They had done a lot of what seemed to him like mountaineering, although it was no more than hill-walking, and his legs were aching. They were beginning to tremble. Once, when he lay at the guide’s side in a clump of bushes he felt a cramp beginning in his right calf and wriggled his foot to prevent it. The guide angrily gripped his leg and he had to lie still in considerable pain. He hobbled for a while when they started off again. He didn’t know why they kept stopping, which made it worse. If they were clear of enemy lines, why? Danger of running into enemy patrols, perhaps. Worse, it may be, to run into one of their own patrols: remembering his experience with supposedly friendly anti-aircraft gunners, both American and British, he hadn’t much confidence that an infantry patrol wouldn’t shoot first and worry about identification later. The Royal Navy had shot at him with intent to kill more than once when he had flown convoy patrols. His recent treatment by the 975th U.S. light anti-aircraft was equally dissuasive.
They crept up to an isolated farmhouse on a low hilltop. Yule prepared himself to run for his life or duck behind some kind of shelter and shoot for it. In the pale moonlight his guide turned to him and, for the first time, smiled. It was less a smile than the grin on the face of a tiger and Yule immediately groped for his gun. The guide signed to him to hide behind a water butt against one wall, then approached a door and boldly knocked. Yule heard a bolt being drawn, a key turning and saw the door open.
An American who wore a Technical Sergeant’s stripes stood in the doorway. He was a short, wiry man and in profile he looked vulpine. Tech. Sgt. Pienze spoke in Italian to the guide, then turned to Yule’s place of concealment and said, “O.K., sir, Flying Officer Yule, sir, you can come right in. Have a cigar?”
*
The jeep ride with hooded lights and at high speed along rutted side roads frightened Yule more than the last three hours’ laborious evasion on foot.
Maj. Corrado, alerted by a radio message, was shaved and dressed to greet him with his well-rehearsed manly handshake. With the boyish frankness he had spent years cultivating, and a bashful grin he had perfected through many hours’ practice before a mirror, he ushered Yule into his quarters. “Guess we owe you this, er... Toby... I have to confess it was my outfit shot you down a few days back. Your boss, Fiver, put me through an uncomfortable few minutes, I don’t mind admitting.” He laughed a cleanly-chiselled Princetonian laugh, light years away from the murky reality of his mobster past. “I know any apology is pretty limp, but I do apologise, and please accept it. We were getting strafed to hell and gone that day, and my guys were pretty raw, not like you desert veterans. They’ve learned better since; fast.” Again the open laugh. “They were a mite trigger-happy, I guess. Please don’t blame them too much.” Then Corrado put the verbal boot in: “I hear your anti-aircraft and one of your Spitfires haven’t been one hundred per cent with their recognition in the past few days: they not only got one of our planes, but a couple of your own as well.”
Yule, bemused by this loquacity in the small hours of the morning, reeling with fatigue and beginning to suffer from delayed shock after being shot down and his first bail-out, felt stunned.
He also felt young and miserably naive: there was a hard gloss and worldliness about Corrado that made him uneasy.
“If you brought me here just to tell me that... sir... I’m sure you could have found someone who’d be more worth impressing than a mere Flying Officer.”
Pete Corrado at his most genial: “Hell, Toby, I didn’t have Sergeant Pienze bring you in just to tell you your guys make Sabsfus too... know what that means? You never heard it before? Situation As Before — Still F...ed Up...” Laughter; solo laughter, because Yule wouldn’t have laughed with this pansy, however funny he might have been. “No, no, son, you were brought here because I wanted to square matters with your Commanding Officer: and I happen to have a useful Intelligence network that soon located you. I just wanted to say hello before sending you on your way back to your base.”
“I’m very grateful... sir. Your Intelligence must be good.”
Another handsome chuckle: “The best, son the best. You don’t seem any the worse for your... misadventure.”
