Churchill's Secret Warriors_The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII

by Damien Lewis

  ‘But I want to fight,’ Georgios insisted. ‘I am resistance fighter. I want to fight. The Germans, they already have killed many of my people.’

  Lassen’s voice softened. ‘Go back where you are needed. Protect your family. Trust me, we could not have come this far without you.’

  ‘But when you run you will need guide,’ Georgios argued. ‘You get nowhere without me. You attack: I attack. You go in; I go in. You come out, I show you the way.’

  ‘Andy, Georgios is right,’ Sergeant Jack Nicholson cut in. ‘We’ll be buggered on the way out without him.’

  ‘All right,’ Lassen relented. ‘Georgios, you go with Nicholson and Greaves. But stay outside the perimeter wire to guide us out again.’

  ‘Yes!’ The Cretan’s fist punched the air. ‘Andy, we will fight like the brothers!’

  ‘What’s the plan if things go wrong?’ Nicholson asked. ‘What if we’re spotted on our approach under the searchlights? Or once we’re on the base setting the charges?’

  Lassen’s killer stare returned. ‘No one is going to get seen during the approach.’ He was silent for a beat. ‘Make sure of that. And if we are spotted once on the airbase, blow it all to hell and get moving. You all know the emergency RV?’

  Lassen reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled map. He took a pencil and tried to scribble ‘Rendezvous’ on their agreed emergency rallying point, should they get split up. But English wasn’t his first language, nor spelling his strongest suit. He tried again, scrubbed it out in frustration, and scrawled one word in capitals: ‘MEAT’

  ‘Got it?’ he queried.

  There were a series of grunts in the affirmative.

  ‘If any one of us does not make the RV, we do not go back for him. Understood?’

  Again, the grunts of agreement.

  Lassen nodded. ‘Good. Now the fight.’

  *

  The night trek to the airbase went without a hitch. The four raiders were dressed in ‘light order’, carrying only their day sacks stuffed with Lewes bombs, and armed with pistols, grenades and knives. They’d left their heavier Tommy Guns and German Schmeisser machineguns behind – the key with such a mission being able to move fast and unseen. They’d never win a stand-up firefight with the enemy, who tonight numbered some two hundred mixed German and Italian troops.

  Instead, the aim was to be in and out like ghosts.

  At around five hundred yards out from the airbase Lassen’s group split from Nicholson’s, the latter skirting southwards through a vineyard towards the humped, blocky silhouette of the fuel dump. Lassen led Jones towards the airstrip, dropping to a cat-crawl as they emerged from the cover of the vines, a couple of hundred feet short of the wire. A searchlight swept the night, the sentries on the nearest tower staring into the thin beam that probed the sea of darkness around them.

  For an instant the blinding spear of light seemed to pierce Lassen and Jones, pinning them to the ground. The two raiders burrowed on their bellies into the dry dirt and the sparse, scrubby undergrowth, as they tried to escape the searchlight’s pitiless glare. Being trapped under that intense illumination was spine-chilling, especially as there wasn’t a scrap of real cover anywhere around.

  After several tense seconds the light moved on and Lassen urged Jones forward. The Dane reckoned it was movement that drew the eyes of the guards, so if they made like statues whenever the light swept past no one would detect their presence.

  The next time the searchlight swung around he and Jones froze in their tracks, and after a tense moment the beam of light continued its steady sweep across the hillside. As they pushed ahead Lassen was trying to keep his natural exuberance in check. He was never happier than when on the hunt, especially stalking much sought-after prey.

  He’d been this way since he was a small boy, when he’d tracked deer with a bow-and-arrow on his parents’ grand country estate, hunting silently and swiftly. But now his native Denmark was occupied by the German enemy, the Danish people – his family among them – crushed under the heel of the Nazi jackboot, just like the Cretans.

  It fed his hatred of the Nazis, and fuelled his lust for revenge.

  Finally, he and Jones reached the wire. A hundred yards or so to their south Lassen could make out the skeletal form of the main gate, with one of the six guard towers rearing above it. A match flared in the thick darkness, betraying where a sentry was positioned atop it. The flame was passed between the guards as each lit a cigarette, forming four pinpricks of fiery orange as they puffed away.

