World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First

by Harry Kellogg

  From what he was observing this raid was starting out like the other ones. He could not imagine why they would once again hit the same targets. From what he understood they were decimated. So his thinking was that something else was in store for the RAF. His 3.7” gun was ready for action. Screw the German 88 this baby hit just as hard. Cases of the super accurate VT proximity fuses were ready to be mated with the 3.7” shells. The VT fuse possibly stood for Veritable Time fuse. This more commonly called proximity fuse exploded when it even got near an enemy plane. It increased the accuracy of an antiaircraft shell by a factor of at least three and certain circumstances seven. It was a nasty piece of work and some say responsible for decimating the Japanese Kamikaze effort. The factor of seven comes into play when a plane is coming straight at you or on an easily determent course. Most Kamikazes came right at you or at your buddies without deviation. The factor or three came into play when a plane was dodging around and not flying straight.

  They did not have much practice with the shell towards the end of the war and even now only a few shots here and there until today. Today they would be using a lot of them; he was sure. There was not a real shortage but a shipment of close to a million fuses when down from a lucky hit by one of those midget submarines he heard.

  His friends in the Navy had told him that the Seehund Soviet style midget submarine was a really hard nut to crack. Too small to show up on most sonar yet capable of sinking a good size freighter, it was something to be reckoned with and a lot of resources were being spent in defeating it, so far with not much luck. This meant that the loss of those million fuses prevented much of the usual practice with them. They fired hundreds of practice shots with un-fused shells. The theory was that if you could come close or even hit the towed targets with a regular fuse then using a VT fuse would be almost like cheating.

  From what he observed from afar, the Soviet bomber formations where a kind of like a swarm or ball of their medium bombers staying as close as possible to what looked like an American B25. They appeared to be just out of 40 mm Bofers range but easily within altitude range of his 3.7”. The action was going to be hot and furious today; he could feel it. The AA batteries were set up in the usual formation with a central command unit and radiating batteries of guns, 3.7” guarded by 40 mm Bofers, in turn guarded by 20 mm and finally heavy machine guns. They were unusually close together. The theory being, that with the VT fuse they would be safer if closely guarding each other at their optimum range rather than spread out. Furthermore, the high and mighty had decided that the target of the Soviet Red Air Force would be the fighters and their airfields. Believing that the Soviets had learned their lessons, they were sure that the Soviets knew how close the Germans had come to defeating the RAF in the First Battle of Britain by attacking the airfields.

  Many a paper and memo had been written about the fact that the RAF was almost out of planes and trained pilots at one point during the first battle and would have been defeated if the Germans had not been tricked into ignoring Fighter Command, ignoring them just long enough for them to catch their breath and then to tear into the German bomber formations once again with a vengeance. This broke the spirit of the German command and pilots.

  They remembered how they themselves, had defeated the superior speed and firepower of the first German jets by catching them while they attempted to land and take off. This was the only time when they were vulnerable to the slower Allied fighters. The Germans countered by concentrating flak batteries around the airfields used by the jets and it was very effective but not effective enough. The Germans did not have the VT fuse. We did.

  The concentrated firepower, superior fire direction of our radar directed guns and the VT fuse promised a safe haven for our little returning friends from Fighter Command and a hot reception to any VVS scum who tried to enter our airspace. Flak Traps were the common name for what we had set up around the various airfields. Killing zones was another term. Curtains of lead came to mind as well. The amount of concentrated firepower is truly amazing. It was felt that the Soviets could not effectively bomb cities, so they had to concentrate on the air fields and the fighters based within. With their new-found range thanks to the use of external fuel tanks and overwhelming odds, it was certain that they could loiter just out of range waiting for returning planes. Even an SU 2 medium bomber, code named Bat, could easily shoot down the best RAF fighter pilot in the newest Spitfire if that pilot was out of fuel and attempting to land or take off. Just as it had been the case when many a German ace flying the Me262 had fallen to lessor pilots in lessor planes while vulnerable. Not very sporting but this war was far from a sport.

  With our superior fire control, VT fuse and concentrated firepower, we would be ready to defend our little friends when they came back from a hard day’s work. There was a nagging thought in his mind, however. Is it wise to rely on the lessons of the last war? Could not the enemy adapt if he knew your tactics? He had heard that they were outnumbered 5 to one. In the first Battle of Britain it was about 1 and a half to one. Well, what did he know? He was just a gun pointing piece of the grand puzzle that was going to save Britain once again.

  The Attack on the Airfields

  First they flew over in that weird ball shaped formation. We laid into them with our massed 3.7 inchers. 3.7 inchers armed with VT fuses. There was no shortage of fuses now. Fire, eject, load aim fire, load eject aim fire…his crew were like robots in a Charlie Chaplain movie. Shot after shot left his muzzle. Something was wrong. The shells seemed to be exploding much too soon and way below the massed balls of bombers. He could see as they passed overhead that it was not a true ball but more like a semi sphere with well-defined spaces for the bombs to fall and not hit the planes below, pretty clever these Ivans. The semi spheres were staggered and some of the bombs that dropped were slowed down by parachutes. Others fell straight and were dropped from a lower altitude.

