BEAUFIGHTER
BLITZ
A novel of the RAF’s early night fighter war, 1941
Russell Sullman
Also by the author:
To So Few
(Harry Rose and the Battle of Britain, 1940)
© Russell Sullman 2016
Russell Sullman has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2019 by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Epilogue (1)
Epilogue (2)
Afterword
For two exceptional British women:
‘The Missus’ – Zakia; wife, mother, best friend, muse and award-wining clinician
‘Madeleine’- Assistant Section Officer Princess Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, GC, MBE, MiD, CdeG
Prologue
Set deep within the murky cloak of night, lying heavy and sullen before the aircraft’s rushing pace, Leutnant Bruno von Ritter’s anxiously probing eyes, tingling and tender and aching with strain, at long last saw the shadowed enemy coastline of Britain materialise faintly before them, gradually gaining in substance.
Wraith-like, the darker irregular strip of land merged with the gloom began to take on a more discernible shape and form before them with each passing second, as he and his crew drew ever closer to it in their destructively potent low flying Ju88C night fighter.
Despite the sudden urgent compulsion he felt prickling in his muscles to pull back hard on the control column and take the heavy fighter up higher, where it was safer from the obstacles that remained hidden by the darkness until it was far too late, Bruno held the aeroplane steadily on course, resisting the brisk and lively ground effect caused by keeping them at such a low altitude, low enough (hopefully) that the detection systems of their adversary would not see them, yet uncomfortably aware of the icy nearness of the churning and ravenous flecked black waves below.
“There…,” words barely whispered, his voice was hushed, as if the unseen foe might yet hear him were he to speak out aloud, staring eyes still trying to penetrate the dismal murk.
Bruno blinked his eyes rapidly to moisten and soothe them, but they continued to sting him painfully.
Damn the British.
Why didn’t the stupid, obstinate idiots just surrender? They had no chance, isolated and alone as they were now that the Reich owned most of Europe. The continent belonged to Germany, won with blood and courage, and the British were like scrawny rats helplessly trapped in a corner, doomed and without hope.
They must know it. The only realistic hope for them was to sue for peace. Why continue such a hopeless fight? It made no sense whatsoever.
They must be mad.
Idiots.
The coast was a lot closer now, looming large, and a spike of fear pierced sharp through his chest.
If there were enemy flak batteries sited where that drunken fool from Luftwaffe intelligence said they weren’t, it could be all over for them very, very soon.
Bruno rolled a sticky tongue around his mouth, desperate to moisten his lips, swallowed and then coughed in an attempt to clear his knotted throat, and spoke out, the quiet words harsh with tension and effort, far harsher than he would have liked.
“Enemy coast ahead.”
As ever before combat, waves of terror and excitement ebbed and flowed hot and cold through him in equal measure.
“Where are we, Rudi?” He asked, one gloved hand needlessly adjusted the flying goggles already placed comfortably in position.
His Bordmechaniker/Beobachter (the crew flight mechanic), an aircrew NCO whose role was the aircraft’s observer and ammunition loader, Feldwebel Rudolf (Rudi) Weiss, replied in a voice that was as quiet as his own had been moments earlier.
“On course, Herr Leutnant. You can see the coastline of Norfolk dead ahead, port and town of Cromer ten kilometres to port.”
Bruno scratched his neck nervously and licked his painfully dry lips once more. “ETA to target?”
“Ten minutes, sir. On schedule.” Over the intercom Bruno fancied he heard the faintest of tremors in Rudi’s voice.
The latent tension was heavy within the glass house of the Junker’s cockpit, draped uncomfortably over the three of them.
He cleared his throat yet again, eyes fixed on the landscape looming ahead and zipping past in a dim blur. “Good, Thank you Rudi. Mouse?”
The crew’s Bordfunker/Bordschutz, acting as the crew radio operator and rear gunner, Feldwebel Gustav (‘Mouse’) Maustein, was seated facing the other way, his eyes keenly searching the black night sky behind and around the racing Junkers, and now he shook his head slowly, “Nothing behind, Herr Leutnant, all clear.”
Bruno pulled back gently on the control column, and the Ju88C began to climb upwards.
The powerful vibration coursed vigorously from the control column up through his arms, and to Bruno the fighter seemed to strain eagerly at the leash, as if she could smell her prey, the two powerful Junkers Jumo 211J engines throbbing forcefully on either side of the glasshouse canopy beneath which they sat, the massed 2,802 horsepower generated driving them swiftly and powerfully onwards into the dangerous heartland of their enemy.
The Ju88 cleared the cliff edge easily, eagerly bounding upwards smoothly, like the thoroughbred she was, the increased ground effect of land pushing them upwards, smoothly corrected by his pilot, and Rudi quietly breathed a surreptitious sigh of relief as Bruno settled the fighter back into level flight.
