“We’ve got fighters buzzing around the heavies, Harbinger, so keep your distance and keep your airspeed up – they can’t catch you, but they can still hit you if you’re slow enough to give ‘em a chance,” Davies ventured over the radio as they drew to within forty kilometres of the lead formations, now climbing side by side.
“Roger, Phoenix-One… understood…” Trumbull’s sounded more confident and relaxed now: he was becoming accustomed to the environment around him, and his natural instincts as a fighter pilot had taken control.
“You’ll be okay, buddy,” Davies reassured, noting the increased confidence that had crept back into Trumbull’s tone. “Their guns can still hurt us close in, but they’ll only have old-fashioned ‘Eyeball-Mark-One’ to aim with, and a jet can be damned hard to hit at speed with manual guns. Trust your gun sights and your systems, and trust your instincts.” He paused and then added: “I’m going to start firing, so follow my lead. Good luck pal, and good hunting.”
With that encouragement, the Texan slewed the Raptor off to the north, giving himself some firing space before rippling off a salvo of AMRAAM missiles. Like the F-35, the F-22 was a stealthy aircraft that was designed to fly into combat ‘clean’, with all weapons stowed internally. Again, like the F-35, it was also fitted with the option to carry extra external ordnance in a ‘non-stealthy’ fashion. A pair of twin-rail launchers were also fitted beneath each of the Raptor’s wings, giving it eight extra AIM-120D missiles to complement the six normally carried within its main weapons bay. All eight of those extra missiles now streaked away from beneath the fighter, each leaving a trail of grey exhaust as they hurtled toward the enemy bombers at four times the speed of sound.
Bauer and his crew spotted the launch immediately, although none of them knew what they were now facing save for the obvious fact that whatever was at the head of these new smoke trails was approaching at an incredibly fast rate. In the last seconds of his life, Oberstleutnant Bauer began to suspect that perhaps these were rockets… guided rockets much like the new Dreizack missiles the Kriegsmarine had been testing against surface ships. Even so, he couldn’t believe that such a guided rocket could travel so fast, or so accurately that it might be able to hit an aircraft in flight.
His B-10A was shattered seconds later by the direct hit of an AIM-120D, the 22kg fragmentation warhead vaporising Bauer and everything else forward of the wing. The remains of seven other aircraft fell out of formation at the same time as each one of the AMRAAMs struck their intended target head-on, hurtling past flights of shocked and incredulous fighter pilots in the process. Some fell in sheets of fire as the warheads set fire to fuel tanks or blew off the wings that held them. Two of those eight disintegrated completely as the bombs in their bellies, detonated in far larger secondary explosions that proceeded to indiscriminately take out another six bombers around them that also fell out of formation and plummeted toward the distant sea below in flames.
Just six of the lead formation now remained as the fighters of JG54 dumped their auxiliary fuel tanks and turned toward the pair of far off attackers, their pilots struggling to understand what had just transpired. Davies launched his second salvo of six missiles from his internal weapons bay, and they too hurtled toward the enemy, with a flight time of less than forty seconds. The rest of SKG1’s lead formation fell from the sky a moment later, destroyed completely by the deadly guided weapons.
“I’m out of missiles… the next formation’s your show, Alec,” Davies called out, forcing any elation out of his system as he reminded himself the job was far from over. “Remember to stay as high as you can: your service ceiling’s about fifteen thousand feet better than theirs, and you can use that to your advantage when things get personal… tally ho, buddy!”
Steeling his nerves, Trumbull pulled back slightly on the Lightning’s stick and sought higher altitude. The HUD built into his helmet sighting system clearly picked out the mass of potential targets ahead of him, and it was relatively easy to identify the fixed formation of bombers in contrast to the faster fighter escorts that flew in smaller groups, and were now all racing ahead of their charges in a desperate attempt to intercept.
He used the buttons on his control yoke to cycle through the range of targets until his systems had locked onto one of the eighteen bombers of the second formation – what had now rather unexpectedly become the lead formation.
