Operation Thunderflash

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  She sat up into the small hours, reading and listening to music. She had distrusted her husband ever since she had learned his true nature. Lately she had come to suspect him of a hundred wickednesses and deceptions. She had been much perturbed when he left this evening: he had kissed her on the cheek, something he had not done for months. After a momentary hesitation he had kissed her again, on the other cheek. And then, after a long straight look, he had kissed her full on the lips. Without thinking, she had returned his kiss, taken completely by surprise; then, still thoughtless, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. He had looked at her with mingled hatred, possessiveness and triumph and left without a word.

  She fell asleep but woke with a start, flung the bedclothes aside and ran to open the curtains and look out over the moon-flooded countryside. She was palpitating and kept repeating, “Bill...Bill...Bill...”

  She heard the drone of quadruple Merlin engines and saw the black form of a Lancaster swoop towards the runway. She waited and presently another came in to land, and then a third. She wondered how many had already come home and how many more there would be.

  But presently she reasoned that this was a fruitless vigil: the other squadron must be on ops. as well, and there were surely some crews on routine training sorties. Besides, she did not know how many of Tim’s had gone out, so however many she counted she could not know if Bill had come back safely.

  She went back to bed but could not sleep and from then until dawn she intermittently repeated his name as though it were an incantation or a prayer.

  *

  Leatham, 400 miles from base, just over half-way to Nesdal, following the cautious route that hugged the British coast and had now led him almost to the Shetlands, sowed the first doubt in the minds of his crew. He had timed it nicely.

  “Captain to engineer: are you sure the port inner is all right?”

  The flight engineer sounded puzzled. “What’s the trouble, sir?”

  “I’m asking you! It’s making an odd noise...and there’s a spot of vibration...on and off...can’t you feel it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I can: perhaps because it’s right at my elbow. Please check everything.”

  Leatham had had a foreboding all day that this operation had gone too smoothly, that it all appeared to be too safe and easy; apart from weather hazard and a spot of awkwardness in having to fly so close to the mountainsides. A technical fault would give him a plausible reason for abandoning the sortie and handing over the leadership to Moakes.

  The engineer reported back. “Nothing seems to be out of order, Captain.”

  “All right. Thanks. But watch that engine carefully. And I’m not getting you too well on the intercom. Anyone else having trouble?”

  Each crew member assured him that he was perfectly able to hear.

  “Must be my earphones. Never mind.”

  Presently Leatham stirred up doubt again. “Did you spot that, Engineer?”

  “What, captain?”

  “Sudden drop in oil pressure on starboard outer, that time.”

  “I must have missed it, sir.”

  “I know you can’t watch all the instruments at the same time, but do monitor that engine, please.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Twice more before they reached the Norwegian coast Leatham complained of poor performance: his 2,500 hours’ experience gave credence to his lies and worried his crew.

  The rugged coast of Norway loomed up in the right place at the right time.

  “Well done, Navigator,” Leatham said. “Bang on.” His confident voice encouraged the whole crew.

  Presently he remarked, “Pleasant change to slip into enemy territory without being shot at.” He gave the impression of cheerfulness and the crew relaxed again. No flak certainly was a pleasant change.

  Not long after this he said, irritably, “Damn it, I’m getting roughness in the port inner and starboard outer at the same time. Pull your finger out, Engineer: there must be something not quite right.”

  His navigator, unperturbed of voice whatever his feelings, gave him a change of course for their final leg to the target. “Fifty miles to go, sir: ETA twelve-and-a-half minutes.”

  “Right,” Leatham replied confidently. “Starting let-down to ten thousand.” The plan was to creep in above the mountaintops and reduce altitude once more, to somewhere between 8,000 ft. and 6,000 ft., depending on the height of cloud base; which had been forecast to be 8,000 ft.: just brushing the tops of the highest peaks around Nesdal. Uncomfortable, but not too bad.

