by Paul Gait
‘I’m not sure we can afford to wait for too much longer. Frank is close to the edge now as it is,’ William counselled. ‘But then again, it’s too risky without that information. We need all the help we can get.’
‘Can we give him a sedative or something?’ Smithy suggested.
‘No, I want him to be alert.’
‘Look you bastards when are you going to get me out of here?’ Frank croaked hoarsely.
‘Got a bit of good news for you,’ William informed him, refitting his headset.
‘You’re going to get me out of here now?’ Frank said hopefully.
‘No, they’ve confirmed the pilot who dropped it, possibly was your Grandfather.’
‘See I told you. You didn’t believe me did you?’
‘Once we’ve got his details I’m going to call him to see if he can remember anything about the anti-tamper mechanism. Where does he live?’
‘Gottingen.’
‘OK, we’ll try that then,’ William confirmed.
‘Well, why don’t you get on with it then?’ Frank demanded weakly.
‘All we know is that they could use three positions. We need to find out which though. If we get it wrong…fireworks.’
‘Oh shit.’ Frank’s already low spirits sank even lower.
CHAPTER 36
Liz had watched William giving his interview to the German TV station ZDF and decided she needed to go to the site. She had no idea what she would do when she got there. But her guilty conscience wouldn’t let her rest.
She searched for her car keys and remembered that William had taken her car. She rang for a taxi and waited. The wait seemed an age.
The taxi dropped her off short of the site because of the lines of TV satellite trucks parked in the road outside the exclusion zone.
A Police car slewed across the road blocked her path at the taped off outer cordon.
‘Can you let me through? I need to get there. I’m the wife of the bomb disposal officer,’ she explained to the Policeman manning the tape.
‘Sorry miss, I’ve been told to let nobody through. You could be anybody for all I know.’
Just at that moment she saw a nervous looking Joe on the other side of the tape.
‘Joe, Joe. Here, over here,’ she called.
Joe saw her waving and went to her.
‘Joe can vouch for me. I need to see what’s going on. Tell the policeman it’s OK.
Joe confirmed that he knew her but assumed she was there for Frank and didn’t realise she was William’s wife. Eventually the Policeman relented and let her through.
‘Is Frank out yet?’ she asked Joe apprehensively.
‘No. I don’t know what they’re faffing about at. The bomb disposal blokes are taking an age. This waiting is driving me mad. I could have got Frank out hours ago,’ he moaned.
Joe led her to the incident control cabin and excused himself as he had been on his way to buy some cigarettes when she’d stopped him.
She recognised one of the EOD team and asked to speak to William.
The soldier spoke to Smithy. ‘Smithy, the boss’s wife is here. Wants to speak to him.’
Smithy took of his headset and steered Liz away from the cabin.
‘Liz, you know we can’t have personal visits when we’re doing a job.’
‘Yes I know,’ Liz agreed. ‘I was worried about him. We had a row before he was called out,’ she confessed. And the man we rowed about is…’
‘The trapped man. Yes we know. William found out and he is tamping mad as you’d expect. I’ve never known him so angry.’
‘I just hope he doesn’t do anything…anything we’d all regret,’ Liz said guiltily. ‘I’ve messed up Smithy. I didn’t know what to do. So I came here rather than waiting at home.
‘Worrying about it now isn’t going to help either of them. Why don’t you go and get a cuppa from the catering van. Hopefully it’ll be over soon. I must get back. We’re at a critical phase now. William is on his way back here. Best he doesn’t see you,’ Smithy counselled.
‘OK. Thanks for listening.’
Liz wandered over to the catering truck as Smithy returned to the control cabin hoping William wouldn’t see her.
CHAPTER 37
The phone rang out for what appeared to be an age. Eventually the voice of an old man answered.
‘Hallo.’
‘Hallo Herr Schmidt, Sprechen sie Englisch?
‘Ja, Who is calling?’
