Richter glanced at his fuel gauges; his tanks were already half empty, and it would soon be time to turn for base. He called up his wingman, Warrant Officer Hennemann, over the radio.
‘I was thinking, Hennemann,’ he said informally, ‘that it would be a pity to go home with all our ammunition.’ Hennernann agreed without hesitation, and Richter radioed the rest of his pilots.
‘Stafjelführer an Staffel! We will attack by sections. Select the destroyers as your targets. Make one pass only, then head for home. Stay low. Los!’
He pushed over the stick and took the Messerschrnitt in a long, shallow dive towards the sea, with Hennemann a few yards from his starboard wingtip. The other six 109s came down hard behind them, in pairs, fanning out as the pilots picked their targets.
Richter selected a grey, rakish destroyer which had just emerged unscathed from the spray of several bomb-bursts and was now starting a broad turn. He levelled out gently, with the airspeed indicator showing over 400 mph, and raced towards the vessel at a height of only fifty feet. The grey hull, lit by the flashes of anti-aircraft guns, leaped towards him and he crouched low in the cockpit as shells churned up the water in his path. A quick glance out of the comer of his eye showed that Hennemann was still with him. Flak bursts filled the sky, the tufts of dirty smoke whipping past his wings.
He pressed the triggers and kept them depressed as the warship’s bulk filled his whole vision, raising the nose slightly and allowing his gunfire to dance up the destroyer’s side and into the area of the bridge. Ricochets flashed away into the air like fiery sparks. There was a hazy impression of masts and radio aerials, of a blackened funnel that missed his wingtip by inches, and of sailors scattering in all directions. Then he was over the top of the warship and speeding away over the open sea.
With a sudden shock he found that his fingers were still glued to the triggers and that his shells and bullets were stitching an avenue of spray along the water in his path. He relaxed, and let his breath go with a gasp, at the same time looking round. Hennemann was still with him, and a moment later his wingman’s voice came jerkily over the radio:
‘I wouldn’t like to make a habit of that, sir!’
Richter agreed, and instructed the rest of his pilots to check in. Miraculously, all were safe, although a couple reported slight damage to their aircraft from shell fragments. One by one they joined up with their leader and turned north for Argos. Behind them, the martyrdom of the British Mediterranean Fleet continued. Richter permitted himself a grim smile. So far, the Luftwaffe had been lucky. He recalled the words of his close friend, Franz Peters, who had died over southern England the year before. ‘When the Tommies take the gloves off, then watch out!’ Peters had been under no illusion, and neither was Richter. No matter what losses they suffered, the British would fight on. Their islands were still inviolate, as was their empire. The Mediterranean was the key to part of that empire, and the conquest of Crete seemed a logical step after the campaign in Greece. And yet, a niggling doubt continued to grow in Richter’s mind.
The key to the British empire was the Mediterranean. And the key to the Mediterranean was not Crete, but Malta …
*
Yeoman, his head reeling from the concussion of exploding bombs and the howl of engines, clawed his way up from the bottom of the slit trench and peered around him miserably. A couple of hundred yards away, a tall column of smoke was rising from where the last of 493 Squadron’s Hurricanes was blazing furiously. It didn’t matter, anyway. There was just about enough fuel left to fill the tanks of the two Gladiators, which up to now had miraculously escaped unharmed, and that was all. The rest had gone up in smoke.
It was the afternoon of 28 May, and for the past three days the Heraklion area had been bombed and strafed three times daily on average. Most of the attacks had been directed against the town and harbour, but low-flying Messerschmitt 109s — the first of which had flown into Maleme in the evening of the 23rd — had soon destroyed any hope of further resistance by the handful of RAF fighters. It was perhaps fortunate, Yeoman reflected, that all the surviving Hurricanes had been destroyed on the ground, so sparing the squadron any further casualties.
The total German air superiority was galling, for Heraklion was the one place on Crete where the German paratroops had made no headway whatsoever. In the first three days of the battle the Heraklion defenders had killed at least 1,300 Germans for the loss of only fifty of their own men, and after that offensive activity had been limited to patrolling. Yeoman and his colleagues, with little to do except rage impotently at the lack of action, could not understand why the seven victorious battalions at Heraklion had made no attempt to break through the relatively weak enemy forces to the west of the town and link up with the garrison at Rethimnon.
