Eagles Over Britain (The After Dunkirk Series Book 2)

by Lee Jackson

  In fascination, Paul observed as friendly and enemy markers were pushed on converging paths, and the gap between them narrowed. As he watched, he realized the drama of real flesh-and-blood men in their soaring, vibrating, fighting machines, in a furious life-and-death struggle.

  Joel shifted his attention to a different board. “The bandit is higher than the Spitfires, so the controller for that sector will vector them up to catch it. This could turn into an extended chase, although ours won’t go much beyond mid-Channel, if they go that far.”

  “Please explain.”

  Joel shrugged. “It’s simple, really. On the other side of the Channel is a wall of anti-aircraft guns throwing flak into the air as well as slews of German fighters waiting to catch ours where they are easy prey. We can’t afford to lose either pilots or aircraft, so ours return home and live to fight another day.”

  Without waiting for Paul’s response, he said, “Look. The Spitfires have met up with the bandit. This will be over soon.”

  Paul looked at him in consternation. When he looked back at the map, the plotter was removing the marker representing the German fighter from the board.

  “He’s down,” Joel said. “Ours are returning to Hornchurch.”

  Shocked, Paul asked, “Is the pilot dead?”

  “We won’t know for a while. He’s in the drink near Calais. Our pilots will report what they saw to their intelligence officer when they land. We’ll get a report after that.”

  30

  Joel nudged Paul. “The plotters are active,” he said, glancing at the clock. It showed 1212 hours. “The Luftwaffe is coming. In force. They’re flying over Calais now. They have a problem, though: thick clouds over western France.”

  The WAAFs had gathered some of the plastic markers on the map inland of the French coast. Paul watched as they added more and more markers to the map. “Whatever they are,” he told Joel, “there are twelve of them. That’s a lot of firepower.”

  “And more forming up,” Joel agreed. “Those are probably bombers. They have greater range but need more time to organize. A second group forming along the French coast farther south is probably their fighter escort. That cloud cover will cause them problems.”

  Minutes ticked by as more markers were added. A sense of dread started to pervade the room as the size of the attack was discerned. Six minutes after Joel had first alerted Paul, the formation over Calais began to move westward, joined by those from farther south in France.

  “We’ll know in a few minutes what they are,” Joel said, “but there’s a lag from the time the planes appear on the radar scope to when we see them here. It’s even longer for the Group HQs, about four minutes from the time the bandits register to when they get the information. Meanwhile, the Germans have flown farther west. So, when ours start showing up on the board, eight minutes have passed since the bandits first appeared. They can travel a great distance in that time.” He pointed. “Our chaps are up now. Nine squadrons from 11 Group. Looks like they’ve dispatched five to patrol the area around Canterbury to Margate. That’s seventeen Spitfires and thirty-six Hurricanes.

  “Another four squadrons are set to defend RAFs Kenley and Biggin Hill with twenty-three Spitfires and twenty-seven Hurricanes.”

  Startled, Paul asked, “Does 11 Group know those are the targets?”

  “They’re making an educated guess and hedging their bets. The trajectory certainly appears aimed at them. The German formations could turn, but look at that huge one coming over from the north. There must be sixty of them, and that doesn’t include the fighter escort, and there’s another fighter group moving out front to clear a path through our Spitfires and Hurricanes.” He studied the board with its large number of markers being pushed steadily across the map. “They’re planning a series of bomb runs within minutes of each other. When the coastal observers report in, I’ll be able to tell you what type of aircraft they are and make better guesses.”

  “Why Kenley and Biggin Hill?”

  “Those are two of the main RAF stations defending London on the west side, the third being RAF Croydon. They probably calculate that if they take out these two, Croydon will be an easy target later.

  “To get the scale of what we’ve done in the past few moments, imagine that within two minutes, we put nine squadrons in the air totaling a hundred and three fighters. I think we lost six planes on the way up, probably due to maintenance issues.

