- Location
- Cambridge, UK
Some of these targets are puzzling; Author, Actor - lovers.
Out of the Blue (Into The Fire)
- Thread starter von hitchofen
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
Impact Statement
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Marvin Breckinridge Patterson heard the noise as she sat in her ground floor apartment on the Krausenstraße.
She ran outside to see what its was. A trained pilot, she instinctively looked up. A tiny aircraft, making an indescribable racket, glinted in the cloudy summer sky. Two small objects fell from it.
Bombs.
She ran into the building to take cover, but mainly to grab the new Leica camera her diplomat husband had bought her, shortly after they married.
The building, the floor shook, as a huge double explosion shook the city. She could hear the screams of panic, the shattering of glass, then the thump and roar of another blast, and the rattling of the windows that had managed to stay in their frames.
Then another.
She cowered behind the chaise-longue for five minutes, as terrified people scuttled past her house, yelling. It could only have been minutes, but it felt like hours. She plucked up her courage to go outside just as the anti-aircraft guns started firing. She could see three palls of smoke, all in the direction of the Brandenburger Tor - where the US Embassy was.
Where her husband was.
The FLAK, as the Berliners called it, was bursting to the West of the city. She could hear the shrapnel clattering on the rooves.
She ran out of the building, and as she ran up the Wilhelmstraße, she could see the rubble of a building blocking the road. Men, uniformed and civilian, ran towards and away from the wreckage.
People coated in dust, staggered down the sidewalk, only women making an effort to help them, it seemed.
She darted down Kochstraße, then Mauerstraße, before turning back onto Wilhelmstraße.
A scene of devastation greeted. The Labour and Transport ministries were badly damaged, but the Propaganda Ministry was utterly destroyed, as though a giant sledgehammer had smashed into it.
A blood-spattered, dust-covered woman screamed hysterically as she staggered towards her
Die Engländer! Die Juden! Die Roten Kämpfer! Sie ermorden uns!
She yelled as Marvin took her photograph.
If Goebbels was in that building he was dead as a doornail. The Führer's portentous Reich Chancellery had a hole gouged in its facade.
Human remains lay everywhere. She retched.
Blood and broken glass covered the sidewalks, it was as though Kristallnacht had come back to haunt the Nazis. Water poured from shattered water mains, and streetlamps littered the road.
Marvin photographed what she could bear before heading back up Mauerstraße.
As she turned left and walked down Behrenstraße she saw a blood-drenched man in black being bundled into a Mercedes. The driver of the car looked terrified.
It was the first look of terror she had seen on a SS man.
She ran into the American Embassy. "Is everybody all right, is anybody hurt? Has anyone seen Jeff?"
"I think so, yes" said Jeff's colleague George. "He should be in the building. The police told us to stay in here, then ran away when the fourth bomb exploded."
"There were four?"
"I think so, yes"
"The Propaganda Ministry has been bombed" said Marvin
"Is it badly damaged?" George asked.
"It's been totally destroyed!. The Gestapo building on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße has gone too, I think. Windows shattered everywhere - it's horrible." People shattered everywhere, she wanted to say. "Jeff!"
She ran over to her husband of two months, and hugged him, tightly.
Newport County Grammar School had no record of an Alexander Duncan Silverman McCarthy on their records, just as the man claiming to be him had said they would.
Did this mean his story was true?
Between birth in 1903 and a successful application for a ration book and identity card in May 1940 there was little proof a man of that name had existed at all. There was no records from HM Customs of this Alex McCarthy leaving the UK, or entering the USA, or re-entering Britain.
"At least we can get him for that," thought Glenavon "and bring him in for more detailed questioning."
~~~
Congratulations. All six buildings that were attacked by you were destroyed. One hundred and thirty-one German people were killed, and another three hundred were injured – among them Magda Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler. Himmler's injuries would have been life-threatening due to blood loss, but Hierocrat intervention has ensured his survival.
Ferdinard Voegele, Dr Otto Buggisch, Dr Klautachke, Ministerialdirigent Georg Schroeder and others were killed by the attack on the Forschungsamt building. This will force the Reich to automate code-breaking activities, advancing the development of computer tech…
"Yeah, Yeah" said Alex
SS-Oberführer Heinrich Müller and SS-Standartenführer Huber were killed by the attack on the Gestapo building. Heydrich was not present.
"Oh, shame", said Tony.
Three Reichskriminaldirektor, one Oberregierungs- und Kriminalrat, and five Kriminalrats were killed, said soundmirror.
"Like rats in a trap" said Tony.
SS-Brigadeführer Siegfried Taubert was killed at Wewelsburg. 83% of the dead were members of the Nazi Party, 57% of them members of the Allgemeine-SS The remaining 22 were civilians, Heinkel employees, Mitläufers (Followers) or Minderbelastete (Lesser Offenders), or slave labourers.
"Collateral damage then", said Charlie.
Inevitable even with high technology warfare, as you will all be aware.
No foreign nationals, from any country, neutral or otherwise, were killed or injured, nor were any British or French POWs.
The death toll from this raid is greater than all the RAF raids on the Third Reich so far, added together. Hitler will arrive in Berlin in about two hours time to view the damage himself. If his bodyguards permit him.
~~~
It was good to hear that Himmler was recovering quickly, at the special wing of the SS-Lazarett at Lichterfelde
The Winterhilfe speech at the Sportspalast was postponed, alas, and Gunsche and the FBK had advised Hitler to return to Munich, in case of a follow up attack.
"I've asked for an augmentation of our forces" said Tony.
"Oh god, now what?" asked Alex.
She ran outside to see what its was. A trained pilot, she instinctively looked up. A tiny aircraft, making an indescribable racket, glinted in the cloudy summer sky. Two small objects fell from it.
Bombs.
She ran into the building to take cover, but mainly to grab the new Leica camera her diplomat husband had bought her, shortly after they married.
The building, the floor shook, as a huge double explosion shook the city. She could hear the screams of panic, the shattering of glass, then the thump and roar of another blast, and the rattling of the windows that had managed to stay in their frames.
Then another.
She cowered behind the chaise-longue for five minutes, as terrified people scuttled past her house, yelling. It could only have been minutes, but it felt like hours. She plucked up her courage to go outside just as the anti-aircraft guns started firing. She could see three palls of smoke, all in the direction of the Brandenburger Tor - where the US Embassy was.
Where her husband was.
The FLAK, as the Berliners called it, was bursting to the West of the city. She could hear the shrapnel clattering on the rooves.
She ran out of the building, and as she ran up the Wilhelmstraße, she could see the rubble of a building blocking the road. Men, uniformed and civilian, ran towards and away from the wreckage.
People coated in dust, staggered down the sidewalk, only women making an effort to help them, it seemed.
She darted down Kochstraße, then Mauerstraße, before turning back onto Wilhelmstraße.
A scene of devastation greeted. The Labour and Transport ministries were badly damaged, but the Propaganda Ministry was utterly destroyed, as though a giant sledgehammer had smashed into it.
A blood-spattered, dust-covered woman screamed hysterically as she staggered towards her
Die Engländer! Die Juden! Die Roten Kämpfer! Sie ermorden uns!
She yelled as Marvin took her photograph.
If Goebbels was in that building he was dead as a doornail. The Führer's portentous Reich Chancellery had a hole gouged in its facade.
Human remains lay everywhere. She retched.
Blood and broken glass covered the sidewalks, it was as though Kristallnacht had come back to haunt the Nazis. Water poured from shattered water mains, and streetlamps littered the road.
Marvin photographed what she could bear before heading back up Mauerstraße.
As she turned left and walked down Behrenstraße she saw a blood-drenched man in black being bundled into a Mercedes. The driver of the car looked terrified.
It was the first look of terror she had seen on a SS man.
She ran into the American Embassy. "Is everybody all right, is anybody hurt? Has anyone seen Jeff?"
"I think so, yes" said Jeff's colleague George. "He should be in the building. The police told us to stay in here, then ran away when the fourth bomb exploded."
"There were four?"
"I think so, yes"
"The Propaganda Ministry has been bombed" said Marvin
"Is it badly damaged?" George asked.
"It's been totally destroyed!. The Gestapo building on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße has gone too, I think. Windows shattered everywhere - it's horrible." People shattered everywhere, she wanted to say. "Jeff!"
She ran over to her husband of two months, and hugged him, tightly.
~~~
A quick phone call to the Old Etonians Association assured Glenavon wasn't imagining things. Alexander Douglas (not Duncan) McCarthy was in the same house as him, and stared back out at him in the house photograph, and was at the Housemaster's dinner five years ago, and was on the Army List, Lieutenant, 2nd Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps.
The meeting with his double had caused Glenavon to doubt his own memories.
Perhaps he had a funny experience in the Far East. Sunstroke? Blow to the head, maybe.
The meeting with his double had caused Glenavon to doubt his own memories.
Perhaps he had a funny experience in the Far East. Sunstroke? Blow to the head, maybe.
Newport County Grammar School had no record of an Alexander Duncan Silverman McCarthy on their records, just as the man claiming to be him had said they would.
Did this mean his story was true?
Between birth in 1903 and a successful application for a ration book and identity card in May 1940 there was little proof a man of that name had existed at all. There was no records from HM Customs of this Alex McCarthy leaving the UK, or entering the USA, or re-entering Britain.
"At least we can get him for that," thought Glenavon "and bring him in for more detailed questioning."
~~~
The wheels of the F-15EX and the Gripen NG touched concrete on the island of Anglesey, after a flight time of two hours forty minutes. It seemed odd to Alex to complete an operation of such risk in such a short time.
The F-15EX had crossed into UK airspace over Norfolk, the Gripen NG in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Both aircraft had flown through Chain Home RDF at 28,000 feet and 740 knots (Mach 1.1). Operators in three different RDF stations had dismissed the tracks as anomalies caused by the bad weather.
The three uptimer aircrew climbed down from their aircraft, and remotely operated B-600 tow tractors pulled the Eagle and the Gripen into the hardened aircraft shelter, out of sight.
Soundmirror debriefed them on what they had just done.
The F-15EX had crossed into UK airspace over Norfolk, the Gripen NG in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Both aircraft had flown through Chain Home RDF at 28,000 feet and 740 knots (Mach 1.1). Operators in three different RDF stations had dismissed the tracks as anomalies caused by the bad weather.
The three uptimer aircrew climbed down from their aircraft, and remotely operated B-600 tow tractors pulled the Eagle and the Gripen into the hardened aircraft shelter, out of sight.
Soundmirror debriefed them on what they had just done.
Congratulations. All six buildings that were attacked by you were destroyed. One hundred and thirty-one German people were killed, and another three hundred were injured – among them Magda Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler. Himmler's injuries would have been life-threatening due to blood loss, but Hierocrat intervention has ensured his survival.
Ferdinard Voegele, Dr Otto Buggisch, Dr Klautachke, Ministerialdirigent Georg Schroeder and others were killed by the attack on the Forschungsamt building. This will force the Reich to automate code-breaking activities, advancing the development of computer tech…
"Yeah, Yeah" said Alex
SS-Oberführer Heinrich Müller and SS-Standartenführer Huber were killed by the attack on the Gestapo building. Heydrich was not present.
"Oh, shame", said Tony.
Three Reichskriminaldirektor, one Oberregierungs- und Kriminalrat, and five Kriminalrats were killed, said soundmirror.
"Like rats in a trap" said Tony.
SS-Brigadeführer Siegfried Taubert was killed at Wewelsburg. 83% of the dead were members of the Nazi Party, 57% of them members of the Allgemeine-SS The remaining 22 were civilians, Heinkel employees, Mitläufers (Followers) or Minderbelastete (Lesser Offenders), or slave labourers.
"Collateral damage then", said Charlie.
Inevitable even with high technology warfare, as you will all be aware.
No foreign nationals, from any country, neutral or otherwise, were killed or injured, nor were any British or French POWs.
The death toll from this raid is greater than all the RAF raids on the Third Reich so far, added together. Hitler will arrive in Berlin in about two hours time to view the damage himself. If his bodyguards permit him.
~~~
Hitler viewed the destroyed Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda with mounting horror. The New Chancellery was just metres from the RVMP, and the damage to the chancellery would take weeks to repair. The attack had even damaged the Kaiserhof, where the Führer would stay, catered for by Magda Goebbels (he feared the cooks in the hotel's kitchen would poison him). Once it was confirmed the attack was by terrorflieger, the Führer had authorised punishment attacks on London, and Britain generally.
The news of the long range gun perturbed him greatly. The Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe had both drawn up plans for its destruction, as had Kurt Student. Long range guns would situated on the Channel coast to retaliate in kind.
Goebbels was a broken man, his empire in ruins, his home attacked, his wife's child aborted. He had demanded vengeance on the British almost immediately. Göring had been horrified to learn that the most secret arm of the RLM, theForschungsamt, had been destroyed. Two gruppes of Me110s, from Zestorergeschwader 1 and Zestorergeschwader 76, had been withdrawn from the Channel Front to protect the Reich's capital. I/ZG 1 would be based at Tempelhof to reassure the volk.
The news of the long range gun perturbed him greatly. The Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe had both drawn up plans for its destruction, as had Kurt Student. Long range guns would situated on the Channel coast to retaliate in kind.
Goebbels was a broken man, his empire in ruins, his home attacked, his wife's child aborted. He had demanded vengeance on the British almost immediately. Göring had been horrified to learn that the most secret arm of the RLM, theForschungsamt, had been destroyed. Two gruppes of Me110s, from Zestorergeschwader 1 and Zestorergeschwader 76, had been withdrawn from the Channel Front to protect the Reich's capital. I/ZG 1 would be based at Tempelhof to reassure the volk.
It was good to hear that Himmler was recovering quickly, at the special wing of the SS-Lazarett at Lichterfelde
The Winterhilfe speech at the Sportspalast was postponed, alas, and Gunsche and the FBK had advised Hitler to return to Munich, in case of a follow up attack.
~~~
"What do we do next, then?" asked Tony.
