“I spoke with the Führer personally again today on that subject…” Reuters informed softly, nodding at Schiller’s remarks. “He’s going to officially issue ‘Directive-17’ this week. Although he’s still loathe to invade Britain, I’ve convinced him ‘Sealion’ is vitaclass="underline" the Reich must be secure in the west and there’ll be no backing away from that this time!”
“‘We shall fight them on the beaches…’!” Schiller almost laughed at the thought. “I can’t believe the old bastard still made that bloody speech after the thrashing we gave them at Dunkirk! The whole of the BEF stranded and encircled by Guderian’s panzers, and we sent Furious and two cruisers to the bottom of the Channel as well!”
“We shan’t need to worry about the Royal Air Force this time, either,” Reuters murmured, his eyes glazing slightly as he cast his mind back over his own life. Five years of pre-planning and another seven years of preparation in the field were now coming to fruition, and with that would come the erasure of decades of national humiliation — humiliation that would now not only be redressed: it would in fact never have existed. “With the surprises and the overwhelming numbers we’ll be meeting the RAF with over the next few months, they won’t know what’s hit them!”
“I assume Herr Göring will keep his kampfgruppen hitting factories and airfields…”
“…Oh, you can be certain of that!” Reuters answered, his voice becoming ice-cold at the mention of the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe. “I’ve already had to have a few words ‘upstairs’ about our ‘friend’, Hermann. He’s been a little too obviously unwilling to ‘play’ lately and I’ve had to ask the Führer to ‘lay down the law’.
“The new tactical bombers are already coming into service with the kampfgruppen as planned and the strategic heavies are almost ready too, but Göring and his cronies are screwing us about too bloody much on the fighters and the attack aircraft. The new Shrikes and Lions would’ve been coming out in unit strength weeks ago if it weren’t for he and Milch bickering endlessly over factory modifications and experimental variants that are a waste of bloody time! Müller and Udet have had a shit of a job getting anything done. The carriers have their full complements allocated at least, but we’re finding it an uphill battle to equip even enough for one land-based geschwader of each. Thank Christ at least the instructional squadrons are ready to take on conversion training — I just hope we have some planes to give the pilots when they’re trained!”
“I should think the Tommis will crap themselves when they come across the new Focke-Wulfs…” Schiller chuckled with an evil glee “…not to mention our Skyraiders– !” He caught himself quickly in mid-sentence and repeated with correction “…not to mention our ‘Löwe’ attack aircraft, I should say.”
“We could’ve done it with the old equipment, though…” Reuters shrugged, “we’ve always known that. It was only Göring’s decision to switch attacks from the airfields to British cities and begin The Blitz that took the pressure off the RAF…” Reuters relented somewhat and grudgingly added “…at the Führer’s ‘request’ as it was… The RAF was never beaten and ‘Sealion’ was subsequently cancelled…we won’t make that mistake this time!” He smiled thinly. “How d’you think the Americans would fare trying to land on the Normandy beaches if they had to bring an invasion force across a five thousand kilometres of Atlantic Ocean?” Reuters’ eyes were truly alight now as his personal demons rose and drove his thoughts. “…No, my friend…that won’t happen this time. We’ll not have the damned Americans and their endless streams of bombers to ruin us this time. No humiliation! No destruction of our homeland! No fucking Bolsheviks to tear the heart out of our country!”
The Reichsmarschall almost bellowed the last sentence as every fibre of his being raged against childhood memories of growing up in the ruins of a shattered and divided nation under the ever-present and deadly threat of nuclear war. He checked himself and regained his composure in a moment, remembering where and when he was. “No, my friend…they’ll not get the same opportunities they were given the first time around…” he repeated softly, his chest heaving faintly as if he were out of breath from all the adrenaline coursing through his system. He smiled grimly again as a fine irony occurred to him; “…and as for Churchill; let the man make all the speeches he wants. They’ll ‘fight us on the beaches’ all right, and in the fields and towns and cities as well — and all too soon he’ll be making another speech…one that ends with ‘too many, too much, and too few!”
No. 610 (County of Chester) Squadron, RAF
Sussex, England
Fighter Command had managed to provide early warning against the oncoming air raid on this occasion, and Trumbull and his seven remaining subordinates had an almost leisurely time of strapping themselves into their fighters and warming their engines. They’d moved a few kilometres south to another suitable makeshift location and had almost been ready to call it a night when the alert had come through.
It was unusual for the Luftwaffe to mount a raid so close to dusk as it’d probably mean returning fighters and bombers would be forced to land in the dark — something no pilot would be particularly pleased about. Unusual it may have been, but unfortunately not completely out of the question, and radar — what little was operable — had picked up a fairly large group of what appeared to be bombers, probably heading for Ventnor radar station itself on the Isle of Wight.
So Fighter Command sends my sorry lot back up again… Trumbull mused silently, watching his instruments and awaiting the radio call from headquarters to scramble. ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…’ He quoted to himself from Shakespeare. Of course, Henry V was in France at the time, he observed. Wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t England that was in danger…longbows at Agincourt wouldn’t be too bad by comparison.
He turned his head to starboard to catch sight of the signals NCO rising to jog across from a radio table that had been hastily set up under some trees.
“About bloody time, I should say,” Trumbull muttered, a little peeved. “Bloody engine’ll be cooked if we keep this up much longer.” He leaned out of the open cockpit as the sergeant approached as an aid to hearing, something that was difficult at best with the racket of aircraft engines all around. “Got the ‘green light’, Bates?” Trumbull called out with more cheer than he honestly felt.