Battle Climb

by Richard Townsend Bickers

“They just weren’t good enough,” Hintsch replied.

  “Neither was Emil, apparently.”

  Festner stood by looking crestfallen. Hintsch had seen the wreckage of his 109 when he landed. He said, “Emil was trying to look after Rudorffer; that was how it happened.”

  “Didn’t do too well at it, did he? Why did you take them on, in the first place?”

  “To give the two new chaps the practice they needed, for one thing. For another, four Emils (the Me 109E) should be able to out-fly and out-fight three Spitfires. “

  “Not when two of the Emils are flown by raw novices. You should have had better sense, Werner.”

  Coldly angry, Hintsch asked, “Are you saying we should refuse combat, sir?”

  Equally angry, his C.O. replied “No! I am saying you should show enough skill to be able to justify your attack.”

  “Perhaps, sir,” Hintsch said stiffly, “you will allow us to show what we can do, at the first opportunity.”

  “You’re damn right I will. And Festner will have to do his best in one of the repaired aircraft: I’m not letting him have a brand new one yet.”

  Festner said “I don’t care what sort of beat-up old kite I fly, as long as my Number Two doesn’t let me down.”

  “That won’t happen next time,” Bull Siegert told him. “You will be Number Two: to Hintsch, who seems to be the only one of the four of you whom I sent out this morning who is fit to lead even a Rotte. And it looks as though you’re going to get plenty of practice; I’m expecting a busy day.”

  “Good,” Festner said with a look of defiance.

  SEVEN

  Briefing for the dive bombers was short and to the point. Major Sepp von Handorf gave his crews their orders himself. He was sending his favourite, his best, Staffel on this job by way of a rehearsal of what was to come. Oberstleutnant von Brauneck had promised him fighter cover from his best Staffel and another one as well.

  Von Handorf faced his men with confidence, in the warm sunshine of a fine mid-August day. He had told them to sit on the grass at one side of the airfield, and had a blackboard set up in front of them.

  “Now this is it, “ he said. “It’s really quite simple. A kind of hit-and-run raid. The target is the R.A.F. fighter base at Longley; already known to you as a place on the map and from aerial photographs. Today we are going to see it at first hand: I’m leading the attack; just to show you how easy I’m sure it’s going to be.” He paused for their laughter. “I am not expecting great things from this, or I would be doing it in greater strength. This is just to try ourselves out. We shall return to Longley later, and in larger numbers. Today’s attack will also serve to lull the enemy into thinking that we have finished with Longley. I am allocating specific targets to each of us: that is the object of the exercise: to practise hitting defined targets.”

  He showed them what he wanted, by means of diagrams and photographs pinned to the drawing board by his Adjutant and Intelligence officer. The weather forecast, time, place and height of rendezvous with fighter escort came next, and the crews were dismissed.

  The card players returned to their tables to gather up the tunics they had left hanging over the backs of chairs, to tidy the cards, to pay their losses or grumble at the interruption in a winning streak.

  Lothar Kreft wondered if all the others were also suffering from the involuntary intestinal spasm he had felt when the briefing was announced and which kept repeating itself. He had almost flown into a barrage balloon two days earlier, and he loathed the fat brutes. Photographic reconnaissance showed that there were balloon defences around Longley. Well, there was one consolation: if the balloons kept them up at twelve or fifteen hundred metres, the flak, the intense light stuff anyway, wouldn’t be able to do them much hurt; and there wasn’t a lot of heavy stuff around airfields. He didn’t succeed in convincing himself that this was going to be an easy job, despite that.

  He walked with Voss towards their aeroplane. There was no hurry: take-off was set for nearly an hour later.

  Voss didn’t like the look on his pilot’s face. He had an abstracted air and his mouth was set in a grim line, as though his thoughts were disagreeable. Voss looked to him for encouragement and found none in his expression. He ventured to say “The Major was pretty chirpy just now. “

  Kreft gave him an abstracted glance and turned his beak of a nose, reddened by the sun, towards him like a falcon about to peck a fat pigeon. His ginger hair shone in the bright light like plumage on a bird of prey. “Why not? It’s a beautiful day: the birds are singing, the sun is shining. The famous English countryside should look its best, and we are about to take a scenic tour.” His thin lips parted in a mirthless smile.

