‘That was a hell of an arrival. I guess the balloon’s gone up at last. Sorry about your kite; we could have used her. By the way, I’m Jim Callender.’
Yeoman grasped the other’s hand, still finding it hard to comprehend. Ten minutes earlier, he’d been enjoying the peace of a perfect morning; now he was crouching in a slit trench, covered with earth, being greeted by an American in RAF uniform. It was all too much. His head reeled and reaction knotted his stomach. He doubled over and was violently, uncontrollably sick.
CHAPTER TWO
Fifty miles north-west of Châlons, at the junction of the river Oise and the St Quentin Canal, the awakening inhabitants of the little town of Chauny were not yet aware of the storm breaking in the east. The streets rang to the tune of metal-tipped clogs as the morning shift tramped to work in the chemical plant that was Chauny’s life blood, now recovered and enriched after the devastation of 1914-18.
Only a few men realized the full gravity of the situation. In a rambling mansion on the outskirts of Chauny, to the accompaniment of the urgent, incessant shrilling of telephone bells, they pored over the maps that lay on a large oak table and gazed in stunned silence at the horrific picture that was slowly building up as report after report came in. The tension around the table was almost as visible as the smoke of pipes and pungent Gauloises, hanging in heavy blue wraiths in the beams of the morning sun.
Suddenly, there was an exclamation and one of the men slapped his open palm on the situation map with a crack that made everyone jump. Air Marshal Sir Arthur Barratt, commanding the British Air Forces in France, was finding it hard to control his temper.
He glared across the table at the man opposite, who wore the dark blue uniform of the Armée de l’Air — the French Air Force — and the gold braid of a general. This was d’Astier de la Vigerie, commander of France’s northern zone of air operations. The contrast between the faces of the two men was remarkable. Barratt’s showed open anger, while d’Astier’s was creased by lines of anxiety and bewilderment. There was sadness there, too, born of the fact that he now found himself in a hopeless position and could do little to improve it.
Barratt raised his eyes from d’Astier, glancing briefly at the clock on the far wall. ‘For God’s sake,’ he snapped, ‘how much longer?’
It was ten-thirty, and for the past three hours Barratt — who was nominally under the orders of the French GHQ at Vincennes — had been vainly seeking authority to launch his squadrons of Battle and Blenheim bombers against the German armour and trucks that were jammed nose to tail on the narrow, winding tracks that ran through the Ardennes mountains. Now, he knew, was the time to strike, while the enemy concentrations were still vulnerable to air attack. Once the Panzers debouched from the mountains and began to spread out across the plains of Belgium and Luxembourg, the thinly scattered Allied bomber forces would be faced with a formidable task.
The trouble was that the French Commander-in-Chief, General Gamelin, and a lot of other senior officers too, were wary of releasing the Allied bombers in case the Luftwaffe took reprisals and started hammering France’s towns and cities, in much the same way as they had done in Poland. Both Barratt and d’Astier knew this; they also knew that a golden opportunity to hit the enemy hard was slipping through their fingers with every passing minute.
While the French hesitated, the Germans acted. The situation reports told of airborne landings in Holland and Belgium, of dive-bomber attacks on frontier defences, of Allied aircraft burning on the ground before they had a chance to get into action. It seemed that the main enemy thrust was aimed at the point where the frontiers of Belgium, France and Luxembourg joined, and even now two armies — one French, the other British — were pushing forward as fast as they could to meet it. To the British and French commanders alike, it was becoming horribly clear that the Germans were staking everything on a bid to out-flank the Maginot Line, that great and supposedly impregnable chain of armoured forts and minefields that stretched along France’s eastern border from Switzerland to Belgium.
By eleven o’clock, Barratt could stand it no longer. Turning to the staff officers who had been sharing his frustration, he issued a series of rapid orders. Then, for the tenth time that morning, he had a telephone call put through to General Georges, the French military commander in the north.
Ten times, Georges — obeying the dictates of higher authority to the letter — had refused Barratt’s request to send the bombers into action. This time, the Air Marshal did not seek approval. ‘I intend,’ he told Georges, ‘to release my aircraft for offensive operations without further delay.’
