Operation Rhine Maiden

Dedication & Acknowledgment

To

my old and dear friend

JOHNNIE GEMMELL,

who will be greatly missed

The author wishes to acknowledge his debt to the authors of the following works of reference:

Bekker, The Luftwaffe War Diaries (Macdonald); Adolf Galland, The First and the Last (Methuen); Alfred Price, Instruments of Darkness (Win Kimber); Richards and Saunders, Royal Air Force 1939 1945 (11.M. S.O.); C. Martin Sharp and Martin F. Bowyer, Mosquito (Faber); Sir C. Webster and N. Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939-1945 (H.M.S.O.)

And, last but not least, to his good friend Group Captain T. G. Mahaddie, D.S.O., D.F.C., A.F.C.

CHAPTER 1

The small group of mechanics, all smoking cigarettes, were standing in the summer sunshine outside a dispersal hut. An FBVI Mosquito with modifications was at rest twenty yards away. Beneath its nose a young Aircraftman IInd Class, whose chubby face was shining in the heat, was trying to replace a gun bay panel. As he struggled to locate the spring-loaded screws, a Leading Aircraftman detached himself from the group. An old sweat with a long, dismal face and a sharp nose, he was wearing a filthy pair of overalls held together at the waist by a single button. Ducking his head he gazed at the sweating youngster.

Takin’ your time, aren’t you?

I’m going as quick as I can, the ACII muttered.

You’d better get a jildi on, mate. If Chiefy has to ground this kite, he’ll have the lot of us workin’ on it all night. And then you’ll be real popular.

The youngster was having difficulty in lining up the screws with their sockets. Couldn’t you hold the panel for me? he asked tentatively.

The old sweat, by name McTyre, looked shocked. You want to get me into trouble, Ellis? I’m a fitter, not a bloody armourer.

But I only want it holding while I fasten the screws, the young ACII wailed.

McTyre was clearly shaken by the youngster’s readiness to bend the sacred lines of demarcation. Out of the question, mate. By the centre .... Shaking his head, the old sweat retreated to the group of mechanics. You hear that? He’ll be askin’ Chiefy to give ’im a hand next.

A telephone was heard ringing. A corporal ran into the dispersal hut, to return fifteen seconds later. Hey, Ellis. Is that gun serviceable yet?

The cherubim-faced youngster had got the panel on at last. Yes, I think so, corp.

The corporal went back to the telephone. McTyre met him in the hut doorway as he was coming out. Is it right Lacy’s not flyin’ with Harvey today?

Yeh. Lacy’s got appendicitis.

Who’s flyin’ in his place?

One of the sprogs. Blackburn.

McTyre gave a whistle. Christ! That’ll make Harvey happy.

By this time Ellis was carrying his equipment away from the nose of the Mosquito. When the way was clear McTyre stepped loftily forward and climbed into the cockpit. A few seconds later the starboard engine fired, followed by the port. A flight of starlings, grubbing in the short grass nearby, took off with a clatter of wings.

The Merlins began to thunder as McTyre warmed them up. A shower of dust and stones made the group of mechanics take shelter on the lee side of the hut. Three minutes later McTyre waved an underling into the cockpit and swung his legs to the ground. As he scribbled his initials on the Form 700 that the corporal pushed at him, the roar of the engines died into a rhythmical murmur. It allowed the mechanics to hear the roar of other Merlins around the airfield where the same routine was being carried out.

A 25-cwt. transport began circling the perimeter track, dropping off crews at their dispersal points. A second vehicle, a station wagon befitting a Flight Commander, drew up a few yards from McTyre whose muted wolf whistle at the pretty WAAF driver brought only a toss of curls.

The tall, powerfully-built pilot who jumped out was Frank Harvey, A Flight Commander and Acting Squadron Commander for the operation. With the warm evening obviating the need for flying clothes, he was wearing service uniform. A Yorkshireman with withdrawn eyes and a face that was all planes and angles, Harvey was not famous for his sociability at the best of times. This evening his mood was forbidding as he dragged his parachute from the station wagon.