  *

  Moakes ungrudgingly allowed that Leatham was a damn good pilot and his navigator was the best on the squadron. They had carried out their flight plan with perfect precision, adjusting meticulously for changes in wind speed and direction. Leatham had begun the descent precisely to the second.

  He, also, had doubts that Operation Thunderflash was going to turn out to be quite the piece of cake that everyone expected. The chain of communication between Nesdal and London was long and tortuous. The Germans were not bloody fools. They may be hidebound in their routines and over-confident because of it, but they would surely take precautions to safeguard the galaxy of talent and power assembled at Nesdal. If they had not put up standing patrols of night fighters, he was a monkey’s uncle. They used mostly Me 110s up here, rather than Ju 88s. Either way, an encounter with one would be dicey; it always was, and he had been through enough of them to know.

  The Me 110 G, used for night fighting, had two 30-millimetre and two 20-millimetre cannons, in the nose and under-wing fairings respectively, for forward firing; and, in the rear cockpit, two more Mauser MG 151 cannons set to fire obliquely upward in what the Jerries puckishly called the Schrage Musik or Slanting Music installation: and thoroughly unpleasant music they played. Flying under a British bomber, hidden from the latter’s air gunners, the Me 110’s Shrage Musik cannons could rake its belly with lethal effect before diving to safety.

  Six minutes after the formation had begun its descent, Moakes’s rear gunner warned, “Tracer astern and below, sir.”

  “Right, Rear Gunner, take over fire control.”

  It was one of the gunners’ jobs to tell the pilot what evasive action to take when under fighter attack. Usually the first to report had the responsibility, but sometimes his colleague had a better view, depending on the fighter’s tactics.

  Before Moakes’s tail gunner could give him any more information or directions, an incandescent flash engulfed the sky for miles around and Moakes knew what had happened: an instant later the shock wave of air and the bellow of an explosion rocked his aircraft and slammed against his ears.

  The rear gunner reported, “That was Number Three in the last vick, Skipper.”

  No wonder, thought Moakes, they had trained twelve crews to attack this safe and easy target.

  Fourteen - Bill Bracken

  When the aircraft in the section immediately astern of us, and, fortunately, on its left flank instead of directly behind us, was shot down so swiftly and neatly, Uncle pitched forward so that I was thrown hard against my straps, then reared up steeply and quarter-rolled to starboard, making me knock my head against the armour plating behind my seat.

  Eddie had barely given me warning of tracer fire on our port quarter before the Lanc. disappeared in a conflagration that threw all the rest of us into such clear relief that any other fighter within ten miles must surely have singled us out.

  Fair enough, we had been told to watch out for night fighters; but close to the coast, not so far inland.

  We 11 survivors righted ourselves and continued our descent. I waited tautly for the next attack, for one of my own air gunners to call for evasive action. The enemy would pick us off from the rear, rather than expose himself to the fire of our combined guns further forward. That action had been quickly over, so the attacker had ample ammunition left to knock half of us down. Butterflies fluttered in my tummy but I overcame the urge to give my gunners unnecess
ary exhortations: they would be keener than any of us to sight the enemy first, and before he could hit us.

  “Rear gunner, Skip: rear gunner in the one right astern has just opened fire...and he’s getting it back.”

  I admired Eddie’s self-control and was proud of my crew’s discipline and coolness; and guts: for I wouldn’t care to be in a rear turret on a night like this was turning out to be, or indeed in a mid-upper.

  Eddie again: “He’s passed right under and turned port...going for the section leader.”

  Grateful for the smallest of mercies, my pulse rate slowing a little, I turned my head slightly to the left and, from the corner of my eye, glimpsed the coruscation of tracer bullets and shells where the Messerschmitt (both my gunners had confirmed its identification by the twin fins) and the rear gunner of the Lanc. in the centre of the last section were in action.

  Is he going to run right down the line trying to damage all of us? I wondered.

