Flames over France (8 page)

Had Villeneuve and Armstrong but known it, the machinery that was to result in the martyrdom of the RAF’s Advanced Air Striking Force had already been set in motion. In the early hours of that morning, General Billotte, commanding the French First Army Group, had telephoned Air Marshal Barratt and begged him to send the AASF into action in the Sedan area. “Victory or defeat hinges on the destruction of those bridges,” the French general had emphasised. Barratt had accordingly authorised the AASF to attack the pontoons which the Germans had thrown across the Meuse, and the first two missions of this kind — carried out between 0430 and 0630 by ten Fairey Battles — had been encouraging, all the aircraft returning safely to base.

A few of the pontoons appeared to have been damaged, but Guderian’s
panzers
continued to rumble across into the bridgehead established on the west bank the previous evening. Further north, the 6th
Panzer
Division pushed through a second breach in the Montherme area, while in the Dinant sector Erwin Rommel’s 7th
Panzers
poured into a third bridgehead. Up to this point Air Vice-Marshal Playfair, the AASF’s commander, had been holding the AASF in reserve to give his squadrons a few more hours in which to scrape together their available resources; these amounted to only sixty-two Battles and eight Blenheims, but with the French bomber force shot out of the sky by mid-morning Barratt and Playfair had no alternative but to commit these battered remnants.

Between 1500 and 1600 that afternoon, the AASF threw every aircraft that could still fly into the cauldron. It was a massacre. No. 12 Squadron, which had already suffered heavily at Maastricht two days earlier, lost four aircraft out of five; No. 142 four out of eight; No. 226 three out of six; No. 105 six out of eleven; No. 150 lost all four; No. 88 one out of ten; No. 103 three out of eight and No. 218 ten out of eleven. Of the eight Blenheims sent out by 114 and 139 Squadrons, only three returned to base. It was the highest loss in an operation of similar size ever experienced by the RAF, and all that was achieved was the destruction of two pontoon bridges and the damaging of two more.

During the days that followed, six Battle crews, all shot down behind the enemy lines, managed to struggle back to their bases. They included a pilot who, although wounded in two places, somehow managed to swim the Meuse; and an observer and gunner who had stayed with their badly injured pilot in enemy territory for more than twenty-four hours, leaving him only when he died.

All the other crews — more than 100 young men — were either dead or prisoners.

At dusk, the pontoons were again attacked by twenty-eight Blenheims of No. 2 Group, from bases in England. Seven aircraft failed to return, including two which crashed in French territory.

The news of the disasters of 14 May, both in the air and on the ground, had a profound effect on the British War Cabinet’s plans to send more aircraft, principally Hurricanes, to France …

*

HQ RAF FIGHTER COMMAND, BENTLEY PRIORY, 15 MAY 1940: 0900 HOURS

The tall, stern-faced man sat at his desk, frowning through half-moon spectacles at the memorandum he had recently drafted. He had just been ordered to dispatch a further 32 Hurricanes to the continent, and the French were pressing for an additional 120 machines. The memorandum, he knew, had to be correct in every word, for soon it would lie on the desk of the Prime Minister. He read it through again. He was a staid man, eccentric and alone. Would his words, he asked himself, have the necessary impact?

Sir,

I have the honour to refer to the very serious calls which have recently been made upon the Home Defence Fighter Units in an attempt to stem the German invasion of the Continent.

I hope and believe that our armies may yet be victorious in France and Belgium, but we have to face the possibility that they may be defeated.

In this case I presume that there is no one who will deny that England should fight on, even though the remainder of the Continent of Europe is dominated by the Germans.

For this purpose it is necessary to retain some minimum fighter strength in this country and I must request that the Air Council will inform me what they consider this minimum strength to be, in order that I may make my dispositions accordingly.

I would remind the Air Council that the last estimate which they made as to the force necessary to defend this country was fifty-two squadrons, and my strength has now been reduced to the equivalent of thirty-six squadrons.

