Version three of an ongoing thing....
Out Of The Blue -- Into The Fire
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Heaven Sent, Hell Bent.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Tuesday, 17th March, 2020 19:40
Apart from the divorce, everything was going all right, as far as Alex was concerned.
Alex was still being compelled to run errands for his estranged wife. He would have ignored her had his daughter not been involved. Polly, was with Ana's parents in Ukraine. Ana was panicking, that the plague, Covid-19 was going to spread to Ukraine from Italy, or China, and that Britain would be safer, being an island, with a National Health Service. On the way to Stansted he'd picked up Charlie Brandon, a twenty-nine-year old ex-RAF NCO from Yorkshire, but now lived in Essex, who helped maintained his aircraft, in particular the Sea Fury & Mustang, and in return for flying lessons in the Chipmunk and the turboprop aircraft. They'd met on an engineering course, while they both tried to get a type 66 certification. Alex had fell in love with Charlie, and Charlie was named as a correspondent in the divorce papers.
His soon-to-be ex-wife wanted the warbirds sold as part of terms of the divorce. In fact it was already taking place. The P-51D had been sold to a French airline pilot at a knock down price, just under a million euros, and it was already in two containers, crated up and ready to cross the Channel. It just needed the paperwork finalised, and the containers taking to Felixstowe. The Iraqi Sea Fury Mk 2 (N65SF), powered by a Curtiss-Wright R-3350-26WD was quickly sold, and shipped back to the US in the spring, and turned back into a Reno racer — it already had a strengthened air frame, and nitrous oxide and water-methanol injection. The ex-Ukraine Air Force Aero L-39C Albatros was also being exported to the USA, to a new owner who would mysteriously find he was not able to afford to fly it, and would sell it back to Alex for what he had paid for it. It had cost $270,000 buying it from the Ukraine government, and after installing new engine and avionics it was probably worth around $500,000. The Canadair CT-133 Silver Star also had a brand new Rolls-Royce Nene.
But she wasn't averse to demanding that Alex use the Cessna Citation that he & his airline pilot mate Tony fractionally owned. Tony was too busy being a First Officer with one of Europe's least favourite budget airlines. It cost Alex £41,558 a month (including VAT) to dry-lease the other jet he operated, a Dassault Falcon 2000LX, and there were a lot of Russians and Ukrainians that wanted to be ferried to Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man, Cyprus, Northolt, or Teterboro without drawing attention to themselves. A lot of them had private jets themselves, and often had more than one family. McCarthy didn't enquire too closely, just insisted he was paid in dollars, euros, or sterling.
The warbirds, or course, were a gigantic money pit/tax loss, so Alex wasn't entirely despondent they were going.
Only a few days previously, a bald-headed man and his far-too-glamourous female friend had offered to sell him a zero-hours Rolls-Royce Merlin 66 and an equally well maintained Curtiss-Wright R-3350-32W Duplex Cyclone. As he had already sold the P-51, and was reluctantly selling the Sea Fury, he had no need for either, but he let them look at his aircraft.
Alex had no reason to suspect that he was being reconnoitered by forces greater than he.
The former RAF Llanbedr drone/target tug, a Gloster Meteor U16, stood wingless and rusting at the Welsh test range, had cost the least to buy but it was currently in pieces on the floor in a hangar at Bentwaters, awaiting full restoration to airworthiness. Then Shoreham happened. The Meteor, now being remodelled as an F.8, was unlikely to fly in the skies of its homeland again.
Even so, his eighteen year stint as a warbird owner and pilot was not quite over yet. But Alex wasn't optimistic.
Alex and Charlie had landed the Cessna Conquest had landed at Zhuliany airport (IEV), the main business jet hub in Ukraine, 7 kilometres southwest of Kyiv city centre, now most of the passenger traffic had moved to Boryspil (KBP) the new purpose-built hub airport, expanded from an old Soviet airbase.
Polinka was already there waiting, and father and daughter hugged, while her mother looked on. Alex felt he was enemy territory, but invited Ana to come with them, anyway. She said she was staying to look after her parents, until the Covid pandemic panic had passed over. Ana wasn't going to entrust her beloved daughter to a budget airline, nor even Panorama Club Corporate via Ukraine International Airways, or the codeshares with Air France or KLM, could be full of infected people. Forty people had died in the Ukraine, but complacent Britain seemed to untroubled by it, so far. These were paranoid pandemic times. It affected the elderly worst, apparently, and the scenes coming out of Italy looked bleak. They said it was like the 'flu. There were only two or three people in the UK who caught, and they seemed to have survived. Probably a fuss over nothing.
They did not realise they would not see each other again.
The local ground-handling company, Jetex, filled the fuel tanks of the small twin-jet aeroplane with reasonably-priced AVTUR. Ah, the smell of burnt Jet A-1. Only the smell of burnt 100LL beat it.
An At least Ana McCarthy wasn't aware of quite how much Alex had squirrelled away in Lichtenstein, the Turks and Caicos and Channel Islands. Ana's lawyers didn't say he couldn't buy any aircraft. Only that he had to sell what he had.
As soon as the decree absolute was passed and the agreement signed, they would emerge blinking into what was left of the airshow circuit. One was definitely staying in the US, out of the hands of the Campaign Against Airshows, or Civil Aviation Authority, though McCarthy found it hard to blame them for grounding nearly every privately owned ex-military jet after eleven people had died in that horrific crash at Shoreham.
Nearly every post-war jet on the display circuit had been grounded.
Despite many attempts to get the CAA to reclassify the Albatros and Silver Star as private jets (they could carry passengers, after all), they would not allow an airworthiness certificate. Alex did what any red-blooded, patriotic Englishman would do: he had them transferred to the French civil register as F-AZJY and F-AZCD.
Christ on a bike, their house in North London was worth a fortune, and she was getting it in its entirety.
Was it necessary to turn the knife so much? It's not as though only he was at fault.
"We'd both failed as adults," thought McCarthy
He had considered moving to the US (an incredibly tempting job had been offered to him in 2011) but he liked living in Britain, and still had Polly to consider. And it would involve moving to Phoenix, AZ, which none of them really wanted to do.
Polly would be eighteen in October, A levels over and done, and hopefully at university and able to live her own life without having to divide her loyalties between two warring camps of kvetching parents. The break-up had not been easy for her, and McCarthy was glad she was still Daddy's girl at heart. She had been born just before he had sold his business, and he and Ana, her mother, had married when she was four. She had loved being a bridesmaid. An outsider might think she had been born a lucky, spoiled child, but she was just as insecure and angry as any teenager.
Alex received clearance to take of from runway 08/26, nose-wheel lifted off the concrete, with hopefully appropriate separation between their very light jet and the LOT Boeing 737-89P that they were waiting behind, and had taken off in front of them.
Once they were over Belarus, avoided the Frankfurt-Sheremetyevo-bound Boeing 747-400F, climbed to FL38 and set the autopilot. As soon as he left the cabin they hit some turbulence.
"Can we go see Emma, during the half term?" asked Polina, as soon as her Dad sat down.
"Which one is she?"
"It's a film, silly. I'm not friends with Emma any more"
"Of course not, no" How silly of me to forget, thought Alex. "Sure, the Light again?" said Alex, naming the cinema multiplex in Cambridge.
"Yeah, I can't stand the Vue. "
"The cinemas might be shut by then. When are you due back at school?" asked Alex. A posh private school in North London, most unlike the comprehensive he'd gone to.
"The sixteenth. If they are going to shut the cinemas they will have to shut the schools" said Polina.
When was Easter? April? thought Alex.
Polina was falling asleep, she often did on flights, and these seats were especially comfy. Loads of leg room. This would be one of the most expensive flights she would travel on, and it was all coming out of Dad's pocket. At least the fuel had gone on my credit card, thought Alex.
Soon, her head was resting on the upholstery.
Alex went back to the cockpit, as Charlie was dealing with handover from Flight Information Region Warszawa to Hannover UIR Center, on 134.710 MHz. The lights of Southern Sweden, Northern Germany, and Denmark glittered below, as Alex descended to an altitude of 7135 metres. Would we ever leave the European Union, mused Alex, it seemed to be taking forever. The EU themselves had told the UK that had officially left at the end January, but the transition period could end up lasting forever. A bit of certainty would nice.
They were over Schleswig-Holstein when the radio, the NOAA weather feed, and the GPS all simultaneously cut out. All the dials on the control panel suddenly flipped to zero, even the air speed indicator and the radar altimeter. The aeroplane shuddered slightly.
Everything went dark.
"Oh shit, what now...."
After brief moment of sleepy disorientation, both aircrew absorbed the information that the navigation lights of the aircraft ahead of you had vanished, and the ambient light from below had dropped to a yellowish haze over the Netherlands, and nothing at all over Germany. The third thing Alex noticed was the moon.
It had gone from a near Full-Moon to a New Moon, IN AN EYE BLINK. He was only an amateur astronomer — but this NEVER happened.
Charlie checked the controls, while Alex typed "7600" into the transponder, and turned the radio to 121.5 MHz. Nothing. Static.
"Try 243 Megahertz" said Charlie. "Instruments are fine, aircraft is fine"
Nothing on the military distress channel, either.
WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK?
Apart from the divorce, everything was going all right, as far as Alex was concerned.
Alex was still being compelled to run errands for his estranged wife. He would have ignored her had his daughter not been involved. Polly, was with Ana's parents in Ukraine. Ana was panicking, that the plague, Covid-19 was going to spread to Ukraine from Italy, or China, and that Britain would be safer, being an island, with a National Health Service. On the way to Stansted he'd picked up Charlie Brandon, a twenty-nine-year old ex-RAF NCO from Yorkshire, but now lived in Essex, who helped maintained his aircraft, in particular the Sea Fury & Mustang, and in return for flying lessons in the Chipmunk and the turboprop aircraft. They'd met on an engineering course, while they both tried to get a type 66 certification. Alex had fell in love with Charlie, and Charlie was named as a correspondent in the divorce papers.
His soon-to-be ex-wife wanted the warbirds sold as part of terms of the divorce. In fact it was already taking place. The P-51D had been sold to a French airline pilot at a knock down price, just under a million euros, and it was already in two containers, crated up and ready to cross the Channel. It just needed the paperwork finalised, and the containers taking to Felixstowe. The Iraqi Sea Fury Mk 2 (N65SF), powered by a Curtiss-Wright R-3350-26WD was quickly sold, and shipped back to the US in the spring, and turned back into a Reno racer — it already had a strengthened air frame, and nitrous oxide and water-methanol injection. The ex-Ukraine Air Force Aero L-39C Albatros was also being exported to the USA, to a new owner who would mysteriously find he was not able to afford to fly it, and would sell it back to Alex for what he had paid for it. It had cost $270,000 buying it from the Ukraine government, and after installing new engine and avionics it was probably worth around $500,000. The Canadair CT-133 Silver Star also had a brand new Rolls-Royce Nene.
But she wasn't averse to demanding that Alex use the Cessna Citation that he & his airline pilot mate Tony fractionally owned. Tony was too busy being a First Officer with one of Europe's least favourite budget airlines. It cost Alex £41,558 a month (including VAT) to dry-lease the other jet he operated, a Dassault Falcon 2000LX, and there were a lot of Russians and Ukrainians that wanted to be ferried to Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man, Cyprus, Northolt, or Teterboro without drawing attention to themselves. A lot of them had private jets themselves, and often had more than one family. McCarthy didn't enquire too closely, just insisted he was paid in dollars, euros, or sterling.
The warbirds, or course, were a gigantic money pit/tax loss, so Alex wasn't entirely despondent they were going.
Only a few days previously, a bald-headed man and his far-too-glamourous female friend had offered to sell him a zero-hours Rolls-Royce Merlin 66 and an equally well maintained Curtiss-Wright R-3350-32W Duplex Cyclone. As he had already sold the P-51, and was reluctantly selling the Sea Fury, he had no need for either, but he let them look at his aircraft.
Alex had no reason to suspect that he was being reconnoitered by forces greater than he.
The former RAF Llanbedr drone/target tug, a Gloster Meteor U16, stood wingless and rusting at the Welsh test range, had cost the least to buy but it was currently in pieces on the floor in a hangar at Bentwaters, awaiting full restoration to airworthiness. Then Shoreham happened. The Meteor, now being remodelled as an F.8, was unlikely to fly in the skies of its homeland again.
Even so, his eighteen year stint as a warbird owner and pilot was not quite over yet. But Alex wasn't optimistic.
Alex and Charlie had landed the Cessna Conquest had landed at Zhuliany airport (IEV), the main business jet hub in Ukraine, 7 kilometres southwest of Kyiv city centre, now most of the passenger traffic had moved to Boryspil (KBP) the new purpose-built hub airport, expanded from an old Soviet airbase.
Polinka was already there waiting, and father and daughter hugged, while her mother looked on. Alex felt he was enemy territory, but invited Ana to come with them, anyway. She said she was staying to look after her parents, until the Covid pandemic panic had passed over. Ana wasn't going to entrust her beloved daughter to a budget airline, nor even Panorama Club Corporate via Ukraine International Airways, or the codeshares with Air France or KLM, could be full of infected people. Forty people had died in the Ukraine, but complacent Britain seemed to untroubled by it, so far. These were paranoid pandemic times. It affected the elderly worst, apparently, and the scenes coming out of Italy looked bleak. They said it was like the 'flu. There were only two or three people in the UK who caught, and they seemed to have survived. Probably a fuss over nothing.
They did not realise they would not see each other again.
The local ground-handling company, Jetex, filled the fuel tanks of the small twin-jet aeroplane with reasonably-priced AVTUR. Ah, the smell of burnt Jet A-1. Only the smell of burnt 100LL beat it.
An At least Ana McCarthy wasn't aware of quite how much Alex had squirrelled away in Lichtenstein, the Turks and Caicos and Channel Islands. Ana's lawyers didn't say he couldn't buy any aircraft. Only that he had to sell what he had.
As soon as the decree absolute was passed and the agreement signed, they would emerge blinking into what was left of the airshow circuit. One was definitely staying in the US, out of the hands of the Campaign Against Airshows, or Civil Aviation Authority, though McCarthy found it hard to blame them for grounding nearly every privately owned ex-military jet after eleven people had died in that horrific crash at Shoreham.
Nearly every post-war jet on the display circuit had been grounded.
Despite many attempts to get the CAA to reclassify the Albatros and Silver Star as private jets (they could carry passengers, after all), they would not allow an airworthiness certificate. Alex did what any red-blooded, patriotic Englishman would do: he had them transferred to the French civil register as F-AZJY and F-AZCD.
Christ on a bike, their house in North London was worth a fortune, and she was getting it in its entirety.
Was it necessary to turn the knife so much? It's not as though only he was at fault.
"We'd both failed as adults," thought McCarthy
He had considered moving to the US (an incredibly tempting job had been offered to him in 2011) but he liked living in Britain, and still had Polly to consider. And it would involve moving to Phoenix, AZ, which none of them really wanted to do.
Polly would be eighteen in October, A levels over and done, and hopefully at university and able to live her own life without having to divide her loyalties between two warring camps of kvetching parents. The break-up had not been easy for her, and McCarthy was glad she was still Daddy's girl at heart. She had been born just before he had sold his business, and he and Ana, her mother, had married when she was four. She had loved being a bridesmaid. An outsider might think she had been born a lucky, spoiled child, but she was just as insecure and angry as any teenager.
Alex received clearance to take of from runway 08/26, nose-wheel lifted off the concrete, with hopefully appropriate separation between their very light jet and the LOT Boeing 737-89P that they were waiting behind, and had taken off in front of them.
Once they were over Belarus, avoided the Frankfurt-Sheremetyevo-bound Boeing 747-400F, climbed to FL38 and set the autopilot. As soon as he left the cabin they hit some turbulence.
"Can we go see Emma, during the half term?" asked Polina, as soon as her Dad sat down.
"Which one is she?"
"It's a film, silly. I'm not friends with Emma any more"
"Of course not, no" How silly of me to forget, thought Alex. "Sure, the Light again?" said Alex, naming the cinema multiplex in Cambridge.
"Yeah, I can't stand the Vue. "
"The cinemas might be shut by then. When are you due back at school?" asked Alex. A posh private school in North London, most unlike the comprehensive he'd gone to.
"The sixteenth. If they are going to shut the cinemas they will have to shut the schools" said Polina.
When was Easter? April? thought Alex.
Polina was falling asleep, she often did on flights, and these seats were especially comfy. Loads of leg room. This would be one of the most expensive flights she would travel on, and it was all coming out of Dad's pocket. At least the fuel had gone on my credit card, thought Alex.
Soon, her head was resting on the upholstery.
Alex went back to the cockpit, as Charlie was dealing with handover from Flight Information Region Warszawa to Hannover UIR Center, on 134.710 MHz. The lights of Southern Sweden, Northern Germany, and Denmark glittered below, as Alex descended to an altitude of 7135 metres. Would we ever leave the European Union, mused Alex, it seemed to be taking forever. The EU themselves had told the UK that had officially left at the end January, but the transition period could end up lasting forever. A bit of certainty would nice.
They were over Schleswig-Holstein when the radio, the NOAA weather feed, and the GPS all simultaneously cut out. All the dials on the control panel suddenly flipped to zero, even the air speed indicator and the radar altimeter. The aeroplane shuddered slightly.
Everything went dark.
"Oh shit, what now...."
————
After brief moment of sleepy disorientation, both aircrew absorbed the information that the navigation lights of the aircraft ahead of you had vanished, and the ambient light from below had dropped to a yellowish haze over the Netherlands, and nothing at all over Germany. The third thing Alex noticed was the moon.
The Cessna Citation Mustang M-FBVI disappeared off Hannover UIR's radar.
No distress call was made, and air traffic control would spend 8 minutes
trying to contact the pilot of Victor-India. Some wreckage would be found
from M-FBVI (c/n FL-717) in a forest south of Ueckermunde, near the
village of Meiersberg, but no bodies would be recovered, despite a
thorough search of the forest and Szczecin Lagoon.
No distress call was made, and air traffic control would spend 8 minutes
trying to contact the pilot of Victor-India. Some wreckage would be found
from M-FBVI (c/n FL-717) in a forest south of Ueckermunde, near the
village of Meiersberg, but no bodies would be recovered, despite a
thorough search of the forest and Szczecin Lagoon.
It had gone from a near Full-Moon to a New Moon, IN AN EYE BLINK. He was only an amateur astronomer — but this NEVER happened.
Charlie checked the controls, while Alex typed "7600" into the transponder, and turned the radio to 121.5 MHz. Nothing. Static.
"Try 243 Megahertz" said Charlie. "Instruments are fine, aircraft is fine"
Nothing on the military distress channel, either.
WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK?
Last edited:
Blackout Vision
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
This was a situation that warranted the MASTER WARNING CAUTION light flashing and the accompanying alarm sounding, but for once the only alarm being sounded was by the aircrew. The problems were all outside the cockpit, and there wasn't a button you could push to fix them.
"What the fuck is going on!" said Charlie.
"HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW?" said Alex as the aircraft descended, and he pulled the control column forward and the throttles back.
The transponder screens on the co-pilot and pilots side were disturbingly blank, as was the Garmin G1000 navigation screen. Not even an error message showed up. The iPad in the cockpit was blank, too.
Navigating by visual flight rules at night was not something Alex was experienced in. He couldn't remember ever doing it since initially learning to fly. Like most commercial pilots he had become reliant upon the many navigational aids the 21st century had to offer.
Alex hoped he would see two Luftwaffe Typhoons climbing towards him from Wittmundhafen, to intercept his NORDO aircraft, and escort him to a place where they could work out what had happened. By now he was flying through Dutch airspace, towards the North Sea.
That foul thought that this wasn't going to happen crawled greasily through his mind.
The aeroplane was fine, no engine or instrument faults, but the fact they were 7000 metres above wartime Hamburg thankfully hadn't become apparent to them. Even so, Alex climbed the aircraft to an altitude 8000 metres, and increased speed. It took them twenty-two minutes to leave German airspace. The lights of neutral Belgium and the Netherlands shone below them, and the Royal Dutch Air Force sent up a Fokker G1 to investigate. Its crew found nothing.
Alex looked out into the oceanic dark and saw a light vessel at the mouth of the Humber estuary.
"AHA, CIVILISATION!" said Alex. The light was glinting off the Humber Bridge. A cantilever bridge, not a suspension bridge. Alex turned the aircraft south, giving the Chain Home station at RAF Stenigot a stronger image the 21st century aircraft.
From the Grimsby Dock Tower to Boston Stump, Alex flew the aircraft toward the Wash, and hopefully thence to Stansted, though all the Air Traffic Control frequencies that they usually used, and that Charlie was trying (Essex Radar Approach on 120.62 MegaHertz, Stansted Tower on 121.95 MegaHertz) weren't replying.
"Nothing, boss" she said, trying to hide the abject panic in her voice. Her throat was dry from issuing Mayday calls.
"Leave it, sweet'art" replied Alex.
"Should we wake up Polly and tell her what's happening?" she said.
"Only if you know what's happening. I don't think we need a third person on board, panicking"
"What do you think is happening?"
"You guess is as good as mine" Alex replied.
"Could it be to do with the pandemic?" she asked.
"Everybody has died since this afternoon? Improbable. But who knows? Even the survivors would be sat at home with the lights on" said Alex.
With its navigation lights strobing away, the white twin-engined aircraft was unmissable. But the piston-engined fighter was too slow to keep up with the Mustang jet.
Indeed, there was no airport at Stansted, but there was a reasonably-sized unlit country house and a lake, reflecting the moonlight.
"Looks like Tony is out of a job then. Looks like everybody is partying like it's 1939" said Alex.
"What time is it anyway?"
"0014 hours, or quarter-past midnight in old money, and not a plane in sky" said Alex, fully expecting a VWORP VWORP noise, and Jodie Whitaker to come stumbling out of a blue box in the passenger cabin.
"I thought I saw one earlier" said Charlie,
"Where?"
"Between Ely and Cambridge. How much fuel do we have left?"
"One thousand three hundred and thirty-eight kilos, enough to keep us stooging around for another two and a half hours, before we have to decide where to land. Might be worth trying Cambridge"
"What are they?" said Charlie pointing at the strange returns on the weather radar.
"Low cloud over London?" asked Alex.
"Weird"
Alex saw them first.
Searchlights. Barrage balloons.
Alex visibly shuddered. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he was hallucinating.
"If it's any help, I can see them too" said Charlie. Just as Alex turned the aircraft into what he hoped was the landing pattern of Norwich International Airport, probably the most mis-named airport in Britain, the hitherto blank navigation screen jolted back into life.
"Oh Christ, what now?" they said, simultaneously.
There were instructions on the screen, giving them directions to Conington, an airfield Alex owned but could only really accommodate general aviation aircraft rather than big business jets or turboprops like the Cessna, because of the poor condition of the runways. But it was better than nothing, and it was where Alex's warbirds were currently based.
Alex vectored the aircraft 304° south west.
Alex skirted east of Norwich to avoid yet more barrage balloons and searchlights. This was far too elaborate to be a trick. . The airfield was sixty-six miles away from their current position, and the terrain below them was shrouded in darkness
Alex lowered the undercarriage of the twin-engined jet as the lights at the end of the runway lit up.
Well, somebody down there likes me, he thought.
The usually routine screech of rubber on concrete became the best sound Alex had heard since taking off from Kyiv. Both he and Charlie sighed audibly in relief.
"Thank fuck for that" she said as a rejoinder.
"Yeah, but what happens now" replied Alex.
"Well, you tell your daughter that we are in wartime Britain" said Charlie.
"She will love that news, almost as much as I do" said Alex.
He went through to the cabin, woke up his daughter, and told her they had landed at Conington, not Cambridge as expected. She asked why.
"We couldn't find it" he replied.
"It's an airport, how hard can it be? You've landed there hundreds of times" she said she climbed down the steps from the aircraft. She saw her Dad kneel down and kiss the tarmac.
"Thank you, God" he said.
Alex claimed to be an atheist, except when it became inconvenient.
"What the fuck is going on!" said Charlie.
"HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW?" said Alex as the aircraft descended, and he pulled the control column forward and the throttles back.
The transponder screens on the co-pilot and pilots side were disturbingly blank, as was the Garmin G1000 navigation screen. Not even an error message showed up. The iPad in the cockpit was blank, too.
Navigating by visual flight rules at night was not something Alex was experienced in. He couldn't remember ever doing it since initially learning to fly. Like most commercial pilots he had become reliant upon the many navigational aids the 21st century had to offer.
Alex hoped he would see two Luftwaffe Typhoons climbing towards him from Wittmundhafen, to intercept his NORDO aircraft, and escort him to a place where they could work out what had happened. By now he was flying through Dutch airspace, towards the North Sea.
That foul thought that this wasn't going to happen crawled greasily through his mind.
The aeroplane was fine, no engine or instrument faults, but the fact they were 7000 metres above wartime Hamburg thankfully hadn't become apparent to them. Even so, Alex climbed the aircraft to an altitude 8000 metres, and increased speed. It took them twenty-two minutes to leave German airspace. The lights of neutral Belgium and the Netherlands shone below them, and the Royal Dutch Air Force sent up a Fokker G1 to investigate. Its crew found nothing.
Alex looked out into the oceanic dark and saw a light vessel at the mouth of the Humber estuary.
"AHA, CIVILISATION!" said Alex. The light was glinting off the Humber Bridge. A cantilever bridge, not a suspension bridge. Alex turned the aircraft south, giving the Chain Home station at RAF Stenigot a stronger image the 21st century aircraft.
The lone plot was at an unknown altitude,
and by the time the WAAF on duty called the
Squadron Leader over, the ghost
return had disappeared, as the
Cessna Citation Mustang flew inland.
He phoned 12 Group Fighter Command, anyway.
and by the time the WAAF on duty called the
Squadron Leader over, the ghost
return had disappeared, as the
Cessna Citation Mustang flew inland.
He phoned 12 Group Fighter Command, anyway.
From the Grimsby Dock Tower to Boston Stump, Alex flew the aircraft toward the Wash, and hopefully thence to Stansted, though all the Air Traffic Control frequencies that they usually used, and that Charlie was trying (Essex Radar Approach on 120.62 MegaHertz, Stansted Tower on 121.95 MegaHertz) weren't replying.
"Nothing, boss" she said, trying to hide the abject panic in her voice. Her throat was dry from issuing Mayday calls.
"Leave it, sweet'art" replied Alex.
"Should we wake up Polly and tell her what's happening?" she said.
