Colin Gee - Opening Moves

The Air Chief Marshall couldn’t buck that at all, especially as he caught the stream of arrows around München grow further out the corner of his eye.

“Very well Sir. I will get them ready for a maximum effort. Target list will be with me by five?”

“I will do my very best Arthur.”

The man sped away, his mind already full of orders and thoughts of incredulous RAF officers reading them as tired crews touched down at bases all over Europe.

No one was going to be spared on this day.

Four Mosquitoes of 163 Squadron RAF had been tasked with destroying a Soviet engineer bridge laid over the Fuhse River at Groß Ilsede, the main road bridge having been dropped into the water by British demolition engineers some days previously.

The plan was for the lead aircraft to illuminate with flares to permit the rest of the flight to drop accurately.

Squadron Leader Pinnock and his navigator Flying Officer Rogers both knew their stuff inside out and the Mk XXV Mosquito arrived on time and on target, releasing its illumination.

Flight Lieutenant Johar, a Sikh and the squadron’s top bomber was confused. The landmarks were quite clearly right; the parallel railway, the watery curve, both present and yet it wasn’t there.

Johar streaked over the target area, his bombs firmly on board, closely followed by three and four, equally confused. Navigators did checks and came up with the same result.

“This is the right place, dead on Skipper, no question” Rogers holding out his handwork for his boss to examine.

“Roger Bill,” Pinnock not bothering to go for the normal play on Rogers name and radio procedure that whiled away hours of lonely flying for the pair.

Thumbing his mike he spoke to the others.

“This is Baker lead, this is Baker lead. Mission abort, say again mission abort. Take out the rail track rather than dump ordnance.”

The bombs rained down, savaging the track running to the east of the Fuhse, rendering it useless for days to come.

163’s professionalism was such that no more was said over the radio until they touched down at Wyton some hours later.

The base adjutant, debriefing the crews, insisted that there must have been a navigational mistake until all four navigators produced their documentation, setting aside his first possibility.

Which raised a rather interesting second one.

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