Once a decision has been reached as to the limit on which the Air Council and the Cabinet are prepared to stake the existence of the country, it should be made clear to the Allied Commanders on the Continent that not a single aeroplane from Fighter Command beyond the limit will be sent across the Channel, no matter how desperate the situation may become.

It will, of course, be remembered that the estimate of fifty-two squadrons was based on the assumption that the attack would come from the eastwards except in so far as the defences might be outflanked in flight. We now have to face the possibility that attacks may come from Spain or even from the north coast of France. The result is that our line is very much extended at the same time as our resources are reduced.

I must point out that within the last few days the equivalent of ten squadrons have been sent to France, that Hurricane squadrons remaining in this country are seriously depleted, and that the more squadrons which are sent to France the higher will be the wastage and the more insistent the demand for reinforcements.

I must therefore request that as a matter of paramount urgency, the Air Ministry will consider and decide what level of strength is to be left to Fighter Command for the defence of this country, and will assure me that when this level has been reached, not one fighter will be sent across the Channel however urgent and insistent the appeals for help may be.

I believe that, if an adequate fighter force is kept in the country, if the fleet remains in being, and if Home Forces are suitably organized to resist invasion, we should be able to carry on the war single-handed for some time, if not indefinitely. But, if the Home Defence Force is drained away in desperate attempts to remedy the situation in France, defeat in France will involve the final, complete and irremediable defeat of this country.

H.C.T. Dowding,

Air Chief Marshal,

Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Fighter Command, Royal Air Force.

Dowding laid his glasses aside and rose from the desk, striding over to the window. His office faced south; he had chosen it especially for that reason, so that it would receive the sun for most of the day.

Bentley Priory stood on a ridge, four-square to the compass points. The Gothic building dated from the 1770s; it had successively been a stately home, a hotel and a girls’ school before the Air Ministry bought it in 1926. It was a solid building, as solid as the English earth on which it stood. Soon, the destiny of Britain might be ordained within the walls of the Operations Room in the depths of the building, and by the courage of the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots of the thirty-six squadrons whose integrity Dowding was striving so desperately to preserve.

Too few, he thought. Too few. There will be great sacrifices. And as he gazed out on the trees in the park, without really seeing them, sadness mingled with the determination on his face.

*

BATTLE SITUATION: ROTTERDAM, 14 MAY 1940

On the morning of 13 May, Major General Hubicki’s 9th
Panzer
Division at last rolled over the Moerdijk bridge, cheered by its haggard defenders. The
Panzers
raced on through Dordrecht, and that evening they clattered into the outskirts of Rotterdam south of the Maas. Among the shattered houses near the southern end of the Willems bridge they ground to a halt, pinned down by heavy artillery fire. The paratroops were still clinging doggedly to their tenuous foothold on the northern end of the bridge. Their losses had been heavy, and the survivors were exhausted. They had been in action continuously for nearly four days. But there could be no question of withdrawing across the bullet-swept bridge to where the
Panzers
were waiting.

Command of the German forces in Rotterdam now rested on the shoulders of Rudolf Schmidt, General of the 39th Army Corps. His orders were to avoid unnecessary casualties among the Dutch civilians at all costs. On the evening of 13 May he therefore called on the Dutch commander, Colonel Scharroo, to surrender, pointing out that any further resistance would lead to widespread damage in the city and would only delay the inevitable capitulation by a few more hours.

But every one of those hours would mean a serious loss of time for the Germans. General von Kuchler, C-in-C of the 18th Army, feared that the British were on the point of landing an expeditionary force in Holland. The Dutch had to be broken quickly, for the German forces already committed against them were desperately needed for the push through Belgium into northern France. At 1900 on 13 May, von Kuchler therefore ordered that the Dutch resistance in Rotterdam was to be smashed by every available means. The battle plan envisaged a tank attack across the Willems bridge at 1530 the following afternoon, preceded by a large-scale air raid on the surrounding area to soften up the defenders.

