Squadron Scramble (1978)

by Jackson, Robert

  The landlord, a chubby man with a round, red face and white hair brushed straight back, grinned at Yeoman and pushed a pint across the bar. He winked.

  ‘That’s on the house, and it’s the real stuff, too — none of that watered-down rubbish you’ll get in some places, I can tell you.’ He leaned over the bar. ‘Your old feller here’s been telling me a bit about you. I reckon you’ve earned that pint, and a few more. I was a rigger with the R.F.C. in Belgium during the last lot, so I know a bit about it all.’

  Yeoman smiled, thinking: no you don’t. You don’t know about Panzers racing across the countryside so fast that nothing can stand in their way; you’ve never heard the screech of Stukas, coming down smack between your eyes. I hope to God we can prevent it happening here.

  He looked reproachfully at his father, who coughed and looked away. Yeoman dug him playfully in the ribs. ‘Come on, you old gossip,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you a hammering at darts.’ The landlord laughed. ‘That’ll be the day. Throws a fair arrow, does John.’ He rubbed a finger along the side of his nose. ‘He’s pretty handy with a twelve-bore, too. We’ve had a few pheasants between us, I can tell you.’

  ‘Shut up, Frank. You’ll cost me my job one of these days, with that great mouth of yours.’

  John Yeoman turned to the dartboard and threw three darts in rapid succession. They stuck in double twenty, treble twenty and bull. His son inspected the board in mock awe. ‘Bloody hell!’ he commented.

  His father glared at him. ‘Since when did you start swearing?’ he asked.

  ‘When I crashed my first Hurricane,’ Yeoman grinned. Frank, the landlord, polished the counter with a flourish. ‘Get your arse smacked for that sort of thing,’ he grunted.

  The darts game went on, with banter flying back and forth across the bar. In the end, with his father four games up, Yeoman threw down his darts in disgust. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘that’s about eight pints I owe you. You might as well make a start on them.’

  They pushed their way back to the bar. The pub had started to fill up, and Yeoman looked round with interest. His was the only R.A.F. uniform in the place; the rest were khaki. At a table near the wall, four or five soldiers were conversing loudly in a strange language. Yeoman saw the ‘Poland’ flash on their shoulders.

  There was a sudden commotion and the door into the bar was flung wide open. The background buzz of conversation died away and heads turned in curiosity as three soldiers barged their way into the room, two of them partly supporting the third. They looked around them, and one of them said: ‘Oh, come on, this place is as dead as a doornail. Let’s go somewhere else.’

  The man in the middle suddenly jerked his arms, throwing off his companions’ hands, and stood swaying in the doorway. Yeoman saw that the man was not merely drunk; he appeared to be in an advanced state of nerves and was trembling violently. He fixed a glassy eye on the pilot and took a few unsteady steps towards him, his lips bared in something like a snarl.

  ‘Brylcreem bastard!’ he hissed. ‘Where were you? Where was the bastard Air Force at Dunkirk?’

  One of his friends stepped forward and took him by the elbow. ‘Oh, for God’s sake leave it,’ he said. ‘Let’s just get out of here.’

  The soldier came closer to Yeoman, his breath reeking of drink. ‘Where were you?’ he repeated. ‘Where were you when we were having the shit bombed out of us?’

  His friend made an apologetic gesture. ‘Sorry about this, mate,’ he said. ‘He had a hell of a rough time. Saw a lot of his pals go down.’

  Yeoman nodded, conscious of a silence so heavy that it might have been cut with a knife. ‘I know how he feels,’ he said calmly. ‘I was there myself.’

  The apologetic soldier looked taken aback. The pilot’s words, however, failed to make any impression on his drunken companion. He tore his arm savagely away from the other’s restraining grasp and took a sudden swing at Yeoman’s face. It missed its target, but caught the pilot a painful blow on the shoulder. He staggered off to one side and his assailant fell against the bar, striking his head.

  Yeoman recovered his balance and prepared to meet another assault. It was not necessary. The soldier was lying senseless on the floor. One of his companions knelt beside him and the other started to apologise again, but Yeoman waved him to silence. The pilot nodded to the landlord and walked out of the bar, followed by his father.

