Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series)

by Gee, Colin

  Secondly, the limited strength of the Allied air forces that could carry out the mission.

  Thirdly, the situation regarding Soviet supply had not been fully appreciated until recently.

  In 1940, the British and French had considered bombing Baku and Grozny, to strangle the fuel supply to Nazi Germany, such supply being a by-product of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

  The groundwork done at that time, Operation Pike, was looked at and used to plan the newest attempt to knock out a major part of the USSR’s oil production.

  Three of the India-based RAF squadron’s were tasked, flown from the sub-continent to a hastily refurbished facility at Shiraz in Iran. From there, 99 Squadron’s Liberator Bombers, supported by 211 Squadron’s Mosquitoes, both covered by the Beaufighter Mk X’s and XI’s of 177 Squadron, were sent northwards to damage the oil production facilities at Baku on the Caspian Sea.

  They appeared high on the eastern horizon and caught the Soviet air defences on the hop.

  Nothing was in the air.

  No flak, no aircraft, no balloons, just a scoop of Pelicans, and a mated pair of Whooper swans to interrupt the rich blueness of the perfect late afternoon sky.

  Once the defences appreciated that the growing dots were enemy aircraft, the warning went out, and the civilian populace scurried for cover, as the gunners prepared their weapons, and the fighter pilots ran to waiting machines.

  From the airfield considered home by the 57th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, the surviving six P-63 KingCobras rose to meet the threat.

  On the other side of Baku, the 773rd Fighter Aviation Regiment responded by putting eight P-39 Aircobras in the air. From the same field, three Spitfire Mk V’s of the Baku District Pilot Training Unit added their venerable strength.

  The Fighter Regiments had both been transferred back from the Western Front, returned to safer airspace to recover and bring themselves back up to strength, before going back to Germany.

  As the Soviet planes went up, the Allied bombs came down, the Liberators dropping from a comfortable height of twenty-two thousand feet.

  Five hundred pound bombs fell amongst the storage tanks and wellheads, the refineries and the chemical plants.

  The target was so densely packed that it was difficult for the bomb-aimers of 99 Squadron to miss.

  211 Squadron came in lower, with more precise intent, pressing hard behind the torrent of descending bombs, their mission to ensure that the prime refining and chemical facilities received direct attention.

  The training unit Spitfires flogged themselves to death, seeking valuable height, as they pursued the Liberators.

  The Aircobras and Kingcobras latched onto the Mosquitoes of 211 Squadron, spoiling many a bomb-run, causing misses, or even preventing release.

  Above the whirling mass came the Beaufighters, plunging down to take the pressure off the unarmed Mk XVI Mosquitoes.

  Too late for one RAF crew, their aircraft coming apart around them, as the heavy 37mm cannon shells of a Kingcobra ripped the plywood wonder apart.

  The firepower of the Kingcobra was impressive, adding four .50cal Brownings to the heavy cannon that fired through the propeller boss.

  The Beaufighter brought a lot more to the aerial combat, its standard four 20mm Hispano cannons supplemented by six extra .303 machine guns on the wings.

  Three of the cobras were hacked down on the first sweep, the weight of metal defeating the Bell’s robust airframe.

  None of the pilots escaped and all five aircrew, British and Soviet, were dead before their aircraft hit the ground.

  The Wing Commander in the lead Mosquito was hopping mad.

  “Sinbad Leader calling Sabre leader, get them off our backs. Now! You just cost us an aircraft. Now do your jobs!”

  Squadron Leader Arkwright grimaced at the open remarks, made more uncomfortable by the fact that the WingCo was right. 177 Squadron, no, he had been slow to respond to the enemy fighters.

  “Sinbad Leader, roger.”

  The Beaufighters roared in again, keeping themselves between the interceptors and the regrouping Mossies.

  In the sky beyond, smokey, fiery trails marked the death dives of two of the training unit’s Spitfires, victims of the defensive armament of the withdrawing Liberators.

