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

  ‘Revolver and Shark aircraft, open up. Target ahead in three minutes. Shark keep to the left, Revolver to the right, Blue Sections up the middle. Turning-in point and rendezvous after attack Barroy Light. Good luck.’

  There was Vest Fjord. Careful now—3000 revs, plus 16 boost, propellers at fine pitch, cannon and rockets armed. Barroy Island, with its black-and-white striped lighthouse, semaphore and radar station. An 88 battery too, apparently. Three ochre balls suddenly appeared just below the clouds, about 700 feet above the aircraft, like three blotches of ink on a blotting-pad—probably a sighting shot. The sirens at Elvegaard and Narvik must be going full blast.

  ‘Revolver and Shark, attack.’

  The main fjord now, flanked by cliffs 1500 feet high surmounted by glaciers.

  No flak yet? A miracle.

  The formation swept into the fjord at 375 m.p.h., Shark and Revolver hugging the hillsides, and in the middle, like a rake sweeping over the open channel, the six Mosquitoes of the Blue sections line-abreast. At the foot of a Cyclopean pile of rocks embedded in the snow the Revolver planes passed the charred remains of a German destroyer which had met its end there on 13th April 1940.

  Suddenly the main fjord widened and split up into four fingers, Hergang, Narvik, Romback and Elvegaard Fjords. Narvik was straight ahead, with its black roofs, wooden church steeple and piles of timber on the wharves. A few fishing-boats, an old beached paddle-steamer.

  Max methodically cast his mind back to the Intelligence photos. The target was in Romback Fjord, a sinuous corridor three-quarters of a mile wide, with walls half a mile high. At this moment it was roofed in by a thick cloud, and right at the end, moored hard against the vertical wall of rock, must be the tanker.

  ‘Look out, flak!’

  The Sharks had veered to the right towards the opening of the fjord. Max passed over the town like a whirlwind, banking vertically. The sky filled with flashes and tracer bullets.

  The six Blue Mosquitoes hurled themselves against the big destroyer which was blazing away with all its guns. It disappeared at once in the trails and explosions of forty-eight rockets which ripped open its hull like tissue-paper.

  A bright light filled the sky, there was a graceful parabola of black smoke, and a Mosquito crashed. A second disappeared in fragments among the pine trees on a mountainside. A parachute broke loose from a third, whose wing had been torn off by a direct hit from an 88 shell.

  A web of light was being spread across the valley by at least twenty flak emplacements concealed among the rocks. The puffs from the 20-mm. spread a white carpet round the planes zigzagging madly between the strings of tracer.

  The two Sperrbrechers and the escort vessels were moored in staggered formation and blocked the entrance to the fjord. The planes would have to run the gauntlet of their cross-fire. Between them they had sixty 20-mm. guns and twenty-two 37-mm., which could put up a wall of 500 shells a second.

  One Mosquito, probably hit among its cargo of rockets, exploded ten yards above an escort vessel and covered it with a sheet of burning petrol. The ammunition on the ship’s deck immediately went off, mowing down the flak crews. The aircraft behind, aiming blindly into the blaze, let go its rockets, which pulverised the ship.

  The hellish noise re-echoed from the valley walls. The flak and the roar of the engines started up avalanches which swept down the mountainsides into the sea with a rumbling roar, as if nature herself were in revolt against this man-made din.

  But a new sound now intervened, the irregular metallic drone of B.M.W. engines. Twenty Focke-Wulfs emerged over Bjervick. From Bardufoss airfield they had sneaked under the clouds into the valley and now hurled themselves at 400 m.p.h. on. the trapped Mosquitoes.

  Max was still in the lead. Tilting his Mosquito from side to side, he had managed to get across the barrage from the flak ships unscathed.

  Right at the top of the fjord, merging into the mountain, was the tanker, camouflaged with irregular black and white stripes. Low in the water, funnel well aft, it was embedded in the ice. Max had its silhouette clear in his sights.

  The recoil of his four cannon firing was like a mule kicking under his feet. He waited so as to fire his rockets at point-blank range. In the meantime, to neutralise the flak, he went on firing his cannon, and his 20-mm. shells went whining over the ice, exploding in succession over the ship’s hull.

  ‘Rockets on—the whole lot!’

