Back to Battle

by Max Hennessy

  Unexpectedly the aircraft remained just out of range, then one of them peeled off and steered parallel to the group’s course at a distance of about five miles. As they watched, there was an orange flash beneath its wing and what looked like a smaller aircraft swung away towards them.

  The bomb, fitted with stubby wings, was hurtling towards them at tremendous speed, and while it was still in flight, the next aeroplane peeled off and released another. Fighters were being used to distract attention, but Rumbelo, stationed on the bridge as usual, had long since developed a flair for picking out from the approaching aircraft those which were heading for the ship and those which were not.

  ‘Aircraft astern,’ he said calmly. ‘Coming up fast.’

  ‘Make to all ships,’ Kelly snapped. “‘Independent action.”’ The navigating officer had a man on either side of him reporting on the progress of the bomb, and they watched it pass overhead. Almost at once, there was a deep thump beyond Sarawak, which was turning in a tight circle to starboard, the bright sun catching the curve of her bows, and a column of brown smoke lifted into the air.

  ‘Morris hit,’ the midshipman sang out.

  The next few minutes were extraordinarily exciting, with a calm sea and the spotting plane sitting like a vulture high in the sky. Morris was stopped and on fire, but her guns were still banging away, while the bigger guns of Chichester and Sarawak tried to reach the aeroplanes waiting to drop their bombs. The Oerlikon and Bofors crews were aiming at the approaching missiles and the petty officer telegraphist, knowing the bombs were controlled by radio, had put every set he had to transmit at full power in the hope of disturbing the enemy frequency; and they were all banging out ‘Balls to Hitler.’

  ‘Warspite’s been hit, sir,’ Latimer said. ‘She’s still firing but her steering seems to be jammed. There’s a tug going to her. Morris reports she’s still underway but her speed’s limited to fifteen knots. Savannah and Philadelphia also report hits.’

  ‘Here comes another,’ Rumbelo reported. ‘Straight for us!’

  Kelly watched the bomb. The missiles were arriving at about four hundred miles an hour but it was obvious the controller in his aircraft could only change their direction and could not prevent them losing height.

  ‘I think a turn to starboard, Pilot,’ he said quietly, ‘and when it follows, hard a-port. That ought to fox it.’

  Chichester was moving at full speed to starboard, and as the bomb followed her turn, the navigator ordered hard a-port so that the bomb, swinging after them again, stalled and splashed into the sea. From the time of sighting to its arrival had been only eight seconds.

  With Salerno secure, the squadron was moved to Algiers and Kelly flew ahead, sitting on an uncomfortable bench in a Dakota troop carrier.

  Cunningham, who was setting up a new headquarters at Naples, appeared only occasionally, and the supply of stores, repairs and maintenance of fleets and bases had almost broken down, so that Kelly, with other senior officers, found himself involved in reorganising it twelve months too late. He was glad to move to Naples in the New Year.

  ‘Same hard-arse aircraft as last time,’ he said to Boyle as they climbed aboard.

  Cunningham informed him that his squadron was to move to the Tyrrhenian because there was a new landing at Anzio in the wind and organisation was difficult because the politicians were not prepared to postpone any landings across the Channel.

  ‘Plan seems to be a bit of a dog’s breakfast,’ he confided; ‘Alexander’s orders are clear enough but for once the Americans don’t seem to have the same sense of urgency.’

  As they dropped anchor in Naples Bay, landing ships were waiting with their flotillas of assault craft hoisted at the davit heads. Orders came on board in sealed sacks and the briefings explained what had to be done. The Allies, it appeared, were in serious trouble at Cassino, and it seemed logical to use sea and air power to dislodge the Germans by landing behind their lines.

  ‘I just hope the Germans have been briefed how they’re supposed to act,’ Boyle said.

  The destroyers remained underway all night, constantly dropping small charges because of the fear that frogmen might try to attach limpet mines to the troopships, and on every ship, young Americans were preparing their equipment with the introspective, dedicated concentration of men about to go into action, chewing gum, talking laconically and polishing their sub machine-guns.