There were all sorts of rumours. Someone said that a flight of six more Hurricanes had set out from Egypt and had been shot down to the south of Crete — by the guns of British warships, their crews trigger-happy after days of almost continual air attack. It was said, too, that the German paratroops confronting the Heraklion perimeter were murdering Greek civilians in an attempt to force the garrison to capitulate. Yeoman did not believe that particular rumour, and neither did most of the others.
Other rumours, however, unfortunately turned out to be true. The western end of the island was lost, and the Australians and New Zealanders were withdrawing under heavy pressure through the mountain defiles towards the port of Sfakia, on the south coast. It could only be a matter of time before the main German forces swung eastwards to mop up the stubborn garrisons at Rethimnon and Heraklion.
Yeoman was discussing the latest reports with Kemp and Musgrave, and trying in vain to separate fact from rumour, when Kendal, who had borrowed a motor-cycle from the army, came roaring up from the direction of the town in a cloud of dust. He was caked with dirt, and looked tired and ill. He reached for a water-bottle, rinsed out his mouth and spat on the dry earth.
‘Christ,’ he said, ‘it’s absolute bloody hell down there. There are dead bodies everywhere, some of them half eaten by dogs, and the streets are running with sewage. A few days more of that, and there’s bound to be an epidemic. I never smelled anything like it.’
He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his face and looked at the pilots for a long moment. Then he said, quietly: ‘Well, that’s it. We’re pulling out tonight. We’ve got to be down at the harbour by eleven o’clock. The whole garrison is being evacuated.’
He gazed thoughtfully at Musgrave, then asked: ‘How much fuel have we got left?’
Musgrave shrugged. ‘Enough for the two Gladiators, sir.’
‘Full tanks?’
‘Just about.’
‘Right,’ the squadron leader said decisively, ‘fly ’em out. You and Kemp. We might as well salvage what we can from this mess. You can make Egypt from here, can’t you?’
Musgrave grinned. ‘We’ll have a bloody good try, sir!’
‘Good,’ Kendal said, ‘then you’d better get cracking. I’ve a feeling the Jerries will have their hands full in the western end of the island for the next few hours, so with a bit of luck you should be able to slip away without any bother from the Messerschmitts. Good luck to the pair of you.’
Kemp turned to Yeoman and shook hands. ‘Well, George,’ he smiled, ‘see you back in Cairo.’
‘I hope so,’ Yeoman said. ‘But I’ve a feeling it might turn out to be a bloody long swim.’
‘There’s nothing like optimism,’ Kemp laughed, and turned to follow Musgrave, who was on his way to supervise the preparation of the Gladiators for their long flight. Twenty minutes later they were airborne and Yeoman watched them go enviously, two black specks dwindling against the immensity of Mount Dikte. With luck, they would soon be safe. For those left behind, the ordeal was only just beginning.
The troops in the perimeter positions began to disengage at dusk, passing down to the harbour in a steady stream. Kendal and his party attached themselves to a company of the
2nd Black Watch, hitching a lift on a truck. Because of fallen rubble, which blocked every access, the journey from the outskirts of the town to the harbour had to be made on foot. Yeoman, who was walking next to Kendal, suddenly chuckled. His CO looked at him in the gloom. ‘What’s tickling you?’ he asked.
‘Oh, it’s just that I seem fated to get mixed up in retreats and evacuations,’ the other replied. ‘All this reminds me of Dunkirk.’
‘I think we’d better have you posted to the Luftwaffe,’ Kendal grunted. ‘If what you say is true, we’ll be in Berlin in six months.’
It was then that the full stench of Heraklion hit them, bringing an end to further conversation. Yeoman felt the bile rise in his throat and gagged. He was glad the darkness hid the scattered corpses; civilian dead was something he would never get used to. The acrid smells of the harbour — burnt oil and scorched metal, superimposed on the salt tang of the sea — came as a considerable relief, blotting out the unseen corruption that lay behind.
There was little talking among the troops. Yeoman sensed an atmosphere of gloom, weariness and dejection, heightened by the fact that smoking was forbidden. At ten o’clock, the mood changed to one of apprehension as the uneven beat of German aero-engines was heard over the harbour, and everyone crouched down as the whistle of bombs split the night. They exploded somewhere beyond the fringe of the town, and the troops relaxed once more as the drone of engines died away. Once or twice, a distant burst of firing came from the perimeter, where Greek troops were still in position.