  In the glow of the flaring match Lassen had caught the gunmetal-blue form of a Maschinengewehr 42, the German’s fearsome ‘Spandau’ general-purpose machine gun. A belt-fed 7.92 mm weapon, it could put down a stunning volume of suppressive fire. They’d better hope the sentries were less than alert, for Lassen’s men were going in with a few pistols, knives and two dozen Lewes bombs between them.

  For a few seconds Lassen and Jones scanned the terrain to their front. The squat forms of the Stukas were some two hundreds yards away, separated from them only by the wire. So near and yet so far.

  As their eyes probed the darkness, Lassen spotted a pair of sentries executing a foot patrol past the line of aircraft. The enemy had pitched tents on the mown grass that lined the runway, so they could camp out under canvas and keep permanent guard on their warplanes. Clearly, they had men standing permanent watch over the aircraft, in addition to those positioned in the guard towers.

  The sentries out on foot had their weapons slung over their shoulders, but Lassen could sense that they were alert and on-task. He knew the Germans to be professional and motivated fighters, as opposed to their Italian comrades, who tended not to have their heart in the fight. It would be well not to underestimate them.

  Lassen put two fingers to his eyes, then pointed towards the foot sentries and held up two fingers – indicating to Jones where to look and the number of the nearest enemy. By the silent nod he got in return he figured Jones had seen them. On Lassen’s signal Jones reached up to the fence with a pair of wire-cutters and began to snip the strands, slicing through a section up to about three feet in height.

  He forced it apart and was just reaching higher, when from out of the darkness to their right a match flared again. This was much closer. The flame revealed a sentry who had paused to light up. It looked as if they had guards out walking the wire, on perimeter patrols – a third layer of security.

  Lassen and Jones went to ground, forcing their faces deeper into the dry dirt. The sentry paced closer along the fence-line, and for some reason he chose to pause right opposite where the raiders had cut their hole in the wire. Perhaps he had heard them doing so, the sharp snips of the wire-cutters carrying far in the still darkness.

  Lassen cursed under his breath.

  They’d ‘blacked-up’ earlier, using first camouflage cream and then a burned cork to smear their faces, but that wouldn’t hide the whites of their eyes. The sentry took a long drag of his cigarette, and exhaled. The June night was balmy, and the soldier seemed in no hurry to move. Quite the opposite: his attention seemed glued to the section of fencing that Lassen and Jones had just been cutting.

  If the two raiders didn’t get going soon, Nicholson’s lot would already have set their charges, and Lassen and Jones would be caught on the runway as the ammo and fuel dumps blew. Without a sound, Lassen slid out of his backpack and reached for the fence. Moving like a cat, his lithe, wiry form wriggled through the narrow hole, the handle of his heavy ‘stiletto’ fighting knife gripped in his right hand.

  He rose into a crouch and flitted through the darkness towards the sentry. Once, during training with fellow Special Duty recruits in Scotland, Lassen had stalked and killed a deer with his knife. Those who had watched him were amazed at his hunting prowess. It was a large stag, and he and fellow trainees had feasted on its flesh for days. Lassen possessed an uncanny ability to creep up undetected on just about any kind of prey, and to kill it with his bare hands.

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bsp; He came up silently behind the sentry. In one swift move he slipped his left arm around the neck and mouth in a savage chokehold, blocking off any possibility of a cry, jerking the chin upwards and to the left at the same moment. Simultaneously, his right arm came around in a savage thrust, sinking the blade of his fighting knife up to the hilt through the man’s neck, before punching forward to slice through the artery.

  For several seconds Lassen gripped the stricken figure in a vice-like hold, as his life drained out of him, before lowering his body to the blood-soaked dirt. An instant later he was back beside the fence, the dead man’s submachine gun slung across his bloodied shoulder. He crouched low and lent all his weight on the wire, widening the narrow hole for Jones.

  ‘Come on! Let’s go!’

  By now Lassen had killed enough Germans at close quarters that another death wasn’t exactly going to damn his soul. But the first time he’d killed a man with a knife he had found it difficult. A year earlier, during a raid on the Channel Island of Sark, he’d knifed to death a lone German sentry.

  He’d written in his diary about it: ‘The hardest and most difficult thing I have ever done.’

