Once More the Hawks

by Max Hennessy

  ‘It’s starting, sir,’ he announced. ‘We’ve just received information that the Germans are massing on the Greek frontier. A British Expeditionary Force’s on its way.’

  The first convoy of troops arrived at the Piraeus two days later and it was clear that nobody was deluded about what they were facing. As the soldiers marched from the transports, the sailors shouted their farewells. ‘See you again,’ they yelled. ‘On the way out.’

  Babington was as cynical as everybody else as he thrust a signal flimsy into Dicken’s hand. ‘They’re planning to build us up to twenty-three squadrons,’ he pointed out.

  Dicken’s eyebrows rose. So far they had nine, of which only two flew machines modern enough to handle the German fighters. ‘I hope they’re not Blenheims and Gladiators,’ he said.

  There was little to give much cheer as the British troops moved to their positions and nobody was kidding themselves that the crisis was far away. For the life of him Dicken couldn’t see the thinking that had enabled anyone to believe that a campaign in Greece could be anything but a disaster. Everything for its support would have to come across hundreds of miles of sea, while the Germans would have no difficulty in advancing by road all the way down the Balkan peninsula.

  His flights to the outlying aerodromes intensified. The strain on the faces of the pilots was obvious as they begged for more vehicles, more materials, more men, more machines, which Dicken was well aware he couldn’t provide. When he returned to Athens early in April he was tired enough to drink a large whisky and to flop into his bed exhausted. He seemed to have been asleep no more than a few minutes when he was wakened by his batman with a cup of tea.

  ‘A fine morning, sir,’ he announced. ‘We’ve just heard that the balloon’s gone up. German troops have crossed the border.’

  Swallowing the tea as he dressed, Dicken headed for Babington’s office. Babington arrived at the same time and Handiside gave them the news together.

  ‘They’ve also gone into Yugoslavia,’ he said. ‘And the Luftwaffe’s bombing Belgrade. It’s Rotterdam all over again.’

  The news was grim. The Germans had 33 divisions, six of them armoured, and the Yugoslavs were trying to oppose them with men on horseback. The Luftwaffe seemed to be having it all its own way, while along the Greek border the dispositions of the Greek and British forces were thrown off balance by the collapse of the Yugoslavs. The main body of the Greek army was facing the Italians in Albania, with the British army and three Greek divisions deployed on a line between the Aegean Sea and Yugoslav frontier. Three more Greek divisions watched the Rupel Pass.

  ‘It’s a bloody long front,’ Dicken growled.

  They had learned that reinforcements of Hurricanes were aboard a ship in the Piraeus, and the AOC was understandably worried. Apart from Kalamata in Morea, Pireaus, eight miles to the south, was the only port of any consequence and its importance was paramount. Inevitably the Germans would try to bomb it and during the morning Dicken drove down to find out what had happened to the aeroplanes.

  The harbour was congested to the point of chaos. Nobody had thought to appoint a British naval officer in charge and the port captain was struggling on his own to clear the congestion. Certain the Germans would bomb the place, he had already ordered all ships to clear the harbour but an ammunition ship, Clan Fraser, was still lying alongside. The decks had been emptied of the motor vehicles and stores she had carried but her cargo of explosives had been only partially cleared into lighters which still lay alongside, and there were still 250 tons of TNT aboard.

  Another ammunition ship, Goalpara, lay alongside the Sea Transport Office and City of Roubaix, also carrying ammunition, lay with Clan Cumming near the Custom House. Outside the harbour, in the calm of a fine evening, lay the cruisers, Perth, Calcutta and Coventry, and several destroyers.

  ‘We all know what’ll happen,’ the captain of Clan Fraser said. ‘As soon as the air raid alarm goes the stevedores’ll bolt.’