  “Our chaps fly straight into the front of German bomber formations. It unnerves their pilots, disrupts their formations, and makes them easier targets, besides which, as often as not, they kill the pilots with machine gun fire to the cockpit.

  “The Spitfires go after the Messerschmitt escorts, and the Hurricanes take care of the big boys. The Germans keep thinking they have the element of surprise on their side—and once again, they’re going to be surprised.” He glanced at the weather board. “Mother Nature is not favoring them. They might do well if they were unopposed, but as you can see, that’s not going to happen.”

  He studied the map again, paying attention to the makeup of the attacking force as the plotters identified them. “Their configuration is a little strange,” he said. “They’re leading with twenty-seven Dornier Do 17 bombers and their fighter escorts. Behind them are twelve Junkers Ju 87 bombers and their escorts, but that makes no sense. The Junkers are dive bombers, and usually you’d lead with them and then bring in the Dorniers, which they use for level bombing. I would bet that the weather worked against them, and that they got their order of battle reversed for those two formations.

  “So, they’re going to hit with level bombers first, followed by dive bombers—and look, there’s a smaller formation coming from the south composed of Ju 88s. They’re probably supposed to do clean-up—hit whatever targets were missed by the formations ahead of them.

  “And up there to the north, that huge group is coming in. Those are Heinkel He 111s with ME 109 escorts. They’re going to do some heavy bombing, and their target must be Biggin Hill with the others going to Kenley.” He continued studying the board. “As near as I can make out, the big formation has around a hundred and ten bombers and a hundred and fifty fighters.” He closed his eyes and shook his head, breathing in deeply and then letting his air out slowly. “Our chaps have their work cut out for them.”

  Paul watched, mesmerized. Within minutes, the battle was joined, with the plotters talking into their phones, pressing index fingers to their earphones, or moving markers on the map. Meanwhile, the controllers sitting above them watched and made phone calls. As the formation of Heinkels crossed over the coast and headed inland, Joel put his hand to his forehead, shielded his eyes, and shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?” Paul asked, his anxiety unmasked. “What’s happened?”

  At first, Joel didn’t answer. He just pointed to the board where a plotter retrieved four markers and removed them from the map. “We just lost four Hurricanes,” he said, “and one of theirs is down.”

  “Killed?”

  “We don’t know. Our fighters spotted the big formation and are climbing above it.”

  The pit of Paul’s stomach drew tight as the markers moved about each other in a seemingly harmless minuet, but the grotesque reality played out in his mind. Men flew toward each other at combined speeds of hundreds of miles an hour, shooting projectiles that closed the distances even faster, and struck with deadly consequence, ripping through steel, wires, and flesh.

  The fighters climbed and dived, looped and rolled, chasing their enemies into their gunsights while swerving to stay out of the apertures of their opposite numbers; and when they had hit or missed, or if there was not another opportunity to kill that particular aircraft, to move on and try for another.

  Neither love nor hate guided their actions.

  The only operational rule was kill or be killed.

  “We’ve just scrambled 111 Squadron from Croydon,” Joel said. “They’re the only ones who’ve spotted that smaller formatio
n of Ju 88s coming in from the south, and they’re going out to intercept them. They won’t get there in time. Those Junkers are dropping their bombs on Kenley now. The Hurricanes will tear into them on their way out.” He looked hard at the map and the boards again. “They’re on them now.”

  He threw his head back, his expression anguished. “The Heinkels are dropping bombs on the Kenley runway. The other formation of Ju 88s has arrived, but they’re turning without dropping their load. The smoke and dust clouds must be horrendous, so they can’t see the objective. They’re probably heading toward a secondary target.”

  The two captains stood speechless at the plexiglass, watching the drama play out. “The Heinkels have turned around and are making another run as they head homeward,” Joel said, his voice now hoarse, his eyes almost lifeless.

  The battle moved on. The Messerschmitts must have sped home for being out of ammunition, low on fuel, or both. On their way across the Channel, they met reinforcements zooming in to escort their beleaguered bombers back to safety.

