Malta Victory

by Robert Jackson

  A 109 shot across his nose and he fired, hopelessly, for the deflection angle was impossible, and almost cried out aloud in amazement when the enemy fighter’s tail disintegrated The 109 flicked away below and he saw no more of it; he would only be able to claim a ‘damaged’.

  He glanced around, and miraculously the 109s had gone, for the moment at least. All four Spitfires were still with one another, joining up into their section formation as Graham curved out of his turn into level flight.

  Yeoman had the oddest sensation of no longer being master of his own fate. All he knew was that he had to cling to Roger Graham’s Spitfire like a leech, alternately watching its manoeuvres and tearing his eyes away from it to search the sky, hoping to God that Powell and McCallum were doing their job and guarding the section’s blind spots.

  ‘Snappers five o’clock, high!’

  ‘Snappers three o’clock, level!’

  Oh Christ, they were coming in from all sides. Which way to turn? Which way? Then, once again, Graham’s calm voice, restoring a measure of sanity, its very tones encouraging them to relax and keep their wits about them.

  ‘Wait for it, chaps. The high jobs are ours. Wait for the break!’

  He was coolly telling them to ignore the Messerschmitts boring in from three o’clock, and to concentrate on the ones astern. Then Yeoman suddenly knew why. Climbing hard under the Messerschmitts over on the right were half a dozen more Spitfires, coming from God knew where. Yeoman hadn’t noticed them until this moment, and it didn’t look as though the Germans had spotted them at all.

  The Messerschmitts astern were diving now, positioning themselves to get on the tails of Graham’s four Spits, and Yeoman marvelled that the German pilots seemed to fall for the old trick every time.

  ‘Break right!’

  Once more the frantic merry-go-round, the sea twisting under the wings, the heavy, clutching hand of gravitational force as the Spitfires swung round to face the attackers. The Messerschmitts came in like sharks, fleeting and deadly, growing in size with terrifying speed.

  There were six of them, and as the four Spitfires swung out of their turn the 109s split into two groups of three, skidding away to left and right.

  The Spitfires split up too, Powell and McCallum chasing one group of 109s while Graham and Yeoman went after the others. The Messerschmitts were diving, heading inland at high speed towards Takali, silvery fish against the grey-green background, and Yeoman knew with a sudden flash of hopelessness that they had no chance of catching them, knew also that the 109s were decoys, that there must be more Huns up above, waiting to spring the trap.

  Graham’s Spitfire was still in a shallow dive, with Yeoman following. The altimeter wound down through twenty thousand feet. Flak was bursting all across the island, great dark flowerbeds of it at varying levels.

  Yeoman craned his neck again, searching above, behind and to either side, and sure enough there they were, a cluster of wasps streaming down out of the blue. He pressed the transmit button to warn Graham.

  ‘Catfish Leader, Snappers five o’clock high, closing fast.’

  ‘Righto, George, leave ’em. Big jobs nine o’clock, low. Let’s go!’

  Graham’s Spitfire rolled over on its back and disappeared under Yeoman’s port wing. Yeoman rolled too, feeling his seat harness tight on his shoulders as he pulled through, half-rolling again as the Spit’s nose went down into a vertical dive, looking ahead for Graham and whatever it was that Graham was chasing.

  He located Graham’s fighter immediately, and a split second later sighted the target: a formation of about twenty Junkers 88 bombers, flying at fifteen thousand feet in three broad arrowheads.

  Another glance back as he levelled out, a few hundred yards behind Graham, curving round for a beam attack on the leading formation of bombers: the Messerschmitts were still pouring down, gaining ground all the time.

  To blazes with it! Ahead of him, Graham was already opening fire, grey smoke-trails streaming back from his wings. Yeoman selected a Ju 88 which was flying at a slightly lower altitude than the others and pushed the stick forward slightly, converging on it, firing as it leaped towards him. The Spitfire shuddered with the recoil of the cannon and the Junkers went into a sudden climbing turn. He fired again as his gunsight framed the bomber’s nose and engines, seeing the big glasshouse cockpit shatter into a thousand sparkling slivers. The Junkers’ wings, camouflaged in splinters of light and dark blue, loomed enormous in front of him as he loosed off a deflection shot inside its turn, glimpsing a vivid flash and a puff of smoke from one engine before his target whirled away and vanished.

