At 4.15 a.m. Henderson, peering out of the window at the gradually lightening sky, said “The Commandos must be almost there.”
A few minutes later the Operations Room telephoned to let James know that the first of the Blenheims and Bostons had taken off and the first of the Hurricane IICs with four 20 mm cannon were also on their way to strafe.
Everyone fidgeted, nobody attempted to read, play cards or chess or solve a crossword puzzle. People constantly stood up, walked to a window, gazed at the sky and sat down again.
The telephone rang. James put it down after a moment and said “That was Ops. Apparently the nautics are giving their usual trigger-happy performance. They’ve hit a Boston and a Blenheim already and fired at some Hurricanes. We’ll have to keep clear of the ships if we can.”
A little later word came that the first Spitfires had been scrambled.
Moore looked at his watch. “Can’t be long now.” Shortly after 5 a.m. the squadron was ordered off. The twelve pilots detailed for the first sortie sprinted to their aircraft. The eight who would stay behind hastened outside to watch them take off. James, looking round from his cockpit a minute later, saw that Millington had run after the scrambling pilots and was helping one of them to climb aboard his aircraft, with a look of frustration on his face. Then Millington turned and looked at him and gave him a wave.
The sea was dark grey, the sky over Dunkirk was paling, there was cloud at 7000 ft. The Spitfire squadrons were stepped up at intervals from under 3000 ft to 20000 ft, to patrol along the coast and offshore. Already banks of smoke hung over the battle area, some laid by the Bostons and Blenheims, some from burning buildings. From 15000 ft. where James’ squadron flew, there was not enough light at sea level to make out the shapes of any of the attacking fleet, but he could see the flashes of gunfire and tracer. The German flak batteries were putting up a considerable barrage of light and heavy calibre. Shells were bursting near the Spitfires. Those which merely exploded with a puff of black smoke were too far to be dangerous. Those which were close enough for the pilots to see the red flames at their heart were frightening.
After he had been on patrol for half an hour, James was able to discern other formations of Spitfires flitting up and down below and above him. He had scarcely picked out a squadron that was twelve or thirteen thousand feet lower than his when there was a brilliant eruption of light from a small, dark smudge on the water where evidently a landing craft lay, and a cluster of searing incandescent streaks rushed, with a high-arcing trajectory, towards the land. This first discharge was followed by several more and he could see the volleys of rockets shooting right through the Spitfires far beneath. He waited to see at least one burst into flames, but in about 50 seconds the astonishing display was over. One of the Intelligence officers had confided to him that the Navy would be using a rocket-firing landing craft for the first time, with a battery of nearly 1000 missiles aboard. In the process, the R.N. had come close to making some spectacular additions to its already lamentable score of friendly aircraft shot down.
James began to suspect that if this were a fair example of the level of inter-Service liaison and co-operation being exercised on Operation Jubilee, the prospects for success and for the survival of the participants were not encouraging. Unless one happened to be a German.
It was hard to keep one’s attention on the sky at one’s own level and overhead, with so much fascinating activity below. He kept glancing down. The paths of tracer bullets and small calibre shells made a constant pattern between sea and shore and between the many points on land which the assault force had reached and those where the defenders were positioned.
As James scanned the battleground yet again he saw another entanglement of varicoloured trails at about 5000 ft. Looking more carefully he saw the darting forms of fighters in combat and before he could return his attention to his own affairs there was an explosion down there and the familiar sight of a burning aeroplane going down. He hoped it was a FW190, not a Spit.
He searched to left and right while lie took the squadron round in a wide wheel from west to east. A bunch of small specks to the south and slightly higher was fast growing bigger. The air around them trembled visibly with the speed of their shallow dive towards the Spitfires.
“Snapper Leader...Bandits, twelve-o’clock, above, range two.”
No time to count them. No purpose in counting. Here come the bastards at last, after all this waiting. Quick glance to the right to check that his Number Two was where he should be. Not really necessary. Hoary old flight sergeant; all of 28 years old, with 1500 hours in his log and nine Huns on his tally.