Reluctant, wry grin from Yule. “If I had come to any harm, Major, it wouldn’t have been fatal.” Not, he told himself, unless Anna were carrying some infection unknown to medical science; which, come to think of it, she might well be.
“Sounds like you got a story to tell, Toby.”
“Not really. Two Italian troops looked after me... very well.”
“Yeah, we know. Sergeant Ferugino is my Sergeant Pienze’s cousin: what d’you know about that?”
The more this conversation went on the more it fuddled Yule. “Small world, what?”
“You can say that again. That was how we got the word so fast and pulled you out before your own Intelligence Corps... or ours... could do anything about it.”
“As far as I’m concerned that certainly does square things between us. Thanks again. Now, if you won’t think it rude, I’d like to be on my way.”
“Sergeant Pienze will take you right now. Give my compliments to Squadron Leader O’Neill. He’s a helluva guy.”
“I won’t forget, sir.”
“And, Toby... just a thought... maybe we even more than compensated for accidentally shooting you down... some people might think you are a little in our debt, now...”
“I wouldn’t argue with that.” He would like to, but it would be churlish; so let it go.
“Good. So maybe we’ll catch up with each other again: like, in Naples. You may be able to give me a little help...”
“Anything I can do, sir.”
“Fine. I’ll remind you of that when we take Napoli.”
Chapter Nine
For four weeks more the squadron hammered day after day at the slowly retreating German forces as they backed towards the north-east tip of Sicily; and against targets in the toe of Italy which would disrupt the enemy’s eventual withdrawal there.
Nearly seventy per cent of their sorties were against vehicles, bridges, lines of communication, supply depots and barracks.
A few weeks ago the names in the forefront of their minds were Benina, Mersa Matruh, El Agheila and Sidi Rezegh. Now there were new names to learn: Adrano, Randazzo and the Simeto river, in Sicily; in Italy, Seminara and Palmi and Taurianova.
Squeezing the Axis armies out of Sicily, Montgomery and his 8th Army entered Messina on 17th August. A day earlier, the American 7th Army under Patton had captured Spadafora. There wasn’t a square inch of Sicilian soil left to the enemy. But it had taken the Allies a long time to get there. The rugged triangle of Sicily’s north-eastern point was ideal country for fighting a delaying action. As they pulled back, the Germans and Italians automatically shortened their front and needed fewer forces to defend it. This containment in so small and mountainous an area prevented the Allies using their superior strength to full effect. During the seven nights and six days of the Axis withdrawal across the narrow Straits of Messina, 60,000 Italian and 40,000 German troops were evacuated.
For Fiver’s Lot the only variety in their work came from the terrain and the nature of their targets. On one sortie they would go for a bridge across some partly dried river, carrying enemy armour and lorries. On another, a convoy of vehicles on some narrow road; or a grey-walled military camp with barrack blocks and a parade square, and men running for shelter.
One day they would be flying over swampy plains time and. again. The next, over steep mountains and deep valleys; or over orange groves and clusters of walnut and olive trees. From time to time they found a train and flew down its length, aiming at the engine: engines blew up with a most satisfactory display of sparks and steam.
The features of their daily lives which remained constant were the flak and their own methods of attack. They lived in air spaces which seemed to them sometimes to contain more explosive and metal per cubic yard than oxygen. They felt enveloped in a net of tracer bullets and cove
red by a blanket of shell-bursts. The air was turbulent already from heat rising from the ground and currents created by the mountain peaks. It was made worse by the blast of high explosive around them; and from their own bombs, when dropped at low level, which caught them before they could clear the target area. There was always the fear of shrapnel or bullets detonating a bomb before they released it; of an incendiary bullet in a petrol tank.
