Flames over France

by Robert Jackson

  “Mornin’, sir,” he said, in his nasal cockney accent. “It’s five-thirty, sir, and a lovely mornin.’ I’ve run your bath. By the way, sir, the balloon’s gone up. Jerry’s invaded Belgium and Holland, sir. There’s a signal for you, sir. Just come in.”

  Armstrong sat bolt upright in bed and took the slip of paper from Smithson’s hand. He opened it, turning it towards the window so that the early morning light fell on it. It was from the Air Ministry, and addressed personally to Flight Lieutenant K. Armstrong, OC Photographic Reconnaissance Flight, RAF Deanland. The handwritten words hit him in the face like a splash of cold water, bringing him wide awake.

  “Early indications of enemy airborne landings Belgium/Holland,” it read. “Deploy immediately to Berry-au-Bac. Support facilities in place. Confirm.”

  There was more, but that was the important part. He stuffed the signal into the pocket of his pyjama jacket and, for once, took a swig of the tea that Smithson had brought him. He normally never touched the stuff, which was good for stripping paint, but this time he was glad to feel the impact of the scalding liquid on the back of his throat. It brought him fully alert.

  “Where the hell is Berry-au-Bac?” he mused aloud.

  “France, sir. About thirty miles from Reims,” Smithson told him, as though it were the kind of question he was called upon to answer every day. Armstrong glanced at him as he swung his legs out of bed.

  “Smithson,” he said, “you never cease to astonish me. You’d better pack some kit. There’s no telling how long I might be away.”

  So soon, he thought, as he donned his uniform after a quick bath and shave. It was barely a fortnight since he had got back from Norway, evacuated by the Royal Navy as the Germans closed in on the port of Namsos. Fighting was still going on there, and the two other Spitfires of the PR flight were in northern Scotland, keeping a watch for German warships — in particular for the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, which were thought to be operating in the Norwegian Sea.

  Within a few minutes Armstrong was on his way to the operations hut, inhaling the fresh Suffolk air as he walked. It was nine months now since he had first arrived at Deanland; then, the place had masqueraded as a civil aerodrome, tenanted by a flying club and manned by personnel dressed in civilian clothes. Those days were gone. The personnel were in uniform, the canvas hangars and wooden huts were camouflaged, there were coils of barbed wire around the perimeter fence, and anti-aircraft machine-gun posts were sited at various points. The airfield was coming alive; he noted with satisfaction that his Spitfire had been pushed from its hangar and was being refuelled. An airman was at work loading the F24 camera into its compartment. Intent on his job, he did not see Armstrong as the pilot walked briskly past.

  Armstrong’s stomach was rumbling, but breakfast would have to wait. There was much to be done in the meantime. He returned the salute of the armed guard at the door of the operations hut and went inside, his footsteps clattering on the polished linoleum of the corridor that led to the operations room.

  Apart from some new maps on the walls, concealed behind roller blinds, the room was exactly the same as it had appeared when he had first walked into it what seemed a lifetime ago, when the world was still at peace. There was one other occupant, an orderly corporal, bending over a teleprinter that had just begun to chatter out a message. He turned and straightened up when he heard Armstrong enter, then returned to his task at the response of a wave from the pilot.

  Armstrong passed through a door beside a small briefing dais at the far end of the room. It gave onto another corridor, a short one this time, with a couple of rooms on one side. The door of the first one was open; Armstrong paused at the threshold and looked inside.

  A man sat behind a table that was littered with documents. He was old and completely bald. He wore an ancient pinstriped suit topped by a wing collar of the kind affected by the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. But there was nothing ancient about the eyes that greeted the newcomer; they were blue and piercing, the eyes of a young man.

  Armstrong came into the room and took off his cap, hanging it on a convenient hook. He nodded at the man behind the desk, who half rose in greeting and then sat down again. The pilot settled himself in a chair opposite before speaking.

  “Well, Max. So they are on the move again. How much do you know?”

