Winter Warriors

FV-2 Shooting Star Flicka

Clear of the swirling furball below, Talen breathed a sigh of relief. He was wringing wet, sweat running down his face, puddling in his G-suit. At least, I hope it is sweat. He wasn’t sure. He’d found the slaughtering match with the Germans so terrifying that he had an honest feel that he’d lost control of his bladder sometime during the wild gyrations. Still, he had escaped and had a split second or so to think. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t done that before. He’d been flying by instinct; reacting to the maneuvers without conscious thought. He realized something else. Somehow, he knew exactly where every aircraft in the wild furball was, both absolutely and in relation to his own aircraft. He dismissed it as a freak, as something he needed not worry about Talen didn’t understand that the two characteristics together made him a natural fighter pilot.

Below him, a Ta-152 had tried to pursue a damaged Flivver but been forced to turn away as a quartet of FV- 2s closed in on him. The pilot is watching the new threat, not the hawks poised overhead for the kill. A chance, a vulnerable enemy. He pushed his nose down and started the streaking dive towards the twisting German fighter. Talen carefully lined up his guns. Then, he squeezed off a long burst. He saw his wingman did the same, and as if in slow motion, he saw the streams of bullets intersected with the doomed Ta-152.

Ta-152F Green-Five

Braun twisted away from the FV-2s behind him. Jets or not, they couldn’t match his ability to turn. He had a chance. They are committed to their dives, they can’t match or respond to my turns. All I have to do was reverse mine and the Ami would go straight past my nose. With his battery of heavy cannon, that mistake would be fatal. Braun started to reverse his turn. Then flashes started to appear all around him. His fighter echoed with the drum-like roll of bullets smacking into the airframe. Above and to one side, two FV-2s were diving on him, closing the range terrifyingly fast. Braun realized his mistake, a novices mistake. I was so concentrated on pulling my ambush that I’ve become the hunted. Now I’m paying for it. Then, he felt heavier, more painful thumps. Somehow the sky seemed to turn red.

A dead pilot at its controls, Green-Five flipped on its back and dived straight into the sea.

Ta-152F Blue-Three

Meissen knew it was over. He was dizzy from the constant maneuvering and frustrated from his inability to line up for a shot. All he could see were the dark blue Ami fighters swirling round him. As soon as he tried to line up on one, three more swept down on him and forced him to break away. He’d survived this long because they were afraid of hitting each other in the chaotic scramble. His GM-1 boost had run out. His MW-50 would do the same any moment. Once that happened, he would be easy prey. His cannon ammunition had to be running out as well. The fighter didn’t carry that much to start with. Big shells and a small airframe meant it couldn’t. He’d been firing almost constantly. Any second now, he’d press the firing buttons and be rewarded by the “clunk” of empty guns. With almost fatalistic despair he swung after an FV-2. With resignation saw it accelerate and separate from him. What he didn’t see were the two formations of FV-2s diving on him from behind. He, quite literally, never knew what had hit him. The hail of bullets from more than two dozen .50 caliber machine guns caused his Ta-152 to explode in mid air.

FV-2 Shooting Star Flicka

It was over. Try as he might, all Talen could see were the dark blue Flivvers forming up. No light gray German aircraft anywhere. Over the radio, pilots were calling in status. Their relief at surviving was obvious. Some voices were shaky. Talen counted them all; twenty Flivvers never answered. Eight more were heading home with damage so bad it was doubtful they could make it back to the carriers.

“Do we strafe the carriers boss?” Talen didn’t know who had asked the question, he was rather afraid it might have been him.

“Negative. All hawks return to the carriers. We’re on Bingo fuel already. Leave the strike to the Corsairs and Adies. We’ve done our job.”