By the morning of the 14th the Dutch commander still had not replied to General Schmidt’s call for surrender. Two German envoys had been flown into the city to discuss capitulation terms. Eventually, at noon, they managed to make contact with Colonel Scharroo and deliver their ultimatum: surrender, or suffer the destruction of the city centre by the
Luftwaffe
. Scharroo found himself unable to make the decision alone; he told the envoys that he would have to get in touch with the Hague, the Dutch seat of government, for further instructions. Half an hour later, the Dutch Government replied that it was sending a delegation to Rotterdam to talk terms with the Germans. The deputation was due to arrive at 1400.

At 1330, General Schmidt sent a signal to
Luftflotte
2
calling off the impending air attack, which was scheduled to begin at 1500. He was too late. At 1325, 100 Heinkels of KG 54 had taken off from their airfields near Bremen; by the time Schmidt’s signal reached
Luftflotte
2 the bombers were already approaching the Dutch border, and by the time the order to abort the raid filtered through to KG 54’s HQ the Heinkels were over Holland. This meant that the radio operator in each aircraft had now closed down his position in order to take up his combat station behind the machine-gun in the blister beneath the fuselage.

The He 111s thundered towards Rotterdam in two waves. One, led by
Oberst
Lackner, KG 54’s commanding officer, approached from the east; the other, headed by
Oberstleutnant
Hohne — commander of I/KG 54 — made a wide detour to attack from the south-west. Strapped to his knee each bomber pilot had a map of the city, with the Dutch-held zones at either end of the bridges outlined in red. It was precisely within these sectors that the crews had to place their bombs.

At 1505 Lackner’s formation roared in over the outskirts of the city from the south, sailing through clusters of flak bursts. Lackner screwed up his eyes and searched for the target along the line of the river, which curved through Rotterdam in a sharp loop. It was hard to see anything at all; the city was shrouded in a veil of dusty haze and smoke through which the sun smouldered with a diffuse light. It was hardly surprising that the pilots never saw the red flares — the abort signal — which the German ground forces were sending up.

The Heinkels flew over the island in the middle of the Maas and unloaded their bombs in the centre of the Aldstadt, where the Dutch artillery was in position, then wheeled to starboard and vanished in the haze. A few seconds later, Hohne’s formation came in from the south-west. In the cockpit of his Heinkel, Hohne concentrated on following the instructions of his bombardier as the latter guided him on to the target, where fires could be seen blazing fiercely amid piles of rubble.

Just as the bombardier pressed the release, Hohne caught an elusive glimpse of light above the Maas island. Straining his eyes, he saw it again: a red flare. He immediately pulled the Heinkel round in a 180-degree turn and the other pilots followed him, their bombs still on board.

Fifty-seven out of the hundred Heinkels of KG 54 — those of the first wave and Hohne’s aircraft — had dropped a total of 100 bombs on Rotterdam, pulverising the city centre. Fire swept through the shattered streets, consuming everything in its path. A great pillar of smoke rose into the afternoon sky, darkening the sun. Beneath it lay the bodies of 814 Dutch civilians.

At 1700, just two hours after the attack, the Dutch garrison surrendered. At 1900, the
Panzers
rolled across the Maas bridges watched by the airborne troops, who were too exhausted to raise a cheer.

This was Western Europe in May 1940. This was total war.

Chapter Five

Colonel Villeneuve was writing his daily report. He was desperately weary, and his hand trembled a little as he penned the words. The Hawks had been in almost continuous action for the past forty-eight hours, and all the pilots were feeling the strain.

Thursday, 16 May 1940. Early this morning the Groupe moved to a new airfield at Orconte, near Saint-Dizier, with seven serviceable Hawks — all we have left out of a complement of thirty-four. While we were establishing ourselves at our new location, we were briefed to fly an air cover mission south-west of Charleroi. Take-off was fixed for 1100. All seven available aircraft were to take part. The pilots were selected from the 3rd and 4th Escadrilles: Lieutenant Vincotte, Sous-Lieutenant Baptizet, Sous-Lieutenant Plubeau and Adjutant Tesseraud from the 4th, Capitaine Guieu, Capitaine Armstrong (RAF) and Sergent-Chef Casenobe from the 3rd.

