Disclaimer: This is an original work of fiction. All original characters are my own invention and any similarity to actual persons living or dead is coincidental. Where actual historical figures are mentioned any dialogue or actions attributed to them is to be similarly viewed, unless the incident concerned is a matter of historical record.
'SCRAMBLE!!!!!!!!!'
The stentorian bellow ripped across the airfield shattering the peace that had prevailed. It was a beautiful mid summer's day in August 1940 with a bright sun shining in a duck egg blue clear sky. At any other time idyllic. He became aware that he was running toward his crate, a Hawker Hurricane Mk 1, having bolted out of the deckchair he'd been dozing in at the first syllable of the call to arms. As he ran he noticed a stationary petrol tanker stood in the open, inviting attention and roared 'Get that fucking thing out of here!', only dimly aware of the rapid salute as LAC Lawford ran towards the petrol bowser to drive it to the relative safety of dispersal.
Approaching his aircraft the usual peculiar time dilation took hold and he was able to observe more detail as he ran; the smell of kerosene in the air; the sight of his ground crew scrambling to ready the Hurri in the few seconds they knew they had between his backside leaving the deckchair and landing with a thump on top of his parachute, expecting everything to be ready so that he could just slam open the throttle and go to war; the armourer securing the two panels having ensured his eight Browning .303 machine guns were fully armed and prepared; the fitter sliding out of the cockpit having got the engine running - saving precious seconds. As he breathed in he caught the tang of the exhaust fumes belching as the blue smoke spat from the exhausts.
As he vaulted onto the wing a blast from behind caused him to stumble and he swore as he scraped his knuckles on the leading edge of the wing. Barely a thought given to what could have caused the blast he slammed down into the cockpit, the parachute harness straps being held out of his way by Flt Sgt Powell, commanding his ground crew, and as he reached for the throttle Powell slammed the straps into the turnbuckle at the centre of his chest tightening the straps murmuring 'nothing you could do sir, not your fault', before clambering off the wing and giving the all clear for take off.
Breathing heavily he scowled as he closed the cockpit canopy muttering 'Getting too old for this Johnny boy!' John Ashton knew technically he should not still be flying, as the Air Officer Commanding Fighter Command, Air Chief Marshall Dowding had, by way of the 11 Group AOC, Air Vice Marshal Park issued strict instructions that all pilots over 26 were to be grounded, or taken off combat operations and confined to the Training Command where their expertise and experience would be best used without fear of it being lost. At 41 years old Ashton was considerably wide of that mark. 'Stuff that!' he groused as he checked the gauges ready to take off.
He pulled on his helmet adjusting the R/T and oxygen mask with his right hand, the left slammed the throttle open, and only then did he look up divining the meaning of Powell's words. A hundred yards away to his left a smoking crater was all that remained of the petrol bowser. Gripping the joystick he swore viciously knowing it was his order that had condemned a two year old boy to not remember his father and a second child as yet unborn to never know theirs. He knew Powell was right though and smiled grimly recognising that Powell knew him better than he thought, and that today there would be vengeance for Lawford's death.
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'Haltet die Augen offen! Die warden schon Verstärkung gerufen haben!' The clipped tone of Major Johann Alfelt cut across the exuberant radio chatter as his staffel watched their charges strafe and bomb the airfield below, making sure they kept an eye open for any enemy aircraft.
A totally unnecessary 'Jawohl Herr Major!' brought a scowl to his lips concealed beneath the canvas oxygen mask.
He glanced all around constantly vigilant for a response to the early morning raid. A wry smirk crossed his lips as he recalled the comment made by an early prisoner of war he had met 'Beware the Hun in the sun, Beware the Goon in the moon', the warning given to British pilots on the dangers of combat flying. He growled at the thought that if the OKL - Oberkommando Luftwaffe - had their way he wouldn't even be here, at 41 deemed too old to fight. 'Bullshit!' he muttered.
'Scheiße!' he swore noticing the aircraft taxiing across the airfield below - evidently his charges in the Zerstorers had made an abysmal failure of preventing a response. 'Rot Schwärme mit mir!' pushing the stick straight forward, glancing back he saw Red Flight peel off to follow him down, and dove towards a section of three he had spotted below. Flicking the selector to cannon he waited calmly as the centre aircraft below floated into the gunsight and allowing for drift opened fire. A thin stream of shells spat from the cannon centred in the propeller and his lips set in a grim line.. not of pleasure but simply satisfaction of having done his job
A blast to his left rocked the wings of his Messerschmitt Bf 109F series and he cursed pulling back on the stick and kicking the right rudder realising he had come within range of the airfield defences.
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A twin-engined silhouette flashed by overhead and a glance was all Ashton needed to recognise the Me110 Zerstorer - Destroyer - as the Germans had christened their light fighter-bomber. A quick tap of the foot on the left rudder pedal to put off the aim of anyone gunning for his taxiing plane and he opened the throttle fully feeling the power push him back against the only armour in the airframe, that designed to protect the precious pilot from attack behind. As the tail came up he felt the controls, whilst sluggish on the ground become lighter. A glance at the airspeed indicator showed take-off speed which his faithful crate had already told him, the rumble from the wheels ceasing as they left the ground. He paused a second, no longer - to do so in battle invited death - then slapped the undercarriage lever to retract the main wheels, a second more then flaps retracted also. Glancing around he flicked the switch on his R/T to transmit.
'Impi Leader to all Impis, report!' Listening carefully as first one then two, three more reports came in of successful takeoffs. Finally there were no more, eliciting a fresh round of swearing. 'Green One.. where are you?'
A pause, 'Green Two to Leader.. he bought it sir.. Green Three and Yellow Two as well. Caught a packet taxiing.'
Ashton scowled in anger but swallowed, channelling the energy into positive action. 'Right.. let's make them pay..' Switching channels on his R/T he called up Sector Control, 'Beetle, Impi Leader squadron airborne, nine of us, where are they? Over'
The reply instant and crisp 'Impi this is Beetle, Angels 10, bearing 105, range five miles. Over.'
'Beetle, Impi, received, out.' Switching back again to the squadron frequency, 'Form on me. Angels 10 bearing 105 range five miles, make for Angels 12' knowing the extra 2000 feet of height would give them a vital opening advantage. Glancing to the sides he saw the squadron fan out, not into the three ship Vics that had caused so much death in the early weeks of the growing air battle but mimicking the German two ship formations which gave so much more flexibility and safety as the pilots spent more time looking around for enemy aircraft and less time looking at the others in their formation to avoid collision.
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'Damnation.. they're airborne!' Alfelt flicked his R/T to transmit 'Wolf Leader to all Wolves.. head for base!' Opening the throttle he cast an anxious glance at his fuel gauge knowing even being based on the northern coast of France these operations only allowed his staffel five minutes over England. Having automatically checked he was no longer transmitting he muttered 'Adler Angriff.. ach du scheiße!' voicing his opinion of Goering's much vaunted ideas, and looking round for his fellow aircraft joined the formation at the front, to escort the Zerstorers back home to their base. Meanwhile he mused sardonically that the much vaunted Messerschmitt Bf 110D long-range fighters - intended as bomber escorts - had proven so disastrous in the role they had themselves been relegated to the role of medium bomber themselves, requiring that his staffel escort them.
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.