‘All right, Gordon.’ Yeoman looked at his watch. ‘We’ll take off at seven-thirty. I’ll give you a ring in a few minutes and let you know how many aircraft we have available.’
The Tempest Wing’s state of serviceability was not particularly good, as Yeoman learned a few minutes later from Warrant Officer Booth, the senior engineer NCO. Out of twelve aircraft per squadron, No. 505 had eight airworthy machines and No. 473 only seven. There was a possibility, he said, that two more Tempests could be made available before take-off time.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he apologized, ‘it seems to be just one of those bloody days. My lads have been working like beavers, but one snag after another has cropped up. Those Sabre engines don’t like the cold weather.’
‘All right, Mr Booth,’ Yeoman said gently. ‘I know you’ll do your best.’
He could ask for no more; he knew that the Wing’s ground crews were among the best to be found anywhere and that here, on one of the most inhospitable of 2nd TAF’S front-line airfields, they were compelled to work under appalling conditions in order to keep the fighters flying. Yet, although there were the usual grumbles, they did their job to the best of their ability, and there were never any serious complaints.
Warrant Officer Booth was as good as his word. By seven o’clock the Wing’s total of serviceable Tempests had risen to seventeen. Now, in the pre-dawn darkness, Eindhoven was a flurry of activity as the ground crews busied themselves around the aircraft, working under dim lights hastily rigged up and powered by diesel generators, running up the engines, checking and re-checking the systems to make sure that everything was in full working order.
At 0720 the Tempests began taxiing out towards the faint lights of the flarepath. A grey, wintry dawn was already beginning to spread over the eastern horizon and the taxiing aircraft showed up darkly against it, their outlines given an unreal appearance by the glow of their navigation lights and the ghostly blue flames that crackled from their exhaust stubs.
Yeoman taxied on to the runway, looked round quickly to check that the other Tempests were getting into position, and opened the throttle to start his take-off run. Once again, Simon Wynne-Williams was flying as his number two. The burned pilot, Yeoman thought, had dropped back into squadron life with surprising ease and showed that he had lost none of his old skill. This would be his seventh operational flight in a Tempest; over the past fortnight he had badgered Yeoman to be allowed to fly at every opportunity, whenever there had been the slightest break in the weather, and on his last trip he had shot down a Junkers 88 at dusk over Nordhorn, near the Dutch border. One of the squadron’s flight commanders was due for a rest soon, and Yeoman had already decided that Wynne-Williams should take his place, now that he had found his feet again.
Once the Tempests were safely airborne and had settled down on course in their combat formation, Yeoman switched off his navigation lights well before they entered enemy territory. It was now light enough to keep formation without their aid, and already the metallic snake of the River Maas and other details of the terrain ahead were beginning to manifest themselves out of the twilight.
The Tempests thundered on at two thousand feet. There was some mist lying in hollows beyond the Maas, but visibility was generally good, details appearing sharp and clear as a bloated red sun pushed its rim up into the frosty sky. Once, off to the left, Yeoman spotted a plume of steam that indicated the presence of a train, but resisted the urge to send off a section to attack it; this morning the Tempests were after enemy fighters, not trains.
Yeoman held the control column lightly, anticipating and correcting the Tempest’s tendency to roll. To conserve fuel, the formation cruised at 220 mph — a dangerously low speed in the vicinity of strong flak concentrations, but Yeoman had been careful to choose a route that avoided these.
The sun climbed higher and he lowered his smoked goggles, turning its piercing rays to a dull pink. The Tempests rocked gently as they passed under the bases of towering cumulous clouds, mountainous piles of vapour whose colours, in the early morning light, varied from pale grey to deep orange.
The Tempests passed Rheine to the north and speared deeper into Germany, hurtling over densely wooded hillsides. The area was criss-crossed by innumerable streams and small roads; navigation here depended on accurate dead-reckoning and Yeoman checked his watch frequently, counting off the seconds towards their first turning-point.
A village flashed by, a mile or so to starboard. Just to the north-east of it, beside a wood, a fine old house lay in ruins.