We climbed without incident until we were over Reims, when we saw a superb V of nine twin-engined bombers heading south-west at 4,000 metres. We decided to attack. They were escorted by half a dozen Me 109s, 1,000 metres higher up and a little behind. Lieutenant Vincotte attacked, perhaps a little too soon. The Messerschmitts came down on our aircraft and the pilots were forced to break away and dive for safety. Only Lieutenant Vincotte stuck to the bombers and made several passes at the left-hand one (a Junkers 88). Meanwhile, Plubeau,

Tesseraud and Baptizet were involved in a fierce dogfight with the 109s; each shot down an enemy fighter and then climbed rapidly to the aid of Vincotte. Together, they shot down one bomber; the remainder dropped their bombs haphazardly near Warmeriville and we went after them.

Plubeau’s cockpit was shattered by an explosive shell and he was forced to bail out. Vincotte damaged a second Junkers, then he too was hit in the fuel tanks and also had to bail out as his cockpit was filling with fumes and his oxygen equipment was out of action.

Meanwhile, Guieu, Armstrong and Casenobe had spotted a Henschel 126 at low altitude, which they attacked and shot down in the forest of Silly-l’Abbaye. In the process Armstrong flew through a treetop at full throttle; by some miracle he managed to reach base and land safely with great gashes torn in his wings. Our Englishman, it seems, bears a charmed life.

Villeneuve laid aside his pen for a moment and rubbed his eyes, resting his elbows on the trestle table that served as a desk. At that moment, the Englishman in question came into the tent that Villeneuve was using as his office, failing better accommodation. Armstrong saluted; the French officer waved a hand in reply and pointed to a chair. He reached for a half-empty bottle of wine, inspected it by holding it up so that the light of the solitary oil lamp shone through it, and filled two glasses, one of which he handed to Armstrong. Villeneuve raised his glass and gave a lop-sided smile.

“Well then, let’s drink to treetops,” he said. “I trust you have recovered from your experience?”

“It isn’t one I wish to repeat in a hurry,” Armstrong admitted. “I still don’t know how I got away with it.” The Henschel, a high-wing army co-operation machine similar to the RAF’s Westland Lysander, had been chugging along sedately at 500 feet, doubtless spying out the land for the approaching
Panzers
, when Armstrong and the others had pounced on it. Armstrong, intent on delivering a killing burst of fire, had misjudged his speed badly and had almost collided with the enemy aircraft, which by then had descended almost to ground level. Forced to break away sharply, he had not even seen the tree that did all the damage until it was too late.

“The aircraft is just about fit to fly again,” he added. “The boys have been working on it all day.”

“Then that gives us five serviceable aircraft for the morning,” Villeneuve commented. “Five! And there are rows of brand-new fighters, Dewoitines, sitting outside the factory at Toulouse because no one will take it upon himself to sign the necessary paperwork so that they can be released to the frontline squadrons. It is criminal, Armstrong. Criminal!” The Frenchman sighed in resignation and reached for his pipe.

While Villeneuve lit up, Armstrong reflected on the day’s other events, or at least those he knew about. If Villeneuve’s
Groupe
had taken a beating, the
Escadrille
that shared the airfield with it, a Morane 406 squadron, had fared even more badly. Nine of them had taken off that afternoon and had been attacked by twelve Me 109s over Charleroi; using their comfortable margin of speed to good advantage — they were about 60 miles per hour faster than the French fighters — the 109s had flown round the Moranes in a circle some 5,000 feet higher up and attacked in pairs, afterwards zooming up to altitude once more. With the 109s’ first passes two Moranes went down in flames; neither pilot bailed out.

More 109s arrived on the scene and the remaining Moranes soon found themselves attacked by three or four adversaries each. A third French fighter went down in flames and this time the pilot managed to bail out, although he was seriously wounded. A fourth pilot, his Morane riddled with shells, crash-landed on the airfield at Soissons, his aircraft a total wreck. A fifth pilot was hit in the head by shell splinters while racing for safety at treetop height and lost consciousness; when he came to he found that his aircraft had made a perfect wheels-up landing in a field. Only four Moranes had returned from the sortie.

