Churchill's Band of Brothers

by Damien Lewis

  Apparently satisfied, the dispatcher returned to his place beside the howling maw of the trap. As figures gazed down into the empty blackness, several sets of hands were seen to be shaking. With some, it was the effects of the adrenaline buzzing through their veins. With others, it was the surge of raw animal fright that came with making the jump. One of those fear-stricken individuals was Vaculik, who kept repeating to himself over and over again that ‘of course’ his parachute would open. Of course. Of course. Of course.

  But it was Lieutenant Rex – Wiehe – who had the greatest reason to dread the coming drop. Fearing he would miss out on frontline operations, in December 1942 Wiehe had volunteered for parachute duties. At first his regiment had refused to let him go, but his stubborn determination had won through. Yet when finally posted to his new unit, the 4th Parachute Brigade, then based at Moascar, in Egypt, his new commander, a Major Hardiman, promptly told Wiehe that the long months he’d spent at war were no proper qualification for an airborne unit, and he’d best return to where he’d come from.

  The junior officers were far more encouraging, counselling Wiehe to ignore Hardiman, who was known as something of a blow-hard. Doggedly he persevered and he duly earned his wings, though he was to see one man drop to his death, another smash his collarbone and a third break his knee during training. Worse still, in June 1943, shortly after spending his third birthday at war – he’d just turned twenty-seven – Wiehe managed to injure his leg during training, not long before his unit was slated to drop into Italy, at the spearhead of the Allied landings.

  Wiehe was sent before the squadron medic, who declared that his career as a parachutist was over. Seeing the abject distress on the young soldier’s features, the doctor added, apologetically, ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help it.’ Stunned at his run of ill luck, Wiehe contemplated spending the rest of the war as a ‘pen-pusher’. Thankfully, by now Major Hardiman had warmed to his new recruit, and he offered to retain Wiehe as a ‘non-jumping member’. Better still, he would fly into Italy aboard the gliders, bringing in the squadron’s vehicles. That Wiehe proceeded to do, and in many ways the glider-borne landings proved as hazardous as the parachute insertions.

  Upon his unit’s return to the UK, in January 1944, Wiehe remained remarkably upbeat, again seizing the chance to volunteer for hazardous duties. Using the argument that he was a rare and valuable thing right then – an airborne soldier fluent in both French and English – he volunteered ‘for any special position where my knowledge of French could be useful’. Interviewed by Colonel Mayne, Wiehe was accepted into the SAS on a two-week trial.

  Having somehow managed to bury the fact of his being ruled unfit for parachute duties, he was dispatched to Ringway aerodrome, near Manchester, for parachute refresher training. At both the tethered balloon and the Whitley’s narrow jump-tube, Wiehe found himself frozen with fear. It was summer 1943 when he’d been declared unfit for parachuting, and why should he be any more capable now? But by sheer force of will alone – a ‘desperate appeal’ to reason – he’d steeled himself to complete the necessary jumps, after which he was posted on probation to the SAS, in Scotland.

  Ever since sailing to war, Wiehe had kept a diary, noting down key events, plus his hopes and fears. ‘Training continues, intensifies, ’ he’d noted of the punishing regime he was subjected to in February ’44 in the hills around Darvel. ‘I fear for my foot and my knees, which are not too strong . . . Shall I be amongst those troops amongst the first to land in Europe? That is my wish.’ Despite his worst fears, Wiehe passed the test and by March he was deemed a fully fledged member of the SAS.

  On 4 June he penned a letter to his mother in Mauritius, giving his address as ‘1st SAS Regt, APO, England’ (APO – Army Post Office). In it he wrote of the dangers he would shortly face, urging his mother to ‘reassure’ and ‘encourage’ his fiancée, Eda. Childhood sweethearts, he and Eda had grown up together on Mauritius and had long been expected to wed. He would shortly deploy to ‘the European continent’, Wiehe wrote, something that ‘I would not have dared speak about . . . but the colonel told me yesterday it was allowed.’ By ‘the colonel’, he meant of course Mayne.

  He’d warned his mother that she should ‘not be alarmed if after this letter you remain long without news from me . . . You won’t even hear about my regiment in the news releases and I can’t tell you what our role is. If our mission proves difficult to fulfil, still I leave full of confidence: I will be back soon.’ He signed off, ‘I kiss you very tenderly. Your son who loves you.’

  Twenty-four hours after he’d penned those words, the D-Day landings had started, Wiehe noting in his diary how ‘the great invasion of Europe began . . . Until dawn I was chatting with a friend, speculating as to the date of this great event, when a moment later the radio announced: “Allied forces have landed on the continent of Europe.” There on the Normandy coast men, tanks, cannons are landing . . . from countless boats.’

  Despite injury and ill fortune, Wiehe had stayed the course. And now here he was, moments away from playing his part in cementing the D-Day landings, and no matter that his legs might feel like the proverbial jelly. Whenever he was poised to jump, he was ‘filled with an apprehension and anguish that was difficult to master. I am afraid, simply afraid,’ he noted. But the worse thing was the agonising wait at the Stirling’s trap, which seemed never ending.

  For a good five minutes the warplane circled the Brétigny-sur-Orge drop-zone, but not a sniff of a recognition light or signal fire was there to be seen. All that showed below were the darker outlines of woodland, plus the lighter, blocky patches of cornfields. As the aircraft droned around and around, Garstin and his men were very much on edge. Vaculik found himself biting his lips and repeatedly pulling on his static line, just as some kind of a distraction.

  Finally, the dispatcher stepped back from the trap, in response to some message from the cockpit, and he levered the aperture closed. As there was not the slightest sign of any reception party below, the jump had been cancelled. The decision was met with roars of indignation from the waiting men, plus strings of curses. Paddy Barker even threatened to ‘throw out’ the dispatcher, if he insisted on preventing them from going.

  ‘Shut your big traps and listen up,’ the man retorted. Sutherland had decided to head for the back-up DZ, which was but a few minutes’ flight away. If Garstin and his men could only ‘keep quiet and be patient’, they should get a second chance at making the drop.

  Grudgingly they agreed to do as exhorted. As all knew only too well, if there was no sign of any friendly reception party that normally signified some kind of enemy interference on the ground, which could spell bad news for any orbiting warplane. If anything, Sutherland had tarried too long and he had every right to move on.

  ‘Our briefing for such an occurrence was not to linger,’ Flight Sergeant David Evans, a highly experienced Stirling pilot, recalled of one such mission, but ‘in our eagerness to supply our French allies we kept circling, hoping to see fire lit . . . Suddenly, when we were at about 2,000 feet, all hell broke loose: we were enveloped in light as tracer bullets came up at us from all directions.’ Diving to treetop height, the Stirling had got away unscathed, but all knew the risks of hanging around for too long.

  Shortly Sutherland put his war-ravaged aircraft into a second holding pattern, over the back-up DZ. While the trap remained closed for now, Garstin and his men could follow the fortunes of the search via the expression on the dispatcher’s face, as he scrutinised the terrain below through one of the aircraft’s porthole-like windows. A thick frown creased his brows. It didn’t exactly look promising.

  Sutherland kept at it for a good quarter of an hour, which was absolutely pushing the luck of all aboard that aircraft. As the minutes ticked by, the SAS men’s rage at being barred from making the jump gave way to an overriding sense of frustration and impotency. Something dire must have happened to their comrades-in-arms on the ground, for there was not a sign of them
.

  Eventually, Sutherland gave the word that all dreaded. ‘Sorry, boys, not a signal to be seen.’ They were to return to base forthwith. But there was worse to come. ‘We’re losing speed and we’re losing petrol. In fact, I don’t even know if we’ve got enough to make it.’

  Ginger Jones, who’d been chewing on some tobacco, spluttered in shock, almost swallowing the wad whole. Even the normally voluble Paddy Barker seemed lost for words. From the bitter disappointment of not being able to jump, this had now become a matter of raw survival. Figures unhooked their static lines, before slumping back onto their seats. Some bunched up their parachute packs to form makeshift pillows, falling into a wearied sleep. The on-again-off-again ebb and flow of the tension had proven exhausting.

  But they would not be at rest for long.

  Even as Sutherland nursed the Stirling northwards, setting a course for their airbase lying far to the west of London, sleeping men were jerked awake by the sudden blasts of enemy gunfire. Passing back across the French coast could prove equally as hazardous as any outward journey. For long minutes, the slow-flying Stirling was menaced by explosions, as she shuddered and lurched through the firestorm. It sounded as if some vengeful giant was ‘throwing stones at us by the handful’, Vaculik recalled. They appeared to be through the worst when a second engine began to cough and falter. By the time it eventually died, the Stirling was out over the dark expanse of the sea.

  Deprived now of two of her four engines, the warplane slowed markedly and, ominously, the men in the hold could feel her losing altitude. It was obvious what now threatened: they were in danger of ditching in the drink. All along the hold, nervous figures fiddled with their inflatable life vests, checking that the compressed air cylinder was properly attached and that the tube to the vest hadn’t perished.

  From the cockpit Sutherland started yelling out a string of orders, as he struggled to keep the 25-tonne warplane airborne. By way of response, the dispatcher reached for the heavy plywood covers, seeking once again to hinge them back from the trap. What did Sutherland now intend? Were all about to be ordered to bail out over the Channel? Garstin and his men hurried to help, laying shoulders to the task of flinging the covers aside. That done, the dispatcher gave his orders: every item that wasn’t bolted down was to be jettisoned into the sea, bar the men riding aboard that warplane.

  First went the heavy cylindrical steel containers packed with the precious kit with which the men of SABU-70 had intended to wreak havoc deep behind enemy lines. Explosives, weaponry, ammunition, ration packs – one by one, the heavy containers were manhandled to the trap and sent tumbling darkly towards the sea far below. Once all had been ditched, the men’s kit bags were hurled seawards. Out went the two pairs of underwear, the two shirts, the sleeping bag, map case, webbing belt, pistol, water bottle, compass and torch that each carried. Maps, bundles of cash, escape and evasion kits, wireless codebooks and decoding sheets – all was hurled towards the dark swell. Anything and everything had to go, in a desperate effort to keep the Stirling airborne.

  As Vaculik dumped his shaving kit into the void, he grumbled: ‘There goes my new safety razor!’ Beside him, Captain Garstin – phlegmatic and unshakeable as ever – gave a wry grin. ‘The mermaids will use it on any visitors.’ It was a darkly humorous remark. No one aboard that aircraft fancied having a shave from one of those sirens of the deep, even if it was with Vaculik’s safety razor.

  As the men had been hurling out the excess weight, the Stirling’s flight mechanic was struggling to get the recently failed engine operational again. Somehow he succeeded in achieving the seemingly impossible: all of a sudden, it coughed out a great gout of smoke and sparked back into improbable life. Garstin and his men felt their hearts lift. With three engines powering them onwards once more, Sutherland was able to claw back some precious height, bringing the Stirling up to some 5,000 feet.

  But no sooner had he done so than the same engine coughed again and gave up the ghost for good. Deprived of its power, the Stirling almost stalled, and Sutherland had to place her into a steep dive, in order to increase airspeed and to gain control once more. This had become a rollercoaster ride to either death or salvation, and none aboard that warplane could predict how it might end. Only one thing was for certain: two Bristol Hercules powerplants were not enough to keep them airborne for long.

  Fear roiled in the guts of the SABU-70 raiders now. The Stirling had lost so much height they were too low to jump. There wasn’t even the space in which a parachute might open. Ghostly, pencil thin, gleaming silvery-blue in the moonlight, the white cliffs of Sussex hove into view, seemingly horribly distant. Still Sutherland nursed the ailing warplane onwards. Seeming to defy gravity itself, moment by moment the giant aircraft crept ever closer to making some kind of landfall.

  ‘It’ll be a belly landing!’ cried the dispatcher. ‘Roll into a ball, hands behind your necks.’ The Stirling’s landing gear must have been hit, for there was zero sign of any response from it. ‘A crash-landing’s the only way. It’s all right. Don’t get the wind up.’

  The twelve men did as ordered, taking up crash positions. But no matter how the dispatcher might try to soothe frayed nerves, several amongst them were absolutely petrified. Vaculik felt convinced they were done for. ‘I could already see my charred corpse in the blackened debris . . . But there was nothing to be done, just nothing.’

  Oddly, Vaculik felt like laughing, even as they swept towards the towering cliffs. It was so ironic: he had survived Dunkirk, repeated captures and escapes, an epic sea voyage to Britain, and now being shot up by flak, only to die in a crash-landing on supposedly friendly soil. Without really realising it, he started to chortle. It must have sounded hideously ghoulish, for Ginger Jones turned a furious gaze upon him. During the long months of training, especially on their around-Britain challenge, the two men had become the best of friends, but there was little sign of that now.