  He braced for the impacts. As the first bombs hit the ground, they exploded as expected but the ones attached to parachutes hit and formed huge clouds of smoke. They were 1000 pounders and spewed a lot of smoke for what turned out to be a longtime. Everyone scrambled for their gas masks.

  The ones who forgot or couldn’t find theirs waited for death to come and watched in terror as the clouds reach out for them. Fingers of dense smoke marched towards them carried on the weak winds of the day. Everyone held their breath and a few of the unfortunate ones without gas masks panicked and started to run. Everyone expected the worst as the clouds reached their stumbling mates…the worst didn’t happen. Their mates kept running even after breathing in lungful’s of what appeared to be poisoned gas.

  It was a smoke screen… just an old-fashioned smoke screen![lxxi]

  A few of the runners shouted for joy as the others in their gas masks yelled as best they could, with the contraptions attached to their faces. A few of the runners sheepishly started to feel their way back to their duty stations. They had no fear that their fellow crew mates would be angry or consider them cowards. They would, however, get a real ribbing for not having their gas masks along.

  Then they heard the next wave of planes approaching. These were low and fast. Single engine planes from the sound of them. They couldn’t see shit. The radar directors were pretty much useless at this altitude and the 20 mm and heavy machine guns were not tied to them for the most part. Eric remembered thinking that if he couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see him. The 3.7” could still fire at the higher flying bomber stream because of the radar and were ordered to fire blind with their aim being controlled.

  Before the smoke blotted out the sun, he could see that the only planes that were being damaged and shot down by the 3.7“ shells were the ones who had strayed or were on the very edge of the formations and even then they were few and far between. He had noticed that the fuses were not in the best of shape. Some smelled moldy and musty like his grandmother's basement.30 He couldn’t worry about that now … fire, eject, load, fire…no aiming anymo
re… fire, eject, load, fire. Then the other planes were on top of them. The 40mm, 20mm and heavy machine guns fired blindly in the general direction of the noise. He vaguely wondered about the engines of the Russian planes. They definitely had a different sound to them, not any more powerful or even weaker sounding, just different.

  Then he felt the first heat wave coming from his left. Something exploded and was pouring out heat like a ship on fire. It must have been a fuel storage unit, but there were none that close by. The engineers wouldn’t be that stupid. Damn that was hot. He had never felt anything that hot. Then the radar director link malfunctions. The smoke was still blinding and he sent Billy to see where the cable had been cut. Billy never came back. He never even found Billy or his body. He did hear him scream when another explosion and heat wave swept over them.

  More explosions and waves of heat all around him. What he thought was a human being came rushing at them totally aflame from head to foot. It was not making a sound just walking fast, its flesh dripping off it as it was slowly consumed in fire. After about 5 more steps, it collapsed and a new horror caught his attention. A small bomblet bounced around at his feet. This one did not explode but the ones farther to the right did, cutting Ferguson in half, Jones’s legs off and causing Williams to lose his head.

  The shock of what was happening was complete all he could do was to stand there paralyzed as horror after horror appeared out of the smoke and flames. One after another they appear, the headless this, an armless that, a screaming torch of fire, a whimpering legless head and torso dragging itself with one arm. Horror after horror struck his all-seeing eyes. He didn’t even think he blinked for what seemed like hours. He couldn’t move and he couldn’t look away. He always remembered thinking that he could be at least helping some of these apparitions. Helping to drag them to wherever they were going or possibly attempting to put out the fires immolating them. It was like your standard nightmare where you can’t move as the monster or horror comes running at you. All you can do is watch, watch with unblinking eyes. Watch as your friends died horrible deaths all around you. Deaths that only Dante could imagine or that only humans invent for each other. Nothing else in nature could do this to any other creature much less to its own species. Any other species would be wiped out by Darwin’s law if they did this to each other but not Homo sapiens.

  More small explosions and shrapnel everywhere as those smaller bomblets exploded by the thousands, then he caught a glimpse through the smoke of what was causing the heat he was feeling. About a hundred yards to his right, he had a fleeting yet perfect view of a hunched back ugly looking Russian plane spewing liquid flame from twin pods on either wing. He remembered thinking…So the bastards have their own form of napalm. Napalm a horrible invention by the Yanks if you were on the receiving end.

  This thought brought him back to his senses and got him running, running for his life. As he looked back at what had been a mighty flack trap all he saw was flames and smoke. Nothing moved except the boiling pillars of flames appearing here and there above the choking clouds of smoke. He never did see the cessation of the smoke screen. He just ran and ran and ran. He finally ended up miles away in a ditch next to a stream bed. That gradually turned from pink to red. The stream ran through part of the air field complex right near where his gun emplacement was. He knew things were getting bad when he actually started to fill his canteen with the reddest of trickles with the full intent of going back and putting it into the lifeless body of Roger. Roger who he watched slowly bleed to death from a very small wound in his belly. Very little from the front but when Roger finally fell over from his kneeling position, it was very large from the back. Here you go old Roger, all you need is a little fill me up. Drink up now and all will be right. Drink up and we’ll go have that pint I owe you. Drink up and we’ll talk about the Williams sisters and how we’re going to get them drunk and screw them. Drink up and all will be right with the world.

