Stavanger was the country’s second oldest airport and had been opened personally by the King of Norway in May of 1937. It was a modern facility right from the beginning, and was the second airport in all of Europe to have a concrete runway installed. Fallschirmjäger from the 7th Flieger Division attacked on April 9 of 1940, and the ensuing battle lasted no more than an hour. The installation was now the Luftwaffe’s Norwegian headquarters, and was in the process of significant upgrades and construction which had already included the extension of the main runway — runway 18/36 — out to almost three kilometres in length.
Runway 11/29 was also now being built, cutting across the southern section of 18/36 at an oblique angle, and around both of these were placed numerous taxiways, hardstands and revetments to provide shelter for the multitude of aircraft that currently called Stavanger home. The units assigned to Luftflotte-5 included sections of KG26 and KG30, a gruppe of fighters each from ZG76 and JG77, and a variety of lesser types assigned to reconnaissance and coastal patrol units. Added to all that were a further collection of ‘visiting’ aircraft that’d been collected for the mission at hand.
First and foremost were the bombers of the newly-formed SKG1. The B-10A ‘Amerika Bomber’ was a huge aircraft, with four radial engines of the same type that powered the S-2D. Thirty metres long, and with a wingspan of over forty-three metres, the B-10A mounted eight 13mm machine guns in two dorsal and two ventral turrets, remotely-controlled by gunners aiming from Perspex sighting ‘blisters’ protruding from above and below the central section of the aircraft. Two 23mm cannon were fitted to a manned tail turret that provided its gunner with some added ‘sting’ against any enemy fighter attempting an attack from directly behind. The spacious bomb bays could carry up to 9,000kg of bombs, and do so out to a range of 5,000 kilometres or more at altitudes where most fighter aircraft would have trouble reaching them. The sight of fifty-six of the huge aircraft at one time, spread about the periphery of the airbase, was an impressive one indeed.
Then there was the arrival of I/ZG26 and the entirety of JG54, its J-4A fighters flown in to provide top cover for the heavy bombers and for Ritter’s aircraft. With an entire geschwader of the B-10A strategic bombers already assigned, the Oberstleutnant had wondered why Luftflotte HQ would bother adding a single gruppe of S-2Ds to the mission, but an experienced pilot operating in the real world quickly gave up questioning the logic of higher authority. An assault by more than fifty heavy bombers would leave little of any base standing, and Fliegerkorps presumably wanted to make sure the base was out of action and nothing more. A low-level, follow-up flight could confirm what damage had been done by the heavies, even if there’d most likely not be much left for his aircraft to actually attack.
Despite following the general planning of the coming air raid on the Scapa Flow anchorage, Reichsmarschall Reuters was completely unaware that it now also involved part of Carl Ritter’s unit. Zeigler, true to his word, had spoken to Herman Göring and had indeed convinced the Chief of the Luftwaffe to issue surreptitious extra orders for Ritter’s inclusion in the attack. It hadn’t been difficult in truth, as there was some personal involvement in the issue for the OdL also.
Never realising how close to the mark he actually was, Herman Göring always felt Kurt Reuters had ‘stolen’ the rank of Reichsmarschall that should rightfully have been his. That Zeigler had made it clear… or at least implied… that the loss of Oberstleutnant Carl Ritter would significantly hurt Kurt Reuters was more than enough impetus for the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe to make the appropriate calls.
Göring was also one of few men in Germany who actually knew the truth regarding the New Eagles, their origins, and their ultimate goals; and as a result, he was also aware in a vague sense of the existence of Hindsight. Although not clear on what futuristic aircraft or equipment the enemy possessed at Scapa Flow, this fighter ace of the Great War had enough of an understanding of what he’d seen of the Sukhoi strike aircraft New Eagles had fielded to recognise the risks involved in attacking the Hindsight unit were great indeed. He had no problem whatsoever in assigning Ritter’s Staff Flight and I/ZG26 to a secondary assault of the base at Scapa Flow.
Zerstörergeschwader 26 carried out final pre-flight checks in the cold Norwegian darkness of early morning; Ritter, Meier and the rest of I Gruppe watching as ground crew milled around their aircraft, loading fuel and weapons. There were new types of bombs being loaded beneath each wing of these new aircraft, outboard of a fuselage-mounted 600 litre auxiliary fuel tank. Each S-2D was being fitted with four long, sleek 500-kilogram bombs (the instructor at Orly had called them ‘low-drag’), and along with them were two tank-like canisters of a strange substance the pilots had never before experienced outside the bombing range. A mixture of gasoline and naphthalene flakes, the end product was a lethal incendiary substance able to lay fiery waste to whole areas. Even the name was strange and non-explanatory: napalm.
Ritter and Kohl waited patiently as their own maintenance staff completed the necessary pre-flight checks. There was little of interest to look at outside, other than the work going on around their aircraft: most of the airfield itself was still invisible in the pre-dawn darkness, and Ritter’s short experience of Stavanger during daylight hours the day before suggested that the presence of sunlight wouldn’t have helped matters all that much, being autumn and freezing cold… it was Norway after all. Ritter’s disdain for the country was based primarily on the upheaval the transfer had caused to his unit and his personal situation, rather than any real dislike or knowledge of the country itself.
He looked down for a moment and stared a small black and white photograph fixed to one side of his instrument panel. Within the image were captured the smiling faces of Maria and Antoine, with the stunning backdrop of the Eiffel Tower behind. She held the sleeping baby in her arms, and the natural feel of the picture could’ve been a depiction of any normal, happy family.
He smiled faintly as he stared down at the photo, but there was also a vague sense of pain and longing as he felt the separation from his beloved wife and the new-found family they’d now tasked themselves to protect. The days in Paris had been the most wonderful he could remember in far too long, but the requirements of military service were never far away, and in the end he’d of course been forced to return to his unit and to active duty. It was this that left more of a bitter taste in his mouth than any disruption of the unit’s normal daily routines.