Flames in the Sky: Epic stories of WWII air war heroism from the author of The Big Show (Pierre Clostermann's Air War Collection Book 2)

by Pierre Clostermann

  ‘Aircraft 11 o’clock, slightly below Salmon!’

  He pressed on the rudder-bar to shift the bulging nose of his plane and have a look in front and, sure enough, there were four viper-like shapes slipping between sky and earth towards the Salmon planes.

  Where were the enemy fighters? There!—still far off, up above, a mass of elongated metallic dots, in a loose scythe-shaped formation. There was no possibility now of attacking out of the sun, according to the book. It was chiefly a question of doing something damn quick.

  ‘Salmon Red going down. Blue and Yellow, top cover.’

  The vipers had each broken up into the outlines of five separate Junkers, serenely sailing past, 3000 feet below. The four Spits of Red section dived after them.

  Beverley Hill, followed by Beurling and the other six Spitfires in line astern, carried out a steep 360-degree turn and the formation fanned out to block the Messerschmitts’ path as they came skimming down like a shoal of fish.

  Now for it, he thought, as the enemy approached, with their long yellow fuselages spotted green and ochre and ringed with black crosses, their square cockpits, their slender wings set far forward. Con trails streamed from the wing-tips of the foremost as they straightened out and did a stall turn.

  It was every man for himself now.

  His hand gripping the throttle, his feet braced against the rudder-bar, his head craned forward, ‘Screwball’ came at the Messerschmitts at a tangent, cutting the line in half. The rear planes broke upwards. Jammed against his seat by. the centrifugal force, he turned towards a 109 who was waggling his wings undecidedly. He felt the shudder of his cannon—missed him, too much correction. A steep climb, a half-roll, stick back, and he was diving on his back with gritted teeth towards another 109 who was broadside on, turning on his ailerons.

  This time he got him in his sights, steadying his plane carefully, but at the precise moment he was about to shoot the Messerschmitt skidded to one side and, like a boxer avoiding a novice’s straight left, the German slipped away. A fleeting glimpse of black crosses, then nothing.

  Beurling took a deep whiff of oxygen and did a roll off the top to regain height. Just as the Spitfire was hanging on its propeller, a series of flashes appeared in a corner of his mirror, crossed it, crossed back. He skidded frantically out of the way. His opponent was taken by surprise in his rum and overshot him, passing him ten yards away.

  It was a Macchi 202, graceful and well proportioned, with its rounded back and tiny wings, the black fasces showing up sharply on the red-and-white roundels. The pilot had throttled back as far as he could—his exhausts were belching blue flame—and he was trying to get over on his back to remedy his mistake. With a violent kick Beurling swung the nose of his plane straight at the Macchi spread-eagled almost motionless in the air.

  The recoil made the Spitfire stall, but the Macchi was hit. The shells—probably from only one cannon, as he was too close for them all to bear—had ripped the fuselage just behind the pilot and there was an explosion at the wing root. The Macchi remained suspended for one moment, the Spitfire falling past him dangerously close. Then one wing dropped and the Italian went into a spin, surrounded with white glycol vapour.

  A cluster of three parachutes floated in the middle of a swarm of aircraft—the crew of a Junkers 88. Above Beurling whirled a chain of planes—Spits and Messerschmitts alternately—twisting and twining round a formation of five Junkers 88s, patiently waiting their chance to dive.

  Five grey Messerschmitts in close line-astern formation were diving in a curve as graceful as a scimitar on the Hurricanes from Takali, who were climbing flat out to join the scrap.

  Beurling tried to warn them, but in vain. They were probably on a different channel. He tried to intercept the enemy, but it was too late. There was a brief flash of Mausers, the sword-thrust of tracer, and a Hurricane gently turned over on its back, the pilot blindly trying to regain control. Then down he went, leaving a thin trail of black smoke behind him.

  The Messerschmitt responsible was immediately attacked by a Spitfire, its guns blazing. Beurling swung away from them and veered to the right to get back over Malta. Still with full boost, he plunged at 500 m.p.h. after a line of Junkers 88s diving with their big bombs under the wings. Their dive-brakes were down and he caught up fast.

