Armstrong brought the Harvard down to land and taxied towards an intact hangar, which served as accommodation for the Hurricanes and an office for the ‘B’ Flight staff, who were quartered in a nearby village. They climbed from the cockpit and jumped from the wing as a couple of ground crew hurried to place chocks in front of the wheels, then strolled towards the hangar over grass that was soaking wet from a recent shower. A fresh breeze came from the south-west, bringing a tang of salt air with it.
A few minutes later they were sitting in Van Berg’s office, drinking welcome mugs of tea and eating bacon sandwiches that an airman had produced. Equally as welcome was a warm shaft of morning sunlight that streamed through the window. Armstrong automatically glanced at his watch; it was ten-thirty.
“So, Piet, what progress so far?” Armstrong asked through a mouthful of food.
“Mixed fortunes, sir,” the South African told him. “Bomb trials so far against static ground targets have been okay; there have been no problems with bomb release, the aircraft is a stable platform and we’ve produced some reasonable results in shallow diving attacks. It’s been a different tale, though, when we’ve tried the same tactics against splash targets towed by motor launches at sea. Up to now, we haven’t managed to hit a damn thing. Can’t seem to get the angle right. So we’re going to try something else this morning. We’ll motor out to Leysdown when you’ve finished your sandwiches.”
A gunnery and bombing range had been set up during the inter-war years on the north-east shore of the Isle of Sheppey, near Leysdown. They reached it along a narrow road that ran through marshland. Van Berg halted the car at a vantage point overlooking the sea and handed a pair of binoculars to Armstrong, pointing.
“If you look over there, sir, about a mile offshore, you’ll see an oblong wood-and-canvas structure which we’ve rigged up on some pontoons. It’s got the same dimensions as the side of a small freighter, near as dammit. There will now be a short delay,” he added theatrically, “before the proceedings start. Let’s get out and take a good look. There are a couple of spare pairs of glasses on the back seat.”
They stood out in the open for several minutes. The wind was keen and Armstrong and Baird were glad of their flying jackets. At last, they heard the song of a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.
Looking in the direction of the sound, they saw a black-painted Hurricane crossing the shoreline. Armstrong raised his binoculars and, as the aircraft levelled out, he saw that it had a bomb under each wing. It came down until it was very low, flying at high speed over the water. It headed straight for the target, still at a height of only a few feet. At a range of 200 yards or so the pilot released his pair of bombs and at the same instant pulled back hard on the stick, sending the Hurricane rocketing skywards.
His interest quickening, Armstrong kept his glasses focused on the two bombs, which continued to travel forwards in a flat trajectory for a few seconds. They hit the water and, to his amazement, bounced back into the air again. Travelling forwards once more, their velocity undiminished, they skipped directly over the target and bounded across the sea in a series of splashes before sinking out of sight.
The Hurricane circled overhead, waggling its wings, and headed back towards Eastchurch, the pilot lowering his undercarriage as he descended.
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” Dickie Baird exclaimed, with memories of skimming flat stones over the surface of a pond as a child. “Ducks and drakes!”
Van Berg grinned. “Not quite,” he pointed out. “But the principle is the same. And it has one big advantage: the attacking aircraft doesn’t need to fly over the ship. If we had something faster than the Hurricane, the weapons could be released at a greater distance. It’s all pretty rudimentary at the moment, but I reckon that if that target had been a stationary ship, the bombs would have hit the superstructure. Anyway, you’ve seen what I wanted you to see; now we’ll go and have a word with Nick Pitchford, the pilot. It was his idea, as a matter of fact.”
It had been Baird’s idea to recruit Sub Lieutenant Pitchford into the special duties squadron; he had been one of Pitchford’s instructors earlier in the War, and had been impressed by the young pilot’s ability. Armstrong’s attitude to his deputy’s original suggestion had been sanguine; he didn’t much care where his pilots came from, so long as they were better than average and were capable of tackling a variety of difficult and dangerous jobs.