  I wish I hadn’t said anything, Voss thought. I never know how to take this chap. He never actually says anything mutinous or critical, but his tone gives me qualms. With my family responsibilities I can’t afford to have my name linked with a man whose comments suggest he’s always against authority. Kreft was vaguely described by many as a liberal; with a pejorative shade about the noun. Everyone knew he had studied art in London, Paris and Rome, and spent several months hitch-hiking around America. He admired many French, British and American writers. It all gave the impression that he was not the most ardent National Socialist one could find. Voss well knew all about the midnight knock on the door that heralded the Gestapo. He did not want his wife hauled off for questioning and beating, or his children molested. Both could happen easily if Kreft went too far and he, even tacitly, went along with him and his views. The fact was, though, that no one knew what Kreft’s views about Nazism were, for he never uttered any; it was just his way of saying things that upset Voss and made a lot of other people wonder.

  Voss said “Let’s hope we mess up their countryside for them this morning; make the R.A.F station at Longley into a blot on the landscape.”

  “A Stuka raid has its own sort of beauty, Voss. There is a certain aesthetic delight in seeing one’s bombs burst like great crimson and gold flowers opening their petals. The twinkling coruscations of tracer in their muliticoloured chains have a prettiness of their own, also.”

  He’s gone round the bend, thought Voss. Coruscation, indeed: Glanz... glitter, splendour... what’s so splendid about a lot of tracer coming at you?

  He said: “I agree, Herr Oberleutnant, but for me there is more beauty and satisfaction in seeing buildings come crashing down or a vehicle park catch fire.”

  “No doubt we shall both be gratified this morning, then.”

  They continued in silence towards the trees under which the J u 87s were standing. Kreft was humming and whistling: no popular tune that Voss would have recognised, nor any well-known classical air. Some obscure piece known only to the musical intelligentsia, Voss supposed. No doubt his pilot also played the piano or violin.

  Kreft, in fact, was a flautist. He had an excellent collection of gramophone records of every variety of music, and was thinking just then how much he missed music in this nomadic military life. It was not practical to carry a flute or a good gramophone around or to risk his precious records. He listened as much as he could to the wireless; but he had no set of his own and the mess one was almost constantly braying what he considered to be rubbish. And of course he dare not tune in to the B.B.C., whose concerts he had enjoyed for years. He had been on leave only once since the war began, and had spent half his time listening to his records. He had a beautiful mistress in Berlin who was looking after his treasures, which included books and paintings. He had found as much delight in being reunited with them as with her. She played the cello in a famous orchestra and was, as well, a woman of unrestrained voluptuousness. There were days when he positively hated Major Sepp von Handorf for putting him in danger of losing her through his death or captivity.

  He was thinking of her while he went automatically about his preparations for take-off. In lovely weather like this she was always predominant in his thoughts: the sun lured them out to picnic in the country, to play
the gramophone while he sketched, to make love on an air mattress in the hot sun with music filling their ears after chilled wine had warmed their blood.

  Perhaps a wound, a slight one, wouldn’t be so bad. It could send him back to Berlin for a week or two, and they would catch the last of the summer. August was half-way through; it had better happen quickly. But it was impossible to decide where one would choose to be wounded; even lightly.

  Voss, at his station behind the pilot, was also preoccupied. His head was full of votive and sentimental thoughts of his wife and children, on the brink of every operation. His intestines, generously covered with adipose tissue though they were, felt as though a thousand needles had been lanced into them. He hadn’t seen his home for a year. Each time he was about to take off he feared that he may already have seen it for the last time.

  This morning there was the added worry lest he be killed before he had the chance of one final romp with Fifi... or maybe it would be Babette... Dedee... or... who knew? He looked forward to a safe return with added fervour. Tonight’s the night, he kept reminding himself.

