“Willi,” one of her office mates called when she entered, “good news. There might be an agent available. You need to get right on to Anna, otherwise you may be too late. Establish your claim now.” Willi thanked the woman for helping with Menzies’s request for a new network and then asked her if she would approach the RAF about striking at the E-boats. “That means Reggie, doesn’t it?” Willi nodded. Reggie was the RAF officer who handled special requests from the SOE. “He’ll ask me to sleep with him, you know.”
“Well,” Willi replied, “there might be a bottle of champers in it.”
“Lovely,” the girl said, rushing out of the office. She did like champagne. Willi watched her go and decided not to waste time changing uniforms. If Willi wanted to break free an agent and the resources to set up a new network, Anna would be a hard nut to crack. But Menzies was right, Mistral was being rolled up and if the Pas de Calais was the site of the invasion, they would need a healthy circuit in place.
Anna Fredericks was the power that guided the SOE’s operations in France. Her title indicated that she was a mere administrative assistant but, in reality, her recommendations drove any decision. Only twice had the higher echelons disregarded her advice, and twice the results had been an instantaneous disaster. Never one to bite her tongue, Fredericks had promptly told her superiors, “I believe I had raised that possibility.” But there had been no joy or self-satisfaction in the telling. Agents had died with each failure. When Willi walked into her office, Fredericks came right to the point. “C is interfering in our operations again.”
“He interferes in everyone’s,” Willi replied.
“Why the insistence on throwing resources away in the Pas de Calais?” Fredericks wondered. “Surely the Germans are not so stupid as to believe it’s the invasion site.”
“Perhaps,” Willi speculated, “by our showing a continued interest in the Pas de Calais, the Germans cannot discount it.”
Fredericks said, “I see your point. We continue to sacrifice agents and the Germans must ask why. The only logical answer being that it is the site of the expected invasion. At the very least, it causes them to split their forces.” Fredericks stared at her hands. “But what a damnable price to pay.”
“Yes, it is,” Willi said. “You know Mistral has lost its third pianist in two months.”
“Yes, I heard,” Fredericks said. “I hope she still was her L pill.” The L pill was the suicide capsule all agents were issued. “Well then, perhaps you had better see what’s available.” She pushed a thin folder across her desk to Willi. “I would be willing to set up another circuit in the area operating independently of Mistral. But I want you in charge, controlling the operation.” Willi lifted an eyebrow at this. “Bletchley Park is saturated and you would have to set up a new station,” Fredericks continued. “Why don’t you take a look at Manston. It does offer some possibilities.”
“Humm,” Willi said, as she read through the document. “Her cover could prove a bit dicey.”
“It’s not a cover. She is a doctor.”
“Yes, she would do nicely,” Willi allowed. “Any problems?”
“A few. She’s been dark for a time and only recently resurfaced. Her circuit was rolled up three months ago and she was reportedly picked up—we don’t know by whom. Since we have no photos, we’re not sure if she’s the same person. She could be a plant. Also, she might have been turned while in captivity. Lastly, she is reported to be absolutely stunning.”
Willi stiffened at Fredericks’s last comment. It was the reason she had been rejected as an agent. She had wanted to go inside occupied France and had even gone through the first phase of training. Although her French was perfect and she had lived in France for a number of years, her instructors had disqualified her because she was too pretty. German officers would have been instantly attracted to her, destroying the anonymity an agent needed to move freely about. Instead, the SOE had sidetracked her into coordination duties and kept her available in case they needed someone with her special qualifications. Willi shifted her attention to the file again and finished reading it. A name near the end caught her attention. “Why don’t we bring her in for training and vet her?”
“It would be worthwhile if we had someone who could verify she is the legitimate article,” Fredericks said.
“We might have. There’s a reference in her file to a Pontowski.”
“I saw that. It would be the very devil to find an American with that name.” Fredericks paused, thinking. “I suppose we could, given time.”
“My grandfather,” Willi said, “knows a Flying Officer Pontowski. He’s an American flying with the RAF. It’s possible that he might be the same Pontowski.”
