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 party was going with a swing. They had the S/Ldr. Admin. cornered in the angle of the bar, and while four pilots were holding on to his arms and legs, a fifth, egged on by the excited onlookers, was setting fire to his tie with a cigarette lighter.

  They’re all completely mad, thought Max. There were Canadians present, Australians, about thirty British, two Americans, a Belgian and some New Zealanders, all kids of eighteen to twenty-five, and all under his orders.

  ‘Maurice, it will be a tough job,’ had said Air Marshal Slessor, A.O.C. Coastal Command, when he had entrusted him with the Wing. Being French made it no easier: he was hard on his crews, too, though no harder than on himself. At bottom they respected him, which was their way of feeling affection. They respected him for his D.S.O., and particularly because they knew he was the best among them—the first to dive through the flak, the best shot, the best pilot. It was professional respect, perhaps the finest form of affection that a pilot can show.

  Max looked at his watch. 10 p.m.—time to close down.

  ‘All right, chaps, bed now.’

  His voice was audible above the tumult, which died down gradually. Only those who had had one or two over the eight went on talking just the same. That sort of moment is difficult for anyone in command, the atmosphere of the Mess is so friendly and intimate.

  ‘Strike laid on at dawn,’ he added in the same tone of voice, so that it shouldn’t sound like an apology. That did it. Everybody drank up and filed out in twos, crew by crew, into the hall. Max was already in his room at the end of the corridor, a room in the Mess itself being the privilege of a unit commander.

  A quarter of an hour later the streaks of light under the Nissen hut doors disappeared one by one. The station was asleep. Only the intermittent flashing of the beacon from the control tower indefatigably cut up the night.

  0530 hours

  F/Lt. Forbes, I.O. on night duty, woke up with a start. The bell of the teletype had gone off and the rustle of the paper unrolling and the clack-clack of the machine-gun had begun.

  In a corner of the Ops. Room the duty sergeant jumped out of his camp bed as the mercury-vapour lamps began to flicker, and took up his position by the telephone. A glance at the paper unrolling:‘Operation Number 005718 stop Priority top secret stop all available aircraft shipping strike Ofot Fjord H hour . . .’

  From now on it was the well-known drill which the duty officer knew backwards without having to check up on the list of instructions hanging by the Tannoy mike—Wake Wing Commander flying; alert station armament and engineer officers, alert navigation officer and senior I.O.; get word to officers, sergeants and airmen’s Messes; alert S.Ps. and guard-room; all passes to be suspended till take-off; phone communications to the town to be cut.

  The 1200 men of the base were jerked awake by the strident sound of the loudspeaker hanging at every corner. The well-oiled machine smoothly slipped into gear.

  Before it ever got to the teletype stage Operation Order CC1.005718 Form D had already covered a lot of ground.

  On the previous evening the Strat-R Spitfire XI had landed at Peterhead after a 1200-mile trip over the North Sea as far as Tromso in Norway, well inside the Arctic Circle. The pilot, exhausted by four hours’ flying in storms, had had to be helped out of his cockpit, while fitters got the frozen cameras loose with jets of steam.

  The developed photos had shown a naval convoy entering Ofot Fjord—a 6000-ton tanker escorted by a big Elbing class destroyer, two Sans-Souci class escort vessels and two Flak-ships, including an ice-breaker. While Max’s crews were having a high old time bringing the roof down in the Mess, a conference was being held 200 miles away in the Coastal Command 19 Group H.Q.

  Air Marshal Sir Brian Baker and Air Marshal Frank Linden Hopps, A.O.C. Strike Group, after hearing the Intelligence and Navy reports on the importance of the target, had decided to detail for the job the Mosquitoes of 143, 235 and 248 Squadrons commanded by Wing-Commander Maurice.

  The American Liaison Officer had immediately got through to 66th Fighter-Wing, 8th U.S. Air Force, at Sawston, to find out what they would be able to spare for escort duties. A call to the Uxbridge H.Q. of A.D.G.B. provisionally earmarked 315 Polish Squadron. This was a Mustang unit and had plenty of experience of escorts over Norway.

  The Liaison Officers notified A.A. Command and the Royal Navy of the probable time-table and route of the aircraft, in order to avoid unfortunate misunderstandings.