The wait seemed interminable. Yeoman shivered, for the night was growing cold. Close by his elbow, a soldier murmured: ‘Where are those bloody ships?’
They could not know that for the past few hours, the evacuation fleet — comprising the fast cruisers Orion, Ajax and Dido, together with six destroyers under the command of Rear-Admiral Rawlings — had been fighting desperately for survival. The warships had left Alexandria that morning and had sailed due north for the Kasos Strait, the narrow strip of water running between the north-east tip of Crete and the island of Scarpanto.
Only a couple of days earlier, the Junkers 87 dive-bombers of Colonel Oskar Dinort’s elite Stuka-Geschwader 2 had flown to new bases on Scarpanto, only forty miles from the route that Rawlings’ ships had to take in broad daylight.
The attacks had begun at five o’clock in the afternoon and had continued non-stop until dusk, the Stukas flying up to five sorties each. Pilots would land back on Scarpanto and toiling armourers would bomb-up the aircraft as they stood with their engines still running. By nightfall, the cruiser Ajax — veteran of the celebrated action against the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee off the River Plate in 1939 — had been so badly damaged that she was forced to turn back for Alexandria. The destroyer Imperial was also damaged, but her captain elected to press on. Most serious of all, however, was the fact that the warships had used up more than half their ammunition — and they still had to fight their way through the straits on the return journey.
At about eleven-thirty, the troops crammed on the battered quays of Heraklion suddenly raised a cheer as a destroyer nosed her way into the darkened harbour. A party of naval personnel came ashore to supervise the evacuation; Kendal sought out one of them and asked what was happening. He was told that the destroyers would ferry as many men as possible to the cruisers waiting off shore, then evacuate the remainder themselves.
It was after three in the morning when Kendal and his pilots wearily boarded one of the last destroyers to enter the harbour. Her name, Yeoman discovered, was HMS Hereward. Her decks were packed with several hundred soldiers, many of whom slumped down and fell asleep, huddled together for warmth, as the warship got under way.
Yeoman stood by the rail, watching the dark coastline of Crete recede steadily beyond the destroyer’s phosphorescent wake. There were rakish silhouettes of warships on both sides, each keeping its station and travelling at high speed. There was a sense of deep urgency in the way the warships cleaved through the sea, and despite his tiredness Yeoman found himself infected by it. There were two hours to daylight, and with the daylight the Stukas would come with their cargoes of death. Every sea mile the warships placed behind them increased their chances of survival by an extra margin.
Those two hours were the longest Yeoman had ever known. He found himself willing the darkness to continue, at the same time straining his eyes for the first sign of light along the eastern horizon.
Suddenly, without warning, the red streaks of dawn were there, casting their glow over the sea. Yeoman shook his head and blinked, realizing that he must have been dozing on his feet, leaning against the rail. He looked around, peering through the mass of khaki uniforms, and saw Kendal, Bright and Fraser in conversation with some army officers and NCOS. He thought about joining them, then decided against it. Just at this moment, he felt like being alone.
A voice came tinnily over the ship’s PA system. The first couple of sentences were distorted and Yeoman could not make out whether it was the captain or one of his executives who was speaking, but the rest of the message came through clearly enough.
‘We may expect,’ the anonymous voice warned, ‘to come under air attack very soon. When we do, please remain calm and, above all, remain in your present positions. Use your small arms against the attacking aircraft; the more fire we can put up, the better our chances of coming through in one piece. Do not be alarmed when the ship begins to take evasive action. I repeat, remain in your positions. In case of an emergency, you will receive instructions over the PA or from members of the crew. Obey them without question. That is all. Good luck to you.’
The light in the east spread rapidly and the glaring ball of the sun climbed out of the sea, throwing the scene into stark relief. There was even beauty in the grey, angular shapes of the warships as they creamed through the sea towards the sunrise, although many of the troops on board them were in no condition to appreciate it. Seasickness had taken its toll during the night, and the faces of many of the men were waxen and miserable. Eyes turned frequently towards the north, the dangerous sector of the sky from which the expected attack would come, and there was a perceptible rise in spirits when an hour went by and no enemy aircraft appeared. There was no relaxation, however; the soldiers stood ready with loaded weapons and Yeoman saw that Brens had been mounted at various points along the deck to provide high-angle fire.
