Trumbull kept his throttle jammed fully open and pushed his nose skyward as his wheels retracted and locked with a clunk. At sea level his Spit could climb at eight or nine hundred metres per minute at full power, but he wouldn’t need that kind of altitude. An almost evil grin spread across his face as any thoughts of the world outside air combat disappeared and he came into his own once more as a fighter pilot, pure and simple. He was no longer a vulnerable human being bound to Mother Earth, at the mercy of enemies and the elements. Now he was the master of his environment, flying one of the finest fighter aircraft in the world, and as so often happened in modern warfare, the hunters of just seconds before now became the hunted.
The easternmost of the two flights of Ju-88s roared past a bare hundred metres above his cockpit, rear gunners from two of the closest quartet belatedly sending streams of machine gun slugs his way. The tracer passed uselessly beneath him as he turned his climb into a wide, banking turn that sacrificed little speed and brought him onto a good approach to the bombers’ rear, slightly above them and at an oblique angle. All in all, he couldn’t have asked for a much better line of attack under the circumstances. As he began to accelerate out of the turn, his fighter started to inexorably haul back the distance between himself and the enemy aircraft, which had blown out to almost a thousand metres.
Dark, deadly shapes began to drop from the Junkers’ bomb bays, wobbling downward in their semi-ballistic arcs as each aircraft loosed a ‘stick’ of six large bombs and powered away, seeking safety in altitude. There’d been no chance of stopping the bombers before they’d attacked — there’d been too little warning — and although many had managed to get into the air, there were at least four of the newer and, more to the point, slower pilots still on the ground either taxiing or almost at the point of ‘rotation’. There were also quite a few ground staff caught in the open, not having had enough time to get to slit trenches after valiantly helping their more ‘glamorous’ charges into the air. With the lethal, black rain falling from a height of just five or six hundred metres there was little these men could do and there was absolutely nowhere to hide. The 250kg high-explosive bombs landed in rows as their parent aircraft hauled away above them, each detonation throwing massive clouds of earth and smoke into the air and raining it down all about.
Trumbull and those others who’d made it into the air could only watch grimly as their earthbound comrades were literally torn to pieces in the maelstrom. Taxiing aircraft were shattered by the explosions and disintegrated before Trumbull’s very eyes. The tent ‘city’ was all but obliterated, along with Fullarton and his mail truck, the man caught close but not close enough to nearby trees toward which he’d been driving at full speed in search of cover. What had once been a broad, flat, open field good enough to play cricket upon — which they’d indeed done on more than one occasion — was now something of a moonscape. In the space of a few seconds, destruction had been meted out and devastated what was left of an entire squadron.
Trumbull’s features hardened as if set in stone and he picked out the first subject of his rising, vengeful fury: he mightn’t have been able to stop the attack but he was certain he’d make the perpetrators pay. In order to maintain a better chance of surprise, the raiders had come in unescorted, and now they didn’t stand a chance of escape. They began to turn away to the south-east at full throttle, but there was no way the twin-engined bombers could outrun a Spitfire at any altitude.
“Form up on me, Red Flight,” he commanded over the radio to those men who’d managed to get airborne. “They’re ours now! Make then know it! Tally ho!”
Trumbull caught the first of the Junkers within a few moments, easing his throttle back just a little to ensure he didn’t overshoot too quickly. His guns were zeroed at a little less than four hundred metres and he waited until he was very close before sending a long, lethal burst into the 88’s fuselage and starboard wing. Smoke immediately began pouring from that wing’s engine nacelle in greys wisps and the bomber travelled just a few more seconds before pulling upward sharply and away to Trumbull’s left, seemingly under only partial control.
The German bombers broke formation as the squadron leader banked sharply and slewed the fighter around to bring his guns to bear on a second Junkers. The 88s began to carry out some fairly radical evasive manoeuvres in order to throw off their pursuers’ aim, jinking this way and that and bobbing about the sky as much as their relatively low altitude permitted. It was optimistic at best to hope these improvised aerobatics would prevent being hit by RAF gunfire, however it certainly prevented their rear gunners from coming even close to drawing a bead on their foes. It also ultimately served to save the British fighters a bit of time and a few hundred rounds of .303 ammunition as two of the fleeing German bombers unwittingly collided in mid air, the hopelessly entwined wreckage that remained spiralling downward into the ground and spraying pieces all about.