Three-quarters of an hour later they were back in Van Berg’s office at Eastchurch, in deep conversation with Pitchford, a lanky individual with a lopsided smile and fair hair which, in Armstrong’s opinion, sorely needed the attention of a barber. Armstrong wanted to know how the young naval officer had stumbled on the idea of the skip-bombing technique, as Pitchford called it.
“Actually, sir, it was Sir Francis Drake’s idea in the first place, or if it wasn’t him, he was the first one to put it into practice. Even before the Spanish Armada set sail, Drake knew that his little ships would have to get in really close to the Spaniards if their twenty-five pounder guns were to make much impression on the galleons, which meant that they would have to run the gauntlet of heavy fire on the way and possibly get themselves sunk before they came within range. So Drake developed a technique of bouncing his roundshot off the surface of the sea, which made it spin and gave it not only extra range but also extra velocity and therefore more penetrating power. Another advantage was that a ricochet off the sea would strike an enemy ship in an upward trajectory, causing damage to masts and rigging. That’s how most ships were disabled in the days of sail; very few were actually sunk by direct gunfire.”
“So you think the idea is really workable?” Armstrong asked him. “I mean — notwithstanding the trial we saw this morning — is it feasible to expect bombs to bounce off the sea and hit a moving target?”
Pitchford frowned, shaking his head slowly. “Not without redesigning them, I don’t think,” he said. “They tend to wobble after the ricochet and go badly off trajectory. What’s needed, to my mind, is a spherical bomb, like the old cannonball, and it needs to be spinning before it hits the water. In that way it would keep more or less straight — straight enough to hit a target the size of a ship, anyway.”
“Well, the idea’s certainly worth developing further,” Armstrong said. “We’ll put it up to the research and development people at the Ministry. Any other comments?”
Van Berg cleared his throat. “Well, sir, what about an anti-shipping bomb that’s powered by a rocket motor?”
The others stared at him. “Rocket motor?” Armstrong queried.
The South African nodded. “That’s right, sir. It’s a notion that’s been rattling around inside my head for some time. Let me show you.”
He went over to a filing cabinet, unlocked one of its drawers, flicked his way through some buff folders and eventually picked one out. He placed it on his desk top and opened it, turning it around so that Armstrong could see its contents. Armstrong studied them; they were cuttings from various aviation magazines, some in foreign languages, and they were all to do with the Russian Air Force, about which Armstrong knew next to nothing. He raised his eyebrows and looked at Van Berg.
“Well, Piet? What’s your point?”
“The point, sir,” Van Berg explained patiently, “is this. All these articles deal with the Russians’ use of rockets during their border dispute with the Japanese a couple of years ago. If you remember, there was quite a bit of fighting between the Japs in Manchuria and the Russians over some strip of territory.”
Armstrong didn’t, but let the point pass and studied the clippings more closely. Every one contained references to the use of air-to-ground rockets, and on one occasion Russian pilots were even said to have shot down a couple of Japanese aircraft by firing rocket projectiles at them.
“Well,” Armstrong said at length, “I’ll agree it’s a useful idea, and the Russians seem to place a lot of reliance on it, but as far as I’m aware we’ve done no rocket research work at all, and even i
f we were to start now it would be a long time before we could turn rockets into viable weapons. And time is something we don’t have. We’ll add rockets to the list of recommendations, though. You never know — something might come of it. By the way, Piet, how on earth did you come by all these press cuttings?”
The South African grinned and tapped the side of his nose with his index finger.
“A cousin of mine in Switzerland,” he said. “He’s a sensible type; deals in diamonds. He’s in touch with the folks at home, and he sends them stuff he thinks might interest me. We’ve been corresponding since we were kids. He’s always been keen on aeroplanes. Does a fair bit of gliding himself, and reads all the flying magazines. They get all of ’em over there, apparently, including the German ones. After all, the Swiss are neutral, aren’t they?”
Armstrong smiled. It was true, of course; but he knew perfectly well that the Swiss, like the neutral Portuguese and Swedes, sympathised with the Allies. An enormous amount of intelligence reached Britain through the diplomatic channels of all three countries.
