CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Oman-bin-Yassir Street, Baghdad, Iraq, March 12th, 1941
“We never did find out who shot him.” Despite being lost in his reminiscences of the mysterious Oberst Odwin Noth, Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny never stopped watching the darkened streets that surrounded the limousine taking his party through Baghdad. “We know he knew nothing about guns; he called Noth’s P’08 pistol a revolver. That’s what tipped us off to the fact the suicide note was a fake.”
“I thought Oberst Noth was killed resisting arrest for the charge of treason and collaboration.” Obersturmführer Stephan Bähr found himself being sucked into the story of the mysterious Noth Affair. He had a shrewd suspicion that few knew the truth of what had happened that night. Those who did were very guarded with their words in case they too might suffer a mysterious fate.
“That was the official story, yes, and the one Reinhard Heydrich would like us all to believe. But the truth is that he was dead when the guards got there and there was only a clumsily forged suicide note to explain things. And the file on the Noth Plan was missing. There was an unidentified SS-Sturmbannführer there that night and suspicions focus on him. Who he was and what he wanted; we shall not know until we find him.” And then he will tell us everything, was the unspoken addition. But he disappeared as if he had never been.
“The Noth Plan,” Bähr spoke thoughtfully about the notorious document. “Could it have been a serious proposal?”
Skorzeny’s huge laugh filled the limousine. A big man with a magnetic, almost hypnotic, charm, he had climbed the ranks fast. He had served with distinction in the Netherlands and France, starting the campaigns as an Untersturmführer in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Regiment. By the time the campaign to end French resistance after the British Armistice was complete, he had been promoted to Obersturmführer and established a reputation for daring. What that reputation didn’t say was that the bitter fighting against the French Army had soured him on conventional military operations. Instead, he had become fascinated with the possibilities of unconventional commando warfare. He had proposed that Germany develop units specialized in such techniques, including partisan-like fighting deep behind enemy lines, fighting in enemy uniform, sabotage attacks, and so on. In December 1940 Skorzeny had been summoned to meet with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, head of the SS foreign intelligence service department. The two men had talked long into the night and by dawn, Schellenberg charged Skorzeny with command of the schools organized to train operatives in sabotage, espionage, and paramilitary techniques. A week later, Skorzeny had been promoted to Hauptsturmführer and was appointed commander of a company-sized commando unit, Waffen Sonderverband.
His first action had been to rename the unit SS Jägdverband 502 and enlarge it to a full battalion by trawling the entire Wehrmacht for men in his image. His timing was almost supernaturally perfect. While he was reorganizing and expanding his new command, everybody else’s eyes had been fastened on North and East Africa where a handful of Commonwealth troops under General Wavell were speedily dismantling the entire Italian empire in Africa. By the time Wavell’s troops had finished, Italy had been forced to accept a peace agreement that had eliminated its position in East Africa and reduced its North African holdings to Libya. The Commonwealth of Nations, as the British Commonwealth had renamed itself, had won a stunning and completely unexpected victory that established its independent existence on the world stage. When attention returned to home matters, the expansion of SS Jägdverband 502 was complete. Also, by then the idea of small units that could achieve great things had become suddenly very fashionable.
“Dear God, no.” Skorzeny’s voice was almost comical in its disbelief. “It was the product of a rank amateur who knew nothing of strategy or military operations. A pretty good rule for you, my friend. If somebody comes up with a simple, war-winning strategy that will change everything, shoot them. On the spot, before anybody starts listening to them. There are no simple strategies that can win a war in an afternoon. Even if one seems to do so, it will rely on years of preparation and planning.”
Skorzeny stopped speaking suddenly. He had experienced something very strange, a chill that surged through his body and lapped against his soul. In the dimmed lights of the limousine, the dueling scar that marked his face seemed to glisten. He shook himself. For some strange reason, he felt as if terrible darkness had momentarily descended on his soul. When he resumed, a lot of the bombast and self-confidence had vanished from his voice.
“The Noth Plan envisaged two thrusts: one by a combined German-Italian force from North Africa, through the Middle East, and into Iraq. The second would be a purely German thrust south, through the Balkans, across Turkey, and then joining up with the first in Iraq. The united forces would then attack India. Once India was secured, we would turn on Russia and attack it from multiple directions including a blow from Japan into Siberia. It was quite ridiculous of course, the North African ports are barely capable of supporting the Italian forces already in North Africa, and the logistic ability to move supplies east is negligible. The British are in an excellent position because they have good ports and a railway to move supplies up. And, of course, we’ve just seen what happens in North Africa when a mechanized enemy fights one who is not.”
“But, they were Italians.” Bähr was dismissive.
“Don’t make the mistake the rest of the world is indulging in.” Skorzeny was severe but there was a purpose behind the severity. Skorzeny had his eyes set firmly on the future. In his eyes, he was instructing this young officer and bringing him along as a potential successor. One of several potential successors of course. “The Italians fought as well as anybody could under impossible circumstances. What made the difference was that General Wavell looked at the map and saw what could be done, not what he would like to do or what he feared his enemy might do to him. That is the mark of a skilled commander, young man, and don’t you forget it. We face that same man today.
“The northern thrust was even more impossible. Oh, we could make it through the Balkans and European Turkey although the fighting would have been harder than Noth believed. But, once deep inside Turkey, the supply net fades to nothing. No, my young friend, the Noth plan was never a serious possibility, and we were all fortunate that Odwin Noth got himself killed before he could suggest otherwise. Yet, he has continued to hound us even from beyond the grave. That damned plan of his got out somehow and the Allies got hold of a copy. Presumably, the one that vanished the night Noth was killed. Canaris believes that the Indians took it very seriously and that’s why they supported Wavell in North Africa. They assumed it was our intent and that it made any peace agreement worthless. If the Noth Plan had been serious, the North African war would have been a brilliant piece of strategy. As it is, they think they struck us a serious blow and their self-confidence has been much increased. Damn Noth and his stupid daydreams.” Skorzeny shook his head angrily.
“But, if the Noth Plan was so foolish, what are we doing here?” Skorzeny’s lecture had left Bähr confused.
Skorzeny checked the location. There was a little time left before his car reached its destination. “SS-Brigadeführer Schellenberg thought we might try and turn the Indian obsession with the Noth Plan to our advantage. He thought that we could bribe the dissident Qashqai people in Iran to sabotage British and Indian forces guarding the oil fields there. That would convince them that the Noth Plan was still in effect and act as a useful diversion from Barbarossa. It was a weak effort and the Abwehr were not up to the task. The Qashqai took the money and turned the Abwehr operatives over to the Indians. But, out of that fiasco, something much better appeared. It seems as if an operation in Iraq has much better prospects and with Barbarossa starting in less than two months, a diversion will be of great value. Even if the coup here fails, it will help Stalin drop his guard. If it succeeds, then we will hurt the Indian position here and give them a real problem to chew upon. A company of Jägdverband 502 and some aircraft, older ones, of course, will not be too much to pay for that.”
The car pulled up outside a suburban house, one that was, by the standards of Iraq, luxurious. Skorzeny looked at and his lips curled. “Now, my young friend, let us see what our esteemed ally, Sayyad Rashid Aali al-Gillani, has to say for himself.
Cabinet Office, 10 Downing Street, London
Sleep plagued by nightmares, night after night without respite would slowly destroy any man and Sir Edward Bridges was no exception. His shadowed, sunken eyes felt sore as if a long holiday on the beach had left them filled with fine sand. He succumbed to temptation and rubbed them but, as he knew it would, doing so only made the feeling worse. He put his spectacles back in place and looked sadly at Lord Halifax. The only surprises Prime Ministers like in Cabinet meetings are the ones they spring themselves and, for obvious reasons, Lord Halifax was more sensitive than most on that score. From that simple principle came one of Sir Edward’s most important duties. It was to ensure, so far as possible, that the PM was not taken unawares by anything his Ministers had to say. That, in turn, made him the official conduit for Cabinet’s unofficial consensus, in both directions. Making known to the Minister through their Secretaries his master’s true desires, as opposed to whatever he might say in public or Cabinet Room while keeping the PM abreast of both the Minister’s and the Civil Service’s positions. It was a position of immense power, for he who carried the message shaped its contents and ‘guided’ the compromises that resulted, but it was a power that called for great restraint too and Bridges feared that today restraint would not be an option.
Lord Halifax was firm on the surprise he intended to spring upon the assembled Ministers of State. “The country is best served by the quickest return to normality that we might arrange. Britain was built on free trade, and if the Dominions chose to part company from us and surrender Imperial Preference, then to free trade we shall return...”
“Hear hear” murmured Bridges approvingly.
“... Now we again have unencumbered access to trade, it would be utter stupidity to delay our return to the world’s markets...”
“Very true sir, very true” nodded Bridges.
“and the first clear step is to phase out rationing – it is dreadfully unpopular and now totally superfluous.”
“Sir, on that point I must beg to differ with you.” Once again, the images of his nightmares returned to haunt him. The previous night had been especially bad. Once again, his sleep had been cursed by the dream of walking through the streets of a London that had been emptied by starvation. Doors banging in the wind, dust blowing in the streets, and the fat, healthy rats peering at him from the shadows, waiting for him to die as well. Only, in this dream, he had reached his home and found two skeletons in the living room and realized they were his remains and those of his wife. He shook himself and realized that Halifax was still speaking.
“Oh, come on man, we may import as we like, our currency reserves in South America are ample, and can only improve with renewed trade. Rationing limits home consumption, and the home market underpins exports. The war is over, there is no cause to subject the British people to unnecessary rationing, and its elimination is the clearest possible message we as the Government might send that those days are now behind us. Unless you are suggesting the Dominions will try to interfere with our shipping or the United States is likely to declare war upon us, I see no reason why we should maintain food rationing.” Halifax leaned forward against the Cabinet table opening his arms to expose the left in the process. To a man who had become an expert in reading body language, the sign meant that the Prime Minister was on comfortable ground and the implied susceptibility to the argument was encouraging.
“No Prime Minister, It is not the United States or the Commonwealth of Nations that I fear. If anything, the Commonwealth needs to export food to us much more than we need to buy it from them. We are in a buyer’s market and we can use that position to strike the most favorable trading agreements. It is an opportunity we should not miss. I find Berlin rather more of a concern...”
“I have Herr Hitler’s assurance that he has no further ambitions concerning this country. There is no reason why he should act in anything but good faith. He has everything he wants, Sir Edward,” reasoned Halifax. “Herr Hitler acts in the interest of his country and we do not stand in the way of those. There is no possible reason why he should pursue us further.
“Prime Minister, I have a great deal of faith in Herr Hitler’s assurances; after Austria, Czechoslovakia, Munich, Poland, the Baltics, and his obvious respect for Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian neutrality. As for his agreements with us, they are already beginning to develop cracks. This morning a replacement Luftwaffe field police detachment arrived to relieve the one stationed at Tangmere. A sergeant and twelve men.”
“So?” Halifax was genuinely confused.
“We agreed that the Luftwaffe field police detachment at each of the four airfields they use would be a corporal and eight men. A corporal’s guard.”
“A few men? Will four extra men endanger the security of the realm?” Lord Halifax was now openly derisive.
“In itself, no. But the trend it represents does. And there is a shadow that overhangs us all. Hitler may act in the interests of German as he sees those interests but we know he does not see the world with the same eyes as the rest of us. To him, the primary goal is the destruction of Bolshevism and that means war with Russia.”
“And what is Russia to us, man? If he goes after the Bolsheviks then nothing could be more calculated to serve our interests. Napoleon made the same mistake and look where that got him in the end.”
“Sir, I have no real idea if Hitler has a chance in Russia or not. Given how well he has done so far one is inclined to grant him the benefit of the doubt. I do not disagree that the best of all outcomes for us should come if Hitler chances his arm against the Russians, breaking yet another treaty I note. If he wins that he will have his precious Lebensraum and we need not worry about the Germans for perhaps a generation, and we would have the time we need to bail out our ship. If he falls short, then there will be a long bloody war in the snows of Russia that will leave them both crippled and exhausted.”
“He’ll still be far too busy to bother us, Sir Edward. I do appreciate your point, but win, lose, or draw I have no intention of being pulled into a conflict with Russia as a German ally so I fail to see how we can do poorly if he is silly enough to go for Red Joe.”
“And, if he should ask our assistance, sir? And that you should refuse... and we expect Berlin to take that in good heart? Every piece of evidence we have is that when Hitler is foiled, he reacts violently and lashes out at those who thwart his wishes. The whole history of wars in Russia tells us that those who invade find the task far harder than they had imagined. If that is again so, we may anticipate a German appeal for assistance. Faced with our inevitable refusal, they try their hands at compulsion. Why is it unreasonable to also anticipate the effect of his most likely tool – submarines?”
Halifax stared at him and Bridges felt despair rising in his soul once more. The simple fact was that Lord Halifax wanted to lift the most annoying impost on the British public, food rationing, to bolster his flagging popular support. Peace was popular, yes, but presently they had a ‘Phony Peace’ that retained all the petty tribulations of war for the public, and that not only aggravated people, worse it confused them when the Government was already on uncertain ground. “Sir Edward, I wouldn’t mind so much if you didn’t want to spend even more on buying food and building up the stockpiles to ever-higher levels! One can appreciate taking a cautious approach, but if you insist it is sensible perhaps you might care to take up gardening” suggested Halifax ominously.
“Thank you sir, but I find my garden does quite well without undue attention, I have some quite fine marrows under glass at present and with any luck a decent crop of broad beans.”
“Good God man, a Victory garden?” The Prime Minister was almost speechless. It wasn’t so much that the Cabinet Secretary was growing vegetables, a man’s hobby was his own business, but that an acknowledged flower man was still cultivating broad beans so long after the Armistice? “You’re bloody serious aren’t you? This isn’t just a matter of caution, you really do fear a disaster.”
“They say a pessimist is never disappointed; but I far prefer to measure my chances, the garden is just a sensible precaution. This is the safety, the security, the very survival of our Island sir. We are a global trading power, our very survival based upon the fact that even very long-distance sea transport is cheaper than short-distance land transport. Every British schoolboy knows that it is cheaper to send coal from Cardiff to Port Said by ship than to London by train. It is also cheaper to bring wheat from the River Plate to London than it is to send that wheat by rail to Northampton. That position as a global trading power is our great strength but it is also our most vulnerable weakness.
“I tell you, Sir, there shall not be a second armistice with Hitler if we break the first by defying him, and we may not count on any resources but our own. I do most honestly and seriously fear a disaster of unparalleled dimensions is in prospect and a few careful steps now may save untold lives in the future. Remember, Sir, what happened in 1917. We were only a few weeks away from starvation then. The cause was not the sinking of ships and cargoes but the absence of stocks to buffer the shortages that resulted from the losses. The beef that was landed on Tuesday was eaten and forgotten by Friday. No ship on Tuesday and there’ll be no meals the day after. Our policy since 1917 has always been minimum stocks in peacetime but maximum in war. I see no reason to change that while the world remains in contention. The truth is our estrangement from the Commonwealth of Nations as they now call themselves is peripheral to this main issue. To be sure, the Empire became more important to British trade when Imperial preference was introduced in the early 1930s. Even so, Sir, most of Britain’s trade remains extra-imperial, as does our broader economic influence. The Scandinavian countries import more from Britain than does India or South Africa. There are many other aspects to this as well. Fertilizer for example. Our provisions against isolation are dependent upon the availability of fertilizer to boost crops grown at home. We need to have stockpiles of fertilizer in case imports become unavailable. Need, I remind you, Sir, that the chief supplier of fertilizer is the United States? Are we sure we can trust them?”
Halifax looked at him very steadily. “Sir Edward, this is a matter upon which we profoundly disagree, but I must take note of the sincerity with which you have argued your views. And of the fact that your actions support your words. Your point about our fertilizer supplies is well-made. We most certainly cannot trust the Americans to maintain supplies. I am, reluctantly, convinced by your argument. The question of rescinding food rationing will be put to one side for consideration in six months. But do not bother me again with trivialities such as the rank of a German NCO or the number of men he has at his command. Now, I believe it is time for Cabinet to meet.”
1941 - Conflict of Interest
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Oman-bin-Yassir Street, Baghdad, Iraq, March 12th, 1941
“We never did find out who shot him.” Despite being lost in his reminiscences of the mysterious Oberst Odwin Noth, Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny never stopped watching the darkened streets that surrounded the limousine taking his party through Baghdad. “We know he knew nothing about guns; he called Noth’s P’08 pistol a revolver. That’s what tipped us off to the fact the suicide note was a fake.”
“I thought Oberst Noth was killed resisting arrest for the charge of treason and collaboration.” Obersturmführer Stephan Bähr found himself being sucked into the story of the mysterious Noth Affair. He had a shrewd suspicion that few knew the truth of what had happened that night. Those who did were very guarded with their words in case they too might suffer a mysterious fate.
“That was the official story, yes, and the one Reinhard Heydrich would like us all to believe. But the truth is that he was dead when the guards got there and there was only a clumsily forged suicide note to explain things. And the file on the Noth Plan was missing. There was an unidentified SS-Sturmbannführer there that night and suspicions focus on him. Who he was and what he wanted; we shall not know until we find him.” And then he will tell us everything, was the unspoken addition. But he disappeared as if he had never been.
“The Noth Plan,” Bähr spoke thoughtfully about the notorious document. “Could it have been a serious proposal?”
Skorzeny’s huge laugh filled the limousine. A big man with a magnetic, almost hypnotic, charm, he had climbed the ranks fast. He had served with distinction in the Netherlands and France, starting the campaigns as an Untersturmführer in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Regiment. By the time the campaign to end French resistance after the British Armistice was complete, he had been promoted to Obersturmführer and established a reputation for daring. What that reputation didn’t say was that the bitter fighting against the French Army had soured him on conventional military operations. Instead, he had become fascinated with the possibilities of unconventional commando warfare. He had proposed that Germany develop units specialized in such techniques, including partisan-like fighting deep behind enemy lines, fighting in enemy uniform, sabotage attacks, and so on. In December 1940 Skorzeny had been summoned to meet with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, head of the SS foreign intelligence service department. The two men had talked long into the night and by dawn, Schellenberg charged Skorzeny with command of the schools organized to train operatives in sabotage, espionage, and paramilitary techniques. A week later, Skorzeny had been promoted to Hauptsturmführer and was appointed commander of a company-sized commando unit, Waffen Sonderverband.
His first action had been to rename the unit SS Jägdverband 502 and enlarge it to a full battalion by trawling the entire Wehrmacht for men in his image. His timing was almost supernaturally perfect. While he was reorganizing and expanding his new command, everybody else’s eyes had been fastened on North and East Africa where a handful of Commonwealth troops under General Wavell were speedily dismantling the entire Italian empire in Africa. By the time Wavell’s troops had finished, Italy had been forced to accept a peace agreement that had eliminated its position in East Africa and reduced its North African holdings to Libya. The Commonwealth of Nations, as the British Commonwealth had renamed itself, had won a stunning and completely unexpected victory that established its independent existence on the world stage. When attention returned to home matters, the expansion of SS Jägdverband 502 was complete. Also, by then the idea of small units that could achieve great things had become suddenly very fashionable.
“Dear God, no.” Skorzeny’s voice was almost comical in its disbelief. “It was the product of a rank amateur who knew nothing of strategy or military operations. A pretty good rule for you, my friend. If somebody comes up with a simple, war-winning strategy that will change everything, shoot them. On the spot, before anybody starts listening to them. There are no simple strategies that can win a war in an afternoon. Even if one seems to do so, it will rely on years of preparation and planning.”
Skorzeny stopped speaking suddenly. He had experienced something very strange, a chill that surged through his body and lapped against his soul. In the dimmed lights of the limousine, the dueling scar that marked his face seemed to glisten. He shook himself. For some strange reason, he felt as if terrible darkness had momentarily descended on his soul. When he resumed, a lot of the bombast and self-confidence had vanished from his voice.
“The Noth Plan envisaged two thrusts: one by a combined German-Italian force from North Africa, through the Middle East, and into Iraq. The second would be a purely German thrust south, through the Balkans, across Turkey, and then joining up with the first in Iraq. The united forces would then attack India. Once India was secured, we would turn on Russia and attack it from multiple directions including a blow from Japan into Siberia. It was quite ridiculous of course, the North African ports are barely capable of supporting the Italian forces already in North Africa, and the logistic ability to move supplies east is negligible. The British are in an excellent position because they have good ports and a railway to move supplies up. And, of course, we’ve just seen what happens in North Africa when a mechanized enemy fights one who is not.”
“But, they were Italians.” Bähr was dismissive.
“Don’t make the mistake the rest of the world is indulging in.” Skorzeny was severe but there was a purpose behind the severity. Skorzeny had his eyes set firmly on the future. In his eyes, he was instructing this young officer and bringing him along as a potential successor. One of several potential successors of course. “The Italians fought as well as anybody could under impossible circumstances. What made the difference was that General Wavell looked at the map and saw what could be done, not what he would like to do or what he feared his enemy might do to him. That is the mark of a skilled commander, young man, and don’t you forget it. We face that same man today.
“The northern thrust was even more impossible. Oh, we could make it through the Balkans and European Turkey although the fighting would have been harder than Noth believed. But, once deep inside Turkey, the supply net fades to nothing. No, my young friend, the Noth plan was never a serious possibility, and we were all fortunate that Odwin Noth got himself killed before he could suggest otherwise. Yet, he has continued to hound us even from beyond the grave. That damned plan of his got out somehow and the Allies got hold of a copy. Presumably, the one that vanished the night Noth was killed. Canaris believes that the Indians took it very seriously and that’s why they supported Wavell in North Africa. They assumed it was our intent and that it made any peace agreement worthless. If the Noth Plan had been serious, the North African war would have been a brilliant piece of strategy. As it is, they think they struck us a serious blow and their self-confidence has been much increased. Damn Noth and his stupid daydreams.” Skorzeny shook his head angrily.
“But, if the Noth Plan was so foolish, what are we doing here?” Skorzeny’s lecture had left Bähr confused.
Skorzeny checked the location. There was a little time left before his car reached its destination. “SS-Brigadeführer Schellenberg thought we might try and turn the Indian obsession with the Noth Plan to our advantage. He thought that we could bribe the dissident Qashqai people in Iran to sabotage British and Indian forces guarding the oil fields there. That would convince them that the Noth Plan was still in effect and act as a useful diversion from Barbarossa. It was a weak effort and the Abwehr were not up to the task. The Qashqai took the money and turned the Abwehr operatives over to the Indians. But, out of that fiasco, something much better appeared. It seems as if an operation in Iraq has much better prospects and with Barbarossa starting in less than two months, a diversion will be of great value. Even if the coup here fails, it will help Stalin drop his guard. If it succeeds, then we will hurt the Indian position here and give them a real problem to chew upon. A company of Jägdverband 502 and some aircraft, older ones, of course, will not be too much to pay for that.”
The car pulled up outside a suburban house, one that was, by the standards of Iraq, luxurious. Skorzeny looked at and his lips curled. “Now, my young friend, let us see what our esteemed ally, Sayyad Rashid Aali al-Gillani, has to say for himself.
Cabinet Office, 10 Downing Street, London
Sleep plagued by nightmares, night after night without respite would slowly destroy any man and Sir Edward Bridges was no exception. His shadowed, sunken eyes felt sore as if a long holiday on the beach had left them filled with fine sand. He succumbed to temptation and rubbed them but, as he knew it would, doing so only made the feeling worse. He put his spectacles back in place and looked sadly at Lord Halifax. The only surprises Prime Ministers like in Cabinet meetings are the ones they spring themselves and, for obvious reasons, Lord Halifax was more sensitive than most on that score. From that simple principle came one of Sir Edward’s most important duties. It was to ensure, so far as possible, that the PM was not taken unawares by anything his Ministers had to say. That, in turn, made him the official conduit for Cabinet’s unofficial consensus, in both directions. Making known to the Minister through their Secretaries his master’s true desires, as opposed to whatever he might say in public or Cabinet Room while keeping the PM abreast of both the Minister’s and the Civil Service’s positions. It was a position of immense power, for he who carried the message shaped its contents and ‘guided’ the compromises that resulted, but it was a power that called for great restraint too and Bridges feared that today restraint would not be an option.
Lord Halifax was firm on the surprise he intended to spring upon the assembled Ministers of State. “The country is best served by the quickest return to normality that we might arrange. Britain was built on free trade, and if the Dominions chose to part company from us and surrender Imperial Preference, then to free trade we shall return...”
“Hear hear” murmured Bridges approvingly.
“... Now we again have unencumbered access to trade, it would be utter stupidity to delay our return to the world’s markets...”
“Very true sir, very true” nodded Bridges.
“and the first clear step is to phase out rationing – it is dreadfully unpopular and now totally superfluous.”
“Sir, on that point I must beg to differ with you.” Once again, the images of his nightmares returned to haunt him. The previous night had been especially bad. Once again, his sleep had been cursed by the dream of walking through the streets of a London that had been emptied by starvation. Doors banging in the wind, dust blowing in the streets, and the fat, healthy rats peering at him from the shadows, waiting for him to die as well. Only, in this dream, he had reached his home and found two skeletons in the living room and realized they were his remains and those of his wife. He shook himself and realized that Halifax was still speaking.
“Oh, come on man, we may import as we like, our currency reserves in South America are ample, and can only improve with renewed trade. Rationing limits home consumption, and the home market underpins exports. The war is over, there is no cause to subject the British people to unnecessary rationing, and its elimination is the clearest possible message we as the Government might send that those days are now behind us. Unless you are suggesting the Dominions will try to interfere with our shipping or the United States is likely to declare war upon us, I see no reason why we should maintain food rationing.” Halifax leaned forward against the Cabinet table opening his arms to expose the left in the process. To a man who had become an expert in reading body language, the sign meant that the Prime Minister was on comfortable ground and the implied susceptibility to the argument was encouraging.
“No Prime Minister, It is not the United States or the Commonwealth of Nations that I fear. If anything, the Commonwealth needs to export food to us much more than we need to buy it from them. We are in a buyer’s market and we can use that position to strike the most favorable trading agreements. It is an opportunity we should not miss. I find Berlin rather more of a concern...”
“I have Herr Hitler’s assurance that he has no further ambitions concerning this country. There is no reason why he should act in anything but good faith. He has everything he wants, Sir Edward,” reasoned Halifax. “Herr Hitler acts in the interest of his country and we do not stand in the way of those. There is no possible reason why he should pursue us further.
“Prime Minister, I have a great deal of faith in Herr Hitler’s assurances; after Austria, Czechoslovakia, Munich, Poland, the Baltics, and his obvious respect for Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian neutrality. As for his agreements with us, they are already beginning to develop cracks. This morning a replacement Luftwaffe field police detachment arrived to relieve the one stationed at Tangmere. A sergeant and twelve men.”
“So?” Halifax was genuinely confused.
“We agreed that the Luftwaffe field police detachment at each of the four airfields they use would be a corporal and eight men. A corporal’s guard.”
“A few men? Will four extra men endanger the security of the realm?” Lord Halifax was now openly derisive.
“In itself, no. But the trend it represents does. And there is a shadow that overhangs us all. Hitler may act in the interests of German as he sees those interests but we know he does not see the world with the same eyes as the rest of us. To him, the primary goal is the destruction of Bolshevism and that means war with Russia.”
“And what is Russia to us, man? If he goes after the Bolsheviks then nothing could be more calculated to serve our interests. Napoleon made the same mistake and look where that got him in the end.”
“Sir, I have no real idea if Hitler has a chance in Russia or not. Given how well he has done so far one is inclined to grant him the benefit of the doubt. I do not disagree that the best of all outcomes for us should come if Hitler chances his arm against the Russians, breaking yet another treaty I note. If he wins that he will have his precious Lebensraum and we need not worry about the Germans for perhaps a generation, and we would have the time we need to bail out our ship. If he falls short, then there will be a long bloody war in the snows of Russia that will leave them both crippled and exhausted.”
“He’ll still be far too busy to bother us, Sir Edward. I do appreciate your point, but win, lose, or draw I have no intention of being pulled into a conflict with Russia as a German ally so I fail to see how we can do poorly if he is silly enough to go for Red Joe.”
“And, if he should ask our assistance, sir? And that you should refuse... and we expect Berlin to take that in good heart? Every piece of evidence we have is that when Hitler is foiled, he reacts violently and lashes out at those who thwart his wishes. The whole history of wars in Russia tells us that those who invade find the task far harder than they had imagined. If that is again so, we may anticipate a German appeal for assistance. Faced with our inevitable refusal, they try their hands at compulsion. Why is it unreasonable to also anticipate the effect of his most likely tool – submarines?”
Halifax stared at him and Bridges felt despair rising in his soul once more. The simple fact was that Lord Halifax wanted to lift the most annoying impost on the British public, food rationing, to bolster his flagging popular support. Peace was popular, yes, but presently they had a ‘Phony Peace’ that retained all the petty tribulations of war for the public, and that not only aggravated people, worse it confused them when the Government was already on uncertain ground. “Sir Edward, I wouldn’t mind so much if you didn’t want to spend even more on buying food and building up the stockpiles to ever-higher levels! One can appreciate taking a cautious approach, but if you insist it is sensible perhaps you might care to take up gardening” suggested Halifax ominously.
“Thank you sir, but I find my garden does quite well without undue attention, I have some quite fine marrows under glass at present and with any luck a decent crop of broad beans.”
“Good God man, a Victory garden?” The Prime Minister was almost speechless. It wasn’t so much that the Cabinet Secretary was growing vegetables, a man’s hobby was his own business, but that an acknowledged flower man was still cultivating broad beans so long after the Armistice? “You’re bloody serious aren’t you? This isn’t just a matter of caution, you really do fear a disaster.”
“They say a pessimist is never disappointed; but I far prefer to measure my chances, the garden is just a sensible precaution. This is the safety, the security, the very survival of our Island sir. We are a global trading power, our very survival based upon the fact that even very long-distance sea transport is cheaper than short-distance land transport. Every British schoolboy knows that it is cheaper to send coal from Cardiff to Port Said by ship than to London by train. It is also cheaper to bring wheat from the River Plate to London than it is to send that wheat by rail to Northampton. That position as a global trading power is our great strength but it is also our most vulnerable weakness.
“I tell you, Sir, there shall not be a second armistice with Hitler if we break the first by defying him, and we may not count on any resources but our own. I do most honestly and seriously fear a disaster of unparalleled dimensions is in prospect and a few careful steps now may save untold lives in the future. Remember, Sir, what happened in 1917. We were only a few weeks away from starvation then. The cause was not the sinking of ships and cargoes but the absence of stocks to buffer the shortages that resulted from the losses. The beef that was landed on Tuesday was eaten and forgotten by Friday. No ship on Tuesday and there’ll be no meals the day after. Our policy since 1917 has always been minimum stocks in peacetime but maximum in war. I see no reason to change that while the world remains in contention. The truth is our estrangement from the Commonwealth of Nations as they now call themselves is peripheral to this main issue. To be sure, the Empire became more important to British trade when Imperial preference was introduced in the early 1930s. Even so, Sir, most of Britain’s trade remains extra-imperial, as does our broader economic influence. The Scandinavian countries import more from Britain than does India or South Africa. There are many other aspects to this as well. Fertilizer for example. Our provisions against isolation are dependent upon the availability of fertilizer to boost crops grown at home. We need to have stockpiles of fertilizer in case imports become unavailable. Need, I remind you, Sir, that the chief supplier of fertilizer is the United States? Are we sure we can trust them?”
Halifax looked at him very steadily. “Sir Edward, this is a matter upon which we profoundly disagree, but I must take note of the sincerity with which you have argued your views. And of the fact that your actions support your words. Your point about our fertilizer supplies is well-made. We most certainly cannot trust the Americans to maintain supplies. I am, reluctantly, convinced by your argument. The question of rescinding food rationing will be put to one side for consideration in six months. But do not bother me again with trivialities such as the rank of a German NCO or the number of men he has at his command. Now, I believe it is time for Cabinet to meet.”
Oman-bin-Yassir Street, Baghdad, Iraq, March 12th, 1941
“We never did find out who shot him.” Despite being lost in his reminiscences of the mysterious Oberst Odwin Noth, Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny never stopped watching the darkened streets that surrounded the limousine taking his party through Baghdad. “We know he knew nothing about guns; he called Noth’s P’08 pistol a revolver. That’s what tipped us off to the fact the suicide note was a fake.”
“I thought Oberst Noth was killed resisting arrest for the charge of treason and collaboration.” Obersturmführer Stephan Bähr found himself being sucked into the story of the mysterious Noth Affair. He had a shrewd suspicion that few knew the truth of what had happened that night. Those who did were very guarded with their words in case they too might suffer a mysterious fate.
“That was the official story, yes, and the one Reinhard Heydrich would like us all to believe. But the truth is that he was dead when the guards got there and there was only a clumsily forged suicide note to explain things. And the file on the Noth Plan was missing. There was an unidentified SS-Sturmbannführer there that night and suspicions focus on him. Who he was and what he wanted; we shall not know until we find him.” And then he will tell us everything, was the unspoken addition. But he disappeared as if he had never been.
“The Noth Plan,” Bähr spoke thoughtfully about the notorious document. “Could it have been a serious proposal?”
Skorzeny’s huge laugh filled the limousine. A big man with a magnetic, almost hypnotic, charm, he had climbed the ranks fast. He had served with distinction in the Netherlands and France, starting the campaigns as an Untersturmführer in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Regiment. By the time the campaign to end French resistance after the British Armistice was complete, he had been promoted to Obersturmführer and established a reputation for daring. What that reputation didn’t say was that the bitter fighting against the French Army had soured him on conventional military operations. Instead, he had become fascinated with the possibilities of unconventional commando warfare. He had proposed that Germany develop units specialized in such techniques, including partisan-like fighting deep behind enemy lines, fighting in enemy uniform, sabotage attacks, and so on. In December 1940 Skorzeny had been summoned to meet with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, head of the SS foreign intelligence service department. The two men had talked long into the night and by dawn, Schellenberg charged Skorzeny with command of the schools organized to train operatives in sabotage, espionage, and paramilitary techniques. A week later, Skorzeny had been promoted to Hauptsturmführer and was appointed commander of a company-sized commando unit, Waffen Sonderverband.
His first action had been to rename the unit SS Jägdverband 502 and enlarge it to a full battalion by trawling the entire Wehrmacht for men in his image. His timing was almost supernaturally perfect. While he was reorganizing and expanding his new command, everybody else’s eyes had been fastened on North and East Africa where a handful of Commonwealth troops under General Wavell were speedily dismantling the entire Italian empire in Africa. By the time Wavell’s troops had finished, Italy had been forced to accept a peace agreement that had eliminated its position in East Africa and reduced its North African holdings to Libya. The Commonwealth of Nations, as the British Commonwealth had renamed itself, had won a stunning and completely unexpected victory that established its independent existence on the world stage. When attention returned to home matters, the expansion of SS Jägdverband 502 was complete. Also, by then the idea of small units that could achieve great things had become suddenly very fashionable.
“Dear God, no.” Skorzeny’s voice was almost comical in its disbelief. “It was the product of a rank amateur who knew nothing of strategy or military operations. A pretty good rule for you, my friend. If somebody comes up with a simple, war-winning strategy that will change everything, shoot them. On the spot, before anybody starts listening to them. There are no simple strategies that can win a war in an afternoon. Even if one seems to do so, it will rely on years of preparation and planning.”
Skorzeny stopped speaking suddenly. He had experienced something very strange, a chill that surged through his body and lapped against his soul. In the dimmed lights of the limousine, the dueling scar that marked his face seemed to glisten. He shook himself. For some strange reason, he felt as if terrible darkness had momentarily descended on his soul. When he resumed, a lot of the bombast and self-confidence had vanished from his voice.
“The Noth Plan envisaged two thrusts: one by a combined German-Italian force from North Africa, through the Middle East, and into Iraq. The second would be a purely German thrust south, through the Balkans, across Turkey, and then joining up with the first in Iraq. The united forces would then attack India. Once India was secured, we would turn on Russia and attack it from multiple directions including a blow from Japan into Siberia. It was quite ridiculous of course, the North African ports are barely capable of supporting the Italian forces already in North Africa, and the logistic ability to move supplies east is negligible. The British are in an excellent position because they have good ports and a railway to move supplies up. And, of course, we’ve just seen what happens in North Africa when a mechanized enemy fights one who is not.”
“But, they were Italians.” Bähr was dismissive.
“Don’t make the mistake the rest of the world is indulging in.” Skorzeny was severe but there was a purpose behind the severity. Skorzeny had his eyes set firmly on the future. In his eyes, he was instructing this young officer and bringing him along as a potential successor. One of several potential successors of course. “The Italians fought as well as anybody could under impossible circumstances. What made the difference was that General Wavell looked at the map and saw what could be done, not what he would like to do or what he feared his enemy might do to him. That is the mark of a skilled commander, young man, and don’t you forget it. We face that same man today.
“The northern thrust was even more impossible. Oh, we could make it through the Balkans and European Turkey although the fighting would have been harder than Noth believed. But, once deep inside Turkey, the supply net fades to nothing. No, my young friend, the Noth plan was never a serious possibility, and we were all fortunate that Odwin Noth got himself killed before he could suggest otherwise. Yet, he has continued to hound us even from beyond the grave. That damned plan of his got out somehow and the Allies got hold of a copy. Presumably, the one that vanished the night Noth was killed. Canaris believes that the Indians took it very seriously and that’s why they supported Wavell in North Africa. They assumed it was our intent and that it made any peace agreement worthless. If the Noth Plan had been serious, the North African war would have been a brilliant piece of strategy. As it is, they think they struck us a serious blow and their self-confidence has been much increased. Damn Noth and his stupid daydreams.” Skorzeny shook his head angrily.
“But, if the Noth Plan was so foolish, what are we doing here?” Skorzeny’s lecture had left Bähr confused.
Skorzeny checked the location. There was a little time left before his car reached its destination. “SS-Brigadeführer Schellenberg thought we might try and turn the Indian obsession with the Noth Plan to our advantage. He thought that we could bribe the dissident Qashqai people in Iran to sabotage British and Indian forces guarding the oil fields there. That would convince them that the Noth Plan was still in effect and act as a useful diversion from Barbarossa. It was a weak effort and the Abwehr were not up to the task. The Qashqai took the money and turned the Abwehr operatives over to the Indians. But, out of that fiasco, something much better appeared. It seems as if an operation in Iraq has much better prospects and with Barbarossa starting in less than two months, a diversion will be of great value. Even if the coup here fails, it will help Stalin drop his guard. If it succeeds, then we will hurt the Indian position here and give them a real problem to chew upon. A company of Jägdverband 502 and some aircraft, older ones, of course, will not be too much to pay for that.”
The car pulled up outside a suburban house, one that was, by the standards of Iraq, luxurious. Skorzeny looked at and his lips curled. “Now, my young friend, let us see what our esteemed ally, Sayyad Rashid Aali al-Gillani, has to say for himself.
Cabinet Office, 10 Downing Street, London
Sleep plagued by nightmares, night after night without respite would slowly destroy any man and Sir Edward Bridges was no exception. His shadowed, sunken eyes felt sore as if a long holiday on the beach had left them filled with fine sand. He succumbed to temptation and rubbed them but, as he knew it would, doing so only made the feeling worse. He put his spectacles back in place and looked sadly at Lord Halifax. The only surprises Prime Ministers like in Cabinet meetings are the ones they spring themselves and, for obvious reasons, Lord Halifax was more sensitive than most on that score. From that simple principle came one of Sir Edward’s most important duties. It was to ensure, so far as possible, that the PM was not taken unawares by anything his Ministers had to say. That, in turn, made him the official conduit for Cabinet’s unofficial consensus, in both directions. Making known to the Minister through their Secretaries his master’s true desires, as opposed to whatever he might say in public or Cabinet Room while keeping the PM abreast of both the Minister’s and the Civil Service’s positions. It was a position of immense power, for he who carried the message shaped its contents and ‘guided’ the compromises that resulted, but it was a power that called for great restraint too and Bridges feared that today restraint would not be an option.
Lord Halifax was firm on the surprise he intended to spring upon the assembled Ministers of State. “The country is best served by the quickest return to normality that we might arrange. Britain was built on free trade, and if the Dominions chose to part company from us and surrender Imperial Preference, then to free trade we shall return...”
“Hear hear” murmured Bridges approvingly.
“... Now we again have unencumbered access to trade, it would be utter stupidity to delay our return to the world’s markets...”
“Very true sir, very true” nodded Bridges.
“and the first clear step is to phase out rationing – it is dreadfully unpopular and now totally superfluous.”
“Sir, on that point I must beg to differ with you.” Once again, the images of his nightmares returned to haunt him. The previous night had been especially bad. Once again, his sleep had been cursed by the dream of walking through the streets of a London that had been emptied by starvation. Doors banging in the wind, dust blowing in the streets, and the fat, healthy rats peering at him from the shadows, waiting for him to die as well. Only, in this dream, he had reached his home and found two skeletons in the living room and realized they were his remains and those of his wife. He shook himself and realized that Halifax was still speaking.
“Oh, come on man, we may import as we like, our currency reserves in South America are ample, and can only improve with renewed trade. Rationing limits home consumption, and the home market underpins exports. The war is over, there is no cause to subject the British people to unnecessary rationing, and its elimination is the clearest possible message we as the Government might send that those days are now behind us. Unless you are suggesting the Dominions will try to interfere with our shipping or the United States is likely to declare war upon us, I see no reason why we should maintain food rationing.” Halifax leaned forward against the Cabinet table opening his arms to expose the left in the process. To a man who had become an expert in reading body language, the sign meant that the Prime Minister was on comfortable ground and the implied susceptibility to the argument was encouraging.
“No Prime Minister, It is not the United States or the Commonwealth of Nations that I fear. If anything, the Commonwealth needs to export food to us much more than we need to buy it from them. We are in a buyer’s market and we can use that position to strike the most favorable trading agreements. It is an opportunity we should not miss. I find Berlin rather more of a concern...”
“I have Herr Hitler’s assurance that he has no further ambitions concerning this country. There is no reason why he should act in anything but good faith. He has everything he wants, Sir Edward,” reasoned Halifax. “Herr Hitler acts in the interest of his country and we do not stand in the way of those. There is no possible reason why he should pursue us further.
“Prime Minister, I have a great deal of faith in Herr Hitler’s assurances; after Austria, Czechoslovakia, Munich, Poland, the Baltics, and his obvious respect for Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian neutrality. As for his agreements with us, they are already beginning to develop cracks. This morning a replacement Luftwaffe field police detachment arrived to relieve the one stationed at Tangmere. A sergeant and twelve men.”
“So?” Halifax was genuinely confused.
“We agreed that the Luftwaffe field police detachment at each of the four airfields they use would be a corporal and eight men. A corporal’s guard.”
“A few men? Will four extra men endanger the security of the realm?” Lord Halifax was now openly derisive.
“In itself, no. But the trend it represents does. And there is a shadow that overhangs us all. Hitler may act in the interests of German as he sees those interests but we know he does not see the world with the same eyes as the rest of us. To him, the primary goal is the destruction of Bolshevism and that means war with Russia.”
“And what is Russia to us, man? If he goes after the Bolsheviks then nothing could be more calculated to serve our interests. Napoleon made the same mistake and look where that got him in the end.”
“Sir, I have no real idea if Hitler has a chance in Russia or not. Given how well he has done so far one is inclined to grant him the benefit of the doubt. I do not disagree that the best of all outcomes for us should come if Hitler chances his arm against the Russians, breaking yet another treaty I note. If he wins that he will have his precious Lebensraum and we need not worry about the Germans for perhaps a generation, and we would have the time we need to bail out our ship. If he falls short, then there will be a long bloody war in the snows of Russia that will leave them both crippled and exhausted.”
“He’ll still be far too busy to bother us, Sir Edward. I do appreciate your point, but win, lose, or draw I have no intention of being pulled into a conflict with Russia as a German ally so I fail to see how we can do poorly if he is silly enough to go for Red Joe.”
“And, if he should ask our assistance, sir? And that you should refuse... and we expect Berlin to take that in good heart? Every piece of evidence we have is that when Hitler is foiled, he reacts violently and lashes out at those who thwart his wishes. The whole history of wars in Russia tells us that those who invade find the task far harder than they had imagined. If that is again so, we may anticipate a German appeal for assistance. Faced with our inevitable refusal, they try their hands at compulsion. Why is it unreasonable to also anticipate the effect of his most likely tool – submarines?”
Halifax stared at him and Bridges felt despair rising in his soul once more. The simple fact was that Lord Halifax wanted to lift the most annoying impost on the British public, food rationing, to bolster his flagging popular support. Peace was popular, yes, but presently they had a ‘Phony Peace’ that retained all the petty tribulations of war for the public, and that not only aggravated people, worse it confused them when the Government was already on uncertain ground. “Sir Edward, I wouldn’t mind so much if you didn’t want to spend even more on buying food and building up the stockpiles to ever-higher levels! One can appreciate taking a cautious approach, but if you insist it is sensible perhaps you might care to take up gardening” suggested Halifax ominously.
“Thank you sir, but I find my garden does quite well without undue attention, I have some quite fine marrows under glass at present and with any luck a decent crop of broad beans.”
“Good God man, a Victory garden?” The Prime Minister was almost speechless. It wasn’t so much that the Cabinet Secretary was growing vegetables, a man’s hobby was his own business, but that an acknowledged flower man was still cultivating broad beans so long after the Armistice? “You’re bloody serious aren’t you? This isn’t just a matter of caution, you really do fear a disaster.”
“They say a pessimist is never disappointed; but I far prefer to measure my chances, the garden is just a sensible precaution. This is the safety, the security, the very survival of our Island sir. We are a global trading power, our very survival based upon the fact that even very long-distance sea transport is cheaper than short-distance land transport. Every British schoolboy knows that it is cheaper to send coal from Cardiff to Port Said by ship than to London by train. It is also cheaper to bring wheat from the River Plate to London than it is to send that wheat by rail to Northampton. That position as a global trading power is our great strength but it is also our most vulnerable weakness.
“I tell you, Sir, there shall not be a second armistice with Hitler if we break the first by defying him, and we may not count on any resources but our own. I do most honestly and seriously fear a disaster of unparalleled dimensions is in prospect and a few careful steps now may save untold lives in the future. Remember, Sir, what happened in 1917. We were only a few weeks away from starvation then. The cause was not the sinking of ships and cargoes but the absence of stocks to buffer the shortages that resulted from the losses. The beef that was landed on Tuesday was eaten and forgotten by Friday. No ship on Tuesday and there’ll be no meals the day after. Our policy since 1917 has always been minimum stocks in peacetime but maximum in war. I see no reason to change that while the world remains in contention. The truth is our estrangement from the Commonwealth of Nations as they now call themselves is peripheral to this main issue. To be sure, the Empire became more important to British trade when Imperial preference was introduced in the early 1930s. Even so, Sir, most of Britain’s trade remains extra-imperial, as does our broader economic influence. The Scandinavian countries import more from Britain than does India or South Africa. There are many other aspects to this as well. Fertilizer for example. Our provisions against isolation are dependent upon the availability of fertilizer to boost crops grown at home. We need to have stockpiles of fertilizer in case imports become unavailable. Need, I remind you, Sir, that the chief supplier of fertilizer is the United States? Are we sure we can trust them?”
Halifax looked at him very steadily. “Sir Edward, this is a matter upon which we profoundly disagree, but I must take note of the sincerity with which you have argued your views. And of the fact that your actions support your words. Your point about our fertilizer supplies is well-made. We most certainly cannot trust the Americans to maintain supplies. I am, reluctantly, convinced by your argument. The question of rescinding food rationing will be put to one side for consideration in six months. But do not bother me again with trivialities such as the rank of a German NCO or the number of men he has at his command. Now, I believe it is time for Cabinet to meet.”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Two
Headquarters, Artillery Regiment 171, 71st Infantry Division, Przemyśl, Silesia.
“I believe our days of wine, women, and song are over.” Colonel Klaus Marcks looked deeply sorrowful as well he might for ‘the happy time’ was indeed about to end. The 71st Infantry had seen a lot of action in France, where it distinguished itself at Sedan and in the advance to Verdun. There had been a brief scare when the headquarters had been ordered to prepare plans for the invasion of Britain but the Armistice had quickly settled those. The division had returned to Germany in October as part of the High Command’s reserve and served as a training unit in the Königsbrück Troop Maneuver Area from then until the end of February 1941. As part of that role, it demonstrated some of the new equipment that was being delivered in time for the coming campaign in Russia. Those months had been happy indeed. Duties that were far from arduous, new toys to play with, and plenty of time to relax.
Across the table, Captain Heinrich Asbach nodded in reluctant agreement. “The forward depots are full, every unit is up to strength and we are up to allocation on our equipment. We are fortunate, Klaus, our period as a demonstration unit means we have the good stuff. I have a feeling we will need it.”
Marcks chuckled and lifted a bottle of brandy from Asbach’s family vineyards. “We do indeed. And I have a feeling that we will need this as well before the war is over. We have had the final word just today. Our new commander, Lieutenant-General Alexander von Hartmann has revealed to us that we will be launching our offensive on 15 May 1941. Yes, he did specify 1941. We are to get ready to move to our jump-off positions immediately.”
Asbach nodded in acknowledgment. Major General Friedrich Herrlein had been in command of the 71st for only a few weeks before being transferred to the 18th Motorized Infantry. That made von Hartmann the 71st’s third commander in two months. It was as sure a sign as any that another campaign was indeed about to start. A shuffling of commanders so that square pegs were in square holes. More ominously, the shifting of a carefully calculated percentage of the most skilled and experienced officers to the rear. The same was being done for experienced NCOs. It had to be carefully calculated; too many such transfers and the units would be badly weakened. Too few and there would be insufficiently skilled cadres to rebuild units shattered in battle. One of the things that worried both Marcks and Asbach was the general assumption throughout the planning staff that this was going to be an easy war. The staff officers spoke of a Russian Army that had been gutted by purges and paralyzed by political officers who placed party interests above the demands of military operations. They seemed convinced that the battles would go exactly how they wanted them to, and that the Russian infantry would plod, stolidly and uncomplainingly to its death. Perhaps the ripple of reassignments meant that not all the General Staff believed things would be quite so easy.
“Of course, we have a lot to thank the Indians and Australians for.” Marcks’ eyes twinkled. “When they gave the Italians such a splendid thrashing, they quite knocked the stuffing out of Mussolini. Any plans he might have had for further Italian operations have been forgotten.”
“I don’t quite follow you?” Asbach opened a bottle of his family’s best brandy and poured glasses for himself and his Colonel.
“There were rumors, no more than that of course, that Italy was going to become involved in the Balkans and that Barbarossa would be delayed by up to six weeks as a result. We would have to support them you see. There was talk of the invasion being pushed back to June 22nd. Well, all of that’s gone away now. We’re rolling on the originally planned date.”
“I’d heard it was a shortage of trucks that was holding us up.” Asbach sipped his brandy and sighed gently to himself.
“It was, but the Armistice has opened a whole new source of supply. Our old friend Fritz Todt has managed to buy large numbers of trucks from AEC and Thornycroft in England. Imagine that the Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition actually doing something useful.” Asbach winced. Marcks was outspoken to a fault and in the developing atmosphere within Germany, being outspoken was a serious fault. Sometimes a fatal one.
Marcks noted the reaction and smiled slightly. He had a more sensitive finger on the political pulse than his friend realized and that told him Todt’s star was waning quickly. Separating himself from the man was a prudent step, not a foolhardy one. “We are to be part of the Seventeenth Army commanded by General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel. Our assigned task is to plan for the advance on Lwow.”
Asbach went to the operations safe and took out a series of maps. “We are leading the way?”
“Our infantry is. We will be following to support them of course. General von Hartmann has ordered us to detach our 105mm battalions to the infantry regiments. We’ll be general support with the 100mm guns and the 150mm howitzers.
Asbach looked at the maps carefully. “Rava Russkaya, a small town right on the border. That’s where it’ll all start.”
Marcks nodded very slowly, more in acknowledgment that in agreement. “The 71st will take Rava Russkaya. We will be getting aerial photographs of the town very soon to help us plan the assault. Yes, Heini, we will indeed be starting at Rava Russkaya. Where this will all end is another matter.”
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“Of course, we still face the problem of Goa.” Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, now Deputy Viceroy and heir apparent to the Marquess of Linlithgow as the administrative head of the Indian Government, reluctantly brought up yet another of the issues that troubled the new government of India.
“We have approached the government of Portugal. They refuse to negotiate with us on the transfer of sovereignty of their Indian enclaves to our administration. The same applies to the enclaves of Damão, Diu, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli. I fear that the Viceroy, José Ricardo Pereira Cabral, is deaf to any approach on the matter. I have even tried to approach him on an unofficial basis, Viceroy to Viceroy so to speak, but he is as unresponsive on a private basis as he is in public.” The Marquess of Linlithgow shook his head in despair at the blindness of his Portuguese opposite number.
“It is unconscionable that the Portuguese should retain these outposts while the rest of India is rejoicing in its freedom.” Nehru looked around, slightly surprised at the applause his remark had raised. It had only been a few months before that resistance to Indian independence had been the cause of an attempted coup and threat of civil war. Yet, a striking military victory and its associated political successes had brought about a reconciliation between the old and new guards that was both astonishing and inspiring. Unity of spirit no matter how welcome does not solve problems he thought, nor does it mean unity of opinion. Nehru wasn’t quite aware of how much that thought represented a change in his own positions. That change would have seemed unimaginable a year ago.
“Three battalions of infantry, one sloop, and three gunboats with four Vickers Valparaiso IIs in support. Total strength, three thousand, three hundred and eighty-nine men.” General Auchinleck recited the figures without hesitation.
“There is a complicating factor. Portugal has maintained its neutrality in the war. Several Axis ships have sought refuge in Goa rather than face the likelihood of interception by our Navy. There were three German ships, the Ehrenfels, the Drachenfels, and the Braunfels, as well as an Italian ship trapped in Goa harbor. We have every reason to believe that at least one of those ships is transmitting information on our merchant ship movements in the Indian Ocean, with extremely damaging consequences for our shipping.” Sir Eric Haohoa, now firmly settled in place as Cabinet Secretary, had supervision of the intelligence services as part of his responsibilities.
“That could be considered a hostile act.” Gerald Tarrant, Private Secretary to the Viceroy was one of those who had taken service to the new, independent India to heart. Nevertheless, he spoke carefully since the weight carried by his words was of profound importance. “It is certainly an unfriendly act, assuming, of course, that the Portuguese authorities know what is happening.”
“We can be reasonably certain that they do.” Sir Eric sounded positive about that fact. “The issue has been raised with them, but their position is that they will do nothing unless we produce positive, physical proof that the ships in question are transmitting the information in question. In other words, we cannot get access to those ships without producing the radios and we can’t produce the radios until we get access to the ships. The Portuguese authorities are required to investigate possible breaches of neutrality, but they decline to do so.”
“Shame.” The muted mutter went around the conference table.
“This brings us to the issue of Sayyad Rashid Aali al-Gillani.” Sir Eric was also deeply concerned about the impending coup in Iraq and its potential implications for the war effort.
“A matter that we must consider carefully.” The newly appointed Attorney General, Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad, was attending his first Cabinet meeting. He had sat quietly, watching the proceedings and absorbing the atmosphere of the assembly. A lifelong advocate of Indian independence, he was also a strong supporter of Indian unity. Yet, as a scrupulously impartial advocate of universally recognized integrity, he felt his first spoken contributions to the discussions were as inevitable as they would be controversial. “We must recognize that the desires that motivate Sayyad Rashid are not so different from those that impel us to resolve the situation in Goa. We both share a desire to remove foreign forces from our country and to unify it under our own rule.”
Setalvad had expected an outcry at his words but instead, they caused a prolonged pause. Eventually, Nehru broke it but when he did so, he spoke slowly and carefully as if he was offering an explanation that he doubted. “It is said that a man might be judged by the company he keeps. Would this also not apply to nations? We choose to ally ourselves with those who stand for human freedom and dignity. Sayyad Rashid chooses to ally himself with those who have a long record of conquest and oppression. Do we not seek to make India a better country for all its citizens whether we agree with their opinions or not? Does not Sayyad Rashid seek only to benefit those who share his beliefs and aspirations?”
“Yet, nevertheless, we speak of invading Goa and seizing it from its present rulers. Sayyad Rashid is in process of staging a coup against the present rulers of his country. There is too much in common here for me to reach an easy conclusion regarding Goa.”
“I assume that we have informed the Iraqi authorities that a coup is pending?” Harold Hartley assumed that they had and that they had ignored the warning
“We have; they ridiculed the warning.” Sir Eric spoke with frustration. Refusal to believe that a coup was possible seemed to be an indispensable ingredient in making one happen. Crown Prince Abd al-Ilāh of Hejaz seemed completely unable to accept that a plan to depose him not only existed but was very close to fruition.
“We have the advanced guard of the 10th Brigade, a part of the 5th Division, currently stationed in Basra.” General Auchinleck stumbled slightly over the unit designations. It was hard for him to remember that these were no longer the Indian divisions of the British Empire but the divisions of an independent Indian Army. “The rest of the Brigade is still in Sudan, mopping up resistance there. There’s no operational reason why we couldn’t move them to join the spearhead. General Wavell has the situation in North Africa well in hand now. Operation Compass was a brilliant success in that respect.”
“Two South African, one Australian and two Indian infantry divisions and one British armored division. All fully motorized. And the New Zealanders in Palestine. We indeed have that part of the world well-guarded. Can we really economize on the forces there?” The Marquess of Linlithgow threw the comment out. Bringing troops home would be popular. If they managed to crush the impending Iraqi revolt on the way, so much the better.”
“I don’t think General Wavell would object to losing a proportion of his force.” Auchinleck stared at the maps pinned on the walls of the Cabinet Room. “The South Africans are holding the Horn and approaches to Kenya. With the New Zealanders keeping the back door through Palestine firmly closed, I don’t see that the remaining Commonwealth forces are that badly needed there. We could shift the 5th Division out and send that to Iraq. For the time being, we can say it is ready to come home with a great victory to its credit.”
“And Goa?” Nehru was still disturbed by the comparison between his desires to see Goa reincorporated into India and the objectives of the plotters in Iraq.
“Pandit, I would recommend we put that issue on the ‘watch and wait’ list. Let the situation there mature.” The Marquess of Linlithgow was firmly of the opinion that the time was not yet ripe to deal with that situation. He was relieved to see Nehru nodding in agreement.
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“The wing guns have jammed again.” Squadron Leader Pim Bosede looked at the NCO in charge of the ordnance section with something close to despair. It is a strange thing, he thought, when we first got our Tomahawks, we thought they were the finest aircraft that had ever been built and could find no fault with them. But as familiarity with them has grown and our battles together receded into the past, their problems become more apparent.
Warrant Officer (Class 2) Jacob Hofwegen looked at the pilot reproachfully. Pim Bosede had been given command of the squadron only a week or so earlier when Petrus van Bram had been promoted to Wing Commander and recalled to South Africa. The promotion was a sign of how quickly South Africa’s military power was increasing. A year before, the country had possessed just two squadrons of obsolete Hawker Fury biplane fighters. Now it had nine squadrons of fighters, all equipped with a variety of modern monoplanes. Finding pilots was the problem. There were but a small handful of veterans who had experienced the fighting in East Africa and over the Desert. The rest were recruits barely out of training school. Most of 4 Squadron’s veterans had gone as well, stripped out to form cadres for the new units. Like every other new commander, Bosede was determined to make sure his command was at its best and, like every new commander, was finding out that improving on what had gone before was harder than it seemed.
“The problems are both the guns and the ammunition, Sir.” Hofwegen had written a report on exactly these issues for van Bram, but he assumed Bosede hadn’t read it yet. “The wing Browning’s were designed to operate with American .30-06 ammunition which is much more powerful than the .303 ammunition we use. The reduced power affects the reliability of the guns. Also, the ammunition we are getting from India is variable in quality. Some meet the specification, but many do not. So, we are keeping the South African-made ammunition which we can trust for when we need it, and training with the Indian stuff. The other problem is the installation of the wing guns themselves. The Tomahawk was designed to carry a pair of nose .50s only; the wing guns were a late addition to the design. So, the feed isn’t perfect and jams up when firing while the aircraft makes tight turns. Sir, you’ll note we have no problems with the nose guns.”
“That is a small mercy, I agree.” That was another problem that was becoming apparent. The Tomahawk had been a very useful fighter for 1940, especially when facing older Italian aircraft. Its paper performance had been pedestrian, but its toughness and reliability had made up for that. After all, it was the aircraft that had swept the skies clear of Italian fighters over East Africa and Cyrenaica. The problem now was that time had moved on and it was well into 1941. The German Bf-109E had always been, at the very least, a match for the Tomahawk but the Luftwaffe was now supposed to be flying a new F-model that was faster and more agile. There were also rumors of a new German fighter, one with a radial engine, which could outfly anything the allies had. All the new enemy fighters had armor for the pilot, self-sealing fuel tanks, and bullet-proof windscreens, luxuries that the Tomahawks sorely lacked. Bosede had received a private report from van Bram that suggested installing armor and additional firepower on the Tomahawks had weighed the aircraft down so much that their performance had suffered badly. The general gist of the message had been that the Commonwealth would have to fight with what they had for some months at least.
“A moment of your time, Squadron Leader?” Group Captain Seymour Linford had approached quietly while the discussion had been going on. The two officers drifted away from the somewhat relieved Warrant Officer. When they were at a discrete distance, Linford continued. “Pim, Air Vice Marshal Smart would like to know how many of your fighters are operational if everything fell apart right now?”
Bosede thought for a moment. “Probably twelve of the sixteen we have on strength. Hofwegen is doing a damned fine job in keeping us flying, all things considered.”
“That’s the best of all the units we have here.” Linford wanted to make a point, gently and tactfully but still firmly. “You’re very lucky to have him. Are the wing gun problems that bad?”
Again, Bosede thought before answering. “They’re no worse than they were over East Africa, but those four .30s are a big part of our firepower. We can, we will carry on as we are, but it would help if we found a solution to the jamming.”
“That’s the spirit. And I’m sure if anybody can fix it, Warrant Officer Hofwegen can. Yours are the only real fighters we’ve got here. We’ve got eight Wellingtons and eighteen Marylands which gives us a pretty good bomber force and almost eighty Hinds and Audaxes we can use for army support. But your fighters are the key, Pim. Keep up the good work.”
Bosede watched the British officer depart with a degree of confusion. Have I just been given a rocket, or haven’t I?
Headquarters, Artillery Regiment 171, 71st Infantry Division, Przemyśl, Silesia.
“I believe our days of wine, women, and song are over.” Colonel Klaus Marcks looked deeply sorrowful as well he might for ‘the happy time’ was indeed about to end. The 71st Infantry had seen a lot of action in France, where it distinguished itself at Sedan and in the advance to Verdun. There had been a brief scare when the headquarters had been ordered to prepare plans for the invasion of Britain but the Armistice had quickly settled those. The division had returned to Germany in October as part of the High Command’s reserve and served as a training unit in the Königsbrück Troop Maneuver Area from then until the end of February 1941. As part of that role, it demonstrated some of the new equipment that was being delivered in time for the coming campaign in Russia. Those months had been happy indeed. Duties that were far from arduous, new toys to play with, and plenty of time to relax.
Across the table, Captain Heinrich Asbach nodded in reluctant agreement. “The forward depots are full, every unit is up to strength and we are up to allocation on our equipment. We are fortunate, Klaus, our period as a demonstration unit means we have the good stuff. I have a feeling we will need it.”
Marcks chuckled and lifted a bottle of brandy from Asbach’s family vineyards. “We do indeed. And I have a feeling that we will need this as well before the war is over. We have had the final word just today. Our new commander, Lieutenant-General Alexander von Hartmann has revealed to us that we will be launching our offensive on 15 May 1941. Yes, he did specify 1941. We are to get ready to move to our jump-off positions immediately.”
Asbach nodded in acknowledgment. Major General Friedrich Herrlein had been in command of the 71st for only a few weeks before being transferred to the 18th Motorized Infantry. That made von Hartmann the 71st’s third commander in two months. It was as sure a sign as any that another campaign was indeed about to start. A shuffling of commanders so that square pegs were in square holes. More ominously, the shifting of a carefully calculated percentage of the most skilled and experienced officers to the rear. The same was being done for experienced NCOs. It had to be carefully calculated; too many such transfers and the units would be badly weakened. Too few and there would be insufficiently skilled cadres to rebuild units shattered in battle. One of the things that worried both Marcks and Asbach was the general assumption throughout the planning staff that this was going to be an easy war. The staff officers spoke of a Russian Army that had been gutted by purges and paralyzed by political officers who placed party interests above the demands of military operations. They seemed convinced that the battles would go exactly how they wanted them to, and that the Russian infantry would plod, stolidly and uncomplainingly to its death. Perhaps the ripple of reassignments meant that not all the General Staff believed things would be quite so easy.
“Of course, we have a lot to thank the Indians and Australians for.” Marcks’ eyes twinkled. “When they gave the Italians such a splendid thrashing, they quite knocked the stuffing out of Mussolini. Any plans he might have had for further Italian operations have been forgotten.”
“I don’t quite follow you?” Asbach opened a bottle of his family’s best brandy and poured glasses for himself and his Colonel.
“There were rumors, no more than that of course, that Italy was going to become involved in the Balkans and that Barbarossa would be delayed by up to six weeks as a result. We would have to support them you see. There was talk of the invasion being pushed back to June 22nd. Well, all of that’s gone away now. We’re rolling on the originally planned date.”
“I’d heard it was a shortage of trucks that was holding us up.” Asbach sipped his brandy and sighed gently to himself.
“It was, but the Armistice has opened a whole new source of supply. Our old friend Fritz Todt has managed to buy large numbers of trucks from AEC and Thornycroft in England. Imagine that the Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition actually doing something useful.” Asbach winced. Marcks was outspoken to a fault and in the developing atmosphere within Germany, being outspoken was a serious fault. Sometimes a fatal one.
Marcks noted the reaction and smiled slightly. He had a more sensitive finger on the political pulse than his friend realized and that told him Todt’s star was waning quickly. Separating himself from the man was a prudent step, not a foolhardy one. “We are to be part of the Seventeenth Army commanded by General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel. Our assigned task is to plan for the advance on Lwow.”
Asbach went to the operations safe and took out a series of maps. “We are leading the way?”
“Our infantry is. We will be following to support them of course. General von Hartmann has ordered us to detach our 105mm battalions to the infantry regiments. We’ll be general support with the 100mm guns and the 150mm howitzers.
Asbach looked at the maps carefully. “Rava Russkaya, a small town right on the border. That’s where it’ll all start.”
Marcks nodded very slowly, more in acknowledgment that in agreement. “The 71st will take Rava Russkaya. We will be getting aerial photographs of the town very soon to help us plan the assault. Yes, Heini, we will indeed be starting at Rava Russkaya. Where this will all end is another matter.”
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“Of course, we still face the problem of Goa.” Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, now Deputy Viceroy and heir apparent to the Marquess of Linlithgow as the administrative head of the Indian Government, reluctantly brought up yet another of the issues that troubled the new government of India.
“We have approached the government of Portugal. They refuse to negotiate with us on the transfer of sovereignty of their Indian enclaves to our administration. The same applies to the enclaves of Damão, Diu, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli. I fear that the Viceroy, José Ricardo Pereira Cabral, is deaf to any approach on the matter. I have even tried to approach him on an unofficial basis, Viceroy to Viceroy so to speak, but he is as unresponsive on a private basis as he is in public.” The Marquess of Linlithgow shook his head in despair at the blindness of his Portuguese opposite number.
“It is unconscionable that the Portuguese should retain these outposts while the rest of India is rejoicing in its freedom.” Nehru looked around, slightly surprised at the applause his remark had raised. It had only been a few months before that resistance to Indian independence had been the cause of an attempted coup and threat of civil war. Yet, a striking military victory and its associated political successes had brought about a reconciliation between the old and new guards that was both astonishing and inspiring. Unity of spirit no matter how welcome does not solve problems he thought, nor does it mean unity of opinion. Nehru wasn’t quite aware of how much that thought represented a change in his own positions. That change would have seemed unimaginable a year ago.
“Three battalions of infantry, one sloop, and three gunboats with four Vickers Valparaiso IIs in support. Total strength, three thousand, three hundred and eighty-nine men.” General Auchinleck recited the figures without hesitation.
“There is a complicating factor. Portugal has maintained its neutrality in the war. Several Axis ships have sought refuge in Goa rather than face the likelihood of interception by our Navy. There were three German ships, the Ehrenfels, the Drachenfels, and the Braunfels, as well as an Italian ship trapped in Goa harbor. We have every reason to believe that at least one of those ships is transmitting information on our merchant ship movements in the Indian Ocean, with extremely damaging consequences for our shipping.” Sir Eric Haohoa, now firmly settled in place as Cabinet Secretary, had supervision of the intelligence services as part of his responsibilities.
“That could be considered a hostile act.” Gerald Tarrant, Private Secretary to the Viceroy was one of those who had taken service to the new, independent India to heart. Nevertheless, he spoke carefully since the weight carried by his words was of profound importance. “It is certainly an unfriendly act, assuming, of course, that the Portuguese authorities know what is happening.”
“We can be reasonably certain that they do.” Sir Eric sounded positive about that fact. “The issue has been raised with them, but their position is that they will do nothing unless we produce positive, physical proof that the ships in question are transmitting the information in question. In other words, we cannot get access to those ships without producing the radios and we can’t produce the radios until we get access to the ships. The Portuguese authorities are required to investigate possible breaches of neutrality, but they decline to do so.”
“Shame.” The muted mutter went around the conference table.
“This brings us to the issue of Sayyad Rashid Aali al-Gillani.” Sir Eric was also deeply concerned about the impending coup in Iraq and its potential implications for the war effort.
“A matter that we must consider carefully.” The newly appointed Attorney General, Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad, was attending his first Cabinet meeting. He had sat quietly, watching the proceedings and absorbing the atmosphere of the assembly. A lifelong advocate of Indian independence, he was also a strong supporter of Indian unity. Yet, as a scrupulously impartial advocate of universally recognized integrity, he felt his first spoken contributions to the discussions were as inevitable as they would be controversial. “We must recognize that the desires that motivate Sayyad Rashid are not so different from those that impel us to resolve the situation in Goa. We both share a desire to remove foreign forces from our country and to unify it under our own rule.”
Setalvad had expected an outcry at his words but instead, they caused a prolonged pause. Eventually, Nehru broke it but when he did so, he spoke slowly and carefully as if he was offering an explanation that he doubted. “It is said that a man might be judged by the company he keeps. Would this also not apply to nations? We choose to ally ourselves with those who stand for human freedom and dignity. Sayyad Rashid chooses to ally himself with those who have a long record of conquest and oppression. Do we not seek to make India a better country for all its citizens whether we agree with their opinions or not? Does not Sayyad Rashid seek only to benefit those who share his beliefs and aspirations?”
“Yet, nevertheless, we speak of invading Goa and seizing it from its present rulers. Sayyad Rashid is in process of staging a coup against the present rulers of his country. There is too much in common here for me to reach an easy conclusion regarding Goa.”
“I assume that we have informed the Iraqi authorities that a coup is pending?” Harold Hartley assumed that they had and that they had ignored the warning
“We have; they ridiculed the warning.” Sir Eric spoke with frustration. Refusal to believe that a coup was possible seemed to be an indispensable ingredient in making one happen. Crown Prince Abd al-Ilāh of Hejaz seemed completely unable to accept that a plan to depose him not only existed but was very close to fruition.
“We have the advanced guard of the 10th Brigade, a part of the 5th Division, currently stationed in Basra.” General Auchinleck stumbled slightly over the unit designations. It was hard for him to remember that these were no longer the Indian divisions of the British Empire but the divisions of an independent Indian Army. “The rest of the Brigade is still in Sudan, mopping up resistance there. There’s no operational reason why we couldn’t move them to join the spearhead. General Wavell has the situation in North Africa well in hand now. Operation Compass was a brilliant success in that respect.”
“Two South African, one Australian and two Indian infantry divisions and one British armored division. All fully motorized. And the New Zealanders in Palestine. We indeed have that part of the world well-guarded. Can we really economize on the forces there?” The Marquess of Linlithgow threw the comment out. Bringing troops home would be popular. If they managed to crush the impending Iraqi revolt on the way, so much the better.”
“I don’t think General Wavell would object to losing a proportion of his force.” Auchinleck stared at the maps pinned on the walls of the Cabinet Room. “The South Africans are holding the Horn and approaches to Kenya. With the New Zealanders keeping the back door through Palestine firmly closed, I don’t see that the remaining Commonwealth forces are that badly needed there. We could shift the 5th Division out and send that to Iraq. For the time being, we can say it is ready to come home with a great victory to its credit.”
“And Goa?” Nehru was still disturbed by the comparison between his desires to see Goa reincorporated into India and the objectives of the plotters in Iraq.
“Pandit, I would recommend we put that issue on the ‘watch and wait’ list. Let the situation there mature.” The Marquess of Linlithgow was firmly of the opinion that the time was not yet ripe to deal with that situation. He was relieved to see Nehru nodding in agreement.
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“The wing guns have jammed again.” Squadron Leader Pim Bosede looked at the NCO in charge of the ordnance section with something close to despair. It is a strange thing, he thought, when we first got our Tomahawks, we thought they were the finest aircraft that had ever been built and could find no fault with them. But as familiarity with them has grown and our battles together receded into the past, their problems become more apparent.
Warrant Officer (Class 2) Jacob Hofwegen looked at the pilot reproachfully. Pim Bosede had been given command of the squadron only a week or so earlier when Petrus van Bram had been promoted to Wing Commander and recalled to South Africa. The promotion was a sign of how quickly South Africa’s military power was increasing. A year before, the country had possessed just two squadrons of obsolete Hawker Fury biplane fighters. Now it had nine squadrons of fighters, all equipped with a variety of modern monoplanes. Finding pilots was the problem. There were but a small handful of veterans who had experienced the fighting in East Africa and over the Desert. The rest were recruits barely out of training school. Most of 4 Squadron’s veterans had gone as well, stripped out to form cadres for the new units. Like every other new commander, Bosede was determined to make sure his command was at its best and, like every new commander, was finding out that improving on what had gone before was harder than it seemed.
“The problems are both the guns and the ammunition, Sir.” Hofwegen had written a report on exactly these issues for van Bram, but he assumed Bosede hadn’t read it yet. “The wing Browning’s were designed to operate with American .30-06 ammunition which is much more powerful than the .303 ammunition we use. The reduced power affects the reliability of the guns. Also, the ammunition we are getting from India is variable in quality. Some meet the specification, but many do not. So, we are keeping the South African-made ammunition which we can trust for when we need it, and training with the Indian stuff. The other problem is the installation of the wing guns themselves. The Tomahawk was designed to carry a pair of nose .50s only; the wing guns were a late addition to the design. So, the feed isn’t perfect and jams up when firing while the aircraft makes tight turns. Sir, you’ll note we have no problems with the nose guns.”
“That is a small mercy, I agree.” That was another problem that was becoming apparent. The Tomahawk had been a very useful fighter for 1940, especially when facing older Italian aircraft. Its paper performance had been pedestrian, but its toughness and reliability had made up for that. After all, it was the aircraft that had swept the skies clear of Italian fighters over East Africa and Cyrenaica. The problem now was that time had moved on and it was well into 1941. The German Bf-109E had always been, at the very least, a match for the Tomahawk but the Luftwaffe was now supposed to be flying a new F-model that was faster and more agile. There were also rumors of a new German fighter, one with a radial engine, which could outfly anything the allies had. All the new enemy fighters had armor for the pilot, self-sealing fuel tanks, and bullet-proof windscreens, luxuries that the Tomahawks sorely lacked. Bosede had received a private report from van Bram that suggested installing armor and additional firepower on the Tomahawks had weighed the aircraft down so much that their performance had suffered badly. The general gist of the message had been that the Commonwealth would have to fight with what they had for some months at least.
