Flames over France (17 page)

Chapter Twelve

They had been on the move for days now, leapfrogging from one airstrip to another, always heading south towards Provence and the Alpes Maritimes, where the French Army of the Alps had faced a new enemy since 10 June, when the Italian dictator Mussolini, eager for a share of the spoils now that the victory of his German ally was assured, had declared war on the Allies. Thirty-two Italian divisions that had concentrated on France’s Alpine Front moved forward to the attack, confident of overwhelming the thinly-spaced French defences by sheer weight of numbers.

They were destined to receive a harsh rebuff. When General Weygand had called for “one last battle to save honour” with the French armies in the north collapsing, the Alpine Front had been furthest from his mind. Yet it was here, in the snow and the rarefied air of the mountains, that the battle was fought.

The airfield at Luc-en-Provence was packed with aircraft. As well as the surviving Hawks, flown in by Armstrong and his fellow pilots, there were Morane406s, Dewoitine D.520s, and a variety of types belonging to the French Naval Air Arm: American-built Chance Vought 156 single-engined attack bombers and Bloch 151 fighters. Some of the latter were running up their engines before setting out on patrol and Armstrong watched them idly. He was stretched out on the parched grass near the airfield’s command post, stripped to the waist in the heat, playing a desultory game of chess with Kalinski, who unlike Armstrong was very good at it.

“There is talk of an armistice,” Kalinski commented suddenly as he pondered his next move.

“What?” Armstrong looked at the Pole, startled.

“An armistice,” Kalinski repeated. “Everyone is talking about it. I’m surprised you haven’t heard. Apparently there’s quite a strong pro-armistice lobby in the French Government, led by some ancient warrior called Marshal Petain. The alternative, of course, is to carry on the fight from their North African colonies, but with the Italians in the war they might have their work cut out to hold on to them. One thing’s certain, though; they are done for here.”

Armstrong nodded. The effect on French morale that had accompanied the news of the fall of Paris a day earlier had been little short of catastrophic, and that very morning — 15 June — word had also arrived that the fortress of Verdun, that symbol of dogged resistance where the flower of the French Army had been sacrificed in 1916, had been captured after less than a day’s fighting. There was also a strong rumour that German tanks had reached Dijon on the upper Seine; if it were true, the Maginot Fine would now be isolated, together with its defenders — some 400,000 men who would have been far better employed elsewhere.

Armstrong wished, now, that he had severed his connection with the French and made his way to the Cherbourg peninsula, from which the last British troops in France were being evacuated. He had suggested this to Kalinski, who had reluctantly decided against it. Although Polish personnel from other units had already taken ship for England, their aircraft having been destroyed or abandoned in the fighting in the north, Kalinski’s small command was still pretty much intact, and he had no orders to cease fighting. So Armstrong had stayed too; if the worst came to the worst, and the French unexpectedly threw in the towel, he would head for Toulon or Marseille. There were bound to be British ships there, sent in to evacuate British nationals.

The Bloch 151s, nine aircraft in all, were taxying out for take-off. Kalinski, the chessboard momentarily abandoned, watched them too. Suddenly, the Pole gave an exclamation and pointed towards the east. Armstrong followed his gaze and picked out half a dozen dots, growing larger by the second. Whatever they were, they were flying low, and they were heading straight for the airfield.

“Italians!” exclaimed Kalinski, who had phenomenal eyesight. “Fiat CR.42s … I suggest we get under cover, my friend!”

Without another word he jumped up and made for a slit trench which had been dug about fifty yards away. Armstrong grabbed his shirt and followed him, one eye on the incoming aircraft. He could identify them now: Fiat CR.42s, biplane fighters, the equivalent of the RAF’s Gloster Gladiator.

Breathing hard, he jumped into the trench and cautiously raised his head. The first flight of four Bloch 151s had just got airborne and were beginning to climb away when the Fiats fell on them, their machine-guns stuttering. One Bloch was hit immediately just as its wheels were coming up; it turned over on its back, dived into the ground and exploded. A second, riddled with bullets and its pilot wounded, crash-landed in a cloud of dust; a third crashed just off the end of the runway, its pilot miraculously crawling unhurt from the pile of wreckage. The fourth flew slap through the middle of the enemy fighters, pulled up in a steep climb and turned back towards the airfield.