Later that evening, Willi had changed back into her Wrens uniform and met Roger Bertram at his office in Richmond Terrace. As they left for dinner at a nearby Navy officers mess, they passed George Peterson, the intelligence yeoman who worked in Combined Operations. They didn’t even see him. Peterson accepted his invisibility. “Bloody aristocrats,” he muttered.
Peterson left work early that night just after nine P.M., the time he calculated Bertram would be undressing Willi. He was wrong because that event would not occur for another two hours. He made his way to a small apartment in Soho. A tall and slender man let him in and offered him a cup of tea. While the tea brewed, Peterson related all that had transpired in his office over the last few days. The man listened quietly and noted two items of importance; the reference to the Pas de Calais as the invasion site and the interest in the Dunkirk E-boats. “Then you think the RAF will go after the E-boats?”
Peterson nodded. “With Mosquitoes.” When he had finished his tea, Peterson left.
The man carefully composed a detailed message for his control. He would deposit it that night in a dead drop for dispatch, not to Germany but to Moscow. Both he and Peterson were dedicated to their cause and would have gladly sacrificed themselves in the fight against German fascism. Because of that fanatical hatred, the message was safe from the Germans and it reached Moscow late the next evening. There it was decoded by a short rotund woman who worked for the NKVD. But she had another employer, the German Abwehr that had recruited her years before. Thirty-six hours later, the contents of the message had reached Berlin. There, two things happened; the Luftwaffe and the military commander of Dunkirk were alerted to expect an attack by Mosquitoes on the E-boats and the German high command received one more item that pointed to the Pas de Calais as the landing site for the invasion.
The intelligence officer was waiting for Zack and Ruffy when they entered the room of the big manor house at Church Fenton that 25 Squadron had turned into its operations briefing room. The other pilot and navigator who would fly on their wing for the mission were right behind them. “Ah, yes,” the Intelligence officer said when he saw Zack and Ruffy, “I’m told you’re slated for Intruders.” Intruder missions were single-ship night missions for which a Mosquito crew was assigned a specific area to patrol at night with the express purpose of disrupting German flying operations. “Very good progress for such a young crew,” he said. “Normally, crews are much more experienced before being assigned to night ops.”
“Well,” Ruffy told him, “we were on night ops in Beaus. I think we have an idea of what’s out there.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” he said. They could hear skepticism in his voice. “Well, to matters at hand. Your target is the airdrome at Soesterberg in the Netherlands. Quite heavily defended and their JU-Eighty-eight night fighters have been a concern to our bombers on their way to Germany. Please see what you can do about them.” The Intel officer spent some time going over the local defenses and what they could expect on their way in and out of the target area. He ended with “Operation Starkey is in full swing and the Eighth Air Force is throwing as many B-Seventeens as it can against German fortifications and supply lines in the Pas de Calais region. They shouldn’t be a factor, but if you see any stray B-Seventeen in need of help, please lend a hand. While
the weather is proving most cooperative, even for August, it is also making it most easy for the Germans to find the bombers. The ‘boys from Abbeville’ are extracting their pound of flesh.”
The men dutifully filed that information away and made no comment. Unknown to them, Operation Starkey was an attempt by the Allies to convince the Germans that an invasion in the Pas de Calais area was imminent and take the pressure off the hard-pressed Russians on the eastern front. But the “boys from Abbeville,” the nickname given to one of Generalmajor Adolf Galland’s Luftwaffe wings that was based at Abbeville, France, were creating havoc among the B-17s. Flying Focke-Wulf 190s, the “boys” had turned the skies over the Pas de Calais region into one of the toughest zones in Europe.
The navigation officer took over and laid out their route. “Please remember,” he said, “the primary rules for daytime—in fast and out fast—don’t go around for a reattack—those who fight and run away, live to fight another day. This will be your area for Intruder so mark the defenses well. You’ll find it’s easier to avoid them at night when the buggers can’t see you.”
