Fortress England

by Robert Jackson

  About the same time that the Kondor reversed its course, a twin-engined Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber, converted to the maritime patrol role with RAF Coastal Command, was throbbing its way down the main runway of Limavady aerodrome, near Londonderry. The Whitley’s young crew were all auxiliaries, for the aircraft belonged to No. 502 Squadron, Ulster’s own squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force. The squadron had been carrying out monotonous and unrewarding anti-submarine patrols off the Irish coast since the outbreak of war.

  The pilot lifted the Whitley off the runway and climbed past the range of hills that dominated the airfield circuit; the close proximity of the high ground made Limavady a curious choice for an aerodrome. Perhaps it had been envisaged for only daylight fair-weather operations, the pilot thought, but things were different now. Coastal Command flew in all weathers, and it was small wonder that the 1,260-foot peak of Binevanagh, dominating the high ground, was referred to by the aircrews as ‘Ben Twitch’.

  The pilot climbed to 8,000 feet and his navigator gave him a course to steer for Rockall, the remote outcrop jutting out of the Atlantic 200 miles north-west of Ireland. There, he would turn and fly a series of square search patterns, each one overlapping the other, gradually creeping closer to the Irish coast.

  Visibility was good, and for once the pilot was enjoying the flight. All too often, these patrols were flown in rain and cloud, with sudden Atlantic squalls bringing visibility down to zero. But Coastal Command’s Whitleys now had the means of penetrating bad weather — the electronic eyes of their air-to-surface radar equipment, known as ASV Mk II, which could search ten miles ahead and twenty miles on either side. It gave them a fighting chance of getting close enough to a U-boat to make a damaging attack.

  The Whitley was about halfway to its first turning point when the rear gunner’s voice sounded over the intercom.

  “Skipper, there’s an aircraft about two miles dead astern, flying north-south, low down. Four engines…” His voice rose in excitement. “My stars, I think it’s a Focke-Wulf!”

  The pilot swore and pulled the Whitley round in a laborious turn, for it was a large aircraft, and far from manoeuvrable. He wondered how he had missed seeing the other aircraft; maybe it had been obscured by the Whitley’s starboard wing.

  It was a Kondor all right — there was no mistaking it. It would have been a sitting target for fighters, as it was well within range of the Irish coast, but the fighter squadrons in Northern Ireland were all in the Belfast area, which was miles away. The pilot made up his mind.

  “Let’s have a crack at it,” he said. “George” — this to the radio operator — “get on the front gun.”

  The radio operator acknowledged and scrambled into the nose position, settling himself behind the solitary Vickers .303 machine-gun that was the Whitley’s nose armament. By way of contrast, the rear gunner had a battery of four similar weapons at his disposal.

  The pilot turned in behind the receding Focke-Wulf and put the Whitley into a shallow dive. With a full load of depth charges adding to the aircraft’s weight its speed built up rapidly and it quickly overhauled its quarry.

  “I’m going to make a run past it,” the pilot said, raising his voice to make himself heard over the vibration that was shaking the Whitley, accompanied by a whistle of airflow and some very alarming creakings and groanings. He could now see that the Kondor was leaving a thin white trail, which he guessed was fuel. The German aircraft was flying slowly, which seemed to indicate that its pilot was doing his best to conserve whatever fuel remained.

  I think he’s making for the Free State, the Whitley pilot said to himself. Well, let’s see if we can ruin his day for him.

  “George, open fire as soon as you’re within range,” the pilot ordered. “Paddy, as soon as we’re abeam I’ll drop a wing and give you a clear field of fire. Give the bastard everything you’ve got.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure, skip,” the rear gunner acknowledged, and prepared to do his best.

  Almost immediately, the front gun began to chatter and a stream of grey smoke interspersed with glowing tracer rounds reached out towards the Focke-Wulf. The German bomber was flying at a very low altitude and the bullets, falling short at first, carved a white track of foam across the green-grey sea before they disappeared into its starboard wing root. The front gunner kept on firing until the two bombers drew abreast of one another, then was forced to stop because his gun would not traverse any further to the left.