  The man he addressed as Max was something of an enigma. He had been at Deanland when Armstrong first arrived, and the pilot had been firmly advised — warned, more like — against asking questions about Max’s background by the previous commanding officer, Wing Commander Horace Royston, who was now a German prisoner of war. What Armstrong did know was that Max seemed to have all the answers, and suspected that he was well up the ladder of Intelligence. Although the old man spoke flawless King’s English, several months’ association with him had taught Armstrong to detect the undertone of an accent which he only knew to be Lithuanian because Royston had told him.

  Max surveyed him, his eyes suddenly hard. He placed his hands on the desk top and pushed himself upright.

  “I can tell you what I know better with the help of a map, Kenneth. Shall we go next door?”

  Armstrong smiled. Max was the only person he knew, apart from his mother, who addressed him by his full first name. They went into the operations room and Armstrong instructed the orderly corporal to leave them for the time being. Max reached into a pocket of his waistcoat and produced a key, locking the entrance door after the man had passed through. He crossed to one of the concealed maps and pulled a cord; the blind shot up with a rustle and a crack, revealing a relief map of north-west Europe. Max pointed to a green and brown area that covered most of Luxembourg and extended across the frontier into Germany.

  “The Ardennes,” he said quietly. “First reports are sketchy, but they indicate that the Germans are massing tanks and infantry in this area in readiness to make a thrust towards the river Meuse, here.” His finger moved over the map, tracing a line along the blue snake of a river that ran roughly north-south along the western border of Luxembourg until it entered Belgium, where its name changed to the Maas. Armstrong looked closely at it, picking out one name that stood out: Sedan.

  “If the Germans’ intention is to attack here, as seems likely,” Max went on, “it will make a mockery of the much-vaunted French main line of defence — the Maginot Line.”

  Armstrong was familiar with that defensive structure; he had seen its massive fortifications from high altitude, zig-zagging like a brown snake across the landscape, during a reconnaissance flight he had made into Germany soon after his return from Norway. Its origin went back to 1922, when a French Army Commission was appointed to look into the country’s existing defence policy and make recommendations for the future. Led by Marshal Joffre, the Commission visited the famous battlefield of Verdun, where a series of underground forts had defied a whole German Army Corps and the biggest concentration of artillery in history for ten months. The French generals were suitably impressed; what might have been the outcome of the war, they thought, and the saving of life and territory, if France had possessed an interlocking web of such forts along the whole of her eastern frontier in 1914!

  For the best part of a decade the Commission and successive governments argued over the feasibility of a fortified “eastern wall” running the length of the frontier; one blueprint after another was studied, only to be torn up. On two things only the military were agreed; the fortified front would have to be continuous — and it would cost an enormous sum of money to create. Finally, in January 1930, both chambers of the French National Assembly voted for work on the fortified line to begin immediately and set aside the vast sum of three thousand million francs, to be spread over four years, for its construction. The deadline for its completion was to be 1935, the year in which — under the terms of the Versailles Treaty — French forces of occupation were to be withdrawn from the Rhineland.

  The line was to extend from Basle on the Swiss frontier to L
ongwy, at the junction of the Belgian, Luxembourg and French frontiers. Its strongest points, covering a length of eighty-seven miles, were designed to protect Lower Alsace and the Metz-Nancy sector, both of which were particularly vulnerable to a large-scale attack from the east. The line varied in depth, but at its strongest points it consisted of a series of anti-tank obstacles and barbed wire entanglements facing the frontier, supported by reinforced concrete blockhouses and pillboxes. Behind them was a deep anti-tank ditch, beyond which lay the line’s network of underground casemates and forts. Each casemate, protected by up to ten feet of concrete, was equipped with quick-firing anti-tank guns, machine-guns and grenade-throwers; it had a garrison of twenty-five men whose living quarters were on a lower level.