  Everything had been discussed and arranged in a calm, matter-of-fact way, just as if it had been a commercial enterprise being launched. The outcome of all this preliminary work was the Form D now coming through on all the teletypes.

  While Max was getting dressed—R.A.F. wool and silk underclothes, pullover, leather jerkin under the battle-dress blouse, long woollen stockings inside the lined boots—the whole station had become furiously active.

  Tractors brought up trailers bearing the long heavy semi-armour-piercing explosive rockets, each weighing sixty pounds. The armourers fitted into the tails of the rockets cruciform cordite charges, which would propel them at 1000 feet per second. They then carefully screwed on over the platinum plate of the electric detonator and the firing contacts the fins designed to stabilise the rockets in flight.

  The Mosquito 6’s Rolls-Royce ‘Merlin 25’ engines were started up, warmed and run up by the fitters. The big bowser (truck) passed from plane to plane making sure that every one of the ten separate tanks in each aircraft was topped up, making a total load of 500 gallons. As part of the routine drill, the riggers checked the oxygen bottles—actually they would not be needed as it was going to be the usual low-level trip.

  In the cookhouses the W.A.A.F. personnel were preparing porridge and eggs and bacon for the forty pilots and observers who were going on the show.

  In the quiet of the Ops. Room F/Lt. Forbes and the Senior Intelligence Officer made sure that each crew’s wallet contained a complete set of maps, charts and photos. Standing on a ladder, the sergeant was fixing ribbons on the wall map from Sumburgh to Narvik, blue for the Mosquitoes’ route and white for the escort fighters. Bent over a table covered with graduated rulers and protractors, F/Lt. Langley, navigation leader for the strike, was working out his courses E.T.As. and then chalking them up on the blackboard. Next to the board was a screen on which in a few minutes’ time the projector would show photos of Ofot Fjord and the latest ones of the convoy, brought at that very moment by a frozen and mud-bespattered despatch rider from Group.

  0830 hours

  The crews were all assembled in the briefing room. No sign of yesterday’s youthful high spirits in the intent faces to be seen there now—they seemed ageless, like the faces of men who were going to face death. In a few months a mask as of ten extra years had been impressed on their young features; their own mothers sometimes did not recognise them, when they survived to go home.

  Everyone looked at the board, where the blue ribbon ended in Narvik, in the centre of a large red blotch—extra-heavy flak zone. In the Senior I.O’s. office Max was on the phone with Air Marshal Hopps—‘Hoppy’ to his pilots—who had wanted to give him his final instructions in person. The pilots strained their ears, but all they got was ‘Yes, Sir . . . yes, Sir.’

  Now silence fell as Max went up on the platform. He was used to this ceremony by now, but every time he slowly walked up those steps he felt he was jumping over a wall into another world.

  Three more trips and he would go on leave, requested to do so by his own chiefs and by General de Gaulle.

  ‘Attention, please. Eighteen Mosquitoes plus one reserve from 143, 235 and 248 Squadrons are to attack and destroy a 6000-ton tanker moored at the head of Romback Fjord.

  ‘Romback Fjord is a continuation inland of Ofot or Narvik Fjord, which some of you are pretty well acquainted with already. As the distances involved are bigger than our normal maximum and as we are taking a full load of rockets, we shall put down in Sumburgh in the Shetlands to refuel on the way.

  ‘The A.O.C.
has just told me over the phone what extreme importance is attached in the highest quarters to the destruction of this ship. It is carrying high octane aviation spirit for the German airfields in Northern Norway, of which, as you know, there are twelve important ones between Bodö and Tromsö. The German evacuation plan involves the transfer north of a large part of the very strong forces the Luftwaffe still has in Denmark. If they succeed it may mean two months added on to the war, and make necessary a large-scale amphibious operation to liberate Norway, which would mean more casualties, lots of them.

  ‘It’s going to be a tricky job. The Torbeaus refused to take it on, because Romback Fjord is too narrow for them, and these days they don’t believe torpedoes can be relied on when there is ice in the water. The Nuremberg show in ’42 showed they’re right. Do you remember? She was caught in the ice off North Cape and made an ideal target. But all the torpedoes exploded against ice floes, and all that happened was we lost four Torbeaus. Jerry must have been laughing like a drain!