“Weapons: select ‘Fox-Three’…” Thorne had taught him the standard NATO brevity codes for weapons launch in air-to-air combat, and ‘Fox-Three’ was the appropriate call for release of an active radar-guided missile. The verbal command was instantly recognised by his avionics systems, and the first of his twelve AMRAAMs was assigned as a green box appeared around the selected target, below which the range reading displayed as -35246- and continuing to fall at a great rate.
One after another, Trumbull released all twelve of his own AMRAAMs, cycling through target after target as each missile streaked away from beneath his wings. By the time the last two had left his internal weapon bays, the first of the missiles was just ten seconds away from impact. He waited with his heart in his mouth as the jet continued to climb through 12,000m, watching desperately as a dozen more streaks of grey arrowed in toward an enemy that still invisible to the naked eye.
One of his AIM-120s malfunctioned midway through its flight, suddenly losing lock and veering off into the blue at an oblique angle before its failsafe systems caused it to self-destruct a moment later. The remaining missiles ran as true as the others, and eleven more of the huge bombers were blasted from the skies in clouds of smoke and flame, leaving just seven of that second group to fly on through the debris.
It worked! Trumbull could hardly control his elation, but his instincts kept him cool and he immediately activated the gun pod beneath his aircraft’s belly.
“‘Fox-Four’ now, Harbinger,” Davies broke in across the radio, confirming it was time to switch to cannon. “Take what’s left of the front formation, while I see if I can break up the group at the rear… that should keep us out of each other’s way. Watch for the fighters, and remember to keep your altitude and your speed up!”
The Raptor’s afterburners flared and it pulled easily away, climbing beyond even the Lightning’s service ceiling of 18,000 metres as Trumbull locked onto the nearest of the remaining bombers with his radar predictor. The circular, green ‘pipper’ gunsight that appeared in his HMDS wavered and bobbed as he lowered the nose slightly to bring the central aiming dot to bear on the luminous square surrounding the target.
He checked the ammo count in the top corner of the readout to confirm what he already knew: 220 rounds of ammunition to feed the four-barrel cannon beneath him. He gave a reassuring grin as the jet roared on at close to the speed of sound. His old Spitfire had carried eight machine guns, and each of those had carried only 300 machine gun rounds: with the massive hitting power of the F-35’s 25mm cannon and radar-assisted gunnery, he was certain he’d be able to take out quite a few aircraft. He was feeling quite confident as he and Davies reached the closing J-4A fighters, the German pilots staring on in stunned impotence as both jets roared past above, well out of range.
Alec Trumbull missed his target completely on the first pass, badly underestimating his approach speed and hurtling through the group of remaining bombers before he’d even squeezed off a shot. The late burst he did eventually fire out of reflex was long, and sprayed sixty wasted rounds through empty sky before he could relax his grip on the trigger. Cursing the mistake, but also learning from the experience, he jerked back on the controls and took the F-35E upward again before stunned fighter pilots or B-10A gunners could target him, barely losing airspeed. A few streams of tracer followed him but they too were wasted, falling away far short.
He circled tightly around in the open space between the formations, climbing back above the enemy once more and turning back on one of the bombers from behind. This time, prepared gunners began to send deadly fingers of tracer out to mee
t him as he closed the distance, but again they found it difficult to fire accurately on an enemy that moved twice as fast as anything they’d trained for. At a range of fifteen hundred metres, gunsight centred on his target at the rear of the group, Trumbull opened up again with a pair of short bursts that filled the air about his target with shells. The second of the tracer streams tore across the back and wings of the bomber, turning it into a ball of fire in an instant as fuel tanks went up.
He pulled up again and swept past above the flight, clawing his way skyward as the German fighters milled about below in a state of disarray, unable to give chase or even reach his altitude. Trumbull gave the Lightning some room, banking around again and cutting back his throttles just a fraction as the remaining six pilots of that second formation finally lost their nerve and broke ranks, turning away from their approach to target.
The sight of the huge bombers trying to turn tail and run elicited an almost primal whoop of joy that was quite out of character, and recognising that those six aircraft were now no longer a threat, Trumbull turned back toward the last formation and picked his next target. Three more bombers fell to his 25mm shells before he’d exhausted his supply of ammunition.