  The Heinkels returned to France unchallenged. The Ju 88s that had diverted to a secondary target had dropped their bombs on RAF West Malling and flown toward their bases unaware that fighters scrambled between Canterbury and Margate lay in wait.

  Paul watched, mesmerized, as the sector controller ordered the squadrons to fan out over Kent to increase their odds of intercepting and engaging fleeing enemy aircraft. As they flew through, RAF fighters swarmed and fought them all the way to the coast and out into the Channel toward Calais. Then the RAF squadrons returned to their airfields to refuel and rearm. By 1400 hours their markers had disappeared from the map at Bentley Priory.

  “They’re hitting us again,” Joel said, “and they’re taking no time between raids.” He sat on a chair in the gallery, his chin in his palm, his elbow resting on his knee. The clock showed the time as barely past 1400 hours.

  Paul noted the strain in his voice. He looked at the map and the boards to see if he could discern for himself what Joel was referring to. A plotter had placed a single marker off the coast of France, ninety miles south of where the Luftwaffe formations had flown across the Channel on their return trips to their bases.

  “That’s got to be a long-range reconnaissance plane,” Joel said. “I wasn’t paying attention to it, but it’s probably been out there for a while, sending intel back to its headquarters.”

  Almost immediately, the plotters placed markers on the board, in four groups from even further south, over Cherbourg. Paul and Joel watched in astonishment as more kept appearing.

  “I count a hundred and nine of them,” Paul breathed when they finally stopped.

  “I counted the same,” Joel said in disbelief. “Our day might have just started.”

  With a sinking feeling, they watched the formations proceed across the Channel from the coast of Cherbourg headed northwest toward the Isle of Wight. “There’s more coming,” Paul said. “Those out front must be the bombers, and here come the escorts.” He waited until the markers had stopped appearing on the plotting map. “A hundred and fifty of them.”

  “And yet still more,” Joel said, pointing. “There’s another fifty-five sweeping alongside the main formation. Their job is to clear the skies of RAF fighters.”

  “They’re separating into smaller formations,” Paul observed. “Must be heading to different targets.”

  “We’ll be able to guess them soon, but the coast is so full of targets, we won’t get much information about what they are until they’re on top of us.” He shifted his view to the southern coast of England. “We’ve got six squadrons in the air now, a mix of Spitfires and Hurricanes.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “But that’s sixty-eight of ours against over three hundred of theirs, and we don’t even know yet what theirs are.” He watched them closely. “Notice the markers moving across faster. Those must be the fighters, and the slower ones would be the bombers.”

  The faster markers continued to inch across the map and then plowed across the coastline. The slower ones followed, unopposed. Joel shot Paul a grave look. “The defending squadrons are busy with the ME 109s. And now we know what at least three of their targets are: RAFs Gosport and Ford, and Radar Station Poling.”

  Paul groaned. “That’s where I was five days ago,” he said, “at the radar station. I know those operators, Corporals Bell and Chapman.” He rubbed his eyes as if to shut out the calamity of what he was seeing, confronting as he did so mental images of Heather and Jessica bludgeoned by debris.

  And then another thought struck him. He let his hands drop and searched the boards for some indication of what 601 Squadron was doing.

  Vaguely, he heard Joel talking. “We know what the Luftwaffe sent up,” Joel said, but to Paul, his voice sounded distant and echoing, as if coming from the bottom of a steel barrow. “The bombers are Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers. The escorts and the sweeps are ME 109s.”

  Joel turned to Paul, consternation immediately crossing his face. “Paul, what’s wrong? You’ve lost all your color.”

  Paul’s knees had buckled, and the blood had left his face. His breath came in short gasps.

  Joel grabbed his shoulders and braced him. “What’s wrong, Paul? Speak to me.”

  Paul pointed at the map, now crowded with friendly and enemy markers stretching along the coast from Gosport on the Isle of Wight to the radar station near the southwestern-most area of Kent. “601 Squadron is in there,” he rasped.

