It was essential to walk carefully. Kast hammered the lessons home to all of his people. Never walk the same way twice, never keep to the same paths. He'd shown his people photographs of other bases where people weren't so careful. No matter how well hidden the base had been, the tracks where people walked the same way every day, the lines of crushed grass pointed out the dumps and buildings as clearly as if they had been lighted arrows. The climax, of course, were the pictures of the same bases with the targets smashed by bombs. The fighter pilots hadn't listened of course and they were paying for it. Their big beautiful bases were being methodically smashed by the Ami air attacks while Kast's little collection of sordid huts and derelict barns went unnoticed. Or at least unregarded. The Amis seemed to have the same problem as the Luftwaffe. Damned fighter pilots. Wijnand had noticed that they were concentrating on taking down the German fighters while bombers and transports were secondary targets. Perhaps they believed that bombers weren't worth bothering about as well. They might be right at that. Two years of carrier strikes, each bigger and more devastating than the last and the Luftwaffe bombers hadn't even found the carriers, let alone hurt one.
“Ah it’s my little Dutchman. Come on in Wijnand. Get a drink, I have some work for you.” Wijnand's family came from the Dutch-German border, their family was split almost 50:50. German men married to Dutch girls, Dutch husbands with German wives. The family joke was that whether they were Dutch or German depended on which flag the approaching army marched behind. In KG40, Wijnand was always the “little Dutchman”.
“Wijnand, I have been looking at the map. And I think I see something interesting. You heard the news today? The Amis hit a base complex around Dijon. It's a hellish mess over there, half a dozen bases gone. JG-26 just isn't there any more. Gone. The Hochjaeger flight at Pontailler survived, I don't think the Amis worry about the old Vossies, but that's it. But what's the most important thing about Dijon Wijnand?”
“They make good mustard sir?”
“That is the second most important. The most important thing is that they are more than 450 kilometers from the coast. That is far inland for their Goodyears and right on the edge for the Lockheeds. So they must have brought their carriers in close. Must have. Now when I look at the map I see the Amis crossing the coast here and here. We know they're flying right over us. And I'm sure they are in close. Much closer than they have ever been before. My guess is that there is a carrier group somewhere out here.” Colonel Kast drew a circle on the chart. “Somewhere there. Right on the edge for our little Henschels. But you, Wijnand, my little Dutchman, you can take your Arado out there and look. We're loading you up with drop tanks so you can stay out there until you find something. Get up high so you can see a wide area. Use your speed to evade fighters. It’s more important you survive to look than anything else.”
“And what do I call when I find something? I see the Ami fleet, goodbye cruel world?”
“That will do. Or perhaps try Oh Dear Lord please don't shoot. But you make damned sure you include that position because the Henschel's will have no room for error. You do this right, my little Dutchman, and I will personally get you a week's pass and the biggest pot of mustard in Europe.”
That was probably a safe offer Wijnand thought as he walked a devious route back. He'd flown a lot of recon missions and his luck had to run out sooner or later. Two years ago, his Arado had been untouchable, cruising too fast for interception. Now, his edge was marginal at best. His crew had his aircraft ready and he scrambled up and in through the top hatch. The all-glazed nose gave good visibility that was one thing. They were just waiting for a break in the fighter cover now. The observers would tell them when. And had by the feel of it. Wijnand felt his engines kick into life then the wall of the barn dropped away in front of him. Get moving, straight off. The “runway” was a mud path directly in front of him. As soon as he was clear of the barn he fired his two rocket take-off packs and felt his 234 being lifted bodily into the air by the sheer rocket power. Big cloud of black smoke, with luck the Amis would think it was somebody exploding and ignore it. Drop the packs and don't get too high now, he had to keep low and off the radar until he was away from the base area. Then climb, get out over the sea and hope that he could find the enemy carrier. An old saying kept running through his mind “be careful what you hope for, you may get it”.
Combat Information Center, USS Shiloh, CVB-41. Bay of Biscay
There was much to be said for the concept of a CIC mused Captain Kevin Madrick. Old fashioned officers still preferred to con their ships from the bridge but most experienced COs preferred the facilities offered by the CIC. It allowed him to put the Admiral on the bridge where he couldn't do any harm while the Captain and his officers could run the ship from down here. Shiloh had the latest pattern CIC dominated by a transparent vertical plot and supported by combat functional areas. The air warfare picture team was full strength but anti-submarine and anti-surface were skeletonized. There hadn't been a surface warfare threat for years and any time a German submarine was encountered, the news made fleet headlines for days. No, the air threat was the only serious one and the Germans still hadn't found a solution to finding the fast-stepping carriers far out to sea. “Whoaaaa, will you look at this.” Madrick couldn't identify the voice from the air warfare section but the astonishment indicated something really unusual was happening.
“Report?” Madrick snapped. “If it's that unusual make a proper report.”
“Sir, massive air movement to the west. Bearing 205 through 270 degrees. IFF is displaying US forces sir. Massive, massive movement biggest I've ever seen. Speed and altitude
are...... hold one........ that's strange. Sir, we can't get a
proper speed and altitude on the contacts. None of the radars are giving consistent data.”
“Jamming?”
“No sir, at least I don't think so. It's more like sound in a hangar or cathedral it's as if the radar pulses are echoing and being blurred. None of the radars are helping sir, not even the new heightfinders.”
The SM radar was a new addition, only fitted in the dockyard maintenance before this cruise. Radars were two dimensional, giving range and bearing only. SM gave altitude and range. There was talk of a new generation of three-dimensional radars that would give all three figures in one readout. Madrick would believe that when he saw it. Until then, the heightfinders had helped air control greatly. He stepped over to the air warfare alley and looked at the raw feed from the search radars. The contacts were massive all right, the whole western arc of the radar screen was glowing with them. Whatever was moving, there were a lot of them and they were big.
So big, they had a strange hypnotic fascination about them. The radar information was already being transferred onto the vertical plot; normally there would be tracks of inbound and outbound with times sightings and locations but these contacts didn't allow that. Instead there was a growing shadow, covering the western approaches and moving steadily towards them. The radar data was still imprecise, it was weird and rather frightening, as if the pulses couldn't quite get a grip on their targets. The apparent speed of the huge formation and its progress were inconsistent. It just didn't quite make sense. But it was obvious now that the big formation was slow, probably no more than 250 miles an hour, and was very, very high up. Certainly more than 40,000 feet and probably closer to 50,000. The visual lookouts on the bridge couldn't see anything, wouldn't for some time yet, the shadow was at least 200 miles away and was in no great hurry. Yet, the spreading stain on plot had a compelling attraction to it. As each new extent was crayoned in, it seemed to possess more and more of a life of its own.