Davies cut his own swathe through the rear formation at the same time in the Raptor, his 20mm Vulcan gun spraying shells this way and that. However although he carried 480 rounds for the six-barrelled weapon, it fired at twice the rate of the F-35’s gun and he was also out of ammunition after only five enemy had fallen from of the sky. None of the escorts had been in position to cover the rear echelons of the flight – they’d been forward, expecting to intercept anything that came up against them – and Davies’ only concern was enemy fire from the bombers themselves. He made certain he kept well above them, breaking away the moment he’d pumped enough fire into a target to ensure it was out of the game.
He was forced to pull away for good at about the same time as Trumbull, both men forming up again at high altitude as they heading back westward at high speed.
“Phoenix-One to Eyrie – come in Eyrie,” Jack called out on the radio, looking for a response from Thorne down on the ground.
“Receiving you loud and clear, Phoenix-One,” Thorne’s immediate, anxious reply came through over the radio. “What’s your status, over…?”
“Harbinger and I are quitting the battle area now, Eyrie – all Fidos gone and guns empty.” He paused. “You still have at least ten bombers inbound… sorry, Max…”
“You guys did all you could, Phoenix-One, and you have our thanks. Be advised ‘Alternate’ has been activated and you’re being diverted there for refuelling and rearmament. We can’t guarantee getting you off again here before the rest of the bad guys arrive… over.”
“Acknowledged, Eyrie… better get yourselves to safety as well…” Davies affirmed, then added: “Be advised, Max… I’ve visually identified the enemy bombers as B-29s… repeat: enemy heavies have been confirmed as Bravo-Two-Nine Superfortress.”
There was a pause before the reply came back over the radio. “Thank you again, Phoenix-One. Information received and noted… we’ll take appropriate action… Eyrie over and out…”
“We’re heading for ‘Alternate’, Alec,” Davies informed Trumbull as they flew in formation, a hundred metres apart. “Be prepared for a fast turnaround: we may not stop the rest of these bastards getting in, but we can sure-as-shit stop ‘em from living long enough to brag about it!”
Personnel down below at Hindsight and HMS Proserpine were all well-prepared now, with all anti-aircraft positions on the island ready and waiting for the enemy to fly within range. All could now see faint contrails far off in the eastern sky and heading their way, along with an equally-faint haze of cloud and smoke where the distant air battle had raged. Thorne watched the radar screen in the command bunker as aircraft mingled, wheeled and died and the survivors continued on.
The bodies of Harold Clarke and the two guards had been removed, but in spite of several attempts at scrubbing, the awful red stains on the walls and floors where they’d fallen faintly remained to the distaste of all present. SAS Private Dicko Cassar stood beside Thorne as Neil Drews operated the radar system and passed on information by radio.
His mind now mostly clear of alcohol and running on adrenalin, Thorne ran through the appropriate equations in his mind and recalled what he knew of the Boeing B-29 that Reuters had copied to produce the Luftwaffe’s B-10A. Each aircraft could carry about nine tonnes of bombs in its internal bomb bays, meaning they had approximately ninety tonnes of ordnance heading their way. The range was low enough for aircraft staging out of Southern Norway to carry full bomb loads: an eleven or twelve hundred kilometre round trip was nothing for a strategic bomber that could fly across of the Atlantic without refuelling. No matter how he looked at the figures, the answers he came up with weren’t good.
He was roused from his thoughts as Nick Alpert stepped through the entrance to the bunker and approached to stand at his shoulder.
“The Extender’s in the air and the Galaxy’s ready to go… we’re just waiting on the last essential personnel to get aboard.”
“Then get over there, make sure you and Eileen are on that big bastard, and get it the hell out of here!” Thorne replied without taking his eyes from the radar screen.
“You’re the one who should be on that plane, Max,” Nick shot back, cutting his commander off before the turning man could voice his protest. “It’s vital you’re safe… other than perhaps Eileen, no one else is as important to this mission. Dicko, Neil and I can take care of things from here, but you must get to safety!”
