Flames Over Norway

by Robert Jackson

  Strapped in his Spitfire’s cockpit, Ken Armstrong, who was making a last-light reconnaissance of the area, had no idea of all the fuss he was creating 25,000 feet below.

  Chapter Thirteen

  From the window of his large office on the top floor of the Bank of Norway, Nicolas Rygg, the bank’s president, had a fine view over the port of Oslo. The port was crowded with ships, the majority of them German.

  Rygg, an athletic man in his sixties, scratched his grey, crewcut hair. He had yet to come to terms with the fact that his country had been invaded, that German forces had occupied most of the key points in the south and that the small Norwegian Army was being remorselessly overwhelmed. Rygg already knew a great deal about the pattern the invasion was taking, because Norwegians were still in control of the telephone system and he had been receiving a steady flow of information for the past 24 hours.

  Rygg was desperately weary, but he knew that there was no time for sleep. The weight of responsibility that lay on his shoulders was enormous. In the bank’s vaults lay 1542 crates containing 50 tons of gold, the whole lot worth 55 million dollars. It was the lifeblood of the Norwegian economy — and somehow, Rygg had to get it out of Oslo under the very noses of the Germans.

  At that moment, every member of the bank’s staff capable of walking was heading towards the building in response to Rygg’s summons, even though it was half-past six in the morning. Moving the gold from the vaults would not present a problem; acquiring the necessary transport, on the other hand, would. The Transport Minister had already informed him that no trucks were available.

  There was only one thing for it. As soon as the senior members of his staff began to arrive, Rygg sent them out into the street to flag down any passing truck they could find. Within half an hour they had found six, one of which was a milk delivery waggon, and the loading began. By eight-thirty the first was on its way, accompanied by an armed guard, heading northwards to join the road that went to Lillehammer.

  Two hours later, in the street that ran in front of the bank, a convoy of vehicles of every shape and size waited their turn to load up with the precious metal. All the while, the radio news bulletins grew more and more alarming. German forces had occupied all of Norway’s major seaports. Rygg reasoned that enemy troops would be in the streets of Oslo at any moment, now that they had completed their task of overcoming the city’s outer defences. There were already rumours that government buildings were in enemy hands; it was a stroke of luck that the Germans had not yet descended on the bank.

  Desperately, Rygg — himself pouring with sweat as he took a hand in the loading operation — tried to speed up the work. At 12.15, the last lorry moved off with Rygg on board. His final act was to hand over the keys of the bank to one the employees who had elected to stay behind.

  Three-quarters of an hours later, Major Neef, an officer on General von Falkenhorst’s headquarters staff, arrived at the bank with an armed escort. He told the senior member of staff that he had come to place the nation’s gold reserves under the protection of the Führer. The employee obligingly showed him the vaults. They were empty.

  By nightfall, Rygg’s convoy of 50 vehicles had reached Lillehammer, where the gold was offloaded and placed in a secret vault in the town’s small bank. The vehicles, together with their obliging drivers, returned to Oslo.

  At Lillehammer, Rygg constantly monitored the rapidly deteriorating political and military situation. To his dismay, he learned that Vidkun Quisling, a pro-Nazi member of the Norwegian Government, had been appointed Head of State in place of King Haakon, who had sought refuge in the north of the country. Also, the Germans were making heavy attacks on the Norwegian forces grouped between Oslo and Lillehammer, their intention being to break through and link up with the seaborne units that had gone ashore at Trondheim.

  It was fortunate that General Otto Ruge, newly appointed as the Norwegian Commander-in-Chief, had moved his headquarters to Lillehammer from Oslo at the first warning of an impending invasion. Nicolas Rygg went to see him, and was told that an Anglo-French force was to be landed in Norway, its initial objective to recapture Trondheim. That, thought Rygg, would be the best way out. If the Allies retook Trondheim, he would be able to ship the gold out to England. But first, he had to get the consignment to the port.

  “How long do you think you can hold on here?” he asked the General.