  A glance at the mirror this time—all clear. Describing a perfect curve, he closed with the rearmost Junkers 88. The tracer from its dorsal turret flitted like sparks over the Spit. It was Screwball’s first shot at a bomber.

  His sight framed the bulging cockpit, the slender fuselage with its tail fin, the Jumo engines with their long circular cowlings and the trapezoidal wings. A bit more correction . . . range eighty yards . . . the smack of an enemy bullet . . . nothing to worry about, only a 7.7 . . . 10 degrees, one rad deflection. This time Beurling did not miss. There was a flood of smoke, followed by long straight spurts of flame licking at the tailplane. Perspex panels fluttered down. A dark shape emerged, then another—the crew jumping.

  ‘Help! Can’t land. One-o-nines patrolling Hal Far.’

  It was Billy the Kid’s voice. He was probably running out of juice, and trying to land with 109s about would be asking for it. Beurling let go the Junkers 88, which was finished anyway, turned over on his back and dived vertically for the sea. Skimming the waves, and hugging the cliffs to keep out of sight, he flew to the rescue. He was getting short of juice too, anyway.

  There was the beached wreck of the transport, Hal Far must be just behind. Suddenly puffs of A.A. appeared from nowhere and hung over the cliff. Three Messerschmitts roared over from the plateau, without seeing him, as he was in the shadows a few feet from the beach. They turned away from him, preparing for another run over the airfield. Beurling leapt to the attack, turned inside them and fired on the foremost. It was a difficult target—nearly 60 degrees correction—but the short burst hammered home and the Messerschmitt tilted over and crashed into the ruins of a chapel.

  ‘Try to keep Safi strip clear while I glide in.’

  ‘O.K.’

  For the next thirty seconds it was up to him. Once Billy was on the ground the Bofors would do the rest.

  Over Safi there was an absolute rodeo going on. Messerschmitts were haring about all over the place, preventing a desperate Spitfire with its undercart down from landing. It was probably Billy, and he was having to keep on turning, too tightly for the Jerries to catch him.

  ‘All right, Billy. Nip in, here I come!’

  Billy caught on all right and throttled back without a moment’s hesitation. If the manoeuvre was not perfectly synchronised he was a dead duck—the Messerschmitts would not miss him. He side-slipped steeply, straightened out at the last moment, and put her down. Beurling came rocketing across the perimeter and attacked head-on a Messerschmitt 109 already over the runway and preparing to machine-gun Billy’s plane on the ground.

  The Messerschmitt, taken by surprise, broke sharply and the two planes crossed a few feet apart at 600 m.p.h. Crash! Beurling felt a thud at the back of his neck and his cockpit filled with smoke. On the cowling, between himself and the engine, there were two long gashes made by armour-piercing shells. But the Messerschmitt, unable to follow the Spit as it turned, skimming the bomb-craters with its wing-tip, broke off.

  Four Spitfires called back by Control now appeared to clean up the circuit. The Messerschmitt 109s dived over the cliff and shot off over the sea in the direction of Sicily.

  Pushing hard with both hands, Beurling slid back his hood. Undercart down, engine throttled back, propeller at fine pitch, flaps down, he made his approach. He must keep his eyes open for the craters so liberally scattered over the runway by the Junkers 88s.

  The Spitfire was now bumping safely on the ground, on its narrow undercart. He braked to avoid the still smoking debris of a Spitfire. At last, the rabbit burrow, and the fitter signalling him in.

  Phew! What a party! He was soaked with sweat, which ran into his eyes, down his neck, under his
armpits, everywhere.

  His first show over Malta: two for certain—one Messerschmitt 109 and one Junkers 88—and one probable, the Macchi 202.

  An hour later, his plane refuelled and rearmed, Beurling took off again with another flight to intercept a formation of thirty Junkers 87 Stukas, escorted by one hundred and ten Messerschmitts! The Luftwaffe at all costs meant to sink the Welshman, which had just arrived with a cargo of aviation spirit and A.A. ammunition. Every Spitfire and Hurricane on the island that was capable of flying at all went up.

  A terrific scrap developed over Valetta, joined rather clumsily by about thirty Macchi 202s. The Stukas, superbly flown, dived hell for leather through the A.A. barrage, pursued by the Spits, who were themselves deluged by an avalanche of enemy fighters.

