Churchill's Band of Brothers

by Damien Lewis

  Having dashed across the grass strip, one by one the fugitives vaulted inside, ducking low to make it through the oval-shaped doorway, and helped aboard by the welcoming arms of the RAF aircrew. More gunfire rang out across the airstrip, as a machine gun began to chew up the terrain all around the aircraft, the surviving enemy troops regrouping to attack. The C-47’s dispatcher was just about to give the pilot the clearance to move, when Ginger Jones let out a wild cry.

  ‘Paddy! Paddy! Where are you?’

  There were eleven passengers in the hold of the C-47, where there should have been twelve. One, the unmistakable form of Paddy Barker, the giant, always cheerful Irishman, was missing. Even as enemy fire tore into the aircraft’s exposed flanks, Jones dived out and was gone. As figures leaned out of the side door, searching for the missing men, the twin engines of the warplane began to rev and to roar, the pilot preparing to get underway. Moments later, Jones was back, half-carrying and half-dragging Barker with him, and the two men – one of whom, Barker, was injured – were hauled aboard.

  The C-47 jerked into motion and began to gain speed. Even as it did, a vehicle – smaller, faster than the trucks; a Kübelwagen, perhaps – came tearing onto the dirt strip, in an effort to block the plane’s path. The pilot just kept rolling, the speed increasing all the time as the twin Pratt and Whitney radial engines howled at maximum revs, the propellers clawing at the air. The progress still felt painfully slow to those riding in the hold, as bursts of fire hammered into the airframe. The reinforced military version of the DC-3 airliner, the C-47 had an ability to take battle damage and punishment that was legendary, but that was little consolation to those aboard right now.

  Seeming to defy all logic – surely, it was about to be torn to pieces on the runway – the C-47 accelerated along the grass strip, lifted off just above the vehicle that was attempting to block her path and tore its way into the dark skies. The climb seemed to take forever, for the enemy were still spraying the warplane with fire, which ‘splintered woodwork and ricocheted off metal’. But at last the impossible seemed to have transpired and the C-47 was over the perimeter of the airbase, at which point the pilot roared away at low level, hiding the warplane amongst the shadows and the trees.

  Like that – ‘hedge-hopping to avoid the ack-ack and the night fighters’ – they turned for home. It took some time for those riding in the hold to get their pulses back to something like normal, and to grasp what had just happened. Twelve SAS – two of whom, Lieutenant Wiehe and Captain Garstin, had been ruled unfit for frontline duties – had just pulled off one of the most daring escapes of the war. Even Paddy Barker’s injury turned out to be nothing more serious than a flesh wound. Not only that, they found themselves marvelling at the sheer neck and nerve of the RAF aircrew. Unarmed and defenceless, they had somehow pulled it off. Simply incredible.

  Once they were well on their way, Garstin went forward to have words with the pilot, who by anyone’s reckoning had to be one hell of a flier. ‘Good work, old man,’ he announced, his words laced with emotion. ‘But what on earth did you switch the lights on for? I thought you were quite mad.’

  ‘What a question,’ the pilot retorted, his voice an exercise in phlegmatic cool and calm. ‘It was because I couldn’t see, of course.’

  Of course. What a silly question to have posed.

  Not only had the C-47’s aircrew just pulled off an utterly audacious rescue mission, they had set the tone for more such operations to come. In early August ’44, an SAS squadron engaged in Operation Bulbasket – another behind-the-lines mission in France – would be betrayed, ambushed and badly mauled by the enemy. The survivors would be pulled out by the RAF, being relieved in place by a fresh contingent of SAS troops. In preparation, a farmer’s field would be recced as a DIY airstrip, one on which an RAF Lysander had landed previously, in 1943, carrying SOE agents. ‘One excellent strip can be cleared, hedges trimmed to 2 metres and one tree felled,’ the SAS had radioed back to base, regarding the proposed landing site.

  In due course they carved out a 1,000-foot airstrip, codenamed Bon Bon – ‘sweet’ in French – which was to be tested first by a pair of twin-engine Lockheed Hudsons, an American-built light bomber, converted in this case to carry cargo or paratroopers. The Hudsons had flown in packed with arms for the French Resistance and with fresh SAS troopers, to prove that the strip was viable. That done, a C-47 Dakota flew in with heavy weaponry and more relief forces, pulling out those who remained.

