Chapter II: Part XXVIII
Chapter II: The Gambit of the West
Part XXVIII
May 28, 1936
The sky was cloudless and visibility stretched to 70 kilometers as Oberleutnant Herbert Ihlefeld led his Schwarm of three Arado Ar 68s high over the French countryside. There were normally four pilots in the formation, but Unteroffizier Becker had suffered engine difficulty at the start of the mission and returned to base.
They had been ordered to sweep the area of Anglo-French fighters preparatory to Luftwaffe bombing missions in the area. Conditions were perfect for a dogfight.
The landscape below was a patchwork of farms and fields, with twisting green forests between them. France looked so different from Germany from the air -- it was a very settled, agricultural land, unlike the still-untamed German wildlands that looked much as they had in Caesar’s time. One sprawling forest gave the distinct impression of a vast dragon reaching one claw towards a little farming hamlet. Judging from the paper map pinned to the side of his cockpit, they were near the town of Toucy in the Yonne
département.
His hands felt strangely unused to their gloves and his flying jacket somehow ill-fitting; this was his first mission since the one for which he had been made famous. He had been awarded the Knight’s Cross for his sortie on the fourteenth of April, in which he had shot down three French bombers and rammed a fourth before bailing out over friendly lines.
He had spent the following month on an extended press tour of Germany, promoting the commemorative stamps that bore his face. Several national newspapers had interviewed him, and a dinner in Berlin had been held in his honor.
The attention seemed to Ihlefeld rather undeserved. In the Great War, German pilots were not publicized until having achieved ten kills, and usually not awarded the famous Blue Max until having scored sixteen. That a five-kill ace was splashed all over the German press during the present war only indicated to Ihlefeld a troubling weakness. If he were the very best news of the whole war, as one of Reichsminister Goebbels’ aides had proclaimed shortly before the capture of Paris -- what did that say about German fortunes?
As the Reich began to see more good news, Ihlefeld was allowed permission to return to his Jagdstaffel. It felt good to be back at the controls of a fighter, with his mind off those wider troubles.
The Arado Ar 68 saw extensive service above France, both in an anti-fighter and anti-bomber capacity.
The man off his left wing was trying to catch his attention. Ihlefeld turned. He could not hear him over the throb of his engine, but the pilots had come to be able to read lips and hand signals exceedingly well.
Unteroffizier Krampski’s mouth was moving excitedly. “Oberleutnant! Three planes. Enemy, I think.” He pointed far below and slightly to the right of the Schwarm.
Ihlefeld peered down over the lip of his cockpit.
There they were: three British fighters, Gloster Gauntlets, shining silver above the brown farmland. They seemed not to have seen the Germans. Ihlefeld signaled to the others with his gloved hand.
Ewert follow me in. Krampski hold back to cover us.
Ihlefeld lowered the throttle and angled his plane sharply downward. He looked back to see Ewert behind him. The needle on the altimeter was rapidly moving counterclockwise. If he fixed his eyes on a single point on the ground below, there was the illusion that he was standing still and the Gauntlets rising to meet him.
At the start of the war, the Gloster Gauntlet proved a good match for German fighters in the air, but overall British losses were much higher.
At last, they became visible above his engine cowling and he leveled out directly behind them. The British still had not reacted. He craned his neck over his right shoulder. Ewert was still there. Ihlefeld got his attention and signaled.
You take the one on the right.
Ihlefeld selected for himself the center plane. He increased the throttle as far as it would go and the shiny silver biplanes began getting larger in his field of view. He aligned his sights on the center of his target and pressed the trigger. Searing tracers lanced forward, ripping into the round metal fuselage and creating a shower of debris. Ihlefeld stopped firing. The pilot was still alive, and the plane wasn’t trailing fuel or smoke. He pressed the trigger again and held it longer. Bullets tore through the Gauntlet’s thin wing surfaces and snapped several of the delicate wing struts, at last tearing into the engine and sending pieces of what looked like propeller flying in all directions.
The battered plane began to descend, and as he followed it, Ihlefeld glanced toward the other two enemy planes. The rightmost Gauntlet had taken evasive action, but Ewert was on its tail pouring fire into it. The Gauntlet on the left appeared to be trying to circle back around and engage the Germans from behind.
Not today, John.
