by Jim Crossley
“Well,” said William, “there will be an enquiry of course. We’ll have to see what we can do for Tuoy.”
For the first time in his life he saw Ables smile broadly. The man was human after all.
Early the next morning everything was ready for the take-off. The plane had been emptied of all non-essential gear and fuel so that she was as light as possible, and the fabric had been patched up. Ables, who had recovered many a crashed aircraft from behind the trenches at night before the German guns had had a chance to smash it to pieces, had brought some rolls of wire netting with him and by stretching these out on the sand exactly in line with the wind and pegging them well down he had created usable runway about two hundred yards long. Much to the disappointment of the locals, the horses were not needed to take the plane to the start position. Instead the two Crossleys hauled her carefully over the soft sand. To save weight, Weston, to his relief, was left behind and only William and Branston were aboard. The engines started without too much trouble and William let them warm up for a good while before starting his run. “Keep on the netting, sir, and you’ll be fine,” Ables had said. “If you run off it she’ll nose over and anything can happen.” In the event the take-off was easy. With its light load and famously low wing loading, the Heyford was in the air well before the end of the netting and was able to make several low passes over the village, waggling its wings in thanks over the lifeboat house before turning towards Duxford where it was greeted with some merriment.
There was an enquiry of course. The CO, who disliked other people snooping into what went on on his station, tried to make it an internal affair, but the Air Ministry insisted on appointing one member of the board – an engineering officer – Group Captain Hassle. As pilot, William was examined first. His rather unconventional RAF career was examined in detail by Hassle who made copious notes and whispered comments from time to time to the CO. The enquiry then turned to the flight in question.
“Did you carry out the prescribed pre-flight inspection of the aircraft?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did you do?”
“The pre-flight inspection for the Heyford is in the book, sir. I carried it out exactly as prescribed. It is noted in my log.”
“Indeed. Then how was it that you missed the fact that a large fabric panel was not properly secured?”
“With respect, sir, the Heyford’s fuselage is seventeen feet above the ground. The top of the fuselage can only be inspected from a gantry. Gantries are not provided for pre-flight inspection.”
“How do you explain the damage to the aircraft? Did it occur before take-off?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question, sir. It could have been a manufacturing fault, or a bird strike, or some accidental damage on the ground. I certainly never witnessed an incident which might have caused it.”
Next Weston and Pickles were questioned, then it was Ables’ turn. William had to admire how the cunning old veteran covered up for his man, Tuoy. At no stage did he actually lie to the enquiry, but he didn’t tell the whole truth either. Hassle clearly smelt a rat and dug as deeply as he could into Zebra’s history and what went on that morning but it got him nowhere. The final report was inconclusive. No blame was attached to any of the aircraft’s crew or the Duxford maintenance team. The accident was put down to “causes unknown”.
After nine months of testing and calibrating, the scientists at Bawdsey were satisfied. At Kilowatt’s suggestion, they had even had a try at mounting an RDF set in the Heyford itself. They found it was possible to pick up echoes from other aircraft and from the ground beneath them. This was a diversion however. Air Marshall Dowding, responsible for air defence of Britain, had watched the development of radar with an eagle eye. As soon as he was convinced it was a viable and reliable proposition, he was able to persuade the Treasury to sanction the building of the first five three hundred and fifty-foot steel towers which were eventually to form part of the “Chain Home” family of stations and to play a vital role in the protection of Britain four years later.
William’s work at Duxford was now complete. He had learnt a lot and had gradually integrated himself into the life of the RAF.
Chapter 4
The existence of the Luftwaffe was not made public until 1935 but it had become obvious that it existed long before that date. Anyone who cared to study the various subterfuges, including the training operations in Italy and Russia, the development of fast “mail carrying” aircraft, which were in fact thinly disguised bombers, and the selection and training of aircrew, could have no doubts of its existence. As one of the chosen dive bomber pilots, Hans was assigned to a unit based near his home in East Prussia flying the new Henschel 123. The unit was known as the Immelmann Gruppe. The Henschel was designed as a biplane fighter, but Udet’s enthusiasm for dive bombing led to some of the aircraft being modified for dive bombing practice. In the early 1930s, quite independently of Udet’s experiences in America, the Germans had conducted some dive bombing exercises in Sweden, using a frozen lake as an airfield and developing the techniques needed to place a bomb accurately from a steeply diving aircraft. What was the optimal angle of dive? How to control the airspeed? What was the ideal height to release the bomb? How to pull out and get away safely? All this needed careful study and the issues were approached with typical German thoroughness. By the time Hans joined his squadron, a series of different approaches had been developed for different types of target. All of them called for cool nerves and considerable skill on the part of the pilot, but practice dive bombing was the most superb experience. No one who has not flown as one of an echelon of aircraft towards a target, peeled off in his turn into a near vertical dive, seen the ground come rushing ever faster towards him, heaved back on the stick at the last moment and zoomed away, will ever understand the thrill and exhilaration of the experience. The two years Hans spent there in East Prussia learning to dive bomb were some of the happiest in his life. Goering, who now was the Nazi chief in Prussia, as well as head of the nascent air force, took a special interest in the Immelmann Gruppe and he made sure that they lacked for nothing in the way of accommodation, food, comforts and occasions for sports or hunting in the forests. The other officers were mostly from similar social backgrounds to Hans and few of them cared a fig for politics, but they were all fanatical flyers and determined that the Luftwaffe should become the premier air force in the world.
