The paratroopers had heard the air attack behind them as they were driving off the Soviet infantry in the last enemy attempt at capturing Baiswell.
Now, they had handed the insignificant German village to the enemy for nothing, high-tailing it back to the next defensive point as fast as their legs could carry them.
Just off the road lay a shattered Soviet aircraft, an Li-2, the Soviet copy of the DC-3.
His senior non-com had organised a small group to check out the wreck, although it wasn’t fresh and had probably been down since the start of the Russian attacks.
The Master-Sergeant dropped back to Crisp’s group with his report.
“Three enemy dead aboard her, Major. Stinking to high heaven, so been there a’while. Preacher Manley found this and I confiscated it before he did his thing.” They exchanged grins, conjuring up a scene of fire and brimstone centred around the devout Christian Manley and the devil of alcohol.
“Anyway, now is not the time.”
Crisp took the extended bottle and examined the label. None the wiser, he handed it on to Captain Galkin for translation.
“Moscow Crystal vodka, Major. That’s as good as it gets in Mother Russia.”
Galkin’s father had served with the White Russians and escaped to start a new life in Oregon, USA.
The bottle passed through hands again before coming to rest back with Master-Sergeant Baldwin.
“When we get settled later, share it around, Rocky,” no-one could remember how Baldwin had acquired the name, but it was his none the less.
“Yes Sir. Left a little present in there for our red friends.”
“We will steer clear then. Now, get the boys moving Master-Sergeant.”
Eisenhower had retired early so that he could be up early enough to listen to Operation Gabriel, so Bedell-Smith satisfied himself that all was in motion for tonight’s big plan involving the RAF and the following dawn’s effort by the USAAF. It was an innovative idea and it had to be tried, if only the once.
An orderly presented him with his usual 10 o’clock coffee, the General’s eyes straying to the large clock to confirm the time.
At 2200 hrs, in a dimly lit white church in Eggenthal, Major Marion Crisp discussed the tactical position with his officer group, having already walked the defensive lines, touching base with all his units and assessing the morale of his troopers, noting the now empty vodka bottle in Fox Company headquarters, now acting as a vase for some colourful weeds, courtesy of some wag.
Major Kowalski, his Polish persona now back in being, sat in the officers mess, consuming a modest Riesling, and pretending to read the latest version of ‘Stars & Stripes’ whilst not registering a word as he processed the day’s events. A mess steward presented himself with another glass of wine. Kowalski produced a fountain pen and signed the chit. The steward took away the empty glass, the chit and the pen containing a simple message. The pen was returned to him by an apologetic orderly as the clock lightly chimed out ten o’clock.
Kowalski checked his wristwatch, noting with surprise that the mantle clock was out by four minutes.
In his billet, Ernst-August Knocke sat alone, no longer needing to present a normal front to his men, now able to think long and hard about the Russian’s proposal.
‘They are alive!’
Chapter 69 – THE RAID
War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it, the crueller it is the sooner it will be over.
Operation Gabriel had been underway for some time, as aircraft rose from airfields across Allied Europe, intent on closing in on a modest area of Northern Germany and transforming it into a wasteland, consigning anyone and anything in the area to a sustained hell of high-explosives and fire.
The original idea had been floated on the basis of Allied night time superiority. It had been a sound idea and the planners and senior officers had seized on it. The concept grew and the overseers bastardised it into a gigantic beast, a beast that required over half the bombers in the RAF and its Commonwealth squadrons, from the lighter Mosquitoes to old Stirlings hastily serviced and put back into action.
Allied recon had improved in the last few days, the most successful missions being those late in the day, trading lower resolution photos for survivability, at a time when the day transited into night, and the dark skies were ruled by the fighters of the RAF and USAAF.
Tonight, hundreds of bombers were targeted on a specific location, but not on a city, a town or a village; not on a bridge or a viaduct, a road or a canal. They were all targeted on a point on the map, representing a large number of living beings, assault divisions of the Red Army identified to be preparing for an attack.
Operation Gabriel, conceived as a modest area bombing strike to destroy specific enemy units behind the lines, had blossomed into five hundred plus aircraft modern Armageddon, about to fall upon the prime assault units of the 1st Red Banner European Front gathered around Celle.
Army officers had assisted in the planning, including some German officers from the new German Republican Army, using their hard-won knowledge to assist the target planners, applying their understanding to work out where the Russian would hide and camouflage his materiel.
Tons of high-explosive were targeted according to their intuition and expertise and if all went to plan then the Red Army would lose a significant part of its forces for little Allied loss.
The Squadron motto was ‘To strive and not to yield’, a sentiment wholly appropriate for a night illuminated by a full and bright ‘bomber’s’ moon when one engine had already packed up and the starboard inner, all important for its contribution to the aircraft hydraulics, playing up and misfiring.
The crew of UM-V had only recently arrived at the squadron’s home base at RAF Wickenby in Lincolnshire, survivors of a submarine attack on their ship, the Aquitania, which claimed the lives of a number of their comrades.
Transferred into 626 Squadron RAF to replace heavy casualties, this was their second mission, the first having been a doddle over the area east of Lübeck.
In the gleam of a brilliant moon, it was easy to spot all sorts of Allied aircraft, flying in one direction, for a single purpose.
UM-V was a Lancaster Mk I, a venerable aircraft that had seen its fair share of action already, passed airworthy after strenuous tests, and handed to a green crew, fresh from training in Canada.
626 had been allocated an area immediately north of some green and yellow markers, indicators accurately laid by RAF Pathfinder mosquitoes to indicate the line of Route 214.
The large area earmarked for the bomber’s attention that night had been divided up into zones, beacons of different colours giving the aircrews a ground visualisation of the plans each aircraft had been issued with, permitting each bomb aimer to understand his target completely.
Pilot Officer Cecil Black had spent his war on the ground, being a late transferee into flying duties.
Now he was at eighteen thousand feet over Northern Germany, wrestling with an unresponsive and failing aircraft, desperately trying to get his charge to the right point to release the bombs and then get her home.
Other aircraft had already attacked, and the ground appeared to be moving, mainly because of the shadows that danced so lively on the earth, stirred to greater efforts by each further explosion.