“A moment of your time, Squadron Leader?” Group Captain Seymour Linford had approached quietly while the discussion had been going on. The two officers drifted away from the somewhat relieved Warrant Officer. When they were at a discrete distance, Linford continued. “Pim, Air Vice Marshal Smart would like to know how many of your fighters are operational if everything fell apart right now?”
Bosede thought for a moment. “Probably twelve of the sixteen we have on strength. Hofwegen is doing a damned fine job in keeping us flying, all things considered.”
“That’s the best of all the units we have here.” Linford wanted to make a point, gently and tactfully but still firmly. “You’re very lucky to have him. Are the wing gun problems that bad?”
Again, Bosede thought before answering. “They’re no worse than they were over East Africa, but those four .30s are a big part of our firepower. We can, we will carry on as we are, but it would help if we found a solution to the jamming.”
“That’s the spirit. And I’m sure if anybody can fix it, Warrant Officer Hofwegen can. Yours are the only real fighters we’ve got here. We’ve got eight Wellingtons and eighteen Marylands which gives us a pretty good bomber force and almost eighty Hinds and Audaxes we can use for army support. But your fighters are the key, Pim. Keep up the good work.”
Bosede watched the British officer depart with a degree of confusion. Have I just been given a rocket, or haven’t I?
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Three
264 Squadron, Martlesham Heath, Essex, U.K.
“Freddie, a quiet word please?” Frederick Hughes looked up from his new aircraft at Wing Commander Tuck. His commanding officer was admiring the four wing guns fitted to the Defiant Mk.3.
“Good morning, Sir. Isn’t the new Daffy a beauty? Boulton Paul has put a new bay in the wings to give us a pair of .303s on each side and clipped the wingtips to maintain the same span. Given us a fourteen hundred horsepower Merlin Twenty as well. We’re more than twenty miles an hour faster than the Mk.1s.”
“Still can’t keep up with my Spitfire though.” Robert Stanford Tuck was smiling at the exuberance of the young pilot in front of him. Frederick Hughes and his gunner Frederick Gash, known to an admiring press as ‘the two Freds’ had six confirmed kills in their Defiant. A pair of them were Messerschmitt 109s that had been foolish enough to try and tackle the Defiant from the rear and had been sawn apart in mid-air by the four Brownings in its power-operated turret. The other four had been Heinkel 111s.
“I don’t have to, Sir. All I need is for you to start chasing me.” Hughes had an evil smile on his face. It was well-known that when the Defiant had entered service, 264s’s commander had challenged Tuck and his Spitfire to a dogfight. The Defiant had won. It had been the start of the Defiant’s reputation as a worthy successor to World War One’s Bristol Fighter. Privately, Tuck wondered how long that run of success would have lasted had not the Armistice ended the fighting. The evening after I lost that dogfight, I spent hours studying the Defiant and trying to devise new tactics against it. I have no doubt the German pilots did the same after they lost three dozen aircraft in a single day to a third of that number of Defiants. We know it’s vulnerable to head-on attacks was one such weakness and we’ve fixed it. But what else didn’t we spot?
“I’ll try and avoid doing that in the future. Look, Freddie, keep this to yourself, all right? I want you to do some test flights in your new kite and find out just how much fuel you can save by running the engine lean and pulling every trick you know to save petrol. We’ll measure success by how much you bring back as compared to flying her by the book. The same applies to ammunition. Use as little as possible. But, Freddie, when you fill in your reports, make sure you list the theoretical consumption, not how much you really used.”
“Building up a private reserve are we?”
Hughes looked at Tuck and saw the Wing Commander raise a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Just trying to manage our operations cost-effectively. The two Spitfire squadrons will be doing the same.”
“Sir, there’s something else we’ve been given on the Mark Threes.” Hughes went under the wing and pointed to an attachment just outside the main wheels. “We’ve got underwing shackles for bombs. Boulton Paul says we can carry a two hundred and fifty pounder under each wing. We were thinking about how to use a bomb-carrying Daffy and it seemed to us that the pilot could concentrate on attacking ground targets while the gunner kept enemy fighters away. If we’re down low, we don’t have to worry about the Huns getting underneath us. That was an even bigger blind spot than the head-on attacks you know.”
Tuck nodded slowly. It ran against the grain to admit a fighter could be used for anything other than fighting other aircraft but the Defiant was an odd sort of fighter. He could see that right down on the deck, its weaknesses would be minimized, and its strengths fully exploited. It was a tough kite as well, Boulton Paul had built the aircraft with a high margin of strength. Perhaps it would be in its element as an army cooperation aircraft. “Look into that Freddie. And, if you manage to bring any unexpended bombs back, so much the better.”
Conference Room, Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Canada
“I must admit that when the storm broke in June of last year, I was, for several weeks, very anxious about the result. But there was one thing about which there was never any doubt. The courage, the unconquerable grit, and stamina of the Commonwealth of Nations showed themselves from the very outset. Without that, all would have failed. Upon that rock of solidarity, all stood unshakable. The Commonwealth rose above the tribulations That Man inflicted on the British people and struck back, halting enemy aggression in its tracks and securing its proud and independent position on the world stage. Prepare yourselves, then, my friends and comrades, for this renewal of your exertions. We shall never turn from our purpose, however somber the road, however grievous the cost because we know that out of this time of trial and tribulation will be born a new freedom and glory for all mankind.”
“That’s very impressive, Winston, in fact, I might almost say inspiring. But we still can’t invade until the middle of next year at the earliest.” Prime Minister Mackenzie King sounded slightly exasperated by the exchange. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the Free British Government, had no real idea of the problems Canada faced in staging the counter-invasion of the United Kingdom. Indeed, he seemed to have little idea of the problems faced by the Commonwealth as a whole. ‘Fighting on’ had been easy to say in 1939. It had been much, much harder to do in 1940. “It is, simply put, quite impossible to move earlier than that.”
“We are most grateful for all you have done in the common cause, and we know that you are resolved to do whatever more is possible as the need arises and as opportunity serves. Canada occupies a unique position in the British Empire because of its unbreakable ties with Britain and its ever-growing friendship and intimate association with the United States. Canada is a potent magnet, drawing together those in the new world and in the old whose fortunes are now united in a deadly struggle for life and honor against the common foe. We do not expect to hit without being hit back, and we intend with every week that passes to hit harder. Prepare yourselves, then, my friends and comrades, for this renewal of your exertions. We shall never turn from our purpose, however somber the road, however grievous the cost because we know that out of this time of trial and tribulation will be born a new freedom and glory for all mankind. We must never relax our moral and physical efforts and preparation for the day of deliverance.”
Mackenzie King was, if anything, irritated by Churchill’s refusal to comprehend the difficulties that faced his proposals. “We cannot see that day, not until the middle of 1942 at the earliest. Winston, have you any idea of what this undertaking involves? A transatlantic invasion is no easy thing to contemplate. We are short of ships, we are short of aircraft, we are short of men. We have but three divisions of infantry available in Canada with a fourth converting into an armored formation. We just don’t have the troops to stage an invasion. It’ll be more than a year before the increased size of our Army allows us to even consider reclaiming the mother country from That Man. If we put our present force ashore, there will be civil war. The best we could hope for would be a bloody and prolonged fight in the streets. In material terms, we are fortunate since the presence of branch plants of American automakers has made us one of the world's leading automobile manufacturers. Our output of wheeled vehicles means we can fully motorize every one of our divisions. We have designed the Canadian Military-Pattern Truck, which can be produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors of Canada Ltd and by the Ford Motor Company of Canada. India and Australia have already expressed interest in buying CMTs, but we cannot spare any if we are to consider the transatlantic operation. We are also producing tanks, the British Valentine infantry tank, and our own medium tank, the Ram. We are preparing to build aircraft, including fighters and bombers. We are reviving our shipyards to build destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and some types of merchant vessels.
“Don’t underestimate how much we need those ships. India and Australia are a long way away from the conflict. They might still be technically at war with Germany but, apart from the odd raider sinking a handful of merchant ships and laying a few mines, they take very little part in the fighting. Australian and Indian troops did us all a sterling service in taking out the Italians and securing the Mediterranean but since then, they are remote from the battle. Canada is on the front line. German U-boats sink our merchant ships and operate close to our shores. Not in any great number, that is certain, and our reliance on seaborne trade is not great but the threat is still there. We must face the possibility of commando raids launched from submarines upon our shores and that means we must retain troops here to defend against them. While the Australian and Indian Air Forces gain headlines with their Marylands and Tomahawks, we are forced to spend what few resources we have operating Fortresses and Hudsons against the German submarines.
“Canada is indeed in the front line. We must raise an army, we must create an air force, we must build a Navy. But, Winston, for all this, we can do nothing without manpower. The National Resources Mobilization Act was passed after That Man’s coup, and it allows the government to register men and women and move them into jobs considered necessary for wartime production. It does not allow them to be conscripted for overseas service. We must have adequate forces before we can mount an invasion and we must train the recruits before we send them in.”
Churchill shook his head. “This is a hard experience in the life of the world. After our great victory in 1918, which we believed would decide the struggle for freedom for our time at least, we thought we had deserved better fortune. But unities and associations are being established by many nations throughout the free world with a speed and reality which would not have been achieved perhaps for generations. Do not underrate the strength of Britain when, one day, it will rejoin the Commonwealth of Nations. Then, we will stand secure, and once more take our place at the tables of the world leaders. Let us then move forward together in the discharge of our mission and our duty, fearing God and nothing else.”
Oh, good Lord help us, he hasn’t listened to a word we’ve said. Mackenzie King was almost in despair. On one hand, Winston Churchill was serving as a marvelous rallying point and inspirational leader in the fight to keep the war effort going and focused. On the other, his obsession with regaining control of the United Kingdom was presenting a severe danger of distorting the whole war effort. “Winston, please try to understand the situation we face. In a year, we will have a Canadian Expeditionary Force of two complete corps, each with two infantry divisions and one armored division. We then face the task of getting that force over the Atlantic and landing it on the shores of Great Britain. Do you perhaps envisage loading it into merchant ships and sailing them unescorted across the Atlantic through the thick of the German submarine fleet? And where will they land when they get there? Do you realize how few beaches are available for landings on the west coast of Britain? What you can be certain of is that the present administration in London will understand we are coming, and they will be ready for us. Don’t deceive yourself that they will be unable to fight. Some units will remain loyal to them. How many we don’t know, but those that are will be able to put up a defense. Britain is not an easy place to invade Winston. The great tragedy of our times is That Man never understood that.”
Churchill seemed taken aback by the suggestion that the proposed counter-invasion would be resisted. “At home, the followers of That Man are everywhere regarded as infected persons to be shunned and isolated as far as possible. Their fleeting triumphs will have a terrible reckoning, and they are hunted men. Their cause is doomed. Particular punishment is reserved for the quislings and traitors who make themselves the tools of the enemy. They will be handed over to the judgment of their fellow countrymen.”
“I wish that were the case.” Mackenzie King’s despair quickly changed into anger. “It is not. There is resistance to Halifax, certainly and he is not a popular leader. But that is a long way from being the political outcast that you describe. There is a segment of the population, quite a powerful one as it happens, who see his Armistice of June 1940 as a skilled maneuver that got Britain out of a near-impossible situation. There is another segment that sees a closer alignment between Nazi Germany and the United Kingdom as a necessary step towards combating Bolshevism. Those two segments alone give him a degree of cross-party support. There is another factor to bear in mind, one that carried with it a deadly danger to our plans. The last General Election in the United Kingdom was held on 14 November 1935. Therefore, new elections should have been held by November 14, 1940, at the latest. They were, of course, not held since the state of crisis remains in force. However, those elections could be called at any time should That Man summon up the nerve to place his leadership on the line.”
“I would remind you of the political situation in the House at this time. It has not changed since June 1940 and both main political parties remain split right down the middle. The Conservative Party is divided between those who opposed the Armistice and favor a confrontational policy towards Germany, while the other wing prefers an appeasement policy, suggesting that now German demands have been met, they cease to be a threat to Europe and instead become a bulwark against communism. The Labor Party is also split with one faction believing that the fight against fascism should be continued regardless of other considerations while the other believes that the Soviet Union should be supported, even though it is allied with Nazi Germany. Finally, there is the Liberal Party whose strength is augmented by several MPs who belonged to none of the four mainstream factions listed above and turned to the Liberal party for want of a better home. Five factions Winston, five, and nobody knows how much support they will muster or how they will break in an election. It is quite possible That Man may manage to assemble a coalition that will establish him as a legitimately elected leader. If that happens, then the legal ground for any action we may take is eliminated. From a purely political point of view, that is the worst thing that could happen to us.”
“Then we must indeed move without delay. Your own words and political analysis tell us that the time to strike is now before elections can be held and before That Man has a chance to consolidate his position. Yet, I refuse to accept the pessimism of your position. We need the swift gathering of forces to confront not only military but moral aggression; the resolute and sober acceptance of their duty by the English-speaking peoples and by all the nations, great and small, who wish to walk with them. Their faithful and zealous comradeship would almost between night and morning clear the path of progress and banish from all our lives the fear which already darkens the sunlight to hundreds of millions of men.”
“And we cannot complete the swift gathering of forces for which you call by the middle of 1942 at the earliest. We have covered this, Winston, and laid the dangers out before you. Here is another. Let us suppose that the forces opposed to That Man do revolt against him. If they should do so before the invasion fleet set sail from here, then there will be two weeks of fighting before we arrive in adequate force to support them. I repeat, the balance in Great Britain is but finely held. We would look incredibly foolish if we set sail to support a rebellion against That Man and he has put it down before we arrive. We would be left to return home, our tails between our legs and listening to the ribald laughter of our enemies. Yet, if we set sail before there is a rebellion, we are left in a position of crossing the Atlantic with no knowledge of whether our landing will be opposed or unopposed. That is a recipe for disaster. You of all people, with the lessons of Gallipoli, should know that. I will repeat this Winston, no matter how distasteful it is to you. That Man may have gained power by a rigged cabinet meeting and the decision of a committee that operated in secret with no form of transparency or accountability, but he operated entirely within the law and the established precedents of the House of Commons. The committee who fired you and appointed him was entirely entitled to do both. That Man's position is legally unassailable and any rebellion against him will be regarded by his supporters as treason. There is only one defense against a charge of treason, Winston, and that is a success. We must be sure of success before we move.”
As the meeting broke up, Mackenzie King caught the eye of his Minister of National Defense, Charles Power. “A moment, Charles if you would be so kind?”
“Of course, Prime Minister. How may I be of service?”
Mackenzie King bitterly missed the easy, informal relationship he had enjoyed with Power’s predecessor, Norman McLeod Rogers. Power was a good man and a capable administrator but the simple fact that he was new to Defense meant there was a greater degree of formality in their relationship. If only Norman hadn’t been killed in that stupid air crash. “Well, perhaps you could use your favorite hockey stick to bash Winston over the head when he gets carried away with his speech-making.”
To both their surprise, Power burst out laughing at the image. “Aye, he does go on a bit, doesn’t he? The trouble is, when he’s right, he’s very right like when he noted we were short on time. And when he’s wrong, he’s very, very wrong indeed. Like when he wants us to invade this year. Even next year will be pushing things. I’d push for an invasion in’43 if I had my way but we can’t wait that long.”
“Charles, wearing your Minister of National Defense (Air) hat, how are we actually off for aircraft?”
Power thought carefully. “We’ve got six LB-30 Liberators and two dozen Flying Fortresses for long-range operations. They are being used for patrol work now and are very good at it. We could use more of both. For short-range work, we’ve got the Hudsons we inherited from British orders and the Bolingbroke we make here. The Hudsons are good at coastal ASW patrol. As for the Bolingbrokes, well, they’re modified Blenheims. Enough said. Good for training I suppose. The big problem is fighters. We just haven’t got a force worth speaking about. We were supposed to be building Hurricanes, but the supply of Merlin engines has been shut off. We have 19 Hurricanes on strength and 10 Fairey Battles we use for training. Keeping them flying is a major enterprise. The good news is pilots. The first graduates of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan are beginning to trickle out and all the training infrastructure is in place. We’ll soon have the ability to train pilots for the whole Commonwealth. That’s something we can exploit; we can train Australian and Indian pilots in exchange for aircraft.”
“We’ve got just 19 fighters?” Mackenzie King was shocked. Most of his attention had been spent on building up the Army and fending off Churchill’s demands for an instant assault on Britain. “I thought we were building them here.”
“We are. We’ve got a lot more Hurricane airframes than that but they’re all piling up waiting for Merlin engines that will now almost certainly never be delivered. The obvious replacement engine candidate for the Canadian-built Hurricanes is the American Allison V-1710, but American aircraft needed all available supplies of that engine. Virtually every fighter they have planned, the P-38, P-39, and P-40, all use the V-1710. There just are not enough to go around. The only engine in reasonable supply is the R-1830 so our designers have started converting an engineless Hurricane airframe to the radial engine. There’s another option though; one of the things that came over on the Australia was a complete set of blueprints for the Hurricane’s successor, the Tornado. The only problem with the Tornado is that it also needs a British engine, the Vulture, which is also unavailable. So, we’re trying to redesign the Tornado to use the American-built R-2600 engine. That looks as if it might have considerable promise. I can’t see either aircraft being available before the middle of next year at the earliest though.”
“Another reason why we must wait. There’s no more American aircraft we can obtain?”
“From the British and French orders? I fear not, Prime Minister. All the Tomahawks and Mohawks have gone to Australia, India, and South Africa. If we want American aircraft, we will have to pay for them. To be honest, additional long-range aircraft would have to take priority if we have the money to spend on new aircraft. Additional Liberators would be a Godsend.”
“The Americans have shut the Liberator line down. It would have to be the Flying Fortress or Catalina flying boats.”
“That is, unfortunate.” Power hesitated and then continued. “Prime Minister, please do not take what I am about to say as a threat or an ultimatum. It is merely a quiet private word between us. As you know, I am morally and practically opposed to conscription. While I have reluctantly assented to its institution for the establishment of defenses here in Canada, I could not continue to be part of a government that decided to send our young conscripts abroad. Even for the liberation of the United Kingdom. In that eventuality, I will not make my resignation a political issue and would create some ‘health issues’ to provide a reason for my departure. But, from the government, I would depart.”
Mackenzie King sighed. It was news he had expected, and Power was handling it in a much more gentlemanly way than he had expected. Still, it was an issue for the future. There were many more pressing things to consider.
“Thank you, Charles. Your position is understood, and I am deeply grateful for the tact with which you have handled it. Let us both hope that the eventuality will not arise.”
264 Squadron, Martlesham Heath, Essex, U.K.
“Freddie, a quiet word please?” Frederick Hughes looked up from his new aircraft at Wing Commander Tuck. His commanding officer was admiring the four wing guns fitted to the Defiant Mk.3.
“Good morning, Sir. Isn’t the new Daffy a beauty? Boulton Paul has put a new bay in the wings to give us a pair of .303s on each side and clipped the wingtips to maintain the same span. Given us a fourteen hundred horsepower Merlin Twenty as well. We’re more than twenty miles an hour faster than the Mk.1s.”
“Still can’t keep up with my Spitfire though.” Robert Stanford Tuck was smiling at the exuberance of the young pilot in front of him. Frederick Hughes and his gunner Frederick Gash, known to an admiring press as ‘the two Freds’ had six confirmed kills in their Defiant. A pair of them were Messerschmitt 109s that had been foolish enough to try and tackle the Defiant from the rear and had been sawn apart in mid-air by the four Brownings in its power-operated turret. The other four had been Heinkel 111s.
“I don’t have to, Sir. All I need is for you to start chasing me.” Hughes had an evil smile on his face. It was well-known that when the Defiant had entered service, 264s’s commander had challenged Tuck and his Spitfire to a dogfight. The Defiant had won. It had been the start of the Defiant’s reputation as a worthy successor to World War One’s Bristol Fighter. Privately, Tuck wondered how long that run of success would have lasted had not the Armistice ended the fighting. The evening after I lost that dogfight, I spent hours studying the Defiant and trying to devise new tactics against it. I have no doubt the German pilots did the same after they lost three dozen aircraft in a single day to a third of that number of Defiants. We know it’s vulnerable to head-on attacks was one such weakness and we’ve fixed it. But what else didn’t we spot?
“I’ll try and avoid doing that in the future. Look, Freddie, keep this to yourself, all right? I want you to do some test flights in your new kite and find out just how much fuel you can save by running the engine lean and pulling every trick you know to save petrol. We’ll measure success by how much you bring back as compared to flying her by the book. The same applies to ammunition. Use as little as possible. But, Freddie, when you fill in your reports, make sure you list the theoretical consumption, not how much you really used.”
“Building up a private reserve are we?”
Hughes looked at Tuck and saw the Wing Commander raise a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Just trying to manage our operations cost-effectively. The two Spitfire squadrons will be doing the same.”
“Sir, there’s something else we’ve been given on the Mark Threes.” Hughes went under the wing and pointed to an attachment just outside the main wheels. “We’ve got underwing shackles for bombs. Boulton Paul says we can carry a two hundred and fifty pounder under each wing. We were thinking about how to use a bomb-carrying Daffy and it seemed to us that the pilot could concentrate on attacking ground targets while the gunner kept enemy fighters away. If we’re down low, we don’t have to worry about the Huns getting underneath us. That was an even bigger blind spot than the head-on attacks you know.”
Tuck nodded slowly. It ran against the grain to admit a fighter could be used for anything other than fighting other aircraft but the Defiant was an odd sort of fighter. He could see that right down on the deck, its weaknesses would be minimized, and its strengths fully exploited. It was a tough kite as well, Boulton Paul had built the aircraft with a high margin of strength. Perhaps it would be in its element as an army cooperation aircraft. “Look into that Freddie. And, if you manage to bring any unexpended bombs back, so much the better.”
Conference Room, Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Canada
“I must admit that when the storm broke in June of last year, I was, for several weeks, very anxious about the result. But there was one thing about which there was never any doubt. The courage, the unconquerable grit, and stamina of the Commonwealth of Nations showed themselves from the very outset. Without that, all would have failed. Upon that rock of solidarity, all stood unshakable. The Commonwealth rose above the tribulations That Man inflicted on the British people and struck back, halting enemy aggression in its tracks and securing its proud and independent position on the world stage. Prepare yourselves, then, my friends and comrades, for this renewal of your exertions. We shall never turn from our purpose, however somber the road, however grievous the cost because we know that out of this time of trial and tribulation will be born a new freedom and glory for all mankind.”
“That’s very impressive, Winston, in fact, I might almost say inspiring. But we still can’t invade until the middle of next year at the earliest.” Prime Minister Mackenzie King sounded slightly exasperated by the exchange. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the Free British Government, had no real idea of the problems Canada faced in staging the counter-invasion of the United Kingdom. Indeed, he seemed to have little idea of the problems faced by the Commonwealth as a whole. ‘Fighting on’ had been easy to say in 1939. It had been much, much harder to do in 1940. “It is, simply put, quite impossible to move earlier than that.”
“We are most grateful for all you have done in the common cause, and we know that you are resolved to do whatever more is possible as the need arises and as opportunity serves. Canada occupies a unique position in the British Empire because of its unbreakable ties with Britain and its ever-growing friendship and intimate association with the United States. Canada is a potent magnet, drawing together those in the new world and in the old whose fortunes are now united in a deadly struggle for life and honor against the common foe. We do not expect to hit without being hit back, and we intend with every week that passes to hit harder. Prepare yourselves, then, my friends and comrades, for this renewal of your exertions. We shall never turn from our purpose, however somber the road, however grievous the cost because we know that out of this time of trial and tribulation will be born a new freedom and glory for all mankind. We must never relax our moral and physical efforts and preparation for the day of deliverance.”
Mackenzie King was, if anything, irritated by Churchill’s refusal to comprehend the difficulties that faced his proposals. “We cannot see that day, not until the middle of 1942 at the earliest. Winston, have you any idea of what this undertaking involves? A transatlantic invasion is no easy thing to contemplate. We are short of ships, we are short of aircraft, we are short of men. We have but three divisions of infantry available in Canada with a fourth converting into an armored formation. We just don’t have the troops to stage an invasion. It’ll be more than a year before the increased size of our Army allows us to even consider reclaiming the mother country from That Man. If we put our present force ashore, there will be civil war. The best we could hope for would be a bloody and prolonged fight in the streets. In material terms, we are fortunate since the presence of branch plants of American automakers has made us one of the world's leading automobile manufacturers. Our output of wheeled vehicles means we can fully motorize every one of our divisions. We have designed the Canadian Military-Pattern Truck, which can be produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors of Canada Ltd and by the Ford Motor Company of Canada. India and Australia have already expressed interest in buying CMTs, but we cannot spare any if we are to consider the transatlantic operation. We are also producing tanks, the British Valentine infantry tank, and our own medium tank, the Ram. We are preparing to build aircraft, including fighters and bombers. We are reviving our shipyards to build destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and some types of merchant vessels.
“Don’t underestimate how much we need those ships. India and Australia are a long way away from the conflict. They might still be technically at war with Germany but, apart from the odd raider sinking a handful of merchant ships and laying a few mines, they take very little part in the fighting. Australian and Indian troops did us all a sterling service in taking out the Italians and securing the Mediterranean but since then, they are remote from the battle. Canada is on the front line. German U-boats sink our merchant ships and operate close to our shores. Not in any great number, that is certain, and our reliance on seaborne trade is not great but the threat is still there. We must face the possibility of commando raids launched from submarines upon our shores and that means we must retain troops here to defend against them. While the Australian and Indian Air Forces gain headlines with their Marylands and Tomahawks, we are forced to spend what few resources we have operating Fortresses and Hudsons against the German submarines.
“Canada is indeed in the front line. We must raise an army, we must create an air force, we must build a Navy. But, Winston, for all this, we can do nothing without manpower. The National Resources Mobilization Act was passed after That Man’s coup, and it allows the government to register men and women and move them into jobs considered necessary for wartime production. It does not allow them to be conscripted for overseas service. We must have adequate forces before we can mount an invasion and we must train the recruits before we send them in.”
Churchill shook his head. “This is a hard experience in the life of the world. After our great victory in 1918, which we believed would decide the struggle for freedom for our time at least, we thought we had deserved better fortune. But unities and associations are being established by many nations throughout the free world with a speed and reality which would not have been achieved perhaps for generations. Do not underrate the strength of Britain when, one day, it will rejoin the Commonwealth of Nations. Then, we will stand secure, and once more take our place at the tables of the world leaders. Let us then move forward together in the discharge of our mission and our duty, fearing God and nothing else.”
Oh, good Lord help us, he hasn’t listened to a word we’ve said. Mackenzie King was almost in despair. On one hand, Winston Churchill was serving as a marvelous rallying point and inspirational leader in the fight to keep the war effort going and focused. On the other, his obsession with regaining control of the United Kingdom was presenting a severe danger of distorting the whole war effort. “Winston, please try to understand the situation we face. In a year, we will have a Canadian Expeditionary Force of two complete corps, each with two infantry divisions and one armored division. We then face the task of getting that force over the Atlantic and landing it on the shores of Great Britain. Do you perhaps envisage loading it into merchant ships and sailing them unescorted across the Atlantic through the thick of the German submarine fleet? And where will they land when they get there? Do you realize how few beaches are available for landings on the west coast of Britain? What you can be certain of is that the present administration in London will understand we are coming, and they will be ready for us. Don’t deceive yourself that they will be unable to fight. Some units will remain loyal to them. How many we don’t know, but those that are will be able to put up a defense. Britain is not an easy place to invade Winston. The great tragedy of our times is That Man never understood that.”
Churchill seemed taken aback by the suggestion that the proposed counter-invasion would be resisted. “At home, the followers of That Man are everywhere regarded as infected persons to be shunned and isolated as far as possible. Their fleeting triumphs will have a terrible reckoning, and they are hunted men. Their cause is doomed. Particular punishment is reserved for the quislings and traitors who make themselves the tools of the enemy. They will be handed over to the judgment of their fellow countrymen.”
“I wish that were the case.” Mackenzie King’s despair quickly changed into anger. “It is not. There is resistance to Halifax, certainly and he is not a popular leader. But that is a long way from being the political outcast that you describe. There is a segment of the population, quite a powerful one as it happens, who see his Armistice of June 1940 as a skilled maneuver that got Britain out of a near-impossible situation. There is another segment that sees a closer alignment between Nazi Germany and the United Kingdom as a necessary step towards combating Bolshevism. Those two segments alone give him a degree of cross-party support. There is another factor to bear in mind, one that carried with it a deadly danger to our plans. The last General Election in the United Kingdom was held on 14 November 1935. Therefore, new elections should have been held by November 14, 1940, at the latest. They were, of course, not held since the state of crisis remains in force. However, those elections could be called at any time should That Man summon up the nerve to place his leadership on the line.”
“I would remind you of the political situation in the House at this time. It has not changed since June 1940 and both main political parties remain split right down the middle. The Conservative Party is divided between those who opposed the Armistice and favor a confrontational policy towards Germany, while the other wing prefers an appeasement policy, suggesting that now German demands have been met, they cease to be a threat to Europe and instead become a bulwark against communism. The Labor Party is also split with one faction believing that the fight against fascism should be continued regardless of other considerations while the other believes that the Soviet Union should be supported, even though it is allied with Nazi Germany. Finally, there is the Liberal Party whose strength is augmented by several MPs who belonged to none of the four mainstream factions listed above and turned to the Liberal party for want of a better home. Five factions Winston, five, and nobody knows how much support they will muster or how they will break in an election. It is quite possible That Man may manage to assemble a coalition that will establish him as a legitimately elected leader. If that happens, then the legal ground for any action we may take is eliminated. From a purely political point of view, that is the worst thing that could happen to us.”
“Then we must indeed move without delay. Your own words and political analysis tell us that the time to strike is now before elections can be held and before That Man has a chance to consolidate his position. Yet, I refuse to accept the pessimism of your position. We need the swift gathering of forces to confront not only military but moral aggression; the resolute and sober acceptance of their duty by the English-speaking peoples and by all the nations, great and small, who wish to walk with them. Their faithful and zealous comradeship would almost between night and morning clear the path of progress and banish from all our lives the fear which already darkens the sunlight to hundreds of millions of men.”
“And we cannot complete the swift gathering of forces for which you call by the middle of 1942 at the earliest. We have covered this, Winston, and laid the dangers out before you. Here is another. Let us suppose that the forces opposed to That Man do revolt against him. If they should do so before the invasion fleet set sail from here, then there will be two weeks of fighting before we arrive in adequate force to support them. I repeat, the balance in Great Britain is but finely held. We would look incredibly foolish if we set sail to support a rebellion against That Man and he has put it down before we arrive. We would be left to return home, our tails between our legs and listening to the ribald laughter of our enemies. Yet, if we set sail before there is a rebellion, we are left in a position of crossing the Atlantic with no knowledge of whether our landing will be opposed or unopposed. That is a recipe for disaster. You of all people, with the lessons of Gallipoli, should know that. I will repeat this Winston, no matter how distasteful it is to you. That Man may have gained power by a rigged cabinet meeting and the decision of a committee that operated in secret with no form of transparency or accountability, but he operated entirely within the law and the established precedents of the House of Commons. The committee who fired you and appointed him was entirely entitled to do both. That Man's position is legally unassailable and any rebellion against him will be regarded by his supporters as treason. There is only one defense against a charge of treason, Winston, and that is a success. We must be sure of success before we move.”
As the meeting broke up, Mackenzie King caught the eye of his Minister of National Defense, Charles Power. “A moment, Charles if you would be so kind?”
“Of course, Prime Minister. How may I be of service?”
Mackenzie King bitterly missed the easy, informal relationship he had enjoyed with Power’s predecessor, Norman McLeod Rogers. Power was a good man and a capable administrator but the simple fact that he was new to Defense meant there was a greater degree of formality in their relationship. If only Norman hadn’t been killed in that stupid air crash. “Well, perhaps you could use your favorite hockey stick to bash Winston over the head when he gets carried away with his speech-making.”
To both their surprise, Power burst out laughing at the image. “Aye, he does go on a bit, doesn’t he? The trouble is, when he’s right, he’s very right like when he noted we were short on time. And when he’s wrong, he’s very, very wrong indeed. Like when he wants us to invade this year. Even next year will be pushing things. I’d push for an invasion in’43 if I had my way but we can’t wait that long.”
“Charles, wearing your Minister of National Defense (Air) hat, how are we actually off for aircraft?”
Power thought carefully. “We’ve got six LB-30 Liberators and two dozen Flying Fortresses for long-range operations. They are being used for patrol work now and are very good at it. We could use more of both. For short-range work, we’ve got the Hudsons we inherited from British orders and the Bolingbroke we make here. The Hudsons are good at coastal ASW patrol. As for the Bolingbrokes, well, they’re modified Blenheims. Enough said. Good for training I suppose. The big problem is fighters. We just haven’t got a force worth speaking about. We were supposed to be building Hurricanes, but the supply of Merlin engines has been shut off. We have 19 Hurricanes on strength and 10 Fairey Battles we use for training. Keeping them flying is a major enterprise. The good news is pilots. The first graduates of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan are beginning to trickle out and all the training infrastructure is in place. We’ll soon have the ability to train pilots for the whole Commonwealth. That’s something we can exploit; we can train Australian and Indian pilots in exchange for aircraft.”
“We’ve got just 19 fighters?” Mackenzie King was shocked. Most of his attention had been spent on building up the Army and fending off Churchill’s demands for an instant assault on Britain. “I thought we were building them here.”
“We are. We’ve got a lot more Hurricane airframes than that but they’re all piling up waiting for Merlin engines that will now almost certainly never be delivered. The obvious replacement engine candidate for the Canadian-built Hurricanes is the American Allison V-1710, but American aircraft needed all available supplies of that engine. Virtually every fighter they have planned, the P-38, P-39, and P-40, all use the V-1710. There just are not enough to go around. The only engine in reasonable supply is the R-1830 so our designers have started converting an engineless Hurricane airframe to the radial engine. There’s another option though; one of the things that came over on the Australia was a complete set of blueprints for the Hurricane’s successor, the Tornado. The only problem with the Tornado is that it also needs a British engine, the Vulture, which is also unavailable. So, we’re trying to redesign the Tornado to use the American-built R-2600 engine. That looks as if it might have considerable promise. I can’t see either aircraft being available before the middle of next year at the earliest though.”
“Another reason why we must wait. There’s no more American aircraft we can obtain?”
“From the British and French orders? I fear not, Prime Minister. All the Tomahawks and Mohawks have gone to Australia, India, and South Africa. If we want American aircraft, we will have to pay for them. To be honest, additional long-range aircraft would have to take priority if we have the money to spend on new aircraft. Additional Liberators would be a Godsend.”
“The Americans have shut the Liberator line down. It would have to be the Flying Fortress or Catalina flying boats.”
“That is, unfortunate.” Power hesitated and then continued. “Prime Minister, please do not take what I am about to say as a threat or an ultimatum. It is merely a quiet private word between us. As you know, I am morally and practically opposed to conscription. While I have reluctantly assented to its institution for the establishment of defenses here in Canada, I could not continue to be part of a government that decided to send our young conscripts abroad. Even for the liberation of the United Kingdom. In that eventuality, I will not make my resignation a political issue and would create some ‘health issues’ to provide a reason for my departure. But, from the government, I would depart.”
Mackenzie King sighed. It was news he had expected, and Power was handling it in a much more gentlemanly way than he had expected. Still, it was an issue for the future. There were many more pressing things to consider.
“Thank you, Charles. Your position is understood, and I am deeply grateful for the tact with which you have handled it. Let us both hope that the eventuality will not arise.”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Four
RCAF Station Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada
“What is it they say - if it looks right, it'll fly, right? I wouldn't bet on this one flying right....” Newly commissioned Pilot Officer Digby Dale looked at the aircraft in front of him and shuddered. “That just doesn't look right at all. That looks painful. What is it?”
“It’s a Hurricane, Pilot Officer Dale.” A woman’s voice cut through the young pilot’s shock at seeing the experimental aircraft in front of him. “We couldn’t get any more Merlins and the Americans wouldn’t sell us a V-1710 so we put an R-1830 engine into it.”
“Which idiot thought of that?” Dale looked at the aircraft more carefully. The back end certainly was a Hurricane but the nose forward of the cockpit was completely different. Yet, as Dale got over the shock, the design did seem to show a sort of brutal purpose.
“I did. I’m Elsie MacGill, chief designer on this project.”
“Elsie MacGill?” Suddenly the penny dropped. “You’re ‘The Queen of the Hurricanes’.”
“You know I could kill the man who drew that cartoon strip.” MacGill’s expression was tight “And I’m not the Queen of the Hurricanes anymore. I spent two years of my life ironing out bugs in the Hurricane production line and now we don’t have any engines for them. Look, you’d better know the situation here. We’re the second team. All the top people are down the road working on the Tornado program. They get all the resources, and first, call on everything. We get what’s leftover. They got all the qualified test pilots but one of your instructors said you had the makings of a good test pilot, so we asked you down here. If you want the job, you’ll be seconded to us by the Air Force. Join us and you’ll fly and test fighters. We’ll even send you to test pilot school when we get a chance. The downside is, that it’ll put you way behind the curve in your Air Force career. On the other hand, in the Air Force, you’ll be doing long, overwater patrols in Liberators, Fortresses, and Catalinas.”
The idea of flying a large bus over thousands of miles of empty water didn’t appeal to Dale at all. To buy time while he made his decision, he looked at MacGill and for the first time noticed that she was supporting herself on two strong metal canes. “What’s a Tornado?”
“Hawker design, intended as a Hurricane replacement. It got put on hold in May 1940 due to the need for Hurricanes and canceled completely when That Man seized power. The blueprints and some components came over on the Australia. It was supposed to be all-metal and have a Vulture engine only we don’t have any of those engines either. What we do have are American R-2600 radials and the Tornado was supposed to use a Hercules as an alternative. So, converting it to an R-2600 is supposed to be much easier and give a higher-performance product. Probably will too. Canadian Car and Foundry took everybody from here that they wanted for that program and left the rest of us to see if we can do anything useful with the Hurricane and the R-1830.”
Dale caught the note of extreme bitterness in MacGill’s voice and wondered what had happened to leave the Queen of the Hurricanes in this backwater job. With thoughts of mind-numbing boredom from flying over empty arctic wastes besieging his mind, he gave her a bright smile. “Well, we’d better show them what they’re missing out on, hadn’t we?”
It was exactly the right thing to say. MacGill smiled and the contrast revealed how much anger and bitterness had been present earlier. “Good for you. And welcome on board. Come and have a closer look at our creation. The major changes are in the fuselage, from in front of the cockpit forward. We’ve got the radial, of course, it is 400 pounds lighter than the Merlin but develops a hundred horsepower less. We had to lengthen the fuselage by two feet to keep the weight distribution right. Overall, we expect a maximum speed of around 310 miles per hour but a lot more range. 650 miles on internal fuel, 1,200 with two 45-gallon drop tanks. Armament, twelve .303 machine guns. This is something you’ll like. We had the forward fuselage extension but it turned out there wasn’t much we could do with it so we put a small cargo compartment in there. Big enough for your overnight bag or an emergency survival kit Bill here designed. There are a lot of places in Canada that are a long way from anywhere. Make a forced landing in one of them and the kit will keep you alive until a rescue aircraft finds you.”
Dale looked at her with one eyebrow raised and she flushed slightly. “All right, it’ll keep you alive longer than not having it and in that extra time, a rescue aircraft might find you. Satisfied?”
“Yes ma’am. Is this the first prototype?”
“No, the second.”
“What happened to the first?”
“We learned a lot from it. The weight distribution problem was a bit more subtle than we thought. The problem was we have an oval fuselage and a circular engine so, although the two blend from the side, from above there’s a serious bulge to accommodate that engine. That’s a drag issue and it’s one reason why we lost so much speed. The Tornado has a wider fuselage and doesn’t have that problem. Why don’t you get settled in and you can have a closer look tomorrow.”
German Auxiliary Cruiser Schiff 28, Deutsche Werft, Schichau, Danzig.
“She will be a fine ship, Captain.” The shipyard manager looked proud of himself and with good reason. The work of converting the brand-new Polish merchant ship into an auxiliary cruiser had gone remarkably smoothly. Captain Hellmuth von Ruckteschell had been much impressed by the speed and efficiency with which the ship had been armed with her six main guns and six torpedo tubes. The sinking of the Kormoran had taught the Navy some valuable lessons. Some of them were more obvious; the ship had a proper fire control system for her main guns, albeit one that was carefully concealed within her bridge. The others were less obvious. The ship’s machinery spaces had protective plating installed and proper damage control and firefighting system.
“I will call her Michel. Captain von Ruckteschell looked over to where his new command’s sister ship was also fitting out. “Have you heard who will be commanding Schiff 30?”
“I understand Captain Gumprich will be taking her out. I have heard that he is naming his ship Rafael. I think the pair now completing in Hamburg will be the Gabriel and Uriel.”
von Ruckteschell nodded to himself although he was somewhat ambivalent about the four ships being named after Archangels. He and the other prospective raider captains had joked about it but now it looked like the joke was becoming real, he wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. The phrase ‘tempting fate’ kept running through his mind. Still, he knew Gumprich well and that was an important thing for the delicate mission ahead. The weird situation where Germany was at war with the Commonwealth but at peace with Britain had left both sides in a quandary. How the hell was one supposed to wage a war when the combatants were literally on opposite sides of the world? The four raiders now being completed were Germany’s answer to that intriguing question.
Admiral Raeder had been explicit about the role of the four ships. They were to conduct a guerilla war at sea, preying on Australian and Indian supply lines and merchant shipping, mining ports and generally making a thorough nuisance of themselves. They were strictly forbidden to engage enemy warships; the whole point was to create a low-level but frustrating war at sea that would sap the will of the Commonwealth nations to continue what appeared to be a pointless and fruitless campaign. The examples of Kormoran and Graf Spree were held up as examples to be avoided at all costs. Kormoran may have sunk the Hobart but when she was lost in the process, she had eliminated any German naval presence in the Indian Ocean, and given the Australians a rallying point that had kept them in the war. The Graf Spree was an even more emphatic lesson; Langsdorff’s idiocy had cost the German Navy a badly needed major warship.
The thought of a naval engagement brought von Ruckteschell’s mind back to the subject of guns. “Six guns you say, 150mm’s of course?”
The engineer shook his head. “French 152mm 55-caliber. There is a great shortage of guns now and we were instructed to use captured weapons. The French Model 30 is a very good gun though and its fire control is much smaller and lighter than ours. Your anti-aircraft guns are French as well. We’ve fitted six twin 37mm Model 33s and four twin 25mm Model 37s. The guns might be French, Captain, but you have a better anti-aircraft armament than most of our front-line warships.”
Governor-General’s Residence, Batavia, Dutch East Indies
“Welcome to the residence, I trust that the journey over has not taken you from more pressing work?” Governor-General Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer stretched out his hand and shook his guest’s returned hand firmly.
“With respect, your Excellency, there is nothing more important to me than the independence of Indonesia. My most heartfelt desire is to see that achieved peacefully but if that is not possible . . .”
“I have news for you on that score. I have heard from Canada that Queen Wilhelmina has expressed her desire to see the Dutch East Indies self-governed. I have asked you here today to discuss how that desire may best be realized.”
“I think you may experience some resistance from the trekkers on that score,” Kusno Sosrodihardjo, better known by his conspiratorial name of Sukarno, was dryly amused by the situation. After twenty years of nationalist activity and four years in jail for working towards Indonesian independence, he was being asked to help the process along. “Although the blijvers will be much in favor of the idea.”
Stachouwer reflected that Sukarno’s reputation for sharpness was well-deserved. He’d put his finger on the key problem right away. The ‘trekkers’ were the recent arrivals, fresh-faced young Dutchmen from the motherland who longed to return to their home country and looked at the native world around them with suspicion and hostility. They lived in their own self-contained communities and went outside them as little as possible. The ‘blijvers’ were very different. They were the long-term Dutch colonists who had been in the islands for generations. They had married Indonesian women and adopted an ‘Indisch” way of life that blended Dutch and local culture. Their children were classified as Europeans by the authorities but were discriminated against by the trekkers. Stachouwer had spent a significant amount of time in India over the last year and had noted that the situation was the reverse there. In India, it was the long-term residents who were strongly attached to the homeland and the new arrivals who had been seized by the dream of an independent India. Here, the blijvers were strongly supportive of the Indonesian nationalists, and the trekkers equally strongly opposed to them. That difference puzzled him.
“I must agree with you there. However, the Indians are overcoming similar problems and building a new country. Each side has put its own interests to one side in the greater interest of the country. Can we do less?”
Sukarno heard the implicit challenge in the words. Can you be seen to do less than Nehru? “I would suggest that the route taken by India is one we should examine closely. A carefully phased process that will result in an ordered hand-over of power. Of course, we have an advantage the Indians do not; the blijvers and their families are already both a vital part of the governing structure and a bridge between our communities. They will be of increasing importance as the power hand-over develops. That will annoy the trekkers enormously.”
“I do not see that as being a matter of importance.”
“Your Excellency, I was quoting it as a positive advantage.”
Stachouwer said nothing but raised a small glass of brandy in a wordless toast.
Regent’s Palace, Baghdad, Iraq, April 1st, 1941
“You move your team up to the road.” Obersturmführer Stephan Bähr knew that Skorzeny was uncomfortable with this whole operation as he was but there was little choice in the matter. Jägdverband 502 was a small group with all too many projects on hand for the personnel at its disposal. When Rashid Ali al Gaylani and the “Golden Square” of Colonel Salah al-Din al-Sabbagh, Colonel Kamal Shabib, Colonel Fahmi Said, and Colonel Mahmud Salman had demanded that Regent Abd al-llah and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said be deposed, Ambassador Grobba had insisted that they be assisted by Skorzeny’s men. To himself, Bähr conceded that Grobba had a point; the timing was right and it fitted in with the overall plan to create a major diversion in the region. The problem was that, despite all four members of the Golden Square commanding units located in the Baghdad area, not one of them was prepared to commit their own men to the coup. Salah ad-Din al-Sabbagh was commander of the Iraqi 3rd Infantry Division. Kamal Shabib commanded the 1st Infantry Division and Fahmi Said commanded the Independent Mechanized Brigade. Not one of their trained regulars was taking part in the attack. Mahmud Salman, the one non-Army officer, was the Chief of the Air Force and didn’t have ground troops. Bähr suspected he wouldn’t have committed them if he had. So, the coup force was made up of supporters from the Party of National Brotherhood. Untrained irregulars whose fervor was more inspired by pay than an abiding belief in Iraqi nationalism. Skorzeny had done his best, assigning one SS NCO to each group of eight Iraqis and tasked them with doing as much training as possible. From what Bähr had heard, that hadn’t been much. The SS men had tried hard but military training was like cookery – one needed good ingredients to make a successful product.
Beside him, Scharfuhrer Gert Wolter looked around at the men he had trained, his face expressionless. The plan was for his unit to block the main escape road that led to the British Embassy. It was critical that Abd al-llah and his entire family be killed during the initial assault. That made Wolter’s role a critical one, and his unit was the best of all those taking part in the coup. For all that, neither Bähr nor Wolter were confident that things would go the way they had planned.
The nine men assigned to the roadblock slipped away. Bähr consulted his watch again and allowed enough time for the men to take up their positions. Then, he took his signal pistol and fired a red flare high into the sky over the Regent’s Palace. That done, he brought his MP-28 submachine gun into firing position.
There was enough of a silence to make Bähr wonder if the whole assault was to be an ignominious failure. Even the first sounds to come from the groups surrounding the Palace weren’t that reassuring. The patter of gunfire was clearly the small 9mm pistol rounds from the MP-28s, not the heavy bark of rifle fire. Grimly, Bähr wondered if he was hearing his SS-men shooting the Party of National Brotherhood ‘fighters’ after they had failed to obey orders. Then, to his relief, he heard the rifles opening fire as the assault force engaged the handful of guards at the Palace.
In situations like this, Bähr knew it was essential to lead by example. He rose to his feet and started to move across the street, towards the palace compound. Behind him, the movement was limited, and he could sense the party men were hanging back. There was an expression that covered this situation, although Bähr had no idea where it came from. One gets further in this world with a smile and a gun than just with a smile. He turned around, spotted where the men he had been assigned were skulking, and fired a short burst from his MP-28 at them. That should convince them that obeying me is less dangerous than shirking their duty.
The threat appeared to work. There was little opposition from the Palace or the other darkened buildings that surrounded the Regent’s enclosure. The still of the night air was broken by a few scattered shots were fired, that was all. They drew a massive response from the submachine guns carried by the Germans and the rifles carried by the party members following them. One of Skorzeny’s actions had been to ensure those men were carrying Persian Mauser rifles. It was the same reason Bähr and his fellow NCOs had MP-28s, not the already iconic German Army MP-38. The weapons would confuse an already complex picture and confusion was an end-all in itself. One of the scattered shots from the palace whined past him, a sharp reminder to Bähr that even the most carelessly aimed bullet could still be lethal. Ahead, the buildings in the palace complex were coming to life as the occupants finally understood what was happening. The guards inside were firing wildly, their shots being blasted off into the darkness at random, but they were influencing the attack. Each shot sent a group of the ‘party fighters’ scurrying for cover and forced the German ‘advisors’ to dig them out and force them back into the attack. As far as Bähr could see, the battle outside the Regent’s Palace was a remarkably bloodless one and he was a little at a loss to know how to change that.
A second later, the whole issue was rendered moot. The night was split open by the sudden roar of high-powered car engines as a column of four vehicles swept out from a group of buildings in the center of the compound and raced across the grounds to the nearest road. Bähr saw rifles sticking out of the opened car windows and the muzzle flashed as the men inside the cars started firing at anything moving. He fired a long burst from his MP-28, emptying the magazine at the lead car but saw the sparks as the 9mm bullets bounced off the steel bodywork. The cars were bullet-resistant at least and the implication was obvious. The coup had been expected or at least anticipated, and an escape route planned. In what amounted to near-despair, Bähr saw the groups attacking the palace scattering from the path of the cars. Most of the ‘party fighters’ simply ran away rather than face the wild, ineffectual rifle fire from the fast-moving cars. The vehicles swerved through the darkness, holding a reasonable formation given the chaos that surrounded them, and reached the road that would eventually take them to the British Embassy.
The lack of fire from the roadblock hardly surprised Bähr. It would have astonished him more if the action there had matched the melodramatic boasts he had heard from the Party of National Brotherhood. The cars were accelerating once they were on the smooth road. That was when Scharfuhrer Wolter stepped out from the shadows and stood in front of the cars, his MP-28 raised to his shoulder. Without attempting to move from his position on the road, he emptied the entire magazine of the submachine gun into the windshield of the lead car. Obviously, that was bullet-resistant too Bähr thought for the car didn’t even swerve as the bullets flashed across its front. Wolter was ramming another magazine into his MP-28 when the car hit him, hurling him high into the air. His body passed clean over the second car and landed in front of the third and fourth vehicles that almost instantly ran over him. Bähr watched their taillights vanish into the darkness. He knew local geography intimately and realized that they would be in the British Embassy before anybody could do anything about it.
He hardly needed to look at the body on the road to know that Wolter was dead. The corpse was so badly mutilated that it was barely recognizable. His scream of anger echoed off the buildings nearby. “Why didn’t you stop those cars? What excuse do you have?”
The group of ‘party fighters’ started muttering about the escape being divine will but the supercilious smirks on their faces exasperated Bähr. He swung his MP-28 up, pointing the muzzle down low so the bullets would hit them in the guts, ensuring a slow, painful death. Before he could pull the trigger though, Skorzeny’s hand pushed the MP-28 down. “Leave it. It would be politically unwise to shoot them, however much they deserve it. They will pay their debt later.”
“Otto, the Regent escaped. They just hung back, let us do all the work, and then skulked in the shadows. They let the Regent escape.”
“Nevertheless, our ally is now in power, there is a pro-Axis government in Iraq and the diversion we planned is in hand. That is enough.”
RCAF Station Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada
“What is it they say - if it looks right, it'll fly, right? I wouldn't bet on this one flying right....” Newly commissioned Pilot Officer Digby Dale looked at the aircraft in front of him and shuddered. “That just doesn't look right at all. That looks painful. What is it?”
“It’s a Hurricane, Pilot Officer Dale.” A woman’s voice cut through the young pilot’s shock at seeing the experimental aircraft in front of him. “We couldn’t get any more Merlins and the Americans wouldn’t sell us a V-1710 so we put an R-1830 engine into it.”
“Which idiot thought of that?” Dale looked at the aircraft more carefully. The back end certainly was a Hurricane but the nose forward of the cockpit was completely different. Yet, as Dale got over the shock, the design did seem to show a sort of brutal purpose.
“I did. I’m Elsie MacGill, chief designer on this project.”
“Elsie MacGill?” Suddenly the penny dropped. “You’re ‘The Queen of the Hurricanes’.”
“You know I could kill the man who drew that cartoon strip.” MacGill’s expression was tight “And I’m not the Queen of the Hurricanes anymore. I spent two years of my life ironing out bugs in the Hurricane production line and now we don’t have any engines for them. Look, you’d better know the situation here. We’re the second team. All the top people are down the road working on the Tornado program. They get all the resources, and first, call on everything. We get what’s leftover. They got all the qualified test pilots but one of your instructors said you had the makings of a good test pilot, so we asked you down here. If you want the job, you’ll be seconded to us by the Air Force. Join us and you’ll fly and test fighters. We’ll even send you to test pilot school when we get a chance. The downside is, that it’ll put you way behind the curve in your Air Force career. On the other hand, in the Air Force, you’ll be doing long, overwater patrols in Liberators, Fortresses, and Catalinas.”
The idea of flying a large bus over thousands of miles of empty water didn’t appeal to Dale at all. To buy time while he made his decision, he looked at MacGill and for the first time noticed that she was supporting herself on two strong metal canes. “What’s a Tornado?”
“Hawker design, intended as a Hurricane replacement. It got put on hold in May 1940 due to the need for Hurricanes and canceled completely when That Man seized power. The blueprints and some components came over on the Australia. It was supposed to be all-metal and have a Vulture engine only we don’t have any of those engines either. What we do have are American R-2600 radials and the Tornado was supposed to use a Hercules as an alternative. So, converting it to an R-2600 is supposed to be much easier and give a higher-performance product. Probably will too. Canadian Car and Foundry took everybody from here that they wanted for that program and left the rest of us to see if we can do anything useful with the Hurricane and the R-1830.”
Dale caught the note of extreme bitterness in MacGill’s voice and wondered what had happened to leave the Queen of the Hurricanes in this backwater job. With thoughts of mind-numbing boredom from flying over empty arctic wastes besieging his mind, he gave her a bright smile. “Well, we’d better show them what they’re missing out on, hadn’t we?”
It was exactly the right thing to say. MacGill smiled and the contrast revealed how much anger and bitterness had been present earlier. “Good for you. And welcome on board. Come and have a closer look at our creation. The major changes are in the fuselage, from in front of the cockpit forward. We’ve got the radial, of course, it is 400 pounds lighter than the Merlin but develops a hundred horsepower less. We had to lengthen the fuselage by two feet to keep the weight distribution right. Overall, we expect a maximum speed of around 310 miles per hour but a lot more range. 650 miles on internal fuel, 1,200 with two 45-gallon drop tanks. Armament, twelve .303 machine guns. This is something you’ll like. We had the forward fuselage extension but it turned out there wasn’t much we could do with it so we put a small cargo compartment in there. Big enough for your overnight bag or an emergency survival kit Bill here designed. There are a lot of places in Canada that are a long way from anywhere. Make a forced landing in one of them and the kit will keep you alive until a rescue aircraft finds you.”
Dale looked at her with one eyebrow raised and she flushed slightly. “All right, it’ll keep you alive longer than not having it and in that extra time, a rescue aircraft might find you. Satisfied?”
“Yes ma’am. Is this the first prototype?”
“No, the second.”
“What happened to the first?”
“We learned a lot from it. The weight distribution problem was a bit more subtle than we thought. The problem was we have an oval fuselage and a circular engine so, although the two blend from the side, from above there’s a serious bulge to accommodate that engine. That’s a drag issue and it’s one reason why we lost so much speed. The Tornado has a wider fuselage and doesn’t have that problem. Why don’t you get settled in and you can have a closer look tomorrow.”
German Auxiliary Cruiser Schiff 28, Deutsche Werft, Schichau, Danzig.
“She will be a fine ship, Captain.” The shipyard manager looked proud of himself and with good reason. The work of converting the brand-new Polish merchant ship into an auxiliary cruiser had gone remarkably smoothly. Captain Hellmuth von Ruckteschell had been much impressed by the speed and efficiency with which the ship had been armed with her six main guns and six torpedo tubes. The sinking of the Kormoran had taught the Navy some valuable lessons. Some of them were more obvious; the ship had a proper fire control system for her main guns, albeit one that was carefully concealed within her bridge. The others were less obvious. The ship’s machinery spaces had protective plating installed and proper damage control and firefighting system.
“I will call her Michel. Captain von Ruckteschell looked over to where his new command’s sister ship was also fitting out. “Have you heard who will be commanding Schiff 30?”
“I understand Captain Gumprich will be taking her out. I have heard that he is naming his ship Rafael. I think the pair now completing in Hamburg will be the Gabriel and Uriel.”
von Ruckteschell nodded to himself although he was somewhat ambivalent about the four ships being named after Archangels. He and the other prospective raider captains had joked about it but now it looked like the joke was becoming real, he wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. The phrase ‘tempting fate’ kept running through his mind. Still, he knew Gumprich well and that was an important thing for the delicate mission ahead. The weird situation where Germany was at war with the Commonwealth but at peace with Britain had left both sides in a quandary. How the hell was one supposed to wage a war when the combatants were literally on opposite sides of the world? The four raiders now being completed were Germany’s answer to that intriguing question.
Admiral Raeder had been explicit about the role of the four ships. They were to conduct a guerilla war at sea, preying on Australian and Indian supply lines and merchant shipping, mining ports and generally making a thorough nuisance of themselves. They were strictly forbidden to engage enemy warships; the whole point was to create a low-level but frustrating war at sea that would sap the will of the Commonwealth nations to continue what appeared to be a pointless and fruitless campaign. The examples of Kormoran and Graf Spree were held up as examples to be avoided at all costs. Kormoran may have sunk the Hobart but when she was lost in the process, she had eliminated any German naval presence in the Indian Ocean, and given the Australians a rallying point that had kept them in the war. The Graf Spree was an even more emphatic lesson; Langsdorff’s idiocy had cost the German Navy a badly needed major warship.
The thought of a naval engagement brought von Ruckteschell’s mind back to the subject of guns. “Six guns you say, 150mm’s of course?”
The engineer shook his head. “French 152mm 55-caliber. There is a great shortage of guns now and we were instructed to use captured weapons. The French Model 30 is a very good gun though and its fire control is much smaller and lighter than ours. Your anti-aircraft guns are French as well. We’ve fitted six twin 37mm Model 33s and four twin 25mm Model 37s. The guns might be French, Captain, but you have a better anti-aircraft armament than most of our front-line warships.”
Governor-General’s Residence, Batavia, Dutch East Indies
“Welcome to the residence, I trust that the journey over has not taken you from more pressing work?” Governor-General Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer stretched out his hand and shook his guest’s returned hand firmly.
“With respect, your Excellency, there is nothing more important to me than the independence of Indonesia. My most heartfelt desire is to see that achieved peacefully but if that is not possible . . .”
“I have news for you on that score. I have heard from Canada that Queen Wilhelmina has expressed her desire to see the Dutch East Indies self-governed. I have asked you here today to discuss how that desire may best be realized.”
“I think you may experience some resistance from the trekkers on that score,” Kusno Sosrodihardjo, better known by his conspiratorial name of Sukarno, was dryly amused by the situation. After twenty years of nationalist activity and four years in jail for working towards Indonesian independence, he was being asked to help the process along. “Although the blijvers will be much in favor of the idea.”
Stachouwer reflected that Sukarno’s reputation for sharpness was well-deserved. He’d put his finger on the key problem right away. The ‘trekkers’ were the recent arrivals, fresh-faced young Dutchmen from the motherland who longed to return to their home country and looked at the native world around them with suspicion and hostility. They lived in their own self-contained communities and went outside them as little as possible. The ‘blijvers’ were very different. They were the long-term Dutch colonists who had been in the islands for generations. They had married Indonesian women and adopted an ‘Indisch” way of life that blended Dutch and local culture. Their children were classified as Europeans by the authorities but were discriminated against by the trekkers. Stachouwer had spent a significant amount of time in India over the last year and had noted that the situation was the reverse there. In India, it was the long-term residents who were strongly attached to the homeland and the new arrivals who had been seized by the dream of an independent India. Here, the blijvers were strongly supportive of the Indonesian nationalists, and the trekkers equally strongly opposed to them. That difference puzzled him.
“I must agree with you there. However, the Indians are overcoming similar problems and building a new country. Each side has put its own interests to one side in the greater interest of the country. Can we do less?”
Sukarno heard the implicit challenge in the words. Can you be seen to do less than Nehru? “I would suggest that the route taken by India is one we should examine closely. A carefully phased process that will result in an ordered hand-over of power. Of course, we have an advantage the Indians do not; the blijvers and their families are already both a vital part of the governing structure and a bridge between our communities. They will be of increasing importance as the power hand-over develops. That will annoy the trekkers enormously.”
“I do not see that as being a matter of importance.”
“Your Excellency, I was quoting it as a positive advantage.”
Stachouwer said nothing but raised a small glass of brandy in a wordless toast.
Regent’s Palace, Baghdad, Iraq, April 1st, 1941
“You move your team up to the road.” Obersturmführer Stephan Bähr knew that Skorzeny was uncomfortable with this whole operation as he was but there was little choice in the matter. Jägdverband 502 was a small group with all too many projects on hand for the personnel at its disposal. When Rashid Ali al Gaylani and the “Golden Square” of Colonel Salah al-Din al-Sabbagh, Colonel Kamal Shabib, Colonel Fahmi Said, and Colonel Mahmud Salman had demanded that Regent Abd al-llah and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said be deposed, Ambassador Grobba had insisted that they be assisted by Skorzeny’s men. To himself, Bähr conceded that Grobba had a point; the timing was right and it fitted in with the overall plan to create a major diversion in the region. The problem was that, despite all four members of the Golden Square commanding units located in the Baghdad area, not one of them was prepared to commit their own men to the coup. Salah ad-Din al-Sabbagh was commander of the Iraqi 3rd Infantry Division. Kamal Shabib commanded the 1st Infantry Division and Fahmi Said commanded the Independent Mechanized Brigade. Not one of their trained regulars was taking part in the attack. Mahmud Salman, the one non-Army officer, was the Chief of the Air Force and didn’t have ground troops. Bähr suspected he wouldn’t have committed them if he had. So, the coup force was made up of supporters from the Party of National Brotherhood. Untrained irregulars whose fervor was more inspired by pay than an abiding belief in Iraqi nationalism. Skorzeny had done his best, assigning one SS NCO to each group of eight Iraqis and tasked them with doing as much training as possible. From what Bähr had heard, that hadn’t been much. The SS men had tried hard but military training was like cookery – one needed good ingredients to make a successful product.
Beside him, Scharfuhrer Gert Wolter looked around at the men he had trained, his face expressionless. The plan was for his unit to block the main escape road that led to the British Embassy. It was critical that Abd al-llah and his entire family be killed during the initial assault. That made Wolter’s role a critical one, and his unit was the best of all those taking part in the coup. For all that, neither Bähr nor Wolter were confident that things would go the way they had planned.
The nine men assigned to the roadblock slipped away. Bähr consulted his watch again and allowed enough time for the men to take up their positions. Then, he took his signal pistol and fired a red flare high into the sky over the Regent’s Palace. That done, he brought his MP-28 submachine gun into firing position.
There was enough of a silence to make Bähr wonder if the whole assault was to be an ignominious failure. Even the first sounds to come from the groups surrounding the Palace weren’t that reassuring. The patter of gunfire was clearly the small 9mm pistol rounds from the MP-28s, not the heavy bark of rifle fire. Grimly, Bähr wondered if he was hearing his SS-men shooting the Party of National Brotherhood ‘fighters’ after they had failed to obey orders. Then, to his relief, he heard the rifles opening fire as the assault force engaged the handful of guards at the Palace.
In situations like this, Bähr knew it was essential to lead by example. He rose to his feet and started to move across the street, towards the palace compound. Behind him, the movement was limited, and he could sense the party men were hanging back. There was an expression that covered this situation, although Bähr had no idea where it came from. One gets further in this world with a smile and a gun than just with a smile. He turned around, spotted where the men he had been assigned were skulking, and fired a short burst from his MP-28 at them. That should convince them that obeying me is less dangerous than shirking their duty.
The threat appeared to work. There was little opposition from the Palace or the other darkened buildings that surrounded the Regent’s enclosure. The still of the night air was broken by a few scattered shots were fired, that was all. They drew a massive response from the submachine guns carried by the Germans and the rifles carried by the party members following them. One of Skorzeny’s actions had been to ensure those men were carrying Persian Mauser rifles. It was the same reason Bähr and his fellow NCOs had MP-28s, not the already iconic German Army MP-38. The weapons would confuse an already complex picture and confusion was an end-all in itself. One of the scattered shots from the palace whined past him, a sharp reminder to Bähr that even the most carelessly aimed bullet could still be lethal. Ahead, the buildings in the palace complex were coming to life as the occupants finally understood what was happening. The guards inside were firing wildly, their shots being blasted off into the darkness at random, but they were influencing the attack. Each shot sent a group of the ‘party fighters’ scurrying for cover and forced the German ‘advisors’ to dig them out and force them back into the attack. As far as Bähr could see, the battle outside the Regent’s Palace was a remarkably bloodless one and he was a little at a loss to know how to change that.
A second later, the whole issue was rendered moot. The night was split open by the sudden roar of high-powered car engines as a column of four vehicles swept out from a group of buildings in the center of the compound and raced across the grounds to the nearest road. Bähr saw rifles sticking out of the opened car windows and the muzzle flashed as the men inside the cars started firing at anything moving. He fired a long burst from his MP-28, emptying the magazine at the lead car but saw the sparks as the 9mm bullets bounced off the steel bodywork. The cars were bullet-resistant at least and the implication was obvious. The coup had been expected or at least anticipated, and an escape route planned. In what amounted to near-despair, Bähr saw the groups attacking the palace scattering from the path of the cars. Most of the ‘party fighters’ simply ran away rather than face the wild, ineffectual rifle fire from the fast-moving cars. The vehicles swerved through the darkness, holding a reasonable formation given the chaos that surrounded them, and reached the road that would eventually take them to the British Embassy.
The lack of fire from the roadblock hardly surprised Bähr. It would have astonished him more if the action there had matched the melodramatic boasts he had heard from the Party of National Brotherhood. The cars were accelerating once they were on the smooth road. That was when Scharfuhrer Wolter stepped out from the shadows and stood in front of the cars, his MP-28 raised to his shoulder. Without attempting to move from his position on the road, he emptied the entire magazine of the submachine gun into the windshield of the lead car. Obviously, that was bullet-resistant too Bähr thought for the car didn’t even swerve as the bullets flashed across its front. Wolter was ramming another magazine into his MP-28 when the car hit him, hurling him high into the air. His body passed clean over the second car and landed in front of the third and fourth vehicles that almost instantly ran over him. Bähr watched their taillights vanish into the darkness. He knew local geography intimately and realized that they would be in the British Embassy before anybody could do anything about it.
He hardly needed to look at the body on the road to know that Wolter was dead. The corpse was so badly mutilated that it was barely recognizable. His scream of anger echoed off the buildings nearby. “Why didn’t you stop those cars? What excuse do you have?”
The group of ‘party fighters’ started muttering about the escape being divine will but the supercilious smirks on their faces exasperated Bähr. He swung his MP-28 up, pointing the muzzle down low so the bullets would hit them in the guts, ensuring a slow, painful death. Before he could pull the trigger though, Skorzeny’s hand pushed the MP-28 down. “Leave it. It would be politically unwise to shoot them, however much they deserve it. They will pay their debt later.”
“Otto, the Regent escaped. They just hung back, let us do all the work, and then skulked in the shadows. They let the Regent escape.”
“Nevertheless, our ally is now in power, there is a pro-Axis government in Iraq and the diversion we planned is in hand. That is enough.”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Five
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“And so the inevitable happens.” Sir Eric Haohoa wasn’t quite sure whether he should be distressed at the news from Iraq, pleased that the intelligence reports had proved correct or relieved that a long-threatened danger had finally assumed concrete and tangible form. “The Regent 'Abd al-Ilah has been deposed and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani has assumed power as Prime Minister. We have been advised that the Grand Mufti Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was one of the orchestrators of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's coup d'état and that the entire operation was carried out with Nazi support and financing. According to our intelligence reports, when Haj Amin met with Hitler and Ribbentrop early this year, he assured Hitler that 'The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies, namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists.”
“I assume he does realize that the Russian Communists are German allies and the British, if not allies, are at least a friendly neutral?” A year into gaining real political power and experience had caused Nehru to be much more skeptical about political statements made at meetings. Privately, he looked back at some he had made and cringed at the memory.
“The London Government is, apparently well-disposed towards Berlin.” General Auchinleck made the point carefully. “The British people, not so much. It would not be unfair to say That Man’s authority declines quickly once the borders of the Metropolitan Police District are passed. If it were not for his brown shirts, that decline would be even more precipitous.”
“Quite so, General.” Sir Eric initially regarded the comments as being somewhat superfluous but then moved to the next part of the situation report and changed his mind. “We have strong evidence of that. The Regent 'Abd al-Ilah escaped from his palace and has taken refuge in the British Embassy. The Ambassador there, Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, informed London of his arrival but asked us what he should do about it. Us, be it noted, not the Australians or Canadians.”
A self-satisfied chuckle went around the room. Already, there was a discrete battle for power going on in the new Commonwealth of Nations with Australia, Canada, and India vying for political leadership. The fact that the Baghdad Embassy had looked to India for guidance was a small but significant step in winning that battle.
“We have a brigade in Basra, the 20th Infantry, with the 2nd battalion 8th Gurkha Rifles, 2nd battalion 7th Gurkha Rifles, and the 3rd battalion 11th Sikh Regiment. They have a regiment of artillery attached to them. We can march on Baghdad immediately.” Auchinleck had already set the staff work in motion.
“There is a problem here. The Regent is sheltering in the British Embassy. If there is no fighting in progress, he will certainly be safe there. The German treatment of Mussolini proved that they regard their armistice with Britain as being their most important political interest at this time. They will not permit an attack on the British Embassy. But, if we move in support of the Regent, that will set those considerations at naught.” Sir Eric looked thoughtful. “And there is another matter. With this coup in Iraq, are we seeing the Noth Plan swinging into action?”
“Incredible though it may sound, I think we must assume that it does.” Auchinleck shook his head in disbelief. “As a military operation it defies all common sense, yet it does appear as if it indeed represents German strategic intentions. How they intend to exploit this direction is, frankly, beyond my understanding. It would involve an advance through Turkey and that is a nightmare to contemplate.”
“Suppose, Turkey was to join the Axis and allow passage of German forces. Would not that make an advance through Iraq plausible?” The Marquess of Linlithgow was trying to find a solution to an apparently insoluble problem. The Germans are neither insane nor stupid. They must know that the Noth Plan is nothing more than a wild fantasy dreamed up by a person with no military expertise. Yet, they are carrying it out. What do they know that we don’t?
That thought made Auchinleck think for a moment. “It would provide a degree of plausibility, yes. Not a great degree for the transport net in Turkey is grossly inadequate to support any significant invasion force. But, with Turkish cooperation, it would be of some value and the French in Syria and the Lebanon are closely aligned with the authorities in Vichy.”
“Our assessment is that the Turks will move with great caution. While there is some feeling for the German cause in the Turkish government, there is also great trepidation from the memories of the Great War and the losses they suffered. Only now is Turkey recovering from that disaster and they do not wish to repeat the experience. So, we believe, the Turks will stay out of the war unless it becomes obvious, they can gain a great deal with little risk on their part. It follows from that assessment that a strong and resolute response to the current situation will deter Turkey from acting on any thoughts they may have of joining the Axis cause.” Sir Eric looked around the room; it was the first time that he had made a policy recommendation of this gravity in his role as head of the Indian Intelligence Services. To his great relief (and not a little delight) he saw that there was a unanimous nodding of heads.
“Well said, Cabinet Secretary.” Attorney General Setalvad, voicing the opinion of the meeting. “This is indeed a time when resolute and decisive action is essential. We must always be concerned at the risk of premature decisions based on inaccurate or faulty knowledge but equally we must also recognize those times when prompt action is of the utmost importance. General Auchinleck, are we dependent upon a single brigade in Iraq?”
“No, Sir. We are preparing to move additional forces into the country in the form of independent battalions. Once there, they will be organized as the Tenth Infantry Division. In addition, the Navy is moving in the aircraft carrier Hermes, the heavy cruisers Hawkins and Frobisher and four destroyers. Once they are in position, we will have complete naval supremacy in the area.
“What aircraft does the Hermes carry?” Nehru asked the question, aware that even thinking of it showed how much more he understood of defense matters than he had a year before.
Auchinleck looked at his notes. “Six Brewster Buffalo fighters and six Swordfish. Not the most powerful of air groups but we were lucky to get the Buffalos. We have nine more waiting to go on Eagle when she arrives and thirty available as replacements. They’re forming a training unit now.”
There was a brief silence as the Cabinet remembered the grim days less than a year ago when India did not have a single fighter aircraft available. Now, the number available was climbing steadily with a steadily growing stream of Indian pilots to fly them. The Marquess of Linlithgow broke the silence with a brisk note of approval for the course the meeting was taking. “Might I propose that the arrangements made by General Auchinleck be approved and that he be granted authority to put an end to this unrest in Iraq as he sees fit? This is an occasion, I think, when we would be well-advised to put matters in the hands of an expert and let him do what needs to be done.”
“Hear, hear.” The Marquess wasn’t quite sure who had approved his motion so enthusiastically, but it didn’t really matter. Agreement on the issue was unanimous. The Indian Army was going to restore the Regent of Iraq to power just as soon as they could rescue him from the British Embassy in Baghdad.
Cabinet Office, 10 Downing Street, London
“I think our course of action is obvious. Herr Ribbentrop has suggested that it would be a friendly act if we were to hand the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah over to the new authorities in Baghdad without any delay. I see nothing but advantages for us if we were to comply with this request and nothing but difficulties if we were to do otherwise. Herr Ribbentrop’s message confirms the importance of Germany’s relations with us and our favorable response to his request will strengthen our position immensely.” Richard Austen Butler looked around the Cabinet Office seeking opposition he could beat down. He found it almost instantly.
“It matters nothing to you that we would be sending a man who sought our protection to certain death? A man who has been a staunch supporter of ours.” Sir Arnold Robbins was indignant that the possibility could even have been raised.
“His support of the Anglo-Iraqi agreements was pure self-interest on his part. He wished to hold a position of power and could not do so without our support. I would say that the events of the last few hours have proved that point conclusively. He gained power only because Ghazi bin Faisal was killed in a mysterious car accident, and we leveraged his ascent. As soon as he had to depend upon his own resources and position, he was deposed. His rule depended on British bayonets and upon them only. Iraq is an independent country and has its own way to make in the world. We cannot allow mere sentimentality to force an unwanted and unloved ruler upon them.”
“Foreign Secretary, our interests in Iraq are much more than mere sentimentality. Iraq and Persia are major sources of the oil we need to run our fleet. Our position in the region is determined by that fact.”