Georges’ defensive line was already beginning to crumble under the combined onslaught of Panzer and dive-bomber attacks. His attitude had changed dramatically since the last time Barratt spoke to him. He greeted the Air Marshal’s initiative with just two words.
‘Thank God!’
*
The surviving aircraft of 505 Squadron had flown two sorties since the whirlwind attack earlier that morning. The first patrol had been uneventful, and now the pilots who had stayed behind at Châlons for lack of serviceable aircraft — Yeoman and Callender among them — were lounging around the shack that served as an operations room, wandering outside from time to time to scan the eastern sky for a glimpse of the returning Hurricanes.
Yeoman had not yet had a chance to report to the CO, Squadron Leader Hillier. Events had moved too quickly for that, and there had been time only for a brief word with his flight commander, Flight-Lieutenant Rogerson, a small, balding man with a quiet voice whom Yeoman had liked instinctively from the first. Almost before the last echoes of the German attack had died away, Hillier had literally hurled himself into the air in pursuit of the enemy, followed by the other surviving Hurricanes in ones and twos. They had returned ninety minutes later, the pilots frustrated and cursing, to snatch a hasty mug of tea and a sandwich while sweating ground crews refuelled and rearmed the fighters for the second sortie.
Yeoman, still suffering slightly from his bang on the head and the furious pace of the morning, nevertheless felt a lot better for a breakfast of bacon sandwiches, washed down by scalding tea. Callender had taken advantage of their enforced inactivity to take him on a conducted tour and introduce him to some of their fellow NCOs. One of them, a dark, bull-necked flight sergeant armourer named Bert Duggan — who had spent most of the inter-war years in the Middle East and on India’s North-West Frontier — left Yeoman with few illusions about the Air Striking Force’s state of readiness.
‘Bloody stuff’s useless,’ he grunted, aiming a contemptuous kick at a crate of .303 ammunition. ‘It’s been in store since about 1918. Bloody wogs up the Khyber had a better chance of shooting something down than you blokes have. Take my advice; you get a Jerry up your backside, stick your nose down and run like hell.’
Callender called Duggan a miserable old bastard and laughed off the remark. Later, however, he confided to Yeoman that there was a lot of truth behind the Flight Sergeant’s pessimism.
‘Don’t get him wrong — he really is a first-rate sort, and he knows what he’s talking about. He was an air gunner himself once, on the frontier. He once flew a Wapiti back to base when his pilot was wounded, but he pranged on landing and the guy up front got killed. He was knocked about a bit, that’s why he walks with a limp. Got recommended for a gong, but the paperwork got screwed up in the system somewhere.’ Callender lit a cigarette and went on thoughtfully: ‘Seriously, it’s a bit of a bloody shambles out here. I remember when we first arrived, the Frogs were supposed to have laid everything on for us, but in fact we were grounded for the best part of a week because there was no fuel. Getting hold of spares is murder, too. We’ve no storage facility here, and everything we want has to be hauled over from Cherbourg. We’re only fifty per cent serviceable, most of the time.’
Yeoman nodded towards the operations room wall, on which hung an aluminium plate bearing a Luftwaffe unit insignia and the legend ‘2/Aufklr.Gr.33’. It
had been taken from one of the squadron’s victories, a Dornier 17 reconnaissance aircraft. ‘But you still manage to knock down Jerries,’ he commented.
‘Right,’ Callender replied, ‘but only when we happen to be in the right place at the right time. They come in high and fast, and even when we have the height advantage we have a hell of a job catching them. The French have a warning system of sorts, which is supposed to give us time to get airborne, but it’s hopeless. It depends on land-lines, and if you’ve ever tried to make a phone call in France you’ll know what I’m talking about. Believe it or not, all their military calls go through civilian exchanges. By the time we get the word, Jerry’s recce boys have been and gone.’
The spitting crackle of a Merlin engine being started interrupted the conversation briefly. Callender grinned. ‘Well, that’s one they’ve got going. Chiefy Thomas — you haven’t met him yet, but if you come across a guy that looks like Tarzan’s sidekick, with a mouthful of spark plugs, that’s him — said they’d have three serviceable by eleven-thirty, and he hasn’t let us down yet.’