  Before the morning was out it was clear the Germans were trying to cut the Allies in half by isolating the troops in Albania. At the same time they were attacking Salonika and trying to cut off the Greeks in Eastern Macedonia. The Greeks were withdrawing from Thrace and the Germans were breaking through the Rupel Pass and the Monastir Gap, while the British troops, barely settled into their positions, were already moving into reverse under fierce air attacks. Intelligence showed that the Germans had around 800 aircraft against which the British Air Force, Greece, could put up only eighty machines out of the total of 150, the rest unserviceable for lack of spares.

  Air raid warnings kept sounding but no German aircraft appeared. Early reports indicated that Blenheims had made successful attacks on German armoured columns and motorised units heading south while Wellingtons were bombing strategic targets. They all knew the success was only temporary, however, because, as soon as the Germans seized the Salonika Plain, they would establish landing grounds south of the mountains and fly in fighters.

  The operations room in Athens had been dug out of the rock near the crest of Mount Lycabettus in the centre of the city, and when the air raid sirens went for the fifth time that night, instead of heading for the shelter everyone moved on to the terrace to see what was happening. The night was pitch dark but they could see one or two searchlights probing the sky and could hear aircraft droning above.

  Almost immediately, there was a series of explosions to the south and it became obvious at once that the Germans were trying to neutralise Piraeus harbour. In silence they saw anti-aircraft tracers stabbing upwards and the flickering lights of their shells bursting. Then, as they watched, there was a tremendous explosion from the south-west. The whole sky went red and in the glare they could see a mounting cloud of black smoke lifting in the form of a mushroom as it reached the upper air and began to spread. More explosions followed so that the windows shook and the blast seemed to stagger them, even though they knew it came from eight miles away. Then, as the glare changed to a variety of colours, the telephone behind them jangled. Babington snatched it up.

  Jerry’s hit Clan Fraser,’ he said. ‘When she went up she set off other explosions. She’s now a wreck and adrift with the lighters still alongside.’

  When they arrived at the harbour, it was a scene of devastation and confusion. One bomb had crashed on to Clan Fraser’s foredeck, a second into the engine room, and a third had struck aft. The bridge and upperworks had vanished, showering debris over the ship and injuring the master. Nearby, City of Roubaix and Goalpara were also ablaze, their cargos in imminent danger of exploding. Clan Cumming, so far undamaged but berthed near City of Roubaix, was clearly also doomed.

  A naval officer trying to organise tugs was in a fury of frustration. ‘The only bloody way we can avoid the complete destruction of the harbour and the installations,’ he stormed, ‘is to tow the damn ships out!’

  Soon afterwards they saw a tug threading its way through the glare of flames, the naval officer and two of his men in the bows, half obscured by the smoke, the drifting dust and the glittering fragments of burning material drawn up by the fierceness of the blaze. They had just reached Clan Fraser when there was another colossal explosion. Diving behind the stone-built building, Dicken saw the car he and Babington had used flung end-over-end and the next moment they were surrounded by falling fragments of stone, iron, steel and wood. His lungs emptied as the blast drew air from them and his cars filled with sound. When he looked up all that remained of Clan Fraser were two shattered ends. The lighters alongside had erupted and the tug, empty of life, lay wrecked and drifting alongside. All round them buildings and small craft had been ignited by blazing debris. Warehouses had been reduced to rubble and red hot corrugated iron sheets were skating down through the flames and smoke like huge razor blades.

  Almost immediately, another violent explosion convulsed the harbour as Goalpara blew up, and a few minutes later a th
ird giant explosion tore City of Roubaix apart. As she settled by the quayside, flames erupting from her decks, alongside her, her bridge and upperworks damaged by the blast, Clan Cumming began to blaze.

  They found themselves trying to organise ambulances and dragging away charred and bleeding dock-workers, their clothes blown from their bodies. Everywhere among the smoking debris were the mutilated remains of men, women and children. Bloodstained people were being carried away on blown-off doors, and others, shocked by the destruction, were screaming and tearing at their hair. Cars, twisted out of shape, had been flung against buildings that were nothing more than piles of rubble, their white walls splashed with blood.

