Operation Thunderflash

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  I made a joke of it but was heavy-hearted with disappointment. There was to be no dallying with Margaret that night: Leatham was going to be at home, entertaining some local friends to dinner. But I had intended to spend my evening at The Grange and Margaret had promised to see me for a few minutes, even though I would be surrounded by several others from the squadron.

  Never mind, I consoled myself. This must be what they cancelled our leave for. When this is over we’ll be able to go away for that promised 48 hours of bliss completely on our own.

  The op. will obviously be tomorrow night. Forty-eight hours from now I shall have a leave pass in and I’ll be able to go to Margaret and tell her.

  But I wished I could talk to her on the telephone and let her know we’d be out of touch for two days.

  An early night was not unwelcome. It was by now late November and a five-mile cycle ride back to camp after a couple of hours’ loving was no treat.

  I was heavy with an accumulation of fatigue. We always returned from an op. weary to the bone. Even on the night of our first trip to Berlin, when the last-minute victory over the Ju 88 in full view of the whole station had given us a tremendous boost, an injection of adrenalin that had overcome all our lassitude, the elation had soon passed and we had gone through our debriefing like zombies.

  The repeated long trips to Italy with the added strain of cavorting around among the Alps had been more strenuous even than a long slog across Germany. The unremitting exercises over Wales and Scotland, and out over the Atlantic to practise navigation over the sea, had been tiring and a nervous stress.

  I had no difficulty at all in falling asleep by 10-o’clock and was still out to the world when our batwoman shook me and put a cup of tea on my bedside table. Nick had also put in 10 hours’ sleep and we propped ourselves on our elbows and grinned across at each other from our diagonally opposite corners of the room, while we sipped the rather horrid brew.

  Lacw. Meredith, known to us as Taffy, had drawn aside the curtains and we peered drowsily at the day, ducking our heads to take a look at the sky. It was clear, with about three-tenths cloud at an estimated 10,000 ft.

  “So far so good,” yawned Nick.

  “I wonder where we’re going?” I murmured.

  “There’s probably some secret weapon hidden in the Alps, and we’re going to prang it: you know, some Shangri-La kind of place, hidden in the heart of the mountains.”

  Hitler had been boasting about a Secret Weapon ever since the war started; but I didn’t think much of Nick’s romantic surmise. “Following the usual form of kitting people out for the tropics and then sending them to Iceland, or issuing winter clothing and sending them to the desert...” I didn’t need to complete my observation.

  “Iceland! My God, perhaps we’re being detached there for an op. on Greenland?”

  “I still think it’s more likely we’ll find ourselves in the Middle East.” I didn’t, but Greenland didn’t seem likely to me either.

  “Berchtesgaden,” Nick said, swinging his legs out of bed. “That’s what it is: we’re going to clobber Hitler personally.”

  “If Intelligence say he’s there, he’s bound to be somewhere else.” I was feeling jaundiced: I hadn’t seen Margaret for three days and it would be another 36 hours before I could expect to see her again. A shower and a kipper for breakfast put me in a better frame of mind and a brisk walk in the crisp morning air had me tingling with anticipation by the time I arrived at the crew room.

  Uncle, extensively refurbished after all the punishment inflicted on it since it came into my hands, air tested impeccably. The crew were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after their enforced repose, and as mettlesome as race horses at the starting tapes. That was one way of putting it, I told myself, and another was that we were all as edgy as hell, restlessly flicking through flying publications we were required to read, the smokers consuming cigarettes at a great rate or fussing endlessly with their pipes, people jumping up and going off to the urinals or to gaze at the sky from a window.

  Mercifully, we were briefed immediately after lunch.

  The Air Commodore was present again and, once more, it was the Station Commander who set the ball rolling.

  I had never seen Gp. Capt. Jevons look more serious or Leatham, following him up the aisle to the dais, more grim.

  The group captain’s voice sounded louder than usual, probably because my whole nervous system was so taut rather than because he was hectoring us.

