Bomber, p.30
Bomber, page 30
‘Navigator,’ said Sweet, ‘how many miles to the coast?’
‘About ten,’ said the navigator.
‘Let’s not have too many “abouts” tonight, eh, Billy-boy,’ said Sweet. ‘Bomb aimer, let me know when you see the coastline.’
‘OK.’
Sweet looked down. The countryside was dark but in spite of the blackout the faint shape of towns could be discerned. ‘Navigator,’ said Sweet, ‘I can see Lowestoft below us. We’re off course.’
‘Are you sure, sir?’
‘Am I sure, sir? Yes, I am sure, sir. Beyond it I can see a bit of a glim from Yarmouth. We’re at least ten miles north of our track.’
There was a short silence while the navigator calculated their position on the Gee. ‘Steer 120 degrees,’ said the navigator. ‘The winds are wonky.’
‘That’s just a correction. I want to join the stream at the assembly area over Southwold.’
‘In that case, sir, turn almost due south, let’s say 160 degrees.’
‘That’s more like it, old son.’ Sweet realized he had upset the navigator and upsetting people was a luxury he seldom indulged in. ‘This is the Flight commander’s aeroplane, chaps. We must do things by the book. It’s stupid, I know, but if we start cutting corners the other crews will do it.’
Sweet flew south humming to himself. Suddenly he said, ‘Did I tell you the story about the WAAF officer and the sergeant? …’
‘English coastline coming up, sir,’ said Pip Speke. Now it was possible to see how good Britain’s blackout was, for beyond the coast the world below them was truly dark.
Chapter Eighteen
The huge Freya radar aerial swung gently, smelling the cold wind that blew from England. It stopped, began to swing back and stopped again. Willi Reinecke called to August Bach down the length of the dimly lit T hut. ‘First contact, sir.’
And so the battle began: three groups of men using every device that science could invent began to grope around the blackness like gunmen in a sewer.
August hurried up the wooden steps to the plotting-table platform.
‘Logged at 00.35 hours,’ said the clerk.
‘Near Lowestoft. An extreme-range contact,’ said August. ‘Congratulations, they are not even over the British coastline. The Freya is working well tonight.’
‘They seem to have stopped the jamming lately,’ said Willi.
‘Since we made the wavelength band wider. They can’t jam the whole width of it.’
‘And it’s the tuning.’
‘“And it’s the tuning,”’ said August smiling. ‘I said “Congratulations”.’
‘I’ve told the FLUKO,’ said the telephonist. ‘They hadn’t had a previous contact.’
‘Good,’ muttered August. He put his protractor on the map. He knew all its bearings like the palm of his own hand but still he put his protractor on it as he gave his instructions. Willi admired that sort of thoroughness, especially in an officer.
‘The red Würzburg to sweep from Ipswich to Yarmouth, 270 degrees to 290. Don’t tell them the range or they won’t try so hard.’
‘Lowestoft,’ said Willi, looking at the map. ‘That’s well north of the usual route. Perhaps they are going to Berlin.’
‘Too early to say yet. Perhaps they are routed south and that one is a few miles off course. That would account for it. We’ll have to wait and see, Willi.’
Soon Willi said, ‘You’re right, sir, you’re right. He’s turned almost due south.’
‘They’ll assemble over Southwold,’ nodded August. ‘They are creatures of habit, the British.’
Out in the cold among the windswept dunes the crew of the red Würzburg became newly alert. They knew that the Freya had twice the range of their equipment, but the Würzburg had a narrower beam and was therefore more precise. It could ‘see’ one aeroplane and tell its altitude and so bring the night fighters into contact with it. The Freya gave an early warning but the Würzburgs made the kill.
‘The Nachtjagdführer is giving us two Ju88s from Kroonsdijk,’ said Reinecke. He was still on the phone. August nodded.
‘Let’s hope it’s a pilot we’ve worked with before,’ said Willi.
‘When that fool let the Tommi escape last Wednesday I could have killed him,’ said August. ‘He must have been right on top of him.’
‘The blips superimposed,’ said Reinecke disgustedly.