Sir, my name is Captain William Witherton. I’m a British Unexploded ordnance officer. I wonder if you can help? I’m currently trying to defuse an old bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe during the second world war.’
‘Yes, I saw you on the television news. We were going to call you. I am trying to remember the code we used. My memory isn’t so good these days.’
‘Oh, sorry to hear that,’ William said, thinking the call was going to be a waste of time. ‘I believe you were in the German airforce?’
‘True. I was in the Luftwaffe and I dropped a lot of bombs on many missions.’
‘The bomb I have to deal with has the name of Franz Schmidt on a plate attached to it. Could it possibly refer to yourself?’
‘Yes, that is correct. That I remember now. Remind me where it was again?’
‘It’s on the site of an old aircraft factory. The Gloster Aircraft Company. Sometimes referred to as GAC.’
‘GAC…GAC. That’s right. Where they were developing the British jet planes?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’
‘Then you have the right Franz Schmidt. I delivered a string of bombs there to coincide with the birthday of your jet expert, Frank Whittle.
‘Yes, so I believe.’
‘It was the black humour of the Major. He thought it would be funny to bomb the factory on Whittle’s birthday. So I commissioned the plates attached to each bomb with a birthday message.’
‘Well they didn’t all explode. That’s why I’m involved.’ William informed him.
The old man’s eyes became distant as his memory took him back to the war years. He relayed his memories to William as he recalled them.
‘It was May1944. The British were bombing the marshalling yards at Louvain Belgium. There were over one hundred bombers taking part in the raid. One of the planes, a Halifax heavy bomber was forced to make an emergency landing. Before the seven man crew could blow it up, they were captured by an SS Panzer division.’
William didn’t see the relevance of this in his quest for information about the anti-tamper configuration, but hoped the old man would get back to the point eventually.
‘The damage was fairly light. It was inspected by my colleagues in the KG200 the following day.’
‘KG200! Who were they?’ William asked politely.
‘The Kampfgeschwader 200 was an elite Secret special operations unit in the Luftwaffe which carried out difficult bombing operations. We also flew captured aircraft and undertook long distance reconnaissance missions.’
“So there wasn’t that much wrong with the plane.’ William asked.
‘An electrical failure to the fuel pumps, that’s all. The engineers quickly resolved it. The plane was flown to one of our airfields and hidden from prying eyes.
There were seven of the best KG 200 people in the crew to fly covert operations in to England. We trained hard together. I myself was the pilot. We had a co-pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and turret gunners. The controls were difficult to learn at first. But we were the best.’ The old man glowed with pride.
‘Surely they’d know the plane had been lost.’ William observed.
‘Ah, but you under estimate the genius of the KG200. They painted a new registration number on it ‘
‘Intriguing,’ William thought. ‘Anyway, the reason for my call…’he said, but the old pilot was lost in his reminiscences.
‘The increased bombing activity by the British and Americans, alerted us to something big was about to happen. So we had
to do something to dent British morale,’ the old man continued. ‘Part of the propaganda war.
On the night of 31st May 1944 we tagged on to the back of a returning bomber formation and followed them home.’
‘Surely somebody in the formation would have been suspicious about a single bomber joining the group?’ William suggested.
‘No. Not at all. We knew the British used the Halifax for dropping agents off into the low countries all the time.’
‘Yes I’d heard about these SOE secret missions.’ William thought.
‘Anyway we made it look realistic by getting two Messerschmitt 109 night fighters to pretend to attack us.’
‘Bit risky wasn’t it? What if they’d accidentally shot you down?
‘No, they were firing blanks. The muzzle flashes made it look realistic though. These pilots were very brave as the British bombers had a large fighter escort.’
‘So your mission was to bomb the Gloster Aircraft Company in Brockworth Gloucestershire then?’
‘Yes. To disrupt the development and deployment of the jet engine.’
‘You obviously weren’t detected?’