Then they emptied their pockets, collected their parachutes, Mae Wests, dinghies, and the rest of their flying kit before going out to dispersal to the waiting aircraft. At the last moment, they were told that their aircraft was u/s, unserviceable, and that they would be flying number 529. “Luck of the draw,” Zack said. Number 529, better known as Romanita in the squadron, was the best aircraft assigned to 25 Squadron.
As usual, the two-man ground crew who tended the machine, a fitter for the engines and a rigger for the airframe, were there. The two young men took extraordinary pride in their aircraft. “Please bring ’er back, Mr. Pontowski,” the rigger said as he helped Zack snake his six-foot frame through the small hatch on the right side of the aircraft located just forward of the navigator’s position. Zack had to crawl across Ruffy’s seat to settle into the pilot’s seat. The sergeant’s grinning face beamed at him from the hatch. “Romanita’s like a virgin, sir, hard to get into but lovely once you’re there.” Once he had nestled into the seat, Zack found the small cockpit comfortable enough, except that the rudder pedals were slightly displaced to the right. He heard an “Ouch!” from outside followed by a muttered “Bloody airscrews.” Ruffy had bumped into one of the propeller blades that were close to the hatch before he climbed the boarding ladder.
Ruffy’s head emerged through the hatch as he wiggled his way on board and into his seat which was to Zack’s immediate right and set slightly back. Then the rigger passed his navigation board and chest-pack parachute in after him for storage at the navigator’s feet. Zack sat on his parachute and seriously doubted that he would ever be able to bail out of the cramped cockpit since there was no autopilot and the controls needed constant tending. Then the hatch was closed.
“Whackin’ great engines,” Ruffy muttered, rubbing his head.
Zack’s hands moved over the switches and controls, setting them for engine start. He yelled out the open side window that he was starting, switched on the ignition, and pressed the starter and booster-coil buttons. The left propeller moved suddenly as the starter-motor sent out a thin, discordant wail. Since the ground crew had warmed up the engine earlier, the twelve cylinders of the Merlin 21 roared to life and the three blades of the propeller disappeared in a whirl. They repeated the procedure for the right engine and Zack checked the hydraulic pumps, made sure the right generator was on line and charging, and checked the operation of the constant-speed propeller. He motioned the chocks away and the last physical human contact with the ground was broken. Now only the radio would keep that contact alive.
They taxied out of dispersal, lined up on the runway and ran through the takeoff routine: elevator trim slightly nose-heavy, slight pressure on the right rudder, ailerons neutral, flaps up, prop controls full forward, fuel cocks to outer tanks, superchargers to MOD, radiator switch to open…. Straighten the damn tail wheel, he reminded himself. Now a green light from the tower. “Let’s go,” he told Ruffy as he inched the throttles forward, making sure the left one was slightly forward to counter the Mossie’s tendency to swing on takeoff. When the rpm were hovering on 3,000, he released the hand brake lever on the control column and they thundered down the runway. At 120 mph, the aircraft wanted to fly but Zack held it on the ground. At 130, he lifted the Mossie smoothly into the air with its two-thousand-pound bomb load.
Ruffy gave him a heading for the coast as the other Mosquito joined on their right. Then they coasted out over their checkpoint two hundred feet above the deck and headed out across the North Sea for Holland at 300 mph.
This was the Mosquito, a flying anachronism of wood that relied on pure speed for defense. It was the most versatile and fastest fighter-bomber of its time. And while the Mosquito was a lightweight, weighing in at less than twenty thousand pounds fully loaded, it was able to carry as much death and destruction to the enemy with greater accuracy and fewer losses than its big brothers flying massed raids into the heartland of the enemy.
Zack and his wingman coasted in over the Dutch coast south of Haarlem and headed straight for Hilversum. They wanted to make it look as if they were going after the antennas and communications facilities clustered around that city. Both Zack and Ruffy kept a constant lookout for enemy fighters, confident that they could only be intercepted by a fighter diving down on them from above. At low level, they could outrun anything the Germans had flying. At one point, Ruffy slapped Zack on the back and pointed to four Messerschmitts on patrol to the north. “Me-One-oh-nines,” Zack told him. “I don’t think they’ve seen us.”