Two other men followed him out. One, a stocky youngster carrying a canvas bag as well as his parachute, was Blackburn, Harvey’s new navigator and the innocent cause of the Yorkshireman’s mood. The other man was Sandy Powell, an affable Australian who, like Harvey, was a survivor from the original squadron. Wounded over Bergen, he had been hospitalized during the climactic raid, an accident that had probably saved his life. Harvey’s dourness was an obstacle to friendship, but Powell was the closest to a friend on the squadron that the Yorkshireman had, and, although Harvey would have died rather than admit it, he valued the Australian accordingly.

As Harvey started for the dispersal hut, Powell caught his arm. Wait a minute. You still haven’t given me the name of those gee-gees.

Harvey did his best to be affable. You can have ’em when we get back.

You kidding? What if you get the chop?

Harvey gave an impatient scowl. It’s Sun King for the two-thirty and Jason II for the three o’clock. The other one’s Blue something — maybe Blue Stocking. I’ll have to check on it.

Great. If they come up we’re in Scarborough tomorrow night for dinner. O.K.?

Harvey nodded, humped his parachute over one shoulder, and started again for the dispersal hut. As the stocky Blackburn followed somewhat ruefully after him, Powell clapped him on his shoulder. You’ll be all right, cobber. His bark’s worse than his bite.

Blackburn gave him a grateful look, and Powell ran back to the station wagon, which shot away. At the dispersal hut Harvey barely glanced at the Form 700 before signing it and shoving it back at the corporal. Ignoring Blackburn he strode over to the Mosquito, ordered the mechanic out, and took his place in the pilot’s seat. Feeling the eyes of the ground crew on him, Blackburn took a deep breath, threw his bag and parachute through the open cockpit door, and pulled himself in after them. Almost instantly the two Merlins began to roar as Harvey tested them. A green Very light soared up from the Control Tower and D-Danny began to roll forward.

McTyre was grinning unsympathetically. I’d hate to be in his shoes. Harvey looks mad enough to pitch him into the drink.

Ellis, still new and young enough to feel wonder at it all, ventured a question. Where are they going, Mac?

McTyre gave him a look of pity. You’ve helped to bomb up the bloody thing and don’t know where they’re going.

Nobody’s told me, the young armourer complained.

Across the airfield Mosquito after Mosquito was moving from its hard-standing and taxiing in procession for takeoff. As another Very light soared from the Control Tower, Harvey’s D-Danny came swooping along the runway and climbed into the sunlit evening sky with a crackling roar. McTyre jerked an oily thumb eastward. They’re goin’ to prang a Jerry convoy. Somewhere off the Danish coast. As another of the graceful planes took off and banked round the airfield, the old sweat followed its flight with a rare pride.

Look at ’em, mate. Miracle kites, that’s what they are. Made of wood and yet able to outfly anything Jerry can put up. And carry a 4,000-lb. cookie if they want to.

The youngster’s ingenuous blue eyes, bright with envy, watched the orbiting planes break and follow Harvey eastward. Flying in a loose gaggle, they swept so low over the fields that their shadows pursued them like sharks. Reaching the coast just south of Flamborough Head, they leapt over a sunlit beach still sprinkled with holidaymakers, Men leapt to their feet and excited girls waved towels. The gaggle swept over a line of inshore fishing boats, then the sea that led to the enemy coast reached out blue and dangerous before them. Within seconds they were only a cluster of specks to the watching holidaymakers. The time was 1915 hours. The month was July 1943.

It was later the same evening that Frank Adams, the Station Intelligence Officer, took a walk round the airfield perimeter. Since the teleprinters had started clacking that afternoon he had been working at full stretch, and in an hour or less, when the squadron returned, de-briefing might keep him busy until midnight. This was the lull period when the ground staff could take a breather, and Adams had discovered that a walk helped to ease his tension.

