A Mighty Endeavor

by Stuart Slade

  “We cannot, in conscience, deliver these aircraft. So, we are refunding, in full, the cost of those aircraft to you. France will not suffer from this; the money will be added to the reserves of gold maintained by France and we will invest it for you to achieve the best possible return on those investments. When this war is over, your funds will be available, supplemented by the profits made on your behalf by our most able financiers.”

  Monsieur Herve Alphand, Ambassador of the Republic of France, could find little to say in response. The truth of the matter was that he could see the American point of view on this, while his own sympathies were not in accord with the position adopted by Marshal Petain in Vichy. Yet he was obliged to represent their opinions. He settled on a course that turned the old principle of damning with faint praise on its head. Instead, he would praise with faint damnation. “May I know how your banks will invest those funds?”

  Hull spread his hands in regret. “Monsieur, the banks in this country are independent entities. They do not tell us how they invest our money; why should they tell us how they invest yours? But, be assured, they will seek the highest returns commensurate with prudent investment practice.”

  Alphand recognized that there was no more to be said on the matter. “On another matter, Monsieur Hull, may we expect food exports from the United States to France to resume?”

  Hull sighed. “The hearts of the American people go out to the people of France in their distress. As you are aware, we are continuing our efforts to arrange for the forwarding, through the Red Cross, of medical supplies and also tinned or powdered milk for children in the unoccupied regions of France. Nevertheless, the primary interest of the American people, and an interest which overshadows all else at the moment, is to see a resistance to Germany continued. The American people are therefore unwilling to take any measure which in the slightest degree will prejudice such resistance. Before the American people would be willing to permit the shipment of food to France, it would be necessary that the American people be convinced that such action would not in the slightest assist Germany. I must add that the same considerations are applied to exports to Great Britain.”

  “But not to the Commonwealth countries.” Alphand sounded bitter.

  “Of course. The Commonwealth is carrying on the fight against Germany. They have committed their whole national strength to the battle, regardless of the cost to themselves. Can the French colonies around the world say the same?”

  It was not a fair question; Alphand knew it and Hull knew it. The British Commonwealth countries had a much greater freedom of action than their French equivalents. Privately, Hull wondered just what the French colonies would be doing if they had the same freedom to maneuver as the British.

  “May I at least ask what will happen to the aircraft that were once ours?” There was a note of genuine sadness in Alphand’s voice.

  “Our minds are not yet made up. Perhaps we may use them as trainers for our own forces.”

  “Perhaps.” Alphand did not sound convinced. He had a shrewd idea where those aircraft would be going.

  Short Sunderland Mark 1 F-Freddie, Alexandria, Egypt

  “Will he make it?” Squadron Leader Alleyne watched the stretcher bearing Sir Wilfred Freeman being loaded into an ambulance prior to being taken to a hospital. The harbor was full of flying boats. All twelve Sunderlands and the three G-class aircraft had made it across the Mediterranean. The Sunderlands had succeeded in preventing any damage to the civilian aircraft, but they’d all taken wounds themselves in the process. Crews were getting ready to bring three of them ashore so that hull damage could be patched while two more had mechanics working on damaged engines. Still, considering the aircraft had been under sustained fighter attack for more than four hours, they’d got off remarkably lightly.

  “He lost a lot of blood. The medics are hopeful, though. How about your crews?”

  “We made it.” Alleyne dismissed the question rather abruptly, without realizing he was doing so. He was exhausted by the long flight from Britain to Egypt by way of Gibraltar and badly needed some sleep.

  Wing Commander Hesketh looked at the Australian sympathetically. The man was pale and his eyes were shadowed from the strain of his flights. He guessed that the uncertainty of Alleyne’s position was also preying on his mind. Well, at least I can do something about that.