"Nothing, Wait for the retaliation. The assault on London by the Luftwaffe, or the resumption of the attacks on the airfield. Then we go after the Americans. Kennedy wants to see me, naturally." said Alex.
"Nothing, Wait for the retaliation. The assault on London by the Luftwaffe, or the resumption of the attacks on the airfield. Then we go after the Americans. Kennedy wants to see me, naturally." said Alex.
"I've asked for an augmentation of our forces" said Tony.
"Oh god, now what?" asked Alex.
Last edited:
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Just caught in the crossfire.
Canard-er Better Faster Stronger
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"So what have you got to show me?" asked Alex, as Tony opened the door to the Hardened Aircraft Shelter at Valley.
"This" said Tony
"Shit" said Alex, anagramatically
"Yeah, tell me about it, I wanted a Eurofighter. However, if you are wanting us to bomb canals, oil refineries and the like, we are going to need bomb trucks like these." said Tony. "Rather than the lightweight Gripen"
"Bomb truck? That? I was hoping for a Skyhawk or an A-7 Corsair"
"This can carry a third more in payload than a Corsair II and go supersonic"
"What about the YA-7F?" asked Alex.
"Still 3,000lbs more...
So they've taken the Gripen away?" asked Alex.
"Well I can't find it. And they've repurposed the F-15E as a single-seater and hung sixteen air-to-air missiles from it." said Tony.
"Jesus on a dinosaur, sixteen?" exclaimed Alex.
"Yeah, twelve Derbys and four Python-5s"
"And this thing?" asked Alex
"Ten Meteors and two drop tanks in BVR mode. Beyond-visual-range."
"I know what BVR stands for, darling" retorted Alex "So, you ever fired a radar-guided missile? Or flown a Rafale?"
"Neither. But as we bombed Berlin - and I hadn't flown an F-15 for twenty-two years, and you'd never a flown anything faster than Vampire or a Hawk, or dropped a PGM."
"I rather liked the Gripen. Charlie liked the Gripen."
"The Hyperians giveth, and the Hyperians taketh away"
"That would explain the Jet Lancaster in the main hangar."
"Twin Nenes, Twin Merlins. Two burning, two turning. You choose which does what. It's the official version of what we bombed Berlin with. If anyone asks. They'll upgrade it to two Orendas if we think it's underpowered."
"Oh, I've got a far better cover story, parked in the same hangar. Three of them. The Jet Lancaster is too weird for an RAF that still wants Napier Sabres."
"And this isn't?" said Tony, pointing at the Rafale C
"I want my Gripen back!"
"Well, if you are going to lodge an official complaint, ask for Typhoon instead! They seem to listen to you far more than they do me. I'm going to try out all the Eurocanards if it k....you know what I mean." said Tony
"YOU WANT A TYPHOON! I don't want any of these jets." exclaimed Alex
"You just can't face the utter awesomesauce that is the EF2000, prop boy", replied Tony
"Awesomesauce? You've spent far too long listening to my daughter"
~~~
Nurse Daley had found the pink box in the bedside table of Lieutenant McCarthy. She had opened it up, expecting to find a keepsake from a loved one.
She found a pair of tiny screens, and array of buttons. She pressed the one marked 'Power'. It lit up and she closed it in shock. She saw lots of text including the words 'precautions' and 'health and safety', and closed it again, half afraid. It blinked at her, the light in the top left corner.
She opened it again, still afraid of what it might do, and closed it again. And then shoved it in a drawer. She could not sleep knowing she had kept the blasted thing. At least it had stopped blinking by the next morning.
It had broadcast its location to the Hyperians, who suggested that he recover it in person, before they would give him his Gripen back.
The willingness of the Hyperians to download the Qatari Air Force for McCarthy evidently had its limits.
~~~
It was strange to be visiting the US Embassy in Mayfair, and it not being housed in the Eero Saarinen monstrosity, with the hood ornament on top.
"Good afternoon, I understand I have an appointment with the US ambassador Mr Joseph P Kennedy" said Alex.
"What is your name, Sir" said the man on the front desk.
Don't you know who I am, thought McCarthy
"Alex McCarthy"
"We have no record of any such appointment."
"You best tell him I'm here, nevertheless." The man, realising at last who he was dealing with, phoned through to Mr Kennedy's secretary.
Alex could hear the secretary interrupting Mr Kennedy, and bringing him to the phone.
"Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I will tell him that, sir. Sorry for interrupting, sir." said the man into the handset.
"The Ambassador will meet with you in person in thirty minutes – if you are prepared to wait that long, Mr McCarthy."
"Thank you, I have all day."
He waited. Thirty-seven minutes later an usher called McCarthy into the impressive suite offices occupied by the US Ambassador to the Court of St James. Kennedy's secretary was, in breaking with tradition, a woman, and a very attractive one at that.
She was clearly very starstruck to be in McCarthy's presence.
"It's an absolute pleasure to meet with you, Mr McCarthy. The US is always eager to learn of your exploits."
"I'm sure they are – however Mr Holtzmann is the only approved source of information about me that the US press can rely on." said Alex.
"So the rumors of you fighting on behalf the British, is exactly that?"
"No, they are true. A small group of Americans are help the British fight off the forces of oppression, in many different ways"
"With respect, Mr McCarthy, I believe you are playing with fire. Congress may yet choose to strip US individuals of their citizenship if they violate the terms of the Neutrality Acts." said Kennedy.
"This would be the same US Congress that passed legislation calling for the striking of a Gold Medal in honour of me and my fellow aviators?" said Alex.
"Citizenship is not a requirement of the award of such a medal."
"Maybe, but the US government will be made to realise the extent of its mistake in excluding me from its shores."
"Is that a threat to the US, Mr McCarthy?"
"No."
"Really?"
"I will come to the aid of any nations menaced by the spectre of fascism or Nazism, be it France, Britain, Russia or the USA"
"With the greatest of respect, Mr McCarthy, your record ain't that great. Didn't do the Poles any good, nor the Dutch or the French either." said Kennedy.
"I was indisposed when the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. I arrived but six days before the attack on the Low Countries and France. We did what we could in the time available."
"Where did you come from, precisely, Mr McCarthy? Only information about you is remarkably scanty" said Kennedy.
"I am a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma? Good, I prefer it that way. I know you have a low opinion of the Britain's chance of survival in the face of Nazi aggression, and that your interests – which of course, you believe are identical to America's, are better served by dictatorship than democracy –
Kennedy looked horrifed.
" – But what you neglect to understand is that this nation, has not the just the Empire, but the gods themselves on their sides"
"All nations call on the protection of God"
"I said gods. Mr Kennedy. Plural."
"And you believe you are one of them?"
"You might think that. I could not possibly comment. How many men that have returned from the dead have had in your office? My beliefs and experiences are my own, as are those of my friends. We have discovered new ways to think and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in our mind. What is it about us that scares people so deeply? Because they are afraid that there is more to reality than they have ever confronted. That there are doors that they're afraid to go in and they don't want us to go in there either because if we go in, there we might learn something that they don't know. And that makes us a little out of their control. You are aware of the attacks on Berlin?"
"By the RAF?"
"By us. By me."
The photographs taken by Marvin Breckinridge Patterson had been smuggled out of the Reich
in a diplomatic bag, but would not arrive at the State Department for another two weeks.
in a diplomatic bag, but would not arrive at the State Department for another two weeks.
"I am not, no. There was reports of office and residential buildings being attacked –
"Yes, the office buildings belonged to the SS, and the residential buildings belonged to Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels", interrupted Alex.
"I can't confirm your claims" Kennedy was aware of the panic in the US Embassy in Berlin after the daylight raid on Friday the 23rd.
"You will be able to confirm the death of an employee of this embassy, a Mr Tyler Gatewood Kent, in mysterious circumstances, however?"
"Wha...how…"
"I'll take that as a yes. Believe me, I have already spared you the embarrassment of the espionage activities of this man, and his associates, being revealed to the security services of the UK. I have another gift about my person" McCarthy stood up, removed a document from an A4 envelope.
He also produced a slim black notebook.
The book flashed.
"What the…"
"It's always nice to photograph an important occasion, especially if people might deny receiving something, and then destroying it." The document looked as though it had been typed, rather than printed by an advanced piece of technology.
"What is this…. thing?" he asked.
"Obviously, it's a list of the US citizens working for the intelligence arms of the Soviet Union and the German government, including passing documents and plans of the US Army Air Corps, electromechanical computer bomb sight that supposedly drops bombs with greater accuracy than any other. Pass it to the FBI – or don't, it is up to you. Just bear in mind I will be able to prove that you did nothing to stop the subversion of the USA and its interests"
Kennedy was silent.
"Well, I didn't expect effusive thanks for pointing out just badly the US has been penetrated by its mortal enemies, but a simple thank you would suffice." said Alex.
"Thank you, Mr McCarthy, I shall pass these onto the relevant authorities."
"It would be a good idea if the USA decided which side it was on. Nearly 250 firms own $450 million dollars-worth of Nazi German assets. Four hundred and fifty million dollars. Standard Oil, General Motors, General Electric, ITT, Singer, Westinghouse, International Harvester, United Fruit, Gillette, Eastman Kodak, Kraft, Coca-Cola, to name but a few. Mr Henry Ford has his awards from the Reich. IBM produce the Hollerith punched cards being used to collate information on the racial minorities the Nazis wish to exterminate, and Coca-Cola is the unofficial soft drink of the Wehrmacht, apparently."
"That is a disgraceful slander! I hope you do not repeat such a baseless allegation outside this office" said Kennedy.
"Alas, it is all true. The American investor should expect to have their assets distressed, and a much reduced return on investment" said Alex.
"If you deliberately target American businesses, you will needlessly create enemies back home" said Kennedy.
"Well, if I can find the home of Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels, the homes of Gerard Swope, Alfred Sloan, Sosthenes Behn and Prescott Bush shouldn't be hard to find. Any more than Headley Park, Tilley Lane, Headley, Epsom would be hard to find."
"You cold-blooded bastard" said Kennedy.
"'I always thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy,' as the saying goes." said McCarthy. "Good day, Mister Ambassador."
Last edited:
Coast is Clear
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
24th August 1940,
Take it, I don't want it
You can have what you like
Just don't try to trick me to sleep
Then turn on those lights
At 4pm the Cessna 441 lifted off from Valley, for the hour's cross country flight. Instead of making for Bentwaters, as you might expect, the tricycle-undercarriaged twin-turboprop landed between the craters at RAF Eastchurch, on the Isle of Sheppey.
The craters some filled in, the most not , and a wrecked Vickers Venom, were mute testimony to the fact that RAF Eastchurch, like Manston, Hawkinge, Lympne and Detling, had been abandoned except as emergency landing grounds for RAF aircraft.
The Battle of Britain was entering the most testing phase, and Kenley and Biggin Hill were approaching the state Manston were at. Hitler and had ordered Göring to conduct revenge raids on Britain, but the full force of the Luftwaffe had yet to be thrown at London.
McCarthy and daughter walked down the airstairs of the Cessna, Alex carrying a suitcase. They got into the AEC lorry the Hyperians had told them would be there. Polly asked what was in the suitcase.
"My disguises"
A white coat, or a brown warehouse coat, worn with an air of authority, was as an effective disguise as a hi-viz jacket was in 2016. There was also some primitive but effective house-breaking equipment. Alex started the engine and drove into Gillingham.
McCarthy donned the warehouse coat and went inside the nurses accommodation where the last signal from the DSi had been received. Alex didn't need the house-breaking kit. The door was open, and inside, there was a nurse, crying.
Nurse Daley.
McCarthy wondered whether to go in or not.
The woman stood up as he entered. "Look, all right I'm going!"
"Sorry love, are you OK"
"My God, its you!"
"I thought you'd still be on duty" said Alex, "I was intend to recover the property I foolishly left behind…"
"Which lost me my job, and my lodgings. They searched this room and found it. The pink thing."
"Shit, I'm sorry. They fired you?"
"Yes. I'll have to go back to Romford, and get a job at the chewing gum factory, or the catgut factory…
"Sounds like a fate worse than death. Anyway, you did the right thing" said Alex, putting his arm around the poor nurse.
"I did?"
"Keeping hold of the device and out of official hands" said Alex.
"So you'll help clear my name?"
"Clear your name?" asked Alex.
"Stealing from a patient. Breach of the Official Secrets Act"
"You were looking after it for me, and I shall say so in court. Where is it now? Has it been taken away for examination?"
"They only took it three hours ago " said Nurse Daley, as Alex took a black notebook from his pocket.
The DSi still had 8% battery, enough to broadcast on 2.4 GHz its present location – less than 100 yards away, according to the iPhone app.
McCarthy opened the door to the Matron's Office. The device was in a locked drawer. Alex tried to pick the lock, failed miserably, then wrenched the whole of the front of the drawer off with a Gorilla bar, and took the pink box from inside.
"Found it!" said Alex, to Nurse Daley outside. "Looks like we are partners in crime, Nurse….look, what is your first name"
"Eileen" said the nurse."What was that thing, anyway? A communication device?"
"All that and more. How much do they, did they, pay you, Eileen. Working here, as a nurse."
"£2 1s"
"A week?"
"A MONTH!"
"How would you like to work for me – for two quid a week"
"Mr McCarthy, THATS OVER A HUNDRED POUNDS A YEAR!"
"It still sounds like slave wages, to me. There won't be much nursing, and you'll have to move to North Wales. The money is to buy your silence, I suppose. I have taken on five people from the local community in Wales, but the high pay is passed off as the need for them to be locked in a windowless room when operations take place."
Three of those five employees were locked in that room, as Tony taxied out of the Hardened Aircraft shelter , lit up the two Snecma M88-2s (or rather, the Hyperians did) and took off from Valley.
Mounted on the aircraft were eight MBDA Meteors, two 250KG Armement Air-Sol Modulaire bombs, and an external fuel tank.