Yeoman sensed that Callender was trying to change the subject, but he was in no mood to let his new friend off the hook. He was learning a lot, and none of it agreed with what he had been told back home. ‘What about the Messerschmitts?’ he asked.
Callender looked at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘Ah yes, now there’s a thing. You want me to sum them up, is that it? All right. They’re small, they’re nimble, they’re faster than us, they have a better rate of climb than us, a better ceiling than us, they have two machine-guns and a bloody great cannon that fires through the spinner, they hang around over the Maginot Line in swarms, their tactics are bloody superb and they shoot down our recce aircraft like flies. Does that answer your question?’
Yeoman was silent. He gazed at Callender, willing him to go on.
‘Look,’ Callender continued, ‘let me explain. Some of those Jerry fighter leaders have got four years of action behind them, first in Spain and then in Poland. They don’t muck about with tight, parade-ground battle formations, like us, where you have to work so bloody hard to keep up with the guy next to you that you never have time to see who else is in your bit of sky; they fly loose, in twos and fours, like this.’ He grabbed a pencil and paper and drew a quick sketch for Yeoman’s benefit.
‘You can see,’ he went on, ‘that their battle formations are organized so that collectively the pilots can scan the sky all around. Their basic formation is a pair, with the leader shooting down aircraft and his number two protecting his tail.’
‘That’s not new,’ Yeoman commented, recalling the books he had read as a boy. ‘Boelcke used the same tactics in 1916. So why don’t we use them too?’
Callender shrugged. ‘Good question. Plenty of our blokes have pushed the idea, and a lot of them would still be alive if it had been taken up. Rogerson tried it off his own bat with “B” Flight a few weeks ago, and got an almighty bollocking from Hillier for his pains. Hillier’s a good pilot — they reckon his solo aerobatics used to steal the show at Hendon before the war — but he insists on doing everything by the book. Probably fornicates by numbers, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Yeoman was lost in thought. If what Callender said was true, it made nonsense of the tactics that had been drummed into the newcomer at the operational training unit. For the first time, he felt something close to panic at the thought of going into action. He felt lost and helpless in the face of the other’s experience. ‘So what the blazes do we do?’ he asked.
Callender grinned. ‘That’s easy. If you get one of those sons of bitches on your tail, you turn and keep on turning. It’s the one thing the Hurricane can do better than the 109 can do. The Messerschmitt has a high wing-loading, and it tends to stall out of a tight turn. When that happens, you’ve got him. If he tries to hit you at speed from higher up, turn to meet him. Nine times out of ten, he’ll break off to the right at the last moment — and in that case, too, you’ve got him.’
Yeoman, eager for more information, was on the point of asking further questions when the drone of distant aero-engines interrupted him. Both men went to the door and shaded their eyes against the sun. A couple of miles away, high up, a flight of three monoplanes skimmed below a line of fleecy cloud, heading south-east.
‘Hurricanes?’ ventured Yeoman. Callender shook his head. ‘They’re French. Morane 406s. Those guys really have a rough time of it; the Morane’s no match for the 109.’
‘What are the French like — in action, I mean?’ Yeoman wanted to know.
‘They’re good fighters, and they have plenty of guts. But their organization is hopeless, and so is most of their equipment. Their best fighter is American, the Curtiss Hawk, and the groups using it have notched up some pretty good scores over the Saar — but there just aren’t enough of them. They don’t have much freedom of action, either; their main purpose in life seems to be escorting recce aircraft. Jerry usually waits until they are well inside his own territory, then hits them hard and fast from upstairs. The 109s don’t always come out on top, but they usually manage to clobber the recce kite.’
Callender lit another cigarette from the butt of the previous one. ‘I admire those recce crews, poor bastards,’ he continued. ‘Our lot gave up committing that kind of suicide months ago. In the early days, last September, they used to send formations of Battles over the front line in daylight until the 109s knocked down four out of five one day. The Blenheims didn’t do much better, either; fifty per cent casualties isn’t anybody’s idea of good arithmetic, and the upshot of it all is that we really haven’t a clue about what’s been happening on the other side.’ He threw his freshly lit cigarette down and ground it contemptuously into the floor with his heel. ‘No wonder the sods caught us with our knickers down.’
