Forster’s laughter died away as he detected only a hummed response from his radar operator.
The man was concentrating.
Hans Braun let the radar repeat its first visual announcement before informing his pilot.
“Achtung! Radar shows numerous contacts ahead… straight ahead, working on height now…”
“Numbers, Hans?”
Silence.
“Anything else. Give me something. Man?”
“Jurgen, the screen can’t cope. There are at least thirty definite contacts… seems like they’re almost travelling in tandem… range three miles… height… scheisse!… fourteen thousand!”
Jurgen Förster pulled gently up on the stick, bringing the advanced night fighter up and above the rapidly approaching stream of aircraft.
A quick radio report notified their base of the approaching problem. On the direct orders of the vector commander, a harassed Air Force Colonel, the operator did not tell them that they were on their own.
Ever a problem for night fighters, friendly flak started to burst around the approaching enemy formation.
In this instance it provided him with the means to identify the aircraft now passing underneath his Heinkel.
“They’re transports and gliders… look… that’s why they registered in tandem… they’re being towed, Hans.”
He banked the aircraft to permit Braun to see clearly.
“Escort?”
“I’ve been looking. Nothing obvious… the streams seem regular… nothing outside…”
“I’m attacking, rear first… vector me in on the end of the central stream.”
“Course… 225… maintain height.”
The fox moved silently closer to the chickens.
The aircraft in question, RAF-manned C-47s, were transporting the Polish Parachute Brigade and elements of the British 1st Air-Landing Brigade to their paradrop and glider landing zones in and around Köslin, Poland.
In the centre of the stream, a bright flash marked the direct hit of a flak shell. Those who could see through nearby windows, watched in morbid fascination as the C-47 fireballed and turned slowly over, heading straight as a javelin towards the ground and dragging its Hadrian glider down with it.
The two disappeared into the darkness and no-one observed the fireball as they smashed into the soil of Pomerania below.
Förster was conscious of the death of the aircraft ahead of him, but concentrated more on the steer he was receiving from Braun.
He had decided on attacking with his Schräge Musik in the first instance.
The two 20mm MG-FF’s, the original 30mm Mk108 cannons having been removed because of their shorter range, were set to fire upwards out of the He219, at between 65 to 70 degrees, depending on the crew’s wishes.
Braun talked the 219 into its approach before Förster took over for the final sighting of the weapons.
“Firing!”
The proximity of the weapons to Braun’s position made the warning much more than a courtesy.
As with all uses of the Schrage Musik, the attacking aircraft had to be able to get out from underneath its target quickly, as 20mm explosive cannon shells tended to affect the target’s aerodynamic efficiency quite dramatically.
Above them, the C-47’s left wing detached, its engine still pouring out power, the two parts folding inwards and starting the inexorable drop.
This time the glider crew managed to detach the tow, so only the transport went down.
Braun, always methodical in combat, commenced steering the fighter towards its next target.
Three Allied transports and two more gliders were shot down in short order. Not having realised that they were under attack by a night-fighter, a common problem with interpreting the attacks as ground fire, the transports had not called for support until a bursting flak shell had granted an alert co-pilot a swift glimpse of the servant of the Grim Reaper at work in their midst.
The two transport squadrons yelled out for help and their calls were swiftly answered, as RAF controllers vectored in the two Luftwaffe Geschwader and an experienced Mosquito flight that had been held circling, ready for any problems.
None the less, there was still time for Förster and Braun to slip underneath a final C-47 and pump the last handful of shells into its vulnerable belly.
Förster, in a typical move of bravado, pulled the Heinkel closer to the belly of the nearest glider, flying in its ‘shadow’ less than sixty feet from its wooden fuselage.
The performance of the radar fell off as a result, but Braun was engaged in trying to reload the two cannon, so Mark 1 eyeball was the most efficient warning in the interim.
It produced a result almost immediately, a defective exhaust system on a nearby aircraft revealed that there was something sharing the sky with them.
‘That looks like… a 110…’
“Hans, we have an enemy fighter… bearing 80… how long?”
“Three.”
Reloading the two cannons wasn’t easy on the ground, let alone in the air. More often than not, aircrew didn’t carry spare magazines, but Förster and Braun had decided otherwise.
‘What the… two more… they look like… Mosquitos…’
“Scheisse… Hans… there’s more… sure I saw at least two more trailing the first. Speed up, man.”
“Two.”
“You’ve got to hurry up, Hans.”
The sound of activity behind him grew, as Braun struggled to clip home the final magazine.
Off to his right, the night became day as one of the Mosquitos pumped Hispano cannon shells into its target, with dramatic effect.
The two faint shapes veered off into the night as the burning Messerschmitt plunged to earth.
“Done!”
Förster and Braun had no idea of the screaming and shouting on the Allied radio circuit as a long-standing Luftwaffe night fighter ace was hacked to pieces by friendly RAF planes.
The Allied controller, realising his terrible mistake, called off the two Luftwaffe units, leaving the flight of Mosquitos to deal with the threat to the Polish Paratroopers.
“The bastards have hacked down one of our lads!”
Which was the way it seemed of course, but the kill gave both men impetus to perform.
The Heinkel 219’s nose rose, and Förster used his forward firing weapons to lash out at another C-47, before peeling off to the left, intent on getting some sort of radar picture of the night sky before continuing with his destruction of the transports.
As the night-fighters continued their dance, there was little but the sound of wind racing through holes in the fuselage aboard C-47 F for Freddie.
Förster’s burst had raked the belly of the aircraft and turned the insides into a charnel house.
Unforgiving 20mm shells had chewed through flesh and bone, transforming trained paratroopers into unidentifiable lumps of meat in a microsecond.
The flight crew fared little better, although the co-pilot retained his hold on life, despite the loss of his left arm and being blinded.
At the very rear of the fuselage, Flight Sergeant Terry Walker was in a state of shock.
Pieces of his passengers were everywhere, although much of the contents of the cabin was white silk, the small pieces of shredded parachute whipped by the airflow into something resembling a snowstorm.
His mind started to regain control of itself, and rational thought commenced.
Running his hands over his own body, Walker managed to work out that he was untouched which, giving the storm that had visited itself upon the aircraft, was a total miracle.
He got up and picked his way forward, not bothering to check for any signs of life, as there was little left that could have even been expected to be alive.