Just Ordinary Men

Chapter 1

He repeated the order to everyone to stay alert for enemy fighters knowing the only twenty-four hours before they'd been badly mauled by a squadron of Spitfires, leaving him with four wet behind-the-ears kids as replacements for the seasoned pilots who had been with him since Spain in '36.  Johann swore  'Ach.. me with four kids in tow and back in Germany three kids without fathers and four mothers without sons!  Scheiße!'  Glancing to the side he noticed his wingman's aircraft slip slightly out of formation and swore as the head drooped 'Karl!  Wake up for christ's sake or do you want to be shot in the arse?'  Muttering under his breath 'Anymore of that shit and I'll shoot you myself!  Idiot!'  A snigger in his headphones and he realised his R/T was still on transmit, and to cover his embarrassment he growled 'That goes for the lot of you so keep your fucking eyes peeled!'

A few abashed murmurs were the response as they all settled down recalling the early days when they first came to the shock realisation that the British were not going to be the pushover that the Spanish, Polish, Belgians, or French had been.  Nor indeed that their Commander-in-Chief Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering had boasted to Adolph Hitler that they were.  His boastful predictions that the British Airforce was a shadow of its' former self and would be defeated in days had been very rudely called into question almost immediately by the response of the British to their early raids, and rather than crumbling, their resolve only seemed to be gaining in strength.

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With the sun behind them Ashton knew they had an added advantage, that and fighting over their own soil meant the enemy would be short on fuel and desperate to break contact and get home whereas they could afford to mix it in a dogfight.  As the minutes ticked by he became a little anxious until; 'Blue Two, bandits!  One o'clock low!'  He peered down to the right of the spinning propeller and just caught a flash of light - the glint of sun of a perspex canopy.  'Got you' he muttered in satisfaction then flipped the RT to transmit, 'Beetle, Impi, enemy sighted, engaging now', to the squadron 'OK lads, Blue and Yellow flights go for the escorts, Red and Green with me on the bombers', knowing full well in the pitched fury of a dogfight pilots would just shoot whatever appeared in their sights bearing a Maltese cross regardless of initial intent.  Reaching with his left hand he adjusted the luminance and range setting of the gunsight to account for the wings of a 110.  He allowed a few extra seconds, then as the enemy flight below was approaching his right wingtip called 'Tally ho!' and kicked the rudder hard over at the same time flipping the aircraft onto its' back to maintain positive G and avoid the dreaded cut-out that beset naturally aspirated carburettors.

As he dove down Ashton felt his head becoming lighter despite the pressure pushing it back against the heavy seat padding.  Singling out a Bf 110 at the head of a formation he recognised the wing marking denoting a flight leader and adjusted his dive to intercept it.  His eyebrow flickered as a line of bright sparks suddenly streamed from the rear one of the fighters and he grunted 'Woken up have you?  Too late chum!'  A gloved thumb flicked the gun ring from Safe to Armed and he pressed it hard giving a two second burst directly in the path of his target.  As it flew into the storm the hail of lead flayed the cockpit, but as it fell from the sky he had already plummeted through the formation and was yanking back hard on the control column while simultaneously fighting off the growing darkness caused by the G-forces created by the violent manoeuvre.

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'Mist! Wo zur Hölle kamen die her?'  Alarmed as a shadow flashed overhead Alfelt kicked the rudder over and hauled back on the stick performing a perfect half loop to face the opposite direction, as perfected by, and named after, Max Immelman in The Great War.  For a microsecond he reflected that after the current conflict the prior war may have lost that particular sobrique.  Looking round he recognised the attacking aircraft as Hurricanes and swore, recognising - unlike many of his countrymen - the superior turning ability of the Hawker aircraft due to its thicker wings and, paradoxically, it's slightly slower speed.  'All Wolves!  Break and attack!  Pick your targets but for fuck's sake watch your backs!'  Snarling in fury his head whipped left and right as he looked for a target.  A lone Hurricane swept across the nose of his aircraft and he swung around to follow it trying to draw a bead on it but foiled as a burst of machinegun fire ripped across in front of him and he had to manoeuvre violently to avoid being hit.

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'Impi Leader, break right!!' Almost before he had registered the urgent shout Ashton's right foot had slammed the rudder hard over, left hand giving the engine extra boost as he tore back up through what had once been a neat formation but was now an unholy melee of spinning aircraft each trying to destroy the others.  A millisecond glance in his mirror brought a twitch of pleasure to his lips at the sight of an expanding ball of flame - all that remained of the 109 that had tried - unsuccessfully - to have him for breakfast.  'Thanks Red Two!' he snapped into his R/T before turning, head switching left and right, up and down looking for a new target while at the same time ensuring he didn't become one himself.

He glimpsed far below a single aircraft attempting to run for the coast, presumably had bingo juice left in the tanks.  Dropping down inverted again he quickly came up behind the second 110 of the day.  This one however he noted to his chagrin was rather more alert than his first victim, as a vicious stream of bullets from the rear machine gun soon demonstrated.  Peeling off to one side briefly he muttered 'There's more than one way to kill a cat than smacking it with blunt objects John!' and hauled left sharply on the control column attempting a beam attack out of the cone of fire the rear gun could attain.  Caught unawares the pilot was unable to turn his aircraft quickly enough to allow the gunner to draw a bead on him and once more a two second burst of fire lashed the cockpit and another enemy fell from the sky.

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A glance at Johann's fuel gauge elicited a fresh bout of vehement cursing.  'All Wolves, check your fuel status!  Break contact as soon as you can and get back to base!'  It went against the grain to run from a fight, but he knew if they didn't the British wouldn't have to shoot them down as they would all drop in the English Channel out of fuel if they didn't break this contact now.  'Wolfsführer an Falkenführer' he called his opposite number leading the Bf 110 flight.

'Roter Falke  1 and Wolfsführer, Falkenführer ist tot!'

Alfelt's knuckles whitened inside the thin leather gloves he wore holding throttle and control stick at the death of his friend and comrade.  'Falcon Red 1, get your flight home now!  We're almost out of fuel to protect you!'  A curt acknowledgement followed and he saw, cursing, seven of the original twelve Zerstorers break and dive toward the coast, desperate to reach safety.  Quickly looking round he ordered his flight to follow them with all speed.

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Pulling back the stick Ashton climbed up again discovering the sudden - but by now familiar - phenomenon of an empty sky.  He shook his head never quite able to get over how suddenly the sky could go from a whirling mass of death-dealing metal to complete silence.  Mentally shrugging he checked his bearings and set course back to the airfield.  Setting the R/T to the Control Tower frequency he announced 'Impi Leader coming in.. are all the boys back?'

A brief crackle then the reassuring voice of the Station Commander and Great War veteran, Wing Commander Bretherton, 'All landed safe.. we were waiting for you to put in an appearance!'  He chuckled and, setting flaps to the landing position slapped the lever for the undercarriage to deploy.