“There is no reason why the events of the last few hours should change our situation regarding Iraq’s oil. The new regime there may be on friendly terms with Germany but so, I may remind the Cabinet, are we. Indeed, our access to Iraqi oil may well be better assured by handing over the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah to the new government and thus ensuring that both we and Germany are on good terms with them.” Butler resumed his seat with an oily smirk on his face.
“There is another factor to consider here.” The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood, felt uneasy about intervening in such an obviously foreign matter but in his eyes, there was an important economic dimension. “That is trade with Germany. Over the months since the Armistice, Germany has placed major orders with our industries. Large quantities of Lorries have been delivered to Germany and more such orders are placed every day. RSAF Enfield and the Birmingham Small Arms Factory have each received orders for a hundred thousand Number One Mark III rifles chambered for German ammunition. ROF Fazackerley has received orders for Lanchester sub-machine guns. In fact, the German orders are so large they are having difficulties in shipping all the material and are asking about leasing warehousing near the south coast ports. All these contracts, and more besides, are bringing in much-needed revenue and putting the specter of the Great Depression still further behind us.”
“Orders paid for with looted French gold.” Sir Arnold grumbled under his breath but had the wisdom not to voice the sentiment. His position was already a precarious one.
“That is as maybe.” Sir Kingsley felt strongly that economic realities had to be driven home. “The truth is, though, that Britain started the war nearly bankrupt and was facing financial ruin by mid-1940. It was your timely action, Prime Minister, who saved us from financial disaster. Now, we are in a uniquely favorable position, one that promises us not bankruptcy but prosperity unmatched since before the First World War. While a substantial proportion of our merchant fleet has aligned itself with the Commonwealth of Nations, what remains to us is still the largest trading fleet in the world. It is also a neutral trading fleet that is free to go wherever and whenever it wishes. The potential wealth that can be obtained from that fleet will go far toward remedying our financial troubles. It means the UK can keep servicing its debts in the US, we can feed our population, and thanks to the war, we don't have a massive recession/depression across much of the world. At the same time, the world’s oceans are still very dangerous places for German shipping while the Red Duster is a get-out-of-jail-free card for a ship in danger of attack.”
“So we can import food?” Halifax seized on that one quickly. “Without going cap-in-hand to the Commonwealth?”
“Well, I honestly don't think we need to go to Australia to fill our stores. South America should be the preferred supplier for grain and beef, it’s closer and cheaper and we have more than enough economic investment there to make the balance of payment issues null and void. The truth is that we have huge reserves of South American currencies. The economic crisis, that nearly brought us down was the depletion of our US Dollar reserves, but that was the exception, not the rule. We will still need to go to Australia and New Zealand for wool, mutton/lamb, and dairy produce, but it was only Imperial preference and discounted (as backloaded cargo) shipping that kept them in the UK grain market. We have domestic coal, so the usual flow of UK tramp tonnage can be reorganized towards South America - coal out, beef, and grain back - and we will do very nicely thank you. In fact, as far as the present situation is concerned, we are well-set for seven years of fat giving us time to prepare for the inevitable seven years of lean. And we owe it all to you, Prime Minister.”
Lord Halifax visibly preened himself at that. “And sales to Germany add a little extra gold to the picture of course?”
“Much more than that, Prime Minister. The Germans need British shipping if they want to import anything into Europe. Apart from the obvious profits that accrue to us, that earns us political influence of great importance in Berlin. I have no doubt that the Germans would like to bypass London and take over tonnage directly, but they must know that is unworkable for foreign-going voyages. If they tried it, the individual ships concerned have not only ample opportunity to switch sides but are open to seizure if there's any need to cover the crew/owners from complications like families being taken hostage. We need to be circumspect, but we have a very strong position now.”
“Let us return to the issue at hand.” Halifax was feeling benign and munificent. The presentation from the Treasury had done much to ease the load from him. “Are we agreed that our position dictates we return the regent to the new administration?”
“Is there not a danger that this move represents the start of the Noth Plan and thus a direct attack upon the Commonwealth? While we may be estranged at this time, they are our kin, and cooperating with German plans for an attack upon India would be unforgivable?” Clement Atlee hoped he was keeping the indignation out of his voice but as Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, he felt it was his duty to raise the point.
“The so-called Noth Plan is utter balderdash.” Sir John Dill in his position as Chief of the Imperial General Staff felt obliged to inject a note of sanity into the meeting. “It is the kind of nonsense that armchair generals who have never had to face the realities of military operations like to come up with. Prime Minister, during your experience of staff operations in the Great War, you must have seen all too many similar proposals?”
Flattered by the reference to his military service, Lord Halifax continued to visibly preen himself. “Indeed so, Sir John, and I am delighted to see you share my opinion of this operation. Personally, I believe it is a forgery put about by the Americans to further their own political ends. But that is of no great importance. The German is a practical man and one that may undertake operations radical in concept but only after careful calculation of the odds. There is much to lose and very little to gain by an attempt to strike through Turkey and into India. No, gentlemen, Hitler’s eyes are, if anywhere, on Russia. This Iraqi business is only an issue if we choose to make it one and we do not so choose. The Baghdad Embassy will be instructed to hand the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah over to the new government headed by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani without delay.
British Embassy, Baghdad, Iraq.
“Well, That Man has ordered us to hand him over while the Indians suggest we get him out to join their brigade in Basra. That puts us right in the middle of the whole mess.” Sir Kinahan Cornwallis looked at his Chief of Staff, Sir Donald Powell. Powell’s position was interesting; he had been sent out to Baghdad to take command of the 20th Indian Brigade of the British Army when it was supposed to be on its way to the Western Desert. By the time he had arrived, the force had become the 20th Brigade of the Indian Army and had its own commanding officer. There was no place in its ranks for him. He had no desire to return to a London dominated by Lord Halifax so had been offered the post of Chief of Staff as a make-work until something more substantial could be found for him.
“If we do what that Man wants, then we might as well tear the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah limb from limb ourselves. In fact, if we were to obey those instructions, the kindest thing we could do would be to put a bullet into his head and that of any other members of his family that have taken shelter here.”
Cornwallis stared out of the Embassy window, trying to find a way out of this impasse. Suddenly, he realized that he was staring straight at it. “Don, you remember Morse code of course. Could you signal to Cockchafer out there?”
Powell looked out the window to where the river gunboat, HMS Cockchafer, was anchored. “Of course, Sir. In fact, she’ll have a lookout watching the Embassy for exactly that. What do you want me to say?”
“We need an invitation to the Regent from Cockchafer’s officer’s mess. Drinkies before lunch. Then get the Regent and his family onto that gunboat and get her out into mid-stream. Once she’s in the middle of the Tigris, she’s not under our jurisdiction anymore.”
“But she still has to take orders from London, Sir.”
“I think so, you think so. But she used to be a part of the China Squadron, then was transferred to the East Indies Squadron. East Indies Squadron is operating under Admiralty Order 03-9839 and has joined the Indian Fleet. Cockchafer herself came here as part of the escort for the Indian Brigade now at Basra. So, whatever we think, she and her crew undoubtedly have their own opinions that we are not privy to. So, hurry up old chap, and get the Regent and his family onto that gunboat.”
Two hours later, there was a discrete knock at the door of Sir Kinahan Cornwallis. His private secretary looked in “A delegation from the new Iraqi government, Ambassador.”
“Very good, Timothy. Shovel them in.”
The delegation was a group of urbane Iraqis in western-style suits accompanied by two larger men. Cornwallis took in the appearance of one of them, particularly the prominent dueling scars on his face. “Why, Lieutenant Skorzeny, I had heard you were in the city.”
“My rank is Hauptsturmführer.” Skorzeny’s voice was cold and brittle.
“My dear chap, I am so sorry, all these unusual ranks have me confused. I thought you were a commissioned officer.”
“It is the equivalent of Captain in your Army.” The cold brittleness now had distinct gravel in it. Skorzeny realized he had been goaded into confirming his SS identity.
“Is that so? Well, you’d know these things of course. Perhaps you could do me the kindness of writing out a list of your SS ranks and their equivalents? Save future embarrassment and all that. Now, what can I do for you?”
“We have come to take custody of the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah. You have been ordered by your government to comply with this request.”
“We have indeed, and we will transfer him to your custody as soon as he returns.”
“Returns?” Skorzeny’s voice was loaded with suspicion.
“He and his family were invited on board His Majesty’s Warship Cockchafer for pre-luncheon drinks. Quite standard when a dignitary visits a British Embassy and one of our warships is in attendance. Be rude not to.”
“Cockchafer” Skorzeny strode to the windows and looked out. “She would be the Insect-class gunboat that has raised steam and appears to be sailing south, presumably to Basra.”
“She is? How extraordinary. Her invitation made it quite clear the Regent would be returning to the Embassy at 1400 hours. I’ll have her return immediately. Timothy? Send a radio message to Cockchafer immediately, ordering her to return the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah to the Embassy at once.”
“I think you will find that her radio is suffering from a highly convenient breakdown.” Skorzeny’s voice now consisted entirely of gravel but with a distinct overtone of suppressed laughter. “And I also suppose it will transpire that she is taking orders from Calcutta, not London.”
“That would be most irregular, Hauptsturmführer. She is a Royal Navy warship operating under Admiralty orders.”
“Is that so? Well, you’d know these things of course. Perhaps you could do me the kindness of writing out a list of exactly who controls what in your armed forces. Save future embarrassment and all that. It may even be of some help to you.” Skorzeny’s sarcastic repetition of the Ambassador’s earlier remark earned him a dip of the head from Cornwallis.
“It may well indeed. I will have to take the idea under advisement.”
Skorzeny grunted and turned around to make an impressive exit. However, as the door closed behind him, Cornwallis heard his voice addressing the Iraqi delegation. “And that, gentlemen, is how the British acquired their Empire.”
German Auxiliary Cruiser Schiff 28, Deutsche Werft, Schichau, Danzig.
Cheering from the workers who had gathered along the shoreside echoed across the water and rebounded from the buildings that surrounded the port. Schiff 28 was being nudged by the tugs aiding her in getting to sea, but she seemed keen to break away from them and take control of her own destiny. Feeling the ship vibrate under his feet as the engines picked up power, Captain Hellmuth von Ruckteschell felt as if Michel was truly a warship at last.
“A great day for us.” Von Ruckteschell looked over at the 152mm gun mounted on the centerline in front of the bridge. He couldn’t see them, but there were two more 152s concealed behind folding hatches in the forecastle. They were the only two heavy guns he had that could fire directly forward. Behind the bridge was the fourth gun on the centerline but hidden under a sliding deckhouse while two more guns were hidden in the ship’s stern. A broadside of four guns with two that can bear forward and two aft. Not bad.
“We’ll do more for Germany than the monsters building in Hamburg and Bremen. I’ll bet their big guns will never fire a shot in anger!” Gunnery officer Steffen Dohman had no qualms about choosing to serve on the hilfskreuzer Michel. He wanted to use his guns and he had a feeling the four great battleships building in German yards never would. Schlachtschiff H now christened Seydlitz had been laid down at Blohm & Voss, Hamburg on June 15th, 1939, and Schlachtschiff J, now Derfflinger at Deshimag, Bremen on August 15th, 1939. The second pair, Schlachtschiff K at Deutsche Werke at Kiel and Schlachtschiff L building at the Kriegsmarine yard at Wilhelmshaven hadn’t been named yet but the rumor was that they too would bear the names of the battlecruisers that had served in World War One.
Von Ruckteschell looked at his gunnery officer with amusement tinged with respect. He knew that the young Lieutenant had been assigned to the gunnery department on the Seydlitz but had used every scrap of influence a newly commissioned officer had to be reassigned to the hilfskreuzers. He’d been aided by the fact that almost every other gunnery officer in the German Navy was fighting to be assigned to the new battleships. Von Ruckteschell knew what drove the young man though. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to fire his guns as the fact that on Seydlitz he would be one of a dozen or more junior gunnery officers and well down the seniority list of a large department. But here, on Schiff 28, he was THE gunnery officer. He would stand or fall on his performance, and he had the self-confidence to assume he would stand. It was that self-confidence von Ruckteschell respected.
“Lieutenant Dohman. I think we should leave port with a bang. As soon as the tugs cast us off, order the crew of our 105mm gun to start firing starshell at maximum elevation. We’ll call it a training exercise.”
“Very good, Sir. Our gun crews need extra training. Warspite showed us what can be achieved with starshell.” Dohman looked serious as he acknowledged the order but there was a twinkle in his eyes.
“Well, let’s hope we don’t meet up with her for a lesson.” Von Ruckteschell knew that the British battleship might technically still be a part of the Royal Navy, but she was part of Mediterranean Command and they answered to the exiled British Government in Ottawa, not the Halifax regime in London. And Warspite had performed very well at the Battle of the Otranto Strait.
There was a lurch as the tugs released Schiff 28 and started to drop back. Almost simultaneously, there was a crack as the 105mm gun amidships fired, and a starshell burst overhead. The cheering from the shore redoubled, for now, Michel was truly on her way.
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“And so the inevitable happens.” Sir Eric Haohoa wasn’t quite sure whether he should be distressed at the news from Iraq, pleased that the intelligence reports had proved correct or relieved that a long-threatened danger had finally assumed concrete and tangible form. “The Regent 'Abd al-Ilah has been deposed and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani has assumed power as Prime Minister. We have been advised that the Grand Mufti Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was one of the orchestrators of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's coup d'état and that the entire operation was carried out with Nazi support and financing. According to our intelligence reports, when Haj Amin met with Hitler and Ribbentrop early this year, he assured Hitler that 'The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies, namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists.”
“I assume he does realize that the Russian Communists are German allies and the British, if not allies, are at least a friendly neutral?” A year into gaining real political power and experience had caused Nehru to be much more skeptical about political statements made at meetings. Privately, he looked back at some he had made and cringed at the memory.
“The London Government is, apparently well-disposed towards Berlin.” General Auchinleck made the point carefully. “The British people, not so much. It would not be unfair to say That Man’s authority declines quickly once the borders of the Metropolitan Police District are passed. If it were not for his brown shirts, that decline would be even more precipitous.”
“Quite so, General.” Sir Eric initially regarded the comments as being somewhat superfluous but then moved to the next part of the situation report and changed his mind. “We have strong evidence of that. The Regent 'Abd al-Ilah escaped from his palace and has taken refuge in the British Embassy. The Ambassador there, Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, informed London of his arrival but asked us what he should do about it. Us, be it noted, not the Australians or Canadians.”
A self-satisfied chuckle went around the room. Already, there was a discrete battle for power going on in the new Commonwealth of Nations with Australia, Canada, and India vying for political leadership. The fact that the Baghdad Embassy had looked to India for guidance was a small but significant step in winning that battle.
“We have a brigade in Basra, the 20th Infantry, with the 2nd battalion 8th Gurkha Rifles, 2nd battalion 7th Gurkha Rifles, and the 3rd battalion 11th Sikh Regiment. They have a regiment of artillery attached to them. We can march on Baghdad immediately.” Auchinleck had already set the staff work in motion.
“There is a problem here. The Regent is sheltering in the British Embassy. If there is no fighting in progress, he will certainly be safe there. The German treatment of Mussolini proved that they regard their armistice with Britain as being their most important political interest at this time. They will not permit an attack on the British Embassy. But, if we move in support of the Regent, that will set those considerations at naught.” Sir Eric looked thoughtful. “And there is another matter. With this coup in Iraq, are we seeing the Noth Plan swinging into action?”
“Incredible though it may sound, I think we must assume that it does.” Auchinleck shook his head in disbelief. “As a military operation it defies all common sense, yet it does appear as if it indeed represents German strategic intentions. How they intend to exploit this direction is, frankly, beyond my understanding. It would involve an advance through Turkey and that is a nightmare to contemplate.”
“Suppose, Turkey was to join the Axis and allow passage of German forces. Would not that make an advance through Iraq plausible?” The Marquess of Linlithgow was trying to find a solution to an apparently insoluble problem. The Germans are neither insane nor stupid. They must know that the Noth Plan is nothing more than a wild fantasy dreamed up by a person with no military expertise. Yet, they are carrying it out. What do they know that we don’t?
That thought made Auchinleck think for a moment. “It would provide a degree of plausibility, yes. Not a great degree for the transport net in Turkey is grossly inadequate to support any significant invasion force. But, with Turkish cooperation, it would be of some value and the French in Syria and the Lebanon are closely aligned with the authorities in Vichy.”
“Our assessment is that the Turks will move with great caution. While there is some feeling for the German cause in the Turkish government, there is also great trepidation from the memories of the Great War and the losses they suffered. Only now is Turkey recovering from that disaster and they do not wish to repeat the experience. So, we believe, the Turks will stay out of the war unless it becomes obvious, they can gain a great deal with little risk on their part. It follows from that assessment that a strong and resolute response to the current situation will deter Turkey from acting on any thoughts they may have of joining the Axis cause.” Sir Eric looked around the room; it was the first time that he had made a policy recommendation of this gravity in his role as head of the Indian Intelligence Services. To his great relief (and not a little delight) he saw that there was a unanimous nodding of heads.
“Well said, Cabinet Secretary.” Attorney General Setalvad, voicing the opinion of the meeting. “This is indeed a time when resolute and decisive action is essential. We must always be concerned at the risk of premature decisions based on inaccurate or faulty knowledge but equally we must also recognize those times when prompt action is of the utmost importance. General Auchinleck, are we dependent upon a single brigade in Iraq?”
“No, Sir. We are preparing to move additional forces into the country in the form of independent battalions. Once there, they will be organized as the Tenth Infantry Division. In addition, the Navy is moving in the aircraft carrier Hermes, the heavy cruisers Hawkins and Frobisher and four destroyers. Once they are in position, we will have complete naval supremacy in the area.
“What aircraft does the Hermes carry?” Nehru asked the question, aware that even thinking of it showed how much more he understood of defense matters than he had a year before.
Auchinleck looked at his notes. “Six Brewster Buffalo fighters and six Swordfish. Not the most powerful of air groups but we were lucky to get the Buffalos. We have nine more waiting to go on Eagle when she arrives and thirty available as replacements. They’re forming a training unit now.”
There was a brief silence as the Cabinet remembered the grim days less than a year ago when India did not have a single fighter aircraft available. Now, the number available was climbing steadily with a steadily growing stream of Indian pilots to fly them. The Marquess of Linlithgow broke the silence with a brisk note of approval for the course the meeting was taking. “Might I propose that the arrangements made by General Auchinleck be approved and that he be granted authority to put an end to this unrest in Iraq as he sees fit? This is an occasion, I think, when we would be well-advised to put matters in the hands of an expert and let him do what needs to be done.”
“Hear, hear.” The Marquess wasn’t quite sure who had approved his motion so enthusiastically, but it didn’t really matter. Agreement on the issue was unanimous. The Indian Army was going to restore the Regent of Iraq to power just as soon as they could rescue him from the British Embassy in Baghdad.
Cabinet Office, 10 Downing Street, London
“I think our course of action is obvious. Herr Ribbentrop has suggested that it would be a friendly act if we were to hand the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah over to the new authorities in Baghdad without any delay. I see nothing but advantages for us if we were to comply with this request and nothing but difficulties if we were to do otherwise. Herr Ribbentrop’s message confirms the importance of Germany’s relations with us and our favorable response to his request will strengthen our position immensely.” Richard Austen Butler looked around the Cabinet Office seeking opposition he could beat down. He found it almost instantly.
“It matters nothing to you that we would be sending a man who sought our protection to certain death? A man who has been a staunch supporter of ours.” Sir Arnold Robbins was indignant that the possibility could even have been raised.
“His support of the Anglo-Iraqi agreements was pure self-interest on his part. He wished to hold a position of power and could not do so without our support. I would say that the events of the last few hours have proved that point conclusively. He gained power only because Ghazi bin Faisal was killed in a mysterious car accident, and we leveraged his ascent. As soon as he had to depend upon his own resources and position, he was deposed. His rule depended on British bayonets and upon them only. Iraq is an independent country and has its own way to make in the world. We cannot allow mere sentimentality to force an unwanted and unloved ruler upon them.”
“Foreign Secretary, our interests in Iraq are much more than mere sentimentality. Iraq and Persia are major sources of the oil we need to run our fleet. Our position in the region is determined by that fact.”
“There is no reason why the events of the last few hours should change our situation regarding Iraq’s oil. The new regime there may be on friendly terms with Germany but so, I may remind the Cabinet, are we. Indeed, our access to Iraqi oil may well be better assured by handing over the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah to the new government and thus ensuring that both we and Germany are on good terms with them.” Butler resumed his seat with an oily smirk on his face.
“There is another factor to consider here.” The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood, felt uneasy about intervening in such an obviously foreign matter but in his eyes, there was an important economic dimension. “That is trade with Germany. Over the months since the Armistice, Germany has placed major orders with our industries. Large quantities of Lorries have been delivered to Germany and more such orders are placed every day. RSAF Enfield and the Birmingham Small Arms Factory have each received orders for a hundred thousand Number One Mark III rifles chambered for German ammunition. ROF Fazackerley has received orders for Lanchester sub-machine guns. In fact, the German orders are so large they are having difficulties in shipping all the material and are asking about leasing warehousing near the south coast ports. All these contracts, and more besides, are bringing in much-needed revenue and putting the specter of the Great Depression still further behind us.”
“Orders paid for with looted French gold.” Sir Arnold grumbled under his breath but had the wisdom not to voice the sentiment. His position was already a precarious one.
“That is as maybe.” Sir Kingsley felt strongly that economic realities had to be driven home. “The truth is, though, that Britain started the war nearly bankrupt and was facing financial ruin by mid-1940. It was your timely action, Prime Minister, who saved us from financial disaster. Now, we are in a uniquely favorable position, one that promises us not bankruptcy but prosperity unmatched since before the First World War. While a substantial proportion of our merchant fleet has aligned itself with the Commonwealth of Nations, what remains to us is still the largest trading fleet in the world. It is also a neutral trading fleet that is free to go wherever and whenever it wishes. The potential wealth that can be obtained from that fleet will go far toward remedying our financial troubles. It means the UK can keep servicing its debts in the US, we can feed our population, and thanks to the war, we don't have a massive recession/depression across much of the world. At the same time, the world’s oceans are still very dangerous places for German shipping while the Red Duster is a get-out-of-jail-free card for a ship in danger of attack.”
“So we can import food?” Halifax seized on that one quickly. “Without going cap-in-hand to the Commonwealth?”
“Well, I honestly don't think we need to go to Australia to fill our stores. South America should be the preferred supplier for grain and beef, it’s closer and cheaper and we have more than enough economic investment there to make the balance of payment issues null and void. The truth is that we have huge reserves of South American currencies. The economic crisis, that nearly brought us down was the depletion of our US Dollar reserves, but that was the exception, not the rule. We will still need to go to Australia and New Zealand for wool, mutton/lamb, and dairy produce, but it was only Imperial preference and discounted (as backloaded cargo) shipping that kept them in the UK grain market. We have domestic coal, so the usual flow of UK tramp tonnage can be reorganized towards South America - coal out, beef, and grain back - and we will do very nicely thank you. In fact, as far as the present situation is concerned, we are well-set for seven years of fat giving us time to prepare for the inevitable seven years of lean. And we owe it all to you, Prime Minister.”
Lord Halifax visibly preened himself at that. “And sales to Germany add a little extra gold to the picture of course?”
“Much more than that, Prime Minister. The Germans need British shipping if they want to import anything into Europe. Apart from the obvious profits that accrue to us, that earns us political influence of great importance in Berlin. I have no doubt that the Germans would like to bypass London and take over tonnage directly, but they must know that is unworkable for foreign-going voyages. If they tried it, the individual ships concerned have not only ample opportunity to switch sides but are open to seizure if there's any need to cover the crew/owners from complications like families being taken hostage. We need to be circumspect, but we have a very strong position now.”
“Let us return to the issue at hand.” Halifax was feeling benign and munificent. The presentation from the Treasury had done much to ease the load from him. “Are we agreed that our position dictates we return the regent to the new administration?”
“Is there not a danger that this move represents the start of the Noth Plan and thus a direct attack upon the Commonwealth? While we may be estranged at this time, they are our kin, and cooperating with German plans for an attack upon India would be unforgivable?” Clement Atlee hoped he was keeping the indignation out of his voice but as Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, he felt it was his duty to raise the point.
“The so-called Noth Plan is utter balderdash.” Sir John Dill in his position as Chief of the Imperial General Staff felt obliged to inject a note of sanity into the meeting. “It is the kind of nonsense that armchair generals who have never had to face the realities of military operations like to come up with. Prime Minister, during your experience of staff operations in the Great War, you must have seen all too many similar proposals?”
Flattered by the reference to his military service, Lord Halifax continued to visibly preen himself. “Indeed so, Sir John, and I am delighted to see you share my opinion of this operation. Personally, I believe it is a forgery put about by the Americans to further their own political ends. But that is of no great importance. The German is a practical man and one that may undertake operations radical in concept but only after careful calculation of the odds. There is much to lose and very little to gain by an attempt to strike through Turkey and into India. No, gentlemen, Hitler’s eyes are, if anywhere, on Russia. This Iraqi business is only an issue if we choose to make it one and we do not so choose. The Baghdad Embassy will be instructed to hand the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah over to the new government headed by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani without delay.
British Embassy, Baghdad, Iraq.
“Well, That Man has ordered us to hand him over while the Indians suggest we get him out to join their brigade in Basra. That puts us right in the middle of the whole mess.” Sir Kinahan Cornwallis looked at his Chief of Staff, Sir Donald Powell. Powell’s position was interesting; he had been sent out to Baghdad to take command of the 20th Indian Brigade of the British Army when it was supposed to be on its way to the Western Desert. By the time he had arrived, the force had become the 20th Brigade of the Indian Army and had its own commanding officer. There was no place in its ranks for him. He had no desire to return to a London dominated by Lord Halifax so had been offered the post of Chief of Staff as a make-work until something more substantial could be found for him.
“If we do what that Man wants, then we might as well tear the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah limb from limb ourselves. In fact, if we were to obey those instructions, the kindest thing we could do would be to put a bullet into his head and that of any other members of his family that have taken shelter here.”
Cornwallis stared out of the Embassy window, trying to find a way out of this impasse. Suddenly, he realized that he was staring straight at it. “Don, you remember Morse code of course. Could you signal to Cockchafer out there?”
Powell looked out the window to where the river gunboat, HMS Cockchafer, was anchored. “Of course, Sir. In fact, she’ll have a lookout watching the Embassy for exactly that. What do you want me to say?”
“We need an invitation to the Regent from Cockchafer’s officer’s mess. Drinkies before lunch. Then get the Regent and his family onto that gunboat and get her out into mid-stream. Once she’s in the middle of the Tigris, she’s not under our jurisdiction anymore.”
“But she still has to take orders from London, Sir.”
“I think so, you think so. But she used to be a part of the China Squadron, then was transferred to the East Indies Squadron. East Indies Squadron is operating under Admiralty Order 03-9839 and has joined the Indian Fleet. Cockchafer herself came here as part of the escort for the Indian Brigade now at Basra. So, whatever we think, she and her crew undoubtedly have their own opinions that we are not privy to. So, hurry up old chap, and get the Regent and his family onto that gunboat.”
Two hours later, there was a discrete knock at the door of Sir Kinahan Cornwallis. His private secretary looked in “A delegation from the new Iraqi government, Ambassador.”
“Very good, Timothy. Shovel them in.”
The delegation was a group of urbane Iraqis in western-style suits accompanied by two larger men. Cornwallis took in the appearance of one of them, particularly the prominent dueling scars on his face. “Why, Lieutenant Skorzeny, I had heard you were in the city.”
“My rank is Hauptsturmführer.” Skorzeny’s voice was cold and brittle.
“My dear chap, I am so sorry, all these unusual ranks have me confused. I thought you were a commissioned officer.”
“It is the equivalent of Captain in your Army.” The cold brittleness now had distinct gravel in it. Skorzeny realized he had been goaded into confirming his SS identity.
“Is that so? Well, you’d know these things of course. Perhaps you could do me the kindness of writing out a list of your SS ranks and their equivalents? Save future embarrassment and all that. Now, what can I do for you?”
“We have come to take custody of the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah. You have been ordered by your government to comply with this request.”
“We have indeed, and we will transfer him to your custody as soon as he returns.”
“Returns?” Skorzeny’s voice was loaded with suspicion.
“He and his family were invited on board His Majesty’s Warship Cockchafer for pre-luncheon drinks. Quite standard when a dignitary visits a British Embassy and one of our warships is in attendance. Be rude not to.”
“Cockchafer” Skorzeny strode to the windows and looked out. “She would be the Insect-class gunboat that has raised steam and appears to be sailing south, presumably to Basra.”
“She is? How extraordinary. Her invitation made it quite clear the Regent would be returning to the Embassy at 1400 hours. I’ll have her return immediately. Timothy? Send a radio message to Cockchafer immediately, ordering her to return the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah to the Embassy at once.”
“I think you will find that her radio is suffering from a highly convenient breakdown.” Skorzeny’s voice now consisted entirely of gravel but with a distinct overtone of suppressed laughter. “And I also suppose it will transpire that she is taking orders from Calcutta, not London.”
“That would be most irregular, Hauptsturmführer. She is a Royal Navy warship operating under Admiralty orders.”
“Is that so? Well, you’d know these things of course. Perhaps you could do me the kindness of writing out a list of exactly who controls what in your armed forces. Save future embarrassment and all that. It may even be of some help to you.” Skorzeny’s sarcastic repetition of the Ambassador’s earlier remark earned him a dip of the head from Cornwallis.
“It may well indeed. I will have to take the idea under advisement.”
Skorzeny grunted and turned around to make an impressive exit. However, as the door closed behind him, Cornwallis heard his voice addressing the Iraqi delegation. “And that, gentlemen, is how the British acquired their Empire.”
German Auxiliary Cruiser Schiff 28, Deutsche Werft, Schichau, Danzig.
Cheering from the workers who had gathered along the shoreside echoed across the water and rebounded from the buildings that surrounded the port. Schiff 28 was being nudged by the tugs aiding her in getting to sea, but she seemed keen to break away from them and take control of her own destiny. Feeling the ship vibrate under his feet as the engines picked up power, Captain Hellmuth von Ruckteschell felt as if Michel was truly a warship at last.
“A great day for us.” Von Ruckteschell looked over at the 152mm gun mounted on the centerline in front of the bridge. He couldn’t see them, but there were two more 152s concealed behind folding hatches in the forecastle. They were the only two heavy guns he had that could fire directly forward. Behind the bridge was the fourth gun on the centerline but hidden under a sliding deckhouse while two more guns were hidden in the ship’s stern. A broadside of four guns with two that can bear forward and two aft. Not bad.
“We’ll do more for Germany than the monsters building in Hamburg and Bremen. I’ll bet their big guns will never fire a shot in anger!” Gunnery officer Steffen Dohman had no qualms about choosing to serve on the hilfskreuzer Michel. He wanted to use his guns and he had a feeling the four great battleships building in German yards never would. Schlachtschiff H now christened Seydlitz had been laid down at Blohm & Voss, Hamburg on June 15th, 1939, and Schlachtschiff J, now Derfflinger at Deshimag, Bremen on August 15th, 1939. The second pair, Schlachtschiff K at Deutsche Werke at Kiel and Schlachtschiff L building at the Kriegsmarine yard at Wilhelmshaven hadn’t been named yet but the rumor was that they too would bear the names of the battlecruisers that had served in World War One.
Von Ruckteschell looked at his gunnery officer with amusement tinged with respect. He knew that the young Lieutenant had been assigned to the gunnery department on the Seydlitz but had used every scrap of influence a newly commissioned officer had to be reassigned to the hilfskreuzers. He’d been aided by the fact that almost every other gunnery officer in the German Navy was fighting to be assigned to the new battleships. Von Ruckteschell knew what drove the young man though. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to fire his guns as the fact that on Seydlitz he would be one of a dozen or more junior gunnery officers and well down the seniority list of a large department. But here, on Schiff 28, he was THE gunnery officer. He would stand or fall on his performance, and he had the self-confidence to assume he would stand. It was that self-confidence von Ruckteschell respected.
“Lieutenant Dohman. I think we should leave port with a bang. As soon as the tugs cast us off, order the crew of our 105mm gun to start firing starshell at maximum elevation. We’ll call it a training exercise.”
“Very good, Sir. Our gun crews need extra training. Warspite showed us what can be achieved with starshell.” Dohman looked serious as he acknowledged the order but there was a twinkle in his eyes.
“Well, let’s hope we don’t meet up with her for a lesson.” Von Ruckteschell knew that the British battleship might technically still be a part of the Royal Navy, but she was part of Mediterranean Command and they answered to the exiled British Government in Ottawa, not the Halifax regime in London. And Warspite had performed very well at the Battle of the Otranto Strait.
There was a lurch as the tugs released Schiff 28 and started to drop back. Almost simultaneously, there was a crack as the 105mm gun amidships fired, and a starshell burst overhead. The cheering from the shore redoubled, for now, Michel was truly on her way.
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Six
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Have you any idea what the boss wants with us?” Pim Bosede had received the ‘immediate presence’ message a few minutes before. He’d been on his way over when he had met Sean Mannix, commander of 47 Squadron hastening in the same direction on the same set of urgent orders.
“The rumor mill says that the Noth Plan has started. The Nazis have staged a take-over of the government in Baghdad that will open the way to a Nazi invasion force. We’re going to stop it before the plan gets rolling properly.”
“Gentlemen, hurry up please, we don’t have much time.” Air Vice-Marshal Harry George Smart was running against the clock and he knew it. “The rumors you have heard are true. There has been a coup in Baghdad that has placed a government sympathetic to Nazi Germany in power. It is very likely that we are seeing the start of the Noth Plan and it is essential that we react immediately to this. The political powers have come to the conclusion that the Noth Plan can only work if Nazi forces are given free passage across Turkey. They have further determined that such free passage will only be granted if the Nazi effort here in Iraq is successful. It is very common for a commander to tell his troops that the battle they are about to engage in will decide the outcome of the war but in this case, it is the plain, simple truth. If we put down this coup and reinstate the previous government, the show of force will be sufficient to stop the Noth Plan in its tracks. If we do not, we will be facing a long, hard battle against the cream of the Nazi army.
“However, there is much good news. The Regent of Iraq, a staunch opponent of the Nazis has escaped and is aboard the allied warship Cockchafer on his way to join the Indian troops around Basra. Covering his journey is one of the tasks that will fall to you, Squadron Leader Bosede. General Wavell has thrown the support of his Middle East Command behind us. While we speak, a formation of twelve Gladiators led by a Wellington is flying to reinforce us from Palestine. When they arrive, that will give us a second squadron of fighters and an eight-plane force of Wellingtons. A land column, made up of the New Zealand Division in Palestine will cross Trans-Jordan and occupy Iraq from the west while an Indian brigade will advance up the Tigris-Euphrates valley. We will also receive support from the Australians and South Africans. The grand alliance that drove the Italians out of Africa is, once more, entering the fray.
“Unfortunately, there is also much bad news. The new Iraqi government has taken grave offense at the escape of the Regent and is holding the Commonwealth forces responsible. Not to put too fine a point on it, they have ordered us out of the country. The primary target of their action to enforce that order is us here at Habbaniyah. An Iraqi column of approximately six to nine thousand men with 30 pieces of artillery is advancing from Baghdad to assault us. We believe they will occupy the plateau to the south of the base. In addition, Iraqi forces have occupied the bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates, cutting us off from the rest of Iraq. The rebel Iraqi forces have over a hundred aircraft, of which about half are serviceable. The total includes at least 24 Gladiators, 22 Breda 65s, 15 Northrop 8A attack aircraft, and four SM-79 medium bombers. In addition, they have 34 Audax trainers that can be used for army cooperation. We can expect to be attacked by some or all of these aircraft, well, now.
“To defend this base, we have the equivalent of around a thousand men, including locally recruited levies whose reliability is questionable, eighteen Crossley armored cars manned by the RAF Regiment, and two tanks dating from World War One. This makes it clear that the burden of defending this base will fall upon you gentlemen. Remember there are about nine thousand civilians here including many women and children and, should the base fall to the enemy, their fate will not be a happy one.
“We are short of water and the supply we have is vulnerable to artillery fire. As a training base, we are well-stocked with food, fuel, and most types of ammunition. Squadron Leader Bosede, we have one critical munitions shortage, ammunition for the .50 machine guns in your Tomahawks. We have barely enough for a single load per aircraft. You will have to fly with your .30s only until fresh supplies can be brought in. I would suggest you give priority for .50 ammunition supplies to covering Cockchafer as she makes her way down the Tigris and to protecting this base against attack. Any other mission will be carried out using .30s only.”
“Sir, the Tomahawk was designed to carry either .3 or .5 machine guns in its nose. I believe some aircraft in U.S. service carried one of each. Our armorers can swap out the .50s in some of the aircraft for .30s. That will give us a six-gun armament still and possibly hide the fact that we are short of .50.
Short thought quickly. “Do it, but only when the aircraft are not required for other missions. Now, for the rest of you. The message is obvious. We must make an active defense of this base and prevent any formal attack from being launched on us. Squadron Leader Mannix, most of the enemy aircraft are based at the old Hinaidi airfield. Destroying them will be your first mission. The Wellingtons will carry out a medium-altitude pattern-bombing of the hangars and other buildings, then you will take your Marylands in at low altitude to bomb and strafe the aircraft. The Bredas and Northrops will be your primary targets. You won’t have an escort for this raid, your Marylands are 60 miles per hour faster than the best of the Iraqi fighters.
“Squadron Leader Broderick, the Oxford trainers we have here are being modified to carry 20-pound and 100-pound high explosive bombs in place of smoke bombs. Your mission will be to harass the advancing Iraqi column and then hamper its efforts to occupy the plateau to the south. You will concentrate on the artillery, and you will prevent the Iraqis from setting up their guns.”
“What about us, Sir?” Squadron Leader Kerwin commanded one of the two units of Hawker Hart bombers at Habbaniyah.”
“You are the reserve at the moment. Your time will come when the Iraqis are attacking this base. The truth is, it’s bad enough with both us and them using Gladiators. We can’t afford the danger of Iraqi Audaxes being mistaken for your Harts or vice versa.” Smart looked around the briefing room. “Gentlemen, get your squadrons ready. This will be an interesting adventure.”
HMS Cockchafer Tigris River, Iraq
The rifle shots ricocheting off the armor on Cockchafer’s bridge made the warning from the lookouts superfluous, but the words echoed around the steel structure anyway. “Sniper, bearing zero-nine-zero.”
“Engage with Lewis guns.” Captain Agnew gave the order quietly, conscious of the need to present a calm and confident demeanor to the Regent and his family. Cockchafer didn’t have much of a superstructure, but what she did have was armored against rifle fire and she had eight Lewis guns set up to eliminate any nuisances. Many years patrolling the Yangtze River in China had meant her drill to handle this kind of situation was well-established.
Three of those Lewis guns opened up, raking the area the sniper had fired from. The bursts were short since it was a certainty that the sniper had abandoned his position as soon as he had squeezed his shots off and there was no point in wasting ammunition. Captain John Andrew Agnew thought about that for a moment. “Lewis gunners, keep a sharp eye open and return fire immediately without further orders.”
“Almost like home, hun?” Sir Donald Powell had been ordered to accompany the Regent and his family until they were placed in Indian custody at Basra and then put himself at the disposal of the commander of the Indian brigade group assembling there. “You know that bump about two o’clock is just where I’d be if I was a tribal sniper.”
“The Yangtze smelled a lot worse than this.” Agnew sounded almost homesick for the Chinese river where his ship has spent most of her life. “Forward six-inch, train on the hill, zero-six-zero. Fire immediately if hostile action commences. That’ll make the buggers think a little.”
The crack of another rifle shot was drowned out by the crash of the six-inch gun. The speed of the response suggested that the gunner must have had his finger on the firing lanyard. The effect was almost instantaneous; once the cloud of smoke and flame from the explosion had died away, a profound silence swept over the region. Powell could hear the rippling of the water along the hull and the gentle chugging of the old gunboat’s engines. A figure jumped up onto one of the mounds that lined the river, shook his fist at the gunboat, and gave forth a torrent of abuse.
“Does anybody understand that?” Agnew was interested but he spoke Cantonese and Malay, not Farsi.
“I think he was complaining that using the six-inch gun was unfair and accused us of cheating. Apparently, he’s also under the impression that our mothers were in the habit of having unnatural relationships with the family donkeys.”
“That’s a damned lie.” One of the Petty Officers on the bridge sounded gravely offended. “It wasn’t the donkey.”
“Sit, we’ve received a radio message from our air cover. Four Tomahawks are overhead. That’s the good news. The bad news is that a formation of Iraqi aircraft, probably Breda 65s is also approaching. The Tomahawks are intercepting.”
Tomahawk II "Marijke" Over the Tigris River, Iraq..
“There she is.” Bosede gestured downwards at the three Tomahawks accompanying Marijke. From 25,000 feet, the Tigris looked a dull shade of gray against the parched yellow and green of the Iraqi countryside. The brilliant white wake of the Cockchafer stood out clearly against the depressing color of the river, but Bosede knew that was a problem. The wake told attacking aircraft exactly where and how fast they were moving. The only advantage was that recognizing the ship was difficult. How maritime attack pilot knew which ships to attack mystified him. But then, they make mistakes often enough. There was that German pilot in a Ju-88 who managed to sink two German destroyers due to misidentification. It’s rumored the British gave him a Distinguished Flying Cross which can’t have done his promotion prospects much good. “British warship, make an S-curve to confirm identity.”
The message over the allocated radio channel brought about an immediate result. The white arrow wake suddenly distorted and then formed into a perfect S-curve. Bosede knew Cockchafer’s reputation. The old river gunboat had somehow been in every trouble spot known to the British Empire. Her crew might be in an ancient relic of the Great War but, at their chosen trade of riverine warfare, they were the best of the best.
“We got bandits.” The message came from Freddie-Three, the leader of the second pair of aircraft that made up the formation of four Tomahawks, “Six bandits, coming in from the north, altitude angels-twelve.”
Bosede looked north and saw the aircraft instantly. Two ‘vics’ of three aircraft, the sun gleaming off their silver airframes. “Got’em. Remember, these aren’t the same as the ones we saw in Kenya. The Iraqis had theirs fitted with a .50 machine gun in a rear turret. So, take them from below and behind. And hold onto the .50 calibers. They aren’t armored so the .30s will do just as well.”
Bosede made the classical wingover and started in the long dive that would bring his aircraft out below and behind the Iraqi formation. It really wasn’t very fair; in addition to being fighters against unescorted light bombers, his pilots were all veterans of the Kenyan and North African air battles while the Iraqis were barely trained novices. He doubted whether they had ever even seen the Tomahawks as they made their approach. Oddly, from closer in and underneath, the silver color of the Iraqi BA-65s made them a bit harder to see than it had from farther away. The silver seemed to take on the color of the sky while light reflecting from it filled in the shadows that were usually the most obvious part of the picture. Nevertheless, the Iraqi aircraft were still flying straight and level when the Tomahawks closed in below and behind them.
Bosede lifted his nose and squeezed the firing button that activated his four wing-mounted .303 machine guns. The stream of bullets smacked into the radial engine at the front of the BA-65, causing a trail of black smoke to erupt from the cowling. The flashes of the bullet hits walked back along the fuselage. Then, the black stream was shot with orange as the bullets struck the main fuel tank. Bosede knew that the BA-65 had its fuel tank between the pilot and rear gunner so the explosion of flame as his incendiaries set it on fire would undoubtedly engulf them both. He peeled away, still watching the stream of orange-black spread across the airframe and saw the aircraft crumple in mid-air. It was his twenty-fourth kill.
The sudden attack had ripped the Iraqi formation apart. Four of its aircraft had already been shot down and the two survivors had jettisoned their bombs and were running northwards. Bosede saw two of his Tomahawks turn to give chase. One of the Iraqi crews had seen them as well and they bailed out rather than waiting for the inevitable destruction of their aircraft. “Freddie-Three, leave him. We must stay over the Navy.”
The Tomahawks returned to formation and climbed back to their patrol altitude. There, the pilots leaned out their engines to stretch their fuel as far as possible. The Iraqi aircraft were all very short-legged and once the Cockchafer was 150 miles downriver, she’d be safe from air attack. Until then, the Tomahawks would have to fly as economically as possible.
Martin Maryland I, G-George, Approaching Hinaidi airfield, Iraq.
“Bombardier to Pilot, I have the aircraft.” Charles Cussans felt the Maryland twitch slightly as Mannix took his hands off the controls. This was a different mission from the ones they had flown before. Previously, the Marylands had flown in formation at medium altitude and dropped their bombs in patterns. It was a mission pattern they had inherited from years of pre-war training. More recently the Maryland crews had been experimenting with a different attack pattern, one that called for them to go in low and fast. The bombardiers still controlled the aircraft up to bomb release, but the pilots were ready to take the aircraft back at any time. This was the first time the new tactics had been tried out.
Sitting in the glazed nose of the Maryland, Cussans could feel the difference as well as see it. Instead of crawling past underneath him as it had done before, the scenery was flashing past, seeming to open out on either side of him. The serenity of flying over ten thousand feet above the targets had been replaced by the bumps of turbulence and the streaks of tracer fire as machine guns on the ground opened on him. Looking to either side showed another change. Instead of flying in tight formation, the Marylands were spread out so they could cover as many of the targets at Hinaidi as possible.
G-George was heading straight for one of the parking aprons. A minute or two earlier, the six Wellingtons flying up at twelve thousand feet had unloaded their bombs onto the hangars and other buildings. The smoke and dust cloud from the attack was still boiling upwards and staining the sky with its shades of yellow, gray, and black. The hope was that the Iraqi gunners would be looking up for the second wave of bombers, not down on the deck. From the machine gun fire that Cussans could see, that didn’t seem very likely. He reached down and pulled the handle that opened G-George’s bomb bay doors, hearing the familiar whine as they opened. The bomb bay itself was loaded with eight one-hundred-pound bombs, far less than the maximum weight the aircraft would lift but the low altitude meant that the blast from larger weapons would damage the aircraft. The bomb bay had run out of volume after eight one hundred pounders had been stuffed in. Cussans took a deep breath and held the sight steady on the parking apron that appeared to be approaching with terrifying speed. There were aircraft down there, he wasn’t quite certain which sort, but he glimpsed the triangular Iraqi markings. Then, he squeezed the release and walked his 100-pounders down the flight line.
He couldn’t see whether he had scored on the aircraft parked there but he felt G-George being thrown upwards by the blast of the bombs. He heard something else as well, the patter of fragments from the explosions bouncing off the thin skin of his aircraft. They knew what they were talking about, he thought, if we’d dropped two-fifties or five hundreds, we’d have blown ourselves up. He lifted his eyes from the bombsight, took a shocking look at the unexpected sight in front of him, and grabbed the intercom. “Sean, take the controls, quick. There’s a Gladiator taking off right in front of us!”
Cussons guessed that the Gladiator pilot had been in his aircraft when the bombs had started to fall and decided he would be safer airborne than on the ground. If so, he’d made a bad mistake for his take-off run across the grass was heading away from the approaching Maryland. That made him a perfect target for a strafing pass. However, Cussons guessed that his pilot had something better in mind than that. He felt the Maryland angling slightly as Mannix lined up on the fighter. There was a slight pause as Mannix waited for the Gladiator to lift its wheels off the grass, and then he opened with his four wing guns. Cussons saw the Iraqi pilot jerking and threshing in his seat as the long burst shredded his aircraft, then the Gladiator burst into flames and plowed into the ground.
“Got him! That’s a kill.” Mannix’s shout of triumph echoed around the aircraft. Marylands had had few encounters with hostile fighters; their speed meant that only a handful of Italian fighters could match them. At best they had shot down one or two with their defensive guns. But, bringing down an airborne fighter with the fixed forward guns was a kill, a proper kill.
“Sir, better than that. I used our camera to take photographs of it.” Cussons couldn’t keep the triumph out of his voice. “
“Well done, Charlie.” Mannix’s voice was appreciative as well as enthused. “For that, you can chatter on the intercom on the way home.”
By the time they had got back to Habbaniyah, the excitement had died down a little. The Marylands had done a lot of damage with the low-level attack, but they’d taken damage in exchange. The low-level pass had sent them right into the teeth of the Iraqi air defenses and the machine guns had scored hits on most of the bombers. Two were in real trouble, both streaming black smoke from an engine. The rest of the aircraft were ordered to wait while the cripples were brought in first. The first of the two made it safely and Cussons watched it being sprayed with foam to extinguish the fire. He could also see a figure being unloaded from the rear fuselage and rushed away in an ambulance.
The second Maryland seemed to have made it as well. It got its undercarriage down and made its landing on the end of the long grass strip. Halfway along the runway, though, the port undercarriage leg collapsed, and the wingtip dug into the ground. The aircraft ground looped as its wing disintegrated. It slid along on its belly, spinning around and shedding parts as it went. Then its fuel tanks erupted into flame. By the time the crash vehicles got to it, the aircraft and everything around it was a sea of flame.
“That was K-King.” Mannix’s voice was dead flat. “There won’t be any survivors from that.”
G-George swung around and started to make its landing, keeping well clear of the fiery pyre that marked the grave of K-King and its crew. The exhilaration that had come with shooting down the Gladiator had completely evaporated with the sight of K-King exploding into a ball of flame. It was the first Maryland 47 Squadron had lost.
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Have you any idea what the boss wants with us?” Pim Bosede had received the ‘immediate presence’ message a few minutes before. He’d been on his way over when he had met Sean Mannix, commander of 47 Squadron hastening in the same direction on the same set of urgent orders.
“The rumor mill says that the Noth Plan has started. The Nazis have staged a take-over of the government in Baghdad that will open the way to a Nazi invasion force. We’re going to stop it before the plan gets rolling properly.”
“Gentlemen, hurry up please, we don’t have much time.” Air Vice-Marshal Harry George Smart was running against the clock and he knew it. “The rumors you have heard are true. There has been a coup in Baghdad that has placed a government sympathetic to Nazi Germany in power. It is very likely that we are seeing the start of the Noth Plan and it is essential that we react immediately to this. The political powers have come to the conclusion that the Noth Plan can only work if Nazi forces are given free passage across Turkey. They have further determined that such free passage will only be granted if the Nazi effort here in Iraq is successful. It is very common for a commander to tell his troops that the battle they are about to engage in will decide the outcome of the war but in this case, it is the plain, simple truth. If we put down this coup and reinstate the previous government, the show of force will be sufficient to stop the Noth Plan in its tracks. If we do not, we will be facing a long, hard battle against the cream of the Nazi army.
“However, there is much good news. The Regent of Iraq, a staunch opponent of the Nazis has escaped and is aboard the allied warship Cockchafer on his way to join the Indian troops around Basra. Covering his journey is one of the tasks that will fall to you, Squadron Leader Bosede. General Wavell has thrown the support of his Middle East Command behind us. While we speak, a formation of twelve Gladiators led by a Wellington is flying to reinforce us from Palestine. When they arrive, that will give us a second squadron of fighters and an eight-plane force of Wellingtons. A land column, made up of the New Zealand Division in Palestine will cross Trans-Jordan and occupy Iraq from the west while an Indian brigade will advance up the Tigris-Euphrates valley. We will also receive support from the Australians and South Africans. The grand alliance that drove the Italians out of Africa is, once more, entering the fray.
“Unfortunately, there is also much bad news. The new Iraqi government has taken grave offense at the escape of the Regent and is holding the Commonwealth forces responsible. Not to put too fine a point on it, they have ordered us out of the country. The primary target of their action to enforce that order is us here at Habbaniyah. An Iraqi column of approximately six to nine thousand men with 30 pieces of artillery is advancing from Baghdad to assault us. We believe they will occupy the plateau to the south of the base. In addition, Iraqi forces have occupied the bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates, cutting us off from the rest of Iraq. The rebel Iraqi forces have over a hundred aircraft, of which about half are serviceable. The total includes at least 24 Gladiators, 22 Breda 65s, 15 Northrop 8A attack aircraft, and four SM-79 medium bombers. In addition, they have 34 Audax trainers that can be used for army cooperation. We can expect to be attacked by some or all of these aircraft, well, now.
“To defend this base, we have the equivalent of around a thousand men, including locally recruited levies whose reliability is questionable, eighteen Crossley armored cars manned by the RAF Regiment, and two tanks dating from World War One. This makes it clear that the burden of defending this base will fall upon you gentlemen. Remember there are about nine thousand civilians here including many women and children and, should the base fall to the enemy, their fate will not be a happy one.
“We are short of water and the supply we have is vulnerable to artillery fire. As a training base, we are well-stocked with food, fuel, and most types of ammunition. Squadron Leader Bosede, we have one critical munitions shortage, ammunition for the .50 machine guns in your Tomahawks. We have barely enough for a single load per aircraft. You will have to fly with your .30s only until fresh supplies can be brought in. I would suggest you give priority for .50 ammunition supplies to covering Cockchafer as she makes her way down the Tigris and to protecting this base against attack. Any other mission will be carried out using .30s only.”
“Sir, the Tomahawk was designed to carry either .3 or .5 machine guns in its nose. I believe some aircraft in U.S. service carried one of each. Our armorers can swap out the .50s in some of the aircraft for .30s. That will give us a six-gun armament still and possibly hide the fact that we are short of .50.
Short thought quickly. “Do it, but only when the aircraft are not required for other missions. Now, for the rest of you. The message is obvious. We must make an active defense of this base and prevent any formal attack from being launched on us. Squadron Leader Mannix, most of the enemy aircraft are based at the old Hinaidi airfield. Destroying them will be your first mission. The Wellingtons will carry out a medium-altitude pattern-bombing of the hangars and other buildings, then you will take your Marylands in at low altitude to bomb and strafe the aircraft. The Bredas and Northrops will be your primary targets. You won’t have an escort for this raid, your Marylands are 60 miles per hour faster than the best of the Iraqi fighters.
“Squadron Leader Broderick, the Oxford trainers we have here are being modified to carry 20-pound and 100-pound high explosive bombs in place of smoke bombs. Your mission will be to harass the advancing Iraqi column and then hamper its efforts to occupy the plateau to the south. You will concentrate on the artillery, and you will prevent the Iraqis from setting up their guns.”
“What about us, Sir?” Squadron Leader Kerwin commanded one of the two units of Hawker Hart bombers at Habbaniyah.”
“You are the reserve at the moment. Your time will come when the Iraqis are attacking this base. The truth is, it’s bad enough with both us and them using Gladiators. We can’t afford the danger of Iraqi Audaxes being mistaken for your Harts or vice versa.” Smart looked around the briefing room. “Gentlemen, get your squadrons ready. This will be an interesting adventure.”
HMS Cockchafer Tigris River, Iraq
The rifle shots ricocheting off the armor on Cockchafer’s bridge made the warning from the lookouts superfluous, but the words echoed around the steel structure anyway. “Sniper, bearing zero-nine-zero.”
“Engage with Lewis guns.” Captain Agnew gave the order quietly, conscious of the need to present a calm and confident demeanor to the Regent and his family. Cockchafer didn’t have much of a superstructure, but what she did have was armored against rifle fire and she had eight Lewis guns set up to eliminate any nuisances. Many years patrolling the Yangtze River in China had meant her drill to handle this kind of situation was well-established.
Three of those Lewis guns opened up, raking the area the sniper had fired from. The bursts were short since it was a certainty that the sniper had abandoned his position as soon as he had squeezed his shots off and there was no point in wasting ammunition. Captain John Andrew Agnew thought about that for a moment. “Lewis gunners, keep a sharp eye open and return fire immediately without further orders.”
“Almost like home, hun?” Sir Donald Powell had been ordered to accompany the Regent and his family until they were placed in Indian custody at Basra and then put himself at the disposal of the commander of the Indian brigade group assembling there. “You know that bump about two o’clock is just where I’d be if I was a tribal sniper.”
“The Yangtze smelled a lot worse than this.” Agnew sounded almost homesick for the Chinese river where his ship has spent most of her life. “Forward six-inch, train on the hill, zero-six-zero. Fire immediately if hostile action commences. That’ll make the buggers think a little.”
The crack of another rifle shot was drowned out by the crash of the six-inch gun. The speed of the response suggested that the gunner must have had his finger on the firing lanyard. The effect was almost instantaneous; once the cloud of smoke and flame from the explosion had died away, a profound silence swept over the region. Powell could hear the rippling of the water along the hull and the gentle chugging of the old gunboat’s engines. A figure jumped up onto one of the mounds that lined the river, shook his fist at the gunboat, and gave forth a torrent of abuse.
“Does anybody understand that?” Agnew was interested but he spoke Cantonese and Malay, not Farsi.
“I think he was complaining that using the six-inch gun was unfair and accused us of cheating. Apparently, he’s also under the impression that our mothers were in the habit of having unnatural relationships with the family donkeys.”
“That’s a damned lie.” One of the Petty Officers on the bridge sounded gravely offended. “It wasn’t the donkey.”
“Sit, we’ve received a radio message from our air cover. Four Tomahawks are overhead. That’s the good news. The bad news is that a formation of Iraqi aircraft, probably Breda 65s is also approaching. The Tomahawks are intercepting.”
Tomahawk II "Marijke" Over the Tigris River, Iraq..
“There she is.” Bosede gestured downwards at the three Tomahawks accompanying Marijke. From 25,000 feet, the Tigris looked a dull shade of gray against the parched yellow and green of the Iraqi countryside. The brilliant white wake of the Cockchafer stood out clearly against the depressing color of the river, but Bosede knew that was a problem. The wake told attacking aircraft exactly where and how fast they were moving. The only advantage was that recognizing the ship was difficult. How maritime attack pilot knew which ships to attack mystified him. But then, they make mistakes often enough. There was that German pilot in a Ju-88 who managed to sink two German destroyers due to misidentification. It’s rumored the British gave him a Distinguished Flying Cross which can’t have done his promotion prospects much good. “British warship, make an S-curve to confirm identity.”
The message over the allocated radio channel brought about an immediate result. The white arrow wake suddenly distorted and then formed into a perfect S-curve. Bosede knew Cockchafer’s reputation. The old river gunboat had somehow been in every trouble spot known to the British Empire. Her crew might be in an ancient relic of the Great War but, at their chosen trade of riverine warfare, they were the best of the best.
“We got bandits.” The message came from Freddie-Three, the leader of the second pair of aircraft that made up the formation of four Tomahawks, “Six bandits, coming in from the north, altitude angels-twelve.”
Bosede looked north and saw the aircraft instantly. Two ‘vics’ of three aircraft, the sun gleaming off their silver airframes. “Got’em. Remember, these aren’t the same as the ones we saw in Kenya. The Iraqis had theirs fitted with a .50 machine gun in a rear turret. So, take them from below and behind. And hold onto the .50 calibers. They aren’t armored so the .30s will do just as well.”
Bosede made the classical wingover and started in the long dive that would bring his aircraft out below and behind the Iraqi formation. It really wasn’t very fair; in addition to being fighters against unescorted light bombers, his pilots were all veterans of the Kenyan and North African air battles while the Iraqis were barely trained novices. He doubted whether they had ever even seen the Tomahawks as they made their approach. Oddly, from closer in and underneath, the silver color of the Iraqi BA-65s made them a bit harder to see than it had from farther away. The silver seemed to take on the color of the sky while light reflecting from it filled in the shadows that were usually the most obvious part of the picture. Nevertheless, the Iraqi aircraft were still flying straight and level when the Tomahawks closed in below and behind them.
Bosede lifted his nose and squeezed the firing button that activated his four wing-mounted .303 machine guns. The stream of bullets smacked into the radial engine at the front of the BA-65, causing a trail of black smoke to erupt from the cowling. The flashes of the bullet hits walked back along the fuselage. Then, the black stream was shot with orange as the bullets struck the main fuel tank. Bosede knew that the BA-65 had its fuel tank between the pilot and rear gunner so the explosion of flame as his incendiaries set it on fire would undoubtedly engulf them both. He peeled away, still watching the stream of orange-black spread across the airframe and saw the aircraft crumple in mid-air. It was his twenty-fourth kill.
The sudden attack had ripped the Iraqi formation apart. Four of its aircraft had already been shot down and the two survivors had jettisoned their bombs and were running northwards. Bosede saw two of his Tomahawks turn to give chase. One of the Iraqi crews had seen them as well and they bailed out rather than waiting for the inevitable destruction of their aircraft. “Freddie-Three, leave him. We must stay over the Navy.”
The Tomahawks returned to formation and climbed back to their patrol altitude. There, the pilots leaned out their engines to stretch their fuel as far as possible. The Iraqi aircraft were all very short-legged and once the Cockchafer was 150 miles downriver, she’d be safe from air attack. Until then, the Tomahawks would have to fly as economically as possible.
Martin Maryland I, G-George, Approaching Hinaidi airfield, Iraq.
“Bombardier to Pilot, I have the aircraft.” Charles Cussans felt the Maryland twitch slightly as Mannix took his hands off the controls. This was a different mission from the ones they had flown before. Previously, the Marylands had flown in formation at medium altitude and dropped their bombs in patterns. It was a mission pattern they had inherited from years of pre-war training. More recently the Maryland crews had been experimenting with a different attack pattern, one that called for them to go in low and fast. The bombardiers still controlled the aircraft up to bomb release, but the pilots were ready to take the aircraft back at any time. This was the first time the new tactics had been tried out.
Sitting in the glazed nose of the Maryland, Cussans could feel the difference as well as see it. Instead of crawling past underneath him as it had done before, the scenery was flashing past, seeming to open out on either side of him. The serenity of flying over ten thousand feet above the targets had been replaced by the bumps of turbulence and the streaks of tracer fire as machine guns on the ground opened on him. Looking to either side showed another change. Instead of flying in tight formation, the Marylands were spread out so they could cover as many of the targets at Hinaidi as possible.
G-George was heading straight for one of the parking aprons. A minute or two earlier, the six Wellingtons flying up at twelve thousand feet had unloaded their bombs onto the hangars and other buildings. The smoke and dust cloud from the attack was still boiling upwards and staining the sky with its shades of yellow, gray, and black. The hope was that the Iraqi gunners would be looking up for the second wave of bombers, not down on the deck. From the machine gun fire that Cussans could see, that didn’t seem very likely. He reached down and pulled the handle that opened G-George’s bomb bay doors, hearing the familiar whine as they opened. The bomb bay itself was loaded with eight one-hundred-pound bombs, far less than the maximum weight the aircraft would lift but the low altitude meant that the blast from larger weapons would damage the aircraft. The bomb bay had run out of volume after eight one hundred pounders had been stuffed in. Cussans took a deep breath and held the sight steady on the parking apron that appeared to be approaching with terrifying speed. There were aircraft down there, he wasn’t quite certain which sort, but he glimpsed the triangular Iraqi markings. Then, he squeezed the release and walked his 100-pounders down the flight line.
He couldn’t see whether he had scored on the aircraft parked there but he felt G-George being thrown upwards by the blast of the bombs. He heard something else as well, the patter of fragments from the explosions bouncing off the thin skin of his aircraft. They knew what they were talking about, he thought, if we’d dropped two-fifties or five hundreds, we’d have blown ourselves up. He lifted his eyes from the bombsight, took a shocking look at the unexpected sight in front of him, and grabbed the intercom. “Sean, take the controls, quick. There’s a Gladiator taking off right in front of us!”
Cussons guessed that the Gladiator pilot had been in his aircraft when the bombs had started to fall and decided he would be safer airborne than on the ground. If so, he’d made a bad mistake for his take-off run across the grass was heading away from the approaching Maryland. That made him a perfect target for a strafing pass. However, Cussons guessed that his pilot had something better in mind than that. He felt the Maryland angling slightly as Mannix lined up on the fighter. There was a slight pause as Mannix waited for the Gladiator to lift its wheels off the grass, and then he opened with his four wing guns. Cussons saw the Iraqi pilot jerking and threshing in his seat as the long burst shredded his aircraft, then the Gladiator burst into flames and plowed into the ground.
“Got him! That’s a kill.” Mannix’s shout of triumph echoed around the aircraft. Marylands had had few encounters with hostile fighters; their speed meant that only a handful of Italian fighters could match them. At best they had shot down one or two with their defensive guns. But, bringing down an airborne fighter with the fixed forward guns was a kill, a proper kill.
“Sir, better than that. I used our camera to take photographs of it.” Cussons couldn’t keep the triumph out of his voice. “
“Well done, Charlie.” Mannix’s voice was appreciative as well as enthused. “For that, you can chatter on the intercom on the way home.”
By the time they had got back to Habbaniyah, the excitement had died down a little. The Marylands had done a lot of damage with the low-level attack, but they’d taken damage in exchange. The low-level pass had sent them right into the teeth of the Iraqi air defenses and the machine guns had scored hits on most of the bombers. Two were in real trouble, both streaming black smoke from an engine. The rest of the aircraft were ordered to wait while the cripples were brought in first. The first of the two made it safely and Cussons watched it being sprayed with foam to extinguish the fire. He could also see a figure being unloaded from the rear fuselage and rushed away in an ambulance.
The second Maryland seemed to have made it as well. It got its undercarriage down and made its landing on the end of the long grass strip. Halfway along the runway, though, the port undercarriage leg collapsed, and the wingtip dug into the ground. The aircraft ground looped as its wing disintegrated. It slid along on its belly, spinning around and shedding parts as it went. Then its fuel tanks erupted into flame. By the time the crash vehicles got to it, the aircraft and everything around it was a sea of flame.
“That was K-King.” Mannix’s voice was dead flat. “There won’t be any survivors from that.”
G-George swung around and started to make its landing, keeping well clear of the fiery pyre that marked the grave of K-King and its crew. The exhilaration that had come with shooting down the Gladiator had completely evaporated with the sight of K-King exploding into a ball of flame. It was the first Maryland 47 Squadron had lost.
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Seven
Oxford Trainer S-Sugar Over the Main Baghdad To Habbaniyah Highway, Iraq.
“The intelligence people were right, they’re heading for the plateau south of the base.” Squadron Leader Robert Broderick looked down at the column of Iraqi troops that were advancing along the road. Brigade strength he estimated.
“We are going down to get them?” Broderick’s co-pilot was a student, a youngster with more courage than sense. He thought that trying to fly across a heavily armed military column in a slow, unprotected trainer would be a good idea.
“No, we are not. Did you miss the sight of that Maryland going in? And that was a proper light bomber. The whole Maryland squadron got hit. Most of the aircraft took only superficial damage but three will need major repairs and one needs a new engine and outer wing. These Oxboxes will get shot to shreds. Roll your seat back so that it’s by the navigation table and tell Johnsie I want him at the bomb aimer’s position. We’ll do the run from 5,000 feet. That’ll keep us above the machine gunfire.”
Broderick watched his co-pilot get to work reconfiguring the aircraft. The Oxford was a multi-role trainer. With two seats forward for a pilot and a copilot, it was used to train flight deck crews. Push one seat back to the navigation table and it was a navigation trainer. Open the hatch under the copilot’s seat and there was a small bomb-aimer’s window and a rudimentary bombsight. The aircraft was supposed to be armed with 16 12-pound smoke bombs, but the racks had been hastily modified so each Oxford carried a pair of one-hundred-pound bombs. The trainee bomb aimer, Bill Johns, slid into his position and put his eye to the bombsight. The Oxford lacked such luxuries as bomb aimer control of the autopilot and, privately, Broderick was only marginally confident that his trainee bomb aim could hit Iraq.
The twelve Oxfords were formed up in four neat Vics of three. Each bomb aimer would be aiming independently since none of them was skilled enough to take on the responsibility of aiming the bombs for the entire squadron. Any hope of a concentrated bomb pattern would be lost but at least some of the bombs would land in the right area. At least, Broderick hoped so.
“Pilot, turn port three degrees . . . . . . a little more . . . . . . just a little more – right hold that heading.” Johns’ instructions put the Oxford onto a heading that would take them across the middle of the Iraqi column. The other two aircraft in the Vic followed suit. The lurch as Johns released the bombs was much less pronounced than Broderick had expected and was almost lost amidst the shaking caused by the scattered explosions from the Iraqi anti-aircraft guns. Far below them, the bomb pattern was as dispersed as Broderick had feared. None of the bombs were anywhere near the vehicles on the road and most were scattered widely across the countryside. To his utter disgust, some had missed by over half a mile. He had no idea which was the ones he had released, or which belonged to the other aircraft. All in all, he thought, a very disappointing raid.
Then, as the formation turned for home, Broderick got the weird feeling that the little Oxford trainer was insufferably pleased with itself.
Iraqi Column, Main Baghdad to Habbaniyah Highway, Iraq.
“Serves the cowardly **** right.” Skorzeny had watched the Iraqi column come to a halt as soon as the bomber formation had been spotted. The troops had deserted their vehicles and run away into the surrounding scrubland. It hadn’t done them any good since the commander of the attacking aircraft had been too clever for them. Instead of concentrating his bombs on the deserted vehicles, he’d scattered them over a wide area, catching some of the fleeing Iraqis in the net. The casualties hadn’t been heavy. Skorzeny counted two or three dead at most and perhaps a dozen wounded. The morale effect though had been much greater. It would take at least a couple of hours to round everybody up, get the convoy reassembled and start it moving again. Mentally, Skorzeny saluted the commander of the yellow-painted bombers. He took the hard decision to disperse his bombs. He traded direct damage for slowing us down and in doing so inflicted much greater delays on us than any concentrated strike would have done.
“Stephan? There you are. Get the men out of the vehicles and give chase to our gallant allies. When you catch them, bring them back here and get them back in place. Make sure you point out that those who stayed with the convoy and did their duty were perfectly safe and that all the casualties were suffered by those who abandoned their posts.”
Bähr acknowledged the orders. “Otto, the crews on the 37mm anti-aircraft guns stayed at their posts and fired on the bombers. None too accurately, but they tried.”
“Then make sure they receive commendations and are well rewarded. When everybody is back in place, put two men on each of the trucks armed with machine guns. If, when the next raid comes, and our heroic allies run away again, machine-gun them.”
“Very well, Otto.” Bähr sighed and set off to get the convoy organized again.
RCAF Station Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada
Dale lifted the nose of the Hurry-can slightly, cut back the throttles and let the aircraft sink gently onto the runway. The aircraft had inherited all the benign handling characteristics and gentle temperament of its parent but that didn’t hide the fact that it was sluggish. Eighteen months ago, it might have been acceptable, just, but not in early 1941. The Hurry-can was too slow to be viable as a fighter. Once off the runway, he brought the aircraft to a halt, turned off the engine, and let the aircraft settle down. Then, he opened the cockpit and climbed out.
“Well, Digby, what do you think?”
Dale sighed. “Elsie, she just isn’t going to hack it. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else I can say. She’s too slow. She can barely keep up with a Mohawk and she’s forty miles an hour slower than a Tomahawk. Eighty miles an hour slower than the Tornado. It’s too much. She’s a sweet bird to fly and she’ll make a great trainer but as a front-line fighter, there’s no way we can make up the gap. There’s an odd thing with her as well. She’s fine up to about 280 but after that, an annoying buzzing noise starts, and it gets louder until the aircraft hits maximum speed.”
“That sounds like an airflow problem. It’s probably connected to where the radial engine joins the original lines of the fuselage. Some sort of discontinuity. Still, the Tornado has problems as well. I heard from their design team that they’ve pushed initial deliveries back to mid-1943. We need something as an interim and we hoped the Hurry-can would be it.”
Dale shook his head. “She’s got the same problems fighting modern fighters as the biplanes did fighting Tomahawks a year ago. That slow speed is a killer; if we must take on 109s in her, they’ll walk all over us. The only way I see of using her is to put a second seat in and use it for training.”
“Can’t do it. We’ve looked at the idea, but it would slow her down even more.” Elsie MacGill looked grim. “We’re lucky we’re this side of the Atlantic. If we had to face German fighters right now, we would be in deep trouble.”
“Elsie, we might not have to take on German fighters here, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have to do it somewhere else. If the Germans send their aircraft into Iraq, the South Africans and Indians will be in real trouble.”
“Well, just what the hell do you suggest we do about it?” MacGill had flipped from her normal friendly attitude to one of almost savage aggressiveness. “We’ve got two options, one of which won’t be ready for two years and the other is, as you’ve just taken great delight in telling me, is useless. Well, Mister Dale, just what do you think we should do?”
Dale didn’t know what to say. As he saw it, it was his job to report the problems with the aircraft he was testing and comment on its effectiveness. He was also getting an insight into why the chief designer on this project wasn’t working on the much more important Tornado conversion program. He started to put his thoughts together. “I think the basic problem is the wing design. The thick wings are fine for the speed bracket the aircraft was designed for, but they generate too much drag for anything more. If that’s correct, then it doesn’t matter how much more power we put into the Hurry-Can, we’re still not going to get the speed we need.”
That was when inspiration struck. “Let’s think about this in a different way. Instead of complaining about what this aircraft can’t do, let’s try and make the best use of what it can. She isn’t fast enough to be a fighter, but we’ve already said she’d make a damned good advanced trainer. Suppose we also stripped out the machine guns in the wings and hung bombs there instead? She should be able to carry a couple of two-fifty pounders or possibly even five hundreds.”
“In case you haven’t heard, we’ve got Bolingbrokes for the light bomber role.” MacGill struggled with her canes for a moment as she tried to turn on her heel and made her way back towards the control tower, leaving Dale standing beside the Hurry-Can.
The maintenance crew was already at work on the aircraft. A sergeant made his way over to Dale and spoke quietly to him. “You saw those canes she walks with? A week before her wedding, she got polio. Doctors told her she would never walk again. It took her six months, but she proved them wrong. If she weren’t such a cantankerous bitch, she wouldn’t be here. Of course, there was also the time she told Air Vice Marshal Croil that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and he should find out before trying to tell her what to do. If she hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t be here either.”
Dale chuckled and shook his head. “I’m right, though. This bird just won’t hack it.”
“I know, Sir. And so does she. By tomorrow morning she’ll have accepted it.”
Dining Room, The City of London Club, Old Broad Street, London
“I really don’t know what our personnel department is thinking? Have you seen the latest additions to the department? Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and Cairncross. All spin bowlers, not a decent paceman amongst them.” Sir Arnold Robins shook his head sadly. “What we are going to do if we have to play an away match, I really don’t know.”
“We’ll do all right. We always have. It’s the home matches that worry me. The lads expect to have the crowd cheering on the other side on an away match but the lack of support they get from our own supporters is demoralizing them.” Sir Edward Bridges took a mouthful of his favorite breast of pigeon. It’s a strange thing, but even the pigeon seems to have had its flavor muted these days. As if it was afraid to be properly robust and forthright. It’s a chilling thought we must talk in code even here. Just what is this country coming to?
Sir Arnold nodded mournfully while chewing on a portion of his Yorkshire Game and Parsnip Pie. “Really, the home matches are the responsibility of the Second Eleven of course, but I see your point. If we don’t establish a good bowling average on our own grounds, we’re not likely to carry much weight abroad. Of course, the First Eleven still has a fearsome reputation, especially in the fielders, and our batsmen are unequaled. I can honestly say we knocked Bedfordshire for six in the last match. If we hadn’t had that last innings stand though, we could be in real trouble now. A gentleman versus players match is always a bit sticky.”
“Do you think Bedfordshire’s match with Middlesex is still on?” Sir Edward was deeply concerned at the prospect. He mentally checked the private code. Bedfordshire meant Berlin, Middlesex, Moscow.
“Well, we haven’t heard anything that would make us think otherwise. We’re still not sure of the exact date of course, but we’ve heard it’s down for May 22nd. It promises to be a real three-day match. Not the limited-overs games we had earlier in the season. We’ve even heard whispers that Bedfordshire might want to poach some of our batsmen as substitutes. Three-day matches are tiring things. I can’t see our team captains allowing that though. We’re short-handed in the batting order department anyway.”
