Tempest Squadron

by Robert Jackson

  He looked over to the right, towards Malmédy, and frowned, narrowing his eyes. Two thin black lines, like parallel railway tracks, were etched on the snow, some distance apart and a few miles away.

  The sight puzzled him; if they had been railway lines, or some other feature, they would surely follow the contours of the countryside. These pencil-thin slashes looked out of place and unnatural.

  Suddenly, it dawned on him. He pressed the R/T button and snapped out a warning.

  ‘Smoke trails, three o’clock low!’

  He could see that the trails were moving now, and could make out a black dot at the head of each one. It took Phelan only a second or two to locate them and realize what they were: jet-propelled Me 262s, their turbines leaving long trails of unburnt fuel that betrayed their position.

  Phelan hesitated for a moment, watching the 262s carefully and making some quick mental calculations. If the jets maintained their present course they would cross the Tempests’ noses at a range of perhaps two miles. But the enemy fighters were travelling very fast, and if they altered their heading even slightly the Tempests would have little chance of catching them.

  Phelan ordered the section up to six thousand feet, keeping an eye on the jets all the time. The extra height would give them a vital margin of speed.

  The 262s were closing the range fast. It was now or never.

  ‘Three and Four, stay upstairs and cover us. Come on, Simon, let’s go and get ’em!’

  The two Tempests went into a long, shallow dive at full power, Phelan going after the left-hand 262 and Wynne-Williams the right-hand one. There was about half a mile between the jets. Wynne-Williams could see clearly now that what had originally appeared to be twin dark smoke trails were really four, two streaming in the wake of each jet. As the gap closed, more details of the enemy aircraft themselves became visible: the slender, shark-like fuselages, the swept-back wings.

  The two Tempests were doing close on 500 mph now, and yet they were only just managing to overhaul the 262s. Wynne-Williams found himself holding his breath as the dark silhouette of his target crept inside the luminous diamonds of his reflector sight. His thumb caressed the gun button. Just a few more seconds ...

  The smoke trails from the 262’s turbines suddenly became denser. Wynne-Williams swore and his thumb jabbed down on the button. The Tempest shuddered violently with the recoil as its four cannon pumped shells towards the enemy jet.

  Almost beside himself with frustration and fury, Wynne-Williams saw his tracer fall away below the 262. The range was too great, and was increasing with every passing moment as the enemy pilot turned on every ounce of power. Out of the corner of his eye, the pilot saw that the second 262 was also speeding hell-for-leather for the German border.

  ‘Stay with them! Three and Four, stay with us and watch our tails!’

  Wynne-Williams heard one of the other Tempest pilots acknowledge Phelan’s command and concentrated on the jet fighter ahead of him, which was still drawing away. Flak came slamming up at them from some unseen source, but the Tempests’ phenomenal speed had caused the gunners to misjudge their deflection and the salvoes burst harmlessly behind.

  Suddenly, Wynne-Williams felt a surge of elation as he saw the 262’s smoke trails grow thinner, first behind one turbine and then the other. Almost immediately, the distance between the two aircraft began to close again. He realized at once what must have happened: the enemy pilot, returning home from his sortie and already low on fuel, had gambled that a last despairing burst of power would be enough to take him clear of the pursuing fighter. It was his misfortune that the pursuer was a Tempest, the fastest Allied fighter of all.

  The chase continued at dizzying speed over the undulating snow-covered hillsides. Wynne-Williams found himself holding his breath as the black arrowhead-like silhouette of the 262 grew bigger in his sights. His own engine was beginning to overheat, and he knew that he could not keep up this pace for much longer.

  The 262 seemed to hang poised between the luminous diamonds of the gunsight. Wynne-Williams stabbed his thumb down on the gun-button and held it there for two seconds.

  It was a straightforward no-deflection shot, for the enemy pilot had made no attempt to take evasive action, and the effect was dramatic. There was a vivid flash on the 262’s starboard turbine and instantly a long river of white flame streamed back, dying away a moment later to be replaced by dense smoke.