Yeoman looked at his watch. It was six thirty-five. The warships were altering course, turning south-east. The eastern coastline of Crete was clearly visible a few miles to starboard, with Cape Plaka jutting out like an upturned thumb.
Bright came up and joined Yeoman at the rail. ‘You know, George,’ he said quietly, ‘I think we’re going to make it.’
The strident blare of the ship’s klaxon, calling the crew to action stations, drowned his last words.
‘I wish to God you hadn’t said that, Mick,’ Yeoman retorted. ‘Here the bastards come.’
He pointed. There, sliding under a layer of broken cloud that hung over Kasos and Scarpanto, was the all too familiar bee-like swarm of black dots. At first they seemed to hang motionless against the sky, but then, as they split up into three separate groups, their speed became apparent. Yeoman counted sixty-four of them, and decided that the next few minutes were going to be pretty rough.
He was suddenly afraid, more afraid than he had ever been in his life. He had known fear before, often, but this was something far more nerve-racking. In a few minutes the Stukas would come screaming down, and this time there would be no place to hide, nowhere to run. He found himself beginning to tremble, with sweat breaking out all over him. He had never felt so utterly naked. He clutched the rail with all his strength, seeking the reassurance of a solid object. This, he thought, must have been how Russ Kemp felt, during that air raid back in Tobruk.
He forced himself to look up, fastening his eyes on the leading group of dive-bombers. They were manoeuvring into position abeam of the ships, obviously preparing
for an attack out of the sun. Until this moment the warships had been steaming on a straight course; now, as several Stukas broke away and began their dives, they increased speed almost simultaneously and launched into their set patterns of evasive action.
Yeoman felt the destroyer lift out of the water as she increased speed, and in that instant his fear left him. A few moments later, all his attention was concentrated on clinging to the rail as the deck rolled over at an angle of forty-five degrees, then came level again only to roll in the opposite direction. At the same time, the world exploded in a series of fearful concussions as the warship’s main armament opened up. Clouds of yellowish smoke rolled across the sea as the heavy guns of the cruisers joined in, their shells forming a dark umbrella of bursts far overhead. The destroyer shook violently with each salvo, and in between the thunderous detonations the continuous bark of Bofors and multiple pom-poms echoed throughout the ship.
A Stuka came howling down through the inferno and released a single large bomb before jinking away over the water. Yeoman watched the missile curve down and explode in the water not far from one of the cruisers.
The Stukas were coming in from all directions. As the warships continued to zig-zag violently, the troops on their decks skidded and scrabbled helplessly from one side to the other. Only those like Yeoman fortunate enough to be clinging to some solid object stood a chance of holding their position.
Bombs were exploding all around the ships, flinging up huge waterspouts and drenching the decks with spray. Near misses made the destroyer’s hull ring like the battering of a sledge hammer on a metal drum. The noise dazed the senses. Yeoman was dimly aware of something spattering around him, with a noise like metallic rain, and men began to scream. He realized with a sudden shock that the ‘rain’ was shrapnel from the warships’ own shellfire, and that pieces of jagged metal were finding lodgings in human flesh.
There was a lull in the murderous attack, but it seemed to last only moments before a new wave of dive-bombers swept in from the north. So far, although most of them had been severely shaken by near misses, the ships had suffered no direct hits. Yeoman looked around; medical orderlies were moving among the dazed men on the deck, tending to the wounded. A few yards away, a sailor manning an Oerlikon, his tin hat perched on the back of his head, was calmly eating a sandwich. There was a look of intense boredom on his face, and Yeoman grinned weakly. Being dive-bombed was clearly a matter of routine to the man. The pilot couldn’t take his eyes away from this small island of calm amid the general confusion. He watched the sailor push the last few crumbs into his mouth and then turn back to his gun, still chewing. A few moments later, the hellish, stunning concussions of the destroyer’s guns burst over the decks once more as the Stukas began their wailing dives.
Target Tobruk: Yeoman in the Western Desert Page 13