  “A week at the outside,” Ruge told him, “if the Allies don’t intervene in the meantime.” In his heart of hearts, Ruge knew that the motley force of 12,000 men under his command would be incapable of resisting the enemy onslaught for more than two or three days. The Luftwaffe was already operating in strength over Lillehammer, and there was nothing to oppose it. The Norwegian Air Force had ceased to exist.

  For Nicolas Rygg, there was more bad news to come. In the afternoon of 12 April an exhausted courier arrived in Lillehammer. Rygg recognized him as one of the bank’s messengers. The man told him that the Germans knew the whereabouts of the gold, thanks to the careless gossip of a cleaning woman.

  “So,” Rygg mused, “those German planes must be watching for any sign of movement. The noose is tightening about our necks, General.”

  Ruge agreed. “Moreover, we are vulnerable to an airborne assault here.” He tapped a map that lay on the table in front of him. “The Germans wouldn’t risk dropping paratroops directly on to the town, and the area roundabout is too mountainous. But here, just a few kilometres to the north, is Lake Nijos, and it is still frozen over. They might drop men there, and then march on Lillehammer.”

  Ruge bent over his map again. “It is high time to move your gold, I think. See here.” His finger traced a line across the map from Lillehammer to the coast. “This railway line runs from here to Aandalsnes, south of Trondheim. As you know, that’s a small port, which is probably why the Germans thought it too insignificant to occupy. As a consequence it is still in our hands.”

  He looked at Rygg and smiled. “We’ll beat them yet. There’s a train in one of the sidings here. I’ll have it requisitioned. I will also round up some of the local people to transport the gold from the bank to the station. We’ll do it tonight. I’ll declare a curfew, just in case there are any prying eyes about. Oh, and there’s just one other thing. You’ve done your bit, Rygg. From now on, this is a military operation. Once the gold is on the move again, I will get off a signal to our English friends to let them know where we are taking it, and to arrange for a ship to transport it to England.”

  It was purely by chance that Ruge hit upon Aandalsnes as the gold’s destination. He was unaware, as yet, that the port already featured prominently in the Allies’ plans for the reconquest of Norway.

  *

  Wing Commander Royston had been forced to look up Aandalsnes on the map, never having heard of the place before. He found it at length, at the head of Molde Fjord, and wondered what conditions there would be like. Pretty bloody awful, he suspected. Well, he would soon find out for himself. Detach one Spitfire to Aandalsnes, with appropriate photographic processing equipment, in support of Allied Expeditionary Force operations, his orders had stated. It was only fair that he should volunteer for the job himself, leaving Armstrong behind to cope with things at home.

  Before that, though, there was yet another routine reconnaissance to be flown over the Bergen area. He was becoming used to this run; in fact, almost complacent about it. His aircraft was still inside the contrail layer as it crossed the Norwegian coast, and dragging a streamer of white vapour that must be visible over a vast area, but it didn’t seem to matter. He yawned into his oxygen mask, even though he didn’t feel tired. Quite the reverse; he felt a kind of light-headedness, almost a type of elation.

  He never thought of checking the tiny meter that showed how efficiently the oxygen was flowing from its cylinder to the mask strapped to his face. Had he done so, he would have seen that it was drastically reduced. There was something wrong with the valve. Slowly and relentlessly, Horace Royston’s lungs w
ere being starved of the precious gas. The Spitfire flew on, and as it did so little erratic kinks appeared in its contrail as, without knowing it, Royston made movements on the stick that caused the aircraft to weave from side to side.

  A few thousand feet below, two more contrails were beginning to form as hot engine gases turned into freezing vapour.

  “This time we have him, Falcke!” Lehmann did not utter the words out loud. His eyes were on the little dark cross at the head of the vapour trail above.

  This time, there had been plenty of warning of the Spitfire’s approach, signalled by a picket ship stationed several miles offshore. Two previous attempts to intercept the intruding, high-flying Spitfires had ended in failure, but this time, there would be no mistake.