  The jet fighter slewed violently to the left and started to roll. At that moment, its cockpit canopy flew off and a dark bundle shot out into the slipstream. Startled, Wynne-Williams saw it tumble away below. Later, he learned that he had become one of the first Allied pilots to witness an ejection seat in operation; but on this occasion the 262 had been too low and the unfortunate pilot had not had time to release himself from the seat and operate his parachute.

  The 262, rolling helplessly now and coughing smoke and flames, continued its trajectory for a few hundred yards and then plunged into the trees with a terrific explosion.

  Wynne-Williams roared over the billowing smoke cloud and pulled up in a climbing turn, levelling out at five thousand feet and throttling back his overworked engine, looking round for the others. A moment later, Phelan’s Tempest slipped into position alongside, and the radio crackled into life.

  ‘Nice work, Simon!’

  Phelan, too, had got his 262. Wynne-Williams wondered if they had set up a new record: shooting down one of these speedy jets was a considerable feat in itself, but he had never before heard of a pair of them being destroyed in a single sortie. They would have to check up on that, when they got home.

  ‘Did you pinpoint that flak, earlier on?’ Phelan asked. Wynne-Williams told him that it had come from a spot close to the main road that led from Eupen to Malmédy, about two miles north of the latter town.

  ‘Okay, then, let’s take a look. It might be something important.’

  The four Tempests flew along the line of the Warche River until they sighted Malmédy, then turned right, the pilots quartering the ground like hawks. Suddenly, anti-aircraft fire came up thick and fast, exploding all around them, and they quickly sheered off out of the danger zone.

  ‘Christ, that was bloody close!’ Phelan said. ‘Did you get that?’

  ‘Coming from the edge of that long wood,’ Wynne-Williams said, as they turned. ‘Coming round into our nine o’clock, now.’

  ‘Roger, I’ve got it. Good God, look at that lot!’

  They spotted the gun positions and the enemy convoy at the same moment. The trucks, jammed bumper to bumper, stretched back for miles along the road; they had been cleverly camouflaged with light-coloured tarpaulins so that they would blend in with the snowy background.

  ‘Do not attack,’ Phelan ordered. ‘I repeat, do not attack.’

  It was a wise decision; Wynne-Williams knew that the enemy convoy would be stiff with flak, and a low-level attack on it by only four aircraft would be tantamount to suicide.

  Instead, he climbed several thousand feet, to extend the range of his radio transmission, and called up Group Central Control, telling the controller what he had seen. The controller acknowledged, paused briefly, then said:

  ‘Two squadrons of Typhoons have just taken off from Evere; I have told them to divert to your sector. Can you stay there for a while to guide them in?’

  Phelan radioed that they had sufficient fuel to permit a further twenty minutes in their patrol sector.

  ‘But tell the Tiffie boys to get a move on,’ he added, ‘and see if you can whistle up some Spitfires for top cover. If the Jerries see us stooging around for any length of time, they’re bound to call up their fighter boys. It could get unhealthy.’

  After a few minutes, the Typhoon leader came up over the R/T:

  ‘Ramrod from Badger Leader. Understand from GCC you have some trade for us. Instructions, please.’

  ‘Badger Leader from Ramrod. Rendezvous south-east of Verviers at eight thousand and I’ll lead you in.’

&
nbsp; The Typhoons soon came up over the northern horizon, flying in two boxes of twelve aircraft. The four Tempests jockeyed into position ahead of them and Phelan led them unerringly to the target. While the Tempests circled watchfully overhead, the Typhoons dived through a storm of anti-aircraft fire and let fly with rockets and cannon, one after the other. Looking down, Wynne-Williams thought how beautifully practised and organized they were; while a handful of Typhoons broke away and dived down to neutralize the flak batteries, the others began systematically to work over the enemy convoy, which was soon blazing from end to end.