One worry they did not have was about enemy fighters. The Allies had clear air superiority by now and there were always patrolling Spitfires on the lookout in case the Luftwaffe did venture into the picture. This meant also that O’Neill’s squadron were fully committed to fighter-bombing: shooting down enemy aircraft was no longer their business. They embraced their new part with enthusiasm because the results of a ground attack operation were so dramatic; but they missed the excitement and the exercise of their flying skill that dog-fighting with Me 109s and Fw 190s, or tackling a formation of Heinkels or Dorniers, demanded. Still, there was the compensation of a fine juicy flamer when one hit a motor vehicle fair and square in the fuel tank; of the burst of steam from a destroyed locomotive; of the eruption of rubble and dust when a bridge blew up. Perhaps best of all was seeing enemy troops running across open ground, trying to avoid one’s fire.
Once the Axis had been pushed off the island, all the squadron’s sorties were over the Italian mainland. For yet another two weeks they maintained their incessant disruption of order along the foot of Italy. The bombers of the British and South Africans’ Tactical Bomber Force, and the American 12th Air Support Command, Bostons, Mitchells, Wellingtons, Flying Fortresses and Liberators, raided Italy day and night, from the extreme south to north.
For two further weeks Allied preparations for invading Italy continued and the air forces concentrated on destroying every means of transportation that could supply the enemy, from Reggio to Turin. Desert Air Force’s task was in the far south, in the toe of the Italian boot running from Reggio to Belvedere and Cariati.
There were to be three landings: the main one at Salerno, on 9th September. On the same day, another, smaller one, at Taranto. The third, codenamed Baytown, aimed at the Reggio region, was to be made sooner; on 3rd September. It was this last with which Fiver’s Lot were first chiefly concerned.
Desert Air Force’s operational area was north and east of a line running from Cap Orlando through Caltagirone to Cap Santa Croce. The squadron watched an immense force of artillery gathering along the coast near Messina: as they flew to and fro about their dive-bombing and ground strafing they saw limbers crawling across the undulating countryside like a mass of ants moving purposefully towards a sprinkling of sugar. Eventually 600 field guns pointed their muzzles towards the Italian coast less than five miles across the Messina Straits, trained on the beaches near Reggio where the 5th British and 1st Canadian Divisions were to land an hour before first light on 3rd September. The Spitfire pilots saw, with some amusement, a convergence of naval vessels on the narrow strip of water between island and mainland: these were to provide a further 120 guns with which to batter the assault area.
“It seems a trifle excessive,” was O’Neill’s remark.
“A sledgehammer to drive in a tintack,” Warren called it.
Vincent, with his habitual delicacy, suggested that it was as pointless as trying to mate a dray horse with a Shetland pony.
Certainly there was no sign of great German strength around Reggio, and the colossal preliminary bombardment proved to be the greatest waste of ammunition in the whole campaign. There were only two German infantry battalions facing the landings, and even these were ten miles inland.
When the British and Canadian infantry went ashore at 4.30 a.m. they met no opposition. The heavy artillery barrage had devastated the area. There were not even mines or barbed wire on the beaches. Without a single casualty, the invaders forged five miles into Italy that first day. By way of prisoners they took three Germans who had somehow been left behind; and 3,000 Italians, who instantly volunteered to help in the unloading of the Allies’ landing craft. Three days later they had advanced thirty miles; delayed, not by having to fight battles, but by the demolitions the Germans had effected before pulling out.
“And that’s that,” said Fiver that evening in the mess, a whisky and soda in one hand and his cigarette holder in the other. “So much for Operation Baytown. Let’s hope Avalanche (the code for the Salerno landings) goes as well. Although personally I’d rather it weren’t quite so boring.”
Yule and the rest of them had enjoyed the comparative calm of the last few days’ operations, but didn’t disagree with him. Fiver’s impulsive and eccentric nature would have prompted him to lead them on some terrifying errand at dawn next morning, “to wake your ideas up”, if they had allowed him to suspect that their appetite for action had become somewhat satiated during the many weeks since they first touched down on Sicily. They had enjoyed a couple of months’ respite before that, after the last Axis troops had withdrawn from North Africa, and it had also been a happy relief after their long months’ campaigning in the desert.