The murmur of voices drifting towards him told him that inside the dispersal huts mechanics were smoking cigarettes and brewing cups of tea. The distant row of poplars were black against the fading sky and an arrowhead of homing birds was winging its way towards Bishop’s Wood. Adams glanced at his watch. The evenings would begin closing in soon. In less than three months those icy, north-east winds would be back, probing through the Nissen huts and sweeping unmolested across the cement-stained ground. Adams had never been able to decide which season he preferred since putting on uniform. In spite of its discomforts, winter did at least match the black mood of war.

The turf-lined mound on Adams’ left was the bomb dump. As he passed a gun-post he could feel the crew watching him and had to restrain his impulse to call out a greeting. That most other ranks found familiarity from officers an embarrassment was another unwelcome fact Adams had learned.

He walked until a hillock hid him from the gun-post, then pushed through a tangle of sweet-smelling grass to the perimeter fence. The fence here was only three feet high and down the road, set back behind its garden, he could see the Black Swan. With all the personnel of the airfield on duty tonight, its bars would be almost empty.

In the hedgerow across the quiet road a blackbird had begun its evening song. With the sentimentalist in him unable to equate such moments with war, Adams found his thoughts turning paradoxically to the time ten weeks previously when the aircrews of 633 Squadron, weighing their lives against the threat to their country, had chosen to fly straight into the murderous steel trap of the Swart-fjord.

It had been an evening of equal beauty when the armourers had loaded the earthquake bombs into the waiting Mosquitoes. And Adams could distinctly remember hearing a blackbird singing during the cold dawn vigil when he, Davies and the Brigadier had waited for survivors. Blackbirds seemed an integral part of Sutton Craddock, but when only one crippled Mosquito had landed and the full extent of the disaster was known, Adams had wondered bitterly what the hell they had to sing about.

It was a memory that was still painful to Adams, yet certain scenes of it were etched for ever on his mind. The numbed expression of Marsden, the Signals Officer, as he tried to understand he would never see ninety per cent of his friends again. The mercurial Davies, struggling to balance the loss against his euphoria at the success of the mission. The elderly Brigadier’s shame at the relief he could not hide. But of all the fragmented memories, the most painful was Hilde Bergman’s reaction on hearing Grenville had not returned. There had been the small fluttering motion of her hand that Adams had come to know so well and now epitomized her grief. The few unsteady steps she had taken across the room, her single sob, and then, incredibly, her melodic voice addressing him.

Thank you for coming over to tell me, Frank. I know how painful all this must be for you.

That she could think of him at such a moment and express sympathy had been the breaking point for Adams. Wanting above all else to comfort her, he had instead stumbled back to his billet where, cursing his cowardice, he had drunk almost a full bottle of whisky. It had not helped. The next twenty-four hours had contained all the elements of a black nightmare for Adams.

His eyes focused again over the perimeter fence. Two months had not been long enough to hide the fire-blackened scars in the cornfield where Gillibrand had made his supreme sacrifice, although when the field was ploughed in the autumn the scars would disappear. While the sentimentalist in Adams protested at the thought, the realist in him knew the world seldom sorrowed long over its martyrs.

He stirred impatiently at his habit of extracting melancholy from memory. The news he had been able to give Hilde three days ago ought to have erased some of the sadness of the past. He had heard from the Red Cross that Grenville, although seriously wounded, was making good progress in a German prison hospital. Adams had run all the way to the Black Swan to tell Hilde. Her reaction had made Adams think of his childhood and the tale of the Sleeping Beauty who had come back to shining life at the kiss from her Prince. I have felt it, Frank. But it is something I have never dared to believe.

Adams told her that apart from Harvey and his observer who had escaped capture and been brought back to England by the Norwegian Linge, the Red Cross reported only two other men alive in German hands. Her decision when the full import of Grenville’s survival had sunk in had dismayed Adams but not surprised him. I’ve wasted enough time feeling sorry for myself, Frank. Now I must go and make myself useful like the rest of you. She had phoned a military nursing unit in Whitby and had left Sutton Craddock only that morning.