  The night fighter raced into sight as it passed directly beneath the section leader astern of us, heading for Moakes. The front gunner in the former’s aircraft opened up and the 110’s gunner replied. Moakes’s rear gunner had taken up the fight now and the Me 110 reefed hard round in a port turn. The tail gunner in the No 3 of our own section began to shoot: the fighter had given him a good plan view of its belly.

  We all cheered spontaneously as flames rippled from the 110. In a few seconds it was briskly alight and hurtling away from us.

  There was not long to wait before Eddie announced, “It’s gone in with a hell of a flash...must have hit a mountain...I can see it burning still.”

  Not long to wait either before we saw, on our starboard bow this time, an outbreak of red and yellow sparks arcing across the sky towards the right hand aircraft in the wing commander’s vick. The attack was coming from above, and immediately after it started we saw the mid-upper turret shooting back. The mid-upper in the right hand Lanc. of the second section was also firing at the same fighter. Then Keith joined in and it was fascinating to see the three twin sets of tracer converging on the one target. A spray of sparks burst out from the attacker, an orange glow darted across the sky, became a steady red and yellow flame, fluttering and lengthening as the wind fanned it, and expanded into a huge globe of fire. Again we were rocked by an explosion, but not such a cataclysmic one this time: compared with a Lanc. going up with its great load of petrol and 14,000 lbs. of bombs, a detonating Me 110 was small beer.

  I felt tremendously elated, excited and confident. “Both of those behaved like mugs...real suckers,” I declared to my crew. “The Jerry night fighter boys up here don’t get much practice...not like the ones we’re used to, over Germany and France...they made real asses of themselves.”

  From the derisive and confident agreement this stimulated I felt absolutely impregnable as we levelled off at 8,000 ft. with only three minutes to go to target.

  To my mortification, the enemy night fighter crews awaiting us there did not behave like mugs.

  *

  Moakes was glad it had happened. He had never liked postponing any unpleasantness. He was relieved that the battle had started. Now they knew what they were in for and could do something about it.

  He was amused to see the second night fighter bearing down on the leading section: he could visualise Leatham’s misery and almost laughed aloud. That selfish bastard wouldn’t be worrying about the chaps in his No. 2 wing man’s kite, he’d be scared stiff for his own skin. Moakes could imagine the hell that Leatham must be giving his air gunners at that moment.

  Long live the Met. man, Moakes thought when they levelled out. His forecast had been bang on: cloud base was a few hundred feet above, and lowering slightly to touch the mountaintops. They would have preferred a higher cloud base, but if this was the only chance they had before the weather went sour, it gave them a fair chance: that was to say, they had a good chance of hitting their targets and a fair chance of avoiding flying into a mountain.

  They let down to 6,000 ft. and the first of the night fighters patrolling the Nesdal bowl struck.

  Like the first attack, it was neat and quick. The Me 110 took out the aircraft on the left of the leading section with just one devastating head-on pounce from below. Moakes saw the attacker’s four heavy calibre front guns pumping their shells into the Lanc’s nose. The pilot must have been killed instantly and his bomb-aimer with him. The 110 ducked under the bomber, its rear-firing Schrage played their Musik and the Lanc. went lurching into a dive that ended in a thunderclap against a mountain slope.

  Leatham’s aircraft went up steeply, climbing for cloud cover.

  There was a vivid streak of light from immediately on Moakes’s left, accompanied by an ear-piercing detonation, and his No 3 disintegrated.

  The Nesdal bowl lay dead ahead, the night fighter had lain in wait on the western side of the circling ridges. Leatham, climbing away, was heading for his own, the safest, target on the far side of the wall of peaks that hemmed Nesdal in.

  But the enemy had other ideas. Before Leatham could get to closer than 1,000 ft. from the shelter of cloud, another Me 110 came flitting towards him just beneath the cloud’s edge. Moakes watched his Commanding Officer turn sharply away.

  The nine Lancasters were caught between two attackers, but all save Leatham courageously held their course.