“He’s right, sir…!” Cassar agreed, looking up only briefly, and speaking as if referring to the appropriate choice of a new suit. “There’s nothing you can do here that can’t be done by one of us, and it’d be better for everyone if you’re safe.” There was a long pause as Thorne’s logic and emotion battled silently.
“I don’t like this, Nick… I don’t fuckin’ like it at all…!” He stated firmly, torn between two possible decisions.
“We don’t have time to argue, Max,” Alpert shot back as he gave a wry grin. “As a very wise man I know is sometimes fond of saying, ‘Don’t give me the shits! Just do as you’re bloody well told!’…!”
“Wise man, my arse…!” Thorne snorted with a soft chuckle, but his defences crumbled all the same. He clamped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You watch your arse, too!” He cast his gaze around all of the men present. “All of you look after yourselves!”
“Get out of here, Mister…!” Was all Alpert could say, still grinning, and Thorne was gone an instant later, running at full speed for the Galaxy as it waited at the near end of the runway.
He was the last man aboard as the rear-loading ramp began to close, and the C-5M immediately began to roll along the strip. He found a piece of solid airframe as the huge aircraft continued to accelerate and grabbed hold of it, close to where Eileen Donelson and at least a dozen others were crammed in, surrounded by ceiling-high crates of different sizes. The Galaxy clawed its way skyward with a deafening howl a moment later, and their stomachs lurched as the secured load around them creaked and groaned and gave all a few nervous moments.
The C-5M banked immediately after take off and continued to climb, seeking safety in an altitude no propeller-driven aircraft could reach as the KC-10A Extender, already far ahead of them, circled high above awaiting the outcome on the ground. Thorne found he was shaking quite noticeably as he held on tightly in rear of the aircraft, and for a change it wasn’t the dry horrors of the ‘morning after’. The one-time fighter pilot had never actually faced live combat before save for his encounter with Reuters’ Flankers of six weeks before, and the current situation of being forced to wait impotently through an air raid without being able to personally fight back was affecting him a great deal. For the first time in his life, he was experiencing what it was to command men in combat in real life, rather than an exercise: to be forced to ask m
en to risk their lives, and make decisions that determined whether those men lived or died. The experience was one that he found incredibly stressful and particularly difficult.
“Transmission for you, sir…!” An ex-USAF loadmaster shouted over the howl of the engines, tapping Thorne on the shoulder and handing him a miked headset connected to a wall jack nearby by a long, spiralled lead. The Hindsight CO snugged the gear over his head, adjusted the mike in front of his face, and spoke for a few minutes.
“About fucking time…!” He snarled nervously as he lowered the microphone stalk momentarily and nodded his thanks to the loadmaster.
“What’s happening?” Eileen asked loudly beside him.
“Just got notification from Nick that those squadrons of fighters we’ve been expecting finally fucking turned up. They got a call advising they’re expected in within the next ten minutes or so… thank you very fucking much, Air Chief Marshal!” He shook his head angrily at the poor timing of it all. “Could’ve been a bit more use to us by turning up yesterday…!”
Eileen reached up and rested a hand on his shoulder in support, seeing more in his stressed reactions than he’d have liked, had he known that his agitation was so visible. Thorne lifted the microphone level with his lips once more and continued to receive a running commentary of the battle from the bunker control room down on the ground.
At almost 28 square kilometres in area and aligned roughly north-south, Eday was the ninth largest island in the Orkney chain that was a narrow, irregularly-shaped landmass approximately twelve thousand metres long. Comprised predominantly of heather-covered moors, the island’s main economies consisted of limestone quarrying and the extraction of peat, and had never carried a population much greater than a hundred and twenty. It was known for its varieties of seabirds, and as the site of Carrick House, where the pirate John Gow had been captured in 1633. There were also a number of historic, chambered cairns scattered about the island, and toward its northern end was the standing stone site known as the Stone of Setter. There was little else on the island save for one or two small settlements and an observation post for air defence… little except for the covert installation known as ‘Alternate’ where Trumbull and Davies were now bringing their fighters in to land.
England Expects (Empires Lost) Page 57