  Bombers operated in a Kette of three aircraft, and multiples of Ketten. The Staffel had twelve aircraft serviceable and the Gruppenkommandeur was leading with two other aircraft of his Stabschwarm, his staff flight. The Stabschwarm, of four aircraft in all, was based on the same field as Kreft’s and Voss’s Staffel. Fifteen Stukas started their engines and taxied downwind to the far end of the aerodrome.

  Now that he was committed to the task, Kreft felt cool and even eager. There was matchless excitement in going into battle. Nothing had ever stirred him so much: not a passionate woman, nor the most exquisite poetry or prose, the loveliest voice or instrument, marvellous painting or sculpture. Action called on even more response from all his faculties than any of those; and the stimulation was unparallelled. So was the satisfaction in accomplishment, and while the adventure was in progress all his senses were heightened, his blood tingled, his mind and body were suffused by a kind of ecstasy. The reaction afterwards was more gratifying than the aftermath of any sensual experience. There was no post coitum triste after an operation. No brush stroke, nor note of music nor line of writing brought forth the same degree of exultant exaltation. When a mission was finished, one had survived; and there was nothing to compare with the thrill and fulfilment of risking one’s life, testing one’s courage and character to the utmost, and getting away with it.

  He looked forward to diving on Longley and devastating his allotted corner of it.

  The Stukas circled their base while they climbed, watched by thousands of pairs of eyes: the well-wishing ones of their comrades and few collaborators, the hate-filled ones of most of the local population. Doctors, nuns and priests and other good and dedicated people saw them and either prayed for their intended victims or for their enlightenment: while in their hearts their own human nature damned them. Hercule Pelegrand and Berthe watched them rise above the treetops and made no bones about crossing themselves and praying for their destruction when they had flown over the Channel.

  Through a transparent panel on the cockpit floor Kreft saw the rooftops and streets of Aigres and the spiralling Stukas which had taken off after him. When they were all at 5,000 metres and in precise, symmetrical formation of five Vs of three aircraft each, von Hohndorf led them north-east towards Boulogne where their fighter escort had been making height. The Messerschmitts’ airfield was also near Aigres, and to avoid collision risk during the form-up they had flown straight to a point to the east of Boulogne before gaining altitude.

  Von Brauneck kept his Stabschwarm at the airfield on which Hauptmann Erich “Bull” Siegert’s Staffel was based. He was personally leading the fighter escort, with an experienced Oberfeldwebel, a warrant officer, as his wing man. He was flying top cover, with Siegert leading twelve of his Staffel behind him. Another Staffel in the Geschwad-er was giving close escort, three Rotten flying on each flank of the bomber formation.

  Kreft saw the twenty-six Me 109s with cynical pleasure. They don’t take chances, he told himself. I wonder they haven’t got a third Staffel to provide top cover or lurk in the rear as reinforcements.

  Voss, on the intercom, said “Great sight, aren’t they ?”

  “Yes, very heroic. “

  There he goes again, thought Voss: he could mean one thing or the complete opposite.

  Kreft fell to calculating the chance of getting through the next sixty minutes or so. At 5,000 metres, they were well within range of the British 3.7-inch and 4.5-inch guns, but above the 3-inch. The accuracy of anti-aircraft artillery, however, decreased by half with each 5,000 ft. of height. Five thousand metres was well over 16,000 ft. Thus gunfire was less than one-quarter as accurate up there as down at 5,000 ft. A comforting realisation.

  Bombing error, of course, increased with altitude; but not in the same ratio. At 1,500 metres the accuracy was twice as great as at 5,000 metres.

  The raid was routed to avoid the most heavily defended places. But there were still those damnable barrage balloons that floated so silvery and smug-looking, like the bodies of legless and trunkless elephants, or like hippopotami with their legs submerged, at unpredictable heights around defended zones. Their maximum height was known to be 5,000 ft., 1,540 metres. They were twenty-five feet in diameter and sixty-two feet long, and sited so that their tethering cables presented the greatest possible hazard. These steel cables were virtually impossible to see when flying at speeds around two hundred miles an hour. When an aircraft struck one, usually with its wing, explosive charges at each end of the cable cut it, so that the aircraft flew on dragging it. What was more, a canvas parachute eight feet in diameter, at each end, opened and produced a seven-ton drag. As this was six times as much as the thrust of the biggest twin-engined Luftwaffe bomber, any aeroplane which was caught up in a cable was dragged down to earth to crash out of control.