Yeoman knew every detail of that house, and of the village of Berge. The house had once been used by the Abwehr, the German counter-espionage service, to hold captured agents of the Allied Special Operations Executive.
Yeoman had never learned what kind of specialized knowledge those agents had possessed. He had simply been given his orders, and had led the Mosquitos of No. 380 Squadron, which he then commanded, in a gallant and devastating low-level attack on the building. No one, agents and interrogators alike, could possibly have survived.
It was as well for Yeoman’s peace of mind that one fragment of knowledge had been denied him on the orders of high authority. One of the agents held captive in that house was a young American woman named Julia Connors. She was one of SOE’S top operatives, but of course Yeoman had never known that. In the four years they had known one another she had maintained her cover well; he had never questioned her story that she was a correspondent for a newspaper, the New York Globe, a job that took her away on lengthy assignments.
They had arranged to meet in London early in October, when they were to have been married. But Julia had not come, and Yeoman had known days in an agony of suspense and anxiety — emotions that had given way to dull shock and black despair when, at last, he received the news that she had been posted missing, believed killed, while on an assignment close to the front line with the American forces in France.
The story had been carefully concocted by SOE, and Yeoman had seen no reason to doubt it. After that, he had permitted himself no time for dark brooding; instead, he had put in a request for an immediate return to operations, and it had been granted.
He looked across at Berge as it receded into the background. Half his old squadron lay shattered somewhere among those wooded hillsides; every one of those who survived had been decorated, and he himself had received the DSO.
He swung the formation round to the right, past the twin towns of Dinklage and Lohne. So far there had been no sign of enemy aircraft, but the Tempests’ route was now taking them between the enemy fighter airfields of Ahlhorn and Diepholz and the head of every pilot was turning continually, searching all quarters of the sky. Yeoman made sure that his cannon safety catch was off and switched on his reflector sight.
After a few more miles he brought the formation round to the left, past Wistringen. Bremen was fifteen miles to the north. He looked over to the right, where the bottom edge of the sun was now clearing the horizon, peering into its light through outstretched fingers. There seemed to be nothing in that direction.
‘Ramrod Blue Two, look out, Huns above, five o’clock!’
So Jerry was awake after all! Yeoman twisted his head round to the right, looking above and behind, turning his aircraft slightly to get a better view, and saw the enemy almost immediately. There were thirty or forty of them, slipping down between the clouds in a rather ragged attack formation towards the Tempests. They were still some miles away and it was impossible to say, at this distance, if they were Messerschmitts or Focke-Wulfs.
As always in these situations, time seemed to slow down for Yeoman, and his brain functioned with utter clarity. He made a mental note to compliment Ramrod Blue Two, who had spotted the Huns in good time and so given him those few extra seconds in which to decide on an appropriate course of action. He pressed the R/T button and said rapidly:
‘Ramrod Red and Yellow Sections, stand by to break right. Blue and Green Sections, stand by to break left. Break hard
into the Huns on my signal. Jettison auxiliary tanks — now!’
The pilots pulled their jettison levers and thirty-four drop tanks curved down from beneath the Tempests’ wings to smash themselves on the German countryside. There were no hangups, thank God, Yeoman thought fleetingly. He glanced quickly over his shoulder again; the enemy fighters were closing the range with phenomenal speed, thanks to the impetus of their dive, and were now identifiable as Focke-Wulfs. He waited, forcing himself to hold the formation level while he coolly judged the distance between the opposing aircraft. Best not to cut it too fine ...
‘Stand by to break — now!’
Yeoman pushed open the throttle with one hand and pulled the stick hard into his right thigh with the other. The engine gave a great surge of power and the Tempest curved up and around in the opposite direction, half turning on its back as it gained height. The ‘g’ force thrust Yeoman hard down in his seat and he gave an involuntary gasp as he pushed the stick over again, rolling out of the violent climbing turn, ruddering hard and opening fire, a fraction of a second too late, as a Focke-Wulf sped past his nose.