“I can.” Sir Edward was forced to admit something he had been consciously trying to avoid for the last few weeks. “The team captains will seriously object of course, but the club secretary will probably favor the arrangement. He thinks Middlesex has had too much of a free hand for the last few months and needs reining in. If our boys beefed up Bedfordshire’s batting order, it might do the trick. Then there’s the Treasurer. The old club isn’t doing too well on the financial front and if it weren’t for our relationship with Bedfordshire, we’d be in a fine mess. We’d probably have to stop serving sandwiches at the after-match tea.”
“Ahh, yes. Afternoon tea. I’d heard that was a matter that was concerning you.” Sir Arnold nodded wisely. Edward Bridge’s fears over food supplies were well known and it was quietly accepted that they were well-founded. The Club Secretary, the code name for Richard Austen Butler, was equally widely known to regard those fears as a sign of advanced mental decay.
“I honestly feel it’s too good a tradition to end. We really ought to make sure we can put out a good spread for the visiting team. We’re changing tea ladies though. We’ll have to see how the new ones do. Talking of staff, how are the kids coming along?”
Ahhh, the Commonwealth countries. Thought Sir Arnold if ever there was a case of mixed feelings, it’s there. Resentment at them turning their backs on us, pride at just how well they’ve done so far. “We’ve had a few man-to-man chats where the better half is out of earshot. You know, they’re coming of age nicely. In schoolwork at least. They’re still having problems managing their pocket money. You know what kids are like, they must have the latest shiny toys and heaven preserve us if they don’t keep up. Teddy will get thrown out of the pram again.”
“In fairness, competition on the toy’s front is getting pretty rough. Still, they have their rich uncle William.” Sir Edward did another quick mental check. Yes, Washington was Uncle William.
“Who hasn’t really done them any favors at all.” Sir Arnold finished his pie with relish. “They’re depending on him for their toys now and the price is that they must listen to the old boy’s reminiscences. Still, Charlie and Oswald have started to build their own. Enterprising of them I thought. But they’re still short of pocket money and that gives us an opportunity. We need somebody to make sandwiches for the afternoon tea and they need to earn extra pennies. The problem will really be getting them to come over. The roads are far too dangerous for them to ride their bicycles and we can’t afford to send a bus to get them.”
“If they came over by a bicycle, they could easily get run over. Unless of course. . . . .” The picture of a German U-boat torpedoing an Australian bicycle almost made Sir Edward laugh openly but the picture suddenly reminded him of his youth. He and a young lady he had been courting had lived just a little bit too far apart to make bicycle trips to each other’s homes practical and in any case, their families had disapproved of their relationship. It had made their meetings in a café between their homes much more exciting. That memory had put the glimmering of an idea in his mind. “Suppose they went to see our uncle Maurice in Rutland? He’s a rich old cove and he might be able to top their pocket money up from them. Then we could reimburse him next time we exchange presents. It would be good to give old Maurice something to do. He’s been in a bit of a downer since he took that bath in the stock market.”
Sir Arnold nodded, very thoughtfully, Mussolini in Rome. “Can any of us trust him? I can’t see the kids are going too much like doing deals with their uncle Maurice. I know that desperation and greed both go a long way but I'm not sure they stretch that far. The family dispute that had is going to raise some questions in their minds. Any sort of long-term arrangement requires a level of trust, which just isn't going to be present now. We can see it built if Uncle Maurice lets us, but we’ll need time and a few successful matches to build up a relationship. Then our team captain will be dead set against throwing the kids a bone.”
“The stock market bath changed Uncle Maurice a lot. Our friends in Rutland say he’s almost a different man now. And our team captain’s got a new bee in his bonnet. He thinks that raising ticket prices will get us a lot of revenue and he can spend it on a new stadium. I think it might work.”
“I hope you’re right, let’s try that.” I just wish we were really talking about cricket and family affairs.
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“General Auchinleck, could you advise us of the latest word from our troops in Iraq.” The Marquess of Linlithgow had been out of contact with the Cabinet for two days and was urgently trying to find out what was going on. There was no great reason for his absence, but he felt the need to ensure that the government system that was evolving could function in his absence.
“There have been scattered skirmishes in the air. We’ve shot down a dozen or so Iraqi aircraft, mostly Italian Breda 65s, and destroyed about the same number on the ground. So far, we’ve lost a Maryland and an Oxford trainer. The Regent has escaped and is heading for Basra on a river gunboat. There’s an Iraqi column heading for Habbaniyah but it’s been slowed to a crawl by air attacks. As soon as the Regent is safely in Basra, we’ll secure the country using the Brigade in Basra and the New Zealand column currently moving into position in Transjordan. It’s early days yet of course, but I would say things are pretty satisfactory.”
“That’s very good.” Linlithgow looked around at the cabinet. “I have received a message from London. Not through the authorized or normal channels but through a back door operated by MI.6. They are suggesting that there be a meeting between our representatives and those of the British establishment with the aim of resuming trade between our countries. Specifically, they wish to purchase food and are prepared to pay for it in cash.”
“Sovereigns, I hope.” Harold Hartley sounded droll but in fact, he was deadly serious. The Sovereign hastily created only a few months before, was still very weak and only quiet American support was allowing it to be barely acceptable on the international market. If the British used it to deal with the Commonwealth countries, the Sovereign would become a much stronger player.
“Yes, Sovereigns.” Linlithgow dropped the comment apparently quite casually, but he was secretly delighted to hear the ripple of delight it caused.
“And That Man is going to allow this?” Hartley found it hard to believe. As far as he knew, Lord Halifax was still bitterly resentful of the way the Commonwealth had refused to follow his instructions.
“He doesn’t know anything about it. This is a Civil Service deal. They are suggesting we meet in Rome and arrange to use the Middle East as a shipment point.
“Why couldn’t we just ship directly to Great Britain?” Hartley didn’t understand why a complex transshipment was needed.
Sir Eric Haohoa picked that up. “Most of the food will come from Australia. We would be able to add some rice I suppose but not much more than that. Remember, we’re all at war with Germany. We send merchant ships into the Atlantic and the U-boats will torpedo them. They’re already sinking Canadian ships.”
“Gentlemen, I must warn you that even a little rice may be beyond our means.” Nehru sounded seriously worried. “The food situation in India has been finely balanced since the beginning of the War. We have had a series of crop failures and localized famines already. We dealt with them under the Indian Famine Codes and prevented any great loss of life. But, over the last year, food prices have increased throughout India, and we have had to release regulations covering price controls. The problem is that 15 percent of our rice supply comes from Burma and their harvest has been hit as well. So, we suffer from a reduction in supply, with some increase in demand. If we were to export food as well, we could well face a catastrophic famine. All it would need would be one cyclone at the wrong time, in the wrong place.”
“Well, that’s that then.” The Marquess of Linlithgow sighed. “No food exports to Britain. We’ll send some observers, perhaps there is something else we can sell them. Can somebody think of something? Please?”
Oxford Trainer S-Sugar Over the Main Baghdad To Habbaniyah Highway, Iraq.
“The intelligence people were right, they’re heading for the plateau south of the base.” Squadron Leader Robert Broderick looked down at the column of Iraqi troops that were advancing along the road. Brigade strength he estimated.
“We are going down to get them?” Broderick’s co-pilot was a student, a youngster with more courage than sense. He thought that trying to fly across a heavily armed military column in a slow, unprotected trainer would be a good idea.
“No, we are not. Did you miss the sight of that Maryland going in? And that was a proper light bomber. The whole Maryland squadron got hit. Most of the aircraft took only superficial damage but three will need major repairs and one needs a new engine and outer wing. These Oxboxes will get shot to shreds. Roll your seat back so that it’s by the navigation table and tell Johnsie I want him at the bomb aimer’s position. We’ll do the run from 5,000 feet. That’ll keep us above the machine gunfire.”
Broderick watched his co-pilot get to work reconfiguring the aircraft. The Oxford was a multi-role trainer. With two seats forward for a pilot and a copilot, it was used to train flight deck crews. Push one seat back to the navigation table and it was a navigation trainer. Open the hatch under the copilot’s seat and there was a small bomb-aimer’s window and a rudimentary bombsight. The aircraft was supposed to be armed with 16 12-pound smoke bombs, but the racks had been hastily modified so each Oxford carried a pair of one-hundred-pound bombs. The trainee bomb aimer, Bill Johns, slid into his position and put his eye to the bombsight. The Oxford lacked such luxuries as bomb aimer control of the autopilot and, privately, Broderick was only marginally confident that his trainee bomb aim could hit Iraq.
The twelve Oxfords were formed up in four neat Vics of three. Each bomb aimer would be aiming independently since none of them was skilled enough to take on the responsibility of aiming the bombs for the entire squadron. Any hope of a concentrated bomb pattern would be lost but at least some of the bombs would land in the right area. At least, Broderick hoped so.
“Pilot, turn port three degrees . . . . . . a little more . . . . . . just a little more – right hold that heading.” Johns’ instructions put the Oxford onto a heading that would take them across the middle of the Iraqi column. The other two aircraft in the Vic followed suit. The lurch as Johns released the bombs was much less pronounced than Broderick had expected and was almost lost amidst the shaking caused by the scattered explosions from the Iraqi anti-aircraft guns. Far below them, the bomb pattern was as dispersed as Broderick had feared. None of the bombs were anywhere near the vehicles on the road and most were scattered widely across the countryside. To his utter disgust, some had missed by over half a mile. He had no idea which was the ones he had released, or which belonged to the other aircraft. All in all, he thought, a very disappointing raid.
Then, as the formation turned for home, Broderick got the weird feeling that the little Oxford trainer was insufferably pleased with itself.
Iraqi Column, Main Baghdad to Habbaniyah Highway, Iraq.
“Serves the cowardly **** right.” Skorzeny had watched the Iraqi column come to a halt as soon as the bomber formation had been spotted. The troops had deserted their vehicles and run away into the surrounding scrubland. It hadn’t done them any good since the commander of the attacking aircraft had been too clever for them. Instead of concentrating his bombs on the deserted vehicles, he’d scattered them over a wide area, catching some of the fleeing Iraqis in the net. The casualties hadn’t been heavy. Skorzeny counted two or three dead at most and perhaps a dozen wounded. The morale effect though had been much greater. It would take at least a couple of hours to round everybody up, get the convoy reassembled and start it moving again. Mentally, Skorzeny saluted the commander of the yellow-painted bombers. He took the hard decision to disperse his bombs. He traded direct damage for slowing us down and in doing so inflicted much greater delays on us than any concentrated strike would have done.
“Stephan? There you are. Get the men out of the vehicles and give chase to our gallant allies. When you catch them, bring them back here and get them back in place. Make sure you point out that those who stayed with the convoy and did their duty were perfectly safe and that all the casualties were suffered by those who abandoned their posts.”
Bähr acknowledged the orders. “Otto, the crews on the 37mm anti-aircraft guns stayed at their posts and fired on the bombers. None too accurately, but they tried.”
“Then make sure they receive commendations and are well rewarded. When everybody is back in place, put two men on each of the trucks armed with machine guns. If, when the next raid comes, and our heroic allies run away again, machine-gun them.”
“Very well, Otto.” Bähr sighed and set off to get the convoy organized again.
RCAF Station Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada
Dale lifted the nose of the Hurry-can slightly, cut back the throttles and let the aircraft sink gently onto the runway. The aircraft had inherited all the benign handling characteristics and gentle temperament of its parent but that didn’t hide the fact that it was sluggish. Eighteen months ago, it might have been acceptable, just, but not in early 1941. The Hurry-can was too slow to be viable as a fighter. Once off the runway, he brought the aircraft to a halt, turned off the engine, and let the aircraft settle down. Then, he opened the cockpit and climbed out.
“Well, Digby, what do you think?”
Dale sighed. “Elsie, she just isn’t going to hack it. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else I can say. She’s too slow. She can barely keep up with a Mohawk and she’s forty miles an hour slower than a Tomahawk. Eighty miles an hour slower than the Tornado. It’s too much. She’s a sweet bird to fly and she’ll make a great trainer but as a front-line fighter, there’s no way we can make up the gap. There’s an odd thing with her as well. She’s fine up to about 280 but after that, an annoying buzzing noise starts, and it gets louder until the aircraft hits maximum speed.”
“That sounds like an airflow problem. It’s probably connected to where the radial engine joins the original lines of the fuselage. Some sort of discontinuity. Still, the Tornado has problems as well. I heard from their design team that they’ve pushed initial deliveries back to mid-1943. We need something as an interim and we hoped the Hurry-can would be it.”
Dale shook his head. “She’s got the same problems fighting modern fighters as the biplanes did fighting Tomahawks a year ago. That slow speed is a killer; if we must take on 109s in her, they’ll walk all over us. The only way I see of using her is to put a second seat in and use it for training.”
“Can’t do it. We’ve looked at the idea, but it would slow her down even more.” Elsie MacGill looked grim. “We’re lucky we’re this side of the Atlantic. If we had to face German fighters right now, we would be in deep trouble.”
“Elsie, we might not have to take on German fighters here, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have to do it somewhere else. If the Germans send their aircraft into Iraq, the South Africans and Indians will be in real trouble.”
“Well, just what the hell do you suggest we do about it?” MacGill had flipped from her normal friendly attitude to one of almost savage aggressiveness. “We’ve got two options, one of which won’t be ready for two years and the other is, as you’ve just taken great delight in telling me, is useless. Well, Mister Dale, just what do you think we should do?”
Dale didn’t know what to say. As he saw it, it was his job to report the problems with the aircraft he was testing and comment on its effectiveness. He was also getting an insight into why the chief designer on this project wasn’t working on the much more important Tornado conversion program. He started to put his thoughts together. “I think the basic problem is the wing design. The thick wings are fine for the speed bracket the aircraft was designed for, but they generate too much drag for anything more. If that’s correct, then it doesn’t matter how much more power we put into the Hurry-Can, we’re still not going to get the speed we need.”
That was when inspiration struck. “Let’s think about this in a different way. Instead of complaining about what this aircraft can’t do, let’s try and make the best use of what it can. She isn’t fast enough to be a fighter, but we’ve already said she’d make a damned good advanced trainer. Suppose we also stripped out the machine guns in the wings and hung bombs there instead? She should be able to carry a couple of two-fifty pounders or possibly even five hundreds.”
“In case you haven’t heard, we’ve got Bolingbrokes for the light bomber role.” MacGill struggled with her canes for a moment as she tried to turn on her heel and made her way back towards the control tower, leaving Dale standing beside the Hurry-Can.
The maintenance crew was already at work on the aircraft. A sergeant made his way over to Dale and spoke quietly to him. “You saw those canes she walks with? A week before her wedding, she got polio. Doctors told her she would never walk again. It took her six months, but she proved them wrong. If she weren’t such a cantankerous bitch, she wouldn’t be here. Of course, there was also the time she told Air Vice Marshal Croil that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and he should find out before trying to tell her what to do. If she hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t be here either.”
Dale chuckled and shook his head. “I’m right, though. This bird just won’t hack it.”
“I know, Sir. And so does she. By tomorrow morning she’ll have accepted it.”
Dining Room, The City of London Club, Old Broad Street, London
“I really don’t know what our personnel department is thinking? Have you seen the latest additions to the department? Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and Cairncross. All spin bowlers, not a decent paceman amongst them.” Sir Arnold Robins shook his head sadly. “What we are going to do if we have to play an away match, I really don’t know.”
“We’ll do all right. We always have. It’s the home matches that worry me. The lads expect to have the crowd cheering on the other side on an away match but the lack of support they get from our own supporters is demoralizing them.” Sir Edward Bridges took a mouthful of his favorite breast of pigeon. It’s a strange thing, but even the pigeon seems to have had its flavor muted these days. As if it was afraid to be properly robust and forthright. It’s a chilling thought we must talk in code even here. Just what is this country coming to?
Sir Arnold nodded mournfully while chewing on a portion of his Yorkshire Game and Parsnip Pie. “Really, the home matches are the responsibility of the Second Eleven of course, but I see your point. If we don’t establish a good bowling average on our own grounds, we’re not likely to carry much weight abroad. Of course, the First Eleven still has a fearsome reputation, especially in the fielders, and our batsmen are unequaled. I can honestly say we knocked Bedfordshire for six in the last match. If we hadn’t had that last innings stand though, we could be in real trouble now. A gentleman versus players match is always a bit sticky.”
“Do you think Bedfordshire’s match with Middlesex is still on?” Sir Edward was deeply concerned at the prospect. He mentally checked the private code. Bedfordshire meant Berlin, Middlesex, Moscow.
“Well, we haven’t heard anything that would make us think otherwise. We’re still not sure of the exact date of course, but we’ve heard it’s down for May 22nd. It promises to be a real three-day match. Not the limited-overs games we had earlier in the season. We’ve even heard whispers that Bedfordshire might want to poach some of our batsmen as substitutes. Three-day matches are tiring things. I can’t see our team captains allowing that though. We’re short-handed in the batting order department anyway.”
“I can.” Sir Edward was forced to admit something he had been consciously trying to avoid for the last few weeks. “The team captains will seriously object of course, but the club secretary will probably favor the arrangement. He thinks Middlesex has had too much of a free hand for the last few months and needs reining in. If our boys beefed up Bedfordshire’s batting order, it might do the trick. Then there’s the Treasurer. The old club isn’t doing too well on the financial front and if it weren’t for our relationship with Bedfordshire, we’d be in a fine mess. We’d probably have to stop serving sandwiches at the after-match tea.”
“Ahh, yes. Afternoon tea. I’d heard that was a matter that was concerning you.” Sir Arnold nodded wisely. Edward Bridge’s fears over food supplies were well known and it was quietly accepted that they were well-founded. The Club Secretary, the code name for Richard Austen Butler, was equally widely known to regard those fears as a sign of advanced mental decay.
“I honestly feel it’s too good a tradition to end. We really ought to make sure we can put out a good spread for the visiting team. We’re changing tea ladies though. We’ll have to see how the new ones do. Talking of staff, how are the kids coming along?”
Ahhh, the Commonwealth countries. Thought Sir Arnold if ever there was a case of mixed feelings, it’s there. Resentment at them turning their backs on us, pride at just how well they’ve done so far. “We’ve had a few man-to-man chats where the better half is out of earshot. You know, they’re coming of age nicely. In schoolwork at least. They’re still having problems managing their pocket money. You know what kids are like, they must have the latest shiny toys and heaven preserve us if they don’t keep up. Teddy will get thrown out of the pram again.”
“In fairness, competition on the toy’s front is getting pretty rough. Still, they have their rich uncle William.” Sir Edward did another quick mental check. Yes, Washington was Uncle William.
“Who hasn’t really done them any favors at all.” Sir Arnold finished his pie with relish. “They’re depending on him for their toys now and the price is that they must listen to the old boy’s reminiscences. Still, Charlie and Oswald have started to build their own. Enterprising of them I thought. But they’re still short of pocket money and that gives us an opportunity. We need somebody to make sandwiches for the afternoon tea and they need to earn extra pennies. The problem will really be getting them to come over. The roads are far too dangerous for them to ride their bicycles and we can’t afford to send a bus to get them.”
“If they came over by a bicycle, they could easily get run over. Unless of course. . . . .” The picture of a German U-boat torpedoing an Australian bicycle almost made Sir Edward laugh openly but the picture suddenly reminded him of his youth. He and a young lady he had been courting had lived just a little bit too far apart to make bicycle trips to each other’s homes practical and in any case, their families had disapproved of their relationship. It had made their meetings in a café between their homes much more exciting. That memory had put the glimmering of an idea in his mind. “Suppose they went to see our uncle Maurice in Rutland? He’s a rich old cove and he might be able to top their pocket money up from them. Then we could reimburse him next time we exchange presents. It would be good to give old Maurice something to do. He’s been in a bit of a downer since he took that bath in the stock market.”
Sir Arnold nodded, very thoughtfully, Mussolini in Rome. “Can any of us trust him? I can’t see the kids are going too much like doing deals with their uncle Maurice. I know that desperation and greed both go a long way but I'm not sure they stretch that far. The family dispute that had is going to raise some questions in their minds. Any sort of long-term arrangement requires a level of trust, which just isn't going to be present now. We can see it built if Uncle Maurice lets us, but we’ll need time and a few successful matches to build up a relationship. Then our team captain will be dead set against throwing the kids a bone.”
“The stock market bath changed Uncle Maurice a lot. Our friends in Rutland say he’s almost a different man now. And our team captain’s got a new bee in his bonnet. He thinks that raising ticket prices will get us a lot of revenue and he can spend it on a new stadium. I think it might work.”
“I hope you’re right, let’s try that.” I just wish we were really talking about cricket and family affairs.
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“General Auchinleck, could you advise us of the latest word from our troops in Iraq.” The Marquess of Linlithgow had been out of contact with the Cabinet for two days and was urgently trying to find out what was going on. There was no great reason for his absence, but he felt the need to ensure that the government system that was evolving could function in his absence.
“There have been scattered skirmishes in the air. We’ve shot down a dozen or so Iraqi aircraft, mostly Italian Breda 65s, and destroyed about the same number on the ground. So far, we’ve lost a Maryland and an Oxford trainer. The Regent has escaped and is heading for Basra on a river gunboat. There’s an Iraqi column heading for Habbaniyah but it’s been slowed to a crawl by air attacks. As soon as the Regent is safely in Basra, we’ll secure the country using the Brigade in Basra and the New Zealand column currently moving into position in Transjordan. It’s early days yet of course, but I would say things are pretty satisfactory.”
“That’s very good.” Linlithgow looked around at the cabinet. “I have received a message from London. Not through the authorized or normal channels but through a back door operated by MI.6. They are suggesting that there be a meeting between our representatives and those of the British establishment with the aim of resuming trade between our countries. Specifically, they wish to purchase food and are prepared to pay for it in cash.”
“Sovereigns, I hope.” Harold Hartley sounded droll but in fact, he was deadly serious. The Sovereign hastily created only a few months before, was still very weak and only quiet American support was allowing it to be barely acceptable on the international market. If the British used it to deal with the Commonwealth countries, the Sovereign would become a much stronger player.
“Yes, Sovereigns.” Linlithgow dropped the comment apparently quite casually, but he was secretly delighted to hear the ripple of delight it caused.
“And That Man is going to allow this?” Hartley found it hard to believe. As far as he knew, Lord Halifax was still bitterly resentful of the way the Commonwealth had refused to follow his instructions.
“He doesn’t know anything about it. This is a Civil Service deal. They are suggesting we meet in Rome and arrange to use the Middle East as a shipment point.
“Why couldn’t we just ship directly to Great Britain?” Hartley didn’t understand why a complex transshipment was needed.
Sir Eric Haohoa picked that up. “Most of the food will come from Australia. We would be able to add some rice I suppose but not much more than that. Remember, we’re all at war with Germany. We send merchant ships into the Atlantic and the U-boats will torpedo them. They’re already sinking Canadian ships.”
“Gentlemen, I must warn you that even a little rice may be beyond our means.” Nehru sounded seriously worried. “The food situation in India has been finely balanced since the beginning of the War. We have had a series of crop failures and localized famines already. We dealt with them under the Indian Famine Codes and prevented any great loss of life. But, over the last year, food prices have increased throughout India, and we have had to release regulations covering price controls. The problem is that 15 percent of our rice supply comes from Burma and their harvest has been hit as well. So, we suffer from a reduction in supply, with some increase in demand. If we were to export food as well, we could well face a catastrophic famine. All it would need would be one cyclone at the wrong time, in the wrong place.”
“Well, that’s that then.” The Marquess of Linlithgow sighed. “No food exports to Britain. We’ll send some observers, perhaps there is something else we can sell them. Can somebody think of something? Please?”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Eight
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Incoming!” The shouted warnings beat the sirens by a tiny fraction of a second. That was one of the merits of having a military base full of veterans, most of whom had seen service in the Great War. Others had served in Kenya and North Africa. All of them knew the difference between artillery shells that were coming in and those that were going out.
Pim Bosede heard the whistle of the incoming shells and was sorely tempted to sprint for the shelter just a few tempting feet away. But there were civilians in the area and the sight of a pilot running for cover could easily start a panic. So, he steadied his breath and walked down the steps into the protection of the dug-out. To his great relief, and not a little surprise, he made it before the shells landed. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he looked around at the allegedly bomb-proof shelter. There were half a dozen women and their children already there.
“Look, Jimmy, it’s one of the pilots. Ask him. He’ll know.” The voice was a cut-glass English accent that made Bosede think of afternoon tea on immaculately cut grass lawns and cucumber sandwiches served on delicate China plates.
“Mister, they’re not bombing us, are they?”
“Jimmy! He’s a Squadron Leader. You speak to him properly. Mister indeed!” The cut-glass accent was tinged with outrage.
“I’m sorry, Sir. They’re not bombing us, are they Squadron Leader?”
“No, Jimmy, this is artillery fire. We don’t have to worry about it in here. The Iraqis only have small guns, 65mms.” Bosede saw the child’s mother flash him a quick smile of gratitude for the reassurance. That’s true enough. Those 65s won’t hurt us in here unless they score a direct hit on the roof. If they do that, we’ll never know anything about it.
“Look, it’s Squadron Leader Bosede. He’s an ace. Got 27 kills.” It was another one of the boys. His voice coming out of the gloom was a mixture of pride at recognizing Bosede and awe at meeting the ace.
“Well, we’re not sure if we should count the Iraqi ones.” Bosede smiled at the child. “You know, the Iraqis really aren’t very clever. Our lads are much better than they are.”
“Is Marijke here?” Another child’s voice.
“Why of course.” Bosede put a level of confidence into his voice that he really didn’t feel. “She’s up top, in the dispersal area. She’s tucked up nice and snug in her revetment, surrounded by sandbags. She’ll be all right.”
“Well, let’s make sure, shall we.” It was the woman with the cut-glass accent again. “Hold hands everybody and we’ll all pray that Marijke doesn’t get hurt.”
“Why thank you.” Bosede was genuinely touched by the gesture although he realized the mothers were trying to distract the attention of their children from the shelling. Secretly he was worried sick about his beloved Marijke being exposed to artillery fire, but he couldn’t admit it. He took the hands of the children on either side of him, pretending not to notice the brief squabble between two boys over who would sit next to him, and listened to the women reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Just as they reached the end, the bunker shook slightly with the roar of engines. Bosede relaxed. “Don’t worry, those are our Harts taking off. They’ll dive-bomb the artillery in a couple of minutes and this attack will all be over.”
To Bosede’s surprise, they could feel the ground shake slightly as the Harts unloaded their five-hundred-pound bombs on the Iraqi artillery positions. Then, there was silence until the all-clear sounded. Bosede led the procession out of the shelter and looked around. It was hard to believe anything had happened. The only apparent difference was the formation of six Hawker Harts circling overhead. Bosede grabbed a sergeant who was leading the work-team past. “Sergeant, any damage.”
“No, Sir. Not one of the shells landed anywhere important.” The Sergeant had recognized Bosede and knew what the pilot was really worried about. “You needn’t worry, Sir, your Marijke is just fine. Iraqi shells never came within a mile of her.”
“You hear that everybody? Marijke is just fine. Thank you all for praying for her.” Bosede listened to the cheers going up.
The Sergeant grinned at him. “You know what is a real miracle, Sir? The gunners from the King's Own Royal Regiment took those two old 4.5s from outside the Officer’s mess and fixed them up. They say they both work fine now but I won’t be standing next to them when they fire.”
Mechanized Brigade, Escarpment overlooking Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Well, that was embarrassing.” Otto Skorzeny looked at the scene below him with what could only be described as grim amusement. The Iraqi artillery had been remarkably ineffective. Most of the shells fired by the Iraqi gunners had missed the base completely. Exactly how they had managed that was, in Skorzeny’s skilled military opinion, a complete mystery. Missing something that big at this range must be a military impossibility. Then, just to compound the lamentable performance, the Iraqis manning the three 20mm anti-aircraft guns had fled as soon as the British Harts had arrived overhead. Without firing a shot no less.
“The field artillery gunners have fled as well.” Stephan Bähr sounded outraged rather than amused. “I have never seen such cowardice. Otto, can we at least put our men on the flak guns? Perhaps if somebody shoots at the Harts, the gunners will remain with their pieces.”
“No and no, Stephan. I doubt if anything will make these troops fight an enemy who shoots back. It is not their fault, they are from inferior stock to start with, and they have never been properly trained. We cannot blame a mouse for being unable to fight a cat. But we can’t put our men on those guns, any of them. Not the flak, not the field guns. It would take one shot into the water tower on that base and that whole airfield would be crippled. But we cannot fire that shot. The Iraqi gunners must fire it.”
Skorzeny sighed. He had never explained the full political ramifications of his presence here to his men, but it seemed as if it was time to do so. “Look, Stephan. Down on that base are mostly British troops. They belong to Middle East Command, that is true, but they are still British. We are not at war with Britain. That is a very desirable state for the politicians, and we must not endanger it. The Iraqis are at war with the British and they can fire at them, but we must not. Now, also down on that base are South Africans and, I think, Australians. They are Commonwealth countries and are at war with us. And we with them, of course. So, we can shoot at them, and they can shoot at us. But the Commonwealth is not at war with Iraq, not formally at any rate. So technically, the Iraqis cannot shoot at them, and they cannot shoot at the Iraqis. The problem is that neither the Commonwealth nor the Iraqis care about whether a state of war exists between them, but we care very much that Britain and Germany remain at peace. So, we cannot fire the Iraqi guns for them if there are any chances that the shells may hit the British. Of course, if they hit the Commonwealth forces, that is fine. Understand?”
Bähr said nothing but went over to their truck and theatrically pounded his head on the door. Then he came back and simply asked, “Otto, how do you keep all this political stuff straight in your head?”
Skorzeny thought about that carefully for a few seconds. “Just a gift, I suppose. But, Stephan, all war is an extension of politics and the work our unit does is more so than most. Political considerations drive everything we do. Barbarossa will start in just over two weeks’ time. Once that happens, we might have more flexibility in what we do but until then, our political masters call the tune, and we must dance to it.”
“But what happens if the British kill us when they fire on the Iraqis?” Bähr didn’t like that idea.
“That will be for our political masters to decide. If it suits their aims, they could make a fuss over it. If it suits their aims, they might pretend it never happened. Either way, we get no say in the matter.”
“We’ll be dead.”
“Exactly. As I said, we get no say in the matter.”
Destroyer Witte de With, Batavia, Dutch East Indies
“Admiral Doorman, are your ships ready for sea?” Governor-General Stachouwer looked around the cabin on the destroyer with more than a little doubt. The destroyer was one of the newer Admiralen class but that still made her more than a decade old, and ships aged quickly out in the Netherlands East Indies.
“No, Governor-General. Only two of my destroyers are operational currently. The third and the cruiser de Ruyter are laid up for machinery repairs. Both need their boilers rebricked. It can be done here, but it will take time.”
It is as I had feared, Stachouwer thought, the demands upon us far outweigh our resources. “We need to patrol the straits through our islands. The shipping passing this way grows daily and must be protected.”
“I have been thinking about that.” Doorman was all too aware of the increasing volume of ships making their way through the straits. “Perhaps we have been looking at this the wrong way. We are wearing out our cruisers and destroyers patrolling these waters. Would it not make more sense if we were to concentrate them as a striking force? We have many small patrol ships, minelayers, and customs ships. We could give each of them a small gun and send them out to patrol the straits. They will be entirely adequate for that role, and they will ease the load on our larger ships.”
“Is that possible if we rely on our own resources?”
Doorman had already studied the subject in detail. “Each of my destroyers has one or two three-inch anti-aircraft guns as well as four 40mm weapons. The three-inch is old and ineffective. Now they have 40mms, the loss of the three incher will be of no great consequence. Altogether, that will give us ten three inchers. We have seven minesweepers we can arm. They already have provision for a single three-inch gun each. It will be just a matter of lifting the gun from one ship to the other. We can do that easily here. We also have a fishery protection vessel that has provision for two such guns. We can add her to the fleet as well. Eight patrol ships added to our fleet Sir, which will serve us very well.”
Stachouwer appreciated the careful planning that went into the proposal. “That will work well. Organize the program immediately. One thing, Admiral. When you organize the crews for those patrol ships, make sure that some of the officers and enlisted crewmembers are either Indonesians or the sons of ‘blijver’ families. We must make our own way out here, that much is obvious, and the days when the ‘trekkers’ run everything must end. Your ships will be a good first step in that process.”
“But how can I find suitable recruits?” Doorman didn’t object to the idea, it was the practical implementation that worried him.
“Talk to Kusno Sosrodihardjo. He is sympathetic to our ultimate aims.”
“Sukarno? But he is a revolutionary.”
“Yes, but for a while at least, he is our revolutionary.”
Comando Supremo, Regio Esercito, Rome
Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano looked across at the conference room. “The proposal that we have received is that we act as a middleman between the Commonwealth of Nations and Great Britain. We will buy goods from the Commonwealth, particularly wool, mutton/lamb and dairy produce from Australia, and re-sell it to Great Britain. The Australians will ship the food through the Suez Canal and across the Mediterranean to us. That way, their ships will be safe from German attack. We shall then ship those goods up to Britain by rail, delivering them at the French ports. The British can then get them the rest of the way.”
“Where will they get the ships from? The vast bulk of reefer tonnage, not to mention all other classes on the Australia run, is UK flagged. As was the world's merchant fleet in general of course. So, while transferring ownership/registry out of the UK to make it nominally 'Australian' isn't that hard, I can’t see why anybody would do it. An Australian ship is likely to get attacked, but a British ship? Neutrality earns them limited immunity from German attacks. I say limited because I'm sure they'd be subject to the same sort of limitations Germany has placed on neutral shipping in general. They’ll be fair game under certain situations. Marshal Badoglio thought about that for a moment. “Of course, the British know all the 'neutral' tricks backward, most of them having been invented to run British blockades. You can be sure the Commonwealth navies know them all as well.”
Ciano nodded in agreement. “I suggested Japanese ships for the Italian-Australian trade, no issues about their neutrality, and nobody will interfere with them. They're the perfect neutral, feared by all - and as soon as this deal opens the Med up for shipping the Japanese will be back in here and re-opening their liner trade with Europe. They’ll see this as a way they can pick up market share from the British. There’s just too much economic value on both sides for either to pass up, plus the politics make sweet reading.
“There will, of course, be a mark-up for our services in this matter?” Finance Minister Paolo Thaon di Revel had a lot of questions he needed answers to, but this one was at the top of the list. Italy had lost so much over the last year that the country needed every lira it could scrape up.
“But of course. I have spoken to Sir Arnold Robins, and we have established a sound working relationship. In fact, I would say we understand each other perfectly. A reasonable mark-up on the goods we transfer will be regarded as a fair payment for a valuable service.”
“I hope we can come to an agreement on what constitutes reasonable.” General Pietro Badoglio reflected on the quick destruction of the Italian empire in North Africa. He had little doubt that Italy would be negotiating at a disadvantage.
“Sir Arnold and I are of one mind on that matter. I had a minimum number I would accept on Italy’s behalf; he had a maximum number he would accept on Britain’s behalf. Our minimum was less than his maximum, so we split the difference 50-50.”
“It is most important that the agreement be fair,” Mussolini spoke with a slurred and indistinct voice. He was still suffering from the disastrous effects of the stroke that had brought him down at the beginning of the year. Yet, for all that, he was sounding better, and his native political cunning had returned. “This war will go on for many years yet and there will be many more opportunities like this. The more we are seen as a trusted middleman, the more Italy will benefit.”
There was much nodding around the table as Mussolini’s words were digested. It was di Revel who broke it with his next concern. “How will the British pay for their goods? And how will we come to that?”
Ciano smiled to himself. Most of the ‘negotiations’ with Sir Arnold Robins had been them both trying to anticipate the objections their respective colleagues would devise and thinking of pre-emptive solutions. When they’d been joined by the Honorable Richard Casey M.P., problems had evaporated almost of their own accord. It had been a pleasant change from the atmosphere surrounding the talks that had ended the North African War. “How we will pay for them is no great problem. The Australians will issue us a letter of credit for the purchase of the goods plus shipping plus our markup. That letter of credit will be secured on and redeemable with the income we gain from selling the produce to Britain or France. Or any other non-combatant come to that.”
“And the British?” di Revel wanted this deal nailed down firmly.
“Really that’s their problem but I understand that the British have obtained, and are continuing to obtain, substantial funds by the sale of ships, weapons, and vehicles to Germany. Paid for in gold that we suspect was looted from France. Then, of course, they are profiting greatly from their position as a trader on the world markets. Lord Halifax may have gained power by questionable means, but his acts have brought prosperity to Britain. That doesn’t matter though. If the British do not come through on their side of the deal, we can still cover our losses by selling the produce to other countries. I took the liberty of speaking with the Bank de Commerce et Industrie, in Geneva. They are willing to purchase the products from us for onward sale. Even if the British do let us down, the Bank purchase will see us make a tidy profit on each transaction. Indeed, I would go as far to say that this would be very good business for us even without any British involvement.”
“But this is a fair agreement?” Mussolini repeated his words. It had been one of the effects of his stroke; he would concentrate on one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of all others. He would pursue that aspect with all the single-mindedness that he had once placed in advancing his own career.
“The Australians benefit by the sale of their goods and the money they earn. The British benefit from the import of food. We benefit from our fees as middlemen. The Swiss benefit by being able to sell produce on an open market. This is a rare situation in the world today. Everybody benefits.”
Ciano looked around at the conference table and saw everybody, including Mussolini, nodding. He had carefully not mentioned the one group of people whom this agreement would not benefit. Lord Halifax, Butler, and the rest of their clique. It was obvious that most of the British civil service was by-passing him and freezing him out of any input into this deal. Nothing could have highlighted more clearly just how weak Halifax’s position had become.
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Incoming!” The shouted warnings beat the sirens by a tiny fraction of a second. That was one of the merits of having a military base full of veterans, most of whom had seen service in the Great War. Others had served in Kenya and North Africa. All of them knew the difference between artillery shells that were coming in and those that were going out.
Pim Bosede heard the whistle of the incoming shells and was sorely tempted to sprint for the shelter just a few tempting feet away. But there were civilians in the area and the sight of a pilot running for cover could easily start a panic. So, he steadied his breath and walked down the steps into the protection of the dug-out. To his great relief, and not a little surprise, he made it before the shells landed. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he looked around at the allegedly bomb-proof shelter. There were half a dozen women and their children already there.
“Look, Jimmy, it’s one of the pilots. Ask him. He’ll know.” The voice was a cut-glass English accent that made Bosede think of afternoon tea on immaculately cut grass lawns and cucumber sandwiches served on delicate China plates.
“Mister, they’re not bombing us, are they?”
“Jimmy! He’s a Squadron Leader. You speak to him properly. Mister indeed!” The cut-glass accent was tinged with outrage.
“I’m sorry, Sir. They’re not bombing us, are they Squadron Leader?”
“No, Jimmy, this is artillery fire. We don’t have to worry about it in here. The Iraqis only have small guns, 65mms.” Bosede saw the child’s mother flash him a quick smile of gratitude for the reassurance. That’s true enough. Those 65s won’t hurt us in here unless they score a direct hit on the roof. If they do that, we’ll never know anything about it.
“Look, it’s Squadron Leader Bosede. He’s an ace. Got 27 kills.” It was another one of the boys. His voice coming out of the gloom was a mixture of pride at recognizing Bosede and awe at meeting the ace.
“Well, we’re not sure if we should count the Iraqi ones.” Bosede smiled at the child. “You know, the Iraqis really aren’t very clever. Our lads are much better than they are.”
“Is Marijke here?” Another child’s voice.
“Why of course.” Bosede put a level of confidence into his voice that he really didn’t feel. “She’s up top, in the dispersal area. She’s tucked up nice and snug in her revetment, surrounded by sandbags. She’ll be all right.”
“Well, let’s make sure, shall we.” It was the woman with the cut-glass accent again. “Hold hands everybody and we’ll all pray that Marijke doesn’t get hurt.”
“Why thank you.” Bosede was genuinely touched by the gesture although he realized the mothers were trying to distract the attention of their children from the shelling. Secretly he was worried sick about his beloved Marijke being exposed to artillery fire, but he couldn’t admit it. He took the hands of the children on either side of him, pretending not to notice the brief squabble between two boys over who would sit next to him, and listened to the women reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Just as they reached the end, the bunker shook slightly with the roar of engines. Bosede relaxed. “Don’t worry, those are our Harts taking off. They’ll dive-bomb the artillery in a couple of minutes and this attack will all be over.”
To Bosede’s surprise, they could feel the ground shake slightly as the Harts unloaded their five-hundred-pound bombs on the Iraqi artillery positions. Then, there was silence until the all-clear sounded. Bosede led the procession out of the shelter and looked around. It was hard to believe anything had happened. The only apparent difference was the formation of six Hawker Harts circling overhead. Bosede grabbed a sergeant who was leading the work-team past. “Sergeant, any damage.”
“No, Sir. Not one of the shells landed anywhere important.” The Sergeant had recognized Bosede and knew what the pilot was really worried about. “You needn’t worry, Sir, your Marijke is just fine. Iraqi shells never came within a mile of her.”
“You hear that everybody? Marijke is just fine. Thank you all for praying for her.” Bosede listened to the cheers going up.
The Sergeant grinned at him. “You know what is a real miracle, Sir? The gunners from the King's Own Royal Regiment took those two old 4.5s from outside the Officer’s mess and fixed them up. They say they both work fine now but I won’t be standing next to them when they fire.”
Mechanized Brigade, Escarpment overlooking Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Well, that was embarrassing.” Otto Skorzeny looked at the scene below him with what could only be described as grim amusement. The Iraqi artillery had been remarkably ineffective. Most of the shells fired by the Iraqi gunners had missed the base completely. Exactly how they had managed that was, in Skorzeny’s skilled military opinion, a complete mystery. Missing something that big at this range must be a military impossibility. Then, just to compound the lamentable performance, the Iraqis manning the three 20mm anti-aircraft guns had fled as soon as the British Harts had arrived overhead. Without firing a shot no less.
“The field artillery gunners have fled as well.” Stephan Bähr sounded outraged rather than amused. “I have never seen such cowardice. Otto, can we at least put our men on the flak guns? Perhaps if somebody shoots at the Harts, the gunners will remain with their pieces.”
“No and no, Stephan. I doubt if anything will make these troops fight an enemy who shoots back. It is not their fault, they are from inferior stock to start with, and they have never been properly trained. We cannot blame a mouse for being unable to fight a cat. But we can’t put our men on those guns, any of them. Not the flak, not the field guns. It would take one shot into the water tower on that base and that whole airfield would be crippled. But we cannot fire that shot. The Iraqi gunners must fire it.”
Skorzeny sighed. He had never explained the full political ramifications of his presence here to his men, but it seemed as if it was time to do so. “Look, Stephan. Down on that base are mostly British troops. They belong to Middle East Command, that is true, but they are still British. We are not at war with Britain. That is a very desirable state for the politicians, and we must not endanger it. The Iraqis are at war with the British and they can fire at them, but we must not. Now, also down on that base are South Africans and, I think, Australians. They are Commonwealth countries and are at war with us. And we with them, of course. So, we can shoot at them, and they can shoot at us. But the Commonwealth is not at war with Iraq, not formally at any rate. So technically, the Iraqis cannot shoot at them, and they cannot shoot at the Iraqis. The problem is that neither the Commonwealth nor the Iraqis care about whether a state of war exists between them, but we care very much that Britain and Germany remain at peace. So, we cannot fire the Iraqi guns for them if there are any chances that the shells may hit the British. Of course, if they hit the Commonwealth forces, that is fine. Understand?”
Bähr said nothing but went over to their truck and theatrically pounded his head on the door. Then he came back and simply asked, “Otto, how do you keep all this political stuff straight in your head?”
Skorzeny thought about that carefully for a few seconds. “Just a gift, I suppose. But, Stephan, all war is an extension of politics and the work our unit does is more so than most. Political considerations drive everything we do. Barbarossa will start in just over two weeks’ time. Once that happens, we might have more flexibility in what we do but until then, our political masters call the tune, and we must dance to it.”
“But what happens if the British kill us when they fire on the Iraqis?” Bähr didn’t like that idea.
“That will be for our political masters to decide. If it suits their aims, they could make a fuss over it. If it suits their aims, they might pretend it never happened. Either way, we get no say in the matter.”
“We’ll be dead.”
“Exactly. As I said, we get no say in the matter.”
Destroyer Witte de With, Batavia, Dutch East Indies
“Admiral Doorman, are your ships ready for sea?” Governor-General Stachouwer looked around the cabin on the destroyer with more than a little doubt. The destroyer was one of the newer Admiralen class but that still made her more than a decade old, and ships aged quickly out in the Netherlands East Indies.
“No, Governor-General. Only two of my destroyers are operational currently. The third and the cruiser de Ruyter are laid up for machinery repairs. Both need their boilers rebricked. It can be done here, but it will take time.”
It is as I had feared, Stachouwer thought, the demands upon us far outweigh our resources. “We need to patrol the straits through our islands. The shipping passing this way grows daily and must be protected.”
“I have been thinking about that.” Doorman was all too aware of the increasing volume of ships making their way through the straits. “Perhaps we have been looking at this the wrong way. We are wearing out our cruisers and destroyers patrolling these waters. Would it not make more sense if we were to concentrate them as a striking force? We have many small patrol ships, minelayers, and customs ships. We could give each of them a small gun and send them out to patrol the straits. They will be entirely adequate for that role, and they will ease the load on our larger ships.”
“Is that possible if we rely on our own resources?”
Doorman had already studied the subject in detail. “Each of my destroyers has one or two three-inch anti-aircraft guns as well as four 40mm weapons. The three-inch is old and ineffective. Now they have 40mms, the loss of the three incher will be of no great consequence. Altogether, that will give us ten three inchers. We have seven minesweepers we can arm. They already have provision for a single three-inch gun each. It will be just a matter of lifting the gun from one ship to the other. We can do that easily here. We also have a fishery protection vessel that has provision for two such guns. We can add her to the fleet as well. Eight patrol ships added to our fleet Sir, which will serve us very well.”
Stachouwer appreciated the careful planning that went into the proposal. “That will work well. Organize the program immediately. One thing, Admiral. When you organize the crews for those patrol ships, make sure that some of the officers and enlisted crewmembers are either Indonesians or the sons of ‘blijver’ families. We must make our own way out here, that much is obvious, and the days when the ‘trekkers’ run everything must end. Your ships will be a good first step in that process.”
“But how can I find suitable recruits?” Doorman didn’t object to the idea, it was the practical implementation that worried him.
“Talk to Kusno Sosrodihardjo. He is sympathetic to our ultimate aims.”
“Sukarno? But he is a revolutionary.”
“Yes, but for a while at least, he is our revolutionary.”
Comando Supremo, Regio Esercito, Rome
Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano looked across at the conference room. “The proposal that we have received is that we act as a middleman between the Commonwealth of Nations and Great Britain. We will buy goods from the Commonwealth, particularly wool, mutton/lamb and dairy produce from Australia, and re-sell it to Great Britain. The Australians will ship the food through the Suez Canal and across the Mediterranean to us. That way, their ships will be safe from German attack. We shall then ship those goods up to Britain by rail, delivering them at the French ports. The British can then get them the rest of the way.”
“Where will they get the ships from? The vast bulk of reefer tonnage, not to mention all other classes on the Australia run, is UK flagged. As was the world's merchant fleet in general of course. So, while transferring ownership/registry out of the UK to make it nominally 'Australian' isn't that hard, I can’t see why anybody would do it. An Australian ship is likely to get attacked, but a British ship? Neutrality earns them limited immunity from German attacks. I say limited because I'm sure they'd be subject to the same sort of limitations Germany has placed on neutral shipping in general. They’ll be fair game under certain situations. Marshal Badoglio thought about that for a moment. “Of course, the British know all the 'neutral' tricks backward, most of them having been invented to run British blockades. You can be sure the Commonwealth navies know them all as well.”
Ciano nodded in agreement. “I suggested Japanese ships for the Italian-Australian trade, no issues about their neutrality, and nobody will interfere with them. They're the perfect neutral, feared by all - and as soon as this deal opens the Med up for shipping the Japanese will be back in here and re-opening their liner trade with Europe. They’ll see this as a way they can pick up market share from the British. There’s just too much economic value on both sides for either to pass up, plus the politics make sweet reading.
“There will, of course, be a mark-up for our services in this matter?” Finance Minister Paolo Thaon di Revel had a lot of questions he needed answers to, but this one was at the top of the list. Italy had lost so much over the last year that the country needed every lira it could scrape up.
“But of course. I have spoken to Sir Arnold Robins, and we have established a sound working relationship. In fact, I would say we understand each other perfectly. A reasonable mark-up on the goods we transfer will be regarded as a fair payment for a valuable service.”
“I hope we can come to an agreement on what constitutes reasonable.” General Pietro Badoglio reflected on the quick destruction of the Italian empire in North Africa. He had little doubt that Italy would be negotiating at a disadvantage.
“Sir Arnold and I are of one mind on that matter. I had a minimum number I would accept on Italy’s behalf; he had a maximum number he would accept on Britain’s behalf. Our minimum was less than his maximum, so we split the difference 50-50.”
“It is most important that the agreement be fair,” Mussolini spoke with a slurred and indistinct voice. He was still suffering from the disastrous effects of the stroke that had brought him down at the beginning of the year. Yet, for all that, he was sounding better, and his native political cunning had returned. “This war will go on for many years yet and there will be many more opportunities like this. The more we are seen as a trusted middleman, the more Italy will benefit.”
There was much nodding around the table as Mussolini’s words were digested. It was di Revel who broke it with his next concern. “How will the British pay for their goods? And how will we come to that?”
Ciano smiled to himself. Most of the ‘negotiations’ with Sir Arnold Robins had been them both trying to anticipate the objections their respective colleagues would devise and thinking of pre-emptive solutions. When they’d been joined by the Honorable Richard Casey M.P., problems had evaporated almost of their own accord. It had been a pleasant change from the atmosphere surrounding the talks that had ended the North African War. “How we will pay for them is no great problem. The Australians will issue us a letter of credit for the purchase of the goods plus shipping plus our markup. That letter of credit will be secured on and redeemable with the income we gain from selling the produce to Britain or France. Or any other non-combatant come to that.”
“And the British?” di Revel wanted this deal nailed down firmly.
“Really that’s their problem but I understand that the British have obtained, and are continuing to obtain, substantial funds by the sale of ships, weapons, and vehicles to Germany. Paid for in gold that we suspect was looted from France. Then, of course, they are profiting greatly from their position as a trader on the world markets. Lord Halifax may have gained power by questionable means, but his acts have brought prosperity to Britain. That doesn’t matter though. If the British do not come through on their side of the deal, we can still cover our losses by selling the produce to other countries. I took the liberty of speaking with the Bank de Commerce et Industrie, in Geneva. They are willing to purchase the products from us for onward sale. Even if the British do let us down, the Bank purchase will see us make a tidy profit on each transaction. Indeed, I would go as far to say that this would be very good business for us even without any British involvement.”
“But this is a fair agreement?” Mussolini repeated his words. It had been one of the effects of his stroke; he would concentrate on one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of all others. He would pursue that aspect with all the single-mindedness that he had once placed in advancing his own career.
“The Australians benefit by the sale of their goods and the money they earn. The British benefit from the import of food. We benefit from our fees as middlemen. The Swiss benefit by being able to sell produce on an open market. This is a rare situation in the world today. Everybody benefits.”
Ciano looked around at the conference table and saw everybody, including Mussolini, nodding. He had carefully not mentioned the one group of people whom this agreement would not benefit. Lord Halifax, Butler, and the rest of their clique. It was obvious that most of the British civil service was by-passing him and freezing him out of any input into this deal. Nothing could have highlighted more clearly just how weak Halifax’s position had become.
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Nine
Train Between East Mines and Debert Stations, Nova Scotia, Canada
Digby Dale glanced down to check the briefcase that he’d put between his feet. The train was crowded, and he’d had to stand all the way from Quebec. It had been a long, harrowing ride, one that he would be glad to see the end of. It had only one redeeming feature, it had marked the end of an unpleasant series of meetings during which he had to tell some very important people that they couldn’t have what they wanted. What they had wanted was a radial-engined Hurricane that could perform well enough to stand a chance against the kind of fighters that Germany was fielding. The Hurry-can wasn’t that aircraft, nor could it ever be.
“Hey, fly-boy.” The words were accompanied by a sharp push in the back.
Dale started to turn around and, as he did so, a fist came out of nowhere and crunched into his nose. He staggered back, only dimly aware of the gasp that had gone around the train coach or the surge of activity as two of the men nearest to his attacker had grabbed him by the arms to haul him away. Dale was much more aware of the young woman who was holding her handkerchief to his nose so the blood wouldn’t get on his uniform. The man who had punched him was screaming obscene abuse, a foul-mouthed mixture of expletives that had one woman clap her hands over her child’s ears. As Dale’s eyes focused again, he saw that even the men in the cabin were shocked by the outburst.
“You bastards. You left us to drown. For five days we were in that lifeboat. None of you ever did anything to help us. Freddie and Bob and the rest never made it. Bastard Kondor bombed us, and you left us to swim, damn you.”
The outburst was stopped very suddenly by the woman who had donated her handkerchief to the noble cause of protecting Dale’s RCAF uniform. She left him to hold it over his nose and slapped his attacker once across the face. The sound was like a pistol shot and it silenced the man instantly. “How dare you use language like that in front of the children!” An approving murmur ran around the coach.
“Where were you sunk?” Dale was in shock from the attack, and he was aware the question was incongruous yet he managed to get it out despite his anger. The shock had given way to rage at the unprovoked attack and he wanted nothing more than to beat the merchant seaman into a bloody pulp. Yet, he realized he couldn’t. Not with all these witnesses around. Let the police handle it.
“Off Corvo.” The man’s voice managed to combine sullenness and hatred. The question had thrown him off as well.
“Corvo? That’s in the Azores!” The woman with the young son looked around the coach apologetically. “Sorry, I’m a geography schoolteacher. That’s a thousand, nearly two thousand miles away. How could this poor young man get out there?”
That started the merchant seaman cursing and shouting abuse again. An outburst that was quickly ended by a blow to the pit of his stomach from one of the men present. The seamen was still gasping when the train pulled into Debert station.
Two policemen were called over and they took the merchant seamen into custody. One of the officers started taking statements from the witnesses while the other spoke to Dale. “That’s a bloody nose you got there, Sir. A bad case of assault causing grievous bodily harm, if you ask me. That’s what the charge sheet will say.”
Dale still wasn’t seeing quite properly but he caught the sympathy on the policeman’s face. “Look, officer. That man spent five days in a lifeboat and watched all his friends die. He’s not quite right in the head.”
“Good of you to think like that, Sir, but that’s for the Magistrate to say. You’d better get back to your base and have that nose seen to.”
Dale nodded. As he started to leave the station, he realized he was still holding the woman’s handkerchief. He saw her leaving as well and caught up with her. “Ma’am. Your handkerchief. Thank you.”
“It’s Isabel. Izzy for short. You’d better keep the hanky though. You can send it back to me here.” Izzy wrote something on a piece of paper from her bag. Dale saw it was her address.
“I’m Digby. If it’s all right with you, I’ll bring it back. Can’t trust the mail these days.”
Izzy laughed a little, then her face was suddenly serious. “Digby don’t worry about what that man said. Jenny said it’s eighteen hundred miles to the Azores. You couldn’t possibly have helped him.”
Dale thought carefully. “Even a Fortress couldn’t have got out there, A Liberator might, but it would have to turn around and come right back. And I fly a Hurricane.”
“There you are then.” Izzy seemed very definite on the matter. “Goodbye, Digby.”
RCAF Station Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada
Dale’s nose started bleeding again as soon as he entered Elsie MacGill’s office. He clapped the borrowed handkerchief to his nose just as MacGill looked up. “Digger, if that’s your hanky, I’m going to be very worried about you. What happened?”
“Merchant seaman punched me on the nose. His ship got hit by a Kondor and he spent a week or so in a raft. He blamed the Air Force because we weren’t out there. So, he punched the first pilot he saw. Girl loaned me her hanky.”
“Let me have a look.” MacGill struggled to her feet and peered at Dale’s nose. “Nasty, you’ve got two black eyes coming up and it looks broken. Off to the medic with you.”
“There’s something I need to talk about first Elsie. That merchant seaman, his ship was bombed off the Azores.”
“About as far as the Germans can get a Kondor. There are rumors they are refueling them in Spain. There’s no way we can get an aircraft out there. The Fortresses are short by about three hundred miles, the Liberators right on the margin. We keep telling the merchies to detour to the west, but they won’t listen. They still cut the corner. The Kondors either get them or call-in submarines to do the job.”
“We can get an aircraft out there, Elsie. A Hurry-Can.”
“How?” MacGill’s voice had the menacing tone to it that usually indicated a major explosion was on the way.
“I was thinking about this all the way from the station. We put a catapult on a merchant ship. Then we give one or two Hurry-Cans to that ship. When they see a Kondor, they catapult off the Hurry-Can and it goes after the Hun. Elsie, we’ve been wondering what to do with the Hurry-Can and this is the perfect job for them. We don’t even give them new engines; we get refurbished R-1830s that were used for civilian aircraft. They’re cheap and they’ll last long enough for one flight. The Hurry-Can has enough speed to catch up and kill the Kondor even with a derated engine – and the civilian engine burns less fuel so it can stay up longer. The twelve .30s will tear a Kondor apart but, Elsie, the beauty is that the Hurry-Can doesn’t have to make the kill. If the Kondor crew runs at full power to get away, they’ll burn the fuel they need to get home. They’ll go down in the drink.”
“Talking about that, what happens when the Hurry-Can runs out of fuel?”
“Pilot puts it into the sea alongside the merchie, then gets picked up. The compartment in the nose? A small life raft should fit in there just fine. Elsie, the Hurry-Can is perfect for this job. Docile, easy to fly, well-armed and it won’t impact war production. So, we lose everyone we launch. Doesn’t matter, does it? Surplus airframes, junk engines. If we’re short of machine guns, we can cut them down to eight or six. The Kondor is just an airliner. No real strength there.”
MacGill nodded, the enthusiasm picking up as she analyzed the idea and its implications. “It’ll work and the Kondors will get damned cautious about getting close to merchies. Every merchie with a Hurry-Can will protect a dozen that don’t that way. And it’ll hit the submarines as well. They depend on the Kondors to find targets. Write it up and we’ll see what the Ministry has to say. Now, get to the medic.”
Dale was about to leave when MacGill started rummaging in a desk drawer. She gave a little grunt of triumph and took out an old gift box that had a set of three lace-trimmed handkerchiefs. The box was yellowing, making Dale think it was pre-war. MacGill sniffed again. “Some idiot gave me these once. You better give them to your friend by way of thanks. The one she loaned you is ruined.”
257 Squadron, Martlesham Heath, Essex, U.K.
“How’s it going, Tuckie?” Air Vice-Marshal Park had appeared without warning in the hangar. Stanford Tuck was inspecting one of the new Spitfires and looked up from the wing bays in surprise. Park climbed up beside him and looked down at the array of four machine guns. “Still got the eight Brownings, but we’ll have that fixed soon enough.”
“Good to see you here, Sir.” Tuck’s greeting had multiple levels of significance. Sir Keith Park was in the habit of making unannounced and certainly unexpected visits to the airbases under his command. Uniquely, his visits were welcomed by officers and enlisted men alike. The latter discovered they had a senior officer who listened to their problems and got to the bottom of them. The former found that they had a sympathetic supporter who regarded operational difficulties as matters to be solved as expeditiously as possible. Both realized they were uniquely fortunate in having a leader in the true sense of the phrase.
There was more to it than that though. Sir Keith Park was new to the command of 12 Group. He had been in command of 11 Group but had exchanged formations with the previous commander of 12 Group, Trafford Leigh-Mallory. The official reason for the exchange was that Park was an excellent leader and administrator who could hammer 12 Group into shape while Leigh-Mallory had a better grasp of fighter operations and strategy. The real reason was much simpler. Trafford Leigh-Malloy was a Halifax man. Putting him into 11 Group where several key airfields had small German detachments effectively got him out of the way. The situation hadn’t changed except in one detail. 12 Group was now regarded as being the primary defense of the U.K., not 11 Group. There was a slow, steady exchange of personnel going on as well. Those suspected of being Halifax men were being shifted to 11 Group while RAF personnel who had been tested and found to be loyal to Churchill were moving to 10 and 12 Groups.
Nor was it just people who were being moved. The great Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory had shifted production over to the new Spitfire Mark V. They were being delivered to the fighter squadrons of 10 and 12 Groups while the older Spitfire Mark IIs, which were still being produced in the Southampton factory, went to 11 Group. Stanford Tuck had been inspecting a newly delivered Mark VA when Park had greeted him. He had been unable to avoid thinking that concealing the fact that 11 Group was being short-changed when it came to new equipment must be taking some nifty footwork at a very high level in the Civil Service.
“Brownings won’t hack it, Sir. They were good enough pre-war when nobody had any armor, but times have changed. We need a 20mm cannon.”
“Douglas doesn’t think so.” There was a teasing grin on Park’s face. The bad blood that existed between Robert Stanford Tuck and Douglas Bader was legendary. The problem was that neither was a Halifax man which put them technically on the same side. It very rarely seemed that way. “And the Commonwealth seems to be doing all right with their .303-armed Mohawks and Tomahawks.”
Tuck settled back against the fuselage of the Spitfire. “I’m surprised Douglas doesn’t believe the sun rises in the west, just because everybody else says it does so in the east. As for the Commonwealth, Sir, they’re riding for a fall. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve done damned well since we left them in the lurch, but the clock is running against them. So far, they’ve been fighting mostly Italians and their aircraft are unarmored. So, the Brownings are good enough against them. The Siamese fought the Japs in Mohawks, but the Jap planes aren’t armored either. If either of them came up against the Luftwaffe right now, they’d get an ugly surprise. The .303s will just bounce off them. We need 20mm to punch holes in their armor and self-sealing tanks.”
“You’ll get them, Tuckie. The gun bays in the Spit-Five you’ve got there can be converted from .303 Browning to 20mm almost on the spot. It’s the same on the Daffy-Threes. That wing gun bay they’ve got can hold either two .303s or one 20mm. When it all drops in the pot, you’ll get your 20mm guns. Now, how are you getting on building up the fuel and ammunition reserves?”
“Not bad, Sir. We’re treating it the way our wives treat getting shopping money from us. Take it out but never give any back no matter how much – or how little - we spend. We’ve got enough for a day or two of operations already. Building it up slowly but surely. And the 264 Squadron’s Defiants are turning out to be good at ground attack. With the gunner covering against enemy fighters, the pilot can concentrate on what he’s doing.”
Park nodded in acknowledgment. There was a plan brewing in the darkest recesses of the War Office, one that nobody spoke about except to a very carefully vetted few. It involved a coup to remove Halifax and his Government. Nobody was under any illusions about what that would mean for the people involved. If the coup failed, they’d be dead men, executed as traitors. If it succeeded, they would be ruined men, as reviled and despised as the man they had removed. Win or lose, they lost. “Tuckie, walk with me over to 264 and their Defiants will you? I want to take a closer look at these Mark IIIs.”
“Certainly, Sir. This way.” They left the hangar together, chatting over trivial administrative matters. As soon as they were clear of the hangars, the conversation abruptly changed in pitch and content. “What’s the latest news, Sir?”
Park sighed. “We’ve had word that the Canadians haven’t any hope of moving until next year at the earliest. They haven’t got the troops, the ships, or the planes. Their effort to design their own fighter is turning out to be a real mess.”
“Damn. Can we hang on until then?”
“I don’t know. What terrifies everybody is that Halifax might hold an election. At the moment, he’s seen as, if not quite a usurper, as somebody who got where he is by sharp practice. If we boot him out and invite Winston back, we can all sit in our cells in the Tower in the knowledge that people sympathize with what we did. But if he holds an election and wins, we’ve lost any kind of legal cover. Why he hasn’t done that, I do not know. It’s the smart thing to do.”
“He’s afraid he might lose, Sir.” Tuck paused for a second, trying to put his thoughts in order. “You often hear this about people in politics. People say about them, ‘he succeeds because he chooses when to fight and when not to fight. He only goes into battle when the odds are in his favor.’ Well, that’s all very fine but sometimes one must fight, no matter what the odds because the alternative is so much worse. That’s why we got into this war to start with. Halifax doesn’t realize that. He won’t go into an election yet because the odds aren’t in his favor. I don’t think he’ll go into one at all until his Blackshirts are counting the votes.”
“I hope you’re right, Tuckie. An election right now is the worst thing that could possibly happen to this country. We all know the Germans can’t invade us any more than they could a year ago. The Royal Navy, even with half its strength flying the Commonwealth flags, will slaughter them in the Channel. You know, RAB was arguing that the Luftwaffe would sink the Navy if it showed his face in the Channel. I sometimes wonder about him. At Dunkirk, the Luftwaffe threw everything it had at the Navy sitting off the beaches. Those destroyers were stationary, sitting ducks, yet the Jerries missed them nearly all the time. Hitting them is much harder than amateurs think. No, Tuckie, if the Germans invade us now, we’ll drown them just as we would have done a year ago. We know it, the Germans know it. That Man does not know it.
“But an election that gives That Man a legitimate mandate will throw everything. At the very least, the exiled government in Ottawa will be deprived of any legitimacy. The Canadians would be forced to recognize That Man and that’s a situation we can’t afford. No, Tuckie, if That Man declares an election, we’ll be forced to move against him, come what may. It’ll be a civil war for sure and we have no way of knowing which way things will fall. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it ended up with the 12th Group squadrons taking on 11th Group.”
Tuck shuddered at that thought. My God, what are we coming to? Are we going back to the War of the Roses? That somber thought brought another to his mind.
“What about the other Groups, Sir?”
Park looked grim. “We can rely on 13 Group – I think. There’s an overwhelming feeling against That Man up in Scotland and the North. Do you know Blackshirts are getting ambushed up there already? The problem is that’s mixed in with a lot of Scottish nationalism. It wouldn’t surprise me if we ended up having a referendum on Scottish independence one day. Assuming we’re not all part of Prussia by then. Ten Group? I wish I knew. I think they’ll fall in with us, but we can’t be sure, not yet. Ahh, here we are. So those are the new Defiants? My, they look better with those forward-firing guns, don’t they?”
Train Between East Mines and Debert Stations, Nova Scotia, Canada
Digby Dale glanced down to check the briefcase that he’d put between his feet. The train was crowded, and he’d had to stand all the way from Quebec. It had been a long, harrowing ride, one that he would be glad to see the end of. It had only one redeeming feature, it had marked the end of an unpleasant series of meetings during which he had to tell some very important people that they couldn’t have what they wanted. What they had wanted was a radial-engined Hurricane that could perform well enough to stand a chance against the kind of fighters that Germany was fielding. The Hurry-can wasn’t that aircraft, nor could it ever be.
“Hey, fly-boy.” The words were accompanied by a sharp push in the back.
Dale started to turn around and, as he did so, a fist came out of nowhere and crunched into his nose. He staggered back, only dimly aware of the gasp that had gone around the train coach or the surge of activity as two of the men nearest to his attacker had grabbed him by the arms to haul him away. Dale was much more aware of the young woman who was holding her handkerchief to his nose so the blood wouldn’t get on his uniform. The man who had punched him was screaming obscene abuse, a foul-mouthed mixture of expletives that had one woman clap her hands over her child’s ears. As Dale’s eyes focused again, he saw that even the men in the cabin were shocked by the outburst.
“You bastards. You left us to drown. For five days we were in that lifeboat. None of you ever did anything to help us. Freddie and Bob and the rest never made it. Bastard Kondor bombed us, and you left us to swim, damn you.”
The outburst was stopped very suddenly by the woman who had donated her handkerchief to the noble cause of protecting Dale’s RCAF uniform. She left him to hold it over his nose and slapped his attacker once across the face. The sound was like a pistol shot and it silenced the man instantly. “How dare you use language like that in front of the children!” An approving murmur ran around the coach.
“Where were you sunk?” Dale was in shock from the attack, and he was aware the question was incongruous yet he managed to get it out despite his anger. The shock had given way to rage at the unprovoked attack and he wanted nothing more than to beat the merchant seaman into a bloody pulp. Yet, he realized he couldn’t. Not with all these witnesses around. Let the police handle it.
“Off Corvo.” The man’s voice managed to combine sullenness and hatred. The question had thrown him off as well.
“Corvo? That’s in the Azores!” The woman with the young son looked around the coach apologetically. “Sorry, I’m a geography schoolteacher. That’s a thousand, nearly two thousand miles away. How could this poor young man get out there?”
That started the merchant seaman cursing and shouting abuse again. An outburst that was quickly ended by a blow to the pit of his stomach from one of the men present. The seamen was still gasping when the train pulled into Debert station.
Two policemen were called over and they took the merchant seamen into custody. One of the officers started taking statements from the witnesses while the other spoke to Dale. “That’s a bloody nose you got there, Sir. A bad case of assault causing grievous bodily harm, if you ask me. That’s what the charge sheet will say.”
Dale still wasn’t seeing quite properly but he caught the sympathy on the policeman’s face. “Look, officer. That man spent five days in a lifeboat and watched all his friends die. He’s not quite right in the head.”
“Good of you to think like that, Sir, but that’s for the Magistrate to say. You’d better get back to your base and have that nose seen to.”
Dale nodded. As he started to leave the station, he realized he was still holding the woman’s handkerchief. He saw her leaving as well and caught up with her. “Ma’am. Your handkerchief. Thank you.”
“It’s Isabel. Izzy for short. You’d better keep the hanky though. You can send it back to me here.” Izzy wrote something on a piece of paper from her bag. Dale saw it was her address.
“I’m Digby. If it’s all right with you, I’ll bring it back. Can’t trust the mail these days.”
Izzy laughed a little, then her face was suddenly serious. “Digby don’t worry about what that man said. Jenny said it’s eighteen hundred miles to the Azores. You couldn’t possibly have helped him.”
Dale thought carefully. “Even a Fortress couldn’t have got out there, A Liberator might, but it would have to turn around and come right back. And I fly a Hurricane.”
“There you are then.” Izzy seemed very definite on the matter. “Goodbye, Digby.”
RCAF Station Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada
Dale’s nose started bleeding again as soon as he entered Elsie MacGill’s office. He clapped the borrowed handkerchief to his nose just as MacGill looked up. “Digger, if that’s your hanky, I’m going to be very worried about you. What happened?”
“Merchant seaman punched me on the nose. His ship got hit by a Kondor and he spent a week or so in a raft. He blamed the Air Force because we weren’t out there. So, he punched the first pilot he saw. Girl loaned me her hanky.”
“Let me have a look.” MacGill struggled to her feet and peered at Dale’s nose. “Nasty, you’ve got two black eyes coming up and it looks broken. Off to the medic with you.”
“There’s something I need to talk about first Elsie. That merchant seaman, his ship was bombed off the Azores.”
“About as far as the Germans can get a Kondor. There are rumors they are refueling them in Spain. There’s no way we can get an aircraft out there. The Fortresses are short by about three hundred miles, the Liberators right on the margin. We keep telling the merchies to detour to the west, but they won’t listen. They still cut the corner. The Kondors either get them or call-in submarines to do the job.”
“We can get an aircraft out there, Elsie. A Hurry-Can.”
“How?” MacGill’s voice had the menacing tone to it that usually indicated a major explosion was on the way.
“I was thinking about this all the way from the station. We put a catapult on a merchant ship. Then we give one or two Hurry-Cans to that ship. When they see a Kondor, they catapult off the Hurry-Can and it goes after the Hun. Elsie, we’ve been wondering what to do with the Hurry-Can and this is the perfect job for them. We don’t even give them new engines; we get refurbished R-1830s that were used for civilian aircraft. They’re cheap and they’ll last long enough for one flight. The Hurry-Can has enough speed to catch up and kill the Kondor even with a derated engine – and the civilian engine burns less fuel so it can stay up longer. The twelve .30s will tear a Kondor apart but, Elsie, the beauty is that the Hurry-Can doesn’t have to make the kill. If the Kondor crew runs at full power to get away, they’ll burn the fuel they need to get home. They’ll go down in the drink.”
“Talking about that, what happens when the Hurry-Can runs out of fuel?”
“Pilot puts it into the sea alongside the merchie, then gets picked up. The compartment in the nose? A small life raft should fit in there just fine. Elsie, the Hurry-Can is perfect for this job. Docile, easy to fly, well-armed and it won’t impact war production. So, we lose everyone we launch. Doesn’t matter, does it? Surplus airframes, junk engines. If we’re short of machine guns, we can cut them down to eight or six. The Kondor is just an airliner. No real strength there.”
MacGill nodded, the enthusiasm picking up as she analyzed the idea and its implications. “It’ll work and the Kondors will get damned cautious about getting close to merchies. Every merchie with a Hurry-Can will protect a dozen that don’t that way. And it’ll hit the submarines as well. They depend on the Kondors to find targets. Write it up and we’ll see what the Ministry has to say. Now, get to the medic.”
Dale was about to leave when MacGill started rummaging in a desk drawer. She gave a little grunt of triumph and took out an old gift box that had a set of three lace-trimmed handkerchiefs. The box was yellowing, making Dale think it was pre-war. MacGill sniffed again. “Some idiot gave me these once. You better give them to your friend by way of thanks. The one she loaned you is ruined.”
257 Squadron, Martlesham Heath, Essex, U.K.
“How’s it going, Tuckie?” Air Vice-Marshal Park had appeared without warning in the hangar. Stanford Tuck was inspecting one of the new Spitfires and looked up from the wing bays in surprise. Park climbed up beside him and looked down at the array of four machine guns. “Still got the eight Brownings, but we’ll have that fixed soon enough.”
“Good to see you here, Sir.” Tuck’s greeting had multiple levels of significance. Sir Keith Park was in the habit of making unannounced and certainly unexpected visits to the airbases under his command. Uniquely, his visits were welcomed by officers and enlisted men alike. The latter discovered they had a senior officer who listened to their problems and got to the bottom of them. The former found that they had a sympathetic supporter who regarded operational difficulties as matters to be solved as expeditiously as possible. Both realized they were uniquely fortunate in having a leader in the true sense of the phrase.
There was more to it than that though. Sir Keith Park was new to the command of 12 Group. He had been in command of 11 Group but had exchanged formations with the previous commander of 12 Group, Trafford Leigh-Mallory. The official reason for the exchange was that Park was an excellent leader and administrator who could hammer 12 Group into shape while Leigh-Mallory had a better grasp of fighter operations and strategy. The real reason was much simpler. Trafford Leigh-Malloy was a Halifax man. Putting him into 11 Group where several key airfields had small German detachments effectively got him out of the way. The situation hadn’t changed except in one detail. 12 Group was now regarded as being the primary defense of the U.K., not 11 Group. There was a slow, steady exchange of personnel going on as well. Those suspected of being Halifax men were being shifted to 11 Group while RAF personnel who had been tested and found to be loyal to Churchill were moving to 10 and 12 Groups.
Nor was it just people who were being moved. The great Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory had shifted production over to the new Spitfire Mark V. They were being delivered to the fighter squadrons of 10 and 12 Groups while the older Spitfire Mark IIs, which were still being produced in the Southampton factory, went to 11 Group. Stanford Tuck had been inspecting a newly delivered Mark VA when Park had greeted him. He had been unable to avoid thinking that concealing the fact that 11 Group was being short-changed when it came to new equipment must be taking some nifty footwork at a very high level in the Civil Service.
“Brownings won’t hack it, Sir. They were good enough pre-war when nobody had any armor, but times have changed. We need a 20mm cannon.”
“Douglas doesn’t think so.” There was a teasing grin on Park’s face. The bad blood that existed between Robert Stanford Tuck and Douglas Bader was legendary. The problem was that neither was a Halifax man which put them technically on the same side. It very rarely seemed that way. “And the Commonwealth seems to be doing all right with their .303-armed Mohawks and Tomahawks.”
