Since 1941 Winston Churchill, who despised the Focke-Wulf 200 Condor as the Scourge of the Atlantic, ordered every convoy to carry an escort of Hawker Hurricanes. The small fighter planes were equipped with new Rolls Royce Merlin engines, and launched via the ship’s CAM catapult system. Stripped of her defensive armor and weaponry, the Condor would be annihilated by their twin 40mm Vickers machineguns. Gutwein sighed heavily. “All right. We’ll head north to avoid it. We’re using less fuel than expected, we can afford a minor detour, yes?”
Krause shook his head. “Not possible. The predominant wind farther north is westerly. With a head wind, we’d never reach our target.”
“Okay, so we go south.”
“That’s possible, but we’d have to go a long way south to avoid the trailing end of the convoy.”
“We can do that.”
Gutwein returned to the cockpit with the new bearings and advised Vogel to adjust his flightpath due south immediately. He wasn’t taking any chances of the group of ships spotting them and making a precautionary attack. Right now, their only saving grace was the fact that by the sheer size of the convoy they had been able to spot them on radar at a distance of eighty miles, much too far for the convoy’s radar to spot their small aircraft.
The Condor banked left and maintained that course for forty-five minutes before turning due west again. Gutwein joined Krause in the radio operator’s station, and studied the cathode ray tube for any signs of the convoy changing their direction.
As he snuck around the enemy, he subconsciously found himself holding his breath, like a child might during a game of hide and seek. When they passed, his lips curled in an upward smile of success. If Winston Churchill had any idea what just slipped by him, he would have happily sacrificed his entire convoy just to stop their mission.
Half an hour later, Gutwein took over the controls again, as they set a new course toward their target. The rest of the flight continued uneventfully until they were about three hours from the coast of America — when thick cloud cover swept over them.
Gutwein tried to rise above the clouds, but they continued above their maximum unpressurized ceiling height of ten thousand feet. He dropped down to a cruising altitude of eight thousand feet and kept the yoke fixed steady, concentrating on keeping the Condor in a straight and level flying position. His eyes continuously scanned the artificial horizon, altimeter, and compass, to avoid deviating from their current readings on the instruments.
Pilots, disoriented by the sudden loss of any visual references, were prone to making fatal mistakes within minutes of entering dense cloud cover. Gutwein had been a pilot long enough not to lose his composure during such an event. The cloud would soon pass, at least by the time they reached the American coastline.
Once there, they could drop to a thousand feet and pick up their bearings from known topographical markers and reference points.
His eyes darted over the reserve fuel gauge. They still had time and fuel, but most of their calculations were based on making a direct route. With the clouds blocking Kraus’s view of the stars, it would be impossible to take a sighting and calculate their position. Right now, he was using dead reckoning to navigate.
All he had to do was maintain the same heading and they would reach their target. The problem was aircraft, unlike a car, rarely maintained a specific course. Instead, the wind blew them one way or the other in a process called drifting.
Right now, Gutwein knew that the wind was approaching from north-east. He was certain that it was blowing him to the south and a little farther west, which was good. The problem was, how much was he drifting south? Ordinarily it wouldn’t matter. If they had enough fuel reserves, they would continue on a bearing heading west until they reached the coast, and then follow the coastline to their target.
Their fuel supply was going to be close.
He looked at Vogel, who was trying to calculate their fuel on a pad of paper next to him. “Go wake Krause up for me. I need to get a more accurate idea of our rate of drift.”
“Yes, sir.”
Vogel returned with Krause a minute later.
Gutwein said, “The cloud cover’s come in hard and we’re trying to maintain our original heading. I need to know our rate of drift.”
“Understood. I’ll organize it for you now, sir.”
Gutwein shook his head. “No. This is too important. I need to see it for myself. We all know what’s riding on this. We need to be certain. I’ll come with you.” He handed the controls over to Vogel. “You have the controls. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Take us lower until you have a visual on the sea and keep her there.”
“Understood, sir.”
Gutwein unclipped his seatbelt and followed Krause toward the tail stopping at the starboard wing. There, a hatch allowed them to climb inside the wing, crawling on their bellies — usually to provide maintenance on the engines while they were running. Midway along the wing, a trapdoor opened to the sea below.
Both men made their way to the trapdoor.
Krause held the unlit flare in his hand. “Are you ready, sir?”
“Yes. Go on.”
Krause lit the flare and dropped it.
Gutwein watched as the burning flare fell into the water far below. If it had stayed roughly in line with the tail of the plane, it meant they were maintaining a steady course. As he expected, that wasn’t the case.
The flare seemed to immediately move to the port side of the tail. The drift was strong. They would have to make a correction for it, but it would involve more guessing.
“Do you want me to drop another one, sir?”
Gutwein shook his head. “I’ve seen enough. We’re being heavily blown to the south. We’ll have to make a correction.”
He made his way out of the wing and took over the control of the aircraft again. Gutwein increased their altitude to a more efficient cruising height of eight thousand feet. He chose a bearing slightly more to the north in an attempt to correct for the suspected drift. There was no clear science for how much to correct, though. Instead it was more a case of pilot experience and gut instinct. The problem was, instincts had the possibility of being wrong.
Three hours later, Krause knelt on the bulkhead just behind Gutwein’s seat and handed him a notepad. “This is our current fuel reading.”
Gutwein glanced at the notepad. The numbers were much worse than he’d predicted. We can’t be that low, surely? He glanced back at Krause. “Are you certain?”
“I measured it twice.” His voice was firm.
His eyes glanced at Vogel and back to Krause. A proud smile formed on his thinned lips and his eyes narrowed with defiance. “All right. Moment of truth gentlemen. We’ve either played our cards just right and we’re now already over the coastline of America and close to our target — or we’ve failed our mission and our country.”
He lowered the Condor’s nose and made their descent. The cloud cover was still thick. He prayed that it would thin as they dropped their altitude.
They were in a complete whiteout.
Seven minutes later, and at a height of three thousand feet, the ground finally came into view. It was covered in thick snow and surrounded by jutting stones that formed the peak of a small mountain range.
His eyes narrowed. “Where are we, gentlemen?”
Krause opened the topographical map. His eyes swept the region of their target. It was impossible to see any identifiable navigation aids or markers. No signs of civilization, much less a city.
Gutwein brought them into a wide circular flight path, but the terrain below all seemed to place them in the middle of a low-level mountain range. On all the maps he’d studied, there weren’t any mountains near their target.