The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots

by Jon E. Lewis

  He threaded his way between the bomb craters and parked his machine close to the hut. As Larsen was climbing out, my chief mechanic, Schwarz, told me that my engine needed a change of plugs. This meant that the aircraft would be out of action for an hour.

  “Straden, get through to No. 1 and tell them that Godert is to lead the group. Will you take over H.Q. Flight, please.”

  “Right, sir.”

  While I was still greeting Larsen engines began springing to life round the edge of the airfield and the remnants of the group started to move. A few minutes later they were in the air, their task the protection of the Straits of Messina. Larsen removed his life-jacket and handed it to the mechanic who was to refuel his machine. As we walked slowly towards the hut I caught myself scanning our surroundings, instinctively registering the location of the nearest slit trench. I steered him towards a spot where some empty ammunition boxes had been piled up to form a kind of seat beside a deep trench. Probably some of the airmen had had a game of skat here the previous evening.

  “I’m sorry about that signal. You may be certain that we did everything we could to stop it.”

  Reluctantly I looked my old friend straight in the eye. His present appointment being what it was, even he was probably not wholly immune to the prevailing doubletalk.

  “Franzl,” I said, “I’m utterly sick of hearing that. You’re all apologizing to us – you yourself, the general, Air Corps – now I’m only waiting for the field marshal! Perhaps you’ll start complimenting us again if you find that it makes us fight better and go more cheerfully to our doom. First you send us that shameful signal and a bit later you’re slapping us jovially on the back saying: ‘Don’t take it so seriously, ha ha ha,’ or else ‘Chins up! It’ll soon be forgotten.’ At the same time you know as well as I do that every teleprinted section, every H.Q. between us and the Reichsmarschall has taken note of our disgrace without your being able to explain to them the whole thing is not to be taken too seriously. I can’t help it, Franzl, but the whole performance strikes me as utterly vile. It’s just slaughtering our reputation as soldiers.”

  He returned my gaze and answered calmly: “Of course you’re right – the thing’s impossible and we’re all in the same boat. I agree that as an example of leadership it couldn’t be worse. But what are we to do? The Luftwaffe is in an atrocious situation. The Reichsmarschall has been under fire ever since the Fortresses began penetrating east of Berlin. The Führer blames him for the failure of the air arm and he gets out of it by saying over and over again, ‘It’s not me, it’s the fighter pilots!’ I’ve found out for myself that it’s no longer possible to converse rationally with the Reichsmarschall in the way officers ought to converse. Believe me, I often have grave doubts . . .”

  He broke off without divulging the nature of those doubts. I had them, too, but these were things that could not be said by people in our situation. For to do so would have precipitated a conflict of conscience unendurable to a fighting soldier. So we both remained silent for a while, each of us perfectly aware of what the other was thinking. At last I said:

  “I haven’t announced the contents of the signal although all the pilots know about it, of course. I’ve pigeon-holed it.”

  “No one’s going to ask about that . . .”

  “How much longer d’you give us in Sicily?”

  Larsen lit a cigarette, expelling the smoke with a hiss.

  “The spearhead of the British Eighth Army is now about twenty-five miles south of here,” he said. “The American Seventh has advanced from Gela presumably with the intention of linking up with the British here on the plain of Catania. What that signifies for you in western Sicily and for the defence of the island as a whole is pretty obvious.”

  “You mean evacuation – an orderly withdrawal if possible?”

  “What else?” replied Larsen. His voice was expressionless but his look spoke volumes as he continued: “And who has greater experience of that than you?”

  “What do you think this withdrawal is going to be like? In Tunisia the order arrived much too late. But in our service, paradoxically enough, it’s not called an order but permission, as though the high command kept nursing a secret hope that there might be some intrepid individuals who would prefer to fight to the last gasp in a series of Thermopylaes rather than take advantage of their magnanimous offer. But here there’s nothing left to salvage. This time I’ve made up my mind to get every single man over to the mainland, even if it means burning or blowing up most of the equipment. We’re slowly reaching a stage when everyone is going to be needed. In any case, the really skilled, responsible ground crews will become fewer and fewer if these bomb carpets continue to drop on us.”