  One never knew at what height the British would elect to fly their balloons.

  Through his windscreen Kreft saw a cluster of shiny silver sausages ahead and well below, while through the window at his feet he could still see the green water of the Channel, pocked with small flecks of white under a gentle wind.

  He was leading the third Kette; von Hohndorf’s and his Staffelkommandeur’s Ketten were ahead of him. The formation flying of the whole Staffel and the Stabschwarm in the van was impeccable. To each side, and above to the stern, Kreft could see the twenty-six Emils also keeping perfect station.

  Voss was looking up at them from his backward-facing seat and praying they would keep him safe. He had a great admiration for the Emil pilots; and a lot of envy: he envied anyone who held his life in his own hands instead of having to place it in someone else’s. If things got too hot for those boys they could break away and dive or climb to safety; whereas he had to sit there and take it while his pilot made all the decisions and took all the actions. And if Kreft did decide to break off an attack, their aeroplane was too slow to escape a fighter or to take much effective evasive action to avoid flak.

  Now the line of surf along the Kentish beaches was visible. And, at the same instant, Kreft saw at one-o’clock, high, away on his starboard bow, the sunlight reflected from a cluster of small shapes over England. The Spitfires and Hurricanes were ready for them.

  The Stukas crossed the coast to the accompaniment of anti-aircraft fire, bursting shells smudging the sky with red-centred black-smoke-wreathed explosions. But von Hohndorf had plotted his courses to pass between the biggest concentrations of guns, so the shell bursts disturbed the air and threw them about but did not hit them.

  When they crossed the coast the gunfire ceased. Kreft would have preferred it to persist. Silent guns meant approaching fighters. He kept looking up to his right to keep an eye on them.

  “Fighters nine o’clock, high,” Voss announced calmly. He didn’t feel calm, Kreft was sure. Good man, Voss; never panicked. He could see the fighters on his left. There weren’t many of them; and the first formatio
n he had seen didn’t look to be more than a dozen or so. We must be wearing the British down, he thought. But you never could tell with the Tommies: they were as wily as the devil and probably holding back massive reserves to delude the Luftwaffe into thinking they could safely launch huge raids. It must be a trap. The R.A.F. must have many more fighters on their strength; despite what the Luftwaffe Intelligence officers kept saying. And what Goring was always saying... and Hitler... der verruckte Führer, the madman, who burned great books and despised some of the most beautiful paintings and music that genius had given the world. But not pure Aryan genius, of course.

  Forget about him and keep my mind on the job, he chided himself.

  “What d’you see, Voss?”

  “Nothing more. I’m keeping an eye on both lots.”

  Voss was ready with his 7.92 millimetre MG 15 machine-gun and wished he had two of them, or one of much bigger calibre.

  Under their belly the five-hundred-kilogram bomb and under the wings the four fifty-kilo bombs reduced their speed, but both men liked to think of them hanging there ready to drop on the target; a target from which nothing would deter them.

  From each of the undercarriage legs a small cylinder protruded, with a small two-bladed propeller on its front. These were the sirens, and when the Stuka dived the little propellers would spin to produce a loud, eerie scream. Many of the Ju 87s had abandoned this device since the Blitzkrieg on Poland and the early days of the attacks on the Low Countries and France; but Kreft had kept his. He enjoyed their frightening scream. If I’m going to behave like Atilla, he said, I might as well do it properly.

  Thank God they had only fifteen kilometres to go; Longley was in sight. Down they went in a shallow dive to 4,000 metres.

  The close escort was still in position but the high cover had broken up to face the R. A.F. ‘s attack.

  Kreft had little time to spare now for watching what went on up there but could not resist the temptation to see for himself although Voss was giving him a commentary.