  ‘We are the only unit fast enough to go up the forty miles of Narvik Fjord without too much unpleasantness with the flak—we hope!

  ‘The met. forecast isn’t too good. There will be snow and icing. On the other hand, it may put off the Focke-Wulf 190s at Bardufoss and Skaaland.

  ‘Our fighter escort will go direct from Peterhead to the rendezvous over the sea. It’ll be the Mustangs of 135 Polish Squadron.

  ‘We’ll fly in battle formation, sections of three and four, line abreast. Don’t straggle, otherwise you’ll certainly lose contact in this lousy visibility. The two reserves will kindly not try to be too funny. Their job is to come with the rest of us until we pick up the fighters and then take over from anyone who is in difficulties, if there is anyone. Absolute R/T silence, of course, only visual signals to be used.

  ‘When we get to the objective, Revolver will attack first, then Shark, but only if the target is not yet destroyed. Blue Sections from Revolver and Shark will form a separate section which will take on the flak ships.

  ‘Aim at the base of the funnels at 300 yards, don’t dive too steeply, and your rockets will strike at the water line.

  ‘If enemy fighters attack, form a defensive circle, reduce speed, 10 degrees of flap and keep turning. If you are alone, there’s only one sensible thing to do—full throttle, make for the clouds, not forgetting, of course, to use your cannon if the opportunity arises.

  ‘Every observer will keep an individual navigation log, so that he can get home on his own if he has to.

  ‘Any questions? All right, that’s all. Good hunting!’

  For the perfect execution of a shipping strike it is necessary to get all the aircraft away together and form up immediately as a group. A tricky business with Mosquitoes, as they overheat very quickly when taxiing. Any traffic-jam at the end of the runway is a catastrophe, and yet, since on operations of this sort every drop of fuel is needed, planes set course as soon as the undercart is up. Therefore everyone has to start up engines simultaneously and not dawdle over taxiing.

  To complicate matters, at Sumburgh the runway was very short and ended up at the foot of a hill. What you had to do was to tear the plane off the ground at 3000 revs, 16 boost and 15 degrees of flap, and climb before you reached the safe flying speed of 180 m.p.h..

  As expected, the last three Mosquitoes, with their radiators at 130° C. and white smoke coming out of their exhausts, could not catch up. The infuriated pilots had to pack in altogether to avoid dangerous internal leakages of glycol.

  11.25—Sixteen Mosquitoes, led by Max Guedj, set course 069 degrees over the North Sea.

  12.30—It was pouring with rain and, like a ghostly school of porpoises, the planes kept close together just above the long swell. Snow and spray bespattered the windshields, and the crews, peering forward into the murk, were having a grim time.

  Economical cruising speed—220 m.p.h.—1800 revs and 0 boost. The navigators kept fiddling about with the fuel-cocks and glancing at the gauges. From time to time the sea and the mist merged into an opaque moving wall through which the aircraft plunged anxiously.

  When that happened Max switched on his downward recognition light and the light skipped from wave to wave piercing the damp white wisps of vapour. The planes edged still closer together.

  The Mosquitoes carved their way through the murk. Where the formation had passed, there remained, long after the sound of engines had died away, straight swathes cut through the moisture-laden air by the burning exhaust gases.

  12.40—The Mustangs seemed to have missed the rendezvous in this thick weather. Max made the two squadrons do a wide and highly dangerous 360-degree turn. The pilots concentrated for dear life—getting into another bloke’s slipstream, ten feet above the icy water, would be certain death.

  Max’s manoeuvre would give the Mustangs an extra two minutes at this game of blind-man’s buff. Not that he was banking too much on it. With horizontal visibility reduced to a few dozen feet, two formations could pass very close to one another without being aware of it. You couldn’t ask the impossible of those fighter-pilots, alone in their cockpit and with no navigator. How could they arrive at a given second at the intersection in space of two arbitrary co-ordinates which left no mark on the featureless surface of the sea?

  Help from R/T was out of the question. The German goniometers and listening-posts were on the qui vive.

  Max gave it up and set course again on the target.