  Langley, the observer, tense in his seat—a mere spectator, at the mercy of his pilot’s skill—armed the complete salvo of eight rockets, the equivalent of a broadside from a 10,000-ton cruiser. Max leant forward and his eyes tightened. His finger touched the firing button.

  At the exact moment that he was going to fire, his Mosquito was suddenly catapulted sideways by a terrific explosion. Instinctively, in spite of the fearful pain which twisted his guts, Max pulled with all his might on the stick. The hull, the masts, the rocks, the trees—everything whirled before his eyes. The plane shot viciously upwards and disappeared into the clouds.

  Max straightened out the skidding plane and, over Langley’s collapsed body, saw that the starboard engine was belching flame through its shattered cowling. He now had the horrid job of flying through the cloud surrounded by mountains, with all his instruments haywire, to say nothing of the searing pain of his wound.

  The plane vibrated dangerously. Steady now—feather starboard propeller—fire extinguishers. Still that terrible pain and the warm blood trickling down his legs inside his trousers.

  Suddenly, blue sky above the smooth white cloud-layer. His observer was dead, his blood spattered all over the cabin, the instrument panel, the controls, the windows. His gyros and artificial horizon, toppled by the shock, were now settling down again.

  Above all, he mustn’t faint. He turned 180 degrees left. The fire was out, dirty foam oozed through the. cracked cowling. What was happening down below? An occasional string of flak came up through the clouds, the black bursts looking quite incongruous in that absurd calm.

  The rockets were still on their rails. What a temptation, just to call it a day . . . fly home over the clouds . . . quite peacefully, all the way to Scotland . . . wait for the radio-compass to show land below . . . bale out. After all, he had brought back a Beau on one engine all the way from the Bay of Biscay, and a Mosquito was much easier. Yes, but that time the mission was completed. What were his planes doing? What about the tanker? He could hear nothing on the R/T, but the transmitter still seemed to be working. He had made up his mind.

  ‘Revolver leader here. I am going to do another run.’

  A glance at the chromo. The sea must be below by now. Cautious descent through the cloud, keeping his plane as level as possible; a few wisps of thicker vapour and there was the grey, heaving water.

  He turned, getting his bearings. There was Barroy Island again. He pushed his unharmed port engine to ‘emergency’, wound the rudder trimmer right over to relieve his left foot, which was getting tired through having to push hard on the rudder-bar all the time.

  There was Narvik. Whatever happened, he mustn’t faint. The pain made everything exceptionally clear and lucid—Focke-Wulfs buzzing and zooming up and down the fjord like wasps on a window-pane, Mosquitoes in flames shedding fragments of wing and fuselage on the snow, pillars of black smoke drifting over the water. Was that all that was left of his planes?

  In that small inlet, an iridescent patch of oil bestrewn with the remains of a ship; a few men in yellow Mae Wests, swimming; enormous bubbles bursting on the surface; further on, a beached destroyer, its side gaping.

  The flak was still there, as savage as a tornado, an impassable barrier. The Mosquito, pursued by four Focke-Wulfs, their cannon lit up with flashes, skimmed the sea. He was so low that the slipstream from his propeller created a wake behind him, shivering on the black water dotted with spurts of foam from the shells.

  He must keep going at all costs.

  A Focke-Wulf was twenty yards behind the Mosquito, weav
ing to deliver the coup de grâce. It fired at point-blank range. The shells ripped through the fuselage and hammered into the armour plating protecting Max’s back. One thousand yards still to go. Five hundred. The other engine was now on fire, the flames gnawing at the wooden main-spar. A piece of shrapnel had smashed his sight—now he would have to fire his rockets at fifty yards range in order not to miss.

  The Mosquito oscillated in its flight, like a runner lurching, and another Focke-Wulf now fired into it, its shells bursting on the tanker as well as on the Mosquito.

  There was a flash of flame as the eight rockets sped on their errand.

  The thunder of the explosion reverberating in the fjord was so terrific that the inhabitants of Narvik rushed panic-stricken into the streets, thinking that the mountain was coming down.

  Later the Norwegians found a winch from the ship 2000 yards from the explosion.

  The Mosquito disappeared in the sea of flame which swallowed up all the trees on the slopes for several hundred yards.

  It was snowing again, and the flakes were black with soot. Four Mosquitoes, four crews, utterly exhausted, battled through the black starless Arctic night to get back to their base. Four Mosquitoes out of nineteen.