"Only if you know what's happening. I don't think we need a third person on board, panicking"
"What do you think is happening?"
"You guess is as good as mine" Alex replied.
"Could it be to do with the pandemic?" she asked.
"Everybody has died since this afternoon? Improbable. But who knows? Even the survivors would be sat at home with the lights on" said Alex.
By now the Chain Home station at RAF Stoke Holy Cross
had also picked them up, and the Fighter Controller at
12 Group ordered Blenheims to take off from RAF Digby
and RAF Wittering. It was the crew of the 23 Squadron
Blenheim NF.1 from Wittering that was first to see it.
had also picked them up, and the Fighter Controller at
12 Group ordered Blenheims to take off from RAF Digby
and RAF Wittering. It was the crew of the 23 Squadron
Blenheim NF.1 from Wittering that was first to see it.
With its navigation lights strobing away, the white twin-engined aircraft was unmissable. But the piston-engined fighter was too slow to keep up with the Mustang jet.
Indeed, there was no airport at Stansted, but there was a reasonably-sized unlit country house and a lake, reflecting the moonlight.
"Looks like Tony is out of a job then. Looks like everybody is partying like it's 1939" said Alex.
"What time is it anyway?"
"0014 hours, or quarter-past midnight in old money, and not a plane in sky" said Alex, fully expecting a VWORP VWORP noise, and Jodie Whitaker to come stumbling out of a blue box in the passenger cabin.
"I thought I saw one earlier" said Charlie,
"Where?"
"Between Ely and Cambridge. How much fuel do we have left?"
"One thousand three hundred and thirty-eight kilos, enough to keep us stooging around for another two and a half hours, before we have to decide where to land. Might be worth trying Cambridge"
"What are they?" said Charlie pointing at the strange returns on the weather radar.
"Low cloud over London?" asked Alex.
"Weird"
Alex saw them first.
Searchlights. Barrage balloons.
Alex visibly shuddered. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he was hallucinating.
"If it's any help, I can see them too" said Charlie. Just as Alex turned the aircraft into what he hoped was the landing pattern of Norwich International Airport, probably the most mis-named airport in Britain, the hitherto blank navigation screen jolted back into life.
"Oh Christ, what now?" they said, simultaneously.
There were instructions on the screen, giving them directions to Conington, an airfield Alex owned but could only really accommodate general aviation aircraft rather than big business jets or turboprops like the Cessna, because of the poor condition of the runways. But it was better than nothing, and it was where Alex's warbirds were currently based.
Alex vectored the aircraft 304° south west.
Below, three 111 Squadron Hurricanes and one 604 Squadron Blenheim,
were ordered to take off by the Officer Commanding, North Weald
Wing Commander Henry O'Neill to intercept the mystery aircraft,
as it flew over the RAF base, its lights strobing. The RAF aircraft
could not keep up with the aircraft, even at their maximum air speed.
were ordered to take off by the Officer Commanding, North Weald
Wing Commander Henry O'Neill to intercept the mystery aircraft,
as it flew over the RAF base, its lights strobing. The RAF aircraft
could not keep up with the aircraft, even at their maximum air speed.
Alex skirted east of Norwich to avoid yet more barrage balloons and searchlights. This was far too elaborate to be a trick. . The airfield was sixty-six miles away from their current position, and the terrain below them was shrouded in darkness
The operator at the Chain Home station at RAF Stoke Holy Cross
reported the unknown track heading out to sea, but did not detect
its return and re-crossing the coast, it being too low to pick up.
reported the unknown track heading out to sea, but did not detect
its return and re-crossing the coast, it being too low to pick up.
Alex lowered the undercarriage of the twin-engined jet as the lights at the end of the runway lit up.
Well, somebody down there likes me, he thought.
The usually routine screech of rubber on concrete became the best sound Alex had heard since taking off from Kyiv. Both he and Charlie sighed audibly in relief.
"Thank fuck for that" she said as a rejoinder.
"Yeah, but what happens now" replied Alex.
"Well, you tell your daughter that we are in wartime Britain" said Charlie.
"She will love that news, almost as much as I do" said Alex.
He went through to the cabin, woke up his daughter, and told her they had landed at Conington, not Cambridge as expected. She asked why.
"We couldn't find it" he replied.
"It's an airport, how hard can it be? You've landed there hundreds of times" she said she climbed down the steps from the aircraft. She saw her Dad kneel down and kiss the tarmac.
"Thank you, God" he said.
Alex claimed to be an atheist, except when it became inconvenient.
Last edited:
The Reveal
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Alex rented out two hangars, just keeping one of the three hangars to house his five aircraft. Rose Court Farm was the only property in Britain to come with its own airfield. It was originally called RAF Glatton and it was a base for 457th Bomb Group (Heavy) and the base had been built around Rose Court Farm, a fifteen-room red brick building to house himself and his business. It was still, and the water and electricity worked, and there was food in the fridges, freezers, and cupboards.
In 2020 only one concrete runway remained, but the airfield had been restored to its Class "A" status as a heavy bomber base in 1945, when RAF Avro Lancasters and B-24 Liberators were based there.
Looking out into the car park, Alex saw there was a blue Volkswagen Golf. A single car. No others.
Tony's Volkswagen Golf.
Was he behind this?
"Tony?"
Tony was co-owner of Alex DHC-1 Chipmunk G-ARGH, and Alex was co-owner of Tony's Cessna Citation Mustang, also known as the McCarthy Warbirds Rogues Show tourbus and photo ship.
"You took your bloody time, I've been here hours!" said Tony.
"What are doing you here?" asked Alex.
"Yeah, well, my employers are cancelling flights left, right, and centre. All a big whohaah over nothing, this coronavirus. Anyway, you texted me to be here for 9pm, so I 'ere I am." he replied.
"I didn't. When?" asked Alex
"You sent me a ruddy text! At midday! I thought we were going to bring the 2000LX back from Douglas. I've got to be back at work tomorrow, just in case FR2314 needs to go to Bratislava at six sodding thirty AM"
"Er, about that-" said Alex
"What?"
"I would bother doing that, if I were you. Have you noticed anything unusual?" said Alex
"Like what?" said Tony
"Anything!"
"John Romaine's Bristol Blenheim flew over on a test flight. Look, I've been asleep for the last three hours!" replied Tony.
"At night?" replied Alex. "We've just flown over a Germany, then Britain, under complete blackout conditions. No lights."
"I know what a blackout is." replied Tony.
"No air traffic control, no radio, none of the Stansted airband frequencies. No response from a radio tricks transponder code. No response from International Air Distress. NOTHING. We've travelled back in time. Eighty years at a guess."
"Don't be fucking ridiculous!" said an incredulous Tony.
"There's a different Humber Bridge. Searchlights, barrage balloons. AND NO STANSTED AIRPORT." replied Alex.
In 2020 only one concrete runway remained, but the airfield had been restored to its Class "A" status as a heavy bomber base in 1945, when RAF Avro Lancasters and B-24 Liberators were based there.
Alex McCarthy sold his first computer game aged twelve. He wrote and sold five more before quitting school aged seventeen to do it professionally.
It didn't quite work out that way. Someone sold him a sequencer for his Atari ST, and when the software market dried up he began making rave music. A lot of it was awful, but it was mostly indistinguishable from the stuff that wasn't awful.
McCarthy had started a record label in 1993, which did not have a distribution deal, and dealt directly with customers via the internet, or out the back of a van. Mostly he released other people's music, but occasionally his own, and it was one of these tracks that got into the UK Top 20, and topped the charts in Switzerland and Germany in a remixed form. This morphed into one of the earliest online businesses selling band merchandise buying stock from record labels and merchandisers too terrified to do it themselves. Soon his website was stocking and selling merch for Oasis, Blur and Robbie Williams, as well as bands he actually liked and admired, and his own music and related stuff still sold well, with 70% of the net profits going to him.
By 1999, spending the rest of his life buying and selling T-shirts was not what he wanted to do. A Manchester businessman offered him £1 million for the business. The company sold lots of stuff from Universal and Sony artists, and a bidding war started.
Eventually, the company was sold to Sony. For £152 million. At the apex of the dotcom boom.
McCarthy got £54 million, the other two shareholders – his music writing partner Russell, and ex-girlfriend Lorien, got £32million and £16million respectively.
They were partly paid in Sony shares, whose value crashed soon afterwards. McCarthy had insisted on cash only. Even so, the three of them would never have to work again. Those Sony shares quickly regain their value.
He spent some of the money on flying lessons, and before long he had stick time on Cessna Skyhawks, Tiger Moths, Harvards, and was IFR-rated, with experience on helicopters and warbirds. He bought a DHC Chipmunk. He had planned to buy a Harvard, on which he was type rated, and be satisfied with that - but then he saw the P-51D. He bought it, and quickly got type-rated on that, too. The P-51 arrived at the same the same time as his daughter, in 2003, and Ana hoped that this would be the last of it.
Flying aircraft was not a problem for McCarthy. Instructors called him a natural pilot, perhaps being a musician and DJ might have helped. McCarthy would have given up if he hadn't been any good at it. Buying and flying aeroplanes (especially warbirds) was an expensive hobby, and there were cheap and far less dangerous ways of enjoying yourself.
With his first £5 million McCarthy bought a nice house in Belsize Park. The L-39 Albatros and the CT-133 Silver Star were opportunities too good to miss. Compared to them, the wreck of the Meteor U16 for £25,000 in a UK Government auction was a bargain. It was registered as belonging to the Bentwaters Cold War Museum, to avoid being caught up the divorce, and would be restored to airworthiness.
When McCarthy married Ana, he was a trance DJ that owned an aeroplane. Within a few years the aeroplanes were the central obsession of his life, and the leading cause of disagreements. The airfield at Conington was not really suitable for the business jet aircraft he used to cross-subsidise his expensive hobby, and Ana never really took to the Huntingdon farm house. Too boring, she would say.
Nevertheless, McCarthy had enough money left to invest some in a husband-and-wife's "social networking" site, whatever that was. The television channel ITV bought that company, making his share of the company worth £20million, after tax, in the second bout of debt-fuelled 'irrational exuberance'. He bought the overpriced Sea Fury in the US and some property in London, Kent, Essex, Cambridge, Dubai and South Africa. He had the Iraqi Fury overhauled and shipped to Britain, and pilots far better than he displayed it and the P-51D at airshows, while he flew them for his own pleasure. He bid on a two-seat Spitfire Mk IX at an action in 2015 and some other smug c*** beat his highest bid. But he'd sorted that one out. There was Griffon Seafire waiting in the wings, so to speak. Still, this situation had been resolved, to a degree.
No wonder Ana was divorcing him. Rich ugly blokes married to gorgeous foreign birds never works out in the long term. Too many expensive toys. It was clear that the aeroplanes were a bigger bone of contention than the adultery, Ana had hardly led a life of blameless monogamy herself.
"You love those aeroplanes more than me!"
The aeroplanes hoovered up his wealth as effectively as a bad cocaine habit, even the ones that turned a profit. With the money he'd spent could have bought a Gulfstream G650 new, maybe even two of them.
Regrets?
None.
Not that he didn't have any money left. Never let it be said that Alexander McCarthy wasn't a devious shit. Ana would keep the house in Belsize Park, his mum her £450,000 house that she rented from him for £10 a month. And he would keep the money from the 204 other properties he owned, plus the income from numerous paper investments he had.
Or he would, had he not been thrust back in time precisely seventy nine years, ten months.
Looking out into the car park, Alex saw there was a blue Volkswagen Golf. A single car. No others.
Tony's Volkswagen Golf.
Was he behind this?
"Tony?"
Tony was co-owner of Alex DHC-1 Chipmunk G-ARGH, and Alex was co-owner of Tony's Cessna Citation Mustang, also known as the McCarthy Warbirds Rogues Show tourbus and photo ship.
"You took your bloody time, I've been here hours!" said Tony.
"What are doing you here?" asked Alex.
"Yeah, well, my employers are cancelling flights left, right, and centre. All a big whohaah over nothing, this coronavirus. Anyway, you texted me to be here for 9pm, so I 'ere I am." he replied.
"I didn't. When?" asked Alex
"You sent me a ruddy text! At midday! I thought we were going to bring the 2000LX back from Douglas. I've got to be back at work tomorrow, just in case FR2314 needs to go to Bratislava at six sodding thirty AM"
"Er, about that-" said Alex
"What?"
"I would bother doing that, if I were you. Have you noticed anything unusual?" said Alex
"Like what?" said Tony
"Anything!"
"John Romaine's Bristol Blenheim flew over on a test flight. Look, I've been asleep for the last three hours!" replied Tony.
"At night?" replied Alex. "We've just flown over a Germany, then Britain, under complete blackout conditions. No lights."
"I know what a blackout is." replied Tony.
"No air traffic control, no radio, none of the Stansted airband frequencies. No response from a radio tricks transponder code. No response from International Air Distress. NOTHING. We've travelled back in time. Eighty years at a guess."
"Don't be fucking ridiculous!" said an incredulous Tony.
"There's a different Humber Bridge. Searchlights, barrage balloons. AND NO STANSTED AIRPORT." replied Alex.
Last edited:
Time Tourists
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Dateline unknown: actually Thursday, 2nd May 1940.
"We should go and check out the locale if what you say is true." said Tony.
"On foot, dressed like this? We'd be arrested as spies" said Alex. "If you want to spend the rest your life in the Tower Broadmoor, or worse, YOU go and take a shufti"
"We might be carrying that virus, Covid-19, and spread it around. We could kill hundreds!" said Charlie.
"Wouldn't we be showing the symptoms by now, the fever, the dry cough?" said Alex.
"Who says you aren't? You and Polina have looked sick as dogs since we arrived", she replied.
"Can you blame us?" said Alex.
"Anyway, it's no worse than the 'flu, everyone has said that, no-one's died from it yet" said Tony.
"Not in Britain, China and Italy however..." said China.
"Who trusts the Chinese commies, anyway?" replied Tony. "All a huge fuss over nothing if you ask me. Like SARS and Swine 'flu. Storm in a teacup. Doubt it'll kill more than a thousand people. Anyway, if you are that worried we could use the planes"
"The Falcon?" asked Alex.
"No, the Chippie or the Cessna Citation" replied Tony.
"They are here?" asked Charlie.
"The Chippie, were last night, anyway. I checked. I always do. Make sure mateyboots here hasn't sold them to fund his Ukrainian divorce" he said, pointing at Alex. "At least the Dassault Falcon was out his clutches!"
The familiar drone of Merlin engines grew louder.
Alex and Tony ran outside. Three Hawker Hurricanes flew over. One detached from the vic formation, and circled over the aerodrome.
"Shit" said Tony. He was damned if he was going to admit Alex was right.
"We'd better get that fucking Cessna out of sight" said Alex.
There was a perfectly innocent explanation for all of this, Tony was sure.
They managed to find a tractor, and a nosewheel towbar to drag the Cessna very light jet into a empty shelter but Alex told him there was enough fuel left in it for an investigatory flight over Britain, specifically to hunt down the missing Dassault Falcon and Airbus EC130 T2.
If you were going to send somebody back in time, why would you send a Cessna and a Chippie? mused Alex.
Also parked in there was Alex McCarthy's Volvo S80 Turbodiesel.
"Why did you park that here?" asked Tony
"I didn't. I parked it at Stansted" replied Alex.
Tony hummed "The Twilight Zone" theme tune, badly.
"In the list of weird things that have happened to me lately, that barely makes the Top 20" said Alex. He was fairly certain the flight in the Citation Mustang would force itself to the number one position.
They were airborne.
"Hadn't we better tell Stansted radar we are airborne?" said Alex, the co-pilot.
"Ah yes" Tony said, pressing a preset on the cockpit radio, and the switching on the mic in his headset. There was static. "Stansted Radar, this is Mike-Foxtrot-Bravo-Victor-India airborne at FL 1.5. Over".
Nothing.
"Stansted Radar, I repeat this is Victor-India airborne at FL 1.5. Over."
Static
"See? Better tell Woodbridge Tower we are about to get close to their airspace?" said Alex.
Tony pressed another preset, 129.975Mhz this time. More static.
"This bloody radio is u/s." said Tony.
"Look out the window mate." said Alex.
No Army Air Corps Base. Just trees.
"Rendlesham Forest, no Apaches. Golf course is still there though." said Alex.
"Shit. Bollocking Shitbirds. Shitty fucksticks" said Tony
"There's no need for that sort of language" said Alex, flatly, "We should be able see to all the old visual navigation cues – Adastral Park, the Container port at Felixstowe, and the ferry port at Harwich, the reactor complex at Sizewell, A/K/A Restricted Airspace EG-R217 – they're all gone"
"This can't be happening to me." said Tony.
"Happened it has. Happened it has" said Alex. "Best to fly inland, avoid Chain Home Low"
"Bollocks to THAT" said the pilot.
McCarthy flew the Cessna Citation Mustang north of Huntingdon, and just south of Leicester, at 305 knots. It was a clear day, and from 6400 metres, both Tony and Alex could see ahead as far as Stoke-on-Trent. A few barrage balloons covered the Potteries. Alex pushed the throttle forwards, increasing the speed to 348 knots and to an altitude of 7800 metres. They flew south of Ellesmere Port and Liverpool was festooned with barrage balloons, and the Irish Sea lay ahead. Alex flew towards Castletown airport, perhaps in the hope that his Dassault Falcon 2000LX would still be parked there.
There was nothing there, apart from what looked like some Gloster Gladiators.
They returned to base.
On their return to Conington, Charlie informed Alex and Tony that she had found the McCarthy Air Services Dassault Falcon 2000LX, in one of the small hangars the other owner-pilots rented from Alex.
Whoever had sent them back in time had transferred the biz jet from it's location in the Isle of Man to, well, whenever this was. Not only that, but the Aero Vochody L-39ZA Albatros, and the Canadair CT-133 Silver Star had been transferred from their usual base at Melun-Villaroches, near Paris. The Canadair jet still wore its spurious Armee de L'air markings.
The P-51D-20NA 44-63511, formerly operated by the USAAF, Svenska flygvapnet and Fuerza Aerea Dominicana,
which was registered as G-PSID in 2020, had been removed from the two 40ft containers, and had also been carefully reassembled, and was now in a completely bare metal state. No camouflage or military civil markings at all.
The Sea Fury ISS had been repainted from its Royal Canadian Navy scheme to how the prototype Sea Fury looked — yellow underside, and four-bladed propeller included. Unlike the prototype, it was still powered by the R-3350 fuel-injected radial.
McCarthy was the first to notice the four holes in the leading edge of the Iraqi Fury, and swift removal of the panels revealed the Hispano Mk V cannon inside its wing, and the six 12.7mm machine guns in the wings of the Mustang. The Silver Star also had four 12.7mm machine guns in its nose.
The Albatros had no weapons. And they had no ammunition for the aircraft that did.
"We should go and check out the locale if what you say is true." said Tony.
"On foot, dressed like this? We'd be arrested as spies" said Alex. "If you want to spend the rest your life in the Tower Broadmoor, or worse, YOU go and take a shufti"
"We might be carrying that virus, Covid-19, and spread it around. We could kill hundreds!" said Charlie.
"Wouldn't we be showing the symptoms by now, the fever, the dry cough?" said Alex.
"Who says you aren't? You and Polina have looked sick as dogs since we arrived", she replied.
"Can you blame us?" said Alex.
"Anyway, it's no worse than the 'flu, everyone has said that, no-one's died from it yet" said Tony.
"Not in Britain, China and Italy however..." said China.
"Who trusts the Chinese commies, anyway?" replied Tony. "All a huge fuss over nothing if you ask me. Like SARS and Swine 'flu. Storm in a teacup. Doubt it'll kill more than a thousand people. Anyway, if you are that worried we could use the planes"
"The Falcon?" asked Alex.
"No, the Chippie or the Cessna Citation" replied Tony.
"They are here?" asked Charlie.
"The Chippie, were last night, anyway. I checked. I always do. Make sure mateyboots here hasn't sold them to fund his Ukrainian divorce" he said, pointing at Alex. "At least the Dassault Falcon was out his clutches!"
The familiar drone of Merlin engines grew louder.
Alex and Tony ran outside. Three Hawker Hurricanes flew over. One detached from the vic formation, and circled over the aerodrome.
"Shit" said Tony. He was damned if he was going to admit Alex was right.
"We'd better get that fucking Cessna out of sight" said Alex.
There was a perfectly innocent explanation for all of this, Tony was sure.
They managed to find a tractor, and a nosewheel towbar to drag the Cessna very light jet into a empty shelter but Alex told him there was enough fuel left in it for an investigatory flight over Britain, specifically to hunt down the missing Dassault Falcon and Airbus EC130 T2.
If you were going to send somebody back in time, why would you send a Cessna and a Chippie? mused Alex.
Also parked in there was Alex McCarthy's Volvo S80 Turbodiesel.
"Why did you park that here?" asked Tony
"I didn't. I parked it at Stansted" replied Alex.
Tony hummed "The Twilight Zone" theme tune, badly.
"In the list of weird things that have happened to me lately, that barely makes the Top 20" said Alex. He was fairly certain the flight in the Citation Mustang would force itself to the number one position.
————
They were airborne.
"Hadn't we better tell Stansted radar we are airborne?" said Alex, the co-pilot.
"Ah yes" Tony said, pressing a preset on the cockpit radio, and the switching on the mic in his headset. There was static. "Stansted Radar, this is Mike-Foxtrot-Bravo-Victor-India airborne at FL 1.5. Over".
Nothing.
"Stansted Radar, I repeat this is Victor-India airborne at FL 1.5. Over."
Static
"See? Better tell Woodbridge Tower we are about to get close to their airspace?" said Alex.
Tony pressed another preset, 129.975Mhz this time. More static.
"This bloody radio is u/s." said Tony.
"Look out the window mate." said Alex.
No Army Air Corps Base. Just trees.
"Rendlesham Forest, no Apaches. Golf course is still there though." said Alex.
"Shit. Bollocking Shitbirds. Shitty fucksticks" said Tony
"There's no need for that sort of language" said Alex, flatly, "We should be able see to all the old visual navigation cues – Adastral Park, the Container port at Felixstowe, and the ferry port at Harwich, the reactor complex at Sizewell, A/K/A Restricted Airspace EG-R217 – they're all gone"
"This can't be happening to me." said Tony.
"Happened it has. Happened it has" said Alex. "Best to fly inland, avoid Chain Home Low"
"Bollocks to THAT" said the pilot.
The British press had reported the mystery white
aeroplane flying over Lincolnshire & East Anglia.
The Government and the Military had nothing
to say about the matter. But the RAF's failure
to intercept it was being investigated,
and concern was at a ministerial level.
aeroplane flying over Lincolnshire & East Anglia.
The Government and the Military had nothing
to say about the matter. But the RAF's failure
to intercept it was being investigated,
and concern was at a ministerial level.
McCarthy flew the Cessna Citation Mustang north of Huntingdon, and just south of Leicester, at 305 knots. It was a clear day, and from 6400 metres, both Tony and Alex could see ahead as far as Stoke-on-Trent. A few barrage balloons covered the Potteries. Alex pushed the throttle forwards, increasing the speed to 348 knots and to an altitude of 7800 metres. They flew south of Ellesmere Port and Liverpool was festooned with barrage balloons, and the Irish Sea lay ahead. Alex flew towards Castletown airport, perhaps in the hope that his Dassault Falcon 2000LX would still be parked there.
There was nothing there, apart from what looked like some Gloster Gladiators.
They returned to base.
On their return to Conington, Charlie informed Alex and Tony that she had found the McCarthy Air Services Dassault Falcon 2000LX, in one of the small hangars the other owner-pilots rented from Alex.
Whoever had sent them back in time had transferred the biz jet from it's location in the Isle of Man to, well, whenever this was. Not only that, but the Aero Vochody L-39ZA Albatros, and the Canadair CT-133 Silver Star had been transferred from their usual base at Melun-Villaroches, near Paris. The Canadair jet still wore its spurious Armee de L'air markings.
The P-51D-20NA 44-63511, formerly operated by the USAAF, Svenska flygvapnet and Fuerza Aerea Dominicana,
The Sea Fury ISS had been repainted from its Royal Canadian Navy scheme to how the prototype Sea Fury looked — yellow underside, and four-bladed propeller included. Unlike the prototype, it was still powered by the R-3350 fuel-injected radial.
The Albatros had no weapons. And they had no ammunition for the aircraft that did.
Last edited:
I was reading the earlier version(s) of this story. Are you starting over or is this a spinoff of the older one?
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
This is a new version of the old thread, I was tired of rewriting the old one!
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Last edited:
Back The Way We Came
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Alex took Charlie and Polly for a drive in the black Audi. People looked and stared and the shiny black car, with the blacked out windows. Charlie and Polly held hands as the gazed out of the window at Fakenham, and later, Norwich. None of the signage you would expect to see was there. No Sainsburys, no Greggs, no William Hill, no Argos.
Instead, there was Cobbold's Ales, Churchman's Cigarettes, Colman's Starch. Charlie and Polly saw a sign for ESSOLUBE and burst out laughing. McCarthy was relieved they could still laugh. There was still no phone signal, and the dashboard satnav was blank. At least the road signs were still in place. Lots of inquisitive faces passed, shocked at the size of the big black car.
Alex popped into a newsagent, picked up three newspapers, and placed a 1956 1 shilling coin on the counter. The shopkeeper placed it in the till without looking at it.
He got a sixpence, two pennies and four farthings, which was much more coinage than he was expecting.
He went back to the car with a copy of the Times, Daily Herald, and Daily Mail which could be trusted to have the correct date on it, at least.
Past Woodbridge, he drove under the railway bridge, then through Bromeswell and Eyke. There was very little of Rendlesham, just a few isolated cottages, farmhouses, a demolished stately home shrouded by trees, and flint walls.
On returning to Conington, Polly opened her MacBook Air, and saw a prompt on screen.
"Do you want application 'WarClouds' to accept incoming network connection? Deny/Allow.
She clicked allow.
A list of files scrolled down the page.
"What's Fall Gelb — something Yellow?" she exclaimed.
The WarClouds server appeared to contain a host of information about the Second World War, some of which McCarthy had on his own hard drive, or used to have and got lost. There was also a searchable database, a virtual Google books, of ALL the books he owned. There was a huge server farm on the site, owned by McCarthy's company Databasement Ltd, and used as an emergency back-up by several well-known financial institutions, from whom McCarthy extracted rent.