  “The code name for this Operation is Thunderflash and a great deal of planning has gone into it. Your part in it is vital. You are the only crews involved. The entire responsibility for the success of Operation Thunderflash was laid on Belton when it was conceived. You were selected to carry it out because we all, right up to Air Ministry level, are confident you can do it better than anyone else.

  “You are fortunate that your formation leader, Wing Commander Leatham, knows the target area well.”

  A sheet had been pinned on the wall map and we had all sat restlessly while awaiting the start of the briefing. The group captain gestured to two Intelligence officers, the squadron leader who ran the station Intelligence section and our own squadron 10. They whipped the drawing pins out and removed the sheet. A shuffling of feet and subdued murmur of comment arose, and quickly subsided when the group captain raised a silencing hand.

  “As you see, you are going to Norway. The target is a bowl four thousand feet up in the mountains, a place called Nesdal. It’s a ski-ing resort and Wing Commander Leatham has been there twice. The Germans use it as a leave centre for their most favoured people: military and civilian. Prominent members of the Norwegian Nazi Party are also privileged to go there. Nesdal is also used as a conference venue.

  “A most important conference is being held there, starting tomorrow and continuing for the next two days. The delegates arrive this evening, a few most important ones by air, the rest by train.”

  He explained to us about the single line track and the air strip.

  “There will be a full moon tomorrow night, but tonight is our last chance of good weather: it is forecast to deteriorate from mid-day tomorrow. If we do not attack tonight, we shall miss the opportunity to eliminate the enemy VIPs who are our real target.

  “However, your task is not to bomb the building where they will be living. We must, at all costs, avoid killing or wounding any of the friendly Norwegian inhabitants of Nesdal: which means all fifteen hundred of them.

  “Your objectives are the snow sheds which protect the railway line. Wing Commander Leatham will tell you all about it.”

  The group captain sat down and Leatham rose to his feet. A large diagram was hoisted onto the wall behind him and he pointed out to us the positions and dimensions of the snow sheds.

  “The most important ones are those on the eastern side of the tunnel and the ones closest to the flank of the mountain on the western side, the eastern slope of the bowl. By knocking those out we shall deny access to Nesdal most effectively, but we shall go for all the snow sheds, so as to cause the maximum possible delay to the reopening of the line.

  “How the enemy who are congregating in Nesdal are to be dealt with is no concern of ours. It is enough to say that the enemy cannot send in reinforcements, because it is impossible to drop paratroops at that altitude: the air is too thin and they would fall so fast that they would be smashed up on landing. Glider-borne troops could be sent in, but there are no German gliders in Norway or Denmark and a glider operation would take a long time to organise.

  “What we are going to do therefore, will be one hundred per cent effective. The enemy VIPs will be securely locked in and can be dealt with while they have no possible hope of escape, rescue or outside aid.

  “We shall each carry three four-thousand pound bombs and two one-thousand pounders. The blast and percussion will start avalanches that will bury the railway deep in snow without harming the town of Nesdal. They will also bring down rocks and cause further blockage
of both ends of the tunnel.”

  We were issued with enlarged photographs of Nesdal and the snow tunnels: the latter, although deep snow had gathered during the past four weeks, would be outlined in the bright moonlight by their shadows.

  We were shown a pre-war travelogue film, four times, and a squadron leader with pilots’ wings and “Norway” patches on his sleeves, who had sat unobserved at the back of the room, mounted the dais and talked to us for half an hour and answered questions for another half-hour.

  Leatham detailed our approach routes to the target and our individual objectives.

  The Met. officer gave us a long account of the weather pattern and the Norwegian officer informed us about local peculiarities.

  It was the longest briefing I had ever attended and when it was over we all stayed behind to study the maps and diagrams some more and to question the Norwegian, who stayed with us.

  When we at last left the Briefing Room, Nick observed, “Either the wingco. has paid us a compliment, or he’s got a grudge against us.” He said it in jest, but it was just what I had been thinking.

  Our particular target was very nasty indeed: almost as horrid as Sqdn. Ldr. Moakes’s.