Tuck settled back against the fuselage of the Spitfire. “I’m surprised Douglas doesn’t believe the sun rises in the west, just because everybody else says it does so in the east. As for the Commonwealth, Sir, they’re riding for a fall. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve done damned well since we left them in the lurch, but the clock is running against them. So far, they’ve been fighting mostly Italians and their aircraft are unarmored. So, the Brownings are good enough against them. The Siamese fought the Japs in Mohawks, but the Jap planes aren’t armored either. If either of them came up against the Luftwaffe right now, they’d get an ugly surprise. The .303s will just bounce off them. We need 20mm to punch holes in their armor and self-sealing tanks.”
“You’ll get them, Tuckie. The gun bays in the Spit-Five you’ve got there can be converted from .303 Browning to 20mm almost on the spot. It’s the same on the Daffy-Threes. That wing gun bay they’ve got can hold either two .303s or one 20mm. When it all drops in the pot, you’ll get your 20mm guns. Now, how are you getting on building up the fuel and ammunition reserves?”
“Not bad, Sir. We’re treating it the way our wives treat getting shopping money from us. Take it out but never give any back no matter how much – or how little - we spend. We’ve got enough for a day or two of operations already. Building it up slowly but surely. And the 264 Squadron’s Defiants are turning out to be good at ground attack. With the gunner covering against enemy fighters, the pilot can concentrate on what he’s doing.”
Park nodded in acknowledgment. There was a plan brewing in the darkest recesses of the War Office, one that nobody spoke about except to a very carefully vetted few. It involved a coup to remove Halifax and his Government. Nobody was under any illusions about what that would mean for the people involved. If the coup failed, they’d be dead men, executed as traitors. If it succeeded, they would be ruined men, as reviled and despised as the man they had removed. Win or lose, they lost. “Tuckie, walk with me over to 264 and their Defiants will you? I want to take a closer look at these Mark IIIs.”
“Certainly, Sir. This way.” They left the hangar together, chatting over trivial administrative matters. As soon as they were clear of the hangars, the conversation abruptly changed in pitch and content. “What’s the latest news, Sir?”
Park sighed. “We’ve had word that the Canadians haven’t any hope of moving until next year at the earliest. They haven’t got the troops, the ships, or the planes. Their effort to design their own fighter is turning out to be a real mess.”
“Damn. Can we hang on until then?”
“I don’t know. What terrifies everybody is that Halifax might hold an election. At the moment, he’s seen as, if not quite a usurper, as somebody who got where he is by sharp practice. If we boot him out and invite Winston back, we can all sit in our cells in the Tower in the knowledge that people sympathize with what we did. But if he holds an election and wins, we’ve lost any kind of legal cover. Why he hasn’t done that, I do not know. It’s the smart thing to do.”
“He’s afraid he might lose, Sir.” Tuck paused for a second, trying to put his thoughts in order. “You often hear this about people in politics. People say about them, ‘he succeeds because he chooses when to fight and when not to fight. He only goes into battle when the odds are in his favor.’ Well, that’s all very fine but sometimes one must fight, no matter what the odds because the alternative is so much worse. That’s why we got into this war to start with. Halifax doesn’t realize that. He won’t go into an election yet because the odds aren’t in his favor. I don’t think he’ll go into one at all until his Blackshirts are counting the votes.”
“I hope you’re right, Tuckie. An election right now is the worst thing that could possibly happen to this country. We all know the Germans can’t invade us any more than they could a year ago. The Royal Navy, even with half its strength flying the Commonwealth flags, will slaughter them in the Channel. You know, RAB was arguing that the Luftwaffe would sink the Navy if it showed his face in the Channel. I sometimes wonder about him. At Dunkirk, the Luftwaffe threw everything it had at the Navy sitting off the beaches. Those destroyers were stationary, sitting ducks, yet the Jerries missed them nearly all the time. Hitting them is much harder than amateurs think. No, Tuckie, if the Germans invade us now, we’ll drown them just as we would have done a year ago. We know it, the Germans know it. That Man does not know it.
“But an election that gives That Man a legitimate mandate will throw everything. At the very least, the exiled government in Ottawa will be deprived of any legitimacy. The Canadians would be forced to recognize That Man and that’s a situation we can’t afford. No, Tuckie, if That Man declares an election, we’ll be forced to move against him, come what may. It’ll be a civil war for sure and we have no way of knowing which way things will fall. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it ended up with the 12th Group squadrons taking on 11th Group.”
Tuck shuddered at that thought. My God, what are we coming to? Are we going back to the War of the Roses? That somber thought brought another to his mind.
“What about the other Groups, Sir?”
Park looked grim. “We can rely on 13 Group – I think. There’s an overwhelming feeling against That Man up in Scotland and the North. Do you know Blackshirts are getting ambushed up there already? The problem is that’s mixed in with a lot of Scottish nationalism. It wouldn’t surprise me if we ended up having a referendum on Scottish independence one day. Assuming we’re not all part of Prussia by then. Ten Group? I wish I knew. I think they’ll fall in with us, but we can’t be sure, not yet. Ahh, here we are. So those are the new Defiants? My, they look better with those forward-firing guns, don’t they?”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Ten
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
The continuous calls of “Incoming” had become an exasperating feature of life at Habbaniyah. The Iraqi gunners had reinforced their batteries of old Italian 65mm field guns up on the escarpment with a pair of 3.7-inch howitzers. Their artillery practice was as wild as ever, with most of their shells missing the base completely. They’d fired enough though to make sure a few shots had counted. One of the Hawker Harts and two of the Audaxes had been hit and written off. So far nine people on the base had been killed or injured. In the great scheme of things, Pim Bosede assumed, such casualties were almost inconsequential, yet they didn’t seem that way at Habbaniyah.
“Settle down, gentlemen.” Air Vice-Marshal Harry George Smart was looking tired. He had the whole weight of the base on his shoulders, including the civilians who depended on the eclectic selection of military personnel in Habbaniyah for their survival. Smart was under few illusions about their fate if the defenses he had erected failed. “If the last few days have taught us anything, it’s that if we stay here and do nothing, we’ll be slowly nibbled to death. It’s about time we took some action on our own behalf.”
He wasn’t surprised by the cheers that met his statement. He waited a few seconds then raised his hand. “I said, settle down. This is what we’re going to do about it. At dawn, tomorrow, the eight Wellingtons from Basra will bomb the escarpment. They will be followed by 47 Squadron’s eleven Marylands. Mannix?”
“Low altitude. Sir?”
“Medium. We can’t afford to lose our modern aircraft. We’ve been studying the Iraqis for the last few days, and we’ve noticed an odd pattern. Give them anything to do that involves teamwork and they’re hopeless at it. They’ll run as soon as they can. But, individually, doing things that don’t require cooperation and they’re pretty good. Their artillery and flak are so bad it’s almost funny but when it comes to hitting aircraft with rifle fire, they’ll do well. The Oxford we lost yesterday was brought down by a rifleman. So, Sean, no. Keep your Marylands up where they’re out of rifle range. You and the Wellingtons will bomb from medium altitude, laying a pattern down across the escarpment. The Harts and Audaxes will do the close support stuff.
“As soon as the bombers have finished, the RAF in their armored cars will advance to the escarpment and clear the Iraqis off it. The armored cars will be supported by Walrus and Seal.”
Smart paused as a ripple of laughter echoed around the briefing room. Nobody quite knew why the two ancient Vickers Medium Mark II tanks were at Habbaniyah, but they’d been restored to running condition. Even more impressively, some three-pounder ammunition for their main gun had been found. Smart tapped his swagger stick on the podium. “I have also been informed that a column of New Zealand troops has crossed the border from Transjordan and are on their way here. Finally, Cockchafer has arrived in Basra so the Indian Brigade there will be escorting the Regent back to Baghdad.
“Now, this is the critical part. We have received intelligence reports that there are German advisors up there. Capturing them is a high priority. We can create all sorts of political stink if it turns out there are Germans advising the Iraqis on how to attack a British base.”
“What is our part in all this?” Bosede wanted to know what his Tomahawks would be expected to do. He had a nasty feeling that the word strafing would be used very soon.
“You can relax, Pim. Your fighters are too valuable to endanger from ground fire. You’ll be up top, keeping an eye on things. Some of the Iraqi Gladiators are still unaccounted for. If they show up, account for them.”
Mechanized Brigade, Escarpment overlooking Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Stephan? There you are. We’re out of here.” Skorzeny’s order seemed hardly necessary. The salvo of bombs from the high-flying bombers had caused the Iraqi troops to start a complete rout. They were running away, without any kind of discipline, order, or purpose. Most of the riflemen had thrown their weapons away and all the heavy weapons crews had done the same. Skorzeny had noticed the precision of the Wellingtons; nearly all the 48 five-hundred-kilogram bombs they had dropped had landed on or near the artillery line. The Marylands that followed them had dropped forty-two hundred kilogram bombs. Their pattern had been devastatingly tight and had shattered the vehicle park. The Luftwaffe would have done better, much better, Skorzeny thought while he threw his bag into his truck, but that was perfectly good enough.
The small detachment from SS Jägdverband 502 had hidden its vehicles well away from the Iraqi park. Skorzeny’s vehicle was a British Army Morris that had been captured at Dunkirk. For this mission, it had been repainted in Iraqi Army colors. All the other vehicles in his detachment were British in origin as well. All had Iraqi markings. Not that it will help us if we get captured. Skorzeny threw a quick look down the escarpment towards where the British were launching their assault. The armored cars were already moving quickly up the slope with the two tanks lumbering along behind them. “Time to move, Stephan. The British are coming. Don’t let anybody get in our way.”
The small convoy plowed through the fleeing Iraqis, scattering them aside. One or two tried to force their way onto the trucks but a quick patter of rifle shots and the motionless bodies left on the road convinced the rest that doing so was suicidal. Bähr was busy driving his vehicle, trying to avoid the largest clumps of fleeing Iraqis, and didn’t see the panic-stricken soldier who tried to hurl himself onto the hood of the Morris. The man’s head hit the windscreen, leaving a smear of blood across the glass. Then, there was a crack. His head snapped back, and he fell off the hood, under the wheels.
Skorzeny holstered his pistol and looked up at the sky overhead. There were some biplanes from Habbaniyah closing in. He wasn’t quite certain whether they were Harts or Audaxes. Nor was he quite certain why the British had given different names to what were minor variants of the same aircraft. The aircraft were strafing the fleeing Iraqis. In his purely professional opinion, the air attacks were more intended to keep the Iraqis running than inflict casualties. That annoyed him; if he had been commanding the attack on the escarpment, the strafing and bombing would have been deadly serious.
“Well, that was more than embarrassing.” Stephan Bähr echoed Skorzeny’s earlier judgment on the Iraqi Army’s performance with a degree of relish. “I don’t think they fired a shot.”
“The Iraqis or the Br . . . or the Commonwealth?” Skorzeny thought this was probably the strangest battle in the history books.
“Either. Our allies have been bombed and strafed but I don’t think the ground troops have fired on them. The Iraqis certainly haven’t fired back.”
“What puzzles me is why we haven’t been strafed. These vehicles should have drawn the ground attack aircraft like flies to honey.”
“I got the men to paint red crosses on the roofs of our trucks last night.” Bähr grinned with self-satisfaction. “They think we’re ambulances and are letting us go. Damned fools.”
“Damned fools indeed. Well done, Stephan, you deserve a drink for that. And see the men who did the painting get one as well.
“Where do we go now?”
Skorzeny thought for a moment. “Back to Baghdad. We can assemble the troops to set up a defense at Fallujah. Perhaps they’ll be a bit more reliable than this lot.”
The canvas partition separating the cab of the truck from the cargo area in the rear opened and Scharfuhrer Reinhard Sitz stuck his head through. “Message from our Embassy in Baghdad, Otto. We now have the official word on why this debacle took place. Apparently, the British attacked our heroes while they were all at morning prayers. For this hideous act of blasphemy, the Grand Mufti in Baghdad has declared a jihad against the British.”
Skorzeny exploded into laughter. “Now if that doesn’t inspire us to greatness, nothing will. Spread the word to the boys. As soon as we stop, we’ll eat a blutwurst sandwich in the Grand Mufti’s honor. Foot to the floor Stephan, there’s nothing more we can do here.”
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
Bosede had seen the almost surreal sight of the Iraqi mechanized brigade abandoning its equipment and stampeding across the desert, but he hadn’t gotten involved. Marijke had spent the last two hours circling high over the battlefield, watching out for Iraqi fighters that had never arrived. Finally, he had brought his squadron into land. He had felt the wheels bump on the runway and had taxied Marijke into her revetment. As he pulled himself out of the cockpit, he could see the ground crew starting to check the aircraft over.
“Welcome back, Squadron Leader Bosede.” It was the woman from the air-raid shelter, the one whose accent sounded like cut glass. “Things are looking up, aren’t they?”
“Please, Mevrou, I’m Pim. And yes, I think things are very much better now.” Bosede was horribly aware of how stilted and artificial his words sounded. The truth was, he really didn’t have that much experience in making social conversations with women.
“I’m Mary, Mary Lansdowne. My husband is down in Basra. I hear the gunboat arrived safely and the Indian Brigade is already moving up the valley to relieve us.”
“That’s great news. Jimmy will be delighted to see his father again, of course.”
“Oh, yes. We both miss him dreadfully. We weren’t supposed to be here you know. We should have gone back to England, but then That Man did it and we stayed here.” She suddenly sounded terribly tired and sad. “Oh, why did that stupid man go and do it?”
Bosede didn’t quite know what to say and it was with relief that he felt a Sergeant touch his elbow. “Sir, you’re needed in the briefing room right away.”
“Sorry Mrs. Lansdowne . . .”
“Mary.”
“Sorry, Mary, I must go. Duty calls. Please say hello to Jimmy for me won’t you.”
Mary laughed. “He’ll be overjoyed you remembered him.”
Bosede made his way to the debriefing room. Air Vice-Marshal Smart was standing by a blackboard, marking up news as it came. Bosede drew himself up and made the best salute he could. South Africans weren’t great believers in formal discipline but in Bosede’s eyes, Smart deserved every ounce of respect he could muster.
Smart gravely returned the salute and then, unable to restrain himself any longer, burst out into uproarious laughter. “Pim, lad, you’ve no idea what has been going on down here. The Iraqis just broke and ran as soon as they saw the armored cars come out. We’ve taken five hundred prisoners and captured six 3.7-inch howitzers along with 2,400 shells, six 65mm howitzers with a thousand shells, one Italian tank, ten Crossley armored cars, 79 trucks, three 20 mm anti-aircraft guns with 2,500 shells, 45 Bren light machine-guns, eleven Vickers machine guns, and 340 rifles with 500,000 rounds of ammunition.”
Smart stopped reading from the paper he held in his hand and waved it in the air. “And we captured a copy of Mein Kampf, in German, signed by the author. Property of one Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny
RCAF Station Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada
“Do you know what is going on?” Digby Dale had received the message to report to the main hangar as soon as he had arrived on the base that morning.
The works manager, Bill Soulsby, shook his head. “Don’t know Digger, and that’s a fact. Frankly, I thought we were all due to be closed down here but there’s no sign of that yet. Hello, who’s this?”
The official-looking car had swept through the main gates of RCAF Debert and stopped outside the main hangar. Soulsby took one look at the man getting out and whistled quietly. “That’s the Minister of National Defense, Charles Power. Whatever is going on here, it’s important.”
It took barely ten minutes for the team working on the Hurry-Can project to assemble. An improvised stage had been erected at one end of the hangar. Sitting on it were Charles Power, Elsie MacGill and a group of serious-looking corporate men who Dale guessed were the management of Canadian Car and Foundry, makers of the original Hurricane airframes that were now being converted to Hurry-Cans. When everybody assembled and quietened down, Power rose to his feet and tapped the microphone.
“Is this thing working? Can everybody hear me? Good. Thank you all for coming here this morning. I know you all have better things to do than listen to me chatter away so I’ll keep this as short as possible. Frankly, a week ago, I was on the verge of shutting this whole program down. The installation of the R-1830 engine on the Hurricane airframe did not give us a fighter that was of any real value. The reports from engineering, the aerodynamics consultants, and the test pilots were uniformly negative. At best, the aircraft would have been of use as a trainer. That made it hardly worth pursuing and the skills and expertise of everybody here would have been of more use on the Tornado program. In passing, it has been decided that the new aircraft based on the Tornado airframe will be named the Chinook.
“However, that was a week ago and, in that week, things have changed dramatically. Elsie MacGill, the Queen of the Hurricanes, has come up with a use for the Hurry-Can that will be of great importance to the war effort. She has placed all the force of her intellect and practical experience to propose a solution to a matter that has been of great concern to the entire government. I must say that her positive approach and can-do attitude contrast sharply with the negative attitude that seems to permeate some quarters of this program.”
Dale shot a curious glance at those around him. He was beginning to develop an unpleasant sense of where this meeting was going. By the looks on the faces of those nearest him, they were beginning to feel the same thing.
“Many of you will have heard of the problems we face in maintaining shipping communications with the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations. We are losing too many ships to U-boat attacks. The key to fighting the U-boats is to prevent them from finding their targets. We know they depend on the long-range reconnaissance aircraft flying out of bases in France and Britain for that purpose. If we can scare off the FW-200s and Ju-90s, if we can prevent them from finding our merchant ships and either attacking them themselves or calling in U-boats to do the job for them, then our merchant ship losses will fall, we believe dramatically.
“Elsie has come up with a brilliant idea, one that wholly justifies her nickname as the Queen of the Hurricanes. She has proposed that we fit a selected number of merchant ships with a catapult and give them a pair of Hurry-Cans each. She has spent the last week explaining her idea to the relevant authorities and I am here today to tell you that her proposals have been accepted. Work is already starting on fitting two suitable merchant ships with catapults. These ships will be called, appropriately enough, catapult aircraft merchantmen. Your part of this project is to build a first pre-production batch of twelve Hurry-Cans equipped for catapult launch. You will also be doing the preparatory work so the task of converting the Hurricane airframe to its new engine can be transferred to Canadian Car and Foundry for mass production. We will need the first two test aircraft to be ready within two weeks. Elsie has promised me that this schedule will be met.”
Dale looked again at the gathering of dignitaries on the improvised stage and caught Elsie MacGill’s eye. She looked at him with an expression that seemed to be a blend of conceit, triumph, and vindictiveness. He looked away, unwilling to say or do anything. Soulsby leaned close to him and whispered quietly in his ear. “Welcome to the club, Digger. She sucks people’s brains out. There isn’t a person here who hasn’t come up with a good idea only to see her steal it and claim all the credit. And don’t think she’ll take the blame if it goes sour. If it does, it’ll all magically become your fault. That’s why she’s here. There’s nobody else who will work with her.”
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
The continuous calls of “Incoming” had become an exasperating feature of life at Habbaniyah. The Iraqi gunners had reinforced their batteries of old Italian 65mm field guns up on the escarpment with a pair of 3.7-inch howitzers. Their artillery practice was as wild as ever, with most of their shells missing the base completely. They’d fired enough though to make sure a few shots had counted. One of the Hawker Harts and two of the Audaxes had been hit and written off. So far nine people on the base had been killed or injured. In the great scheme of things, Pim Bosede assumed, such casualties were almost inconsequential, yet they didn’t seem that way at Habbaniyah.
“Settle down, gentlemen.” Air Vice-Marshal Harry George Smart was looking tired. He had the whole weight of the base on his shoulders, including the civilians who depended on the eclectic selection of military personnel in Habbaniyah for their survival. Smart was under few illusions about their fate if the defenses he had erected failed. “If the last few days have taught us anything, it’s that if we stay here and do nothing, we’ll be slowly nibbled to death. It’s about time we took some action on our own behalf.”
He wasn’t surprised by the cheers that met his statement. He waited a few seconds then raised his hand. “I said, settle down. This is what we’re going to do about it. At dawn, tomorrow, the eight Wellingtons from Basra will bomb the escarpment. They will be followed by 47 Squadron’s eleven Marylands. Mannix?”
“Low altitude. Sir?”
“Medium. We can’t afford to lose our modern aircraft. We’ve been studying the Iraqis for the last few days, and we’ve noticed an odd pattern. Give them anything to do that involves teamwork and they’re hopeless at it. They’ll run as soon as they can. But, individually, doing things that don’t require cooperation and they’re pretty good. Their artillery and flak are so bad it’s almost funny but when it comes to hitting aircraft with rifle fire, they’ll do well. The Oxford we lost yesterday was brought down by a rifleman. So, Sean, no. Keep your Marylands up where they’re out of rifle range. You and the Wellingtons will bomb from medium altitude, laying a pattern down across the escarpment. The Harts and Audaxes will do the close support stuff.
“As soon as the bombers have finished, the RAF in their armored cars will advance to the escarpment and clear the Iraqis off it. The armored cars will be supported by Walrus and Seal.”
Smart paused as a ripple of laughter echoed around the briefing room. Nobody quite knew why the two ancient Vickers Medium Mark II tanks were at Habbaniyah, but they’d been restored to running condition. Even more impressively, some three-pounder ammunition for their main gun had been found. Smart tapped his swagger stick on the podium. “I have also been informed that a column of New Zealand troops has crossed the border from Transjordan and are on their way here. Finally, Cockchafer has arrived in Basra so the Indian Brigade there will be escorting the Regent back to Baghdad.
“Now, this is the critical part. We have received intelligence reports that there are German advisors up there. Capturing them is a high priority. We can create all sorts of political stink if it turns out there are Germans advising the Iraqis on how to attack a British base.”
“What is our part in all this?” Bosede wanted to know what his Tomahawks would be expected to do. He had a nasty feeling that the word strafing would be used very soon.
“You can relax, Pim. Your fighters are too valuable to endanger from ground fire. You’ll be up top, keeping an eye on things. Some of the Iraqi Gladiators are still unaccounted for. If they show up, account for them.”
Mechanized Brigade, Escarpment overlooking Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Stephan? There you are. We’re out of here.” Skorzeny’s order seemed hardly necessary. The salvo of bombs from the high-flying bombers had caused the Iraqi troops to start a complete rout. They were running away, without any kind of discipline, order, or purpose. Most of the riflemen had thrown their weapons away and all the heavy weapons crews had done the same. Skorzeny had noticed the precision of the Wellingtons; nearly all the 48 five-hundred-kilogram bombs they had dropped had landed on or near the artillery line. The Marylands that followed them had dropped forty-two hundred kilogram bombs. Their pattern had been devastatingly tight and had shattered the vehicle park. The Luftwaffe would have done better, much better, Skorzeny thought while he threw his bag into his truck, but that was perfectly good enough.
The small detachment from SS Jägdverband 502 had hidden its vehicles well away from the Iraqi park. Skorzeny’s vehicle was a British Army Morris that had been captured at Dunkirk. For this mission, it had been repainted in Iraqi Army colors. All the other vehicles in his detachment were British in origin as well. All had Iraqi markings. Not that it will help us if we get captured. Skorzeny threw a quick look down the escarpment towards where the British were launching their assault. The armored cars were already moving quickly up the slope with the two tanks lumbering along behind them. “Time to move, Stephan. The British are coming. Don’t let anybody get in our way.”
The small convoy plowed through the fleeing Iraqis, scattering them aside. One or two tried to force their way onto the trucks but a quick patter of rifle shots and the motionless bodies left on the road convinced the rest that doing so was suicidal. Bähr was busy driving his vehicle, trying to avoid the largest clumps of fleeing Iraqis, and didn’t see the panic-stricken soldier who tried to hurl himself onto the hood of the Morris. The man’s head hit the windscreen, leaving a smear of blood across the glass. Then, there was a crack. His head snapped back, and he fell off the hood, under the wheels.
Skorzeny holstered his pistol and looked up at the sky overhead. There were some biplanes from Habbaniyah closing in. He wasn’t quite certain whether they were Harts or Audaxes. Nor was he quite certain why the British had given different names to what were minor variants of the same aircraft. The aircraft were strafing the fleeing Iraqis. In his purely professional opinion, the air attacks were more intended to keep the Iraqis running than inflict casualties. That annoyed him; if he had been commanding the attack on the escarpment, the strafing and bombing would have been deadly serious.
“Well, that was more than embarrassing.” Stephan Bähr echoed Skorzeny’s earlier judgment on the Iraqi Army’s performance with a degree of relish. “I don’t think they fired a shot.”
“The Iraqis or the Br . . . or the Commonwealth?” Skorzeny thought this was probably the strangest battle in the history books.
“Either. Our allies have been bombed and strafed but I don’t think the ground troops have fired on them. The Iraqis certainly haven’t fired back.”
“What puzzles me is why we haven’t been strafed. These vehicles should have drawn the ground attack aircraft like flies to honey.”
“I got the men to paint red crosses on the roofs of our trucks last night.” Bähr grinned with self-satisfaction. “They think we’re ambulances and are letting us go. Damned fools.”
“Damned fools indeed. Well done, Stephan, you deserve a drink for that. And see the men who did the painting get one as well.
“Where do we go now?”
Skorzeny thought for a moment. “Back to Baghdad. We can assemble the troops to set up a defense at Fallujah. Perhaps they’ll be a bit more reliable than this lot.”
The canvas partition separating the cab of the truck from the cargo area in the rear opened and Scharfuhrer Reinhard Sitz stuck his head through. “Message from our Embassy in Baghdad, Otto. We now have the official word on why this debacle took place. Apparently, the British attacked our heroes while they were all at morning prayers. For this hideous act of blasphemy, the Grand Mufti in Baghdad has declared a jihad against the British.”
Skorzeny exploded into laughter. “Now if that doesn’t inspire us to greatness, nothing will. Spread the word to the boys. As soon as we stop, we’ll eat a blutwurst sandwich in the Grand Mufti’s honor. Foot to the floor Stephan, there’s nothing more we can do here.”
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
Bosede had seen the almost surreal sight of the Iraqi mechanized brigade abandoning its equipment and stampeding across the desert, but he hadn’t gotten involved. Marijke had spent the last two hours circling high over the battlefield, watching out for Iraqi fighters that had never arrived. Finally, he had brought his squadron into land. He had felt the wheels bump on the runway and had taxied Marijke into her revetment. As he pulled himself out of the cockpit, he could see the ground crew starting to check the aircraft over.
“Welcome back, Squadron Leader Bosede.” It was the woman from the air-raid shelter, the one whose accent sounded like cut glass. “Things are looking up, aren’t they?”
“Please, Mevrou, I’m Pim. And yes, I think things are very much better now.” Bosede was horribly aware of how stilted and artificial his words sounded. The truth was, he really didn’t have that much experience in making social conversations with women.
“I’m Mary, Mary Lansdowne. My husband is down in Basra. I hear the gunboat arrived safely and the Indian Brigade is already moving up the valley to relieve us.”
“That’s great news. Jimmy will be delighted to see his father again, of course.”
“Oh, yes. We both miss him dreadfully. We weren’t supposed to be here you know. We should have gone back to England, but then That Man did it and we stayed here.” She suddenly sounded terribly tired and sad. “Oh, why did that stupid man go and do it?”
Bosede didn’t quite know what to say and it was with relief that he felt a Sergeant touch his elbow. “Sir, you’re needed in the briefing room right away.”
“Sorry Mrs. Lansdowne . . .”
“Mary.”
“Sorry, Mary, I must go. Duty calls. Please say hello to Jimmy for me won’t you.”
Mary laughed. “He’ll be overjoyed you remembered him.”
Bosede made his way to the debriefing room. Air Vice-Marshal Smart was standing by a blackboard, marking up news as it came. Bosede drew himself up and made the best salute he could. South Africans weren’t great believers in formal discipline but in Bosede’s eyes, Smart deserved every ounce of respect he could muster.
Smart gravely returned the salute and then, unable to restrain himself any longer, burst out into uproarious laughter. “Pim, lad, you’ve no idea what has been going on down here. The Iraqis just broke and ran as soon as they saw the armored cars come out. We’ve taken five hundred prisoners and captured six 3.7-inch howitzers along with 2,400 shells, six 65mm howitzers with a thousand shells, one Italian tank, ten Crossley armored cars, 79 trucks, three 20 mm anti-aircraft guns with 2,500 shells, 45 Bren light machine-guns, eleven Vickers machine guns, and 340 rifles with 500,000 rounds of ammunition.”
Smart stopped reading from the paper he held in his hand and waved it in the air. “And we captured a copy of Mein Kampf, in German, signed by the author. Property of one Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny
RCAF Station Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada
“Do you know what is going on?” Digby Dale had received the message to report to the main hangar as soon as he had arrived on the base that morning.
The works manager, Bill Soulsby, shook his head. “Don’t know Digger, and that’s a fact. Frankly, I thought we were all due to be closed down here but there’s no sign of that yet. Hello, who’s this?”
The official-looking car had swept through the main gates of RCAF Debert and stopped outside the main hangar. Soulsby took one look at the man getting out and whistled quietly. “That’s the Minister of National Defense, Charles Power. Whatever is going on here, it’s important.”
It took barely ten minutes for the team working on the Hurry-Can project to assemble. An improvised stage had been erected at one end of the hangar. Sitting on it were Charles Power, Elsie MacGill and a group of serious-looking corporate men who Dale guessed were the management of Canadian Car and Foundry, makers of the original Hurricane airframes that were now being converted to Hurry-Cans. When everybody assembled and quietened down, Power rose to his feet and tapped the microphone.
“Is this thing working? Can everybody hear me? Good. Thank you all for coming here this morning. I know you all have better things to do than listen to me chatter away so I’ll keep this as short as possible. Frankly, a week ago, I was on the verge of shutting this whole program down. The installation of the R-1830 engine on the Hurricane airframe did not give us a fighter that was of any real value. The reports from engineering, the aerodynamics consultants, and the test pilots were uniformly negative. At best, the aircraft would have been of use as a trainer. That made it hardly worth pursuing and the skills and expertise of everybody here would have been of more use on the Tornado program. In passing, it has been decided that the new aircraft based on the Tornado airframe will be named the Chinook.
“However, that was a week ago and, in that week, things have changed dramatically. Elsie MacGill, the Queen of the Hurricanes, has come up with a use for the Hurry-Can that will be of great importance to the war effort. She has placed all the force of her intellect and practical experience to propose a solution to a matter that has been of great concern to the entire government. I must say that her positive approach and can-do attitude contrast sharply with the negative attitude that seems to permeate some quarters of this program.”
Dale shot a curious glance at those around him. He was beginning to develop an unpleasant sense of where this meeting was going. By the looks on the faces of those nearest him, they were beginning to feel the same thing.
“Many of you will have heard of the problems we face in maintaining shipping communications with the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations. We are losing too many ships to U-boat attacks. The key to fighting the U-boats is to prevent them from finding their targets. We know they depend on the long-range reconnaissance aircraft flying out of bases in France and Britain for that purpose. If we can scare off the FW-200s and Ju-90s, if we can prevent them from finding our merchant ships and either attacking them themselves or calling in U-boats to do the job for them, then our merchant ship losses will fall, we believe dramatically.
“Elsie has come up with a brilliant idea, one that wholly justifies her nickname as the Queen of the Hurricanes. She has proposed that we fit a selected number of merchant ships with a catapult and give them a pair of Hurry-Cans each. She has spent the last week explaining her idea to the relevant authorities and I am here today to tell you that her proposals have been accepted. Work is already starting on fitting two suitable merchant ships with catapults. These ships will be called, appropriately enough, catapult aircraft merchantmen. Your part of this project is to build a first pre-production batch of twelve Hurry-Cans equipped for catapult launch. You will also be doing the preparatory work so the task of converting the Hurricane airframe to its new engine can be transferred to Canadian Car and Foundry for mass production. We will need the first two test aircraft to be ready within two weeks. Elsie has promised me that this schedule will be met.”
Dale looked again at the gathering of dignitaries on the improvised stage and caught Elsie MacGill’s eye. She looked at him with an expression that seemed to be a blend of conceit, triumph, and vindictiveness. He looked away, unwilling to say or do anything. Soulsby leaned close to him and whispered quietly in his ear. “Welcome to the club, Digger. She sucks people’s brains out. There isn’t a person here who hasn’t come up with a good idea only to see her steal it and claim all the credit. And don’t think she’ll take the blame if it goes sour. If it does, it’ll all magically become your fault. That’s why she’s here. There’s nobody else who will work with her.”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Eleven
Comando Supremo, Regio Esercito, Rome
Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano shook his visitor by the hand. “Sir Anthony, welcome to Rome again. I was expecting to see Mr. Butler though. He is Deputy Prime Minister is he not?”
Sir Anthony Eden returned the greeting with a smile of genuine pleasure. He was learning to enjoy his visits to Rome and had noted the subtle but progressive change in atmosphere that had taken place since the North African War only a few months ago. Somehow, the Italy of the late 1930s was receding into the shadows as if it were a bad dream, quickly forgotten.
“He is indeed, and his duties as such sadly precluded him from coming here to sign this agreement himself. The Cabinet has agreed that I, as Foreign Secretary, should make this visit.” And if the Halifax Cabinet knew what was really going on behind the scenes, Halifax and Butler would have all of us thrown in the Tower. God bless the Civil Service. They managed to describe this as simply another trade deal and hid who was involved.
“This is perhaps fortunate since your office will be appropriate for a codicil to this agreement.” Sir Anthony Eden knew that General Francesco Pricolo was the current Commander in Chief of the Italian Air Force and wondered why he had been chosen to attend this meeting. General Pricolo answered the unspoken question almost immediately. “Since both, our countries are neutral in the current world situation, would there be any objections to the British Government authorizing the sale of combat aircraft to us?”
That question left Sir Anthony speechless and in conformity with the ancient political maxim of “when you don’t know what to say, keep talking” he bought time. “I suppose that would very much depend on what kind of aircraft you wished to purchase.”
“Specifically, we would like to buy Wellingtons. Our experience in North Africa showed us that our existing medium bomber fleet is hopelessly obsolete. The SM-79 and the Cant Z-1007 can only just barely do their jobs while the less we say about the SM-81 the better. We would want to purchase approximately 200 Wellingtons to re-equip our bomber units. However, we do not want to commit ourselves to maintain the Pegasus engines. Our engine specialists believe that the Pegasus design is over-complicated and over-costly. We would want our aircraft powered by, let us say Piaggio XI's.” General Pricolo smiled benignly.
“We do have an upcoming version of the Wellington powered by the Hercules. Also, we do have a version in service powered by the Rolls Royce Merlin.” Sir Anthony sounded well-informed, but actually, he had got the information from one of his son’s aviation magazines. At the time, he had been surprised the censors had allowed the details though but now he was relieved they had.
“I am sorry, Sir Anthony, but we cannot commit ourselves to an untried airframe-engine combination like the Hercules and the support for Merlins is questionable. No, our mind is made up.” General Pricolo’s smile became even more benign. “It must be Piaggio XI's. If it would make life easier for you, you may deliver the airframes to us, and we can obtain the engines and install them here.”
It was that comment that finally made the anvil drop on Sir Anthony’s head. If those aircraft are really for the Italian Air Force, I’m the Queen of Sheba. “I would have to consult with Vickers over the practicality of installing Piaggio XI engines on the Wellington before agreeing to the deal.”
“I think you will find that Vickers has already done the preparatory work on the proposed installation of many different types of engines.” General Pricolo’s smile replaced benign with smug. “They have done the design work already for an export version of the Wellington in response to a Polish requirement. I believe it is designated the Wellington B Mk. IV. I also understand that, with the post-war reduction in production, the Chester plant is very short of work. Surely, as a private company, Vickers will be only too pleased to receive an order of this scale?”
Only decades of public service kept Sir Anthony Eden’s jaw from dropping. This is too carefully worked out; the information is too accurate and too timely. Italy and Great Britain are both neutral, so any deals made between them are unaffected by the war. But we’re also German-aligned so Berlin will not object. Sir Anthony felt sickness and shame rise in his throat as that thought entered his mind. He had striven to work through the League of Nations to preserve European peace but had failed to recognize the threat that an ascendant Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler posed. He later came to recognize that peace could not be maintained by appeasement of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Yet, he knew that he lacked the strength of character needed to register his dissatisfaction with the appeasement policy directed toward Nazi Germany in his period as the pre-war Foreign Secretary. That failure had led directly to the ascendancy of Lord Halifax and his clique. That is how the world will remember me, a man who lacked the strength of character. A man who was tried in the balance and found wanting.
“As the current foreign secretary, I must admit I see many benefits in the proposed sale of Wellingtons, benefits that will accrue to both our countries. How, may I ask, do you envisage the financial details of this transaction being organized?”
“The Australian food deliveries must be purchased from us with payment in specie. We must insist on that to satisfy the letter of credit issued by Australia for our purchase of those supplies. However, we would suggest that the commission payable to the Italian finance ministry for acting as middle man in the purchase may be satisfied by the delivery of Wellington bombers instead of cash.”
Sir Anthony thought for a second. “I cannot speak for the Home Secretary on this, but I cannot see any objection to that proposal. If I might telegram London with your proposal, we should be able to receive a prompt reply. Will you be requiring a production license for the aircraft?”
“No.” General Pricolo was firm on that point. “The geodesic structure takes too long to build, and our factories are tooled for other designs using monocoque construction techniques. Provision to make spare parts in Italy will, however, be an inclusion upon which the Italian Air Force will smile.”
“A production license would accommodate that. It would allow you to make and procure spares in Italy, thus reducing the need to expend valuable hard currency? You may even be able to supply them to other Wellington users.” And that should tell you that I know what is really going on here. A modus vivendi between the forces of General Wavell in Egypt and North Africa and Italian forces further north is a natural strategic development. The problem will be trust. These two were at war only a few months ago and gestures of good faith are needed. What are the odds that those Wellingtons will be equipped with Australian-made Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines? As close to certainty as it comes, I think. Now, what will General Wavell’s return gesture of good faith be? What do the Italians need that he can provide? Sir Antony decided to investigate that question carefully, and very discretely.
General Pricolo nodded sagely, recognizing that Sir Antony had got the point. “A very sound suggestion. Thank you, foreign secretary.”
Presidential Palace, Baghdad, Iraq, May 7th, 1941
“Remember, Otto, we are just eight days away from the start of Barbarossa. Once that is in progress, our interest in the side-show here is over. Iraq is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier, let alone a detachment of the Waffen SS. Or are you beginning to believe in the Noth Plan?” Dr. Fritz Grobba, the newly arrived German ambassador, stared intently at his visitor.
Skorzeny laughed, a little uneasily. “That damned thing. I tell you, Fritz, it’s hypnotic. It looks so easy on the map when all we must do is draw a few lines. Just cross Turkey, occupy Iraq, seize Persia and we’re in India. Nothing could be easier, on a map that is. In reality, a Lieutenant fresh out of school could tell you a dozen reasons why it can’t be done and, as his experience grows, he’ll find dozens more. But it is still hypnotic. I will bet you good money that in fifty years time, somebody will still be waving it around and saying the Noth Plan was the way to an easy victory. All of which gets us nowhere. The fact is, we’re in an endgame here, and in a week’s time, the Commonwealth will realize that they’ve been had. That they’ve committed forces and wasted resources on a diversion. Even though they have won here, they’ll know it’s all been for nothing.”
“So why do you want more forces?”
“Because that is in a week’s time. Until then, we must keep the Iraqis fighting. The New Zealand column that relieved Habbaniyah is now closing on Fallujah. The Iraqis are making a stand there, but one good air attack will send them scuttling eastwards. The Indians have taken Azariah and are getting ready for the last lap into Baghdad. They took Kut without really exerting themselves which must have been a relief seeing what happened there last time. We need to give our allies a little more support before we throw them to the wolves.”
Grobba agreed with the basic idea. The problem had been arranging it without antagonizing the British. At the same time, whatever was done had to maintain the illusion that the Noth Plan was in progress. That way, the Commonwealth would continue to be focused on defending itself and would ignore what was going on elsewhere. “Otto, we have arranged some additional support. We have sold several combat aircraft to the Turkish Government. These aircraft, Heinkel 111P bombers and Messerschmitt 110C fighters are older models that have been withdrawn from Luftwaffe service and replaced by later versions. By some judicious bribery, we have induced the Turks to supply a small number of those aircraft, sixteen bombers and twelve fighters to be precise, to the Iraqi Government.”
“Crews?” Skorzeny’s reply was curt.
“Luftwaffe volunteers. If any of them are discovered, the cover story will be that they were the delivery crews and were bribed by the Turks to fly a combat mission or two – against the Commonwealth forces only of course. They have been warned that if they are exposed, they will be court-martialed.”
Skorzeny raised his eyebrows at that. Men of that caliber and devotion to the Fatherland, I can use. “We’ll have to try and make sure that eventuality doesn’t arise.”
“That’s up to you, Otto. That special combat group is under your command. I’ll remind you of what you just told me. We must keep the circus here going for another week. After that, it doesn’t matter what happens here.”
Habforce, Outside Fallujah, Iraq, May 9th, 1941
“What are we up against, Sir?” Sir Donald Powell had joined Habforce as commander of 2/4th Ghurka Rifles. The formation had moved up from the south just in time to join in the attack on Fallujah.
“Remnants of two Iraqi brigades.” Major-General George Clark was, frankly, more than a little suspicious of Powell. To his nose, the man had the scent of a politician about him. “One of them was holding Sin el Dhibban but the 1st KORR and the Assyrian levies from Habbaniyah kicked them out of there in very short order. I hate to say it, but the RAF armored cars did good work, and we took over 300 prisoners. What was left of that Iraqi force fled east and joined up with an Iraqi column moving towards Habbaniyah. The two Iraqi columns settled down together and tried to decide what to do. We don’t know what they came up with because Marylands out on reconnaissance spotted them and called in 40 aircraft from RAF Habbaniyah. It was a massacre out there; the two Iraqi columns were paralyzed and within two hours, the air attacks caused more than 1,000 Iraqi casualties. Afterward, we took a lot more prisoners, and a pitiful sight they are. I tell you, it’s not pretty to see men so broken. Anyway, what’s left is trying to defend Fallujah.”
“What do you want my boys to do, Sir?”
“In a nutshell, take Fallujah. What I want you to do is to load your men onto the cable ferries at Sin el Dhibban and cross the Euphrates. Then, you will advance on Fallujah from Saqlawiyah. That’s a small town about five miles northwest of the city. A company of 1st Battalion King's Own Royal Regiment will be landing east of the city and blocking the only road out.”
“Landing, sir?”
“Yes, landing. We’re flying them in using Valentia transports. It’s a good, surfaced road and perfect for the Valentias to land on. Our experience is that the Iraqis will fight damned hard as individuals but as organized units, they just can’t hack it. If you can keep them in organized units, they should fold. Once you’ve cleaned out Fallujah, the way is open to Baghdad and finishing this mess up.
Patrol Ship Enggano, Batavia, Dutch East Indies
“I wouldn’t say she’s the most impressive ship in the fleet, Captain, but she and the patrol vessels like her may well be the most important.” Doorman looked at the young officer standing in front of him. ‘Captain’ Olaf Baart was actually a Lieutenant (Second Class) but bore the honorary title of Captain since he commanded the Enggano. He was a very junior officer to be in command of any ship but there were multiple reasons why his appointment had been rushed through. He was a blijver of unimpeachable background. He had been born in Djatinegara, the son of an Indonesian lady of a good family from Makassar and a civil servant from Djokjakarta who was the eldest son of a Dutch family that had been in the East Indies for generations. He had scored very highly in his training school and been well recommended by his superiors. He had also acquired a reputation as a “doer and shaker”, a man whose thinking was orientated towards getting things done, not finding excuses why they could not.
Finally, as a Lieutenant (second class) he was entitled to a Lieutenant (third class) as his First Officer. There were Indonesian officers available of that rank and their appointment to the Enggano would be a start to fulfilling the promise made by Governor-General Stachouwer to Kusno Sosrodihardjo. These little patrol ships had a political importance that was all out of proportion to their military capabilities. Doorman had little doubt that in a year’s time, the First Officer of the Enggano would have a command of his own. In Doorman’s opinion, serving under Olaf Baart for a year would get him off in the right direction.
“What are my orders, Sir?”
“You are to take your ship to sea and enforce our authority over our territorial waters, ensuring the free passage of shipping.”
“And what do I have to do Sir?”
Doorman burst out laughing. His high opinion of the young officer was, in his eyes, now fully justified. He obviously recognized the yawning gulf between the orders he had been issued and the tasks he was actually being expected to undertake.
“Go out there, find a merchant ship that is passing through our waters and escort her. See she doesn’t come to any harm. Doesn’t matter who she belongs to, American, British, Australian, Japanese, whatever. Keep her safe until she is outside our waters and goes on her way. Then go back and find another one and do the same for her. Keep it up until you run out of fuel, then come home, refuel and start again.”
Baart nodded. His mission was an ambitious young officer’s dream. Duty with much sea time, a high degree of freedom, and responsibility to match. It could easily be the making of his career. Or the breaking of it if everything goes bad.
“Sir, there are rumors the Germans have raiders coming out this way. What do we do if we meet one.”
“We are technically at war with Germany. But I suggest you stay well away from them. They have 150mm guns and are ten times your size.”
“What if we are escorting a merchantman? One the raider will attack.”
Doorman looked sad. “Then you must remember that the honor of our Navy is in your hands. You must do what you must do in order to do what you must do.”
Once again Baart nodded. Come back carrying your shield or carried on it “Understood, Sir.”
“There is one other thing. You already know that Lieutenant (Third class) Setiawan Cahaya will be your first officer. You must train him well, Olaf. You must know that it is very unlikely that we will return to Dutch rule. At best, when this nation becomes independent it will continue to honor and retain the best of the traditions we have brought here. At worst, it will degenerate into riots and massacre. Lieutenant Cahaya is one of the first group of nationalist sailors who will be joining the Navy. Others will be joining the Army and Air Force. The possession of disciplined and well-trained nationalist forces may well be the difference between reaching the best outcome or collapsing into the worst.”
“There is one last thing. Soon, very soon, Japanese tankers will be pulling into our ports to load with oil. They will be …… discrete . . . . . . but it is crucial that their passage remains as secret as possible.”
“Because we will be breaking the American oil embargo on Japan?”
“Exactly. The world being as it is we have no choice. Quite apart from anything else, we need the money and if we don’t sell it to Japan, they’ll come and take it. The government has arranged trading companies and intermediates, but the cover is thin. We need it to hold on as long as possible. We are teaching a horse to sing, Olaf, you know that story?”
“A farmer was about to be executed. To save his life he told the King he could teach a horse to sing in a year. The King gave him a horse and that year. A friend said, ‘You can’t teach a horse to sing.’ The farmer said ‘In a year, the King might die, I might die, and the horse might die. The horse might learn to sing.’”
“That’s right Olaf, selling oil to Japan buys us time. Who knows what might happen before that time is up?”
Comando Supremo, Regio Esercito, Rome
Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano shook his visitor by the hand. “Sir Anthony, welcome to Rome again. I was expecting to see Mr. Butler though. He is Deputy Prime Minister is he not?”
Sir Anthony Eden returned the greeting with a smile of genuine pleasure. He was learning to enjoy his visits to Rome and had noted the subtle but progressive change in atmosphere that had taken place since the North African War only a few months ago. Somehow, the Italy of the late 1930s was receding into the shadows as if it were a bad dream, quickly forgotten.
“He is indeed, and his duties as such sadly precluded him from coming here to sign this agreement himself. The Cabinet has agreed that I, as Foreign Secretary, should make this visit.” And if the Halifax Cabinet knew what was really going on behind the scenes, Halifax and Butler would have all of us thrown in the Tower. God bless the Civil Service. They managed to describe this as simply another trade deal and hid who was involved.
“This is perhaps fortunate since your office will be appropriate for a codicil to this agreement.” Sir Anthony Eden knew that General Francesco Pricolo was the current Commander in Chief of the Italian Air Force and wondered why he had been chosen to attend this meeting. General Pricolo answered the unspoken question almost immediately. “Since both, our countries are neutral in the current world situation, would there be any objections to the British Government authorizing the sale of combat aircraft to us?”
That question left Sir Anthony speechless and in conformity with the ancient political maxim of “when you don’t know what to say, keep talking” he bought time. “I suppose that would very much depend on what kind of aircraft you wished to purchase.”
“Specifically, we would like to buy Wellingtons. Our experience in North Africa showed us that our existing medium bomber fleet is hopelessly obsolete. The SM-79 and the Cant Z-1007 can only just barely do their jobs while the less we say about the SM-81 the better. We would want to purchase approximately 200 Wellingtons to re-equip our bomber units. However, we do not want to commit ourselves to maintain the Pegasus engines. Our engine specialists believe that the Pegasus design is over-complicated and over-costly. We would want our aircraft powered by, let us say Piaggio XI's.” General Pricolo smiled benignly.
“We do have an upcoming version of the Wellington powered by the Hercules. Also, we do have a version in service powered by the Rolls Royce Merlin.” Sir Anthony sounded well-informed, but actually, he had got the information from one of his son’s aviation magazines. At the time, he had been surprised the censors had allowed the details though but now he was relieved they had.
“I am sorry, Sir Anthony, but we cannot commit ourselves to an untried airframe-engine combination like the Hercules and the support for Merlins is questionable. No, our mind is made up.” General Pricolo’s smile became even more benign. “It must be Piaggio XI's. If it would make life easier for you, you may deliver the airframes to us, and we can obtain the engines and install them here.”
It was that comment that finally made the anvil drop on Sir Anthony’s head. If those aircraft are really for the Italian Air Force, I’m the Queen of Sheba. “I would have to consult with Vickers over the practicality of installing Piaggio XI engines on the Wellington before agreeing to the deal.”
“I think you will find that Vickers has already done the preparatory work on the proposed installation of many different types of engines.” General Pricolo’s smile replaced benign with smug. “They have done the design work already for an export version of the Wellington in response to a Polish requirement. I believe it is designated the Wellington B Mk. IV. I also understand that, with the post-war reduction in production, the Chester plant is very short of work. Surely, as a private company, Vickers will be only too pleased to receive an order of this scale?”
Only decades of public service kept Sir Anthony Eden’s jaw from dropping. This is too carefully worked out; the information is too accurate and too timely. Italy and Great Britain are both neutral, so any deals made between them are unaffected by the war. But we’re also German-aligned so Berlin will not object. Sir Anthony felt sickness and shame rise in his throat as that thought entered his mind. He had striven to work through the League of Nations to preserve European peace but had failed to recognize the threat that an ascendant Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler posed. He later came to recognize that peace could not be maintained by appeasement of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Yet, he knew that he lacked the strength of character needed to register his dissatisfaction with the appeasement policy directed toward Nazi Germany in his period as the pre-war Foreign Secretary. That failure had led directly to the ascendancy of Lord Halifax and his clique. That is how the world will remember me, a man who lacked the strength of character. A man who was tried in the balance and found wanting.
“As the current foreign secretary, I must admit I see many benefits in the proposed sale of Wellingtons, benefits that will accrue to both our countries. How, may I ask, do you envisage the financial details of this transaction being organized?”
“The Australian food deliveries must be purchased from us with payment in specie. We must insist on that to satisfy the letter of credit issued by Australia for our purchase of those supplies. However, we would suggest that the commission payable to the Italian finance ministry for acting as middle man in the purchase may be satisfied by the delivery of Wellington bombers instead of cash.”
Sir Anthony thought for a second. “I cannot speak for the Home Secretary on this, but I cannot see any objection to that proposal. If I might telegram London with your proposal, we should be able to receive a prompt reply. Will you be requiring a production license for the aircraft?”
“No.” General Pricolo was firm on that point. “The geodesic structure takes too long to build, and our factories are tooled for other designs using monocoque construction techniques. Provision to make spare parts in Italy will, however, be an inclusion upon which the Italian Air Force will smile.”
“A production license would accommodate that. It would allow you to make and procure spares in Italy, thus reducing the need to expend valuable hard currency? You may even be able to supply them to other Wellington users.” And that should tell you that I know what is really going on here. A modus vivendi between the forces of General Wavell in Egypt and North Africa and Italian forces further north is a natural strategic development. The problem will be trust. These two were at war only a few months ago and gestures of good faith are needed. What are the odds that those Wellingtons will be equipped with Australian-made Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines? As close to certainty as it comes, I think. Now, what will General Wavell’s return gesture of good faith be? What do the Italians need that he can provide? Sir Antony decided to investigate that question carefully, and very discretely.
General Pricolo nodded sagely, recognizing that Sir Antony had got the point. “A very sound suggestion. Thank you, foreign secretary.”
Presidential Palace, Baghdad, Iraq, May 7th, 1941
“Remember, Otto, we are just eight days away from the start of Barbarossa. Once that is in progress, our interest in the side-show here is over. Iraq is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier, let alone a detachment of the Waffen SS. Or are you beginning to believe in the Noth Plan?” Dr. Fritz Grobba, the newly arrived German ambassador, stared intently at his visitor.
Skorzeny laughed, a little uneasily. “That damned thing. I tell you, Fritz, it’s hypnotic. It looks so easy on the map when all we must do is draw a few lines. Just cross Turkey, occupy Iraq, seize Persia and we’re in India. Nothing could be easier, on a map that is. In reality, a Lieutenant fresh out of school could tell you a dozen reasons why it can’t be done and, as his experience grows, he’ll find dozens more. But it is still hypnotic. I will bet you good money that in fifty years time, somebody will still be waving it around and saying the Noth Plan was the way to an easy victory. All of which gets us nowhere. The fact is, we’re in an endgame here, and in a week’s time, the Commonwealth will realize that they’ve been had. That they’ve committed forces and wasted resources on a diversion. Even though they have won here, they’ll know it’s all been for nothing.”
“So why do you want more forces?”
“Because that is in a week’s time. Until then, we must keep the Iraqis fighting. The New Zealand column that relieved Habbaniyah is now closing on Fallujah. The Iraqis are making a stand there, but one good air attack will send them scuttling eastwards. The Indians have taken Azariah and are getting ready for the last lap into Baghdad. They took Kut without really exerting themselves which must have been a relief seeing what happened there last time. We need to give our allies a little more support before we throw them to the wolves.”
Grobba agreed with the basic idea. The problem had been arranging it without antagonizing the British. At the same time, whatever was done had to maintain the illusion that the Noth Plan was in progress. That way, the Commonwealth would continue to be focused on defending itself and would ignore what was going on elsewhere. “Otto, we have arranged some additional support. We have sold several combat aircraft to the Turkish Government. These aircraft, Heinkel 111P bombers and Messerschmitt 110C fighters are older models that have been withdrawn from Luftwaffe service and replaced by later versions. By some judicious bribery, we have induced the Turks to supply a small number of those aircraft, sixteen bombers and twelve fighters to be precise, to the Iraqi Government.”
“Crews?” Skorzeny’s reply was curt.
“Luftwaffe volunteers. If any of them are discovered, the cover story will be that they were the delivery crews and were bribed by the Turks to fly a combat mission or two – against the Commonwealth forces only of course. They have been warned that if they are exposed, they will be court-martialed.”
Skorzeny raised his eyebrows at that. Men of that caliber and devotion to the Fatherland, I can use. “We’ll have to try and make sure that eventuality doesn’t arise.”
“That’s up to you, Otto. That special combat group is under your command. I’ll remind you of what you just told me. We must keep the circus here going for another week. After that, it doesn’t matter what happens here.”
Habforce, Outside Fallujah, Iraq, May 9th, 1941
“What are we up against, Sir?” Sir Donald Powell had joined Habforce as commander of 2/4th Ghurka Rifles. The formation had moved up from the south just in time to join in the attack on Fallujah.
“Remnants of two Iraqi brigades.” Major-General George Clark was, frankly, more than a little suspicious of Powell. To his nose, the man had the scent of a politician about him. “One of them was holding Sin el Dhibban but the 1st KORR and the Assyrian levies from Habbaniyah kicked them out of there in very short order. I hate to say it, but the RAF armored cars did good work, and we took over 300 prisoners. What was left of that Iraqi force fled east and joined up with an Iraqi column moving towards Habbaniyah. The two Iraqi columns settled down together and tried to decide what to do. We don’t know what they came up with because Marylands out on reconnaissance spotted them and called in 40 aircraft from RAF Habbaniyah. It was a massacre out there; the two Iraqi columns were paralyzed and within two hours, the air attacks caused more than 1,000 Iraqi casualties. Afterward, we took a lot more prisoners, and a pitiful sight they are. I tell you, it’s not pretty to see men so broken. Anyway, what’s left is trying to defend Fallujah.”
“What do you want my boys to do, Sir?”
“In a nutshell, take Fallujah. What I want you to do is to load your men onto the cable ferries at Sin el Dhibban and cross the Euphrates. Then, you will advance on Fallujah from Saqlawiyah. That’s a small town about five miles northwest of the city. A company of 1st Battalion King's Own Royal Regiment will be landing east of the city and blocking the only road out.”
“Landing, sir?”
“Yes, landing. We’re flying them in using Valentia transports. It’s a good, surfaced road and perfect for the Valentias to land on. Our experience is that the Iraqis will fight damned hard as individuals but as organized units, they just can’t hack it. If you can keep them in organized units, they should fold. Once you’ve cleaned out Fallujah, the way is open to Baghdad and finishing this mess up.
Patrol Ship Enggano, Batavia, Dutch East Indies
“I wouldn’t say she’s the most impressive ship in the fleet, Captain, but she and the patrol vessels like her may well be the most important.” Doorman looked at the young officer standing in front of him. ‘Captain’ Olaf Baart was actually a Lieutenant (Second Class) but bore the honorary title of Captain since he commanded the Enggano. He was a very junior officer to be in command of any ship but there were multiple reasons why his appointment had been rushed through. He was a blijver of unimpeachable background. He had been born in Djatinegara, the son of an Indonesian lady of a good family from Makassar and a civil servant from Djokjakarta who was the eldest son of a Dutch family that had been in the East Indies for generations. He had scored very highly in his training school and been well recommended by his superiors. He had also acquired a reputation as a “doer and shaker”, a man whose thinking was orientated towards getting things done, not finding excuses why they could not.
Finally, as a Lieutenant (second class) he was entitled to a Lieutenant (third class) as his First Officer. There were Indonesian officers available of that rank and their appointment to the Enggano would be a start to fulfilling the promise made by Governor-General Stachouwer to Kusno Sosrodihardjo. These little patrol ships had a political importance that was all out of proportion to their military capabilities. Doorman had little doubt that in a year’s time, the First Officer of the Enggano would have a command of his own. In Doorman’s opinion, serving under Olaf Baart for a year would get him off in the right direction.
“What are my orders, Sir?”
“You are to take your ship to sea and enforce our authority over our territorial waters, ensuring the free passage of shipping.”
“And what do I have to do Sir?”
Doorman burst out laughing. His high opinion of the young officer was, in his eyes, now fully justified. He obviously recognized the yawning gulf between the orders he had been issued and the tasks he was actually being expected to undertake.
“Go out there, find a merchant ship that is passing through our waters and escort her. See she doesn’t come to any harm. Doesn’t matter who she belongs to, American, British, Australian, Japanese, whatever. Keep her safe until she is outside our waters and goes on her way. Then go back and find another one and do the same for her. Keep it up until you run out of fuel, then come home, refuel and start again.”
Baart nodded. His mission was an ambitious young officer’s dream. Duty with much sea time, a high degree of freedom, and responsibility to match. It could easily be the making of his career. Or the breaking of it if everything goes bad.
“Sir, there are rumors the Germans have raiders coming out this way. What do we do if we meet one.”
“We are technically at war with Germany. But I suggest you stay well away from them. They have 150mm guns and are ten times your size.”
“What if we are escorting a merchantman? One the raider will attack.”
Doorman looked sad. “Then you must remember that the honor of our Navy is in your hands. You must do what you must do in order to do what you must do.”
Once again Baart nodded. Come back carrying your shield or carried on it “Understood, Sir.”
“There is one other thing. You already know that Lieutenant (Third class) Setiawan Cahaya will be your first officer. You must train him well, Olaf. You must know that it is very unlikely that we will return to Dutch rule. At best, when this nation becomes independent it will continue to honor and retain the best of the traditions we have brought here. At worst, it will degenerate into riots and massacre. Lieutenant Cahaya is one of the first group of nationalist sailors who will be joining the Navy. Others will be joining the Army and Air Force. The possession of disciplined and well-trained nationalist forces may well be the difference between reaching the best outcome or collapsing into the worst.”
“There is one last thing. Soon, very soon, Japanese tankers will be pulling into our ports to load with oil. They will be …… discrete . . . . . . but it is crucial that their passage remains as secret as possible.”
“Because we will be breaking the American oil embargo on Japan?”
“Exactly. The world being as it is we have no choice. Quite apart from anything else, we need the money and if we don’t sell it to Japan, they’ll come and take it. The government has arranged trading companies and intermediates, but the cover is thin. We need it to hold on as long as possible. We are teaching a horse to sing, Olaf, you know that story?”
“A farmer was about to be executed. To save his life he told the King he could teach a horse to sing in a year. The King gave him a horse and that year. A friend said, ‘You can’t teach a horse to sing.’ The farmer said ‘In a year, the King might die, I might die, and the horse might die. The horse might learn to sing.’”
“That’s right Olaf, selling oil to Japan buys us time. Who knows what might happen before that time is up?”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Twelve
HMS Cockchafer, Approaching Kut, Tigris River, Iraq
“This really is beginning to feel like home.” Captain Agnew didn’t sound convinced, and he didn’t mean the green hills and meadows of England when he spoke of home. Home to him meant the Yangtze River between Shanghai and Chungking where an entire world seemed to rotate around them while the scenery changed every few miles. Like most old China hands, and that included almost all the crew of the Cockchafer, China had slowly but steadily worked its way into his blood and made him miss all the experiences he had encountered on the Yangtze. His time in command of the Cockchafer had been spent going from Shanghai to Chungking and back again, calming trouble and resolving disputes on the way. Now, it seemed as if he was doing much the same thing on the Tigris. The problem was that he had become convinced he would never see the Yangtze again and the Tigris was a very poor replacement.
“We never had terrain like this back on the River.” Lieutenant Wilford Shine shared his Captain’s depressing prognosis concerning a return to Chinese waters. That didn’t detract from the accuracy of his comments though. The arid bleakness of Iraq seemed a whole world removed from the lush, fertile greenery of the banks of the Yangtze. “Thank God.”
Agnew agreed with the sentiment but felt obliged to issue a caution. “I wouldn’t let our honored guests hear you say that. I have no doubt that they are fond of this place. Although only the Good Lord knows why.”
“Aircraft approaching from the North, Sir. About six thousand feet.” The lookout sounded tense which was hardly surprising. “They’re twin-engined.”
“Marylands?” The question was an obvious one. The Maryland had become almost as famous as the Tomahawk since the fighting in Kenya and North Africa.
“I don’t think so.” The lookout was hesitant. “The wingtips look square, and they’ve got twin tails. I think they’re 110s, Sir.”
“Will, get on the radio, get us some air cover.” Captain Agnew knew that the situation had suddenly gone wholly and completely bad. “Then get through to Basra and tell them that we are under air attack by German Me-110s, everyone else, action stations right now. Man the three incher and the Lewis guns. Engines, ring for full ahead.”
“No air cover available, Sir. All available aircraft are covering the mopping up operations around Baghdad.”
Agnew swore in Cantonese, a language well-suited to lurid cursing. This was turning into a very bad morning.
“Here they come, Sir.” The lookout seemed to be almost relishing the gloom in his announcement. Overhead, the 110s were peeling over into the long dives that would bring them to their targets. Agnew was watching them intently, measuring their approach with great case and trying to guess the moment they would release their bombs.
“Engines, more power. We need every turn those old boilers can give us.” For a brief second, Shine could have sworn that the twin side-by-side funnels had bulged before emitting gouts of black smoke. The stench of soot and the detritus of decades working on the Yangtze had been propelled upwards by a surge of power that Cockchafer hadn’t experienced for decades. It formed a greasy black cloud that seemed to cling to the surface of the river, but Captain Agnew seemed to take no notice of it. His eyes were riveted on the descending Me-110s.
“Sir, the current is slowing us right down. There must be a channel effect here.” Shine couldn’t see what all the effort from the old engines was achieving.
A slight smile was already playing on Agnew’s lips. “Engines . . .. full astern now; back as hard as you can.”
The engine room telegraph bell rang and in response the water astern of the gunboat churned white as the propellers reversed. Overhead the first of the 110s had just released its pair of 550-pound bombs but Cockchafer was almost standing still in the water with the two bombs dropping in front of her. Then, the Tigris current took her and started to push her backward with her engines threshing at full power. The explosions ahead of her seemed to push her just that bit harder. A few seconds later, the lead 110 flashed overhead with the tracer fire from the Lewis guns all around her.
“Hard aport!” Agnew called out the maneuver, once again timing it to match the bomb release overhead. The channel current, the stream of extra-fast water directed by a bend in the river, caught the bows as they started to swing and spun the gunboat around in her own length. “Full ahead both!”
The second pair of bombs had exploded almost exactly where Cockchafer had been just a minute or so earlier. They missed because the same channel current that had slowed the old gunboat down before the attack had started was now pushing her downriver with her engines helping her on her way. That had the added effect of pushing her back into the clouds of black smoke she had generated just a few minutes before.
All those years spent chugging up and down the Yangtze had given her crew an encyclopedic knowledge of how rivers worked, how their currents were placed, and how they interacted with shoals and banks. Now, all that knowledge was being used in a frantic battle to save the ship from being hit by the enemy bombs. Cockchafer was dancing with the interplay of the Tigris’s geography and water flow to pull off maneuvers that seemed impossible from the air. Behind it was the knowledge that a single hit from one of the bombs would be enough to sink the old ship.
The third Me-110 had elected to abandon the dive-bombing attacks and make a low-altitude run. Its nose was marked by a sheet of flame as it walked the fire from its two cannon and four machine guns onto the superstructure of Cockchafer. The gunboat turned into the stream of fire, taking the bullets and shells on the patch of armor that protected the bridge. The officers dived for the deck, avoiding the rattle of bullet hits and the blast of the 20mm shells as they exploded against the armor. The crew of the twelve-pounder anti-aircraft gun ahead of the bridge weren’t so fortunate. They were mown down at their posts.
Their sacrifice was, however, rewarded. The crew of the three-inch anti-aircraft gun aft was shielded by the ship’s structure and was able to take careful aim at the approaching fighter. As it flew overhead, they started shooting as soon as their arc of fire was cleared. Their first shot exploded just in front of the Me-110s nose, their second underneath its belly. The enemy aircraft was streaming black smoke from its wing roots and both engines as it limped away from the duel on the Tigris.
“He won’t be going home.” Shine sounded triumphant but the carnage around the 12-pounder was a stark reminder of how unequal the battle really was.
“Nor will we if this goes on.” Agnew was watching the last Me-110. It was circling overhead, the pilot obviously trying to work out a different way of dealing with this annoying little enemy that would not just sit still and allow herself to be sunk. The third aircraft had also dropped two 550-pound bombs before it had been hit; they had exploded on the riverbanks on either side of Cockchafer. Unlike the bombs that exploded in the water, they hadn’t contributed to the tally of minor damage that was slowly mounting up. Agnew knew the problem; the Cockchafer was a shallow draft, allowing her to go places no conventional warship could but the same design feature meant that it wouldn’t take much flooding to sink her.
The 110 started to come down in a spiraling dive that made the anti-aircraft gunners work somewhat harder but, to Agnew’s eyes, also made it much harder to hit the gunboat. That theory was borne out. The anti-aircraft fire was all over the place, but the bombs missed by a wider amount than any of the previous passes. To the great relief of the crew of Cockchafer, the three undamaged attackers flew off to the west while the fourth staggered away, losing altitude.
“Well, I wonder what that was all about?” Shine watched the departing aircraft fade into the distance.
“I would wager they think we have the Regent still on board.” Agnew was smiling broadly at that thought. The Regent and his family were in the care of the brigade now advancing on Baghdad and presumably getting an object lesson on the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi Army when faced with professional soldiers. The handful of Iraqi civil servants from Basrah on board had made convincing if terrified decoys. “Well, we must continue our part. How bad is the damage?”
“Machinery space is flooding slowly; the boys are plugging fragments and bullet holes now. Some of the pipes are damaged as well but they’re being fixed with rags and glue. We can head for Baghdad again as soon as the patching is done. An hour perhaps?”
Agnew was happier than he’d been earlier. “I bet the Yanks wished their boys could handle a gunboat the way ours do. If they’d put on the performance we did, they wouldn’t have lost Panay. Splice the mainbrace, Will, an extra tot all round.”
“I don’t think our guests will approve, Sir.”
“Then offer them a drinkie as well.”
Tomahawk II "Marijke" Over Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Bandits approaching from the west believed Heinkel 111s.” That sounded ominous to Bosede. Heinkel 111s were certainly not Iraqi.
“Watch them, boys, looks like we’re meeting the first division team at last.” He peeled off in the classical wingover and started the long dive down that would bring him out underneath the tail-end Charlie of the formation. Over to his left, the leader of another two-aircraft section of Tomahawks had accelerated a little ahead of him. It was one of the aircraft that had been refitted with twin .30 machine guns in its nose and the reduced weight had made it a mile or two per hour faster. That put it a second or so ahead of Marijke in attacking the formation of German bombers. It also meant that the aircraft ran into the defensive crossfire that second sooner.
Coming up from under the tail might have worked against the Italian-built light bombers but it didn’t when facing a formation of Heinkel 111s with a 13.2mm machine gun in a ventral gondola that covered the under-tail approach. The Tomahawk ran straight into the fire of four heavy machine guns that punched through its thin, unarmored skin and slashed into its vitals. Bosede watched helplessly as the Tomahawk’s engine burst into flames. The burning aircraft sheered away, leaving an orange/black trail across the sky that ended in the billowing cloud of a fuel tank exploding. Bosede aborted his attack before he ran into the same deadly net and arced away.
“Christ, Boss, what are we going to do?” Flight Lieutenant Arjan Smets had watched the destruction of the Tomahawk with horror. For a year, the Tomahawks had ruled the skies of the Middle East, knocking down the Italian-built fighters with ease. The first division team had quite definitely arrived, and it wasn’t the South African Air Force.
Bosede looked at the formation of sixteen He-111s and saw how their positions were calculated to cover each other against fighter attacks. As he had just seen, the 13mm machine gun in the belly position guarded against attacks from behind and below while another in the dorsal blister guarded against attacks from behind and above. In theory, the guns above and below the fuselage left a blind spot directly behind the aircraft. The problem was that the bombers were staggered vertically as well as horizontally, so the blind zone was covered by other aircraft. Still, it appeared to be the only way in that wouldn’t expose Marijke to the deadly crossfire from the heavy machine guns.
“Make attack runs from directly behind. Spread the attacks across as many aircraft as possible. That way we’ll split up their fire.”
Bosede turned Marijke around and started the second run in, this time from directly behind the rearmost bomber in the enemy formation. As he had suspected, the gunfire was much less accurate when aimed at a crossing target. The He-111 started to fill his windscreen and he pressed both triggers, firing his wing .30s and nose .50s into the bomber. For what seemed like an hour or more, nothing seemed to happen, then a stream of thick black smoke erupted from its port engine and wing root. The Heinkel held its position in the formation, so Bosede was about to finish it off when it seemed as if a sledgehammer had hit Marijke.
In a way it had. One of the Me-110s escorting the bombers had pulled off a perfect bounce and the concentrated fire from its two cannon and four machineguns had torn the unarmored Tomahawk apart. Bosede seemed to see everything happening in slow motion, watching the structure of the aircraft disintegrate, the engine burst into flames and the fire engulf the cockpit. Almost by instinct, he rolled the aircraft over, slid the cockpit open, and dropped out through a momentary gap in the flames. As he dropped clear, he saw Marijke explode. Sorry, old girl. But thank you for holding together long enough for me to bail out.
The Me-110s hadn’t hung around. They’d slashed through the South African fighters, destroying almost half of the Tomahawks in the process, and then dived away. In doing so, they’d completely disrupted the attack on the bombers and allowed them to withdraw safely eastwards. Fortunately, in doing so, they had completely lost interest in the Tomahawk pilots who had bailed out of their stricken aircraft. Even so, Bosede obeyed the caution to keep from opening his parachute until the last possible moment. He felt the jerk as the canopy opened and then the impact as he hit the ground. To his relief, the instructions he’d received on a parachute landing worked like a charm.
That left him with the job of deciding where to walk. The bombers had been retreating eastwards and he guessed they had already bombed Habbaniyah. That meant the airfield had to be due west and not that far away. With a deep sigh of resentment, Bosede started to trek westwards. I learned to fly so I wouldn’t have to do this.
He’d been walking for about a quarter of an hour when he saw a cloud of dust on the horizon. His first response was to take cover. It was rumored that the fate of people captured by the Iraqis, especially aircrew, was not a happy one. In fact, the words ‘slow’ and ‘painful’ seemed to recur prominently. It was, therefore, a great relief when he recognized the oncoming vehicles as Fordson armored cars. Within a few minutes, he was sitting on the lead vehicle, drinking from a canteen of water.
“What happened, Sir? We were told to come out here and look for parachutists, but nobody said why.”
“We were attacking the bombers and got bounced by 110s. Flown by Germans, they had to be. Nobody else could have taken us like that. What happened back at Habbaniyah? How bad is the airfield?”
“The airfield’s OK, Sir. Almost no damage there. The civilian area, that’s different. Those bombers really smashed it up. Walked their bombs right across it, they did.”
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Squadron Leader Bosede. I’m glad to see you back. You’re going to be sorely needed.” Group Captain Seymour Linford was relieved to see his fighter squadron commander still alive. “We’ve got nine Tomahawks left. Find out how many we can put up right away. Our bombers are getting ready to go now, six Wellingtons and nine Marylands. We can’t send them in unescorted.”
“Target, sir?”
“Radio intercepts told us that the Heinkel bombers and their escort came from Palmyra in French Syria. We’re going to hit them back right away.”
“Won’t they be expecting us, Sir?”
“We don’t think so; it’s more than 300 miles away and they don’t know we’ve found their home already. We think the faster we get in, the more likely it is that we’ll get in clean. By the way, Pim, sorry to hear about Marijke. You’ll be taking another plane on the Palmyra raid of course?”
“Of course, Sir. Umm, Sir, I hear there were a lot of civilian casualties in the bombing.”
“More than a hundred and we’re still digging the bodies out. Those German bastards dropped twenty-two hundred-pound Hermann’s on them. Smashed open the air-raid shelters like eggshells. They intended to kill the civilians. If there’s anybody, in particular, you’re concerned about, you’d better check them now. We’ll be going in a few minutes. The bodies are being collected in hangar two.”
Bosede ran over to hangar two and pushed open the personnel door at the side. What he saw made him stop in sheer shock. There were hundreds of bodies, or so it seemed, covered by white sheets.
“Can I help you, Squadron Leader?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine. Group Captain Linford told me to start here. Mrs. Mary Langsdowne and her son Jimmy?”
The Sergeant took a quick look at his list. “Ah yes, I’m sorry, Squadron Leader. They’re both dead. Killed when their air raid shelter collapsed. They’re in Row D, numbers twelve and thirteen.”
Bosede found the bodies easily and an attendant pulled back the sheets covering them so he could see their faces. They were unmarked and peaceful, not what he had expected. The attendant looked sympathetically at them. “We think they were both knocked unconscious by the blast of the bomb, and they suffocated in the sand before they could be dug out. I don’t think they suffered, Sir.”
Bosede nodded and looked down at Mary Langsdowne’s face, realizing that the cut-glass accent had been stilled forever. “Thank you. I must go now.”
He turned away, partly to start the process of stealing somebody else’s Tomahawk and partly to prevent the attendant from seeing his tears.
HMS Cockchafer, Approaching Kut, Tigris River, Iraq
“This really is beginning to feel like home.” Captain Agnew didn’t sound convinced, and he didn’t mean the green hills and meadows of England when he spoke of home. Home to him meant the Yangtze River between Shanghai and Chungking where an entire world seemed to rotate around them while the scenery changed every few miles. Like most old China hands, and that included almost all the crew of the Cockchafer, China had slowly but steadily worked its way into his blood and made him miss all the experiences he had encountered on the Yangtze. His time in command of the Cockchafer had been spent going from Shanghai to Chungking and back again, calming trouble and resolving disputes on the way. Now, it seemed as if he was doing much the same thing on the Tigris. The problem was that he had become convinced he would never see the Yangtze again and the Tigris was a very poor replacement.
