Breakthrough (The Red Gambit Series) (67 page)

“Yes
,
Comrade Polkovnik General. She regained consciousness during the night.”

The older man nodded, turning to gaze at his most valuable asset.

“I had to come to see for myself
,
but I will not disturb her now she is resting. Look after her well
,
Yuri Romanovich, and please tell her I came to see her.”

“Apologies
,
Comrade Polkovnik General, but who shall I say called?”

“Ah my error, Comrade. I made an assumption. I am Polkovnik General Roman Samuilovich Pekunin.”

‘The head of the GRU? Govno!’

Pekunin understood the silent processes taking place before him.

“Do understand
,
Comrade. Your wife is my very best intelligence officer
,
and extre
mely valuable to the Motherland.”

Pekunin turned to leave
,
but halted and turned back
.

“As you are most certainly aware, Tatiana also has some extremely powerful friends.”

Pekunin nodded and made to leave
,
but he turned back
yet again
and grinned, adding, “I don’t normally do hospital visits
,
you know.”

No matter how fatherly the man presented himself as
being
, Yuri Nazarbayev was still in the presence of an extremely senior officer and could not unbend.

Pekunin understood.

“Comrade Nazarbayev. My sympathies for the loss of your son. Be proud of
him
.”

Exchanging salutes with
the Starshina, he left quickly, leaving
the elder Nazarbayev to return again to the question of his wife’s position in the hierarchy of the Motherland.

USAAF bombers had already struck hard at the important rail junction in Friedberg that morning, leaving behind a radically altered landscape and miles of ravaged track.

Soviet
fighter regiments were caught on the hop
,
and few intercepted the American bombers. Those that did were heavily engaged by the accompanying Mustangs.

Reports of another approaching bomber force were examined carefully, the new enemy following the precise route of the first attack.

None the less, the
Soviet
air commander was not a fool, and ordered some of his interceptors into action on the line of flight, retaining the rest to protect the suddenly vital junction.

A
phone call
from the new
Air force
Commander had focussed him on the
inseparable
link between the preservation of the rail link and his own career.

Perhaps that was what made him retain more assets to protect Friedberg then he needed.

Air raid warnings went out, covering the line of the enemy flight
,
and his fighters rose into the skies for the second time that morning.

“Five miles to target,
Major
.”

“Roger.”

USAAF Major Ronald Sterland had recently brought his 401st Bomb Squadron back from
Florida
, settling the unit back into
its
old base at
Bassingbourne
,
England
.

This was the first combat mission they had flown since that return and
,
so far, it was an absolute daisy.

Be that as it may
, having fought in the skies over
Germany
for two years already, he, along with his experienced crew, could not help but feel uneasy at the sight of the fighters flying above them.

Feeling similarly strange, Hauptmann Kreuger of the 16th Jagdstaffel
,
had often piloted his FW-190
D
to attack the aircraft he was now tasked with protecting,
and
with great success,
having knocked ou
t a confirmed eleven of the giants from the skies over the Fatherland.

16th Jagdstaffel consisted of fourteen FW-190
D
’s, of which twelve were presently riding shotgun over the
Flying Fortresses
of the 401st and
the
other squadron’s of the 94th Combat Bombardment Wing.
One
FW aircraft
had simply
refused
to start, leaving its experienced pilot fuming and harrying the ground crew. The other aircraft was probably still burning, having crashed on take-off, consigning Maior Dörn, the Staffel commander, to a fiery death.

T
he bombers were outnumber
ed
by fighter escorts, the Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf’s sharing the sky with
scores of
USAAF Thunderbolts and Mustangs.

The
heavies
settled into their bombing run, preparing to visit hell upon the area five miles west of
Limburg
.

Messages from the area, some from German civilians, one even
received over
the still working telephone system, and a radio message from a cut off platoon of Rangers
,
had established that the
Soviet
s were using the wooded area bordered by Hambach, Hirschberg and Görgeshausen as a hidden gathering point. The reports indicated that units that crossed the River Lahn overnight hid up there during the day
,
before moving on when darkness again gave them some respite from the increasing number of fighter-bombers.

94th Bombardment Wing was the first of five USAAF bomber wings tasked with obliterating the area in which the enemy were hiding.

The
Soviet
air c
ontroller vectored some of his f
ighters in to attack
,
and th
ey found the 401st in the van, a
lready on its bomb run.

The cries of warning reached Kreuger’s ears
. Checking the sky
and
locating the threats,
he oriented himself before ordering his Staffel to dive to the defence.

