The massive guns began to elevate with the whine of powerful hydraulics, each weapon moving in unison as their muzzles turned toward England and their gun crews donned ear protection in preparation for firing. No one bothered to warn the POWs — their welfare was unimportant, after all — however it was painfully obvious that action was imminent as new klaxons began howling all over the compound. Whittaker, Dupont and a few of the others began screaming terrified warnings for the rest to seek whatever scant cover they could find as they pressed their hands to their ears as tightly as possible, hoping to muffle as much of whatever was coming.
The next moment seemed to stretch for an age as ‘Gustav’, the northernmost gun, discharged and a huge, visible shockwave rippled away from the massive muzzle brake on either side, knocking many of those nearby off their feet. The ground shook as if an earthquake had struck, and the heat and deafening roar of the shot washed across all of them as it spread around the firing site at the speed of sound. Whittaker feared for a moment or two that he might lose his footing as the hot winds whirled past, tossing up stones and dust from the ground by the shovelful and filling the air with debris that battered many of the prisoners who’d been unable to find cover.
Gustav’s muzzle began to lower once more as his crew prepared to go through their five minute reloading process. The first shell was already well on its way by that time and travelling at three times the speed of sound as it arched high across the English Channel, leaving a thunderous ‘ripping’ sound in its wake as it tore through the air toward the opposite shore. The artillery observers watching from Shakespeare Cliff spotted the unexpected firing across the Channel immediately, and had already radioed a warning by the time the shell had reached the English coast, although it was far too late to take cover in any case.
It was a small consolation to the men in command of railway gun Gladiator that the deafening, tearing sound overhead a second later meant Gustav’s first shot had gone long. It hadn’t overshot by enough for the crew to remain calm or collected about the experience however as the five-tonne, 800mm HE projectile impacted with British soil a little less than two kilometres west of their position. The shell punched deep into the earth, not far from Sandling Junction, and the subsequent detonation blasted a huge crater thirty metres wide and the same deep into the Kent countryside, throwing earth and debris hundreds of metres into the air in a billowing cloud of smoke and flame.
The blast wave struck the gun a few seconds later, bringing with it a strong, hot wind stinking of earth and smoke that battered the Royal Marines with more than just its physical effects. They could all see how much power that enormous shell had carried, and how much damage it might’ve caused had it landed on target. The gun commander quickly brought his crew back to the matter at hand as clods of earth, stone and shrapnel began to land around them. The same was happening in all directions, over a huge area, as a rolling cloud of black clawed its way skyward from the point of impact above a boiling pillar of smoke and dust.
Sceneshifter fired its first shell a few seconds later, but with a flight time of more than a minute across a distance of almost forty kilometres, they had some time to wait before the nearby observers could plot the fall of shot and issue any adjustments to aim. All knew without doubt that they were in a gun duel now, and it was a duel against what appeared to be an incredibly powerful enemy. They were three to one, and the match up could perhaps be likened to three hyenas pitted against two lions: they could split the enemies’ attacks, and retaliate in greater numbers, but just one hit from either enemy could ruin any one of them, while they would need all their strength to bring either of their targets down.
The unmistakeable plume of Sceneshifter’s muzzle blast was the first warning to the Luftwaffe observer high above The Channel that there was a second gun involved, this one firing from within Dover itself, close to the port. Dora, preparing for her first shot, had already adjusted aim and elevation based on the fall of Gustav’s first shell, and as such was ordered to remain on target with Gladiator. Gustav, in the middle of reloading, was accorded this second target, and even as its next shell was being rammed into the breech, powerful hydraulic motors were already rotating the weapon onto a new point of aim.
Dora fired next from the southern side of the complex as Gustav’s crew continued their reloading process, the experience no less terrifying for the extra distance. Again the earth shook and all around were battered by a powerful shock wave, its huge muzzle brake lessening the effect of recoil by diverting the bulk of the massive blast to either side rather than directly ahead. With corrections to aim already made, it was expected that second shell to land on target, but as was the case for their opponents across The Channel, the SS gunlayers were not forced to endure more than a minute of flight time before they’d discover how accurate their amendments had been.
Initial warning of the firing of a British gun was late, but was in any case largely unnecessary as far as Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS personnel were concerned. All of those not involved with the actual firing and control of the gun were already under cover as part of the battery’s alert status, and German casualties, if any, were likely to be minimal as a result. The POWs and forced labourer present weren’t so fortunate, of course, and as that first, half-tonne shells landed among them, 500m short of Gustav’s position, the earth and smoke thrown skyward by the explosion was filled with their broken and shattered bodies.
Gladiator was never given a chance to fire as Dora’s first shell landed. All three British guns were still making adjustments to aim and angle of traverse based on the fall of Sceneshifter’s ranging shot, and its diesel locomotive was edging it carefully along the curved track to a new point of aim as the five-tonne projectile fell directly on the railway line itself, two hundred metres behind, and obliterated everything around it in a blinding flash and upheaval of earth that instantly became another huge crater. A savage blast wave rippled away from the explosion, radiating outward to all points of the compass, and its full force hammered into the rear of the locomotive and railway gun in just a fraction of a second, blistering heat and irresistible winds laced with lumps of earth, stone and shrapnel that shattered the weapon and all but vaporised the gun crew in an instant.
The engine itself was tipped and cast from the tracks as if it were no more than a toy batted aside by some child’s hand. The ammunition wagon, positioned between it and the gun exploded also, its shells and propellant charges adding to the power of the blast that struck the gun in that same moment. The combined force was great enough to momentarily lift all 240 tonnes of the weapon and carriage off the tracks and deposit it a metre or so to the left, derailed and noticeably askew, with its rear section a devastated mass of twisted wreckage and broken human flesh.
With one of their own already lost, Piecemaker and Sceneshifter fired in unison a few seconds later, sending two more shells toward France and their deadly opponents. The 13.5-inch Mark V had proven to be a powerful and accurate weapon in naval service, and it was no less true for the railway guns as their fire landed within two hundred metres of Gustav’s position and more prisoners died in a shower of shrapnel and debris. Safe behind its high blast walls, Gustav however remained undamaged and it fired for a second time, thirty seconds later. Ahead of its muzzle, trees close to the beach that were already burning and stripped of vegetation — those that hadn’t been torn out completely or obliterated by the first firing — were battered and assaulted again as its second projectile roared past overhead on its journey toward England.