  Eleven ships totalling more than 40,000 tons had been lost and the damage was enormous. Not a building had any glass in its windows and dozens of the small houses surrounding the area had been flattened. The Pireaus had ceased to function. Communications had vanished, seven of the twelve berths were useless, the port’s administration had collapsed and the twenty merchantmen still waiting outside the harbour were unable to take on water and fuel. The Greek harbour pilots, like the stevedores and dockyard workers, had fled inland for safety.

  When they returned to headquarters, it was to find that the Germans had pushed through the Rupel Pass, that fighters were beginning to operate from the Salonika Plain, and that British troops in the north were already under fierce and unrelenting air attacks. Blenheims were still trying to get at the German columns but now they were facing Me109s and they were being shot out of the sky by the faster German machines from airfields supplied by transport aircraft. Greek morale had plunged.

  ‘We’re pulling out of the Vardar front to Mount Olympus and the Aliakman River,’ the AOC said.

  Only the Hurricanes had the slightest chance against the German fighters and there were too few of them, while every one of six Blenheims sent to bomb Monastir failed to return. It seemed to Dicken that with the resources at their disposal they were not going to be able to hold on and if retreat were left too late they could lose everything, and he began to organise the withdrawal of the squadrons further south before they were overwhelmed.

  Preparing an administrative instruction for a redistribution of units, he was about to issue it to unit commanders when it occurred to him he had better show it to the Air Officer Commanding. To his surprise the AOC was not alone. In the corridor outside his room were several parachute bags and inside a group of officers. Their uniforms were neat and, unlike most of the men struggling to keep things going in Greece, they did not look tired or harassed.

  ‘Dick,’ the AOC said. ‘We’ve been sent help. You know Air Commodore Diplock, I think. I believe you’re related, in fact, aren’t you?’

  ‘We’ve come to organise the situation,’ Diplock said coldly. ‘We were sent out from England to try to see things clearly. We arrived yesterday by flying boat.’

  Dicken pushed forward the plan he’d written. ‘Doubtless you’ll wish to see this then,’ he said. ‘It’s an instruction for the redistribution of RAF units. In case of withdrawal.’

  Diplock gave him a contemptuous look. ‘We’re not here to retreat,’ he said. He took the sheets of paper, glanced at them, then let them skate from his hand to the desk. ‘We’ll start worrying about retreating when we have to. At the moment we need to maintain a measure of secrecy, and plans to stay where we are are better than panic plans for a withdrawal.’

  As Dicken silently filed the report, Babington looked up.

  ‘Aren’t we issuing it, sir?’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘But, sir–’

  ‘Dry up, Bab!’

  Babington frowned and said nothing. A moment later Dicken looked up. ‘Sorry I was rude, Bab,’ he said. ‘It isn’t your fault. It’s just that there seems to be an unnecessary obsession here with secrecy that doesn’t seem to have much point.’

  By this time the retreat was increasing in momentum, and it was clear that even when they were established on their new line it was going to be almost impossible to hold it because whole battalions and brigades of Greeks were already surrendering and another retreat had started from the Olympus Line to the Thermopylae Line.

  ‘Isn’t that where Leonidas and the Spartans held the Persians in 480 BC?’ Babington asked. ‘I seem to remember reading about it at school.’

  Dicken frowned. ‘They all died,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope our people aren’t all going to die.’

  Three

  ‘I’m praying the Germans don’t think of dropping parachutists there.’

  Bending over the map, Dicken had his finger on the narrow isthmus that joined the Peloponnese to Hellas and the rest of the country. It was cut by a canal which was crossed by a single bridge, the loss of which would mean that the whole of the British force of 60,000 men would be trapped, because the Piraeus was now barely useable and there was little hope of embarking them in the northern half of the country.

  The Greek authorities had finally agreed to leave the handling of all shipping to the Royal Navy, a general headquarters had been set up in Athens and, though no one else appeared to have thought yet of evacuation, the navy, with its experience of Dunkirk, was already reconnoitring suitable beaches to the south, and scouring coastal villages to charter caïques, motor boats and other small craft.