  They sailed in the evening to join up with the transports, followed astern by long lines of landing craft. Surprise was complete and the assault wave got ashore without a single casualty, but nobody had heard of Suvla Bay at Gallipoli in 1915, and the same sad story was played out again as the troops consolidated, and the whole object of the landing was lost on the first day.

  During the evening, Dornier 217s appeared and the defensive pattern of dodging to sea with every gun and radio set going on full power to disorganise the glider bombs began. Alexander arrived from Naples in a destroyer, urbane, handsome and looking as if he’d just come out of a bandbox. He was worried because the general in command at Anzio had concentrated on getting his supplies ashore and had not pushed inland.

  ‘Looks like being a costly withdrawal instead of an advance,’ he said as he took a drink in Kelly’s cabin. ‘And if the casualties are high, the effect on the morale of cross-Channel invasion forces could be disastrous.’

  Instead of withdrawing, however, he fired the general in command and put another in his place, and when he returned he looked even more pink, polished and unperturbed than ever.

  ‘Two years ago,’ he said, ‘the Germans would have pushed us back into the sea, but they seem to have lost their zip a bit and I think we shall hold.’

  Anzio was monotonous and dangerous. Throughout February, supplies were poured ashore and the difficulties were added to by the bitter weather. From time to time, they returned to store and reammunition in Naples, which was a festering sore on the face of Italy, packed with narrow streets and mouldering houses all the worse for four years of war. It seemed to be full of starving children and girls of all ages selling themselves to the troops so that their families could eat. The Italian males, both the soldiers and the civilians, seemed to have lost their backbone and, with a vicious black market encouraged by the troops, it was a sick city full of corruption and distrust.

  Anzio ground on. When it had started, the British had been joking that they’d soon be requisitioning the Coliseum in Rome for the opening of the Flat, but progress remained snail-like and during Match Kelly was more than delighted to receive a signal ordering Force T home. They arrived in the same bitter weather that they’d left, with cold winds and sleet. Off Land’s End, they were ordered to Plymouth but nobody seemed to expect them, and they were left kicking their heels in the Sound.

  ‘Shore staff seem as efficient as ever,’ Kelly observed tartly. ‘Better call my barge away, William, and I’ll go and tear ’em off a strip or two.’

  A boat manned by Wrens who seemed to have been picked solely for their good looks passed them with the mail as they left the ship’s side. The acknowledgement to an admiral turned out to be smiles and waves, and Kelly grinned back. They were a joy to see, and the men leaning over the guard-rails seemed to think so, too. Sailors were lonely, sentimental creatures and were always ready to give affection to a pet or a girl friend, and the girls were already doing well in the form of cocoa, chocolate, cigarettes, even lipstick and silk stockings bought in Africa, which were tossed down with every kind of lewd suggestion and request to meet them at the dock gate, which they accepted with even wider smiles, language as basic as the sailors and not the slightest sign of embarrassment.

  England seemed to be stiff with Americans. They were everywhere, in every bar, club and restaurant. On every hillside they were practising assaults; farms, estates and whole villages had been taken over. London was on tenterhooks because it was well known that the invasion was coming before long. Nobody knew exactly when but there was no doubt about it now and the
Luftwaffe had recently come to life suddenly so that the nights had been almost as noisy as they had been in 1940 and 1941.

  Corbett was still at the Admiralty, looking very old and tired so that Kelly became aware for the first time just how much strain he’d had to bear. ‘Intelligence said it was the Luftwaffe’s last fling,’ he pointed out. ‘A reprisal for the bomber offensive. But they knocked the St James area about and a lot of shops and houses, including mine, had their windows blown out.’

  By this time, harbours were packed with ships in a way that German bombers couldn’t have missed, but the Little Blitz had already petered out and there was now nothing but the occasional sneak raid – most of which came to nothing, because the British and American air forces had made it their task to see that the recce planes should observe nothing but what it was intended they should see.