Apart from flying, Hans was near his home, so he could escape with a few chosen friends for the occasional weekend break. The whole neighbourhood was intensely proud to have these young men in their midst. Invitations would flood in to hunt, to dine, to dance, to picnic. All great fun, but there was something about his home that worried the young airman. In the hall, there had appeared an ugly red flag in the centre of which was a white disc and a black swastika. The failure of the aristocrats supporting von Papen’s government to contain Hitler’s Nazi party had caused his father and many of his aristocratic friends to make a rapid revision of their political attachments. Hitler, whom they had considered an ignorant but useful fool, had turned out to be no fool at all. Clearly, to get on in the new Germany, one must be a Party member and an admirer of the upstarts and criminals who constituted the new rulers of the country. Albricht had never been slow to detect, and adapt to, a new political environment and soon it was difficult to imagine that he had ever been anything but a devoted Nazi. Hans’ activities in the new air force of course enhanced his father’s prestige in the party as did his wife’s friendship with Goering. His contacts with the leaders of German industry and with international business made him extremely useful to the new regime and he was prospering. To Hans, however, the new political order remained unappealing. He resented the changes to his home and the uncivilised house guests his parents thought it necessary to entertain.
Hans first met Angela during one of his weekend leaves, at a picnic organised by a neighbour. Lively, handsome and intelligent, she was a distant relation of the
neighbour’s family. She had been brought up in England and had come to stay for a month in Prussia to perfect her already fluent German. She arrived at the picnic riding a dilapidated motorbike with a gigantic hamper strapped on the back. “Aunt’s delayed,” she explained, “and she asked me to come on ahead with the champagne and some oysters. The rest will be here in an hour or so.” The four young pilots who had already arrived swarmed round her and competed to help her with the hamper, but she swung it down herself with great aplomb, got out a collapsible table and commenced expertly popping champagne corks. Hans had never seen a girl like this before, so confident, yet so beautiful, so strong, yet somehow underneath it he sensed a vulnerability which he found maddeningly attractive, not at all like the hard, glittering self-confidence of Sonia. By the end of the picnic he was completely smitten. There was to be a dance that evening in a nearby house, and Hans was terrified lest somehow this wonderful creature would be taken away from him during the evening. He even surreptitiously moved the place names at the dinner table so they could be together. His hostess noticed, winked at her husband, but said nothing. Apart from a few “duty” dances with relations, he was by her side all that evening. She seemed not to find this embarrassing. She always had something to say, some amusing remark, some little gesture. He even dared to hope that Angela found him at least a little attractive. And well she might. Hans was tall, blond and strongly built, with a kind, open face and the most piercing blue eyes. Except for a certain gentleness of manner he might have been a specimen of healthy Aryan youth out of a Nazi text book. In spite of his size he had a delicacy of movement which made him a natural in an aeroplane, and he spoke with an air of authority and decisiveness which was to make him an excellent officer. Above all he was a kind, caring man, in spite of his military profession. He hated to see people or even animals hurt or depressed and in this he differed markedly from most of his colleagues. Angela felt that this was a man she could truly trust and admire, and she felt safe and comfortable in his company.
Back at the aerodrome Hans could think of nothing all week except his new love and went about his duties in a dream. Luckily the weather was poor and there was no flying. The next weekend was to be Angela’s last in Germany and it was arranged that she should spend it at the von Pilsen castle. Hans went eagerly home as early as possible. The two spent a blissful Sunday walking through the forests to a little village where they ate together at a country inn. Content to be in each other’s company, they wondered at the majesty of the great trees and the stillness all around them. On the way home Hans told Angela a little about his love of flying and the excitement of life in the Immelmann Gruppe. She seemed interested and was impressed by his obvious love of his profession and asked many questions about his life and his friends. They felt so at home in each other’s company that it seemed natural to stop at a little hut in the castle grounds, to kiss, to embrace… They had to almost run back to the castle for dinner, arriving slightly red-faced and muttering an unconvincing story about having been detained talking to a gamekeeper.
Then it was back to flying for Hans, and to England for Angela. She was studying for a doctorate at Cambridge. Promises had been made, however, and letters regularly crossed the North Sea: hers in German, his in his rather stilted English.