The jet climbed smoothly to 35,000 feet, and this was only the third time that Tony had flown, it and the first time with weapons aboard. The RBE2 radar and the Optronique secteur frontal search and track system picked up the ten KGr 100 Heinkel He111H-3s, target marking with incendiaries around Fort Dunlop in Birmingham.
Tony thought the onboard systems of the Rafale were superior to the Gripen,
"Fox Three, Fox Three" said Tony over the radio, to no-one in particular.
Two vivid orange flashes occurred forty miles away in the distance, as ten men died. Another five Luftwaffe aircrew would be luckier as their aircraft veered off course. South of Birmingham, a larger force of twenty KG 26 Heinkels headed towards their target.
In an arc between Bromsgrove and Coventry, the shattered wreckage of six further Heinkels tumbled out the sky.
Both KGr 100 and KG 26 sustained a loss rate of 30 percent.
Tony flew the Rafale to the Pas-de-Calais, where he dropped the 250KG AASM on the fixed Knickebein transmitter at Mont Violette. He then flew down the coast of France just 91 miles, and dropped the second AASM on the 26th Intercept Company listening post at Étretat. A dozen German personnel were killed.
The Heinkel He111H-3 Wnr 5252 landed at Valley, minus one aircrew, who baled out over Llanfairfechan. Its flight control systems had been laughably easy ffor the Hyperians to take control of. The four remaining crew were held at gunpoint by Eugene Tobin until Tony returned.
McCarthy took of in the Cessna, and flew Nurse Daley, his daughter, and the pink Nintendo anachronism the short distance across the Thames estuary to Bentwaters, where Shorty Keough and Andy Mamedoff waited for them.
The 25th August would be a busy day.
But there was a reward waiting for the recoverer of the 21st century tech.
Take it, I don't want it
You can have what you like
Just don't try to trick me to sleep
Then turn on those lights
At 4pm the Cessna 441 lifted off from Valley, for the hour's cross country flight. Instead of making for Bentwaters, as you might expect, the tricycle-undercarriaged twin-turboprop landed between the craters at RAF Eastchurch, on the Isle of Sheppey.
The craters some filled in, the most not , and a wrecked Vickers Venom, were mute testimony to the fact that RAF Eastchurch, like Manston, Hawkinge, Lympne and Detling, had been abandoned except as emergency landing grounds for RAF aircraft.
The Battle of Britain was entering the most testing phase, and Kenley and Biggin Hill were approaching the state Manston were at. Hitler and had ordered Göring to conduct revenge raids on Britain, but the full force of the Luftwaffe had yet to be thrown at London.
McCarthy and daughter walked down the airstairs of the Cessna, Alex carrying a suitcase. They got into the AEC lorry the Hyperians had told them would be there. Polly asked what was in the suitcase.
"My disguises"
A white coat, or a brown warehouse coat, worn with an air of authority, was as an effective disguise as a hi-viz jacket was in 2016. There was also some primitive but effective house-breaking equipment. Alex started the engine and drove into Gillingham.
McCarthy donned the warehouse coat and went inside the nurses accommodation where the last signal from the DSi had been received. Alex didn't need the house-breaking kit. The door was open, and inside, there was a nurse, crying.
Nurse Daley.
McCarthy wondered whether to go in or not.
The woman stood up as he entered. "Look, all right I'm going!"
"Sorry love, are you OK"
"My God, its you!"
"I thought you'd still be on duty" said Alex, "I was intend to recover the property I foolishly left behind…"
"Which lost me my job, and my lodgings. They searched this room and found it. The pink thing."
"Shit, I'm sorry. They fired you?"
"Yes. I'll have to go back to Romford, and get a job at the chewing gum factory, or the catgut factory…
"Sounds like a fate worse than death. Anyway, you did the right thing" said Alex, putting his arm around the poor nurse.
"I did?"
"Keeping hold of the device and out of official hands" said Alex.
"So you'll help clear my name?"
"Clear your name?" asked Alex.
"Stealing from a patient. Breach of the Official Secrets Act"
"You were looking after it for me, and I shall say so in court. Where is it now? Has it been taken away for examination?"
"They only took it three hours ago " said Nurse Daley, as Alex took a black notebook from his pocket.
The DSi still had 8% battery, enough to broadcast on 2.4 GHz its present location – less than 100 yards away, according to the iPhone app.
McCarthy opened the door to the Matron's Office. The device was in a locked drawer. Alex tried to pick the lock, failed miserably, then wrenched the whole of the front of the drawer off with a Gorilla bar, and took the pink box from inside.
"Found it!" said Alex, to Nurse Daley outside. "Looks like we are partners in crime, Nurse….look, what is your first name"
"Eileen" said the nurse."What was that thing, anyway? A communication device?"
"All that and more. How much do they, did they, pay you, Eileen. Working here, as a nurse."
"£2 1s"
"A week?"
"A MONTH!"
"How would you like to work for me – for two quid a week"
"Mr McCarthy, THATS OVER A HUNDRED POUNDS A YEAR!"
"It still sounds like slave wages, to me. There won't be much nursing, and you'll have to move to North Wales. The money is to buy your silence, I suppose. I have taken on five people from the local community in Wales, but the high pay is passed off as the need for them to be locked in a windowless room when operations take place."
~~~
Three of those five employees were locked in that room, as Tony taxied out of the Hardened Aircraft shelter , lit up the two Snecma M88-2s (or rather, the Hyperians did) and took off from Valley.
Mounted on the aircraft were eight MBDA Meteors, two 250KG Armement Air-Sol Modulaire bombs, and an external fuel tank.
The jet climbed smoothly to 35,000 feet, and this was only the third time that Tony had flown, it and the first time with weapons aboard. The RBE2 radar and the Optronique secteur frontal search and track system picked up the ten KGr 100 Heinkel He111H-3s, target marking with incendiaries around Fort Dunlop in Birmingham.
Tony thought the onboard systems of the Rafale were superior to the Gripen,
"Fox Three, Fox Three" said Tony over the radio, to no-one in particular.
Two vivid orange flashes occurred forty miles away in the distance, as ten men died. Another five Luftwaffe aircrew would be luckier as their aircraft veered off course. South of Birmingham, a larger force of twenty KG 26 Heinkels headed towards their target.
In an arc between Bromsgrove and Coventry, the shattered wreckage of six further Heinkels tumbled out the sky.
Both KGr 100 and KG 26 sustained a loss rate of 30 percent.
Tony flew the Rafale to the Pas-de-Calais, where he dropped the 250KG AASM on the fixed Knickebein transmitter at Mont Violette. He then flew down the coast of France just 91 miles, and dropped the second AASM on the 26th Intercept Company listening post at Étretat. A dozen German personnel were killed.
The Heinkel He111H-3 Wnr 5252 landed at Valley, minus one aircrew, who baled out over Llanfairfechan. Its flight control systems had been laughably easy ffor the Hyperians to take control of. The four remaining crew were held at gunpoint by Eugene Tobin until Tony returned.
McCarthy took of in the Cessna, and flew Nurse Daley, his daughter, and the pink Nintendo anachronism the short distance across the Thames estuary to Bentwaters, where Shorty Keough and Andy Mamedoff waited for them.
The 25th August would be a busy day.
But there was a reward waiting for the recoverer of the 21st century tech.
Total number of air-to-air kills by McCarthy: THIRTY-NINE.*
Total number of air-to-air kills by Shannon: THIRTY-TWO.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Brandon: ELEVEN
Total number of air-to-air kills by Keough: TWO
Total number of air-to-air kills by Tobin: TWO
Total number of air-to-air kills by Mamedoff: TWO
*excluding blue-on-blue and Perivale bomber crash.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Shannon: THIRTY-TWO.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Brandon: ELEVEN
Total number of air-to-air kills by Keough: TWO
Total number of air-to-air kills by Tobin: TWO
Total number of air-to-air kills by Mamedoff: TWO
*excluding blue-on-blue and Perivale bomber crash.
Last edited:
High-and-die Mighty
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
25th August 1940. Suffolk Coastal.
The 10×10 Tatra 816 was significantly larger than any vehicle you were likely to see on the roads of Suffolk in the 1940s, and the 35mm twin cannon Marksman turret on the rear of the truck made it a more potent anti-aircraft system than any the Royal Artillery could deploy.
The same was true of the small white Hyundai Mighty truck on the airbase itself at Bentwaters. The truck was innocuous enough. next to the Sea Fury, MB5 and two Mustangs.
All the fighters were painted in RAF Fighter Command dark-green/dark-earth camouflage, with Barley grey undersides and with a yellow ℗ on the fuselage. All the camouflage near the wing tips was removed around the Type B roundels.
The two Merlins, one Griffon and one Centaurus made a ferocious racket. Nurse Daley could not see the attraction of standing so near the noise, and Polly agreed with her.
"Dad told us to take cover anyway."
"You have a shelter here?"
"Those hangar things are bomb resistant. Reinforced concrete – but there is a more luxurious one deep under the big hangar. Hot and cold running water, air con, food. Unrationed food. It has its benefits, living here" said Polly, as the aircraft roared down the runway.
She nervously glanced at the aeroplanes, hoping none of them would crash – even despite the promised 98.9% reliability of the aircraft given by the Hyperians.
"LOT1, Calling in" said Charlie, leading the flight. "LOT2 Calling in" said Alex, her wingman, "LOT3 Calling in" said Andy, "LOT4 Calling in" said Shorty, Andy's wingman.
Thirty-two aircraft, snappers and twin snappers, have clipped the edges of the outer exclusion zone, to the north and south, said soundmirror. Two are heading for the barrage balloon.
The barrage balloon carried the Israeli Elta EL/M-2083 radar
The aircraft are close enough now to pose a threat. We are firing triple-a. said soundmirror.
"LOT leader. We have visuals on the inbound aircraft. Am attacking" said Charlie. "Keep triple-a away from friendlies"
Confirmed. We have your idents.
The Tatra 816 was sat on sandy soil in a field near Chantry Point, with Orford Castle to the North, and with the lighthouse and the VLRHG to the North East
The two Me 109E-7s dropped their fuel tanks and congratulated themselves on the absence of British flak. The Nafasi AI pitied the German pilots for their predictable tactics and navigation, as the Marksman turret swung towards the aircraft approaching from the east at 330 mph.
Death is everywhere.
There are flies on the windscreen,
For a start.
Reminding us.
We could be torn apart.
Twenty rounds left the muzzles of the two Rheinmetall Air Defence AG 35mm cannon at 1,440 metres per second. The two Me109s flew into a cloud of fragments left by the FAPDS rounds. One crashed, burning, into Holleseley Bay, the other disintegrated entirely, the shredded pilot and the DB601 crashing into marshland.
McCarthy had already killed two members of Erprobungsgruppe 210 including one of its leaders Martin Lutz, and the RAF had killed its original commander, Walter Rubensdörffer and Lutz's successor, Karl Valesi.
It would now be the turn of Hauptmann Hans von Boltenstern.
The MB5 and the Sea Fury peeled off. They were 110s and 109s, Charlie and Alex saw them weighed down with SC250 and SC50 bombs, and they both selected the Me110Ds.
Oberleutnant Habisch's 110 was hit by 20mm cannon shells and exploded violently. Moments later, Leutnant Koch, the Technical Officer of the Gruppe and his crew, were killed instantly in a similar manner. They had got nowhere near the target, the wreckage of their aeroplanes falling into the sea.
"LOT3, LOT4, beam attacks only, they've got tail gunners." said Charlie over the radio, "AND WATCH OUT FOR THE BOMBS EXPLODING! Over"
The two Mustang pilots selected the Me109s, instead, LOT3 hitting his, but LOT4 overshot his.
They both jettisoned their bombs, though.
LOT4 selected an 110D, raking it with fifty-calibre bullets, but failing to bring it down. LOT leader told LOT4 to break off his attack. He did.
The Sea Fury, MB5, and two Mustangs climbed to 25,000 feet, and vectored 240° south west.
The Hyundai Mighty tipper truck elevated its modified loading bucket to 72°, and fired twelve 120mm rockets northwards, to 30,000 feet.
The rockets discarded their submunitions as they reached maximal altitude, the steerable canards shot out, and the INS system guided the rounds to the targets. A laser proximity fuse ordered the fragmentation of the submunitions above the long glass cockpits of the Erprobungsgruppe 210 aircraft. The effect on the aircrew was inevitably fatal. Eight of the sixteen remaining Messerschmitt Me110D 'jagdbombers' dived into the sea, their crews dead or grievously injured, two collided with each other, two of the Me110 flew inland and crashed, as did a Me109 with a wrecked prop and injured pilot. One jettisoned its bombs and struggled back to France on one engine.
Somehow eight 109s and three 110s, survivors of this unbelievable accurate FLAK, flew on to the target, the VLRHG.
Two Me 109s dropped their SC250 bombs from shallow dives. Both bombs missed, and SAPHEI 35mm shells destroyed both aircraft
With insane, futile bravery, the pilots of E-gruppe 210 kept attacking. Hauptmann Hans von Boltenstern dropped two SC250s onto the VLRHG, and a 42 foot forward section of the 115 foot long 'gun' broke off and collapsed onto the concrete base. Success!
Boltenstern's aircraft was hit by three 35mm shells as it climbed out, smashing the twin tail off aft of the gunners position, and the port engine exploded in a sheet of flame. The two crew were killed instantly.
Rezwalker radioed to Alex and Charlie simultaneously.
The Vlahurg has been badly damaged.
The dumb Nazi motherfuckers fell for it, thought Alex.
"Oh dear. How sad. Never mind. Over" said McCarthy. He didn't need to ask what the score was.
"Three minutes from our combat area, are targets inbound? Over." asked Charlie. Alex smiled and thought: Typical Charlie – always business.
Targets are inbound. Sixty-six aircraft, all twin engined, at eighteen thousand feet. Twelve are FW187s.
Easyjet is in the air.
The day, indeed the mission, was far from over.
The 10×10 Tatra 816 was significantly larger than any vehicle you were likely to see on the roads of Suffolk in the 1940s, and the 35mm twin cannon Marksman turret on the rear of the truck made it a more potent anti-aircraft system than any the Royal Artillery could deploy.
