“Pilot, come around four degrees to port. We’re starting the run now.” The bombardier almost cuddled himself with joy. Power had a well-deserved reputation as a martinet. Some described him as a sadistic fascist; his enemies were far less forgiving. But on a bomb run, the bombardier commanded the aircraft, not the pilot. That made it a heaven-sent opportunity for a junior officer to give Power orders. The Eagle radar showed the city ahead very clearly. That was another reason why Helsinki was being bombed tonight. It’s weird geography and coastal location gave vivid contrasts between land and sea on the bombing radar. It made picking out the targets easy. Two of them anyway. The Ilmala targets were inland and the bombers would have a harder job picking them up on radar.
The bombers had cruised out at around 15,000 feet. An easy, steady cruise that allowed the escorting fighters to formate around them. The normal pattern would have been for the formation to climb to around 25,000 feet for its bomb run. There had been a time when the B-29s had tried to bomb from above 30,000 feet, but the effort had been a failure. Unexpected winds and atmospheric effects tossed the bombs miles from their target. That problem was not easy to overcome although Power was aware that great efforts were being made to solve it. So the raids had been steadily dropping in altitude. This one was merely the last stage in the process. The formation had stayed at 15,000 feet when it crossed the Finnish border, then dived to its present level.
Major James Kaelin, the lead bombardier for the 11th Bombardment Group checked the radar display again and then looked through the Norden bombsight. He could see the long wharves of the Lansisatama clearly on radar but the optical bombsight was made useless by the overcast. Still, a radar release was better than nothing. He watched as the cross hairs on the radar picture approached the end of the port wharves. Kaelin punched the bomb release. The four 2,000 pound bombs under the wings released first; the shower of the incendiaries from the bomb bay afterwards. If they dropped right, they would saturate an area 1,500 feet long by 300 feet wide. With the bomb load gone, his attention focus evaporated. He suddenly was aware of the B-29 bouncing in the flak thrown up by the city.
“Bombardier to commander. The bombs are away. How goes things up there?”
“We’ve lost Fifi Trixibelle. Flak got her. She just blew up in mid-air. Others are swell. On our way home. Navigator, gunners, do your jobs and stop worrying about the rest of the formation.”
Up in the cockpit, Power turned Carolina Sings back for home. Straight home; no need for a deceptive routing. The Germans had been fooled. Their light flak had been silent, they’d been expecting a high-altitude raid and the gunners had been assigned to the 88s and 127s. They weren’t so effective against targets this low. The heavy guns had had problems tracking the low-flying targets and most of the fire had hit the tail end of the formations. Fifi Trixibelle had been unlucky. Power thought she had probably caught a 127mm in the belly just as she started to release her bombs. He didn’t know how many bombers had gone down, at least six was his guess, perhaps eight. However many it was, he seriously hoped the brass wouldn’t believe they could try this trick again. The Germans could be fooled once, never twice. Behind him, the city of Helsinki was starting to burn.
The air raid sirens woke Kristianna Kantokari before her mother pounded on the door. The wailing sound wasn’t quite unheard-of. There had been air raids on Helsinki in the Winter War and in the early days of the Continuation War, but the Russians had only used a few aircraft and the damage they had done was little indeed. So, there was no great sense of urgency as the family gathered itself and started to make their way down to the bomb shelter they had prepared in their basement. As they trooped downstairs, solemnly carrying water and food for the stay, their house began to shake. A curious rhythmic buzzing roar drowned out the sirens. Ignoring her mother’s warnings, Kristianna ran to a window and peered out.
There was a great silver beast in the sky. It seemed to be skimming over the rooftops and filled the whole window with its glow. Kristianna recognized it immediately from the German newsreels that were shown in the cinema when she went there with her boyfriend. It was a B-29, a ‘Grosse Viermotoren’ as the Germans called it. Only they were supposed to operate high up. This one was so low it seemed like it would crash into the street at any moment. There was a red ripple under its nose that sent red flashes streaking into the darkness. There were others as well; dozens of them. The great B-29 was trapped in searchlights; perhaps six or more coning in on it. The light made its silver fuselage and wings glow. Then, one of the searchlights abruptly went out. She realized the orange flashes were the gunners on the bomber trying to shoot out the lights. Then, another aircraft swept out of the darkness, a dark gray one with twin tails. Its nose and fuselage lighting up with gun-flashes and fire swept from under its wings. She heard the thunder of rockets as they devastated the searchlight battery.
Kristianna would have looked longer but her father dragged her away, swearing at her for her foolhardiness. His words were partially drowned out by four great crashes that made their whole house shudder. Suddenly, getting to the bomb shelter was very urgent. They barely settled in to their shelter. At first they were cowed by the explosions that seemed to never end. Then they were terrified by the smell of burning, faint at first but growing steadily stronger. Then their stay was ended by a hammering on the front door of their house.
“Air Raid Police. Open up and evacuate. The city is burning.”
“Where, where is the fire?” Kristianna’s father had opened the door and was asked questions of the harassed-looking men
“Shut up. Get your family out of here and don’t argue.” The answer was curt and reinforced by a hand dropping to a pistol holster.
Antti Kantokari gathered his wife and three children and led them into the street. Out here the burning smell was so strong it was choking and the night was bright enough to read by. Kantokari glanced to the east, where the bomber had come from. There he could see the glow of the fires already spreading across the roof-line.
“Go west Antti; go west.” It was a local policeman, one who was trying to be more helpful and comforting to the people who he worked with every day. “The Americans dropped incendiaries and the Skatudden is burning. The fires are spreading this way. If you don’t get away from them soon, you never will. Stay in the wide roads, in the middle. The snow and slush will stop the fires from getting to you. Now go, quickly. And be careful. The American aircraft are still overhead.”
All around them, people were scurrying from their homes, some empty-handed; some carrying pots and pans or their household treasures. Some had bags of food. One was even carrying a flowering plant in an ornamental pot. All around them, bright little flakes were beginning to drop, strange fireflies in the cold of the night. Kristianna reached out for one. She yelped as it burned her hand.
“Embers from the fire.” Her father sounded genuinely frightened. “The fires are spreading fast. The police are right; we must run for our lives.”
“But our things.” His wife wailed, thinking of the home she had carefully built over the years.
“Are already gone. We have only our lives. If we stay we will lose those as well.”
Already, the crowd was beginning to run for the west. Now, the reason why those who abandoned everything would live while those who paused to try and recover their treasured possessions or encumbered themselves with their goods would die became obvious. As the crowd moved, a strange filtering mechanism started to work. Those who could move fastest and had least to carry moved to the front. Those who hesitated or had their arms full fell to the rear. And the fires were closing in all the time.