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

  The struggle had now entered a desperate phase. Rommel, who had just received thirty Mark IV tanks, was about to launch a new offensive towards Sidi Barrani, and all along the coast road enemy motorised and armoured columns were moving eastwards. Only air power could check the German offensive.

  Every night the Wellingtons bombed Tripoli harbour. The Malta Beauforts harried the tankers in the Straits of Sicily and along the Libyan coast. The Hurricanes shot up the airstrips and escorted the day bombers.

  This morning the Gambut wing was to attack a strong German-Italian column advancing on Barce. Eight Blenheims—four French, four British—were to take part in the show, escorted by sixteen Hurricanes from the same airfield. Colonel Pijeaud, in spite of his crews’ advice, decided to lead the French Blenheims himself.

  The meteorological forecast was not too good. 10/10th strato-cumulus at 5,000 feet made a uniform blanket over the whole coast, and above that, there were further layers of cloud up to 23,000 feet. It was an ideal set-up for an ambush by enemy fighters, and everybody was aware that a crack unit of the Luftwaffe, JG-18, had arrived on the front, equipped with Messerschmitt 109Fs and commanded by Marseille, one of the three great German aces.

  Twice the operation was cancelled, and the crews nerves were all on edge. Even ‘Papa’ Masquelier’s wise-cracks failed to raise a laugh.

  Finally, just before midday, the O.K. came through. The Hurricanes took off first and did a wide orbit over the airfield to get into formation, and pick up the Blenheims taking off by fours through the blinding dust.

  The formation had been flying for forty-five minutes, hard up against the cloud layer. On the right lay the blue sea, splashed with violet shadows from belts of cloud. Down below was the coast—Sollum bay with its huge overhanging cliff, Tobruk with its white houses scarred by traces of two sieges and its harbour choked with wreckage, and the crenellated pirates’ stronghold of Jebel Akdar perched on its hill.

  To the left the yellow desert, ploughed up by thousands of trucks and tanks, littered with burnt-out shells of vehicles, with here and there a clump of thorny bushes in the folds of a wadi. There was the railway, the line torn up by bombs, and the main Tobruk-Benghazi road.

  The flak began to get aggressive and the formation was forced to climb through the clouds. The pilots were expecting a long spell of I.F., but they emerged into clear air within a few seconds. A warm current had carved a slice out of the upper layer and the planes found themselves flying between two uniform cloud layers. The Hurricanes closed in round the Blenheims, who had lost formation in the climb.

  Colonel Pijeaud was clearly out of practice and handling his plane jerkily. The other three pilots found it hard to keep formation. The atmospheric conditions were rapidly deteriorating and the pilots looked around them with increasing anxiety.

  The wing was now flying over Barce. Invisible to them, Major Marseille’s Messerschmitts were taking off, 5,000 feet below the clouds. Ezanno, an old hand, who could smell trouble a mile off, sensed that all was not as it should be. His uneasiness spread to his crew. The English Wing-Co was running into a hornets’ nest, but it was difficult for Pijeaud, on his first trip with the unit, to suggest they should turn back. Ezanno warned his crew over the inter-com to keep their eyes skinned, and also warned Pijeaud over the R/T to watch out for enemy fighters.

  The formation veered to port towards Benina and the French ‘box’ moved across to let the British ‘box’ on its right slip under it. The four sections of the Hurricane escort were following very raggedly—probably something wrong with their R/T.

  ‘Look out, chaps! One-o-Nines below!’

  There they came, about forty Messerschmitts shooting up like arrows vertically out of the cloud layer below. They were the new Messerschmitt 109Fs with rounded wingtips. The Hurricanes hesitated for a moment, although it was clear from the peculiar camouflage that they were Jerries long before the black crosses could be made out.

  Eight Hurricanes dived bravely to the attack, while the others came down lower to give closer protection to the bombers. Caught napping in the middle of a tricky 90-degree turn, the Franco-British formation had lost cohesion and was terribly vulnerable. It was too late to re-group as twelve more Messerschmitts emerged from the upper layer of cloud immediately above the Hurricanes of the close escort. They were trapped.