The same was true of the small white Hyundai Mighty truck on the airbase itself at Bentwaters. The truck was innocuous enough. next to the Sea Fury, MB5 and two Mustangs.
All the fighters were painted in RAF Fighter Command dark-green/dark-earth camouflage, with Barley grey undersides and with a yellow ℗ on the fuselage. All the camouflage near the wing tips was removed around the Type B roundels.
The two Merlins, one Griffon and one Centaurus made a ferocious racket. Nurse Daley could not see the attraction of standing so near the noise, and Polly agreed with her.
"Dad told us to take cover anyway."
"You have a shelter here?"
"Those hangar things are bomb resistant. Reinforced concrete – but there is a more luxurious one deep under the big hangar. Hot and cold running water, air con, food. Unrationed food. It has its benefits, living here" said Polly, as the aircraft roared down the runway.
She nervously glanced at the aeroplanes, hoping none of them would crash – even despite the promised 98.9% reliability of the aircraft given by the Hyperians.
"LOT1, Calling in" said Charlie, leading the flight. "LOT2 Calling in" said Alex, her wingman, "LOT3 Calling in" said Andy, "LOT4 Calling in" said Shorty, Andy's wingman.
Thirty-two aircraft, snappers and twin snappers, have clipped the edges of the outer exclusion zone, to the north and south, said soundmirror. Two are heading for the barrage balloon.
The barrage balloon carried the Israeli Elta EL/M-2083 radar
The aircraft are close enough now to pose a threat. We are firing triple-a. said soundmirror.
"LOT leader. We have visuals on the inbound aircraft. Am attacking" said Charlie. "Keep triple-a away from friendlies"
Confirmed. We have your idents.
The Tatra 816 was sat on sandy soil in a field near Chantry Point, with Orford Castle to the North, and with the lighthouse and the VLRHG to the North East
The two Me 109E-7s dropped their fuel tanks and congratulated themselves on the absence of British flak. The Nafasi AI pitied the German pilots for their predictable tactics and navigation, as the Marksman turret swung towards the aircraft approaching from the east at 330 mph.
Death is everywhere.
There are flies on the windscreen,
For a start.
Reminding us.
We could be torn apart.
Twenty rounds left the muzzles of the two Rheinmetall Air Defence AG 35mm cannon at 1,440 metres per second. The two Me109s flew into a cloud of fragments left by the FAPDS rounds. One crashed, burning, into Holleseley Bay, the other disintegrated entirely, the shredded pilot and the DB601 crashing into marshland.
McCarthy had already killed two members of Erprobungsgruppe 210 including one of its leaders Martin Lutz, and the RAF had killed its original commander, Walter Rubensdörffer and Lutz's successor, Karl Valesi.
It would now be the turn of Hauptmann Hans von Boltenstern.
The MB5 and the Sea Fury peeled off. They were 110s and 109s, Charlie and Alex saw them weighed down with SC250 and SC50 bombs, and they both selected the Me110Ds.
Oberleutnant Habisch's 110 was hit by 20mm cannon shells and exploded violently. Moments later, Leutnant Koch, the Technical Officer of the Gruppe and his crew, were killed instantly in a similar manner. They had got nowhere near the target, the wreckage of their aeroplanes falling into the sea.
"LOT3, LOT4, beam attacks only, they've got tail gunners." said Charlie over the radio, "AND WATCH OUT FOR THE BOMBS EXPLODING! Over"
The two Mustang pilots selected the Me109s, instead, LOT3 hitting his, but LOT4 overshot his.
They both jettisoned their bombs, though.
LOT4 selected an 110D, raking it with fifty-calibre bullets, but failing to bring it down. LOT leader told LOT4 to break off his attack. He did.
The Sea Fury, MB5, and two Mustangs climbed to 25,000 feet, and vectored 240° south west.
The Hyundai Mighty tipper truck elevated its modified loading bucket to 72°, and fired twelve 120mm rockets northwards, to 30,000 feet.
The rockets discarded their submunitions as they reached maximal altitude, the steerable canards shot out, and the INS system guided the rounds to the targets. A laser proximity fuse ordered the fragmentation of the submunitions above the long glass cockpits of the Erprobungsgruppe 210 aircraft. The effect on the aircrew was inevitably fatal. Eight of the sixteen remaining Messerschmitt Me110D 'jagdbombers' dived into the sea, their crews dead or grievously injured, two collided with each other, two of the Me110 flew inland and crashed, as did a Me109 with a wrecked prop and injured pilot. One jettisoned its bombs and struggled back to France on one engine.
Somehow eight 109s and three 110s, survivors of this unbelievable accurate FLAK, flew on to the target, the VLRHG.
Two Me 109s dropped their SC250 bombs from shallow dives. Both bombs missed, and SAPHEI 35mm shells destroyed both aircraft
With insane, futile bravery, the pilots of E-gruppe 210 kept attacking. Hauptmann Hans von Boltenstern dropped two SC250s onto the VLRHG, and a 42 foot forward section of the 115 foot long 'gun' broke off and collapsed onto the concrete base. Success!
Boltenstern's aircraft was hit by three 35mm shells as it climbed out, smashing the twin tail off aft of the gunners position, and the port engine exploded in a sheet of flame. The two crew were killed instantly.
Rezwalker radioed to Alex and Charlie simultaneously.
The Vlahurg has been badly damaged.
The dumb Nazi motherfuckers fell for it, thought Alex.
"Oh dear. How sad. Never mind. Over" said McCarthy. He didn't need to ask what the score was.
"Three minutes from our combat area, are targets inbound? Over." asked Charlie. Alex smiled and thought: Typical Charlie – always business.
Targets are inbound. Sixty-six aircraft, all twin engined, at eighteen thousand feet. Twelve are FW187s.
Easyjet is in the air.
The day, indeed the mission, was far from over.
Last edited:
Bend your body to the will of the machine.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
W H Auden, September 1, 1939
The schwarm of FW187s nosed over, diving to attack the vic formation of unsuspecting RAF Hawker-Siddeley Hurricanes of 213 Squadron. The tail-end charlie saw the shark-like fighter in his rear view mirror, and it was the last thing he saw, as the shells thudded in, and the flames engulfed the cockpit.
He didn't even get the chance to cry out for his mother.
Luftwaffe 0 RAF 1 (aircrew dead)
It had taken the four fighters twenty-eight minutes to climb to 32,000 feet, and fly to 137 miles to Portsmouth. Alex saw the flaming Hurricane below, the eight FW187s. LOT3 and LOT4 in their Mustangs broke off to attack those, while LOT1 and LOT2 flew down towards the formation of Hurricanes, and the other four FW187s attacking them.
Another Hurricane was going down in flames.
The FW187 filled the gyro gunsights of the Sea Fury, the MB5, and the two P-51Ds and the tables were turned.
Luftwaffe 4-RAF 3 (dead aircrew)
The Luftwaffe pilots thought they flew the fastest fighters in Europe, with the longest range and that they were the elite – but the Mustangs proved them wrong as they accelerated away.
Charlie and Alex turned and climbed, and visually acquired the six remaining FW187s, and came down upon them like an avalanche.
Below them a Hurricane pilot shot down a FW187, and LOT4, Shorty Keough, shot down a Ju88A-4 bound for Portsmouth, while Andy Mamedoff watched his tail. The 20mm cannon shells Alex and Charlie had fired ploughed into the FW187s, tearing the Luftwaffe fighters to pieces.
Luftwaffe 9-RAF 3 (dead aircrew)
"EASYJET calling in. FOX THREE! FOX THREE! FOX THREE! FOX THREE! Over.
"LOT LEADER! Break off you attacks and RV north of the formation. URGENTLY! Over"
"LOT2. What is your position, EASYJET? Over.
"North-east of Winchester, I think? Flight level 22. Over."
It took the missiles thirty SECONDS to cover the distance, at a velocity of 4800 kilometres-per-hour. Their smokeless rocket motors gave no herald of their arrival. Three He111s and a Ju88 exploded beneath thrpiston-engine fighter pilots. There were no survivors, and very little in the way of wreckage.
Luftwaffe 28-RAF 3 (dead aircrew)
The bombers at the head of formation were already dropping their bombs on Portsmouth, the air raid warning sirens having sounded forty-five minutes ago, and the 3.7inch anti-aircraft fire from the naval dockyard below burst around them.
Third Reich 28-British Empire 7 (total dead)
"EASYJET. FOX THREE! FOX THREE! FOX THREE! FOX THREE! Over." It took twenty seconds for the second wave of Jewish-made AAMs to arrive.
Third Reich 45-British Empire 7 (total dead).
LOT4 sighted another FW187 and shot it down, and LOT leader called him to rejoin the formation
"EASYJET. FOX THREE! FOX THREE! FOX THREE! FOX THREE! Over." It took twenty seconds for the third wave of Rafael Derbys hit their targets, all He111s. One of the He111s was heading back to France. Another crashed into Kingston Cemetery, Portsmouth, the explosion of its bombload and fuel tanks disinterring hundreds of the deceased, and shattering the windows of All Saints Church, and those of nearby houses.
Third Reich 65-British Empire 12 (total dead).
"EASYJET. Only FOX1s remaining. Returning to base. Over.
"LOT leader to EASYJET. Thank you. Stay safe. Out.
"LOT leader to all LOT aircraft, return to base while we are all still alive. Over."
More Hurricanes were arriving on scene, 609 Squadron ones. It seemed odd to see PR- squadron codes on a Hurricane, rather than a Spitfire.
Twenty-six people would be killed on the ground at Portsmouth, sixty people injured and 108 properties damaged.
The Independent Air Force (Tony had suggested the Anti Nazi Air League, but there was a problem with the acronym) had shot down twenty enemy aircraft, and damaged three more, for no loss.
The Autonomous Base Defences at Bentwaters had destroyed seventeen attackers, and damaged one, for only minor damage and zero loss of civilian life.
The RAF shot down five of the Portsmouth attackers, and anti-aircraft guns two, for the loss of three aircrew, all fighter pilots all dead.
Across the country, the RAF claimed 72 victories for the loss of 24 aircraft. Biggin Hill, Kenley, Hornchurch and North Weald. The Luftwaffe lost 68 aircraft, the RAF overclaiming accounting for nearly all the IAF victories.
Newspapers, local and national, reported the use of a hitherto unknown weapon to intercept bombers over an unnamed south-coast town, quoting eyewitness reports.
These reports were never repeated, and soon were being used to wrap fish and chips.
The psychopathic death cult in Berlin, and its adherents elsewhere, was getting what it wanted, thought Alex. Death on a massive scale. Though not quite in the manner it expected.
Once the ringing in his ears had stopped, caused by the Berezin B20 cannons firing, and the roar Rolls-Royce Griffon 85 in front of him, Alex could hear the high frequencies of birdsong, as the summer sun shone down on Bentwaters. The idea that he could be implicated in the deaths of nearly seventy German, Austrian and Sudeten young men, the eldest thirty-four, seemed bizarre.
Hitler would be pleased that the VLRHG gun, 'der große Schrotflinte' as he called it, had been destroyed, even thought it wasn't a gun, and could be easily repaired after its destruction had been confirmed.
Erprobungsgruppe 210 had been wiped out as an effective unit, with only nine uninjured flight crew and five serviceable aeroplanes left. It would have to be withdrawn, if not disbanded altogether.
On returning to Valley in the F-15EX, Tony found a nice single-seat EF2000 Typhoon tranche 3 in one of the Hardened Aircraft Shelters, zero hours on the clock, no previous owners, €90 million (paid)
Last edited:
In the wind
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
26th August 1940
McCarthy took off in the Sabre-Fury from Valley to Bentwaters. The Junkers Ju88B-0 was at 29,000 feet over the North Sea, a black dot ahead of a vapour trail, to the naked eye. The noise in the cockpit from the 24 cylinder engine was profound and thunderous, like the stampede of 3,000 horses across an arid plain.
At least it had the six-bladed contraprop (as fitted to the MB5), which lessened the torque, thought Alex.
The black dot formed into an aeroplane as he flew towards it
Oberstleutnant Siegfried Knemeyer watch as the Englander aircraft circled his, but did not attack.
Whatever aircraft this was, thought Knemeyer, it wasn't a Spitfire. It had an elliptical wing just like it, though. He considered aborting the mission, but then remembered the Streng Geheim orders were signed by the Reichsmarschall, and the Führer himself.
The wreckage of the Englander supergun must be photographed!
The unidentified fighter then flew alongside them as Knemeyer flew straight and level, parallel to the coast. There was no anti-aircraft fire. It was as if RAF wanted them to photograph it.
A puff of black smoke came from the fighter's engine and it flew towards the Ju88B, Knemeyer ordered the gunner to open fire but the aircraft was gone before he could aim his MG17.
Alex climbed and left the recce aircraft to the three Hurricanes straining to reach the Ju88B. He spotted the Avro Anson on the screen connected to the targeting pod, and flew past it at high speed, 340 knots. The Anson was so slow, the Sabre-Fury could not stay with it. Alex landed it at Valley after forty-four minutes flying time.
The noise of the Napier Sabre VIII reminded McCarthy of the rhythms of Juanita/Kiteless, by Underworld
KNICKERS STOP UKW STOP KLEVE STOP X-APPARATUS STOP
EBL1 STOP EBL2 STOP WOTAN STOP NOT PULLING CROOKED LEG STOP
WE HAVE THEM STOP
MCCARTHY ANGLESEY END
Alex landed the Sabre-Sea Fury at Valley after forty-four minutes flying time.
The Anson was parked on the pan outside the large hangar, and taxied alongside and shut the engine down.
Two RAF personnel and one civilian greeted him. He only recognised one of them.
"Hello! McCarthy, this is Air Commodore Medhurst, the RAF Secretary of the Supreme War Council, Director of Allied Air Co-Operation – "
"Sounds impressive" said Alex. Jumped up little twat, he thought.