The T hut was the centre of the Himmelbett station which August commanded. Nearby there were other huts: billets, Mess hall, motor-transport garage and the radar machines themselves. As well as the Freya there were two identical Würzburgs: great bowls, seven metres across. One (blue) to record a night fighter and the other (red) to follow the passage of one of the RAF bombers. Inside the T hut two plotting-clerks sat hunched underneath the big wooden platform that dominated the interior. Each of them wore headphones and was in contact with a Würzburg. To show the progress of both planes, each plotter shone a spotlight upon the glass map that was his ceiling. From their position on the platform August and Willi Reinecke could see the two lightbeam spots through the Seeburg table in front of them. One was red, the other blue. Their job was to bring the two dots of light together. After that the German night fighter should be able to pick up the bomber ahead of him on his own radar detector. Or, on a brightly moonlit night, perhaps even see him.
The T hut was dark. There were no blips on the Seeburg table, for the enemy aircraft were not yet within range of the Würzburgs. August looked at the large-scale map on the wall and every few minutes Willi reported the progress of the RAF bomber stream as it flew across the North Sea straight towards them.
The phone buzzed quietly. ‘Our two planes are airborne,’ said Willi.
‘Tell the blue Würzburg to sweep from 50 to 70 for them.’
Willi Reinecke was biting his fingernails. August smiled. This was the worst time of all. Many nights they picked up the Tommis as they assembled over their own coast, but often the bombers were headed elsewhere. Himmelbett Station Ermine was only one small sector of a long coastline and unless the bombers headed straight into the Ruhr they would pass by out of range. In that case they would spend all night gnawing their knuckles and cursing their luck. One thing Willi knew: the best crews were on duty; if the terror flyers came this way they would be certain to pick them up. After that it was up to the night fighters.
‘Here comes the jamming,’ said Willi. Then, more officially, ‘Airborne jamming on the Freya, a wide band of it, averaging 290 degrees. Constant bearing, increasing in intensity.’
‘The jamming aircraft must be coming straight for us.’
Willi said, ‘I don’t know why the Nachtjagdführer doesn’t send some of our boys out to shoot them down.’
‘How bad?’
‘Not too bad. He’s still getting a clear blip and if the tube grasses up more he can side-tune to improve it.’
‘The Würzburg will have them soon.’
‘Thank goodness they can’t jam those.’
‘Any night now, Willi my son.’
From where August stood he could watch the table and the wall beyond it. The map stretched from East Anglia to Frankfurt. The smaller one showed only Ermine’s sector and the overlapping circles of the sectors surrounding it. Now that the early warning had been given the other sectors were alerted and lit up bright green on the glass map.
Willi tapped the table with his Kneemeyer measure as he listened to the messages. ‘First night fighter overhead.’
‘I want him right out to sea at the extreme range of the Würzburg. Let’s see, if they are coming in from Southwold let’s say code-square Heinz Emil Four. How high is he?’
‘Fifteen thousand feet, still climbing.’
‘As high as possible, Willi. Height is everything.’
Chapter Nineteen
‘That’s eight million three hundred thousand and eighty marks you owe me,’ said Löwenherz, setting up the chessboard again.
‘It’s in my other trousers,’ said Kokke. On the radio a close harmony group was singing.
‘Everything ends, everything passes,
Upon every December follows a May.
Everything ends, everything passes,
But two who love always remain faithful.’
The girls cooed to an end and were replaced by a men’s chorus singing Bomben auf England with appropriate wire brushes and drums. There was a loud raspberry of displeasure and the man nearest to the radio turned the volume down before any missiles were thrown in his direction.
Löwenherz looked round the Alert Hut. The crews were sprawled around the place in the most remarkable poses: hair uncombed, ties loosened and feet resting on chairs. It was as if they were all dead, thought Löwenherz, as if fumes or gas had done for them all, and yet if the loudspeaker sounded the quiet double click that warned of an announcement they could all be on their feet, tugging their helmets on to their heads and draping their bodies with oxygen connectors and microphone and earphone leads that made them a part of their machines.