Four...eight...a dozen 190s. Even-Stephen.
“Tallyho!”
Go for the leader. Take the initiative. Quick squirt with the 20-mils. Tracer in among the ball and incendiaries. No need for armour-piercing this trip. Jerry pilots, like ourselves, protected by bullet-proof windscreens and a sheet of steel behind the seat; so go for the brute’s engine.
But chummy is no fool. As soon as he spotted my gun ports come alive he jinked. Spoilt your fun, square-head. Thought you’d give me a burst and climb away, did you? You skidded left...I’ll skid right...got you again. Another squirt. Missed him by inches. Back comes his return fire. Christ! Nearly hit me. In range for the 303s, now. Same mixture. Let him have it. Cheers! Strikes along the leading edge of his port wing.
Head-on. Hold it. I’m not going to chicken out, square-Kopf. Tremendous rush of air as he pulls up to skim over me. Chicken!
Stick hard hack. Greying out. Tight loop. Here we are, at the top. Roll out. Max Immelmann couldn’t have done it better. Marvellous Hun manoeuvre. Where’s my target? There...reefing hard round to try to come in behind the No. 2 in the starboard pair of the last finger four. Given me up as a bad job. Quick flick of the head...nobody on my tail. My No. 2 in position.
Hun about 300 feet below, thanks to my half-loop. Dive on the brute. Hell of a long range. Let him have it with all I’ve got. Recoil knocks a few knots off my speed. Never mind. Damn great blue flashes...red ones...all along his wings and engine cowling.
Smoke, by God. White...coolant. Black...lovely thick oily stuff. One more burst for luck.
He’s rolling over...there he goes, tumbling out. Hope his brolly doesn’t open. Bad sport, am I not! But who wants a Jerry to survive to fly another day? Not I.
“Red One, break port.”
No hesitation. That’s my No. 2’s voice...calm, Geordie flatness. He’d be the same if he were on fire.
“He’s on your tail, Red One. Keep turning.”
Greying out...God! I’m going to black out. Not quite. Eyes still clear enough to see the sky behind me light up as the good flight sergeant despatches the Hun on my tail. Ease out of the turn and enjoy the view. A 190 reduced to a ball of fire dropping quickly towards Dieppe. One Hun pilot frying nicely somewhere in there. Bloody good show, Flight.
Slow orbit, looking for the rest of the boys. A couple over there...someone on his own a bit beyond...a few distant specks that might be friend or foe.
“Red One, to all Snapper aircraft. I’m at angels thirteen, off White beach. Check in.”
Seven of them turned up and formatted on him. The rest were already on their way home. It was time to go.
An hour later the whole Morfield Wing took off: James’s squadron with their Mk IXs and the two others with Mk VIs.
The operation did not seem to be going according to plan. It looked as though the landings on two of the beaches, Blue and Yellow, had been repulsed.
The smoke over the port had thickened. Fires raged all over the town. Heavy fire from shore batteries battered Orange beach and Green beach.
The wing was between 3000 ft and 6000 ft., a more effective height than the previous 15000. The enemy had been diving through the stacked Spitfires to attack the landing craft and destroyers. From down here the Spits could intercept them.
The Luftwaffe’s reaction was increasing in scale with each successive arri
val of Hurricane strafers and fighter-bombers, of Mustangs and Typhoons, of Bostons and Blenheims.
From miles away James saw that there was turmoil in the air over the target area. From a few hundred feet up to seven or eight thousand, the air space was packed with weaving, diving, climbing aircraft. Fires burned in the sky, tracer left a maze of coruscating trails. Parachutes opened and floated down in the midst of it all. Smoke from falling aeroplanes brushed coarse streaks down to the ground. Smoke from the ground rose in thick billows to mingle with it.
Looking up, James saw that another wing had arrived far overhead and was being engaged. The air battle was being fought now all the way up to 20000 ft.
What can we do that’s useful? Our job to protect the other two squadrons while they prang the Jerry bombers and fighter-bombers. We’ll have to keep turning tightly here until the enemy comes to us.