  Every three to five miles along the line, supporting the casemates, was a subterranean fort of concrete and steel. These forts were truly remarkable feats of engineering; the biggest, with a garrison of twelve hundred officers and men, consisted of eighteen blockhouses, each with a retractable turret housing guns ranging in calibre from 37-mm to 135-mm. There were powerful generators to supply the forts with heat and light, compressors to ensure a constant supply of fresh air, stores and ammunition magazines, the whole linked by a series of corridors which were completely bombproof and up to a mile and a half long. In the larger forts, a miniature electric railway provided a rapid means of transport for personnel and material. Each fort was divided into two separate units, so that if one was knocked out, the other would continue to function independently, and the field of fire of each fort covered all neighbouring forts and casemates. Backing up the whole structure were mobile infantry units, with supporting artillery, which could be moved up rapidly to support the fort complexes in the event of enemy infiltration.

  Work went ahead on the fortifications — known as the Maginot Line after Andre Maginot, the War Minister of the day — at a fast rate, and its eighty-seven miles of main defences were substantially completed by 1935. By this time the line had already cost seven thousand million francs, far in excess of the budgeted figure, and the cost of maintaining it imposed an almost intolerable burden on a country whose economy was ailing — and one, moreover, where a strong Left Wing, opposed to rearmament in any form, made its voice continually heard. The result, inevitably, was that the French Army was compelled to suffer severe cuts in other areas.

  Most serious of all, the Maginot Line remained at best only a partial shield against an attack from the east against metropolitan France. At its northern end there was no extension of the fortifications to cover the 250-mile common frontier between France and Belgium — and this despite the fact that in 1914 the German Army, following the brilliantly-devised Schlieffen Plan, had debouched into France across the drab Belgian plains. There were a number of reasons for this omission, apart from the question of cost. The first, and not the least important, was that an extension of the line would have to pass right through the middle of the big industrial areas around Lille and Valenciennes, which would lead to unacceptable disruption; the second was that Belgium herself, separated from her French ally by a fortified line, might feel justified in adopting a policy of complete neutrality. In view of this, the French were prepared in Belgium’s case to adopt an offensive posture-although it went very much against their overall defensive policy — by sending their forces across the border to fight a delaying battle on Belgian soil. This strategy was feasible enough in 1935, when the French Army still enjoyed considerable numerical superiority over the Wehrmacht; but by 1939 the German tactics, combining the use of tanks and dive-bombers, had made nonsense of it.

  Between 1935 and 1939, then, while the Germans broke all records to develop their offensive capability, the French — like a tortoise retreating into its shell — retired behind the mythical impregnability of the Maginot Line, apparently oblivious to its glaring deficience; deficiencies which should have come to the fore when, in October 1936, King Leopold III of Belgium revoked his country’s treaty with France and opted for a return to neutrality. The French northern flank had been wide open ever since.

  “And the Germans know it only too well,” remarked Max, who had been rapidly filling in the gaps in Armstrong’s knowledge of France’s defensive system as the two pored over the map in the operations room. “That’s why a massive assault in this area is their logical choice. And I will let you into a secret; we have known of their intentions for several months.”

  Armstrong nodded. “As a matter of fact, I know about that. Wing Commander Royston told me about it. A German communications aircraft, carrying the blueprint for an invasion, strayed over the border last January and the Belgians got hold of the papers. The Belgian High Command wanted the French Army to move up right away, but the move was forbidden by their king. Am I correct?”

  Max nodded. “Quite correct. The French will move up now, of course, and so will the British Expeditionary Force, but it will very probably be too late. Plan D, I fear, is doomed before it can be implemented.”

  Plan D, known also as the Dyle Plan, had its origin in an earlier scheme called the Escaut Plan. Proposed in September 1939 by General Georges, commanding the French North-Eastern Army Zone, it envisaged an advance into Belgium by two armies, one French and one British, to face a German threat and form a defensive line along the Escaut river from the French frontier at Conde as far as Ghent. The plan depended on securing the Belgian Government’s approval, and much of it hinged on the ability of the Belgian Army to extend the line and hold it from Ghent to Antwerp. In November 1939, however, Allied intelligence indicated that a German attack would also involve Holland, and since the Escaut Plan did not cover Dutch territory, it was abandoned in favour of a new scheme, Plan D. This envisaged an Allied main line of resistance anchored on the Dyle, which lay further to the east in Belgium and from which a rapid advance could be made into Holland.