One of the first documents to appear was a 23 page .pdf about the Enigma machine, including an encoding and decoding of a message from a Ch.11g M2a or M3, and a Ch.11g4 M4, which hadn't even been manufactured yet
It was packed with diagrams, tables and equations. Turing would love it.
At the end were the name and address of Commander Alastair Denniston, and Commander Edward Travis, at the Admiralty and Station X, Bletchley Park.
Polly and Alex worked together, to avoid talking about the sense of loss they both keenly felt. Tony, in a sense was lucky. The oldest of the four, both his parents were dead, and he'd had normal grieving period, if such a thing was possible.
The Brother HL2250 laser printer, and 5,000 sheets each of Conqueror A4 vellum laid and high white wove he didn't remember buying were there. Said printer would be busy, over the next few hours. So much so, they had to change the toner cartridge.
There were diagrams and (colour) photographs of the Centaurus 18, its Hobson/RAE fuel injector, its two-stage, two-speed supercharger and the Methanol-Water and NO2 injection system.
McCarthy would enclose these, and the developed photographs of the Sea Fury with its cowling open to Roy Fedden, at the Royal Aeronautical Society in Hamilton Place, London, rather than to Bristol at Filton, of whom McCarthy did not have a high opinion. A similar set, regarding the Merlin 45 and Merlin 61, would be mailed to Rolls Royce via the Ipswich post office.
A set of scale model plan of the de Havilland Mosquito FB.VI, sanitised of any dates, or information that much suggest it came from the future, was mailed to Ronald Bishop at de Havilland, Salisbury Hall, London Colney.
They took care to sanitise the envelopes, as well, with antiseptic spray.
They also sent a sector station map of 11, 12 and 13 Groups to Fighter Command at Bentley Prior, and a Map of all the Chain Home, and Chain Home Low stations in operation during the Battle of Britain..
They were all on a tea towel.
Finally, a document outlining the highest ranking names, and the departments they worked in the Sicherheitdienst, Geheime Staatspolizei and the hierarchy and structure of the Allgemeine-SS, below Himmler himself, was composed.
And addressed it to Winston S Churchill, Chartwell, Kent. A typed note saying "Regret to inform the Invasion of the West by German Reich forces will commence on 9th May & 10th May 1940. Inform Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Government. Make whatever preparations you can." Charlie, for now, wished to remain anonymous. Only the messages to Hives, Fedden and Bishop, gave the location and address of the sender. All the others were marked
"If undelivered, please return to IKEA, Purley Way, Croydon."
They did not want the full force of the security state crashing down on them, just yet.
As the three of them drove through Romford the fog became worse. Even so the skyline of London was radically different. No Shard, no Swiss Re building, no 'Cheesegrater', no Walkie-Scorchy, no One Canada Square, no Canary Wharf at all.
We'll all be dead before they ever build those monstrosities, thought McCarthy.
McCarthy drove to 103 Eaton Square, where Polly hand delivered the printout of German war plans into postbox of the Belgian Embassy.
Charlie did the same for the Netherlands Embassy at 38 Hyde Park Gate, but had to hand it in to the reception desk.
Finally, at 54 Broadway, at the 'Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company', an envelope marked
Lt Col Sir Stuart Menzies
Box 500
London
was dropped through a letter box.
It contained the cryptic words "James Klugmann: Kitty Harris: Homer: Gay Paree" and "Rezidentura London: Anatoly Gorsky"
"Canaris: Schellenberg: Hauptmann Herbert Wichmann - Hamburg Ast: Arthur Owens"
"More if needed."
The envelope and document had been prepared with latex gloves, and Polly was wearing the same gloves when she dropped it through the letterbox.
Alex fell sleep. Time travel was tiring, especially for a forty-seven year old. His iPhone rang. He picked it up and realized it no longer worked, and no-one could be ringing him on it. He dropped it as though it was white hot.
It kept on ringing.
He pressed the green 'Accept', on the screen. A voice growled at the other end. "How d'yer like it? How d'yer like my Sweet Revenge"
He threw the iPhone at the wall...
and woke up screaming...
The Dassault Falcon 2000LX was fuelled and ready to go. Alex couldn't programme the route he was going to take into the Garmin 1000, as there was no GPS, and the inertial navigation didn't work either. All the better to keep the destination a secret.
He told Polly and Charlie to put on their seat belts.
The jet rolled down the runway, and took off.
Alex's climb out of Conington could be described as vertiginous —
His passengers had other words for it: "near vertical", "stomach-churning", and "bloody terrifying". The twin-engine jet was at 10,000 feet over the North Sea, within a minute. Within twenty minutes they were at 41,000 feet.
"What the bloody hell do you think you were doing?" said Tony. It was a shared, consensus opinion.
"Could be lots of fighters about, friendly and enemy, and we don't them, or people on the ground, getting too close a look at us" said Alex.
"It's madness, but there is method in it" replied his co-pilot ."So where are we going?" He continued.
"Well, we travelled through time in one direction, let's at least give going back the way we came a try"
"You said it happened over Germany, the Third Reich —"
"Yeah" said Alex, cutting Tony off. "Near Peenemünde."
"Jesus tittyfucking Christ, you are going to get us all killed" said Tony, despondently.
Instead, there was Cobbold's Ales, Churchman's Cigarettes, Colman's Starch. Charlie and Polly saw a sign for ESSOLUBE and burst out laughing. McCarthy was relieved they could still laugh. There was still no phone signal, and the dashboard satnav was blank. At least the road signs were still in place. Lots of inquisitive faces passed, shocked at the size of the big black car.
Alex popped into a newsagent, picked up three newspapers, and placed a 1956 1 shilling coin on the counter. The shopkeeper placed it in the till without looking at it.
He got a sixpence, two pennies and four farthings, which was much more coinage than he was expecting.
He went back to the car with a copy of the Times, Daily Herald, and Daily Mail which could be trusted to have the correct date on it, at least.
Past Woodbridge, he drove under the railway bridge, then through Bromeswell and Eyke. There was very little of Rendlesham, just a few isolated cottages, farmhouses, a demolished stately home shrouded by trees, and flint walls.
On returning to Conington, Polly opened her MacBook Air, and saw a prompt on screen.
"Do you want application 'WarClouds' to accept incoming network connection? Deny/Allow.
She clicked allow.
A list of files scrolled down the page.
"What's Fall Gelb — something Yellow?" she exclaimed.
The WarClouds server appeared to contain a host of information about the Second World War, some of which McCarthy had on his own hard drive, or used to have and got lost. There was also a searchable database, a virtual Google books, of ALL the books he owned. There was a huge server farm on the site, owned by McCarthy's company Databasement Ltd, and used as an emergency back-up by several well-known financial institutions, from whom McCarthy extracted rent.
One of the first documents to appear was a 23 page .pdf about the Enigma machine, including an encoding and decoding of a message from a Ch.11g M2a or M3, and a Ch.11g4 M4, which hadn't even been manufactured yet
It was packed with diagrams, tables and equations. Turing would love it.
At the end were the name and address of Commander Alastair Denniston, and Commander Edward Travis, at the Admiralty and Station X, Bletchley Park.
Polly and Alex worked together, to avoid talking about the sense of loss they both keenly felt. Tony, in a sense was lucky. The oldest of the four, both his parents were dead, and he'd had normal grieving period, if such a thing was possible.
The Brother HL2250 laser printer, and 5,000 sheets each of Conqueror A4 vellum laid and high white wove he didn't remember buying were there. Said printer would be busy, over the next few hours. So much so, they had to change the toner cartridge.
There were diagrams and (colour) photographs of the Centaurus 18, its Hobson/RAE fuel injector, its two-stage, two-speed supercharger and the Methanol-Water and NO2 injection system.
McCarthy would enclose these, and the developed photographs of the Sea Fury with its cowling open to Roy Fedden, at the Royal Aeronautical Society in Hamilton Place, London, rather than to Bristol at Filton, of whom McCarthy did not have a high opinion. A similar set, regarding the Merlin 45 and Merlin 61, would be mailed to Rolls Royce via the Ipswich post office.
A set of scale model plan of the de Havilland Mosquito FB.VI, sanitised of any dates, or information that much suggest it came from the future, was mailed to Ronald Bishop at de Havilland, Salisbury Hall, London Colney.
They took care to sanitise the envelopes, as well, with antiseptic spray.
They also sent a sector station map of 11, 12 and 13 Groups to Fighter Command at Bentley Prior, and a Map of all the Chain Home, and Chain Home Low stations in operation during the Battle of Britain..
They were all on a tea towel.
Finally, a document outlining the highest ranking names, and the departments they worked in the Sicherheitdienst, Geheime Staatspolizei and the hierarchy and structure of the Allgemeine-SS, below Himmler himself, was composed.
And addressed it to Winston S Churchill, Chartwell, Kent. A typed note saying "Regret to inform the Invasion of the West by German Reich forces will commence on 9th May & 10th May 1940. Inform Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Government. Make whatever preparations you can." Charlie, for now, wished to remain anonymous. Only the messages to Hives, Fedden and Bishop, gave the location and address of the sender. All the others were marked
"If undelivered, please return to IKEA, Purley Way, Croydon."
They did not want the full force of the security state crashing down on them, just yet.
As the three of them drove through Romford the fog became worse. Even so the skyline of London was radically different. No Shard, no Swiss Re building, no 'Cheesegrater', no Walkie-Scorchy, no One Canada Square, no Canary Wharf at all.
We'll all be dead before they ever build those monstrosities, thought McCarthy.
McCarthy drove to 103 Eaton Square, where Polly hand delivered the printout of German war plans into postbox of the Belgian Embassy.
Charlie did the same for the Netherlands Embassy at 38 Hyde Park Gate, but had to hand it in to the reception desk.
Finally, at 54 Broadway, at the 'Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company', an envelope marked
Lt Col Sir Stuart Menzies
Box 500
London
was dropped through a letter box.
It contained the cryptic words "James Klugmann: Kitty Harris: Homer: Gay Paree" and "Rezidentura London: Anatoly Gorsky"
"Canaris: Schellenberg: Hauptmann Herbert Wichmann - Hamburg Ast: Arthur Owens"
"More if needed."
The envelope and document had been prepared with latex gloves, and Polly was wearing the same gloves when she dropped it through the letterbox.
Alex fell sleep. Time travel was tiring, especially for a forty-seven year old. His iPhone rang. He picked it up and realized it no longer worked, and no-one could be ringing him on it. He dropped it as though it was white hot.
It kept on ringing.
He pressed the green 'Accept', on the screen. A voice growled at the other end. "How d'yer like it? How d'yer like my Sweet Revenge"
He threw the iPhone at the wall...
and woke up screaming...
What the fuck was he supposed to do, now? The Second World War was won by a cripple, a depressive high-functioning alcoholic and a paranoid mass murderer. Now only the paranoid mass murderer remained, and HE had the deal of the century with the other paranoid mass murderer.
They had all read the papers. Churchill was nowhere to be found. Vera Lynn stood a better chance of forming a war cabinet than Churchill did, by the looks of thing.
And who the fuck is John Garner, and why is he President of the USA, and not Roosevelt?
Who the hell is King Albert? Where was Edward VIII? George VI?
Still, might be able to add a genuine 109E to the collection.
OH GROW UP MCCARTHY, YOU USELESS TOERAG!
The French are going to cave, Chamberlain is going to quit, Halifax will negotiate a humiliating peace, Mosley will form a Government of National Salvation while rimming Hitler, and anyone even remotely Jew-ish will be shipped off to Treblinka, to become industrial pollution and lampshades, and your precious Sea Fury, Mustang and Albatros will be handed over to Willy Messerschmitt, Kurt Tank et al to shred the Red Army to pieces.
"Today Germany, tomorrow ZER VURLD!"
They had all read the papers. Churchill was nowhere to be found. Vera Lynn stood a better chance of forming a war cabinet than Churchill did, by the looks of thing.
And who the fuck is John Garner, and why is he President of the USA, and not Roosevelt?
Who the hell is King Albert? Where was Edward VIII? George VI?
Still, might be able to add a genuine 109E to the collection.
OH GROW UP MCCARTHY, YOU USELESS TOERAG!
The French are going to cave, Chamberlain is going to quit, Halifax will negotiate a humiliating peace, Mosley will form a Government of National Salvation while rimming Hitler, and anyone even remotely Jew-ish will be shipped off to Treblinka, to become industrial pollution and lampshades, and your precious Sea Fury, Mustang and Albatros will be handed over to Willy Messerschmitt, Kurt Tank et al to shred the Red Army to pieces.
"Today Germany, tomorrow ZER VURLD!"
Alex woke with a start, made himself a cup of tea, and had a fabulous idea.———
The Dassault Falcon 2000LX was fuelled and ready to go. Alex couldn't programme the route he was going to take into the Garmin 1000, as there was no GPS, and the inertial navigation didn't work either. All the better to keep the destination a secret.
He told Polly and Charlie to put on their seat belts.
The jet rolled down the runway, and took off.
Alex's climb out of Conington could be described as vertiginous —
His passengers had other words for it: "near vertical", "stomach-churning", and "bloody terrifying". The twin-engine jet was at 10,000 feet over the North Sea, within a minute. Within twenty minutes they were at 41,000 feet.
"What the bloody hell do you think you were doing?" said Tony. It was a shared, consensus opinion.
"Could be lots of fighters about, friendly and enemy, and we don't them, or people on the ground, getting too close a look at us" said Alex.
"It's madness, but there is method in it" replied his co-pilot ."So where are we going?" He continued.
"Well, we travelled through time in one direction, let's at least give going back the way we came a try"
"You said it happened over Germany, the Third Reich —"
"Yeah" said Alex, cutting Tony off. "Near Peenemünde."
"Jesus tittyfucking Christ, you are going to get us all killed" said Tony, despondently.
Last edited:
The French Connection
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Once again, Alex was flying over Hamburg, this time at 39,000 feet and Mach 0.71. Perhaps unsurprising, the Third Reich's air defences were taking remarkably little interest in them. There were searchlights, but none were being pointed towards the Dassault. The estuary, or inlet, or whatever, that was north of Szczecin/Stettin and west of Sweenojuicy/Świnoujście/ whatever they called it in 1940, lay ahead out of the cockpit windscreen.
Perhaps the rift in the space-time continuum that had dragged the Citation Mustang back in time to 1940 was still here, and would usher them back into the 21st century. If it was, it wasn't travelling west-to-east, so Alex throttled back and pushed the Falcon's nose down. Once at 29,000ft, turned the aircraft in a reciprocal heading, and headed east-to-west, over the forest where the Alex's other jet had disappeared from 2020 AD. He flew in that direction for seven minutes, a distance of 59 miles.
Nothing.
The darkness of Hitler's Germany stretched out before them, and Alex banked the aircraft again so it was facing the former Polish frontier, the Kaiser canal glistening beneath them.
"Look, we are wasting fucking time and fuel here", interjected Tony.
"Can we go back home, daddy"
"That's what I'm try'na do, dahlin" said Alex.
They went back to their seats, as Alex banked the plane, this time at 20,000 feet and 411 knots. The buffeting Alex and his passengers felt was the shockwave from FLAK bursts behind the Falcon.
Fuck this for a lark, thought Alex, finally agreeing with Tony. Nice idea, while it lasted. Worth a try.
Alex walked out the of the cockpit into the cabin, after increasing speed and altitude, handing over control to Tony. It was clear evening over East Germany. Alex pointed the highlights of their European aerial tour.
"Below us, from out the port windows, the famous home of Herr Hitler 'imself, Berlin, renowned for sexually active Russian soldiers, airlifts, and walls" he said, in his best tour guide voice.
"Coming up, we have the lovely Saxon city of Dresden, enjoy it while it lasts, it may be redesigned by Bomber Command in the future. Towards the nose of the aircraft, you can see the beautiful cloud enfolded Bohemian hills of the Sudetenland, so beloved of Herr Hitler, so willing sacrificed by Mr Chamberlain." He continued.
Tony called him back to the cockpit, after he had turned the Dassault jet towards the Alps.
"We're getting a radio signal. Two radio signals. One from Conington, the other from, errrh — Strasbourg?"
"I always welcome your precision Tony, perhaps the EU parliament wish to cancel Brexit, and France and Britain to become a single nation" replied Alex.
"Er, it's a just a pulse, mate. One's on 120.700 MHz, Strasbourg Approach, the other from Conington on 121.5 MHz, Distress and Emergency" said Tony. "I've put the two pulses into the Garmin, and it can just about work out where we are, over—"
"—Lichtenstein, where my money used to to be. I just looked out the window. Anyway, let's head into France and over les Alpes Maritimes before we become a Swiss fighter pilot's first victory" said Alex. "And only victory."
Indeed, aircraft from two different Luftwaffe's had been pursuing the high-flying contrail of G-ALBZ for most of the evening, which was now turning to night. The pilots of those aircraft's efforts had been in vain.
Over the intercom, Alex said "If you look out the starboard windows, you will be able to see Mont Blonk [sic], if you look out the port windows you will be able to the Eiger. Lake Geneva will be also visible, in case you would prefer to spend your days in a neutral country surrounded by fascists." Alex had to stop his fizzing brain from seizing the controls and ploughing the Falcon 2000LX into a mountain, like that Germanwings lunatic had.
No-one should be forced to live through this, thought Alex.
As they passed over Besançon, Dijon, and Troyes, the audible pulse on 120.700 MHz came further and further apart, more noticeable as they approached Paris. The City of Light was complete blacked out. You could make out the Seine, la Tour Eiffel, and Le Bourget, however.
"What fuel reserves have we got left?" asked Alex.
"About 1054 kms of flight distance." said Tony. "At economical cruising speed"
"Enough to investigate this radio signal, then?"
"Yep"
As they flew towards Strasbourg, and the Vosges Mountains, the pulses on 120.700 MHz got closer together. By the time they were due south of Saint-Dizier, the pulse was a continuous tone. A ferociously ungainly and ugly aeroplane was sighted, trying to keep up with the Falcon.
"It must be French, no Luftwaffe or RAF plane could be that ugly" remarked Alex.
Whilst taking evasive action, McCarthy sighted an illuminated airport with a concrete runway. A long concrete runway. They had been flying for just over five hours. Tony lowered the undercarriage, and the 2000LX touched down, and rolled to a halt with one-third of the 2,700 metre concrete landing strip.
"Where are we?" asked Polly.
"Unless I'm mistaken, this is Mirecourt-Épinal, or Épinal-Mirecourt, one of the two" said Alex.
Perhaps the rift in the space-time continuum that had dragged the Citation Mustang back in time to 1940 was still here, and would usher them back into the 21st century. If it was, it wasn't travelling west-to-east, so Alex throttled back and pushed the Falcon's nose down. Once at 29,000ft, turned the aircraft in a reciprocal heading, and headed east-to-west, over the forest where the Alex's other jet had disappeared from 2020 AD. He flew in that direction for seven minutes, a distance of 59 miles.
Nothing.
The darkness of Hitler's Germany stretched out before them, and Alex banked the aircraft again so it was facing the former Polish frontier, the Kaiser canal glistening beneath them.
"Look, we are wasting fucking time and fuel here", interjected Tony.
"Can we go back home, daddy"
"That's what I'm try'na do, dahlin" said Alex.
They went back to their seats, as Alex banked the plane, this time at 20,000 feet and 411 knots. The buffeting Alex and his passengers felt was the shockwave from FLAK bursts behind the Falcon.
Fuck this for a lark, thought Alex, finally agreeing with Tony. Nice idea, while it lasted. Worth a try.
Alex walked out the of the cockpit into the cabin, after increasing speed and altitude, handing over control to Tony. It was clear evening over East Germany. Alex pointed the highlights of their European aerial tour.
"Below us, from out the port windows, the famous home of Herr Hitler 'imself, Berlin, renowned for sexually active Russian soldiers, airlifts, and walls" he said, in his best tour guide voice.
"Coming up, we have the lovely Saxon city of Dresden, enjoy it while it lasts, it may be redesigned by Bomber Command in the future. Towards the nose of the aircraft, you can see the beautiful cloud enfolded Bohemian hills of the Sudetenland, so beloved of Herr Hitler, so willing sacrificed by Mr Chamberlain." He continued.
Tony called him back to the cockpit, after he had turned the Dassault jet towards the Alps.
"We're getting a radio signal. Two radio signals. One from Conington, the other from, errrh — Strasbourg?"
"I always welcome your precision Tony, perhaps the EU parliament wish to cancel Brexit, and France and Britain to become a single nation" replied Alex.
"Er, it's a just a pulse, mate. One's on 120.700 MHz, Strasbourg Approach, the other from Conington on 121.5 MHz, Distress and Emergency" said Tony. "I've put the two pulses into the Garmin, and it can just about work out where we are, over—"
"—Lichtenstein, where my money used to to be. I just looked out the window. Anyway, let's head into France and over les Alpes Maritimes before we become a Swiss fighter pilot's first victory" said Alex. "And only victory."
Indeed, aircraft from two different Luftwaffe's had been pursuing the high-flying contrail of G-ALBZ for most of the evening, which was now turning to night. The pilots of those aircraft's efforts had been in vain.
Over the intercom, Alex said "If you look out the starboard windows, you will be able to see Mont Blonk [sic], if you look out the port windows you will be able to the Eiger. Lake Geneva will be also visible, in case you would prefer to spend your days in a neutral country surrounded by fascists." Alex had to stop his fizzing brain from seizing the controls and ploughing the Falcon 2000LX into a mountain, like that Germanwings lunatic had.
No-one should be forced to live through this, thought Alex.
As they passed over Besançon, Dijon, and Troyes, the audible pulse on 120.700 MHz came further and further apart, more noticeable as they approached Paris. The City of Light was complete blacked out. You could make out the Seine, la Tour Eiffel, and Le Bourget, however.
"What fuel reserves have we got left?" asked Alex.
"About 1054 kms of flight distance." said Tony. "At economical cruising speed"
"Enough to investigate this radio signal, then?"
"Yep"
As they flew towards Strasbourg, and the Vosges Mountains, the pulses on 120.700 MHz got closer together. By the time they were due south of Saint-Dizier, the pulse was a continuous tone. A ferociously ungainly and ugly aeroplane was sighted, trying to keep up with the Falcon.
"It must be French, no Luftwaffe or RAF plane could be that ugly" remarked Alex.
Whilst taking evasive action, McCarthy sighted an illuminated airport with a concrete runway. A long concrete runway. They had been flying for just over five hours. Tony lowered the undercarriage, and the 2000LX touched down, and rolled to a halt with one-third of the 2,700 metre concrete landing strip.
"Where are we?" asked Polly.
"Unless I'm mistaken, this is Mirecourt-Épinal, or Épinal-Mirecourt, one of the two" said Alex.
Last edited:
Museum Pieces
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold I make all things new."
Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."
And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end"
Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."
And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end"
"How can you tell?" asked Charlie.
"I took the P-51 to an airshow here once, and one of my clients wanted to go to Champagne country, and this was the nearest airport. Pretty distinctive ATC tower, too."
"Is it safe to get out?" asked Polly.
"About as safe as it was to get out at Conington" said Alex, opening the forward passenger door, and putting down the airstair.
"Isn't in crawling with Germans?" asked Polly.
"It's France" said Alex.
The expression on Polly's face meant didn't look convinced, and Charlie's expression didn't inspire confidence, either.
"Exactly." said Charlie.
"Look, it's May the fourth, France wasn't attacked until May the tenth, and this place is behind the Maginot Line–" said Alex.
"THE MAGINOT LINE!" Said Charlie and Polly, simultaneously.
"Look, the Maginot line gets a bad rap. It didn't surrender until mid-June, AFTER the Paris armistice was signed, and those are the Vosges Mountains over there, the Wehrmacht won't be coming here any time today, tomorrow, next week."
They still did not look convinced.
———
Alastair Denniston and Edward Travis looked at Harry Hinsley.
"So where did it come from?"
"Not me, nor anyone here. Why on earth would we leak technical information of such devastating precision to you, in such an underhand manner?" said Hinsley, affronted.
"You tell us?"
"Why would someone in the possession of such information would send it out to you anonymously, when they could gain more prestige from passing it up the chain of command? It's illogical." said Hinsley
"So where is it from?" asked Travis
"Not here – if it was from here it would have been typed out, or hand-written, not printed. You say you both got copies? Were they identical?"
Travis cleared his throat. "We can't say."
"Dilly Knox says it appears to have been written by someone who has learned English as second language, so it was probably a German, or a Pole. Most likely a Pole"
"Haven't we given enough blood and treasure to the Poles for what we did have? Why would they taunt us with the complete solution, long after the Nazis had overrun them?" said Denniston
"If I were a Pole with this kind of information, I would not offer it up for free." said Hinsley, "You are looking for an outsider, or a double agent. A German double agent"
———
Dutch Ambassador Michiels van Verduynen to the Court of St James, was horrified by the detail and precision of the war plans. The military attache, Major Kleermann, had contacted his opposite number in Berlin, Major Gijsbertus J. Sas, to ask innocently if he was still in contact with Oberst Hans Oster, as the document alleged.
The conversation had not gone much further than that.
If the individual, this 'Curtis Helldiver' (clearly an assumed name), knew that foreign diplomats were in clandestine contact with an Abwehr officer – JUST WHAT ELSE DID HE KNOW? And more to the point, who, exactly, was this Curtis Helldiver?
Was he a British agent? A German dissident?
The repercussions over the Venlo incident, the death of Major Klop, had not been a highlight of his career. Thankfully not much of it had reached the papers, more due to the humiliation of the British. Verduynen feared these documents were just the tip of the iceberg, that Nazi incursions into neutral Netherlands would culminate in an invasion, that Dutch neutrality would not be respected.
Charlie and Tony explored the large hangar. It had three aircraft in it, leftovers from a bygone age in 2020, anachronisms to varying degrees in 1940.
The first was a DC-4, fitted with what looked Merlin engines in annular cowlings.
"It's an Argonaut, made by Canadair, I think. Princess Elizabeth went to Keeeeenya in one, and flew back a Queen" And the other was a CRJ-200LR. Both had been recovered from an aviation scrapyard in Arizona, re-engined, enhanced and sent back in time. The latter was manufactured by a company called Bombardier.
"You flown one of these, in your varied and exciting career in civil aviation?" Alex asked Tony.
"The CRJ-200, of course" he replied. Alex could not help but notice there were two empty hardpoints under each wing. They moved over to the larger hangar.
"Ah, these must be mine" Alex said as he entered the building.
"These – are – yours?" asked Tony.
"I've owned the helicopter for ages, surely you realise this" said Alex.