“Nick and I paid a visit to the Coastal Forces boys at Felixstowe the other day,” Van Berg announced suddenly. “Thought we might be able to work out some joint tactics with them. Everything’s a bit hit or miss, at the moment.”
In the winter of 1940-1, attacks on British coastal convoys by enemy fast attack craft — Schnellboote, which the British erroneously called E-Boats — had presented a serious threat, and in an attempt to counter it the Admiralty had formed the 6th Motor Gunboat Flotilla. It consisted of three previously converted boats, armed with four Lewis guns and one Oerlikon, and five boats originally built for the French Navy; these were armed with four Lewis guns and four .303-inch Browing machine-guns in a power-operated turret. The 6th MGB Flotilla had deployed to Felixstowe early in March and had gone into action immediately, patrolling the North Sea from the Humber to the Hook of Holland and from Texel to the Thames. A couple of Motor Torpedo Boat flotillas also operated out of Felixstowe and Lowestoft; as well as their torpedoes, the MTBs were armed with a two-pounder Rolls gun — popularly known as a pom-pom — twin 20-mm Oerlikon cannon and a Vickers machine-gun.
While the MGBs searched for prowling E-Boats, Van Berg explained, the MTBs carried out sweeps along the Dutch coast from the Hook of Holland to Den Helder. These sweeps generally consisted of seven or eight boats, their crews briefed simply to attack any enemy ships they encountered.
“They’re brave beggars,” Van Berg admitted. “The night before our visit, two MGBs apparently tacked themselves on to the tail of about seventeen E-Boats that were lining up to enter Ijmuiden harbour. They went down the line, shooting up as many as possible, and got away with it somehow. They haven’t had much success against enemy shipping as yet, though. Seems there are problems; for instance, targets are difficult to distinguish in the dark, and if you shine a searchlight on to them to make a positive identification you become a target yourself. So Nick and I had a bit of a think, and we might have come up with something.”
The South African paused, collecting his thoughts, then went on:
“What if, every time the Coastal Forces go out to take a crack at enemy shipping, we have a flight of Hurricanes standing by, armed with bombs, at a coastal airfield, ready to go? And what if the Swordfish boys at Manston go out ahead of the boats to make a reconnaissance? It would be much easier to spot an enemy convoy from the air, and once it was sighted the Swordfish could get between it and the land and drop a pattern of flares, so that the ships would be nicely silhouetted. Radio communication between the boats and the Swordfish wouldn’t be a problem, because they use the same type of wireless set. The Hurricanes don’t, so they would have to be alerted for take-off by Manston, who would be listening in and who would get a call through to wherever the Hurricanes were positioned. With their speed, they’d be at the scene in no time.”
Armstrong shook his head. “Somehow, I don’t think the Fleet Air Arm chaps at Manston would be too keen on the idea,” he objected. “After all, the Swordfish would be sitting ducks, lit up by their own flares.”
“As a matter of fact, sir,” Pitchford interjected, “the Fleet Air Arm think it’s quite a good scheme. We’ve already had a chat with the boss at Manston. After all, the Swordfish have been stooging around over places like Boulogne for months, dropping flares and bombs, and haven’t come to grief. And the flak over the ships is likely to be a good deal less than the flak over the harbours.”
“So, with your approval, we’d like to give it a try,” Van Berg said, smiling at Armstrong.
“All right, then,” the latter conceded. “Just don’t bend anything, that’s all. And I shall want a very full report.” He sighed. “As a matter of fact, things are moving far too slowly for my taste. Anything that helps to take us on to the offensive is worth trying. Those bastards have had it all their own way for far too long.”
The RAF had already taken the lead in going over to the offensive. Bomber Command’s night attacks on Germany were increasing, although as yet they were producing little result; but Fighter Command, superb in defence during the critical Battle of Britain, was now also taking the war to the enemy.
