Clive gave a course and they hid in cloud for a while.
*
The debriefing was a hangdog affair.
One of the Saunderton Wellingtons and one from the other station had lost their way and not found Schillig Roads at all.
The leader’s observer had made a great error in his navigation, resulting from a miscalculated side-wind, a compass error and a fault in the air speed indicator, which had led to mistakes in dead reckoning of positions en route.
Four bombers had been lost to flak and fighters, but three fighters were claimed destroyed.
Only five of the 18 Wellingtons had attempted to bomb. The others were too harassed by fighters and had jettisoned. Two ships had been sunk, one by a Wellington crashing onto it. There had been two bomb hang-ups.
After briefing, although it was still early afternoon, Ridley lay on his bed with his head throbbing. Intermittently he began to shiver, although it was warm in his room. He had a mental picture of the Wimpey hurtling headlong into the big tug, its pilot obviously killed by the 37mm shells bursting around him. He opened his eyes and the ugly image went. But he found his hands were tightly clenched and his whole body was shaking again.
He rolled over onto his face and buried himself in a pillow. There was no escape there either. He saw in his mind’s eye the parachutes floating down behind the other stricken Wellington. He wondered how many of the crew had survived in the cold sea to be picked up. Probably better to drown than spend the rest of the war as a prisoner. He knew little about what life in a prisoner of war camp was like. He remembered his parents speaking in hushed tones of an uncle who had been in one, and emerged grey-haired, prematurely old and plunged in taciturn misery. He had heard of others who had been taken prisoner in the last war, and always there was some tale of pity attached to them: it seemed they had all emerged from the experience with body and spirit both broken, health and pride ruined.
Ridley rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He saw Messerschmitts silhouetted against it and when he moved his head to gaze out of the window the sky was still grey and recalled flak shells bursting around Bremerhaven.
He rose from the bed and wound up his portable gramophone. There was a record already on the turntable. He placed the needle on it and went back to bed. Carrol Gibbons played the piano while the Savoy Hotel Orpheans’ drummer beat a background rhythm with a wire brush. It soothed him and he fell asleep at last to the quiet strumming of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes ... Stardust ... These Foolish Things ...
There was a lot of noise in the mess that night, a lot of beer flowed, jackets came off and there was a game of rugger with a half-deflated ball, there was high-cockalorum, there was polo with chairs, wooden spoons and a tennis ball.
Schillig Roads had been forgotten.
Ten
Reichmarschall Göring had arrived in mid-morning in a Ju 52, escorted by their own Gruppen Kommandeur and five others of their Gruppe.
His first act had been to inspect a parade of the two Staffeln at the airfield, then present decorations.
All that marred it for Reinert was that neither his parents nor Lotte could be there to see him march up to the Reichmarschall and have the Iron Cross (first class) pinned to his tunic.
Lent had been awarded a second class. One other pilot and gunner had been given medals. Göring had made a short, bluff speech in which he had said, “These awards are not lightly given. You have all done your duty and done it well. But these officers and N.C.O.s have shown exceptional skill and devotion. It has pleased the Führer to recognise these qualities and achievements. May they be an inspiration to the rest of you. I look forward to making many more visits to you for the same purpose. Good hunting to you all.”
Hardly had the parade been dismissed when a warning message came that enemy raiders had been reported off the Frisian Islands. Moments later Reinert was in his cockpit, burning with zeal to justify the honour just bestowed on him.
As soon as they were airborne he vowed to Lent, “We’ll get a scalp this time, as a present for the Reichmarschall, or I shall feel disgraced.”
“Jawohl, Leutnant. The Tommies will have to stay low, they won’t have much room for manoeuvre. We’ll get a scalp, all right.”