  As a systematic blitz of airfields and aircraft began, news came in of increasing numbers of enemy machines and the loss of more and more British machines.

  ‘We have nine aircraft left in the three bomber squadrons in Thessaly,’ Babington reported. ‘The three fighter squadrons have twenty. After that, nothing.’

  Diplock’s Committee, known by this time as the Clearsight Committee because of its avowed intention of looking at things clearly before issuing its plan, was busy in a set of offices it had taken over. So far little had emerged and Babington produced the information that they had decided it would be unwise to remain in Greece – ‘I can believe that of Diplock,’ Dicken growled – but that they hadn’t yet come up with any ideas.

  Then, without waiting for Diplock’s decision, the AOC decided he’d had enough and, ordering his squadrons south, signalled Middle East Headquarters urging immediate withdrawal. Another flurry of orders brought the instruction from the Clearsight Committee to Dicken to send off the Redistribution Plan.

  ‘It’s too bloody late now,’ he snapped. ‘The roads are already packed with traffic!’

  By means of despatch riders, he was able to get instructions to three of the squadrons which immediately started to move, but the delay had gone on too long and the other squadrons had made their own decisions and were already making for the Athens area. The situation was beginning to fall apart. As the western of the two RAF wings was forced south, the Greek Epirus divisions folded up and the Greek army started to disintegrate, so that it began to seem highly improbable that any substantial part of the British force could hope to escape.

  ‘This is going to be worse than Dunkirk,’ Babington said. ‘We’ve farther to go and we haven’t got fighter cover.’

  That afternoon, Babington came in with a report of large formations of German bombers approaching, escorted by Me110s. There were only fifteen Hurricanes to send up against them and, as they watched from the roof, they could see the fighting swaying over Athens, the Piraeus and Eleusis. There were huge cumulus clouds in the sky and the aircraft kept disappearing to reappear moments later at the other side. There were bursts of firing then a machine slid out of the sky, trailing its sacrificial column of smoke, before the fight finally broke up and the aeroplanes vanished, as aeroplanes always did, as suddenly as they had appeared. The tally soon arrived. There were now only five serviceable Hurricanes left.

  That evening, as Dicken and Babington ate at a small restaurant near headquarters, the shadow of catastrophe lay over the whole city. The army was still clinging to the last ditches of Thermopyla
e but there was the constant drone of German bombers above and the echo of explosions at the Piraeus and anywhere else where there might be a hope of embarkation.

  Deciding not to wait for Diplock’s decisions, which seemed to have atrophied behind the closed door of his committee room, Dicken arranged for the remaining bombers in Greece to be flown to Crete, where the navy had established a base, and what was left of the Hurricanes to an improvised airfield at Argos in the Peleponnese. By this time conditions were changing like a kaleidoscope as the German advance proceeded almost unchecked. Orders became outdated before they could be implemented and confusion was spreading like ripples in a pond, the situation became more chaotic by the hour as the air attacks continued with an intensity that stunned the senses.

  Returning to headquarters, Dicken found the Clearsight Committee still in session. ‘What about the evacuation?’ he demanded.

  ‘They’ve decided nothing yet,’ Babington said.

  Heading for Eleusis, he found the RAF men packing furiously.

  ‘When are we to be evacuated, sir?’ the squadron leader in command demanded.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dicken admitted.

  ‘Well, where to, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know that either.’

  Diplock’s Committee had been working in monastic seclusion for four days now but not a word of a plan had appeared. The army, which was now in control of all movements except by air, were still clinging to the hope that they could hang on and were issuing no instructions, so that it was a period of orders, counter-orders and lack of orders, of men waiting patiently to be told what to do and where to go, of troops passing through the city with no notion of where they were heading.

  ‘Sir–’ Babington arrived with unexpected news ‘–one or two ships have started evacuations of their own, and merchantmen and ferries are loading refugees in the Piraeus and at Salamis!’