‘I’ll see you back here for a beer in five or six hours,’ Monty said and smiled.
Withers grinned back and nodded his approval of the plan.
‘See you, Mont.’
As the crew doors on the two bombers were sealed shut, the occupants were cut off from the noise and movement outside.
In Admiralty House, two hundred yards from the Operations Room at Northwood HQ, Air Marshal Sir John Curtiss sat down with the Task Force Commander, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse. Over a glass of whisky, the two men talked about the war to come, knowing it might be a long time until they had a similar opportunity for reflection. Curtiss liked the thoughtful, astute Yorkshire-man enormously, believed him to be perhaps the most impressive person he’d ever served under. The Admiral asked about the prospect of civilian casualties. Curtiss was able to reassure him. There would be none, he told him, unless they were actually on the airfield during the raid. Fieldhouse fully appreciated the immensity of the task being asked of the Victor and Vulcan crews. Curtiss couldn’t help but wonder if they would succeed. Whatever the outcome of BLACK BUCK, though, both these senior officers knew that come morning, Britain would be committed.
PART THREE
V-Force
Chapter 31
There was a lull. Then the first of the Victors broke the expectant calm as her engines fired up at 22.30. Just one of the four powerful turbines to begin with: run up to 90 per cent rpm in order to feed power through to the other three to start them in sequence. The whine grew to a roar as, one by one, the remaining Rolls-Royce Conway RCo17 turbojets spooled up. They were joined by the noise from the engines of the next Victor in line. Then the next, and the next. Eleven in all. Forty-four engines. A million pounds of potential thrust. Red dust was already being churned into the air, caught in the arc lights along the south side of the Wideawake pan. The view rippled with heat. The wind carried the tang of burnt aviation fuel.
A background hum played through the conference intercom aboard Vulcan 607 – the sound of electricity – punctuated by clicks, pops and breathing. Through it, the crew’s voices sounded brittle and dry as they ran through the challenge and response checklist, called out by Hugh Prior. Martin Withers moved the stick and rudder pedals through their full range of travel, while outside the Crew Chief stood watching, reporting back to the cockpit. Without him, the checks couldn’t be completed.
Bomb door normal operation.
And you’re clear.
Three, two, one… now.
The two long doors slowly unfolded from 607’s dark-grey belly to reveal the warload of 1,000lb bombs racked inside.
Travelling… Open.
Less than eight seconds… Fine.
Closing now.
Travelling… Bomb doors close and flush.
The Crew Chief disconnected the external power and Hugh Prior checked the transformer rectifier units.
Serviceable and on. Time to light the engines.
Clear start.
Starting now. Withers reached down to his left, almost behind him, to a panel of switches, bathed in orange light, running low along the side of the flight deck. There were four separate buttons, one for each engine. Each needed to be pushed and held, before being released.
Pressing now. One thousand… One. Withers checked the engine gauges as the power came up. Small white needles flickered and rose on the panel of dials in the centre of the instrument panel.
RPM’s turning, fuel’s coming on. Ten per cent… fourteen… fifteen. Oil temperature and JPT. No fire warnings.His voice, two-dimensional and sibilant.
The eight Rolls-Royce Olympus 301s of the two Vulcans turned faster, building, joining a rasping, thunderous wall of noise.
As Red One, the first Victor, edged out of its spot at 22.50, the roar from its Conways flared and the extra thrust kicked up dust and debris. As they rolled forward, her pilot turned towards Runway One Four. Around them the ghostly silhouettes of ground crewmen were swallowed up by the swirling cloud. Five places behind him, following his own section leader, Bob Tuxford in White Two opened the throttles up to nearly 50 per cent to overcome the heavy tanker’s inertia. Once she began to roll he pulled them back to idle, but, like the three Victors ahead of him, the initial burst of power had whipped up a storm. He touched the toe-pedals to test the brakes and the jet dipped low on to the squat nosewheel as over 100 tons tried to maintain its forward momentum. The back-seaters were pushed into their high-backed green-steel seats. Then Tux powered up again and taxied slowly towards the runway, turning on to it before the aircraft ahead of him in the stream had left the ground. After the disappointment of the first MRR mission, he was back flying one of two long-slot positions. He’d be escorting the Vulcan a long way south, flying for twelve hours or more.
Feet on the brakes, he wound up the engines at the threshold, released the toe-pedals and pushed the four throttles to the gate with his left hand. As White Two accelerated down the strip, the ride became progressively more comfortable as the wings took the weight off the undercarriage.
Decision, rotate.
Rotating.
As Tux’s jet hauled itself into the air, the next Victor was already turning on the runway. Ahead of them, White Two was climbing away.
Gear up, please.
Selected, three reds and travelling.
Jerry Price was nervous. He’d already been forced to use the ground reserve aircraft when one of the Primary Victors couldn’t maintain engine revolutions. If any of the departing aircraft had to abort their take-off that was the end of the night’s work. He watched each one that safely took to the air with a sigh of relief.
‘OK, there’s another one away.’
On board 598, the Primary Vulcan, John Reeve was counting them out too, making sure he slotted in at the right time. The rest of the crew could hear the thunderous crackle of the Victor’s engines through the fuselage. A sound to stir the blood. Number eleven in the stream, Reeve nudged 598 along, careful to control the speed. Even idling, the Olympus engines had the power to let the jet get ahead of you. As they taxied out behind the Victor leading the Blue section, the perspective from the copilot’s seat was still unfamiliar to AARI Pete Standing. Unlike the low cockpit of the Victor, the Vulcan flight deck seems to hang high in the air, projecting forward over ten feet ahead of the nosewheel. It provided a great vantage point. Reeve leaned forwards against his straps to close the little triangular direct-vision window.
‘There’s a problem here,’ he said over the intercom. ‘I can’t get this thing shut… I’ll give it another go.’ In the back, the rest of the crew could hear the banging from flight deck as Reeve struggled to close it. Come on, get the bloody thing closed, thought Mick Cooper as he heard the Captain hammering at the window, it can’t be that difficult.
‘Calm down, John,’ urged Don Dibbens from the sixth seat as Reeve got more agitated by it. ‘Just work at it.’