  Leatham turned hard, away from the direction which would lead him to his objective. Both enemy fighters took advantage of his dive to stoop on him, firing.

  Moakes remembered how cleanly he had picked off the enemy fighter that had gone for Bill Bracken over Turin and nearly got him. He could do it again easily enough.

  Leatham was coming back right under the formation, and one of the night fighters broke away. Through the large gaps between the scattered banks of cloud, the moon shone brightly and visibility in the clear mountain air was superlative. While one fighter settled on Leatham’s tail, throttling back to avoid overshooting him, the other headed up towards the main formation.

  Leatham was turning as tightly as he could, in a steep bank, his rear gunner taking sporadic snap shots at the pursuer. He passed almost directly under Moakes.

  Moakes’s bomb-aimer in the front gun turret, a flight lieutenant of considerable seniority, asked, “Are you going to have a go at it, Skipper?”

  “Holding formation,” Moakes snapped back.

  “I can get him, Donk,” the bomb-aimer urged. He had been a pilot officer with Moakes when the latter was still a flight-sergeant, and sometimes forgot protocol. It was he who had shot the night fighter off Bracken’s tail that night and he burned to do it again.

  “Negative.” Moakes remembered the shame and humiliation that Leatham and caused him, the harm he had done his career, the venom he had undoubtedly vented on others in his warped way. And again he thought of his personal grievance, the stains Leatham had cast on his unblemished record of which he was justly proud: the Service was his whole life, equalled only by his love for his family: by holding back his promotion, by blighting the career Moakes could have made, Leatham had harmed the family too. The higher Moakes was promoted, the more he would be paid; and the better life he could give Ivy and the three...the four...children.

  Moakes watched Leatham go to his death and didn’t stir a finger. Six good men went with him, but Moakes, his feelings frozen in hatred, did not think of them. For a moment he was lifted right out of his normal self. The subconscious atavism that was normally hidden deep in his character took control. In this moment of stress the strong primitive side of his nature rose to the surface, released by the unconscious instinct to revenge himself before he died. His own end seemed imminent. He would not go without paying off the grievance that had festered for four years.

  Leatham’s aircraft crashed in flames and a pillar of fire consumed it.

  The night fighter which had shot it down, however, had ventured too close to it and Leatham’s gunners, in their dying seconds, had in their turn poured a series of cripplin
g bursts into it and it broke away with one engine shattered, to limp home.

  The remaining fighter had latched onto the tail of the Lancaster that was leading the section behind Moakes and had presumably sustained some damage when it was attacked earlier.

  Moakes’s rear gunner gave the alarm, and Moakes, jerking himself out of his trance, said, “Here’s your chance again, then, gunners,” and without hesitation broke formation and wheeled hard round to the rescue of his comrades.

  The tail gunner had already opened fire on the fighter, which was approaching the Lancaster behind Moakes from above. While Moakes banked round, his mid-upper gunner was able to bring his guns to bear. The startled Me 110 pilot broke off and Bracken’s gunners were able to put in some effective bursts as it crossed astern. Smoke billowed from one of the 110’s engines and it also gave up the fight.

  A third fighter headed towards the formation from the north-west, but as they crossed the barrier around the Nesdal bowl it pulled away.

  Odd, thought Moakes. He used the radio-telephone to delegate the bomber following behind Bracken to Leatham’s target. It turned away and skirted around the inside of the bowl. The remaining seven Lancasters flew across the bowl; and now Moakes understood why the fighter had not followed them into it.

  As soon as the Lancasters appeared, the four clusters of 37-millimetre multiple flak guns and the big 88-millimetre that had taken Milorg by surprise when they appeared at Nesdal on railway flat-cars, opened up. It was this apparition about which the messenger had come hot-foot to warn Haakon Haukelid.

  *

  Bill Bracken

  I could fully appreciate the magic about the place that brought ski-ers and mountaineers to Nesdal. Bathed in moonlight, it looked like a hidden paradise; as Nick had said, Shangri-La.