  Outside, he leaned against a wall in the darkness, breathing deeply. He felt upset and physically sick. The drunken soldier’s name was Ken Harrison. He had been one of Yeoman’s best friends at school.

  Chapter Two

  A heavy blanket of cloud hung low over Abbeville airfield. Tendrils of fog crept in from the Channel, partly shrouding the angular lines of the Messerschmitts which were dispersed around the airfield’s perimeter.

  In the briefing room, the pilots of Fighter Wing 66 looked at one another through the curling blue streamers of cigarette smoke. They wondered what was going on. They had only just arrived at Abbeville after a period of rest and re-equipment following substantial losses in the Battle of France a few weeks earlier, and now they were eager to come to grips with the R.A.F.

  One of the wing s youngest pilots, Lieutenant Joachim Richter — already a flight commander with Number Three Squadron, in spite of his youth — glanced out of the window. The fog seemed to be getting worse; it didn’t look at all promising.

  The pilots suddenly sprang to attention with a clatter of chairs as the commander of Fighter Wing 66, Colonel Becker, strode into the room and mounted the dais at the far end, followed by a small comet’s tail of officers. He motioned to them to sit down. A deep silence fell as he spoke.

  ‘Today, gentlemen, is one you will remember. Today, 13 August 1940, is Eagle Day — the start of our great air offensive against England.’

  A hubbub of conversation broke out, with all the pilots talking at once. Becker held up his hand for silence.

  ‘As you are aware,’ he continued, ‘our bombers have been attacking British convoys in the Channel for a month now. We had hoped to bring up the R.A.F. in strength so that our own fighters could inflict losses on it before the start of our main offensive. Unfortunately the R.A.F. refused to co-operate. So we can expect a fair amount of opposition.’

  Richter exchanged looks with his neighbour, Franz Peters. Their thoughts were unspoken, but clear nevertheless. Both had fought the R.A.F. during the Battle of France, and knew what tough fighters the British could be. Now, with the Tommies fighting for their very homeland, there would be no quarter. They turned their attention back to Becker.

  The latter made a signal to the wing’s Intelligence officer, who pulled a cord. A blind shot up, revealing a large map of southern England. There were a lot of circles on it, in various colours.

  ‘Yesterday,’ Becker went on, ‘a special Luftwaffe unit operating out of Calais-Marck with Messerschmitts adapted to carry bombs — a preposterous idea, but one which in fact worked extremely well — attacked a series of British radiolocation stations here on the south-east coast.’

  He tapped the map with a long pointer.

  ‘These stations are, if you like, the “eyes” of the British radio-location network, by which means they can locate our bombers while they are still some distance away. We believe that as a result of this attack, and others later in the day, at least half the stations are now out of action. This, at least, should give our bombers a fighting chance of getting through.

  ‘The destruction of these stations was the preliminary aim of Operation “Eagle Attack”. Now the second phase can begin.’ He paused and surveyed the assembled pilots.

  ‘Today, at 14.00 hours, Luftflotten Two and Three will launch a maximum-effort attack against R.A.F. airfields in south-east England. Their object will be to disrupt the R.A.F.’s ground organisation and to bring the British fighters to combat. Our bombers will, of course, have a strong fighter escort. We shall not be part of it.’

  A murmur of disappointment ripp
led round the briefing room. Becker held up his hand once more and grinned.

  ‘Don’t worry, gentlemen,’ he went on, ‘there will be plenty for us to do. Our job will begin when our bombers are returning to base and the Tommies are on the ground, refuelling and rearming. We are to go in and hit them on their airfields — hard!’

  Becker thumped the pointer on the dais and stood with his legs apart, holding it like a grounded spear, surveying the pilots with an almost theatrical air. Abruptly, he turned to the wall map and indicated three red circles.

  ‘Here are the details. Major Meurer’s Number One Squadron will attack Hawkinge, here. Major Runge’s Number Two Squadron will go for Lympne, here, and Number Three Squadron under Major Hartwig will strike at Manston.’ The pilots, heads bent, scribbled bits of information on cigarette packets or the backs of their hands as Becker continued to pour out information in a staccato stream.