  The fighter-bombers were still at their work of destruction when the four Tempests turned for home, low on fuel. As they flew northwards, they passed a large formation of Spitfires, heading for the scene of the action. Half a dozen of the Spits broke formation and swept towards the Tempests to check on their identity, then waggled their wings and flew off, their pilots satisfied. The Tempests returned to base without incident and the pilots went off to make their intelligence reports, West and Renfrew grumbling somewhat because they had not had a chance to fire their guns.

  They need not have worried, for the tempo of air operations was maintained throughout that day — and the next too, for Christmas Eve was fine and clear and the Tempests were once again called upon to lend their support in the Ardennes sector. Every Allied fighter-bomber seemed to be in the air during the hours of daylight, striking hard at concentrations of enemy troops, transport and armour wherever they were to be found. While more waves of 047 transport aircraft dropped further supplies into Bastogne, their fighter-bomber escort worked methodically round the perimeter, bombing and rocketing German ground forces who were sometimes as close as fifty yards to the defences.

  The air commitment was not all one-sided. Shortly before noon, dozens of bomb-carrying Focke-Wulfs and Messerschmitts suddenly appeared over the front, concentrating on Bastogne. While they hammered the perimeter, hundreds of Panzer Grenadiers in white snow suits, who had lain in hiding for many hours, crept forward into assault positions, and as soon as the air attack was over they charged the American defences in an all-out attempt to break through. They failed, and their commander, General Kokott, now knew for certain that he would never overrun the stubborn, gallant garrison, for it was now only a matter of hours before the arrival of American relief columns.

  In the snow and the cold and the misery and the darkness, it was Christmas Day. But in the Ardennes, both sides were too busy fighting to care.

  *

  Wing Commander George Yeoman spent his Christmas Day crouching miserably in the ruins of what had once been a signal box beside the Venlo-Nijmegen railway line, four miles north of Boxmeer. Two miles away to the west, British soldiers were no doubt trying to forget the war for a few hours while they enjoyed whatever Christmas comforts they could lay their hands on. In half an hour of fast walking, he could be with them.

  There was one snag. Between himself and the British lines was a long wood, flanked on one side by a road and on the other by a river, and it was full of Germans.

  On the western fringe of the wood, facing the British lines, the Germans had set up a formidable array of strongly-fortified positions containing deadly 88-mm anti-tank guns, heavy howitzers and machine-guns, completely dominating the mile or so of open ground beyond. Tanks and infantry attempting to cross that open ground would be subjected to a staggering weight of fire. It would be suicide, even for an army.

  But one man might just get across, if the conditions were right.

  An unnamed guide had brought Yeoman from the former priest’s house to his present location the night before. The Dutch had helped him all they could, providing him with warm clothing, a bundle of food and some brandy to stave off the bitter cold, and briefing him as fully as they could on the extent of the German positions in the wood. They could do no more, and he vowed that if he survived the ordeal of the next few hours, he would some day return in happier times and express his gratitude in tangible terms: not that those gallant, unselfish people would expect it of him.

  From his hiding-place — a tiny burrow amid a pile of fallen masonry and beams — Yeoman had been able to get some idea of the ground that lay ahead of him. Through a hole in the tumbled bricks, he had seen a good deal of enemy movement on the road that flanked the wood over to his right, but no movement at all on the strip of ground immediately in front of him, between the railway line and the eastern fringe of the trees. From the railway line, the ground sloped gently away and then levelled out; several dark tracks wandered through the snow towards the river away to the left and he studied them carefully, knowing that they were small streams and that the ground around them, beneath the snow, was marshy and treacherous.

  So, lying in his hole, he planned his route as carefully as he could, estimating the number of paces to the edge of the wood and to each of the streams he would have to negotiate. Once inside the wood, it would be a matter of luck and of stealth; he would force himself to move quietly and carefully, from tree to tree and on his belly if he had to.