  “You may be right there,” he said thoughtfully. “Aircraft and other equipment can be replaced; experienced mechanics can’t. If you can get your people across the Straits of Messina safe and sound, we’ll be able to re-equip the group. Did you know that we are now turning out a thousand fighters a month and can possibly go even higher? Admittedly our losses are also very heavy. We’re losing hundreds at the training stage alone.”

  At that moment two fighters flew unsteadily across the airfield, and then the group, their operation concluded, came in to land, the pilots following each other down in rapid succession. Immediately all was again dust and din and apparent chaos.

  “Captain Straden has baled out quite close by,” called Sergeant Korn through the window of the hut; he had to shout as loud as he could to make himself heard above the noise. “We need a Storch!”

  He settled down to some brief but concentrated telephoning and shortly after was able to announce: “No. 2 are sending their Storch, sir. They know where he baled out.”

  Bachmann then reported and told me about the battle. Apparently they had climbed on a westerly course so as to be up-sun when they pounced on the Fortresses. But they had still been climbing over grid square “Martha” when they had seen Boeings beneath them heading north. Instantly Godert had commenced the attack, which had proceeded almost in text-book fashion. At the same moment, however, a squadron of Spitfires had dived on them and split them up. Keeping close formation, Straden and H.Q. Flight had pressed on and, under intense fire, had managed to get within range of the rear section of bombers. Suddenly his machine had started climbing away and he reported that he had been hit and wounded. He had then turned round and gone into a steep glide in the direction of Gerbini. Almost immediately, however, he had jettisoned his hood, half-rolled and baled out. Bachmann had seen his parachute open.

  The Storch, with Straden on board, landed a few yards from the hut. Carefully the stretcher was lowered out of the aircraft and the M.O. attached to No. 1 Wing of the 53rd Fighter at once began slitting the wounded man’s blood-drenched trouser leg as far as the hip.

  “Another one come to grief,” I said to Larsen as we walked up and down close by. “No. 1 say they have lost three. The group keeps on losing more and more pilots. It’s going to be the finish here, Franzl.”

  He seemed to be working out a picture in his mind of the operation on which we were engaged. As the Inspector, South, he had, of course, little influence on tactical decisions in this theatre, but his words nevertheless carried some weight in the councils of the men round the General of Fighters. Maybe this first-hand impression would facilitate the decision to break off the unequal struggle on the island.

  I had seen dead and dying men. In four years of war, four years of almost uninterrupted operations, an eternity, I had seen them crash and bleed and burn: some mere boys; fledgelings who had been instantly struck down by what is called fate; others, older men, veterans whose experience exceeded that of all the rest yet whose hour had suddenly struck. Admittedly Straden was “only” wounded but I was not going to see him for a long time, perhaps never again, and so the scene of the pilots standing round the Storch while the doctor attended to Straden became indelibly branded on my mind.

  This was now one of the last bases on the isla
nd. The sun shone pitilessly down on the yellow plain about which groups of men like ourselves were hectically engaged in putting the few available aircraft into the air against the enemy, a process that inevitably resulted in fewer aircraft still. While the mechanics, with speed born of practice, refuelled the aircraft and rattled ammunition belts over the engine cowlings, the pilots, wilting and expressionless, stood or squatted beneath the dusty olive trees. Barely a word was exchanged. Every man knew that he and his companions were at the end of their tether.