  Joel searched across the boards and the map. “Yes,” he said. “That’s a Hurricane squadron from Tangmere. It looks like they’re defending Thorney Island.”

  Paul took deep breaths and composed himself. “That’s my brother’s squadron.”

  31

  RAF Tangmere, Southern England

  Clang! Clang! Clang! The loud, metallic ringing of a bell brought Jeremy abruptly out of an uneasy slumber during which he had tried to escape the awful pit in his stomach and stretched nerves that came from fresh grief. He struggled to his feet from a ragged lounge chair just outside and to one side of the door of the dispersal hut and ran with his mates of 601 Squadron to their individual aircrafts, their faces haunted. They had barely spoken to each other since the news of Fiske’s death. If they survived today and tomorrow, they would attend the funeral the day after that.

  As he ran, Jeremy held his Mae West high over his head, thrust his arms through the arm holes, and jerked it down over his shoulders. Soon, the powerful Rolls Royce engines roared and spun their propellers into invisibility.

  Jeremy’s crewmen helped secure him and his equipment into the cockpit and thrust the canopy closed. Another pulled the fuel umbilical from the side of the aircraft while a third, on Jeremy’s signal, jerked the blocks away from the landing gear. The green and brown fuselage and wings vibrated under the light of the early afternoon sun.

  Jeremy adjusted the flaps. On either side, the Hurricanes rolled to the airstrip and formed in three lines abreast on the green field, eager to leap into the air.

  With the radio crackling in his ear, Jeremy waited his turn, and then maneuvered over the bumpy grass to his place behind the other aircraft. Today, he would fly “tail-end Charlie.”

  “This is Red One,” the voice of Squadron Leader Hope called in his ear. “Radio check.”

  Jeremy noted how calm he sounded, not at all like the tense voices of actors portraying fighter pilots in the movies. Each pilot reported his readiness in tones similar to the squadron leader. When the last one had reported, he said, “Right, let’s go,” and his aircraft leaped forward.

  As a body, the squadron rolled along the sodden runway with Jeremy dutifully trailing behind. His heart pumping, adrenaline coursing through his system, he marveled that he could feel so alive and so numb at the same time. The thrill of flying buoyed him. The reality of battle and the mental image of Fiske sobered him. The danger of filling the role of tail-end Charlie heightened his awareness. As he climbed into the sky, his eyes searched in every direc
tion he could see—which excluded the area behind him, as he was the rearguard.

  Visions of Dunkirk flashed in his mind. There, he had been a poorly trained rearguard. He recalled his frightful plunge through a night of bombs and machine gun fire to the beach, only to find himself abandoned.

  “Climb to Angels 25,” the 11 Group controller at Uxbridge said. “Bandits due east at Angels 20 ahead of a larger mass.”

  “Roger,” the squadron leader replied.

  Blimey. How can he be so calm? Must be Messerschmitts clearing the way for bombers.

  Jeremy squinted to keep his mates in view and not get too close. They reached their altitude at twenty-five thousand feet and flew straight and level in a tight formation, each plane no more than a few yards from those on either side. The squadron leader searched the sky ahead while the pilots to his left and right concentrated on not crashing into each other.

  Jeremy had discussed their dislike of the formation with other veteran pilots. Only one set of eyes is searching for the enemy; and one good burst from above, below, or to the side could take out two or three of us. The thought increased a low but growing sense of anxiety.

  His own position gave him no comfort. He dropped back a distance sufficient to allow course changes to better observe first one side of the formation and then sweep to see the other, scanning the sky as far on either side and behind as he could see.

  “Twelve bandits below you by three thousand feet,” the controller said, his voice equally calm. “Big boys trailing by ten miles.”

  “Roger,” Red One replied.

  “Red One, Blue Three. I see them at one o’clock low.”

  “This is Red Two. I see them.”

  “Got ’em,” the calm voice of Red One, Squadron Leader Hope, intoned. “Stay tight and stay on course. Our objective is the bomber group.”