“We never had terrain like this back on the River.” Lieutenant Wilford Shine shared his Captain’s depressing prognosis concerning a return to Chinese waters. That didn’t detract from the accuracy of his comments though. The arid bleakness of Iraq seemed a whole world removed from the lush, fertile greenery of the banks of the Yangtze. “Thank God.”
Agnew agreed with the sentiment but felt obliged to issue a caution. “I wouldn’t let our honored guests hear you say that. I have no doubt that they are fond of this place. Although only the Good Lord knows why.”
“Aircraft approaching from the North, Sir. About six thousand feet.” The lookout sounded tense which was hardly surprising. “They’re twin-engined.”
“Marylands?” The question was an obvious one. The Maryland had become almost as famous as the Tomahawk since the fighting in Kenya and North Africa.
“I don’t think so.” The lookout was hesitant. “The wingtips look square, and they’ve got twin tails. I think they’re 110s, Sir.”
“Will, get on the radio, get us some air cover.” Captain Agnew knew that the situation had suddenly gone wholly and completely bad. “Then get through to Basra and tell them that we are under air attack by German Me-110s, everyone else, action stations right now. Man the three incher and the Lewis guns. Engines, ring for full ahead.”
“No air cover available, Sir. All available aircraft are covering the mopping up operations around Baghdad.”
Agnew swore in Cantonese, a language well-suited to lurid cursing. This was turning into a very bad morning.
“Here they come, Sir.” The lookout seemed to be almost relishing the gloom in his announcement. Overhead, the 110s were peeling over into the long dives that would bring them to their targets. Agnew was watching them intently, measuring their approach with great case and trying to guess the moment they would release their bombs.
“Engines, more power. We need every turn those old boilers can give us.” For a brief second, Shine could have sworn that the twin side-by-side funnels had bulged before emitting gouts of black smoke. The stench of soot and the detritus of decades working on the Yangtze had been propelled upwards by a surge of power that Cockchafer hadn’t experienced for decades. It formed a greasy black cloud that seemed to cling to the surface of the river, but Captain Agnew seemed to take no notice of it. His eyes were riveted on the descending Me-110s.
“Sir, the current is slowing us right down. There must be a channel effect here.” Shine couldn’t see what all the effort from the old engines was achieving.
A slight smile was already playing on Agnew’s lips. “Engines . . .. full astern now; back as hard as you can.”
The engine room telegraph bell rang and in response the water astern of the gunboat churned white as the propellers reversed. Overhead the first of the 110s had just released its pair of 550-pound bombs but Cockchafer was almost standing still in the water with the two bombs dropping in front of her. Then, the Tigris current took her and started to push her backward with her engines threshing at full power. The explosions ahead of her seemed to push her just that bit harder. A few seconds later, the lead 110 flashed overhead with the tracer fire from the Lewis guns all around her.
“Hard aport!” Agnew called out the maneuver, once again timing it to match the bomb release overhead. The channel current, the stream of extra-fast water directed by a bend in the river, caught the bows as they started to swing and spun the gunboat around in her own length. “Full ahead both!”
The second pair of bombs had exploded almost exactly where Cockchafer had been just a minute or so earlier. They missed because the same channel current that had slowed the old gunboat down before the attack had started was now pushing her downriver with her engines helping her on her way. That had the added effect of pushing her back into the clouds of black smoke she had generated just a few minutes before.
All those years spent chugging up and down the Yangtze had given her crew an encyclopedic knowledge of how rivers worked, how their currents were placed, and how they interacted with shoals and banks. Now, all that knowledge was being used in a frantic battle to save the ship from being hit by the enemy bombs. Cockchafer was dancing with the interplay of the Tigris’s geography and water flow to pull off maneuvers that seemed impossible from the air. Behind it was the knowledge that a single hit from one of the bombs would be enough to sink the old ship.
The third Me-110 had elected to abandon the dive-bombing attacks and make a low-altitude run. Its nose was marked by a sheet of flame as it walked the fire from its two cannon and four machine guns onto the superstructure of Cockchafer. The gunboat turned into the stream of fire, taking the bullets and shells on the patch of armor that protected the bridge. The officers dived for the deck, avoiding the rattle of bullet hits and the blast of the 20mm shells as they exploded against the armor. The crew of the twelve-pounder anti-aircraft gun ahead of the bridge weren’t so fortunate. They were mown down at their posts.
Their sacrifice was, however, rewarded. The crew of the three-inch anti-aircraft gun aft was shielded by the ship’s structure and was able to take careful aim at the approaching fighter. As it flew overhead, they started shooting as soon as their arc of fire was cleared. Their first shot exploded just in front of the Me-110s nose, their second underneath its belly. The enemy aircraft was streaming black smoke from its wing roots and both engines as it limped away from the duel on the Tigris.
“He won’t be going home.” Shine sounded triumphant but the carnage around the 12-pounder was a stark reminder of how unequal the battle really was.
“Nor will we if this goes on.” Agnew was watching the last Me-110. It was circling overhead, the pilot obviously trying to work out a different way of dealing with this annoying little enemy that would not just sit still and allow herself to be sunk. The third aircraft had also dropped two 550-pound bombs before it had been hit; they had exploded on the riverbanks on either side of Cockchafer. Unlike the bombs that exploded in the water, they hadn’t contributed to the tally of minor damage that was slowly mounting up. Agnew knew the problem; the Cockchafer was a shallow draft, allowing her to go places no conventional warship could but the same design feature meant that it wouldn’t take much flooding to sink her.
The 110 started to come down in a spiraling dive that made the anti-aircraft gunners work somewhat harder but, to Agnew’s eyes, also made it much harder to hit the gunboat. That theory was borne out. The anti-aircraft fire was all over the place, but the bombs missed by a wider amount than any of the previous passes. To the great relief of the crew of Cockchafer, the three undamaged attackers flew off to the west while the fourth staggered away, losing altitude.
“Well, I wonder what that was all about?” Shine watched the departing aircraft fade into the distance.
“I would wager they think we have the Regent still on board.” Agnew was smiling broadly at that thought. The Regent and his family were in the care of the brigade now advancing on Baghdad and presumably getting an object lesson on the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi Army when faced with professional soldiers. The handful of Iraqi civil servants from Basrah on board had made convincing if terrified decoys. “Well, we must continue our part. How bad is the damage?”
“Machinery space is flooding slowly; the boys are plugging fragments and bullet holes now. Some of the pipes are damaged as well but they’re being fixed with rags and glue. We can head for Baghdad again as soon as the patching is done. An hour perhaps?”
Agnew was happier than he’d been earlier. “I bet the Yanks wished their boys could handle a gunboat the way ours do. If they’d put on the performance we did, they wouldn’t have lost Panay. Splice the mainbrace, Will, an extra tot all round.”
“I don’t think our guests will approve, Sir.”
“Then offer them a drinkie as well.”
Tomahawk II "Marijke" Over Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Bandits approaching from the west believed Heinkel 111s.” That sounded ominous to Bosede. Heinkel 111s were certainly not Iraqi.
“Watch them, boys, looks like we’re meeting the first division team at last.” He peeled off in the classical wingover and started the long dive down that would bring him out underneath the tail-end Charlie of the formation. Over to his left, the leader of another two-aircraft section of Tomahawks had accelerated a little ahead of him. It was one of the aircraft that had been refitted with twin .30 machine guns in its nose and the reduced weight had made it a mile or two per hour faster. That put it a second or so ahead of Marijke in attacking the formation of German bombers. It also meant that the aircraft ran into the defensive crossfire that second sooner.
Coming up from under the tail might have worked against the Italian-built light bombers but it didn’t when facing a formation of Heinkel 111s with a 13.2mm machine gun in a ventral gondola that covered the under-tail approach. The Tomahawk ran straight into the fire of four heavy machine guns that punched through its thin, unarmored skin and slashed into its vitals. Bosede watched helplessly as the Tomahawk’s engine burst into flames. The burning aircraft sheered away, leaving an orange/black trail across the sky that ended in the billowing cloud of a fuel tank exploding. Bosede aborted his attack before he ran into the same deadly net and arced away.
“Christ, Boss, what are we going to do?” Flight Lieutenant Arjan Smets had watched the destruction of the Tomahawk with horror. For a year, the Tomahawks had ruled the skies of the Middle East, knocking down the Italian-built fighters with ease. The first division team had quite definitely arrived, and it wasn’t the South African Air Force.
Bosede looked at the formation of sixteen He-111s and saw how their positions were calculated to cover each other against fighter attacks. As he had just seen, the 13mm machine gun in the belly position guarded against attacks from behind and below while another in the dorsal blister guarded against attacks from behind and above. In theory, the guns above and below the fuselage left a blind spot directly behind the aircraft. The problem was that the bombers were staggered vertically as well as horizontally, so the blind zone was covered by other aircraft. Still, it appeared to be the only way in that wouldn’t expose Marijke to the deadly crossfire from the heavy machine guns.
“Make attack runs from directly behind. Spread the attacks across as many aircraft as possible. That way we’ll split up their fire.”
Bosede turned Marijke around and started the second run in, this time from directly behind the rearmost bomber in the enemy formation. As he had suspected, the gunfire was much less accurate when aimed at a crossing target. The He-111 started to fill his windscreen and he pressed both triggers, firing his wing .30s and nose .50s into the bomber. For what seemed like an hour or more, nothing seemed to happen, then a stream of thick black smoke erupted from its port engine and wing root. The Heinkel held its position in the formation, so Bosede was about to finish it off when it seemed as if a sledgehammer had hit Marijke.
In a way it had. One of the Me-110s escorting the bombers had pulled off a perfect bounce and the concentrated fire from its two cannon and four machineguns had torn the unarmored Tomahawk apart. Bosede seemed to see everything happening in slow motion, watching the structure of the aircraft disintegrate, the engine burst into flames and the fire engulf the cockpit. Almost by instinct, he rolled the aircraft over, slid the cockpit open, and dropped out through a momentary gap in the flames. As he dropped clear, he saw Marijke explode. Sorry, old girl. But thank you for holding together long enough for me to bail out.
The Me-110s hadn’t hung around. They’d slashed through the South African fighters, destroying almost half of the Tomahawks in the process, and then dived away. In doing so, they’d completely disrupted the attack on the bombers and allowed them to withdraw safely eastwards. Fortunately, in doing so, they had completely lost interest in the Tomahawk pilots who had bailed out of their stricken aircraft. Even so, Bosede obeyed the caution to keep from opening his parachute until the last possible moment. He felt the jerk as the canopy opened and then the impact as he hit the ground. To his relief, the instructions he’d received on a parachute landing worked like a charm.
That left him with the job of deciding where to walk. The bombers had been retreating eastwards and he guessed they had already bombed Habbaniyah. That meant the airfield had to be due west and not that far away. With a deep sigh of resentment, Bosede started to trek westwards. I learned to fly so I wouldn’t have to do this.
He’d been walking for about a quarter of an hour when he saw a cloud of dust on the horizon. His first response was to take cover. It was rumored that the fate of people captured by the Iraqis, especially aircrew, was not a happy one. In fact, the words ‘slow’ and ‘painful’ seemed to recur prominently. It was, therefore, a great relief when he recognized the oncoming vehicles as Fordson armored cars. Within a few minutes, he was sitting on the lead vehicle, drinking from a canteen of water.
“What happened, Sir? We were told to come out here and look for parachutists, but nobody said why.”
“We were attacking the bombers and got bounced by 110s. Flown by Germans, they had to be. Nobody else could have taken us like that. What happened back at Habbaniyah? How bad is the airfield?”
“The airfield’s OK, Sir. Almost no damage there. The civilian area, that’s different. Those bombers really smashed it up. Walked their bombs right across it, they did.”
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Habbaniyah, Iraq.
“Squadron Leader Bosede. I’m glad to see you back. You’re going to be sorely needed.” Group Captain Seymour Linford was relieved to see his fighter squadron commander still alive. “We’ve got nine Tomahawks left. Find out how many we can put up right away. Our bombers are getting ready to go now, six Wellingtons and nine Marylands. We can’t send them in unescorted.”
“Target, sir?”
“Radio intercepts told us that the Heinkel bombers and their escort came from Palmyra in French Syria. We’re going to hit them back right away.”
“Won’t they be expecting us, Sir?”
“We don’t think so; it’s more than 300 miles away and they don’t know we’ve found their home already. We think the faster we get in, the more likely it is that we’ll get in clean. By the way, Pim, sorry to hear about Marijke. You’ll be taking another plane on the Palmyra raid of course?”
“Of course, Sir. Umm, Sir, I hear there were a lot of civilian casualties in the bombing.”
“More than a hundred and we’re still digging the bodies out. Those German bastards dropped twenty-two hundred-pound Hermann’s on them. Smashed open the air-raid shelters like eggshells. They intended to kill the civilians. If there’s anybody, in particular, you’re concerned about, you’d better check them now. We’ll be going in a few minutes. The bodies are being collected in hangar two.”
Bosede ran over to hangar two and pushed open the personnel door at the side. What he saw made him stop in sheer shock. There were hundreds of bodies, or so it seemed, covered by white sheets.
“Can I help you, Squadron Leader?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine. Group Captain Linford told me to start here. Mrs. Mary Langsdowne and her son Jimmy?”
The Sergeant took a quick look at his list. “Ah yes, I’m sorry, Squadron Leader. They’re both dead. Killed when their air raid shelter collapsed. They’re in Row D, numbers twelve and thirteen.”
Bosede found the bodies easily and an attendant pulled back the sheets covering them so he could see their faces. They were unmarked and peaceful, not what he had expected. The attendant looked sympathetically at them. “We think they were both knocked unconscious by the blast of the bomb, and they suffocated in the sand before they could be dug out. I don’t think they suffered, Sir.”
Bosede nodded and looked down at Mary Langsdowne’s face, realizing that the cut-glass accent had been stilled forever. “Thank you. I must go now.”
He turned away, partly to start the process of stealing somebody else’s Tomahawk and partly to prevent the attendant from seeing his tears.
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Thirteen
Martin Maryland I, G-George, Approaching Palmyra airfield, French Syria.
“Now, Cussans, I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but this is about the most important bombing mission you have ever flown. You must get this one absolutely right. All the other Marylands will be dropping on your lead. So, if you miss the bomber park, everybody misses. That means the bombers will survive and more civilians will be killed by them. The whole course of the war could depend on you putting those bombs where they are supposed to go. But, as I said, no pressure.”
Mannix settled back in his seat with a smug smile on his face. If he guessed right, his bombardier would be seriously irritated by the intercom message he had just received and would be determined to prove to his pilot that he wasn’t distracted by how critical this mission was. The truth also was that the long flight from Habbaniyah to Palmyra had been boring and he felt like a little light relief. In order to keep formation with the Wellingtons, he’d had to keep the Maryland formation flying well below its normal cruising speed and that had stretched what would have been a 75-minute flight into one that had taken half an hour longer. It didn’t sound like much but in the cramped cockpit of a Maryland, it was an added burden he didn’t need.
“Target in sight, Sir.” Cussans’ voice over the intercom had an air of smugness about it. “I can see the northern aircraft parking area now. Confirm that twin-engined aircraft are there. I count at least a dozen. Cannot determine the type.”
In the last few minutes, the Marylands had accelerated ahead of the bomber formation to check whether Palmyra was occupied and, if so, by whom and where the aircraft was. The only actual intelligence data the Commonwealth forces had were the radio intercepts and some pictures of French Palmyra dated from 1938. The assumption that the Heinkels and Messerschmitts had come from here was based on very weak evidence, but nobody had any idea what to do if the airbase was empty. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“Southern parking area is in use, Sir. I can see a dozen planes down there as well. The Wimpeys should be good to go.”
“Can you identify the types yet?”
Cussans had a large pair of naval binoculars in his cramped nose compartment for exactly this purpose, but the conditions were making them almost useless. “Sorry, Sir. It’s the heat. Everything is rippling down there like it was underwater or something. I can just make out the aircraft shape but that’s all.”
This bit had been decided. If the aircraft couldn’t be identified, the Marylands would drop on the northern parking area while the Wellingtons would hit the southern one. “Cussans, you have the aircraft. Take out the northern area as planned.”
There was no response from the nose compartment. Mannix hadn’t expected any; once Cussans was doing his job in the bombardier’s position, he tended to ignore everything else. He could feel the aircraft making tiny movements as Cussans carefully aligned his bombsight onto the target. Then, there was the low whine as the bomb bay doors opened. The Maryland was carrying its maximum permissible bombload of four five-hundred-pound bombs and Mannix suspected he had been over the maximum take-off weight limit when he had left Habbaniyah. The bounce when the bombs dropped was much sharper than normal and G-George appeared to be relieved at the sudden reduction in weight.
“Bombardier to pilot; you have the aircraft. Can we go home now?”
Mannix looked down to see the northern parking area suddenly vanish under a closely packed square of bomb explosions. The Devil’s Rose Garden he thought to himself, remembering a book he had read once. “Nice pattern bombardier; the parking area is toast.”
Behind him, the Wellingtons had appeared and were starting their run on the remaining part of the airfield. Mannix pulled the throttles back so that the Marylands would rejoin the larger aircraft. That’s when he heard the one thing he didn’t want to. “Fighters coming in. Say again fighters coming in, nine o’clock high.”
Mannix craned around in his seat, trying to see the inbound aircraft. When he spotted them, he saw six dots that grew rapidly into French MS.406 fighters. The 406 was hardly a top-of-the-line fighter but it was just fast enough to stop the Marylands from using their preferred defense of using speed to run from an enemy. That meant, that if the French fighters attacked, the Marylands would have to fight.
“They’re Vichy French.” Cussan’s comment from the bombardier’s compartment wasn’t quite as stating the obvious as it sounded. Syria was run by the Vichy French government and was thus German-aligned. However, so for that matter, was the Halifax government in London. In Commonwealth’s eyes, there was little if any difference between the two. Technically, the Marylands were operated by the British forces in the Middle East Command under General Wavell which technically reported to London although everybody knew it really obeyed Ottawa’s commands. That was the simple side of the politics that surrounded nine Marylands and six MS.406s. It got more complicated after that.
The lead 406 flew alongside Mannix’s aircraft and he could see the French pilot looking intently at the markings, especially the blue circle with the white inner and the red desert rat painted in the middle. Mannix watched as the French fighter pilot peeled away. For a moment, he thought the situation was over, but the Morane climbed towards the sun before making a wingover and diving straight at his Maryland. Even then, for a moment, he still had hopes that the French would back off. The flash of the 20mm cannon in the Morane’s nose and the flicker from its wing-mounted machine guns told him differently. It took only the first few hits from the 20mm gun to set the Maryland’s engines ablaze while the machine guns raked the glazed nose and the cockpit. The whole port wing separated and left the light bomber spinning helplessly to the ground. The doomed aircraft exploded in a black greasy pyre of smoke that stained the ground around the impact point and reached high into the sky.
Long before the Maryland formation had the sky to itself again, three more of its aircraft had been shot out of the sky. Then, the Moranes broke off and retreated as the Wellingtons and their escorting Tomahawks came up from behind. Syria might be run by Vichy France and the savaging of the Maryland formation obviously meant its armed forces shared that allegiance and would fight.
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“Is this the beginning of the Noth Plan?” Sir Martyn Sharpe held the details of the air raid on Habbaniyah in his hands. “German aircraft bombing one of our airfields.”
“They weren’t German.” Sir Eric Haohoa had some reports of his own. Indian intelligence services had inherited a lot of British assets including a substantial part of MI.6. “What happened is that the Germans sold a lot of their older, obsolete aircraft to Turkey. Mostly Heinkel 111Ps and Messerschmitt 110Cs. It also appears that there is much Turkish sympathy for Sayyad Rashid Aali al-Gillani and were susceptible to large payments in specie from that gentleman who asked in return that some of those aircraft be placed at the disposal of his government. I also have a report that the wreckage of one of those 110s was found a little to the west of the Tigris and it had Turkish Air Force markings, crudely painted out and replaced by Iraqi insignia. By the way, I have a technical addendum to that report that states the 110 was an early production model without armor or self-sealing fuel tanks. That tends to support the rest of the conclusions.”
“Does not Turkish participation point to the Noth Plan starting?” Sir Martyn was being Devil’s Advocate and he knew it. “The great objection to the Noth Plan has always been that it was logistically impossible. The supply lines across Turkey were completely incapable of supporting such operations. But if the Turks are throwing in with the Axis?”
“The plan is still impossible.” General Auchinleck was privately frustrated with the way the Noth Plan kept cropping up in every strategic discussion. Amateurs would just not understand how ridiculous its contents were and how impossible its objectives. “In any case, I would suggest that the air raid yesterday finally discredited the Noth Plan.”
“How so?” Sir Eric was intrigued by the comment and guessed the answer would help him grow into his responsibilities as Cabinet Secretary.
General Auchinleck realized the intent behind the question and phrased his response accordingly. “The attack on Habbaniyah was a small one, hardly more than a pinprick for all the casualties it caused amongst those unfortunate civilians. From our observation of the Germans, we recognize a pattern in his assaults. They are violent, using maximum force against an opponent. They set their enemy back on his heels, condemned to spend their war responding to German initiatives rather than seizing the initiative themselves. The Germans rely on the speed of maneuver to throw their enemy off balance and to dictate the rapidity of the war. If it were indeed the Noth Plan in action, we would expect to see a massive move through Turkey and a sledgehammer blow aimed at our positions, we see none of these things. There are no movements, no developing assault. Habbaniyah has indeed been bombed but there is no follow-up, no attack on our positions. Indeed, the only significant move over the last few hours has been that our troops have entered Baghdad and placed Regent Abd al-llah and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said back in power. Sayyad Rashid Aali had fled to foreign parts; either Turkey or Iran, we are not yet sure. It is not the German way to start a war by engineering a major defeat that places all their plans in jeopardy. Since that is what has happened, we are forced to conclude that they are not starting a war here. Therefore, it follows with consummate logic that the Noth Plan is not taking place. In fact, since the events of the last few weeks have been entirely disadvantageous to German designs had the Noth Plan been adopted, we can equally logically assume that the Noth Plan was never intended to take place.”
“Then what was it?” Nehru sounded confused and apprehensive.
Auchinleck looked very pensive. It was, he reflected, his day for giving lectures on military realities. “Deputy Viceroy, one of the things that military forces do is to create plans for eventualities that may seem unlikely but nevertheless might well happen. Or, if they do not happen, those plans may provide a basis for another situation that we had not anticipated. Also, we create alternative plans for things that we believe are very likely to happen in case the consequences of those developments are very different from those the primary plans envisage. We have, for example, plans to resist a Japanese attack. Several in fact. Some of them envisage our alliance with Thailand holding firm, some do not. We believe that the alliance in question will hold firm, but we still make plans in case it does not. These are our contingency plans.
“I have come to believe that the Noth Plan was one of those contingency plans generated by the Germans to cater for the event of the British position in the Middle East somehow collapsing. The only way the Noth Plan could work was if the British position did collapse completely, leaving a power vacuum behind it. Let us not forget that this did indeed happen – only General Wavell’s resolute and quick reaction forestalled an attempt to fill that power vacuum and instead set the stage for us to do so. The British position in the Middle East is now a Commonwealth position and our Jawans have made sure that a sturdy one it is.
Auchinleck paused at the patter of applause that ran around the Cabinet Room. “The Germans knew we had details of the Noth Plan and appreciated that our quick and decisive action had forestalled it. So, they decided to exploit the Noth Plan even as they abandoned it. They have stirred up the situation in Iraq, they have provided a minimal level of operational support to the Iraqi insurgents, and they created a war for us that distracted our attention away from their real interests. Gentlemen, we got lured into a game of three-card monte and we didn’t realize there was never a queen in the pack.”
“So we got taken.” Sir Eric seemed glum. He was reflecting that his control of the intelligence services seemed to have started with a major blunder.
“In a way, yes. Although it would be more accurate to say that the Germans are playing us at chess, and we have exchanged pieces. He has distracted us from his real intentions and masked his plans, but we have solidified our control over Iraq and lanced a nasty boil there. Nobody now doubts that it is the Commonwealth that now holds the final power in Iraq and that Regent Abd al-llah is our client. These are positive developments for us. The argument now is, how do we exploit them?”
“But the air raid?” Sir Martyn was trying to absorb the sudden change in perspective.
“A part of the diversion and distraction. My assessment is that the purpose of that diversion has now been attained and that the Germans are now withdrawing their assistance from Iraq. That raid was just to keep us busy while they did so.”
“But, if the Iraq business was a strategic diversion, where are the Germans going to strike?” Attorney General, Setalvad was shocked by the way the situation had developed.
Sir Eric Haohoa had the answer to that. “There is only one place they are interested in attacking and that’s the one they have wanted to go the entire time. Russia. Everything they have done to date has been leading up to that. And, if the diversion in Iraq is over, then they must be getting ready to strike, well, now.”
“Assuming that is so, and I find your logic persuasive, how do we exploit these developments?” Nehru was beginning to realize how devious and complex international events were. He also understood how naïve his earlier beliefs had been.
Auchinleck had a ready answer for that. “We know that Vichy France is a German puppet, far more so than the Halifax regime is. We know the air raid was launched from a French Syrian base. We bombed it losing four aircraft, all Marylands, in the process. That would seem to be adequate justification for following up by invading Syria.”
Patrol Ship Enggano, Off Kalimantan, Dutch East Indies
“There she is, Sir. Right on course and time.”
“Very good, Number One. Make signal, Patrol Ship Enggano to Japanese civilian tanker. Please identify and state code letters, cargo, and destination.”
Lieutenant (Third class) Setiawan Cahaya had the signaler send the required message by the signal lamp and read the response. “She is the M/T Hoyo Maru, out of Nagasaki, Captain Saburou Tachibana commanding. She is carrying crude oil from Balikpapan to Nagasaki. Her code letters are MT546. The information is confirmed, Sir, and she does look like the Hoyo Maru. She wishes us good morning, Sir.”
“Humph. Friendly enough. Make signal, Captain Olaf Baart wishes Captain Tachibana a good morning and will be sailing with him while we progress through the channel.”
Cahaya took the message and forwarded it to the signaler. This was a routine exchange, and everybody knew it. Warships, even tiny and inconsequential ones like Enggano did not ask permission to sail with foreign merchantmen in their own country’s waters. Or anywhere else for that matter.
“Response from Hoyo Maru, Sir. She thanks us for the escort and, as a matter of courtesy, advises us she has been fitted with a 10cm gun on her stern. Adds that the gun is unmanned and will not be readied for action while she is in our company.”
Captain and first officer of the Enggano exchanged grins. Baart sounded quite relaxed about the situation which was appropriate. So far everything was very normal and there was no cause for anything more than relaxation. “That makes her better armed than we are. At a guess, she’s really a naval auxiliary tanker but that doesn’t concern us. Make ten knots and take a position about a mile off her port beam. That’ll give us plenty of clearance.”
“Another message, Captain. Captain Tachibana asks if there have been any pirate incidents around here in the last two weeks.”
There were places in the world where the question might have been considered sarcastic, but this wasn’t one of them. Piracy was still endemic in these waters. Pirate attacks were rarely serious, but they happened too frequently for them to be taken lightly. They rarely happened in broad daylight; more usually they involved the target ship being boarded at night and robbed of its strongbox and the crew’s personal possessions. If the target of the attack put up a fight, people might get hurt or killed. It was that sort of attack that Enggano was there to prevent and both ships knew it.
“Check the message logs Number One and find out if we’ve had news of any attacks communicated to us. Signaler, send to Hoyo Maru ‘None here as of last night. Checking message logs for latest situation reports for you.’ Number One, anything of interest?’
“No, Sir. There was an incident last night, but it was off the Sembuni Reefs, about 600 nautical miles from here. A pirate tried to attack a coastal freighter, but the merchant ship radioed for help and a torpedo bomber on patrol strafed the launch. We think our aircraft sank the target.”
“Very good. Signaler, send to Hoyo Maru ‘One attack last night but on the other side of Borneo. Pirate craft sunk by one of our DB-7 torpedo bombers on maritime patrol.’ Good show that, Number One.”
Baart had standing orders. Impress upon the Japanese at every opportunity that there have been major increases in our defense capability since this time last year and we can put up a good, hard fight. And are ready, willing, and able to do so. Then he looked at the message log again. “Another warning. Signaler, tell Hoyo Maru that some naval mines have been discovered off Palembang. We believe they were laid either by a German U-boat or a raider. An Australian minesweeper is clearing them, but they should be on the lookout accordingly. If there are some, there are more.”
There was a long pause and then the signal light onto Hoyo Maru started winking. “Captain Tachibana, Sir. He thanks us for the warning and says we are fortunate that our country has better allies than he has.”
Martin Maryland I, G-George, Approaching Palmyra airfield, French Syria.
“Now, Cussans, I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but this is about the most important bombing mission you have ever flown. You must get this one absolutely right. All the other Marylands will be dropping on your lead. So, if you miss the bomber park, everybody misses. That means the bombers will survive and more civilians will be killed by them. The whole course of the war could depend on you putting those bombs where they are supposed to go. But, as I said, no pressure.”
Mannix settled back in his seat with a smug smile on his face. If he guessed right, his bombardier would be seriously irritated by the intercom message he had just received and would be determined to prove to his pilot that he wasn’t distracted by how critical this mission was. The truth also was that the long flight from Habbaniyah to Palmyra had been boring and he felt like a little light relief. In order to keep formation with the Wellingtons, he’d had to keep the Maryland formation flying well below its normal cruising speed and that had stretched what would have been a 75-minute flight into one that had taken half an hour longer. It didn’t sound like much but in the cramped cockpit of a Maryland, it was an added burden he didn’t need.
“Target in sight, Sir.” Cussans’ voice over the intercom had an air of smugness about it. “I can see the northern aircraft parking area now. Confirm that twin-engined aircraft are there. I count at least a dozen. Cannot determine the type.”
In the last few minutes, the Marylands had accelerated ahead of the bomber formation to check whether Palmyra was occupied and, if so, by whom and where the aircraft was. The only actual intelligence data the Commonwealth forces had were the radio intercepts and some pictures of French Palmyra dated from 1938. The assumption that the Heinkels and Messerschmitts had come from here was based on very weak evidence, but nobody had any idea what to do if the airbase was empty. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“Southern parking area is in use, Sir. I can see a dozen planes down there as well. The Wimpeys should be good to go.”
“Can you identify the types yet?”
Cussans had a large pair of naval binoculars in his cramped nose compartment for exactly this purpose, but the conditions were making them almost useless. “Sorry, Sir. It’s the heat. Everything is rippling down there like it was underwater or something. I can just make out the aircraft shape but that’s all.”
This bit had been decided. If the aircraft couldn’t be identified, the Marylands would drop on the northern parking area while the Wellingtons would hit the southern one. “Cussans, you have the aircraft. Take out the northern area as planned.”
There was no response from the nose compartment. Mannix hadn’t expected any; once Cussans was doing his job in the bombardier’s position, he tended to ignore everything else. He could feel the aircraft making tiny movements as Cussans carefully aligned his bombsight onto the target. Then, there was the low whine as the bomb bay doors opened. The Maryland was carrying its maximum permissible bombload of four five-hundred-pound bombs and Mannix suspected he had been over the maximum take-off weight limit when he had left Habbaniyah. The bounce when the bombs dropped was much sharper than normal and G-George appeared to be relieved at the sudden reduction in weight.
“Bombardier to pilot; you have the aircraft. Can we go home now?”
Mannix looked down to see the northern parking area suddenly vanish under a closely packed square of bomb explosions. The Devil’s Rose Garden he thought to himself, remembering a book he had read once. “Nice pattern bombardier; the parking area is toast.”
Behind him, the Wellingtons had appeared and were starting their run on the remaining part of the airfield. Mannix pulled the throttles back so that the Marylands would rejoin the larger aircraft. That’s when he heard the one thing he didn’t want to. “Fighters coming in. Say again fighters coming in, nine o’clock high.”
Mannix craned around in his seat, trying to see the inbound aircraft. When he spotted them, he saw six dots that grew rapidly into French MS.406 fighters. The 406 was hardly a top-of-the-line fighter but it was just fast enough to stop the Marylands from using their preferred defense of using speed to run from an enemy. That meant, that if the French fighters attacked, the Marylands would have to fight.
“They’re Vichy French.” Cussan’s comment from the bombardier’s compartment wasn’t quite as stating the obvious as it sounded. Syria was run by the Vichy French government and was thus German-aligned. However, so for that matter, was the Halifax government in London. In Commonwealth’s eyes, there was little if any difference between the two. Technically, the Marylands were operated by the British forces in the Middle East Command under General Wavell which technically reported to London although everybody knew it really obeyed Ottawa’s commands. That was the simple side of the politics that surrounded nine Marylands and six MS.406s. It got more complicated after that.
The lead 406 flew alongside Mannix’s aircraft and he could see the French pilot looking intently at the markings, especially the blue circle with the white inner and the red desert rat painted in the middle. Mannix watched as the French fighter pilot peeled away. For a moment, he thought the situation was over, but the Morane climbed towards the sun before making a wingover and diving straight at his Maryland. Even then, for a moment, he still had hopes that the French would back off. The flash of the 20mm cannon in the Morane’s nose and the flicker from its wing-mounted machine guns told him differently. It took only the first few hits from the 20mm gun to set the Maryland’s engines ablaze while the machine guns raked the glazed nose and the cockpit. The whole port wing separated and left the light bomber spinning helplessly to the ground. The doomed aircraft exploded in a black greasy pyre of smoke that stained the ground around the impact point and reached high into the sky.
Long before the Maryland formation had the sky to itself again, three more of its aircraft had been shot out of the sky. Then, the Moranes broke off and retreated as the Wellingtons and their escorting Tomahawks came up from behind. Syria might be run by Vichy France and the savaging of the Maryland formation obviously meant its armed forces shared that allegiance and would fight.
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“Is this the beginning of the Noth Plan?” Sir Martyn Sharpe held the details of the air raid on Habbaniyah in his hands. “German aircraft bombing one of our airfields.”
“They weren’t German.” Sir Eric Haohoa had some reports of his own. Indian intelligence services had inherited a lot of British assets including a substantial part of MI.6. “What happened is that the Germans sold a lot of their older, obsolete aircraft to Turkey. Mostly Heinkel 111Ps and Messerschmitt 110Cs. It also appears that there is much Turkish sympathy for Sayyad Rashid Aali al-Gillani and were susceptible to large payments in specie from that gentleman who asked in return that some of those aircraft be placed at the disposal of his government. I also have a report that the wreckage of one of those 110s was found a little to the west of the Tigris and it had Turkish Air Force markings, crudely painted out and replaced by Iraqi insignia. By the way, I have a technical addendum to that report that states the 110 was an early production model without armor or self-sealing fuel tanks. That tends to support the rest of the conclusions.”
“Does not Turkish participation point to the Noth Plan starting?” Sir Martyn was being Devil’s Advocate and he knew it. “The great objection to the Noth Plan has always been that it was logistically impossible. The supply lines across Turkey were completely incapable of supporting such operations. But if the Turks are throwing in with the Axis?”
“The plan is still impossible.” General Auchinleck was privately frustrated with the way the Noth Plan kept cropping up in every strategic discussion. Amateurs would just not understand how ridiculous its contents were and how impossible its objectives. “In any case, I would suggest that the air raid yesterday finally discredited the Noth Plan.”
“How so?” Sir Eric was intrigued by the comment and guessed the answer would help him grow into his responsibilities as Cabinet Secretary.
General Auchinleck realized the intent behind the question and phrased his response accordingly. “The attack on Habbaniyah was a small one, hardly more than a pinprick for all the casualties it caused amongst those unfortunate civilians. From our observation of the Germans, we recognize a pattern in his assaults. They are violent, using maximum force against an opponent. They set their enemy back on his heels, condemned to spend their war responding to German initiatives rather than seizing the initiative themselves. The Germans rely on the speed of maneuver to throw their enemy off balance and to dictate the rapidity of the war. If it were indeed the Noth Plan in action, we would expect to see a massive move through Turkey and a sledgehammer blow aimed at our positions, we see none of these things. There are no movements, no developing assault. Habbaniyah has indeed been bombed but there is no follow-up, no attack on our positions. Indeed, the only significant move over the last few hours has been that our troops have entered Baghdad and placed Regent Abd al-llah and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said back in power. Sayyad Rashid Aali had fled to foreign parts; either Turkey or Iran, we are not yet sure. It is not the German way to start a war by engineering a major defeat that places all their plans in jeopardy. Since that is what has happened, we are forced to conclude that they are not starting a war here. Therefore, it follows with consummate logic that the Noth Plan is not taking place. In fact, since the events of the last few weeks have been entirely disadvantageous to German designs had the Noth Plan been adopted, we can equally logically assume that the Noth Plan was never intended to take place.”
“Then what was it?” Nehru sounded confused and apprehensive.
Auchinleck looked very pensive. It was, he reflected, his day for giving lectures on military realities. “Deputy Viceroy, one of the things that military forces do is to create plans for eventualities that may seem unlikely but nevertheless might well happen. Or, if they do not happen, those plans may provide a basis for another situation that we had not anticipated. Also, we create alternative plans for things that we believe are very likely to happen in case the consequences of those developments are very different from those the primary plans envisage. We have, for example, plans to resist a Japanese attack. Several in fact. Some of them envisage our alliance with Thailand holding firm, some do not. We believe that the alliance in question will hold firm, but we still make plans in case it does not. These are our contingency plans.
“I have come to believe that the Noth Plan was one of those contingency plans generated by the Germans to cater for the event of the British position in the Middle East somehow collapsing. The only way the Noth Plan could work was if the British position did collapse completely, leaving a power vacuum behind it. Let us not forget that this did indeed happen – only General Wavell’s resolute and quick reaction forestalled an attempt to fill that power vacuum and instead set the stage for us to do so. The British position in the Middle East is now a Commonwealth position and our Jawans have made sure that a sturdy one it is.
Auchinleck paused at the patter of applause that ran around the Cabinet Room. “The Germans knew we had details of the Noth Plan and appreciated that our quick and decisive action had forestalled it. So, they decided to exploit the Noth Plan even as they abandoned it. They have stirred up the situation in Iraq, they have provided a minimal level of operational support to the Iraqi insurgents, and they created a war for us that distracted our attention away from their real interests. Gentlemen, we got lured into a game of three-card monte and we didn’t realize there was never a queen in the pack.”
“So we got taken.” Sir Eric seemed glum. He was reflecting that his control of the intelligence services seemed to have started with a major blunder.
“In a way, yes. Although it would be more accurate to say that the Germans are playing us at chess, and we have exchanged pieces. He has distracted us from his real intentions and masked his plans, but we have solidified our control over Iraq and lanced a nasty boil there. Nobody now doubts that it is the Commonwealth that now holds the final power in Iraq and that Regent Abd al-llah is our client. These are positive developments for us. The argument now is, how do we exploit them?”
“But the air raid?” Sir Martyn was trying to absorb the sudden change in perspective.
“A part of the diversion and distraction. My assessment is that the purpose of that diversion has now been attained and that the Germans are now withdrawing their assistance from Iraq. That raid was just to keep us busy while they did so.”
“But, if the Iraq business was a strategic diversion, where are the Germans going to strike?” Attorney General, Setalvad was shocked by the way the situation had developed.
Sir Eric Haohoa had the answer to that. “There is only one place they are interested in attacking and that’s the one they have wanted to go the entire time. Russia. Everything they have done to date has been leading up to that. And, if the diversion in Iraq is over, then they must be getting ready to strike, well, now.”
“Assuming that is so, and I find your logic persuasive, how do we exploit these developments?” Nehru was beginning to realize how devious and complex international events were. He also understood how naïve his earlier beliefs had been.
Auchinleck had a ready answer for that. “We know that Vichy France is a German puppet, far more so than the Halifax regime is. We know the air raid was launched from a French Syrian base. We bombed it losing four aircraft, all Marylands, in the process. That would seem to be adequate justification for following up by invading Syria.”
Patrol Ship Enggano, Off Kalimantan, Dutch East Indies
“There she is, Sir. Right on course and time.”
“Very good, Number One. Make signal, Patrol Ship Enggano to Japanese civilian tanker. Please identify and state code letters, cargo, and destination.”
Lieutenant (Third class) Setiawan Cahaya had the signaler send the required message by the signal lamp and read the response. “She is the M/T Hoyo Maru, out of Nagasaki, Captain Saburou Tachibana commanding. She is carrying crude oil from Balikpapan to Nagasaki. Her code letters are MT546. The information is confirmed, Sir, and she does look like the Hoyo Maru. She wishes us good morning, Sir.”
“Humph. Friendly enough. Make signal, Captain Olaf Baart wishes Captain Tachibana a good morning and will be sailing with him while we progress through the channel.”
Cahaya took the message and forwarded it to the signaler. This was a routine exchange, and everybody knew it. Warships, even tiny and inconsequential ones like Enggano did not ask permission to sail with foreign merchantmen in their own country’s waters. Or anywhere else for that matter.
“Response from Hoyo Maru, Sir. She thanks us for the escort and, as a matter of courtesy, advises us she has been fitted with a 10cm gun on her stern. Adds that the gun is unmanned and will not be readied for action while she is in our company.”
Captain and first officer of the Enggano exchanged grins. Baart sounded quite relaxed about the situation which was appropriate. So far everything was very normal and there was no cause for anything more than relaxation. “That makes her better armed than we are. At a guess, she’s really a naval auxiliary tanker but that doesn’t concern us. Make ten knots and take a position about a mile off her port beam. That’ll give us plenty of clearance.”
“Another message, Captain. Captain Tachibana asks if there have been any pirate incidents around here in the last two weeks.”
There were places in the world where the question might have been considered sarcastic, but this wasn’t one of them. Piracy was still endemic in these waters. Pirate attacks were rarely serious, but they happened too frequently for them to be taken lightly. They rarely happened in broad daylight; more usually they involved the target ship being boarded at night and robbed of its strongbox and the crew’s personal possessions. If the target of the attack put up a fight, people might get hurt or killed. It was that sort of attack that Enggano was there to prevent and both ships knew it.
“Check the message logs Number One and find out if we’ve had news of any attacks communicated to us. Signaler, send to Hoyo Maru ‘None here as of last night. Checking message logs for latest situation reports for you.’ Number One, anything of interest?’
“No, Sir. There was an incident last night, but it was off the Sembuni Reefs, about 600 nautical miles from here. A pirate tried to attack a coastal freighter, but the merchant ship radioed for help and a torpedo bomber on patrol strafed the launch. We think our aircraft sank the target.”
“Very good. Signaler, send to Hoyo Maru ‘One attack last night but on the other side of Borneo. Pirate craft sunk by one of our DB-7 torpedo bombers on maritime patrol.’ Good show that, Number One.”
Baart had standing orders. Impress upon the Japanese at every opportunity that there have been major increases in our defense capability since this time last year and we can put up a good, hard fight. And are ready, willing, and able to do so. Then he looked at the message log again. “Another warning. Signaler, tell Hoyo Maru that some naval mines have been discovered off Palembang. We believe they were laid either by a German U-boat or a raider. An Australian minesweeper is clearing them, but they should be on the lookout accordingly. If there are some, there are more.”
There was a long pause and then the signal light onto Hoyo Maru started winking. “Captain Tachibana, Sir. He thanks us for the warning and says we are fortunate that our country has better allies than he has.”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Fourteen
Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London
“It appears that the Commonwealth forces in the Middle East have finally realized the error of their ways.” Foreign Secretary Richard Austen Butler had a ghoulish note of satisfaction in his voice. “They have brought these events on themselves, and I fail to see why we should be concerned about them.”
“RAB, that comment is unconscionable. We may be estranged but these people are our kin.” Dominions Secretary Clement Attlee was furious at the casual way Butler had ignored the escalating situation in Iraq and now appeared almost gleeful at the air raid on Habbaniyah.
“And they appear to be coping with the situation quite well.” Sir John Dill had the latest reports to hand. “It appears that the aircraft carrying out the raid was actually Turkish, operating from an abandoned French airfield in Syria. General Wavell’s forces counter-attacked immediately and bombed that airfield. We have a complaint from the French authorities in Syria about that. They claim that several of their civilians were killed by stray bombs and that almost a dozen of the Turkish aircraft were destroyed. The rest have, apparently, returned to Turkey with their tails between their legs. For all their diplomatic note, I do not sense that the French authorities are seriously concerned and are willing to consider the matter closed.”
“And the Regent Abd al-llah?” Attlee was hardly fond of foreign monarchs but since the British government had put the man in power, he felt a responsibility towards him.
“Back in power. There was considerable rioting in Baghdad last night following some very inflammatory sermons by Moslem clerics. It appears the Iraqis called it the Farhud. Much of the violence was channeled toward the city's Jewish Quarter. Some 120 Jewish residents lost their lives and about 850 were injured before Commonwealth troops, mostly Indian, restored order with live ammunition.” Sir John sighed. “It appears wherever the Germans tread, attacks on the Jews follow. Be that as it may, we believe the Farhud was started to cover the withdrawal and evacuation of German advisors and diplomats from Baghdad. With their departure, we believe that the Iraqi crisis has run its course and the situation has reverted to normal. With the exception, of course, that Iraq now has its previous pro-British orientation replaced by a pro-Commonwealth one.”
Lord Halifax looked around the room. “Are there any other foreign policy issues that need our urgent attention?”
Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne, looked up from his situation report. “At this time, Prime Minister, no. The Foreign Office believes that, with the situation in Iraq slowly winding down, the situation promises to be tranquil for a few weeks at least.”
“Very good. Now, we must move to internal affairs. Sir Edward Bridges, I believe you have some important news for us.”
“I do indeed, Prime Minister. Some weeks ago, we discussed the issue of food rationing and the termination of the rationing system. I am very pleased to report, Sir, that we have found a way of taking some first steps towards this end without interfering with the strategic food reserve program. We can, Prime Minister, start the process of ending rationing now, provided we move slowly and cautiously.”
“That is excellent news, Sir Edward. How do you propose we achieve this desirable end?”
“Prime Minister, ever since our last conversation on this issue, I have had my department investigate possible alternative sources of food imports, particularly those from Europe. In doing so, we noticed something those previous administrations appear to have overlooked. Our taste in food is quite unusual by European standards. Our butter and cheese simply do not taste like dairy products eaten in France, the Netherlands, or Italy. Butter is a key product here. Of all the food rationing constraints, that which the people resent most is the restriction on the purchase and consumption of butter. The Englishman, Prime Minister, is very fond of a little butter on his morning toast and resents it mightily when he cannot have it. In France, the Netherlands, and Denmark, butter made from goat’s milk is commonplace. Some of it is made to their national tastes and would not be acceptable to our people but much of it tastes very similar to the cow’s butter of which our people are so fond. Such butter is unpopular in Europe, and it fetches a very low price. I propose that we buy that butter at above local market prices and sell it here in Britain as an off-the-ration additional supply. Butter is one shilling and sixpence a pound. I suggest we sell our imported goat butter at a shilling a pound for the next eight weeks. People who wish for additional butter will be tempted by the availability and the low price to try the new product. They will find it is similar to the product they know and enjoy, and they will buy more. When the price goes up to the usual one shilling and sixpence, the butter will be effectively off the ration. At the same time, we can continue importing from our usual sources of supply and the surplus can go into store. So, we will both satisfy the demands of the population for an easing of the rationing system while continuing to build up our reserves.”
The applause that swept around the Cabinet Room was thunderous. For a moment, Sir Edward felt the unholy pull of popularity, of being admired and feted. It was seductive indeed and he could sense the temptation to compromise just a little, to surrender just a bit of his moral stand so that the adulation would continue just a bit longer. Yet his upbringing and the stern morality that had been generated in the British public school system made him see the temptation for what it was. There is a reason why pride is one of the seven deadly sins and that stares me in the face right now. My father, God rest his soul, said that the works of the devil were always masked behind a bright glow, but one should never be seduced into forgetting that there was a dark side to that fire. ‘Always beware of the dark side, Eddie. Look for it and beware of its false glamor.’
“Are we sure that people will accept butter made from goat’s milk?” Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary sounded doubtful.
Sir Edwards smiled and then did something that had never been seen in the Cabinet Room. He opened his briefcase and took out a package wrapped in greaseproof paper. It contained sliced fingers of bread, spread with butter. Several of the Cabinet members unconsciously licked their lips. “Try for yourself. This is a sample package brought back from France.”
The package was ceremoniously passed around, each man taking one of the bread fingers and solemnly tasting it. “It is not unlike our own butter. Quite acceptable, I think. Wouldn’t you say so, Herbert?” Lord Halifax dabbed his lip and looked hopefully at the package. Sadly, all the samples had been consumed.
“Most acceptable. I would say people will soon learn to eat this with pleasure. They may even come to prefer it.” Morrison also wiped his lips carefully. “It will go well in your famous pie, my Lord.”
Lord Woolton smiled gently. “Indeed, it will. Sir Edward, you have earned the thanks of every Englishman today. Tell me, could similar arrangements be made for other foods? Cheese perhaps?”
A laugh ran around the table. Lord Woolton, creator of the eponymous pie was a known connoisseur of the finest cheeses.
“Cheese will indeed be our next concern, My Lord.” Sir Edward allowed himself a small glow of satisfaction. “We are adopting the same strategy to fill that need. The hard cheeses the British people prefer are available in Europe and we can procure them as well. The benefits are less than we have achieved by searching for new supplies of butter, but we still have scope for improvement. The same applies to meat; we are the great meat-eaters of Europe, eating 30 percent more meat per capita than Germans. The kind of meat we eat is very different too. Per capita, we eat half as much pork as the Germans but twice the beef and veal, and twenty times the lamb and mutton. The invention of transporting chilled beef in a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere means we can increase beef imports from South America. For the lamb and mutton though I have no answers yet.”
“Sir Edward, I owe you a great apology. Following our previous conversation, I had assumed you were unalterably opposed to my desire to end food rationing, but I now find you have been laboring mightily to make my wishes possible. Our nation does indeed owe you a great debt” Lord Halifax seemed well-pleased, and Sir Edward found himself relaxing. It looks as if we have pulled this sleight of hand off.
“There is another advantage to this scheme.” Sir Howard Kingsley Wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been following the debate with growing interest. “An unforeseen result of the rationing regime is that people have been unable to spend a significant proportion of their income. The war economy has inflated their incomes, but rationing has removed the items on which to spend their new wealth. The result is that the rate of savings in this country has increased significantly. In the short and medium-term, this is not a serious issue and indeed has many advantages. But, it also poses long-term problems of great concern. Sir Edward’s hard work has offered us a solution. The substitution of products bought from nearby markets for those once obtained from the Empire provides the population with something they can purchase. I presume we will be selling the new products at a significant profit?”
“Of course.” Sir Edward’s dry response caused a ripple of laughter around the meeting.
“Then I see only one problem. Thanks to the Commonwealth of Nations and their new Sovereign backed by South African gold, the pound sterling is no longer a convertible currency. Our own gold reserves have declined to low levels and the process of their revival is a slow one. How then do we pay for these supplies? We will be regaining the money from our population in sterling, but we must make the payments in gold. It is the same problem that we faced a year ago; we have plentiful financial resources, but they are in the wrong place and of the wrong kind.”
“I think we have a solution to that particular problem.” John Moore-Brabazon, Minister of Aircraft Production was thoughtful. “Due to the efforts of my predecessor in this position, our capacity for aircraft production was greatly increased to meet the demands of the war. Now we are at peace, we no longer have the capacity to absorb that increased production within our own forces. However, the same increased production capacity allows us to export aircraft to willing customers all over Europe. In the last few weeks, we have won, subject to Cabinet approval, of course, an export order from Spain for one hundred Spitfire Mark III aircraft. This is a Spitfire Mk.II powered by a Daimler Benz DB601B engine and its eight .303 machine guns replaced by eight 7.92mm machine guns. Other changes include replacing the Spitfire instruments with German types and to change the 12-volt electrical system to the German 24-volt type. Other than the engine change, these are minor changes. The Portuguese Air Force is asking for 24 aircraft of the same type, and we are being approached by Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia for modified aircraft of that type. We also have an order awaiting Cabinet approval for two hundred Wellington bombers from Italy.”
There was another thunderous burst of applause from the assembled Cabinet interspersed with cries of “bravo!” Lord Halifax and Richard Butler were positively beaming.
“I move the sales outlined be approved.” RAB managed to get the proposal out through the applause.
“If I might just resolve two points?” Kingsley Wood had raised one finger. “I understand the Spitfires are being fitted with German Daimler-Benz engines. How are we obtaining those? And what engines will power the Italian Wellingtons?”
“We have massive orders for material from Germany, most especially for Lorries. The value of those orders far exceeds the cost of the engines we will need, and we have agreed to take the engines in part payment of those debts. The Italian Wellingtons will be delivered without engines and receive Italian engines after delivery.”
“Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania are all German allies. Why did they not order German aircraft?”
“German production lines are fully committed to producing aircraft for German requirements. They have no spare capacity for aircraft although their supply of Daimler Benz engines does exceed demand. Gentlemen, German aircraft production is nowhere near as well organized like our own. Indeed, our potential fighter production is almost two and a half times that of theirs. Germany cannot supply export customers, we can. It is as easy as that.”
Kingsley Wood looked around at the Cabinet and sensed the unease his words had caused. He could read some of the thoughts. If our fighter production is so much higher than theirs, what need was there for the Armistice a year ago? With that thought firmly planted, it was time to move on. “I second the Foreign Secretary’s motion. Do we have approval for these orders?”
“Aye.” The cry around the room was overwhelming and there was only silence when the “nay” vote was requested.
Lord Halifax took the lead in announcing the result. “Cabinet approval for all the listed orders is granted. With that, I propose we conclude this most successful of Cabinet meetings. Gentlemen, I think we can say that we have turned the corner and finally left the shadow of the ill-considered war behind us.”
Office of the Cabinet Secretary, Whitehall, UK.
Sir Edward Bridges opened his cocktail cabinet and, with a shaking hand, poured a large glass of single malt whisky. He downed it and then poured himself another. The complex chain of deals had been achieved and its results, if they ever came out, could easily make him a traitor in Halifax’s eyes. The fact that Sir Edward considered Halifax himself to be treasonous was of little account in that respect. The noose that, for a whole year, Sir Edward had seen approaching him was now dangerously close.
The concept is elegant. Spain, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania are all German allies. When Germany invades Russia, the last three would certainly be German co-belligerents sooner or later. Spain? Possibly, but the more truer neutrals like Italy that are involved the better. They blur the truth of what is happening. In any case, Germany needs its allies well-armed, yet its own factories cannot supply the needed equipment. So, they give those allies gold looted from Germany’s conquests in 1940 to buy equipment from British factories. Especially aircraft, the most vitally needed of all. We then use that gold to buy foodstuffs from other European countries. Or at least, some of it. Buried within the purchases from Europe . . . no that isn’t quite right . . . a major proportion of those allegedly European purchases are coming from Australia and New Zealand via Italy. In effect, we are paying for British food reserves with German looted gold. In doing so, we are funneling desperately needed gold to the Commonwealth. We are tricking Germany into financially supporting its enemies. I do not think the Fuhrer will like that when he finally finds out.
There is another factor to this. Hitler will soon be invading Russia. Everybody except Halifax and Butler knows that. The invasion is possibly only hours away, it may be days, but it certainly will not be weeks from now. When it happens, we will be a major arms supplier to Germany and its allies. In effect, we will be seen around the world as a German ally ourselves. That will be the final nail in the gravestone of our international reputation. We will become part of the German alliance and as part, open to attack along with the rest. When the Americans finally come in, as soon they must, we will be high on their target list. Any assault on German-occupied Europe must first start with the invasion of Great Britain. The Canadians may like to talk about liberating us, but they do not have the power to do so. Only the Americans have. So, freeing Britain from Halifax and his clique means bringing about an American invasion and we have just taken a giant step in that direction.
Once again, Sir Edward Bridges refilled his whisky glass and sat in the slowly-growing gloom of dusk, contemplating the moral position of a man who could only save the country he loved by masterminding its ostracism, invasion, and defeat.
Saint John Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Churchill, Novia Scotia.
“It was all a matter of reducing our street maintenance costs.” William Edward Donovan, Mayor of Churchill, Nova Scotia was being quite serious.
“I don’t understand.” Pilot Officer Digby Dale looked at his host a little suspiciously. Donovan had a reputation for pulling his guest’s legs.
“When the city bore the same name as That Man, everybody spat on the pavement after using it. The streets were disgusting, spit on them everywhere. People got it on their shoes and trod it into their carpets at home. Complaints were dreadful, piles of them in every office. We were washing down the pavement every day and still, the complaints came in. So, we changed the city’s name to Churchill. Problem solved, no more filthy streets, everybody happy again.”
“And you may not believe him, Pilot Officer, but it’s the God’s own truth. I’m Charlot Robitaille, the engineer in charge of this project. For God’s sake, please don’t tell any naval designers what we’ve done here. We broke almost every rule in the book and then some.”
“Your secrets will be safe with me,” Dale promised. He looked at the ship anchored offshore. The American Navy has supplied the Canadians with a catapult originally allocated to one of their new six-inch cruisers. Allegedly at least, payment for the catapult had been in crates of Forty Creek Whisky. The catapult had arrived in the morning, it had been craned over onto the merchant ship SS Empire Foam by midday and the repair yard workers had been welding it in place by late afternoon. There was a thin line between the men in the repair yard and the men who took the ships to sea. They knew each other well and in many cases were from the same families. The repairmen had seen the ships that had survived the deadly attentions of the Kondors and the U-boats and knew this was a serious shot at an answer.
“You’re a brave man, Pilot Officer. I wouldn’t want to fly a Hurricane off that contraption,” Robitaille paused, “It is a Hurricane, isn’t it?”
“It’s a Hurry-can. A Hurricane with an R-1830 engine. That one’s a prototype. The production version will be called the Seacane.”
“How are you going to get it on the catapult? The American system isn’t compatible with ours.”
“We have a cradle that fits the American catapult, and the top side of the cradle fits the bottom of the Hurry-can. On launch, the cradle goes into the sea. So will the Hurry-can eventually. The idea is we nail a Kondor first.”
“As I said, you’re a brave man, Pilot Officer. My family will ask for your safety in their prayers every night until you get back.”
“Thank you. I’ll make a point of letting you know how things go.” Dale watched the first of the two Hurry-cans being lifted on board. One was the prototype he had been flying, the other was a fresh conversion just out of the factory. The Seacanes that would follow were to be more extensive conversions; no undercarriage at all to save weight, most of the armor removed for the same reason. More fuel. A naval-compatible radio and a location beacon. His own aircraft had none of those changes.
But, it was available and that was critical. Empire Foam would be part of the escort for a major convoy going to the Middle East. That convoy was carrying military trucks, Valentine tanks, and munitions. The route took the ships to South Africa and then up the African coast to Iraq. The situation there might have cooled down but there was a lot of unfinished business in that area.
Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London
“It appears that the Commonwealth forces in the Middle East have finally realized the error of their ways.” Foreign Secretary Richard Austen Butler had a ghoulish note of satisfaction in his voice. “They have brought these events on themselves, and I fail to see why we should be concerned about them.”
“RAB, that comment is unconscionable. We may be estranged but these people are our kin.” Dominions Secretary Clement Attlee was furious at the casual way Butler had ignored the escalating situation in Iraq and now appeared almost gleeful at the air raid on Habbaniyah.
“And they appear to be coping with the situation quite well.” Sir John Dill had the latest reports to hand. “It appears that the aircraft carrying out the raid was actually Turkish, operating from an abandoned French airfield in Syria. General Wavell’s forces counter-attacked immediately and bombed that airfield. We have a complaint from the French authorities in Syria about that. They claim that several of their civilians were killed by stray bombs and that almost a dozen of the Turkish aircraft were destroyed. The rest have, apparently, returned to Turkey with their tails between their legs. For all their diplomatic note, I do not sense that the French authorities are seriously concerned and are willing to consider the matter closed.”
“And the Regent Abd al-llah?” Attlee was hardly fond of foreign monarchs but since the British government had put the man in power, he felt a responsibility towards him.
“Back in power. There was considerable rioting in Baghdad last night following some very inflammatory sermons by Moslem clerics. It appears the Iraqis called it the Farhud. Much of the violence was channeled toward the city's Jewish Quarter. Some 120 Jewish residents lost their lives and about 850 were injured before Commonwealth troops, mostly Indian, restored order with live ammunition.” Sir John sighed. “It appears wherever the Germans tread, attacks on the Jews follow. Be that as it may, we believe the Farhud was started to cover the withdrawal and evacuation of German advisors and diplomats from Baghdad. With their departure, we believe that the Iraqi crisis has run its course and the situation has reverted to normal. With the exception, of course, that Iraq now has its previous pro-British orientation replaced by a pro-Commonwealth one.”
Lord Halifax looked around the room. “Are there any other foreign policy issues that need our urgent attention?”
Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne, looked up from his situation report. “At this time, Prime Minister, no. The Foreign Office believes that, with the situation in Iraq slowly winding down, the situation promises to be tranquil for a few weeks at least.”
“Very good. Now, we must move to internal affairs. Sir Edward Bridges, I believe you have some important news for us.”
“I do indeed, Prime Minister. Some weeks ago, we discussed the issue of food rationing and the termination of the rationing system. I am very pleased to report, Sir, that we have found a way of taking some first steps towards this end without interfering with the strategic food reserve program. We can, Prime Minister, start the process of ending rationing now, provided we move slowly and cautiously.”
“That is excellent news, Sir Edward. How do you propose we achieve this desirable end?”
“Prime Minister, ever since our last conversation on this issue, I have had my department investigate possible alternative sources of food imports, particularly those from Europe. In doing so, we noticed something those previous administrations appear to have overlooked. Our taste in food is quite unusual by European standards. Our butter and cheese simply do not taste like dairy products eaten in France, the Netherlands, or Italy. Butter is a key product here. Of all the food rationing constraints, that which the people resent most is the restriction on the purchase and consumption of butter. The Englishman, Prime Minister, is very fond of a little butter on his morning toast and resents it mightily when he cannot have it. In France, the Netherlands, and Denmark, butter made from goat’s milk is commonplace. Some of it is made to their national tastes and would not be acceptable to our people but much of it tastes very similar to the cow’s butter of which our people are so fond. Such butter is unpopular in Europe, and it fetches a very low price. I propose that we buy that butter at above local market prices and sell it here in Britain as an off-the-ration additional supply. Butter is one shilling and sixpence a pound. I suggest we sell our imported goat butter at a shilling a pound for the next eight weeks. People who wish for additional butter will be tempted by the availability and the low price to try the new product. They will find it is similar to the product they know and enjoy, and they will buy more. When the price goes up to the usual one shilling and sixpence, the butter will be effectively off the ration. At the same time, we can continue importing from our usual sources of supply and the surplus can go into store. So, we will both satisfy the demands of the population for an easing of the rationing system while continuing to build up our reserves.”
The applause that swept around the Cabinet Room was thunderous. For a moment, Sir Edward felt the unholy pull of popularity, of being admired and feted. It was seductive indeed and he could sense the temptation to compromise just a little, to surrender just a bit of his moral stand so that the adulation would continue just a bit longer. Yet his upbringing and the stern morality that had been generated in the British public school system made him see the temptation for what it was. There is a reason why pride is one of the seven deadly sins and that stares me in the face right now. My father, God rest his soul, said that the works of the devil were always masked behind a bright glow, but one should never be seduced into forgetting that there was a dark side to that fire. ‘Always beware of the dark side, Eddie. Look for it and beware of its false glamor.’
“Are we sure that people will accept butter made from goat’s milk?” Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary sounded doubtful.
Sir Edwards smiled and then did something that had never been seen in the Cabinet Room. He opened his briefcase and took out a package wrapped in greaseproof paper. It contained sliced fingers of bread, spread with butter. Several of the Cabinet members unconsciously licked their lips. “Try for yourself. This is a sample package brought back from France.”
The package was ceremoniously passed around, each man taking one of the bread fingers and solemnly tasting it. “It is not unlike our own butter. Quite acceptable, I think. Wouldn’t you say so, Herbert?” Lord Halifax dabbed his lip and looked hopefully at the package. Sadly, all the samples had been consumed.
“Most acceptable. I would say people will soon learn to eat this with pleasure. They may even come to prefer it.” Morrison also wiped his lips carefully. “It will go well in your famous pie, my Lord.”
Lord Woolton smiled gently. “Indeed, it will. Sir Edward, you have earned the thanks of every Englishman today. Tell me, could similar arrangements be made for other foods? Cheese perhaps?”
A laugh ran around the table. Lord Woolton, creator of the eponymous pie was a known connoisseur of the finest cheeses.
“Cheese will indeed be our next concern, My Lord.” Sir Edward allowed himself a small glow of satisfaction. “We are adopting the same strategy to fill that need. The hard cheeses the British people prefer are available in Europe and we can procure them as well. The benefits are less than we have achieved by searching for new supplies of butter, but we still have scope for improvement. The same applies to meat; we are the great meat-eaters of Europe, eating 30 percent more meat per capita than Germans. The kind of meat we eat is very different too. Per capita, we eat half as much pork as the Germans but twice the beef and veal, and twenty times the lamb and mutton. The invention of transporting chilled beef in a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere means we can increase beef imports from South America. For the lamb and mutton though I have no answers yet.”
“Sir Edward, I owe you a great apology. Following our previous conversation, I had assumed you were unalterably opposed to my desire to end food rationing, but I now find you have been laboring mightily to make my wishes possible. Our nation does indeed owe you a great debt” Lord Halifax seemed well-pleased, and Sir Edward found himself relaxing. It looks as if we have pulled this sleight of hand off.
“There is another advantage to this scheme.” Sir Howard Kingsley Wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been following the debate with growing interest. “An unforeseen result of the rationing regime is that people have been unable to spend a significant proportion of their income. The war economy has inflated their incomes, but rationing has removed the items on which to spend their new wealth. The result is that the rate of savings in this country has increased significantly. In the short and medium-term, this is not a serious issue and indeed has many advantages. But, it also poses long-term problems of great concern. Sir Edward’s hard work has offered us a solution. The substitution of products bought from nearby markets for those once obtained from the Empire provides the population with something they can purchase. I presume we will be selling the new products at a significant profit?”
“Of course.” Sir Edward’s dry response caused a ripple of laughter around the meeting.
“Then I see only one problem. Thanks to the Commonwealth of Nations and their new Sovereign backed by South African gold, the pound sterling is no longer a convertible currency. Our own gold reserves have declined to low levels and the process of their revival is a slow one. How then do we pay for these supplies? We will be regaining the money from our population in sterling, but we must make the payments in gold. It is the same problem that we faced a year ago; we have plentiful financial resources, but they are in the wrong place and of the wrong kind.”
“I think we have a solution to that particular problem.” John Moore-Brabazon, Minister of Aircraft Production was thoughtful. “Due to the efforts of my predecessor in this position, our capacity for aircraft production was greatly increased to meet the demands of the war. Now we are at peace, we no longer have the capacity to absorb that increased production within our own forces. However, the same increased production capacity allows us to export aircraft to willing customers all over Europe. In the last few weeks, we have won, subject to Cabinet approval, of course, an export order from Spain for one hundred Spitfire Mark III aircraft. This is a Spitfire Mk.II powered by a Daimler Benz DB601B engine and its eight .303 machine guns replaced by eight 7.92mm machine guns. Other changes include replacing the Spitfire instruments with German types and to change the 12-volt electrical system to the German 24-volt type. Other than the engine change, these are minor changes. The Portuguese Air Force is asking for 24 aircraft of the same type, and we are being approached by Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia for modified aircraft of that type. We also have an order awaiting Cabinet approval for two hundred Wellington bombers from Italy.”
There was another thunderous burst of applause from the assembled Cabinet interspersed with cries of “bravo!” Lord Halifax and Richard Butler were positively beaming.
“I move the sales outlined be approved.” RAB managed to get the proposal out through the applause.
“If I might just resolve two points?” Kingsley Wood had raised one finger. “I understand the Spitfires are being fitted with German Daimler-Benz engines. How are we obtaining those? And what engines will power the Italian Wellingtons?”
“We have massive orders for material from Germany, most especially for Lorries. The value of those orders far exceeds the cost of the engines we will need, and we have agreed to take the engines in part payment of those debts. The Italian Wellingtons will be delivered without engines and receive Italian engines after delivery.”
“Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania are all German allies. Why did they not order German aircraft?”
“German production lines are fully committed to producing aircraft for German requirements. They have no spare capacity for aircraft although their supply of Daimler Benz engines does exceed demand. Gentlemen, German aircraft production is nowhere near as well organized like our own. Indeed, our potential fighter production is almost two and a half times that of theirs. Germany cannot supply export customers, we can. It is as easy as that.”
Kingsley Wood looked around at the Cabinet and sensed the unease his words had caused. He could read some of the thoughts. If our fighter production is so much higher than theirs, what need was there for the Armistice a year ago? With that thought firmly planted, it was time to move on. “I second the Foreign Secretary’s motion. Do we have approval for these orders?”
“Aye.” The cry around the room was overwhelming and there was only silence when the “nay” vote was requested.
Lord Halifax took the lead in announcing the result. “Cabinet approval for all the listed orders is granted. With that, I propose we conclude this most successful of Cabinet meetings. Gentlemen, I think we can say that we have turned the corner and finally left the shadow of the ill-considered war behind us.”
Office of the Cabinet Secretary, Whitehall, UK.
Sir Edward Bridges opened his cocktail cabinet and, with a shaking hand, poured a large glass of single malt whisky. He downed it and then poured himself another. The complex chain of deals had been achieved and its results, if they ever came out, could easily make him a traitor in Halifax’s eyes. The fact that Sir Edward considered Halifax himself to be treasonous was of little account in that respect. The noose that, for a whole year, Sir Edward had seen approaching him was now dangerously close.
The concept is elegant. Spain, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania are all German allies. When Germany invades Russia, the last three would certainly be German co-belligerents sooner or later. Spain? Possibly, but the more truer neutrals like Italy that are involved the better. They blur the truth of what is happening. In any case, Germany needs its allies well-armed, yet its own factories cannot supply the needed equipment. So, they give those allies gold looted from Germany’s conquests in 1940 to buy equipment from British factories. Especially aircraft, the most vitally needed of all. We then use that gold to buy foodstuffs from other European countries. Or at least, some of it. Buried within the purchases from Europe . . . no that isn’t quite right . . . a major proportion of those allegedly European purchases are coming from Australia and New Zealand via Italy. In effect, we are paying for British food reserves with German looted gold. In doing so, we are funneling desperately needed gold to the Commonwealth. We are tricking Germany into financially supporting its enemies. I do not think the Fuhrer will like that when he finally finds out.
There is another factor to this. Hitler will soon be invading Russia. Everybody except Halifax and Butler knows that. The invasion is possibly only hours away, it may be days, but it certainly will not be weeks from now. When it happens, we will be a major arms supplier to Germany and its allies. In effect, we will be seen around the world as a German ally ourselves. That will be the final nail in the gravestone of our international reputation. We will become part of the German alliance and as part, open to attack along with the rest. When the Americans finally come in, as soon they must, we will be high on their target list. Any assault on German-occupied Europe must first start with the invasion of Great Britain. The Canadians may like to talk about liberating us, but they do not have the power to do so. Only the Americans have. So, freeing Britain from Halifax and his clique means bringing about an American invasion and we have just taken a giant step in that direction.
Once again, Sir Edward Bridges refilled his whisky glass and sat in the slowly-growing gloom of dusk, contemplating the moral position of a man who could only save the country he loved by masterminding its ostracism, invasion, and defeat.
Saint John Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Churchill, Novia Scotia.
“It was all a matter of reducing our street maintenance costs.” William Edward Donovan, Mayor of Churchill, Nova Scotia was being quite serious.
“I don’t understand.” Pilot Officer Digby Dale looked at his host a little suspiciously. Donovan had a reputation for pulling his guest’s legs.
“When the city bore the same name as That Man, everybody spat on the pavement after using it. The streets were disgusting, spit on them everywhere. People got it on their shoes and trod it into their carpets at home. Complaints were dreadful, piles of them in every office. We were washing down the pavement every day and still, the complaints came in. So, we changed the city’s name to Churchill. Problem solved, no more filthy streets, everybody happy again.”
“And you may not believe him, Pilot Officer, but it’s the God’s own truth. I’m Charlot Robitaille, the engineer in charge of this project. For God’s sake, please don’t tell any naval designers what we’ve done here. We broke almost every rule in the book and then some.”
“Your secrets will be safe with me,” Dale promised. He looked at the ship anchored offshore. The American Navy has supplied the Canadians with a catapult originally allocated to one of their new six-inch cruisers. Allegedly at least, payment for the catapult had been in crates of Forty Creek Whisky. The catapult had arrived in the morning, it had been craned over onto the merchant ship SS Empire Foam by midday and the repair yard workers had been welding it in place by late afternoon. There was a thin line between the men in the repair yard and the men who took the ships to sea. They knew each other well and in many cases were from the same families. The repairmen had seen the ships that had survived the deadly attentions of the Kondors and the U-boats and knew this was a serious shot at an answer.
“You’re a brave man, Pilot Officer. I wouldn’t want to fly a Hurricane off that contraption,” Robitaille paused, “It is a Hurricane, isn’t it?”
“It’s a Hurry-can. A Hurricane with an R-1830 engine. That one’s a prototype. The production version will be called the Seacane.”
“How are you going to get it on the catapult? The American system isn’t compatible with ours.”
“We have a cradle that fits the American catapult, and the top side of the cradle fits the bottom of the Hurry-can. On launch, the cradle goes into the sea. So will the Hurry-can eventually. The idea is we nail a Kondor first.”
“As I said, you’re a brave man, Pilot Officer. My family will ask for your safety in their prayers every night until you get back.”
“Thank you. I’ll make a point of letting you know how things go.” Dale watched the first of the two Hurry-cans being lifted on board. One was the prototype he had been flying, the other was a fresh conversion just out of the factory. The Seacanes that would follow were to be more extensive conversions; no undercarriage at all to save weight, most of the armor removed for the same reason. More fuel. A naval-compatible radio and a location beacon. His own aircraft had none of those changes.
But, it was available and that was critical. Empire Foam would be part of the escort for a major convoy going to the Middle East. That convoy was carrying military trucks, Valentine tanks, and munitions. The route took the ships to South Africa and then up the African coast to Iraq. The situation there might have cooled down but there was a lot of unfinished business in that area.
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Fifteen
Headquarters, Artillery Regiment 171, 71st Infantry Division, Hrebenne, Poland, May 15, 1941
The pre-dawn chill seemed particularly penetrating at 0255 on the morning of May 15th. Captain Heinrich Asbach guessed that the all-pervading damp caused by several days of continuous rain had much to do with that. He also knew that the feeling of cold also reflected the knowledge that another war was just a few minutes away. This one would be different from the campaigns in Poland, Belgium, and France. There, they could see their objectives, metaphorically if not literally. They were tangible, the routes to them could be visualized and plans for their conquest set. This war would be different; the objectives were remote and the means by which they might be attained vague. Asbach almost hated maps now; they showed just how far German forces had to advance and how minor had their achievements to date been in comparison. It was more than twice as far from Berlin to Moscow as it was from Berlin to Paris. He had a mental picture of the German Army launching its assault on Russia, disappearing into the Russian hinterland and never being seen again, swallowed by the vastness of the Russian steppes.
“Two minutes to go. Have you read the order of the day from General Hoepner? ‘The purpose of the struggle is the ruination of Russia, so it must be conducted with unprecedented brutality. Above all, show no mercy to the representatives of the current Russian Bolshevist system’. We had better win this one, Heinrich. If we don’t, the Russians will kill us all, to the last man, woman, and child.”