"The Spitfire, the Sabre? YOU OWNED THESE AND DIDN'T TELL ME?" exclaimed Tony.
"Careless talk costs lives, mate. I owned them in the future, on the down low. The Mark Sixteen was in Germany, the Sabre in California, the P-47 in Florida. In various states of disrepair." said Alex "and now they are complete and flyable"
Tony's eye was drawn towards the two Griffon Spitfires.
"These belong to you, too? Just how rich are you?" asked Charlie.
"Was I, I think you mean. The Seafire I paid for. I have a quarter share in a hundred eighty quid, right now" said Alex. "They belong to the French Armee de L'air, and Navy, and the Belgians, judging by the markings. Or anyone else, if we just leave them here."
"A Thunderbolt. A Corsair" said Tony
"French Navy F4U-7, heavily armoured, four 20mm cannon, water injected R-2800, metric instruments."
"Know-it-all. That's a Vampire!" exclaimed Tony.
"It's a Mistral. A SNCASE Mistral. I think they put a Nene in it, and redesigned the air intakes."
"How did you know that?" asked Tony.
"It's written on the tail." replied Alex. "These are all just flies on a windscreen until someone puts fuel, ammunition, and most importantly, a human being in them, to fly them."
"What aircraft have you flown?" asked Tony.
"P-51 Mustang, Conquest II, Sea Fury, L-39C Albatros, Falcon 2000LX, obviously. Grob Tutor, Cessna Skyhawk, Tiger Moth, Harvard, Chipmunk, DC-3, T-33, Gnat, F-86 Sabre, Skyvan of course, Spitfire, Robinson R44, Aerospatiale Gazelle, Agusta A109. Most hours on the Citation Mustang, nearly 800." said Alex. "Of course, I've never flown a Supermarine Seafire XV, yet. You?"
"Chipmunk, Bulldog, Jet Provost, Hawk & Goshawk, Sepecat Jaguar, Lightning F.6, Mirage 2000, F/A-18D, F-15E, Spitfire, Hurricane, Bombardier CRJ-200, B738, Q400, and the Mustang, Sea Fury, Dassault Falcon, and I'm type-certificated on the Cessna 401, 402, 411, 414, and the 425 you know about. Over 2000 hours on Hawks, over 1000 on 738s" said Tony.
On the wing of the P-47D, there was an envelope. A large Jiffy bag. Alex opened it. Inside it were four French passports, four United States of America passports, and a 1938 ten franc note fluttered to the floor. Attached to it was a letter.
US spelling of travellers, thought McCarthy....
"A Wellwisher, my arse. Mr Wellwisher should keep his time machine to 'imself" he said to himself. He felt dizzy looking at some of the graphics on the edge of the sheet of paper. Weird. They obviously knew the recipient would not be able to read French.
None of the four time travellers would believe that Churchill would allow Britain to capitulate.
They were right.
Last edited:
Intruders
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Alex watched as the Spitfire XIV made a curving approach to landing at about 100 kts in order to keep the runway in sight as long as possible. By the time Tony was rolling out across the field boundary, he was at 80 knots, throttled back.
Tony just reduced power to idle, flare to a three point attitude and she set herself down on the grass. This required great skill considering the narrow track undercarriage and full swivel, non-locking tailwheel. He switched off the engine, climbed out the cockpit and walked over to Alex, who was standing by the Canadair Sabre.
"The master at work" said Alex.
"You said that without even the smallest hint of sarcasm. Are you ill?" said Tony. "I love those things, any red-blooded Englishman could not help but want to tear off and shoot something down".
"And did you?" asked Alex.
"I bounced a formation of Hurricanes on the Belgian border. They didn't have the legs to get me. I saw a formation of radial-engined fighters over Nancy. Thought they were Zeroes at first."
"Lucky old Nancy. Hopeless aircraft recognition, remind me to give you a test back at Conington!" said Alex.
"No. Please no. They had Armee de L'air and roundels – probably Curtiss Hawks – things have come to a pretty pass if the French are depending on those." said Tony.
"The French did OK with them."
"They lost" replied Tony.
"No Huns in the Sun, then?" said Alex.
"Nothing. Doesn't seem real, does it? I saw a Blenheim off the coast. " said Tony.
"No deal Brexit, with no transition period, or a trade deal" said Alex.
"And the 1940s male equivalent of Teresa May in charge." replied Tony.
The Sabre had six machine guns, but they had only found enough ammunition for two of the aeroplane's machine guns.
Thankfully it's national insignia (post-war Luftwaffe) had been removed.
McCarthy wanted to test fly the Sabre, at least perform an engine test. He did all the pre-flight checks, including the tyre pressure. He climbed the cockpit and strapped himself in. Once the checklist was complete he pressed the cartridge starter. The safest aircraft to fly back to Conington was the Falcon 2000LX, the range of the A109 Grand was too within the margin of error to entrust Charlie and Polly with. They had found enough Jet-A fuel to fill the main tanks of both aircraft. Tony would fly the Falcon
Two turbofans and one turbojet were started.
Birds flew from the trees. The engine noise was heard as far away as Xaffévillers, whose commander, ordered that Hawk 75 sent up a to investigate. It was followed by another.
Charlie pulled the chocks away from the wheels of the Sabre, and then their own aircraft. Polly, who feared her Dad was going to do something remarkably stupid, refused to even watch from the window of the private jet.
McCarthy taxied the jet up and down the runway, testing the engine at various power settings, before taxying to the end of the runway. It rolled down the 8,940 feet of concrete, taking off in less than half that length, the nose wheel lifted off the concrete, and leapt into the air. The Sabre and Falcon were heading out over Northern France before the G.C. II/4 fighter could get airborne.
Everything seemed to be functioning, control surfaces, instruments, engines. if it hadn't he'd have gone straight back to Juvincourt. He pushed the nose down, pulling the stick back every time the IAS read 500 knots. Just have to penetrate the air defences of the best defended airspace in the world, now.
Before long he was over the English Channel. As he flew towards the English coast he was being picked up by the RDF stations at Rye, Dunkirk and Dover which he flew directly overhead, he was unlikely to collide with anything. The Falcon broke away to take the more direct route to Conington.
At 11,000 metres and 420 knots, neither aircraft was in danger.
I'm from Essex mate, he thought to himself, I was born ready.
He pointed the aircraft towards Canterbury and the cathedral there, and then onto the northern coast of Kent and the Thames estuary. Thameshaven oil refinery, Canvey Island lay beneath him, as his aircraft reflected the radio waves of Canewdon Chain Home station
The urban sprawl of Basildon, where he had spent the first nine years of his life was gone completely, leaving only the clustered villages of Laindon, Pitsea and Basildon itself.
Let's hope it stays that way, he thought.
He could see the 'Fortune of War' pub was still there where the High Road met the A127. The London-Tilbury-Southend railway, or 'misery line' was still there.
At least there was the tower on Pitsea Mount, and Thameshaven oil refinery, to use as reference points. The creeks and pools glistened in the morning sun. McCarthy made a ninety degree turn West, towards Dartford, and gained height, as he flew over South London.
Hundreds of little silver fishes hung over London, anchored to the ground by wing-slicing wire cables. The East of London was too crowded with them.
McCarthy could see a gap to the North, and one over West London, probably a result of the airfields at Hendon, Heston, and Northolt.
He headed North and West, entering a shallow dive over Enfield Chase, as he headed towards his next navigation cue, Braintree, and Harlow.
By now, three Hurricanes that had been scrambled from Hornchurch, were climbing up to meet him. His entire flight had been an attempt to distract attention from the Falcon 2000LX, which was now in the landing pattern for Conington. He turned the Sabrejet east, catching a glimpse of the vee formation of Hurricanes.
He knew this part of the world like the back of his hand, the airspace and ground landmarks around Duxford airfield. He pulled back the yoke and put the nose of the jet down
By now there was a full scale flap on and six squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricane pursuers were in the air, hunting down the intruder. McCarthy was oblivious to the this, just as he was the fact he had been fired on three times from the ground. McCarthy's final act was to buzz Duxford at low level. If the American Air Museum had been there, he would have ploughed straight into it. Three Dark Earth/Dark Green Spitfires climbed out. He passed below them. He could just make out the letters "WZ" on their fuselage. 19 Squadron.
Channelling the spirit of Ray Hanna, McCarthy flew at thirty feet over the grass airfield, past the familiar double bay Belfast hangars
Very different to how it used to be...or will be...or may be.
McCarthy flew the remaining 54 miles of his sortie back to Conington. He'd been in the air for fifty-two minutes. Over Houghton Hall he lowered the tricycle undercarriage of the Sabre and brought her in to land.
"How was it?" asked Charlie.
"Not too bad. Loads of Balloons over London, some Triple AAA..."
"They shot at you!"
"They fired shells into the air where I had just been, yes. Saw three Hurricanes – flew over DX on the way back." McCarthy tapped the starboard wing tip. "She's fine – Like she's just come out of the factory."
At the Air ministry Secretary of State for Air, the Rt Hon. Viscount Glenavon MP, paced around his office was in the mood to deprive someone of their supply.
His exhausted predecessor, Sir Kingsley Wood, had been moved sideways to the job of Lord Privy Seal, after his position became untenable after the first overflight by a mystery aircraft, and Glenavon had been promoted from Minister of Supply.
It wasn't a demotion for Wood, everyone knew he was one of Chamberlain's closest allies. Belisha, the poisonous Jew, had made far too many enemies. Even the Palace had intervened, it was rumoured. This made a mockery of Metropolitan Air Defences. Air Chief Marshal Cyril Newall, Chief of the Air Staff, knew for a fact he was in similar treatment. This was more pressing than a few pillboxes in France. Several aircraft had flown over the UK without being intercepted.
"The press are in uproar, Newall, the public are tense and agitated, and we've spent all this money on monoplanes and radiolocation and whatnot, and all of it was no use at all! It's as extinct as the dinosaur. You've campaigned for all this spending on fighters, and when they are needed — nothing!" said Glenavon.
"The aircraft was far too fast for our skyhunters to catch, Secretary of State, we tracked it on RDF but lost it as it flew inland. As you know there is no inland RDF coverage", Newall wondered if the new chap had been well briefed.
"How fast was this — thing — supposedly going?"
"At least four-hundred knots, four-hundred and sixty miles-an-hour." replied Newall. "The same speed the other intruder skycraft was calculated as going at"
"According to whom?" asked Glenavon.
"The boffins at the RDF. Which it overflew."
"What has this fabled Aircraft and Armament Experimental Establishment got that can counter this aeroplane?"
"The Bolton Paul P-88 fighter with the Napier Sabre, and the Hawker Tornado with the Rolls-Royce Vulture. At the moment the Saunders-Roe Spitfire is the fastest pursuer we have. It has a speed of 314 miles an hour at sea level. The Hurricane, with same Merlin engine, is slower still. This aircraft would have shown it a clean pair of heels. Hawker and Avro are both planning to make pursuers with 24 cylinder, 2000 hp engines which ought to be able to catch it, but they won't be in service until 1941. And we have only ten squadrons of Spitfires. Two at Tangmere, two at Kenley, one at Manston, two in 12 Group at Duxford, the rest in 13 Group.
"The bomber will always get through, again. Why have your boffins had not even the slightest inkling of this aircraft?"
"Even senior RAF officer cannot predict the future." Replied Newall.
Well, let us hope Herr Hitler will wait until then, before conducting any air offensives against us" said Glenavon, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Or Fighter Command gets the aircraft it needs to defend Britain" said Newall, pointedly. "The Luftwaffe have no arrow-shaped aeroplanes. That we know of. The chaps at Flight and Aeroplane magazine are equally mystified. They called us to ask us what it was, just as we called them to see if they had any ideas. The white aircraft had no markings, according to the eyewitnesses who intercepted it." said Newall.
"No Swastikas?"
"I trust the word of my aircrew. It might still be one of ours." replied Newall.
"Ridiculous!" said Glenavon. "You can't identify it, so it must be hostile!
"That's an assumption without evidence. Goebbels would be first to make this into a propaganda victory. He's said nothing – nor has Lord Haw-Haw"
"What about the aircraft seen on the ground at—at—that airfield." stammered Glenavon.
"It was only seen once, the pilot who observed it described it as V-shaped, with a row of windows, and was level on ground.
"Chamberlain wants a sacrifice he can announce to Parliament to fend them off. The PM is in deep enough trouble with the debate on the Norway campaign." said the Secretary of State.
"The AOC of Balloon Command, Air Vice Marshal Tudor Jones, has resigned." said Newall.
"Good, but that will hardly satisfy the slavering dogs of Fleet Street. Retire Dowding, and say we've sacked him, fire whoever is in charge of the defence of London — "
"Leigh-Mallory, sir. At 11 Group."
" — or move him to another department. Dowding goes. Either he goes, or you do, Newall" replied Glenavon.
Newall knew the Secretary of State wasn't bluffing, and Salmond and Trenchard had already started a whispering campaign against him. Apparently he should have been more forceful with CIGS and the War Cabinet about starting a strategic bombing campaign against the Germans. Of course, neither of them had any conception of the nature of the catastrophe soon to overtake them
"What utter rot." said Glenavon, as Newall left his office.
Minutes of the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Warfare, Whitehall, Thursday 9th May 1940.
Admittedly, his performance as Minister of Supply, and First Commissioner of Works prior to that, had not been entirely scintillating, but Glenavon was beginning to suspect his new Cabinet post was a poisoned chalice. First the high-speed intruder was all over the papers, then panic had broken out in Whitehall that the enemy had obtained details of our RDF system, or worse still, that some unauthorised civilian was now privy to it.
He would, no doubt, have MI5 camping out his midst.
No-one spoke of him as the next Prime Minister but three, as they had when he entered the Commons in October 1924. It had been much simpler when he had just been the Hon. John Tyrrell.
Apart from Lord Halifax, aristocrats in cabinet were targets for derision.
At least it was only an Irish Peerage, which enabled him to remain as MP for Epping.
Tony just reduced power to idle, flare to a three point attitude and she set herself down on the grass. This required great skill considering the narrow track undercarriage and full swivel, non-locking tailwheel. He switched off the engine, climbed out the cockpit and walked over to Alex, who was standing by the Canadair Sabre.
"The master at work" said Alex.
"You said that without even the smallest hint of sarcasm. Are you ill?" said Tony. "I love those things, any red-blooded Englishman could not help but want to tear off and shoot something down".
"And did you?" asked Alex.
"I bounced a formation of Hurricanes on the Belgian border. They didn't have the legs to get me. I saw a formation of radial-engined fighters over Nancy. Thought they were Zeroes at first."
"Lucky old Nancy. Hopeless aircraft recognition, remind me to give you a test back at Conington!" said Alex.
"No. Please no. They had Armee de L'air and roundels – probably Curtiss Hawks – things have come to a pretty pass if the French are depending on those." said Tony.
"The French did OK with them."
"They lost" replied Tony.
"No Huns in the Sun, then?" said Alex.
"Nothing. Doesn't seem real, does it? I saw a Blenheim off the coast. " said Tony.
"No deal Brexit, with no transition period, or a trade deal" said Alex.
"And the 1940s male equivalent of Teresa May in charge." replied Tony.
———
The Sabre had six machine guns, but they had only found enough ammunition for two of the aeroplane's machine guns.
Thankfully it's national insignia (post-war Luftwaffe) had been removed.
McCarthy wanted to test fly the Sabre, at least perform an engine test. He did all the pre-flight checks, including the tyre pressure. He climbed the cockpit and strapped himself in. Once the checklist was complete he pressed the cartridge starter. The safest aircraft to fly back to Conington was the Falcon 2000LX, the range of the A109 Grand was too within the margin of error to entrust Charlie and Polly with. They had found enough Jet-A fuel to fill the main tanks of both aircraft. Tony would fly the Falcon
Two turbofans and one turbojet were started.
Birds flew from the trees. The engine noise was heard as far away as Xaffévillers, whose commander, ordered that Hawk 75 sent up a to investigate. It was followed by another.
Charlie pulled the chocks away from the wheels of the Sabre, and then their own aircraft. Polly, who feared her Dad was going to do something remarkably stupid, refused to even watch from the window of the private jet.
McCarthy taxied the jet up and down the runway, testing the engine at various power settings, before taxying to the end of the runway. It rolled down the 8,940 feet of concrete, taking off in less than half that length, the nose wheel lifted off the concrete, and leapt into the air. The Sabre and Falcon were heading out over Northern France before the G.C. II/4 fighter could get airborne.
Everything seemed to be functioning, control surfaces, instruments, engines. if it hadn't he'd have gone straight back to Juvincourt. He pushed the nose down, pulling the stick back every time the IAS read 500 knots. Just have to penetrate the air defences of the best defended airspace in the world, now.
Before long he was over the English Channel. As he flew towards the English coast he was being picked up by the RDF stations at Rye, Dunkirk and Dover which he flew directly overhead, he was unlikely to collide with anything. The Falcon broke away to take the more direct route to Conington.
At 11,000 metres and 420 knots, neither aircraft was in danger.
I'm from Essex mate, he thought to himself, I was born ready.
He pointed the aircraft towards Canterbury and the cathedral there, and then onto the northern coast of Kent and the Thames estuary. Thameshaven oil refinery, Canvey Island lay beneath him, as his aircraft reflected the radio waves of Canewdon Chain Home station
The urban sprawl of Basildon, where he had spent the first nine years of his life was gone completely, leaving only the clustered villages of Laindon, Pitsea and Basildon itself.
Let's hope it stays that way, he thought.
He could see the 'Fortune of War' pub was still there where the High Road met the A127. The London-Tilbury-Southend railway, or 'misery line' was still there.
At least there was the tower on Pitsea Mount, and Thameshaven oil refinery, to use as reference points. The creeks and pools glistened in the morning sun. McCarthy made a ninety degree turn West, towards Dartford, and gained height, as he flew over South London.
Hundreds of little silver fishes hung over London, anchored to the ground by wing-slicing wire cables. The East of London was too crowded with them.
McCarthy could see a gap to the North, and one over West London, probably a result of the airfields at Hendon, Heston, and Northolt.
He headed North and West, entering a shallow dive over Enfield Chase, as he headed towards his next navigation cue, Braintree, and Harlow.
By now, three Hurricanes that had been scrambled from Hornchurch, were climbing up to meet him. His entire flight had been an attempt to distract attention from the Falcon 2000LX, which was now in the landing pattern for Conington. He turned the Sabrejet east, catching a glimpse of the vee formation of Hurricanes.
He knew this part of the world like the back of his hand, the airspace and ground landmarks around Duxford airfield. He pulled back the yoke and put the nose of the jet down
By now there was a full scale flap on and six squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricane pursuers were in the air, hunting down the intruder. McCarthy was oblivious to the this, just as he was the fact he had been fired on three times from the ground. McCarthy's final act was to buzz Duxford at low level. If the American Air Museum had been there, he would have ploughed straight into it. Three Dark Earth/Dark Green Spitfires climbed out. He passed below them. He could just make out the letters "WZ" on their fuselage. 19 Squadron.
Channelling the spirit of Ray Hanna, McCarthy flew at thirty feet over the grass airfield, past the familiar double bay Belfast hangars
Very different to how it used to be...or will be...or may be.
McCarthy flew the remaining 54 miles of his sortie back to Conington. He'd been in the air for fifty-two minutes. Over Houghton Hall he lowered the tricycle undercarriage of the Sabre and brought her in to land.
"How was it?" asked Charlie.
"Not too bad. Loads of Balloons over London, some Triple AAA..."
"They shot at you!"
"They fired shells into the air where I had just been, yes. Saw three Hurricanes – flew over DX on the way back." McCarthy tapped the starboard wing tip. "She's fine – Like she's just come out of the factory."
———
At the Air ministry Secretary of State for Air, the Rt Hon. Viscount Glenavon MP, paced around his office was in the mood to deprive someone of their supply.
His exhausted predecessor, Sir Kingsley Wood, had been moved sideways to the job of Lord Privy Seal, after his position became untenable after the first overflight by a mystery aircraft, and Glenavon had been promoted from Minister of Supply.
It wasn't a demotion for Wood, everyone knew he was one of Chamberlain's closest allies. Belisha, the poisonous Jew, had made far too many enemies. Even the Palace had intervened, it was rumoured. This made a mockery of Metropolitan Air Defences. Air Chief Marshal Cyril Newall, Chief of the Air Staff, knew for a fact he was in similar treatment. This was more pressing than a few pillboxes in France. Several aircraft had flown over the UK without being intercepted.
"The press are in uproar, Newall, the public are tense and agitated, and we've spent all this money on monoplanes and radiolocation and whatnot, and all of it was no use at all! It's as extinct as the dinosaur. You've campaigned for all this spending on fighters, and when they are needed — nothing!" said Glenavon.
"The aircraft was far too fast for our skyhunters to catch, Secretary of State, we tracked it on RDF but lost it as it flew inland. As you know there is no inland RDF coverage", Newall wondered if the new chap had been well briefed.
"How fast was this — thing — supposedly going?"
"At least four-hundred knots, four-hundred and sixty miles-an-hour." replied Newall. "The same speed the other intruder skycraft was calculated as going at"
"According to whom?" asked Glenavon.
"The boffins at the RDF. Which it overflew."
"What has this fabled Aircraft and Armament Experimental Establishment got that can counter this aeroplane?"
"The Bolton Paul P-88 fighter with the Napier Sabre, and the Hawker Tornado with the Rolls-Royce Vulture. At the moment the Saunders-Roe Spitfire is the fastest pursuer we have. It has a speed of 314 miles an hour at sea level. The Hurricane, with same Merlin engine, is slower still. This aircraft would have shown it a clean pair of heels. Hawker and Avro are both planning to make pursuers with 24 cylinder, 2000 hp engines which ought to be able to catch it, but they won't be in service until 1941. And we have only ten squadrons of Spitfires. Two at Tangmere, two at Kenley, one at Manston, two in 12 Group at Duxford, the rest in 13 Group.
"The bomber will always get through, again. Why have your boffins had not even the slightest inkling of this aircraft?"
"Even senior RAF officer cannot predict the future." Replied Newall.
Well, let us hope Herr Hitler will wait until then, before conducting any air offensives against us" said Glenavon, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Or Fighter Command gets the aircraft it needs to defend Britain" said Newall, pointedly. "The Luftwaffe have no arrow-shaped aeroplanes. That we know of. The chaps at Flight and Aeroplane magazine are equally mystified. They called us to ask us what it was, just as we called them to see if they had any ideas. The white aircraft had no markings, according to the eyewitnesses who intercepted it." said Newall.
"No Swastikas?"
"I trust the word of my aircrew. It might still be one of ours." replied Newall.
"Ridiculous!" said Glenavon. "You can't identify it, so it must be hostile!
"That's an assumption without evidence. Goebbels would be first to make this into a propaganda victory. He's said nothing – nor has Lord Haw-Haw"
"What about the aircraft seen on the ground at—at—that airfield." stammered Glenavon.
"It was only seen once, the pilot who observed it described it as V-shaped, with a row of windows, and was level on ground.
"Chamberlain wants a sacrifice he can announce to Parliament to fend them off. The PM is in deep enough trouble with the debate on the Norway campaign." said the Secretary of State.
"The AOC of Balloon Command, Air Vice Marshal Tudor Jones, has resigned." said Newall.
"Good, but that will hardly satisfy the slavering dogs of Fleet Street. Retire Dowding, and say we've sacked him, fire whoever is in charge of the defence of London — "
"Leigh-Mallory, sir. At 11 Group."
" — or move him to another department. Dowding goes. Either he goes, or you do, Newall" replied Glenavon.
Newall knew the Secretary of State wasn't bluffing, and Salmond and Trenchard had already started a whispering campaign against him. Apparently he should have been more forceful with CIGS and the War Cabinet about starting a strategic bombing campaign against the Germans. Of course, neither of them had any conception of the nature of the catastrophe soon to overtake them
"What utter rot." said Glenavon, as Newall left his office.
Minutes of the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Warfare, Whitehall, Thursday 9th May 1940.
Tizard: So Dover, Rye AND Canewdon Chain Home stations all picked up this fighter?
Watt: Yes. It more or less flew over the top of three RDF stations.
Tizard: So why was nothing done? Especially after the first overflight?
Watt: The Signals Staff Officer, Tester, dismissed it as an anomalous return. On the basis of the return, its altitude and speed, it seemed to be the correct judgment. It was at 40000 feet over Dover, and travelling at nearly 500mph.
Pye: It passed overhead?
Watt: Almost directly overhead. The same with Canewdon.
Tizard: It's as though the pilot wanted to be detected.
Watt: It was pure chance there were some pursuers over Essex. It intercepted them, rather than they intercepted it. Even if we had treated it as an unidentified track, it would have been over the capital and gone.
Farren:This report from Flight Lieutenant….
Tizard: Malan.
Wimperis: Can he be trusted? Numerous brushes with senior officers — says the aircraft had no military markings, was painted white —
Pye: But it disappeared into thin air. Dowding had thirty-eight fighters up, and the Observer Corps all looking for it. Nothing. Then it popped up again over Duxford, as if from thin air.
Fowler: And there are no experimental aircraft of either configuration under test in England. Griffith is convinced the two arrow-shaped aeroplanes had a gas-turbine powerplant. Fedden is convinced both the "aeroplane" and its engine are German.
Tizard: Nevertheless, it is certain from the mail I have received, that Fighter Command has received, that the RDF system is known to someone outside the Air Ministry. Whoever sent this document, this material knows the coverage of the network, the location of sites still under construction — and this pilot was able to exploit this information. This leak of information must be plugged before it becomes a flood..."
Watt: Yes. It more or less flew over the top of three RDF stations.
Tizard: So why was nothing done? Especially after the first overflight?
Watt: The Signals Staff Officer, Tester, dismissed it as an anomalous return. On the basis of the return, its altitude and speed, it seemed to be the correct judgment. It was at 40000 feet over Dover, and travelling at nearly 500mph.
Pye: It passed overhead?
Watt: Almost directly overhead. The same with Canewdon.
Tizard: It's as though the pilot wanted to be detected.
Watt: It was pure chance there were some pursuers over Essex. It intercepted them, rather than they intercepted it. Even if we had treated it as an unidentified track, it would have been over the capital and gone.
Farren:This report from Flight Lieutenant….
Tizard: Malan.
Wimperis: Can he be trusted? Numerous brushes with senior officers — says the aircraft had no military markings, was painted white —
Pye: But it disappeared into thin air. Dowding had thirty-eight fighters up, and the Observer Corps all looking for it. Nothing. Then it popped up again over Duxford, as if from thin air.