Perhaps, then, there was an excuse for his mood tonight, Adams thought. When his wife, Valerie, had decided to leave the Black Swan and live with her parents until the war ended, Adams had been free to spend his off-duty time as he wished and much of it had been spent seeing Hilde. They had become close friends and after a day or night assessing how many enemy aircraft had been shot down, how many German factories had been destroyed, or how some young friend had been killed, Adams’ need to see the girl had often been as urgent as a wounded man needing a sedative. He sometimes felt the madness of war would go on forever and the realization tonight that he would have to face it without her was crushing.

About to sit on the top rail of the fence, Adams decided it was too rickety. As he leaned his elbows on it instead, he remembered almost with surprise that it was Sunday. In the village churches that dotted the Yorkshire countryside the faithful would be in their pews reaffirming their allegiance to the Prince of Peace. Listening to the blackbird’s song again Adams discovered that a coarse background of sound was adulterating it. Back where the shadows were thickening between the billets and hangars, orders were being shouted and engines were starting up. With a sigh Adams pushed himself away from the fence. Signals must have been alerted that the squadron was nearing its base and Sue Spencer, his assistant, would be wondering what had happened to him.

An unmilitary figure with his spectacles and stocky build, Adams started back along the perimeter track. In the dusk ahead the activity was quickening. As the dim lights of the Control Tower came on, darkness seemed to close in and envelop the airfield.

As Adams passed one of the sandbagged gun-posts he heard the hum of an approaching aircraft. A moment later he saw its navigation lights in the darkening sky and he quickened his stride. Half a minute later the Mosquito passed over him with a roar of engines and began orbiting the field.

Hurrying now, Adams passed a row of Nissen huts and the transport park. To the east he could hear more aircraft approaching. As he crossed the tarmac apron in front of No. 1 hangar, he passed close to a frail monoplane. It was a Miles Messenger, flown in two hours ago by Air Commodore Davies. Davies, a small, alert man with a choleric temperament, had been the link man with the Special Operations Executive in the Swartfjord affair. An officer with a high pride in his service, Davies had a particular affection for 633 Squadron and consequently, in the way of love, was prone to criticize it when it fell below his expectations. A good-looking young Wing Commander had flown in with him but as Davies had offered no introductions, Adams could only speculate on the reason for the visit. For the last ninety minutes they had been closeted in the Control Tower with Henderson. Henderson, nick-named Pop by the crews, was a huge, middle-aged Scot who had taken over the squadron after Barrett’s death. A taciturn man, he exercised his authority with the minimum of fuss and so was a popular C.O.

As Adams was passing the door of the Control Tower the landing lights flashed on, a dazzling corridor of brilliance that made Adams’ eyes blink behind his spectacles. Navigation lights flashing, the first Mosquito began its landing approach. Engines purring and airfoils whining, it positioned itself between the two rows of lights and sank down. There was the squeal of tyres and brakes and the graceful shape disappeared into the luminous haze at the far end of the field.

The second Mosquito appeared to have suffered damage and Adams paused to watch it. One engine was coughing like a man with asthma and there was an unsteadiness in its approach as it entered the lane of lights. But its wheels were locked down and it was sinking into a safe landing when, to Adams’ horror, a dark shape hurled itself out of the darkness like a hawk on a pigeon. The hammer of cannon fire was followed by a muffled explosion and a great gush of flame. The stricken Mosquito lurched helplessly and crashed fifty yards to the left of the landing lights. As the fireball slithered along the ground it left behind it huge patches of burning petrol and wreckage.

The German night intruder, who had carried out his mission so successfully, escaped into the darkness before the stunned crews above or the ground staff below knew what was happening. One gunner did let go a burst of Hispano cannon fire but the wildly-aimed shells were a greater threat to the orbiting Mosquitoes than the Ju.88. In the few seconds of chaos that followed, men ran in panic for the air-raid shelters and other men yelled orders that no one obeyed. From the platform of the Control Tower someone was firing pointless Very lights into the red-stained sky.

Then training asserted itself. As if a giant’s black sleeve had swept across the field, the landing lights went out, giving Adams a moment of vertigo. Around him men were assuming their duties and fire engines and an ambulance were already gathering speed in their dash to the distant funeral pyre.

The Control Tower door burst open and Davies, Henderson and the young Wing Commander appeared. Seeing Adams, Davies ran over to him. How many of the bastards are there? Any idea?

