Trial and Tribulation: A Novel of World War II (Breaking Point Series Book 4) by John Rhodes

Author:John Rhodes [Rhodes, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Roundel House
Published: 2023-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

“Fifteen minutes to La Pallice, skipper,” Drewno said. “Saint-Nazaire and the mouth of the Loire are a minute ahead. There are airfields at Saint-Nazaire and Nantes, and I assume they know we’re coming. Nantes is listed a first-rate field.”

Saint-Nazaire had been the site of a brilliant commando action last year, Shaux recalled, in which an old Royal Navy destroyer rammed into the gates of the largest dry dock on the Atlantic coast and put it out of commission. Hundreds of men had died or been captured, but large enemy battleships like the Tirpitz could no longer use the dock.

“No tall structures ahead,” Drewno added. Shaux had decided to fly at two hundred feet, low enough to confuse German Freya radar but not low enough to blind it. After all, he thought, the whole point of a diversion was to remain at least semivisible.

If bandits showed up, he could always go lower. At this height, he didn’t have to focus all his attention on avoiding trees and pylons. Instead he had a crick in his neck from constantly looking over his shoulders for 190s. There were some experimental backwards-looking radars, he’d heard. He made a mental note to investigate when they got back.

He wondered if they were deceiving the Luftwaffe. In his mind’s eye, he could see O’Neill and his B-17s crossing the English Channel fifty miles north of Brest at fifteen thousand feet, a long slow stream of targets for the Luftwaffe, who would attack the B-17s as soon as they found them, regardless of whether they thought the B-17s were following Shaux or not. What, then, was the point of this diversion? They were supposed to be drawing fighters away from the B-17s, but it didn’t seem as if 645 was attracting any fighters at all.

“Here’s the Loire,” Shaux said. At this height and speed, the river estuary appeared abruptly just beneath them. An E-boat was headed up the river, but they were past it before either Shaux or the E-boat could react. Shaux thought it must have been a mighty shock to the E-boat crew to see a dozen Mosquitos appearing from nowhere and howling over their heads.

“Turn to one-niner-zero degrees, skipper,” Drewno said. “We’ll fly the rest of the way to Saint-Pallice, just off the coast. The Île de Ré is twelve minutes ahead.”

“This is S-for-Sugar,” Shaux’s earphones announced. “Bandits at nine o’clock.”

“Bandits are one-one-zeroes,” a different voice said.

“I see them,” Drewno said.

Messerschmitt 110s were big, strong twin-engine fighters produced by the Germans in large numbers, but they were a prewar design and no match for Mosquitos if it came to a dogfight. Shaux could see four of them about a mile off his left wing. So far they seemed content to track 645 rather than attack it.

They swept over a long, thin island and then another.

“That was Île d’Yeu, however you say that. Turn left to one-six-zero degrees, skipper. Four minutes to Île de Ré, five to target.”

At this height, not far above the Bay of Biscay, they couldn’t see very far ahead.

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