  The observer, his face glued to the perspex, tried to penetrate the fog. The treacherous Norwegian coast must be near, with its mountains falling sheer into the sea. How many Coastal Command planes had blindly crashed into the granite cliffs of the Skajaergaard! Max’s pilots knew all about it and, hands contracted on the throttle levers, they were ready to fling their planes into a left turn in a fraction of a second.

  12.47—Max suddenly broke the R/T silence. It was the first words that the Y service W.A.A.F.s at Wick and Kirkwall entered on the blank sheet before them headed ‘Radio telephony. Communications. Op. 005718.’

  He shouted into the microphone: ‘Revolver leader calling. Look out for ship ahead 11 o’clock. Shark Blue, sink it before it uses radio.’

  The ship, whatever it was, would obviously radio the size and course of the Mosquito formation to the German defensive network. No time to waste. Now was an opportunity for Max’s superb training of his crews to show itself.

  Automatically Shark Blue 1, without having seen the ship, but knowing where it must be relative to his leader, reduced throttle, changed to fine pitch and turned right. There, between two veils of rain, was a large trawler, sparks twittering on its aerial. None too soon!

  The observer had already switched on the sight and now he fired two rockets from under each wing.

  Wooooofffoooff . . . the four missiles glided along the rails and swooped towards the hazy outline bobbing up and down.

  Left of the bridge, near the stumpy mast, there seemed to be a light winking—Morse probably. F/Lt. MacGregor, Shark Blue 1, felt a slight jar under his feet.

  A terrific flash of orange flame, reflected by the waves . . . debris . . . jets of steam . . . It was all over—the trawler, sliced in two, was. swallowed up.

  Shark Blue 1 turned tight left at full throttle to catch up the formation, and his No. 2, still dazzled by the explosion, did his best to follow.

  MacGregor shook his observer, who seemed to be falling asleep, and shouted to him to buck up. He got a spurt of blood full in the face. That winking light had been a machine-gun, and the jar had been a stupid little 7.7 bullet. But that single bullet had pierced the hydraulic fluid tank and had then ricochetted. The observer had got it smack in the chest.

  The dangerous choking fumes from the Girling fluid were already filling the cabin, and the pilot quickly put on his mask and switched the oxygen full on.

  About turn and back to Scotland, to save the observer, if possible. The Mosquito disappeared, heading west.[12]

  12.53—Ther
e was the rock wall, with the sea breaking on it and enormous masses of spray disappearing into the fog.

  ‘Revolver turning port, steering zero one five.’

  Was it an island or the mainland? All those cliffs looked much the same, and there seemed to be nothing particular to distinguish this one.

  ‘Stadstsland Point,’ said Langley in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. During the two years he had been operating in these parts he had memorised every detail of the coast.

  Course 015 degrees, towards the north and the dangers of the Arctic Circle. The rain was now mixed with snow, which calmed the phosphorescent waves a little.

  Having started in the dubious daylight of our winter, the planes were now gradually being swallowed up by the indeterminate shadows of the polar night. Only one hour left of this pale light in which nothing showed up sharp. They must attack quickly.

  The fog now lifted and gave place to thick snow, flying horizontally and describing a whirling spiral round the propellers. The observers were hard at work switching on carburettor heaters, the de-icing gear, fluid pumps for the propellers, pitot-head and gyro-intake heaters.

  Ping—crack—crack—ping—the bits of ice detached from the propellers bounced off the wooden fuselage, which reverberated like a drum.

  ‘Bloody weather.’

  Max did not reply, he was thinking out the plan of campaign. Shark would hug the left flank of the fjord, Revolver the right, and the two Blue sections would take the centre. After that, everybody—at least everybody who got through the concentrated flak—would reform round the lighthouse on Barroy Island.

  ‘Target ahead in ten minutes, skipper.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Over there, where the horizon was clear, there was a pink streak, the only touch of colour in the grey and white landscape—grey aircraft with white bellies, grey sea, white cliffs, grey clouds. It was the sun on the desolate ice-pack off North Cape.

  Max remembered—July 1942. He was flying a Beaufighter. For hours his mates and he had been flying over the monotonous jumble of ice-floes searching for the Murmansk convoy, dispersed by the Tirpitz and the Junkers 88s. Twenty-two merchant ships out of twenty-eight, most of them American, had been sunk. The smoking remains were being crushed by the ice, on which the survivors were left wandering about.