Round again. And here we go. FW 190s above and to port. Me 109Fs to starboard. We’re encircled, just about. Hopeless for any Number Two to try to hang onto his leader in a melee like this. We’re outnumbered and every No. 2 is under attack himself.
“Red Leader, break star!”
I whip hard to the right and whoever it was who warned me never finishes his transmission. A horrible choking, bubbling, hoarse sound of someone trying to say something. The carrier wave of his radio keeps transmitting. I catch a glimpse of a smoking Spit plunging past. The radio wave stops suddenly.
Where the hell is the Hun? Can’t see him in my mirror...yes, I can...I can see the red flicker at his gun muzzles. He’s slightly above, astern and a bit to the right.
I’ll fox the bugger. Can’t do anything that means too much change of direction, for fear of colliding with someone in this bloody overcrowded knacker’s yard.
Haul back the throttle. Pull the stick back a bit and poke the Spit’s nose up. Catch her quickly before she stalls. Just in time. Nose down, throttle open. Tidal wave of air as the 190 passes like the Flying Scotsman overtaking a goods train. It worked. Got him dead ahead...almost...touch of left rudder...Shoot. Missed. Tracer over the top of my canopy. A bullet slams into my windscreen...ricochets off. But I’ve lost my target.
Where did all that come from? Ah! see him...wide on my starboard...not a good judge of deflection. All right, square-Kopf, you asked for it. Reef hard round to port. Let him think I’m funking out. Here comes another squirt from him, almost scraping my belly. You’re not very good, Jerry. This’ll stop you laughing. He’s in my mirror. Nobody to right or left of me close enough to collide with. Barrel roll to starboard.
Astonished Hun flying straight past and below. I’m pretty good at inverted shooting. Nose down a bit. Fire cannon and machine-guns together. It all pours into the top of his canopy. What’s left of canopy becomes bright red. Headless Hun’s arteries spraying his cockpit. I complete the roll, onto an even keel.
Now for another.
That was a 109F. Let’s look for a 190.
There’s a tormented Spit with two of them on his tail. He’s turning so tightly he’s going to stall or black out and spin in a few seconds.
Classical situation. They’re a couple of hundred feet below me. Line up the one nearer to the Spit. Long burst. He blows up. That felt good. His mate catches fright and shears off. Send a burst after him. Miss. Dive, squirt, break; and the target destroyed. Copybook.
But we’re in a sprawling dogfight still. I won’t get another neat one like that.
Bloody hell! There’s some flak coming up. Who the hell’s shooting into the middle of this party?
Look down. God! Didn’t know I’d drifted so far offshore. It’s the good old R.N. having a poop. Not at me, to be fair: there’s a Do 217 above. My turn to duck out fast.
But the party’s over. The fighting’s drifted miles away. I’m low on fuel. Pancake.
Millington was standing by himself when James landed, looking bored, waiting outside the crew room for the returning aircraft. Several had already landed. The pilots were in a group, hands weaving as they demonstrated air fighting manoeuvres, all talking and nobody paying much attention to anyone else. Millington, crestfallen, was on the fringe: listening, but apart. His eyes on the sky, seeking the homing Spitfires.
“Cheer up, Andrew. You’ll be on the next detail.” Millington’s face was transformed. Disappointment gave way to pleasure. “Thank you, sir.”
Two had not come back. Henderson had seen one of them go down in flames. There was doubt about the other. Someone said he thought he’d seen him baling out. Everyone was to some degree confused about the sequence of events and what he had seen and heard. Time would show.
This time the squadron was on the ground for more than two hours.
At 11 o’clock the Ops. Room rang to say that the assault force was being ordered to withdraw immediately. It was expected that the enemy would pursue the fleet of small craft and destroyers, bombing and strafing. Air cover would be needed all the way.
James had a word with Henderson, who put Millington down on the roster as the C.O’s No. 2, thereby seeming to add about four inches to Millington’s chest and fixing a permanent grin on his face.