Only one, I think, Adams said, hating the unsteadiness of his voice.

Henderson joined them. The swinging headlights of a fast-moving ambulance momentarily lit up his face. Normally ruddy, it was pale and shocked. Let’s hope you’re right. As he turned to flag down a crash wagon, Davies caught his arm.

There’s no point to it, Jock. You’d be wasting your time.

For a moment it seemed Henderson might resist. Then his huge body relaxed. I suppose you’re right. His Scots voice held a dash of resentment.

Overhead the orbiting Mosquitoes had switched off their navigation lights. Adams’ imagination lifted him up there. Weary from hours of action, in imminent danger of collision with their comrades, the crews had no way of knowing if other intruders were waiting to pounce on them when they came in to land. Turning to Henderson, whose shocked eyes were still fixed on the burning aircraft, Adams found his question difficult to ask.

Do you know who it was, sir?

Henderson nodded. Yes. It was Sandy Powell and Irving.

Sandy Powell! Oh, Christ, Adams breathed.

Davies, birdlike in his quick glance at both men, gave neither time for reflection. He pushed Henderson and the young Wing Commander, who had not spoken, towards the Control Tower. If we don’t get the rest of ’em down, there might be another disaster. Come on.

The three men disappeared through the door. Over on the airfield crash wagons were now pouring foam on the wreckage. With a last look Adams followed them inside.

CHAPTER 2

The atmosphere in the Intelligence Room that evening had a hardness that a sharp knife might have had difficulty in cutting. Adams was seated at a large table. A detailed map of the Danish province of Jutland was spread out before him. His assistant, Sue Spencer, was seated at a table against the opposite wall. She was a tall, willowy girl whose sensitive face and gentle voice belied her efficiency. At the opposite end of the long hut, standing on either side of the door, were two groups of aircrew, and it was from them that the tension was radiating. Afraid of an eruption at any moment, Adams was finding concentration on his task a problem.

His method of interrogation was to give the crews some small privacy when they spoke to him, his belief being that privacy made them more likely to discuss their own mistakes and the mistakes of their comrades. Stan Baldwin, lapsed Catholic from Barbados, called his hut the Confessional and the name had taken on.

Hopkinson was the navigator Adams was interrogating. Hoppy, as he was affectionately known among the older aircrew members, had once been Grenville’s navigator but an injury received in an earlier mission had kept him out of the Swartfjord raid. A small astute Cockney with a pinched face and the eyes of a sparrowhawk, he was wearing flying overalls which carried an evocative smell of combat — oil, cordite, and a dozen other indefinable odours — to Adams’ nostrils. Condemned to ground duties by his eyesight and his age, Adams had discovered that the odours always stirred envy in him, and this envy puzzled him because in general Adams found war abhorrent.

He stole another quick glance at the two groups of aircrew. Their sullen muttering and antagonistic glances at one another made him think of the two electrodes of a giant condenser into which an overcharge of current had been poured. Apprehensive, he glanced up at Hopkinson again. Usually one of the most cheerful men on the station, the Cockney was looking disgusted and resentful.

So you don’t think any ships were hit? Adams asked.

Hopkinson’s laugh was caustic. It would have needed a miracle, wouldn’t it?

Why?

I’ve just told you. Because there was a bloody great smoke-screen right over the convoy.

But that means they must have had wind of your coming.

Of course they’d wind of it. Is anyone surprised?

With Hopkinson usually a helpful as well as a polite collaborator, and with everyone shocked by the intruder attack, Adams had thought it prudent to allow a loose rein. Now he decided things were getting out of hand.

All right. You’re not happy and you’ve shown it. Now pull yourself together and tell me specifically what went wrong. And while we’re being civil to one another, put that cigarette out.

The jolt to Hopkinson was the more severe because it came from Adams, usually the mildest of men. His nicotine-stained fingers holding the smoking cigarette ground it into an ashtray on the desk. I thought you’d already heard about the flak ship, the Cockney muttered sullenly.