  The Kingcobras flew off to one flank, the Aircobras diving to ground level, in an attempt to split 177 Squadron’s defence.

  Arkwright nodded in acknowledgement.

  ‘These boys know their job;’ a professional’s opinion on the swift reaction of the Soviet pilots.

  “Sabre leader to all Sabre. Blue Flight come to port and stick with the yellow tails,” the unofficial marking recently adopted by the 57th Guards helping him in his description, “Red Flight take the flight at ground level. Green flight return to protect the bombers. Execute.”

  Three distinct groups of Beaufighters formed, Blue flight scoring a swift success, downing another of the Kingcobras. Red Flight pursued the Soviet 773rd Regiment, and came under fire from light AA weapons, one of the heavy RAF fighters losing an engine as bullets smashed home.

  Green Flight, complete with the Squadron Leader, ran straight into a barrage of fire from heavier weapons, guns that had been waiting for the moment that they no longer risked hitting their own.

  One Beau received a direct hit in the observer’s position, severing the fuselage in two. The rear portion fell away like a piece of garbage, its descent irregular and uncontrolled.

  The front section, still powered by two brutish Bristol Hercules engines, flew on unsteadily, the horrendously wounded pilot trying hard to make his aircraft stay in the air.

  He failed, and the front section fell away, arrowing into the water of the Caspian Sea.

  Three more Beaufighters took hits.

  One lost an engine and part of its wing, but a magnificent piece of flying brought the aircraft safely down, landing heavily on one of the wider local roads.

  The pilot brought his damaged aircraft to a halt and immediately set about destroying everything of value. He need not have bothered, as the gunners in two venerable BA-11 armoured cars smashed the Beaufighter and her crew to pieces, happy to be doing something to protect the Rodina from the terrorist flyers.

  The second fighter lost four foot of its port wing and, more importantly, the fuel cell in the wing was punctured, spilling precious fuel.

  None the less, it remained airborne and limped off in the direction of its home base.

  The third aircraft hit belonged to Arkwright.

  The 37mm shell had failed to explode, which, for Arkwright, was just as well.

  It had entered the aircraft just behind the control column, travelled between his arms without touching uniform or flesh, and exited the canopy, smashing everything in its path and ventilating the cockpit.

  Face cut by shards of perspex from the damaged cockpit, Arkwright struggled to see, the blood dripping into his eyes.

  None the less, he was still called upon to fly the aircraft and make decisions, the first of which was reacting to Red Flight’s failure to interdict the Aircobras.

  Green flight were best positioned now, and so he sent them in, staying back as his lack of proper vision could be more of a liability in the close quarter fight.

  Blue flight was directed to recover their station on the Mosquito squadron, which unit was holding briefly, whilst the Aircobra situation was resolved.

  Green Flight attacked and scored immediately, sending the enemy commander spinning spectacularly into a burning oil tank and driving the Aircobras away, opening up the attack run to the Mosquitoes of 211 Squadron.

  “Sinbad Leader calling all Sinbad aircraft. Commence your run, commence your run. Execute.”

  The twelve bombers swept over the target area, the main refining facility a priority target, as was the rest facility of knowledgeable technicians and engineers who kept the whole of Baku running.

  Mixed loads of five hundred, two fifty, and incendiaries left their bomb bays, ad
ding to the damage that had already been wrought by the Liberators.

  The cracking towers, previously unscathed, were transformed into useless metal, high explosive commencing the job of destruction, greedy flames fuelled by widely available hydrocarbons completing the job.

  One Mosquito staggered as it was struck by 12.7mm bullets, rolling over and adding itself and its hapless crew to the inferno at the distribution head, killing over thirty fire-fighters as they battled the flames.

  One Aircobra had slipped Green Flight, and it bored in on the bombers.

  Arkwright, lazily circling and directing his squadron, saw it in a brief moment of clarity.

  “Sabre leader to Sinbad aircraft. One bandit eleven o’clock low, closing fast. Am attacking.”