The pair of fast new Typhoons howled past Trumbull’s port wing, hammering away at two 88s with their twelve Browning machine guns apiece. Neither bomber lasted long under such withering fire: one climbed away much like Trumbull’s, save that it was also streaming fire from one wing, while the other went into an uncontrollable spin and smashed itself against the fields a few seconds later. The squadron leader had meanwhile lined up on another bomber and raked a long burst right across the rear of the cockpit and its ‘back’ from nacelle to nacelle. The spray of slugs tore across and through the fabric and metal surfaces of the wings and fuselage, doing untold damage to the machinery, control surfaces and human flesh beneath.
The aircraft began to lose altitude almost immediately, not smoking at all but nevertheless quite clearly no longer under competent human control. It entered into a gentle, almost gliding descent that ended only after barely clearing a line of trees bordering a narrow, country lane. The 88 then bellied itself and bounced twice in the field beyond, as if attempting to ditch, before smashing full tilt into the trees at the far end and virtually disintegrating an instant later in the explosion of its remaining fuel and ammunition.
As he turned through ninety degrees to starboard, his bloodlust fairly up, Trumbull caught sight of one of his pilots — with some evil satisfaction he realised it was Stiles in one of the Gladiators — cutting across the periphery of his vision to the south-east. The old biplanes weren’t fast enough to catch a Ju-88 in level flight, but the other, faster fighters had hit them and broken up the enemy formation with those few now remaining scattered all about the sky. He had to commend the young man on his ingenuity — the two other remaining biplane pilots had followed him and were ready to intercept any stragglers. The fleeing bombers would, in the end, have to come past Stiles and the other Gladiators at some stage if they wanted to get back to the safety of the Channel and beyond.
At least we won this one… Trumbull thought in silence, smiling grimly at two more kills he could add to a tally that already made him an ace several times over. Few and far between these days, but at least we one this one…! But his heart knew how pyrrhic a victory it had been…
On the road below, a column of camouflaged armoured vehicles ‘at the halt’ watched nervously as Trumbull’s second kill howled past low overhead, its props slashing through the treetops on the opposite side of the lane as it carried on regardless. From his position half out of the commander’s hatch, Sergeant Jimmy Davids let loose at the crashing bomber as it passed over him with a long burst from the Lewis gun mounted above his hatch, the act probably useless but making him feel better all the same. The twenty-year old machine gun the crew had ‘scrounged up’ from somewhere or other was fussy, prone to jams, and in Davids’ opinion a royal pain in the arse to keep in anything close to reliable condition, but he wasn’t complaining: reports of what Luftwaffe air superiority had done to his colleagues in the BEF on the other side of the Channel were damning indeed, and anything that could be done to improve a tank’s anti-aircraft capability — even if only marginally — was well worth it in th
e opinion of he and his crew, for morale value if nothing else.
“That’s ’im fooked,” Lance-Corporal Angus Connolly observed with evil glee from his position forward. Although the man’s disembodied voice had come through over the intercom from somewhere below the line of the tank’s turret, Davids knew the foul-minded, oft-drunk Scotsman (with a mastery of the bleeding obvious) would be watching from the vantage point of his open driver’s hatch in the middle of the Matilda’s thick glacis plate.
“That’s one load of Jerry buggers they can send home in boxes,” Davids agreed in his lilting, Welsh accent with little sympathy for their enemies’ plight.
“Goin’ ’ome in fuckin’ matchboxes by the sound of it!” Corporal Gerald Gawler, the tank’s gunner and resident, bad-tempered Yorkshireman chimed in from somewhere below Davids in the turret as the Junkers hit the treeline across the field and finally exploded. Neither he nor Hodges, the cockney loader, could see anything from their stations within the turret, but the sound of the explosion was loud enough to give a good idea of what had happened.