  * * *

  And that is the story of Max Guedj. He was another of those ‘emigrant mercenaries’ of the Free French Air Force, just like Mouchotte, Maridor, Labouchère, Fayolle, Pijeaud and Schloesig. French history is rich in acts of heroism, but there are not so many that are quite of this quality.

  May Frenchmen bow their heads when they hear his name. May they remember that Englishmen in the R.A.F often paid him this tribute. It is the least that the greatest hero of the French Air Force from 1939 to 1945 deserves.

  Hector Bolitho, the popular writer and playwright, mobilised during the war by the historical section of the Services, has a striking portrait of Max Guedj in his book Task for Coastal Command (pp. 123-4):

  ‘A French pilot serving with the R.A.F., who has made many audacious attacks on shipping along the coasts of his country, led fifteen Mosquitoes which crippled two minesweepers yesterday afternoon . . .

  ‘Getting a story out of this French pilot is like opening oysters with your bare hands. But I also am arrogant, and I won’t leave this diary without some mention of his work. When he becomes old and charitable and in need of gentleness, he may show this page to his grandchildren, as a bait for their respect. Ever since “D” day he has led attacks, closer and closer into the harbours and rivers of the Bay [of Biscay], ruthlessly, with a sort of cold intellectual persistence. The impersonal patriotism that compels an educated Frenchman to fight like this reveals the will that must be at the heart of that country, behind the vacillation of politicians and the sophisticated cynicism of Paris.

  ‘I once tried to make him talk, but he looked at me with eyes that said, “I am wholly certain of myself. My mind is as cold and sharp as a new razor blade and I won’t tell you anything. I am being polite to you because I am a gentleman, but I wish you to know that I long ago learned to rule my heart with my mind so it is no use trying to appeal to me with any of your writer’s tricks.”

  ‘I filled in the ten minutes of the interview with nervous small talk, all the time aware that I was defeated. And that he knew it.

  ‘His dark eyes, “like polished damsons,” brook no interference with his authority, and he has the rare blessing of believing that he is always right. He is what is described in war-time as “a born leader”. It is revealed in his walk and his voice. What this talent will achieve in peace-time is a theme which fascinates me. War finds room for all these Caesars whose moral courage is frightening. I would like to meet this French pilot in ten years’ time and see whither his fierce will has led him.’

  The periodical Flight, in its number of 1st February 1945, has a page dedicated to the six great ‘aces’ of Coastal Command. Round the Coastal Command crest are the portraits of: Wing-Commander G. D. Six, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar; Group Captain the Hon. Max Aitken, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar; Wing-Commander Atkinson, D.S.O., D.F.C.; the Australian Wing-Commander McDonnell, D.S.O., D.F.C.; S/Ldr. Pritchard, D.F.C.; and finally S/Ldr. ‘Maurice’, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar.

  Note on the Mosquito

  In 1938 the De Havilland company decided to construct, at its own expense and without an official order—in fact against the advice of the R.A.F. experts—an exceptionally fast, unarmed bomber. It was the same theory as Ernst Udet’s, and the Luftwaffe paid heavily for its mistake in the first two years of the war.

  De Havilland, however, succeeded where all other designers failed. The Mosquito did fly higher and faster than most of the fighters that were put up against it.

  The Mosquito was a masterpiece, and revolutionary from the tip of its rudder to the end of its ailerons. It was built of laths of birch and balsawood ply glued under pressure, and its wings and fuselage were covered with doped cloth. Two Rolls-Royce ‘Merlin’ engines propelled the prototype at over 375 m.p.h. The crew of two, pilot and observer, sat side by side, as in the front seat of a car, and enjoyed perfect forward vision.

  As soon as the drawings, the calculations and the wind-tunnel tests were finished, the Air Ministry gave in—the evidence was conclusive, and Geoffrey de Havilland and C. C. Walker had hit the jackpot.

  ‘An ugly plane is sometimes all right, but a graceful-looking plane always flies beautifully.’ John, Geoffrey’s brother, who killed himself in 1943 testing a Mosquito, told me that one day at Hatfield. The Mosquito’s lines were certainly breath-takingly clean and graceful. Only the Messerschmitt 262 could be compared with it, but the Messerschmitt was more aggressive, coarser, more vicious-looking—more Germanic, in a word.