  Bringing the Beaufighter around in as tight a turn as he dared, Arkwright drove his aircraft straight at the gap between the hunter and the hunted.

  The Mosquitoes were fast aircraft, but bombing at low-level did not afford them this advantage, and they were going to be in harm’s way unless Arkwright could interpose himself.

  Beaufighter, Aircobra, and Mosquitoes converged inexorably.

  Had he been able to translate his thoughts for the benefit of the casual onlooker, then the reasons for his manouevre would have been made clear.

  But he didn’t, or rather couldn’t, so he just rose lazily into the air, leaving his partner still scrabbling on the ground.

  Rapidly gaining height, he decided to avoid the strange goings-on to his left and move away, bringing him straight into a line of convergence with a number of aircraft unaware of his presence.

  Another easy and powerful surge gained him extra height, and he became aware of something closing rapidly on his left side.

  A swift angling of the neck told him it was worth avoiding, so he dropped his right wing and came round in a tight turn.

  To the children of Khojahasan he was ‘Old White’, an object of affection, and to the smallest, one of some fear.

  He had lived on Khojahasan Lake for years, returning every year with his mate, for ‘Old White’ was a C.cygnus; a Whooper Swan.

  Fifteen kilos of solid male swan crashed into the shattered cockpit of the Beaufighter, and transformed both Old White and Squadron Leader Arkwright into an unidentifiable mess, spreading through the cockpit and the fuselage beyond, and in ‘Old White’s’ case, only after his solid body had demolished the pilots seat and smashed the observer beyond.

  The young pilot of the Aircobra had watched, both horrified and fascinated, as the huge white swan had flown into the Beaufighter. His inexperience cost him his life. The uncontrolled enemy aircraft spiralled away and he reacted late, the heavy aircraft clipping his Aircobra’s tail plane, sending him into a death dive.

  Both aircraft crashed in the oil storage area, the Aircobra igniting a full storage tank previously spared from damage.

  The huge blossom of fire marked the end to the raid, and the air combat, both sides drawing off to head for home and mourn comrades lost.

  On the ground, the dying continued into the night, as the fire brigade and civilian volunteers strove in vain to control spreading fuel fires, more facilities falling victim as every minute passed.

  Timed to coincide with the Baku attack, units of the USAAF took off from the fields in Northern Italy, and headed for the Ploiesti area, the oil-rich heartland of Roumania.

  In 1943, a mission had been flown from Libya with the same purpose, generally considered a costly failure.

  The 1945 version had one advantage.

  The lead bombers belonged to the RAF’s 9 Squadron, and had a special capacity that had not been available during the previous ‘Operation Tidal Wave’.

  9 Squadron had flown from their base in France to Northern Italy, where they were loaded with the Tallboy 12000lbs earthquake bombs. Along with 617 Squadron, the famous Dambusters, 9 Squadron was equipped and trained to deliver the huge bombs with precision.

  The theory was simple.

  Hit or miss the target, the bombs would penetrate the earth and create shock waves that would affect the facilities integrity by disrupting pipes and services, affecting the solid bases of the storage facilities and the refineries, and generally disturb everything, making the target vulnerable to the mix of high-explosives and incendiaries that the USAAF aircraft would drop immediately afterwards.

  In this instance, the Soviet air defences had not been unduly weakened, and covering fighters rose early to meet the approaching bomber force.

  Escorting Mustangs interposed themselves, but the Lavochkin’s and Mig’s smashed their way through and downed four of the RAF heavy bombers.

  The remaining ten Lancasters dropped on the main targets.

  Two bombs plunged into the Concordia Vega refinery; another four shared themselves equally between the Asta Romana and Columbia Aquila refining facilities.

  Of the remaining four Tallboys, only one went wide of the mark, plunging into the Ploiesti sewage works, its three companions expending their considerable power in and around the storage facilities at Româno-Americană and Unirea Speranta.

  The first bomb to land on the latter site could not have been bettered. It penetrated straight through the largest tank, burying itself deep in the ground, before exploding with spectacular results.

