‘Okay, Pieter, this time you better take the bombardier’s gun. Stef?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘I want you on the waist-gun. Hans, you’re on the tail-gun. ’
Hans had trained himself to use the tail-gun, which was the only gun that had not been replaced with MG- 81s, and remained duel Brownings. ‘Training’ had been little more than reading the tail-gunner section of the B-17 Flight Crew Manual and firing off a few dozen rounds of the limited supply of 0.5 inch ammo the plane carried. But he was ready to use it in anger now.
It was sensible for Stef to be in the comparatively safer waist-gun position, with fuel and range now the most crucial variable of the mission; he needed their navigator alive and well to ensure the most efficient route across. They could scarcely afford to lose him and drift valuable miles off course.
Or maybe he was just trying to keep the young lad out of harm’s way.
Both Hans and Stef confirmed their orders and began to scramble to their positions.
‘Schroder, bandits, four high.’
‘We’ve seen them. Listen, we will have to engage them close to you, so that you can bring your guns to bear on them. My men and I are low on ammunition.’
Schroder was right. They stood a better chance if the dogfighting went on within range of the B-17’s gun positions — the bomber’s guns had plenty of ammo to burn, and the additional firepower would go at least some way towards levelling the playing field.
Max debated whether to lock the plane with the autopilot and man the forward-gun position. He had fired an MG-81 several times, but was, by no stretch of the imagination, a good shot. He might not hit anything, but the additional firepower couldn’t hurt. But then, if the plane took damage to any of the engines or flaps, there would need to be someone in control to react immediately.
He decided he would be better remaining in his seat.
‘Schroder, we jettisoned our belly gun and our starboard waist-gun, you need to lead them in on our port side, or to the rear of the plane, to get the benefit of our guns. Have you got that?’ he called to Schroder.
‘Uh-huh. I’ll try. Good luck.’
Max switched back to the interphone. ‘This one’s going to be nasty. We’ve only three of our little friends looking after us, and six of them coming in. Schroder and his men are bringing the fight close to us so that we can back them up with our guns. Hans? You in position yet?’
‘Yeah, just about,’ he grunted as he squeezed his large frame into the cramped confines of the tail-gunner’s position.
‘Hans,’ called Pieter, ‘any tips for me and Stef?’
‘Yeah… yeah, just make sure you draw a good lead. Ten yards in front of the target for every two hundred yards target range. Fire in bursts no longer than two seconds, the heat causes the guns to lock.’
‘Thanks, you big ape. Make sure you save some for me and Stef.’
Max decided to quieten them down. ‘Let’s keep the comm. clear. I want to hear sightings and confirmed kills, nothing else until we’re out of this.’
His crew murmured assent.
A moment later, Hans’s voice came across loudly. ‘I can see ’em now. Spitfires! Goddamn Spitfires! Three of them are engaging our boys, three splitting off and coming for us!’
Oh shit… here we go again.
Chapter 48
Mission Time: 6 Hours, 24 Minutes Elapsed
180 miles across the Atlantic
Schroder pulled up steeply and rolled to his left as the three bandits rose up to meet them. He found himself laughing aloud. This was good, old-style dogfighting. One on one, the sort of duelling he had excelled in during the early days of the war.
He quickly scanned the sky to grab a snapshot of the entire skirmish, momentarily placing all nine other aircraft taking part in this particular exchange.
‘Pull these buggers after us down and to the left, and we’ll lead them close to Max’s lads,’ he said, struggling to keep his voice calm and measured.
‘Yes sir,’ both other fighter pilots replied.
The three Me-109s rolled over and dived down towards the left, one tidily behind the other like the carriages of a train. They raced past the three Spitfires still rising to meet them and all six planes fired speculative bursts in the hope of scoring some early damage. Several hundred bullets whistled angrily through the air between the two formations of advancing planes.
None of them hit anything.
Schroder’s guns clattered uselessly as the last of his ammo belts fed through.
I’m out.
He realised all he could do for now was play bait for the Spitfires and lure them in as close as he dared towards the bomber’s guns. As Schroder and his men descended to a position several hundred yards behind and to the left of the B-17, the Spitfires mirrored their arc of descent and followed their route around and down. Within a few fleeting seconds they would be lined up behind the Me-109s and in a perfect position to start shredding pieces off them.
Meanwhile, the other three British fighter planes were ascending towards the bomber from the right. Schroder hoped that Max’s boys could see them approaching and had at least one gun trained on them as they came in.
Behind them, Schroder could sense the Spitfires falling into a comfortable tailing position, closing the gap swiftly. Any second now he expected them to commence fire, but not yet. From their tidy manoeuvring he suspected these pilots were experienced. They would want to pull in a little closer before firing to guarantee a more effective opening salvo and avoid wasting rounds. A sensible ploy, but not without its downside, as Schroder had learned from experience. Many a time an enemy plane had escaped him, scrambling out from beneath the lethal gaze of his crosshair because he’d waited a second too long to get a better, cleaner, closer shot.
He hoped those Spitfires behind them were making the same mistake, holding off one or two seconds too long to get a guaranteed kill with the first volley.
Time to move.
‘On my command… Gunter, Will, break right and left, I’ll lead the first of them in,’ he called out.
‘Break!’ he shouted a second later.
Both flanking Me-109s rolled in opposite directions and dived, and two of the Spitfires followed in hot pursuit leaving one doggedly following Schroder as he veered to the right and subtly closed the gap, drawing it closer to the B-17. The unfortunate British fighter pilot was about to find out for himself what sort of damage the tail-gun of a Flying Fortress can deal out.
The bomber grew in size as Schroder led his pursuer in towards the rear of the plane. Just as he’d begun to suspect the tail-gunner was sleeping on the job, the duel barrels suddenly opened up, firing twin streaks of tracers into the empty space between Schroder and the British fighter. The bullets sped past in front of the Spitfire and drifted quickly back as the tail-gunner adjusted his lead. Half a dozen bullets found their mark along the right-hand side of the fighter’s fuselage and almost immediately a thin whisper of leaking oil trailed out from the Spitfire. The British pilot seemed unperturbed and calmly held position for a few seconds more before firing a burst of gunfire that clipped the tail of Schroder’s Messerschmitt.
Schroder pulled up sharply, hoping the Spitfire would follow suit and expose her underbelly to the bomber’s left-hand waist-gun, but instead the British pilot seemed already to have learned the error of his ways and pulled warily away from the bomber.
At the same time, the other three Spitfires that had split away to specifically target the bomber rose one after the other and raked the underside of the Flying Fortress as they climbed effortlessly past her. The belly of the bomber shed a small shower of fragments that twisted and spun away below her.
