Duel Under the Stars by Wilhelm Johnen

Author:Wilhelm Johnen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
Publisher: Greenhill Books
Published: 2018-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

The German capital with its five million inhabitants had so far been spared the mass raids. On the night of 23/24 August 1943, the RAF carried their air offensive to Berlin, a distance of 560 miles.

‘All crews in readiness,’ the order rang out over the loudspeakers on Parchim airfield. It came as a surprise. The crews rushed from their quarters and ran to their machines. Something was in the air. A bare five minutes later the whole wing was ready to take off. 23.06 hours – orders to take off! I was the first to be airborne and climbed at full throttle to 15,000 feet. The night was bright and therefore in favour of the defence. In such weather at 15,000 to 18,000 feet the pilot has a field of some 350 miles. Flying over Hanover, for example, I could see the Hamburg flak in action, bombs dropping in Berlin, fires in Leipzig and incendiaries falling on Cologne. Between these cities I could see the gleaming network of flashing beacons, the dazzling searchlight cones and the square markers of night-fighter airfields. For the German night fighter, the Homeland was an open book which he had no difficulty in reading.

The ground stations reported advance enemy units over the Baltic. The Signals Service on Fehmarn Island reported strong enemy formations flying at 15,000 feet in a south-westerly direction. I knew that before each large-scale raid the British agreed upon a well-known landmark as their assembly point. A glance at the map was enough to recognise this as Lake Muritz. I circled at 15,000 feet and let my SN 2 explore the air in the neighbourhood. Soon the first parachute flares fell and lit up the dark night. They swayed slowly earthwards lighting up the mirror-calm surface of the lake. The British Master of Ceremonies had done a good job, I thought, as I waited for the things that were bound to happen. Two more parachute flares were dropped . . . two, four, six, eight, ten – and then suddenly red tracers and flash bombs, which dazzled the eye. The firework display began. Without a break the Tommies dropped flash bombs to blind the night fighters. The ground station reported the assembly of strong enemy formations north-west of Berlin. I was convinced that the raid would start from here. My fellow pilots had also made for the marker flares and it could only be a matter of minutes before the neighbouring wings turned up at the Britisher’s assembly point.

The British assembly, according to our experience, lasted about half an hour. Each wave had been given its exact altitude. This operation demanded the greatest discipline and self-control but was incidentally a great strain on the nerves of the British crews. But upon a perfect assembly over the agreed starting point depended the success of the raid and the lives of the crews. Not until the dispersed formations had assembled in good order did the Commodore give the order to proceed. Minute by minute, one wave after the other flew at graded altitudes towards the target.

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