A man of countless stories was arrested, while standing on our paving stone. In fact a drop of his blood still stains it. It is hardly traceable, but it is there. The man who was arrested was entered in the prison rolls as Eustache Dauger; better known to history as “The Man in the Iron Mask.” He is the man that Alexandre Dumas made famous, resulting in dozens of movies and novels about him.
It is interesting to note that much of what we know about the Man in the Iron Mask comes from his jailer of thirty-four years and his correspondence between his employer. Too bad no one but us, knows about that spot of blood that remains exceedingly well-preserved in a tiny crack in the stone. It was covered soon after it settled there by some pine pitch from a lumber wagon. Oh yes, it is there just waiting for DNA testing. It is just waiting to tell us who the Man in the Iron Mask truly was.
Within shouting distance of where our little piece of history used to lay, is a statue of Jean Bart, another name of historical interest. Many of Jean Bart’s fourteen children stumbled on the spot where our stone rested as it was slightly raised above its surroundings making it a natural stumbling block for many a child. Jean Bart is one of France’s most revered naval commanders and heroes having no less than six major ships-of-the-line and a few battleships as well, named after him.
Jean Bart’s statue and the Bell Tower, are two of the very few buildings and monuments left standing, after the allies repeatedly bombed the small city. Before being leveled the city’s beaches and harbor helped save Britain by becoming an embarkation point for forty-thousand fleeing Allied soldiers who would live to defend Britain once more. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the “Little Ships of Dunkirk” and “the Miracle of Dunkirk,” so I won’t bore you with that incredible story.
The city was again contested in 1944 and the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division attempted to liberate the city in September as Allied forces surged northeast after their victory in the Battle of Normandy. However, German forces refused to relinquish their control of the city, which had been converted into a fortress, and the garrison there was “masked” by Allied troops, most notably by the Czechoslovak 1st Armored Brigade. The fortress, under the command of German Admiral Friedrich Frisius, eventually surrendered unconditionally to the commander of the Czechoslovak forces, Brigade-General Alois Liška, on 9 May 1945.
Our little paving stone did pretty well until a 105-mm artillery shell finally landed twenty-one feet away and threw it into the air where it struck the right temple of a young lady, named Brigit. No one knows her last name but luckily it did not kill her, because Brigit was the last person to remember the culinary delight, Potjevleesch.
It’s a Flemish potted meat originally from Dunkerque. It is a terrine made of three meats: often veal, bacon and rabbit; or chicken, duck and rabbit. Calves’ feet are sometimes added. The meat is cooked with onions, shallots, garlic, white wine and some herbs, lemon and tomatoes. If the paving stone had killed Brigit, Potjevleesch the recipe would have been lost forever to the sands of time.
Within weeks our paving stone will have the tires of Soviet Tu-2 medium bombers rolling over it by the dozens. Along with millions of others it forms the base for the runways that will launch a hundreds of planes at a time, all winging their way towards other flying machines like themselves and the pilots in them will try to kill each other, like all the men before them.
Whether by sword or arrow, bullet or bomb, flesh will be torn asunder. In the end, our paving stone will still be there patiently waiting to play its part in the newest wave of violence, near the city of Dunkirk, on the shores of the English Channel.
Marshal of the RAF, 1st Baron Tedder of Glenguin, Arthur William Tedder, Chief of the RAF Air Staff, was the first to grasp the significance of what this General Kirkpatrick was trying to dance around. He immediately dismissed him as a messenger, and his real wrath would be directed at the parties responsible. As the others in the room browbeat Kirkpatrick, his mind was on the implications of the information that he had just heard. He ticked them off as if they were on a piece of paper in front of him…
There would be no additional assistance from the Americans in the form of additional squadrons. The three squadrons of P-80’s were all that they were going to receive.
The Soviets had a million VT fuses, which they could fit to bombs so that they could explode overhead, with devastating effects on soft targets.
This would also mean that they could use those fuses against any British aircraft that attacked their infrastructure with their captured and Lend-Lease AAA guns.
The Soviets also had over one-hundred eighty Yank radio jammers. How they would use them, is up to conjecture. Some argued that they would have no idea what to do with them and would therefore be worthless, and quite possibly have been scrapped by now.
If anyone could weigh the odds and figure out a solution, it was Tedder. Tedder was the architect of “carpet-bombing.” He first proposed and then used, it during the Tunisian campaign where it preceded one of the final assaults. The press called it “The Tedder Carpet,” and it had caught on. Tedder was used to devising ways to defeat the enemy. This time was different though, and he realized this almost immediately.
The common British response was that the Soviets were unthinking barbarians who just won by throwing overwhelming numbers of cannon-fodder at their enemies. They seemed neither caring nor capable of reducing the slaughter. The history of their casualty rates were dismal to say the least, yet the way they had fought in this new war so far was impressive to him. They had out-thought and out-maneuvered the best military minds in the West for three months now. Clearly something had happened to the Golden Horde, and the Slav had changed his tactics and strategy. It was past time to throw out the obvious misconceptions about the new Red Army and all of the racist notions of the past. It was time for him to convince the powers in charge, that the Soviets had not only achieved parity with the West in the realm of aerospace, but in some instances had even surpassed them.
He was going to have to make his case very quickly and forcefully, if the needed changes were going to take place at all. General Hastings Lionel Ismay seemed to have Atlee’s ear and was making all the wrong choices, for all the wrong reasons in his opinion. He was sure the Soviets had something up their sleeve and were not going to do the predictable thing. Ismay was trying to fight the second Battle of Britain like the first. Although he personally liked Ismay, he felt that he lacked imagination, and that lack of imagination could be the death of Britain.
This new information just presented to him put steel in his backbone and it was time. He needed to arrange an appointment with the Prime Minister today, even if it cost him his position.
Chapter Thirty-Three:
My Name Is Of No Importance