  Beurling brought down one Messerschmitt 109 and fired at point-blank range on a Junkers 87 which had just dropped its 1000-lb. bomb. He was so close to his opponent that the Stuka’s hood, ripped off by his shells, smashed his propeller. An A.S.R. launch which was just below the fight followed him at full speed, but Beurling miraculously righted his plane and belly-landed it on a tiny field near a lighthouse.

  That evening, in spite of the smell of petrol and the discomfort of the Mess, Beurling ate heartily and slept sound. He had shown his incomparable virtuosity on the very first day. The sacrifices of his youth had not been in vain.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ADMIRAL YAMAMOTO

  May 1940, Bering Sea

  Overtaken by a tornado near Matthew Island, a Japanese seal-hunting ship had sunk. Three days later a Norwegian whaler picked up the Japanese skipper’s body, floating on the surface in a lifebelt.

  The identity and other papers found on the body were carefully put aside, for handing to the authorities at Nackneck at the end of the whaling season. The Norwegians had also found a book—at first sight a series of mathematical or logarithm tables—which had a curious binding of cloth-covered lead. The body was sewn in a weighted sack and lowered into the sea, while the skipper read the prayer for the dead.

  A week later they sighted an American fishery protection vessel, hailed it, and handed over the papers, a report and the book. The American skipper, an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, leapt a yard in the air when he saw the book of tables and immediately made full steam for Dutch Harbour, where a big naval base was being constructed.

  The little book was nothing less than the Japanese Imperial Navy’s basic code.

  The possession of such a precious book by a mere seal-hunter was incidentally not particularly surprising. The crews of Japanese—and Russian—trawlers and so on were stiff with regular naval officers taking photos and soundings in Alaskan waters.

  As Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, later wrote: ‘This discovery meant for us the equivalent of an extra battle fleet.’

  Working from this basic code, which was common to the Air Force, the Navy, and the Foreign Ministry (oddly enough the Army had a totally different code which defied all the efforts of the experts to crack it), the Americans were to all intents and purposes able to follow the Japs’ every move. A special branch to deal just with this code was set up in the White House until the declaration of war. Only President Roosevelt and Cordell Hull had access to it. The President therefore knew, before even the Japanese ambassador in Washington, all Tokyo’s instructions to its diplomatic services during those tragic weeks in October and November and up to 7th December 1941. He even had advance information of the attack on Pearl Harbor as far back as the 28th of November. But that is another story.

  It was thanks to this code that the most extraordinary manhunt in the entire Pacific war was organised. The object of this hunt was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

  Yamamoto, a naval tactician of genius whom history will rank with Togo and Nelson, was the moving spirit and driving force in the Japanese armed forces. He was quite young—not yet fifty—knew the United States intimately, and had always been opposed to the desire for war as expressed by the Tojo-Matsuoka faction. He was an influential friend of Prince Konoye’s and had written to him at the beginning of 1940: ‘If in spite of everything I have to fight, then all must be over in six months or a year: I cannot take responsibility for a two-year war against the United States. I am against the Tripartite Pact and always have been. But now it is too late. I hope our government will avoid a war against the United States.’

  Seeing that war was inevitable, he drew up the masterly plan of campaign which in the event enabled the Japanese to win the battle of the Pacific in twelve months. It was from his flagship, the battleship Yamato, that was flashed the signal Niitaka Yama Nobore, which let loose the attack on Pearl Harbor.

  It was particularly during the Guadalcanal campaign that the full extent of his genius was revealed to the Americans.

  Guadalcanal is a small island lost in the Solomons Archipelago, 1200 miles north of Australia. Ten square miles of fetid jungle and stinking malaria-infested mud, fringed by a thin line of coconut-palms along the marshy beaches. A tropical hell, shunned by men ever since 7th February 1568, when Don Alvaro Mendana planted there the standard of His Most Catholic Majesty.

  On 4th July 1942 a Flying Fortress, coming back from a recce trip over Tulagi, was blown off course by a storm and flew over Guadalcanal at 23,000 feet. The observer took a few photos on the off-chance. When the plates were developed all hell was let loose in Admiral Nimitz’s G.H.Q. There was no getting away from the photographic evidence. The Japs had landed troops on Guadalcanal on the quiet and had started building an airfield. This modest field, a mere landing-strip hacked out of the jungle, was destined to upset all the Americans’ plans.