  In its finalised form, Plan D made provision for the Allied armies to occupy a continuous defensive line from the Dutch border to Mezières, in northern France. In the extreme north, the defence of Holland would rest with eight Dutch divisions; immediately to the south came the French Seventh Army, holding a line between Turnhout and Breda; then the Belgian Army, from Louvain to Antwerp; on the Belgians’ right flank the ten divisions of the British Expeditionary Force, lying between Wavre and Louvain and effecting a junction with the French First Army, in position between the BEF and Namur; and finally, between Namur and Mezières on the southern flank of the line, came the French Ninth Army.

  “That’s the plan,” Max explained. “It’s a good one, and there is nothing wrong with the fighting troops, although we all know that they lack adequate air support. The main area of concern is not here, in the north, but here, on the Meuse.”

  His finger moved over the map and traced a rough circle around Sedan.

  “The trouble,” he continued, “is that the French don’t believe the Germans can force a passage through the Ardennes. This sector, therefore, is quite thinly defended by the French Second Army, which has sixteen poorly-equipped and poorly-trained divisions, half of them second class. Their job is to hold a ninety-five-mile stretch of front, and to make matters worse the Maginot fortifications are only half completed here. But ask yourself this: if the Germans don’t intend to launch a major attack here, why are they making every effort to shoot down our reconnaissance aircraft?”

  “I’d heard that they have been suffering pretty severe losses,” Armstrong. “I didn’t know that it was particularly bad in that area, though.”

  “It is,” Max remarked grimly. “For some reason the French have been sending their aircraft into enemy territory unescorted, and their reconnaissance squadrons have suffered dreadful losses. That is why they have asked for our help. Our Spitfires are the only reconnaissance aircraft fast enough to make a thorough survey of the area with any hope of survival. Let’s go back into my office.”

  Back in his seat, Max unlocked a desk drawer and withdrew a red folder, which he handed to Armstron
g. “Your operational orders,” he said. “We have had them for some time; in fact, they were put in place not long after the German invasion plans fell into our hands, and the Joint Air HQ realised that our help would probably be needed. As you will see, they are straightforward enough.”

  Armstrong flicked through the flimsy pages inside the folder and smiled thinly. “Straightforward, all right,” he grunted. “All I have to do is to fly to Berry-au-Bac, top up with fuel, fly at medium level over what is probably the biggest concentration of anti-aircraft guns this side of Berlin, dodge Messerschmitts, and deliver the film to Air HQ. Simple, really.”

  He handed the folder back to Max. “Well, I suppose I’d better grab a bite of breakfast and get cracking. Oh, there is just one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Suppose — just suppose — that the Germans have launched their offensive in France already. Suppose they are halfway to Reims. What then?”

  “Come home,” Max told him quietly. “By then, it will be much too late.”

  *

  BATTLE SITUATION: THE ARDENNES, 10 MAY 1940

  For the Allied air forces, the enormous mass of men and material that wound its way through the Ardennes on the morning of 10 May represented the target of a lifetime.

  But the hours of the morning dragged on, and still no order came to unleash the Allied bombers. In the joint headquarters at Chauny, Air Marshal Arthur Barratt, commanding the British Air Forces in France, and General d’Astier de la Vigerie, commanding the French Northern Zone of Air Operations, paced up and down in frustration as they awaited the necessary signal from the French GHQ. Their anger mounted when, at 0800, they received a signal restricting Allied air operations to fighter and reconnaissance activity. At that very moment the enemy columns, jammed tightly along the narrow roads through the Ardennes, were highly vulnerable to air attack; and yet, because of the French terror of Luftwaffe reprisals and the totally irrational hope of General Maurice Gamelin, the French Commander-in-Chief, that a bombing war might somehow be avoided, the opportunity to hit the invaders hard was being thrown away.