Fowler: And there are no experimental aircraft of either configuration under test in England. Griffith is convinced the two arrow-shaped aeroplanes had a gas-turbine powerplant. Fedden is convinced both the "aeroplane" and its engine are German.
Tizard: Nevertheless, it is certain from the mail I have received, that Fighter Command has received, that the RDF system is known to someone outside the Air Ministry. Whoever sent this document, this material knows the coverage of the network, the location of sites still under construction — and this pilot was able to exploit this information. This leak of information must be plugged before it becomes a flood..."
———
Admittedly, his performance as Minister of Supply, and First Commissioner of Works prior to that, had not been entirely scintillating, but Glenavon was beginning to suspect his new Cabinet post was a poisoned chalice. First the high-speed intruder was all over the papers, then panic had broken out in Whitehall that the enemy had obtained details of our RDF system, or worse still, that some unauthorised civilian was now privy to it.
He would, no doubt, have MI5 camping out his midst.
No-one spoke of him as the next Prime Minister but three, as they had when he entered the Commons in October 1924. It had been much simpler when he had just been the Hon. John Tyrrell.
Apart from Lord Halifax, aristocrats in cabinet were targets for derision.
At least it was only an Irish Peerage, which enabled him to remain as MP for Epping.
Last edited:
The Blue Room
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Safely back at Conington, Alex and Charlie explored the largest hangar on site. After the weird lighting within, they had dubbed it The Blue Room.
It was a creepy effect, accompanied by a low hum. Alex hoped it wasn't ionizing radiation. It was mainly filled with crates and vehicles, but there was plenty of space for addition deliveries.
There was Riley 12-4 Kestrel, from 1937, according to the documentation inside it.
And a Citroen Traction Avant, from 1946, an anachronism for sure, but not one that would stand out
Also there was one of the more advanced automobiles of 1930s Europe, the Tatra T87
and all would blend in far better than the Audi.
There was a heavily-armoured 6×6 Force Protection Inc Mastiff, and 2 4×4 International Husky TSV both since discarded by the British army, both with a 3.0-litre V6 Caterpillar Diesel engine.
More than sufficient to scare the shit out the downtimers, and provide adequate security for those within.
Alex walked over to a illuminated display unit.
The building still hummed with electricity.
The display said. He switched the main lights on. Wow. Crates. He prised the lid off one – ammunition. It looked like 7.62 × 39, but wasn't quite. 7.62 × 51mm, 6.5 × 48mm, .223 Remington, 10 × 25mm, .45 ACP. Fridges buzzed. Cans of soup, minced beef, curry sauce, spaghetti sauce with 2021, 2022 use by dates. Plus enough soft toilet paper and 'female sanitary products' to keep Charlie and Polly supplied for months.
Bottles of Whyte and Mackay whisky, Amaretto, red wine, cider, beer.
"Christ on a bike, Alex, we could get pissed for the rest of the war!" said Charlie
The freezer was filled with butter, frozen chicken, beef, lamb, bacon and beef burgers.
"We won't be needing any ration books, either" said Alex.
But there was more here, too.
There were ten crates of 20mm × 110mm belts, ten of 12.7mm × 99mm and five of 30mm × 113mm.
He opened one of the fridges. Drugs. Prescription drugs. Anti-biotics. Benzylpenicillin, Co-amoxiclav, Tetracycline, Dimercaprol, Streptomycin, Fusidic Acid.
Ramipril, Propranolol, Mefloquine, Aciclovir, Zopiclone, Hydrocortisone, Metronidazole, Diclofenac, Amlodipine, Prednisolone, Omeprazole to name but eleven. Enough fluoxetine to last four people three years at one tablet per day. It looked like 200 strips of 28 tablets. So good news for Charlie, and Alex as turns out.
There was also roll-on containers, N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, DEET insect repellent. No chance of catching malaria, then, thought Alex.
He opened one of the cupboards.
There was key on the inside, and much more besides.
Inside the cupboard there were fifteen long rifles, five of them superficially resembling the good old EM-2 all in British .270.
Alex didn't like bullpup rifles much, even as a left-hander, but suspected someone else might, or else why would they be here?
Instead there were TWO different versions of the AR-18, one a short-barrelled full-auto SMG, and the full length select-fire automatic rifle.
Easy to fire, easy to manufacture, easy to fix if anything went wrong. They had all been retrofitted with .223 Wylde chambers. There was an upgraded Heckler & Koch G3 in traditional 7.62 × 51mm, with a folding stock, too.
Alex picked one up, and passed it to Charlie, saying "We'd better learn how to use these"
Charlie replied "I think I already do"
"Oh you'll have to train me." Alex said, noting the folding-stock Heckler & Koch MP5 (in 10mm) and a UMP in .45 ACP, a calibre which could easily be found by the uptimers when their supply ran out.
He didn't want to tell her that her that he already knew how fire those. "Lots of roller-delayed blowback fun for everyone" said Alex.
"Do you think Tony has ever shot anyone?" asked Charlie.
"I very much doubt it. I've managed to get to the age of forty-three without murdering anyone. Not sure how long this streak of luck can carry on, though, especially with all these tools"
There was a multitude of sights, thermal imagers, laser dot sights, torches, bipods, and foregrips to clip onto the modular rails on the weapons. Enough to start a war, but not enough to end one., thought Alex. Still.
As the early summer afternoon turned to evening, Alex and Tony departed from Conington in the blue and yellow L-39C Albatros. Their intention was to fly to Épinal-Mirecourt to recover some of the aircraft, specifically the Merlin-Spitfire and one of the Griffon-Spitfires.
This time, their departure would be watched over by three RDF1 stations and one RDF2-equipped aircraft. This new technology could not catch the newer technology, and the Blenheim soon became a dot in their rear-view mirror.
However, their plans would be side-tracked by the appearance of two very different twenty-first century aircraft.
It was a creepy effect, accompanied by a low hum. Alex hoped it wasn't ionizing radiation. It was mainly filled with crates and vehicles, but there was plenty of space for addition deliveries.
There was Riley 12-4 Kestrel, from 1937, according to the documentation inside it.
And a Citroen Traction Avant, from 1946, an anachronism for sure, but not one that would stand out
Also there was one of the more advanced automobiles of 1930s Europe, the Tatra T87
There was a heavily-armoured 6×6 Force Protection Inc Mastiff, and 2 4×4 International Husky TSV both since discarded by the British army, both with a 3.0-litre V6 Caterpillar Diesel engine.
More than sufficient to scare the shit out the downtimers, and provide adequate security for those within.
Alex walked over to a illuminated display unit.
The building still hummed with electricity.
Main Lighting: OFF
Refrigeration: ON
Ventilation: ON
Generator: OFF
APU: OFF
Refrigeration: ON
Ventilation: ON
Generator: OFF
APU: OFF
The display said. He switched the main lights on. Wow. Crates. He prised the lid off one – ammunition. It looked like 7.62 × 39, but wasn't quite. 7.62 × 51mm, 6.5 × 48mm, .223 Remington, 10 × 25mm, .45 ACP. Fridges buzzed. Cans of soup, minced beef, curry sauce, spaghetti sauce with 2021, 2022 use by dates. Plus enough soft toilet paper and 'female sanitary products' to keep Charlie and Polly supplied for months.
Bottles of Whyte and Mackay whisky, Amaretto, red wine, cider, beer.
"Christ on a bike, Alex, we could get pissed for the rest of the war!" said Charlie
The freezer was filled with butter, frozen chicken, beef, lamb, bacon and beef burgers.
"We won't be needing any ration books, either" said Alex.
But there was more here, too.
There were ten crates of 20mm × 110mm belts, ten of 12.7mm × 99mm and five of 30mm × 113mm.
He opened one of the fridges. Drugs. Prescription drugs. Anti-biotics. Benzylpenicillin, Co-amoxiclav, Tetracycline, Dimercaprol, Streptomycin, Fusidic Acid.
Ramipril, Propranolol, Mefloquine, Aciclovir, Zopiclone, Hydrocortisone, Metronidazole, Diclofenac, Amlodipine, Prednisolone, Omeprazole to name but eleven. Enough fluoxetine to last four people three years at one tablet per day. It looked like 200 strips of 28 tablets. So good news for Charlie, and Alex as turns out.
There was also roll-on containers, N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, DEET insect repellent. No chance of catching malaria, then, thought Alex.
He opened one of the cupboards.
There was key on the inside, and much more besides.
Inside the cupboard there were fifteen long rifles, five of them superficially resembling the good old EM-2 all in British .270.
Instead there were TWO different versions of the AR-18, one a short-barrelled full-auto SMG, and the full length select-fire automatic rifle.
Easy to fire, easy to manufacture, easy to fix if anything went wrong. They had all been retrofitted with .223 Wylde chambers. There was an upgraded Heckler & Koch G3 in traditional 7.62 × 51mm, with a folding stock, too.
Alex picked one up, and passed it to Charlie, saying "We'd better learn how to use these"
Charlie replied "I think I already do"
"Oh you'll have to train me." Alex said, noting the folding-stock Heckler & Koch MP5 (in 10mm) and a UMP in .45 ACP, a calibre which could easily be found by the uptimers when their supply ran out.
He didn't want to tell her that her that he already knew how fire those. "Lots of roller-delayed blowback fun for everyone" said Alex.
"Do you think Tony has ever shot anyone?" asked Charlie.
"I very much doubt it. I've managed to get to the age of forty-three without murdering anyone. Not sure how long this streak of luck can carry on, though, especially with all these tools"
There was a multitude of sights, thermal imagers, laser dot sights, torches, bipods, and foregrips to clip onto the modular rails on the weapons. Enough to start a war, but not enough to end one., thought Alex. Still.
————
As the early summer afternoon turned to evening, Alex and Tony departed from Conington in the blue and yellow L-39C Albatros. Their intention was to fly to Épinal-Mirecourt to recover some of the aircraft, specifically the Merlin-Spitfire and one of the Griffon-Spitfires.
This time, their departure would be watched over by three RDF1 stations and one RDF2-equipped aircraft. This new technology could not catch the newer technology, and the Blenheim soon became a dot in their rear-view mirror.
However, their plans would be side-tracked by the appearance of two very different twenty-first century aircraft.
Last edited:
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
Ah, those magnificent men and women in their flying machines are back! WW2 is set on Hard Mode with Churchill and FDR gone, and the Nazis get a couple of their own uptimer wackos helping them. Let's see if a few well-placed bombs and a few Luftwaffe squadrons torn to shreds in spectacular fashion can remind the Allies that victory is possible...
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
This is the France Fights On (for a bit longer at least) variant!
General de Gaulle and some Wehrmacht types come to unfortunate ends, too!
The Direct Approach
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
May 6th, 1940.
When they landed at Épinal-Mirecourt, they exited the L-39C Albatros, only to found another one, painted two-tone grey, parked on the pan.
"Except it's not a L-39, don't think so anyway" said Alex
There was six pylons under each wing, 500 litre fuel tanks inboard, a Plamen KPL-20 gun pod on the mid-wing station, and a AIM-9L Sidewinder missile on the outboard station.
"Jesus Christ, I didn't think L-39s could launch FOX-2s" said Tony.
"It's not an L-39, it's an L-159 ALCA" replied Alex. "Better turbofan engine than the L-39, same one they use in the M-346, fire control radar, glass cockpit, I think can launch Maverick missiles, laser-guided bombs..."
"Proper walking Jane's All The Worlds Aircraft, ain't yer" said Tony.
"Yeah, well, lots of sitting around in my job. There was an article in a magazine about Draken International, they use them. For DACT" replied Alex.
"Oh Christ, another chopper"
"Agusta-Westland AW139, twin-PTA-6 turboshaft engines, good range, can carry fifteen passengers. I've always wanted one of these"
"You couldn't afford one?"
"New? They cost about 12 million Euros" replied Alex.
There were two aluminium Zero Halliburton attache case in the helicopter, one contained ten thousand 100 Swiss franc note in it. The other had nine thousand $20 greenbacks, and just under a 1000 French francs in mixed notes.
"Somebody knows which currencies are going to collapse in value in the next few months" said Alex.
"Why is god giving us all these aeroplanes" asked Tony as they loaded bundles of paper onto the helicopter.
"Has god ever given you a suitcase full of money? Don't think it's him, or indeed her" replied Alex.
The leaflets had been printed back at Conington.
They started both engines of the helicopter, and took off from the airport — there was more than enough fuel in the tanker-truck at Épinal-Mirecourt. They turned headed due west to avoid Nancy and Metz, and the anti-aircraft batteries off the Maginot Line, the scars of the old war beneath them, and headed towards the Ardennes forest. Crossing the Franco-Belgian frontier, they headed towards Antwerp, then Rotterdam, over which Alex left Tony in control of the AW139, and belted to his seat, Alex ejected 1000 doubled-sided leaflets, from the opened door of the helicopter
The downwash from the rotors did their work, spreading them over a wide area of the city. They flew next to the capital, Den Haag, and Alex threw another 800 sheets of paper from the helicopter, and then the same over Amsterdam. Alex returned to the controls and landed the helicopter at Schiphol. The contrast between the futuristic rotorcraft and the Douglas DC-2s, Fokker F.XXIIs and Junkers W34s parked on the airfield, could not be starker. He told Tony to throw the remaining leaflets on the ground, and took off, scattering them over the airfield, before the Dutch military could react.
He flew the helicopter on to Conington, crossing the coast north of Southwold.
McCarthy's huge collection of aviation & WW2 books, that had cost him from £2.81 to £500, and his collection of 1980s-1990s analogue and digital synths, had been transferred to Rose Court Farm, which was surrounded by the revamped Air Force base. As had his record and CD collection, kept in a storage unit There was wardrobes full of Polina's and Charlie's clothes.
"There's even my DSi and PS-Vita" said Polly.
"And both my King Crimson Box sets" said Tony.
"Oh, great" said Alex.
Tony also found another box, a lever-arch file, containing a map of Paris, some photographs, and a semi-auto Sig-Sauer MPX, with a four-and-a-half-inch barrel.
The rewards did not come without strings attached.
"Can we go to Paris? In the helicopter?" asked Tony.
"You want to go sightseeing at a time like this? Are you stark, staring bonkers?" replied Alex, asking two further questions in response.
"Well, we won't get much opportunity later in the month, once the Jerries have got there, will we? We aren't flying any combat sorties, I just want to see what's changed." replied Tony.
"We can do that in the air from the Mustang and Sea Fury, if necessary" said Alex.
"No, I want to do it from ground level." replied Tony.
"What the fuck are you planning, Tony?" asked Alex.
"Something I know have the opportunity to do now, that I didn't have before" replied Tony.
"Sounds nefarious. Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Well, that nefarious thing you are planning to do, that somehow involves me? What is it? Steal the Mona Lisa? Rob a bank? Shoot Marshal Pétain?"
"Maybe all of those things" said Tony.
Hours later, Alex and Tony were flying over the striped green and yellow countryside of France. Tony asked Alex to land the AW139 in a field north of Paris, near the town of Goussainville, but shielded from it by trees. He didn't fancy flying it to Issy-les-Moulineaux, his usually destination when heading to Paris, then headquarters of Avions Voisin.
Despite its name, it manufactured automobiles, not aeroplanes.
Unbeknown to both pilots, they had landed at the exact location where the Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic airliner prototype, would/might crash in the year McCarthy was born.
"This is as far as you go" said Tony.
"You wot?" said Alex.
"There's no point both of us getting into trouble" said Tony.
"What on earth are you up to?" said Alex.
"You stay with the helo, and wait for me. If I'm gone for more than two hours, leave." said Tony.
"Bollocks, I'm not leaving you stranded. What is all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?" replied Alex.
"I'll tell you when you come back", and with saying that, he was gone.
Tony found a black 1937 Citroën Traction Avant with its doors unlocked, after walking for about eighteen minutes. The key he been given by persons unknown was a universal master key that would start the ignition of virtually all Traction Avants in France, if not the world. It would take Tony nearly three-quarters of an hour to get where he needed to be, Rue Montorgueil, Paris. It was still only 1315hrs.
"Let's hope it's a good meal, with plenty to discuss" thought Tony.
He made his way through streets emptied by fuel rationing. The Traction Avant's tank was full. He negotiated his way through the Paris streets losing his way several times. He stopped wind down the driver side window, and to push the twenty-round magazine home into the flared magwell, then attached the foregrip to the Picatinny rail on the MPX. It felt exceedingly similar to a AR-15.
There were two men talking outside Le Rocher de Cancale restaurant, 78 Rue Montorgueil, one of whom fitted the description in the photograph perfectly. He had a coat draped over his left arm and a briefcase in his left hand. Tony did not know who the other man was. His handler?
For confirmation he pulled up along side them and shouted "Hey, Kim!"
The man, reactions dulled by a boozy lunch, punctuated by frequent glasses of wine and a glass of brandy, turned towards the black car containing Tony. He released the safety, selecting the three-round burst setting, and pointed the gun out of the window.
Tony pulled the trigger.
Three rounds hit the man with the coat. Three rounds hit the man stood next to him, the recoil from the submachine gun was minimal, and the men crumpled to the ground. Tony fired eight of the remaining thirteen rounds into the men on the pavement, six of which hit them, and wound up the window and drove off. From Tony shouting to driving off, the assassination had taken thirty-three seconds.
Tony drove the Citroën back to Goussainville as calmly as he could.
"Mingis, it's Winterbotham" said the man into the Air Ministry phone.
"Hallo Fred" said Menzies, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service
"I've got another one of those envelopes. Addressed to me, specifically."
"So whoever this person is, he knows my identity, your identity, the location of dozens of RDF stations, some still under construction, and the offices of SIS." said Menzies, coldly. He also knows about Station X and Gambier-Perry's activities, too Menzies thought, but could not say.
"Apparently so, sir."
"Where is the postmark from?" asked Menzies
"Ipswich" confirmed Winterbotham
"So London and now Ipswich, together with the hand-delivered ones. Are you wearing gloves?" asked Menzies.
"Yes"
"Good. I'll arrange for Special Branch to pick it up for testing later. Open it up, please."
Winterbotham did as he was commanded.
"Well?" asked Menzies.
"A colour photograph of what looks like a Me109. Another, could be a He112, though. Not sure what that is, though, single-engined fighter in Luftwaffe markings. Very vivid glossy colour pictures, not like any I have seen before. There's three black and white pictures of twin-engined aircraft. One very large, like a flying submarine. I can't identify any of them. But they are all definitely German. You can tell."
"So now we have an authority on Luftwaffe aircraft too – close enough to the source to obtain photographs of experimental German types, hitherto unknown types." said Menzies
"And a diagram of some description." Winterbotham saw the words 'Enigma' and 'Hut 6', and tried not to swear.
"I can't discuss the rest of the contents with you over this unsecured line"
"YOU CAN'T?" exclaimed the choleric Menzies.
"No, it refers to BONIFACE"
"IT DOES WHAT!" replied Menzies.
"One man alone could not be privy to so much secret knowledge of such a varied nature, of ours and theirs, surely? There's an address, Conington, Huntingdonshire — and some letters and numbers — CB23 2LR.
This ties in with another security breach I was informed about a few days ago, but I've not been able..."
"DROP EVERYTHING!" yelped Menzies. "This is number one priority. I'll square it with Buss, and tell Beaumont-Nesbitt and Lord Hankey. Of course everything is chaos at Westminster and Whitehall now...I want to know WHO THESE PEOPLE are, and how they found out what they know — AND MAKE THEM STOP!
Tony parked the Traction Avant at the corner of a field, threw the MPX onto the back seat, drenched a piece of linen in lighter fluid, shoved it in the fuel filler, lit it and ran away. The car erupted in orange flame.
"What the fuck have you done?" said Alex as he saw the smoke.
"Changed history, hopefully" replied Tony
Alex started the engines and the white helicopter took off.
Alex flew the helicopter a zig-zag course over the French countryside, then up the coast of Essex and Suffolk.
"I wonder if they already know?" said Tony.
"Know what? You haven't told me yet!"
"Hey, why aren't we over the channel" asked Tony.
"Not enough fuel. We are going to Épinal-Mirecourt, you don't think I'm going to leave my L-39C and the L-159E here, do you?" Replied Alex.
Alex brought the twin-engined helicopter in to land on the grass.
Tony and Alex got out of the cockpit, and both of them removed their headphones and mics.
When they landed at Épinal-Mirecourt, they exited the L-39C Albatros, only to found another one, painted two-tone grey, parked on the pan.
"Except it's not a L-39, don't think so anyway" said Alex
There was six pylons under each wing, 500 litre fuel tanks inboard, a Plamen KPL-20 gun pod on the mid-wing station, and a AIM-9L Sidewinder missile on the outboard station.
"Jesus Christ, I didn't think L-39s could launch FOX-2s" said Tony.
"It's not an L-39, it's an L-159 ALCA" replied Alex. "Better turbofan engine than the L-39, same one they use in the M-346, fire control radar, glass cockpit, I think can launch Maverick missiles, laser-guided bombs..."
"Proper walking Jane's All The Worlds Aircraft, ain't yer" said Tony.
"Yeah, well, lots of sitting around in my job. There was an article in a magazine about Draken International, they use them. For DACT" replied Alex.
"Oh Christ, another chopper"
"Agusta-Westland AW139, twin-PTA-6 turboshaft engines, good range, can carry fifteen passengers. I've always wanted one of these"
"You couldn't afford one?"
"New? They cost about 12 million Euros" replied Alex.
There were two aluminium Zero Halliburton attache case in the helicopter, one contained ten thousand 100 Swiss franc note in it. The other had nine thousand $20 greenbacks, and just under a 1000 French francs in mixed notes.
"Somebody knows which currencies are going to collapse in value in the next few months" said Alex.
"Why is god giving us all these aeroplanes" asked Tony as they loaded bundles of paper onto the helicopter.
"Has god ever given you a suitcase full of money? Don't think it's him, or indeed her" replied Alex.
The leaflets had been printed back at Conington.
"Your country will be attacked"
"The Germans are waiting to attack from the air"
They started both engines of the helicopter, and took off from the airport — there was more than enough fuel in the tanker-truck at Épinal-Mirecourt. They turned headed due west to avoid Nancy and Metz, and the anti-aircraft batteries off the Maginot Line, the scars of the old war beneath them, and headed towards the Ardennes forest. Crossing the Franco-Belgian frontier, they headed towards Antwerp, then Rotterdam, over which Alex left Tony in control of the AW139, and belted to his seat, Alex ejected 1000 doubled-sided leaflets, from the opened door of the helicopter
The downwash from the rotors did their work, spreading them over a wide area of the city. They flew next to the capital, Den Haag, and Alex threw another 800 sheets of paper from the helicopter, and then the same over Amsterdam. Alex returned to the controls and landed the helicopter at Schiphol. The contrast between the futuristic rotorcraft and the Douglas DC-2s, Fokker F.XXIIs and Junkers W34s parked on the airfield, could not be starker. He told Tony to throw the remaining leaflets on the ground, and took off, scattering them over the airfield, before the Dutch military could react.
He flew the helicopter on to Conington, crossing the coast north of Southwold.
McCarthy's huge collection of aviation & WW2 books, that had cost him from £2.81 to £500, and his collection of 1980s-1990s analogue and digital synths, had been transferred to Rose Court Farm, which was surrounded by the revamped Air Force base. As had his record and CD collection, kept in a storage unit There was wardrobes full of Polina's and Charlie's clothes.
"There's even my DSi and PS-Vita" said Polly.
"And both my King Crimson Box sets" said Tony.
"Oh, great" said Alex.
Tony also found another box, a lever-arch file, containing a map of Paris, some photographs, and a semi-auto Sig-Sauer MPX, with a four-and-a-half-inch barrel.
The rewards did not come without strings attached.
———
"Can we go to Paris? In the helicopter?" asked Tony.
"You want to go sightseeing at a time like this? Are you stark, staring bonkers?" replied Alex, asking two further questions in response.
"Well, we won't get much opportunity later in the month, once the Jerries have got there, will we? We aren't flying any combat sorties, I just want to see what's changed." replied Tony.
"We can do that in the air from the Mustang and Sea Fury, if necessary" said Alex.
"No, I want to do it from ground level." replied Tony.
"What the fuck are you planning, Tony?" asked Alex.
"Something I know have the opportunity to do now, that I didn't have before" replied Tony.
"Sounds nefarious. Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Well, that nefarious thing you are planning to do, that somehow involves me? What is it? Steal the Mona Lisa? Rob a bank? Shoot Marshal Pétain?"
"Maybe all of those things" said Tony.
Hours later, Alex and Tony were flying over the striped green and yellow countryside of France. Tony asked Alex to land the AW139 in a field north of Paris, near the town of Goussainville, but shielded from it by trees. He didn't fancy flying it to Issy-les-Moulineaux, his usually destination when heading to Paris, then headquarters of Avions Voisin.
Despite its name, it manufactured automobiles, not aeroplanes.
Unbeknown to both pilots, they had landed at the exact location where the Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic airliner prototype, would/might crash in the year McCarthy was born.
"This is as far as you go" said Tony.
"You wot?" said Alex.
"There's no point both of us getting into trouble" said Tony.
"What on earth are you up to?" said Alex.
"You stay with the helo, and wait for me. If I'm gone for more than two hours, leave." said Tony.
"Bollocks, I'm not leaving you stranded. What is all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?" replied Alex.
"I'll tell you when you come back", and with saying that, he was gone.
———
Tony found a black 1937 Citroën Traction Avant with its doors unlocked, after walking for about eighteen minutes. The key he been given by persons unknown was a universal master key that would start the ignition of virtually all Traction Avants in France, if not the world. It would take Tony nearly three-quarters of an hour to get where he needed to be, Rue Montorgueil, Paris. It was still only 1315hrs.
"Let's hope it's a good meal, with plenty to discuss" thought Tony.
He made his way through streets emptied by fuel rationing. The Traction Avant's tank was full. He negotiated his way through the Paris streets losing his way several times. He stopped wind down the driver side window, and to push the twenty-round magazine home into the flared magwell, then attached the foregrip to the Picatinny rail on the MPX. It felt exceedingly similar to a AR-15.
There were two men talking outside Le Rocher de Cancale restaurant, 78 Rue Montorgueil, one of whom fitted the description in the photograph perfectly. He had a coat draped over his left arm and a briefcase in his left hand. Tony did not know who the other man was. His handler?
For confirmation he pulled up along side them and shouted "Hey, Kim!"