Zack pushed the throttles up and increased their speed to 320 on “the clock” as they arced around the southern edge of Hilversum. Ruffy picked out a landmark and gave Zack a new heading, pointing them directly toward the Luftwaffe base at Soesterberg. Squashed flies and dust had smudged the windscreen and Zack was hard-pressed to see the field.
“The city on your left is Amersfoort,” Ruffy told him. “The aerodrome should be on the nose in that wooded area.” Like Zack, Ruffy could not pick out the camouflaged German air base and was navigating from checkpoint to checkpoint. “Climb now,” he said as the last checkpoint flashed by underneath their right wing. Zack honked back on the stick and climbed to fifteen hundred feet for a low-angle bomb run. His wingman would go in straight and low at fifty feet above the ground and drop bombs fused with an eleven-second delay. He would toss them straight ahead much like a rifle bullet—and with the same accuracy. Zack would be coming down the chute and release his bombs from a shallow dive angle. But his timing had to be perfect and he had to be off target before the bombs from the first Mosquito exploded. The maneuver called for extreme precision but the results were devastating.
When Zack rolled in, he saw the runway and the other Mossie at the same time. His partner was going to put his bombs right into the entrance of an underground command bunker. Then he saw the noses of three JU-88s hidden in the trees. It was pure luck, the right combination of sun angle, shadow, and the fact that he was looking more out the side window than straight ahead—thanks to the smashed bugs. His feet twitched on the rudder pedals and he sighted on the trees where he had seen the snouts of the JU-88s. Ruffy counted off the altimeter as it unwound. He mentally calculated the lag in the instrument and when he figured they were at the release altitude of eight hundred feet, he shouted, “Pull out!” over the intercom. Zack’s thumb flicked on the bomb button and they were off, running to the south at treetop level. Ruffy twisted in his seat in time to see a huge secondary explosion mushroom into the sky behind them.
“Tallyho!” Zack shouted as he threw the Mossie into a hard left turn and then skidded it across the treetops. He jammed the throttles full forward and set the rpm at 3,000. Crossing directly in front of him was a Junkers 88 with its gear down. The exploding bombs had discouraged the pilot from making a landing and he was circling the field. The German pilot saw Zack and accelerated as Zack zoomed up behind him, ni
nety degrees off the Junkers’s heading. The Junkers’s gear was coming up when Zack pulled down behind him. They closed and Zack concentrated on the GM-2 gunsight the Mossie shared with the Spitfire, lining up on the wildly gyrating Junkers. His thumb mashed the cannon trigger and the four 20-millimeter Hispano cannons under the floorboards erupted, shaking the Mosquito. Pieces flew off the Junkers and it careened to the right, crashing into the center of the city of Amersfoort.
“Oh my God,” Zack groaned.
“Set course two-three-five degrees,” Ruffy snapped, all business. Zack did as he said and tried not to think about what he had just done. How many innocent Dutch did I kill? he thought.
“Not your fault,” Ruffy said, knowing what his pilot was thinking. “We’re only doing our job.”
They only encountered one patch of light flak on their way out of Holland.
The two men could feel the tension from the mission slack as they raced across the North Sea, alone now as they had lost contact with their number two man coming off the target. “No time for get-home-itis,” Zack mumbled as he scanned the skies, looking for trouble.
“Beg pardon?” Ruffy replied.
“Get-home-itis,” Zack told him, “is the head-for-the-barn complex when you forget about business. Horses get it.” Then he saw the trail of smoke far to his left and slightly above them. “Someone’s in trouble.” He studied the smoke trail. “It’s going in our direction. Must be one of ours. Let’s check it out.” The old tingling feeling scratched at him, sending its vague warnings. He had learned not to disregard it and climbed into the sun, gaining altitude.
Call to Duty Page 26