The Herr Leutnant was awfully fond of low flying; Rudi thought sourly, far lower than either of the fighter’s crewmen liked or were comfortable with.
There were always too many hidden things that they could collide with scattered all around when flying this low at night time. It was terrifying how quickly objects emerged from the night, leaving little time for reaction.
It would be an awful waste to come all this way and then wrap themselves around some unseen electricity cables or a factory chimney stack seen too late.
Rudi lifted his flying goggles, and unobtrusively wiped the greasy sheen of cold sweat from his face with his flying scarf, looking nervously out through the Perspex.
Bruno noticed his observer’s reaction, and smiled to himself.
Best to keep the boys focused on the task in hand. Wouldn’t do for them to fall asleep on the job, so to speak.
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nbsp; He checked the switches on the console once again, and ensured his pilot-operated forward firing weapons were ready to use, safeties off, the engines safely within acceptable limits, droning contentedly.
There could be no test bursts of the guns, though, for the thunder and flash from their firing guns might give them away to the random roving eyes of their enemy, whilst the sound might betray them to the enemy’s sophisticated listening devices.
The drone of the engines ought not to be that easy to pinpoint by the British from the ground.
But, with a bit of luck, over enemy territory tonight, he’d get the chance to fire the potent Three 7.92mm and the 20mm MG FF cannon housed in the nose in front of his aircraft very soon.
The thought of it made his blood rush with excitement, his muscles tingling at the thought of unleashing the deadly firepower.
Those arrogant bloody day fighter hotshots may well scoff, but he’d not exchange places with any of them, not even for the controls of a nippy little Bf109E.
Let them tough it out in the bright, dangerous skies with the damnable Spitfires and Hurricanes.
More fool them.
Bruno had duelled with RAF Hurricanes once before, during the Blitzkrieg in a Me110 over the fields of France.
Those few intensely strained moments had been the most gut-wrenching experience of his entire life (worse even than being chased by Ilse’s father, immediately after that outraged worthy discovered Bruno with his daughter in flagrante in his old barn).
He smiled fondly at the lovely memory of the smiling, flushed girl, tanned legs spread wide and reclining comfortably on their cosy bed of straw, and then of his naked, terror-filled flight through the dark fields afterwards, the sporadic shouts and booming of the shotgun in the darkness far behind hastening him on his way.
But the single-seater RAF day fighters of which he was so terrified were as good as blind in the dark, completely unsuited for night fighting, incapable of tracking raiders through cloaked skies, and so Goering’s airmen were now conducting a full-scale night bombing campaign.
No more tiered ranks and layers of heavily-laden bombers shimmering and glinting in the blinding daylight for swarming squadrons of RAF fighters to intercept and harass and destroy mercilessly.
No more smoke-filled daylight skies and the falling, burning, shattered remnants of friend and foe alike.
Not after the pointless slaughter of the previous year, the lines of close friends, their half-remembered faces now mere faded recollections.
Rather than with a series of devastating punches by waves of massed bombers, now the Luftwaffe would attack in an unrelenting and constant succession of deadly throughout the night, every night.
The few enemy defences that there were would be swamped and the British helpless, rapidly succumbing beneath the massive onslaught of the mighty Luftwaffe.
Soon, the enemy would sue for peace, and the war would be over.
Deutschland Uber Alles. Für immer.
Forever. What a glorious and heady thought!
And he would play his part in making it so. The thought thrilled him and he smiled to himself at the prospect of what lay ahead.
Glorious years of peace and prosperity lay ahead for the Reich.
Europe would know a golden time of greatness as a part of the Greater Germany under Der Fuhrer.
Those who once sneered, who had punished a weakened Germany after the end of the last war, would know what it was to be amongst those fallen from grace.
But not, hopefully, before he had earned for himself his Ritterkreuz, the highly desired Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross which Bruno craved so very much.
The Herr Oberst had received his Knight’s Cross after twelve aerial victories, and Bruno was not that far behind, for he himself had already accounted for eight enemy aircraft (and save for a Belgian Hurricane, all of his kills had been RAF bombers).
With just a little luck, and a few more kills, the Knight’s Cross would be as good as his!
Bruno was already well respected for his combat record in Nachtjagdgeschwader 2 at their Gilze en Rijen airbase in the Netherlands, and for his earlier Blitzkreig experiences in the Low Countries campaign as a Me110 Zerstorer pilot.
Those earlier experiences had already earned for him the Iron Cross, his uniform proudly bearing both First and Second classes of the medal, but now he desperately craved the Knight’s Cross around his neck as well, for that would place him above the others, a man apart, one amongst a very select few, a seasoned champion not only of the air but of the very Reich itself.
It would make him a man to be reckoned with, a heroic Teuton, recognised by all, and one to be trusted with authority and great responsibility.
