More explosions billowed up farther down the line as the British called in their own artillery. The panzers pushed on, knowing that the odds were in their favour, leaving another pair of unlucky panzers behind. They wouldn’t be recoverable, Bothe suspected, and their crews would have been killed instantly, if they were lucky. If they had somehow survived the shell and the explosion, they would have been seriously wounded and condemned to life as shadows of their former selves. They would be lucky to survive, even if they were allowed to survive; he’d heard dire rumours about what the SS sometimes did to people who were wounded without any hope of recovery.
German rockets flashed overhead and the panzers followed them, seeing the explosions as the rockets tore into British support areas. They weren’t very accurate, but the British had accidentally presented them with a target-rich environment. Almost every rocket was guaranteed a hit on something. The British would be trying to retreat to new lines, but the rockets would be tearing them apart and the panzers would complete the job. He saw the burning wreckage, a monumental tangle of tanks, trucks and weapons, and smiled as the panzers charged forwards again. The British could surrender or they could die.
A British tank loomed up out of nowhere and fired directly at one of the panzers. The gunner was already tracking it and fired as soon as Bothe barked the command. The shell missed the intended target, striking one of the British trucks, but another of the panzers destroyed the British tank. Bothe shook his head ruefully, understanding the gunner’s muttered curse. Their reputation for accuracy had just taken a major blow.
“I expect better next time,” he said, as the British force retreated. A handful of them were surrendering, but the others were either running or had been badly injured when the rockets attacked. It was something that few politicians ever saw in their lives; the wreckage and ruined lives left behind by war. Hitler had served in the trenches and fought in the war; how had he decided to embrace war?
He shook his head. It didn’t matter at the moment. All that mattered was winning.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Over Colchester, England
“Sir, we have five major inbound raids,” Lieutenant Norah Fairhurst said. The cabin of the Lancaster airborne radar plane grew tense as she spoke. “There are upwards of seven hundred German aircraft moving out over the battlefield.”
“Show me,” the Group Commander said. Norah could smell his cigar smoke as he bent over her shoulder and peered down at the screen. “Shit…I mean…”
Norah ignored him as she called in the raid warning. She had never expected to be in a combat zone - or even near a combat zone - not when the use of women in combat was strictly limited. The Home Guard had a few women working anti-aircraft guns, but apart from them, the women were generally kept on non-combatant roles and often separated from their male counterparts. The men could fight and go to war, and while Norah disliked the inherent sexism of the system, at least it allowed her a chance to be useful and hit back at the Germans. There was no rule against female radar operators, and if she could free up a man to fly a combat jet, it would be fitting. Her father would have approved, had he survived the last war. The Germans had killed him in North Africa.
She gritted her teeth as she passed on the warning. It had taken years to convince most of the men that the WAAFs were just as capable as them at most tasks, including radar and even some engineering. There were teams of female mechanics at some RAF bases, working to keep the RAF’s planes flying, and they sometimes fell into bed with fighter pilots. It might be officially forbidden, but if some woman wanted to leave her position, the easiest way to do it was to get pregnant. She cursed them under her breath; they made it hard for other women in the RAF to be taken seriously.
“I have a small group separating themselves now,” she said calmly. “They’re coming towards us.”
The Group Commander picked up the internal telephone and barked a command down the line. “Pilot, prepare to evade,” he ordered, before putting the phone down again and picking up a radio set. “Ground Control; this aircraft is about to come under attack.”
Norah’s eyes followed the positions of the British aircraft in the area. Twenty-one Meteors had been flying CAP over the battlefield in the dark, left alone by the Germans, something that had bothered her senior officers at the time. The Germans normally tried to harass any British aircraft they saw, but this time they had left the British aircraft alone. They were being mobbed by the German fighters now, fighting for their life in the darkness, relying on their radars to differentiate friend from foe. There would be no help from them.
The Lancaster banked steeply as it altered course to retreat, but Norah knew that it was already too late. The converted bomber couldn’t hope to outrun the German jets. There were more British fighters rising up from the other airfields, but they would be too late for Norah and her crew-mates The Group Commander understood it as well. In his last moments, he was passing command of the air battle on to other commanders on the ground. There wasn't even time to try to bail out of the plane.
“You have all done well,” he said, looking around the cabin. Norah’s eyes tracked the Germans as they closed in. “I am proud to have served with each and every one of you.”
Norah’s eyes filled with tears as a stream of explosive bullets sliced into the aircraft and sent it falling down towards the ground, impacting with an explosion powerful enough to be heard for miles.
***
Gruppenkommandeur Albrecht Schmidt watched dispassionately as the British radar plane fell towards the ground, before he pulled his jet into attack position and waited to meet the British fighters. The British would be throwing everything they had into the fray, trying to crush the thrusts on the ground, and everything depended on the Luftwaffe keeping control of the air. If the British managed to get their aircraft through them and into position to target the ground, the entire assault force could be in jeopardy. If that happened…
He shook his head as he concentrated on the radar screen. He had never seen such a massive battle before, not even back at Scapa Flow; there were over two thousand aircraft entering the battle. Over half of them were German aircraft, but the only way of telling the difference between them was the primitive IFF system the Luftwaffe had developed; in the darkness, it was far too likely that they would accidentally start shooting down their own jets as well as British fighters. The only consolation was that the British would have the same problem.