  ‘Take off will be at 15.00 hours. We shall form up as a wing over Abbeville and fly to Point Friedrich, here —’ he tapped a square on the map in mid-Channel — ‘when Number Three Squadron will break away on my orders to attack its objective. Numbers One and Two Squadrons will then turn on to 225 degrees and fly parallel to the coast. Again on my instructions, these two squadrons will split up and head for their own targets.

  ‘On the outward trip, we shall maintain an altitude of not more than one hundred feet. At that height, it won’t be easy for the Tommies to pick us up. Immediately on breaking off, each squadron will climb like hell to ten thousand feet, followed by a steep dive on to their targets. In this way we ought to be able to get in, make two or three firing passes, and get out again without too much trouble from the flak.

  ‘Everything depends on accurate timing. We have got to catch the Tommies with their pants down and dish out as much punishment as we can. If we don’t, our bombers are likely to suffer.’

  The briefing continued, the pilots making notes of radio frequencies, emergency procedures, navigational details and weather conditions. Afterwards, they converged on their respective messes for breakfast.

  Richter and Peters sat over their coffee, discussing the forthcoming mission. The weather was still poor, but according to the met. men it would start to clear about noon. Peters leaned back in his chair and looked at his companion.

  ‘I just hope the Tommies are as dense as Luftwaffe High Command think they are,’ he said. ‘Somehow, I can’t imagine that they would put all their fighters into the air at once and then have ’em all on the ground at the same time. I also think they might have a few more Spitfires and Hurricanes up their sleeve than our Intelligence people believe. After all, they didn’t throw too many away in the French campaign, or on convoy protection, as we hoped they would.’

  Richter nodded thoughtfully, ‘I think we’ll be pretty evenly matched in terms of numbers. It’s tactics that will give us the edge. The Tommies were still using their tight battle formations when we last met them, and I don’t suppose anything has changed since then. No, what bothers me is that bloody Channel. We both know that the Emil flies like a brick with battle damage, and that long drag over the sea is going to be the downfall of a few of us.’

  He paused, recalling his own bitter experience of the English Channel; his escape from a burning Messerschmitt, his capture by British troops in the Dunkirk perimeter. He had got away by the skin of his teeth, when the boat that was taking him out to a British ship overturned during an air attack; he had clung to the post of a jetty for two days, with troops tramping overhead, before German soldiers finally discovered him, more dead than alive. It was an experience he did not wish to repeat.

  He lowered his voice. ‘Franz,’ he continued, ‘I’m not joking. I think if I’m badly hit, I would rather bale out over Tommyland than risk ditching in the Channel. I’ve had my fill of salt water.’

  The other laughed. ‘I’ve had my fill of any kind of water. Fishes fornicate in it. This stuff’s more in my line, you bloody old pessimist.’ He pulled out the hip-flask he always carried and poured a small measure into a fresh cup of coffee. Outside, mechanics were running-up the engines of their Messerschmitts. There was nothing to do now but wait.

  *

  Fifteen hundred hours. The fog had dispersed now and the clouds had broken up. The strong afternoon sun shone on the blotchy camouflage of the wing’s forty Messerschmitt 109s as they taxied out for take-off. They thundered down Abbeville’s runway in fours and formed up overhead.

  On the other side of the Channel, a radar operator saw a faint ‘blip’ shimmer briefly on his screen over the French coast. Before he could take a bearing on it, it disappeared. He shrugged and picked up the mug of tea which a pretty young W.A.A.F. placed beside him.

  The Messerschmitts roared over the coast and dropped down to a hundred feet, the glittering sea a blue-grey blur beneath them. The whole formation set course 358 degrees, heading north.

  Slightly ahead of the formation, Colonel Becker glanced at his chronometer. Point Friedrich coming up in fifteen seconds. Ushant was behind them and Calais over on the left.

  Becker rocked his wings. As though tied together, the fifteen Messerschmitts of Number Three Squadron bounded skywards, clawing for altitude. The rest of the formation turned through a half-circle, the wingtips of the lower aircraft almost brushing the sea, and followed the English coastline for some distance. Then they, too, began climbing hard.