Klimke – Kokke’s radar man – used to spend these hours in the Alert Hut writing interminable letters to his wife, but since she had been killed last Christmas he had taken up knitting. In spite of howls of derision and practical jokes he sat calmly producing endless scarves for everyone he knew. He couldn’t master the knack of decreasing, so he could only knit rectangles. Alongside him Leutnant Beer jerked convulsively in his sleep. A mosquito was buzzing round his ear.
‘What a Wagnerian body of men,’ said Kokke, looking around at the dozing flyers. Klimke grinned but did not stop knitting. Kokke moved his piece and they began a new game.
‘Not fool’s mate, Kokke. You underestimate me.’
‘Never, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Kokke, and Löwenherz lost a knight.
‘Damn.’
‘Experience is better bought than taught,’ said Kokke, moving forward.
‘You lose because you are too reckless,’ said Löwenherz.
‘But I have more fun,’ said Kokke.
‘Probably,’ agreed Löwenherz.
‘Double or nothing on what time the first plane is put up?’
‘Very well,’ said Löwenherz. ‘Midnight.’
‘Midnight?’
‘Short summer night with full moon means a short trip, that means the Ruhr. To get back before first light and allow time for stragglers they will probably time the attack for two o’clock. A Lancaster does 225 miles per hour, so it will pass over the British coast at zero minus 50. A good Freya radar will pick it up then, but by the time they fiddle around talking to the FLUKO and the Nachtjagdführer it will be fifteen minutes past one.’
‘That leaves us fifty minutes.’ Kokke had to raise his voice a little, for the radio music was now much louder.
‘It might leave us all night. Who knows if we shall be put up?’
‘Such modesty, Oberleutnant.’
Löwenherz smiled. ‘About fifty minutes, yes.’
‘And how was “die Wurst” bearing up this afternoon?’
Among his close friends in the Officers’ Mess the gemütlich Hans Furth was happy to answer to ‘Hanswurst’ (clown). However, he took exception to Kokke calling him simply ‘die Wurst’, perhaps because of its feminine gender. Kokke seldom referred to him otherwise.
‘Bearing up remarkably well,’ admitted Löwenherz. ‘Everyone who gets into trouble is an exhibitionist and he’s going pig-shooting to forget it. The Mess will make Wurst of his successes.’
‘Wurst wider wurst,’ said Kokke.
Löwenherz smiled; ‘sausage against sausage’ also meant ‘tit for tat’. ‘He knows you hate him.’
‘And I’m sure he’s very mature and forgiving about me.’
Löwenherz nodded. ‘He is.’
‘What a bedside manner! After the war he’ll have an expensive Berlin clinic for old ladies who have too rich a diet.’
‘I only hope that after the war it’s Berlin where the old ladies are wealthy and diets are rich.’
Kokke shrugged. ‘Then perhaps Moscow. Or even New York.’
‘I was hoping he could help. About Himmel, I mean.’
‘That Stoppelhopper is interested only in helping himself.’ It was a favourite German nickname for Austrians who were said to be mercurial, untrustworthy people who leaped around mentally as a man running barefoot through stubble fields. ‘He could have done something about the documents without calling in the SIPO, but he was pleased with an opportunity to show what a loyal, laughing little Nazi he can be.’
‘We’ll get no help from him,’ said Löwenherz.
Kokke looked at him, heartened by the plural. ‘Suppose both of us opened our mouths for Himmel.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Suppose both of us supported Himmel and his protest. You’re a baron and an ace, I could perhaps swing the old man.’
‘Redenbacher?’
‘I might be able to.’
‘A slim chance.’
‘Too slim for you?’
‘Look …’ said Löwenherz; he laughed in protest and embarrassment. ‘You can’t just put this to me, here and now.’
‘How much longer is there? By this time tomorrow the man who took you into battle when you were a duckling will be in a concentration camp.’
‘A civilian prison. They will hold him for trial and investigation.’
‘A nice distinction. And afterwards release him with a reprimand?’
‘Can’t we talk about it tomorrow?’
‘Herr Oberleutnant, we can’t put off everything until tomorrow.’
‘That’s what Himmel said.’
‘Exactly.’ The swarthy Kokke stroked his short beard reflectively.
There was a click as the Operations Room clerk switched on the microphone and a hum as the circuit came alive. Under his feet Bubi awoke, snorted, yawned and nibbled at Löwenherz’s boot.