  In a flash the sky was full of frantic planes firing or trying to break away, and already four Hurricanes in flames were plunging towards the sea. The British box tightened its left turn, hard pressed by the Messerschmitts. No. 3 Blenheim went into a spin, vomiting an enormous plume of spark-laden smoke.

  Ezanno had immediately sized up the situation and shouted to Pijeaud to make for the shelter of the upper cloud-layer. But the other French Blenheims had made off after the three remaining British ones and were diving to catch them up, hoping that the cross-fire from their guns would keep the Germans off.

  But they never got the chance, as the 109s attacked them at once. Flames from both engines enveloped Sergent-chef Redor’s plane, licking the ailerons. Two Messerschmitts went for him, and his Blenheim, now beyond control, slipped sideways, then went over on its back and vanished.

  The Wing-Co had had it. No. 4 was out of control and its crew baling out. No. 2, with its bombs on board, went off like a grenade, less than twenty-five yards from Ezanno.

  Charbonneau and Ezanno tried to cover Pijeaud, who was in difficulties. His dead gunner had collapsed inside the transparent dorsal turret and his punctured tanks were pouring out two thick trails of white petrol vapour. The colonel ordered his navigator to jump, and the white mushroom shape went floating down amidst the dog-fights between the Messerschmitts and the Hurricanes. The British fighters, outnumbered five to one, just hadn’t a chance.

  There seemed no point in staying on. The two Blenheims’ only chance was to make for the clouds, each on its own. Ezanno pulled away from Charbonneau, did a split-arse turn then climbed flat out, followed by four 109s. The Messerschmitts, their lines sharpened by the speed, looked like adders. With their yellow noses and rust-brown and yellow camouflage, spotted with green, they spiralled round the Blenheim in a deadly dance, drawing gradually closer, their cannon roaring and their tracer striating the sky.

  His teeth gritted and his breath coming in gasps Ezanno hurled his plane into the wildest manoeuvres to try and throw the enemy off. He half turned on his back then violently straightened out again. Tournier, desperately trying to find something to hold on to, was hurled to and fro against the sides of the cockpit. Baudin, his face smarting from burning powder and choking from the smoking grease in his overheating machine-guns, went on firing away at the Messerschmitts, now attacking at point-blank range.

  Every enemy shell that went home shook the Blenheim, whose airframe was groaning under the strain of so much turning at speed. Air whistled through the shell-holes and tore off strips of aluminium loosened by the explosions.

  Very gradually, thanks to the skill of its pilot and its manoeuvrability, the Blenheim succeeded in gaining height. The German section-leader, recognisable by his yellow spinner and the white-edged chevrons painted on his fuselage, realised what the Blenheim was up to and tried to cut him off. He made a wide circle round the bomber as the other Messerschmitts hemmed it in and then made a daring attack at it from about 2 o’clock. Ezanno immediately put all his weight on the rudder-bar, heaved the plane round to face him, firing with his fixed machine-guns. The 109, who was already coming in, waggled his wings and then skidded away, but not before catching a packet—a plate came off his wing, followed by some fragments. But he too had been on the mark—and a 20-mm. shell smashed a switch panel behind Tournier’s head, as he sat helpless in his transparent cage.

  ‘He’s yours, Baudin, get him as he comes past!’

  The Messerschmitt skimmed by the Blenheim, but ran into a hail of bullets from the turret. There was a thread of smoke, a slender flame between the radiators. The Messerschmitt went over on its back, the perspex
hood flew off and the hunched-up figure of the pilot was seen to jump clear.

  The way was now clear and Ezanno[9] thankfully disappeared into the clouds.

  * * *

  From the ditch where they had prudently retired, two Italian truck-drivers suddenly saw a plane emerge from the grey clouds, its cockpit in flames.

  It was Pijeaud. The petrol ducts under the seat had burst and, one hand still gripping the stick, he sheltered his eyes from the flames with the other. In spite of the fearful pain, he had managed to keep his aircraft level long enough to give his crew a chance to bale out. He had seen the navigator jump, but he was not sure about the gunner. Too late now, he was too low. All he could do was try and belly-land his plane on the road.

  Blinded by the roaring flames, choked by the smoke, he went on flying by instinct. The perspex was all gone and the inrush of air was turning the whole cabin into a furnace. There was a scream of tearing metal, a shower of sparks, debris and stones, and the Blenheim skidded to a halt on its belly in a cloud of dust. A shape emerged from the blazing wreckage, staggered a few steps and collapsed.

