Breakthrough (The Red Gambit Series) (69 page)

There was one small problem.

The intelligence was
mainly
provided by
a
Leutnant Huber, formerly of the 21st Panzer Division
, captured in
Normandy
by the 43rd Wessex Division
,
and subsequently t
rained and equipped by British Military I
ntelligence to remain behind the lines an
d supply information on
Soviet
m
ovements
during the uneasy peace
.

The new war changed his status from persuaded agent to committed ally.

His
Intelligence
trainer and main liaison
officer, posing as a Colonel in the Pay Corps,
had been wounded
early in the new war
and the hospital he was in captured by the advancing Red Army.

He had been visited in Kirchgellersen by a
senior
officer of the GRU, who went away with more know
ledge than she had arrived with. That
knowledge
now
meant that Leutnant Huber spent
every day
in pain,
responding to the whims of those who held lordship over his wife and life.

Operation Gabriel had been a huge success.

Operation Casino was to be the greatest disaster of the Allied air war.

Nazarbayeva
had visited the enemy prisoner in the medical facility at
Kirchgellersen and
initiated the interrogation of the Military Intelligence Officer, the combination of her
soft
female voice and a
Pentothal
injection
inducing indiscretion in a man already affected by anaesthetic
.

All in all, the Englishman had betrayed twelv
e agents in place, nine of whom
were now working for the GRU, the other three having made a more dramatic and terminal choice.

In the absence of Tatiana, the operation
had been
proposed
by Lieutenant
General
Kochetov, using his former enemy
’s
assets to the maximum
,
Kochetov combined
with Zhukov
and Bagramyan
,
designing
a
trap from which the RAF c
ould not escape unscathed.

‘
Maximum effort
’
had been called for, and Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris had moved heaven and earth to get
the maximum amount of
high-explosive into the air.

Aircraft long removed from the Allied inventory were back in action, crewed by
anyone qualified to sit in an aircraft. E
xperienced
men
who
had seen all the air war had to offer through to beardless youths on their first mission
, all were called on
.

The Allied effort was concentrated on a corridor in
N
orthern Germany
, a strip of forest
running
parallel
with the River Elbe, particularly focussing on the stretch from Bleckede, through Amt Neuhaus and onto Dömitz.

In an area roughly thirty kilometres long by three kilometres wide lay vast
quantities
of
Soviet
materiel and manpower.

Recon flights had been harried
,
but successfully brought back images showing tracks and camouflaged vehicles spread liberally throughout the forest.

Agents reported seeing fuel storage facilities spring up under the trees
,
and tanks in their
scores feed greedily from them.

More reports spoke of artillery pieces
,
wheel to wheel in places, lined up as if on parade under the protective canopy of the large green forest.

And soldiers.

Thousands and thousands of soldiers.

The maximum effort of Operation Casino totalled eight hundred and eighty-nine
machines put
in
to
the air, forming a huge line of multi-
engine
aircraft all the way from
England
to the mouth of the
Elbe
.

The cloud was patchy
,
and sufficient moonlight broke through for the bomber force to see the
Elbe
.
They
use
d
it
as a navigational marker
to fly
by
until they were
approaching
Amt Neuhaus and its environs.

Soviet
maskirova had worked, the subterfuge of dummy vehicles and temporary wooden structures
doing all that had been hoped
for
and more.

There were no fuel facilities.

There were no tanks.

N
o soldiers, leastways not how they
had been described in the agent’s reports.

Underneath the bombers lay their target rich bombing area, an area that was
virtually
empty
of troops and vehicles
.

However, there were guns lined up wheel to wheel, and
thousands
of them, although they we
re not the artillery spoken of
in the
spy’s
reports
. There was
flak,
division after division of
it, thousands of
anti-aircraft guns brought in to form the sides and end of a funnel d
own which the RAF and its allies
intended to fly.

Mosquito NF30’s swept ahead of the main body, knocking down five
Soviet
aircraft, a token attempt to get night-fighters into the attack.

The lead Pathfinders marked Blecklede and Besitz, the next group Hitzacker and Vielank, others marked key locations in between as the main force grew closer.

Soviet fire discipline was superb, and the only shells that rose into the night sky came from positions not involved in the secrecy and planning.