The squadron’s third sortie was very similar to its second. The air over Dieppe was a teeming tangle of aircraft, the Germans striving to prevent the withdrawal, the R.A.F. ceaselessly driving them away from the region of the loading landing craft.
Below the Spitfires, Hurricanes were bombing and strafing enemy artillery which overlooked the beaches and the port. Every Hurricane was chased by Focke-Wulfs or Messerschmitts. Squadrons of Spitfires stayed at low level to fight these off.
James took his pilots in at 500 ft. They had to fly through or around several writhing dense columns of smoke from burning dumps and shattered buildings.
Sometimes they were caught in the blast and smoke of bursting bombs as they followed the Hurricanes. Fire from 37 mm cannon and Spandaus littered their path.
A foursome of FW 190s appeared from behind a long bank of drifting smoke. James, leading the finger four at the front of his formation, saw the enemy open fire in the instant that they emerged from the smoke. He instinctively fired his guns at the leader and turned to starboard to avoid flying into the same clotted grey mass.
As he did so he saw Millington’s Spitfire flip onto its back in a flat spin and explode before it had fallen for more than a second or two.
He wondered whether he would receive a letter from the bereaved parents comparable with the one that J. Higgs had seen fit to write him about his son Alf.
They were not the only two whom he had encouraged — shamed? bullied? coerced? — into volunteering for aircrew. He tried to justify his attitude and actions. He thought it unreasonable to blame himself, but a sense of guilt persisted.
The post-operations rumpus in the officers’ mess that night went on until 3 a.m. James felt drunk for an hour or so around midnight, but his exertions in the rough and tumble of the usual horseplay sobered him again. For a while he had ceased to be haunted by the disembodied presence of Sergeant Higgs and Pilot Officer Millington, both accusatory. When the discomfiting remorse returned he banished it by telling himself that both men had died well, which was a better memory to leave than of having lived as shirkers.
A few days later the squadron Intelligence officer came to his office.
“We’ve got the battle returns for the Dieppe show, sir. They don’t make pretty reading.”
“Let’s have it.”
“The actual number of Canadians in the assault was 4963. Only 2210 came back. And 586 of those were wounded. R.A.F. casualties were sixty-nine killed. The Navy, Marines and Army lost 120 killed and 466 missing.”
“What went wrong?”
“Lousy security, sir. Jerry was ready for us. And less than brainy planning, I’m afraid.”
“Mountbatten should carry the can.”
“I don’t see him resigning from being Chief of Combined Operations, sir. And somehow I don’t think he’ll be turfed out! Not Louis Ba
ttenberg, the eternal survivor.”
“When did his father change the family name to Mountbatten?”
“In 1917. Old Battenberg was one hundred per cent Kraut, of course. This fellow’s only half-Hun.”
“That’s bad enough when we’re fighting a war against his own nation: going on the principle that one takes one’s nationality from one’s father. Rather cheek, really, his act of being frightfully British.”
“He’s got all the arrogance of a Hun, too. I met him once. He came to give away the prizes one speech day. We found him unbearably patronising and conceited.”
*
James had formed a habit of giving himself half an hour’s privacy every evening at whatever time he came back to the mess when his day’s work was finished. Sometimes he had to go out again because there was night flying practice. But, even so, he took his short spell in his room alone with his thoughts. He liked to go over the events of the day and what he could have done better. Sometimes there were accidents or casualties in action to think about. Often there were his manoeuvres in a fight to analyse and to examine for improvement. Usually it was his dealings with other people which preoccupied him: he was much concerned with effective leadership. Although he did not care at all whether he was popular or unpopular, or for the opinions of his squadron about him, he was always frank and critical with himself about that one important quality.
However engrossed he was with going over the incidents of his professional day, he always gave several minutes to thinking about Nicole.
He thought every day of the small intimate ways she had which no one else hut he could know about; not her parents, not her brother, only he alone. Recalling these mannerisms made her real. It was sometimes difficult to believe that she was not a figment, an idealised figure of reverie, after so long apart. When he thought about her every day in the way that he did he could renew his belief that she was alive and — although separated by a dangerous frontier — only a few score miles away.
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 64