  The Whitley pilot turned the control wheel and his left wing dipped towards the sea. At the rear of the aircraft the gunner, his turret turned hard to his right, opened fire in turn, his bullets punching visible holes in the dark green camouflage of the Kondor’s upper surfaces. Even as he fired, the gunner wondered why no one on the German aircraft was shooting back; he could not know that all the guns and ammunition on the Focke-Wulf had been jettisoned overboard to lighten it, and that it was utterly defenceless…

  When the end came, it was surprisingly quick. Without warning, the Kondor struck the sea in a splash of foam, bounced several times, and then slewed to a stop, drifting in a nose-down attitude. The Whitley circled the scene, its crew observing that at least some of the Germans had survived the impact; within half a minute a hatch on top of the fuselage was jettisoned and a bundle emerged, followed by three figures. The bundle quickly inflated itself into a rubber life-raft; the three men clung to it but made no attempt to cast it adrift and get into it. They squatted down on top of the fuselage, as though reluctant to leave something that was tangible, and only when the sea was lapping around their feet did they take to the dinghy. As they paddled furiously away, the Kondor gradually slipped beneath the waves until only the tail was visible. Then that too was gone, leaving only a tiny orange dot bobbing up and down on the surface of the sea eighty miles from land.

  The Whitley pilot told his wireless operator to put out a distress call, together with the position of the dinghy, and toyed with the idea of circling it until rescue arrived; for despite the fact that these were Germans they were fellow airmen, and their enemy now was the sea. Then he told himself that there was a war to be fought, and turned the Whitley back on course for Rockall.

  The other three Focke-Wulfs all reached Stavanger safely, but even before they had landed the British ‘Y’ Service, the organisation responsible for monitoring German low-grade radio transmissions, had been able to formulate a rough idea of KG40’s intentions in the immediate future. Their assessment was passed on to the British Admiralty, and Intelligence Officers quickly realised that the bombers’ target, on the return flight to Bordeaux, would be Convoy HX121, bound for England from Halifax. On 28 April the convoy, heading for the North Channel that divided western Scotland from Northern Ireland, would be 150 miles out into the Atlantic and passing directly across the track that would be followed by the Kondors as they headed for their home base.

  There was no time to be lost. By midday on 27 April, Kalinski’s Beaufighter flight was on its way from Perranporth to Limavady. From dawn the next day, the crews stood by for action.

  Already, at 0200 on the 28th, the ‘Y’ Service had detected signs that the Germans were preparing for an attack on Convoy HX121. A signal from an enemy submarine, identified as the U-123, had been intercepted during its transmission to German Naval Headquarters; it gave the convoy’s current position, and it was intercepted again as it was transmitted from Berlin to KG40’s base at Bordeaux. The ‘Y’ Service operators now monitored the radio frequency used for communications between the Atlantic Air Command in Bordeaux and Stavanger, and at 0400 their vigilance was rewarded. Several bursts of coded letters were detected, logged and deciphered. By 0500, there were clear indications that Convoy HX121 was in imminent danger.

  In fact, it was already under attack. Although the U-123, which had been sighted shortly after making its transmission in the early hours of the morning, had been driven off by the convoy escort, contact with HX121 was established some hours later by another sub
marine, U-96, which closed in and sank two tankers. Two more submarines — the U-65 and U-552 — arrived and attacked in turn, sinking two more ships, but the U-65 was herself sunk by an escorting corvette.

  The convoy sailed on, and at Limavady the Beaufighter crews still waited for the call. But as yet — it was now 1400 hours on 28 April — there was no sign of action at Stavanger.

  Then, at 1445, a radar outpost on the remote Faeroe Islands detected what appeared to be the movement of two aircraft, possibly more, away to the south-west, towards the Shetlands. The contact was indistinct as the radar was operating at the limit of its range, but a few minutes later a British cruiser, operating between the two groups of islands, confirmed that three Kondors had been sighted, heading south-westwards into the Atlantic. Within another thirty minutes, the news had been flashed to Limavady, sending Kalinski and O’Day hurrying to the briefing room, where an Intelligence Officer was waiting for them. Together, they pored over a map of the North Atlantic as he updated them on the convoy’s latest position and on the estimated take-off time of the German bombers from Stavanger.