It had started in a very small way on 20 December 1940, when two Spitfire pilots of No. 66 Squadron had taken off from Biggin Hill, crossed the Channel at low level and attacked Le Touquet airfield. During the next few days, Spitfires and Hurricanes from other squadrons, operating in twos and threes, also made short dashes into enemy-occupied territory; their pilots reported no sign of German aircraft in the air. Encouraged, Fighter Command decided to try something bigger, and on 9 January 1941, in brilliant sunshine and perfect visibility, five fighter squadrons penetrated thirty miles into France. There was no sign of movement on the snow-covered airfields they flew over; not a single Messerschmitt took to the air to intercept them.
The following day, the RAF decided to stir up a hornets’ nest. In the morning, six Blenheims of No. 114 Squadron, escorted by six squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires, attacked ammunition and stores dumps inside France. This time, the Luftwaffe took the bait, but only to a limited extent. There was some skirmishing, in the course of which one Hurricane was shot down; two battle-damaged Spitfires crash-landed on return to base, one of the pilots being killed.
By March 1941, in the face of growing enemy opposition, fighter sweeps over France — known as ‘Circuses’ — were becoming organised affairs, with the Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons operating in Wing strength. A Fighter Command Wing consisted of three squadrons, each of twelve aircraft. There were Spitfire Wings at Biggin Hill, Hornchurch and Tangmere, mixed Spitfire and Hurricane Wings at Duxford, Middle Wallop and Wittering, and Hurricane Wings at Kenley, Northolt and North Weald. Before long, all would have re-equipped with the Spitfire.
But Armstrong knew that the War would not be won by fighter sweeps over the continent, or by bombing attacks that as yet were little more than pinpricks. The War would be won — or lost — by the battle that was developing with ever greater ferocity out there on the high seas.
After some further discussion, Van Berg drove Armstrong and Baird to an hotel in Eastchurch for lunch, as the messing facilities on the aerodrome were still under repair. On their return, as Armstrong and Baird walked out to the Harvard, Baird glanced up at the mid-afternoon sky, which was clear and at variance with the weather forecast, which had predicted low cloud and rain later in the day.
“We shan’t be needing our overnight bags after all,” he commented. “Looks like being a pleasant trip back to Crosby.”
Armstrong looked sideways at him and grinned. “As a matter of fact, Dickie, we aren’t going back to Crosby — not just yet, anyway,” he told the surprised naval officer. “You know that I always like to see things for myself, and that’s just what I intend to do. You and I are going to pay a little visit to Brest, courtesy of Bomber Command.”
Chapter Five
Royal Air Force Station Oakington, Cambridge — 4 April
1941
“All I can say,” Baird said with feeling, “is I’m glad we weren’t here in January.”
Armstrong made no response; the previous evening, in the bar of the Officers’ Mess, they had been entertained by horror stories about the miseries endured by the Oakington personnel in the early weeks of the year, when the surface of the aerodrome had been either a morass of mud or a freezing, slippery ice sheet. Conditions had been so bad for a time that airmen working out in the open had been issued with a daily rum ration.
Oakington, six miles north-west of Cambridge, was a new airfield, completed at the end of 1940. It was now home to the massive Short Stirling bombers of No. 7 Squadron, which were only just getting into the swing of operations after suffering from a spate of minor but frustrating technical troubles. But it was not the Stirlings that interested the two visitors, who were standing on the balcony of the control tower, occasionally throwing a glance towards the northern sky. It was eleven o’clock in the morning.
Baird suddenly nudged his companion, and pointed. “There they are,” he said. It took Armstrong a second or two to pick out what the Scot, who had phenomenal eyesight, was indicating: then he too made out half a dozen black specks, flying in two flights of three and growing rapidly larger. A few minutes later the specks had resolved themselves into four-engined bombers with deep fuselages and twin tail fins, readily identifiable as Handley Page Halifaxes. They were flying into Oakington, their forward operating base, from their usual airfield in North Yorkshire.
As yet there was only one Halifax squadron in RAF Bomber Command, and half of it was now bearing down on Oakington. Armstrong, with access to much secret and privileged information, had known that a raid on the enemy warships at Brest by the new heavy bombers had been planned for some time, and he had been in regular touch with the Halifax squadron commander, who knew as much as he needed to know about Armstrong’s special duties squadron.
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