Breakthrough (The Red Gambit Series) (68 page)

A sixth sense made him roll away, the air he had occupied cut with tracers as an La-7, probably the one he had shaken off previously, attacked from below.

The
Soviet
airman made a mistake and turned the wrong way, the veteran Luftwaffe pilot taking the offer of the Lavochkin’s belly and transformed the sleek craft into a jumble of fiery pieces with one sustained burst.

The American-German screamed across the air waves.

“Oh Jesus, oh Jesus! You kraut bastards!”

Kreuger sought out the stricken plane, its whole right wing a mass of flames, smoke also pouring from the waist gunners hatches
,
as fire progressed throug
h the crew spaces of the dying F
ortress.

He also noticed that the killer was still firing.

He also noticed that it was an FW-190.

‘Götz?’

“Götz!
Ce
ase fire
,
you fucking idiot
,”
which OberFeldwebel Götz did, but only because the B-17 was already doomed.

It was Götz who had flown into the attack before, deliberately missing the La-7’s to hit the bomber beyond.

‘Bastard.’

Keying his mike, Kreuger spat out his words.

“Achtung! Götz in nine is a communist! He’s shooting at the
Amerikanski
! Take him down immediately!”

Only two of the German pilots responded immediately, the idea of shooting down a comrade, even a traitorous one
,
too much for the others.

Neither was successful and
Götz
, showing a skill not previously witnessed, slid underneath a third B-17, walking his cannon shells along its belly,
the doors still open from when
the 401st
other
junior crew
had dropped their bombs.

The La-7’s were still in play
,
but the FW’s seemed to be on top of the situation, and the whirling mass
of fighters
started to fall behind.

The three FW’s now bore in on the one
rogue aircraft
, all seeking to preserve their new allies.

A tail gunner on ‘Rock of Ages’ saw his opportunity and took the wing off
an
FW neatly, a long burst severing it at the root.

Kreuger screamed into the radio.

“Nicht Schiessen! Friendly aircraft shot down!”

The other FW hauled off, the situation beyond him, as those he sought to protect hacked his friend from the sky.

Götz
, having got off a burst at ‘Rock of Ages’,
pulled up and rolled
back
right, determined to make another attack
on the fortress
.

By his estimation
,
he had very little ammo left, so he decided to close to where he could not miss.

Kreuger
, approaching from the rogue FW’s starboard flank,
saw his opportunity and pressed the button.

Silence.

‘Verdamnt!’

2nd Lieutenant Dominic Di Mattino could see
the eyes of the German pilot, but
was
powerless to act. B
oth his arms
had been
shattered by the first attack
, s
o his rear gun station, although perfectly positioned to knock the kraut out of the sky, stayed silent.

In slow motion
,
the yellow impeller came from left to right
as he watched incredulously
, smashing into the
other
FW even as it fired its cannon.

Deliberate.

Calculated.

Sacrificial.

Courageous beyond measure.

The collision took place fifty yards from his face
and Di Mattino watched as the impetus crushed the cockpit of the
rogue
FW, bending the aircraft like a reed, as the other Focke-Wulf came apart, wings folding together like hands clapping.

The mass of scra
p metal dropped like a stone.
Di Mattino
shifted
painfully to watch it fall.

Nothing emerged f
rom the aircraft
that had fired at them
, the pilot very obviously
destroyed
by the impact.

A rag doll
detached
from the second aircraft and tumbled away.

The air gunner watched fascinated, horrified, sickened, as the form descended, trailing useless cords from a useless harness.

Spiralling.

Falling.

Without hope.

The attacks were beaten off
and the bomber’s mission completed.

In silence, the 401st had turned and, in silence, it was escorted back by the remaining six FW-190D’s of 16th Staffel.

At the allotted point, the fighters took their leave, the final words left with the senior American officer.

“Thank you 16th
,
and good luck.”

And
,
in sil
ence
,
the two ravaged squadrons returned to their
own
bases.

The mission had been a massive success,
Götz aside,
the only problem
s
being caused by th
os
e
Soviet
Air
Defence
response
regiments that intercepted
just in advance of the bomb zone.

On the ground, units of the 3rd Guards Army had been devastated, packed tightly as the intelligence suggested.

The
87th Guards Heavy Tank R
egiment had been
totally
obliterated,
its IS-II’s nothing more than expensive scrap metal. 140th Gun Artillery Brigade was so badly hit that it was withdrawn from the order of battle and its survivors used to fill gaps in other
artillery
units.