  “Your people can get some rest here, for a while at least. I do have orders for you directly from your Government. You now report directly to them, not London. On their instructions, you are assigned to Middle East Command and will be stationed at Aden as soon as you can get down there. We need your flying boats to help counter the Italian Red Sea squadron. We’re going to have to move you out of Alex quickly, though. You’re too vulnerable here.”

  “We can use these aircraft as bombers.” It was Harris who spoke, cutting in on the briefing. “They can hit the Italian ports and supply lines.”

  Hesketh shook his head. “Not from here they can’t. Sir, the Italians have four bomber groups based in Libya. Two of them have Breda close support aircraft and we don’t have to worry about them. The other two have sixty Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bombers between them. Those, we do have to worry about. There’s about forty of them operational at any one time and they can go where they want and do what they wish. They’re faster than the Gladiators we’re relying on for air defense. As soon as we bomb one of the Italian ports, those SM.79s will return the compliment by bombing us here. And they’ll take out those flying boats in the process. We need them too much in the Red Sea for that. We’ll fix them, fuel them, and then get them out of here. We’ve got some Bristol Bombays for bombing missions when the time comes.”

  Harris thrust out his chin. “The Italians have already invaded. We have to strike back at them. The Sunderlands will stay here for use as bombers.”

  “No, sir. They will not. Do you know how many front-line fighters we have here? One. Not one squadron, one aircraft. A Hurricane. We have 75 Gladiators and 34 Gauntlets as second line fighters. We have Blenheim and Bombay bombers and those we use to strike at the Italians. But the Sunderlands go to Aden. Those are the orders of the Australian Government.”

  “Do you know who I am, Wing Commander?” There was heavy emphasis on the rank.

  “Yes, sir. I do. I also know what you are not. You are not in the chain of command here and you are not part of Middle East Command. We don’t know who we report to at this time or what our status is, but we do know what we have to do and what we have to do it with. With respect, sir, you do not.”

  Harris stared at the Wing Commander, then retreated back into the belly of the flying boat. Hesketh breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I hate to do this to you Squadron Leader, but you need to get these aircraft out of here soonest. I’m not sure who is your bigger enemy right now, the Italians or Arthur Harris but neither of them are to be ignored. Get some sleep while we fix your aircraft and then we’ll get you on your way.”

  Cabinet Office, Downing Street, London, United Kingdom

  “The Royal Navy will obey my orders.”

  “Nevertheless, the fleet has its duties and responsibilities to perform.”

  Prime Minister the Lord Halifax and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound glared at each other across the table. Neither was prepared to give an inch on this issue; both knew that their authority depended on them not doing so. Pound knew something else, a fact that had been kept very secret.

  He was dying.

  He had an inoperable brain tumor that would kill him in a year or two, according to the best doctors available. In addition he had hip degeneration that was making his work progressively more difficult. In a strange way, that made Pound’s job as First Sea Lord easier. His career was over and his life was ticking away fast. The only he thing he had left to do was to protect the Navy that he loved.

  “Our Armistice with Germany specifies that the Royal Navy should return to its peacetime establishment and stations.” Halifax shouted
the words across the room, hoping to see the First Sea Lord back down.

  “It does, Prime Minister, and that in itself confirms that we have a legitimate need to continue with those peacetime responsibilities. It recognizes our deployment and activities and nowhere is the situation more critical than the Mediterranean. That fleet has always been the major peacetime station for the Royal Navy, outnumbering even the Home Fleet. Thus, the Armistice legitimizes its deployment and stations in that area. If that upsets the Italians, so be it.”

  Pound sounded reasonable and convincing, leaving Halifax an out from an awkward position. Those who knew Pound well had remarked upon his ability to defeat by guile proposals that had been forced on him by higher authority. ‘Intellectual ju-jitsu’ had been the description applied by some of his contemporaries. He had used the technique to prevent Winston Churchill from sending a battle fleet into the Baltic and now he would use it to prevent Halifax from pulling one out of the Mediterranean. He might have gained his position for want of a healthier candidate, but that same quirk made him the right man in the right place now.