The man, reactions dulled by a boozy lunch, punctuated by frequent glasses of wine and a glass of brandy, turned towards the black car containing Tony. He released the safety, selecting the three-round burst setting, and pointed the gun out of the window.
Tony pulled the trigger.
Three rounds hit the man with the coat. Three rounds hit the man stood next to him, the recoil from the submachine gun was minimal, and the men crumpled to the ground. Tony fired eight of the remaining thirteen rounds into the men on the pavement, six of which hit them, and wound up the window and drove off. From Tony shouting to driving off, the assassination had taken thirty-three seconds.
Tony drove the Citroën back to Goussainville as calmly as he could.
———
"Mingis, it's Winterbotham" said the man into the Air Ministry phone.
"Hallo Fred" said Menzies, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service
"I've got another one of those envelopes. Addressed to me, specifically."
"So whoever this person is, he knows my identity, your identity, the location of dozens of RDF stations, some still under construction, and the offices of SIS." said Menzies, coldly. He also knows about Station X and Gambier-Perry's activities, too Menzies thought, but could not say.
"Apparently so, sir."
"Where is the postmark from?" asked Menzies
"Ipswich" confirmed Winterbotham
"So London and now Ipswich, together with the hand-delivered ones. Are you wearing gloves?" asked Menzies.
"Yes"
"Good. I'll arrange for Special Branch to pick it up for testing later. Open it up, please."
Winterbotham did as he was commanded.
"Well?" asked Menzies.
"A colour photograph of what looks like a Me109. Another, could be a He112, though. Not sure what that is, though, single-engined fighter in Luftwaffe markings. Very vivid glossy colour pictures, not like any I have seen before. There's three black and white pictures of twin-engined aircraft. One very large, like a flying submarine. I can't identify any of them. But they are all definitely German. You can tell."
"So now we have an authority on Luftwaffe aircraft too – close enough to the source to obtain photographs of experimental German types, hitherto unknown types." said Menzies
"And a diagram of some description." Winterbotham saw the words 'Enigma' and 'Hut 6', and tried not to swear.
"I can't discuss the rest of the contents with you over this unsecured line"
"YOU CAN'T?" exclaimed the choleric Menzies.
"No, it refers to BONIFACE"
"IT DOES WHAT!" replied Menzies.
"One man alone could not be privy to so much secret knowledge of such a varied nature, of ours and theirs, surely? There's an address, Conington, Huntingdonshire — and some letters and numbers — CB23 2LR.
This ties in with another security breach I was informed about a few days ago, but I've not been able..."
"DROP EVERYTHING!" yelped Menzies. "This is number one priority. I'll square it with Buss, and tell Beaumont-Nesbitt and Lord Hankey. Of course everything is chaos at Westminster and Whitehall now...I want to know WHO THESE PEOPLE are, and how they found out what they know — AND MAKE THEM STOP!
———
Tony parked the Traction Avant at the corner of a field, threw the MPX onto the back seat, drenched a piece of linen in lighter fluid, shoved it in the fuel filler, lit it and ran away. The car erupted in orange flame.
"What the fuck have you done?" said Alex as he saw the smoke.
"Changed history, hopefully" replied Tony
Alex started the engines and the white helicopter took off.
Alex flew the helicopter a zig-zag course over the French countryside, then up the coast of Essex and Suffolk.
"I wonder if they already know?" said Tony.
"Know what? You haven't told me yet!"
"Hey, why aren't we over the channel" asked Tony.
"Not enough fuel. We are going to Épinal-Mirecourt, you don't think I'm going to leave my L-39C and the L-159E here, do you?" Replied Alex.
Alex brought the twin-engined helicopter in to land on the grass.
Tony and Alex got out of the cockpit, and both of them removed their headphones and mics.
Last edited:
First Strike
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Military Attache in Paris shot dead.
The French Government has blamed Fifth Columnists for the murder of British
Military Attache Lieutenant-Colonel Noel Mason-MacFarlane CB, DSO, MC and
another British man, outside a Paris restaurant yesterday. He was a veteran
of the First World War in Mesopotamia and the Western Front, and the Third
Afghan War. A journalist, named by the Sunday Times as Mr Harold Philby,
was also killed in the shooting.
"So what have you done?" Asked Alex.
"Shot a man. Two men"
"And killed them?" asked Alex, trying to prise more information out of his friend.
"Judging by the number of bullets I fired at them, I would expect so" he replied.
"And these were Nazis, who might affect the course of the war?"
"No, but they would affect the course of the next few wars. One of them was Kim Philby"
"Fucking hell. And the other?"
"No idea. Some random Commie, I imagine"
"You do realise that you could killed one of ours by mistake" said Alex. "Did anyone see you?"
"Don't think so. Anyway, how are they gonna find and arrest a man from the future? These people are hopeless. And French. No CCTV, no DNA testing, no fingerprints, just eyewitnesses, most of whom were scurrying for cover" replied Tony.
"It would have been nice if we could have started by killing some of the enemy, but no—"
"The fewer traitors there are, the better"
"— you had to start with one of ours!"
"Look at the Albatrosses, they grey one is armed, now ours is too, with a gun pod and rocket launchers." said Tony.
There was a ZPL-20 gun pod on the centreline of the L-39, a six-round LAU-5002 launcher under each wing and the 200 litre tank on the inboard tank, though only the L-159E had the AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles. The tumultuous day was far from over.
The blue and yellow L-39C took off first, with Alex at the controls, and the L-159E piloted by Tony. He had more recent experience on flying radar-equipped combat aircraft armed with air-to-air missiles than anyone Alex knew, including himself.
The two aircraft flew to the north-west, before heading north towards Luxembourg.
"Where are we headed, Tony, over?" asked Alex over the UHF radio.
"Bitburg. I know this particular slice of Germany like the back of my hand. Just follow me, over."
It took the two aircraft just seventeen minute to cross France and Luxembourg and at Echternacht, enter the airspace controlled by the Third Reich, and the Luftwaffe.
They headed north, at a speed and altitude no combat aircraft of the era could reach. After flying for seventy-four miles, the two aircraft were over Köln-Wahn airfield, which would become Cologne-Bonn airport. The two pilots put their aircraft into a shallow dive, and within moments they were over another Luftwaffe airfield, Köln-Ostheim. There were Junkers Ju52 trimotors parked all over the airfield.
"Weapons free, over"
Both pilots pressed buttons on control columns which launched 70mm CRV-7 rockets at the transport aircraft below. Six aircraft erupted in flame, as the High Explosive Point Detonating warheads impacted.
Below Alex could see the Hohenzollern Bridge, the Hauptbahnhof and the Ford factory, and he wished he had some laser-guided bombs
Over Butzweilerhof, seven miles north-west of Köln-Ostheim, Alex fired the remainder of his CRV7 rockets at a single Ju52, and pulled up his aircraft to rendezvous with Tony's L-159E above. As he did so, he saw two aircraft flying very close together. They were a Ju52 towing a DFS 230 glider, on a training mission. The tug aircraft passed through the Ferranti gyro gunsight for just two seconds, but that was long enough. Both barrels of the ZPL-20 gun pod fired cannon shells towards both aircraft, the tail of the Ju52 broke away, severing the link with DFS 230, and the shells hitting the glider pilot, killing him.
Both aircraft plunged into the ground near Auweiler. Both uptimer aircraft were quickly over Roermond in the Netherlands. They had spent eighteen minutes and thirty seconds in Nazi airspace. Within half-an-hour both aircraft were lowering their tricycle undercarriage and landing back at Conington.
Tony was hugely disappointed that Alex had been the first pilot to shoot down a Luftwaffe aircraft, and his cannon pod and Sidewinders remained unfired.
"Well, while you were flying rubber dog turds out of Stansted, I was sat at home playing War Thunder and IL-2" said Alex.
The man kissed his wife and children goodbye, and walked to the office in Augsburg where he worked.
He was glad he had been taken off the Me210 project — his complaints that too many corners had been cut to save materials and that the design of the Arado empennage was flawed had gone unheeded, overruled by Willy Messerschmitt himself. The FW187 had been a fearsome competitor. Erlanger had introduced an upgraded Me109, the Avia C-99, he called it, and was working on a radial-engined workhorse fighter.
He opened the envelope, took out the report he had decided to send to Milch, and filed it away, throwing the envelope in the discarded drawings bin.
No point in further damaging his career.
Messerschmitt believed more performance could be wrung out of the 109 design, especially after the modifications made to the Me109V24. He had to hide his disgust that the Doktor has improved his design, fitted a new engine and armament, to the delight of Göring and the Führer.
Dipl. Ing. Edgar Schmued disagreed. He was determined to design a single-engine fighter that combined the performance of the Me 209 and the reliability in combat of the Me109. The Me309 would eclipse even that aircraft, he hoped.
Alex plonked the two heavy books down on the desk in front of Tony and Charlie, while a depressed Polina looked on from a corner of the room.
"Bloody 'ell! They must have chapter and verse if they cover just a couple of months!" said Charlie.
"The one on the right covers the air war from September 'thirty-nine to June 'forty, as it says, the other one just covers six weeks or so." said Alex.
"Does it have where the German tank columns are on any given day?" asked Tony.
McCarthy flicked through the pages of The Battle of France: Then And Now.
"Look, Tony, crashed Fairey Battles on EVERY. FUCKING. PAGE. Is the Sea Fury or the Mustang, or the ALCA we've now got that much faster than a Battle? No. Is it impervious to 20mm and 37mm Flak shells? No." said Alex. "Every plane we have would have to slow down to bomb or strafe those tanks, and make ourselves vulnerable to ground fire"
"So what do you mean, bomb more bridges?" asked Tony.
"No, and yes. If we bomb bridges in Belgium and France, the Krauts will just bring bridging equipment and pontoons, and barges" said Alex. "If we bomb bridges in Germany, on the Rhine, we'll slow down the offensive. The L-159E is the only safe aircraft we can fly over enemy territory."
"Eventually. We can attack the Germans at night, when we have the advantage" said Tony.
"And we sleep during the day, presumably, ending any chance of shooting down the Luftwaffe by day, in any of the aircraft we have" said Alex. "Either that or we fuck up our sleep patterns and circadian rhythms so badly, we get tired, we make stupid mistakes and wreck aircraft vital to the future war effort."
"If there is one. You aren't think of handing these planes over to the RAF and doing a runner?" replied Tony.
"Most sensible thing you've said all day. What's the point of risking our lives just to shoot down a few more Stukas than the historical record? We'd have to shoot down more than five per sortie to make any difference" said Alex.
"So we can't do anything except tinker at the margins, while the steamroller of history rolls on?" asked Tony.
"Unless you have a tactical nuke you haven't told us about, that you can drop on the Ardennes." said Alex.
The French Government has blamed Fifth Columnists for the murder of British
Military Attache Lieutenant-Colonel Noel Mason-MacFarlane CB, DSO, MC and
another British man, outside a Paris restaurant yesterday. He was a veteran
of the First World War in Mesopotamia and the Western Front, and the Third
Afghan War. A journalist, named by the Sunday Times as Mr Harold Philby,
was also killed in the shooting.
"So what have you done?" Asked Alex.
"Shot a man. Two men"
"And killed them?" asked Alex, trying to prise more information out of his friend.
"Judging by the number of bullets I fired at them, I would expect so" he replied.
"And these were Nazis, who might affect the course of the war?"
"No, but they would affect the course of the next few wars. One of them was Kim Philby"
"Fucking hell. And the other?"
"No idea. Some random Commie, I imagine"
"You do realise that you could killed one of ours by mistake" said Alex. "Did anyone see you?"
"Don't think so. Anyway, how are they gonna find and arrest a man from the future? These people are hopeless. And French. No CCTV, no DNA testing, no fingerprints, just eyewitnesses, most of whom were scurrying for cover" replied Tony.
"It would have been nice if we could have started by killing some of the enemy, but no—"
"The fewer traitors there are, the better"
"— you had to start with one of ours!"
"Look at the Albatrosses, they grey one is armed, now ours is too, with a gun pod and rocket launchers." said Tony.
There was a ZPL-20 gun pod on the centreline of the L-39, a six-round LAU-5002 launcher under each wing and the 200 litre tank on the inboard tank, though only the L-159E had the AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles. The tumultuous day was far from over.
The blue and yellow L-39C took off first, with Alex at the controls, and the L-159E piloted by Tony. He had more recent experience on flying radar-equipped combat aircraft armed with air-to-air missiles than anyone Alex knew, including himself.
The two aircraft flew to the north-west, before heading north towards Luxembourg.
"Where are we headed, Tony, over?" asked Alex over the UHF radio.
"Bitburg. I know this particular slice of Germany like the back of my hand. Just follow me, over."
It took the two aircraft just seventeen minute to cross France and Luxembourg and at Echternacht, enter the airspace controlled by the Third Reich, and the Luftwaffe.
They headed north, at a speed and altitude no combat aircraft of the era could reach. After flying for seventy-four miles, the two aircraft were over Köln-Wahn airfield, which would become Cologne-Bonn airport. The two pilots put their aircraft into a shallow dive, and within moments they were over another Luftwaffe airfield, Köln-Ostheim. There were Junkers Ju52 trimotors parked all over the airfield.
"Weapons free, over"
Both pilots pressed buttons on control columns which launched 70mm CRV-7 rockets at the transport aircraft below. Six aircraft erupted in flame, as the High Explosive Point Detonating warheads impacted.
Below Alex could see the Hohenzollern Bridge, the Hauptbahnhof and the Ford factory, and he wished he had some laser-guided bombs
Over Butzweilerhof, seven miles north-west of Köln-Ostheim, Alex fired the remainder of his CRV7 rockets at a single Ju52, and pulled up his aircraft to rendezvous with Tony's L-159E above. As he did so, he saw two aircraft flying very close together. They were a Ju52 towing a DFS 230 glider, on a training mission. The tug aircraft passed through the Ferranti gyro gunsight for just two seconds, but that was long enough. Both barrels of the ZPL-20 gun pod fired cannon shells towards both aircraft, the tail of the Ju52 broke away, severing the link with DFS 230, and the shells hitting the glider pilot, killing him.
Both aircraft plunged into the ground near Auweiler. Both uptimer aircraft were quickly over Roermond in the Netherlands. They had spent eighteen minutes and thirty seconds in Nazi airspace. Within half-an-hour both aircraft were lowering their tricycle undercarriage and landing back at Conington.
Tony was hugely disappointed that Alex had been the first pilot to shoot down a Luftwaffe aircraft, and his cannon pod and Sidewinders remained unfired.
"Well, while you were flying rubber dog turds out of Stansted, I was sat at home playing War Thunder and IL-2" said Alex.
———
The man kissed his wife and children goodbye, and walked to the office in Augsburg where he worked.
He was glad he had been taken off the Me210 project — his complaints that too many corners had been cut to save materials and that the design of the Arado empennage was flawed had gone unheeded, overruled by Willy Messerschmitt himself. The FW187 had been a fearsome competitor. Erlanger had introduced an upgraded Me109, the Avia C-99, he called it, and was working on a radial-engined workhorse fighter.
He opened the envelope, took out the report he had decided to send to Milch, and filed it away, throwing the envelope in the discarded drawings bin.
No point in further damaging his career.
Messerschmitt believed more performance could be wrung out of the 109 design, especially after the modifications made to the Me109V24. He had to hide his disgust that the Doktor has improved his design, fitted a new engine and armament, to the delight of Göring and the Führer.
Dipl. Ing. Edgar Schmued disagreed. He was determined to design a single-engine fighter that combined the performance of the Me 209 and the reliability in combat of the Me109. The Me309 would eclipse even that aircraft, he hoped.
Alex plonked the two heavy books down on the desk in front of Tony and Charlie, while a depressed Polina looked on from a corner of the room.
"Bloody 'ell! They must have chapter and verse if they cover just a couple of months!" said Charlie.
"The one on the right covers the air war from September 'thirty-nine to June 'forty, as it says, the other one just covers six weeks or so." said Alex.
"Does it have where the German tank columns are on any given day?" asked Tony.
McCarthy flicked through the pages of The Battle of France: Then And Now.
"Look, Tony, crashed Fairey Battles on EVERY. FUCKING. PAGE. Is the Sea Fury or the Mustang, or the ALCA we've now got that much faster than a Battle? No. Is it impervious to 20mm and 37mm Flak shells? No." said Alex. "Every plane we have would have to slow down to bomb or strafe those tanks, and make ourselves vulnerable to ground fire"
"So what do you mean, bomb more bridges?" asked Tony.
"No, and yes. If we bomb bridges in Belgium and France, the Krauts will just bring bridging equipment and pontoons, and barges" said Alex. "If we bomb bridges in Germany, on the Rhine, we'll slow down the offensive. The L-159E is the only safe aircraft we can fly over enemy territory."
"Eventually. We can attack the Germans at night, when we have the advantage" said Tony.
"And we sleep during the day, presumably, ending any chance of shooting down the Luftwaffe by day, in any of the aircraft we have" said Alex. "Either that or we fuck up our sleep patterns and circadian rhythms so badly, we get tired, we make stupid mistakes and wreck aircraft vital to the future war effort."
"If there is one. You aren't think of handing these planes over to the RAF and doing a runner?" replied Tony.
"Most sensible thing you've said all day. What's the point of risking our lives just to shoot down a few more Stukas than the historical record? We'd have to shoot down more than five per sortie to make any difference" said Alex.
"So we can't do anything except tinker at the margins, while the steamroller of history rolls on?" asked Tony.
"Unless you have a tactical nuke you haven't told us about, that you can drop on the Ardennes." said Alex.
Last edited:
Shlikhim Fun Der Tsukunft
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Tuesday, 7th May 1940
"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something" — Robert Heinlein.
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." — Frank Zappa.
"Come with me if you want to live" — Kyle Reese/T-800/John Connor/T-900 Cameron Phillips/Sarah Connor/Grace Harper.
Alex was determined to get Charlie accustomed to flying the combat aircraft the uptimers were now equipped with. She could already fly the Sea Fury and P-51D pretty well, but Alex sat in the back seat of the armed CT-133 as they flew over the English Channel, and let her use her skills to take take off, fly, manoeuvre and land the 1950s jet, which was now more faster, more advanced and better armed than most combat aircraft of the time.
Once she's got to grips with this, she can solo on the Canadair Sabre, and then the ALCA thought Alex.
Tony flew alongside them in the Cessna 441 Conquest II. His only passenger was Polly, who wanted to see more of France before it was crushed under the Nazi jackboot.
Charlie's landing on the unfamiliar tricycle-undercarriage jet trainer at Épinal-Mirecourt was a greaser.
"What are we going to do here, now?" Polina asked, wanting to take everyone's attention away from Charlie. They had never liked each other.
"Ferry the planes back to Conington, so we can use them to defend Britain. There's two advanced Spitfires here—"
"Can't we at least rescue some people, y'know Jews, before the Nazis turn up and kill them all?"
"Well, Polinka, I'd love to, but how do you rescue people who don't realise how much danger they are in? 'Ah yes, I have already fled one country and settled in a neutral country' said Alex, pretending to be a downtimer refugee. "I could tell them the Nazis will build death factories in Poland" he continued "and you will be fed into them, but even with the current brutality of the Germans that seems an outlandish claim."
"They have concentration camps at this point, don't they?"
"Yes, but they dispersing them because the SS-Totenkopf will be fighting in Holland and Belgium. And France. Believe me, I want to try. Even so, where do we house them? How do we — where do we find them kosher food, care for their kids? We don't know anyone who does that. We don't even speak the languages of the people we want to rescue."
"I speak Ukrainian!" She stressed. "Tony speaks French."
"Yes, and Ukraine is in the Soviet Union, so the KGB will arrest us and put us the gulag, if we go there"
"You own a hotel!"
"I did own a hotel, yes. I guess I don't now, somebody else owns it."
Both the helicopters took off from Épinal-Mirecourt, and flew north-west. Alex and Charlie were in the AW139, Tony and Polina in the A109S. Instead of landing at Brussels airport at Haren, they landed at the biggest and flattest green space in the centre of Brussels, the Bois de la Cambre at the end of Avenue Louise. Brusseliers in offices, or who had left work at lunchtime, were shocked to see the two white helicopters land. Few had seen a working helicopter before, and those that had, had only seen Luftwaffe rotorcraft on newsreels from the 1936 Olympics.
Alex's aircraft looked nothing like Hanna Reitsch's twin-rotor Focke-Achgelis Fa61 Hubschrauber.
They handed out leaflets to the curious — and somewhat frightened — citizens of the neutral country's capital.
At the top of the document was a yellow Star of David ✡️ on the right, with the logo of Anti-fascist action on the left.
And the same phrase in seven languages.
A journalist, with a notepad rushed to ask the bizarre aviators a question.
"Qui êtes-vous et que voulez-vous?"
"Pardonnez mar, je ne speak Fronsays" said Alex.
"Hein, Quoi? Who are you, and what do you want?"
"This country will be on the frontline of a war zone within two to three days" replied Alex, apparently in English. "We are just here to give you advanced warning, and rescue any vulnerable people from the oncoming assault"
"Come with me, if you want to live" he replied, quoting from the multilingual leaflet. "Do you have any evidence the Germans will attack us again, as a neutral nation?" [Avez-vous des preuves que les Allemands nous attaqueront à nouveau, en tant que nation neutre?]
"The stormtroopers and their weapons, gathered on your frontiers, should be warning enough. You will have twenty days at most, once they attack" [Vous aurez vingt jours au maximum, une fois que les nazis attaqueront] said Alex.
Des étrangers anonymes dans des machines volantes
arrivent avec des avertissements inquiétants
Read the evening's headlines in the French language daily papers. One photographer captured the back of Alex's head whilst taking a picture of the white AW139.
After warning the public to keep clear of the rotors, the blades churned the air again, and the helicopters lifted off again. McCarthy headed north, and landed the helicopter on the Jonas Daniel Meijerplein, in front of the the Amsterdam Portuguese Synagogue.
Rabbi Eliyahu Frances strode out of the synagogue, to see what the commotion was.
"What is the meaning of this?" said the bearded man, in Dutch.
"My name is Alex McCarthy, I have a warning from the future. Your people are at risk, this entire country is at risk, you personally are at risk".
"I speak English badly, I cannot understand you."
"Mayn nomen iz Alex Makarti, ikh hobn a varenung fun der tsukunft. Deyn mentshn zenen in rizikirn, dos gantse land iz in rizikirn, ir persnali zenen in rizikirn. Ve n d i deytsh n kumen" said Alex in Yiddish. Charlie's mouth was open. She didn't know Alex was speaking Yiddish or could speak Yiddish, but then neither did Alex, who thought he speaking English, just louder. Alex handed Rabbi Eliyahu a leaflet.
"Makarti? We hebben op je gewacht. Kom alsjeblieft binnen." Alex heard and understood this perfectly as "We have been waiting for you. Please come inside."
"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something" — Robert Heinlein.
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." — Frank Zappa.
"Come with me if you want to live" — Kyle Reese/T-800/John Connor/T-900 Cameron Phillips/Sarah Connor/Grace Harper.
Alex was determined to get Charlie accustomed to flying the combat aircraft the uptimers were now equipped with. She could already fly the Sea Fury and P-51D pretty well, but Alex sat in the back seat of the armed CT-133 as they flew over the English Channel, and let her use her skills to take take off, fly, manoeuvre and land the 1950s jet, which was now more faster, more advanced and better armed than most combat aircraft of the time.
Once she's got to grips with this, she can solo on the Canadair Sabre, and then the ALCA thought Alex.
Tony flew alongside them in the Cessna 441 Conquest II. His only passenger was Polly, who wanted to see more of France before it was crushed under the Nazi jackboot.
Charlie's landing on the unfamiliar tricycle-undercarriage jet trainer at Épinal-Mirecourt was a greaser.
"What are we going to do here, now?" Polina asked, wanting to take everyone's attention away from Charlie. They had never liked each other.
"Ferry the planes back to Conington, so we can use them to defend Britain. There's two advanced Spitfires here—"
"Can't we at least rescue some people, y'know Jews, before the Nazis turn up and kill them all?"
"Well, Polinka, I'd love to, but how do you rescue people who don't realise how much danger they are in? 'Ah yes, I have already fled one country and settled in a neutral country' said Alex, pretending to be a downtimer refugee. "I could tell them the Nazis will build death factories in Poland" he continued "and you will be fed into them, but even with the current brutality of the Germans that seems an outlandish claim."
"They have concentration camps at this point, don't they?"
"Yes, but they dispersing them because the SS-Totenkopf will be fighting in Holland and Belgium. And France. Believe me, I want to try. Even so, where do we house them? How do we — where do we find them kosher food, care for their kids? We don't know anyone who does that. We don't even speak the languages of the people we want to rescue."
"I speak Ukrainian!" She stressed. "Tony speaks French."
"Yes, and Ukraine is in the Soviet Union, so the KGB will arrest us and put us the gulag, if we go there"
"You own a hotel!"
"I did own a hotel, yes. I guess I don't now, somebody else owns it."
———
Both the helicopters took off from Épinal-Mirecourt, and flew north-west. Alex and Charlie were in the AW139, Tony and Polina in the A109S. Instead of landing at Brussels airport at Haren, they landed at the biggest and flattest green space in the centre of Brussels, the Bois de la Cambre at the end of Avenue Louise. Brusseliers in offices, or who had left work at lunchtime, were shocked to see the two white helicopters land. Few had seen a working helicopter before, and those that had, had only seen Luftwaffe rotorcraft on newsreels from the 1936 Olympics.
Alex's aircraft looked nothing like Hanna Reitsch's twin-rotor Focke-Achgelis Fa61 Hubschrauber.
They handed out leaflets to the curious — and somewhat frightened — citizens of the neutral country's capital.
At the top of the document was a yellow Star of David ✡️ on the right, with the logo of Anti-fascist action on the left.
And the same phrase in seven languages.
Komm mit mir, wenn du leben willst
Kom met me mee, als je wilt leven
Viens avec nous, si tu veux vivre
Ходи зі мною, якщо хочеш жити
Pojď se mnou, jestli chceš žít
Chodź ze mną, jeśli chcesz żyć
Kum mit mir aoyb ir vilt lebn
Kom met me mee, als je wilt leven
Viens avec nous, si tu veux vivre
Ходи зі мною, якщо хочеш жити
Pojď se mnou, jestli chceš žít
Chodź ze mną, jeśli chcesz żyć
Kum mit mir aoyb ir vilt lebn
A journalist, with a notepad rushed to ask the bizarre aviators a question.