" – and this is Professor Jones of the Air Ministry"
"Professor Reginald Victor Jones, Assistant Director of Intelligence (Science)? It's a pleasure to meet you! Welcome to Valley, all three of you. I have something to show you."
"Wait a moment McCarthy" said Medhurst.
"My friends call me Alex, but you can call me MISTER McCarthy – especially as I'm NOT one of your subordinates, and a civilian. Anyway, I have some presents for you."
Alex walked towards the hangar, pressed a button on a control panel, and electric motors began to whir. One of the main doors opened.
"You claimed you had information on Ker-nicker-bine and X-Garate" said RV Jones. "Bearing in mind the help you have given the Air Ministry before, we thought it worth following up"
"Oh I've got more than that." said Alex. "Step inside."
"Ladies and Gentleman, not one but four Ju88s, and one Kampfgruppe 100 He111H-3" said Alex
"It has the 6N code and the Longboat emblem. It's undamaged!"
"It is" confirmed Alex.
"How did it land here" asked Medhurst
"Navigational error"
"I find that very hard to believe." said Winterbotham.
"All five of them?" said Medhurst.
"That's the only explanation you deserve, and are ever going to get" said Alex."The Heinkel and one of the Eighty-eights is yours to take away. Does the RAF have an airworthy, intact Ju88?"
"No" said Winterbotham.
"We'll have all of them" said Medhurst.
"NO YOU WILL NOT! One of them is being modified by us and the other two are being used by us to attack Germany."
"I've come here to expressly forbid you from attacking Germany, without orders from the Chief of the Air Staff. There are rumours you were responsible for the raid on Berlin – "
"They are true" said Alex.
"You have no authorisation –
"I didn't know I needed any to attack the enemies of the Crown. You can't exceed an authority you haven't been given. I'm not a mercenary either, NO ONE is paying me. Is there anything in the Geneva or Hague conventions forbidding private military companies? Everything I do is to defend this country. Look around you. Who wouldn't?"
"Please read the letter, Mr McCarthy"
"I know what it sez. I have heard it all before. The truth is nobody can stop me from attacking the Third Reich, certainly not the Luftwaffe, and nobody can stop me defending this country in any manner I choose. If Ludlow-Hewitt thinks it's that important, he can come here in person"
"You will not be protected by the British state, nor the Laws of War if you venture to attack German-occupied Europe without proper authorisation."
"What are you going to do? Shoot my aircraft down for attacking the enemy? GROW UP. Forms signed in triplicate by God, Halifax and CIGS, I assume? Bollocks to that. I, we, risked our lives shooting down eighteen bombers attacking Portsmouth on Sunday, and we could be up there now, instead of listening to you blithering on, when I invited you here in good faith to this base, you ungrateful bastard."
"Well, really"
"Do we have to send a Brigade of Guardsmen to secure this aerodrome if you refuse to comply?" said Winterbotham.
"I could destroy the Menai Suspension Bridge with three, maybe four bombs before they even got here. Good swimmers, are they, these guardsmen? I have two enemy aeroplanes to give you and four prisoners for you to interrogate –
"You are holding prisoners here?" said Winterbotham.
"The four crew of the He111H, one of the crew bailed out. One of the gunners, I think"
"And the crew of the Junkers?" asked Winterbotham.
"You already have them."
"You handed them over?" asked Medhurst. McCarthy didn't answer.
"You can take them away with you, take them to Trent Park, or wherever it is you are holding them. Then I won't have feed and lock them up any more. They won't talk to us, and even if they did, they would not tell us anything we did not already know. I could fly them back to to France, push them out of a plane, if this is all too much effort for you. I was going to offer to train RAF aircrew to fly the 88s and 111, but I'm not going to bother. You can pick them up at your leisure. I will offer whatever assistance I can to Professor Jones, whom I admire greatly. The RAF and Air Ministry are utterly fucking contemptible. Take yourselves, and your Category E rattletrap off my aerodrome."
McCarthy took off in the Sabre-Fury from Valley to Bentwaters. The Junkers Ju88B-0 was at 29,000 feet over the North Sea, a black dot ahead of a vapour trail, to the naked eye. The noise in the cockpit from the 24 cylinder engine was profound and thunderous, like the stampede of 3,000 horses across an arid plain.
At least it had the six-bladed contraprop (as fitted to the MB5), which lessened the torque, thought Alex.
The black dot formed into an aeroplane as he flew towards it
Oberstleutnant Siegfried Knemeyer watch as the Englander aircraft circled his, but did not attack.
Whatever aircraft this was, thought Knemeyer, it wasn't a Spitfire. It had an elliptical wing just like it, though. He considered aborting the mission, but then remembered the Streng Geheim orders were signed by the Reichsmarschall, and the Führer himself.
The wreckage of the Englander supergun must be photographed!
The unidentified fighter then flew alongside them as Knemeyer flew straight and level, parallel to the coast. There was no anti-aircraft fire. It was as if RAF wanted them to photograph it.
A puff of black smoke came from the fighter's engine and it flew towards the Ju88B, Knemeyer ordered the gunner to open fire but the aircraft was gone before he could aim his MG17.
Alex climbed and left the recce aircraft to the three Hurricanes straining to reach the Ju88B. He spotted the Avro Anson on the screen connected to the targeting pod, and flew past it at high speed, 340 knots. The Anson was so slow, the Sabre-Fury could not stay with it. Alex landed it at Valley after forty-four minutes flying time.
The noise of the Napier Sabre VIII reminded McCarthy of the rhythms of Juanita/Kiteless, by Underworld
Your rails.
Your thin
Your thin paper wings.
Sugar box. Sugar boy.
Riding in. Sugar box.
Sugar boy.
Handheld camera.
Sugar boy.
Your rails.
Your thin.
Your thin paper wings.
Your thin paper wings.
In the wind.
Dangling.
Your sun.
Fly high.
Your window shattering.
Your Coca Cola sign rattling.
In the wind.
In the wind.
A telegram had been to sent Doctor R Jones ADI Science, and Wing Cdr FW Winterbottom.Your thin
Your thin paper wings.
Sugar box. Sugar boy.
Riding in. Sugar box.
Sugar boy.
Handheld camera.
Sugar boy.
Your rails.
Your thin.
Your thin paper wings.
Your thin paper wings.
In the wind.
Dangling.
Your sun.
Fly high.
Your window shattering.
Your Coca Cola sign rattling.
In the wind.
In the wind.
KNICKERS STOP UKW STOP KLEVE STOP X-APPARATUS STOP
EBL1 STOP EBL2 STOP WOTAN STOP NOT PULLING CROOKED LEG STOP
WE HAVE THEM STOP
MCCARTHY ANGLESEY END
Alex landed the Sabre-Sea Fury at Valley after forty-four minutes flying time.
The Anson was parked on the pan outside the large hangar, and taxied alongside and shut the engine down.
Two RAF personnel and one civilian greeted him. He only recognised one of them.
"Hello! McCarthy, this is Air Commodore Medhurst, the RAF Secretary of the Supreme War Council, Director of Allied Air Co-Operation – "
"Sounds impressive" said Alex. Jumped up little twat, he thought.
" – and this is Professor Jones of the Air Ministry"
"Professor Reginald Victor Jones, Assistant Director of Intelligence (Science)? It's a pleasure to meet you! Welcome to Valley, all three of you. I have something to show you."
"Wait a moment McCarthy" said Medhurst.
"My friends call me Alex, but you can call me MISTER McCarthy – especially as I'm NOT one of your subordinates, and a civilian. Anyway, I have some presents for you."
Alex walked towards the hangar, pressed a button on a control panel, and electric motors began to whir. One of the main doors opened.
"You claimed you had information on Ker-nicker-bine and X-Garate" said RV Jones. "Bearing in mind the help you have given the Air Ministry before, we thought it worth following up"
"Oh I've got more than that." said Alex. "Step inside."
"Ladies and Gentleman, not one but four Ju88s, and one Kampfgruppe 100 He111H-3" said Alex
"It has the 6N code and the Longboat emblem. It's undamaged!"
"It is" confirmed Alex.
"How did it land here" asked Medhurst
"Navigational error"
"I find that very hard to believe." said Winterbotham.
"All five of them?" said Medhurst.
"That's the only explanation you deserve, and are ever going to get" said Alex."The Heinkel and one of the Eighty-eights is yours to take away. Does the RAF have an airworthy, intact Ju88?"
"No" said Winterbotham.
"We'll have all of them" said Medhurst.
"NO YOU WILL NOT! One of them is being modified by us and the other two are being used by us to attack Germany."
"I've come here to expressly forbid you from attacking Germany, without orders from the Chief of the Air Staff. There are rumours you were responsible for the raid on Berlin – "
"They are true" said Alex.
"You have no authorisation –
"I didn't know I needed any to attack the enemies of the Crown. You can't exceed an authority you haven't been given. I'm not a mercenary either, NO ONE is paying me. Is there anything in the Geneva or Hague conventions forbidding private military companies? Everything I do is to defend this country. Look around you. Who wouldn't?"
"Please read the letter, Mr McCarthy"
"I know what it sez. I have heard it all before. The truth is nobody can stop me from attacking the Third Reich, certainly not the Luftwaffe, and nobody can stop me defending this country in any manner I choose. If Ludlow-Hewitt thinks it's that important, he can come here in person"
"You will not be protected by the British state, nor the Laws of War if you venture to attack German-occupied Europe without proper authorisation."
"What are you going to do? Shoot my aircraft down for attacking the enemy? GROW UP. Forms signed in triplicate by God, Halifax and CIGS, I assume? Bollocks to that. I, we, risked our lives shooting down eighteen bombers attacking Portsmouth on Sunday, and we could be up there now, instead of listening to you blithering on, when I invited you here in good faith to this base, you ungrateful bastard."
"Well, really"
"Do we have to send a Brigade of Guardsmen to secure this aerodrome if you refuse to comply?" said Winterbotham.
"I could destroy the Menai Suspension Bridge with three, maybe four bombs before they even got here. Good swimmers, are they, these guardsmen? I have two enemy aeroplanes to give you and four prisoners for you to interrogate –
"You are holding prisoners here?" said Winterbotham.
"The four crew of the He111H, one of the crew bailed out. One of the gunners, I think"
"And the crew of the Junkers?" asked Winterbotham.
"You already have them."
"You handed them over?" asked Medhurst. McCarthy didn't answer.
"You can take them away with you, take them to Trent Park, or wherever it is you are holding them. Then I won't have feed and lock them up any more. They won't talk to us, and even if they did, they would not tell us anything we did not already know. I could fly them back to to France, push them out of a plane, if this is all too much effort for you. I was going to offer to train RAF aircrew to fly the 88s and 111, but I'm not going to bother. You can pick them up at your leisure. I will offer whatever assistance I can to Professor Jones, whom I admire greatly. The RAF and Air Ministry are utterly fucking contemptible. Take yourselves, and your Category E rattletrap off my aerodrome."
Last edited:
Your Windows Shattering
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Night of 26th-27th August 1940.
Alex showed Professor Jones around the Ju88, showing him the Lorenz EBL1 and EBL2 blind landing systems that had been found in numerous crashed Luftwaffe aircraft. Alex told him that if they examined them, they would be too sensitive for blind landing alone.
Once they had extricated themselves from the Ju88, they climbed aboard the He111, and showed him the X-Gerät equipment, and the gauges and dials in the cockpit. He also told Jones that they had destroyed one of the transmission antennae in the Pas-de-Calais, but that it would not be long before they Luftwaffe built a replacement, or started using mobile antenna.
Jones told Alex that it would not do to antagonise the Air Ministry, and that all his innovations would go to waste.
Alex said:
"If I can drop bombs of the German Air Ministry in Berlin, I can drop bombs on the United Kingdom Air Ministry in London, and if the Luftwaffe begin vengeance raids on London, that gives me a perfect alibi for doing so". McCarthy had concluded that more permanent lasting damage needed to be done to the German war economy
"You would be arrested for treason if you did that! You would jeopardise all your good work"
"Treason never prospers/ For what's the reason?/If treason prospers/ None dare call it treason" replied McCarthy. "I know for a fact that a bombing raid on Berlin has been ordered by the Prime Minister for tonight – clear weather, but no bomber's moon – we shall use the cover of the night for our nefarious activities.
He offered the Professor the opportunity of a flight back to London. He preferred to take the Holyhead to Chester train, and think about what McCarthy, sorry, MISTER McCarthy had told him.
He also suspected there was less likelihood of being him shot down.
Pressure on Halifax to attack the German had been intense – "Bomb Berlin and Save London" had been adopted as a slogan by the Beaverbrook papers and the Kemsley and Camrose papers, and the pressure from some members of the War Cabinet could not be ignored.
Ludlow-Hewitt, Portal and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir John Dill, wanted Germany bombed into submission. Only Admiral Dudley Pound was sceptical about the effectiveness of RAF bombing raids.
After all, Britain was under constant aerial bombardment, and London, even the Houses of Parliament had not been spared the destruction.
Two squadrons of Hampdens, and three squadrons of Whitleys, had been ordered to attack 'The Big B'.
McCarthy, Shannon and Brandon waited at Valley, for the antediluvian bombers to cross the enemy coast. One Hampden was shot down doing so. There was no bomber stream, each aircraft struggled in the darkness to what its crew were certain was the target, but probably wasn't.
It took the Hampdens and Whitleys over three hours to fly from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to Berlin. It took McCarthy in the F-15EX, Charlie in the Rafale, and Tony in the EF2000 Typhoon one hour and twenty three minutes to fly seven-hundred and forty eight miles.
The RAF through straight through the area of the German Bight covered by Freya radars, giving the Me110s relocated to protect Berlin plenty of advanced warning. It was going to be a massacre.
But of whom?
Alex's F-15 carried three 907Kg laser-guided bombs, two 2300L drop tanks, and four Python-5s.
Charlie's Rafale carried six AAMs, all Python-5s, four 125Kg AASM-125 laser-guided bombs, and two 2000L drop tanks.