  “The Mediterranean Fleet is not at its peacetime establishment.” The shout was still aggressive, but Halifax was already beginning to back away from the conflict. He had brought the matter of Mussolini’s movements in North and East Africa up with the Germans and they had denied all interest in them. As far as they were concerned, what Italy did was Italy’s business and they could do it on their own. If Britain chose to resist the Italian moves, that was their business as well and it would not affect German-British relations in the slightest.

  “And we shall reduce it to that establishment.” Pound sounded agreeable, but his mind was running through the options. There are two old battleships out there, Ramillies and Royal Sovereign. They can come home without too much loss to ABC and we can use their crews for the new battleships King George V and Prince of Wales. Likewise three old cruisers can come home and we can use their crews for three of the new Dido-class. If ABC loses his four oldest and slowest destroyers, we’ll have a paper compliance with the Armistice while maintaining our position out there. “Those ships will come home and the rest dispersed between the various bases we have available.”

  It sounded reasonable and Halifax took the chance to back off. Pound saw him do so and smiled gently to himself. With one modern, capable squadron at each end of the Mediterranean, his Navy could still do its duty out there.

  Buna Field, Kenya

  “Watch those Italians. Their CR.42s have a hell of an edge over us.”

  Which, considering we are flying Hawker Fury fighters, is hardly a great surprise. Pilot Officer Pim Bosede was beginning to understand just how bad the situation was in Kenya. It wasn’t that the Italians had achieved great successes; it was that there was so little stopping them from doing so. The South African Air Force had sent two squadrons to help hold the line in Kenya. One had Ju-86 bombers; the other had the Fury. On the ground, two brigades of the King’s African Rifles were holding off six brigades of Italian troops. Quite how they were doing it, Bosede couldn’t see; but they were, and in doing so, they had bought time for the First South African Division to arrive and form up.

  “What do we do about it, broere?”

  “We fight commando style.”

  Flight Lieutenant Petrus van Bram wondered just how long this fresh-faced recruit would last. The Italian pilots were skilled and fought well. Their aircraft outperformed the mix of old aircraft deployed in Kenya across the board. Technically, there was no reason why the allied forces in the country should have survived, van Bram was a deeply religious man, and he assumed that the survival of the small group of fighters on the front line at Buna was due to divine intervention. The more secular members of the squadron agreed with him. There wasn’t a more plausible explanation.

  “We hit and run, try to pick off a bomber here, a reconnaissance aircraft there. Problem is, the bombers and reconnaissance aircraft are faster than us as well. Every so often, the Italians try to visit one of our airbases. They got a few Hardys on the ground the first time they tried, but we have observers out now and we get a few minutes warning.”

  “What are their pilots like?” Bosede was frantically absorbing as much information as he could.

  “Individually, very good. They are well trained and they know their work. Operational planning is not so much so. They have the same attack patterns and schedules, so we know when they will arrive and what they will do. The fighters stay very close to the bombers. So we can get in, pick off a straggler and get away before they respond. We cannot break up the formations, but we can do a little damage here and there. How many hours do you have?”

  “On the Fury? Eight. But I have flown much prior to joining the Air Force. Mostly Curtiss Travel Air 6000s.”

  van Bram grimaced. “I hope you have not picked up too many bad habits. We will take an orientation flight and see. Take off in 30 minutes.”

  An hour later, Bosede was looking down at the landscape of northern Kenya as it slowly unfolded beneath him. Right in the middle of the parched brown and light green was the rich dark green stain of the Ajao River. His briefing on navigation had been simple. All one has to do was to find that dark green strip and follow it south; that would inevitably lead a pilot to the airstrip at Buna. The problem was that Italian bomber pilots could do the same thing. Somewhere below him, in the reddish brown and green, the King’s African Rifles were fighting to hold off the Italians. There was no sign of that; it was as if the vastness of Africa had swallowed the war whole.