There was a sudden yell of derision and a copy of Punch sailed across the room and hit Callender in the back of the neck. A man got up from a basket chair in the comer and strolled over, grinning. Yeoman, who had only half-noticed him before, now saw that he was a flight sergeant pilot, with the ribbon of the Distinguished Flying Medal under his brevet. He had jet-black hair and an impressive handlebar moustache, and two of his top front teeth were missing.
‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ said the newcomer, ‘since this ignorant refugee from Gettysburg obviously has no intention of doing so. My name is Simon Wynne-Williams, and I might add —’ glaring with mock ferocity at Callender — ‘that one of my distinguished ancestors fought against these wretched colonials at Bunker Hill. He got killed, but that’s beside the point. I am convinced,’ he went on darkly, ‘that this fellow was deliberately infiltrated into our gallant ranks with the object of spreading alarm and despondency among our excellent young pilots, who may be picked out from the general herd by the fact that their eyes fill with spaniel-like adoration when they gaze upon elderly and much-decorated veterans, such as myself.’
Yeoman laughed, sensing that there was real friendship between these two. ‘Come to think of it,’ he asked Callender, ‘how does a Yank like you come to be mixed up in somebody else’s war?’
Callender feigned indignation. ‘Cheeky young cub, calling your elders and betters names! I’ll have you know I was flying aeroplanes when you were still wiping your snotty nose on your sleeve, and it stands to reason that the Air Force should snap up pilots of such brilliance.’
Wynne-Williams grinned. ‘Actually, he’s only a pretend American. His old man might own a railroad in Texas, but his mother’s as English as you are, and …’ His words were cut off by the harsh clamour of the telephone on the ops-room desk. A bored-looking corporal, who had been sitting next to it reading a comic, looked at the instrument as though it were about to explode, then picked it up cautiously and muttered into it. A moment later, he clapped a hand over the mouthpiece and addressed Wynne-Williams. ‘Flight, it’s a wingco from Panther.[1] He wants to speak to who-ever’s in charge.’
Wynne-Williams looked around as though seeking a
n avenue of escape, but he was the most senior man in the room. All the officers were airborne. He took the phone and held a clipped conversation with the man on the other end of the line. The others listened intently, trying to make sense of the snatches they heard. Wynne-Williams scribbled information on a scrap of paper as he talked. ‘Right, sir … I think we should have three in fifteen minutes … pick them up at twelve-fifteen, on the way out … what about authorization? Fine … We’ll do our best.’
He replaced the receiver and turned to look at Callender and Yeoman, allowing a low whistle of air to escape through the gap in his teeth. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘this looks like our chance to be heroes. I’ve just been informed that thirty-odd Battles are on their way to attack enemy columns advancing through Luxembourg. Panther’s trying to rake up some fighter cover, and apparently not doing very well. Everybody’s either airborne or in a state of complete chaos.’
He paused and looked hard at Callender. ‘What it amounts to,’ he went on, ‘is a direct order to get off the ground with whatever we have left and give those poor bastards a hand. The wingco I just talked to says he’ll take the responsibility, but you know what Hillier’s like — if we go off without proper authorization he’ll probably nail us to the flagpost by our balls. Still, I’m game to stick my neck out. What about you?’
The American nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said softly, ‘why not?’ Yeoman rose eagerly from his chair. ‘Me too.’ His stomach was turning over with excitement and a tinge of fear.
‘Right,’ Wynne-Williams yelled, ‘what are we standing here gassing for? Let’s get on with it!’
Fifteen minutes later they were airborne, the ground crews — driven like slaves by Flight Sergeant Thomas — having broken all records to get three Hurricanes into some state of airworthiness. They climbed steadily away from Châlons in a tight ‘V’ formation, turning on to a heading of 050 degrees for Luxembourg. Wynne-Williams was leading, with Callender flying in the number two position and Yeoman in number three.
Hurricane Squadron Page 2