Colonel Klaus Marcks looked at his watch. Every timepiece in the division had been carefully synchronized. Artillery Regiment 171 had a mixed artillery battalion with a battery of four K-18 100mm guns and two batteries each of four sFH-18 150mm howitzers. The other two battalions of the regiment each had twelve 105mm lFH-18 howitzers. Initially, at least, the 10.5s were assigned to fire on targets on the border itself and within Rava Russkaya. Their participation wouldn’t be for long; the battalions were to follow the infantry into the town and provide close support and their teams of horses would already be waiting to be hitched to the guns. The 10 cm guns would be interdicting the road leading into Rava Russkaya to prevent the border troops from being reinforced while the 15cm guns were targeting the border patrol’s barracks and supply depots.
“One minute.” Marcks was staring at his watch, his bottom lip folded between his teeth. “Good luck, Heinrich. May you return to the fatherland safely.”
“Thank you, Sir. And may you do the same.”
The brilliant flash of light seemed to envelop them as, precisely at 0300, more than 90 percent of the German Army’s entire artillery park opened fire. Asbach had a strange mental picture of himself, poised dozens, hundreds of miles in the air looking down on the Russian border lined with fire as more than 7,200 artillery pieces rained shells along the 2,900 kilometers of what had suddenly become the Russian Front. His mental picture showed the brilliant flicker of lights inside Russia as the avalanche of shells descended on their targets. If all were done well, the 3.8 million German troops waiting in their jump-off positions would have a great boost for their assault on the frontier positions.
Then, his vision was shattered by the roar of the guns. The crash of the guns and howitzers overwhelmed everything else, seeming to pound the very air that surrounded them into submission. Marcks and Asbach felt the hot winds caused by the artillery fire washing over them. They knew the gunners would be serving their pieces with something that would be very close to a frenzy. Everybody knew it was the first few minutes of the barrage that did the most damage and the more shells poured onto a target in those minutes, the easier would be the task facing the infantry.
Asbach looked at his watch. “Oh-three-oh five Klaus, one hour and thirty-four minutes to dawn. Barbarossa has started.”
Railway Bridge, Rava Russkaya, USSR
The first shots traded on Soviet soil resounded in the dark of night while the German gunners were still waiting to fire their pieces at their assigned targets. A group of troops from SS Jägdverband 502, led by SS-Untersturmführer Kriegsheim had changed into Red Army uniforms before crossing the border from Hrebenne. Their task was to prevent the destruction of a railway bridge that threatened to block the road leading to Rava Russkaya. The railway itself ran parallel to the border but was in a deep cutting that would make an excellent defensive position if the bridge were blown. A critical part of the initial assault plan was to rush large groups of mechanized forces, tanks in the lead with motorized units following them, as deep into Soviet territory as they could in order to create as much chaos in Red Army ranks as possible. Their hope was that they could deliver a devastating opening blow by first concentrating, and then unleashing, a mass of men, machines, and materiel against the Soviet border guards and their ‘covering’ battalions. If the Soviet forces could hold long enough, then the plan would fall apart from the start. And so it was that Kriegsheim’s unit, eight men in all, walked down the road towards the bridge in a straggling group that gave a strong suggestion of a night’s leave well spent. They were shouting at each other in Russian, something that gave a distinct air of authenticity to the performance.
The performance was certainly convincing and Kriegsheim heard the jeers and jokes coming from the handful of men in the Soviet border guard post. It would be good to understand them he thought, but the instructors only taught us a basic stock of Russian words and I lost track of what the Ivans were saying almost immediately.
It was a lack of knowledge that he almost immediately regretted. As he and his men approached the guard post, the Russian exchanges trailed away. Kriegsheim attributed it to the instant respect for the approaching officers and completely ignored the sudden suspicion that had taken hold of the Russian troops. He would have ignored the rifle shot that broke the distrustful silence. It was the first hostile shot of the Russo-German war and it struck SS-Untersturmführer Walter Kriegsheim square in the forehead, making him the first German soldier to die in Operation Barbarossa.
That shot left no doubt at all that the men from SS Jägdverband 502 had been spotted and a fierce firefight broke out. Rifles and submachine guns left more than a dozen men sprawled on the ground, a tiny engagement in comparison with what was to come. The border guard actually held off the SS men for a few minutes but, their ammunition started to run low. The SS force was already starting to work around their defensive position and small groups of the German force were attempting to breach the border at alternative spots. It took longer than planned and cost many more men than had been envisaged but the SS Jägdverband 502 eventually succeeded in capturing the bridge intact. All along the border, the hundreds of small detachments infiltrating the Russian defenses ahead of the main Wehrmacht forces were experiencing the same thing. They succeeded in gaining their objectives, but the Russians were fighting harder than expected.
18th Special Artillery-Machine-Gun Battalion, Rava Russkaya, USSR
“Sergeant, how did you know they were Germans?”
Sergeant Vladimir Osaulenko had been the first to see the group of seven or eight soldiers approach them. He had been suspicious of them, right from the start. They had known the right passwords, that was certain, but their leader, wearing the uniform of a Junior Lieutenant, had shouted out that he had orders concerning a combat task for them. As they had come closer, Osaulenko had realized that they could not possibly be Russian troops. He had shouted out “what are you talking about, you bastard?’ and shot their leader with his rifle. Now he had to explain why while he and his men fell back to the main border positions.
“Tovarish Lieutenant, we were warned that there would be many spies and saboteurs. I saw that these men were dressed in our new uniform, mainly reserved for captains and majors. None of that stuff has reached us here yet. All of their equipment, uniforms, weapons, boots were brand-new stuff – unlike ours – so that gave them away on the spot.”
The Border Guard Lieutenant was about to commend his Sergeant for his vigilance when the whole frontier behind him suddenly lit up in a seemingly endless burst of lightning. Overhead the howl of the inbound artillery was all the warning he and his men needed to take cover. Ahead of them, the positions occupied by the Border Guards seemed to dissolve in the torrent of artillery fire that descended on them.
Sergeant Osaulenko wormed his way deep into a convenient ditch and tried to ignore the whining noise of fragments sweeping over his head. He knew one thing very clearly, the Great Patriotic War had started.
German Auxiliary Cruiser Schiff 28, “Michel” North Atlantic.
“All hands! All Hands! The communications office has just received the following message from the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.
“National Socialists! Today, I have adopted the only attitude that I could adopt as the responsible leader of the German Reich, but also a conscientiously responsible representative of European culture and civilization. We have seen activity in Soviet Russia directed against the Reich, including ever-increasing numbers of Russian tank detachments and parachute troops in dangerous proximity to the German frontier. The German armed forces and the German homeland know that until a few weeks ago not a single German tank or motorized division was stationed on our eastern frontier.
“Thus Moscow not only broke but miserably betrayed the stipulations of our friendship treaty. All this was done while the rulers in the Kremlin up to the last moment pretended peace and friendship and issued seemingly harmless denials. Although I have been obliged by circumstances, again and again, to keep silent, the moment has now come when to continue as a mere observer would not only be a sin of omission but a crime against the German people -- yes, even against the whole of Europe.
“Today something like 160 Russian divisions is standing at our frontier. For weeks there have been constant violations of this frontier, not only affecting us but also in the far north, as well as Romania. Russian airmen consider it sport nonchalantly to overlook these frontiers, presumably to prove to us that they already feel themselves masters of these territories. During the night of May 14 to 15 Russian patrols again penetrated Reich territory and could only be driven back after a prolonged exchange of fire. This has brought us to the hour when it is necessary for us to counter this plot of Jewish warmongers and equally the Jewish rulers of the Bolshevik center in Moscow.
“German people! At this moment a deployment of forces is taking place that, in its extent and scope, is the greatest the world hitherto has seen. United with their Finnish comrades, the fighters of the victory of Narvik are standing in the Northern Arctic. German divisions commanded by the conqueror of Norway, together with the heroes of Finnish freedom under their Marshal, are protecting Finnish soil. Formations of the German eastern front extend from East Prussia to the Carpathians. German and Romanian soldiers are united under Chief of State Antonescu from the banks of the Prut along the lower reaches of the Danube to the shores of the Black Sea.
“The task of this front, therefore, is not merely the protection of individual countries, but the safeguarding of Europe, and thereby the salvation of all. I, therefore, decided today to once again lay the fate and future of the German Reich and our people in the hands of our soldiers.
“May the Lord God help us, especially in this fight!”
Captain von Ruckteschell put down the microphone, made sure it was off then turned to his officers. “We were issued sealed orders to be opened when this happened. Those orders instruct us to add Russian ships to the list of those that may be sunk on sight. Other than that, our mission to interdict Commonwealth supply lines remains in force. We are cautioned that, since Commonwealth and Soviet forces are now allied, we should especially interdict any cargoes apparently headed for Soviet-controlled ports. See to it, gentlemen. Start intensive battle drills and make sure every man on board is properly skilled at his task. Whatever Berlin may believe, this will not be an easy war.”
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“Thank God. The Commonwealth is no longer alone.” Gerald Tarrant, Private Secretary to the Viceroy was firmly of the opinion that he would be able to sleep soundly for the first time in many, many months.
“The Russians are in for a bad few months.” General Auchinleck had studied the likely course of a German attack on Russia intensively. “They’re going to lose a lot of ground and a lot of men in those months. The Germans will try and strike deep to destroy the Russian Army in a string of encirclement battles along the frontier. We can expect to see large-scale armored attacks intended to push through the border defenses and seize as much strategic territory as possible. I can see one major problem developing for the Germans right now; the speech from Berlin referred to 160 Russian divisions grouped along the border. That is about half the total Russian Army. When the Russians call up their reserve units, that number will double again. The German has severely underestimated his opponent, an elementary error he will live to regret.”
“What can we do to help the Russians?” The Marquess of Linlithgow had never quite believed he would use those words.
“Everything within our power of course. We are allies now.” Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru beamed at the thunderous applause that met his remark.
“I think we have unanimous agreement on that point.” The Marquess of Linlithgow had a more serious question to ask. “The problem is, what lies within our power? Our armed forces are small compared with the titanic conflict now opening in Russia; if we sent every man, every tank, and every aircraft we possess it would be but a drop in the ocean, and they would be swallowed up without a trace. In any case, our available forces are fully committed to Iraq and the Middle East. Is there something we can do from there?”
Group Captain George Baldwin coughed deferentially. This was the first Cabinet meeting he had been asked to address as acting head of the Indian Air Force. “We have come up with a plan to make a token effort to aid the Russians but even token is overstating its effect. There are eight Wellington bombers in Iraq. They have the range to fly, with a full bomb load, to an airbase in the Crimea. Once they have refueled there, they can attack a target in German hands, return to their base in Crimea, refuel and return home. That would be a three-day, 2,000-mile flight to deliver 16 tons of bombs to a target. I would suggest that, unless there is an overwhelming political reason to carry out this raid, we seek a more productive way of supporting our new ally.”
“May I point out that the Germans are advancing inexorably eastwards. Lending the Russians material aid will become easier and more valuable as he closes upon us. In the meantime, there are things the Russians will require much more than a small force of infantry or a few bombers. Soon, they will lose their great breadbasket in Ukraine. The Germans will take the food they have yet to harvest and then the reserves they have put into storage. We must think about how we are to help them feed their population for I am certain the Germans will not.” Auchinleck suddenly looked very old. “Gentlemen, I greatly fear that we are seeing the start of what may well become a famine of catastrophic proportions and I believe that it will be created quite deliberately.”
An uneasy silence spread around the conference room. Right up to Auchinleck’s last words, the subject of sending aid to Russia had been treated almost lightly, as if it was more of a formality than one of desperate need. Now, the General had made it clear that supplying Russia with food aid could well be a matter of survival for an entire nation. For the Russians, and for the Germans as well, this was an existential war, one that only a single country would survive.
“There is another aspect to that issue.” The Marquess of Linlithgow spoke slowly and carefully. “We have been discussing how we can find some surplus food products that we can sell to Britain in exchange for gold to bolster our dwindling reserves. Already we have determined that we have only limited resources in that area and sending some to Britain, even for the most essential of reasons, will leave us vulnerable here to a potential famine in the event of a harvest failing. If we now also face the burden of trying to support Russia when its food reserves run out in the coming winter, our own situation will be precarious in the extreme. Given that our reserves are so limited, Gentlemen, I fear we must make a choice. Do we use those reserves to sell to Britain in order to boost our gold reserves and thus our ability to defend ourselves as well as feed our kith and kin? Or do we send them to Russia where they will feed our ally in the fight against Nazi tyranny and thus directly benefit our own war effort as well as helping to avert a holocaust when the Russian winter comes? And in both cases, it will only need one poor harvest here to bring about a famine that will kill untold numbers of our own people. I ask you all, for I do not know the answer. What do we do?”
For those used to The Marquess of Linlithgow’s usually quiet and urbane tones, the cracked desperation in his voice spoke even more emphatically than his words. The flush of relief that had dominated the meeting when news of the invasion of Russia had been received vanished with all the speed of a shallow puddle on a hot day. Every man in the room realized that they were suddenly faced with a situation in which there were no good answers and even the time-honored solution of seeking the least bad answer had little to commend it.
Eventually, Nehru looked across the table. “Gentlemen, for many years, when we opposed the government root and branch in the name of a Free India, so many things seemed so simple. Now, at last, I understand that the simpler a situation appears, the less those examining it understand its complexities. I am reminded of an old proverb that states ‘For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.’ Perhaps, the only real solution now is to adjourn this meeting so we can speak again after a period of reflection and soul-searching.”
The conference room was filled with an immense silence, one that seemed to crush everybody and everything in its path. Eventually, The Marquess of Linlithgow spoke very quietly as if he were afraid to bring the room tumbling down upon him. “Those are wise words indeed. Let us adjourn and contemplate the choices that face us.”
Headquarters, Artillery Regiment 171, 71st Infantry Division, Hrebenne, Poland, May 15, 1941
The pre-dawn chill seemed particularly penetrating at 0255 on the morning of May 15th. Captain Heinrich Asbach guessed that the all-pervading damp caused by several days of continuous rain had much to do with that. He also knew that the feeling of cold also reflected the knowledge that another war was just a few minutes away. This one would be different from the campaigns in Poland, Belgium, and France. There, they could see their objectives, metaphorically if not literally. They were tangible, the routes to them could be visualized and plans for their conquest set. This war would be different; the objectives were remote and the means by which they might be attained vague. Asbach almost hated maps now; they showed just how far German forces had to advance and how minor had their achievements to date been in comparison. It was more than twice as far from Berlin to Moscow as it was from Berlin to Paris. He had a mental picture of the German Army launching its assault on Russia, disappearing into the Russian hinterland and never being seen again, swallowed by the vastness of the Russian steppes.
“Two minutes to go. Have you read the order of the day from General Hoepner? ‘The purpose of the struggle is the ruination of Russia, so it must be conducted with unprecedented brutality. Above all, show no mercy to the representatives of the current Russian Bolshevist system’. We had better win this one, Heinrich. If we don’t, the Russians will kill us all, to the last man, woman, and child.”
Colonel Klaus Marcks looked at his watch. Every timepiece in the division had been carefully synchronized. Artillery Regiment 171 had a mixed artillery battalion with a battery of four K-18 100mm guns and two batteries each of four sFH-18 150mm howitzers. The other two battalions of the regiment each had twelve 105mm lFH-18 howitzers. Initially, at least, the 10.5s were assigned to fire on targets on the border itself and within Rava Russkaya. Their participation wouldn’t be for long; the battalions were to follow the infantry into the town and provide close support and their teams of horses would already be waiting to be hitched to the guns. The 10 cm guns would be interdicting the road leading into Rava Russkaya to prevent the border troops from being reinforced while the 15cm guns were targeting the border patrol’s barracks and supply depots.
“One minute.” Marcks was staring at his watch, his bottom lip folded between his teeth. “Good luck, Heinrich. May you return to the fatherland safely.”
“Thank you, Sir. And may you do the same.”
The brilliant flash of light seemed to envelop them as, precisely at 0300, more than 90 percent of the German Army’s entire artillery park opened fire. Asbach had a strange mental picture of himself, poised dozens, hundreds of miles in the air looking down on the Russian border lined with fire as more than 7,200 artillery pieces rained shells along the 2,900 kilometers of what had suddenly become the Russian Front. His mental picture showed the brilliant flicker of lights inside Russia as the avalanche of shells descended on their targets. If all were done well, the 3.8 million German troops waiting in their jump-off positions would have a great boost for their assault on the frontier positions.
Then, his vision was shattered by the roar of the guns. The crash of the guns and howitzers overwhelmed everything else, seeming to pound the very air that surrounded them into submission. Marcks and Asbach felt the hot winds caused by the artillery fire washing over them. They knew the gunners would be serving their pieces with something that would be very close to a frenzy. Everybody knew it was the first few minutes of the barrage that did the most damage and the more shells poured onto a target in those minutes, the easier would be the task facing the infantry.
Asbach looked at his watch. “Oh-three-oh five Klaus, one hour and thirty-four minutes to dawn. Barbarossa has started.”
Railway Bridge, Rava Russkaya, USSR
The first shots traded on Soviet soil resounded in the dark of night while the German gunners were still waiting to fire their pieces at their assigned targets. A group of troops from SS Jägdverband 502, led by SS-Untersturmführer Kriegsheim had changed into Red Army uniforms before crossing the border from Hrebenne. Their task was to prevent the destruction of a railway bridge that threatened to block the road leading to Rava Russkaya. The railway itself ran parallel to the border but was in a deep cutting that would make an excellent defensive position if the bridge were blown. A critical part of the initial assault plan was to rush large groups of mechanized forces, tanks in the lead with motorized units following them, as deep into Soviet territory as they could in order to create as much chaos in Red Army ranks as possible. Their hope was that they could deliver a devastating opening blow by first concentrating, and then unleashing, a mass of men, machines, and materiel against the Soviet border guards and their ‘covering’ battalions. If the Soviet forces could hold long enough, then the plan would fall apart from the start. And so it was that Kriegsheim’s unit, eight men in all, walked down the road towards the bridge in a straggling group that gave a strong suggestion of a night’s leave well spent. They were shouting at each other in Russian, something that gave a distinct air of authenticity to the performance.
The performance was certainly convincing and Kriegsheim heard the jeers and jokes coming from the handful of men in the Soviet border guard post. It would be good to understand them he thought, but the instructors only taught us a basic stock of Russian words and I lost track of what the Ivans were saying almost immediately.
It was a lack of knowledge that he almost immediately regretted. As he and his men approached the guard post, the Russian exchanges trailed away. Kriegsheim attributed it to the instant respect for the approaching officers and completely ignored the sudden suspicion that had taken hold of the Russian troops. He would have ignored the rifle shot that broke the distrustful silence. It was the first hostile shot of the Russo-German war and it struck SS-Untersturmführer Walter Kriegsheim square in the forehead, making him the first German soldier to die in Operation Barbarossa.
That shot left no doubt at all that the men from SS Jägdverband 502 had been spotted and a fierce firefight broke out. Rifles and submachine guns left more than a dozen men sprawled on the ground, a tiny engagement in comparison with what was to come. The border guard actually held off the SS men for a few minutes but, their ammunition started to run low. The SS force was already starting to work around their defensive position and small groups of the German force were attempting to breach the border at alternative spots. It took longer than planned and cost many more men than had been envisaged but the SS Jägdverband 502 eventually succeeded in capturing the bridge intact. All along the border, the hundreds of small detachments infiltrating the Russian defenses ahead of the main Wehrmacht forces were experiencing the same thing. They succeeded in gaining their objectives, but the Russians were fighting harder than expected.
18th Special Artillery-Machine-Gun Battalion, Rava Russkaya, USSR
“Sergeant, how did you know they were Germans?”
Sergeant Vladimir Osaulenko had been the first to see the group of seven or eight soldiers approach them. He had been suspicious of them, right from the start. They had known the right passwords, that was certain, but their leader, wearing the uniform of a Junior Lieutenant, had shouted out that he had orders concerning a combat task for them. As they had come closer, Osaulenko had realized that they could not possibly be Russian troops. He had shouted out “what are you talking about, you bastard?’ and shot their leader with his rifle. Now he had to explain why while he and his men fell back to the main border positions.
“Tovarish Lieutenant, we were warned that there would be many spies and saboteurs. I saw that these men were dressed in our new uniform, mainly reserved for captains and majors. None of that stuff has reached us here yet. All of their equipment, uniforms, weapons, boots were brand-new stuff – unlike ours – so that gave them away on the spot.”
The Border Guard Lieutenant was about to commend his Sergeant for his vigilance when the whole frontier behind him suddenly lit up in a seemingly endless burst of lightning. Overhead the howl of the inbound artillery was all the warning he and his men needed to take cover. Ahead of them, the positions occupied by the Border Guards seemed to dissolve in the torrent of artillery fire that descended on them.
Sergeant Osaulenko wormed his way deep into a convenient ditch and tried to ignore the whining noise of fragments sweeping over his head. He knew one thing very clearly, the Great Patriotic War had started.
German Auxiliary Cruiser Schiff 28, “Michel” North Atlantic.
“All hands! All Hands! The communications office has just received the following message from the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.
“National Socialists! Today, I have adopted the only attitude that I could adopt as the responsible leader of the German Reich, but also a conscientiously responsible representative of European culture and civilization. We have seen activity in Soviet Russia directed against the Reich, including ever-increasing numbers of Russian tank detachments and parachute troops in dangerous proximity to the German frontier. The German armed forces and the German homeland know that until a few weeks ago not a single German tank or motorized division was stationed on our eastern frontier.
“Thus Moscow not only broke but miserably betrayed the stipulations of our friendship treaty. All this was done while the rulers in the Kremlin up to the last moment pretended peace and friendship and issued seemingly harmless denials. Although I have been obliged by circumstances, again and again, to keep silent, the moment has now come when to continue as a mere observer would not only be a sin of omission but a crime against the German people -- yes, even against the whole of Europe.
“Today something like 160 Russian divisions is standing at our frontier. For weeks there have been constant violations of this frontier, not only affecting us but also in the far north, as well as Romania. Russian airmen consider it sport nonchalantly to overlook these frontiers, presumably to prove to us that they already feel themselves masters of these territories. During the night of May 14 to 15 Russian patrols again penetrated Reich territory and could only be driven back after a prolonged exchange of fire. This has brought us to the hour when it is necessary for us to counter this plot of Jewish warmongers and equally the Jewish rulers of the Bolshevik center in Moscow.
“German people! At this moment a deployment of forces is taking place that, in its extent and scope, is the greatest the world hitherto has seen. United with their Finnish comrades, the fighters of the victory of Narvik are standing in the Northern Arctic. German divisions commanded by the conqueror of Norway, together with the heroes of Finnish freedom under their Marshal, are protecting Finnish soil. Formations of the German eastern front extend from East Prussia to the Carpathians. German and Romanian soldiers are united under Chief of State Antonescu from the banks of the Prut along the lower reaches of the Danube to the shores of the Black Sea.
“The task of this front, therefore, is not merely the protection of individual countries, but the safeguarding of Europe, and thereby the salvation of all. I, therefore, decided today to once again lay the fate and future of the German Reich and our people in the hands of our soldiers.
“May the Lord God help us, especially in this fight!”
Captain von Ruckteschell put down the microphone, made sure it was off then turned to his officers. “We were issued sealed orders to be opened when this happened. Those orders instruct us to add Russian ships to the list of those that may be sunk on sight. Other than that, our mission to interdict Commonwealth supply lines remains in force. We are cautioned that, since Commonwealth and Soviet forces are now allied, we should especially interdict any cargoes apparently headed for Soviet-controlled ports. See to it, gentlemen. Start intensive battle drills and make sure every man on board is properly skilled at his task. Whatever Berlin may believe, this will not be an easy war.”
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
“Thank God. The Commonwealth is no longer alone.” Gerald Tarrant, Private Secretary to the Viceroy was firmly of the opinion that he would be able to sleep soundly for the first time in many, many months.
“The Russians are in for a bad few months.” General Auchinleck had studied the likely course of a German attack on Russia intensively. “They’re going to lose a lot of ground and a lot of men in those months. The Germans will try and strike deep to destroy the Russian Army in a string of encirclement battles along the frontier. We can expect to see large-scale armored attacks intended to push through the border defenses and seize as much strategic territory as possible. I can see one major problem developing for the Germans right now; the speech from Berlin referred to 160 Russian divisions grouped along the border. That is about half the total Russian Army. When the Russians call up their reserve units, that number will double again. The German has severely underestimated his opponent, an elementary error he will live to regret.”
“What can we do to help the Russians?” The Marquess of Linlithgow had never quite believed he would use those words.
“Everything within our power of course. We are allies now.” Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru beamed at the thunderous applause that met his remark.
“I think we have unanimous agreement on that point.” The Marquess of Linlithgow had a more serious question to ask. “The problem is, what lies within our power? Our armed forces are small compared with the titanic conflict now opening in Russia; if we sent every man, every tank, and every aircraft we possess it would be but a drop in the ocean, and they would be swallowed up without a trace. In any case, our available forces are fully committed to Iraq and the Middle East. Is there something we can do from there?”
Group Captain George Baldwin coughed deferentially. This was the first Cabinet meeting he had been asked to address as acting head of the Indian Air Force. “We have come up with a plan to make a token effort to aid the Russians but even token is overstating its effect. There are eight Wellington bombers in Iraq. They have the range to fly, with a full bomb load, to an airbase in the Crimea. Once they have refueled there, they can attack a target in German hands, return to their base in Crimea, refuel and return home. That would be a three-day, 2,000-mile flight to deliver 16 tons of bombs to a target. I would suggest that, unless there is an overwhelming political reason to carry out this raid, we seek a more productive way of supporting our new ally.”
“May I point out that the Germans are advancing inexorably eastwards. Lending the Russians material aid will become easier and more valuable as he closes upon us. In the meantime, there are things the Russians will require much more than a small force of infantry or a few bombers. Soon, they will lose their great breadbasket in Ukraine. The Germans will take the food they have yet to harvest and then the reserves they have put into storage. We must think about how we are to help them feed their population for I am certain the Germans will not.” Auchinleck suddenly looked very old. “Gentlemen, I greatly fear that we are seeing the start of what may well become a famine of catastrophic proportions and I believe that it will be created quite deliberately.”
An uneasy silence spread around the conference room. Right up to Auchinleck’s last words, the subject of sending aid to Russia had been treated almost lightly, as if it was more of a formality than one of desperate need. Now, the General had made it clear that supplying Russia with food aid could well be a matter of survival for an entire nation. For the Russians, and for the Germans as well, this was an existential war, one that only a single country would survive.
“There is another aspect to that issue.” The Marquess of Linlithgow spoke slowly and carefully. “We have been discussing how we can find some surplus food products that we can sell to Britain in exchange for gold to bolster our dwindling reserves. Already we have determined that we have only limited resources in that area and sending some to Britain, even for the most essential of reasons, will leave us vulnerable here to a potential famine in the event of a harvest failing. If we now also face the burden of trying to support Russia when its food reserves run out in the coming winter, our own situation will be precarious in the extreme. Given that our reserves are so limited, Gentlemen, I fear we must make a choice. Do we use those reserves to sell to Britain in order to boost our gold reserves and thus our ability to defend ourselves as well as feed our kith and kin? Or do we send them to Russia where they will feed our ally in the fight against Nazi tyranny and thus directly benefit our own war effort as well as helping to avert a holocaust when the Russian winter comes? And in both cases, it will only need one poor harvest here to bring about a famine that will kill untold numbers of our own people. I ask you all, for I do not know the answer. What do we do?”
For those used to The Marquess of Linlithgow’s usually quiet and urbane tones, the cracked desperation in his voice spoke even more emphatically than his words. The flush of relief that had dominated the meeting when news of the invasion of Russia had been received vanished with all the speed of a shallow puddle on a hot day. Every man in the room realized that they were suddenly faced with a situation in which there were no good answers and even the time-honored solution of seeking the least bad answer had little to commend it.
Eventually, Nehru looked across the table. “Gentlemen, for many years, when we opposed the government root and branch in the name of a Free India, so many things seemed so simple. Now, at last, I understand that the simpler a situation appears, the less those examining it understand its complexities. I am reminded of an old proverb that states ‘For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.’ Perhaps, the only real solution now is to adjourn this meeting so we can speak again after a period of reflection and soul-searching.”
The conference room was filled with an immense silence, one that seemed to crush everybody and everything in its path. Eventually, The Marquess of Linlithgow spoke very quietly as if he were afraid to bring the room tumbling down upon him. “Those are wise words indeed. Let us adjourn and contemplate the choices that face us.”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Sixteen
10th Fighter Regiment, Shaulai, Ukraine May 15, 1941
The border with Germany was just 125km from Shaulai and all the pilots knew it. For the last six weeks, the pilots assigned to the 10th Fighter Regiment had been carrying out military exercises round the clock. The Regiment always had at least one squadron at full readiness with one flight of that squadron sitting at the end of the runway, engines warmed up and the pilot in his seat. What are we supposed to do though? Junior Lieutenant Ivan Anastasovich Balakai had asked himself that question many times. When he had been part of the instant response flight, he had taken off in his Polikarpov I-16 and intercepted a lot of German spy planes in the air but since the Soviet pilots had no orders to shoot them down, they had simply escorted them to the border. Why did they scramble us to intercept them? To greet them or what? Balakai had no answer, but the question haunted his mind. Why does nobody else sense what is coming?
The day’s schedule was a bit more interesting than usual. There was an officer class about the new MiG-1 fighter that the Regiment was due to receive any time now. The MiG-1 was considered something special, a high-altitude fighter that could engage enemy aircraft up to 7,000 meters. Accordingly, everything about it was top secret and all the instruction books were collected by the NKVD special department after the lessons were completed. Then, in the afternoon, there was flight training. The schedule featured aerobatics, dogfights, and gunnery training against drogues towed by other aircraft. Then, just to make life perfect, he was taking his girlfriend, Khrystyna, to the House of Culture for a concert that evening.
He was still contemplating his hopes for the post-concert evening when he heard the harsh crackle of the I-15 biplanes rolling down the runway. The taxiway was swamped by the sound of frantic activity as the I-15 fighters from the 3rd Squadron were surrounded by their crews getting them ready for take-off. That made Balakai uneasy; he knew that a dummy air raid from the bomber squadron at Panevezhis was sometimes part of a flight training afternoon and if the 3rd Squadron pilots had missed it, the entire Regiment would be blamed for inefficiency and negligence. The concert tonight could even be canceled!
That was when everything changed. Balakai heard an explosion from outside his tent. His first thought was that one of the I-15s had crashed. That wasn’t unusual; the biplanes were very tricky to fly, and the 10th had dubbed them ‘coffins’ due to the number that was crashing all the time. It only needed the engine to cough on take-off and for an inexperienced pilot to snatch at the controls and the aircraft would spin in. The lack of a firewall between the forward fuel tank and the cockpit meant that the chance of a pilot not being burned up in a crash was small.
Balakai was expecting to see the familiar pyres of black smoke by the runway as he flipped his tent open. He saw pyres of smoke all right, only they weren’t the result of an accident. Overhead at least a dozen twin-engined German aircraft were pulling away from the base after completing their first strafing run. Another formation of German aircraft, Balakai recognized them as Messerschmitt 110s were already swarming in, their German crosses standing out in the early morning sun. This second wave was already firing their machine guns at the rows of tents lined up in front of the hangars. One quick look told him the worst. The 3rd Squadron’s duty planes, lined up on the taxiway, were already burning amid piles of wreckage and crashed vehicles. The hangars themselves were on fire, torn open where bomb hits had ripped through the roofs and set the piles of inflammable materials inside ablaze.
There was just time to shout a warning to the other three men in the tent. “Bratishka! The war has started!”
Junior Lieutenant Gleb Evstafievich Savinov had tried to get some extra sleep and really resented being woken up. “Khuy tebe! There isn’t a war.”
“See for yourself, it’s a German air raid! They’re shooting the shit out of us.”
The four men disentangled themselves from the tent and ran for the hangar where the I-16s were parked, jumping over their neighbors who had already been killed and wounded. The 110s were circling the airfield, presumably, their crews were trying to sort out worthwhile targets because every so often one or more of the twin-engined fighters would break out of the circle to make a strafing run. For some reason, they ignored the four men running towards a still-undamaged hangar. Balakai thought that, perhaps, they were concentrating on destroying the ready-to-fly aircraft and hadn’t got around to finishing off the rest of the airfield. Whatever it was, the Soviet pilot’s luck ran out while they were just short of the hangar and a 110 raked them with its machine guns. Two of the men went down in the fountains of dirt from the bullets, leaving only Balakai and Savinov to fly the surviving I-16s.
Inside the hangar, Balakai pulled on his flight coveralls and ran towards the nearest I-16. As he scrambled up onto the wing root and into the tiny cockpit, he screamed out “Roll out my plane!” to the nearest ground crew. They had been trying to take cover amongst the piles of equipment and spare parts in the buildings, but they left cover and ran towards the I-16. They started pushing it forward, so it was lined up with the hangar doors. It was still inside when they swung the propeller and started the engine. Balakai thrust the throttles forward and started his run forward. The I-16 was a risky aircraft to fly; any excessively sharp movement on the controls could make it ground-loop or spin. On the other hand, being strafed by two dozen Me-110s was hardly conducive to survival either. Despite the continuous attacks, Balakai managed to get his I-16 airborne. How, was something he would never quite work out.
The problem was, once in the air he really didn’t know where to go or what to do. Behind him, Savinov had appeared in another I-16. Balakai dipped his wingtips, the standard signal indicating: “Attention! Follow me!”
That, of course, left the question of where? And, come to think of it, why? From Balakai’s point of view, the only good thing was that the 110s had vanished. Perhaps they ran out of ammunition or fuel? After a moment’s thought, he decided there was only one logical thing to do and that was to fly to the border. That way we can see whether this really is a war or whether destroying our airfield was just a ‘mistake’. Surely our government would never accept such a thing?
As Balakai closed on the border, the sight below him left no doubt in his mind that a real war had started. Below him, all he could see were burning villages and the unmistakable sight of artillery fire pounding Soviet defensive positions. He recognized the village of Rava Russkaya, not by the town itself for that was masked by a massive pall of black smoke but by the way, the railway line heading east ran through a great cutting. As a child, when he had the rare treat of a train ride, he had loved it when the steam engine pulled them through a cutting. The only things that were more fun were tunnels. For a moment he was seized by nostalgia for the uncomplicated days of peace that he knew he would never see again. Then, he recovered his focus.
He had continued to fly westwards and now, below him, he could see every road crowded with columns of advancing German troops. They are setting their feet on the soil of the beloved Rodina. This cannot be tolerated! He pushed the nose of his I-16 down and started his long dive on a column of infantry below him. Behind him, Savinov had also started to dive and Balakai saw smoky bursts spitting from his plane as he strafed the column. The two I-16s raked the columns with the concentrated fire of their four machine guns. It was impossible to miss their target, so dense was the mass of enemy troops on the highways. For some reason they didn’t return fire, their AA guns remaining silent. It was the machine guns in the wings of the I-16s that let them down. First, one gun jammed and then the other. That left the I-16s with only the two guns in their cowlings. Each Soviet fighter made two passes before their ammunition ran out. After that, they headed for home, flying through the treetops to avoid the seemingly endless hordes of German fighters that were everywhere.
By the time they got there, Shaulai had been destroyed. The hangars were burned-out shells, and the aircraft parked on the hardstand were blackened ruins. Other piles of wreckage beside the runway told of where the I-15s and I-16s had been ruthlessly destroyed as they had tried to take off. Even from a thousand or more feet up, the smell of burned wood and fuel was enough to choke Balakai. He put his I-16 down on the grass and parked it beside the ruins of a hangar.
He had barely got out of the cockpit when a car drove up from the regimental CP. The Operations Officer stormed out of the back seat, screaming at the top of his voice, “Was it you flying?”
Balakai waved Savinov to silence. This was one of those times when words had to be very carefully chosen. “Yes, tovarish Major, it was us.”
“Get in the car! The commander wants to see you right now.”
It almost went without notice that the command post of the airfield had been bombed with uncanny, and Balakai thought highly suspicious accuracy. What was left of the command staff was trying to set up some sort of command center outside the smoking ruins. When the car pulled up, the political officer took one look at them and his decision was instant. “Arrest them. No flights for these two. Who permitted you to strafe those columns? Do you know what’s going on? I don’t. Maybe you are responsible for an act of provocation. Maybe those were friendly troops.”
That sent a shiver of doubt through Balakai’s mind. Was that why there was no anti-aircraft fire? Did we strafe our own troops? The Zampolit was working himself up into a fine rage and eventually turned to the Regimental Commander. “We will give these men a summary court-martial right now. Organize a firing squad!”
“Comrades, wait!” The Deputy Commander had come running out of the ruined building. “Tovarish Molotov is about to speak.”
That silenced everybody. The radio crackled and spat, then the familiar tones of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov rang across the shattered base.
“Citizens of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government, and its head, tovarish Stalin, have authorized me to make the following statement:
“Today at 4 o'clock a.m., without any claims having been presented to the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders at many points, and bombed from their airplanes our cities; Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Sevastopol, Kaunas, and some others, killing and wounding over two hundred persons. There were also enemy air raids and artillery shelling from Rumanian and Finnish territory.
“Now that the attack on the Soviet Union has already been committed, the Soviet Government has ordered our troops to repulse the predatory assault and to drive German troops from the territory of our country. This war has been forced upon us, not by the German people, not by German workers, peasants, and intellectuals, whose sufferings we well understand, but by the clique of bloodthirsty Fascist rulers of Germany who have enslaved Frenchmen, Czechs, Poles, Serbians, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece, and England. The government of the Soviet Union expresses its unshakable confidence that our valiant army and navy. Indeed, the brave falcons of the Soviet Air Force have already acquitted themselves with honor by rising to the air and inflicting crushing blows upon the fascists, thus performing their duty to the Soviet Union and to the Soviet people.
“This is not the first time that our people have had to deal with an attack of an arrogant foe. At the time of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, our people's reply was a war for the fatherland, and Napoleon suffered defeat and met his doom. It will be the same with Hitler, who in his arrogance has proclaimed a new crusade against our country. The Red Army and our whole people will again wage victorious war for the fatherland, for our country, for honor, for liberty. The government of the Soviet Union expresses the firm conviction that the whole population of our country, all workers, peasants and intellectuals, men and women, will conscientiously perform their duties and do their work. Our entire people must now stand solid and united as never before.
“Each one of us must demand of himself and of others discipline, organization, and self-denial worthy of real Soviet patriots, in order to provide for all the needs of the Red Army, Navy, and Air Force, to ensure victory over the enemy. The government calls upon you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally still more closely around our glorious Bolshevist party, around our Soviet Government, and around our great leader and comrade, Stalin. Ours is a righteous cause. The enemy shall be defeated. Victory will be ours!”
And so it was that when Molotov made his speech at noon, he transformed Balakai and Savinov from hooligans into heroes. They had been the only pilots from the entire regiment who fought back at the fascists without waiting for orders. Their two I-16s were also the only aircraft from the 10th Fighter Regiment to survive the first hours of the war.
Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London
“We knew it was coming; we just didn’t know the exact day.” Sir John Dill was looking at the map that had been hastily pinned up in the Cabinet Room. “Nor do we know exactly what is going on out there. All we can assume at this point is that the entire German Army is heading eastwards. The initial momentum of the attack will see to that. The big question is going to come in a week or so when we find out whether they can sustain that momentum. If they do, they’ll go a long way east before the Russians stop them.”
“You speak as if the Russians can win this war.” Butler was at his most arrogant and dogmatic. “You do not seriously believe the Russian Army can do what we and the French could not.”
“The Soviet Army may not be able to. Lord knows their performance against the Finns was embarrassing enough. But Russia itself will.” Dill pointed at the map with his stick. “Look how the country opens out as an invader goes east. The front at Moscow is almost four times as long as it is on the Polish border. It continues to expand as the invader goes beyond Moscow. That continuous increase stretches the invading Army until it is so weakened it cannot advance further.”
“Are you seriously trying to suggest that the Russian Army that got chewed up by the Finns stands a chance of survival against the Germans?” Butler was throwing every ounce of intimidation he could muster against Sir John.
“Richard, I would ask you to respect Sir John’s professional expertise in this matter no matter how unlikely his opinions may sound.” Lord Halifax sounded highly doubtful of that same expertise and opinion. “We have more important matters to consider. How do the events of the last twenty-four hours affect our position here? I would suggest that they have finally put to bed any idea of holding elections at this time?”
Butler looked carefully around the Cabinet Room. He had carefully arranged for members of the Conservative Party to be present and them alone. “That may not be the case. The defeat of Bolshevism and its elimination as a political threat would appear to be an inevitable result of the invasion of Russia. That may well serve to unite our party against its opponents.”
“I doubt it.” Once again, John Moore-Brabazon found himself wondering what reality Halifax and Butler came from. “While a significant proportion of the Party might believe in a dangerous threat from Bolshevism, the majority see Nazi Germany as the existential threat. The events of the last few hours will divide those two wings further, not bring them together. It is the Labor Party that will be united against us. They also are split into two wings. One is as anti-Nazi as the Conservatives and will ally with them. The other wing is communist-dominated, mostly via the trade unions. If Soviet Russia was allied with Nazi Germany, that wing supported us. Now, they are our bitterest enemies. The Liberals are, of course, united in foolishness. Had we gone to the country three months ago, there would have been two Conservative-Labor alliances in conflict. It is very likely, given the improving economic situation and the absence of war, that we would have been returned to power. We may even have had our standing improved.
“Now, everything is different. We will be supported by, at most, half the Conservative Party. The other half will ally with the whole Labor Party. The Liberals, of course, count for nothing. Lord Halifax, in that election contest, we will not be defeated. We will be annihilated! Lord Halifax, you are quite right. Any possibility of a successful election has been eliminated. It, therefore, stands to reason that the election in question should never be held. Germany and the Soviet Union are now involved in a titanic struggle for the control of Europe. We should sit to one side and watch them destroy each other.”
That caused a long moment of silence as people weighed the odds and came to the same conclusion as Moore-Brabazon had done. Eventually, it was broken by Leo Amery “There is, of course, the issue of the Commonwealth. They are already announcing their support for the Soviet Union and promising aid.”
“Then let them throw their money and resources down the drain.” Butler was dismissive, obviously regarding the matter of little importance.
Sir John Dill was more perceptive. “That is easy to say. Now. In a year or eighteen months, when the war in the Soviet Union has passed out of its maneuver phase and into the deadlock geography dictates, Herr Hitler will be asking for more troops from his allies. In his eyes at least, we are amongst that number. What will happen, Mr. Butler, when the demand for British troops to join with the German Army in the war in Soviet Russia arrived in this room? It is certain there will be Commonwealth troops fighting with the Russians. Will you countenance British soldiers fighting their cousins from Canada and Australia? Will you see the magnificent Jawans of the Indian Army, the Sikhs, and the Gurkhas, fighting Scots and Welshmen?”
“They made their decision when they ignored my instructions to accept the Armistice we had negotiated.” Lord Halifax still harbored bitter resentment over that decision. “If that is where their intransigence leads them, so be it.”
Leo Amery jumped to his feet. “And if that is what you truly believe, Lord Halifax, you will go straight to Hell. If the Devil would tolerate your presence there.”
He stormed out, slamming the Cabinet Room door behind him. Inside the stunned room, Halifax and Butler exchanged glances.
High Holborn, London.
Leo Amery was lost in thought while his limousine swept through the night. He was on his way to Fleet Street, to discuss the events of the day with the owners of two of the most influential newspapers in the country. He knew very well that the British man in the street was quietly proud of the way the Commonwealth had acquitted itself now it had followed its own path. It was the same quiet pride a man felt when he read glowing accounts of his estranged son’s exploits in the newspapers. The idea that British troops might be expected to fight the Indians and Australians who had driven the Italians out of Africa and confounded German plans in Iraq would enrage them. There would be an outburst of sheer raw fury that would bring about a demand for no-confidence in the House that no MP could resist. The inevitable result would be the election that could remove Halifax, Butler, and their sycophants from power at last. It was the task of preparing that story occupying his mind that stopped Amery from registering that his car had stopped at a security checkpoint.
“Ministerial Car.” His driver spoke brusquely to the two Blackshirts that had come forward to check the vehicle. The car had ministerial plates that were supposed to stop this from happening.
“I know.” The lead Blackshirt looked in the back. “Mr. Amery?”
Amery looked up and nodded.
“Got a special message for you from the Prime Minister.” The Blackshirt stepped back, swinging his Lanchester submachine gun to the firing position. Both Blackshirts raked the back of the car with gunfire, killing Amery instantly. The driver tried to get out and run, but he was still only halfway through the door when another burst of gunfire cut him down. The two Blackshirts got into their own car and drove off. The press story about the murder of the Secretary of State for India and Burma by the resistance was already being readied for distribution.
10th Fighter Regiment, Shaulai, Ukraine May 15, 1941
The border with Germany was just 125km from Shaulai and all the pilots knew it. For the last six weeks, the pilots assigned to the 10th Fighter Regiment had been carrying out military exercises round the clock. The Regiment always had at least one squadron at full readiness with one flight of that squadron sitting at the end of the runway, engines warmed up and the pilot in his seat. What are we supposed to do though? Junior Lieutenant Ivan Anastasovich Balakai had asked himself that question many times. When he had been part of the instant response flight, he had taken off in his Polikarpov I-16 and intercepted a lot of German spy planes in the air but since the Soviet pilots had no orders to shoot them down, they had simply escorted them to the border. Why did they scramble us to intercept them? To greet them or what? Balakai had no answer, but the question haunted his mind. Why does nobody else sense what is coming?
The day’s schedule was a bit more interesting than usual. There was an officer class about the new MiG-1 fighter that the Regiment was due to receive any time now. The MiG-1 was considered something special, a high-altitude fighter that could engage enemy aircraft up to 7,000 meters. Accordingly, everything about it was top secret and all the instruction books were collected by the NKVD special department after the lessons were completed. Then, in the afternoon, there was flight training. The schedule featured aerobatics, dogfights, and gunnery training against drogues towed by other aircraft. Then, just to make life perfect, he was taking his girlfriend, Khrystyna, to the House of Culture for a concert that evening.
He was still contemplating his hopes for the post-concert evening when he heard the harsh crackle of the I-15 biplanes rolling down the runway. The taxiway was swamped by the sound of frantic activity as the I-15 fighters from the 3rd Squadron were surrounded by their crews getting them ready for take-off. That made Balakai uneasy; he knew that a dummy air raid from the bomber squadron at Panevezhis was sometimes part of a flight training afternoon and if the 3rd Squadron pilots had missed it, the entire Regiment would be blamed for inefficiency and negligence. The concert tonight could even be canceled!
That was when everything changed. Balakai heard an explosion from outside his tent. His first thought was that one of the I-15s had crashed. That wasn’t unusual; the biplanes were very tricky to fly, and the 10th had dubbed them ‘coffins’ due to the number that was crashing all the time. It only needed the engine to cough on take-off and for an inexperienced pilot to snatch at the controls and the aircraft would spin in. The lack of a firewall between the forward fuel tank and the cockpit meant that the chance of a pilot not being burned up in a crash was small.
Balakai was expecting to see the familiar pyres of black smoke by the runway as he flipped his tent open. He saw pyres of smoke all right, only they weren’t the result of an accident. Overhead at least a dozen twin-engined German aircraft were pulling away from the base after completing their first strafing run. Another formation of German aircraft, Balakai recognized them as Messerschmitt 110s were already swarming in, their German crosses standing out in the early morning sun. This second wave was already firing their machine guns at the rows of tents lined up in front of the hangars. One quick look told him the worst. The 3rd Squadron’s duty planes, lined up on the taxiway, were already burning amid piles of wreckage and crashed vehicles. The hangars themselves were on fire, torn open where bomb hits had ripped through the roofs and set the piles of inflammable materials inside ablaze.
There was just time to shout a warning to the other three men in the tent. “Bratishka! The war has started!”
Junior Lieutenant Gleb Evstafievich Savinov had tried to get some extra sleep and really resented being woken up. “Khuy tebe! There isn’t a war.”
“See for yourself, it’s a German air raid! They’re shooting the shit out of us.”
The four men disentangled themselves from the tent and ran for the hangar where the I-16s were parked, jumping over their neighbors who had already been killed and wounded. The 110s were circling the airfield, presumably, their crews were trying to sort out worthwhile targets because every so often one or more of the twin-engined fighters would break out of the circle to make a strafing run. For some reason, they ignored the four men running towards a still-undamaged hangar. Balakai thought that, perhaps, they were concentrating on destroying the ready-to-fly aircraft and hadn’t got around to finishing off the rest of the airfield. Whatever it was, the Soviet pilot’s luck ran out while they were just short of the hangar and a 110 raked them with its machine guns. Two of the men went down in the fountains of dirt from the bullets, leaving only Balakai and Savinov to fly the surviving I-16s.
Inside the hangar, Balakai pulled on his flight coveralls and ran towards the nearest I-16. As he scrambled up onto the wing root and into the tiny cockpit, he screamed out “Roll out my plane!” to the nearest ground crew. They had been trying to take cover amongst the piles of equipment and spare parts in the buildings, but they left cover and ran towards the I-16. They started pushing it forward, so it was lined up with the hangar doors. It was still inside when they swung the propeller and started the engine. Balakai thrust the throttles forward and started his run forward. The I-16 was a risky aircraft to fly; any excessively sharp movement on the controls could make it ground-loop or spin. On the other hand, being strafed by two dozen Me-110s was hardly conducive to survival either. Despite the continuous attacks, Balakai managed to get his I-16 airborne. How, was something he would never quite work out.
The problem was, once in the air he really didn’t know where to go or what to do. Behind him, Savinov had appeared in another I-16. Balakai dipped his wingtips, the standard signal indicating: “Attention! Follow me!”
That, of course, left the question of where? And, come to think of it, why? From Balakai’s point of view, the only good thing was that the 110s had vanished. Perhaps they ran out of ammunition or fuel? After a moment’s thought, he decided there was only one logical thing to do and that was to fly to the border. That way we can see whether this really is a war or whether destroying our airfield was just a ‘mistake’. Surely our government would never accept such a thing?
As Balakai closed on the border, the sight below him left no doubt in his mind that a real war had started. Below him, all he could see were burning villages and the unmistakable sight of artillery fire pounding Soviet defensive positions. He recognized the village of Rava Russkaya, not by the town itself for that was masked by a massive pall of black smoke but by the way, the railway line heading east ran through a great cutting. As a child, when he had the rare treat of a train ride, he had loved it when the steam engine pulled them through a cutting. The only things that were more fun were tunnels. For a moment he was seized by nostalgia for the uncomplicated days of peace that he knew he would never see again. Then, he recovered his focus.
He had continued to fly westwards and now, below him, he could see every road crowded with columns of advancing German troops. They are setting their feet on the soil of the beloved Rodina. This cannot be tolerated! He pushed the nose of his I-16 down and started his long dive on a column of infantry below him. Behind him, Savinov had also started to dive and Balakai saw smoky bursts spitting from his plane as he strafed the column. The two I-16s raked the columns with the concentrated fire of their four machine guns. It was impossible to miss their target, so dense was the mass of enemy troops on the highways. For some reason they didn’t return fire, their AA guns remaining silent. It was the machine guns in the wings of the I-16s that let them down. First, one gun jammed and then the other. That left the I-16s with only the two guns in their cowlings. Each Soviet fighter made two passes before their ammunition ran out. After that, they headed for home, flying through the treetops to avoid the seemingly endless hordes of German fighters that were everywhere.
By the time they got there, Shaulai had been destroyed. The hangars were burned-out shells, and the aircraft parked on the hardstand were blackened ruins. Other piles of wreckage beside the runway told of where the I-15s and I-16s had been ruthlessly destroyed as they had tried to take off. Even from a thousand or more feet up, the smell of burned wood and fuel was enough to choke Balakai. He put his I-16 down on the grass and parked it beside the ruins of a hangar.
He had barely got out of the cockpit when a car drove up from the regimental CP. The Operations Officer stormed out of the back seat, screaming at the top of his voice, “Was it you flying?”
Balakai waved Savinov to silence. This was one of those times when words had to be very carefully chosen. “Yes, tovarish Major, it was us.”
“Get in the car! The commander wants to see you right now.”
It almost went without notice that the command post of the airfield had been bombed with uncanny, and Balakai thought highly suspicious accuracy. What was left of the command staff was trying to set up some sort of command center outside the smoking ruins. When the car pulled up, the political officer took one look at them and his decision was instant. “Arrest them. No flights for these two. Who permitted you to strafe those columns? Do you know what’s going on? I don’t. Maybe you are responsible for an act of provocation. Maybe those were friendly troops.”
That sent a shiver of doubt through Balakai’s mind. Was that why there was no anti-aircraft fire? Did we strafe our own troops? The Zampolit was working himself up into a fine rage and eventually turned to the Regimental Commander. “We will give these men a summary court-martial right now. Organize a firing squad!”
“Comrades, wait!” The Deputy Commander had come running out of the ruined building. “Tovarish Molotov is about to speak.”
That silenced everybody. The radio crackled and spat, then the familiar tones of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov rang across the shattered base.
“Citizens of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government, and its head, tovarish Stalin, have authorized me to make the following statement:
“Today at 4 o'clock a.m., without any claims having been presented to the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders at many points, and bombed from their airplanes our cities; Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Sevastopol, Kaunas, and some others, killing and wounding over two hundred persons. There were also enemy air raids and artillery shelling from Rumanian and Finnish territory.
“Now that the attack on the Soviet Union has already been committed, the Soviet Government has ordered our troops to repulse the predatory assault and to drive German troops from the territory of our country. This war has been forced upon us, not by the German people, not by German workers, peasants, and intellectuals, whose sufferings we well understand, but by the clique of bloodthirsty Fascist rulers of Germany who have enslaved Frenchmen, Czechs, Poles, Serbians, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece, and England. The government of the Soviet Union expresses its unshakable confidence that our valiant army and navy. Indeed, the brave falcons of the Soviet Air Force have already acquitted themselves with honor by rising to the air and inflicting crushing blows upon the fascists, thus performing their duty to the Soviet Union and to the Soviet people.
“This is not the first time that our people have had to deal with an attack of an arrogant foe. At the time of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, our people's reply was a war for the fatherland, and Napoleon suffered defeat and met his doom. It will be the same with Hitler, who in his arrogance has proclaimed a new crusade against our country. The Red Army and our whole people will again wage victorious war for the fatherland, for our country, for honor, for liberty. The government of the Soviet Union expresses the firm conviction that the whole population of our country, all workers, peasants and intellectuals, men and women, will conscientiously perform their duties and do their work. Our entire people must now stand solid and united as never before.
“Each one of us must demand of himself and of others discipline, organization, and self-denial worthy of real Soviet patriots, in order to provide for all the needs of the Red Army, Navy, and Air Force, to ensure victory over the enemy. The government calls upon you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally still more closely around our glorious Bolshevist party, around our Soviet Government, and around our great leader and comrade, Stalin. Ours is a righteous cause. The enemy shall be defeated. Victory will be ours!”
And so it was that when Molotov made his speech at noon, he transformed Balakai and Savinov from hooligans into heroes. They had been the only pilots from the entire regiment who fought back at the fascists without waiting for orders. Their two I-16s were also the only aircraft from the 10th Fighter Regiment to survive the first hours of the war.
Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London
“We knew it was coming; we just didn’t know the exact day.” Sir John Dill was looking at the map that had been hastily pinned up in the Cabinet Room. “Nor do we know exactly what is going on out there. All we can assume at this point is that the entire German Army is heading eastwards. The initial momentum of the attack will see to that. The big question is going to come in a week or so when we find out whether they can sustain that momentum. If they do, they’ll go a long way east before the Russians stop them.”
“You speak as if the Russians can win this war.” Butler was at his most arrogant and dogmatic. “You do not seriously believe the Russian Army can do what we and the French could not.”
“The Soviet Army may not be able to. Lord knows their performance against the Finns was embarrassing enough. But Russia itself will.” Dill pointed at the map with his stick. “Look how the country opens out as an invader goes east. The front at Moscow is almost four times as long as it is on the Polish border. It continues to expand as the invader goes beyond Moscow. That continuous increase stretches the invading Army until it is so weakened it cannot advance further.”
“Are you seriously trying to suggest that the Russian Army that got chewed up by the Finns stands a chance of survival against the Germans?” Butler was throwing every ounce of intimidation he could muster against Sir John.
“Richard, I would ask you to respect Sir John’s professional expertise in this matter no matter how unlikely his opinions may sound.” Lord Halifax sounded highly doubtful of that same expertise and opinion. “We have more important matters to consider. How do the events of the last twenty-four hours affect our position here? I would suggest that they have finally put to bed any idea of holding elections at this time?”
Butler looked carefully around the Cabinet Room. He had carefully arranged for members of the Conservative Party to be present and them alone. “That may not be the case. The defeat of Bolshevism and its elimination as a political threat would appear to be an inevitable result of the invasion of Russia. That may well serve to unite our party against its opponents.”
“I doubt it.” Once again, John Moore-Brabazon found himself wondering what reality Halifax and Butler came from. “While a significant proportion of the Party might believe in a dangerous threat from Bolshevism, the majority see Nazi Germany as the existential threat. The events of the last few hours will divide those two wings further, not bring them together. It is the Labor Party that will be united against us. They also are split into two wings. One is as anti-Nazi as the Conservatives and will ally with them. The other wing is communist-dominated, mostly via the trade unions. If Soviet Russia was allied with Nazi Germany, that wing supported us. Now, they are our bitterest enemies. The Liberals are, of course, united in foolishness. Had we gone to the country three months ago, there would have been two Conservative-Labor alliances in conflict. It is very likely, given the improving economic situation and the absence of war, that we would have been returned to power. We may even have had our standing improved.
“Now, everything is different. We will be supported by, at most, half the Conservative Party. The other half will ally with the whole Labor Party. The Liberals, of course, count for nothing. Lord Halifax, in that election contest, we will not be defeated. We will be annihilated! Lord Halifax, you are quite right. Any possibility of a successful election has been eliminated. It, therefore, stands to reason that the election in question should never be held. Germany and the Soviet Union are now involved in a titanic struggle for the control of Europe. We should sit to one side and watch them destroy each other.”
That caused a long moment of silence as people weighed the odds and came to the same conclusion as Moore-Brabazon had done. Eventually, it was broken by Leo Amery “There is, of course, the issue of the Commonwealth. They are already announcing their support for the Soviet Union and promising aid.”
“Then let them throw their money and resources down the drain.” Butler was dismissive, obviously regarding the matter of little importance.
Sir John Dill was more perceptive. “That is easy to say. Now. In a year or eighteen months, when the war in the Soviet Union has passed out of its maneuver phase and into the deadlock geography dictates, Herr Hitler will be asking for more troops from his allies. In his eyes at least, we are amongst that number. What will happen, Mr. Butler, when the demand for British troops to join with the German Army in the war in Soviet Russia arrived in this room? It is certain there will be Commonwealth troops fighting with the Russians. Will you countenance British soldiers fighting their cousins from Canada and Australia? Will you see the magnificent Jawans of the Indian Army, the Sikhs, and the Gurkhas, fighting Scots and Welshmen?”
“They made their decision when they ignored my instructions to accept the Armistice we had negotiated.” Lord Halifax still harbored bitter resentment over that decision. “If that is where their intransigence leads them, so be it.”
Leo Amery jumped to his feet. “And if that is what you truly believe, Lord Halifax, you will go straight to Hell. If the Devil would tolerate your presence there.”
He stormed out, slamming the Cabinet Room door behind him. Inside the stunned room, Halifax and Butler exchanged glances.
High Holborn, London.
Leo Amery was lost in thought while his limousine swept through the night. He was on his way to Fleet Street, to discuss the events of the day with the owners of two of the most influential newspapers in the country. He knew very well that the British man in the street was quietly proud of the way the Commonwealth had acquitted itself now it had followed its own path. It was the same quiet pride a man felt when he read glowing accounts of his estranged son’s exploits in the newspapers. The idea that British troops might be expected to fight the Indians and Australians who had driven the Italians out of Africa and confounded German plans in Iraq would enrage them. There would be an outburst of sheer raw fury that would bring about a demand for no-confidence in the House that no MP could resist. The inevitable result would be the election that could remove Halifax, Butler, and their sycophants from power at last. It was the task of preparing that story occupying his mind that stopped Amery from registering that his car had stopped at a security checkpoint.
“Ministerial Car.” His driver spoke brusquely to the two Blackshirts that had come forward to check the vehicle. The car had ministerial plates that were supposed to stop this from happening.
“I know.” The lead Blackshirt looked in the back. “Mr. Amery?”
Amery looked up and nodded.
“Got a special message for you from the Prime Minister.” The Blackshirt stepped back, swinging his Lanchester submachine gun to the firing position. Both Blackshirts raked the back of the car with gunfire, killing Amery instantly. The driver tried to get out and run, but he was still only halfway through the door when another burst of gunfire cut him down. The two Blackshirts got into their own car and drove off. The press story about the murder of the Secretary of State for India and Burma by the resistance was already being readied for distribution.
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Seventeen
Conference Room, Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Canada
“At 4 o'clock this morning Hitler attacked and invaded Russia. All his usual formalities of perfidy were observed with scrupulous technique. A non-aggression treaty had been solemnly signed and was in force between the two countries. No complaint had been made by Germany of its non-fulfillment. Under its cloak of false confidence, the German armies drew up in immense strength along a line that stretched from the White Sea to the Black Sea, and their air fleets and armored divisions slowly and methodically took up their stations.
“Then, suddenly, without a declaration of war, without even an ultimatum, the German bombs rained down from the sky upon the Russian cities and German troops violated the Russian frontiers. Thus, was repeated on a far larger scale the same kind of outrage against every form of signed compact and international faith which we have witnessed in Norway, in Denmark, in Holland, in Belgium and which Hitler's accomplice and jackal, That Man whose name is not fit to come from a British tongue, so faithfully imitated in the case of Great Britain.
“Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage, and devastation. Poor as are the Russian peasants, workmen, and soldiers, he must steal from them their daily bread. He must devour their harvests. He must rob them of the oil which drives their plows and thus produce a famine without any example in human history.
“All we know at present is that the Russian people are defending their native soil and that their leaders have called upon them to resist to the utmost. I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial. I see them guarding their homes; their mothers and wives pray, ah yes, for there are times when all pray for the safety of their loved ones, for the return of the breadwinner, of the champion, of their protectors.
“I see the 10,000 villages of Russia, where the means of existence was wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play, I see advancing upon all this, in the hideous onslaught, the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents, fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, so delighted to find what they believe is an easier and safer prey. And behind all this glare, behind all this storm, I see that small group of villainous men who planned, organized, and launched this cataract of horrors upon mankind.
“It follows, therefore, that the Commonwealth of Nations shall give whatever help we can to Russia and to the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and Allies in every part of the world to take the same course and pursue it as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly to the end. Let us learn the lessons already taught by such a cruel experience. Let us redouble our exertions and strike with united strength while life and power remain.
“We have but one aim and one single irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this nothing will turn us. Nothing. We will never parley; we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land; we shall fight him by sea; we shall fight him in the air, until, with God's help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and liberated its people from his yoke.
“Any man or State who fights against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe. This especially applies to that vile race of traitors who make themselves the tools and agents of the Nazi regime against their fellow countrymen and against the lands of their births. These collaborators, if not disposed of by their fellow countrymen, which would save trouble, will be delivered by us on the morrow of victory to the justice of the Allied tribunals. This is our policy and that is our declaration. ‘We Will Have Their Heads!”
“Very good, Winston. We’ll have to see that goes out on the Free BBC. Now, we must deal with reality.” Prime Minister Mackenzie King guessed that what he had to say to Winston Churchill would not be well-received. Having the port of Halifax renamed after him has quite gone to his head. “The invasion of Russia has changed everything.”
Churchill’s eyes narrowed, first in suspicion, then in calculation. “You are going to tell me that the counter-invasion of the United Kingdom and the disposal of That Man will be delayed by the urgent need to provide the Soviet Union with as much support as possible.”
Mackenzie King mentally crossed his fingers and prayed that the explosion would not be too deafening. “I fear so.”
“You are quite right of course,” Churchill spoke mildly which made Mackenzie King quite certain he was living in a dream world. “Come now, Bill, do you not think I recognize reality when I see it?”
The Canadian Prime Minister fought back the temptation to say that he had never believed recognizing reality was one of Winston Churchill’s greater talents. “I am surprised, Winston. For almost exactly a year, you have been relentlessly driving us towards an invasion with every device at your disposal. Now, you seem not just resigned to further delays but positively welcoming them.”
Churchill’s grin was wicked. “That was then, Bill, this is now. And a mighty now it is. Your words, when you said everything had changed, were quite right. Herr Hitler has made the most terrible mistake imaginable with this invasion of the Soviet Union and terrible is indeed the only appropriate word. The snows of the Russian winter will run deep red with a monstrous effusion of German and Russian blood by the time this war is through. From our point of view, this mistake, loaded with dreadful consequences as it is, serves us well. My great fear, the one that drove every action I have taken over the last year, was the looming nightmare of That Man holding an election in Britain. I believe he would have won that election and thus consolidated his power. Had that happened, any invasion we could have staged would have been moot. It is one thing to remove a usurper, quite another a legally elected government.
“Now, with this latest development, he has lost more than half his support and any election he declared would have been political annihilation. So, we will not see an election in Britain any time in the near future. Indeed, if That Man has his way, we may never see one again in a Britain under his rule. The dire pressure of an impending election has been removed. Time is now on our side. As the war in Russia drains Germany of its military resources, Herr Hitler will have to shift forces from the west to supplement them. Resistance to our enterprises will be weakened. Using the time, we have gained to aid our great ally in the East is no longer a risk fraught with danger but a wise investment in the future. And there is another factor. We discussed how to get an invasion over the Atlantic in the face of Nazi submarines? Why, the delays will make available to us, sooner or later, the greatest fleet the world has ever seen.”
Churchill picked up his glass of brandy and headed for the smoking-room where he could sit down with a fine cigar and a good book. Behind him, Prime Minister Mackenzie King picked up the telephone and dialed Charles Power’s number. “Charles? I have made a terrifying discovery. Winston knew what he was doing all along.”
Catapult Aircraft Merchant Ship SS Empire Foam. North Atlantic
“That smells good.” Dale took a deep breath of the salt-laden spray. It was fresh and clean, away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of RCAF Station Debert.
“Aye, that it does.” Captain Dugald Armstrong also took a deep breath and smiled in sheer joy. “Every true Sailorman comes ashore, swearing he’s done with the sea and it’s the life on land for him now. And, after a few days or weeks, the land crowds in on him, the smells of town or country choke him and he’s down at the port, signing on for just one more voyage.”
“Like flying.” Dale took another deep breath to cleanse his lungs. “Once you’ve taken a bird into the sky solo, just you, nobody else, the sheer joy of freedom takes over your soul and you’re lost.”
“And there’s the rub.” Captain Armstrong knew what Dale was onboard to achieve. Indeed, with a catapult welded to his foredeck, a Hurry-Can perched on top of it, and another on the cargo hatch of number two hold, he could hardly not be aware of it. “Picking you up will not be easy.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Once I’ve come back, I’ll make a pass over you. You launch a lifeboat and carry on. I’ll ditch the Hurry-Can. For some odd reason, they stay afloat a long time if I put her down right. Then your lifeboat picks me up, you circle back, pick up the lifeboat and use your Lewis guns to sink the plane. That’ll keep you stopped in the water for the minimum time.”
“Sounds good to me. A pity we can’t practice it.”
“We may not have to. I have a suspicion that the Huns will be switching attention away from these southern convoys very soon now. The truth is, we’re unimportant and their attacks on us were little more than finding something to do. They cost the Huns virtually nothing but deprived us of valuable ships, and the cargo on them, and focused our eyes south. Instead, we’re going to be running convoys north, through the Barents Sea to the Soviet Arctic ports. The Soviets will need the supplies they carry, and the Huns will need to stop them. There are going to be some hellish battles up there once this war settles down. We’ll have to learn on the job.”
“Captain and pilot to the bridge. Captain and pilot to the bridge.” The loudhailer system sent the message echoing across the ship.
“That sounds ominous. You think we have business Captain?” Dale was already setting off for the bridge.
“Can’t see how we can have right out here. We’re far outside most hostile aircraft range. A Ju-90 has no hope, a Condor might make it this way, but the crew would be holding their fingers crossed for favorable winds on the way back. Sounds like an ideal target for your first kill.” Captain Armstrong grinned broadly; Canadian merchant seamen were living in fear of the Condors and to see one shot down would cause rejoicing across every port in the Commonwealth of Nations.
“Radar contact, Sir.” The Catapult Aircraft Merchantman had been fitted with an air search radar for exactly this set of circumstances. “He was turning north when he must have sniffed something. He’s casting round now. We saw him try east then west.”
“Smoke on the horizon. He’s not quite sure whether it’s ships or clouds and he’s at the end of his tether. Go get him Digger.” The captain had hardly finished speaking when the “prepare to launch aircraft” siren started whooping. Dale was already gone, running across the deck towards his aircraft. Its ground crew was already prepping it for launch. They had rehearsed this part of the drill often enough so, by the time Dale scrambled up the ladder to his cockpit, the Hurry-Can was ready to launch. Armstrong heard the catapult winding up and saw the white smoke coming from behind Dale’s aircraft. The catapult fired, sending the Hurry-Can down its length in a cloud that temporarily obscured the aircraft. Armstrong saw the cradle drop clear, then the Hurry-Can swept out of the cloud, dipped below the bows for a moment, then climbed away on an intercept course.
In the cockpit, Dale sagged with relief. It had been his first catapult launch; indeed, it had been the first launch from any of the catapult-equipped merchantmen and the first time to his knowledge that anybody had catapulted any type of Hurricane. He had been filled with fear at the thought of his mission ending ignominiously with him crashing into the sea. But he had made it, and now all he had to worry about was getting the aircraft that was shadowing the convoy. He was holding his Hurry-Can in a long, steady climb so that when he spotted his enemy, he could come at him from out of the sun. That was what all the textbooks recommended.
“He should be in front of you, Digger. A long way out though, sixty or seventy miles at least.” This was something he hadn’t thought of, that the radar on the CAM-ship could steer him to his target. This could make providing air cover missions a lot easier. If only we could bring the aircraft in again and reuse it.
The minutes ticked by with Dale still climbing and receiving regular minor changes of bearing and notice of the steadily decreasing range. He was beginning to be a little confused by the situation. Surely, I should have seen a big aircraft like the Condor by now? When he did finally spot the target aircraft, he was shocked to see it was a small, single-engined floatplane.
“I have the target. It’s an Arado 196 floatplane. There must be a warship out here somewhere.”
Dale could almost hear the shock over the radio. Eventually, Captain Armstrong himself responded. “Are you sure of that?”
“Well, Sir, if it’s a Condor, it must have shrunk in the wash. Single engine, two floats, black crosses clearly visible. I’m taking him out now.”
Dale did a neat wing-over and commenced his dive on the floatplane beneath him. As the speed of his aircraft built up, he heard the peculiar buzzing noise from the engine mount. That told him he had exceeded the 280 miles per hour that marked the allowable limit for the Hurry-Can. The buzzing grew worse, and he could feel the vibration starting to shake the stick. He eased off on the throttle, allowing the aircraft to slow again and the buzz faded. By then, he was closing in on the German floatplane quickly. At the last moment, the rear gunner stopped looking down at the sea below and scanned the sky. Dale quickly imagined the shock of seeing a fighter closing in on him and the picture made him check his own rear mirror. It was empty, of course.
That was when he saw the red blobs of tracer fire coming up from the floatplane. It was a single line, telling him that the Arado had only a single machine gun in the gunner’s position. The blast of fire from Dale’s twelve .303s seemed a devastating response and its effect on the Arado proved it. The aircraft collapsed in mid-air, its floats flying off as the wings disintegrated and the fuel tanks exploded. What was left spun into the sea far below.
“I got him Captain. Definitely an Arado. Got lots of fuel so I’m going to stooge around a bit, see if I can find where he came from.”
Dale could hear the cheering in the background that threatened to drown Captain Armstrong out. “Well done, Digger. Try going northeast. That’s where the bugger came from.”
“Wilco.” Dale started to cast north, watching his fuel gauge carefully. The R-1830 was running economically but that didn’t mean he could take liberties. Half an hour after the Arado had gone down, he had flown some hundred miles north without seeing anything other than the empty sea. He thought carefully and decided to swing southeast. The Canadian convoy is escorted only by the destroyer Frazer and the armed merchant cruiser Prince David. Four 4.7-inch guns on the destroyer and a pair of old six-inchers from the Aurora on the Prince David If there’s an enemy cruiser or, God forbid, a pocket battleship, out here, the whole convoy could be toast.
In a state of increasing gloom and despondency, Dale flew southeast, looking for any sign of an enemy warship. He had just about given up when he spotted a smoke stain on the horizon. A few minutes later, he was looking down at a large and very modern merchant ship.
German Auxiliary Cruiser Schiff 28, “Michel” South Atlantic.
“Any word from Annie?” Captain von Ruckteschell wasn’t happy. He had started off with two Ar-196 floatplanes, but one had been lost almost immediately. Oh, the airframe is still there but Gusti is a write-off. The cylinders of her engine are cracked to hell after a rough water landing. That just leaves Annie, and she has just vanished. The radio cut off in mid-transmission.
“None, Sir. Do you think her engine went out?”
“Possible, after what happened to Gusti but I don’t think so. The crew would have got some sort of message out even if just to let us know where they were so we could pick them up. Something happened to her.”
“Sir! Over to port. Annie is coming in.”
“That’s not Annie. It’s a landplane. I think it’s a Grumman Wildcat.” The port lookout was watching the aircraft approach.”
“It’s a Brewster Buffalo.” Another lookout shouted his opinion. “How is a landplane out here?”
“It’s a carrier. There must be a U.S. Navy carrier in the area.”
“They’re neutral. Nothing to worry about.”
“That’s not a Brewster, that’s a Hurricane. I recognize the shape of the wings.”
“There can’t be a Hurricane out here. It hasn’t got anywhere to fly from.” The confusion caused by different people shouting opinions seemed to swallow the bridge.
“It’s Canadian.” von Ruckteschell had got a good look at the aircraft through his binoculars and seen the blue and white roundels with the red maple leaf in the middle. “And it is a Hurricane although it seems to have been fitted with a new engine. He’s seen us.”
“The Canadians must have converted a merchant ship into an aircraft carrier. We did get a report they had converted three liners into armed merchant cruisers. We’d better get out of here, if they have Swordfish as well, we’re done for.” Gunnery officer Steffen Dohman had made it his duty to gather as much information on Canadian naval programs as possible.
“He’s coming around to take a closer look.” The port lookout watched the Hurricane coming in from astern. “He wants a closer look.”
“A closer look, hell! That’s a strafing pass. Order the anti-aircraft guns to open fire!”
The action that followed was brief and savage. The Hurricane’s twelve .303 machine guns lashed the superstructure of Michel with bullets while the ship’s anti-aircraft guns stained the sky black around the aircraft. Yet for all its ferocity, the exchange seemed to have done little. The Hurricane flew off, its pilot heading southwest trailing a thin black stream of mixed black and white while the bridge crew of Michel picked themselves up from the deck.
“Damage? Casualties?” von Ruckteschell snapped the demands out.
“Main gun rangefinder took some hits. It’s out of action, we’ll have to dismantle it to find out if it can be repaired. Only one casualty, Sir. Gunnery Officer Dohman is dead. Shot through the head.”