  Ahead of him, van Bram was rocking his wings. Bosede saw him gesturing downwards. There was an aircraft down there. Bosede quickly took its details in. A radial-engined biplane; very distinct from the inline-engined Hardy and Fury used by the South Africans. An Italian Ro.37, probably on a reconnaissance mission. He saw van Bram peeling over into a long dive and followed suite.

  About half way down, the rear gunner in the Italian aircraft must have spotted the two Furies. A stream of red tracer dots poured out of the rear position, searching out van Bram’s aircraft. The lead Fury held its fire, though, van Bram ignored the tracer lights all around him, until he had closed the range to nearly point-blank. Then van Bram fired. A long burst from his twin Vickers guns abruptly ended the fire from the Ro.37’s rear gun. Bosede dived below the Ro.37 and came up from underneath, firing a burst from his twin guns into the reconnaissance aircraft’s belly.

  The two fighters swerved away. The Ro.37 streamed black smoke from a damaged engine. Bosede was expecting to make a second pass; van Bram pointed upwards. A formation of four biplanes was already closing in. They were instantly recognizable: Fiat CR.32s. Bosede knew their reputation from Spain. Not as fast as the later CR.42, but extremely agile. Even one on one, they were far more than a match for the old Fury. He was quite relieved when van Bram broke off the attack and headed south. Unwilling to get involved in a long tail-chase, the Italian pilots formed up around the damaged Ro-37 to shepherd it back home.

  Following the river worked. The rich foliage that surrounded it was visible from a long way away. It was simple to find it and then head south. After landing, Bosede climbed out of his Fury and stretched. It all seemed a waste of time somehow, and he said so to van Bram. His flight leader didn’t agree.

  “We saw off a reconnaissance aircraft and that helps our broere on the ground. As long as we do that, the Italians will keep their fighters escorting the other aircraft and not have them running free to hunt us down. So we did a little good work today. Not much, perhaps, but a little. We are doing what we can and we will continue to do so until help arrives.”

  Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India

  “Railways. Now there is a problem to conjure with.” Sir Martyn Sharpe had an almost dreamy look on his face. In his youth, he had wanted, more than anything else, to be a train driver. Even today, he had an abiding fascination with the operation of steam locomotives mixed with a genteel dislike for their dies
el equivalents. The idea of rebuilding an entire continent-wide railway network was immensely appealing to him.

  “We already have made a good start on building a railway network.” Pandit Nehru objected and bristled slightly. Railways were a sore point in the Indian Congress Party; one on which everybody disagreed with everybody else over everything.

  “A start, yes; but hardly a good one. We have railway lines built in four different gauges: narrow, meter, standard and broad gauge. They don’t link up well and the track-beds are so light they can’t take heavy freight. It’s a frightful mess. We need to have a strategic plan for the development of our railway system. Communications are key to modern development.”

  “Once again, we see the need for a controlling interest by the state.” Nehru was hard-wired to see state control as the answer to every problem, but in this case he had almost total agreement. The chaotic state of Indian railway development could not be allowed to continue. Each princely state had built its own railway system; its configuration had been decided by the whim of the Princes. So had the routes followed by the tracks. They also had more to do with the wishes of the Prince than economic necessity. The investors who had built the lines had been guaranteed a five percent return on their investment by the government, so the financial viability of the lines had been of no great interest to them.

  “In this case, you have an excellent argument, but there is a problem here. Under the 1849 agreement with the railway promoters, the railways built by them are to remain their property for 99 years. At which point, they will pass, without compensation, into the possession of the Government, which will have to pay for the machinery, plant and rolling stock. We can purchase the railway in question earlier by paying the full value of the capital stock and shares. Alternatively, the railway companies can surrender their line to us by giving six months notice and claim repayment of all the capital invested. We simply cannot afford to do either. We are barely surviving at the moment as it is. This kind of additional burden will finish us.”