  There were so many men in the south of England now, the coastline seemed to bulge, and still landing craft and small ships were being built to add to the crowding. To produce them in sufficient numbers, the Government had organised industries which had never before had anything to do with the sea, and prefabricated sections of sea-going vessels came together only at the coast for assembly and launching; while men of all types, too old for service at sea, ferried them to the Navy. If they were not always as naval vessels should be, at least they floated and their engines turned and, though their skippers were often young and had never handled anything bigger than a rowing boat before the war, they managed – sometimes with nervous uncertainty, but they managed. Tension was at fever pitch, more with the general public than with the armed forces, who were cool because for them the shouting had long since died. With the Americans, the war had become big business and it had to succeed.

  Verschoyle, who was now exercising his not inconsiderable charm on Eisenhower’s staff, informed Kelly that he was to have X Force, comprising Chichester, Sarawak, Norwich and eight destroyers, and that he was to be attached to O Force, which was to attack a beach not yet identified but known as ‘Omaha.’ As he was leaving, he drew Kelly aside. ‘Just one more thing,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘I know where your Charley is.’

  Kelly had been studying the charts and his head jerked round. ‘Where?’

  ‘Felixstowe. She needed to get away from the smell of Lecherous Lewis and she’s been up there a year now. Captain’s a chap called Fanshawe. You’ll probably remember him because it seems he served in Clarendon with you in 1914.’

  The news left Kelly with his heart thumping excitedly. At least now, he thought, he knew where to look.

  There was to be no immediate chance of taking advantage of the information, however. By this time there were a million and a half Americans in England and their training centres stretched from South Wales round the coasts of Cornwall, Dorset and Portland. Force X moved to Scapa in May. Considering it was the fifth year of the war and that a battle fleet had been stationed there since 1939, not much had been done to relieve the monotony beyond a drab wet canteen for the sailors. Though there was a great pretence of despising the comforts the Americans provided for themselves, they were all well aware that under the Americans Scapa would long since have been made much more bearable.

  Anarapoora was still there and, with Paddy back aboard her, Kelly sent his barge across with a message. They met in Kirkwall and she immediately drew him to one side.

  ‘They’ve taken Hugh off flying,’ she said.

  ‘Altogether?’

  ‘Altogether! Not even training. He’s got a ground job – at Macrihanish again.’ She gave him a shaky smile. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am. It means he’ll survive the war and that we’ll have a chance of a life together. It hasn’t been much of a marriage so far with him in one place and me in another.’

  Kelly smiled, pleased for her. ‘It’s the way things work in wartime,’ he said. ‘Produces a great deal of ill will on both sides. What are you going to do, get a posting ashore?’

  She grinned, her eyes bright. ‘Not likely,’ she said gleefully. ‘I’m finished. I’ll be out of uniform by the time you’re home again. I’m pregnant. Hugh’s over the moon. We’ll be making you almost a grandfather.’

  He kissed her. Ever since he’d known them he’d regarded Rumbelo’s children almost as if they were his own and he’d adored Paddy from the moment he’d seen her.

  ‘When’s it to be?’

  She looked at him as if they were conspirators. ‘A long time yet, but I’ve handed in my resignation.’

  Kelly was constantly in London to attend the conferences at Eisenhower’s headquarters at Bushey Park, to the north of London. Like every other senior officer, he’d long since grown used to long cold trips in transport aircraft or converted bombers. The whole area of Bushey Park was surrounded by endless caravans of drab army trucks loaded with war supplies, huge dumps of stores and strings of murderous-looking tanks parked nose-to-tail just off the pavements with heavy guns, ammunition caissons and other military hardware. Headquarters was a sprawling hutted camp in a wide park where the grass was already worn thin by hundreds of feet. There seemed to be staff cars everywhere; and what looked like the whole of the top half of the army, air force and navy lists for Britain and the United States – to say nothing of other odd countries like France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Poland and Denmark – was there.

  The conferences showed a lot of divergence of opinion. The British were inclined to go on waiting until they felt the invasion would be a walkover. The Americans, generous, passionate and eager, were anxious to start at once.

  ‘They aren’t scraping the barrel,’ Verschoyle pointed out dryly. ‘We’re down to our last army.’