  Kalinski made some mental calculations and pointed to a spot on the map. “Assuming the Kondors are cruising at about a hundred and seventy miles per hour,” he said, “they should intercept the convoy about here. Now, if we can set up a patrol line between St Kilda and Rockall, to the north, we might stand a chance of catching them.”

  O’Day nodded, making a rough measurement of the distance between the two points with his thumb.

  “That’s just over two hundred miles,” he said. “To be on the safe side, I reckon we should establish the patrol line with three aircraft and set up another one closer to the convoy with the remaining three, which can deal with any of the Huns that manage to break through.”

  They settled the question of who was going to lead which flight by the simple expedient of tossing a coin, which determined that Kalinski would take care of the outermost patrol line, then settled down to make some finer calculations. Their hopes of intercepting the Kondors would depend on a good deal of luck, Kalinski knew, for although the Beaufighter had a respectable combat radius his flight would have enough fuel for only ten or fifteen minutes’ patrol time at the outside. O’Day’s flight, which would be taking off a few minutes later and which would have less distance to fly, would have a greater fuel margin.

  It was now 1615, and time was becoming critical. Kalinski and O’Day hurried back to their dispersal and quickly briefed the other crews, who had been standing by their aircraft, and within minutes Kalinski’s flight of three Beaufighters was airborne and climbing into the northern sky.

  At that moment, Hauptmann Meister’s flight of three Kondors was exactly over a point in the ocean known as the Rosemary Bank, just over a hundred miles north-west of the Island of Lewis, in the outer Hebrides. From Stavanger, the aircraft had made a lengthy detour around northern Scotland, flying west-north-west for 300 miles before altering course south-west as they passed between the Faeroes and the Shetlands. Now, another 280 miles further on, they altered course again, turning due south. They had already been airborne for close on four hours.

  Kalinski’s flight reached its patrol line after some forty minutes’ flying time and the Beaufighters spread out, each taking a sixty-mile sector. The pilots constantly monitored their fuel gauges, and adding to their concern was the fact that the weather was deteriorating, with cloud spreading from the north-west. Ice was beginning to form on the wings and cockpit canopies of their aircraft. The radar operator in each aircraft was currently acting as an extra pair of eyes, keeping a lookout through the perspex blister on top of the fuselage, behind the pilot’s position; if the weather got any worse, they would revert to their radar sets in the hope of picking up a contact.

  The minutes ticked by, and Kalinski felt growing despair. The weather continued to worsen, and the fuel state was worrying. At length, he made up his mind and called up the other two pilots, ordering them to return to base. He was not prepared to risk the lives of his crews on what was fast becoming a wild-goose chase.

  He turned south and climbed, intent on calling Limavady for a bearing. Suddenly, at 6,000 feet, the Beaufighter popped out of the cloud into red, frosty sunlight.

  A huge aircraft hung silhouetted against, the sky, a mere 200 yards ahead and a few hundred feet higher up. Kalinski made a note of his heading and dropped back into the cloud again. Quietly, over the intercom, as though afraid of being overheard by the crew of the other aircraft, he said to his radar operator, Sergeant Thomas, “I’m taking her up a bit. Look ahead, and tell me what you see.”

  Thomas, who had abandoned his visual lookout and who had just seated himself in front of his AI radar set, returned to his perspex blister and peered out as Kalinski cautiously emerged from the cloud again. He could plainly see the white-edged black cross on the other aircraft’s fuselage.

  “It’s a Kondor all right,” Thomas said.

  “Okay. Start tracking him on the AI in case he dives into the cloud.”

  Kalinski held his position below and behind the German bomber, turned the safety catch of his guns to ‘fire’ and pressed the button. The Beaufighter shuddered with the recoil as its four cannon and six machine-guns opened up. The vibration caused the silhouette of the aircraft in front to dance and shake. Brilliant flashes flickered over its outline, accompanied by puffs of smoke.

  Kalinski went on firing. Pieces from the Kondor hurtled back past the Beaufighter, narrowly missing the cockpit, causing the pilot to duck instinctively.