The lead bombers adjusted their turn at Lauenburg, bomb doors open, the plan
being
that they should drop on the line between Bleckede and Besitz,
with
subsequent waves advancing the bomb line to the south-east.

The
Soviet
plan was simple.

Shoot them down.

The
Soviet
AA Divisions reflected the full arsenal available, from the lighter 20mm and 40mm weapons, disposed to protect the others from ground attack sorties, through the 85mm AA guns, finis
hing with the lethal German 88mm, 105mm,
and 128mm we
apons, all plentifully supplied, and all directed by German radar sets ‘liberated’ in the Patriotic War.

Eight hundred and eighty-nine aircraft in a bomber stream stretching back to
England
entered the funnel and started to drop their bombs.

Arranged down the sides of the funnel were the AA guns
, radar and searchlights
, waiting
their chance to strike back.

It had been a relatively easy call to predict the bombing run that the RAF et al would adopt. None the less, more
Soviet
assets had been put in place to cover two other options.

There were no chances taken.

The command was given, the guns thundered, and night became day.

Aircraft after aircraft was clawed from the sky, more than one exploding viciously as its load
detonated
.

Messages back to
England
were garbled and misunderstood, prolonging the agony.

Messages
from
England
to the raid commander went unheeded, the man and his aircraft now on the ground and burning.

The bombers kept coming, dropping their bombs and turning away
,
as directed
by operational orders
, a route that took them over concentrations of
Soviet
AA guns.

Another group was bombing now, advancing the destruction
,
but paying the price in men and machines.

The night sky
was permanently
illuminated by exploding shells and burning aircraft.

Here and there a group of parachutes floa
ted down, a crew, whole or in part, escaping death
.

Searchlights
had joined in
, searching the targ
et rich skies for enemy bombers, transforming the skies into a spider’s web into which flies, driven by desperation and courage, continued to fly
, even
as thei
r
comrades died all around them.

Some experienced pilots dived
, taking
their charges
down
low to escape the big flak guns. So many of them perished as the 20mm and 40mm weapons joined the killing.

The worrying messages went unheeded, the bomber
force
’s chain of command smashed as deputy and deputies were hacked from the sky.

The vast quantities of shrapnel in the air started to descend, and more than one AA gunner was killed or wounded by their own
sides’
metal.

More bombers arrived, the
bravery
of the crews incredible in the face of such fire.
Courage was a common commodity that night.

A Wing-Commander made an appraisal and got an informative message off to Bomber Command, telling
them of the increasing disaster.

Their reply, seeking more information,
was not acknowledged, the Wing-
Commander’s aircraft already in a fiery dive.

It was Harris
himself
who acted, aborting the raid with immediate effect and calling his boys home.

Eight hundred and eighty-nine had gone out
,
and ashen-faced WAAF’
s started to accumulate details from radio messages and reports from air bases.

At RAF High Wycombe, the headquarters of Bomber Command, a stark picture was emerging.

A staff officer had organised a written display and running total that was being kept up to date in the main room
.
Harris
and his senior officers watched
in horror as the numbers altered minute by minute.

On the left
were
those aircraft returned to base, down
on the ground,
and their crews safely in debriefing or drinking away the horrors of the night.

In the middle was the number of aircraft about which no information was available. That number went down when one was added to the ‘returned to base list’ or, more tragically, to the third ‘destroyed’ list.

Harris sat watching, white as a sheet.

‘351, 35
8, 180.’

Activity increased, flustered men and women reporting to the tellers, who in turn reported back to the marker, the middle-aged WAAF Company Commander, a Flight-Lieutenant equivalent, whose eyes were watery with understanding of the human tragedy behind the numbers.

‘385,324
,180.’

The
tea had gone cold long ago but Harris sipped it as he watched.

‘394,30
4,191.’

On the left and right walls
,
s
quadron
status
boards
were mounted
, from where
up to date
information was
sent
across to
the numbers tellers.

Harris watched one WAAF replace her telephone receiver and sink to her knees in floods of tears, her board bereft of a single mark.

115 Squadron RAF had nothing left, bar its
shocked and appalled ground
crew
,
waiting in vain on a dark runway.

O
ther boards were similarly bare, bare of all but hope, as the WAAF’s at each waited. Their silent prayers entreated higher powers for some to be spared. Most prayers went unheeded that night.