‘You should have made your bet, Kokke. I was wrong, the Tommis are early.’
Kokke didn’t answer. Löwenherz looked around the hut; no one had moved but now their bodies were tense. There were only dim red lights glowing in the Alert Hut, not enough light to read, scarcely enough to play chess. At the far end of the hut there was a huge glass aquarium; inside it tropical fish moved in slow motion. Löwenherz remembered the day it had arrived: five men and a heavy lorry. They spent three days fixing it up; it had been supplied by order of the High Command. At the time the whole Geschwader had been desperately short of cannon shells and no amount of pleading would release the aquarium lorry to fetch some.
He remembered the winter battles before Moscow, the men clad in their thin summer uniforms. One of the last air lifts into Stalingrad had brought rubber contraceptives. He remembered too the fuss they had made about salvaging the motor of the ancient wrecked Junkers before finding that it was a British engine. The whole damned Luftwaffe was being mismanaged by political favouritism and political fanaticism. The Freezing Report that Himmel had shown him was just one step away from the aquarium.
I’ll stand by Himmel, thought Löwenherz and suddenly realized he’d said it aloud. My God, he thought, that bloody aquarium!
‘Thank you, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Kokke. ‘I knew you would.’
‘I’m a fool,’ said Löwenherz, and he wondered if he could get out of it some way.
The microphone click came again and the dispatcher’s voice said, ‘Achtung! Achtung! Oberleutnant Löwenherz, Major Redenbacher and Leutnant Kokke to instant readiness. Oberfeldwebel Himmel, Leutnant Beer and Feldwebel Schramm are now at alert.’ The toneless voice ended with an electronic click.
‘Thanks,’ said Kokke as he zipped his flying overall. ‘We’ll beat them, Oberleutnant.’
‘Why do you think that?’ asked Löwenherz bitterly. They were both grabbing at their equipment and climbing over out-stretched legs as they moved to the door. Löwenherz saw his radar operator pulling on his boots and made sure that Mrosek, his observer, was also ready.
‘Put away your knitting, Klimke,’ Kokke shouted. He turned back to Löwenherz. ‘Because we are such an unlikely combination,’ said Kokke. He grinned.
Löwenherz nodded but was unconvinced. ‘Hals- und Bein-bruch!’ he said. To express the wish that a friend will break his neck and leg was said to fool the devil and bring him back safe. Kokke waved a grateful response.
‘Uniform hats,’ called Löwenherz to his crewmen Sachs and Mrosek. They both waved their folding cloth caps at him and Löwenherz responded by clasping his white-topped cap under his arm. If their aeroplane should be diverted to another airfield, the military police would make the devil of a fuss if they were hatless.
Löwenherz always insisted that his crew carried all the items that regulations demanded. Laden under a signal pistol, a garterful of flares, dinghy, lifejacket, parachute, iron rations, Pervitin tablets and a flashlight, they all hobbled to their plane.
It was cold outside and the yeasty smell of the sea was on the wind. The aeroplanes were warm and ready to go, and their crews were glad of the comparative comfort of their cockpits. Löwenherz placed his peaked cap behind his seat and made sure that his radio leads were fixed to his flying suit, exactly as regulations prescribed. Then he plugged it in and connected his oxygen tube. After that he made sure that his crew had done the same. His hands went through the sixty consecutive hand movements that they had done blindfold at training school. The green and red panel lamps came alight. The ground crews were fussing around the rudders and wheels.
He looked at his observer seated beside him: Mrosek, a nineteen-year-old Leutnant with long black hair. His pinched face and prominent incisors gave him a rodent-like appearance; a comparison endorsed by his narrow chest, small stature and wiry agility. After the cannons had been fired it was Mrosek’s job to crawl head-first into the nose to wrestle full drums on to the guns. That was difficult enough on the ground, but many times Mrosek had done it while Löwenherz had the plane in a dizzying vertical bank coming around for a second attack.
Mrosek’s father was a vineyard manager from Heidelberg. Perhaps the proximity of so much wine had helped to make his disposition cheerful. He gave Löwenherz his quick ratty grin and held up his binoculars before he could be asked if they were aboard.