The sudden manoeuvre by the Tempests, with the seventeen aircraft breaking hard at the last minute and rocketing upwards in a climbing turn, nine aircraft in one direction and eight in the other like the cascading waters of a fountain, had taken the enemy completely by surprise and the Focke-Wulfs scattered in all directions as their attack lost its cohesion.
Still at full throttle, and followed by the faithful Wynne-Williams, Yeoman took his Tempest in an arrowing climb to eight thousand feet and looked around for a target, finding time to shout a warning over the radio, telling his pilots not to be drawn into combat above ten thousand feet, where the Focke-Wulfs could out-manoeuvre them.
A long-nosed Focke-Wulf was turning lazily a couple of thousand feet lower down, waggling his wings in an uncertain manner. Yeoman called Wynne-Williams over the radio and told him that he was going down after the enemy aircraft.
The enemy pilot saw the danger at the last moment and threw his aircraft into a steep dive. It was precisely the wrong manoeuvre, for the much heavier Tempest could easily outpace him. Yeoman, confident that Wynne-Williams would guard his tail against any danger, gave all his concentration to the Focke-Wulf as it drifted into the luminous diamonds of his gunsight; apart from weaving gently from one side to the other the enemy pilot was taking no evasive action and Yeoman had no difficulty in keeping him lined up nicely.
The Focke-Wulf levelled out and sped low along the line of a road, heading north. Yeoman realized that the German pilot was probably making for Bremen, in an attempt to shake off his pursuers among the town’s formidable anti-aircraft defences. He never made it. Yeoman’s four cannon thumped briefly and he saw three distinct flashes as his shells struck home in the 190’s port wing. The enemy fighter sheered brutally to the right, ripped through a row of telegraph poles and blew up in a field.
‘Look out, Ramrod Leader, 190s coming down hard astern!’
Wynne-Williams’ urgent voice snapped Yeoman into instinctive reaction and he climbed flat out, looking back to locate the new threat. Three long-nosed 190s were coming down towards him in a diving turn, one of them lagging a little way behind the rest.
‘Ramrod Red Two, attacking.’
He caught a brief glimpse of Wynne-Williams’ Tempest hurtling head-on towards the leading pair of 190s, then felt a terrific bang as something exploded in his starboard wing. He kicked the rudder frantically, slewing his fighter away from the new threat. Tracers flickered past him and an instant later the black shadow of a Focke-Wulf flashed over his cockpit canopy with only feet to spare.
He glanced quickly behind, ensuring that the sky was clear, then went after the enemy fighter, which had pulled out of its dive and was starting to climb. He fired, missed, corrected his aim, and although he couldn’t be certain he thought that his second short burst must have struck home. There was no smoke or flame from the enemy aircraft, but it suddenly came out of its climb and went into a wide spiral dive. It levelled out a few hundred feet above the ground. Yeoman followed, skimming over copses and fields at close on 450 mph, and fired again, seeing his shells plough up fountains of dirt close to the 190’s wingtip. White contrails streamed back from the Focke-Wulf s wingtips as the German pilot threw the fighter into a violent turn.
Yeoman saw the 190 shudder visibly under the effects of a high-speed stall, and for a fleeting instant had a mental image of the doomed enemy pilot desperately trying to correct his error. He was too late, and too low. The Focke-Wulf turned right over on its back and its nose dropped with sickening finality. A moment later the usual mushroom cloud of black smoke, shot with bubbles of blazing petrol vapour, marked its end.
Yeoman sped over the wreck and stayed low, turning this way and that, searching the sky on all sides. The radio was filled with the excited chatter of his pilots as they locked in combat with the other 190s, but apart from some smoke trails slashed across the sky a long way away there was no evidence of the big battle that was still raging. His pursuit of the Focke-Wulf must have carried him far from the centre of the action.
He turned left, the ground blurring under his wings, intending to climb back to rejoin the others, and pressed the R/T transmit button.
‘Ramrod Red Two, this is Ramrod Leader. Come in please.’
There was no answer. Yeoman opened his mouth to try again, and at that moment the sky around him was suddenly filled with blinding light as flak of every calibre opened up from all sides.