“…Squareheaded bastards!” The gunner added as a venomous afterthought, as if there was anyone left in the world who’d ever been within earshot of the man who didn’t already know how much Gerald Gawler hated Germans. With most people in Britain, hatred of Germans was an accepted norm in the present climate…with the gunner of Grosvenor, Squadron A, 7th Royal Tank Regiment, 1st Army Tank Brigade, British Home Forces it was a passion of pathological proportions. That salient fact made the irony of his first name’s colloquial form even greater, and the rest of the unit took great glee in addressing him only as ‘Jerry’ as a result. If there was anyone in the entire squadron — save for perhaps the CO and 2IC — who hadn’t been sworn at profusely by Jerry Gawler on a regular basis because of it, Davids wasn’t aware of their existence.
Davids, the tank’s commander, shuddered a little at the sight of that fiery wreckage that’d once been a state-of-the-art fighting machine. It was far enough away to be a spectacle of interest rather than something directly dangerous but it was a sobering sight nonetheless. Had those 88’s gone looking for game other than the RAF fighters they’d obviously found and (to Davids’ mind) unnecessarily annoyed, there might well have been Luftwaffe bombs crashing down on their armoured column rather than crashing Luftwaffe bombers.
The sergeant had no illusions as to how well his Matilda might withstand a direct hit from one of those lethal ‘eggs’…the answer of course being ‘not at all’… Grosvenor was heavily armoured for its era, and experience in France had shown that Matilda II infantry tanks could stand up to enemy panzers quite well, but air attack was something else entirely. There was little enough room in that cramped turret with three men in it jammed in behind the breeches of the 2-pounder main gun and coaxial Vickers machine gun, and what space there was they were forced to share with volumes of ammunition, radio equipment and other bits and pieces that filled up every available nook and cranny. The stocky, young Welsh sergeant didn’t even want to think about how they’d all fair if they caught a direct bomb hit or the vehicle caught fire. His hatch was barely big enough to let him through in a hurry and there’d be little time in an emergency to get the rest of the crew out.
That was one of the reasons the convoy had stopped upon detection of the approaching aircraft, the line of eight Matilda tanks halting its leisurely progress along the lane the moment they’d identified a danger of attack. Although still apprehensive, feelings of fear and tension had subsided somewhat upon realisation the RAF seemed to have the matter in hand and that an air battle was already in progress. Normally the whole unit would’ve been transported by rail, but with the state of the railways in southern England, that would’ve taken far too long and would’ve been far more dangerous. Trains were a juicy target for enemy aircraft and were a lot harder to camouflage or hide than tanks under their own power.
With the encirclement and subsequent surrender of the BEF at Dunkirk a month before, Squadron A (Gallant, Griffin, Goodfellow, Grosvenor, Growler, Gunfighter, Gracious and Giant) were now no less than half of the entire strength of what was left of 7RTR. Indeed, that newly-reformed unit and its even less-experienced sister, Squadron B, were the only heavy tank units in the whole of the British Isles, although 1st Armoured Division could also field something like thirty-odd Cruiser tanks of various marks to supplement their heavier colleagues. What was left of the Hussar and Dragoon regiments probably had as many of the obsolescent Mark-VI light tanks, but in truth 7RTR was the only real opposition to German armour that Home Forces possessed, and it wasn’t just Davids who knew it.
The Hussar and Dragoon regiments could be discounted outright for any use other than scouting, and the way things were developing in modern armoured warfare, not even all that much use at that. Like the Matilda Mark-I his tank had replaced, most British light tanks were only armed with heavy machine guns that’d been shown in France to be worse than useless against modern opposition. The armour on the British Mark-VI light tank was at best only 13mm thick, and even the 30mm cannon of the enemy’s P-1 panzers could easily penetrate at ranges far greater than that at which the Mark-IV could inflict damage in return — if at all — with its .50-calibre Vickers machine gun.
