It was beginning to look as if the whole plan to prevent the invading German forces from seizing the huge oil reserves in Amsterdam was turning into a complete waste of time.
And the worry gnawing away at the back of Dawson’s mind was by far the bigger issue. He knew they had only very limited supplies of gun cotton, a powerful but somewhat fragile explosive, and from what he’d already learned, the tank farms covered vast areas and the tanks themselves were huge.
So even if somebody at The Hague did finally realize the crucial importance of destroying the oil stocks and the urgency of doing so, would the weekend warriors of the Kent Fortress Royal Engineers be able to complete the job?
Chapter 8
14 May 1940
Amsterdam, Holland
The barracks were situated more or less in the centre of Amsterdam, between Oosterdok and Kattenburgerstraat, and the site had been occupied by the military since at least the seventeenth century. The building to which the British soldiers had been escorted was one of the biggest in the complex, a long – probably well over 300 feet from one end to the other – two-storey building designed in a somewhat plain and puritanical style. It was constructed from dark brown brick under a fairly traditional tiled roof.
Within the Dutch military, the structure was normally referred to as Gebouw 24, which translated rather boringly as ‘Building 24’. When, and for what purpose, it was originally constructed was unknown, though it certainly dated from at least 1885, and in 1940 its principal use was as a dormitory; most of the ground-floor rooms were being used as accommodation for troops of the Dutch army and navy, and sometimes for soldiers and sailors of other nations. Which was precisely why the KFRE men had been taken there.
The barracks turned out to be somewhat basic, but at least each of the men in the demolition party had a bed for the night. There were repeated air raids during the hours of darkness, but none of the bombs fell anywhere near the building, though as a military complex it was presumably a legitimate and attractive target for the German bombers. They had no idea where the nearest bomb shelter was, but as well as its two storeys above ground, Gebouw 24 also had a basement level which clearly offered at least a measure of protection, though not against a direct hit, so they trooped down the stairs every time they heard the sirens, and sat in the darkness of the expansive cellars, just hoping for the best.
The breakfast on offer in the mess hall was somewhat disappointing, consisting only of bread, butter and preserves, along with a limited selection of pastries, but with no tea – only coffee – to wash it down. But it was food, and it was drink, and they were hungry, so all of them got stuck in.
Sergeant Woodston spotted Dawson sitting at a table by himself at one side of the hall and walked over to him.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
Dawson looked up at him and gestured at the almost empty plate in front of him.
‘Right now, I’m eating the Dutch version of a jam sandwich. Why?’
‘Don’t get smart with me,’ Woodston snapped. ‘You know bloody well what I mean.’
Dawson put the last piece of bread and jam in his mouth and nodded.
‘If you mean, why am I sitting here in a naval barracks in Amsterdam, I’m buggered if I know. I just do what I’m told, and this is where I’ve ended up.’
‘So how come you’re suddenly the captain’s right-hand man?’
Dawson knew where that was coming from. He’d appeared out of nowhere, and had immediately been the soldier Michaels deferred to on anything to do with explosives. And their mission had everything to do with explosives. It was no wonder Woodston’s nose had been put out of joint. He was still the senior NCO – non-commissioned officer – but Dawson’s arrival meant that he was largely out of the loop.
‘Look, Sarge, I’m here because I was a mining engineer in Civvy Street before I joined up. That meant I was working with explosives pretty much every day, so I do know what I’m doing. And once this party’s over, no doubt the bloody army will send me off somewhere else where they want me to make things go bang.’
Woodston nodded.
‘So where did you get the Schmeisser and Mauser?’ he asked.
Dawson grinned at him.
‘Long story,’ he said. ‘The short version is that I was sent to Belgium, to Eben-Emael, and we—’
‘I heard about that,’ Woodston interrupted. ‘A bunch of Jerry paratroopers landed on its roof in gliders, blew their way inside and took over the place in less than a day. I suppose you were watching what happened from a safe distance?’
Dawson shook his head.
‘Not exactly. First, it probably did take a day before the fort was completely occupied by the Germans, but it only took them about twenty minutes to knock out its defences. Then it was just a matter of clearing the place out.’
‘Twenty minutes? That’s bollocks.’
‘It’s not. I was there, with an officer, and he timed it.’
‘And then I suppose you buggered off?’
‘Not exactly,’ Dawson said again. ‘Then we went inside the fort to recover one of the charges the paratroopers had used to blast their way inside, because I’d never seen anything like them before. They were a kind of shaped charge and they were blowing holes straight through the roofs of the solid-steel gun emplacements.
‘Shaped charge? What’s that?’
‘A way of focusing the blast in one direction, to concentrate its effect. These were two-part charges, explosive in one and something else in the other. That’s what we needed to recover, so that the boffins back in England could find out how it worked.’
‘And did you?’ Woodston seemed to be caught up in the story.
‘Yes. The officer I was with took a bullet in the leg, but we made it back to the British lines in France with the device, and he should be back in England with it by now. But we had a few run-ins with the Jerries as we tried to get through Belgium, and I sort of acquired the rifle and sub-machine gun along the way.’
‘You mean you stole them?’ Woodston asked, some of his previous bluster returning.