‘No. Of course not. We were in a British plane. We knew that they had developed new microwave radar that picked me up as soon as I crossed the channel. Although, we didn’t want to allow them to see where we were heading.’
‘So you flew beneath the radar? Bit risky though.’
‘Quite so. Of course, there was no room for mistakes, but the Halifax was fitted with a British topographical radar device called H2S which helped.’
‘Surely you’d have done better to use your very high altitude bomber, the Junkers Ju 86R?’
‘No. For although it could fly to 40,000 feet, on one mission it was badly damaged by a specially modified Spitfire, but managed to limp home. So that was ruled out.’
‘Why were so keen on destroying the Jet Engine development?’
‘Our Military Intelligence, the Abwehr, received reports that there was a significant increase in the production of the jet engines. Our agents discovered that a squadron of Gloster Meteors powered by jet engines was planned for July that year. I think it was to be called 616 Squadron.’
‘Well, for somebody supposed to have a poor memory you’re certainly impressing me,’ William informed him, feeling more confident that at the end of the old man’s story he might get the detail he was looking for.
‘I had to fly across to the Bristol Channel and follow the River Severn inland up to Gloucester to deliver Frank Whittles birthday present on the shadow factory.’
‘That would have upset aircraft production if he’d succeeded.’ William thought.
The old man continued. ‘We then had to fly to a secondary target in the Regent area of Cheltenham to bomb the dispersal factory where the final fitting stages of the Meteor aircraft were being conducted.’
‘A tricky night mission for you then?’ William summarised, hoping the tale was coming to an end.
But the old pilot was now in full flow.
‘No. I had taken reconnaissance photographs of the factory in October 1939, so I knew what course I needed to set for a one off bombing run on the factories.’
‘I’m amazed you had done a reconnaissance as early as 1939.’ William said in genuine surprise. ‘Obviously your masters had big plans even in the early days of the war.’
Franz wasn’t listening. He was lost in his memories. ‘I had previously flown the route in a Heinkel 111 to lay mines in the Severn Estuary and made several single handed ‘Pirate’ raids on the Bristol Aircraft Company at Filton as well.’
‘So you were pretty confident about navigation,’ William interjected.
‘Yes navigation was easy. The river Severn up to Gloucester was like a direction arrow pointing us to our target.
‘So how many bombs were you carrying on the Halifax?’
‘As I recall, it could carry a bomb load of 6,600 kilogrammes. Enough to upset Jet engine manufacturing for a little while at least,’ the old man chuckled
‘Yes if they’d all been on target.’ William thought. For although at least one had exploded and caused major damage, bomb records showed that several had fallen harmlessly in the fields nearby, including the one that was keeping Frank company now.
‘It all comes back to me now,’ the old man said, as the years rolled back from his sluggish mind. ‘This is the bit you want to know. The bombs were oil bombs as I recall, for causing maximum fire damage. They were ‘Schlafwagen’, ‘sleeper’ bombs with delayed fuzes, so that we could drop them at low altitude without getting caught in the blast. This helped our escape, too before the defenders realised what was happening.’
‘Anti-tamper devices?’ William coaxed.
‘There was something special about them, if only I could remember.’
William thought cynically, ‘after all that, this is where the trail grows cold.’
But the old man surprised him, ‘Oh yes. In addition to the normal anti-tamper devices, these bombs had a special anti-tamper reed relay configured as well.’
‘That’s what I need to know. Tell me about the configuration,’ William said, relieved at last that they were getting somewhere.
But Franz was now back reliving the mission, ignoring William.
‘Anyway, as we approached Gloucester we sent our coded signal to our agents to provide the triangulated red lights for the pathway to the target. This was in case our X-Verfahren navigation and bomb equipment aiming was disrupted by the countermeasures we knew to be operating in the Birdlip area.’
