He paused to ensure he had everyone’s attention.
“The boffins say: ‘RDF, airfields and 100-octane fuel.’”
“The British have invented an apparatus called ‘Range and Direction Finding’ or ‘RDF.’ This equipment lets them see, on a special glass electronic screen, illuminated green dots that indicate aircraft. RDF cannot tell the size of the ‘planes, nor can it tell if they are friend or foe, but if you see 12 dots taking off in France and crossing the English Channel, then it’s reasonable that is our boys on one of their party outings to London. So, the British RDF is the eyes of the British air force. Now, this new apparatus requires very tall radio masts and the British have built a series of these stations dotted along their southern coast. So, in today’s modern war, removing this critical and central facility is our first job—it is not, as my former boss used to endlessly boast, about shooting down enemy ‘planes, and the glories of flying circuses, etc. That may have been how it was done in the dashing and glorious days of the air knights of the Great War, but in these modern times, the economic aspects are the most important.”
“The second area we have identified is a simple one—the air fields themselves. If the enemy ‘planes have nowhere to land, then that will be a problem for them. This affects their bombers more than their fighters—it is often possible to land a modern all-metal monoplane fighter in a decent sized meadow, but even then it becomes the time-wasting task of refueling the fighter that can take a full day or two, and jacking up the wheels that have sunk into soft meadow grass. So after we cripple the RDF stations, we will attack the enemy airfields from a height of just 1,000 meters. Both JU-88s and Stukas will attack in waves. The goal is to destroy the entire length of the enemy runway, not just create one or two potholes. For maximum effectiveness, we will attack in the very early morning when the English bombers are returning from their raids on Berlin and the Ruhr. These English bombers will all be low on fuel and with a very small margin of error. And in contrast to the enemy fighters, the bombers only crash land in meadows, as bombers are far heavier than the fighters, the bombers dig in on contact, the whole thing goes arse over tit—the enemy heavy bombers must land on proper runways.”
“The final one is 100-octane fuel. The backbone of the RAF is the Rolls Royce Merlin engine—they use it in just about everything. Most important are their heavy bombers and their Spitfire fighters. Now, these engines were originally designed and tuned to run on 87-octane fuel. But we know from our Dutch friends at the Shell company in Holland that the RAF has been working since 1937 to convert all the Merlin engines to run on 100-octane. And the performance improvement is significant; according to the Dutch, the British have gotten a 50% increase in boast pressure, which translates into about 200 extra horsepower. And our own pilots have compared 87 to 100 in the 190s and they too all report significant improvements, and these were blind tests as well—our pilots did not know if they were using 87 or 100. The only thing stopping the British in completing this conversion is lack of 100-octane—they’ve converted about one-third of the engines.”
“Now, the British get their all 100-octane from the Americans and from Trinidad. They offload this 100-octane spirit in Plymouth and Liverpool, then it is transported it to the various aerodromes in the South East of England by rail. After the first two phases are complete, the Luftwaffe will begin attacking Plymouth, not with bombers but with special flights of 190s. In each flight there will be 12 aircraft; nine will be conventional, while three will be equipped with a 45 mm cannon. To allow for the extra weight of this armament and to maintain the performance all the machine guns have been stripped from these modified machines.”
“The plan is to send a large armada of bombers to London in three streams. Even without the RDF stations, the British will scramble their fighters to intercept this raid. While they are flying North, the special flights will race over to Plymouth in the South West corner of England, and will destroy the main storage facilities in Plymouth. Of course, these tanks are all thin walled, and in contrast to heavy oil used in tanks and ships, 100-octane aircraft spirit is extremely volatile—a single hit from one of our 45 cannons and the huge tank explodes. Our plan is to strip Britain of all 100 octane fuel in four weeks—of course, this means the one-third of the ‘planes already converted to 100 will be forced to run on 87 and this will cause many problems—our boffins have done experiments and have found the engine life is halved, assuming the engine does not explode in mid-air from massive pre-ignition.”
Jodl smiled, “And then?”
Matter-of-factly, Milch said, “we start back at the first phase as rebuilding the RDF stations will be the Britishers’ top priority. I discussed this with little Paul and he wisely pointed out that we can create a huge news bonanza by telling all neutral countries that we are now eschewing all civilian targets. The British cannot respond in kind as the Ruhr is so old that the workers’ houses are cheek-to-jowl to the various Krupp works. In Goebbels’ view we can get a great deal of sympathy.”
Milch immediately caught himself, “Of course, what he does is fine, but it is my job, gentlemen, to ensure no enemy aircraft ever attacks the Reich—I don’t want to have to eat a broomstick.”
The generals and field marshals roared their approval at this inside joke.
Milch’s simple, three-pronged approach worked far better than he could know. Churchill had a slight collapse after spending 15 minutes in a drunken fit screaming at the head of Fighter Command, Hugh Dowding, at the Whitehall underground command bunker. Dowding had not said a word during the unconscionable tirade, but had made it clear to Jock Colville that his retirement was effective the next day. Once sober, Churchill tearfully plucked and pleaded with Dowding, but to no effect. Alan Brooke, who witnessed this outrage, had told the repentant prime minister than one more such episode, under any circumstance, would result in Brooke’s own resignation.
A scandal of this size could not be kept quiet for long in the fish bowl that was the London clubs. And sure enough, before the week was out Stimson had been given all the gory details. Stimson’s source was not a surprising one—Lord Halifax, the British ambassador in Washington, and Churchill’s former rival for the prime ministership.
16: Mimi’s Sparrow
FOR MIMI, SATURDAY was always her favorite day—no school and no painful kneeling in church for an hour recalling her sins for the past week. Not yet a teenager, Mimi struggled each Sunday to find sins to confess to her mother’s God; she hoped as she grew older it would be easier—her eldest sister Maria, 18 years old and already married, assured her that shortly Mimi’s sins would blossom.
Over the past two months, every morning Mimi would rush to open the blinds of her room to say hello to her two new friends, which she had christened Mama and Quick Fox. Mama rarely moved, just gently swaying, always calm and serene, while Quick Fox was the opposite—never seeming to stop moving, darting here and there, never still.
But to Mimi’s surprise and sadness, Mama was gone. Mama had grown to be a silent friend to Mimi. Mama had arrived after church on the first Sunday in October, that foul day of rain and lightning and thunder, when the clock on the tower of the Town Hall had been hit by lightning and had stopped. Mimi leaned out her window and looked from one end of the bay to the other, but there was no Mama. Quick Fox was there, dashing around as usual, like a fly caught in a glass jar. Mimi would ask Father Koannes tomorrow about Mama—the German Father was wise and gentle to her and all the children of the parish.