Hans’ period of dive bomber training had now nearly finished, but there was a surprise in store for him. He, his friend Karl and one other excellent pilot, Ernst Fischer, were ordered to report to a special unit forming to introduce a new type of aircraft – the JU 87 Stuka. The Henschel had been a fighter adapted for dive bombing but the Stuka was a purpose-designed aircraft which was to strike terror into hearts right across Europe, from the Volga to the Ebro and from the banks of the Nile to the mountains of Norway. Early Stukas, like the one Hans first met, were, even by the standards of the time, pretty modest performers. Their 600 HP engine gave them a top speed of two hundred miles per hour and maximum range was six hundred and twenty miles with a bomb load of only a quarter of a ton. These bald figures belied the deadly efficiency of the aircraft. They were designed to dive almost vertically on a target and drop their bombs with a precision never equalled by high-level bombers. To enable them to do this, they required an incredibly robust airframe, able to sustain damage from defensive fire and to accept “g” forces, far beyond those which would wrench the wings of most fighters as they pulled out of a dive. To keep them controllable during steep dives, they had huge dive brakes which kept their speed within safe limits while still enabling them to be manoeuvred with precision. Any fighter trying to dive steeply enough to follow a Stuka down would find itself rushing past its intended victim and in danger of getting completely out of control. Stukas were two-seaters, with a pilot and a signaller/gunner seated behind him. For armament, apart from the bomb load, there was one fixed forward-firing machine gun and one machine gun on a flexible mounting facing aft. The primary roles of the aircraft were to provide close support for armour and infantry, and to attack shipping. The Stuka’s effectiveness in these roles was witnessed by the sheer terror which the sight of a swarm of dive bombers struck into the hearts of their enemies. To make them yet more frightening, the machines were fitted with a wailing siren which was switched on during the dive and which terrorised all who heard it. Crews for this new breed of aircraft were carefully selected from the most daring and able members of the Luftwaffe; they were venerated in official propaganda and idolised by the public. It was to this select band that Hans and his two friends were to be introduced.
Like all new Stuka pilots, Hans was at first a little daunted by the very size of his new mount. However, once in the air, he found the big beast obedient and quite pleasant to fly. After a few hours of circuits and landings and some aerobatics, his instructor told him that it was time to try some dive bombing. He took off, climbed to cruising height, and flew off with a dummy bomb load of two hundred- and fifty-pound bombs towards the range where the target, a series of concentric rings of old tyres, was set up. He had no difficulty in finding the target, but the tricky part was to come. Pointing one’s aircraft directly at the ground is a challenge in itself, but at the start of the dive a complex series of actions had to be performed – throttle back, close cooling gills, deploy dive brakes, switch prop to coarse pitch, switch supercharger to low-level setting – all with the aircraft rapidly gaining speed vertically downwards and while the pilot was trying to aim it at the target. Hans, normally a cool customer when at the controls, found himself getting confused and muddled – on the brink of panic in fact – as he hurtled towards the ground. The target grew steadily bigger in his sights as he grappled with the controls, trying to keep on target. Suddenly it seemed to rush upwards towards him so that he yanked the stick back in panic. Everything turned black before his eyes. Somehow he knew he was still flying but his limbs were paralysed and his brain fuddled. After what seemed a long time, but was actually about two seconds, his vision returned, but with black spots drifting before his eyes. He remembered that there were things he had to do. Mercifully, he was flying straight and level about two hundred feet above the ground but something was wrong. Quick! He must re-set the aircraft for level flight reversing the actions performed at the start of the dive. Throttle, cooling gills, brakes, prop, supercharger. At last he was back in control of himself and looked around. Maybe the dive had not been so bad after all. He wondered what his instructor, on the ground, would think. He couldn’t talk to him as he was flying solo, early dive-bombing practice was too dangerous to risk the lives of useful signallers. Then, “Damned Fool,” he yelled at himself. He had forgotten to release his first bomb! Trembling with frustration and fury he started to regain height to have another try. He found he was flying the aircraft downright badly, yanking at the controls and skidding unsteadily about the sky. “This won’t do,” he told himself. “Relax, settle down and fly properly.” By the time he had to level off he had calmed down a bit and he turned off into his second dive. This time he was over-cautious, pullin
g out too high and too gently. He was able to see the bomb strike the ground well clear of the target. One more to go. The third time was a little better, the dive quite well-judged, but again the aim was poor, the bomb landing outside the outer circle.
Less than pleased with himself, Hans noticed that another machine was approaching the range. “That would be Ernst,” he said to himself. He had plenty of fuel left and determined to watch his friend perform. Ernst muffed his first dive; it was too shallow and he overshot the target. His next effort, however, was excellent, and Hans saw the missile land within the outer ring. By the time Ernst had finished Karl, his friend from Italian days, was ready to go. His first dive was good. He had always been the best pilot of the three of them and Hans watched a little jealously as Karl soared up for his second attempt. Down screamed the Stuka directly at the tyres below. With her canted gull wings black against the bright sky and her claw-like undercarriage, she looked like an avenging bird of prey stooping on an innocent victim. Down and down she went, straight, fast but alas, a fraction too far. The horrified watchers saw her start to pull out but before she was in level flight, the belly of the aircraft smashed into the ground and she cartwheeled over, bursting into orange flames and billowing out an ugly pall of black smoke. An excellent comrade, who was at once rich and humble, a magnificent pilot and an irreplaceable friend, Karl was gone forever.