  The pressure fired thousands of gallons of petroleum spirit skywards in a huge orange wall that rose, curved over, and then plunged back to earth, igniting everything in its path.

  Any USAAF bombers depositing their loads on Speranta would waste their time, as the entire facility started to consume itself, further failures in pipe work and storage tanks adding more products to the expanding fires.

  In 1943, five Bombardment Groups of the Eighth and Ninth US Air Forces had attacked and, in most estimations, failed to permanently affect the production from Ploiesti.

  In October 1945, three Bombardment Groups of the Twelfth US Air Force caused more widespread and deep-seated damage than previously thought possible, and at a much lower cost.

  Whilst the heavy bombers had been harried all the way, in their flight over Southern Europe, Mustangs from all European commands had accompanied them, and inflicted heavy casualties on the defending Soviet air force, although not without significant losses themselves.

  The difference this time was the lower defensive capacity of the Soviet air force combined with the spectacular deployment of the Tallboy bombs.

  Ploiesti had its production capacity reduced by over 60% in as many minutes.

  2309hrs, Saturday, 13th October 1945, Headquarters, Red Banner Forces of Europe, Kohnstein, Nordhausen, Germany.

  The image of the scantily clad young peasant girl started to fade, the sound of her inviting voice being replaced with the urgent sounds of knocking on his door.

  Marshal Zhukov had taken to his bed early, well satisfied with a day during which his armies had sundered the Allied line in three places.

  The knocking grew more urgent, and he shook off the last vestiges of deep sleep and shouted at whomever it was to enter.

  Malinin, his tunic undone and clearly also roused from his slumbers, burst into the room clutching message slips.

  “What’s got you so rattled, Mikhail?”

  The Marshal reached across for his own tunic, and he stood, unsteadily at first, as his hand detoured to the proffered reports instead.

  “Talk to me,” his eyes not yet clear, the paperwork a jumble of meaningless symbols.

  “The Allies have hit Ploesti and Baku in simultaneous raids. Proper damage reports are not yet available but first indications are that the facilities in Baku are badly damaged, those in Roumania even worse.”

  No report was needed to make Zhukov aware of the consequences of the raids.

  “If this is true, we will lose some mobility, some supply ability, and some air capacity.”

  The tunic was slipped on and buttons fastened as he paused for further thought.

  “We need firm figures and projections from t
he Minister for Fuel before we can assess the impact, but I think we should immediately put in place something to prioritise fuel for our frontline and air forces.”

  Sitting down again, Zhukov posed a question.

  “How did the enemy get at these two prime facilities?”

  “It would appear that the Air Force weakened the defences in favour of sending units to the Western Front. Some under strength units were at Baku, and they were overwhelmed. The response over Ploesti was more structured, but the defensive fighter formations were too numerous for our own forces to have much effect.

  Pulling on his boots, Zhukov stood and stamped down hard.

  “I assume Moscow has been informed?”

  “Yes, Comrade Marshal. This report indicates that NKVD teams are already at the relevant headquarters making enquiries.”

  Both men understood that others would die that night, their decisions condemning them to the righteous indignation of others armed with 20/20 hindsight.

  “Right, Comrade Malinin, let us go and sort this mess out!”

  Both men moved quickly towards the main command centre, both sharing the thoughts about how quickly situations can change in warfare.

  Author’s note on ‘Stalemate’ from this point forward.

  Stalemate will now divide into three sections, and each will be taken to its conclusion before starting on the next.

  Each section will deal with a major Soviet attack and the areas affected by it, as well as the occasional general matter. In general, these attacks are within the area of responsibility of a Soviet Front, so I have labelled each chapter according to which Front is involved.

  This will result in the time line extending for one Front’s chapters, and then returning to an earlier time for the next.

  This has been done to limit the amount of chopping and changing between areas so that the reader may get a better feel for each individual area.

  The order in which they are addressed is purely one of my own selection. I indicate nothing by my choices.