The medium Cruiser tanks were a little better as a fighting proposition, if still not really up to scratch. Although better armoured than the older Mark-VI, they were still quite vulnerable to the standard issue Wehrmacht tank and anti-tank guns. They did however at least have the same armament as the Matilda II — the ubiquitous Royal Ordnance 2-pounder gun. While the weapon lacked the ability to fire anything but solid, armour-piercing shot, it was quite accurate and had at least proven its capability in penetrating the armour of German tanks at closer ranges while in France. Although vastly superior numbers and the constant threat of encirclement had forced withdrawal after withdrawal back to the Channel, there’d been one or two encounters with the oncoming panzers — most notably at Arras — where the Matildas and Cruisers had given good account of themselves. This was particularly the case with the Matilda, whose frontal armour had proven impervious to the 30mm shells of Wehrmacht’s P-1 light tanks. Even the 75mm cannon fitted to the heavier P-2 and P-3 tanks had found the Matilda difficult to penetrate at longer ranges (although not impossible) and it was thus that the real weight of the mobile side of the land defence of the UK now rested mostly with 7RTR.
If they come, we’ll give ‘em what for…! Davids told himself, more out of reassurance than certainty. The Matilda had been christened ‘Queen of the Battlefield’ after the combat experiences in France, and it’d proven highly resistant to frontal attack from German tank guns at longer ranges, which was of some comfort to be certain…but the ‘if they come’ in Davids’ thoughts was quickly becoming more of a ‘when’ as time passed and they headed into late summer…and the Wehrmacht had hundreds of tanks to throw at them — perhaps thousands — if only they could get them onto English soil.
“Madam to Harlots — show’s over — time to be off, chaps!” Captain Carroll’s voice over the radio broke Jimmy Davids from his thoughts and brought him back to the real world once again. Up at the head of the column, Gallant revved her twin diesels and began to pull away once more down the lane. The rest followed her in turn, oily clouds of exhaust billowing into the air around them as the eight tanks got back up to speed, a brace of trucks and tracked Bren carriers following on behind. Davids lowered himself a bit further down into the turret, his backside finding his commander’s seat in its raised position. Just his head now poked out of the hatch, but that was enough to provide an excellent view. He pulled up the goggles that hung about his neck and seated them properly over his eyes. Much as he preferred the relatively fresh air outside to the interior of the tank, diesel fumes and dust and such like were things he preferred to keep out of his eyes.
‘Queen of the Battlefield’, the infantry and armoured corps called the Matilda, and it hadn’t taken long for the men of Squad
ron A to warm to their CO’s slightly ribald idea of coining their radio call signs as ‘Madam’ (his command tank) and his attendant ‘Harlots’ (numbers –2 through –7). Much fun was made of it on- and off duty and it helped raise morale a great deal. Anything that helped morale was important in the current climate.
The vehicles rumbled on at a little less than 20 kilometres per hour, their tracks tearing up the dry earth of the lane and sending dust clouds about that would’ve alerted every enemy pilot in the area had there been any more about. It was a fine, clear day and the tanks had already acquired a fine layer of tan-coloured dust over their hulls and turrets that all but obscured the khaki and dark green diagonal stripes of the camouflage scheme they sported as standard. The unit was headed east to join up with the First London Division stationed in Kent, the area deemed to be the most likely place for invasion should the Germans decide to cross the Channel and therefore where a credible armoured presence was most needed.
At least we’ll be on the defensive, if they do come, Davids thought to himself as the column cruised on. Always easier on the defenders if they’ve prepared positions. Just how much easier, or whether it’d be enough, was a question that Davids couldn’t answer. He doubted, in all honesty, whether the War Cabinet could answer it either.
Luftwaffe airfield at St. Omer
Northern France
As Trumbull tried to find somewhere to land his Spitfire and Davids contemplated the dangers of being a tanker, Lieutenant-Colonel Carl Ritter eased back on his twin throttles, lowered his flaps and banked his Zerstörer smoothly to starboard. He felt the increased drag immediately as airflow adjusted around altered control surfaces, generating extra lift, and the flick of a large, red-knobbed lever by his thigh lowered the aircraft’s landing gear. The subsequent mechanical whirring and thud as it locking into place was as reassuring as the green status light on his instrument panel.
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