It had not been as easy as Lent had made it sound, but in the face of heavy and determined fire from the Wellingtons they had bored in. Racing ahead of the others, Reinert had led his wingman in an attack from the starboard flank of the formation. Once they had broken through the rearward screen of fire, they had found the bombers’ blind spot. While Reinert flew past the end one, Lent had poured round after round into it from abeam, his bullets tearing holes in the canvas. The wind had ripped a great length of canvas off and they had clearly seen the navigator and wireless-operator sprawled dead at their stations. Reinert had climbed above the Wellington, then dived on it with his front guns and knocked out both engines. The Wellington had hit the sea.
Another Wellington was bombing a merchant ship and Reinert had turned to go after that as well, but it had been too far away. He had watched in anger as its bombs fell on the ship and it disappeared in cloud.
The Reichmarschall had awaited him on the tarmac and shaken him by the hand once more, clapped him on the shoulder, invited him to drive to the mess beside him with the Gruppen Kommandeur, and been loudly jovial and complimentary throughout lunch.
Göring had flown off with his escort; and now, with no more flying that day, Reinert and his comrades carried on their celebrations.
They stood around a piano and shouted their hymns of hate against the British, their threats against England. They bellowed and boasted and postured and grew more and more drunk and pleased with themselves. It was not their tradition to let off steam by playing rough games in the mess. They did not sing vulgar comic songs about the Harlot of Jerusalem or Eskimo Nell, or about the Old Monk of Great Renown. Their songs were of vainglory and bloodshed. If they had thought of exerting themselves it would have been to slash at each other with sabres in their morbid ritual of Teutonic virility. But they didn’t do that either. They drank until they were stupefied and their orderlies carried them to bed.
Lent and his friends were drinking beer in a crowded, smokey beer-hall, one arm around a girl. They sang, too, to the strains of a Tyrolean band, but the words they yelled were sentimental and romantic and gave them delusions of heroism and about their dear old grey-haired mothers. In its way their recreation was as unwholesome as that of their superiors.
*
Oberleutnant Falch said, “They’ve set up a Freya early warning installation on the coast. We’ll go and have a look at it. According to Intelligence, it will pick up enemy bombers while they are still a hundred and twenty kilometres off the coast; and give us a bearing; but no height.”
“All we need to know is which direction they are coming from,” said Reinert. “We waste so much time patrolling; or we have such a mad rush to get airborne, like last time. On a clear day, if we know which way to go, we’ll see them in good time, whatever height they are.”
“We aren’t going to have many clear days for the next few months,” Falch reminded him.
*
The 17th December was one of those rare days in the northern European winter when the sky clears, there are scattered clouds at heights above 10,000ft and the sun shines. It seems that spring has arrived or must be around the corner: but the dismal truth is that what lies immediately ahead is more rain, dense low cloud and never a glimpse of sunshine.
This was a day too good to waste. Ridley thought so when he first looked out of the window to verify Overton’s announcement that it didn’t look bad but would probably turn nasty very soon.
“I never did trust these days just before Christmas that start off too bright,” the batman said.
It would be a bad day for Britain when there were no more realists like Overton around to bring one down to earth with a bump, Ridley thought. False optimism was the bane of airmen and there were enough false optimists about a
s it was.
“First decent sighting day we’ve had for weeks,” said Noakes. “See old Jerry coming from ten miles away, against a clear sky like this. Bet they think it’s too clear to send us out. I’m convinced they think we like flying in the clag.”
“They” referred to higher authority, carefully left unspecified. Nobody disagreed. Any criticism of the faceless powers who controlled their comings and goings received support.
“Going to stay fine,” Redfern said, cocking his countryman’s eye around the horizon. “Reckon I can make a better forecast than that old Met, feller and his bit of seaweed.”
“We’d be able to see soon enough if we were on the wrong side of the Frisians,” Clive commented.
“And there’d be no atmospherics to muck up the wireless,” said Cpl Pyne.
It was too pleasant to sit frowsting around indoors, too, and they were among the many who chose to stroll about out of doors near the rest-room to await orders. Redfern’s dog had the time of his life with so many willing hands to throw a ball for him to chase.