  The Kondor went into a steep left-handed descending turn and plunged into the cloud. Kalinski fired another burst at it, and an instant later the Beaufighter was rocketing skywards on the shock wave of a terrific explosion. Kalinski temporarily lost control and the fighter stalled. He corrected quickly, bringing the aircraft back to level flight just over the cloud tops. Below, a bright glow faded gradually as the disintegrating wreckage plummeted towards the sea.

  “What happened, skipper?” Thomas said breathlessly.

  “Must have cooked off his bomb load,” the pilot told him. “Anyway, not much doubt about that one.” He looked at his fuel state, which was now dangerously low, and throttled back, reducing the setting to economical cruising speed. With luck, they’d just about make it back.

  The two remaining Focke-Wulfs, meanwhile — which had become separated from Kalinski’s victim and were some minutes ahead of it — flew on towards convoy HX121’s last reported position, their crews unaware of the fate of their colleague, or of the fact that they were flying into a trap. In the leading aircraft, Meister felt confident, despite the much-reduced visibility. He was still receiving a steady flow of position reports via Bordeaux, and after the attack the gathering low cloud would provide an excellent refuge for the aircraft.

  Meanwhile, O’Day’s three Beaufighters had arrived in the vicinity of the convoy to be greeted by a storm of anti-aircraft fire which ceased abruptly as the naval gunnery directors recognised the incoming aircraft as friendly. As planned, the three fighters set up a combat air patrol line some distance to the north of the convoy, O’Day quietly fuming with the realisation that they had narrowly missed being shot out of the sky by their own side.

  He would have been even more furious had he realised that for the past ten minutes, the incoming Kondors had been tracked by a Type 284 radar installed in one of the convoy’s escorting cruisers, but that no means existed for direct communication by radio between the warship and the aircraft.

  O’Day had been patrolling for exactly eight minutes when the quiet and confident voice of his radar operator, Kershaw, alerted him to the approach of the enemy aircraft.

  “Contact bearing zero-one-zero, three miles, fifteen hundred feet.”

  “Only one?” the pilot questioned. Kershaw answered in the affirmative. The crews of the two Kondors, in fact, had already sighted the convoy’s smoke, just visible against the murky horizon, and on Meister’s orders had split up to ma
ke their attacks from different directions. It was the second aircraft that now showed as a blip on Kershaw’s cathode ray tube; an operator of lesser skill might have failed to pick it out at all against the background ‘clutter’, the reflection from the sea.

  A few moments later, O’Day sighted the enemy aircraft and informed Kershaw that he was going to make a head-on attack. Otherwise, by the time he got astern of it, it would be in a position to strike at the convoy. He opened the throttles and raced towards it, thumb poised over the gun button as the Kondor’s silhouette grew larger in his sight.

  At the last moment, the enemy pilot sighted the peril that was racing headlong towards him and pulled back on the control column, pointing the bomber’s nose towards the sheltering clouds. He was too late, and his manoeuvre exposed the bomber’s underside to the storm of gunfire that erupted from the Beaufighter. O’Day passed under the stricken Focke-Wulf with feet to spare, smelling its reek of hot oil, then turned hard, intent on making a second attack.

  He was in time to see the Kondor weaving down towards the sea, trailing a snake of dense black smoke, flames streaming back from ruptured fuel tanks. It turned on its side, one wingtip slicing into the water, and cartwheeled in a cloud of wreckage. All that was left was a circle of burning fuel, surrounded by a few islands of debris. There could have been no survivors.

  A couple of miles away, the rear gunner in Meister’s aircraft, his voice shaking, reported having seen the destruction of the other Kondor. Meister, intent on setting up his attack, selected a large freighter and went down to wave-top level, keeping under the barrage of flak that now filled the sky between the sea and the clouds.

  Suddenly, he realised that his rear gunner was firing — at what, he had no idea. Then the sea around the Focke-Wulf exploded in a welter of foam and gaping holes appeared in the bomber’s left wing.

  “Two fighters behind us!” the rear gunner screamed. His cry was abruptly cut off as cannon shells ripped into his cupola, silencing him for ever. The nose of the bomber began to snake from side to side and the rudder pedals failed to respond to the pressure of Meister’s feet, telling him that the tail had sustained damage.