No Flying Tonight Ch. 10-12

Leutnant Hans Schmidt was twenty-one and had been a member of his Jagdstaffel for two weeks. In that time he had taken-off six times in pursuit of allied bombers and had made contact on five occasions. Only once, on his third contact, had he been successful in shooting down his prey and, even then, he had been lucky as ground radar had been guiding him towards another target when he came across a Stirling, flying at fourteen thousand feet. He had fired only one burst into the aircraft when it caught fire. As he moved in to fire again, its bomb load exploded, the blast shaking his plane, showering it with pieces of metal and tossing it over two hundred metres into the air. This would be number two.

In Z, Zulu rear gunner Andy Townsend was searching the sky. Like most Lancaster rear gunners, he had removed the Perspex from the front of his turret to improve the vision. A line of tracer interrupted his search. The first burst missed to starboard but the second was followed by the unmistakable sound of cannon shells hitting the 'plane.

"Bandit. Corkscrew left, Skipper."

Jack turned the Lancaster to port and into the advancing fighter. Another burst of tracer hit the Lancaster, making a pattern on the wing and setting the right inner engine on fire. They were losing the battle; even without further damage it would be difficult to get the Lancaster back to Langton on two engines. Jack feathered the engine while the flight-engineer activated the fire extinguisher in the wing. Another burst of tracer lit the sky, this time missing as the Lancaster corkscrewed to starboard.

In the Ju88 Leutnant Schmidt was focussed on the Lancaster, trying to determine what the pilot would do next. So far the pilot had done well; corkscrewing and losing height, but the plane was slowing and it would only be a matter of time before his cannon shells would hit something vital. But the pilot wasn't the only one watching. In the rear turret of the Lancaster, Flight Sergeant Townsend was sweeping the sky, trying to locate the Junkers as it followed the Lancaster and looking to make his own kill.

Then he saw it. The moon had been his enemy, but now it was his friend. The Junker's pilot had made a mistake and had allowed his plane to be silhouetted, briefly, against the moon. Townsend fired twice, the first burst missing to the right, the second striking the cockpit of the fighter. He saw the flashes as his .303 bullets hit the JU88 and then, without warning, the nose dipped and the fighter slipped sideways, dropping rapidly from his sight. In the fighter Leutnant Schmidt was dead; shot through the face and in a reversal of fate, his two other crewmen were trapped, unable to control the plunging fighter on its journey to earth. In the rear turret, for a second or two, Townsend was non-plussed. Why had the plane suddenly disappeared? There had been no explosion or fire and, yet, it had disappeared from sight and then it dawned on him; he had shot it down.

"I think I got him, skipper. I think I got him."

"All right Andy. Anybody else see anything?"

"Nothing, skipper", from the mid-upper turret.

"I'd need a periscope", from the wireless operator.

The crew waited; hoping Andy was right. When the fighter didn't re-appear they relaxed. The realisation they'd escaped certain death temporarily lifting the tension. The flight engineer restored it.

"Starboard inner's still on fire skipper." The extinguisher hadn't worked.

Jack looked to his right. The engine was burning, the flames were being forced over the wing by the slipstream and, if he didn't do something, either the wing would fall off or, more likely, the fuel in the wing tanks would ignite. He pushed the joystick forward and put the plane into a dive. As the needle edged to 245 the flames disappeared. He pulled the stick back slowly; the technique he had used had been used many times before but as he was well aware, sometimes, as the plane slowed, the fire started again. The plane responded sluggishly, the nose rising slowly on its two engines before it levelled out. There were no flames. Both Jack and the fight engineer breathed an audible sigh of relief.

For the next three hours Jack fought the controls in an effort to keep the plane on course and above ten thousand feet. By the time they cleared the Dutch coast he was exhausted, the plane was still over two hundred miles from the east coast of England and the altitude, eight thousand feet, was proving harder to maintain. By the time they crossed the north Norfolk coast they were at three thousand feet, the tanks were almost empty and the plane was shuddering violently from the vibration of the feathered engines. He had hoped to make it to Langton, but it was out of the question.

"Jim, what's the closest airfield?"

The navigator studied his map of the east coast.

"Downham Market - it's about nineteen miles."

"Davey, can you raise them?"

"Will do, skipper."

When they landed Jack said a silent prayer. He knew they had beaten the odds and could think of no other reason than the intervention of his maker.

The next day they returned to Langton with Z, Zulu returning two weeks later, patched up, with two new engines and certified ready to fly.