  They eventually did find him near the creek walking back and forth between a body and the creek pouring blood tinted water down its throat. The pink colored water would go down through the mouth and out a large hole in the back of the body of Roger Peters. Eric must have poured a hundred gallons of water through the body before they found him.

  Next Spring what would become the largest willow tree currently in Amesbury proper took root on the exact spot where all that pink colored water had made a small puddle. The airfield at Boscombe Down ceased to function. Without antiaircraft defenses, it became a death trap for any RAF plane attempting to land. Anything that moved in the area was slaughtered that day and for the following weeks. It might as well have been an ancient field of battle full of the dead and dying.

  The willow that grew created shade for the cemetery that eventually appeared. Unofficially a number of unidentified bodies were laid to rest over the coming weeks and months. Never again was the air field used to launch planes into the air. Although many other fields were hit that day this one was damaged the worst and was continuously attacked when attempts were made to use it again. Over the course of the Second Battle of Britain it was visited almost daily by the VVS and anything that was put in place to defend the area was immediately attacked. In large parts of Britain, the RAF had lost control of their skies much like the Luftwaffe lost control of German skies in 1944.

  IL10 Beast Pilot 2nd day of Attack

  IL 10 Pilot

  2nd Day of the Attack

  Near Boscom

  The wind had shifted for a minute and the Bofors could see their targets. The machine guns did not have much effect on the IL10 Beast but the 40mm Bofors did and the three that were free from the smoke took down four of the squadron in quick order. On the next pass the smoke was behaving much better and revenge was in order. Ah, the never ending cycle of revenge. You killed my brother in arms and now I will kill yours or you. An eye for an eye and a horrid death for an excruciating one. The Beasts in this squadron were caring the pods that spewed flame. Dropping their external fuel tanks after they got an extra 200 miles range from them, they were free of that burden. They then scorched the earth in V shaped formations spewing flame and death. They came back and waited for the smoke to clear to finish any survivors off and to catch any RAF planes foolish enough to try and land while they were still making their circle of death runs. The circle of death was a technique use on the Eastern Front with Beast after Beast following each other looking for targets of opportunity and then taking a wide turn and doing it again. It was similar to a flock of vultures but with a human brain and a little choreographing at work.

  In the "Circle of Death" attack, a Sturmovik group would flank around the enemy and then peel off successively, each Il-2 making a shallow diving attack, then pulling up and around for another pass. The beauty of the Circle of Death was that it kept the enemy under continuous fire for as long as the aircraft had fuel and ammunition. Even when the smoke clear for a short period, of time the attacks were continuous, with no respite for the AA gunners and loaders.

  The 280 2.5kg PTAP bomblets contained internally had been very effective as well and destroyed quite a wide path of soft targets. Targets made out of things like flesh and bone. Thank or curse Mr. Shrapnel depending on if you were giving or receiving for his contribution to the art of war. The current PTAP could penetrate 70mm of armor so the tin and wood coverings placed over installations and control rooms and targeting radar are no match for them.

  The four 23mm cannons took care of many of the rest of the targets at the airfield. Not much can hide from that kind of fire power. The RAF or any of the NATO forces had never experienced their own creation...napalm. The Soviet version was very similar and just as deadly killing with excruciating pain if death does not occur instantly. The arms race continues with more and more deadly and horrible ways to kill each other. It appears to be a never ending cycle for human beings. At least the males of the species.

  How many of those pilots, gunners and ground personnel being killed that day had
children or even infants. Some might have newborns. They would die and were dying for those children yet they were willing to kill other fathers and mothers as well as other children in the belief that they were protecting their own.

  What an absurd way of thinking. What an absurd way to live. What an absurd way to continue a species thought Yuri. I'm told by my leaders that if I don't kill them... the enemies men, women and even children, that my women and children will perish. This is just plain crazy. Yet here I am following orders and spewing death on men just like me who have children and who honestly believe that by killing me they are saving something near and dear to their hearts. Would I kill them if they were not trying to kill me? Of course not. I rather liked the Americans and Limeys I met near the end of the war. Yet here I am burning possibly one of those men to death and all because he is trying to kill me and because someone down there killed Ari. When does it stop? When are the scales balanced...not today!

  Double Down

  John Dunellen was a double ace and he was in deep shit. He was slowly gaining distance from the pack of Yak 9s chasing him but he was running out of time and space. His wingman and squadron mates had been separated during takeoff. It was hard to take off when Tu2s Bats were circling overhead and just waiting for you to show yourself. It was almost impossible to count on a safe haven to refuel and rearm. The antiaircraft guns had gone silent one by one. The Soviets had targeted them specifically before they even attacked the planes on the ground landing or taking off. Their main focus for the first week had been the guns and gunners. They had died by the thousands. Horrible deaths and now many airfields throughout Britain were defenseless. Defenseless from marauding flying tanks and medium bombers loaded down with all manner of mayhem.