‘No. We didn’t need to. The German soldiers who had them didn’t need them any longer, because they were dead. That was because we’d killed them.’
That seemed to silence the sergeant. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then snapped it closed, turned and strode away.
Dawson was just wondering if he should risk drinking another cup of coffee – tea being his preferred drink if beer wasn’t available – when one of the KFRE soldiers walked up to him.
‘You’re Dawson, yes?’
He nodded.
‘You’d better look sharp. The boss wants to see you outside, right now.’
Dawson immediately stood up, took his mug, plate and cutlery over to the hatchway, and then walked outside the dining room. The two captains, Michaels and Rochester, were talking to three other men, one of them immediately recognizable as Captain Tweed from the naval control staff. As soon as Dawson stepped into view, Michaels beckoned him over, and he stepped across to join the group.
‘So as I said, Michaels,’ Tweed repeated, ‘we have seen some movement, but I don’t yet know if that really counts as progress. The consul and I were on the telephone to The Hague for most of the night, and we do now have an appointment this morning, in about half an hour, in fact, with the local military commandant. If, and when, The Hague decides to issue the appropriate orders to allow you to get on with your job, he’s the man those orders will go to in the first instance.’
Tweed looked at Dawson with a somewhat quizzical expression on his face.
‘The commandant is the most senior military officer here,’ he said, ‘and normally he would only receive officers of senior rank from other services or countries. I’m not sure how appropriate it would be for the corporal here to be included in the party. As it is, you obviously have to see him, Michaels, because you’re the officer in charge of this expedition, and I brought along the vice-c
onsul and one of his staff as well, just in case there are any questions that need answering from their perspective.’
Michaels nodded.
‘I understand that, sir, but I want Dawson along for exactly the same reason. He is my explosives expert. If the commandant has any specific questions about the demolition, he is the man who will be able to answer them.’
Dawson hoped that was true. But he also hoped he wouldn’t be asked anything at all.
Tweed shrugged.
‘Fair enough, but when we arrive, you and I and the vice-consul will go in to see him together. The others can wait outside, and we can call them in if and when we need their input.’
The air raid sirens sounded again just minutes after they’d left the barracks and were making their way through the crowded streets of the city, but whatever target the Germans were engaging with, it didn’t appear to be anywhere near that part of Amsterdam. At the military headquarters, Dawson and the consular staff member were shown into a somewhat stark waiting room while the other three men went into an office down the corridor for their audience with the commandant.
In the event, that didn’t take long, and after about twenty minutes they emerged, collected Dawson and the other man, and then walked back out into the street. As on the previous day, civilians were everywhere, moving their property, or sometimes just themselves, as they looked for a place of safety away from the increasingly frequent bombing raids being mounted by the Luftwaffe.
‘Are we getting anywhere, sir?’ Dawson asked Michaels in a quiet voice once they were outside the building.
‘Oddly enough, I think we are,’ Michaels replied, and handed Dawson a copy of a telegram form. ‘The commandant received that from The Hague this morning, only a few minutes before we arrived.’
Dawson read the printed words, all in uppercase:
BRITISH DEMOLITION PARTY WHICH HAS REPORTED TO YOU WILL PLACE THEMSELVES IN YOUR COMMAND FOR THE PURPOSE OF PREPARING AND EXECUTING DEMOLITIONS EVENTUALLY TO BE ORDERED BY HIGHER AUTHORITIES.
‘So that’s a yes, is it?’ he asked, handing the form back to Michaels.
‘Not exactly. More a kind of definite maybe. The wording is slightly ambiguous and there are two ways of looking at it. My guess is that whoever drafted this at The Hague meant that we were to wait here for further orders before we started preparing to do the job, but Captain Tweed and I have decided to act on a slightly different interpretation. We’re going to assume that the telegram means we can prepare for the demolition straight away, which means that the orders we will then be waiting for only cover the date and time when we fire the charges. Luckily, we were also able to convince the commandant that that was what the telegram actually meant.’
‘So now we can go and take a look at the tanks?’
‘Absolutely,’ Michaels said. ‘In fact, that’s where we’re all going now. Having a Royal Navy captain and the British vice-consul along with us should be enough to smooth out any challenges we might face from the Dutch authorities or the people who manage the oil depots.’
* * *
The first place they travelled to, in a somewhat battered civilian car supplied by the consulate, was Petroleum Haven, about 3 miles north-west of the centre of Amsterdam, a huge oil storage facility shaped like a giant letter U, the northern ends of the shape opening onto the Noordzeekanaal, the waterway that connects Amsterdam with the harbour at IJmuiden. From the ground, it was difficult to get a true impression of its size, but the jetties on the outside of the semi-circular waterway that ran through it were clearly big enough and spaced far enough apart to accommodate five coastal tankers at the same time. And a railway line, obviously intended to facilitate the distribution of the fuel oil products, ran around the outside of most of the site.
Dawson had been expecting a fairly large complex, simply because most tank farms had to be big to function properly, but Petroleum Haven was a whole lot larger than he had been expecting.
‘Bugger me,’ he murmured. ‘There must be about forty tanks here, and some of them are bloody enormous.’