  He had been allocated the snow shed nearest to the eastern face of the bowl’s wall, and we had the next one. The mountainside directly above them rose vertical and rocky, bare of snow because there was no place where it could cling. There was already a deep covering of snow on the sheds themselves.

  For himself, Leatham had picked the long snow shed on the far side of the mountain. Technically it was difficult to hit with precision, but no one could deny that he was a very skilled bomber pilot and his bomb-aimer was the most experienced on the squadron. Leatham’s target allocation was justifiable; but not, I thought, very dangerous.

  “Wolfie will look after us,” I said. “What else are mascots for? He’s never let us down yet.”

  Thirteen

  Moakes and Leatham, privileged by rank, had not been confined to camp. Moakes drove away from home that evening, bound for his operational meal, unruffled about the forthcoming sortie. Being superstitious and fatalistic, he felt that the augury for Operation Thunderflash was favourable.

  Ivy had said, with a touch of coyness, “I saw Margaret this morning.”

  “The CO’s missis?” She nodded. “Did she drop in for coffee?”

  “No; I went to see her.”

  There was a smug look on Ivy’s face that made him ask suspiciously, “Social call?”

  “No, dear. She confirmed what I hoped: I’m preggers.” Moakes reached out his enormous hands and clutched her shoulders, beaming down on her. “Clever girl.”

  “Yes,” Ivy smirked, “I really don’t understand how I manage it.”

  They put their arms around each other in great contentment and laughed. They had always wanted two of each and the fourth baby was much-desired; Moakes felt sure it would be another girl. He set off for Nesdal in good spirits.

  Leatham had, as a matter of course, consulted him about the allocation of crews to targets and he had demurred about the one given to Bracken: there were more experienced captains on the operation, and bomb-aimers equal to Bruce Donaldson. Leatham had over-ruled him with an explanation which was both logical and specious. Moakes had, anyway, called all the captains and bomb-aimers (except Leatham’s) into his office and, in the presence of his fellow Flight Commander who was not on the raid — Moakes was a stickler for protocol — given them careful instructions to supplement the official briefing. He had taken particular care over Bracken and Donaldson. Satisfied that he had done all in his power to prepare the lads, he also felt that, apart from the cold and tedium, this one was not going to be as bad as ops. on France or Germany.

  The Intelligence officer had warned of enemy night fighters stationed in Denmark and Norway. Every crew in Bomber Command knew that western Europe, from Troyes, 90 miles south-west of Paris to the northernmost point of Norway, was covered for a depth of 150 miles by the Kammhuber Line, the night fighter system. They had to contend with that every night on their trips to Germany, France and the Low Countries. Tonight their route would take them well to the west of Denmark but into the area covered from Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger.

  Flak would be virtually no bother at all. The west coast of Norway was sparsely inhabited and so rugged that there were few suitable sites for anti-aircraft batteries.

  In the ops. canteen everyone was high spirited. There was nothing significant about that: it was normal behaviour on the threshold of an op., a nervous release that hid many private anxieties. Looking at his own crew and Bracken’s, Moakes told himself that no uninformed observer would guess, from the light-hearted way they behaved, the weight of trust and responsibility or the extent of the danger that had been laid on them. Wind currents among the high mountains were always tricky, anywhere. Tonight they knew they were going to meet some very fancy air turbulence indeed. It would take surprisingly little to sweep a Lancaster against a rock, like a fly on a kitchen wall.

  To their surprise, the Air Commodore was still on the station and showed up at dispersals to wish each of them well and watch the take-off.

  Dan Feldman, knowing what his friends would make of this portentous send-off, reassured their unspoken sentiments. “If I didn’t know better, I’d feel a bit queasy about being seen off by an Air Commode. But there can’t be anything ominous about it: they wouldn’t send only twelve aircraft on a job that was really dicey.”

  “Even twelve seems like using a sledgehammer to drive in a tintack,” Ron Emery agreed.

