Maximum Effort

by Vincent Formosa

  After a suitable pause, Archers parents received the standard letter from the Air Ministry. Church sent a more personal missive, extolling Archers virtues of pressing on, his cool courage under fire and how well he was regarded on the squadron. It was a nice letter but it did little to dry a mothers tears.

  Saunderson was in for a surprise when he packed up Archer’s stuff. There was a neat pile of letters waiting for him on the bedside cabinet and his clothes were all tidy in the cupboard. There was a cheque to settle the outstanding Mess bill and five pounds for the ground crew as a thank you for looking after him. His Swiss watch was in an envelope with a note asking it to be returned to his father. The keys for his yellow car lay on top of a scribbled note with a question mark and the line, ‘give it to someone who can use it, Uncle.’

  Saunderson gathered everything up and took it back to his office to check carefully. This was the part of his job he hated the most. Having to do this three or four times a week wore a man down. Crews came and went, but the administrative staff like him had to count the names and do all the work. It had reached the point where he couldn’t picture them anymore, they had just blended into a homogeneous, anonymous mass. It was not that Saunderson didn’t care, he did, but it was the only way he could get through the day. While the men were on the squadron he did his best to make sure their needs were met, but once they were gone, they just faded away.

  Going through the personal effects, he shook his head at how men seemed to know when they needed to get their affairs in order. He glanced through Archers journal but there was nothing secret written down and no smut that would embarrass his family. He tossed it onto the acceptable pile. He noted the letter to a girl in London. It was full of the usual platitudes, ‘you’re a great girl, I’m sorry I won’t be there, embrace life, don’t wait around expecting me to come back through that door.’ He read it and then sealed the envelope.

  The newspaper clippings about the DFC he put with the medal in its box. He glanced at it when he opened the lid, the silver wings of the cross glinting under the light. He ran his fingers over the white and purple ribbon and then snapped the lid shut.

  In the end there were no surprises. It looked like Archer had tidied up after himself quite well. Saunderson put his flying log, journal and other bits and pieces into a box so it could be sent to his family in the next few days. He twirled the car keys around his finger while he pondered what to do about them.

  At Bomber Command there was a change as well. Baldwin was gone, shuffled off and away. He didn’t even go back to 3 Group to resume his old job. Portal wanted a new broom to start fresh and he found it in Arthur Harris.

  In the early part of the war, Harris had commanded 5 Group before spending some time as Deputy Chief of the Air Staff. A veteran of the first war, Harris had stayed in the RAF during the lean years and served in Mesopotamia, Persia and India. During the almost annual tribal uprisings he had chopped holes in the noses of his Vickers Vernon transport aircraft and fitted them with bomb racks. To those who didn’t know him, he could appear bullish, almost arrogant. To those that did, he was firecracker of energy who tolerated fools not at all and was driven with a single minded purpose in achieving his objectives.

  For Harris that meant proving that strategic bombing alone could win the war. In the American Civil War, General Sherman had been one of the first proponents of the concept of total war. He had posited that dislocating the civilian population from being able to support the war effort was as important as the destruction of purely military targets. Harris had fully embraced this theory of war.

  In the modern era, what that meant was the pummelling of German industry, the Ruhr and other big targets to cripple their ability to wage war. Attacks on Coventry had shown what affect heavy bombing could have on cities and on the morale of its citizens and Harris wanted to do the same to the Nazi war machine.

  Harris knew how difficult it was to navigate at night. Commanding the first heavy bomber squadron he had trained his crews hard for night operations. Despite all the advances in aviation since the First World War, navigation still came down to a mans individual talent and their ability to grope their way over a darkened continent. Even the most skilled navigators found it difficult and for some, it was no better than randomly sticking pins in a map and hoping you jabbed the right bit.

  While serving on the Air Staff, he knew there was technology coming that would change that, but during his first few days at Bomber Command HQ he took stock of his stable. He had inherited a force that on paper totaled nearly five hundred aircraft, but bare numbers as always only told half the story.