  There was nothing now to recall the dashing, stylish fighter pilot with his yellow scarf and his imaginatively modified uniform. Our outward appearance accurately reflected the pass to which we had come: crumpled, filthy, oil-stained trousers, ancient, greasy life-jackets, emaciated and in many cases unshaven faces. Everything was a dusty brown – earth, clothes, faces, aeroplanes. There are the hardships of victory, hardships which in Russia and North Africa we cheerfully shrugged off and which, on occasion, we had not even noticed, so elated had we been by our sense of superiority. And there are the hardships of defeat, the hardships of dirt and dishonour which feed on morale, impair the fighting spirit and only serve to engender fresh defeats. This, we had been taught, was the hour of the born military commander, the hour when he would jerk his men out of their state of depression, give them a purpose, inspire them with new élan and lead them boldly to death or glory against the foe. But to all of us here, engaged in the routine task of fighting in the heat and dirt, that concept was a highly dubious one. It was a relic of the First World War, if not the days of cavalry charges, and was utterly useless in the situation in which we now found ourselves. The war in the air is a technological war which cannot be won by a technologically inferior fighting force, however high its morale or dauntless its resolution. This was a point our field marshals had failed to grasp and it was also the reason why the Reichsmarschall could think only in terms of bravery and cowardice and why, to his mind, a fighter arm which had lost its superiority could be nothing other than cowardly.

  Larsen’s voice suddenly intruded on my thoughts. “We’ve got to move you over to the mainland while there’s still a nucleus round which to rebuild the group. In North Africa it was left until much too late. Obviously a group is more than just a conglomeration of aeroplanes and equipment plus a given number of men.”

  “Who d’you think you’re telling that to?” I answered bitterly. “Tell it to the general, although he should be perfectly well aware of it. He was still a group commander himself only two years ago.”

  “You mustn’t be unfair to him. I’m positive he’s perfectly aware of all these things. After all he belongs to the same generation as we do and his experience in action has been exactly the same as ours. But what can he do . . . ?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and turned towards the wounded man again. Perhaps Larsen was right. There was no solution and we had to carry on. We had invested our military leaders and the commands that issued from them with a kind of sanctity and, while we had still been winning, we had thought that splendid. Now, in time of defeat, we had no alternative but to await their orders and carry them out, even if those orders should be wrong and even if we knew them to be wrong.

  After climbing out of his aircraft Bachmann had sat down under an olive tree. His eyes never strayed from the back of the doctor who was still kneeling down attending to his patient. As he gazed fixedly at the scene, he kept restlessly stroking his chin with his sunburnt hand. His attitude, it seemed to me, was that of an old man and I found myself observing his person in minute detail: the worn-down tropical shoes with their leather toe caps and canvas uppers, the greasy, shiny dye pouch attached by its snap hook to the life-jacket, the battered, shabby gloves whose only purpose was to prevent one’s hands, which were invariably damp with sweat, from slipping off the stick and the other controls.

  Then the doctor rose to his feet. The wounded man’s leg was now heavily bandaged and he lay with his eyes closed. He had been conscious throughout but had not uttered a word. Probably he was suffering from the effects of shock.

  “His right calf has been chewed up by an explosive bullet,” the doctor said. He spoke quietly so as not to be overheard by the patient. “It’s impossible to say immediately whether or not the leg can be saved. We’ll have to get him to hospital at once.” He paused for a moment before continuing: “On the mainland if possible. I’ve given him morphia and anti-tetanus injections.”

  “We’ll have to wait until dusk before we risk a Storch,” I said, “but if we alert Vibo Valentia airfield, they can arrange to send him on without delay.”

  “Telephone, sir!” Sergeant Korn called from the hut.

  It was Temme, the commander of the Focke-Wulf fighter-bombers. His people had been holding out here for days, flying mission after mission – to negligible effect, since they could administer no more than pinpricks.

  “An order has just come in from Air Corps,” he said. “It reads: ‘Proceed to alternative landing grounds near Trapani forthwith together with H.Q. and Nos. 1 and 2 Wings 77th Fighter Group. No. 3/77th will return to Sardinia.’”

  “Thank you. I’ll get moving as soon as my aircraft have been refuelled and rearmed. That’s to say in a few minutes. I think the airfield near Salemi is the better of the two and I suggest you make for that one.”

  “Fine,” replied the fighter-bomber commander evenly. “But first I’ll have a go at the shipping off Gela so as to give the whole thing some point.”