Conference Room, Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Canada
“At 4 o'clock this morning Hitler attacked and invaded Russia. All his usual formalities of perfidy were observed with scrupulous technique. A non-aggression treaty had been solemnly signed and was in force between the two countries. No complaint had been made by Germany of its non-fulfillment. Under its cloak of false confidence, the German armies drew up in immense strength along a line that stretched from the White Sea to the Black Sea, and their air fleets and armored divisions slowly and methodically took up their stations.
“Then, suddenly, without a declaration of war, without even an ultimatum, the German bombs rained down from the sky upon the Russian cities and German troops violated the Russian frontiers. Thus, was repeated on a far larger scale the same kind of outrage against every form of signed compact and international faith which we have witnessed in Norway, in Denmark, in Holland, in Belgium and which Hitler's accomplice and jackal, That Man whose name is not fit to come from a British tongue, so faithfully imitated in the case of Great Britain.
“Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage, and devastation. Poor as are the Russian peasants, workmen, and soldiers, he must steal from them their daily bread. He must devour their harvests. He must rob them of the oil which drives their plows and thus produce a famine without any example in human history.
“All we know at present is that the Russian people are defending their native soil and that their leaders have called upon them to resist to the utmost. I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial. I see them guarding their homes; their mothers and wives pray, ah yes, for there are times when all pray for the safety of their loved ones, for the return of the breadwinner, of the champion, of their protectors.
“I see the 10,000 villages of Russia, where the means of existence was wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play, I see advancing upon all this, in the hideous onslaught, the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents, fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, so delighted to find what they believe is an easier and safer prey. And behind all this glare, behind all this storm, I see that small group of villainous men who planned, organized, and launched this cataract of horrors upon mankind.
“It follows, therefore, that the Commonwealth of Nations shall give whatever help we can to Russia and to the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and Allies in every part of the world to take the same course and pursue it as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly to the end. Let us learn the lessons already taught by such a cruel experience. Let us redouble our exertions and strike with united strength while life and power remain.
“We have but one aim and one single irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this nothing will turn us. Nothing. We will never parley; we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land; we shall fight him by sea; we shall fight him in the air, until, with God's help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and liberated its people from his yoke.
“Any man or State who fights against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe. This especially applies to that vile race of traitors who make themselves the tools and agents of the Nazi regime against their fellow countrymen and against the lands of their births. These collaborators, if not disposed of by their fellow countrymen, which would save trouble, will be delivered by us on the morrow of victory to the justice of the Allied tribunals. This is our policy and that is our declaration. ‘We Will Have Their Heads!”
“Very good, Winston. We’ll have to see that goes out on the Free BBC. Now, we must deal with reality.” Prime Minister Mackenzie King guessed that what he had to say to Winston Churchill would not be well-received. Having the port of Halifax renamed after him has quite gone to his head. “The invasion of Russia has changed everything.”
Churchill’s eyes narrowed, first in suspicion, then in calculation. “You are going to tell me that the counter-invasion of the United Kingdom and the disposal of That Man will be delayed by the urgent need to provide the Soviet Union with as much support as possible.”
Mackenzie King mentally crossed his fingers and prayed that the explosion would not be too deafening. “I fear so.”
“You are quite right of course,” Churchill spoke mildly which made Mackenzie King quite certain he was living in a dream world. “Come now, Bill, do you not think I recognize reality when I see it?”
The Canadian Prime Minister fought back the temptation to say that he had never believed recognizing reality was one of Winston Churchill’s greater talents. “I am surprised, Winston. For almost exactly a year, you have been relentlessly driving us towards an invasion with every device at your disposal. Now, you seem not just resigned to further delays but positively welcoming them.”
Churchill’s grin was wicked. “That was then, Bill, this is now. And a mighty now it is. Your words, when you said everything had changed, were quite right. Herr Hitler has made the most terrible mistake imaginable with this invasion of the Soviet Union and terrible is indeed the only appropriate word. The snows of the Russian winter will run deep red with a monstrous effusion of German and Russian blood by the time this war is through. From our point of view, this mistake, loaded with dreadful consequences as it is, serves us well. My great fear, the one that drove every action I have taken over the last year, was the looming nightmare of That Man holding an election in Britain. I believe he would have won that election and thus consolidated his power. Had that happened, any invasion we could have staged would have been moot. It is one thing to remove a usurper, quite another a legally elected government.
“Now, with this latest development, he has lost more than half his support and any election he declared would have been political annihilation. So, we will not see an election in Britain any time in the near future. Indeed, if That Man has his way, we may never see one again in a Britain under his rule. The dire pressure of an impending election has been removed. Time is now on our side. As the war in Russia drains Germany of its military resources, Herr Hitler will have to shift forces from the west to supplement them. Resistance to our enterprises will be weakened. Using the time, we have gained to aid our great ally in the East is no longer a risk fraught with danger but a wise investment in the future. And there is another factor. We discussed how to get an invasion over the Atlantic in the face of Nazi submarines? Why, the delays will make available to us, sooner or later, the greatest fleet the world has ever seen.”
Churchill picked up his glass of brandy and headed for the smoking-room where he could sit down with a fine cigar and a good book. Behind him, Prime Minister Mackenzie King picked up the telephone and dialed Charles Power’s number. “Charles? I have made a terrifying discovery. Winston knew what he was doing all along.”
Catapult Aircraft Merchant Ship SS Empire Foam. North Atlantic
“That smells good.” Dale took a deep breath of the salt-laden spray. It was fresh and clean, away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of RCAF Station Debert.
“Aye, that it does.” Captain Dugald Armstrong also took a deep breath and smiled in sheer joy. “Every true Sailorman comes ashore, swearing he’s done with the sea and it’s the life on land for him now. And, after a few days or weeks, the land crowds in on him, the smells of town or country choke him and he’s down at the port, signing on for just one more voyage.”
“Like flying.” Dale took another deep breath to cleanse his lungs. “Once you’ve taken a bird into the sky solo, just you, nobody else, the sheer joy of freedom takes over your soul and you’re lost.”
“And there’s the rub.” Captain Armstrong knew what Dale was onboard to achieve. Indeed, with a catapult welded to his foredeck, a Hurry-Can perched on top of it, and another on the cargo hatch of number two hold, he could hardly not be aware of it. “Picking you up will not be easy.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Once I’ve come back, I’ll make a pass over you. You launch a lifeboat and carry on. I’ll ditch the Hurry-Can. For some odd reason, they stay afloat a long time if I put her down right. Then your lifeboat picks me up, you circle back, pick up the lifeboat and use your Lewis guns to sink the plane. That’ll keep you stopped in the water for the minimum time.”
“Sounds good to me. A pity we can’t practice it.”
“We may not have to. I have a suspicion that the Huns will be switching attention away from these southern convoys very soon now. The truth is, we’re unimportant and their attacks on us were little more than finding something to do. They cost the Huns virtually nothing but deprived us of valuable ships, and the cargo on them, and focused our eyes south. Instead, we’re going to be running convoys north, through the Barents Sea to the Soviet Arctic ports. The Soviets will need the supplies they carry, and the Huns will need to stop them. There are going to be some hellish battles up there once this war settles down. We’ll have to learn on the job.”
“Captain and pilot to the bridge. Captain and pilot to the bridge.” The loudhailer system sent the message echoing across the ship.
“That sounds ominous. You think we have business Captain?” Dale was already setting off for the bridge.
“Can’t see how we can have right out here. We’re far outside most hostile aircraft range. A Ju-90 has no hope, a Condor might make it this way, but the crew would be holding their fingers crossed for favorable winds on the way back. Sounds like an ideal target for your first kill.” Captain Armstrong grinned broadly; Canadian merchant seamen were living in fear of the Condors and to see one shot down would cause rejoicing across every port in the Commonwealth of Nations.
“Radar contact, Sir.” The Catapult Aircraft Merchantman had been fitted with an air search radar for exactly this set of circumstances. “He was turning north when he must have sniffed something. He’s casting round now. We saw him try east then west.”
“Smoke on the horizon. He’s not quite sure whether it’s ships or clouds and he’s at the end of his tether. Go get him Digger.” The captain had hardly finished speaking when the “prepare to launch aircraft” siren started whooping. Dale was already gone, running across the deck towards his aircraft. Its ground crew was already prepping it for launch. They had rehearsed this part of the drill often enough so, by the time Dale scrambled up the ladder to his cockpit, the Hurry-Can was ready to launch. Armstrong heard the catapult winding up and saw the white smoke coming from behind Dale’s aircraft. The catapult fired, sending the Hurry-Can down its length in a cloud that temporarily obscured the aircraft. Armstrong saw the cradle drop clear, then the Hurry-Can swept out of the cloud, dipped below the bows for a moment, then climbed away on an intercept course.
In the cockpit, Dale sagged with relief. It had been his first catapult launch; indeed, it had been the first launch from any of the catapult-equipped merchantmen and the first time to his knowledge that anybody had catapulted any type of Hurricane. He had been filled with fear at the thought of his mission ending ignominiously with him crashing into the sea. But he had made it, and now all he had to worry about was getting the aircraft that was shadowing the convoy. He was holding his Hurry-Can in a long, steady climb so that when he spotted his enemy, he could come at him from out of the sun. That was what all the textbooks recommended.
“He should be in front of you, Digger. A long way out though, sixty or seventy miles at least.” This was something he hadn’t thought of, that the radar on the CAM-ship could steer him to his target. This could make providing air cover missions a lot easier. If only we could bring the aircraft in again and reuse it.
The minutes ticked by with Dale still climbing and receiving regular minor changes of bearing and notice of the steadily decreasing range. He was beginning to be a little confused by the situation. Surely, I should have seen a big aircraft like the Condor by now? When he did finally spot the target aircraft, he was shocked to see it was a small, single-engined floatplane.
“I have the target. It’s an Arado 196 floatplane. There must be a warship out here somewhere.”
Dale could almost hear the shock over the radio. Eventually, Captain Armstrong himself responded. “Are you sure of that?”
“Well, Sir, if it’s a Condor, it must have shrunk in the wash. Single engine, two floats, black crosses clearly visible. I’m taking him out now.”
Dale did a neat wing-over and commenced his dive on the floatplane beneath him. As the speed of his aircraft built up, he heard the peculiar buzzing noise from the engine mount. That told him he had exceeded the 280 miles per hour that marked the allowable limit for the Hurry-Can. The buzzing grew worse, and he could feel the vibration starting to shake the stick. He eased off on the throttle, allowing the aircraft to slow again and the buzz faded. By then, he was closing in on the German floatplane quickly. At the last moment, the rear gunner stopped looking down at the sea below and scanned the sky. Dale quickly imagined the shock of seeing a fighter closing in on him and the picture made him check his own rear mirror. It was empty, of course.
That was when he saw the red blobs of tracer fire coming up from the floatplane. It was a single line, telling him that the Arado had only a single machine gun in the gunner’s position. The blast of fire from Dale’s twelve .303s seemed a devastating response and its effect on the Arado proved it. The aircraft collapsed in mid-air, its floats flying off as the wings disintegrated and the fuel tanks exploded. What was left spun into the sea far below.
“I got him Captain. Definitely an Arado. Got lots of fuel so I’m going to stooge around a bit, see if I can find where he came from.”
Dale could hear the cheering in the background that threatened to drown Captain Armstrong out. “Well done, Digger. Try going northeast. That’s where the bugger came from.”
“Wilco.” Dale started to cast north, watching his fuel gauge carefully. The R-1830 was running economically but that didn’t mean he could take liberties. Half an hour after the Arado had gone down, he had flown some hundred miles north without seeing anything other than the empty sea. He thought carefully and decided to swing southeast. The Canadian convoy is escorted only by the destroyer Frazer and the armed merchant cruiser Prince David. Four 4.7-inch guns on the destroyer and a pair of old six-inchers from the Aurora on the Prince David If there’s an enemy cruiser or, God forbid, a pocket battleship, out here, the whole convoy could be toast.
In a state of increasing gloom and despondency, Dale flew southeast, looking for any sign of an enemy warship. He had just about given up when he spotted a smoke stain on the horizon. A few minutes later, he was looking down at a large and very modern merchant ship.
German Auxiliary Cruiser Schiff 28, “Michel” South Atlantic.
“Any word from Annie?” Captain von Ruckteschell wasn’t happy. He had started off with two Ar-196 floatplanes, but one had been lost almost immediately. Oh, the airframe is still there but Gusti is a write-off. The cylinders of her engine are cracked to hell after a rough water landing. That just leaves Annie, and she has just vanished. The radio cut off in mid-transmission.
“None, Sir. Do you think her engine went out?”
“Possible, after what happened to Gusti but I don’t think so. The crew would have got some sort of message out even if just to let us know where they were so we could pick them up. Something happened to her.”
“Sir! Over to port. Annie is coming in.”
“That’s not Annie. It’s a landplane. I think it’s a Grumman Wildcat.” The port lookout was watching the aircraft approach.”
“It’s a Brewster Buffalo.” Another lookout shouted his opinion. “How is a landplane out here?”
“It’s a carrier. There must be a U.S. Navy carrier in the area.”
“They’re neutral. Nothing to worry about.”
“That’s not a Brewster, that’s a Hurricane. I recognize the shape of the wings.”
“There can’t be a Hurricane out here. It hasn’t got anywhere to fly from.” The confusion caused by different people shouting opinions seemed to swallow the bridge.
“It’s Canadian.” von Ruckteschell had got a good look at the aircraft through his binoculars and seen the blue and white roundels with the red maple leaf in the middle. “And it is a Hurricane although it seems to have been fitted with a new engine. He’s seen us.”
“The Canadians must have converted a merchant ship into an aircraft carrier. We did get a report they had converted three liners into armed merchant cruisers. We’d better get out of here, if they have Swordfish as well, we’re done for.” Gunnery officer Steffen Dohman had made it his duty to gather as much information on Canadian naval programs as possible.
“He’s coming around to take a closer look.” The port lookout watched the Hurricane coming in from astern. “He wants a closer look.”
“A closer look, hell! That’s a strafing pass. Order the anti-aircraft guns to open fire!”
The action that followed was brief and savage. The Hurricane’s twelve .303 machine guns lashed the superstructure of Michel with bullets while the ship’s anti-aircraft guns stained the sky black around the aircraft. Yet for all its ferocity, the exchange seemed to have done little. The Hurricane flew off, its pilot heading southwest trailing a thin black stream of mixed black and white while the bridge crew of Michel picked themselves up from the deck.
“Damage? Casualties?” von Ruckteschell snapped the demands out.
“Main gun rangefinder took some hits. It’s out of action, we’ll have to dismantle it to find out if it can be repaired. Only one casualty, Sir. Gunnery Officer Dohman is dead. Shot through the head.”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Eighteen
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
The period of reflection and soul-searching urged by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had only served to emphasize the enormity of the crisis that had erupted across the world. May 22, 1941 had indeed been the day the world had changed although the more perceptive realized that it had been an inevitable result of the armistice between Britain and Germany. It was indeed true that the Commonwealth was no longer alone, but the end of its isolation had brought no great comfort. There was one small benefit to the invasion of the Soviet Union; any opposition to the war effort from the communist parties across the Commonwealth had instantly vanished. Now, their cry was for more effort, more production, more vigorous prosecution of the war, not less. It was little enough comfort but at least it was something.
The Marquess of Linlithgow looked around the Cabinet with eyes deep sunk in an exhausted face and bloodshot from lack of sleep. His question was simple, yet it had been bedeviling him ever since the last Cabinet Meeting had been adjourned. "What do we do? General Auchinleck, have you any plans?"
"Our initial assessment was correct. The German has tried to strike deep and destroy the Russian Army in a series of encirclement battles along the frontier. They have had some success but not as much as we thought likely. It appears the Russians held their troops back from the frontier in anticipation of that strategy and retreated quickly. The border guards suffered very heavily but the Army has not. Not yet anyway. Frankly, I do not think that we or the Soviets deserve much praise for anticipating the German plan. It was, after all, obvious. Now, with their original plan already in disarray, we are already seeing large-scale armored attacks intended to push deep into the Soviet territory and seize as much strategic territory as possible."
Auchinleck hesitated. He had met with the Soviet Ambassador in New Delhi and learned much once the original posturing had faded. "I have learned some disturbing facts though. On the first full day of the fighting, the Soviet Union lost more than 2,000 aircraft on the ground or in air combat. The German has achieved air superiority over the whole length of the front and is supporting their ground troops without serious interference."
"May I ask how many aircraft the Germans lost, General?" Gerald Tarrant was trying to comprehend air warfare on this scale.
"We believe, seventy-eight." Auchinleck had been unable to believe the incredible 25:1 kill to loss ratio that implied. Yet, as more information had come in, it appeared the figures were correct. "Germany's allies did not fare so well. They have lost a further 90 aircraft, but they were able to claim only twenty-three."
"How?" Tarrant's voice was small as if compressed by the sheer weight of the disaster.
Group Captain George Baldwin was shaking his head. In one day, the Soviet Union had lost more aircraft than the entire Commonwealth possessed and all for a trifling cost to the enemy. "I expect most of the Soviet losses were on the ground, their aircraft bunched together in neat rows. Then, in desperation and the urgent need to provide some means of striking the enemy, they threw their surviving aircraft at the German without proper planning or coordination. It is probable the bombers flew without fighter escort and suffered accordingly. Going by the casualties, it is apparent that they fought until they were shot down, disregarding their losses. Yet, it also appears their training standards left much to be desired. We believe that most of their pilots had barely six hours on type."
"There is something we must bear in mind. The Soviet strategy is the same as the traditional Russian strategy has always been." General Auchinleck looked around. "They regard everything west of the Don River as expendable. They will draw their enemies into the vast depths of Russia to attrite the enemy. The decisive battlefield is between the Don and the Volga rivers. Within hours of the invasion starting, plans to move Russian industry to new locations east of the Volga were put into effect and those transplanted factories will fuel the battle in the decisive area. It is there, between the Don and the Volga, that they will meet the German with all the power and fury they can command. This gives us an opportunity. We cannot offer them vast forces and our own resources are slight. But we have one resource in abundance, manpower. We can do something that had often been proposed but never implemented. We can drive a railway through Afghanistan that will link with the southern branches of the Trans-Siberian railway and aid in the supply of the Soviet forces defending that decisive battlefield between the Don and the Volga. The terrain will require manual laborers in large numbers and that we have."
"Will the Afghans agree?" The question seemed almost as if the speaker was looking for a reason to avoid a monumentally difficult and expensive undertaking.
"Will we ask?" Tarrant's reply was decisive.
It made the Marquess of Linlithgow smile for the first time in days. "No. They can help or get out of the way. We will tell the Afghan government that after the war is over, we will give them the railway and all the equipment associated with it. But, until that time comes, we will build and operate the Trans-Afghan Railway and we will brook no interference with that."
"Sir, I have another proposal, one that has evolved out of my discussions with our allies in the Commonwealth. Our ground forces are heavily committed and unavailable, but we can form a group of volunteers to go to the Soviet Union to help. We envisage a Commonwealth Volunteer Group, three squadrons of the latest Tomahawk fighters, two of the new Baltimore light bombers, and the Wellington squadron of heavy bombers. Plus, two squadrons of Flamingo transports. All flown by our best and most experienced pilots." Baldwin looked around, trying to gauge how strong the support would be for sending airmen on an assignment where survival seemed but a slight hope. "At our last meeting, I suggested that unless there is an overwhelming political reason to carry out this raid, we should seek a more productive way of supporting our new ally. Sadly, I would say the politics of the situation are overwhelming and there is no productive alternative way of providing military support to the Soviet Union."
"Will a hundred pilots make any difference in a war where two thousand aircraft are lost in a single day?" Nehru wanted to aid the Soviet Union as much as anybody, but the proposed Commonwealth air group seemed a tiny thread.
"A hundred veteran pilots, hardened in combat with months or years of experience? They will have an impact out of all proportion to their number." Baldwin sounded more hopeful than convinced; after all those same pilots had not done so well the first time, they had faced the Germans. Yet what else is there?
"Tomahawks and Baltimores," Tarrant asked the obvious question. "American aircraft. Will they allow us to send the aircraft they give us to Russia?"
"We believe so." It was Sir Eric Haohoa who answered. "They are forming their own volunteer unit to go to Russia. I believe they will call it 'The Flying Bears.' Damned silly name if you ask me. But they didn't."
The laugh that ran around the Cabinet Room was a genuine relief. With a railway and a volunteer group decided, at least India was doing something to aid the Russians.
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Mosul, Iraq.
"Reporting as ordered, Sir." Squadron Leader Pim Bosede snapped out a sharp salute. With the situation in Iraq cooling down rapidly, conventional order and discipline were returning. The message that he was to report to his Group Captain at his earliest convenience was hardly reassuring.
"Pim. You will, no doubt, be delighted to know you are being transferred. Or rather, the whole squadron is, and you'll be its commander. You’re going to be sorely needed where you are going.” Group Captain Seymour Linford looked at the orders he had received. "Before you complain, I'm going with you as Group Commander."
"Bermuda? The West Indies? Guadaloupe?" Bosede reeled off the names of the prime postings with but faint hope. The news on the radio was filled with the fighting in Russia and he had a suspicion as to where he would soon be going.
"Even better. We will be going to the most popular tourist destination in the Soviet Union. A place called Yalta and we will be taking our new Kittyhawks with us." Linford decided to have mercy on his most experienced squadron leader. "We'll be forming an expeditionary group, an air commando, with three squadrons of Kittyhawks, two of Baltimores and one of Wellingtons. We are providing one squadron of Kittyhawks and one of Baltimores, India the same. The Australians are sending two squadrons of Flamingo transports while Middle East Command is contributing its Wellingtons and the third Kittyhawk squadron. We're all assembling here, then we'll move to Yalta by way of Tbilisi. Number 4 squadron will fly ahead to clear the way. That's 382 miles. Then, once we've assembled at Tbilisi, we'll fly through to Yalta. Another 570 miles."
"Wait a minute, Sir. Clear the way? Are we expecting opposition?"
Linford hesitated. "We will be flying over Turkey for a part of the way. Now, the Indian Government, acting on behalf of the Commonwealth of Nations, has obtained permission from the Turkish Government to conduct a military air movement through their airspace. According to the grapevine, we can owe that to two things. One is that the Turks got scared stiff by the way we hit their airfield a few days ago. So, those Maryland crews served us well. The other is that the Jerry invasion of Russia suggested that being a German ally was risky and one may get invaded by them at any moment. On the other hand, treachery is the natural order of things in this part of the world, so we'll be taking precautions. You'll take your Kittyhawks up ahead and if Turkish fighters try to interfere, shoot them down. In a friendly manner of course."
"What have they got, Sir?"
"Fighters? Mostly Hurricanes, Pezetel PZL-24s and MS406s."
Bosede thought for a few seconds, "Hurricanes might be an issue, the French and Polish aircraft we can handle."
"What do you think of the Kittyhawk, Pim”?
"I don't know to be honest, Sir." Bosede had been flying his new P-40E, trying to get used to the new aircraft. "Jozette is a lot heavier that Marijke and it shows all the way around. Not nearly so agile and much slower climbing. Dives like the very devil though. Bit faster and a lot more firepower. The armor and self-sealing fuel tanks are good. I get the idea the best way is to drop on the enemy and use the weight to dive clear after a pass. But I miss the sparkle Marijke had. She was a racehorse; Jozette is a destrier. "
"The Australians have a few RAF veterans from the battle of France in their ranks and there are more in Middle East Command of course. They all say the same thing. The days of aerobatic maneuvers and dogfighting are gone. Now its pick your man, hit and run. We're sending all the Kittyhawks we have to Russia; the Tomahawks will be staying here."
"I hope we don't have more trouble. We're spreading ourselves pretty thin."
"I thought that too. I just hope our beloved leaders have."
Patrol Ship Enggano, Off Kalimantan, Dutch East Indies
“There she is, Sir. Right on course and time. Captain Tachibana runs a tight ship.”
“I've noticed most of the Japanese skippers do. If their Navy is the same way, they could be a formidable force. Very good, Number One. Make signal, Patrol Ship Enggano to Japanese civilian tanker. Please identify and state code letters, cargo, and destination.”
It was the same message that had been sent several times before. The international customs of the sea dictated the format of such messages so that no misunderstandings would take place. Lieutenant (Third class) Setiawan Cahaya had the signaler send the required message by signal lamp and read the response. “M/T Hoyo Maru, out of Nagasaki, Captain Saburou Tachibana commanding wishes us good morning and hopes that our operations are proceeding well. She is in ballast on route from Nagasaki to Balikpapan where she will collect a cargo of crude oil. Her code letters are MT546."
“Our old friend is in a jovial mood this morning. Make signal, Captain Olaf Baart wishes Captain Tachibana a good morning and will enjoy sailing with him while we progress through the channel.”
“Response from Hoyo Maru, Sir. Thanks us for the escort and, as a matter of courtesy, reminds us she has been fitted with a 10cm gun on her stern. Adds that, as usual, the gun is unmanned and will not be readied for action while she is in our company.”
"And all is normal in the Makassar Strait. Probably the only peaceful place left in the world."
"Don’t say that Captain. The Sleeping God might hear you. Krakatau."
"Ah yes. I see what you mean. We don’t want to wake him up, do we." Baart shuddered slightly at the memory of school day lessons about the terrible volcanic explosion that had devastated the island. "Talking about hideous explosions, anybody heard the latest word from Russia?"
Cahaya spoke quietly to the radio room on the speaker. He listened for a minute or two before placing the handset back on its receiver. "Radio has just finished listening to the news, Sir. The Germans claim to have taken Bialystok and advanced some 450 kilometers. They also have claimed to have encircled over half a million Russian troops around Minsk. The Romanians have Odessa under siege. The only good news is that Brest and the Brest Fortress are still holding out, according to the Russians anyway. I would hate to be a Russian right now, Sir."
"It's not looking good for them, is it? By the way, did you read the latest dispatches? Apparently, there is going to be a change in sailing patterns around here soon. A lot of the Australian ships that were heading west for the Middle East and Italy will now be going north."
"To Russia?"
"That's my bet. Food, fuel, and ammunition. I wonder if there will be anybody left to be fueled and fed by the time it gets there. Anyway, our lords and masters have told us to adjust our patrol patterns accordingly. Not that there are many other places we could go in the Makassar." There was a long silence with Cahaya being uncharacteristically silent. "A thought?"
"Sir, I would be happier if we headed south of south-east and went through the deep water channel off Majene. The water is two thousand meters deep there, much too deep to be mined. On our normal due south route, the shallow waters are only 50 meters deep. We've used that route several times now. Is it time for a change Sir?"
"It is indeed. Good thinking, Lieutenant. Signal Hoyo Maru and ask her to follow us. Explain that we'll take her through the deep-water channel in case some ill-intentioned people have laid mines in the shallows. Then, double up on the lookouts and tell them they're looking for mines. If we spot any, we'll try and blow them up with the Madsens."
"Acknowledgment from Hoyo Maru Sir. Thanks, us for the advice and states she will be posting extra lookouts."
"You see. Great minds do think alike.”
Baart felt Enggano swing onto her new course. Behind him, he saw Hoyo Maru turn to follow his new heading. In a few minutes, both ships were in column heading south-southeast. Baart saw that the tanker was following exactly and precisely in his wake. The Japanese Captain had been too polite to say so, but he was obviously using Enggano as a mine bumper. Well, that is fair enough. We must protect her somehow and mines do not respect flags of neutrality.
“Wreckage up ahead, Sir. It looks as if it’s been drifting for some time. See the gulls off to port?” Cahaya hadn’t made the report in any authorized style, but his call was accurate and quite correct. The debris was from a ship and the gulls were feasting on what had once been her crew.
Once Enggano had closed on the wreckage, it was obvious what had happened. It had once been a fishing boat, but it had snagged a mine in its net and that had been the death of her and her crew. The explosion had destroyed the little ship completely, leaving nothing but shattered shards of wood. Baart couldn’t make out whether the men had been killed by the blast and thrown in the water or whether they had lived adrift on the wreckage for a day or two before they had succumbed to their injuries, thirst, and starvation. He hoped, for their sake, it had been the former. Already, his crew was bringing in the remains and preparing for their burial.
“No identity cards, Sir. But one piece of debris has DAV painted on it. Probably it’s port of origin. The name would have been on the bows.”
“Probably Davao. Big fishing port in Mindanao. That means they’re Philippinos and probably were Catholic. We’ll bury them accordingly. If we got it wrong, well, God will understand that we tried. Signals, call the tanker and tell her we will catch her up as soon as we have buried the dead. Then radio Davao and ask them how many fishing craft they are missing right now.”
The signal was transmitted, and the reply was quick. The Japanese merchant ensign fluttered down to half-mast and the message came back. “We will attend you.”
“He just wants us to bump mines for him.”
“No, Lieutenant, he’s a man of the sea and is behaving like one. With honor.”
Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India
The period of reflection and soul-searching urged by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had only served to emphasize the enormity of the crisis that had erupted across the world. May 22, 1941 had indeed been the day the world had changed although the more perceptive realized that it had been an inevitable result of the armistice between Britain and Germany. It was indeed true that the Commonwealth was no longer alone, but the end of its isolation had brought no great comfort. There was one small benefit to the invasion of the Soviet Union; any opposition to the war effort from the communist parties across the Commonwealth had instantly vanished. Now, their cry was for more effort, more production, more vigorous prosecution of the war, not less. It was little enough comfort but at least it was something.
The Marquess of Linlithgow looked around the Cabinet with eyes deep sunk in an exhausted face and bloodshot from lack of sleep. His question was simple, yet it had been bedeviling him ever since the last Cabinet Meeting had been adjourned. "What do we do? General Auchinleck, have you any plans?"
"Our initial assessment was correct. The German has tried to strike deep and destroy the Russian Army in a series of encirclement battles along the frontier. They have had some success but not as much as we thought likely. It appears the Russians held their troops back from the frontier in anticipation of that strategy and retreated quickly. The border guards suffered very heavily but the Army has not. Not yet anyway. Frankly, I do not think that we or the Soviets deserve much praise for anticipating the German plan. It was, after all, obvious. Now, with their original plan already in disarray, we are already seeing large-scale armored attacks intended to push deep into the Soviet territory and seize as much strategic territory as possible."
Auchinleck hesitated. He had met with the Soviet Ambassador in New Delhi and learned much once the original posturing had faded. "I have learned some disturbing facts though. On the first full day of the fighting, the Soviet Union lost more than 2,000 aircraft on the ground or in air combat. The German has achieved air superiority over the whole length of the front and is supporting their ground troops without serious interference."
"May I ask how many aircraft the Germans lost, General?" Gerald Tarrant was trying to comprehend air warfare on this scale.
"We believe, seventy-eight." Auchinleck had been unable to believe the incredible 25:1 kill to loss ratio that implied. Yet, as more information had come in, it appeared the figures were correct. "Germany's allies did not fare so well. They have lost a further 90 aircraft, but they were able to claim only twenty-three."
"How?" Tarrant's voice was small as if compressed by the sheer weight of the disaster.
Group Captain George Baldwin was shaking his head. In one day, the Soviet Union had lost more aircraft than the entire Commonwealth possessed and all for a trifling cost to the enemy. "I expect most of the Soviet losses were on the ground, their aircraft bunched together in neat rows. Then, in desperation and the urgent need to provide some means of striking the enemy, they threw their surviving aircraft at the German without proper planning or coordination. It is probable the bombers flew without fighter escort and suffered accordingly. Going by the casualties, it is apparent that they fought until they were shot down, disregarding their losses. Yet, it also appears their training standards left much to be desired. We believe that most of their pilots had barely six hours on type."
"There is something we must bear in mind. The Soviet strategy is the same as the traditional Russian strategy has always been." General Auchinleck looked around. "They regard everything west of the Don River as expendable. They will draw their enemies into the vast depths of Russia to attrite the enemy. The decisive battlefield is between the Don and the Volga rivers. Within hours of the invasion starting, plans to move Russian industry to new locations east of the Volga were put into effect and those transplanted factories will fuel the battle in the decisive area. It is there, between the Don and the Volga, that they will meet the German with all the power and fury they can command. This gives us an opportunity. We cannot offer them vast forces and our own resources are slight. But we have one resource in abundance, manpower. We can do something that had often been proposed but never implemented. We can drive a railway through Afghanistan that will link with the southern branches of the Trans-Siberian railway and aid in the supply of the Soviet forces defending that decisive battlefield between the Don and the Volga. The terrain will require manual laborers in large numbers and that we have."
"Will the Afghans agree?" The question seemed almost as if the speaker was looking for a reason to avoid a monumentally difficult and expensive undertaking.
"Will we ask?" Tarrant's reply was decisive.
It made the Marquess of Linlithgow smile for the first time in days. "No. They can help or get out of the way. We will tell the Afghan government that after the war is over, we will give them the railway and all the equipment associated with it. But, until that time comes, we will build and operate the Trans-Afghan Railway and we will brook no interference with that."
"Sir, I have another proposal, one that has evolved out of my discussions with our allies in the Commonwealth. Our ground forces are heavily committed and unavailable, but we can form a group of volunteers to go to the Soviet Union to help. We envisage a Commonwealth Volunteer Group, three squadrons of the latest Tomahawk fighters, two of the new Baltimore light bombers, and the Wellington squadron of heavy bombers. Plus, two squadrons of Flamingo transports. All flown by our best and most experienced pilots." Baldwin looked around, trying to gauge how strong the support would be for sending airmen on an assignment where survival seemed but a slight hope. "At our last meeting, I suggested that unless there is an overwhelming political reason to carry out this raid, we should seek a more productive way of supporting our new ally. Sadly, I would say the politics of the situation are overwhelming and there is no productive alternative way of providing military support to the Soviet Union."
"Will a hundred pilots make any difference in a war where two thousand aircraft are lost in a single day?" Nehru wanted to aid the Soviet Union as much as anybody, but the proposed Commonwealth air group seemed a tiny thread.
"A hundred veteran pilots, hardened in combat with months or years of experience? They will have an impact out of all proportion to their number." Baldwin sounded more hopeful than convinced; after all those same pilots had not done so well the first time, they had faced the Germans. Yet what else is there?
"Tomahawks and Baltimores," Tarrant asked the obvious question. "American aircraft. Will they allow us to send the aircraft they give us to Russia?"
"We believe so." It was Sir Eric Haohoa who answered. "They are forming their own volunteer unit to go to Russia. I believe they will call it 'The Flying Bears.' Damned silly name if you ask me. But they didn't."
The laugh that ran around the Cabinet Room was a genuine relief. With a railway and a volunteer group decided, at least India was doing something to aid the Russians.
SAAF Number 4 Squadron, Mosul, Iraq.
"Reporting as ordered, Sir." Squadron Leader Pim Bosede snapped out a sharp salute. With the situation in Iraq cooling down rapidly, conventional order and discipline were returning. The message that he was to report to his Group Captain at his earliest convenience was hardly reassuring.
"Pim. You will, no doubt, be delighted to know you are being transferred. Or rather, the whole squadron is, and you'll be its commander. You’re going to be sorely needed where you are going.” Group Captain Seymour Linford looked at the orders he had received. "Before you complain, I'm going with you as Group Commander."
"Bermuda? The West Indies? Guadaloupe?" Bosede reeled off the names of the prime postings with but faint hope. The news on the radio was filled with the fighting in Russia and he had a suspicion as to where he would soon be going.
"Even better. We will be going to the most popular tourist destination in the Soviet Union. A place called Yalta and we will be taking our new Kittyhawks with us." Linford decided to have mercy on his most experienced squadron leader. "We'll be forming an expeditionary group, an air commando, with three squadrons of Kittyhawks, two of Baltimores and one of Wellingtons. We are providing one squadron of Kittyhawks and one of Baltimores, India the same. The Australians are sending two squadrons of Flamingo transports while Middle East Command is contributing its Wellingtons and the third Kittyhawk squadron. We're all assembling here, then we'll move to Yalta by way of Tbilisi. Number 4 squadron will fly ahead to clear the way. That's 382 miles. Then, once we've assembled at Tbilisi, we'll fly through to Yalta. Another 570 miles."
"Wait a minute, Sir. Clear the way? Are we expecting opposition?"
Linford hesitated. "We will be flying over Turkey for a part of the way. Now, the Indian Government, acting on behalf of the Commonwealth of Nations, has obtained permission from the Turkish Government to conduct a military air movement through their airspace. According to the grapevine, we can owe that to two things. One is that the Turks got scared stiff by the way we hit their airfield a few days ago. So, those Maryland crews served us well. The other is that the Jerry invasion of Russia suggested that being a German ally was risky and one may get invaded by them at any moment. On the other hand, treachery is the natural order of things in this part of the world, so we'll be taking precautions. You'll take your Kittyhawks up ahead and if Turkish fighters try to interfere, shoot them down. In a friendly manner of course."
"What have they got, Sir?"
"Fighters? Mostly Hurricanes, Pezetel PZL-24s and MS406s."
Bosede thought for a few seconds, "Hurricanes might be an issue, the French and Polish aircraft we can handle."
"What do you think of the Kittyhawk, Pim”?
"I don't know to be honest, Sir." Bosede had been flying his new P-40E, trying to get used to the new aircraft. "Jozette is a lot heavier that Marijke and it shows all the way around. Not nearly so agile and much slower climbing. Dives like the very devil though. Bit faster and a lot more firepower. The armor and self-sealing fuel tanks are good. I get the idea the best way is to drop on the enemy and use the weight to dive clear after a pass. But I miss the sparkle Marijke had. She was a racehorse; Jozette is a destrier. "
"The Australians have a few RAF veterans from the battle of France in their ranks and there are more in Middle East Command of course. They all say the same thing. The days of aerobatic maneuvers and dogfighting are gone. Now its pick your man, hit and run. We're sending all the Kittyhawks we have to Russia; the Tomahawks will be staying here."
"I hope we don't have more trouble. We're spreading ourselves pretty thin."
"I thought that too. I just hope our beloved leaders have."
Patrol Ship Enggano, Off Kalimantan, Dutch East Indies
“There she is, Sir. Right on course and time. Captain Tachibana runs a tight ship.”
“I've noticed most of the Japanese skippers do. If their Navy is the same way, they could be a formidable force. Very good, Number One. Make signal, Patrol Ship Enggano to Japanese civilian tanker. Please identify and state code letters, cargo, and destination.”
It was the same message that had been sent several times before. The international customs of the sea dictated the format of such messages so that no misunderstandings would take place. Lieutenant (Third class) Setiawan Cahaya had the signaler send the required message by signal lamp and read the response. “M/T Hoyo Maru, out of Nagasaki, Captain Saburou Tachibana commanding wishes us good morning and hopes that our operations are proceeding well. She is in ballast on route from Nagasaki to Balikpapan where she will collect a cargo of crude oil. Her code letters are MT546."
“Our old friend is in a jovial mood this morning. Make signal, Captain Olaf Baart wishes Captain Tachibana a good morning and will enjoy sailing with him while we progress through the channel.”
“Response from Hoyo Maru, Sir. Thanks us for the escort and, as a matter of courtesy, reminds us she has been fitted with a 10cm gun on her stern. Adds that, as usual, the gun is unmanned and will not be readied for action while she is in our company.”
"And all is normal in the Makassar Strait. Probably the only peaceful place left in the world."
"Don’t say that Captain. The Sleeping God might hear you. Krakatau."
"Ah yes. I see what you mean. We don’t want to wake him up, do we." Baart shuddered slightly at the memory of school day lessons about the terrible volcanic explosion that had devastated the island. "Talking about hideous explosions, anybody heard the latest word from Russia?"
Cahaya spoke quietly to the radio room on the speaker. He listened for a minute or two before placing the handset back on its receiver. "Radio has just finished listening to the news, Sir. The Germans claim to have taken Bialystok and advanced some 450 kilometers. They also have claimed to have encircled over half a million Russian troops around Minsk. The Romanians have Odessa under siege. The only good news is that Brest and the Brest Fortress are still holding out, according to the Russians anyway. I would hate to be a Russian right now, Sir."
"It's not looking good for them, is it? By the way, did you read the latest dispatches? Apparently, there is going to be a change in sailing patterns around here soon. A lot of the Australian ships that were heading west for the Middle East and Italy will now be going north."
"To Russia?"
"That's my bet. Food, fuel, and ammunition. I wonder if there will be anybody left to be fueled and fed by the time it gets there. Anyway, our lords and masters have told us to adjust our patrol patterns accordingly. Not that there are many other places we could go in the Makassar." There was a long silence with Cahaya being uncharacteristically silent. "A thought?"
"Sir, I would be happier if we headed south of south-east and went through the deep water channel off Majene. The water is two thousand meters deep there, much too deep to be mined. On our normal due south route, the shallow waters are only 50 meters deep. We've used that route several times now. Is it time for a change Sir?"
"It is indeed. Good thinking, Lieutenant. Signal Hoyo Maru and ask her to follow us. Explain that we'll take her through the deep-water channel in case some ill-intentioned people have laid mines in the shallows. Then, double up on the lookouts and tell them they're looking for mines. If we spot any, we'll try and blow them up with the Madsens."
"Acknowledgment from Hoyo Maru Sir. Thanks, us for the advice and states she will be posting extra lookouts."
"You see. Great minds do think alike.”
Baart felt Enggano swing onto her new course. Behind him, he saw Hoyo Maru turn to follow his new heading. In a few minutes, both ships were in column heading south-southeast. Baart saw that the tanker was following exactly and precisely in his wake. The Japanese Captain had been too polite to say so, but he was obviously using Enggano as a mine bumper. Well, that is fair enough. We must protect her somehow and mines do not respect flags of neutrality.
“Wreckage up ahead, Sir. It looks as if it’s been drifting for some time. See the gulls off to port?” Cahaya hadn’t made the report in any authorized style, but his call was accurate and quite correct. The debris was from a ship and the gulls were feasting on what had once been her crew.
Once Enggano had closed on the wreckage, it was obvious what had happened. It had once been a fishing boat, but it had snagged a mine in its net and that had been the death of her and her crew. The explosion had destroyed the little ship completely, leaving nothing but shattered shards of wood. Baart couldn’t make out whether the men had been killed by the blast and thrown in the water or whether they had lived adrift on the wreckage for a day or two before they had succumbed to their injuries, thirst, and starvation. He hoped, for their sake, it had been the former. Already, his crew was bringing in the remains and preparing for their burial.
“No identity cards, Sir. But one piece of debris has DAV painted on it. Probably it’s port of origin. The name would have been on the bows.”
“Probably Davao. Big fishing port in Mindanao. That means they’re Philippinos and probably were Catholic. We’ll bury them accordingly. If we got it wrong, well, God will understand that we tried. Signals, call the tanker and tell her we will catch her up as soon as we have buried the dead. Then radio Davao and ask them how many fishing craft they are missing right now.”
The signal was transmitted, and the reply was quick. The Japanese merchant ensign fluttered down to half-mast and the message came back. “We will attend you.”
“He just wants us to bump mines for him.”
“No, Lieutenant, he’s a man of the sea and is behaving like one. With honor.”
Re: 1941 - Conflict of Interest
Chapter Nineteen
4th Ground-Attack Aircraft Regiment, Airfield 7, Rovnoye, Crimea. May 21, 1941
The order to fly to the front had come on the fifth day of the war. Even then, nobody was under any illusions about the complete incapacity of the 4th Ground-Attack Regiment to contribute anything useful to the defense of the Rodina in its hour of need. The Regiment had received its Il-2 Sturmoviks only a week before the order had arrived and the aircraft were full of defects. It had been rumored that Tovarish Ilyushin himself had been coming to visit the regiment as part of an effort to fix the aircraft but the order to fly to the Crimea had come instead. There had been grave doubts whether the pilots would even make it. Most of them had between three and six hours flying the Il-2 and few had more than 15 hours in total. Even the most basic maneuvers such as flying in formation were beyond them while firing the 23mm cannon and the ShKAS machine guns in the wings was an unknown and unpracticed art. Not one of them had even seen the RS-82 rockets that were supposed to be suspended from the underside of the wings and as for bombing, even the most basic instructions were unavailable. Some of the aircraft were equipped with optical sights that were supposed to be used to aim the bombs at the targets but how they worked, if they worked, was a mystery. The manuals from the factory that were supposed to contain the instructions on how to operate them had never arrived from the factory. The pilots had noticed that the most recent aircraft to arrive didn't even have the bombsights fitted.
Yet, despite all the problems, all the deficiencies that plagued its personnel, the 4th Ground-Attack Regiment had made the flight demanded of it. A total of 35 Il-2 aircraft had made the flight to Airfield Number 7 but when they got there, they found the effort had been useless. The small bomb racks that were supposed to hold anti-personnel bombs in the bomb bays did not fit. It was only after the mechanics and armorers had worked for the rest of the day and all night that the problem was identified. Each set of racks was specific to a given aircraft and would fit no other. Each rack had to be identified by serial number and then the records were consulted to find the aircraft it was assigned to. Only, the records needed were still back on the home base near Kharkov.
The problem seemed insoluble. Fascist aircraft were everywhere, bombing and strafing everything that moved. The German Army was already closing in on the narrow strip of land that joined the Crimea to the mainland so sending the required records overland was impossible. The same applied to trying to bring them in by air; The fascist Messerschmitts were everywhere and wreaking havoc on the Soviet air movements. It was reaching a point where commanders assumed that any aircraft sent on a mission was lost and if there were survivors, that was a bonus. Condemning these young, hopelessly inexperienced men to death simply to bring in some records was unconscionable.
Fortunately, the meteorological service came up with an answer. They projected the arrival of severe rain and thunderstorm overnight that would ground nearly all air operations for several hours. Even better, the storm would be moving from west to east so that the fascist aircraft would be grounded before the Soviet airbases were closed. There was a window, a narrow one but still a window, where experienced pilots could make the flight.
Colonel Kaspol Ilyich Gabiev, the regiment commander, had precisely two experienced pilots and he had summoned them to his office. Both men were pre-war instructors with the Osoaviskhim organization and one of them, Lieutenant Petr Anisimovich Ochakov even had experience with flying at night. The other, Lieutenant Alekse Ivanovich Vasilyev, had more hours but no experience with night flying. Nevertheless, both men had volunteered to fly through the storm at their own risk. The only question was which aircraft would they take? The Il-2s? That would provide more desperately needed hours on the type under conditions that would teach the pilots lessons they would not get elsewhere. But the Il-2s were desperately needed and the loss of two aircraft would be a severe blow. Also, they were single-seaters, and everybody knew that two pilots were needed to fly safely at night. There was another option though. There were no two-seat conversion trainer versions of the Il-2, so the Regiment had two older Su-2 ground attack aircraft. They were more docile and easier to fly than the Sturmoviks. The problem with them was that if they were lost, the Regiment would be unable to convert new pilots to flying combat aircraft. The final option was the U-2 biplane, a light communications and liaison aircraft. This was the sort of flight they were supposed to make but flying through a thunderstorm was not their business. Eventually, it was decided, that the two pilots would take Il-2s with Ochakov leading and Vasilyev flying on his wing.
By the time they had flown half of the six hundred kilometers to Kharkov, the weather had closed in. The heavy rainstorm was much worse than the meteorological service had predicted while the thunder and turbulence weren’t just hazardous, it made the flight extremely dangerous. The two Il-2s were thrown around by the roiling storm and, at least once, were slammed down several hundred meters by downbursts. By a miracle, the two aircraft managed to stay together both in the sense of staying in formation and not breaking up in mid-air. Ochakov had taken the risk of turning on his navigation lights, accepting that they marked his aircraft to any targets but reasoning that Vasiliyev needed the reference points, and the fascists were too intelligent to be flying in this kind of weather.
And yet, it was the almost-continuous lightning that saved them. Despite their best efforts, they had lost their way trying to fight through the storm. Fortunately, they were flying low enough by then to see the flashes reflecting off the rails of a railroad and it led them to Khroly, only a few miles south of Kharkov itself. That left the problem of finding the airfield where all the paperwork was stored. It was made more difficult by the peculiar fact that the navigation maps they had been issued hadn't fitted into the map cases and had to be trimmed to size. By the time they had found the field and made their approach, both Il-2s were running out of fuel. If anything had gone wrong at the airfield it would have been an open question whether they would have been able to make the extra circuit. Fortunately, it did not.
"You, who gave you orders to fly here? Are you deserting your comrades?" Staring down from the cockpit, Ochakov was sorely tempted to shoot the owner of the arrogant voice dead on the spot. Then he saw the blue hat and blue shoulder boards of the NKVD. That told him discretion was wise. Fortunately, Colonel Gabiev had foreseen this problem and had written out a detailed order and the reasons for the hazardous flight.
The NKVD officer read it with obvious dismay, especially when he saw that it had been stamped and countersigned by the 4th Regiment's political officer. "Why did you hazard state property by flying two valuable aircraft through such a storm?"
"Because Tovarish Politruk, we must fly missions against the fascists tomorrow and for that, we need our bomb racks. To fit them, we must have the aircraft records. So, we must be back at our base by dawn. It is only a few hours that we have left, and we must refuel as well."
The NKVD officer stared at them, then looked at the two aircraft. At that point, he seemed to realize that they were standing in the torrential rain that always followed a bad thunderstorm. It was obvious even the most cowardly saboteur would not try to desert in such foul flying weather. "So, you are flying a combat mission? Performing a vital duty to the State?"
Any good Russian could see where this was going. "Yes, Tovarish."
"Napalkov. Ivan Mihailovich Napalkov. Then you are entitled to 100 grams of vodka each. Come to the regimental office while your aircraft is being refueled and the documents you need collected and brought to you. I will see that your vodka arrives as well."
10th Fighter Regiment, Airfield 3, Raukhovka, Ukraine
Any organization that had once applied to Soviet frontal aviation had disappeared in the chaos that had resulted from the German attack. The diminishing handful of aircraft that had survived the holocaust of the first few days was operating from airbase to airbase, often only moving out when the fascist tanks got too close for them to stay longer. Missions were flown using whatever aircraft happened to be available at any time. Junior Lieutenants Ivan Anastasovich Balakai and Gleb Evstafievich Savinov still had their Polikarpov I-16s although they both sincerely doubted whether they or their aircraft could survive much longer. Damage was mounting up with every flight and with each repair, performance degraded just a little bit further.
Around them, the airfield was a strange mixture of modern and obsolete types. Yak-1 and LaGG-3 fighters stood alongside the old I-5 and I-15 biplanes; Su-2 and SB-2 attackers beside antiquated R-Zs and R-10s. A close inspection showed that many of the aircraft had been badly damaged and were no longer operational. Now, they served as decoys, hoping to distract fascist attention from the aircraft that could still fly.
"Bratishka, there is yet more work for you to do." The mass of survivors from disorganized regiments that had found refuge at Raukhovka defied any attempt at normal military organization. Colonel Mikhail Sergeyevich Morozov had become the de-facto commander more by force of character than anything else. Somehow, nobody could quite work out how he was managing to assemble the remnants of the aircraft units and inspire them to continue their operations despite massive casualties. To make matters worse, German saboteurs had destroyed all the lines of communications, making it very hard to find out what was happening and where the fascists were. Morozov had shown the way by flying a Po-2 just over the treetops trying to spot the enemy. He had described the flights as being a reconnaissance in force, by which he had meant ‘find the enemy and destroy him’ It wasn’t just the enemy he had to find; he also had to maintain communication with the headquarters of the Western Front and the armies and co-ordinate the role of the aircraft with infantry operations. The headquarters changed their locations all the time, and it was not easy to find them. On his reconnaissance in force flights, Morozov sometimes had to land near the roads and ask the troops on the move where their headquarters was
He had just landed from one such flight and he had spotted a prime target. "We know that the fascist tanks are preparing to cross the Dniester at Khotyn. Their engineers are building a bridge at the crossing point. We must destroy that bridge to buy time for our army to get clear. We will use the seven SBs to bomb the bridge first while your I-16s and the four Yak-1s escort them. Now go! There is no time to waste!”
The SBs were already starting up their engines and moving towards the runway. One by one the pilots raised their hands giving the signal Ready to take off. The SBs took off first, set the course, and began the flight to the Dniester. Already, their pilots were wondering how they would distinguish the enemy. There was no front line on the map, and they worried about the possibility of hitting their own forces.
To Balakai’s relief the engine on his I-16, long overdue for an overhaul was still running smoothly, and the readings were normal. The fast-moving fascist advance meant that the airfields were far behind the lines making the Dniester a long way ahead. Below him, Balakai could see that the roads were deserted. He had expected them to be crowded with refugees and the retreating Russian Army heading east. Even when they reached the Dniester, it was clear that there were no troops to defend the eastern side of the river. Nothing drove the catastrophe that was taking place home more forcefully to Balakai than the absence of any force to oppose the fascists. The front was wide open; there was nothing to restrain the fascist advance. Ahead, he could see Khotyn and clouds of black smoke above it. A glance at his watch told him that the estimated time was up. This had to be the target.
Balakai saw the SBs racing just above the tree-tops to reach the bridge before the Germans realized they were under attack. At this point, the operational instructions said that the close-in escort fighters would strafe the fascist anti-aircraft positions to prevent them from shooting the bombers down. Balakai was making his run when he saw Savinov giving frantic hand-signals warning of an attack. That was the only warning the two I-16s had before a pair of Messers erupted out of the sun and attacked them. Balakai was stunned, this shouldn’t have happened. The Yaks are up top to prevent us from being bounced like this. The fighting instructions say so. The close escort protects the bombers while the top cover protects the close escort. Then he looked up and saw what had happened. A section of four Messers had bounced the Yaks and torn through them. There was an ugly black patch in the sky where one Yak had exploded, a thick black streak where another was blazing as it spun down to earth. Balakai just caught the sight of a third Yak losing a wing and starting its spin down when he realized he had run out of time. He threw his fighter round to defend the bombers, but it was too late. The lead SB had already been shot down, the blazing aircraft plowing into the trees well short of the target.
Balakai never saw anybody bailout of the bomber; the entire Soviet formation was very low, so the crew couldn’t use their parachutes. The fascist Messers had swung around to engage him and the fire from their nose guns lit up the sky around him. The I-16 could outmaneuver a Messer in level flight and Balakai used every shred of ability he could manage to escape the slashing tracers. Yet, the duty to protect the bombers remained so he and Savinov tried to catch the SBs. Two pairs of Messers were waiting for them to try just that and were ready for them. Both I-16s tried their best to maneuver but the Messers maneuvered neatly to catch them with intersecting streams of gunfire and managed to damage Balakai’s fighter. He felt the slam in his shoulder as a bullet blew fragments off the airframe and left him wounded by the shrapnel. Then, by what Balakai could only describe as a miracle, the Messers pulled away and left the I-16s alone. Balakai could only believe that they were low on fuel.
The real reason was almost instantly obvious. The attacking aircraft were approaching the Khotyn highway and could see it was jammed with a continuous stream of tanks, lorries, guns, and armored cars moving to Khotyn. There were even motorcycles jolting along the roadside. It seemed as if every single vehicle from the largest truck to the smallest bicycle had an anti-aircraft gun. The streams of red tracers seemed to have no end as the fascists filled the sky with their fire. Balakai saw the black-and-white crosses on the tanks and realized something else. The soldiers in the advancing force were sitting on the tank turrets, on the roofs of the trucks and armored cars, and even standing in the sidecars of the motorcycles. It seemed impudently careless to be so exposed while aircraft closed in on their column. Then, Balakai had another flash of insight. The fascists were not hiding, they were shooting. Some were firing rifles, some machine guns. Others seemed to be firing submachine guns and pistols. The contribution each man made was trivial but there were thousands of them shooting at the Russian bombers.
The SBs were too big for this kind of work. Too big and too poorly protected. Balakai watched helplessly as first one, then another, and another burst into flames and fell like comets into the forest or the river that ran through it. Only two of the SBs managed to get into a position to attack the column. The pilots did not aim, it was impossible to miss flying so low above such a massive formation. The two surviving SBs released their cargo of 100-kilogram bombs, then lifted as losing the heavyweight gave them a touch more speed. The two I-16 pilots saw the explosions but the panic they had expected to see spreading along the column wasn’t even beginning. Certainly, Balakai saw two trucks collide and then swerve off the road into the drainage trench. All along the rest of the road though, the troops were jumping from the vehicles and continuing to fire at the aircraft attacking them, creating long red luminous lines stretched from the ground towards the planes. Another SB staggered as the anti-aircraft fire ripped into the wings and set them ablaze. The SB rolled onto its back and exploded in mid-air.
That was something Balakai had never seen before. For a second, he froze with astonishment, but then he felt, rather than heard, a loud click. A white spot appeared on his windshield where a bullet had hit it and the sight made him come to his senses. His fingers fumbled for the gun firing button but could not find it. Then, his fingers felt the familiar shape and he pressed it down seeing his own tracers streaming downwards. Fragments of a lorry, shreds of the canvas, and something else rose in the air. Yet the fascists were still methodically returning fire. Suddenly something flashed near him. Balakai heard a loud blow and his I-16 jerked so hard that the control stick was torn out of his hands He grabbed it and leveled the aircraft, but it was hit again. The seat belts cut into his shoulders, and it seemed as if every anti-aircraft gun in the column was shooting straight at him. He yawed from one side to the other shooting in long bursts. There was no sense in sparing the barrels now. He had little chance of surviving the next few seconds anyway. At least he could die fighting!
Suddenly sanity came back, and he realized that his guns were already empty. Still, he kept changing course and direction, being sure to change altitude by bumping the plane up and down. The sun was now shining from behind and he saw that the windshield was splashed with oil and water. He looked at the instruments: the oil pressure indicator was approaching zero, while the oil and water temperature indicators were just before the red line. He suddenly became aware that a smell of burning oil was filling up the cockpit. Ahead of him, the single surviving SB was heading back to base with Savinov holding station on it. Balakai joined them. He realized the three were the only survivors of fourteen that had set out on this attack.
Back at base, Balakai taxied to the dispersal area and cut the engine before closing his eyes. The truth was that he felt very tired. Before he could sleep, he heard pilots and mechanics running to his plane. They helped him out of the cockpit and supported him as he climbed down the wrecked Polikarpov. The plane was pierced with holes of different sizes, and the skin of the fuselage and wings was torn to shreds while oil poured out of the engine cowling and onto the ground, over the fuselage, and upon the tail. Balakai took a cigarette out of someone’s hand and inhaled deeply.
The donor of the treasured cigarette was the regimental engineer, Dmitry Ilyich Markov, who came up to him, placed his hands on Balakai’s shoulders, and said sympathetically, “Your aircraft’s time is done, I’m afraid. There’s no way we can fix all that. You’ll have to fly a LaGG now. We have one of those available.”
Markov carefully didn’t mention that the reason a LaGG-3 was available was that everybody else had refused to fly it. The sluggish, underpowered LaGG was already known to its pilots as the Lakirovanny Garantirovanny Grob, the varnished guaranteed coffin.
Before Balakai could answer, another Yak-1 was making its final approach. It landed at the airfield but on touching down, the undercarriage collapsed, and the Yak spun round at the end of the runway. Once again, pilots and mechanics ran to the wreck, and they dragged the pilot out before the wreck started to burn. Balakai saw that the pilot was barely more than a boy, his young face chalk-white, and his left hand hanging on a shred of skin. Behind the Yak, an SB bomber was coming down with only one engine working. The wind was carrying it across the airfield towards the living quarters of the military camp. The pilot tried to turn, to get the aircraft clear of the living accommodation but the pilot lost control and the bomber banked and turned upside down before sliding sideways into the ground. The sound of the crash seemed to echo across the ground. Balakai watched the fiery column rise to the sky and realized that this was just a normal day at the front.
4th Ground-Attack Aircraft Regiment, Airfield 7, Rovnoye, Crimea. May 21, 1941
The order to fly to the front had come on the fifth day of the war. Even then, nobody was under any illusions about the complete incapacity of the 4th Ground-Attack Regiment to contribute anything useful to the defense of the Rodina in its hour of need. The Regiment had received its Il-2 Sturmoviks only a week before the order had arrived and the aircraft were full of defects. It had been rumored that Tovarish Ilyushin himself had been coming to visit the regiment as part of an effort to fix the aircraft but the order to fly to the Crimea had come instead. There had been grave doubts whether the pilots would even make it. Most of them had between three and six hours flying the Il-2 and few had more than 15 hours in total. Even the most basic maneuvers such as flying in formation were beyond them while firing the 23mm cannon and the ShKAS machine guns in the wings was an unknown and unpracticed art. Not one of them had even seen the RS-82 rockets that were supposed to be suspended from the underside of the wings and as for bombing, even the most basic instructions were unavailable. Some of the aircraft were equipped with optical sights that were supposed to be used to aim the bombs at the targets but how they worked, if they worked, was a mystery. The manuals from the factory that were supposed to contain the instructions on how to operate them had never arrived from the factory. The pilots had noticed that the most recent aircraft to arrive didn't even have the bombsights fitted.
Yet, despite all the problems, all the deficiencies that plagued its personnel, the 4th Ground-Attack Regiment had made the flight demanded of it. A total of 35 Il-2 aircraft had made the flight to Airfield Number 7 but when they got there, they found the effort had been useless. The small bomb racks that were supposed to hold anti-personnel bombs in the bomb bays did not fit. It was only after the mechanics and armorers had worked for the rest of the day and all night that the problem was identified. Each set of racks was specific to a given aircraft and would fit no other. Each rack had to be identified by serial number and then the records were consulted to find the aircraft it was assigned to. Only, the records needed were still back on the home base near Kharkov.
The problem seemed insoluble. Fascist aircraft were everywhere, bombing and strafing everything that moved. The German Army was already closing in on the narrow strip of land that joined the Crimea to the mainland so sending the required records overland was impossible. The same applied to trying to bring them in by air; The fascist Messerschmitts were everywhere and wreaking havoc on the Soviet air movements. It was reaching a point where commanders assumed that any aircraft sent on a mission was lost and if there were survivors, that was a bonus. Condemning these young, hopelessly inexperienced men to death simply to bring in some records was unconscionable.
Fortunately, the meteorological service came up with an answer. They projected the arrival of severe rain and thunderstorm overnight that would ground nearly all air operations for several hours. Even better, the storm would be moving from west to east so that the fascist aircraft would be grounded before the Soviet airbases were closed. There was a window, a narrow one but still a window, where experienced pilots could make the flight.
Colonel Kaspol Ilyich Gabiev, the regiment commander, had precisely two experienced pilots and he had summoned them to his office. Both men were pre-war instructors with the Osoaviskhim organization and one of them, Lieutenant Petr Anisimovich Ochakov even had experience with flying at night. The other, Lieutenant Alekse Ivanovich Vasilyev, had more hours but no experience with night flying. Nevertheless, both men had volunteered to fly through the storm at their own risk. The only question was which aircraft would they take? The Il-2s? That would provide more desperately needed hours on the type under conditions that would teach the pilots lessons they would not get elsewhere. But the Il-2s were desperately needed and the loss of two aircraft would be a severe blow. Also, they were single-seaters, and everybody knew that two pilots were needed to fly safely at night. There was another option though. There were no two-seat conversion trainer versions of the Il-2, so the Regiment had two older Su-2 ground attack aircraft. They were more docile and easier to fly than the Sturmoviks. The problem with them was that if they were lost, the Regiment would be unable to convert new pilots to flying combat aircraft. The final option was the U-2 biplane, a light communications and liaison aircraft. This was the sort of flight they were supposed to make but flying through a thunderstorm was not their business. Eventually, it was decided, that the two pilots would take Il-2s with Ochakov leading and Vasilyev flying on his wing.
By the time they had flown half of the six hundred kilometers to Kharkov, the weather had closed in. The heavy rainstorm was much worse than the meteorological service had predicted while the thunder and turbulence weren’t just hazardous, it made the flight extremely dangerous. The two Il-2s were thrown around by the roiling storm and, at least once, were slammed down several hundred meters by downbursts. By a miracle, the two aircraft managed to stay together both in the sense of staying in formation and not breaking up in mid-air. Ochakov had taken the risk of turning on his navigation lights, accepting that they marked his aircraft to any targets but reasoning that Vasiliyev needed the reference points, and the fascists were too intelligent to be flying in this kind of weather.
And yet, it was the almost-continuous lightning that saved them. Despite their best efforts, they had lost their way trying to fight through the storm. Fortunately, they were flying low enough by then to see the flashes reflecting off the rails of a railroad and it led them to Khroly, only a few miles south of Kharkov itself. That left the problem of finding the airfield where all the paperwork was stored. It was made more difficult by the peculiar fact that the navigation maps they had been issued hadn't fitted into the map cases and had to be trimmed to size. By the time they had found the field and made their approach, both Il-2s were running out of fuel. If anything had gone wrong at the airfield it would have been an open question whether they would have been able to make the extra circuit. Fortunately, it did not.
"You, who gave you orders to fly here? Are you deserting your comrades?" Staring down from the cockpit, Ochakov was sorely tempted to shoot the owner of the arrogant voice dead on the spot. Then he saw the blue hat and blue shoulder boards of the NKVD. That told him discretion was wise. Fortunately, Colonel Gabiev had foreseen this problem and had written out a detailed order and the reasons for the hazardous flight.
The NKVD officer read it with obvious dismay, especially when he saw that it had been stamped and countersigned by the 4th Regiment's political officer. "Why did you hazard state property by flying two valuable aircraft through such a storm?"
"Because Tovarish Politruk, we must fly missions against the fascists tomorrow and for that, we need our bomb racks. To fit them, we must have the aircraft records. So, we must be back at our base by dawn. It is only a few hours that we have left, and we must refuel as well."
The NKVD officer stared at them, then looked at the two aircraft. At that point, he seemed to realize that they were standing in the torrential rain that always followed a bad thunderstorm. It was obvious even the most cowardly saboteur would not try to desert in such foul flying weather. "So, you are flying a combat mission? Performing a vital duty to the State?"
Any good Russian could see where this was going. "Yes, Tovarish."
"Napalkov. Ivan Mihailovich Napalkov. Then you are entitled to 100 grams of vodka each. Come to the regimental office while your aircraft is being refueled and the documents you need collected and brought to you. I will see that your vodka arrives as well."
10th Fighter Regiment, Airfield 3, Raukhovka, Ukraine
Any organization that had once applied to Soviet frontal aviation had disappeared in the chaos that had resulted from the German attack. The diminishing handful of aircraft that had survived the holocaust of the first few days was operating from airbase to airbase, often only moving out when the fascist tanks got too close for them to stay longer. Missions were flown using whatever aircraft happened to be available at any time. Junior Lieutenants Ivan Anastasovich Balakai and Gleb Evstafievich Savinov still had their Polikarpov I-16s although they both sincerely doubted whether they or their aircraft could survive much longer. Damage was mounting up with every flight and with each repair, performance degraded just a little bit further.
Around them, the airfield was a strange mixture of modern and obsolete types. Yak-1 and LaGG-3 fighters stood alongside the old I-5 and I-15 biplanes; Su-2 and SB-2 attackers beside antiquated R-Zs and R-10s. A close inspection showed that many of the aircraft had been badly damaged and were no longer operational. Now, they served as decoys, hoping to distract fascist attention from the aircraft that could still fly.
"Bratishka, there is yet more work for you to do." The mass of survivors from disorganized regiments that had found refuge at Raukhovka defied any attempt at normal military organization. Colonel Mikhail Sergeyevich Morozov had become the de-facto commander more by force of character than anything else. Somehow, nobody could quite work out how he was managing to assemble the remnants of the aircraft units and inspire them to continue their operations despite massive casualties. To make matters worse, German saboteurs had destroyed all the lines of communications, making it very hard to find out what was happening and where the fascists were. Morozov had shown the way by flying a Po-2 just over the treetops trying to spot the enemy. He had described the flights as being a reconnaissance in force, by which he had meant ‘find the enemy and destroy him’ It wasn’t just the enemy he had to find; he also had to maintain communication with the headquarters of the Western Front and the armies and co-ordinate the role of the aircraft with infantry operations. The headquarters changed their locations all the time, and it was not easy to find them. On his reconnaissance in force flights, Morozov sometimes had to land near the roads and ask the troops on the move where their headquarters was
He had just landed from one such flight and he had spotted a prime target. "We know that the fascist tanks are preparing to cross the Dniester at Khotyn. Their engineers are building a bridge at the crossing point. We must destroy that bridge to buy time for our army to get clear. We will use the seven SBs to bomb the bridge first while your I-16s and the four Yak-1s escort them. Now go! There is no time to waste!”
The SBs were already starting up their engines and moving towards the runway. One by one the pilots raised their hands giving the signal Ready to take off. The SBs took off first, set the course, and began the flight to the Dniester. Already, their pilots were wondering how they would distinguish the enemy. There was no front line on the map, and they worried about the possibility of hitting their own forces.
To Balakai’s relief the engine on his I-16, long overdue for an overhaul was still running smoothly, and the readings were normal. The fast-moving fascist advance meant that the airfields were far behind the lines making the Dniester a long way ahead. Below him, Balakai could see that the roads were deserted. He had expected them to be crowded with refugees and the retreating Russian Army heading east. Even when they reached the Dniester, it was clear that there were no troops to defend the eastern side of the river. Nothing drove the catastrophe that was taking place home more forcefully to Balakai than the absence of any force to oppose the fascists. The front was wide open; there was nothing to restrain the fascist advance. Ahead, he could see Khotyn and clouds of black smoke above it. A glance at his watch told him that the estimated time was up. This had to be the target.
Balakai saw the SBs racing just above the tree-tops to reach the bridge before the Germans realized they were under attack. At this point, the operational instructions said that the close-in escort fighters would strafe the fascist anti-aircraft positions to prevent them from shooting the bombers down. Balakai was making his run when he saw Savinov giving frantic hand-signals warning of an attack. That was the only warning the two I-16s had before a pair of Messers erupted out of the sun and attacked them. Balakai was stunned, this shouldn’t have happened. The Yaks are up top to prevent us from being bounced like this. The fighting instructions say so. The close escort protects the bombers while the top cover protects the close escort. Then he looked up and saw what had happened. A section of four Messers had bounced the Yaks and torn through them. There was an ugly black patch in the sky where one Yak had exploded, a thick black streak where another was blazing as it spun down to earth. Balakai just caught the sight of a third Yak losing a wing and starting its spin down when he realized he had run out of time. He threw his fighter round to defend the bombers, but it was too late. The lead SB had already been shot down, the blazing aircraft plowing into the trees well short of the target.
Balakai never saw anybody bailout of the bomber; the entire Soviet formation was very low, so the crew couldn’t use their parachutes. The fascist Messers had swung around to engage him and the fire from their nose guns lit up the sky around him. The I-16 could outmaneuver a Messer in level flight and Balakai used every shred of ability he could manage to escape the slashing tracers. Yet, the duty to protect the bombers remained so he and Savinov tried to catch the SBs. Two pairs of Messers were waiting for them to try just that and were ready for them. Both I-16s tried their best to maneuver but the Messers maneuvered neatly to catch them with intersecting streams of gunfire and managed to damage Balakai’s fighter. He felt the slam in his shoulder as a bullet blew fragments off the airframe and left him wounded by the shrapnel. Then, by what Balakai could only describe as a miracle, the Messers pulled away and left the I-16s alone. Balakai could only believe that they were low on fuel.
The real reason was almost instantly obvious. The attacking aircraft were approaching the Khotyn highway and could see it was jammed with a continuous stream of tanks, lorries, guns, and armored cars moving to Khotyn. There were even motorcycles jolting along the roadside. It seemed as if every single vehicle from the largest truck to the smallest bicycle had an anti-aircraft gun. The streams of red tracers seemed to have no end as the fascists filled the sky with their fire. Balakai saw the black-and-white crosses on the tanks and realized something else. The soldiers in the advancing force were sitting on the tank turrets, on the roofs of the trucks and armored cars, and even standing in the sidecars of the motorcycles. It seemed impudently careless to be so exposed while aircraft closed in on their column. Then, Balakai had another flash of insight. The fascists were not hiding, they were shooting. Some were firing rifles, some machine guns. Others seemed to be firing submachine guns and pistols. The contribution each man made was trivial but there were thousands of them shooting at the Russian bombers.
The SBs were too big for this kind of work. Too big and too poorly protected. Balakai watched helplessly as first one, then another, and another burst into flames and fell like comets into the forest or the river that ran through it. Only two of the SBs managed to get into a position to attack the column. The pilots did not aim, it was impossible to miss flying so low above such a massive formation. The two surviving SBs released their cargo of 100-kilogram bombs, then lifted as losing the heavyweight gave them a touch more speed. The two I-16 pilots saw the explosions but the panic they had expected to see spreading along the column wasn’t even beginning. Certainly, Balakai saw two trucks collide and then swerve off the road into the drainage trench. All along the rest of the road though, the troops were jumping from the vehicles and continuing to fire at the aircraft attacking them, creating long red luminous lines stretched from the ground towards the planes. Another SB staggered as the anti-aircraft fire ripped into the wings and set them ablaze. The SB rolled onto its back and exploded in mid-air.
That was something Balakai had never seen before. For a second, he froze with astonishment, but then he felt, rather than heard, a loud click. A white spot appeared on his windshield where a bullet had hit it and the sight made him come to his senses. His fingers fumbled for the gun firing button but could not find it. Then, his fingers felt the familiar shape and he pressed it down seeing his own tracers streaming downwards. Fragments of a lorry, shreds of the canvas, and something else rose in the air. Yet the fascists were still methodically returning fire. Suddenly something flashed near him. Balakai heard a loud blow and his I-16 jerked so hard that the control stick was torn out of his hands He grabbed it and leveled the aircraft, but it was hit again. The seat belts cut into his shoulders, and it seemed as if every anti-aircraft gun in the column was shooting straight at him. He yawed from one side to the other shooting in long bursts. There was no sense in sparing the barrels now. He had little chance of surviving the next few seconds anyway. At least he could die fighting!
Suddenly sanity came back, and he realized that his guns were already empty. Still, he kept changing course and direction, being sure to change altitude by bumping the plane up and down. The sun was now shining from behind and he saw that the windshield was splashed with oil and water. He looked at the instruments: the oil pressure indicator was approaching zero, while the oil and water temperature indicators were just before the red line. He suddenly became aware that a smell of burning oil was filling up the cockpit. Ahead of him, the single surviving SB was heading back to base with Savinov holding station on it. Balakai joined them. He realized the three were the only survivors of fourteen that had set out on this attack.
Back at base, Balakai taxied to the dispersal area and cut the engine before closing his eyes. The truth was that he felt very tired. Before he could sleep, he heard pilots and mechanics running to his plane. They helped him out of the cockpit and supported him as he climbed down the wrecked Polikarpov. The plane was pierced with holes of different sizes, and the skin of the fuselage and wings was torn to shreds while oil poured out of the engine cowling and onto the ground, over the fuselage, and upon the tail. Balakai took a cigarette out of someone’s hand and inhaled deeply.
The donor of the treasured cigarette was the regimental engineer, Dmitry Ilyich Markov, who came up to him, placed his hands on Balakai’s shoulders, and said sympathetically, “Your aircraft’s time is done, I’m afraid. There’s no way we can fix all that. You’ll have to fly a LaGG now. We have one of those available.”
Markov carefully didn’t mention that the reason a LaGG-3 was available was that everybody else had refused to fly it. The sluggish, underpowered LaGG was already known to its pilots as the Lakirovanny Garantirovanny Grob, the varnished guaranteed coffin.
Before Balakai could answer, another Yak-1 was making its final approach. It landed at the airfield but on touching down, the undercarriage collapsed, and the Yak spun round at the end of the runway. Once again, pilots and mechanics ran to the wreck, and they dragged the pilot out before the wreck started to burn. Balakai saw that the pilot was barely more than a boy, his young face chalk-white, and his left hand hanging on a shred of skin. Behind the Yak, an SB bomber was coming down with only one engine working. The wind was carrying it across the airfield towards the living quarters of the military camp. The pilot tried to turn, to get the aircraft clear of the living accommodation but the pilot lost control and the bomber banked and turned upside down before sliding sideways into the ground. The sound of the crash seemed to echo across the ground. Balakai watched the fiery column rise to the sky and realized that this was just a normal day at the front.