Seamus Brown was one of the selected few, and it was he who first heard the sounds of an aircraft in trouble.
The staccato sound of misfiring engines and the drone of their fully working compatriots mingled and grew loud enough to be a warning in their own right.
The camp was occasionally overflown, so there were provisions for this moment, and Brown instigated them immediately.
A large bell was rung, only a few double blows from a hammer were needed to warn the base what was about to happen. It was a question of keeping out of sight for most, but balancing that with having a few bodies in sight so as not to make the place seem deserted which, quite reasonably, they had all agreed might make the camp suspicious, even though most of it could not be seen from the air.
Brown dropped his rifle into a wheelbarrow, and started to move across the central open area, his eyes searching the sky for the noisemaker.
“Nav, Pilot. Thirty seconds.”
“Roger. Bombs, over to you.”
The Bomb Aimer looked through the unfamiliar sight and decided that he could proceed.
The finger hovered above the button pressed hard and the shooting commenced.
Brown kept walking, his eyes taking in the smokey trails from two of its engines, his ears adding to the evidence of his eyes.
‘The fucking bastards are in trouble’.
“Crash, you fucking English shites! Go on! Merry fucking Christmas, you bastards!”
A couple of his men chuckled and shared the sentiment, although not quite as loud as Brown.
His raised voice brought a response from some of those aching from the night’s exertions and windows were opened, the oaths and curses directed his way not always in Irish brogue.
The Liberator, for he was sure that was what it was, kept dropping lower in the sky and eventually flew below his line of vision.
In his mind, he enjoyed the image of the mighty aircraft nose-diving into some Irish hillside and promised himself that he would find out what happened at some time.
Turning to the nearest open window, the small hut hidden under a camouflage of turf roof and adjacent shrubs, Brown tackled the aggressor.
“I don’t know what the fuck you are saying my little Russian friend, but if you don’t fuck off, I’ll shoot you.”
The words were said as if he was apologizing for waking the Soviet marine; his smile was one of sincere regret.
The Matrose nodded and closed the window, happy that the stupid Irishman would not repeat his error.
The Liberator continued on for some miles before the navigator gave another change of course, this time turning northwards and put to sea.
Once clear of land, the smoke generators were turned off, the co-pilot stopped palying with the throttles, and the B-24 resumed its journey to RAF Belfast. There it was met by two members of the SOE Photo interpretation section, specially flown in from the Tempsford base to look at the stills and movie footage shot by the special duty crew as they passed precisely over the IRA base at Glenlara.
Wijers helped the female officer carry her stuff from the car into the lecture room.
Section Officer Megan Jenkins, and one other, had been rushed from RAF Tempsford to RAF Belfast, where they joined up with the film produced by the B-24 Liberator pass over Glenlara.
The stills were easier to produce quickly, so Megan Jenkins had already examined them and found a great deal of information that would be of use to those present.
She had not waited to view the film footage before she left for Camp 5A so, once everything was set-up and introductions were made, the movie footage from the fly by was shown for the first time.
The others in the room looked at surprisingly good clarity shots and were surprised, allowing that surprise to mask what the film contained.
Not so Jenkins and her assistant, who made notes and, when the short film had ended, compared them.
The assistant, a male Sergeant, removed the film from the projector and took it away to make some copies of still frames that they had selected during the show. A small suitcase contained everything they would need, Wijers showing the Sergeant to a suitable dark place.
The room had been set up to her requirements, so Jenkins moved across to the table, spread with white paper, and started to draw her map.
The others in the room gathered round, careful not to get between her and the maps and photos.
The speed and accuracy with which she worked was seriously impressive and, before their eyes, a map of the whole IRA camp started to appear.
The Sergeant reappeared, holding some of the images selected from the movie. In the manner of specialists throughout the services, he enjoyed his moment in the limelight, taking the main map and annotating it with the reference number of one of the new pictures.
Two in particular were of great note, and Jenkins moved between her hand drawn map and the new photographs, comparing and adjusting.
Wijers was the first to voice doubts.
“Officer Jenkins, these two positions here… and here… the new ones… they are not in these photographs.”
Megan smiled, knowing that not everyone could grasp the science of photo interpretation.
“Here, Sir, these are from the movie. When we watched,” she indicated the smug looking Sergeant, “Both of us saw a flash, small, but there for sure. The new pictures prove it. The flashes were caused by reflections… something moving in the light, such as a window, a mirror, a glass, anything like that.”
She moved back to the original photos and selected one that covered the new ‘position’ nearest the water’s edge.
“Here. If you look carefully, that flash would come from this point here. See?”
He didn’t.
“Look here, Sir. Here is a shadow band. The sun is to the south east, so this shadow is on the northern edge of the position. The bushes muddy the waters a little… and I’ll have to study them a lot closer, but my experience tells me that this position is roughly eleven foot tall from ground level.”
Wijers looked at her and the photograph without comprehension.
“To be honest, Sir, I’m a little annoyed that I didn’t see it first time. Still, got it now.”
The Dutchman still didn’t see it.
Neither did Sam Rossiter, head of OSS Europe.
Michael Rafferty, top man in Northern Ireland’s Special Branch couldn’t either.
Much to his surprise, the last officer in the room could see it perfectly.
Turning his attention back to the hand drawn plan, he found himself well satisfied.
“Offizier Jenkins, can you put everything down on this map here. Find every position and put it here?”
“Yes, of course, Major. You tell me what you want, I will put it there.
De facto Sturmbannfuhrer and leader of the OSS’s special Ukrainian force but, for the purposes of Megan Jenkins, Major Shandruk of the US Army, nodded to Rossiter.
“More than enough, Colonel.”
He turned his eyes back to the plan, his mind already assessing how the job would be done and how, at the end of the operation, Glenlara would be nothing but a wasteland.
Chapter 128 – THE WASTELAND
Revenge is barren of itself; it is the dreadful food on which it feeds; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.
In the short period of time available, they had moved the proverbial mountain.
Having a friendly RAF base commander with a vested interest in the mission’s success had helped a lot.