  A lot had happened since then.

  Jones wriggled through. Together, the two men moved ahead at a low crouch, sticking to the darkest shadows. They skirted past the dead sentry, his body lying in a pool of thickening blood, before coming up at the rear of a hangar, with an attached barracks block. Inside, it was a hum of chatter and laughter, as the aircrew, technicians, aviators and guards enjoyed a little downtime. It was a Saturday night, and no doubt their minds had drifted to thoughts of loved ones back home.

  Lassen led Jones around the side of the block, keeping away from the light. To the front was another machinegun, this one positioned in a sandbagged bunker, the gun facing outwards to protect the aircraft at its back. Lassen eyed the planes hungrily.

  Not far now.

  Jones reached for a second line of fencing, one that segregated the airstrip itself from the rest of the base. The wire was thicker here, offering more resistance, but they had to cut a passage through. The only other way in was via the main gate, and no way did Lassen want to have to bluff his way past that.

  Straining with the effort, Jones snipped the first few strands of wire. Beside him, Lassen used his hands to pull up the cut ends and bend them backwards, forming a hole just big enough to crawl through. With his purloined German machinegun covering Jones, Lassen waved the man on. Only when Jones had reached the far side did Lassen slide his gun under and wriggle through himself.

  With Lassen in a crouch and covering him, Jones knelt to twist together the wire in a makeshift fix, just as he’d done at the outer fence. At first glance no one would notice that it had been cut.

  They were at least two hundred yards inside the base by now, and practically in among the aircraft. As Jones worked feverishly at closing the wire, Lassen felt certain they would be spotted. With so many sentries posted on the airstrip it was going to be nigh-on impossible to flit unseen among the airframes.

  After what seemed like an age Jones turned away from the wire and gave a thumbs-up. Lassen breathed out a sigh of relief. For a few seconds he kept watch, tuning his senses to the rhythm of the German sentries on duty. Once he had a feel for the pace of their march, he was ready.

  Using hand signals he sent Jones to his left, to deal with the aircraft on the near side. He would move ahead-right, to plant his charges on the second rank of Stukas. But then, under the glare of a distant floodlight Lassen spotted a more remote, but juicier target. Parked on the grass beyond the Stukas he could just make out the form of a twin-engine Junkers-88 Schellbomber.

  Lassen’s pace quickened. Painted on the side of the sleek fighter-bomber was a white square bisected by a black cross, marking it out as an aircraft of the hated Luftwaffe. The insignia shone out in the darkness, drawing Lassen to it like a moth to a candle flame.

  He glanced left and right, as he steeled himself for a dash through the open. The sentries were nearing the end of their patrol leg, whereupon they’d do an about-turn and come around to face him. In the few seconds remaining Lassen darted forwards. He scuttled across the bare brightness of the grass strip running alongside the runway, trying as far as possible to keep under cover and out of view.

  The next moment he pounded onto an open stretch of tarmac, his felt-soled boots passing silently over the unyielding surface, before he darted onto the grass on the far side. One last dash and he slipped into the cover of the larger aircraft – moments before the first of the sentries turned. They were no more than two hundred yards away and nearing the ends of the runway – which meant Lassen and Jones had just minutes in which to complete their task.

  Lassen glanced left, confirming what he suspected – that this was the first in a row of six Ju-88s. He clambered up the steel ladder set against the aircraft’s flank, and from there slid onto the wing.

  Lassen inched ahead on his belly, the rucksack held before him, his hands crabbing about inside for two Lewes bombs, plus a timer. This being a big old bird he wanted to make doubly sure that he’d blow it sky high. He’d noted how closely the Ju-88s were parked. If he could just get the fuel tank of this one to go up, it should ignite the next and the next, like a row of falling dominoes.

  Hands working feverishly he slid the two bombs into position, shoving the same fuse into both of them. That done, he turned to eye the nearest sentry, whose hobnail boots he could hear clicking their way back towards his position. Lassen was now lying on the Junkers’ wing facing back the way he’d come, with Jones in front of him.

  Lassen watched his fellow raider freeze as he heard the approaching footsteps, then press himself down onto the wing of his chosen Stuka. Each man was carrying several more charges that they’d yet to lay, and they forced themselves to remain motionless as the sentry approached. Unfortunately, like most of the men in his unit, Jones was a compulsive smoker, and as the lead sentry moved forwards he let out a stifled cough.