Bruno fancied with pleasure that he could already feel the weight of it sitting at his throat as he continued to scan the enveloping darkness before them, and imagined the effect it would have on those around him, admiration in the eyes of women and envy in those of the men.
With the Knight’s Cross hanging from around his neck, he could demand whatever he desired, for he would a hero amongst heroes, one of the pioneers of a glorious Thousand Year Empire.
“Herr Leutnant?” it was his rear gunner, Maustein.
Immediately he was alert, heart banging like a gong within his suddenly tightening chest, the delightful secret fantasies of true golden glory, serried accolades and hordes of adoring women banished, at least for the moment.
“Yes? What is it, Mouse?”
The gunner’s deep voice was tentative. “Herr Leutnant, I thought I saw something…high and to starboard, on a parallel course, just for a moment.”
Involuntarily, Bruno stole a glance upwards. “What was it?”
“I’m not sure, sir, it was there, but I can’t see it now…”
Bruno twisted his head.
“How high was it, Mouse? What did you see? Was it one of their fighters? Rudi? Can you see anything?”
“About a thousand meters, I’d guess, sir…um, wait…”
Bruno concentrated on maintaining his course, holding the big fighter on a steady heading, anxious eyes straining forward, resisting the temptation to search the skies above and to starboard himself.
Rudi shook his head, face pressed against the side of the canopy, as if it might make it clearer. “Can’t see a fucking thing, sir, and it’s blacker out there than Mouse’s hairy arsehole.”
The good Feldwebel had such a colourful turn of phrase…
Mouse exclaimed suddenly, triumphant, “Yes, there! I see it! Herr Leutnant, I can see it quite clearly now, twin-engine type, a medium or light bomber I’d say, Blenheim, but I’m not certain. Definitely RAF, I’m sure of it.”
Bruno’s heart leapt in excitement and anticipation, “Tell me. Heading?”
“Similar heading, flying parallel to us, about two hundred sixty, sir.”
“I can see it now, sir,” added Rudi, with hushed excitement, but then he added, “But what about the target?” His eyes were large in the darkness, “Shouldn’t we continue on to Oulton?”
“Forget the target, Rudi, Oulton can wait. Let’s get this one.” He thought for a moment, “Besides, if he’s a Blenheim fighter I don’t want him above and behind me in the darkness. He’s our target now. Rudi, direct me.”
“Yes, Herr Leutnant.”
Over the next minute or two, his crew guided Bruno carefully into an optimal position behind and below the enemy bomber.
Despite the darkness, Mouse’s keen eyes had correctly identified the mysterious aircraft.
It was indeed a Bristol Blenheim, a British light bomber that was a great deal slower and somewhat less manoeuvrable than Bruno’s own Ju88C.
More importantly, it had a rear facing gun turret, and so Bruno crept carefully into position behind and below the bomber, into the turret’s blind spot.
In the far reaching darkness, he hoped not to be visible to anyone who might be lying down in the observation blister beneath the Blenheim’s nose.
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sp; No time to waste, then, for they might be discovered at any moment by roving enemy night fighters, or noticed by their prey. Let the others look out for him, his duty and concentration lay ahead.
Quickly lining up the British bomber in his Revi reflector gun sight, Bruno took one last look at the Blenheim, complete and untouched, carrying a crew relieved to be above their homeland once more after an operation deep inside occupied Europe, perhaps already planning their next day’s activities, an afternoon picnic, or a trip to the cinema in the evening with a loved one?
“Achtung, firing guns.”
He pressed the push button switch for a long three second burst, and his guns roared their song of hatred, buffeting the Junker’s airframe with their recoil, roughly raking the Blenheim mercilessly in a destructive arc of battering death.
As cannon shells tore into the fuel tanks, an intense sheet of flame slashed back from the devastated bomber, searing light slicing through the darkness.
Bruno felt the airframe begin to vibrate and bounce uncomfortably in the troubled air of the enemy’s slipstream, and he eased the power down, opening the distance between them.
A piece of the enemy bomber’s port wing broke off, whirling away pitifully as if to escape the destruction, followed by a burning cinder trail of smaller fragments.
Night vision impaired by the sudden brightness, Bruno watched the enemy plane’s nose drop as the Blenheim began its final dive.
His crew kept a careful watch, but their night vision had been impaired by the flaring explosion of light.
The Blenheim was breaking apart as it fell, a streamer of flame dripping fragments, and there were no parachutes, his gunfire had caught them all, instantly killing the three men aboard with that unforgiving burst, on the final part of their journey home.
With a sudden flash, the flaming lump of molten metal that the Blenheim had become splashed brutally across the night shrouded countryside, scattering burning fragments over a wide area, the torn pieces landing so very close to where the bomber had set out earlier that night.
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