Everywhere, Armstrong reasoned, it must be the same story. The
Luftwaffe
ruled the sky over the battle front. He wondered what the true situation was, and how quickly the collapse was taking place.

Armstrong had no way of knowing it, but the situation in eastern France had only just been made brutally clear to a very important person who had arrived in Paris at four o’clock that afternoon aboard a de Havilland Flamingo airliner, having taken off from London an hour earlier. After a preliminary briefing at the British Embassy, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister for only five days, had gone on to the Quai d’Orsay for a meeting with the French Premier, Paul Reynaud. The previous day, Reynaud had telephoned Churchill with a grim message. “We have been defeated. We are beaten; we have lost the battle. The front is broken near Sedan … ”

We are beaten. Every man for himself.
Sauve
qui
pent
. The mentality of defeat had penetrated the inner circle of the French Government …When Churchill arrived at the Quai d’Orsay, accompanied by General Lord Ismay, head of the Military Wing of the War Cabinet Secretariat, and General Dill, Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff, he was confronted by the sight of French civil servants making bonfires of government archives in the grounds. Already, they were preparing to evacuate the capital.

Churchill and his companions were conducted to a magnificent conference room where Reynaud was waiting to receive him. Edouard Daladier, the Minister of National Defence and War, and General Gamelin were also present. Churchill noted utter dejection written on all their faces.

With the aid of a map mounted on an easel, Gamelin explained the battle situation. The Germans had broken through to the north and south of Sedan, and the French Army in that sector was destroyed or scattered. Enemy armoured columns were pushing on with great speed towards Amiens and Arras, apparently with the intention of reaching the Channel coast in the region of Abbeville and driving a wedge between the Allied armies. Alternatively, Gamelin thought, they might make for Paris. Behind the armour came eight or ten German motorised infantry divisions, steadily widening the gap as they pushed through the two dislocated French armies on either side.

When Gamelin stopped talking, there was a long silence. Then Churchill, in his barely understandable French, asked: “
Ou est
la
masse
de
manoeuvre
— where is the strategic reserve?”

Gamelin’s reply was a shake of the head, a shrug, and a single word. “
Aucune
.” None. There was no reserve.

Churchill was visibly shocked. Suddenly, he had come face to face with the appalling shortcomings of the French High Command. With 500 miles of front to defend, they had left themselves with no insurance against an enemy breakthrough — no divisions with which to launch a strong counter-offensive once the first fury of the enemy attack had spent itself.

To make matters worse, the British had never been informed of this deficiency, even though the British Expeditionary Force was serving under French command. But Gamelin, despite his evident despair, was not yet finished. He began to speak of the possibility of striking at the flanks of the German advance, using divisions withdrawn from the Maginot Line to the south. There were two or three armoured divisions which had not yet been engaged. Eight or nine more divisions were being brought from North Africa, and would arrive in the battle zone within two or three weeks … suddenly, both the general and his argument collapsed. With another shrug of the shoulders, he complained about inferiority of numbers, inferiority of equipment, inferiority of tactics. And where were the British, with only ten divisions in Europe after eight months of war? Where were the additional promised squadrons of the Royal Air Force?

Fighters were needed not only to give cover to the French Army, but also to stop the German tanks.

Churchill was vehemently opposed to this idea. “No!” he objected. “It is the business of the artillery to stop the tanks. The business of the fighters is to
nettoyer
le
ciel
, to cleanse the skies over the battle.”

That morning, Churchill’s Cabinet had given him authority to move four more squadrons of Hurricanes to France. Now, at the close of the meeting with Gamelin, he sent a telegram to the Cabinet to ask for the despatch of six more. The reply came shortly before midnight, when Churchill was being entertained at Reynaud’s apartment. Approval was given for the despatch of ten fighter squadrons in total.

Six squadrons were assembled on airfields in Kent, within easy reach of the Continent. It was arranged that every morning, three squadrons would cross over to France, operate from French bases until midday, and return to England after being replaced by three more. But, much to Air Chief Marshal Dowding’s relief, the squadrons were never based permanently on French soil.

Events were happening much too swiftly for that.