Onward and Upward

by Tony Wilson

Chapter 19

  Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Fritz von Beneckendorf of the Luftwaffe sat in his office on the outskirts of Casablanca followed the to-ings and fro-ings of Montgomery and Field Marshal Rommel (an uncle of his, many times removed) in Egypt and Libya, and decided that perhaps it was about time to prepare for a ‘worst case scenario’. He had been tasked with forming an anti-tank unit that would decimate the dreaded tanks of the British Eighth Army if they ever managed to get as far as Morocco, but nobody took him seriously until Uncle Erwin took a day off from his war in Libya and popped in for his birthday party. Suddenly he had ‘clout’ and lots of it.

  First ‘Intelligence’ found the perfect site for his marauder unit, (if the dumkoff British ever made it this far), but there was a small, almost insignificant problem, it was inaccessible by road, so commandeering every engineering unit that he could lay his hands on he tasked them with building him one. The whole project was a masterpiece of German engineering and ingenuity, and by the time it was completed a new road had been blasted up the long evil looking canyon, and a superbly constructed and camouflaged hangar had been built on the plain at the end of it, although the project did consume vast resources that were urgently required elsewhere, a minor point. He decided that his unit would have the best equipment available so as factories in the Third Reich slaved away to provide him with the latest anti-tank aircraft, he and his growing band of technicians scoured every nook and cranny to equip the clandestine base, and then finally all he needed were the aircraft, and aviation fuel of course, and after dropping his Uncles name a few times he was promised that they would be arriving ‘soon’.

  Finally the big day arrived, and his aircraft, which had been on one of the last freighters to arrive in Morocco, circled overhead, and one by one they landed, although the last two nearly didn’t make it, the mechanics at the assembly unit didn’t have a lot of fuel to spare, just enough to get them to their new unit. As the Mechanics towed each aircraft inside the now bustling hangar Herr Oberstleutnant felt proud of what he had achieved on behalf of his beloved Führer, the eighth of November 1942 would be a day for him to remember with pride, but there was still that small problem of the fuel. He made his way to the radio room to personally expedite its speedy arrival, but unfortunately the duty Feldwebel (Sergeant) was having problems of his own. Apparently the British and Americans had not read Oberstleutnant Fritz von Beneckendorf’s paper on how the war in Northwest Africa was to be conducted, so they had devised a plan of their own, and entitled it ‘Operation Torch’, commencement date 8/11/42, and it was quickly pointed out to him, by a very junior Officer that unless he had some ‘flyable’ operational aircraft then ’Shut up and stop cluttering up the airwaves’.

  Four days later he finally arranged for the last of a fuel dumps supply of fuel to be transported to him, in the last remaining tankers, rather than let it be blown up before the approaching Americans arrived, and the convoy commander agreed to rendezvous at the concealed entrance to the road leading up to his airfield, but how would he find the concealed entrance? That was easy, one of his Storchs would be circling it, and then drop him further instructions on how to negotiate the twisting road. The next day all the remaining dregs of fuel were drained out of the other aircraft, and transferred into Leutnant Gunther Angern’s Fieseler Fi 156 Storch C3, and he set off to meet up with the tankers at the appointed time with almost half a tank of fuel. This should have been more than sufficient for the task in hand, but unfortunately the convoy was a little late, so he had to orbit around for a while, but finally a dust storm signified the arrival of the tankers. As he started his approach run to drop the instructions a flight of Grumman F4F Wildcats from an Escort Carrier patrolling off shore beat him to it, and within a few minutes any chance of his units’ aircraft joining in this man’s war went up in ten columns of smoke. Once the aircraft departed to their carrier to re-fuel and re-arm he circled the funeral pyres but saw no sign of life, which was just as well as he had no intention of landing on the shifting sands below, and then an idea started to form in the back of his mind. ‘Did he have enough fuel to make it to civilisation, British or American it didn’t matter, just as long as he could see out the remainder of the war in the comfort of an allied POW camp?’ Then something else formed in the back of his mind, the business end of a Luger 'Parabellum' 9mm pistol, he had forgotten all about the SS-Sturmscharführer (Sergeant Major) sat quietly in the back, just waiting for a situation like this to arise. As he glided into land, the Argus As 10 starved of fuel, he tried to get as close to the hangar door as possible, it would save the mechanics having to tow it halfway across the sandy plain, just to put it alongside the other Storch, the six Junkers Ju 87D Stuka dive bombers and Eight Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-4/Trop fighters (both the latter types were fitted with two 37mm anti-tank cannons apiece) that were already in there, but now had nowhere to go.

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