Bridge, KMS Graf Zeppelin, Flagship, Scouting Group, High Seas Fleet, North Atlantic

Had it been a mistake to get the strike off? It had delayed the launch of the fighter reserve and the last dozen off the carrier had been shot out of the sky without standing much of a chance. Had those casualties made the difference between the slaughter of the fighter cover and staging reasonable defense? Brinkmann was uneasily aware that his orders had been specific, use his fighters for cover, use his dive bombers for scouting. He’d disobeyed them to set up his strike. If he hadn’t, he’d have had 48 fighters up ready to intercept the Ami fighter sweep, it would have given his fighter pilots a fighting chance at worst. But his way, he’d at least got a punch in at the Ami carriers, that had to count for something.

“Admiral, Sir, another wave of Ami aircraft approaching. They’ll be starting their runs in minutes. I can’t raise any of our fighters.” Was there a note of accusation in that report? “Admiral, Sir, another wave of aircraft behind this one, a big wave. I’d estimate it at least another hundred aircraft, probably more. As large as the first two waves put together.”

Brinkmann nodded as he digested the information. It made sense, the American Task Group probably had five carriers, well, I’m absorbing their air groups here. My fighters had mauled the jets that had conducted the fighter sweep, now my aircraft can hit the Ami carriers. While they do that, my anti-aircraft guns will chew up the inbound strikers. We will hand over a nicely weakened enemy to the battleships.

“Contact Admiral Lindemann, tell him that we’ve found the enemy, they’re on bearing 270. We are engaging their aircraft now and our divebombers are attempting to attack the Ami carriers. Get that off, highest priority.”

Flight Deck USS Stalingrad, Hunter-Killer Group Sitka

There were three types of CVE. There were the ones built on a freighter hull, the ones designed by Kaiser from the ground up as jeep carriers and there were the ones built on oil tanker hulls. Only the oiler conversions were really satisfactory for the North Atlantic. The first group bounced around too much and the Kaiser class were too small. The converted oilers had the advantage that they still had great fuel capacity and could refuel the destroyers that worked with them. The other advantage they had was that their flight decks were much larger. Today, every square foot of deck was needed.

It wasn’t because the Stalingrad was retrieving damaged aircraft. She’d done that often enough. There had been a time when the U-boats had been seized with the notion that staying on the surface to fight it out with attacking aircraft was a good idea. That delusion hadn’t lasted long but while it had, the U-boats had gone down, taking an honor guard of Wildcats and Avengers with them. The cripples had come back and found the larger flight deck a savior in times of desperate need.

But that was then, this was now. The big flight deck was useful today because the Bearcats were being rearmed and refueled on the deck as they landed. The pilots weren’t even shutting their engines down. They just let their R-2800s idle while the deck crews frantically poured fuel into the waiting tanks and fed new ammunition belts into the guns. It was against every regulation in the book, but the radar screens were an absolute answer to that criticism. They showed a German raid coming in. It was still 45 minutes out, but threatening nonetheless. The fighters didn’t just have to get up. They had to climb to meet the inbound attack and do so far enough from the carriers to protect them. There were 16 Bearcats up to meet that raid. The 16 more on the decks of Stalingrad and Moskva were needed as soon as they could be launched.

Lieutenant Pace saw another example of regulations being broken as he made his final approach. His was the last Bearcat in. The batsman gave him the “chop” signal just as another Bearcat started its take-off run. The two aircraft missed each other, somehow, Pace’s aircraft snagging a wire to come to an abrupt halt just as the other Bearcat accelerated out of the way. The grapes in their purple shirts were over his aircraft before it had stopped moving. They had it down to a fine art. They opened the bays in the wings, hooked the end of the old belt to a new one and fed the ammunition back into the tanks. Pace felt his aircraft rock as the fuelling crew pumped gasoline into his tanks. It seemed only to take a few seconds before there was a bang in the fuselage as a crew chief slapped it with his hand.

“GO!” Pace gave him a thumbs-up and slammed his bubble cockpit shut. Then throttles forward, brakes off and his Eleanor ran down the flight deck. She picked up speed and rotated with tens of feet to spare. Just eight minutes after he’d touched down, Pace pulled his undercarriage up and formed up with another late-comer from Moskva. The two jeep carriers had thrown everything they had