Armstrong and Kalinski ducked down into their trench as the Italian fighters raced across the field, firing at a group of Vought 156 bombers. Six of them went up in flames. Then the CR.42s turned and came back to concentrate on the second flight of Blochs, which were just lifting away from the runway.

Suddenly, a shadow flitted over the slit trench, its passage accompanied by the scream of an engine. Startled, the two men looked up and saw a Dewoitine D.520, flying very fast, closing in on the two Fiats at the rear of the enemy formation. Within seconds, both of them were spinning down in flames.

Spellbound, Armstrong and Kalinski watched as the French fighter went unhesitatingly after the remaining Fiats, whose pilots, abandoning their pursuit of the Blochs as they became aware of the danger bearing down on them from astern, scattered to left and right. The Dewoitine shot the tail off one of them and another, its pilot making a desperate attempt to escape at low level, flew into the ground, his aircraft cartwheeling across the airfield in a ball of debris, smoke and blazing fuel. The other two got away, dwindling in the distance.

There was no time to admire the French pilot’s performance. As the Dewoitine broke off its chase and came back to the airfield to land, an orderly came running out of the command post, waving his arms. He skidded to a halt beside the slit trench and looked down at its occupants, saluting awkwardly.

“The Navy reports enemy bombers approaching from the sea,” he told them breathlessly. “Heading this way. At least twenty.”

Armstrong and Kalinski leaped from the trench, the RAF pilot hurriedly pulling on his shirt. “Very well,” he said. “Let the other pilots know, quickly.”

He looked around. Although the Fiats’ strafing attack had caused a good deal of damage to the aircraft on the far side of the aerodrome the Hawks and the Polish Caudrons were untouched. Moreover, they had just been rearmed and refuelled. Of the Bloch 151s that had just taken off, there was no sign; Armstrong assumed that they had streaked off in pursuit of the fleeing pair of Italian fighters.

There was no time to lose. He ran towards the nearest Hawk and saw that the French ground crew, who had been lying prone on the ground during the attack, had anticipated his intentions. The fitter was already in the cockpit, and the engine coughed into life as Armstrong arrived at the wing. The mechanic jumped out on the opposite side, leaving the pilot free to take his place.

Armstrong waved the ground crew clear and eased open the throttle, strapping himself in as he taxied towards the runway and leaving the cockpit canopy open for the moment. He turned the fighter’s nose into the light breeze and opened the throttle wide, giving the control column a gentle nudge forward to lift the tail as the Hawk gathered speed. Then he was airborne and climbing hard to the south, to where the Mediterranean sparkled beyond the Cote d’Azur. A quick glance astern told him that more fighters were following and he looked ahead again, scanning the sky.

He saw the anti-aircraft bursts first, clusters of white puffs against the blue backdrop as French warships out to sea hammered away at the incoming bombers far above. It was a few moments more before he picked out the aircraft; there did not seem to be more than a dozen of them, flying in two tight boxes at about 15,000 feet. They were still over the sea as he crossed the coast, heading out over the lies d’Hyeres. A few moments later they passed over the top of him, still a couple of thousand feet higher up.

Armstrong continued his climb until his altimeter showed 5,000 metres — about 16,500 feet — and then turned in astern of the enemy formation, flying through a spread of spent anti-aircraft bursts as he did so. He could see the bombers clearly now: they were twin-engined aircraft with twin fins, and he identified them at once as Fiat BR.20s.

Remembering to close the cockpit hood, he put the Hawk into a shallow dive and gradually overhauled the bomber on the left of the rearmost formation. Fire was beginning to come at him from the dorsal gun positions of several aircraft; he ignored it and concentrated on his target. The Fiat’s wings and upper fuselage were painted in a mottled camouflage scheme of light and dark brown; its engine cowlings were yellow and there was a white band around its rear fuselage. Its wings bore the black-and-white insignia of Fascist Italy.