  Orange golf balls were flashing past his cockpit, just above his starboard wing, making a strange crackling noise that was clearly audible above the roar of the engine. He stared at them for a fraction of a second that stretched to infinity, mesmerized, then tore his eyes away and rammed the stick forward and to the left, diving away and looking back at the same time.

  A hundred yards behind him was the head-on silhouette of another 88, its front gunner blazing away at him. The Spitfire lurched and he felt, rather than heard, a series of bangs somewhere behind the armour plating of his seat. He tightened the turn to the left, coming out of the dive and pulling up steeply, keeping the Junkers in sight all the time as it shot past. At the top of his climb he winged over, curving down to get on the bomber’s tail.

  He gave a quick glance around to check that he was in no immediate danger, then went after the Ju 88 at full boost. The Junkers, its wings heavy with fat bombs and its dive-brakes fully open, was nosing down through twelve thousand feet over Rabat. Ahead, in the distance, more Junkers were diving on Luqa.

  Yeoman overhauled the bomber quickly, ignoring the fireballs that flitted towards him from the 7.9-mm gun position at the rear of the bulbous cockpit. The tail unit and part of the rear fuselage crept into his sight. He made a small correction and the luminous dot of the sight moved a few degrees to the left, centring on the bomber’s port engine.

  The rear gunner was still firing, and Yeoman felt two more thumps as bullets struck the Spitfire. There was no time to worry about that now. The range was down to seventy-five yards and the bomber’s dive was growing steeper. Yeoman stuck to it like a leech and jabbed his thumb down on the firing button.

  His aim was good. There was a burst of white smoke and an instant later the engine blew apart, sending debris whirling back in the slipstream. A fuel tank in the wing exploded and a river of fire streamed past the bomber’s tailplane. Yeoman gave a touch of right rudder and watched his shells flash across the 88’s fuselage, striking the starboard engine. That, too, began to pour smoke.

  One of the bomber’s undercarriage legs suddenly fell down out of its housing, dangled uselessly for an instant, then broke off. Yeoman ducked as the assembly, wheel and all, skimmed over the top of his cockpit, missing him by a matter of feet.

  The bomber was finished. Yeoman throttled back to avoid hitting the blazing mass, then turned away sharply as the enemy rear gunner, incredibly, opened fire once more. He had time only for one short burst, however, before the Junkers heeled over and plunged earthwards, spewing burning debris as it fell. It exploded a few thousand feet lower down in a soundless gush of smoke and flame. There had been no parachutes and Yeoman felt sorry for the German gunner. The man had shown plenty of guts; he had deserved to live.

  Yeoman brought the Spitfire round in a tight turn, aware of the dangers of flying straight and level for more than a few seconds and looking round to get his bearings. The fight had carried him south and he was at five thousand feet over Dingli cliffs, on the coast to the west of Luqa. There was a lot of smoke rising from the airfield, and from Takali, but there was no sign of the bombers or, for that matter, of any aircraft at all. The grey-green smoke-screen over Grand Harbour was beginning to disperse, and the now-familiar reddish cloud of dust hung over the island like a malignant mushroom.

  He wondered what had happened to the other Spitfires. He tried calling u
p Graham but his radio was completely dead, the set probably smashed when his aircraft was hit.

  He looked at Luqa and Takali again. Both seemed to have been quite badly hit, and he decided not to attempt a landing on either. However, Safi strip, which was joined to Luqa by a series of rough taxiways, looked reasonably intact, and so did Hal Far, on the south coast.

  He felt terribly uneasy. There was no flak, no aircraft, nothing. It was far too quiet. Also, there was too much haze at this height; anyone up above would be able to see him, but he would have difficulty in locating them.