‘I make it over fifty at a quick count,’ Captain Michaels said, his voice equally low, ‘and you’re right. Most of them are at least double the size I was expecting to see. How the hell we’re supposed to destroy those with the amount of gun cotton we’ve got I have no idea.’
‘Where are the other two tank farms we’re supposed to be attacking, sir?’
‘I think they’re further down river,’ Michaels replied, pointing to the north-west. ‘I can see another whole site over there that looks as if it’s covered in oil tanks.’
The car drew to a halt alongside the boundary fence that ran around the entire site, and near what was obviously the staff entrance, where a substantial building occupied a space between two of the bigger oil tanks.
‘Not a single word about demolitions, Dawson,’ Captain Michaels warned as they stepped out of the vehicle and approached the pedestrian gate in the fence. ‘As far as the management here is concerned, we’re inspecting this place so that we can decide how best to protect it from any possible German attack. We don’t know exactly how close the first of the German land forces are to Amsterdam, but we’re guessing that they may well be sending parachutists in, any time now, to try to secure the oil stocks. So we’re going to tell everyone who asks that we’ve been sent here to guard these places against that threat.’
The party moved around the depot in strict order of seniority, Captain Tweed and the vice-consul in the lead, accompanied by Michaels and the manager of the facility, with Dawson and the other consular official bringing up the rear. There was no need for Dawson to say a single word, and he remained entirely silent for the entire visit as he built up a mental picture, backed up by scribbled notes in pencil on a couple of sheets of paper highlighting: the distribution of the tanks; their capacities; the position of attached pipework and valves; and, most importantly, the type of oil and amount in each tank. He was well aware that while kerosene would burn quite quickly, and would be easy to ignite, the heavier oils and bunker fuel would need a much more concentrated ignition source, and obviously that might be a problem, a problem he was going to have to work out a way of solving.
While Dawson carried out his silent site survey, Michaels continued painting the fictional picture that had been agreed, asking questions about accommodation for the soldiers who would be tasked with providing a garrison for the depot, and trying to identify any nearby restaurants and cafés where they could eat, at least until the German advance reached the city. In fact, that information was going to be useful for their actual tasking as well, because Michaels intended to get his soldiers as close as possible to their individual target depots, and ideally inside them, so that they would be on hand and able to fire the charges as soon as the execution orders came through. But because the Petroleum Haven site and the other three tank farms were so far from the centre of the city, both accommodation and meals would probably have to be provided by the KFRE soldiers themselves.
The second and third oil depots – Shell and Benzine Hopper – were virtual clones of Petroleum Haven, with similar-sized storage tanks and a broadly similar layout, though both were much smaller.
When the inspection party had visited all three of them, the car returned to Amsterdam, dropping off the two British soldiers in a convenient street. Captain Tweed and the two consular officials made their farewells and remained in the car which headed off towards the consulate, while Michaels and Dawson climbed out and then started walking in the direction of the navy barracks.
‘So what do you think, Dawson?’ Michaels asked, as they picked up their pace.
‘The biggest problem is that we don’t have anything like enough explosive to destroy the contents of all of those tanks by actually blowing them up, so we’re going to need a bit of assistance.’
Michaels shook his head.
‘I don’t think we’ll be able to get anyone else to help us do this,’ he said. ‘We’re it, really.�
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‘I didn’t mean that, sir,’ Dawson replied. ‘Like I said before, I meant we need something else to make that lot go bang.
‘So how can you do that?’
‘It shouldn’t be very difficult. I don’t know if you noticed, but each of those tanks is in a kind of scooped-out bit of ground that’s surrounded by a low wall, probably to catch any oil that leaks out.’
‘It’s called a bund, according to the manager of the Petroleum Haven site, and that’s exactly what it’s intended to do. The Noordzeekanaal is in some ways the lifeblood of Amsterdam, and the tank farms are right next to it because they have to allow deliveries of fuel oil to be made by ship. The Dutch are very concerned about the possibility of any leakage or contamination from any of the tank farms, so the bunds around each tank are intended to prevent any pollution if the tanks or the valves or even the pipework attached to them start to leak.’
‘OK. So the obvious thing to do,’ Dawson continued, ‘is to fill that bund thing with oil and then set fire to it. Once it’s burning, that’ll start to cook the rest of the oil that’s in the tank, and most likely sooner or later the whole thing will blow up. Even if it doesn’t, the oil that spills out of it will burn on the ground.’
‘So you mean you’ll attach the explosives directly to the tank to blow a hole in it?’
Dawson shook his head.
‘No, sir. That might work, but it also might not, depending on the thickness of the steel the tanks are made from, because most of the blast would be in the wrong direction, away from the tank. The easiest thing is to just wrap some gun cotton around a section of the pipework at the base of the tank, or around one of the valves, and then fire it. We wouldn’t even need to use much explosive to do it, because the pipes and stuff will be made of much thinner metal than the tanks, and the explosion would be concentrated in one spot. The blast would wreck the pipe and the oil would start pouring out. Once the bund is about half full, we’ll be able to start it burning by firing a flare or something like that into it.’
Operation XD Page 7