If you’d been keeping your eyes open instead of grumbling to those old sweats of yours, you’d have realized you’re the first navigator I’ve interrogated. What flak ship?

The one you warned us about at our briefing. Adams gave a start. The one south of the convoy?

Yes. You pointed out that if it sighted us it would tip off the convoy. That’s what happened.

Adams winced. The German convoy, protected from the Royal Navy by off-shore minefields, was believed to be carrying precious iron ore from Narvik to the Baltic ports. Adams was not looking forward to the rocket Group would dispatch when it learned the convoy was now safe in the Skagerrak.

But you were routed well north of it. So how did it see you?

You’re forgetting Harvey was given a sprog navigator. The fool took us in sight of it. I spotted the bloody thing on the horizon and broke R/T silence to warn Harvey, but he decided to keep going and hope for the best. We didn’t run into any fighters, thank Christ — maybe they thought we were making for the coast — but the convoy hadn’t taken any chances. The smoke was like a London pea-souper when we reached it.

How can you be sure it wasn’t your R/T that alerted them? Adams asked.

Hopkinson tried unsuccessfully to hide his contempt at the question. A Jerry flak ship doesn’t miss two gaggles of Mossies only six or seven miles away. With the Banff Wing scaring the shit out of them, that’s what they’re looking for all the time.

Although Adams knew he was right, he felt a need to put in a word for the unfortunate Blackburn. By the time you got there the convoy and the flak ship can’t have been more than thirty miles apart. It’s not difficult to drift a few miles off course over the sea — as a navigator you know that well enough.

Hopkinson’s lack of charity was as uncharacteristic as was Adams’ severity. I know this — if it isn’t one bloody thing, it’s another. Christ knows when we last hit the button. The lads have had a bellyful. Once we were a squadron. Now we’re just a shower.

Hiding his thoughts beneath a frown, Adams tapped his questionnaire with a pencil. Let’s make that the last of the moans, shall we? What type were the destroyers?

Elbings, I think, the Cockney muttered.

Any flak ships in the escort?

I saw one. There might have been others.

Was there much flak?

Enough for me.

Radar controlled?

It had to be in all that smoke.

Any damage?

I didn’t see any. I saw them hit Powell though. Just under his starboard engine.

Did he start straight back?

No, he dropped his bombs first. Then Harvey told him to piss off. Not that it did him much good, Hopkinson added as an afterthought.

Adams wrote it down. At the nearby table Sue Spencer had finished interrogating a freckle-faced navigator and a tall young pilot was now walking down the Nissen hut towards her. As he neared the girl, Adams, who could not resist a sideward glance, saw that her eyes held a faint trace of moisture.

It was a scene Adams had witnessed at least a dozen times as the girl gave silent thanksgiving for the pilot’s return. Worship seemed the only appropriate word to express Sue Spencer’s feelings for Tony St. Claire, and yet Adams felt even a hardened cynic would excuse its extravagance, for the slim young officer with the Byronic head and long, sensitive hands was the handsomest man Adams had ever seen. Nor was his artistic appearance deceptive. After studying the piano at the Royal College of Music, St. Claire had just been making a name for himself on the concert platform when the war had claimed him for service. In the six weeks since the young pilot’s posting to Sutton Craddock, Adams had more than once pondered on the unfairness of a world that could pour such lavish gifts on one man and leave others so impoverished.

Only a trained observer would have noticed how Sue Spencer brushed her hand against St. Claire’s as she handed him a leaflet. Occasionally Adams had felt a certain professional unease at allowing the girl to interrogate him: at the same time he knew she was not one to put personal relationships before her duty. Watching their faces in that brief moment and knowing they were already together in that magic world where he always walked alone, Adams felt a tug of pain as he turned back to Hopkinson.

Did you see Millburn and Gabby get hit?

No. But that wasn’t anything serious, was it?

Gabby got a scratch and a bang in the ribs and the M.O. sent him to the County Hospital for an X-ray. We’re expecting him back tonight. Have your photographs gone in?

A sudden shout interrupted Hopkinson’s reply. The voice had a north-country accent that was exaggerated by