  His fuel was running low, and he felt a sudden overwhelming urge to set his fighter down, anywhere would do, any place where he might find people and overcome this awful feeling of utter solitude. He turned towards Safi, and in that same heart-stopping flash of time he saw the 109s.

  There were two of them, streaking in from the sea, their aggressive head-on silhouettes already twinkling with the flashes of their guns as they curved in towards Yeoman’s Spitfire. Instinctively he turned towards them, catching a hazy impression of a third as it came at him from a different angle. He looked again for the first two but they had already vanished, their high speed carrying them a long way past after missing him with their first firing pass, but now two more were coming in from the right, cutting inside his turn.

  Christ, they were coming at him from all sides! His hands on the stick were slippery and wet and sweat poured into his eyes, half blinding him. At all costs he had to keep turning; it was his only hope of salvation. With his radio dead there was no possibility of calling for help. He would have to sort out this predicament all by himself.

  A Messerschmitt flashed under his nose, appearing ahead of him and entering his sight for a fraction of a second. He loosed off a rapid burst and the 109 flicked away sharply.

  The two on his right were turning with him, aiming to cut him off, closing in for the kill. His arms ached with the effort of hauling the stick. He knew that he wasn’t turning tightly enough, and increased the pressure, bringing the stick back into his stomach with the wings almost vertical, attempting the impossible.

  The Spitfire protested, like a thoroughbred being forced at an unmanageable fence. A great tremble ran through her, and the next instant the sea was gyrating above Yeoman’s head as she stalled out of the turn and went into a spin. Frantically, for he was now very low, Yeoman applied full rudder in the direction opposite to that of the spin’s rotation and pushed the stick forward. The Spit responded beautifully and pulled out into a shallow dive, levelling out only feet above the rocky shoreline, the cliffs towering above her left wing.

  Yeoman stayed low, keeping as close to the cliff as he dared. He was now safe from attack from one side, at least. A quick look up and behind revealed two Messerschmitts a few thousand feet above the coast, waggling their wings; they seemed to have lost him.

  Away to the right, Filfla island was a dark smudge on the horizon. Yeoman started to breathe again as his brain worked overtime to cope with his immediate problem and came up with a solution. With the Messerschmitts prowling over the island, apparently unopposed, there could be no question of attempting a landing at either Luqa or Safi. He would therefore keep as low as possible and follow the coast as it curved round to the south-east, leapfrogging the cliffs at the last moment to set his Spitfire down on Hal Far.

  The two Messerschmitts were still with him, keeping pace. He realized that he must be in their blind spot, but that situation was only temporary. They were bound to spot him as soon as he pulled up over the cliffs.

  He toyed with the notion of flying round the southern tip of the island and turning in towards Hal Far by way of Marsaxlokk Bay, but dismissed the idea almost immediately when he scanned his instruments: the oil pressure and temperature gauges were almost off the clock. An instant later, his worst fears were confirmed when smoke began to stream from under the engine cowling, and his ears detected a new, ominous note in the sound of the Merlin.

  It was now or never. Pulling back the stick, he swept up over the crest of the cliff, skimming across the parched ground and dry stone walls, peering ahead to where Hal Far ought to be.

  The smoke was denser now, obscuring his vision. He could hardly see a thing. He waggled his wings, looking for an open space, and at the same instant saw the two 109s racing down towards him. Jesus, he thought, I’m not going to make it.

  The engine sounded like two skeletons making love on a tin roof. Suddenly, it seized altogether with a terrific crunch.

  The smoke died away, and suddenly Yeoman could see again. Into his field of vision swept rutted taxiways, the charred skeletons of buildings. He spotted a clear patch of ground and side-slipped towards it, with stick fully back and full top rudder. There was no time to lower the undercart, and with this pitted surface it would probably have proved fatal anyway.

  He levelled out and the Spitfire floated for an eternity, the ground blurring beneath her wings. Dead ahead, a huge bomb crater loomed out of the landscape; Yeoman ruddered hard to miss it and found himself confronted by another obstacle, the remains of a stone wall.