In a timeless, terror-filled fraction of a second he realized that he had inadvertently blundered into the flak lane that led to the approach of Delmenhorst airfield. He sensed, rather than felt or heard, his Tempest being hit time and time again.
He knew in that instant that his only chance was to stay as low as possible, straight and level, and make a run for it; to turn in any direction would mean exposing the large area of the Tempest’s wings to the anti-aircraft gunners.
His highly-trained reflexes came into play and he pushed the throttle lever right forward through the ‘gate’, the metal thread that enabled him to obtain emergency power from the Tempest’s engine. There was a thunderous roar and the fighter plane leaped forward, the acceleration pinning Yeoman back in his seat as the engine wound up to 3,700 rpm and the speed increased frighteningly. With the airspeed indicator showing over 500 mph the Tempest streaked through the flak zone, its pilot crouched low in the cockpit as the inferno of shellfire continued to erupt around him.
There was a terrific crash and a blast of freezing air as something smashed through his cockpit canopy, shattering the instrument panel and sending razor-edged splinters lashing into his face and hands. He cried out in pain and panic, fearing for his eyes and throwing up a protective arm, then realized that he could still see and steadied the speeding aircraft, holding his course.
Away to the left he caught a hazy, blurred glimpse of some camouflaged hangars and a long strip of concrete that showed signs of having been severely bombed. There was another loud bang as a large shell — probably a 37-mm — exploded off to one side and he fought with the controls as the Tempest slewed violently, the port wing dropping dangerously.
The whole aircraft was beginning to shudder and vibrate alarmingly and the engine was overheating badly. Mercifully, the flak died away behind him as he swept clear of the airfield, but he decided to stay low down for a few more seconds in case there were any other concealed anti-aircraft posts in his path.
As yet, he had no way of telling how badly the Tempest was hit. She was still responding to the controls, and for the time being that was enough. However, he knew that he dared not maintain full combat boost for long; five minutes was the maximum even under the best conditions, and in its damaged state there was a real danger that the aircraft would shake itself apart.
The sun was behind him and the Tempest’s nose was pointed towards the west, so at least he was heading in the right direction, but his comp
ass was smashed and he would have to rely on map-reading alone to get him home.
He climbed to eight thousand feet and throttled back, changing to ‘S’ gear and reducing to 2,500 rpm. The shuddering died away, although an occasional tremor continued to shake the aircraft. At least, he thought, she was still flying, and if the worst happened he now had sufficient height to bale out.
Carefully, checking off item by item, he took stock of his situation. His face was stinging badly, but when he removed his flying glove and made an exploratory probe with his fingers he found that there was very little blood, so his hurts must be only superficial. The worst discomfort came from the blast of freezing air that punched its way into the cockpit through the jagged hole in the canopy; the shell fragment, Yeoman thought with a sudden shiver of reaction, must have missed his head by inches.
In a sense he was grateful for the hole. A film of oil was spreading gradually over the canopy and windscreen, and as he flew on the hole became a window on the outside world. It was a highly dangerous situation in which he found himself, for with his vision impaired he would be easy prey for any prowling German fighters; the only alternative was to jettison the canopy, and that would mean freezing to death by slow degrees.
At least three vital instruments, the airspeed indicator, engine speed indicator and altimeter, were still intact, but most of the others were a confusion of shattered dials. Worst of all, his radio was completely dead, so there was no possibility of calling up Eindhoven — or any other Allied airfield, for that matter — to obtain a course to steer.
The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Behind Yeoman, the rising sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud. The engine was still overheating, and every so often it missed a beat. As the crippled Tempest flew on, it trailed a thin ribbon of smoke across the sky.
*
In the embattled sky south of Bremen, Simon Wynne-Williams had heard Yeoman’s brief radio call but had been unable to answer it immediately, being fully occupied in a cut-and-thrust fight against two Focke-Wulfs. He managed to dispose of one with a well-aimed two-second burst and saw it go down trailing brilliant white flames, then looked for the other to find that it was disappearing into the distance. The reason, Wynne-Williams quickly discovered, was the presence of the other two Tempests of Red Section, which had come to his assistance.
Tempest Squadron Page 7