Ridley kept an eye on the squadron offices. Presently he saw Skelton emerge and, with the other flight-commander, walk briskly towards the crew room.
“Looks as though we’re in business,” he said to Clive. Clive followed his gaze. “Come on, let’s go in.” Ridley called the rest of his crew and they hurried back to the hut.
Skelton stood by the door and scanned the expectant faces. “Big effort, chaps. Briefing in fifteen minutes for the following crews.” He referred to the paper in his hand.
When he had done, the other flight-commander announced his crews.
Evidently, thought Ridley, H.Q. Bomber Command had more faith in the weather than his batman.
The atmosphere at briefing was charged with a current of lightheartedness that must have had something to do with the sudden lifting of the gloomy weather. At last, if only on that one day, they had a chance to find their way to the target and back in conditions which were in their favour. They could bomb from an altitude well above the range of the heaviest machine-guns and where the flak predictors began to lose accuracy. They would have space in which to take evasive action under fighter attack, with high cloud in which they could shelter when their work was done.
Each squadron was to contribute 12 aircraft and there would be 12 Hampdens from another station.
The target was shipping in Wilhelmshaven. But they were only to bomb vessels at anchor at least a mile offshore, for fear that inaccuracy of aim or vagaries of the bombs might lead to hits on shore. Nothing was to be done to endanger enemy civilians. They were to be allowed to get on unmolested with their Jew-baiting and other barbarities, and the lives of British airmen could be risked, but no harm was to befall even the dockworkers who were as necessary to the war as the sailors who manned German warships.
Both squadron-commanders were participating and so was the C.O. of the Blenheim squadron.
Ridley commented to his crew, “I don’t feel like going all that way and bringing our bombs back. I’d make my own estimate of how far a mile is: but with the C.O.s around we’ll have to be careful, however strongly we feel about it.”
They were to go out at 10,000ft, bomb from the same height, and return either together, maintaining that altitude, or, if forced to break formation, at whatever altitude each captain preferred. High cloud would give them cover from fighters.
Even the grey North Sea was dappled with bright flecks of sunlight that morning. When they crossed the coast, they could see, far to the south, a convoy creeping up towards the Tyne or the Forth; and another, in the northern distance, on its way to the Thames or the Solent. They crossed an area about which they had been warned, where a submarine was on passage on the surface between Chatham and Hull. They were able to descry the slim black shape and not far from it the wakes of two motor-torpedo-boats.
“Everybody’s busy this morning,” Ridley commented.
“Glad someone else is doing some work,” said Redfern.
There was an agreeable air of unconcern aboard. They had never flown in so big a formation and being one of 36 bombers gave them a sense of security. Christmas Eve was only a week away. There would be several good entertainments and parties on camp. Life wasn’t bad. At least they were not confined to damp quarters in a constantly rolling ship, like the matelots. Or Nissen huts on some windswept, boggy hill miles from anywhere. They slept comfortably, ate well and did all right for girls, beer and such amenities as cinemas and dance-halls. Taken all round, life in their service was pretty good and they had the spice of sorties like the present one to give them a feeling of pride in the fact that they were all volunteers and carrying the war to old Jerry, not just sitting and waiting for him to do something first.
Thirty years later, they would have said there was a certain euphoria about their mood that sunny day. But in 1939 only about one person in a million, outside the medical profession, knew the meaning of the word.
The gunners tested their guns, Clive announced that they were flying a good course, and they flew on towards Wilhelmshaven.
It was Redfern who broke a long silence.
“Captain ... front gunner ... I can see some con trails ... faintly ... two o’clock ... long way off.”
“E.T.A. enemy coast, ten minutes,” Clive put in quickly.
“Captain to front gunner ... yes, I can see something ... can’t be our own bombers on an earlier sortie ... we’d have been told.”
“What about Blenheims on a fighter recce, Skipper?” suggested Cpl Pyne.