  Eighty percent of his bombers were still the aircraft that Bomber Command had started the war with, Whitley’s, Hampdens and Wellingtons. Medium bombers, they lacked the ability to carry really heavy loads which is what it was going to take to get the job done. Harris found that frustrating.

  In 1935 he had been one of those pushing for a four engined heavy bomber when such ideas were out of fashion. Now he was being given the tools to prove his theory right as the new Halifaxes, Stirlings and Manchesters were starting to come out of the factories in increasing numbers. The directives from Portal and the Air Ministry gave him the room to get the job done.

  The bigger danger was his strength being hived off to satisfy the demands of Coastal Command and the Middle Eastern theater. Now the Japanese were in the war, the Far East was also making demands on the strained resources at his disposal.

  He needed time to bring his command up to strength, introduce the new navigational aids and get everything working the way he wanted. Whatever he thought of the Butt Report personally, it had shown that raids needed to be concentrated to saturate the defences.

  Harris knew he would no longer allow his crews to be easy pickings to the German flak and fighters. He also knew he needed to increase the tempo of operations to put the Germans under pressure, to give them no chance to recover or adjust and above all, not scatter his strength all over the place.

  He called his Group Commanders to HQ for a conference and started to lay out what he wanted to do and what he expected from them in the months to come.

  34 - When Luck Finally Runs Out

  The appointment of Harris as their new Chief attracted little comment. As men came and went on the squadron, so did commanders. They would wait and see. He didn’t keep them waiting long. It was no great secret that Harris was not a fan of the Royal Navy. He had once commented that of three things that shouldn’t be allowed on a yacht, one of them was a naval officer. As much as he wanted to get stuck into German industrial targets, he recognised that Bomber Command had unfinished business that needed taking care of first.

  Prinz Eugen was out of the way in Norway. Intelligence reported she had heavy damage to her stern and wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while so that left Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in Kiel. Both of them had been damaged during that headlong dash up The Channel but they were still as big a threat as they had been at Brest.

  Photo reconnaissance showed both of them were in docks. While the weather forecast was bad, it was a good moon period and a coastal target would make it an easy navigational problem for the crews to find their way there and back. The orders went out to go for Kiel.

  Walsh said little in the two hours between briefing and takeoff. Normally he either slept or he talked like there was no tomorrow. This time, he remained silent and brooding while he lay on his bed. Carter asked what was wrong but got a noncommittal grunt in return.

  Figuring he would speak when he was ready Carter went back to his writing. He finished a letter for White, telling him about the mess of the last few days, putting in as much as he dared. He wrote a longer more heartfelt letter for Georgette. They had seen little of each other the last week or so and only spoken twice on the telephone. Even those calls had been brief but when he got back, he wrote, he promised her they would see more of each other. He eyed the car keys on the bedside cabinet and considered himself very fortunate indeed.


  Two days ago, Saunderson had knocked on his door. Casting an eye over Walsh’s unmade bed, he had swept his flying boots off the mattress and sat down. Carter had sat across from him, intrigued by the reason for the visit. Saunderson had never called before now and he was not his usual smiling self so Carter knew something was up. Saunderson had danced around the subject at first, talking about opportunities and how funny it was how certain things turned out. Finally, he produced the keys to Archer’s car.

  “He told me to give them to someone who could use it,” he said as he handed them over.

  “Why me?” asked Carter. “I wasn’t a particular friend. What about his family?”

  “Because I reckon he would prefer it was kept at the squadron. If his family have it, it’ll only end up sitting on bricks getting dusty in some garage. They can’t get 100 octane fuel like you lot can.” Saunderson saw Carters eyebrows rise in surprise. “Oh yes, I know about the fiddles you lot pull. The old man turns a blind eye to it so I do as well. Archer let you drive it before, so I reckon he trusted you, certainly enough to drive his car anyway.”

