JET LAG! (31 page)

Nine aircrew dead.

Thirty eight groundcrew and officers killed.

There were only twenty-four aircrew and twenty six ground personnel alive and fit for work. Eleven more were wounded.

It was a nightmare of appalling proportions.

When he tried to think of the consequences for the time-lines, his brain just frazzled. He just couldn’t grasp the complexities involved.

So, he stopped thinking about them. His main and only priority now was to get ALL of the remaining 1992 personel home safely. There would be no more sorties against the Luftwaffe, and certainly no more co-operation with Churchill and his bunch of parasites.

He’d had enough – and he would be telling his father at the first opportunity.

Nonetheless, that didn’t mean that the 1992 detachment were safe at their present location. If the Germans now knew that they were at Middle Fleckney – then they would have to move to a new base if they were to avoid another air attack – which may be even more disastrous next time. As it was the VC10 was a write-off and the groundcrews were decanting the last of its aviation fuel before starting the procedure of breaking it up for scrap, and destroying all trace of it forever. The Tornado being used for spares was to be stripped, broken up and sent to Warton as agreed.

It was not an easy task to find a suitable alternate airfield to house the 1992 personnel until the eighth of September. It would need to offer appropriate accommodation and complete seclusion. Sir Peter Andrews and the AVM set about the job immediately.

***

Hermann Goering was also not so happy.

His mission to destroy the British jets had been a failure. Hitler was incandescent with rage and declared that with immediate effect, London was to be bombed – by day and night. He made one concession, however – and that was to allow the 262s to continue attacks on RAF airfields in the bomber role. He had fifty bright new jets for the task and he intended to use them. He was not prepared, however, to waste them on another fruitless attack on Middle Fleckney.

It would have been a waste of time anyway – because by the twenty-fourth of August, there wasn’t a trace of Force 1992 left in Norfolk.

The search for an alternate base didn’t take very long as the only suitable RAF station was Cardington, near Bedford. It had two 812 foot hangars which had been used to construct and house the R100 and the ill-fated R101 airships in the nineteen–thirties. It was now being used as a Barrage Balloon Operators training unit. It was a simple enough task to send the trainees and staff home on two weeks leave – there were certainly no objections from them on that score.

The next step was to transfer the military guard force and Middle Fleckney 1940’s personnel across to Bedford. The aircraft and groundcrews would follow as soon as the new station was prepared for their use.

Churchill insisted on top-priority for the task and by the twenty- third of August, just two weeks before the time window re-opened, the 1992 team were packed and ready to go.

The C-130 would take all of the kit and ground personnel first, to allow them to familiarise themselves with one of the huge hangars at Cardington. They departed on the twenty-second, leaving only a skeleton force to see the remainder of the jets away from Middle Fleckney. The groundcrew would make the journey to Bedfordshire by truck when the aircraft were safely airborne.

All went as planned. The C-130 landed safely at Cardington on the twenty-second and the airmen prepared for their colleagues’ arrival the next morning.

The VC10 tanker had completely disappeared, as had the Tornado, from the hangar at Middle Fleckney. Nothing of the 1992 force remained as the seven aircraft taxied out for take-off. The two ADVs got airborne first and circled above as cover for the others in case of air attack. They were followed by the ECM, the Recce Tornado, and finally the two IDS Tornados. It was only about sixty miles or ten minutes flying time to their new base, and all should have gone without a hitch.

Unfortunately, a four-ship of interceptor Me 262s flew into the Middle Fleckney circuit just as the two IDS took off – and went in for the kill. However, the two ADVs above the airfield were doing their job and had spotted the German aircraft just in time, and swooped in to prevent them chasing and attacking the two IDS heading for safety.

One of the Tornados got in the first shot and splashed one of the German aircraft. The three surviving Me 262s split into a bomb-burst when the first exploded as an AIM-9 infra-red missile smacked into its jet pipe.

A furious two versus three dogfight ensued, giving the other five jets the time to get away. After judicious use of guns, hard-turns and years of practice, the Tornados shot down the three ME 262s, but not without suffering crippling damage themselves.

They both took guns hits to their fuselage and engines, causing an engine fire in Purple Seven, and a serious control failure in Purple Eight. There was little they could do to help each other, as they were both fully involved with sorting out their own particular emergency.

Purple Eight was heading north-east towards the Wash, and climbing in order to gain time to try and solve the flying control system failure. The pilot was struggling to keep the aircraft from flipping over whilst the navigator made some radio calls to report their position. However, whilst climbing through twenty-two thousand feet, the CSAS failed completely, the Tornado flicked onto it's back and entered an irrecoverable spin. At twenty thousand feet, the nav put out a Mayday call, pulled down his visor and ejected – this wasn’t the time for heroics or hesitation. The pilot followed shortly after and they both floated smoothly down towards the North Sea. The aircraft dove vertically into the water and disappeared for ever without trace.

The two aircrew were eventually picked up by a British patrol boat several hours later, but like many hundreds of other airmen who bailed out into the near freezing waters round the English east coast, they were already dead from exposure. The bodies were kept separate from regular aircrew and buried quietly in a small graveyard near Norwich. Their gravestones are still there today.