  There would be more such daring missions, dashing in and out of hostile terrain under the enemy’s very noses. But for now, Garstin and his men rested their exhausted limbs, knowing they were the trailblazers, as the pilot set a course for home. Some two hours after their miraculous rescue, the C-47 touched down at Fairford, after a flight that had proven largely uneventful. Shortly after that, Garstin and his men could raise a celebratory glass of beer, knowing that not only had they made it out alive, but that soon their Lewes Bombs would be exploding amongst the Ju 52s and the ammo dump of Étampes airfield.

  True to his promise, Garstin and his men had very much gone out with a bang.

  Chapter 10

  Having made it home against all odds, the SABU-70 raiders might have reckoned they deserved some down time. But there was to be little let-up. There was a war to be fought and already the actions of the SAS in France had proved a spectacular triumph. A report from the time – dated 19 June 1944 and stamped top secret – concluded that SAS operations in the field had ‘succeeded in delaying the departure of 2 SS divisions for over a week,’ including their heavy armour. Of course, those delays would prove absolutely critical.

  The actions of Operation Gain/Cain were seen as being especially disruptive to the enemy, in terms of their efforts to repulse the Normandy landings. In particular, SAS raids had ‘proved extremely successful’ amidst terrain and in conditions ‘which might have been expected to be very difficult’. Much of this was down to the ‘daring, energy and initiative’ with which the commanders and their men had operated in the field.

  To the south of where SABU-70 had deployed, other Gain raiding parties had been at work. Under the command of Major Ian Fenwick, a well-known cartoonist prior to the war – a ‘mad bugger’ who could ‘get anything done’ – the main body of D Squadron had taken out a series of targets, including blowing up several trains and petrol tankers, cutting numerous railway lines, and at one point shooting up a convoy of German trucks in the marketplace of Dourdan town itself. They had also called in a number of RAF airstrikes, one of which had hit a million-gallon fuel dump in Orléans.

  In the process they had taken a German dispatch-rider prisoner, who they had named ‘Fritz’ and proceeded to make the cook and general dogsbody at their deep forest camp. ‘Fritz’ seemed perfectly happy to be out of the war. Most regular German soldiers expressed a deep mistrust of Hitler, blaming the war on the ‘Nazis, SS and propaganda’. In his downtime, Fenwick busied himself with sketching an entire new book of cartoons – his first, Enter Trubshaw, was just about to be published – and with introducing bow-and-arrow training to his Robin Hood warriors.

  General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the senior American commander in Europe, would write to the SAS’s senior command, lauding the unit’s role in France. ‘The ruthlessness with which the enemy have attacked Special Air Service troops has been an indication of the injury which you were able to cause to the German armed forces . . . Many Special Air Service troops are still behind enemy lines; others are being reformed for new tasks. To all of them I say, “Well done, and good luck.”’

  In wreaking such havoc, Fenwick had been ably assisted by his deputies, Captain Cecil ‘Jock’ Riding and Lieutenant James ‘Jimmy’ Watson, both of whom were former room-mates of Lieutenant Wiehe. But the Germans had begun to lose patience with being hit from all sides, unleashing a storm of savagery. According to a report by Watson, the French had given ‘invaluable help’ but had paid a heavy price. In just one incident, ‘Six Parisien [sic]
refugees were ordered to move on by the Germans, and on being ready were sub-machine gunned.’ In another particularly brutal case, a store of fuel was discovered in a house owned by a member of the Resistance. German troops shot the man in the leg, after which they burned him alive. In numerous locations, French villages would pay a heavy price for helping the Resistance and SAS forces.

  In many ways, Major Fenwick was ideally suited to guerrilla warfare, despite its harsh and bloody reality. A kindred spirit to Colonel Mayne, he’d been recruited from the Auxiliaries, a top-secret British resistance organisation founded at Churchill’s urging under the SOE. The role of the Auxiliaries was to resist the anticipated invasion of Britain by Nazi Germany by all possible means. It was Brigadier Colin McVean Gubbins, chief of SOE, who Churchill had charged with founding a nationwide network of Auxiliary units. Under the motto Valiant but Vigilant, Gubbins had laid out their creed.