  He almost closed his eyes in despair. Nothing mattered now but sheer naked instinct. He pulled the stick back, knowing that he was going to hit the wall but pulling it back anyway in a last, desperate attempt to cushion the inevitable impact. Time stood still, and for a weird moment it seemed as though he were outside the cockpit, looking down on himself. Strange thoughts passed through his mind. In a detached sort of way, he wondered how he was going to die; whether his head would smash into the gunsight and burst open like a rotten apple, or whether his body would be pierced in a dozen places by slivers of jagged metal when the cockpit burst apart.

  The Spitfire struck the wall tail-down with a bone-jarring crunch, sending masonry and white dust flying in all directions. Yeoman put his arms up in front of his face as the brutal deceleration slammed him forward in his straps. The fighter slewed across the dry ground, skidding violently as a wingtip struck a heap of rubble, shedding fragments of metal, and came to a stop a few feet from a shattered stone hut.

  There was a heavy silence, broken only by a metallic crackling sound from the dead engine.

  Yeoman, dazed and stunned, slowly became aware of his surroundings. Still in slow motion, or so it seemed, he reached up to open the cockpit hood and found to his amazement that it was already open. He couldn’t remember having opened it.

  He pulled off his helmet, unfastened his straps and tried to stand up, only to flop back down again. He placed both hands on the cockpit rail and tried again, heaving himself upright, standing on his parachute pack. His legs were trembling and unsteady.

  There was something he had forgotten. Frowning, his brain still dulled he tried to remember what it was.

  The Messerschmitts. Christ, the Messerschmitts!

  He tumbled out of the cockpit on to the crumpled remains of the wing, sliding off it into the dust, searching frantically for some shelter. He saw a bomb crater thirty yards away and stumbled towards it, still dazed and staggering.

  The Messerschmitts were coming for him, to murder him, personally, sweeping down in a strident whistling snarl of engines. He tripped over some stones and fell headlong into the crater, bruising himself painfully, and covered his head with his arms.

  Hal Far’s Bofors opened up with a noise like thousands of hammers beating on metal drums. Shrapnel hissed through the air, raining down like sleet on the surface of the airfield. The noise of engines rose to a terrific crescendo, mingled briefly with a staccato banging of cannon and machine-guns, then faded.

  Gradually, the volume of anti-aircraft fire decreased until the Bofors fell silent. Cautiously, spitting out dust, Yeoman raised his head above the lip of the crater.

  A few yards away, wisps of smoke rose from the wreck of his Spitfire, which was riddled with holes. Beyond it, he saw what looked like an ambulance, lurching across the field towards him.

  He clambered out of the crater and sat down weakly on
a mound of stones. For the first time in his life, he felt a desperate craving for a cigarette.

  Chapter Five

  Yeoman rubbed a hand wearily over his eyes. The bombers had been over Malta in strength again that night, and no one had got much sleep.

  He sighed, and stared at the handwritten words in front of him. Although it was forbidden by the regulations, he had decided to keep a diary of his experiences on Malta. If he came through — and just at this moment he didn’t rate his chances very highly — it would provide an invaluable source of reference when, one day, he came to write about the conflict of which he was a tiny part; if he did not, then others would read it and know at least part of the truth.

  Looking at what he had written now, the words seemed alien, as though they had been set down by and described the experiences of someone else. What he had written was really an introduction to the diary proper, a condensation of what he had seen and done, a catalogue of his impressions during the eighteen days he had spent on the island so far.

  Eighteen days! Writing down today’s date at the head of the first page — Wednesday, 27 May — had come almost as a physical shock. Time had ceased to have any meaning since that first hectic action of 10 May; life itself had been an endless cycle of flying, fighting and sleeping, with hasty meals thrown in between whenever the opportunity arose. He recalled arriving back at Luqa after that crashlanding at Hal Far, when the expressions on the faces of the ‘old hands’ had left him with the distinct feeling that if they could have chosen between himself and the Spitfire returning intact, their choice would have been the fighter. And no wonder, with seven more of the island’s vital Spitfires and Hurricanes destroyed that day. Even though the defenders had shot down fifteen enemy aircraft, the rate of attrition was still far too high.