  Lehmann had no need to glance back to see if Falcke was in his accustomed position. He knew that his wingman would be there. Keeping his eyes on the Spitfire, which was growing larger in his windscreen, Lehmann was puzzled; normally, the Tommies had made their turn before now and were heading back over the harbour, but this one was flying straight on. The German noticed that the Englishman seemed to be flying erratically, too.

  The Spitfire now filled the whole of Lehmann’s windscreen. He noticed that the white paint on its undersurfaces was streaked with oil. He made a slight adjustment to his gunsight, and fired. The vibration from his guns caused the image of the aircraft in front to tremble.

  Royston barely had time to register the impact of the Me 109’s cannon shells before his aircraft went violently out of control. Sky, mountains and the distant sea gyrated wildly around him in succession as his aircraft dropped into a spin. As it fell, his head began to clear and he realized with a shock what must have happened to him.

  He allowed the Spitfire to spin through several thousand feet, into air that was richer in oxygen, before taking the appropriate recovery action — stick forward to unstall the wings, hard rudder in the opposite direction to the spin’s rotation. The aircraft came out of the spin in a screaming vertical dive, its nose pointing towards the fjord that was still far below. Relief swept over Royston with the knowledge that the controls were still functioning.

  He looked back, and saw two Me 109s on his tail, closing rapidly. He knew that the Messerschmitt could out-dive the Spitfire, and that his only hope was to out-manoeuvre his pursuers.

  Behind him, braced in his cockpit, grasping the control column with both hands, Lehmann doggedly clung to the Spitfire which had suddenly begun to twist and turn wildly. He fired again and his target aircraft began to trail smoke, which quickly became denser. The Spitfire levelled out and went into a steep climb; the manoeuvre took Lehmann by surprise and he overshot.

  It didn’t matter. Turning steeply, he saw that the Spitfire was being attacked by Falcke. Flames burst from it, and debris broke away. The aircraft became a glowing ball, trailing a thick banner of black smoke as it hurtled towards the fjord.

  A dark shape parted from it, turning slowly end over end, attached to the falling aircraft as though by an invisible thread. Then it began to fall behind, and seconds later it began to trail a streamer of parachute silk that quickly blossomed into a white canopy.

  “Well done, Falcke! You can claim that one!” Even as Lehmann shouted his congratulations over the radio, he saw the doomed Spitfire plunge into the fjord, its grave marked by a spreading circle of foam and a cloud of smoke that began to drift slowly away on the wind.

  Royston, who had been fished out of the fjord by a German patrol boat, was brought to Stavanger that evening. Both his hands were heavily bandaged and there were slight burns to his face, but whatever pain he felt was soon dispelled by a considerable quantity of brandy which his Luftwaffe hosts poured into him. They entertained him to dinner, before he was taken away on the first stage of his journey to a prisoner-of-war camp, and he showed no embarrassment at all over the fact that one of the German officers had to feed him because he could not handle a knife and fork. Considering the circumstances, it was a good-natured occasion. But if anyone had hoped that the brandy might loosen Royston’s tongue, they were disillusioned.

  *

  The Norwegian Sea, 15 April 1940: dawn

  For the RAF pilots on board the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, heading for Aandalsnes with their Gloster Gladiator fighter biplanes, the last couple of days had been far from pleasant. Quite apart from the seasickness that affected a number of them, the carrier and her escorts, because of the threat posed by enemy submarines, had followed a zig-zag track and there had been several alarms which, fortunately, had turned out to be false. There had been only one bright spot during the voyage; late on 14 April the ship’s captain had broadcast over the PA system the contents of a signal he had just received. That afternoon a force of British destroyers, supported by the battleship HMS Warspite, had sailed into Narvik and, with guns and torpedoes, finished off the job begun by the gallant Warburton-Lee a few days earlier. The German Navy now had ten fewer destroyers.