“We should have heard about that, also.”
“Yeah ... should have ...” There was much scepticism in the wireless-operator’s voice.
“Captain from observer ... I can see the con trails ... it’s a long way out for bandits ... I don’t know how they could know we’re here.”
“Might be a standing patrol,” Ridley said.
“They’re a bit well positioned, aren’t they? Looks deliberate to me.”
“Front gunner, Skipper ... I keep catching glimpses of reflected sunlight ... something coming this way ... quite a lot of ’em.”
“Captain to rear gunner ... all clear astern?”
“All clear, Skipper.”
Four pairs of eyes watched the condensation trails and the small glittering shapes that were drawing them across the sky. In the short time that had elapsed since Redfern’s first warning the unidentified aircraft had come appreciably closer.
Ridley saw the vapour trails part and presently the unmistakable flash of tracer bullets twinkled towards the leading bombers. A few seconds later and streams of tracer began to leap from the Hampdens.
A puff of smoke appeared among the enemy fighters, grew quickly bigger and began to drop with fire glowing at its centre.
“One bandit down,” Ridley said.
He could see the survivor of the pair of Me 110s quite clearly now and watched as it dived on one of the Hampdens, broke away and zoomed out of range of the leading section’s concerted guns.
But other pairs were attacking and the first section of Wellingtons had opened fire. The air ahead was criss-crossed by the pattern of tracer bullets, gun flashes and smoke.
A lick of flame and a wisp of smoke escaped from one of the Hampdens, but it stayed doggedly with the formation, losing a little height and falling slightly behind its section, but still protected by the others.
A 110 wheeled away with a scarf of smoke trailing behind it and began a long slant towards the coast.
Germany was well in sight now, Wilhelmshaven a huge dark stain on their starboard bow. The bombers held their course, enemy fighters darting around them, lunging and retiring, lunging and retiring, punch and counter-punch, dive and climb, turn, twist, try again.
A Hampden blew up, sending a vast billow of smoke gushing over the ones on either side of it. A Messerschmitt burst into violent flames and hung like a fireball before falling directly on top of one of the Wellingtons: which instantly exploded
and flung its neighbours far to right and left, crabbing and sideslipping until their pilots righted them.
They were flying along the coast now, traversing the dock area of Wilhelmshaven. Not a single ship lay offshore. All had either been in harbour already or had bolted there as soon as the approach of the British bombers had been reported.
Ridley took his right hand off the throttles and thumped it on his thigh with angry frustration.
“Not a damned thing we can hit,” he said.
Clive said, “Surely we won’t go tamely back, after that reception?”
“Looks like it.”
The Hampdens’ leader was swinging away seaward, with the others following tightly. The Hampden which had already been hit was lagging and two more had fallen back to add their fire to its own defences.
Redfern announced, “More bandits ... three o’clock ... above.”
Ridley looked over his right shoulder and saw a clutch of Me 109s swooping towards the turning bombers.
A pair of 109s had apparently sneaked in from the opposite side. Ridley felt a rush of air that pushed his aircraft up like a lift and, immediately after, the two fighters appeared, climbing steeply from directly beneath him. His own front guns gave a long burst and he saw his port and starboard wingers also shooting at the same pair. One of the 109s arced straight over onto its back and began to spin towards the sea. The other half-rolled and dived and in another few seconds a Wellington began to emit smoke: its crew began jumping out as the fire spread along both wings and one engine died.
The Hampdens were climbing. The Wellingtons followed them, heading westward at the same time. At 13,000ft they entered cloud that was scattered but in dense banks. Scudding from one cloud to another, they kept on climbing to 16,000ft and by that time they were able to stay hidden by greater cloud patches until they were safely out of the range of pursuing fighters which had already used much of their fuel.
Flying straight and level on the last leg for base, oxygen-mask chafing his chilled cheeks, Ridley gave vent to his frustration.
Bombs Gone Page 13