Ihlefeld pulled his Ar 68 into a sharp turn, trying to catch the Gauntlet before it passed outside his turning radius. Much higher, at perhaps 4000 meters, Krampski was still standing off. If this Gauntlet got away, Krampski would have to come down to engage him.
The Ar 68 began to shudder -- it would not be able to catch the Gauntlet. Cutting the throttle, Ihlefeld decided to sacrifice range for better firing position.
Leading it by a wide margin, he depressed the trigger. He watched as the Gauntlet flew straight through a stream of bright tracers. Pieces of the aircraft trailed for several dozen meters behind. It was now crossing the centerline of Ihlefeld’s plane, crossing off to his left.
The Gauntlets were newer and faster than the Ar 68s, and Ihlefeld knew that he couldn’t catch one in a straight-line race. Instead, he banked his fighter gently around to the right, gradually gaining altitude. Slowly, slowly, the aircraft turned -- until the damaged Gauntlet came into view below him near bearing 030.
He bore down on it at full throttle. He would hold fire until close range to conserve ammunition.
The RAF roundels on the Gauntlet’s wings grew larger, and Ihlefeld could now make out every detail of the struts and wires between the upper and lower wings. He was close enough.
A short burst. Part of the engine cowling disintegrated, sending a fine white mist into the air, which now streamed behind the Gauntlet in a thin trail. Another burst. In an instant, his field of vision became painfully bright. Ihlefeld heard the roar of the flames as they engulfed the wounded Gauntlet. He felt the heat singe the hairs at his temples, pulling the Ar 68 sharply up and over the plunging inferno below.
Ihlefeld looked back over his right shoulder. Ewert was back at his wing. He had finally downed the Gauntlet he had been pursuing -- that would be his second aerial victory.
“Well done, Paul!”
Ewert was not smiling. He pointed high over Ihlefeld’s left shoulder. The ace followed his wingman’s gaze, and felt his stomach clench. High above them, Krampski’s plane was trailing gray smoke. Yellow tracers flew past it from behind.
Ihlefeld signaled to Ewert.
Follow me, stay close.
He pulled his Ar 68 upward and banked to the left. Three enemy fighters were following Krampski, but two of them seemed to be detaching to engage the other two Germans below. Ihlefeld aimed his plane towards the one that was still shooting at Krampski.
The hostile fighters were monoplanes, the new French Dewoitine D.500-series. Ihlefeld knew that some of these were armed with a heavy cannon that fired out through the propeller hub, in addition to normal wing-mounted machine guns. They would be very dangerous opponents.
The Dewoitine D.501 was a relatively modern aircraft, with a marked advantage over the slower German fighters.
Taking punishing fire, one of Krampski’s wings came cleanly off, flipping through the air and nearly hitting the D.501. The Ar 68 immediately began a corkscrew descent.
Ihlefeld lined up on the Frenchman and fired a burst. He saw that he had scored several hits, including one to the open cockpit, where the pilot seemed to have slumped forward.
The roar of an engine drew Ihlefeld’s eyes directly upwards. A second D.501 roared overhead, missing one wing.
Good kill, Ewert. Two kills between us in just seconds.
The fighter that had shot down Krampski was now plummeting itself. There was only one more plane.
Bullets whizzed overhead and Ihlefeld saw tracers coming from behind him. Instinctively, he rolled into a right turn, and the world inverted itself.
He heard a series of dull thuds as heavy cannon rounds buffeted his plane. If he dodged suddenly to the left, the faster D.501 would probably pass him, allowing Ihlefeld to get into a position to attack it. The rudder controls were not working. He tried again. Nothing. Frantically looking back over his shoulder, he saw what was wrong. Most of his tail was missing.
With the French countryside rapidly getting closer, a decision had to be made quickly. Ihlefeld tried the controls one more time. Still nothing. He unclasped his harness, and pulled himself to the lip of the cockpit.
The next thing he was aware of was the jolt of his parachute opening. He saw the final French plane now doing its best to dodge Ewert, who was sticking to it ferociously. Within seconds this plane, too, lost a wing to Ewert’s guns.
As it tumbled downward, Ihlefeld saw the pilot bail out, and the parachute open.
The two men were no more than a hundred meters apart. The French pilot raised his right hand in salute.