During that time, their Commanding Officer had tried to get permission to take his squadron off on a private enterprise to keep them, as he told Desert Air Force Headquarters, “operationally sharp”. His idea then had been to organise the capture of a small island which lay between Malta and North Africa, and which he insisted was just as important to a successful invasion of Sicily as the capture of Pantelleria which was part of the invasion plan.
His masters were tempted to let him get on with it, simply to get him out of their hair for a while. But humane sympathy for his jaded pilots and ground crews, and the equally tired soldiers and sailors who would have been involved, led them reluctantly to refuse him.
The squadron, who felt they had quite enough serious flying on their hands, were wise enough to conceal their pleasure at not having to carry out an exercise which, though piffling in scale, would surely have produced some casualties; among aircraft if not men. It had taught them a lesson: never to let their C.O. detect any overt sign of satisfaction at a long respite from action.
So they shaped up to the Salerno landings with every evidence of preferring this kind of thing to seven days’ leave, any time.
Yule had thought intermittently about Maj. Corrado and Sgt. Pienze, speculating whereabouts on the Allied front they were from time to time. He had wondered about Sgt. Ferugino and Anna, also. The sergeant, he was confident, must have managed to allow himself to be taken prisoner to avoid having to cross over to Italy; or at least gone into hiding with the intention of turning up too late with some specious explanation for his absence. As for Anna, she had no doubt established herself in the nearest house of ill repute as soon as she had access to Catania, the largest industrial city in the vicinity.
He was surprised to find himself remembering this distinctly unappetising duo with something akin to liking. Trying to analyse his feelings, he admitted that he ought to like Ferugino for having kept him out of the Germans’ clutches; whatever the wily rascal’s true motive. He had also been more deeply affected than he wanted to acknowledge by the stark and harrowing account Ferugino had given of the air raids on crowded Italian cities. He wondered now, when bombing some enemy strongpoint in a farm or village, whether there were any civilians trapped there. He had been one day, with others of the squadron, to inspect on the ground the results of some of their work. Among these, a partly demolished farmhouse stayed in his memory. Amidst the dreadful litter of rubble, beams and broken furniture, were children’s toys. The family had come back, and, with no apparent resentment, were building their home and their life again. O’Neill, talking fluently to them, translated that there had been no time for them to escape when the Germans occupied the place: one child and a grandfather had been killed by the squadron’s bombs. Yule recollected the attack clearly: he had led a section, and recalled that one of his own bombs had blasted down most of one wall of the house. He asked no questions:
he did not want to hear that the wall had fallen on either of the dead.
Two days later, at briefing for Operation Avalanche, Yule and his comrades were left in no doubt at all that O’Neill’s anticipation of boredom was baseless.
A briefing before a major operation was always an awesome affair. The mere size of the audience was enough to make the adrenalin run faster than at an everyday briefing: it gave an immediate sense of participation in a venture of high import: and with that went the implication of massive opposing forces and a consequently greater chance of personal disaster. There would be even more guns, more enemy fighters, more machine-gunners firing at one than on a routine sortie. There would be more targets. There would be more of one’s own aircraft in a crowded air space, creating higher collision risk. There would have to be great care not to attack on the wrong side of the bomb line: when one’s own ground troops were advancing fast, the bomb line moved as quickly; it was easy to lose touch with latest developments and bomb or strafe friendly forces instead of hostile.
Added to all these elements of anxiety was the menace, albeit unintentional, of the high ranking officers who attended, and some of whom contributed to, the briefing. Menace was the word for it, because there was a discernible aura of warning against mistaking signals, codes, letters of the day, times of attack, disposition of forces; and of retribution for those who did. More than imminent injury and death hung in the air: there was the heavy presence of authority, always the most minatory constituent of any military situation. In the end, Service life comes down to giving and taking orders and punishing those who fail to carry them out meticulously, whether it is their fault or not. This is called discipline by those who administer it and many other names by those who have to submit to it.
Air Strike Page 8