  Carter weighed the keys in his hand and Saunderson read that as a refusal.

  “If you don’t want-,” Carter clenched his hand around the keys, the points digging into his palm.

  “No, it’s not that. I was just surprised that’s all.”

  “Your welcome.”

  Duty done, Saunderson made for the door. Carter’s voice stopped him.

  “If anything happens to me-” his voice trailed off. Saunderson caught the meaning.

  “I’ll pass it on, old boy. Never fear.”

  Saunderson walked off back to his office, shaking his head at the strange way grown men could talk about their own death in such an abstract way. They were all loonies the lot of them.

  Carter glanced at his watch and got up. He‘d gotten cold last time out on the run to Norway and he rummaged in his drawers, looking for a fresh pair of long johns. He got changed while Walsh continued to stew on his bed. He put on a thicker pair of socks and then tried them with his flying boots, wiggling his toes. Happier, he put his trousers back on, then his shirt and a white turtleneck sweater his mother had sent him.

  “You look like you’re going to sea,” murmured Walsh. “You just need the beard to complete the look.”

  “No chance,” Carter made a face. “I get sick as a dog on boats. Horrible things. They rock, they go up and down, you get wet.” He shuddered. “No, not for me.”

  That seemed to break the mood and Walsh got up smiling. He talked about the penny ferry he had ridden growing up as a boy in Liverpool. His father had been one of the masters and many was the time his father let him at the wheel as a treat. The old man was crushed when he’d joined the RAF, he’d set his heart on his son becoming a sailor.

  They walked to the crew room to get ready. This was the first time Walsh would be flying an op with his new gunner and radio op. He’d kept Paulson which pleased all parties after the Norway debacle. Paulson had lost one crew and was happy that he was going to an experienced bunch of blokes. The radio op, Taylor was just as happy to get a crew after bouncing around as a temporary replacement for so long. After a few days they had been accepted into the fold like long lost brothers.

  Carters crew gathered round the small table at interrogation. The WAAF started filling out the details on her clipboard, the serial number of the aircraft, it’s squadron code letter, pilot etc. Carter sat back while he munched on a sandwich and sipped from a cup of tea. His cheeks were frozen but the rest of him was toasty. Murphy lit up and drew the smoke of the cigarette in deep, feeling it warm him, before releasing it in a long stream through his nostrils.

  He glanced at the WAAF, a pretty little thing she was, with a cute button nose and curly red hair. Not a patch on Muriel of course, but still, she was pretty. He shot a look at Todd who caught his eye. The Australian was still on his case about Joan and it rankled that he was being judged like that. Carter did the talking, not that there was much to tell. If Harris had been wanting revenge, his hopes were to be dashed.

  “Awful weather, never found the target, bombed something, came home. Anything else?” Carter asked tartly. The WAAF clicked her tongue in annoyance as she wrote notes on the form. Her green eyes flashed as she fixed Carter with a stern gaze.

  “You know there is,” she said sharply. Carter slurped his tea while he thought about how to put it.

  “Cock up. You can tell whoever the bright spark is at Group or HQ that said the weather would be clear over the target that they need to read their maps again. We had clumps of thick cloud all the way and it was bloody cold.”

  Linkletter had briefed them for heavy cloud on the way over. It had actually been better than that, with no low lying clouds at all, but there had been squalls of rain and a persistent ground haze that made navigating difficult. Woods had managed to get a good fix as they passed north of Heligoland but after that it had been pure guesswork.

  “The winds weren’t as forecast either,” put in Woods. “It kept trying to push us south of track. Quite a few must have been put off course because there was a lot of flak and rubbish in the sky near Wilhelmshaven.” He glanced at his log. “At least one aircraft, maybe two went down south of us by about ten or fifteen miles.” Murphy had reported a flash and a streak of flame zooming to the ground at the time. The WAAF kept on writing.

  “Any fighters?” she asked him. Woods grunted and sat back, looking over at his pilot. Todd and Murphy glanced at each other and then looked at their navigator. The WAAF looked to each of them, waiting for someone to fill the silence. She had nice hands, Woods noticed, pale and smooth, with long fingers. She lifted one eyebrow, her eyes boring right into him. Carter gestured towards him.

  “Its your show, Woody.”

  Woods cleared his throat as he started the tale. Close to the target, he had gone down to the nose. There was nothing to see, just an unending wave of gray cloud, the fluffy tops limned by moonlight. He was mesmerised for a while, watching their shadow undulating up and down over the cloud tops, like a horse taking a succession of jumps. The hairs on the back of his arm had stood on end when he had seen a smaller shadow running parallel to them to port.

  He’d called out a fighter over the R/T and Carter had taken immediate evasive action. L-London responded like a thoroughbred and twisted and turned, climbing and diving to throw off their pursuer. No one shot at them. No one else saw a thing but the shadow never reappeared.

  Telling the story hours later Woods felt a fool. He wondered if his imagination had played tricks on him. On the way back, Todd and Murphy had some fun, promising to buy him a sack load of carrots to help him see in the dark.

  The actual attack had been a farce. The target had been blanketed in a thick ground haze and flurries of snow had made getting a fix nigh on impossible. After the second time around, Carter had come in from the north east, heading in from over the sea where it was clear. It was a timed run, all they could manage with the city covered by cloud. Woods counted them down off his navigators watch and let the bombs go on the biggest patch of flashes that lit up the clouds from below. For all they knew they could just as easily be dropping on a flak battery as the Battleships. Some raids were like that, moments of blind terror punctuating the boredom.

  “Happy now?” Carter asked. He rolled the piece of greaseproof paper the sandwich had been wrapped in into a ball and threw it towards the bin in the corner. It missed by a country mile and skittered across the floor.

  “I think I’ve got everything,” the WAAF said primly.

  Woods lingered as they left, he wanted to stay something to her but the next crew shouldered him out of the way and sat down to give their report. She glanced once in his direction before turning her attention to the next crew.

  Harris sent them back the next night. Carter got the feeling if they didn’t get the Battleships tonight, they would keep going back until they did. He was concerned when he saw the route mar
ked on the map in the briefing room was the same one they’d used the previous night. He wasn’t his usual relaxed self when the crew got together before take off. Normally there would be a few words of encouragement from him but not tonight. He bumped heads with Woods and discussed altering their track slightly to take them wide of the main route, just enough to put a bit of distance between them and the run in.

  There was little change from the previous night. After soldiering through the heavy clouds over the North Sea, mainland Europe was relatively clear. There were broken clouds in layers up to about ten thousand feet with persistent haze clinging to the ground. The moon was brighter tonight. That made the difference for Woods to get a fix and they sailed into the attack with Kiel laid out below them like a photograph. Everything was where it should be. Scharnhorst was tied up alongside the quay and Gneisenau was in a dry dock.

  He got a good sight on the approach and some fires started by earlier bombing let him see what the wind was doing. He guided Carter with small adjustments to correct for drift.

  “Left. Left a bit, skipper.”

  The bomb doors opened and Carter flinched as a flak burst exploded to their left. The cockpit lit up with a bright flash and the big bomber rocked in the shockwave of the explosion. Vos jumped as a bit of shrapnel landed on his desk in front of him.

  In the tail, Todd sat in silence, his eyes scanning the sky. He felt every jolt as the aircraft dipped and bobbed on the roiling air over the target. The nearest he could equate it to was being in the rear car on a rollercoaster, so you got all the jolts and lurches after everyone else. He listened to the R/T, willing Woods to get on with it.

  “Left, left, skipper. More left, there’s a breeze shoving us over.”

  Carter used more rudder. He could feel the wind pushing on them and L-London was almost crabbing sideways.