Or maybe not, he thought, as the British patterns became clear. They had divided up their own forces, with their fighters raging ahead and their ground-attack aircraft remaining low, where they would launch attacks on advancing Panzer columns. If his forces fought the British fighters, to save the German tactical assault aircraft, then the British would have a chance to get some blows in against the ground forces. It was hard to make a decision, any decision, but he knew what the priorities were. They were to keep the fighters away from the German transports. The paratroopers were a very important part of Rommel’s operations plan and they would have to be preserved as much as possible
“Engage at will,” he ordered, as the German aircraft spread out to meet the British. It was impossible for non-pilots to understand just how rapidly two forces of jet aircraft, each force flying at barely below the speed of sound, could converge on each other; one moment, the sky was clear, the next moment and they were in the middle of a brutal dogfight. He sensed more than saw a British Meteor ahead of him, partly illuminated by the flares in the sky, and fired a long burst of tracer into it, seeing it rolling out of the sky and falling down towards the ground. There was no time to watch, either see it explode or see if the pilot escaped; the other British aircraft were surrounding him and yammering away with their guns.
He cursed as he avoided a Meteor piloted by a man with a death wish, or maybe in the chaos the British pilot hadn’t realised until it was almost too late that the two aircraft were about to crash. The battle was completely out of control, with
everyone fighting for himself; he watched his scope carefully as he illuminated another plane, only to jerk his hands away from the trigger when he realised that it was a German aircraft. A British jet fired at him, a stream of tracers narrowly missing his cockpit, and he fired back, before dodging and diving as the British aircraft curled onto his tail and came after him.
I wonder if I’ve met you before, Schmidt thought, remembering the daring British pilot he'd tangled with, during the raid on Dover. The British pilot was certainly tenacious, following Schmidt down through his arc and remaining firmly on his tail, shooting time and time again. Schmidt was used to being the hottest pilot in the sky and losing, particularly like this, galled him. The British pilot was on the verge of actually hitting him. Desperately, he yanked the aircraft up into a tight loop, his blood running cold as he heard the choking noise from the engine, and somehow appeared behind his opponent.
“Die,” he howled and fired. The enemy pilot had the reflexes of a cat. With what looked like humiliating ease, the Meteor slipped to the side and evaded the burst of tracer. Schmidt followed him, concentrating hard, and finally managed to score a series of hits, raking the Meteor’s wing with fire. There was a moment of pregnant possibility…and then the enemy aircraft heeled over and headed towards the ground, the pilot barely managing to bail out in time. Schmidt waggled his wings – ignoring, once again, the orders to shoot at any enemy parachutists – and returned to the battle.
The scene was a bit more controlled now, but losses were about even. The British were attacking the oncoming German bomber formations. Schmidt fell into formation with the bombers and covered them while they made their attacks, silently cursing the slow speed of the bombers and the need to cover them. There were supposed to be specialist fighters assigned that duty, as the jets suffered from reduced effectiveness by being tied to the bombers, but the chaos of the fight had made that impossible. The sun was slowly rising in the air, revealing clouds of smoke and massive damage on the ground…and panzers advancing across the battered landscape towards the city.
The sight held him spellbound for a moment. Flying so high, it was sometimes hard to remember that the ground-pounders suffered on the ground; the gentlemanly struggles of the fighter pilots and the occasionally brotherhood they shared with their opponents didn’t apply down there. The panzers, shooting it out with a line of British tanks, all looked like toys, as if they simply didn’t matter. The chaos on the ground had no rhyme or reason. The ground was burning, with flames and smoke rising up everywhere…and, somewhere down in the smoke, the infantry were deciding the battle. If they won, they would push through and advance on London; if they lost, the invasion effort itself might be in peril.
He yanked at the stick, an instant before a prowling British fighter could shoot him down. The moment of distraction had almost cost him his life. He swore at himself as he tried to control the jet, feeling the aircraft shuddering under his abuse. He had been fighting for what felt like hours; the British pilot didn’t know it, couldn’t know it, but if he kept Schmidt busy for too long, the German wouldn’t be able to return to the tanker to refuel. He jerked around, trying to retreat, but the British pilot followed him, firing burst after burst at his jet.
“Damn you,” he hissed and yanked back on the stick. The trick didn’t work twice. The British pilot followed him through the manoeuvre and came out behind him, still firing. Schmidt dived towards the ground, levelling out just above the ground, and dodged bursts of anti-aircraft fire while the British pilot broke off. Schmidt allowed himself a sigh of relief and rose up into the air, back into German controlled airspace, and headed for the tanker. It would be close, but he would make it, somehow.