"Qui êtes-vous et que voulez-vous?"
"Pardonnez mar, je ne speak Fronsays" said Alex.
"Hein, Quoi? Who are you, and what do you want?"
"This country will be on the frontline of a war zone within two to three days" replied Alex, apparently in English. "We are just here to give you advanced warning, and rescue any vulnerable people from the oncoming assault"
"Come with me, if you want to live" he replied, quoting from the multilingual leaflet. "Do you have any evidence the Germans will attack us again, as a neutral nation?" [Avez-vous des preuves que les Allemands nous attaqueront à nouveau, en tant que nation neutre?]
"The stormtroopers and their weapons, gathered on your frontiers, should be warning enough. You will have twenty days at most, once they attack" [Vous aurez vingt jours au maximum, une fois que les nazis attaqueront] said Alex.
Des étrangers anonymes dans des machines volantes
arrivent avec des avertissements inquiétants
Read the evening's headlines in the French language daily papers. One photographer captured the back of Alex's head whilst taking a picture of the white AW139.
After warning the public to keep clear of the rotors, the blades churned the air again, and the helicopters lifted off again. McCarthy headed north, and landed the helicopter on the Jonas Daniel Meijerplein, in front of the the Amsterdam Portuguese Synagogue.
Rabbi Eliyahu Frances strode out of the synagogue, to see what the commotion was.
"What is the meaning of this?" said the bearded man, in Dutch.
"My name is Alex McCarthy, I have a warning from the future. Your people are at risk, this entire country is at risk, you personally are at risk".
"I speak English badly, I cannot understand you."
"Mayn nomen iz Alex Makarti, ikh hobn a varenung fun der tsukunft. Deyn mentshn zenen in rizikirn, dos gantse land iz in rizikirn, ir persnali zenen in rizikirn. Ve n d i deytsh n kumen" said Alex in Yiddish. Charlie's mouth was open. She didn't know Alex was speaking Yiddish or could speak Yiddish, but then neither did Alex, who thought he speaking English, just louder. Alex handed Rabbi Eliyahu a leaflet.
"Makarti? We hebben op je gewacht. Kom alsjeblieft binnen." Alex heard and understood this perfectly as "We have been waiting for you. Please come inside."
Last edited:
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
Oh, what's this, Nazis training for the attack on Eben-Emael? Not on our watch ya don't!
Slowing the German offensive by bombing German bridges sounds like a decent plan, as perhaps that will buy the French and friends enough time to keep the Ardennes offensive from going as per OTL.
Plus it gives our heroes more time to organize the evacuation of Jews and other people who will be on the top of the Nazis' kill-lists...
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Eben-Emael will get a visit from our heroes, but these were preparing for another paratroop attack as part of Plan Yellow, one that has been largely forgotten.
Hitler will want to bring Plan Yellow, but these pin-prick attacks have already delayed it!
Everything We Hold Dear
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"You've been waiting for me? Interesting." said Alex.
"Someone like you, yes. Are you Jewish, Mr Makarti? You speak very good Yiddish." Asked the Rabbi
"My Yiddish is as good as my French and Dutch, in other words not very. As to whether I'm Jewish, it depends who you ask, and as such, is unimportant. McCarthy is an Irish name, and everybody has to be called something. Let's just say I'm an interested party, if anyone is planning a gigantic pogrom. Or famine."
"You expect a massacre?"
"Conquest, theft and massacre, in line with what Hitler has done so far. Hitler has conflicting war aims. One: the annihilation of the Jews as a political, cultural, financial entity; Two: the occupation of as much land as possible to secure a homeland for the German people, as defined by him. Something has to give, and the Jews will be a drain on the Reich's resources. It's easy to starve people, kill people, Stalin has been doing just that for a decade."
"You oppose socialism too?"
"I oppose the boot heel being ground in the face of the weak. I oppose the lice, not the pesticide."
"As do I. But we have no weapons." said the Rabbi.
"I however, do. If you can use your influence to put in position a base for Jews, Poles, any emigres fleeing Nazism in Britain. I will fly them there."
"The English will not accept emigration to England, nor Mandatory Palestine. Why not France? Or Ireland?"
"The British may be unfeeling, but they won't send refugees back to a war zone." Except in 2020, maybe, thought Alex. "France has its own particular Jewish problem. I have barely any influence in Britain, in France" he continued, "they are barely aware I exist, and there are only four of us, and one is a teenager."
"Tinyeja?"
"Young woman" replied Alex.
"I see. You must be American?"
"Non-neutral American, if that suits you. I have the guns and di gelt" said Alex, passing the Rabbi a 100 Swiss franc note. "Accept this as a donation to a very worthy cause."
"If I can do this, and I desperately wish to be true, where can you be contacted? We can see the Dutch army mobilising, even though the Prime Minister claims it is an exercise. Trenches, shelters, artillery in the parks."
"The Dutch government will surrender within seven days."
"SEVEN DAYS!" Exclaimed Eliyahu Frances. "We have no time to lose."
"If I had known I was expected, I would have come sooner. I'm based in Suffolk in Eastern England, at a place called Woodbridge, but temporarily I can be found at Épinal-Mirecourt aerodrome, I will bring you a radio you can speak to me directly on from my Hubschrauber. You will need to put the aerial on the roof of the synagogue to successfully contact us."
With that, Alex left the synagogue, and brought the UHF radio to the Rabbi.
"Any luck?" asked Charlie.
"Well, he has far better connections with the European Jewish community, but we need pilots to fly them out of there, and somewhere to house them when they have left"
"Shame you still don't own Seckford Hall. You could have at least housed some of them there"
"Yeah, it all gets more difficult when the Narzis start shooting"
Alex started the engines of the white helicopter, and hoped the locals were keeping clear of the rotor blades.
Der Führer stepped down from the Führersonderzug at Euskirchen. He took the salute of the Heer soldiers of the 8. Infanterie-Division as he walked to the convoy of Horch staff cars taking him to Rodert, his valet Heinz Linge, Keitel, Schaub (his adjutant), Jodl and Schmundt. The Felsennest would be cramped, especially when von Below (his Luftwaffe aide) and Puttkamer (his Kriegsmarine aide) arrived later.
Von Below was conveying the Führer's displeasure to Generalfeldmarschall Göring that Plan Yellow would have to be delayed due to the loss of just nine transport aircraft. Aircraft would have to reallocated, deployments changed. Keitel telling him that incomplete details of the invasion had been distributed by Weiss-Hubschrauber-Mann had enraged him further. The plans had been abandoned once before in similar circumstances. They could not be delayed much longer.
The difficulties meant the Aufmarsschanweisung would have to postponed to Saturday the Eleventh, or even Sunday the Twelfth.
In many ways the war was a huge bonus, delaying the election that had been scheduled for 1939 or 1940, and the Gentleman's Agreement with the opposition parties regarding by-elections – that no party would put up candidates to stand against the selected candidate in each seat – ensured there would be no further upsets like Bridgwater, or Oxford. Labour had taken thirteen seats from the National Government since the 1935 election. The election was expected to be held in the afterglow of Chamberlain's successful 1938 peace with Hitler in Munich, not the bitter humiliation of the Führer's subsequent invasion and occupation of Bohemia and Moravia.
The Tories, having won 395 seats in parliament in 1935, received the greatest benefit from this arrangement.
By accentuating the idiotic mistakes of opposition politicians, and a little black propaganda, with Rothermere and the late Lord Glenavon's money, the Liberal Party, the Labour Party had each been split into factions, four in the case of Labour.
The Liberals had been split into three parties – National Liberals, Simon's and Hore-Belisha's party, the Samuelite Liberals and the Lloyd George Liberals, which mostly consisted of the grey haired old fool's family.
The National Liberals were part of the National government, but likely to be sidelined more and more as the war progressed. The National Labour party, lead by Malcolm MacDonald, Ramsay MacDonald's son, was likely to receive similar treatment.
Labour opposition consisted of the Parliamentary Labour Party, led by compromise candidate and closet alcoholic Arthur Greenwood – how different things might have been if Herbert Morrison had won that election! New Labour, lead by Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt, or "socialism made safe for aristocrats", who had two baronets and one Viscount in their party.
New Labour had the most coherent set of policies of any opposition party, not much good that it did them. Labour's 1935 election manifesto had mentioned the word 'socialism' forty-three times, but only won them seventy-eight more seats than the catastrophic 1931 election.
The Independent Labour Party, lead by conscientious objector Fenner Brockway, was the furthest to the left of the four parties. Apart from Pollit's Communists, of course, slavish Stalinists, and supporters of the Comintern, both of them. It was in favour of the class struggle, but not the current war, whereas New Labour was in favour of the war, but against the class war. Of all three, New Labour had the most coherent policies. Not a man to be underestimated by any means, Mosley. To think what might have happened if he had stayed a member of the Parliamentary Labour party! He would have made mincemeat of Chamberlain at the despatch box were he leader of the official opposition.
The only question remained, who might succeed Chamberlain, if something goes wrong, before a peace deal could be arranged.
Hitler could not be trusted, thought Glenavon, but this war will destroy the Empire, and everything we hold dear.
Tony and Charlie climbed into the Spitfire XIV and the Seafire.
The Seafire had been modified, by hands unknown, into a post-war Seafire FR-46,
with a contra-prop, which would make it faster and easier for Charlie to control, no take-off swing like that which Tony was about to experience.
They flew the fighters back to Conington, and landed safely, so they would be in position for the future defence of the UK. Alex wondered which aircraft to test fly, the F4U-7 or the P-47D, whilst waiting from some sort of reply, anything really, from the Rabbi.
He decided against either, and sat in the reception area of the control tower at Épinal-Mirecourt, listening to an Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark best of.
"It's a long, long, way (long way) from where you want to be"
Too right, Andy, thought Alex.
"Someone like you, yes. Are you Jewish, Mr Makarti? You speak very good Yiddish." Asked the Rabbi
"My Yiddish is as good as my French and Dutch, in other words not very. As to whether I'm Jewish, it depends who you ask, and as such, is unimportant. McCarthy is an Irish name, and everybody has to be called something. Let's just say I'm an interested party, if anyone is planning a gigantic pogrom. Or famine."
"You expect a massacre?"
"Conquest, theft and massacre, in line with what Hitler has done so far. Hitler has conflicting war aims. One: the annihilation of the Jews as a political, cultural, financial entity; Two: the occupation of as much land as possible to secure a homeland for the German people, as defined by him. Something has to give, and the Jews will be a drain on the Reich's resources. It's easy to starve people, kill people, Stalin has been doing just that for a decade."
"You oppose socialism too?"
"I oppose the boot heel being ground in the face of the weak. I oppose the lice, not the pesticide."
"As do I. But we have no weapons." said the Rabbi.
"I however, do. If you can use your influence to put in position a base for Jews, Poles, any emigres fleeing Nazism in Britain. I will fly them there."
"The English will not accept emigration to England, nor Mandatory Palestine. Why not France? Or Ireland?"
"The British may be unfeeling, but they won't send refugees back to a war zone." Except in 2020, maybe, thought Alex. "France has its own particular Jewish problem. I have barely any influence in Britain, in France" he continued, "they are barely aware I exist, and there are only four of us, and one is a teenager."
"Tinyeja?"
"Young woman" replied Alex.
"I see. You must be American?"
"Non-neutral American, if that suits you. I have the guns and di gelt" said Alex, passing the Rabbi a 100 Swiss franc note. "Accept this as a donation to a very worthy cause."
"If I can do this, and I desperately wish to be true, where can you be contacted? We can see the Dutch army mobilising, even though the Prime Minister claims it is an exercise. Trenches, shelters, artillery in the parks."
"The Dutch government will surrender within seven days."
"SEVEN DAYS!" Exclaimed Eliyahu Frances. "We have no time to lose."
"If I had known I was expected, I would have come sooner. I'm based in Suffolk in Eastern England, at a place called Woodbridge, but temporarily I can be found at Épinal-Mirecourt aerodrome, I will bring you a radio you can speak to me directly on from my Hubschrauber. You will need to put the aerial on the roof of the synagogue to successfully contact us."
With that, Alex left the synagogue, and brought the UHF radio to the Rabbi.
"Any luck?" asked Charlie.
"Well, he has far better connections with the European Jewish community, but we need pilots to fly them out of there, and somewhere to house them when they have left"
"Shame you still don't own Seckford Hall. You could have at least housed some of them there"
"Yeah, it all gets more difficult when the Narzis start shooting"
Alex started the engines of the white helicopter, and hoped the locals were keeping clear of the rotor blades.
————
Der Führer stepped down from the Führersonderzug at Euskirchen. He took the salute of the Heer soldiers of the 8. Infanterie-Division as he walked to the convoy of Horch staff cars taking him to Rodert, his valet Heinz Linge, Keitel, Schaub (his adjutant), Jodl and Schmundt. The Felsennest would be cramped, especially when von Below (his Luftwaffe aide) and Puttkamer (his Kriegsmarine aide) arrived later.
Von Below was conveying the Führer's displeasure to Generalfeldmarschall Göring that Plan Yellow would have to be delayed due to the loss of just nine transport aircraft. Aircraft would have to reallocated, deployments changed. Keitel telling him that incomplete details of the invasion had been distributed by Weiss-Hubschrauber-Mann had enraged him further. The plans had been abandoned once before in similar circumstances. They could not be delayed much longer.
The difficulties meant the Aufmarsschanweisung would have to postponed to Saturday the Eleventh, or even Sunday the Twelfth.
————
In many ways the war was a huge bonus, delaying the election that had been scheduled for 1939 or 1940, and the Gentleman's Agreement with the opposition parties regarding by-elections – that no party would put up candidates to stand against the selected candidate in each seat – ensured there would be no further upsets like Bridgwater, or Oxford. Labour had taken thirteen seats from the National Government since the 1935 election. The election was expected to be held in the afterglow of Chamberlain's successful 1938 peace with Hitler in Munich, not the bitter humiliation of the Führer's subsequent invasion and occupation of Bohemia and Moravia.
The Tories, having won 395 seats in parliament in 1935, received the greatest benefit from this arrangement.
By accentuating the idiotic mistakes of opposition politicians, and a little black propaganda, with Rothermere and the late Lord Glenavon's money, the Liberal Party, the Labour Party had each been split into factions, four in the case of Labour.
The Liberals had been split into three parties – National Liberals, Simon's and Hore-Belisha's party, the Samuelite Liberals and the Lloyd George Liberals, which mostly consisted of the grey haired old fool's family.
The National Liberals were part of the National government, but likely to be sidelined more and more as the war progressed. The National Labour party, lead by Malcolm MacDonald, Ramsay MacDonald's son, was likely to receive similar treatment.
Labour opposition consisted of the Parliamentary Labour Party, led by compromise candidate and closet alcoholic Arthur Greenwood – how different things might have been if Herbert Morrison had won that election! New Labour, lead by Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt, or "socialism made safe for aristocrats", who had two baronets and one Viscount in their party.
New Labour had the most coherent set of policies of any opposition party, not much good that it did them. Labour's 1935 election manifesto had mentioned the word 'socialism' forty-three times, but only won them seventy-eight more seats than the catastrophic 1931 election.
The Independent Labour Party, lead by conscientious objector Fenner Brockway, was the furthest to the left of the four parties. Apart from Pollit's Communists, of course, slavish Stalinists, and supporters of the Comintern, both of them. It was in favour of the class struggle, but not the current war, whereas New Labour was in favour of the war, but against the class war. Of all three, New Labour had the most coherent policies. Not a man to be underestimated by any means, Mosley. To think what might have happened if he had stayed a member of the Parliamentary Labour party! He would have made mincemeat of Chamberlain at the despatch box were he leader of the official opposition.
His Majesty's Government
Conservative (Arthur Neville Chamberlain): 395 seats
National Liberal (Sir John Simon): 29 seats
National Labour (Malcolm MacDonald): 8 seats
National: 1 seat (Sir John Anderson, MP, PC)
His Majesty's Loyal Opposition
Labour (Arthur Greenwood): 138 seats
New Labour (Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt): 10 seats
Independent Labour (Fenner Brockway): 8 seats
Liberal (Herbert Samuel): 18 seats
Independent Liberals (Rt Hon David Lloyd George): 4
Communist (Harry Pollitt): 2 seats
Independents: 2 seats
Conservative (Arthur Neville Chamberlain): 395 seats
National Liberal (Sir John Simon): 29 seats
National Labour (Malcolm MacDonald): 8 seats
National: 1 seat (Sir John Anderson, MP, PC)
His Majesty's Loyal Opposition
Labour (Arthur Greenwood): 138 seats
New Labour (Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt): 10 seats
Independent Labour (Fenner Brockway): 8 seats
Liberal (Herbert Samuel): 18 seats
Independent Liberals (Rt Hon David Lloyd George): 4
Communist (Harry Pollitt): 2 seats
Independents: 2 seats
The only question remained, who might succeed Chamberlain, if something goes wrong, before a peace deal could be arranged.
Hitler could not be trusted, thought Glenavon, but this war will destroy the Empire, and everything we hold dear.
————
Tony and Charlie climbed into the Spitfire XIV and the Seafire.
The Seafire had been modified, by hands unknown, into a post-war Seafire FR-46,
with a contra-prop, which would make it faster and easier for Charlie to control, no take-off swing like that which Tony was about to experience.
They flew the fighters back to Conington, and landed safely, so they would be in position for the future defence of the UK. Alex wondered which aircraft to test fly, the F4U-7 or the P-47D, whilst waiting from some sort of reply, anything really, from the Rabbi.
He decided against either, and sat in the reception area of the control tower at Épinal-Mirecourt, listening to an Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark best of.
"It's a long, long, way (long way) from where you want to be"
Too right, Andy, thought Alex.
Last edited:
History of Modern
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Thursday, 9th May 1940.
Every precious child and every mother's kiss
All who went before, and all that follows this
Every moment shared, hour of the day
No record will remain, all will fade away
And on the seventh (or eighth) day, Alex rested.
He explored the local countryside, ate crisps and ice-cream from the suspiciously well-stocked dispenser machines in the control tower. He test drove the Tatra T87, the Citroën Traction Avant, bruising his left elbow getting out of the Tatra. Not as spacious as the Volvo S80 he owned, nor the Porsche Panamera.
However none of this could dispel the nagging fear that not much stood between him and the people he loved and Nazi world domination. All the lessons of history were bad ones, and not even the Maginot Line and the English Channel could hold them back. He wandered into a hangar, and the Bombardier CRJ-200 looked huge, even though it was just a regional airliner. He noticed just a small change to it. Just over 1001 kilograms had been added to it. Under each wing was a pylon and two 225KG bombs. Under the port wing, the hardpoint/pylon had a targeting pod had been integrated with it.
He heard the thrum of aero-engines overhead, four Curtiss Hawk 75 aircraft, and an aircraft Alex could not identify. (It was a Bréguet 693)
Friendlies at least, thought Alex, well, at least semi-friendlies.
They didn't seem very interested in the big NATO base/regional airport below them.
The waiting for the inevitable Nazi onslaught was both interminable and unpredictable.
The aero-engine noise resumed, this time it was more familiar. Alex watched as the Sea Fury lowered its undercarriage, and came into land.
Tony was at the controls.
"We're supposed to be taking aircraft away from here, not bringing them here" Alex told Tony.
"Who's going to fly them out? There's only three of us, well four of us"
"Oh really"
"Some chap called Boitel-Gill, heard about us and came to investigate. I hired him on the spot, before the RAF took him back, he used to fly with Imperial Airways and was a pilot for the Nabob of Hydrobab, or someone."
"The name sounds familiar. Battle of Britain pilot, I think" replied Alex.
"We've got three new aircraft, too"
"Oh Jesus Christ."
"A Stretched Douglas DC-3 (a C-117 they call it, wish it was an F-117 to be honest), a Grumman HU-16D amphibian, and an Amiot AAC-1 Toucan"
"Oh, a Ju52 copy, nice."
"Uh huh" Tony confirmed.
"Anyway, come and look at this, Tony!" Said Alex, leading Tony into the hangar "Remember I told you about how they were scared in the 1930s about the airliner-bomber? Well here you go!" Alex pointed at the bombs under each wing." It needs a test flight, after all!" Said Alex. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking."
"Bomb Berlin?" Asked Tony
"Nah, not Berlin, far too obvious"
Alex had expected the Bombardier CRJ-200 to be more difficult to fly, but it seemed very similar to the 2000LX business jet, even with an additional 500 kilograms under each wing. The jet, plucked from the Arizona desert, refitted with two zero-hour General Electric CF34-3B1 had been transferred back in time to wartime Europe. It still wore some of its previous owner's paintwork, that being Delta Connection.
The aircraft leapt off the runway at Épinal-Mirecourt, empty of passengers and with Tony at the controls, with Alex acting as co-pilot. It took them 30 minutes to fly over the Vosges Mountains, from the French frontier to Baden, over Württemberg-Hohenzollern, flying north of Augsburg to avoid the Flak. They were flying at 11000 metres and 425 knot when they arrived over the centre of München. They dropped the four 225KG bombs from both wings at 11:30 AM. The bombs exploded near the Milbersdorf factory of the Bayerische Motoren-Werke. Three people were killed, seventy injured and the factory sustained minor damage. Tony increased altitude to 12500 metres and speed to 450 knots. They skirted Augsburg, avoided Stuttgart, Pforzheim and Karlsruhe. Behind them, heavy Flak bursts could be seen in the sky. None of the working radiolocation equipment in Germany had detected them (they were in the wrong place), and the only anti-aircraft fire directed at them had exploded 1000 metres away from them.
Once in French airspace, Alex was calculating how far it was from Épinal-Mirecourt to Moscow, and whether the CRJ-200LR could make it that far. He reckoned they would run out of fuel on the return trip, just short of the French airfield.
Königsberg, maybe, then. Lublin, perhaps Alex thought.
Alex wanted to see if the CRJ-200LR could cope with downtimer airfields. Schiphol was one of the biggest commercial airports at the time, and Alex circled the airfield as a KLM Douglas DC-2 took off and an Air France Dewoitine D.338 landed. He waited until the big French airliner had taxyed off the runway, before identifying himself, obtaining clearance from the tower, lowering the CRJ's undercarriage and flaps, and beginning his approach. As the nose wheel touched down, Alex activated the thrust reversers, despite Tony warning loudly that they would slide off the narrow runway at low speed.
Nevertheless, the aircraft rolled to the very end of the available runway. Much riskier than Épinal-Mirecourt or Bentwaters, Alex concluded.
These are the little children
The future in our hands
Some Dutch soldiers were ordered to investigate the mysterious propeller-less aeroplane, and on finding the pilot was the same man who had landed a helicopter there days before, they were ordered to guard it for him. No-one suspected the aircraft had violated Dutch neutrality after bombing Munich.
Alex and Tony departed the air port by the Sloterweg, and caught the tram to Wibaultweg, and on to JD Meier Plein, and the Portugese Synagoge. Rabbi Eliyahu Frances met them both, and told them he had tried to contact them but the radio had not worked, and there were thirty-four adults, willing to flee the Netherlands for Britain.
"What about the children?"
"We weren't counting the children" Said the Rabbi.
"I'm strictly a women-and-children first kinda guy" replied Alex.
"Refugees and emigres with families are unwilling to uproot their families, yet again, on the word of a mysterious stranger"
Alex handed the Rabbi a piece of paper. He had printed it from what was left of his Twitter feed.
"What is this?"
"A glimpse into the future" said Alex. "What the Nazis do to young children, young women."
"What is this Auschwitz?"
"KL Auschwitz was the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centres. It was, will be at Oświęcim, Oshpitzin, south of Katowitz. It's notorious where I come from, the only concentration camp most people across the World have heard of"
"Guests? Why do they call it that?"
"Over 1.1 million men, women and children lost their lives there." Alex continued, he was determined to get to the point.
"Meyn gat" said the Rabbi, white with shock.
"It was a network of labour camps, but they used to sort people as they arrived by train".
"Sort?"
"Into those that could be used as slaves, and those that couldn't. The selection." Said Alex.
"What do you mean 'selection'?"
"Children, and old people, they were herded into airtight rooms. Gassed. With prussic acid, mostly. The Shoah, they call it. The 'calamity' in Hebrew, I'm sure I don't need to explain. They burnt the corpses in furnaces. Human lives efficiently turned into ashes and smoke. Lots of Jews were shot and starved to death, too. They killed you, your wife, and your youngest son at Monowitz, one of the Auschwitz sub camps."
Every precious child and every mother's kiss
All who went before, and all that follows this
Every moment shared, hour of the day
No record will remain, all will fade away
And on the seventh (or eighth) day, Alex rested.
He explored the local countryside, ate crisps and ice-cream from the suspiciously well-stocked dispenser machines in the control tower. He test drove the Tatra T87, the Citroën Traction Avant, bruising his left elbow getting out of the Tatra. Not as spacious as the Volvo S80 he owned, nor the Porsche Panamera.
However none of this could dispel the nagging fear that not much stood between him and the people he loved and Nazi world domination. All the lessons of history were bad ones, and not even the Maginot Line and the English Channel could hold them back. He wandered into a hangar, and the Bombardier CRJ-200 looked huge, even though it was just a regional airliner. He noticed just a small change to it. Just over 1001 kilograms had been added to it. Under each wing was a pylon and two 225KG bombs. Under the port wing, the hardpoint/pylon had a targeting pod had been integrated with it.
He heard the thrum of aero-engines overhead, four Curtiss Hawk 75 aircraft, and an aircraft Alex could not identify. (It was a Bréguet 693)
Friendlies at least, thought Alex, well, at least semi-friendlies.
They didn't seem very interested in the big NATO base/regional airport below them.
The waiting for the inevitable Nazi onslaught was both interminable and unpredictable.
The aero-engine noise resumed, this time it was more familiar. Alex watched as the Sea Fury lowered its undercarriage, and came into land.
Tony was at the controls.
"We're supposed to be taking aircraft away from here, not bringing them here" Alex told Tony.
"Who's going to fly them out? There's only three of us, well four of us"
"Oh really"
"Some chap called Boitel-Gill, heard about us and came to investigate. I hired him on the spot, before the RAF took him back, he used to fly with Imperial Airways and was a pilot for the Nabob of Hydrobab, or someone."
"The name sounds familiar. Battle of Britain pilot, I think" replied Alex.
"We've got three new aircraft, too"
"Oh Jesus Christ."
"A Stretched Douglas DC-3 (a C-117 they call it, wish it was an F-117 to be honest), a Grumman HU-16D amphibian, and an Amiot AAC-1 Toucan"
"Oh, a Ju52 copy, nice."