  Keith Gray and Eddie Hill, who had been looking glum, perked up. Since Bracken’s crew joined the squadron, casualties among air gunners had been the heaviest. Keith and Eddie knew what to expect over any heavily-defended target: they were the first objectives of every night fighter; flak was impartial.

  Leatham led his twelve Lancasters off punctually to the second, the five B Flight aircraft behind him. Moakes and the A Flight component followed. The formation flew in three Vs, one behind the other and stepped up with 200 ft. between them, descending in height from front to rear. Thus they avoided each others’ slipstreams and eliminated some collision risk. In the moonlight and clear sky above cloud they could see one another. From the centre of the formation it looked formidable. Bracken, flying on Moakes’s right, felt secure and pugnacious: no one could harm them tonight, and they would deliver a blow the enemy would never forget.

  *

  Haakon Haukelid had had more than three years’ practice at dissembling his hatred for the Germans and the Nasjonal Samling. It hurt him to have to be civil to them when they were guests in his hotel. He kept it to a minimum, seeing as little of them as possible and being frigid and austere in his politeness when he must.

  He knew what they said about him: don’t take any notice of Haukelid; he doesn’t mean anything by his gruffness and his taciturn way. He’s always been a loner and a silent one: that’s why he loves his mountains and the remote corners of the world. He’s grown worse since he was wounded; he frets because he will never again be able to do the marvellous feats he used to.

  It was the perfect explanation for any hostility that did break through his careful correctness.

  He had been as near fidgetty all day as it was possible for him to be. No one noticed but his elderly parents and his pretty wife, but they uttered no comment. They were active in Milorg themselves, but not in the way he was: they passed messages, had helped British airmen and soldiers to escape from enemy-held Norway, and that was all. Haakon was an initiator of plans, an organiser; he went far afield winter and summer among the mountains to train Milorg troops in infantry warfare; he arranged arms drops and the concealment of the military supplies that were parachuted in by the British. The rest of his immediate family did not know the details of his work and it was best that they should not.

  The weather forecast given to the Lancaster crews that afternoon had included local information sent by Haakon Haukel
id the same morning by wireless. He watched the sky anxiously for signs of bad weather: it was on the way and not even his knowledge of the weather in the area could predict with total accuracy the changes that were common at that time of year.

  As he went about his hotel duties he gloated inwardly. It eased the pain and the shame of having to curb his tongue and his fists, his trigger finger, when he knew that the strutting, arrogant, bull-necked tyrants would soon be dead. Many of them, of course, were neither strutting nor bull-necked: there were some among them who shuffled around with bent backs, and many who, instead of rolls of fat over their collars and under their chins, had scrawny necks and no chins at all. But there was an arrogance and a tyranny about all of them. Well, give it another few hours and not one of the swine would have a breath of good Norwegian air left in his bullet-riddled body.

  Haakon pictured, when night fell, the dozen big black aeroplanes winging their way towards his beloved Nesdal, and the 84 determined men aboard them. Determined and, he trusted, well skilled in their destructive trade.

  An hour or so after they had taken off, a Milorg comrade came hurrying by a back entrance into Haakon’s office. One look was enough to tell Haakon that something was amiss.

  “What has gone wrong?” he asked the messenger.

  *

  Margaret Leatham wandered disconsolately about the great house that seemed so bare because her lover was not there.

  What a heaven-sent opportunity this would have been for them to spend hours and hours together in the studio: Tim’s absences on night operations were all too rare, and now Bill, she had learned, was on the same op. She didn’t want to disturb the boys from the squadron who were relaxing in the rooms set aside for them, but she could not resist going to see who was there. There were not many, and on the impulse she invited them to an impromptu supper. They kept her cheerful company until midnight.

  When she was alone she fell to wondering where Bill was and if he was safe. She depended on him more than she had ever depended on anyone except her first husband, whom she had loved deeply. She wondered whether Bill depended as much on her? She thought it could not be. She was a silly woman, she told herself, infatuated with a youth. But that was not so, and she knew it: this was no mere infatuation.