sat down at the table in the cabin that they used as a mess. ‘Luckily none of my men was injured in the attack, but we did receive some hits.’

  ‘I am sorry for putting you and your crew in danger,’ I said in an apologetic tone.

  ‘We should have been more vigilant. Unfortunately, we were all focusing on you as it is most unusual to find a pilot sailing a yacht first thing in the morning.’ He smiled.

  ‘I escaped from a POW camp in the South of England, stole a boat and sailed across the Channel. I managed to find France more by luck than good navigation, so I was extremely glad to see you heading towards me this morning.’

  ‘I had better go up on deck while we enter the harbour. There will be a lot of explaining to do when we tie up. If you want to join me on the bridge, you may. You will get a good view of the port as we go through the booms.’ We both finished our coffee and headed up to the bridge.

  It was evident that Cherbourg was quite a significant port as there was a lot of naval activity. The harbour was protected from the sea by two booms, positioned to prevent attacks by submarines and other enemy vessels. There was a portion of the boom which was opened for us so as we could enter the port. We motored over to a part of the harbour where there were a quantity of other patrol boats moored.

  As we tied up, there were a lot of comments from other sailors gathered around the other vessels. They were all eager to find out what had happened and how we had suffered the damage.

  ‘If you come with me, I will introduce you to the officer in charge of the port, and he can decide what he does with you. I will have to fill out a report of the attack by the Spitfire and complete a lot of paperwork.’

  During the walk from the harbour into the town, I noticed that there was quite a lot of bomb damage.

  ‘I see that there is evidence of bombing in the harbour area. Do you get many raids?’ I asked the skipper who had rescued me.

  ‘We get a few days of bombing from the British, and then they seem to forget about us for a while. It is almost as if we are at the bottom of their list of priorities and they only come if they have nothing else on.’

  ‘You would think that Cherbourg would be bombed every day as it is very close to the South Coast of England.’

  ‘There isn’t a lot to interest them here, and I suppose that they have a lot of higher priority targets elsewhere. Believe me, when you have to live through a raid you know all about it. We don’t want any more.’

  We eventually arrived at a building festooned with German Swastika flags. On entering, my guardian brought me over to a desk where he told a man in uniform to arrange an appointment for me to see the Kommandant. I was shown an area where there were some benches and was told to wait.

  Clearly I was wasn’t considered high priority as I had to wait at least two hours before I was told to go up the stairs and knock on the Kommandant’s door. A lady in uniform came to the door and brought me into an outer office. After two hours, I still hadn’t reached the Kommandant, but at least I was getting closer.

  This time my wait was a lot shorter, and, after about ten minutes, I was ushered into the presence of the Kommandant.

  Totally bald and with wire frame glasses, he looked to be in his fifties. He had a round bald head, a round body and would have been a funny person if he hadn’t been the Kommandant.

  ‘You want to see me,’ he barked at me. ‘I am a busy man so make it quick.’

  I gave him a summary of my story. How I was a German pilot, shot down in the Battle of Britain, interrogated for two months, and then held as a POW. I explained that I had managed to escape, steal a boat and sail as far as Cherbourg.

  ‘That sounds quite a story and I congratulate you on escaping. What do you want from me?’

  ‘Well, I have no papers so can’t travel, and I want to return to my squadron as soon as possible. Are you able to issue me with papers, Sir?’

  ‘The easy answer to that is No. You will have to go to the SS to get papers. I will ask my secretary to type out a letter to the SS branch in charge of issuing papers, and there shouldn’t be any problem.’

  ‘Thank you Sir, I am extremely appreciative of your help.’

  ‘You can wait outside while she gets the letter ready. Please tell her to come and see me when you leave my office.’

  I stood up, saluted and left the room.

  Shortly afterwards I was given the signed letter, and I left to try and find the offices where the SS were based. I expected that a precursor to my receiving my papers would be an interrogation, so I had that to look forward to.

  Chapter 41

  The SS were based in the old police station which was a dark dirty grey building set back on a side street about one hundred meters from the harbour. There wasn’t even a Nazi flag flying over the building, but there were two sentries outside the door which gave away its location.

  I approached the building intending to walk through the front door. One of the sentries put his rifle across the entrance barring me from entering. He didn’t say anything.

  ‘I have been told I have to report to the SS to obtain my travel documents,’ I said, hoping that he would let me enter.

  ‘Name?’ he asked.

  ‘Oberleutnant Bekker of the Luftwaffe.’

  ‘Why have you no papers?’

  ‘I was shot down and have been a prisoner for nine months.’

  ‘Why aren’t you with your squadron?’

  ‘I was shot down in England and have just got back to France.’ This was getting ridiculous. I had anticipated an interrogation, but not with a sentry!’

  ‘We have been told not to let anybody into the building today. You can try again tomorrow morning.’

  And that seemed to be that. There was no way that I was going to be able to get my papers today, and even tomorrow seemed doubtful. What would I do in the meantime?

  I decided that the best approach would be to return to the Kommandant’s office and see if I could see him again. The soldier on duty on the reception desk was remarkably helpful and got in touch with the Kommandant’s secretary. She came down the stairs to see me, and to find out what the problem was.

  She worked her magic, and the outcome was far better than I could have
expected. A member of the Kommandant’s team was allocated to take me personally over to the offices where the SS operated, and he was to make sure that I saw the appropriate person.

  Two hours later I had the necessary papers and felt a free man again. I also had been able to obtain my papers without having to endure the ordeal of an interrogation. The fact that there was someone from the Kommandant’s office with me seemed to oil the wheels. I smiled at the sentry on my way out. He didn’t smile back.

  I went back to the building occupied by the Kommandant. I wanted to try and locate my squadron, so as I could get back to them. I saw a Major of the Luftwaffe sitting waiting in the reception area, so I went over to him. He appeared to be not much older than me.

  ‘Excuse me Sir; my name is Oberleutnant Markus Bekker.’ I saluted. I have just arrived in Cherbourg, and I am trying to find out where my squadron is so as I can re-join them.’

  ‘Are you a pilot Oberleutnant?’

  ‘Yes Sir, I flew 109’s and was shot down in the Battle of Britain.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry about finding your own squadron, you can join mine. We are based not too far away at Caen. In fact, the reason I came to meet with the Kommandant today is to try and get a few more pilots, so it looks as if you are the first one.’

  ‘Does your squadron fly 109’s?’

  ‘Yes, so it is absolutely perfect for you. My name is Konrad Bahm, and I am the person in charge at Caen. Welcome to my group.’

  ‘Thank you Sir. I am delighted to find a squadron so quickly.’

  ‘If you like to come back here at 5:00 pm, I have a car coming to pick me up and you can travel back to the airfield with me. Here is some money to buy yourself some food and a coffee while you are waiting for me.’ He handed me some notes.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, I am absolutely starving. I will see you again at 5:00.’ I was delighted to escape from the building and return to normality. I found a little restaurant that had some other service personnel in attendance, so appeared to be safe, and bought myself some food and a beer. It was all going exceedingly well so far, my imagination had painted a very different picture.