"Uh huh" Tony confirmed.
"Anyway, come and look at this, Tony!" Said Alex, leading Tony into the hangar "Remember I told you about how they were scared in the 1930s about the airliner-bomber? Well here you go!" Alex pointed at the bombs under each wing." It needs a test flight, after all!" Said Alex. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking."
"Bomb Berlin?" Asked Tony
"Nah, not Berlin, far too obvious"
Alex had expected the Bombardier CRJ-200 to be more difficult to fly, but it seemed very similar to the 2000LX business jet, even with an additional 500 kilograms under each wing. The jet, plucked from the Arizona desert, refitted with two zero-hour General Electric CF34-3B1 had been transferred back in time to wartime Europe. It still wore some of its previous owner's paintwork, that being Delta Connection.
The aircraft leapt off the runway at Épinal-Mirecourt, empty of passengers and with Tony at the controls, with Alex acting as co-pilot. It took them 30 minutes to fly over the Vosges Mountains, from the French frontier to Baden, over Württemberg-Hohenzollern, flying north of Augsburg to avoid the Flak. They were flying at 11000 metres and 425 knot when they arrived over the centre of München. They dropped the four 225KG bombs from both wings at 11:30 AM. The bombs exploded near the Milbersdorf factory of the Bayerische Motoren-Werke. Three people were killed, seventy injured and the factory sustained minor damage. Tony increased altitude to 12500 metres and speed to 450 knots. They skirted Augsburg, avoided Stuttgart, Pforzheim and Karlsruhe. Behind them, heavy Flak bursts could be seen in the sky. None of the working radiolocation equipment in Germany had detected them (they were in the wrong place), and the only anti-aircraft fire directed at them had exploded 1000 metres away from them.
Once in French airspace, Alex was calculating how far it was from Épinal-Mirecourt to Moscow, and whether the CRJ-200LR could make it that far. He reckoned they would run out of fuel on the return trip, just short of the French airfield.
Königsberg, maybe, then. Lublin, perhaps Alex thought.
Alex wanted to see if the CRJ-200LR could cope with downtimer airfields. Schiphol was one of the biggest commercial airports at the time, and Alex circled the airfield as a KLM Douglas DC-2 took off and an Air France Dewoitine D.338 landed. He waited until the big French airliner had taxyed off the runway, before identifying himself, obtaining clearance from the tower, lowering the CRJ's undercarriage and flaps, and beginning his approach. As the nose wheel touched down, Alex activated the thrust reversers, despite Tony warning loudly that they would slide off the narrow runway at low speed.
Nevertheless, the aircraft rolled to the very end of the available runway. Much riskier than Épinal-Mirecourt or Bentwaters, Alex concluded.
These are the little children
The future in our hands
Some Dutch soldiers were ordered to investigate the mysterious propeller-less aeroplane, and on finding the pilot was the same man who had landed a helicopter there days before, they were ordered to guard it for him. No-one suspected the aircraft had violated Dutch neutrality after bombing Munich.
Alex and Tony departed the air port by the Sloterweg, and caught the tram to Wibaultweg, and on to JD Meier Plein, and the Portugese Synagoge. Rabbi Eliyahu Frances met them both, and told them he had tried to contact them but the radio had not worked, and there were thirty-four adults, willing to flee the Netherlands for Britain.
"What about the children?"
"We weren't counting the children" Said the Rabbi.
"I'm strictly a women-and-children first kinda guy" replied Alex.
"Refugees and emigres with families are unwilling to uproot their families, yet again, on the word of a mysterious stranger"
Alex handed the Rabbi a piece of paper. He had printed it from what was left of his Twitter feed.
"What is this?"
"A glimpse into the future" said Alex. "What the Nazis do to young children, young women."
"What is this Auschwitz?"
"KL Auschwitz was the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centres. It was, will be at Oświęcim, Oshpitzin, south of Katowitz. It's notorious where I come from, the only concentration camp most people across the World have heard of"
"Guests? Why do they call it that?"
"Over 1.1 million men, women and children lost their lives there." Alex continued, he was determined to get to the point.
"Meyn gat" said the Rabbi, white with shock.
"It was a network of labour camps, but they used to sort people as they arrived by train".
"Sort?"
"Into those that could be used as slaves, and those that couldn't. The selection." Said Alex.
"What do you mean 'selection'?"
"Children, and old people, they were herded into airtight rooms. Gassed. With prussic acid, mostly. The Shoah, they call it. The 'calamity' in Hebrew, I'm sure I don't need to explain. They burnt the corpses in furnaces. Human lives efficiently turned into ashes and smoke. Lots of Jews were shot and starved to death, too. They killed you, your wife, and your youngest son at Monowitz, one of the Auschwitz sub camps."
Fate Amenable To Change Part 1
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"You are the harbinger of doom" said the Rabbi in Dutch. {Voorbode van onheil}
"I only know that you, and the Rebbetzin, and your youngest child die, and I know where they die, but not when, or how. I'm suspecting it won't be of natural causes" said Alex, "I know I'm going to die, and so do you. You always have."
"I can't speak to you, you are a demon, you are sent to torment me" he replied. {Je bent gestuurd om me te kwellen}
"Your fate is amenable to change. Perhaps I am a messenger of god. You claimed you were expecting me. Simply by not ever visiting the place where you die, you can avoid dying there. I'm not the only way of never being sent to a death camp, but I'm If you never buy a train ticket to Auschwitz, you won't die there"
"They make you buy a ticket to your own death?"
"Uh huh"
"Please leave me alone, your cruelty is unspeakable {je wreedheid is onuitsprekelijk}. Just take the volunteers to Britain, you will be met there"
At the airport, thirty-four adults and twelve children were waiting, and they boarded the strange aeroplane via the CRJ-200's airstairs. There were forty-three Jewish, two Jehovah's Witnesses, and one Roman Catholic. When they landed back at Conington, a bus supplied by Central British Fund for German Jewry was waiting to take the refugees to vacant stately home in Norfolk, of which there were many.
Charlie was the only person that had loaded belts of ammunition into 12.7mm Browning M3 machine guns before. Alex found it cruelly ironic that a woman who had served 2 tours in the War Against Terror, in Operation TELIC in Iraq, and Operation HERRICK, in Afghanistan then had been invalided out of the RAF after injuring her knee playing netball. And just an Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan, and an Iraq Medal to show for it all, something squaddies sold on eBay for fifteen quid.
Alex asked her if she was OK, kneeling on the wing of the Thunderbolt, then the other, loading the belts into the ammunition boxes.
She said she was, but she often laughed off the pain. At least Alex was able to tell her that the supply of fluoxetine and diclofenac (in tablet and gel form) would last her a good few years. However, they were at Conington, and they were here in France, and she would have to make do with what she had brought with her.
McCarthy Air Services Ltd employed eight people to maintain the three ageing warbirds that flew for less than fifty hours a year. Anything any more intensive than that would require more support. Now they had a huge fleet of propeller- and jet-powered aircraft
"He's not just a pretty face, you know. If it hadn't been for that exchange to the RAAF they wouldn't have let you drop bombs on anyone" mocked Alex
"I can tell, look, you are doing that wrong, Jesus...." she said.
"How on earth did you find the money to buy and restore TWO Spitfires and a Hawker Tempest?" asked Tony of Alex.
"How did I afford it? By virtue of having £45 million in various bank acc..." said Alex
"45 MILLION QUID! All those sodding rounds of drinks I BOUGHT YOU, and you could have bought the fucking brewery!"
"Well, I haven't got it now. If ever I come into that kind of money I will split it three ways. Four ways"
"What will happen to it, now?" asked Charlie.
"The sole beneficiary of my will, Polina, is also here, so I suspect Ana will get it all. Once plod works out that Ana hasn't topped me for the money she was going to get, anyway."
Tony and Alex had argued over who was going to fly what. Alex had asserted owners rights on the Sea Fury, which left Tony with the P-47D Thunderbolt, which he had flown a grand total of twice. Charlie was being kept in reserve, there was no point in all three of the time-travellers dying in one go.
An hour before midnight on 10th May 1940, Wehrmacht troops crossed the border into Luxembourg, and a flight of Fieseler Storches deposited German troops near the Luxembourgish capital.
The Grand Ducal Palace fell bloodlessly, but Grand Duchess Charlotte, her husband Prince Félix and their six children were not there. From Colmar-Berg Castle they fled to the Belgian Frontier, and thence to France.
Just after midnight, two Gruppes of Heinkel He111s from KG 4 attacked the airfields at De Kooy, Amsterdam-Schiphol and Den Haag.
The Dutch airforce, the Koninklijke Luchtmacht, had dispersed at least some of its combat aircraft away from its main bases, and replaced some with decoys. The Belgian Air Force, the Force aérienne belge had not been so lucky, and its fleet of Fairey Foxes, Fiat CR-42s, Gloster Gladiators and Hawker Hurricanes had been destroyed on the ground
At 5am on Saturday, 11th May, 1940, Tony and Alex strapped themselves into the Thunderbolt and Sea Fury, respectively. Tony's P-47D had a Go-Pro camera in the rear of the bubble canopy, Alex's a similar camera attached to the tail of his aircraft. Each also had a camera in the leading edge of each port wing. Both pilots would have iPad-Mini sized screens in their cockpit, carrying the feed from each camera.
Alex and Tony had assured Charlie that they would GTFO ASAP as soon they saw any enemy fighters, and would make for home, using their speed advantage to escape.
McCarthy performed his pre-flight checks, checked the cannons were cocked, climbed into the cockpit, started the engine, and took off. Tony went through the same routine.
McCarthy's main intention was to fly to Maastricht, and engage the Ju52s and DFS-230s attacking Eben Emael. However, by the time they got there, the unmarked gliders littered the ground around the fort and the battle had begun. The Meidagen, the Days of May, the Dutch name for the battle Alex had tried to warn them about, was well underway. Over the battle, four Do17Zs and four Henschel Hs126B-1 circled. Alex could see the Veldwezel, Vroenhoven, and Kanne bridges below.
Tony throttled back, and turned towards one of the parasol wing aircraft. He could see no orange triangles on the aeroplanes wings. It was travelling too slow and he overshot it, without firing a shot.
Alex was shocked to see Hakenkreuzes on the tailplanes of the aircraft. Final confirmation, if any were needed, of the situation he and his daughter and friends were in.
McCarthy switched on the Ferranti D-282 gunsight, like ones designed in the 1960s, but which had much smaller electrical components and had a digital MEMS gyroscope to back up the electromechanical ones, two-axis eddy current controlled gyros, which measured the aircraft's rate of turn and generates the required aim-off angle to the speed and range between the Sea Fury (or Mustang) and it target. The gyro-controlled reticle glowed green, as it was made from tritium.
The Dornier fitted into the reticle neatly. Alex pressed the gun button, more in hope than experience. He saw his 20mm cannon shells hit the bug-eyed cockpit and flames pour from its radial engine. If he had eyes in the back of his head, he would have seen the flaming aircraft plunge into the Albert Canal. Luckily, the rearward facing camera caught its violent demise. Tony had selected another Do17Z, fired and watched as the twin-engined bomber shuddered drunkenly under the impact, its nose pointing vertically upwards, before winging over into its death dive. Tony watched as it exploded.
The Sea Fury and Thunderbolt formed up, and headed for the coast, only to run into a formation of seaplanes. They were He59s of Sonderstaffel Schwilden. 7U+CL it said, on the side of biplane aircraft.
The near head-on collision course McCarthy had with the lead He59 meant he was not using it to its full. He saw the young man in the nose gun position of the floatplane. They were both shocked to see each other. Tony, in the Thunderbolt, drew first blood.
The rearward facing GoPro camera, captured the He59, piloted by Hauptmann Horst Schwilden himself, plummeting earthwards, its port engine on fire, much of its upper wing missing. Tony had fired a one second burst from his eight 12.7mm machine guns.
It plunged into the ground south of Barendrecht, killing its crew and the eight men of 11 Kompanie, Infanterie-Regiment 16, packed into its narrow fuselage.
Among the dead were Schwilden himself, and Oberleutnant Hermann-Albert Schrader, commander of 11 Kompanie. Another He59 fired on McCarthy, that was all that was needed. This wasn't an airshow.
They were trying to kill him.
Alex pulled the Sea Fury around, and he could feel the flight suit pump air into the legs of the suit, to push blood back up towards his brain. He hoped the wings wouldn't come off. He positioned his aircraft astern the seaplane that he thought had fired at him. The gyro gunsight did its work, then the cannon shells did, and the biplane flew apart. Tony selected another and the seaplane was aflame wing to tail. It plunged into the river bank.
The first indication to citizens of Rotterdam that they were under attack was the second aircraft Alex attacked. It crashed into a pharmacy in Ijsselmonde killing three people on the ground, and all eleven men on board.
Commuters, dock workers, school children looked up to see a single-engine monoplane, with black-and-white stripes attacking a biplane, tearing chunks out of it and tumbling into the Nieuw Maas. As Alex scored his third kill of the morning, another He59 desperate to land on the river, but misjudging it and smashing into a bridge pier, killing one German soldier instantly, and a second drowning.
Alex climbed upwards in the Sea Fury, unable to locate anymore of the seaplanes, or indeed Tony. As he did so ,he passed six Ju52s of III/KGzbV.1. They carried fifty men of 11 Kompanie, Fallschirmjager-Regiment 1.
Alex positioned his aircraft astern of one of the ungainly trimotors, and opened fire. Only a few 20mm shells hit it. Even so, the stricken aircraft lurched earthwards, its starboard and fuselage engines on fire, its pilot and co-pilot both dead.
He looked on in horror as it plunged towards the city.
Narrowly missing a tram, it crashed in flames in front of the turnstiles at De Kuip, the Feyenoord football stadium. A horribly-burnt Fallschirmjager was the only survivor.
By then all his kameraden were jumping from their aircraft. McCarthy had no wish to get entangled with this operation.
A second Ju52 passed in front of Alex's Sea Fury, and he fired a 1 second burst at it. Flames poured from its starboard wing.
The Thunderbolt and Sea Fury headed south east, their pilot still intending to reaching Eben Emael. They ran into more Ju52s of 2./KGzbV.1 south of Moerdijk almost immediately. Tony opened fire on one of the aircraft. It exploded violently, instantly killing its four crew, and the thirteen men of the Mortar team of 4 Kompanie, Fallschirmjager-Regiment 1. Alex hauled his Sea Fury into a firing position astern another Ju52, but as he did so he caught sight of a gaggle of twin-engined aircraft.
They didn't look like Bf110s. Or Blenheims — certainly not Fokker G.Is. By the time Alex had spotted the swastikas on its tail, and the black crosses on its wings, it was less than six hundred yards away. Alex fired a two second burst at the target he selected, and the fragile aircraft disintegrated with an orange flash.
"Fighters! Fighters! Fighters!" yelled Alex into the helmet mic.
There was silence. For what felt like hours.
"Where, Over?" came the eventual reply over the VHF radio.
"Heading west, towards Rotterdam. Angels Two-Seven. Over" They had agreed to use metric measurements. 2700 metres.
"Let's go. Over."
McCarthy scanned the cloudy blue skies.
"What is your position. Over"
"I can see you. Over"
"Let's head back to Conington." said Alex. It still was only 8AM.
"I only know that you, and the Rebbetzin, and your youngest child die, and I know where they die, but not when, or how. I'm suspecting it won't be of natural causes" said Alex, "I know I'm going to die, and so do you. You always have."
"I can't speak to you, you are a demon, you are sent to torment me" he replied. {Je bent gestuurd om me te kwellen}
"Your fate is amenable to change. Perhaps I am a messenger of god. You claimed you were expecting me. Simply by not ever visiting the place where you die, you can avoid dying there. I'm not the only way of never being sent to a death camp, but I'm If you never buy a train ticket to Auschwitz, you won't die there"
"They make you buy a ticket to your own death?"
"Uh huh"
"Please leave me alone, your cruelty is unspeakable {je wreedheid is onuitsprekelijk}. Just take the volunteers to Britain, you will be met there"
At the airport, thirty-four adults and twelve children were waiting, and they boarded the strange aeroplane via the CRJ-200's airstairs. There were forty-three Jewish, two Jehovah's Witnesses, and one Roman Catholic. When they landed back at Conington, a bus supplied by Central British Fund for German Jewry was waiting to take the refugees to vacant stately home in Norfolk, of which there were many.
————
Charlie was the only person that had loaded belts of ammunition into 12.7mm Browning M3 machine guns before. Alex found it cruelly ironic that a woman who had served 2 tours in the War Against Terror, in Operation TELIC in Iraq, and Operation HERRICK, in Afghanistan then had been invalided out of the RAF after injuring her knee playing netball. And just an Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan, and an Iraq Medal to show for it all, something squaddies sold on eBay for fifteen quid.
Alex asked her if she was OK, kneeling on the wing of the Thunderbolt, then the other, loading the belts into the ammunition boxes.
She said she was, but she often laughed off the pain. At least Alex was able to tell her that the supply of fluoxetine and diclofenac (in tablet and gel form) would last her a good few years. However, they were at Conington, and they were here in France, and she would have to make do with what she had brought with her.
McCarthy Air Services Ltd employed eight people to maintain the three ageing warbirds that flew for less than fifty hours a year. Anything any more intensive than that would require more support. Now they had a huge fleet of propeller- and jet-powered aircraft
"He's not just a pretty face, you know. If it hadn't been for that exchange to the RAAF they wouldn't have let you drop bombs on anyone" mocked Alex
"I can tell, look, you are doing that wrong, Jesus...." she said.
"How on earth did you find the money to buy and restore TWO Spitfires and a Hawker Tempest?" asked Tony of Alex.
"How did I afford it? By virtue of having £45 million in various bank acc..." said Alex
"45 MILLION QUID! All those sodding rounds of drinks I BOUGHT YOU, and you could have bought the fucking brewery!"
"Well, I haven't got it now. If ever I come into that kind of money I will split it three ways. Four ways"
"What will happen to it, now?" asked Charlie.
"The sole beneficiary of my will, Polina, is also here, so I suspect Ana will get it all. Once plod works out that Ana hasn't topped me for the money she was going to get, anyway."
Tony and Alex had argued over who was going to fly what. Alex had asserted owners rights on the Sea Fury, which left Tony with the P-47D Thunderbolt, which he had flown a grand total of twice. Charlie was being kept in reserve, there was no point in all three of the time-travellers dying in one go.
————
An hour before midnight on 10th May 1940, Wehrmacht troops crossed the border into Luxembourg, and a flight of Fieseler Storches deposited German troops near the Luxembourgish capital.
The Grand Ducal Palace fell bloodlessly, but Grand Duchess Charlotte, her husband Prince Félix and their six children were not there. From Colmar-Berg Castle they fled to the Belgian Frontier, and thence to France.
Just after midnight, two Gruppes of Heinkel He111s from KG 4 attacked the airfields at De Kooy, Amsterdam-Schiphol and Den Haag.
The Dutch airforce, the Koninklijke Luchtmacht, had dispersed at least some of its combat aircraft away from its main bases, and replaced some with decoys. The Belgian Air Force, the Force aérienne belge had not been so lucky, and its fleet of Fairey Foxes, Fiat CR-42s, Gloster Gladiators and Hawker Hurricanes had been destroyed on the ground
At 5am on Saturday, 11th May, 1940, Tony and Alex strapped themselves into the Thunderbolt and Sea Fury, respectively. Tony's P-47D had a Go-Pro camera in the rear of the bubble canopy, Alex's a similar camera attached to the tail of his aircraft. Each also had a camera in the leading edge of each port wing. Both pilots would have iPad-Mini sized screens in their cockpit, carrying the feed from each camera.
Alex and Tony had assured Charlie that they would GTFO ASAP as soon they saw any enemy fighters, and would make for home, using their speed advantage to escape.
McCarthy performed his pre-flight checks, checked the cannons were cocked, climbed into the cockpit, started the engine, and took off. Tony went through the same routine.
McCarthy's main intention was to fly to Maastricht, and engage the Ju52s and DFS-230s attacking Eben Emael. However, by the time they got there, the unmarked gliders littered the ground around the fort and the battle had begun. The Meidagen, the Days of May, the Dutch name for the battle Alex had tried to warn them about, was well underway. Over the battle, four Do17Zs and four Henschel Hs126B-1 circled. Alex could see the Veldwezel, Vroenhoven, and Kanne bridges below.
Tony throttled back, and turned towards one of the parasol wing aircraft. He could see no orange triangles on the aeroplanes wings. It was travelling too slow and he overshot it, without firing a shot.
Alex was shocked to see Hakenkreuzes on the tailplanes of the aircraft. Final confirmation, if any were needed, of the situation he and his daughter and friends were in.
McCarthy switched on the Ferranti D-282 gunsight, like ones designed in the 1960s, but which had much smaller electrical components and had a digital MEMS gyroscope to back up the electromechanical ones, two-axis eddy current controlled gyros, which measured the aircraft's rate of turn and generates the required aim-off angle to the speed and range between the Sea Fury (or Mustang) and it target. The gyro-controlled reticle glowed green, as it was made from tritium.
The Dornier fitted into the reticle neatly. Alex pressed the gun button, more in hope than experience. He saw his 20mm cannon shells hit the bug-eyed cockpit and flames pour from its radial engine. If he had eyes in the back of his head, he would have seen the flaming aircraft plunge into the Albert Canal. Luckily, the rearward facing camera caught its violent demise. Tony had selected another Do17Z, fired and watched as the twin-engined bomber shuddered drunkenly under the impact, its nose pointing vertically upwards, before winging over into its death dive. Tony watched as it exploded.
The Sea Fury and Thunderbolt formed up, and headed for the coast, only to run into a formation of seaplanes. They were He59s of Sonderstaffel Schwilden. 7U+CL it said, on the side of biplane aircraft.
The near head-on collision course McCarthy had with the lead He59 meant he was not using it to its full. He saw the young man in the nose gun position of the floatplane. They were both shocked to see each other. Tony, in the Thunderbolt, drew first blood.
The rearward facing GoPro camera, captured the He59, piloted by Hauptmann Horst Schwilden himself, plummeting earthwards, its port engine on fire, much of its upper wing missing. Tony had fired a one second burst from his eight 12.7mm machine guns.
It plunged into the ground south of Barendrecht, killing its crew and the eight men of 11 Kompanie, Infanterie-Regiment 16, packed into its narrow fuselage.
Among the dead were Schwilden himself, and Oberleutnant Hermann-Albert Schrader, commander of 11 Kompanie. Another He59 fired on McCarthy, that was all that was needed. This wasn't an airshow.
They were trying to kill him.
Alex pulled the Sea Fury around, and he could feel the flight suit pump air into the legs of the suit, to push blood back up towards his brain. He hoped the wings wouldn't come off. He positioned his aircraft astern the seaplane that he thought had fired at him. The gyro gunsight did its work, then the cannon shells did, and the biplane flew apart. Tony selected another and the seaplane was aflame wing to tail. It plunged into the river bank.
Commuters, dock workers, school children looked up to see a single-engine monoplane, with black-and-white stripes attacking a biplane, tearing chunks out of it and tumbling into the Nieuw Maas. As Alex scored his third kill of the morning, another He59 desperate to land on the river, but misjudging it and smashing into a bridge pier, killing one German soldier instantly, and a second drowning.
Alex climbed upwards in the Sea Fury, unable to locate anymore of the seaplanes, or indeed Tony. As he did so ,he passed six Ju52s of III/KGzbV.1. They carried fifty men of 11 Kompanie, Fallschirmjager-Regiment 1.
Alex positioned his aircraft astern of one of the ungainly trimotors, and opened fire. Only a few 20mm shells hit it. Even so, the stricken aircraft lurched earthwards, its starboard and fuselage engines on fire, its pilot and co-pilot both dead.
He looked on in horror as it plunged towards the city.
Narrowly missing a tram, it crashed in flames in front of the turnstiles at De Kuip, the Feyenoord football stadium. A horribly-burnt Fallschirmjager was the only survivor.
By then all his kameraden were jumping from their aircraft. McCarthy had no wish to get entangled with this operation.
A second Ju52 passed in front of Alex's Sea Fury, and he fired a 1 second burst at it. Flames poured from its starboard wing.
The Thunderbolt and Sea Fury headed south east, their pilot still intending to reaching Eben Emael. They ran into more Ju52s of 2./KGzbV.1 south of Moerdijk almost immediately. Tony opened fire on one of the aircraft. It exploded violently, instantly killing its four crew, and the thirteen men of the Mortar team of 4 Kompanie, Fallschirmjager-Regiment 1. Alex hauled his Sea Fury into a firing position astern another Ju52, but as he did so he caught sight of a gaggle of twin-engined aircraft.
They didn't look like Bf110s. Or Blenheims — certainly not Fokker G.Is. By the time Alex had spotted the swastikas on its tail, and the black crosses on its wings, it was less than six hundred yards away. Alex fired a two second burst at the target he selected, and the fragile aircraft disintegrated with an orange flash.
"Fighters! Fighters! Fighters!" yelled Alex into the helmet mic.
There was silence. For what felt like hours.
"Where, Over?" came the eventual reply over the VHF radio.
"Heading west, towards Rotterdam. Angels Two-Seven. Over" They had agreed to use metric measurements. 2700 metres.
"Let's go. Over."
McCarthy scanned the cloudy blue skies.
"What is your position. Over"
"I can see you. Over"
"Let's head back to Conington." said Alex. It still was only 8AM.
Last edited:
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
This cuts off prematurely.
And there go the gliders! May Hitler, Goering, and the fascist uptimers start pulling their hair out and pissing and moaning about our dear flyboys' antics disrupting one of OTL's slickest operations.
The BMW plant gets a visit, no doubt putting a little squeeze in the flow of airplane engines to the Luftwaffe, and provoking further defensive redeployments.
And poor Rabbi Frances, to learn of his family's awful fate... Best of luck to them now that he has this warning.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Fixed now, thank you for proof reading, you and @Tolerdi
Believe it or not, IOTL the assault on the Netherlands was an utter disaster for the Germans, were it not for the Dutch willingness to capitulate. The Luftwaffe lost 140+ aircraft on the first day alone and Kurt Student was shot in the head by a sniper.
The uptimers will be on hand to fuck it up even more for the Nazis, and will attract more volunteers.
The best place to win the Battle of Britain is over France.
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
Oh right, this is the Netherlands and not Belgium. This is what happens when you have ADHD and multitask.