Tony's Typhoon carried six AAMs, all IRIS-Ts, and three drop tanks, two 2,250L and one 1000L
With this loadout, none of the aircraft could go supersonic, but that did not matter.
All of the three radars in their aircraft were integrated, so each pilot could see the same as the other.They could see the Luftwaffe Me110s, and the numerous Whitleys on their respective Infra-Red Search and Track systems. They closed to the 20-25 kilometre range required by the Python-5s and IRIS-T, acquired their targets, and launched.
North of Braunschweig and south of Lübeck, six Zestorern were themselves destroyed, their two crew killed in every instance.
Tony and Alex shot down two more Me110s north of Berlin, near Oranienburg, one of which had just shot down an RAF Whitley. Wreckage from one of the Messerschmitts fell on Saschsenhausen concentration camp. Charlie bombed a searchlight, and a Flak battery in Berlin itself.
They then turned to the main objective. Alex dropped one of the 907Kg/2000lb precision guided bomb on a factory in Marienfelde, Berlin, and then a second on another building in the same complex. The three pilots watched through sensors as the building erupted, or collapsed. Charlie dropped a 125 Kg bomb on the smelter, just for good measure.
They wanted to spend as little over the city, with its random FLAK, as possible.
The target for the last LGB was just six miles away to the south of Berlin, in a forest near the town of Ludwigsfelde. Alex selected the largest building, next to a railway line, painted it with the laser and dropped the bomb. After a few moments a satisfying fireball demolished the northern third of the building.
The uptimer pilots amused themselves by climbing to altitude, then accelerating through the sound barrier, the sonic booms persuading terrified Berliners that they were under constant bombardment. They then turned for home.
They awoke to find a Berlin largely undamaged, besides the cosmetic damage done by RAF Bomber Command 250lb bombs. One large German industrial concern was counting the enormous cost of one nights bombing.
On landing back at Valley as dawn broke, McCarthy requested an aircraft with similar load carrying performance to the F-15EX, but with longer range. Both the F-15 and Typhoon had been close to bingo fuel landing at Valley, they had considered diverting to Bentwaters. Tony wanted something with performance akin to the Eurofighter (EJ200s and powered canards), but with the radar from F-15 and the sensor suite from the Rafale.
The Meteor AAMs were far beyond the needs of the targets they were shooting down, and the AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM and Rafael Derby were ideal for their needs. They wanted the IRIS-T AAM with integrated the aircraft they had, and Tony wanted Storm Shadow stand-off missiles with INS and TERPROM guidance.
We will supply you with your needs. One of the aircraft needs to withdrawn, however. You only need three high-performance aircraft, said rezwalker.
They each decided to get rid of the Dassault Rafale C. They could always have it back, the Hyperians told them, if they were unsatisfied with what was provided as a replacement.
Alex showed Professor Jones around the Ju88, showing him the Lorenz EBL1 and EBL2 blind landing systems that had been found in numerous crashed Luftwaffe aircraft. Alex told him that if they examined them, they would be too sensitive for blind landing alone.
Once they had extricated themselves from the Ju88, they climbed aboard the He111, and showed him the X-Gerät equipment, and the gauges and dials in the cockpit. He also told Jones that they had destroyed one of the transmission antennae in the Pas-de-Calais, but that it would not be long before they Luftwaffe built a replacement, or started using mobile antenna.
Jones told Alex that it would not do to antagonise the Air Ministry, and that all his innovations would go to waste.
Alex said:
"If I can drop bombs of the German Air Ministry in Berlin, I can drop bombs on the United Kingdom Air Ministry in London, and if the Luftwaffe begin vengeance raids on London, that gives me a perfect alibi for doing so". McCarthy had concluded that more permanent lasting damage needed to be done to the German war economy
"You would be arrested for treason if you did that! You would jeopardise all your good work"
"Treason never prospers/ For what's the reason?/If treason prospers/ None dare call it treason" replied McCarthy. "I know for a fact that a bombing raid on Berlin has been ordered by the Prime Minister for tonight – clear weather, but no bomber's moon – we shall use the cover of the night for our nefarious activities.
He offered the Professor the opportunity of a flight back to London. He preferred to take the Holyhead to Chester train, and think about what McCarthy, sorry, MISTER McCarthy had told him.
He also suspected there was less likelihood of being him shot down.
Pressure on Halifax to attack the German had been intense – "Bomb Berlin and Save London" had been adopted as a slogan by the Beaverbrook papers and the Kemsley and Camrose papers, and the pressure from some members of the War Cabinet could not be ignored.
Ludlow-Hewitt, Portal and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir John Dill, wanted Germany bombed into submission. Only Admiral Dudley Pound was sceptical about the effectiveness of RAF bombing raids.
After all, Britain was under constant aerial bombardment, and London, even the Houses of Parliament had not been spared the destruction.
Two squadrons of Hampdens, and three squadrons of Whitleys, had been ordered to attack 'The Big B'.
McCarthy, Shannon and Brandon waited at Valley, for the antediluvian bombers to cross the enemy coast. One Hampden was shot down doing so. There was no bomber stream, each aircraft struggled in the darkness to what its crew were certain was the target, but probably wasn't.
It took the Hampdens and Whitleys over three hours to fly from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to Berlin. It took McCarthy in the F-15EX, Charlie in the Rafale, and Tony in the EF2000 Typhoon one hour and twenty three minutes to fly seven-hundred and forty eight miles.
The RAF through straight through the area of the German Bight covered by Freya radars, giving the Me110s relocated to protect Berlin plenty of advanced warning. It was going to be a massacre.
But of whom?
Alex's F-15 carried three 907Kg laser-guided bombs, two 2300L drop tanks, and four Python-5s.
Charlie's Rafale carried six AAMs, all Python-5s, four 125Kg AASM-125 laser-guided bombs, and two 2000L drop tanks.
Tony's Typhoon carried six AAMs, all IRIS-Ts, and three drop tanks, two 2,250L and one 1000L
With this loadout, none of the aircraft could go supersonic, but that did not matter.
All of the three radars in their aircraft were integrated, so each pilot could see the same as the other.They could see the Luftwaffe Me110s, and the numerous Whitleys on their respective Infra-Red Search and Track systems. They closed to the 20-25 kilometre range required by the Python-5s and IRIS-T, acquired their targets, and launched.
North of Braunschweig and south of Lübeck, six Zestorern were themselves destroyed, their two crew killed in every instance.
Tony and Alex shot down two more Me110s north of Berlin, near Oranienburg, one of which had just shot down an RAF Whitley. Wreckage from one of the Messerschmitts fell on Saschsenhausen concentration camp. Charlie bombed a searchlight, and a Flak battery in Berlin itself.
They then turned to the main objective. Alex dropped one of the 907Kg/2000lb precision guided bomb on a factory in Marienfelde, Berlin, and then a second on another building in the same complex. The three pilots watched through sensors as the building erupted, or collapsed. Charlie dropped a 125 Kg bomb on the smelter, just for good measure.
They wanted to spend as little over the city, with its random FLAK, as possible.
The target for the last LGB was just six miles away to the south of Berlin, in a forest near the town of Ludwigsfelde. Alex selected the largest building, next to a railway line, painted it with the laser and dropped the bomb. After a few moments a satisfying fireball demolished the northern third of the building.
The uptimer pilots amused themselves by climbing to altitude, then accelerating through the sound barrier, the sonic booms persuading terrified Berliners that they were under constant bombardment. They then turned for home.
They awoke to find a Berlin largely undamaged, besides the cosmetic damage done by RAF Bomber Command 250lb bombs. One large German industrial concern was counting the enormous cost of one nights bombing.
On landing back at Valley as dawn broke, McCarthy requested an aircraft with similar load carrying performance to the F-15EX, but with longer range. Both the F-15 and Typhoon had been close to bingo fuel landing at Valley, they had considered diverting to Bentwaters. Tony wanted something with performance akin to the Eurofighter (EJ200s and powered canards), but with the radar from F-15 and the sensor suite from the Rafale.
The Meteor AAMs were far beyond the needs of the targets they were shooting down, and the AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM and Rafael Derby were ideal for their needs. They wanted the IRIS-T AAM with integrated the aircraft they had, and Tony wanted Storm Shadow stand-off missiles with INS and TERPROM guidance.
We will supply you with your needs. One of the aircraft needs to withdrawn, however. You only need three high-performance aircraft, said rezwalker.
They each decided to get rid of the Dassault Rafale C. They could always have it back, the Hyperians told them, if they were unsatisfied with what was provided as a replacement.
Last edited:
Freie Jagd
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
August 29th 1940
The Mustang and the Canadair Sabre took off from Valley, with Alex at the controls of the jet, and Charlie flying the propeller fighter.
The swept-wing jet flew in formation with the much slower Mustang. Both aircraft had their camouflage paint removed. Whichever camouflage scheme the Hyperians painted them, they had been mistaken for enemy aircraft. Alex ordered the removal of all national markings besides the Type C roundels on the top and bottoms of both wings, and the Union Flag arrow on the vertical tail.
It took them forty-eight minutes to get from Valley to Bentwaters, then heading south to 'Hellfire Corner' on the Kent coast. Tony gave them height and heading information of the sixteen high-flying targets crossing the coast between Folkestone and Dover. In their stripped down fighters, and the man and the woman pulled back their control columns and climbed.
Charlie sighted them first, through the search-and-track sensor.
Sixteen snappers. Me109s.
They selected their targets, and dived onto the formation, opening fire for the 2 seconds or so the enemy aircraft were in range of their six 12.7mm machine guns.
As far as the pilots of Jagdgeschwader 27 were concerned, the enemy appeared from nowhere, shooting down the aircraft of Oberleutnant Neumann, and Leutnant Halbach, and damaging the aircraft ofUnterroffizer Rauwolf.
The one of the silver fighters split-s'd and dived away, the other one, shaped like an arrow head, climbed. Pilots of 5 Staffel and 6 Staffel pursued the enemy aircraft, as Neumann and Halbach baled out.
"EASYJET, LEX1 clear of formation, Over" called Alex.
"EASYJET, LOT1 clear of formation." called Charlie.
Alex and Charlie knew that Tony had taken off in the F-15EX before them. Alas, the Luftwaffe pilots did not.
"Understood. Have your idents on my screen. FOX3. FOX3. FOX3. Over" Thirty seconds later the two fighters pursuing Charlie exploded, as did one of the ones Alex had left behind in the Sabre.
"EASYJET. FOX3. FOX 3. FOX3. Over."
Another three young men died.
"EASYJET. FOX3. FOX 3. FOX3. Over."
Moments later, so did another three.
Witnessing this, Unteroffizer Rauwolf force-landed his damaged Me109E-3 near a railway line at Elham, Kent.
Alex and Charlie found each other, and headed towards the formation of bombers in the distance. Black dots to the naked eye – Do17Zs to the search-and-track sensor. They headed across the Channel.
U5 codes on their fuselage, thought Alex. Kampfgeschwader 2. They launched beam attacks on the engines and cockpits of the aircraft, before their escort arrived.
Alex didn't see the blood splatter against the shattered perspex as he pulled up. Charlie managed to shoot the tail off her Dornier.
"EASYJET. FOX3. FOX 3. Over."
He's still at it, thought Alex, turning the Sabre around. They attacked two more Dorniers from astern. They caught fire and crashed into the Channel.
"EASYJET. FOX1. RTB. Out."
On returning to Valley, Tony had shot down ANOTHER twelve aircraft, equalling his previous record. Charlie and Alex had shot down three each.
"It would have been thirteen if two of the missiles hadn't hit the same aircraft!" complained Tony to soundmirror, and anyone else who would listen. Tony's haul of air-to-air kills was almost as great as Alex and Charlie's put together.
The number of Me110s and Me109s the Luftwaffe was losing was about to become critical. McCarthy had bombed the most productive Daimler Benz aero-engine factories, at Marienfelde in Berlin and Genshagen shadow factory on the outskirts of that city.
Only the Daimler-Benz plant ats Sindelfingen and Mannheim remained undamaged, Three 2000lb bombs had done more to disrupt production of the DB600, DB601 and DB603 than the hundreds of thousand tons of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force in three years.
And now a new toy had arrived, to replace the Rafale. Again it was a Dassault product. It could carry fourteen air-to-air missiles, or twelve 250Kg/551lb laser guided bombs on ten hardpoints.
Only one had ever been built.
This wasn't it.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Shannon: SIXTY-SEVEN.
Total number of air-to-air kills by McCarthy: FORTY-EIGHT.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Brandon: TWENTY-ONE
Total number of air-to-air kills by Keough: FOUR
Total number of air-to-air kills by Tobin: TWO
Total number of air-to-air kills by Mamedoff: FOUR
(Total number of ground-to-air kills by Autonomous Base Defences: SEVENTEEN)
"If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly." - Colonel David Hackworth
The Mustang and the Canadair Sabre took off from Valley, with Alex at the controls of the jet, and Charlie flying the propeller fighter.
The swept-wing jet flew in formation with the much slower Mustang. Both aircraft had their camouflage paint removed. Whichever camouflage scheme the Hyperians painted them, they had been mistaken for enemy aircraft. Alex ordered the removal of all national markings besides the Type C roundels on the top and bottoms of both wings, and the Union Flag arrow on the vertical tail.
It took them forty-eight minutes to get from Valley to Bentwaters, then heading south to 'Hellfire Corner' on the Kent coast. Tony gave them height and heading information of the sixteen high-flying targets crossing the coast between Folkestone and Dover. In their stripped down fighters, and the man and the woman pulled back their control columns and climbed.
Charlie sighted them first, through the search-and-track sensor.
Sixteen snappers. Me109s.
They selected their targets, and dived onto the formation, opening fire for the 2 seconds or so the enemy aircraft were in range of their six 12.7mm machine guns.
As far as the pilots of Jagdgeschwader 27 were concerned, the enemy appeared from nowhere, shooting down the aircraft of Oberleutnant Neumann, and Leutnant Halbach, and damaging the aircraft ofUnterroffizer Rauwolf.