  The Germans, he felt sure, would be more relaxed than usual. There was no immediate threat in this sector, and it was Christmas. He tried to put himself in the place of the enemy troops guarding this lonely stretch of wood and marshland, to feel as they would feel, so near and yet so far away from home. They would be trying to forget the war for a few hours, and their emotions would be a mixture of nostalgia, homesickness and perhaps discontentment that it was their turn for front-line duty, when their comrades in the rear area could at least sleep dry and warm, instead of in makeshift dugouts covered with logs and earth and camouflaged tarpaulins. Whatever their feelings, they would be unlikely to suspect that a solitary British airman was moving cautiously in their midst.

  For Yeoman, the daylight hours of that Christmas Eve seemed never-ending. Cramped and frozen, he thought longingly of the warm fire he had left behind in the ex-priest’s house, and dreamed of the hot, plentiful food of bygone Christmases. He wondered what his father, John Yeoman, was doing at that moment, in his little cottage not far from the ancient market town of Richmond, in north Yorkshire. There would be a goose for Christmas dinner; there always had been, for as long as Yeoman could remember, with all the trimmings.

  The light was beginning to fade at last. The sky was still clear, but there was no moon, for which the pilot was thankful. Nevertheless, the icy diamonds of the stars shed enough light for the dark figure of a man, moving across the snowy ground, to be picked out by a sharp-eyed sentry ... Well, that was a risk he would have to take. He would have to bank on the likelihood that all the sentries would be looking the other way.

  He ate the last of the small supply of food the former priest had given him and finished the brandy, looking regretfully at the empty bottle for a moment or two before burying it among the stones. Then, crawling from his burrow, he cautiously stood upright and looked around, flexing his aching limbs.

  Over to the right, where the road flanked the wood half a mile away, there was the sound of a motor-cycle engine. The noise swelled, carrying clearly on the frosty air and seeming dangerously close, then died away in the distance. Apart from that, the night was silent.

  He began to walk down the slope, measuring his steps carefully, stopping every now and then to listen. To his surprise and relief, he found that the streams he had seen earlier were narrow, and that he could easily jump over them; he had not relished the prospect of having to wade through icy water.

  One of the streams seemed to wend its way directly towards the wood and he decided to follow it, reasoning that it probably flowed right through to the other side. This stream too was narrow, but it had carved quite a deep little gully for itself out of the soft ground; it would afford excellent cover if Yeoman ran into any danger.

  The ground was level now, and the trees loomed darkly ahead of him. He crouched down low and listened intently again, and now, for the first time, heard sounds that told him the wood was occupied; a faint clank o
f metal, the distant throb of a generator.

  A short thirty-yard sprint brought him into the outer fringe of the wood and he stood there for a good five minutes in the shelter of a tree trunk, willing his breathing to become steadier and his heart to cease its hammering. Then he moved forward again, stealing from tree to tree, checking his little luminous escape compass from time to time to make sure that he was always heading west. It was just as well he had the compass, for he had been wrong about the stream; after a while, it curved away to the left and vanished.

  Voices came suddenly out of the darkness and he froze, his face pressed against the rough bark of a fir tree while he tried to pin-point the exact direction from which the sound was coming. Then, ahead and a little way to the right, he saw a brief glow of yellow light and the dark shape of a man’s figure silhouetted against it as someone lifted the covering that hung over the entrance of a dugout and stepped outside.

  There was a grunt, a lengthy splashing of water as the man relieved himself against a tree, followed by a contented sigh. A moment later the light glowed again, to be immediately extinguished as the covering over the dugout entrance was replaced.

  Yeoman went on, taking care to give the dugout a wide berth. He could hear the dull murmur of several voices now, and knew that he must be passing right through the middle of the garrison’s living quarters. As he walked slowly on, fighting down the panic-stricken urge to cast caution to the winds and break into a run, he heard someone start to sing in a high, clear voice:

  ‘Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht, Alles schläft, einsam wacht nur das traute, hochheilige Paar ...’ And, one by one, other voices joined in, softly at first, then swelling together until it seemed as though the carol filled the night: