by Джон Биггинс
Once again we checked our maps and made our preparations. The two aeroplanes would head out over the Gulf of Trieste just after dawn on the morning of 13 October, and, if they avoided the flak batteries and fighter aircraft off Sdobba, would make landfall some way west of the former Austrian seaside resort of Grado, then head inland and follow the railway line through Portogruaro and San Dona di Piave until they reached Mestre. We would then fly across the lagoons to attack the bridge from the east, hoping in this way to get in between the defences that protected Venice to seaward and the balloon lines and anti-aircraft batteries that guarded it against attack from the north.
It would be a hazardous business, the crossing of the Gulf of Trieste nearly as dangerous in its way as the attempt to penetrate the defences of Venice. But in between those two danger zones I did not expect too much trouble. In those days before radar, aircraft in ones and twos usually had little trouble in wandering about over open countryside. Biplanes look much alike from the ground, telephones were few in the Italian countryside in those days, and anyway, people’s vision had not yet become adjusted to looking up into the sky all the time. For this reason, and in order to save weight, we decided to do without the forward-firing machine guns. On this flight we would have only the observer’s Schwarz- lose to protect us.
Toth and I made our final checks that October evening by the light of the petrol lamps in our hangar. Flying suits, maps, compasses, pistols, emergency rations; also razors, towels, soap and two blankets, since we expected to be away overnight and knew that such things were now in so short a supply that host flying fields expected visitors to bring their own with them. We completed our preparations and while I had a few final words with Feldwebel Prokesch and the mechanics—the ignition had been giving trouble lately—Toth went down to the village to see Magdalena.
Quite a number of our men had taken up with village girls of late. Only the day before, Kraliczek had received his first formal request for permission to marry a local girl—and had promptly set to work devising a suitable wad of printed application forms. There had already been a number of paternity suits filed against enlisted men. It astonished me how quickly our men—drawn from every province of our vast empire and totally ignorant of either Italian or Slovene—had managed to put down roots in the locality. Not for the first time it occurred to me that one of the few good things to be said about war is that it does at least do something to prevent inbreeding, which must once have been a serious problem in an out-of-the-way place like the Vippaco Valley. On the contrary, to judge by the noises I had heard among the haycocks on evening walks that summer, the men were doing everything in their power to make breeding an outdoor activity.
I went for a walk as dusk fell, and met Toth and his belle walking up the lane arm-in-arm and chatting in the curious modified Latin that they used to exchange endearments. Magdalena bade me good-evening as graciously as always; really a quite extraordinarily confident and poised young woman, I thought, considering that she was only a village girl and only nineteen years old.
“Well, Herr Leutnant, I hear that you’re off tomorrow on another long-distance flight.”
“Indeed? I hope that Zugsfuhrer Toth here has not been compromising field security by telling you where?”
“No, Zolli here is being tighter-lipped than usual and won’t tell me a thing; but I hope that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be somewhere dangerous?”
“No, my dear young lady, nowhere in the least bit dangerous,” I said, hoping that my patent insincerity would not show through the smile. “Please don’t worry yourself in the slightest on our account. I expect in fact that it will all be rather tedious. But we shall be gone for two days at least.”
“Oh all right then. But make sure that he behaves himself and doesn’t get into any scrapes. We’re planning to get engaged at Christmas; sooner perhaps, if the war’s over by then.”
I made my way back to my tent to turn in. It was autumn now and getting too cold to sleep under canvas in the blustering Carso wind. Still the promised wooden barrack huts had not arrived. “If the war’s over by then . . .” Some hopes: the war had been going to be over in three months ever since August 1914; but now it had been going on for so long that it was getting to seem as though it had always been with us and always would be. It was about that autumn, I remember, that the first signs became visible of that war-weariness which would eventually bring our venerable Monarchy tottering to its final collapse. The harvest had been wretched that year, as old Josef the forester had predicted. But that I suppose was at least bearable, the common lot of populations under siege. What was more disturbing was the way in which the shortages were now beginning to affect our ability to fight. Copper and brass had been unobtainable for a year or more, now that all of Central Europe’s pre-war coinage and most of its church bells, statues, doorknobs and curtain rails had been requisitioned and melted down. Engine exhausts which should have been made of copper were now fabricated from thinly galvanised steel sheet. A number of Fliegertruppe pilots had already been injured by corroded exhaust stubs snapping off and flying back to hit them in the face. Steel tube radiators constantly sprang leaks.
But far worse was the shortage of rubber. Our German allies were commandeering every last scrap of the rubber smuggled in through the blockade via Holland. So the Austro-Hungarian aircraft factories were left to make do with a loathsome substitute called “gummiregenerat”—more usually known as “gummi-degenerat”—confected from old motor tyres, galoshes and ladies’ mackintoshes shredded and dissolved in ether to form an evil-smelling, sticky substance that tore like paper and would not vulcanise. This was used for engine hoses and inner tubes. Aeroplane tyres were still made from proper rubber, but we were under strict orders to save them from unnecessary wear. The aeroplane could only run on its own wheels at take-off and landing: at all other times it was to be dragged around with a sledge fitted beneath its axles, and when an aeroplane was sent for repair to a Fliegeretappenpark we were instructed to remove its tyres and store them under lock and key in the Kanzlei safe for fear that they would be stolen in transit by other units. To judge by the number of orders on the subject that we had recently received at Caprovizza, it now appeared that the aeroplane was merely an accessory to its tyres.
But even when we had retrieved our tyres from the Kanzlei safe, discarded our skids and got airborne, things were not much better. The supply of aviation petrol had lately been “rationalised,” which in k.u.k. terms meant that it still came from the same refineries, but that a thousand- strong supply agency had been set up to administer its distribution—with the inevitable result that it became much harder to get and was now of poorer quality, so that aeroplanes could rarely reach their stated speeds or service ceilings. Things were in a mess.
Still the war went on, and showed no signs whatever of ending. They said that some of the more elaborate dug-outs up on the Carso already had electric light and stoves and armchairs; even wallpaper, according to some sources. We were still due for wooden barrack huts at Caprovizza, but Flik 19 at Haidenschaft had received theirs some weeks before. Perhaps the war had now become such a fixed feature of the national economies of Europe, and the fronts so immobile, that in a few years we would be living in permanent bases behind the lines, complete with married quarters, and travelling to the trenches each day by tram.
During the summer my own ground crew had laid down a vegetable garden behind the main hangar and were now spending a large part of their off-duty hours hoeing, weeding and watering. I was quite content that they should do so: it augmented their increasingly miserable rations and even gave them a surplus to sell for tobacco-money in Haidenschaft market. I was beginning to feel though that Feldwebel Prokesch’s runner beans were fast coming to eclipse the war in importance, and wondered at what point I ought to mention it at morning parade; particularly when the men dropped their work and ran out with buckets and shovels whenever a horse-drawn artillery train passed along the road
. But they were still a conscientious and devoted ground crew, so I was happy to let it go on for the time being. Only Oberleutnant Potocznik looked down his nose at the whole business. After all, a warrior for the Greater German Reich could hardly be expected to approve of such distractions. What would Siegfried have said if the Nibelungs had started to grow lettuces?
The next morning was overcast, with a light north-east wind. It was still dark as Toth and I made our way out on to the field and climbed into the cockpit of our aeroplane. We made the regulation pre-flight checks, and when everything was in order called, “Ready!” to Potocznik, seated in the cockpit of his Brandenburger parked alongside us. Potocznik called back, “Ready!” in reply, and the process of starting the engines began, Toth cranking the starter magneto as the mechanic swung the propeller. The two engines snorted into life almost at the same instant, pouring out grey smoke and occasional gouts of blue and yellow flame as they warmed up. At last Potocznik waved to me to signal that they were about to move off. The mechanics pulled the wheel chocks away and the aeroplane began to trundle forward, lumbering heavily under the weight of two 100kg bombs slung beneath its belly. I watched apprehensively as the machine waddled slowly to the far end of the field. With two of the heaviest bombs available, plus two men and a full load of fuel, a Brandenburger was dangerously near its maximum permissible load—in fact well over it, if one took the most prudent view of that rather hypothetical figure. In order to get into the air we were going to need the longest possible takeoff run, and even so I was still far from certain that the airframe would not collapse under the strain as we lifted off. Selfish as it might sound, I was more than happy to let Potocznik and Maybauer try it first.
In the event they did manage to stagger into the air, engine roaring at full throttle and the whole airframe wobbling most alarmingly under the load. Then it was our turn. We went about into the breeze at the end of the airfield. With my heart fluttering wildly I slapped Toth on the shoulder and called “Ite nunc—celere!” Toth pushed the throttle lever forward through its gate latch and black smoke belched from the stub-exhausts as we began to creak and lurch forward. I thought that we had had it as the wheels left the ground: the wings gave a tortured groan and bounced visibly as they took the weight. But Toth was a good pilot. Somehow he managed to sweat and coax our protesting lattice of wood and piano wire up into the air, climbing ponderously to join Potocznik, who was making a circuit of the airfield—with the sedateness of an old lady in a bath chair, for fear that the strain of banking too tightly would leave the wings behind. We formed up in line ahead, Potocznik leading, and then began the slow, tedious business of climbing as we flew south-east up the Vippaco Valley, gaining height at barely ten metres per thousand, a rate of climb that would have been unimpressive in a goods train.
It was not until we were above Niedendorf at the head of the valley that we had enough altitude to turn east over Sesana and fly across the karst ridge above Trieste. It was just getting light as we flew over the steep scarp-edge at Villa Opicina and saw the city spread out below us, with the still dark expanse of the Adriatic beyond. It was now just light enough to make out the white turrets of the Schloss Miramare on its headland above the sea. I hoped that this would not be an ill omen for what was already a hazardous enough enterprise: Miramare had been the residence of the unfortunate Archduke Ferdinand Max, who had ended his days in front of a Mexican firing squad. Legend had it that the castle had since brought misfortune and a violent end to all who had anything to do with the place.
When we were a couple of kilometres out to sea I noticed that we were slowly overtaking Potocznik’s aeroplane: also that his engine was giving out fitful puffs and coughs of bluish smoke and leaving a strong smell of burning oil in its wake. Before long they were starting to lose height. I watched as Maybauer in the observer’s seat conferred with Potocznik, then turned to me and shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head in an exaggerated pantomime. They were turning back to land at Prosecco airfield—a broken piston-ring, we learnt later. I wondered for a moment what we should do. But no, our orders were specific on the point: if one aeroplane fell out the other must press on regardless. We were on our own now.
Though only about twenty kilometres in all, the crossing of the Gulf of Trieste was likely to be the most hazardous part of our flight until we reached the outer defence lines of Venice. We had chosen to fly over the sea, in order to dodge the flak batteries on the Isonzo; but even so it was a dangerous business. The gulf was now little more than a salt-water no man’s land, thickly sown with minefields and fought over day and night by seaplanes and motor-boats. If we ditched in the sea and managed to avoid drowning, then in all probability it would be at the cost of being fished out and taken prisoner by an Italian MAS boat.
As it turned out, our crossing was surprisingly uneventful. The k.u.k. Kriegsmarine’s flying-boats were already at work harassing the Italian batteries at Sdobba, so I suppose that must have diverted their attention. An Italian seaplane tried to climb up after us as we made landfall at Porto Buso, west of Grado, but we were too high up for him and a providential patch of low cloud allowed us to give him the slip while he was still climbing round in circles. After that there was not a great deal to remark upon, flying along at 120 kilometres per hour three thousand metres above the monotonous green and brown coastal marshes of the Veneto. Winter was setting in early, and I constantly readjusted my scarf to try and block out the nagging chill that kept creeping down the collar of my flying jacket. I would have huddled down behind Toth and out of the wind, but I was the officer and the job of officers was to navigate.
Not that there was a great deal of navigating to do. In fact all the help that we required in that line was provided by the gleaming railway tracks running dead-straight across the marshy fields and meadows below us. The countryside here was thinly populated, and in those days still malarial in places. I checked the few towns as we flew across them—Portogruaro and Latisana and San Dona—and also the rivers that ran down from the Alps, already swollen with the autumn rains: Tagliamento, Ausa, Livenza and Piave. I interrupted my map-reading from time to time in order to scan the sky about us for enemy aircraft. All that I saw however in the whole journey was a lone biplane in the far distance. It turned away and disappeared when it saw us: quite possibly one of our own.
The plan was that we would turn sharp south just short of the town of Mestre and then drop down to attack the bridge at low level from the landward side. But it was not until we emerged from a patch of thin, low cloud west of San Dona that I realised that—as usual—my wayward pilot had other ideas. As we sliced through the last thinning tendrils of cloud into the pallid, watery sunshine of a Venetian autumn morning I saw that below us there lay not a further expanse of wet farmland, but the vast dull pewter expanse of the lagoons east of Venice, intricately fern-leaf- patterned with a million creeks and rivulets and dotted with dark islands of reed and sedge. I was not going to stand for this: I scribbled, “Quo vademus?” on my notepad and shoved it under Toth’s arm. He glanced at it, then scrawled a note on his own pad. It read “Aspice ad septentriones versus.” I looked to the north as requested—and saw that once again Toth’s flying instinct had served us well. East of Mestre there swayed and bobbed an immense barrier of kite-balloons: three successive layers, no less, arranged at heights from about a thousand metres up to four thousand. The Corps Air Intelligence Officer had made no mention of them when we were planning the raid. If we had followed our planned route we would have flown out of the cloud and straight in among them, slicing our wings off against the steel cables and plunging to our deaths almost before we knew what had happened. It now looked as if, thanks to Toth, we had found our way into the last gap in Venice’s aerial defenceworks. It was at this point I think that I finally made the decision to abandon all attempts at back-seat driving and leave the business of flying to my pilot, realising that if I was not exactly in safe hands—Toth was still a hair-raising man to fly with—I was
at least with someone who was competently dangerous.
It looked as if he had decided not to try attacking the bridge from the landward side. In fact as the domes and towers of the city appeared before us across the flat expanse of lagoon it became obvious that we were going to try an entirely different line of approach—and at extremely low level.
We skimmed across the water at a height of barely ten metres. I kept watch astern as clouds of waterfowl rose into the air, screaming in alarm as we roared over them. There were few defences here apart from the odd antiaircraft pontoon moored among the reedbeds, so poorly camouflaged that it was an easy matter to fly around them. A few desultory streams of tracer curved up at us, to no effect whatever. But I saw signal rockets arching into the sky in our wake. Venice was being warned of our approach and would doubtless give us a warm welcome.
It is a noble perspective, that approach to Venice from the sea, one of the finest in the entire world I think: the Canale di San Marco with the island of San Giorgio Maggiore to port and the Riva delli Schiavoni to starboard and the Madonna del Salute and the Basilica ahead. Yet I think that of all the millions of tourists who must have seen it over the centuries, none ever had or ever again will see it as I saw it that October morning in the pale sunlight, rushing along at full throttle in a flimsy wood and canvas biplane a few metres above the waves while the Day of Judgement crashed about us, as the men on shore and aboard the warships riding at anchor let fly at us with everything at their disposal. It was terrifying yet wildly exhilarating, with rifle and machine-gun fire coming at us from every side and the angry orange and yellow flashes of flak shells bursting above as the gunners tried to get down low enough to hit us. I looked ahead into the howling air, peering over Toth’s shoulder and down the side of the engine cowling. A sudden familiar outline loomed ahead— and a strangely terrible thought flashed through my brain: that even if we survived this mad exploit I might be known for the rest of my life as “Prohaska—the man who demolished the Basilica of San Marco.” Toth lugged at the control column and we rose to skim over the house-tops, barely missing the pinnacled roof. We rushed on across the roof-tops and the sudden chasm of the Grand Canal as I grasped the bomb-release lever and tried to make out the glass roof of Santa Lucia Station ahead. I have a vivid recollection to this day of glancing down and catching a glimpse of an Italian officer on a roof-top firing a pistol at us with one hand while he pulled up his trousers with the other and a woman scurried in terror to hide behind a chimney. We swerved to avoid a church dome. Yes, there was the station! We would make our bombing-run along the bridge instead of approaching it side-on. I waited until the station canopies had disappeared below us—then yanked at the lever and felt the aeroplane leap as it was relieved of the weight of the two bombs. There was a flash and a mighty confusion of smoke astern as Toth banked us sharply away to avoid the flak batteries at the landward end of the bridge. Our mission had been accomplished: we could now dedicate ourselves entirely to the business of saving our own skins. I later learnt, by the way, that one of our bombs had damaged a bridge support while the other had landed in the mud and failed to explode. Traffic between Venice and the mainland had been held up for all of half an hour while Italian sappers carried out repairs.