  The airfield near Salemi was the one with the farmhouse that had so annoyed the Kittyhawks. Without doubt the enemy had taken it to be a strong point, but he could, for that matter, seek us out anywhere. The airstrip near Corleone was little more than a last resort, to be used if we had to evacuate Trapani yet continue to remain in the western portion of the island.

  “We’ll be taking off for the advanced landing ground near Salemi,” I shouted to Korn. “I’d like to know soon how many aircraft are ready.”

  Some of us would leave now and the aircraft still being serviced would have to follow on later. This meant that we would be flying in groups too small to constitute viable fighting formations. On our way to the west we intended to carry out ground attacks against the beach-heads. I had not seen Abben, who led my No. 3 Wing, since our arrival in Gerbini. He had reported the wing’s presence by telephone and had spoken of engagements over Etna and now he was getting ready to return to Sardinia. His preparations were going ahead with the same speed as ours, for we all wished to depart as quickly as we could from our exposed position before the enemy unloaded his next bomb carpet on us.

  Larsen came up to say good-bye. “I’m going to Catania,” he said. “I’ll be telling the general how things stand with you. If only the Führer would give us permission to evacuate the island.”

  The Führer, I thought absently. Yes, of course, the Führer! But at that moment the enemy seemed more important. Would the enemy, I wondered, permit us to evacuate the island?

  This time, as my aircraft left the ground to carry me back to Trapani, the sense of relief that had grown stronger with every departure from Gerbini was totally absent. It might well be the last time, for the end was very near. Even if the bombing were suddenly to cease, it would be weeks before we could mount an effective attack since we lacked everything necessary to the conduct of a fighter unit’s operations – skilled personnel, spares, ammunition, even petrol – and obviously we could only take off from those advanced landing grounds to which the little that was available had been transported at the cost of tremendous effort. What we had witnessed in this theatre was, to use the words Temme had quoted, “the destruction of one air arm by another in order to ensure the unhampered action of the latter’s airpower and the safe deployment of its ground forces”. Without doubt the operation on which I was now embarking would show the Americans that we were not completely finished – it would cost the enemy a few lives and bring destruction to some of his equipment – but by comparison with th
e tons of bombs he had dropped on Sicily it would be of little significance.

  There were only nine Messerschmitts behind me. The remainder would take off from Gerbini as soon as they had been serviced and would rejoin us on the advanced landing ground. We were not in any sense a large formation; indeed the few aeroplanes at our disposal would be useless against the enemy bombers and their bristling array of weapons. We might, perhaps, be able to shoot down a few fighters in a dogfight but both in quantity and in quality those aircraft were our superiors.

  The sky to the west had turned a steely grey and thunderclouds had started to build up over the island’s central massif. With the map spread out on my knee I applied myself to skirting the wall of cloud without losing my bearings. Near Enna, which could be readily identified by the extensive remains of the Hohenstaufen Castello, I turned south in order to reach the Bay of Gela. Visibility was poor and the cloud so low that I throttled back as I flew down the long valley. I knew that the Americans were moving up through this valley in their northward thrust and that if I wished to reach the coast I should have to reckon with their attentions. At first I kept well away from the road, flying close to the slopes which disappeared into the mist overhead. All at once I was surrounded by strings of tracer. They looked like fireworks as they climbed towards me, inaudible above the sound of my engine. It was a pretty display but at any moment it could prove lethal. This so bewildered me that I applied full boost and raced down the valley in a series of violent evasive manœuvres.

  A sudden torrent of rain struck the windscreen like a blow and for a few seconds I could see nothing whatever. Then the curtain of cloud parted abruptly to reveal Gela’s white beach where, not long before, I had met the Italian sentry patrol. I turned to starboard so as to avoid the beach and the inevitable anti-aircraft fire from the destroyers and landing craft. I was now a few hundred feet above the road that runs parallel to the coast, flying through a continuous hail of tracer with the others behind me well closed up as though threaded on a string. By introducing an element of surprise we could use our fire-power to maximum effect before the troops on the ground managed to jump for cover or the gunners take aim.