  I saw my first Mosquito at Cranwell. It was the prototype Mark 1, W 4050. Caught by the bad weather, it had to make an acrobatic landing on our field. Pale grey on top and sky-blue beneath, it slid between the sheets of rain falling from the leaden sky like a trout effortlessly making its way up its home stream. The U/T pilots training at Cranwell were all on the grass outside the Watch-office in the pelting rain and watched fascinated. That same evening three of them asked for a transfer to twin-engined aircraft.

  The Mosquito was such a superb design that, before it had flown, the R.A.F. ordered a Photo-Recce version and a day-and night-fighter version. The bomber model first flew on 25th November 1940, the fighter on 15th May 1941 and the reconnaissance plane on 10th June 1941. On 20th September 1941 the prototype successfully carried out a difficult photo-trip in daylight—Brest—La Pallice—Bordeaux, with return via Paris. Geoffrey de Havilland flew it himself; he was chased by three Messerschmitt 109s, but easily out-distanced them at 23,000 feet.

  The fighter version was fantastically manoeuvrable. With one engine stopped and the propeller feathered, four cannon and four machine-guns in the nose and 500 gallons in the tanks the Mosquito F. Mk. 2 could easily do a slow roll immediately after take-off.

  Two years later over a thousand Mosquitoes of various types were in service with the R.A.F. Four squadrons bombed Berlin every day, day and night, each plane carrying a two-ton bomb. In 320 raids they lost only twelve planes. In spite of all their efforts the Germans never managed to catch these Mosquitoes, which kept Berlin in a state of perpetual alert. And the damage to the enemy capital was not only psychological. It is enough to recall that a Mosquito with a crew of two, and two engines, carried into the heart of Germany half a ton more bomb-load than the Flying Fortress, and 50 m.p.h. faster.

  It was perhaps on low-level daylight raids that Mosquitoes brought off their most sensational feats, in particular the destruction of the Gestapo H.Q.s at Oslo and at Copenhagen, and also the famous Amiens prison show. In the course of these the planes flying at roof-top level placed their bombs slap through the windows of the target.

  When the Mosquito fighters in 1942-43 began their ‘ranger’ flights, they terrorised the Luftwaffe in its remotest bases. Hurtling along in pairs at 375 m.p.h., they ambushed German planes deep inside th
eir own territory. This individualistic way of fighting was the most exciting method of air warfare, rather like the hit-and-run tactics of the corsairs of old.

  Drake himself would have been proud of this operational report, signed by S/Ldr. Scherf, D.S.O., an Australian, on 23rd September 1943:

  ‘We took off at 1415 hours, in two Mosquitoes, S/Ldr. Cleveland being the other pilot. We set course for North Germany across the Baltic.

  ‘Over the sea I saw a plane. It was a Dornier. He had seen us and the black trails from his exhausts showed that he was flying with maximum boost. However, I caught up with him quite easily and shot him down into the sea with one burst from my four cannon.

  ‘We crossed the German coast at Kubitzer north of Rostock and we soon afterwards met two Junker 87s. I turned after one, while Cleveland went after the other. My first two bursts, 60 degrees correction, missed because he was turning very tight, but the third was on the mark and the Stuka went over on its back, burst into flames and crashed.

  ‘As we flew along the coast a little further south we saw an airfield and several planes in the circuit. A Heinkel 177 was just making its approach. I didn’t want to cross the airfield, because of the flak, so I attacked him head-on, from below. The enemy plane crashed into the bay in flames. Time, 1552 hours.

  ‘As I turned I saw Cleveland chasing a twin-engined Junkers 88. His shells were ripping bits out of the enemy, who was beginning to smoke. I did not see how it ended because at that moment I spotted two Dornier 18s moored in a creek. I dived on them. The first exploded and sank, but the second weathered three bursts, to my regret.

  ‘The flak started up just then and I broke, hugging the dunes. I found myself underneath two Junkers 88s flying in formation. The first broke up in the air, but as I was attacking the second I was hit by a shell from a 20-mm. automatic battery which tore off one of my drop-tanks and damaged my rudder. After retrimming my plane, I set off at full throttle after the second Junker 88 and shot him down. While all this was going on I lost sight of Cleveland and set course for home by myself.