The one of the silver fighters split-s'd and dived away, the other one, shaped like an arrow head, climbed. Pilots of 5 Staffel and 6 Staffel pursued the enemy aircraft, as Neumann and Halbach baled out.
"EASYJET, LEX1 clear of formation, Over" called Alex.
"EASYJET, LOT1 clear of formation." called Charlie.
Alex and Charlie knew that Tony had taken off in the F-15EX before them. Alas, the Luftwaffe pilots did not.
"Understood. Have your idents on my screen. FOX3. FOX3. FOX3. Over" Thirty seconds later the two fighters pursuing Charlie exploded, as did one of the ones Alex had left behind in the Sabre.
"EASYJET. FOX3. FOX 3. FOX3. Over."
Another three young men died.
"EASYJET. FOX3. FOX 3. FOX3. Over."
Moments later, so did another three.
Witnessing this, Unteroffizer Rauwolf force-landed his damaged Me109E-3 near a railway line at Elham, Kent.
Alex and Charlie found each other, and headed towards the formation of bombers in the distance. Black dots to the naked eye – Do17Zs to the search-and-track sensor. They headed across the Channel.
U5 codes on their fuselage, thought Alex. Kampfgeschwader 2. They launched beam attacks on the engines and cockpits of the aircraft, before their escort arrived.
Alex didn't see the blood splatter against the shattered perspex as he pulled up. Charlie managed to shoot the tail off her Dornier.
"EASYJET. FOX3. FOX 3. Over."
He's still at it, thought Alex, turning the Sabre around. They attacked two more Dorniers from astern. They caught fire and crashed into the Channel.
"EASYJET. FOX1. RTB. Out."
On returning to Valley, Tony had shot down ANOTHER twelve aircraft, equalling his previous record. Charlie and Alex had shot down three each.
"It would have been thirteen if two of the missiles hadn't hit the same aircraft!" complained Tony to soundmirror, and anyone else who would listen. Tony's haul of air-to-air kills was almost as great as Alex and Charlie's put together.
The number of Me110s and Me109s the Luftwaffe was losing was about to become critical. McCarthy had bombed the most productive Daimler Benz aero-engine factories, at Marienfelde in Berlin and Genshagen shadow factory on the outskirts of that city.
Only the Daimler-Benz plant ats Sindelfingen and Mannheim remained undamaged, Three 2000lb bombs had done more to disrupt production of the DB600, DB601 and DB603 than the hundreds of thousand tons of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force in three years.
And now a new toy had arrived, to replace the Rafale. Again it was a Dassault product. It could carry fourteen air-to-air missiles, or twelve 250Kg/551lb laser guided bombs on ten hardpoints.
Only one had ever been built.
This wasn't it.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Shannon: SIXTY-SEVEN.
Total number of air-to-air kills by McCarthy: FORTY-EIGHT.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Brandon: TWENTY-ONE
Total number of air-to-air kills by Keough: FOUR
Total number of air-to-air kills by Tobin: TWO
Total number of air-to-air kills by Mamedoff: FOUR
(Total number of ground-to-air kills by Autonomous Base Defences: SEVENTEEN)
Last edited:
- Location
- Cambridge, UK
Dassault Mirage 4000
Bomb and missile truck. They should swap out all three fast jets.
The capacity of the Mirage-4000 fuel tanks is approximately three times more than for the Mirage-2000. In addition, it can carry up to three 2,500 liter suspended tanks beneath the wing and fuselage.
The aircraft is equipped with an RDM radar, which subsequently was to be replaced with the more advanced RDI set. The built-in armament consists of two DEFA 30-mm cannon. The variants of suspended armament accommodated at 11stations beneath the fuselage and wings are as follows: two medium-range and2-8 short-range aerial combat air-to-air guided missiles; four air-to-surface guided missiles; 27 250 kg bombs or Durandal penetration bombs; 18 Belouga cluster bombs; and 14 250 kg guided bombs.
The aircraft is equipped with an RDM radar, which subsequently was to be replaced with the more advanced RDI set. The built-in armament consists of two DEFA 30-mm cannon. The variants of suspended armament accommodated at 11stations beneath the fuselage and wings are as follows: two medium-range and2-8 short-range aerial combat air-to-air guided missiles; four air-to-surface guided missiles; 27 250 kg bombs or Durandal penetration bombs; 18 Belouga cluster bombs; and 14 250 kg guided bombs.
Bomb and missile truck. They should swap out all three fast jets.
Last edited:
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
perfectgeneral said:
F-15EX can carry sixteen AAMs. All the fast jets bar one will be withdrawn over time.
McCarthy thinks its cheating!
Unternehmen Loge
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
31st August 1940
"War has come to rest upon the younger generation, and parents have had to stoically watch as their sons and daughters predecease them. Worse still, civilians far from the frontline, have been exterminated en masse on no other grounds than their ethnicity.
We gaze in wonderment at our technological achievements – then use them to kill each other in their own homes, or massacre 'other' human beings in ditches. I've seen the future, brother: it is murder.
Has God abandoned his earthly creations out of shame, and left humanity to destroy and massacre unimpeded? The first forty-five years of the twentieth century have known slaughter unrivalled since the age of the Mongol Khanates.
In the void your God has left, other Gods have taken their place: the worship of the Nation and the belief in racial purity; of unchecked political power; of military dominance; and most of all, the worship of money, and the transition of greed from a sin, to a character flaw, to a virtue of great men.
The only truth we can learn from this is that there are many Gods, and they look upon us in disappointment, not fury. The Gods will not save us. We must learn to live in peace, or die in pieces, surrounded by rubble, the minds of the survivors scoured the futile barbarities of total war."
"Warning after Warning. Siren after Siren. Then little activity, except on the edges of the city. The once heart-chilling wail of the siren has often been followed by nothing. Familiarity had bred contempt. The streets remain crowded, lovers wander arm in arm, men tend their gardens, and children play their games." Mass Observation
At dawn on the morning of 31th August, 1940, Kesselring, Sperrle and Osterkamp had six hundred and sixty four serviceable Bf109s to throw at their enemy across the channel, and nearly eight hundred pilots.
By 4pm on that very same Saturday Alex and Charlie had shot down twenty-eight of them.
Only I and III/JG54 and III/JG3's aircraft had escaped completely unscathed, and were able to rendezvous with the bombers they had been ordered to escort.
Barely sixty single-engined fighters to face two-hundred Fighter Command's Venoms, Hurricanes, Spitfires and Defiants.
It had been a warm, cloudless, day, a Saturday in August, days before the end of the school holidays. Children in the streets, in the hop fields, in parks with their parents, watched the vapour trails. The skies were clear and but for the occasional Luftwaffe intruder, there had been little activity.
It was a quarter past four when the reports of aircraft massing over France reached Fighter Command headquarters from the sector stations via the RDF returns. Rezwalker and soundmirror had tapped into Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force landlines, and the GPO generally, and could relay as much information to McCarthy as the RAF had themselves.
By 1632hrs the first raids began crossing the coast. 100+, then 200+ - in total 354 Luftwaffe bombers, 541 single-engined fighters, and 97 twin-engined fighters were heading towards the home counties.
"My airfields are going to get a pounding again", said Air Chief Marshal Courtney to himself. Thank heavens the Prime Minister left at half-past three, he thought to himself.
The air raid sirens sounded in London, again.
"Concentrate on the bombers if you can, dive and zoom only, get the hell out after you hit something" radioed Alex over the UHF channel to Shorty Keough in a de Havilland Hornet, 'Red' Tobin and Andy Mamedoff in the Mustangs.
Alex had barely three hours of experience in the Mirage 4000, but here he was, flying alongside Charlie in the F-15EX.
At least the cockpit was the same as the Rafale, with the OFS. The two Snecma M53s turbofans had been replaced by shorter, lighter EJ200 engines, Elta EL/M 2052 radar in the nose, increased internal fuel, and powered canards, using the flight control systems used in the Rafale, which had been/would be flight tested in the Mirage 4000, depending on your position in the chronosphere.
She had twelve AIM-120C AMRAAMS and four IRIS-T missiles attached to wing and fuselage pylons, and he had ten Rafael Derbys and four IRIS-T missiles, attached to the hardpoint on the huge delta wings.
Tony, flying the EF 2000 Typhoon 3B, carried six GBU-10/B LGBs, two IRIS-T and a 1000L droptanks
Charlie (call sign EASYJET) and Alex (call sign ROBOT) launched twenty-four missiles whilst over the Thames estuary, twelve miles off the northern coast of Kent, between Whitstable and Margate. They caught the fighters before they linked up with the bomber formation, after which they would be lost in a huge swarm of aircraft.
Unbeknown to the uptimer pilots, famous names like Galland, von Bulow-Bothkamp, Priller, Bär, Wilcke, Jennewein, Borris, and Spate had perished, their shattered aircraft falling into the Channel, onto the beaches, or onto their home airfield.
There can be few things more dispiriting for a fighter pilot, than to see your comrades blasted from the sky, and fall to their deaths over their own airfields.
"FOX1 FOX1" Thirty miles from the largest formation heading up the Thames estuary, McCarthy loosed off the two IRIS-T missiles, using targeting information from the AESA radar and the OFS
A Me109E-7 and Do17Z were torn to shreds.
The Faraday Building, workplace of female telephonists, was the only real options. She climbed the six flights of stairs and told an Air Raid Warden she was on fire watching duty.
The huge cloud of Luftwaffe bombers, with the fighters escorting them, was an impressive sight. Twenty miles wide, occupying 800 cubic miles of Britain's air space, McCarthy et al could only nibble at the formation, as indeed could Fighter Command.
The enemy aircraft were in range. The white noise in McCarthy's helmet was replaced by a constant tone. C sharp, thought the musician in McCarthy. The missile left the rail.
The distant Me109 became a white flash, then a black smear across the hazy blue sky. The Mustangs and the Hornet dived in, wings flashing, the Hornet shuddering. Three more Heinkels disintegrated.
A pair of Me109s tried to climb to towards McCarthy's plane. He saw them on the OFS screen. He pushed the throttle forward and climbed. The Mirage 4000, completely clean, stood on its tail.
You got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away, and know when to run.
The crump of bombs grew nearer and nearer, the thud of AA guns mixing with it
Polina saw a flash of flame to the east. It became larger and larger. It begins. She took a colour photograph,
Twin-engined aircraft flew over.
"Junkers, or Dorniers, not Heinkels." Polina said to the young man in his twenties, wearing a tin helmet, like she was.
"Are you sure?" he replied.
"Positive, wings are the wrong shape for a Heinkel."
"Please, madam, it's not safe for young ladies -"
Something clattered onto the roof.
The tube, about half a metre in length, hissed and fizzed. Polina put on her sunglasses and kicked it over the parapet with her steel-toecapped Doctor Martin's, and into the street below.
She handed the speechless Air Raid Warden her tin helmet. "Ya think? I'm off"
She ran down the stairs, left by the Queen Victoria Street exits, and headed towards Blackfriars.
"NO!"
Andy had shot down his second bomber of the day, but the FW187 pilot was too good for him.
"Rezwalker! Soundmirror!"
He is safe. Mr Mamedoff is descending at rate of 23 feet-per-second. By parachute.
"How do you know?"
We added RFID chips to you clothes. Miss Kuzemczak-McCarthy is currently nineteen feet underground at Blackfriars stations, said soundmirror.
Charlie gated the throttle, and radioed McCarthy.
"EASYJET to ROBOT, returning to base. Out"
The Mustang plunged in the fairway of the seventh hole of Chigwell Golf Course.
For the first time McCarthy was glad of the restored GPS satnav whilst flying over the UK. Just south of Eltham, heading south towards Chislehurst.
"EASYJET, this is ROBOT repeat message please, over"
"ROBOT, RTB Immediately. Bentwaters! OUT!"
McCarthy banked the Mirage 4000, and headed north-east out into the Thames estuary, despite the profusion of targets.
Polina left the safety of the Tube station to venture onto Blackfriars Bridge. Despite the sirens, despite the bombers overhead, Londoners had gathered on the bridge to view the conflagration to the east.
She stood on one of the platforms on the piers of the bridge to get a clearer view. The flames were as high as the cranes. She could feel the east wind in her hair and shin as it was funnelled down the Thames to fan the flames.
The Quebec Yard Timber fire was the most intense fire in British history, and was just one of nine huge infernos being fought by the fire brigade, four-fifths of whom were inexperienced volunteers, trying to tackle their first blaze. Literally, a baptism of fire. Already three hundred people, mostly civilians, were dead, and over thousand people had been injured.
Three Spitfires, four Defiants, and nine Hurricanes were shot down, with eight aircrew dead.
The Luftwaffe lost five more Bf109s, and thirty-two bombers.
By nightfall it was apparent one hundred and thirteen Luftwaffe aircraft had been lost, along with over two hundred men dead, missing or prisoners of war.
These huge losses could not be kept from the Reichmarschall. Milch and Udet's RLM had struggled to send eighteen replacement Bf109s for the twenty-two lost on the 24th August.
"War has come to rest upon the younger generation, and parents have had to stoically watch as their sons and daughters predecease them. Worse still, civilians far from the frontline, have been exterminated en masse on no other grounds than their ethnicity.
We gaze in wonderment at our technological achievements – then use them to kill each other in their own homes, or massacre 'other' human beings in ditches. I've seen the future, brother: it is murder.
Has God abandoned his earthly creations out of shame, and left humanity to destroy and massacre unimpeded? The first forty-five years of the twentieth century have known slaughter unrivalled since the age of the Mongol Khanates.
In the void your God has left, other Gods have taken their place: the worship of the Nation and the belief in racial purity; of unchecked political power; of military dominance; and most of all, the worship of money, and the transition of greed from a sin, to a character flaw, to a virtue of great men.