  The pilots had been briefed on their forthcoming task. It was to provide air cover over the port of Aandalsnes and, if required, support for the ground forces that were already landing there. The prospect of action sounded promising; what was less so was the news that they would be operating from the surface of a frozen lake.

  As he sat in the cockpit of his Gladiator on the carrier’s deck in the icy dawn, each pilot was conscious that ahead of him lay a flight of 150 miles over nothing but sea, with only the reliability of the fighter’s Bristol Mercury engine standing between him and a miserable death. HMS Glorious was steaming into wind at close to her maximum speed of 30 knots, and each aircraft had to be held down by a pair of naval ratings, heavily muffled and bent forward against the Arctic blast that howled down the carrier’s deck.

  None of the pilots had ever taken off from an aircraft carrier before, nor did they have experience of long flights over water. For that reason, each flight of three aircraft was led by a Blackburn Skua, whose crew would take care of the navigation.

  A “batsman” in a yellow jacket marshalled each aircraft into position on the deck centreline. The pilot opened his throttles fully, holding the stick back. The ratings thankfully let go of the wingtips and vanished astern at a crouching run. The batsman, his legs set wide apart, his body braced with effortless experience against the heave of the slippery deck, turned sideways and made a sweeping motion. The pilot released the brakes and eased the stick forward a little. The Gladiator’s tail came up and suddenly the pilot could see ahead along the deck, past the big engine cowling. Then, amazingly quickly, he was airborne and climbing away to join the others.

  All 16 Gladiators and their Fleet Air Arm shepherds reached the Norwegian coast without incident. The Skua leading each flight waggled its wings and changed course a little to the south-east in order to stay well clear of Trondheim, heading inland and descending. The aircraft were sliding down into the middle of a bowl of mountains, their flanks ridged with dense pine woods that jutted up through the snow.

  Ahead, the flat expanse of the frozen lake formed the bottom of the bowl. A strip across the surface of the lake had been cleared of snow, making an improvised runway, and taxi strips led from it to hidden places among the pines that ringed the lake.

  Apart from the surface being a little bumpy the pilots found no difficulty in landing, although while taxying they had to be careful when using their brakes, otherwise the aircraft had a tendency to slide on the ice. They taxied across the lake to the fringe of pines. Figures emerged from the trees; men in baggy trousers and what appeared to be sheepskin coats. They wore odd-looking helmets. One of them came out to meet each aircraft and held up his arms as a signal to stop. The pilots did so, their engines still running. More men came out from the pines, groups of them seizing each aircraft, swinging it round and pushing it tail-first into little individual clearings that had been carved out.

  An aircraft already stood in one such clearing. It was a French-built Mureaux 117 observation aircraft, recently flown to
Aandalsnes across the North Sea.

  Its pilot, who had been supervising some work on the aircraft’s engine, watched the new arrivals with interest. He, unlike, the Mureaux, was not French. His name was Stanislaw Kalinski.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It had been a long and difficult road from the embattled skies over Warsaw to a frozen lake in Norway. Kalinski still found it hard to believe that not much more than six months had elapsed since he and his surviving comrades had escaped from Romania, where the authorities had interned them as soon as they learned of Poland’s collapse. Their escape had been engineered by some members of a French military mission in Bucharest — exactly how, Kalinski had no idea, although he suspected that bribery had come into the picture — and it was on board a French freighter that they had sailed from the port of Constanta. A fortnight later, after calling at one or two ports in North Africa, they had arrived in France. There, within a few weeks, a Polish Government in Exile had been set up, and one of its first acts had been to form a new Polish military aviation structure under the command of General Sikorsky.

  Kalinski, naturally, had wanted to be assigned to fighters; but after a month of going over old ground at a fighter instruction school at Etampes, where he had discovered that he knew far more than his instructors — and with no prospect of a Polish fighter squadron yet in sight — he had had enough. When the call came for volunteers to serve with an air observation squadron that was being formed to support an infantry brigade consisting of Polish troops who had also managed to escape from their enslaved homeland, he had seized his opportunity.