  The sentry stiffened. He turned to glance in Jones’s direction. ‘Friedrich? Friedrich?’

  The sentry stared at Jones’s Stuka for a long moment. Jones was doing his best to force his body into the hard steel of the wing, but it was slick with the first drops of dew, and he was sick with worry that he was going to slip and fall.

  ‘Friedrich?’ the sentry called again, more insistent this time.

  He slipped the rifle off his shoulder, flicking the safety to off and levelling it at the hip. Keeping it there, he reached into his pocket for his torch.

  As he did so, a silent figure sprinted along the wing of the Schellbomber, sailed thought the air, and landed with a crushing impact on the German’s shoulders. Even as he hit the deck Lassen jerked the sentry’s head up and to the left with one hand, the other driving his fighting knife into the man’s throat, forcing it savagely downwards.

  As he’d fallen the sentry’s rifle had clattered to the ground, making a harsh metallic crack as the barrel hit the concrete.

  His fellow sentry stiffened in alarm. He called out, voice thick with alarm. ‘Oli? Oli?’

  The dying man gurgled horribly as he fought against Lassen’s hold. Moments later, Lassen rose to his feet, the dead man’s rifle gripped in his hand.

  ‘Hey! Friedrich! It’s me!’ He was speaking fluent German. ‘Like a fool I tripped over my own weapon.’

  ‘Dummkopf!’ The sentry laughed, but there was a nervous edge to his laughter. Maybe he’d noticed that Lassen didn’t exactly sound like the Oli he knew. ‘I thought maybe there was trouble?’

  ‘Only my two left feet,’ Lassen replied.

  He shouldered the rifle and moved forward as if continuing with his patrol. They were a dozen paces apart when Lassen saw the sentry falter, and his hand go towards his weapon. In one smooth movement Lassen drew his Luger and fired, unleashing one sharp shot from the hip, using the weapon Shanghai Style as he’d been taught in their ‘school for bloody mayhem and murder�
�. The bullet struck the guard full in the chest, perfectly aimed to drill his heart.

  As the echoes of the shot faded Lassen heard a muffled cry of alarm from the machinegun nest a couple of hundred yards away. He sprinted through the darkness towards Jones, as the gunner called for a searchlight to sweep the airstrip in the direction from which the lone shot had come.

  A searchlight fingered the darkness. Confused shots rang out across the airbase, as nervous guards loosed off at shadows. None of the fire yet seemed to be directed at Lassen and Jones, but it was clear that their mission was blown. The Germans would send a search party to look for Oli and Friedrich; two missing sentries wasn’t something to be ignored.

  Lassen ran over to Jones, who was crouched in a dark slice of shadow beneath one of the Stukas. ‘Change of plan,’ he hissed. ‘Get as many aircraft rigged with charges as you can. We need a distraction to cover us, so we can get the hell out of here. Leave that to me … And if we get split up see you at the RV.’

  Without another word Lassen turned and moved at a crouching run towards the barracks building. Jones scuttled off towards the remaining aircraft. As the Dane neared the barracks end of the runway, a barrier lifted in the fence-line and a Kubelwagen – a German open-topped jeep-like vehicle – nosed through. It was loaded with four soldiers, presumably those who had come to investigate the lone shot and the two missing sentries.

  Lassen slipped into the shadow of the last Stuka in line. He waited for the vehicle, his right arm gripping a grenade with the pin already removed. He was known for being a ‘grenade man’ – he loved the weapon, and he never missed a chance to use it. As the Kubelwagen neared the first of the dive-bombers he let out a cry in German.

  ‘Idiots! Sentry change isn’t for another thirty minutes!’

  The Kubelwagen slowed, and Lassen stepped forward and threw the grenade. It arced through the air, landing in the rear of the open-topped jeep. An instant later a savage blast tore through the vehicle, jagged shards of shrapnel ripping apart its thin metal skin and human occupants alike. The Kubelwagen kept rolling for a few seconds, as the flames engulfing it fizzed and boiled, before coming to rest hanging half in the shallow drainage ditch running beside the runway.