  The two Italians came rushing up. At last, a prisoner! They hauled the man to his feet and bundled him into the back of their truck, in spite of his lacerated face and hands. Colonel Pijeaud, for it was he, fainted away.

  The truck turned and set off back for Benghazi. On the way it was hailed by a German pilot sitting on the bank and cluttered up with his hastily folded parachute. It was the officer shot down by Baudin and Ezanno. From his refined features and the Iron Cross with Swords and Oak-leaves, the Italian driver had no difficulty in recognising Major Marseille, the Afrika Korps ace, credited with eighty successes.

  Captain Ezanno, after stooging around in the clouds for ten minutes to get back his wind and to put the enemy off the scent, came down to ground-level again to look for the enemy armoured column, the object of the trip. He followed the coast road right up to Apollonia without finding it. On the way he shot up a few isolated M/T and himself got shot at by some flak. Then he came across two Hurricanes, the sole survivors of the escort. The Blenheim led them back, ‘on the deck’ all the way, jumping obstacles and sneaking through the wadis, as far as their home base at Bu Amud, then returned to Gambut to land.

  Charbonneau was back, and the bad news had already got around. An anxious crowd was waiting for Ezanno, to hear what more he knew.

  The fitters who checked his Blenheim found nearly sixty bullet and shell hits. One aileron wire was severed, and there were bits of Messerschmitt 109 wedged between the cylinders of the starboard engine.

  Out of twenty-four planes that had set out, only four came back—the two Hurricanes and the two bombers with the Lorraine crosses.

  Colonel Pijeaud escaped with two British officers from Dema hospital three days later, in spite of appalling burns and his being still more or less blind. They walked for four nights without food or water, lying up among rocks along the coast in the daytime.

  Eventually an Australian recce column picked them up, collapsed in the bottom of a dried-up water-hole. In spite of dreadful pain, Pijeaud was still alive. He had the strength of will to dictate his op. report while the medical orderlies bound up his wounds.

  For nine days his martyrdom went on, on board a hospital ship. On 6th January 1942 he died.

  Almost two years later, on 13th December 1943, Colette Pijeaud, his heroic wife who had been deported by the Germans, died of whip-lashes at Ravensbrück, leaving two orphans to bear that great name—Jean-Claude, thirteen years old, and Francoise, eleven.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FLAMES OVER WARSAW

  ‘Lord God Almighty, the children of a warlike nation raise to Thee their disarmed hands. They call to Thee from the depths of the mines of Siberia and of the snows of Kamchatka. From Muscovite and Prussian servitude, Oh Lord, deliver us.’

  From a poem of 1831 by Adam Mickiewicz.

  At 8.15 a.m. on the 29th July 1944, Radio-Moscow broadcast in Polish the following call to the Resistance in Warsaw:

  ‘For Warsaw, which has never given in and has continued to fight, the hour of action has come.

  ‘The Germans will doubtless try and make a stand in the city, piling up more ruins and massacring thousands more victims. Your houses and gardens, your bridges and stations, your factory and office buildings will be turned into defensive positions by the enemy. They will expose the city to destruction and its inhabitants to certain death. They will pillage, and reduce to dust what they cannot take away.

  ‘That is why it is more than ever necessary to remember that the Hitlerite flood destroys everything. Only an active effort, and fighting in the streets, the houses, the factories and the shops of Warsaw will bring nearer the hour of liberation and save both the town's heritage and the fives of your fellow citizens.

  ‘Poles, the hour of liberation is at hand!

  ‘Poles, to arms!

  ‘Do not lose an instant, Praga and the industrial suburbs of Warsaw are already within range of Russian guns!’

  At 5 p.m. on 1st August, a bomb went off in the Gestapo Headquarters, which unleashed the insurrection. 50,000 soldiers of the Polish underground army, helped by the entire population, seized three-quarters of the city after five hours’ bitter fighting which cost them more than 7000 killed.

  The trap was set, and, in full view of the whole civilised world, was about to close mercilessly on the Polish martyrs.