The crew of Purple Seven suffered a similar fate.

They had taken several shots to the port engine and this had caused a mechanical failure and fire. They dealt with the fire and planned to sneak home to Cardington on one engine. They turned west from just north of Norwich and planned to overfly Marham en-route to Bedford. Unfortunately for them, their luck was not in. They were flying at two thousand feet above ground level, when suddenly the starboard engine started to play up.

It stuttered and spluttered, wound down and then recovered, but the pilot knew that he needed to get onto the ground as soon as possible, before it failed altogether.

He begged his navigator for a heading to the nearest airstrip – any would do, even grass. The nav gave him a heading of 275 degrees – which put RAF Marham on the nose at six miles – just two or three minutes from safety.

It was sixty seconds too far.

At three miles finals, the starboard engine failed, the pilot lost all electrical and hydraulic control and Purple Seven spontaneously nosedived into a field with both men still on board. It was so quick that they didn’t even have time to eject.

Nobody saw it go down and their final resting place was an isolated boggy meadow. Within fifteen minutes all trace of the jet from 1992 was gone forever, sinking slowly down to about thirty feet under the muddy sludge.

Well, actually not forever, because in 1972, Elizabeth and Jake Reynolds, on one of their annual digs in East Anglia, discovered the watery grave. The aircraft was dug up after the Reynolds’ informed the authorities, who secured the site, making the entire archaeological team signed the Official Secrets Act. The bodies were removed and buried close to their colleagues, near Norwich.

MI6 masked the entire operation in secrecy and ensured that no publicity was given to the incident. They were privy to this possibility and had set in place contingencies to deal with any such situation. The Archaeological team were spun a ridiculous cock and bull story about ‘research and development’ and ‘secret aircraft prototypes’ and that it was vital in the ‘National Interest’ to keep the matter confidential.

MI6 had toyed with idea of passing the jet off as a remnant of the ‘Battle of Britain’ motion picture filmed in the late sixties – but it was decided that threats and blackmail to ensure silence would be more effective.

It was only on the second of April 1982 that Elizabeth and Jake Reynolds and their small circle of friends finally put ‘two and two’ together. However, none of them were prepared to go public on this ‘time-travelling’ tale, as it appeared too absurd. As a consequence, they remained silent.

49

RAF Cardington, Bedfordshire

27 August 1940

There were only eleven days to go until the potential escape, back to the future. However, the eighth of September seemed a long, long way away at this point – and at the current rate of losses – there would be no-one left to send back!

Todd Morrissey stood in the massive hangar at Cardington and surveyed the scene. It was pitiful. The Battle of Britain might be going reasonably well up to now, and the Germans may have been influenced to change their invasion plans, and thereby give Churchill the breathing space he required, but the price paid by Force 1992 was horrendous – both in personnel and materiel.

He had just the C-130, one Canberra ECM, one Recce Tornado and two IDS Tornados remaining. He'd lost four more of his good friends during the run for this new base and the authorities couldn’t  find either one of the lost jets. He had attended the short burial service up near Norwich for the crew picked up dead in the North Sea, and had earnestly contemplated his future on the tiresome journey back to Bedfordshire.

His troops were worn out, frightened and beyond the point of despair. None of them now believed that they would ever make it back home and to make things worse, Jim Charles had requested another interview with the AVM and himself.

‘Good morning, Jim,’ greeted the AVM brightly, ‘ what can we do for you?’

Jim Charles was not in the mood for any more bullshit from this man.

‘I want you to listen to me Air Marshal, and to try to understand your situation – our situation – because it's not only
you
who is involved in all of this ….this….nightmare!’

‘Calm, down, Mr Charles,’ warned the AVM, ‘I suggest you maintain your dignity. Now, speak your piece and we will see what is to be done.’

Todd, sitting to the right of his father sighed and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. This reaction wasn’t missed by the Met Man, who suddenly recognised a potential ally in the young Wing Commander.

‘Sir,’ he began quietly, ‘you must appreciate that all is not as it seems. We may be in August 1940 – but we are
not
in
our
August 1940. There are far too many discrepancies in the history of the timeline we currently inhabit.

In
our
time, we win the second world war with the assistance of the United States and eventually Russia. That is never going to happen here. President Joe Kennedy despises the British and will never lift a finger to help us. Even you must realise that without his support, Britain will lose the war.’

The AVM was silent as Jim Charles continued:

‘The development of the Me 262 is three or four years ahead of the corresponding period in our time. This potent weapon will make mincemeat of the RAF in the present 1940 and the invasion of Britain – Operation Sealion – will go ahead and be successful. Hitler will be so pleased with his victory over the British that Russia will go unattacked, and ‘Barbarossa’ will never happen.

In addition, the Nazi nuclear programme will proceed unhindered, as will their rocket development programme. V2s – as we know them – will eventually have nuclear warheads and the rest of the world will be held to ransom. Hitlerism will prevail.

Do you need other evidence to corroborate what I say, Air Marshal?’

Todd spoke up for the first time:

‘Go ahead, Jim. At least I'm interested in what you’ve got to say.’