  On 7th August 1942, 11,000 Marines made a surprise landing on Lunga Point, and as early as the following evening they had captured the landing-strip, which they named Henderson Field. In theory the capture of the island was only a question of days and no one could guess that a tiny third-class military operation like that would develop into a bitter series of land, air and naval engagements.

  Yamamoto calmly followed the American move from Truk, where he had immediately gone, on board the Yamato. He let the Americans get really committed, then moved to the attack. For him it was a heaven-sent locale for a war of attrition against the U.S., in that maze of islands where the superiority of his crews and of his strategy would have a real chance to show themselves.

  When on 7th February 1943 at 4.15 p.m. the last Jap soldier on Guadalcanal was finally dead, the American Navy had fought six major naval battles in the waters round that accursed island. Of the six, four were defeats and two were inconclusive. In these battles—Savo on 9th August 1942, Eastern Solomons on 24th August, Cape of Hope on the night of llth-12th September, Santa Cruz Islands on 26th and 28th October, Guadalcanal on the night of 12th-13th November, and Tassafaronga on 30th November—the American Navy lost two of its precious aircraft-carriers, the Wasp and the Hornet, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and fourteen destroyers, not to mention a certain number of heavy units temporarily put out of action.

  In all these battles, in spite of superiority in numbers, gunpower, radar and aircraft, thanks to which losses were kept within bounds, the American Navy was tactically outclassed by the Japanese, who scrupulously followed Yamamoto’s instructions.

  For instance, at Tassafaronga, Task Force 67, warned in advance by its reconnaissance planes, set a trap with five heavy cruisers and six destroyers for a Japanese force which consisted of a mere seven destroyers. The Japanese destroyers laboured under the further handicap of carrying ammunition and 5000 drums of petrol for their beleaguered garrison on Guadalcanal, and also large numbers of troops who crowded the decks and blocked the alley-ways. After a vicious engagement in the dark lasting thirty minutes, one of the American cruisers, the Northampton, was sunk, and the four others, New Orleans, Pensacola, Portland and Minneapolis, were out of action. The last two were practically cut in half and only saved by a miracle. The Japanese, f
ollowing Yamamoto’s pre-arranged plan, j suffered no losses during the engagement itself.

  Yamamoto became the Americans’ bête noire in the Pacific, as did Rommel for the British in Libya.

  * * *

  The U.S. Navy’s reception post at Dutch Harbour was deep in underground concrete shelters. Up above on the cliffs rose the seven enormous 300-foot radio masts. The Japs frequently tried to destroy them.

  On 17th April 1943 at 6.36 a.m. a coded signal from Truk was intercepted. As it had the call-sign of the Yamato, Admiral Yamamoto’s flagship, it was relayed to Washington with top priority, via Kiska, Kodiak, Elmendorf and San Francisco. At Arlington Hall the cryptographers immediately got busy over the groups . . . 28743253 54178932 72918376 . . . (Next door the finishing touches were being put to the first electronic brain, which within a few months took over all the donkey work. The basic elements of the Japanese code were fed in at one end, the intercepted message at the other, and in a matter of minutes the machine produced the answer in clear.)

  At 11 o’clock the translated message was on Frank Knox’s desk, just as he returned from a sitting of the Senate. The Secretary of State read the message, a current one giving an itinerary for a tour of inspection by Yamamoto. As it was just a routine message, devoid of any tactical or strategic interest, Knox went off to lunch. During the meal a casual remark by his private Secretary—the old theory that wars could be settled by individual duels between commanders; no commanders no wars—was the starting-point for the extraordinary affair which bore the cover-name of Operation Vengeance.

  Might it not be possible to intercept Yamamoto with fighter aircraft and shoot him down? It might change the whole course of the war in the Pacific!

  Knox immediately alerted General Arnold, Commander-in-Chief of the Army Air Force, who in turn sent for Colonel Charles Lindbergh, a specialist on long-distance flights with P-38s, and Frank Meyer, from Lockheed’s experimental department.