  In his plan for a very British form of guerrilla warfare, Gubbins advised: ‘Surprise first and foremost by finding out the enemy’s plans and concealing your own . . . Break off the action when it becomes too risky to continue . . . Choose areas and localities for action where your mobility will be superior to that of the enemy, owing to better knowledge of the country . . . Confine all movements as much as possible to the hours of darkness . . . Avoid being pinned down in battle . . . Retain the initiative at all costs . . . When the time for action comes, act with the greatest boldness and audacity.’

  Having been schooled in such warfare, the Auxiliary units had proven fertile hunting ground for the SAS when the invasion of Britain – Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operation Sealion) – failed to materialise. In early ’44, Mayne had given a talk to 500 Auxiliaries in the Curzon Cinema, in London’s Mayfair. Daunted by speaking in front of such a large crowd, Mayne had seemed somewhat quiet and withdrawn. He’d offered little but ‘hard work and action’ but his words must have impressed. Some 130 officers and men had volunteered, Major Fenwick included.

  Now Lieutenant Colonel Mayne himself planned to parachute into France, to join Fenwick and the Op Gain party. Taking command, he would ensure that the energy and derring-do of these raiders would remain undimmed. For those like Garstin and his SABU-70 raiders, the knowledge that their commanding officer would be dropping into theatre was hugely heartening, especially as they were about to be redeployed themselves, heading back behind the lines.

  The battle for France had reached an absolutely pivotal juncture, senior Allied commanders concluded. ‘The Resistance situation . . . is now entering a very critical period. The Germans, after a certain amount of confusion following the initial landings, are now organising concentrated attacks.’ Unless isolated Resistance bands could be ‘supplied with considerable quantities of arms and ammunition, they are likely to be dispersed and suffer severe losses’. There was more – much more – to be done.

  The men of SABU-70, battle-scarred and worn though they might be, were about to be re-formed for a new task. As they had prowled around Étampes airbase so comprehensively, who better to send back in, charged with putting out of action the fleets of warplanes based there. As a bonus, this time they would no longer need to drop blind. The local Resistance were apparently raring to go. In short, they would parachute back into the Étampes area armed to the teeth, on a month-long sabotage mission working closely with the locals. As they had gone out with a bang, so SABU-70 were to be sent back in again.

  The twelve men – Garstin, Wiehe, Vaculik, Jones and Barker amongst them – wandered off to their separate quarters, to digest the news: they were returning forthwith, and to assault the very same airbase that had so very nearly proved the death of them. Some, predictably, turned to the beer barrel, others to their sweethearts. They figured they’d earned a good few hours downtime, even if strictly speaking no one was allowed off the base.

  Vaculik, very much the ladies’ man, had recently wed the daughter of an English noblewoman, in secret and wholly against the family’s wishes. In true SAS style, he stole away from the confines of the Cage for a few precious hours in ‘Lady Nicky’s’ company. Lieutenant Wiehe, meanwhile, turned to the camaraderie of his mates in the mess, and late at night, once the carousing was done, he retired to his tent and his journal.

  That book, page after page of which was covered in a neat flowing hand etched in fountain pen, had been with him since his departure from Mauritius. As he contemplated their death-defying Dourdan/Étampes experiences, Wiehe flicked through previous entries, searching for inspiration. He read over the day when he’d learned that Eda, his fiancée, had volunteered for the Mauritius Red Cross, readying parcels containing all ‘the necessities of war’ to be sent to Allied POWs. She’d done so in an effort to better empathise with his own journey into the dark heart of war.

  He reread the notes he’d made of Churchill’s warning issued to the British people, prior to D-Day. The public needed to avoid ‘excessive optimism regarding the price of victory’, and to be warned about ‘the enormous losses that our Army is going to suffer in terms of human lives’. Churchill had averred that there would be a high cost to be paid for liberating Europe, and Wiehe didn’t doubt it one bit, especially after their recent adventures and their seat-of-the-pants rescue.

  He reread the diary entries about his evenings in the mess, prior to setting out on their first mission, when, at age twenty-seven, he’d been surrounded by men far, far younger, some looking entirely like ‘adolescents’. They were all so young, and by comparison he had felt aged beyond his years. Reading the entry for 9 April 1944, he was reminded of how precious was family. Family was simply ‘irreplaceable and one of the most beautiful things ever given to a man’.

  Wiehe had lost his father in 1928, when he was just twelve years old. In time, he’d come to view it almost as a blessing, for it had brought him face to face with death, preparing him at an early age for war. ‘Everything passes,’ he had noted in his diary. ‘We pass.’ All was vanity in a world that would end. Those sentiments seemed to echo the words of Captain Garstin, as they had stolen onto Étampes airfield: You can only die once.

  After his father’s death, Wiehe had resolved to become a priest. His family were devout Catholics. But then had come the war and so had begun the relentless desire – the thirst – to do his duty. He had felt compelled to play a frontline role, come what may. Well, now he’d ventured behind the lines and as his pen hovered over his journal, Wiehe could only find trepidation in his heart and a darkness muddying his mind. Tonight, the words – any sense of clarity – just wouldn’t come. He left the pages unwritten.

  Wiehe left the previous jottings – the last words scribbled before deploying first time around, which had ended in the Stirling’s crash-landing – as his final entry. ‘Now I close this notebook probably for a long time,’ Wiehe had noted, adding that he was awaiting ‘departure for France, into occupied territory, far behind the enemy lines . . .’ Then, as if in afterthought, he’d written: ‘Or are these notes that I am writing now the last?’ Somehow those words seemed as fitting now as they had then. After all, what had changed? What else was there that needed saying?

  For their next mission, Garstin and his men would be highly dependent upon their local reception party. A ‘Progress Report SAS Operations’ from 24 June stressed that wherever possible SAS patrols ‘should be dropped to reception so that guides and information about enemy dispositions and targets can be supplied’. In theory, it was a win-win situation. The SAS would parachute in container-loads of arms for the Resistance, and could instruct them in their use. The locals would point out enemy targets and strengths, and could stiffen the SAS’s ranks when undertaking missions.

  It was crucial not to lose momentum, and to avoid the ‘danger that, after the initial wave of enthusiasm raised by the Allied landings . . . Resistance will tend to fall off considerably as a result of casualties’. The Resistance needed to be ‘wholeheartedly supported with arms and equipment, and where possible by the presence of Allied troops’. Ke
eping up morale was essential, ‘and its value cannot be sufficiently stressed’. In an effort to stiffen spirits, ‘news of successes of Resistance elements in other areas’ needed to be broadcast into France. Providing weapons and training was key, if Resistance bands were to stand firm when faced with German armoured units.

  Captain Garstin and his men were slated to drop into a DZ adjacent to the tiny French village of La Ferté-Alais, an area with a long history of Resistance activities. It offered fine territory from which to wage guerrilla warfare, despite the fact that it was situated less than 40 miles from the centre of Paris. Sixteen miles to the east of Étampes airfield, the beauty of La Ferté-Alais as a base of operations was its position within the Forest of Fontainebleau – a 400,000-acre expanse of ancient woods, heath and wetlands. It should prove a perfect setting from which to strike at Étampes airbase, and to retreat to once the damage had been wrought.

  Of all the Operation Gain parties, Garstin and his men were to be dropped closest to Paris, at the northernmost tip of the Gain area of operations. Their mission would acquire its own separate codename, ‘Toby 3’. The details of this, and their wider objectives, were laid out in a report entitled ‘SAS/SOE Plans’, which called for ‘sabotage, disruption of communications, individual guerrilla action, etc., all designed to harass the enemy and giving him no organised forces to take action against’.

  Melting away into the Forest of Fontainebleau should achieve just those kind of results. The cover of that report was emblazoned with a veritable profusion of security stamps, including a massive red ‘X’ emblazoned across the entire front page. Added to that were ‘BIGOT. Most secret. To be kept under lock and key,’ plus the following caution: ‘It is requested that special care may be taken to ensure the secrecy of this document.’