  ‘Shut up, you – or I’ll push your face in!’ Jones growled.

  That was a threat not to be taken lightly. Although Vaculik was an inch or two taller than Jones, there was little doubt who would win in an all-out brawl. The Frenchman had once seen Jones take on Paddy Barker. The two had been engaged in a furious drink-fuelled argument when Jones had dropped Barker with a single right to the heart. But before Vaculik could so much as respond, there was an almighty crash and the jarring shock of impact, as the belly of the Stirling made contact with the ground and she began to plough forward at 100 knots airspeed, throwing up a cloud of dirt, grass and debris in her path.

  A storm of stones, rocks and heavy clods of earth tore through the opening in the belly of the fuselage, a choking cloud of dust billowing inside. Unidentified projectiles smashed into the parachutists’ helmets, as 25 tonnes of careering warplane tore across the earth. Finally, after a deafening splintering and buckling of the fuselage, the wrecked aircraft came to a juddering halt, and all was enveloped in a ringing silence.

  A few seconds later a surprisingly clear and steady voice rang out through the thick fog of dust and debris. ‘You okay, boys?’

  It was Sutherland, and he was crawling back along the fuselage towards his passengers. Gradually a degree of order was restored, and the men could be seen gingerly testing limbs to see if anything was broken. As the first individuals realised they were still miraculously in one piece, hands fumbled instinctively for packets of cigarettes, to calm frayed nerves.

  ‘Idiots!’ yelled the dispatcher. ‘You want us all to go up in smoke? No matches, whatever you do.’

  He was right. Already the air inside the fuselage was thick with the smell of petrol. At least one of the Stirling’s four tanks must have ruptured during the crash-landing, and was gushing out fuel. Before any more could be said on the matter, there was a series of loud bashes from the exterior of the warplane, as if someone was knocking to be allowed entry.

  A door opened and a bulky figure poked a head inside. He was kitted out in all the gear of a military fi
refighter, though the first man to venture inside was actually a medic. More followed, quickly manhandling the stunned passengers from the wrecked aircraft into the darkness outside. One look showed that Sutherland had somehow managed to get them down on a proper working airfield. Parked to one side was an RAF ambulance and a fire engine, ready for the worst of all eventualities.

  Either a miracle worker or an utter prodigy of the air, Sutherland had succeeded in nursing the Stirling all the way to Ford Airfield, set some 2 miles back from the Sussex cliffs at Littlehampton, and an operational base for a squadron of De Havilland Mosquito warplanes. Amazingly, not a man amongst the SABU-70 party nor the Stirling’s aircrew had suffered anything more than scratches, bruises and sprains during the crash-landing.

  Plagued more by the fright of their lives, both SAS and aircrew were hurried into the Ford Airfield canteen, to ‘drown our sorrows and celebrate our escape’. In no time a team of bustling WAAFs – the female auxiliaries of the RAF – had rustled up a breakfast fit for a king, including fried eggs and heaps of bacon. The RAF Ford squadron leader joined them, complete with a magnificent handlebar moustache and the cocker spaniel that served as their mascot. Though the crash-landing had ploughed up a good stretch of the airstrip, and left a deal of clearing-up work to be done, no one seemed to mind. All were simply overjoyed that every man had been brought back alive.

  Later that day a Stirling landed to collect the SABU-70 stick and to whisk them back to Fairfield Camp in rural Gloucestershire, otherwise known as ‘the Cage’. This was a top-secret and intensively patrolled base set under canvas and surrounded by barbed-wire, in which SAS and SOE parties would be incarcerated immediately prior to departure into enemy-occupied Europe. Adjacent lay the airbase of RAF Fairford, from where the fleets of Stirlings set forth for occupied France.

  No one was allowed out of the Cage, unless he was flying into enemy territory, or for some reason had had his mission cancelled. No one was allowed to pass from camp to airfield without express permission: the passageway between was permanently patrolled by the Red Caps – the military police. The idea behind the rigorous strictures was to ensure that no snippet of intelligence might inadvertently leak to the enemy, due to a careless word uttered in a pub, or when saying goodbyes to loved ones.