  Endless lists of beaches similar to the French ones they were to assault had been made up, and the names of ancient ships to be sunk as part of a floating breakwater were carefully studied, because after the submarine depredations, there were never enough transports and no one wished to sink something that could carry troops or munitions. An incredible scheme for taking their own harbour across and for transporting petrol by pipeline under the Channel had been prepared, as well as complicated Intelligence moves to delude the Germans about the direction of the assault.

  Landing craft were stuffed into every little harbour of the south coast as far as Falmouth in Cornwall. The RN Training College at Dartmouth had become the home of an amphibious force training programme, and there were sailors in tented cities in Dartmouth and Salcombe and, as Kelly well knew, round Harwich on the East Coast. Milford Haven and Penarth had been assigned to training and maintenance; Teignmouth to repair; St Mawes to landing craft; Fowey to the training of doctors and medical orderlies. Exeter was a supply base; Launceston a depot for army spare parts; Tiverton a depot for naval spare parts; Bugle an ammunition depot. Hedge End in Wiltshire was set aside for diesel engine overhauls; Netley, in Hampshire, for a base hospital; Deptford, on the Thames, for amphibious maintenance.

  It was an incredible organisation and British ports were never so congested. The Americans alone took up an enormous amount of room. Yet their very numbers were reassuring to people who had spent three of the last five years living on a knife-edge between defeat and survival.

  Because there was no more space in the south, gunfire support ships, including Force X, moved to Belfast Laugh. It was a time not only for training but also for prestige inspections. Eisenhower inspected Kelly’s ships, and the King, equally assiduous, visited Portland. High among Kelly’s duties was getting to know the Americans. The sailors were always turned out in dress blues and at action stations, but aboard one small craft, as he was progressing solemnly along the deck escorted by American officers, a head appeared through a hatchway and a grinning face asked. ‘Wouldja like a cup of jamoke, Sir Kelly?’

  A minute later he was in the wardroom drinking a cup of the best coffee he’d tasted since the war began.

  ‘I asked the King and he had a cup, too,’ the American cook grinned delightedly.

  Shoreline sketches prepared to a
scale of one in 10,000 were distributed even to the smallest landing craft. They included sun and moon data, beach gradient graphs, inshore current data and tidal curves. They all knew the invasion was growing nearer and they were all beginning to feel that it was going to be a walk-over when the Germans came violently to life against a rehearsal off Slapton Sands at the end of April. Caught by a squadron of German E-boats from Cherbourg, two LSTs were sunk and another damaged, with the loss of nearly seven hundred American soldiers. For a while there was some ill-feeling because the British thought the Americans were expecting it to be too easy, and the Americans pointed out that the British MTBs and MGBs which were supposed to be patrolling the mouth of Lyme Bay had failed to spot the Germans.

  ‘Somebody,’ Kelly observed, ‘was depending too much on radar and not enough on Mark I eyeballs.’

  As the spring wore on, the weather became kinder. Destroyers seemed to be working up all over the Irish Sea and round the Hebrides, firing at shore targets, sleeve targets towed by aircraft and surface targets towed by tugs. In the middle of May, they were ordered south again, and they knew at once that the invasion, which had been in their thoughts for so long, was at last not far away.

  Invasion headquarters had moved to Southwick just behind Portsmouth in a Georgian house in the Forest of Bere, which had been requisitioned originally as a navigation school and rechristened HMS Dryad. It was surrounded by rhododendrons and parkland, but was dreadfully overcrowded, with commanders sleeping in dormitories of twelve and sixteen and Wren officers twelve to a room in two-tier bunks.

  To Kelly’s surprise almost the first person he bumped into was Helen Jenner-Neate, now a chief officer and married to an American.

  ‘He was a bit bolder than you, sir,’ she smiled. ‘And certainly he has more money. I couldn’t resist.’

  From Southwick he went to a briefing conference at St Paul’s School, in London, where Montgomery had set up his headquarters. The room was circular, like a cockpit, with narrow benches rising in tiers and a gallery supported by sombre black columns, all packed with senior officers of all three services, both British and American. The seats were uncomfortably hard but the room was hushed and the tension palpable, and the interest never flagged. It was like watching the completion of a vast jigsaw, with all the pieces fitting into place and the knowledge that if one were missing or broken the result would be chaos and defeat.