“This is Schmidt,” he said, as he approached the formation of tankers. They were protected by a swarm of German aircraft, just to ensure that the British didn’t seize on targeting them as a means to degrade the German aircraft. “I am requesting emergency refuelling.”
“Roger,” the tanker said. Schmidt nodded in relief. If the tanker had been unable to take him within the next few minutes, he would either make a run for one of the captured airfields or try to put the plane down on a British field. That would have been easy in one of the older aircraft from the last war, but much harder with a jet aircraft…and then they would have to have moved it back to a proper airfield or risked taking off from the field. “Approach and insert your probe.”
Schmidt smiled. The original tankers had spurred the creation of an entire series of rude jokes, aided by the presence of some female operators, and the joke had lasted until Kesselring took over command of the Luftwaffe The sexual innuendo had gone the same way as the female operators, and all parties now knew to stick to business. Goring, whatever his other faults, had known the pilots needed to blow off steam and tension once or twice in a while. He’d been a proper flier himself. It was hard to credit that, when the pilots looked at the man they called the Iron Fatty, but there had been a time when Goring had been an ace. Those days were long gone.
He guided the probe into the tanker’s drogue and waited while fuel poured down into the tank. He’d done it before, hundreds of times, but it never failed to give him chills running down his spine; if the enemy attacked while he was refuelling, he would be extremely vulnerable. One Luftwaffe pilot, on exercises, had somehow ignited the fuel and blown both the tanker and the fighter into a fireball; the British would certainly try to trick him into accomplishing the same feat.
“My tank is now at ninety percent,” he said, feeling the dull throbbing of the tanker’s propellers echoing down the fuel line. A moment passed and the fuel stopped flowing, allowing him to break contact and fall back slightly from the tanker, watching as the massive aircraft turned and headed away from the combat zone. The tankers would remain forever outside the fighting; they were just too important to be allowed to be risked for no reason. “Thank you.”
He altered his radio settings again. “This is Schmidt,” he said, and gave his details. The entire battlefield had been scattered. Pilots would be flying with whatever wingmen they could scrape up. “I am returning to the engagement.”
***
The ground was moving at a terrifying speed, but Flying Officer Bentley ignored it, trusting to his skills to keep the Tempest aircraft from crashing into the ground. The Tempest was a new and largely untried aircraft, with only five built for the RAF so far, but it had lived up to most of its promises. It had been designed after realising that the Germans had practically invented the doctrine of close-support for their soldiers and had developed tactics that allowed a single aircraft to make a major contribution to the fighting. The Tempest was fast, powerful, and armed with weapons that could reduce an entire armoured unit to flaming debris, assuming that it could find its target.
Bentley focused his mind as he flashed over a small settlement, converted into a fortress by the Home Guard, and headed towards the German lines. The pre-mission briefing hadn’t been particularly detailed, but one thing was clear; the Germans had launched a two-pronged attack into the British defence lines and were on the verge of breaking through. If they succeeded, it would be much harder to evict them. So Monty was concentrating everything he had on destroying their spearheads before they got too far into the defence lines and broke out into the rear. Bentley saw the clouds of smoke and checked his weapons. He was getting closer to the Germans, and when he saw them, he would attack at once.
A low-level attack carried its own risks, although he hoped that his angle of approach, from the south, would convince nervous Home Guardsmen not to fire on his aircraft. The hope wasn't realised as several bursts of anti-aircraft fire narrowly missed him, but he was over their position within moments and heading right for the German lines. If the smoke was any indicator, the Germans were right ahead…
There! The grey shapes of German panzers were very clear, bombarding a British position as they moved forward at terrifying speed. Bentley didn’t hesitate. He selected his rockets and launched a maj
or assault, firing off all of his rockets in a single massive salvo. They were hardly precision weapons, targeted perfectly, but it didn’t matter; there were enough of them to ensure that at least some German tanks would be killed. He smiled as he saw the explosions and felt the plane being buffered by the blasts as the effects rose into the sky; he’d definitely hit at least four panzers and damaged a couple more. It was a shame that the Germans hadn’t strung them out in a nice line, but it hardly mattered; he’d given them a bloody nose all right.
His lips pulled back into a sneer as he triggered his cannon. The Germans would bring supplies forward to reload their advancing forces and he was behind their lines. The supply convoys had to be near him. The Germans wouldn’t have sent them near to any major habitation – they tried to avoid them – so where were they?
He dared to rise a little higher in the sky and spotted a line of German trucks heading towards one of the advancing spearheads. He rolled the aircraft into a dive and triggered the cannon, strafing them until the entire line of trucks had been wrecked.
Altering course, he climbed into the air and flew back towards the British lines. He would reload…and then he'd be back. There would be hundreds of other targets for his aircraft.
The German front line was all-too-clear to him as he rose higher. He could see the smoke and fires caused by the fighting and the massive shellfire from both sides, but the Germans were definitely making progress. A cold knot of fear appeared in his heart as he looked down on the battlefield; he was too high up to see any of the fighters, but somehow, he knew it wasn't going well.
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