Armstrong could clearly see the white face of the Italian gunner, peering at him over his oxygen mask as he went on firing at him with his single 12.7-mm machine-gun. The bullets passed harmlessly below the Hawk. Making quite sure of his aim, Armstrong opened fire, pushing on the rudder bar so that the fighter’s nose yawed from side to side, traversing the nose to allow his bullets to rake the bomber from wingtip to wingtip. The effect was immediate and dramatic. White smoke burst from both the Fiat’s engines and streamed back, enveloping the Hawk.

Armstrong continued firing at the shadowy outline of the bomber, and a moment later the smoke became shot with flame as the Fiat’s wing fuel tanks caught fire. The aircraft entered a steep diving turn, jettisoning its bombs as it did so. It fell towards the sea, trailing sheets of flame, and a solitary parachute broke away from it. Armstrong hoped that it was the rear gunner, a brave man who had gone on firing at him until the end.

Tearing his gaze from the doomed aircraft, he looked around him. The fight had taken him below the Italian formation, which was now being engaged by more fighters. He pulled up steeply, narrowly avoiding a diving D.520 as he did so, and found himself under a Fiat’s sky-blue belly. He put a two-second burst into it, the Hawk hanging on its propeller, then the fighter stalled and dropped away. Dust and other associated debris, the accumulation of several days, whirled around his head as he regained control. He swore, making a mental note to have a word with the ground crew about keeping the cockpit clean, then realised that this was not his usual aircraft.

He was well below the battle now, and could see that the unescorted bombers were taking a terrible mauling. One dropped ponderously past him, turning slowly over and over as it fell; another had turned out of formation and was being harried by three fighters as it dived away over the Mediterranean.

Armstrong decided to try his radio, to see if the Command Post had received word of any more Italian bombers heading in from the sea. But the set was dead; few radios worked now. The Air Force logistical system had broken down and necessary spare parts were not reaching the squadrons. The mechanics worked valiantly, patching up serviceable aircraft with bits and pieces salvaged from wrecked ones, but even these were in short supply.

His engine was beginning to sound alarmingly rough, and the oil temperature was rising. It was time to head for base; the others were quite capable of handling the Italians, most of whom in any case had jettisoned their bomb loads haphazardly and were heading flat out for home. One crew, however, was made of sterner stuff than the rest; the pilot pressed on with his mission, which was to bomb the airfield at Luc, and was shot down in sight of it by D.520s that had been patrolling Marseille. The Italians all bailed out safely and were dined by the French officers before being whisked off to captivity.

Armstrong reached Luc without incident, despite the smoke that was now streaming from under the Hawk’s engine cowling, and taxied to a stop near the hangars. The mechanics stripped off the fighter’s engine cowling, looked at the oiled-up mess underneath and shook their heads sorrowfully. “It will be at least a day,
man
Capitaine
, before we can make this machine ready for flight once more,” the senior NCO told the pilot.

“I’ll settle for this afternoon,” Armstrong said brusquely. “I feel we are going to need it.” He was right.

A hundred miles north-east of Luc, high in the Alpes Maritimes, a series of key positions was manned by crack French alpine troops. Morale among these soldiers was excellent, despite the depressing military situation, and every man was determined to do his utmost to stop the Italians in their tracks. Before the Italians could make progress to north or south, they knew that they would have to break the French at two places, the Col d’Enclave and the Col du Bonhomme. For them, it was to be a costly undertaking.

The Col d’Enclave was occupied by a single company of
Chasseurs
under the command of Lieutenant Armand Bulle. They had decided to set up an observation post on the Tête de Balleval, a lofty position that offered an unparalleled view of the surrounding terrain. The post was established at noon on 15 June, Bulle and a small party of skiers making a series of trips in dense fog to deposit weapons and supplies on the peak. As they continued with their task, they heard the noise of gunfire echoing from the mountain walls; it seemed to be coming from the Bellegard strongpoint, the main defensive position before the Col d’Enclave, which was held by fifty men under the command of Bulle’s friend, Lieutenant Castex. Attacked by a force five times their number, the French put up a spirited resistance, but it was hopeless. Castex was killed, and three quarters of his men were soon casualties.