  The three flights of Number Three Squadron climbed in line astern. Richter, leading Number Two Flight, peered through the light haze at the coast to get his bearings. There was Dover, easily recognisable, with Deal coming up under the nose. Beyond it, sprawled on its headland, was Ramsgate. Richter let his eyes travel to the left of the town, following the pencil-line of the Ramsgate-Canterbury road. There was Manston, a tiny patch of light green.

  Altitude eight thousand feet. To hell with it, this would have to do. The noses of the Messerschmitts went down and the fighters howled earthwards. Some flak started to come up, but it was a long way off to the right.

  There was no point in keeping radio silence now. Richter ordered his flight to spread out and adopt a line-abreast attack formation, following the example of Number One Flight, a few hundred yards ahead.

  On Manston airfield, a flight of Spitfires was taxiing out for take off, swerving round the bomb craters left by an air attack earlier in the day. A second flight had just begun to move when the leading Messerschmitts screamed over the airfield, firing with everything they had.

  Richter saw Major Hartwig’s aircraft overhauling a Spitfire that was making a desperate attempt to get airborne, bumping across the grass. Hartwig fired, and the British fighter disintegrated in a cloud of burning fuel and debris. The Messerschmitt raced through the spreading cloud of smoke, putting a burst of fire through the open door of a hangar before climbing away steeply, followed by the other four aircraft of the leading flight.

  Richter sighted on another Spitfire as he levelled out and streaked across the pitted surface of the airfield at twenty feet. The Messerschmitt shuddered with the recoil of its cannon and machine-guns. One of the Spitfire’s undercarriage legs folded up suddenly and the fighter’s wingtip ploughed into the ground. The Spitfire slewed round in a half-circle and came to a stop. Richter saw the pilot jump clear as he raced past. He squirted a fuel bowser, which exploded in a balloon of fire, then pulled back the stick and sent his Messerschmitt leaping into the sky.

  He went up to five thousand feet and turned, glancing to left and right. The other aircraft of his flight were still with him, like faithful hounds.

  ‘All right, one more run and we’ll get the hell out of it.’

  They pushed their noses down. Ahead of them, Hartwig’s aircraft were already making their second pass, cleaving through the spreading pall of smoke that shrouded half the airfield. The Tommies had woken up at last and flak was coming up thick and fast now, Bofors guns around the perimeter hurling glowing strings of shells at the speeding German fighters. Richter
saw a Messerschmitt, the number four aircraft in the leading flight, suddenly stream flames from its port wing and hit the ground. It bounced high in the air and then cartwheeled across the field, shedding fragments as it went.

  With all the smoke, it was difficult to pick out a worthwhile target. A truck crossed Richter’s nose and he fired a short burst at it. His shells churned up puffs of dust as they converged on the vehicle. Flashes twinkled over it and it veered away sharply, still moving at speed. An aircraft appeared out of the smoke, coming at him head-on. He fired and missed. Just as well; the aircraft was a Messerschmitt. It missed him by a hair’s breadth and vanished.

  The Messerschmitts raced for the coast, the checker-board fields of Kent flashing beneath them. Suddenly, three miles north of Dover, a warning shout crackled over the radio from an aircraft in Number Three Flight; ‘Spitfires coming in astern!’

  Richter craned his neck, searching the sky above and behind. There they were, a whole avalanche of them, coming out of the sun. Not Spitfires but Hurricanes — however, it made little difference. They were already tearing into Number Three Flight.

  He glanced at his fuel gauge, assessing the situation rapidly. Number One Flight was already out to sea and clear of the danger, but if he chose to run for it the Hurricanes, with their height and speed advantage, would shoot the Messerschmitts to pieces before they had a chance to escape. There was only one alternative. Richter pressed the R/T button.

  ‘Form a defensive circle.’

  It was the standard tactic used by twin-engined Messerschmitt 110s when they were hard-pressed, but Richter saw no reason why it should not work for his single-engined fighters too. In the defensive circle, each aircraft would be able to cover the one in front. In this way, they could keep the Tommies at bay until they were in a position to run for it.