  As soon as the insurrection was really under way the Soviet troops withdrew six miles under orders from Moscow, thus breaking off contact with the Germans, though they were in full retreat. Rokossovsky was to remain a neutral but interested spectator, while the S.S. wiped out all those embarrassing patriots.

  The Polish Prime Minister, Mikolajczyk, at once took a plane to Moscow, to try to move Stalin. Stalin replied that he would help Warsaw only on condition that Poland accepted the Lublin puppet government and also the Curzon Line.

  Mikolajczyk sent a heart-rending appeal to Roosevelt, who intervened on 24th August. Stalin did not even reply to the Anglo-American request for the use of airfields to enable the R.A.F. and the U.S.A.F. to bring supplies to Warsaw by air. In the meantime the Soviet radio was claiming that ‘reactionary elements in Warsaw had risen without orders, to sabotage the operations of the victorious Red Army.’

  The Russian refusal over the airfields was particularly surprising as, three months earlier, on seven separate occasions, American forces of 500 to 700 bombers and fighters from England had landed on Russian territory after raids on East Prussia. These planes had then left for North Africa, after being refueled by the Russians, bombing on their way targets in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

  On his own initiative, Churchill then authorised the Special Services of the R.A.F. to try and keep Warsaw supplied whatever the risk. Very few aircraft were available at that time, as by and large the whole of Transport Command was fully occupied keeping the Allied Armies supplied in their dash for the Rhine. The units that did try lost 85 per cent, of their planes in six nights and Air Marshal Slessor regretfully had to put a stop to these suicide trips.

  The only units that were able to go on were the Polish Special Duties units and also two South African squadrons in the Middle East, who enjoyed a relatively independent status.

  It was appalling. In two months 138 Special Duties Squadron (Polish) lost sixty-five officers and one hundred and sixty-nine other ranks, i.e. thirty-two crews and planes. These incredible losses were sustained over twenty-three nights and represented 90 per cent, of the aircraft sent. In six weeks the South Africans lost twenty-four out of their thirty-three Liberators.

  Although he was fifty-four years old, General Raisky, C.-in-C. of the Polish Air Force in 1939, flew a Halifax himself on three of the trips.

  What made it all still more heart-rending was that the enormous distance to be covered prevented more than quite a small cargo being taken. In the event only about, forty tons of arms and ammunition, etc., reached the resistance
forces in Warsaw.

  As Roosevelt refused to intervene more energetically, Churchill sent a very violently worded message to Stalin, who eventually replied on 10th September (forty days after the rising in Warsaw had begun) that Poltawa airfield would be available for American planes on two days only, 16th and 17th September.

  Churchill, completely disgusted, declared: ‘Stalin has summarily rejected our proposals. I could hardly believe my eyes when I read his cruel reply. I was so angry that I told Roosevelt he should give orders that American planes must land on Russian bases by force. Stalin would never have dared fire on them.’ But Roosevelt kept on insisting that his friend Stalin might be brutal, but he was sincere, and that retaining his friendship was more important than those Poles.

  In the meantime the Germans were free to launch eight divisions against Warsaw, burning and destroying the whole town and massacring its inhabitants. For sixty-three days, General Bor-Komorovski and his men covered themselves with glory, defending Warsaw foot by foot and house by house.

  In the end, on 2nd October 1944, abandoned by all her Allies[10] and sacrificed by Roosevelt on the altar of Stalin’s friendship, Warsaw, razed to the ground, capitulated. 200,000 of its inhabitants were dead, the surviving 350,000 were deported to Germany.

  At 8 p.m. on 1st October Warsaw radio made its last broadcast : ‘This is the bitter truth—we have been treated worse than Hitler’s satellites; worse than Italy, worse than Rumania, worse than Finland God is righteous, and in His omnipotence He will punish all those responsible for this terrible injury to the Polish nation.’

  Surviving comrades of the Polish Air Forces, whose proud device was ‘Destiny can wait’, and who are now scattered in exile in every corner of the world, it is to you that I dedicate this story of the operational flight carried out by 138 SD Squadron on 6th September 1944.

  Brindisi, 6th September 1944

  The six Halifaxes of the Polish 138 ‘Special Duties’ Squadron took off in turn from the Italian airfield and lumbered away, painfully getting up to their safe flying-speed[11] over the harbour.