6th Pontoon Bridge B
rigade lost much of its equipment but
luck
preserved
over half
of the qualified engineers.

However, it was the infantry of 22nd Rifle Corps
that
sustained the worst of it, with virtually the whole Corps written off.

             
In the most devastating
single
air raid of the war so far,
the R
ed Army had lost
over
four thousand dead. The same number were wounded in various measures, but no-one who was under that attack came a
way unscath
ed, the psychological effects breaking many a hardy soul.

In the air, t
he La-7’s of the 32nd Guards Fighter Regiment had been decimated, the other
Soviet
regiments more fortunate b
ut unable to engage
close their prime
targets, losing three Yaks to four Mustangs.

The Thunderbolts were not engaged, much to their annoyance.

The 401st lost more B-17’s than the rest of the force combined, six aircraft being lost with one, ‘Rock of Ages’, crash-landing on return.

Highest casualties were meted out to the Luftwaffe pilots of 16th
Jagdstaffel
. Including the unit commander
,
who crashed on take-off, seven FW’s had been lost, although the
Jagdstaffel
Intelligence officer was loathe to record seven losses and stated six, crediting
the
additional kill to Hauptmann Kreuger’s record before adding the simple and poignant word
.

‘Gefallen.’

The report of the 401st’s commanding officer made
its
way up the chain of command and was acted on within SHAEF’s headquarters, the final approval resting with Eisenhower himself.

It was then forwarded to
Washington
,
where other minds decided to
decline
its approval,
given the full nature of the day’s events.

The matter was revisited under Eisenhower’s presidency
,
and he set aside time during his informal visit to
Bonn
on 26th-27th August 1959 to rectify the omission,
at which time he
presented
the Medal of Honor to
the
wife and son of the still missing
Hauptmann
Walter Kreuger
.

The ever-
thoughtful
Ike also ensured that the surviving men from
the
B-17 ‘Rock of Ages’ were
all
present
,
with their families
,
to complete the honouring of a very brave man.

Eisenhower
heard the footsteps and
looked up
, his face carrying a
pained expression.

“So
,
what do the council say?”

Bedell-Smith deferred to Bradley
,
as he had just finished a heated conversation with Donitz.

‘
Or as heated as a conversation through an interpreter can be,
’ though Smith wryly.

“He said he wasn’t surprised to find infiltrators, Sir.
”

Bradley eased his collar a little, reliving the confrontation in his mind.

“He says that
they
have identified a number of these infiltrators, and more will be found soon.”

Eisenhower lit up a cigarette, knowing his man hadn’t hit the headline yet.

Bradley was quite clearly furious.

“Donitz says that we have to accept some issues
,
or withdraw the German forces completely, as he
cannot
offer any guarantees.”

Eisenhower nodded sagely.

‘Figures.’

H
e shrugged
, his mind quickly reworking the problem and coming to the same conclusion it had some time beforehand
.

“Well, we simply can’t take them out of
the line
,
n
ow that they have established in the
Ruhr
can we?”

He wasn’t asking so much as confirming his thoughts.

“What we can do
,
sure as hell
,
is make sure we don’t get that sort of repeat
in the air
. Make sure that sort of co-op mission is avoided in future. Let German look after German, then if there is a rogue
,
it’s them that
’ll
suffer.”

That made sense and Bedell-Smith noted it roughly on his pad, although he added, “
Apparently
, t
he
German
leader came good though Sir. It’s only a few rotten apples, that’s what the feedback says.”

Ike stubbed out his cigarette, his bladder suddenly
announcing its needs
.

“Maybe so
,
Walt, but if we can avoid cross-national groupings until they have their issues sorted then I will be happy.”

‘Happier
,
more like.’

“Now, repo
rts from the ground are good. Re
cce will firm that up for us
.”

Bradley was quite happy that a large amount of stuff painted
with a red star was no longer his concern.

“So, before I pee myself, I am confirming the ‘Go’ order for Operation Casino. Let’s see if we can stop them dead for McCreery.”

Operation Casino
, a near-
copy of
‘Gabriel’,
was a
n intelligence-
led strategic
bomber attack like
that near
Limburg
, but on a larger scale. T
he full might of the RAF
Bomber Command
being called upon
to deliver one
devastating rolling attack.