Identifying the enemy as La-7’s, the Focke Wulf pilots knew they were facing a speedy and robust enemy.

The
Soviet
aircraft belonged to the 32nd Guards Fighter Regiment, so that added
combat
experience and skill to the mix.

None the less, the breakneck dive of the FW’s deflected the
Soviet
regiment
,
even though no hits were apparent from the first pass.

Both sides jockeyed for position, the fifteen Lavochkin’s favouring an approach
that
brought them nearer to the bombers, the FW’s
moved
anywhere that gave them a chance to hack the enemy from the sky before they got at their charges.

Neither side were wholly successful.

T
he
close escort Mustang
s now had their own issues, as two regiments of Yak’s appeared from the south, boring in hard on the squadrons behind the 401st.

Further Mustangs from the top cover relocated, moving to assume the close escort position.

A flash
occurred in Kreuger’s peripheral vision
as
one of the Lavochkin’s fireballed, the disciplined voice of a Luftwaffe veteran calling the kill in.

Within as many seconds
,
two more
Soviet
fighters were knocked out of the fight, both streaming away with smoke pouring from them, pursued by
hardened
men not inclined to mercy.

An FW came apart in mid-air, its yellow impeller leading the front section forward, the severed fuselage and wing section fluttering downwards like a sycamore seed.

Two Lavochkin
s cl
osed upon the flank of the B-17’
s, their triple Berzarin cannon seeking out and finding a target.

The Mu
stangs failed to intercept them, a swarm of Yaks barrelling into them as they dived.

The ‘Lady Loo’ took seventeen solid 20mm hits, of which six were in her cockpit, reducing the flight crew to bloody offal.

The large
silver
aircraft rolled over on its back and described a curve all the way to the ground, burying itself and its
green
‘
first mission
’
crew deep in G
erman soil.

The
US
bombers screamed out for help
,
but a quirk of fate had robbed the 16th Jagdstaffel of its English-speakers before they had
deployed
to combat height.

None the less, the language of fear is universal, the tone and pitch of the transmissions searing into the Luftwaffe pilots
’
brains.

Kreuger ordered his aircraft to protect the bombers, breaking off from the fighters in order to get back closer.

Another of his FW’s was missing, its pilot skilfully gliding away with a dead engine
,
right up to the moment he d
ropped into a defined flak zone.
Soviet
anti-aircraft gunners enjoyed the slow target and plucked it quickly from the sky.

Two more Lavochkin
s were attacking the rear
B-17 in
the American defensive box
,
and their success was apparent as the
tail plane
simply came away, leaving a slender upright section.

However, the B-17 was
renowned
for its ability to take punishment. A waist gunner underlined the aircraft’s ability to resist by lashing the engine and cockpit of the
Soviet
fighter
with his .50 cal
.

The La-7 dived and rolled away, its robust design also ensuring its survival, although the pilot was made of
more vulnerable material
.
His eyesight was taken
by fragments from his instrument panel
,
and
he
flew blindly away from the combat.

Kreuger hauled his FW round in a tight arc to get behind an attacking Lavochkin, only
to find another FW had got there first, selecting short bursts with its 20mm MG151 cannons.

The pilot was missing badly and the Lavochkin scored hits on the target B-17.

Yells of alarm had preceded the attack and continued afterwards, the defensive machine guns engaging both the La-7 and the FW.

Kre
uger screamed into his radio, “
Nicht schiessen! Nicht schiessen!”

An American voice excitedly replied in schoolboy German, “You shot at us
,
you fucking asshole
s
!”

Responding angrily in
his own language
, Kreuger pulled his fighter round and up in a rising hard port turn

“He was e
ngaging the Russian fighter!
”

Air combat rarely gives a man opportunity for conversation and Kreuger had exhausted his time, flicking
right
as an La-7 dropped in behind him.

A comrade overshot the dangerous Lavochkin without eng
aging, leaving Kreuger to manoeuvre
hard to shake the obviously experienced enemy pilot.

The American
-German
voice cut in again, this time with even more anger and urgency.

“Bastards! Stop shooting at us! You killed Woody!”

Hauling back on his stick and executing a perfect loop
,
Kreuger lost his tail
and stole a look at the B-17’s. T
he
formation’s
corner F
ortress
was
smoking badly from both starboard engines.

Thinking on his feet, he ordered the Staffel not to close the bombers but to engage the fighters further out, passing that on to whichever of the bombers it was that spoke German.