‘The reed relays Franz. Tell me about the reed relays,’ William implored
‘We lined up for our bombing run, the bomb aimer constantly calling in my ear. links, links, recht, stetig, höher to constantly correct our approach.
‘They must have thought we were planning to land as I reduced speed to allow the bomb aimer to release the deadly arsenal as we flew towards the factory buildings.
In the plane, the tension was high. The defenders would already know we were in the area. We just hoped our cover wasn’t blown.
There would only be one chance to capitalise on our element of surprise, for any subsequent bombing run on the airfield would bring the full might of the Light anti-aircraft guns defending it, on us. At that low altitude we would be lucky not to be destroyed by ground fire.
Although initially being too low for the heavy ack-ack guns to engage us as soon as they realised what we were up to, we would be in range as we climbed away.
Fortunately we were not challenged at all by any of the defences. They must have wondered what had hit them.’ The old man chuckled again. ‘I can imagine their confusion. It didn’t make sense, one of their own, bombing the airfield.’
‘There were of course no immediate explosions, but all bombs were primed and ready to blow.’
William interjected, ‘Now, about the anti-tamper mechanism,’ he persisted.
The old man ignored him again, lost in the nostalgia of being able to relive the tale.
‘I got the confirmation that half of our bomb load had been released, and as we pulled away from our bombing run I opened the throttles to increase altitude to clear the Cotswold escarpment.
However, the heavy plane wasn’t responding fast enough, so to gain enough height to climb clear of the steep limestone hill we had to jettison some of the remaining bombs along with our special long range fuel tank.
My heart was in my mouth as we rung every ounce of power from those engines. Finally, there was a glimmer of hope that we might make it. The nose lifted, a bit more, a bit more. Come on, I yelled. You can do this. Eventually we gained just enough altitude, although even then we still brushed the tops of the trees cracking the bomb aimer’s observation bubble.’ The old man’s voice was tense as he relived the near miss.
‘Then there was a loud explosion as the fuel tank and jettisoned bombs erupted in a ball of flames behind us. The explosions made deep craters in the woods, which sti
ll remain today.
I later saw them on a visit to the Cotswolds after the war had ended.’
‘About the anti-tamper…’ William probed again.
Franz was oblivious to the request by his revisit of the escape. ‘The confusion caused by the sudden mission and subsequent explosion gave us time to get away. The British must have assumed that we had crashed into the escarpment because we weren’t chased. I was expecting to be hunted down by a squadron of night fighters at least. But nobody challenged us at all.’
‘Heavens you were lucky. And I suppose to add to their confusion by then, some of the oil bombs were going off as well,’ William added. ‘Now about the configuration of…’
‘Yes, they caused a far bit of damage I believe, Franz continued, oblivious to William’s need for brevity and timeliness.
‘However, our planned trip to Cheltenham was now compromised and we needed fuel to get us home to our base in Belgium.
‘So what did you do about fuel?’ William felt obliged to ask, although he desperately needed to get back to the task in hand.
‘We landed on a long concrete runway on an airfield at RAF Chedworth which had a few American aircraft on. We were able to pass on the information to the Abwehr.
We had made contingency plans if we had to land. We were dressed appropriately in Polish flying suits with the correct insignia and were carrying false documents.
Fortunately, even in those days, my English was good.
We told them we had just flown over from Pembrokeshire and they refuelled us with no problems…Why, they even gave us a cup of coffee and some American chocolate before we left.
So fully fuelled we headed for ‘home’. Up to that point fate was smiling on us. That was until we crossed the English coast.
We gave the special ‘Z’ code using our enigma machine to alert our side of our return. But as we approached Belgium, the incompetent Wehrmacht opened fire on us, claiming that they didn’t get our message, even though the Luftwaffe had received it and had even sent a Messerschmitt escort as arranged.
We were hit several times by shrapnel and so, unfortunately, I had to crash land the plane. The Geschwaderkommodore was furious, because KG 200 wanted to use the plane for several other special missions.