The only truth we can learn from this is that there are many Gods, and they look upon us in disappointment, not fury. The Gods will not save us. We must learn to live in peace, or die in pieces, surrounded by rubble, the minds of the survivors scoured the futile barbarities of total war."
Sir Alexander McCarthy, Bt, VC, Medal of Honor, Hero of the Soviet Union, Militaire Willems-Orde, Croix de Guerre (Belge), in a speech to the United Nations, January 1945.
"Warning after Warning. Siren after Siren. Then little activity, except on the edges of the city. The once heart-chilling wail of the siren has often been followed by nothing. Familiarity had bred contempt. The streets remain crowded, lovers wander arm in arm, men tend their gardens, and children play their games." Mass Observation
At dawn on the morning of 31th August, 1940, Kesselring, Sperrle and Osterkamp had six hundred and sixty four serviceable Bf109s to throw at their enemy across the channel, and nearly eight hundred pilots.
By 4pm on that very same Saturday Alex and Charlie had shot down twenty-eight of them.
Only I and III/JG54 and III/JG3's aircraft had escaped completely unscathed, and were able to rendezvous with the bombers they had been ordered to escort.
Barely sixty single-engined fighters to face two-hundred Fighter Command's Venoms, Hurricanes, Spitfires and Defiants.
It had been a warm, cloudless, day, a Saturday in August, days before the end of the school holidays. Children in the streets, in the hop fields, in parks with their parents, watched the vapour trails. The skies were clear and but for the occasional Luftwaffe intruder, there had been little activity.
It was a quarter past four when the reports of aircraft massing over France reached Fighter Command headquarters from the sector stations via the RDF returns. Rezwalker and soundmirror had tapped into Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force landlines, and the GPO generally, and could relay as much information to McCarthy as the RAF had themselves.
By 1632hrs the first raids began crossing the coast. 100+, then 200+ - in total 354 Luftwaffe bombers, 541 single-engined fighters, and 97 twin-engined fighters were heading towards the home counties.
"My airfields are going to get a pounding again", said Air Chief Marshal Courtney to himself. Thank heavens the Prime Minister left at half-past three, he thought to himself.
The air raid sirens sounded in London, again.
"Concentrate on the bombers if you can, dive and zoom only, get the hell out after you hit something" radioed Alex over the UHF channel to Shorty Keough in a de Havilland Hornet, 'Red' Tobin and Andy Mamedoff in the Mustangs.
Alex had barely three hours of experience in the Mirage 4000, but here he was, flying alongside Charlie in the F-15EX.
She had twelve AIM-120C AMRAAMS and four IRIS-T missiles attached to wing and fuselage pylons, and he had ten Rafael Derbys and four IRIS-T missiles, attached to the hardpoint on the huge delta wings.
Tony, flying the EF 2000 Typhoon 3B, carried six GBU-10/B LGBs, two IRIS-T and a 1000L droptanks
Charlie (call sign EASYJET) and Alex (call sign ROBOT) launched twenty-four missiles whilst over the Thames estuary, twelve miles off the northern coast of Kent, between Whitstable and Margate. They caught the fighters before they linked up with the bomber formation, after which they would be lost in a huge swarm of aircraft.
Unbeknown to the uptimer pilots, famous names like Galland, von Bulow-Bothkamp, Priller, Bär, Wilcke, Jennewein, Borris, and Spate had perished, their shattered aircraft falling into the Channel, onto the beaches, or onto their home airfield.
There can be few things more dispiriting for a fighter pilot, than to see your comrades blasted from the sky, and fall to their deaths over their own airfields.
"FOX1 FOX1" Thirty miles from the largest formation heading up the Thames estuary, McCarthy loosed off the two IRIS-T missiles, using targeting information from the AESA radar and the OFS
A Me109E-7 and Do17Z were torn to shreds.
~~~
When the sirens go off, most peoples instincts would be to head for shelter. The underground, perhaps. Polina's instinct was to get inside the tallest building she could.
The Faraday Building, workplace of female telephonists, was the only real options. She climbed the six flights of stairs and told an Air Raid Warden she was on fire watching duty.
The huge cloud of Luftwaffe bombers, with the fighters escorting them, was an impressive sight. Twenty miles wide, occupying 800 cubic miles of Britain's air space, McCarthy et al could only nibble at the formation, as indeed could Fighter Command.
The enemy aircraft were in range. The white noise in McCarthy's helmet was replaced by a constant tone. C sharp, thought the musician in McCarthy. The missile left the rail.
The distant Me109 became a white flash, then a black smear across the hazy blue sky. The Mustangs and the Hornet dived in, wings flashing, the Hornet shuddering. Three more Heinkels disintegrated.
A pair of Me109s tried to climb to towards McCarthy's plane. He saw them on the OFS screen. He pushed the throttle forward and climbed. The Mirage 4000, completely clean, stood on its tail.
You got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away, and know when to run.
~~~
"They're bombing London, the bastards!" said an educated voice.The crump of bombs grew nearer and nearer, the thud of AA guns mixing with it
Polina saw a flash of flame to the east. It became larger and larger. It begins. She took a colour photograph,
Twin-engined aircraft flew over.
"Junkers, or Dorniers, not Heinkels." Polina said to the young man in his twenties, wearing a tin helmet, like she was.
"Are you sure?" he replied.
"Positive, wings are the wrong shape for a Heinkel."
"Please, madam, it's not safe for young ladies -"
Something clattered onto the roof.
The tube, about half a metre in length, hissed and fizzed. Polina put on her sunglasses and kicked it over the parapet with her steel-toecapped Doctor Martin's, and into the street below.
She handed the speechless Air Raid Warden her tin helmet. "Ya think? I'm off"
She ran down the stairs, left by the Queen Victoria Street exits, and headed towards Blackfriars.
~~~
Charlie saw the silver fighters on the screen below her, though the search-and-track pod and the smoke pouring from the engine of one of them."NO!"
Andy had shot down his second bomber of the day, but the FW187 pilot was too good for him.
"Rezwalker! Soundmirror!"
He is safe. Mr Mamedoff is descending at rate of 23 feet-per-second. By parachute.
"How do you know?"
We added RFID chips to you clothes. Miss Kuzemczak-McCarthy is currently nineteen feet underground at Blackfriars stations, said soundmirror.
Charlie gated the throttle, and radioed McCarthy.
"EASYJET to ROBOT, returning to base. Out"
The Mustang plunged in the fairway of the seventh hole of Chigwell Golf Course.
For the first time McCarthy was glad of the restored GPS satnav whilst flying over the UK. Just south of Eltham, heading south towards Chislehurst.
"EASYJET, this is ROBOT repeat message please, over"
"ROBOT, RTB Immediately. Bentwaters! OUT!"
McCarthy banked the Mirage 4000, and headed north-east out into the Thames estuary, despite the profusion of targets.
Polina left the safety of the Tube station to venture onto Blackfriars Bridge. Despite the sirens, despite the bombers overhead, Londoners had gathered on the bridge to view the conflagration to the east.
She stood on one of the platforms on the piers of the bridge to get a clearer view. The flames were as high as the cranes. She could feel the east wind in her hair and shin as it was funnelled down the Thames to fan the flames.
The Quebec Yard Timber fire was the most intense fire in British history, and was just one of nine huge infernos being fought by the fire brigade, four-fifths of whom were inexperienced volunteers, trying to tackle their first blaze. Literally, a baptism of fire. Already three hundred people, mostly civilians, were dead, and over thousand people had been injured.
Four-fifths of the firemen involved had had no prior experience of
actual fire-fighting. In normal times a 30-pump fire is a very big fire.
Shortly after midnight there were nine fires in London rating over
100 pumps. In the Surrey docks there were two, of 300 and 130 pumps;
at Woolwich Arsenal, 200 pumps; at Bishopsgate Goods Yard and
at five points on the docks, 100-pump fires. All these were technically
"out of hand" that is to say unsurrounded, uncontrolled and spread-
ing. In Quebec Yard, Surrey Docks, was the night's biggest fire-
immense in its area, moving with disconcerting speed, generating
terrific heat. It was 30 or 40 times bigger than the great Crystal Palace fire of 1936, the biggest in London's recent history.
actual fire-fighting. In normal times a 30-pump fire is a very big fire.
Shortly after midnight there were nine fires in London rating over
100 pumps. In the Surrey docks there were two, of 300 and 130 pumps;
at Woolwich Arsenal, 200 pumps; at Bishopsgate Goods Yard and
at five points on the docks, 100-pump fires. All these were technically
"out of hand" that is to say unsurrounded, uncontrolled and spread-
ing. In Quebec Yard, Surrey Docks, was the night's biggest fire-
immense in its area, moving with disconcerting speed, generating
terrific heat. It was 30 or 40 times bigger than the great Crystal Palace fire of 1936, the biggest in London's recent history.
Three Spitfires, four Defiants, and nine Hurricanes were shot down, with eight aircrew dead.
The Luftwaffe lost five more Bf109s, and thirty-two bombers.
By nightfall it was apparent one hundred and thirteen Luftwaffe aircraft had been lost, along with over two hundred men dead, missing or prisoners of war.
These huge losses could not be kept from the Reichmarschall. Milch and Udet's RLM had struggled to send eighteen replacement Bf109s for the twenty-two lost on the 24th August.
Last edited:
The Preying Mantis and the Sea-Snake
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Pilot Officer Prince Alexander Sergeevich Obolensky looked up and saw the two black triangles, and the contrail they left, and reported it to his Flight Commander.
By the time his Section Leader, Flight Lieutenant Antony Rook, had manoeuvred into position to see, the black triangles were gone.
Alex and Charlie lowered the undercarriage of the Mirage 4000 and the Strike Eagle and landed at Bentwaters, something he said he would never do. The operation of the jets from Bentwaters was almost impossible to conceal. McCarthy did not realise how true this was.
They taxied to the single remaining hangar, and parked the aircraft inside
"What on earth - " said Flying Officer Fisher. "Is that? I heard a noise like the end of the world….
"What the bloody hell are you doing here" said Alex.
I was sent here to investigate what happened to your gun. The Admiralty sent someone too, but the Air Ministry wasn't going to be left out. I was the only one who had seen it before it was destroyed. WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE...AEROPLANES?" said Fisher.
Alex climbed down the ladder that emerged from below the cockpit.
"Anyway, we have some domestic issues to attend, so if you would kindly bugger off…" said Alex.
"Well, REALLY!" said Fisher.
Mister Mamedoff baled out of his aircraft, and came down near a water recycling facility near Buckhurst, Middlesex. Miss Kuzemczak-McCarthy, your daughter, is onboard an above-ground railway vehicle and has just past Barking…
"She'd have to be. WHAT THE FUCK WAS SHE DOING IN LONDON?"
...London Transport Station. She was taking pictures, most of the time. She is a free agent, and there is little you can do to control her activities. The 'Standard 12' she was driving has been destroyed by fire. A replacement car of identical specific will be supplied. The P-51D Mustang 'Red 1' was completely destroyed by ground impact. Mr Shannon has bombed Dreux, Chartres, Laval and Vannes, and shot down one enemy aircraft in the air.
"Please don't swear Mr McCarthy. Who are you talking to?" said Fisher.
"You there, fuck off. And when you get to where you've fucked off to, fuck off from there, as well. Then fuck off a whole lot more. Keep fucking off until you get back here. Then fuck off again." I think that told him, though Alex.
Fisher walked out of the hangar in high dudgeon.
McCarthy showered, eat some baked beans and pork sausages, and slept for two hours. Charlie said she wanted to go up in the helicopter to rescue Andy and Polina, but Alex refused saying the smoke was too thick, and there were unpredictable updrafts. Charlie took one of the Bedford MK lorries to find and pick them up.
By the time his Section Leader, Flight Lieutenant Antony Rook, had manoeuvred into position to see, the black triangles were gone.
Alex and Charlie lowered the undercarriage of the Mirage 4000 and the Strike Eagle and landed at Bentwaters, something he said he would never do. The operation of the jets from Bentwaters was almost impossible to conceal. McCarthy did not realise how true this was.
They taxied to the single remaining hangar, and parked the aircraft inside
"What on earth - " said Flying Officer Fisher. "Is that? I heard a noise like the end of the world….
"What the bloody hell are you doing here" said Alex.
I was sent here to investigate what happened to your gun. The Admiralty sent someone too, but the Air Ministry wasn't going to be left out. I was the only one who had seen it before it was destroyed. WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE...AEROPLANES?" said Fisher.
Alex climbed down the ladder that emerged from below the cockpit.
"Anyway, we have some domestic issues to attend, so if you would kindly bugger off…" said Alex.
"Well, REALLY!" said Fisher.
Mister Mamedoff baled out of his aircraft, and came down near a water recycling facility near Buckhurst, Middlesex. Miss Kuzemczak-McCarthy, your daughter, is onboard an above-ground railway vehicle and has just past Barking…
"She'd have to be. WHAT THE FUCK WAS SHE DOING IN LONDON?"
...London Transport Station. She was taking pictures, most of the time. She is a free agent, and there is little you can do to control her activities. The 'Standard 12' she was driving has been destroyed by fire. A replacement car of identical specific will be supplied. The P-51D Mustang 'Red 1' was completely destroyed by ground impact. Mr Shannon has bombed Dreux, Chartres, Laval and Vannes, and shot down one enemy aircraft in the air.
"Please don't swear Mr McCarthy. Who are you talking to?" said Fisher.
"You there, fuck off. And when you get to where you've fucked off to, fuck off from there, as well. Then fuck off a whole lot more. Keep fucking off until you get back here. Then fuck off again." I think that told him, though Alex.
Fisher walked out of the hangar in high dudgeon.
McCarthy showered, eat some baked beans and pork sausages, and slept for two hours. Charlie said she wanted to go up in the helicopter to rescue Andy and Polina, but Alex refused saying the smoke was too thick, and there were unpredictable updrafts. Charlie took one of the Bedford MK lorries to find and pick them up.
Alex watched as a portal opened up, and swallowed the Mirage and Eagle.
Alex was mesmerized. He wondered if he would see them again.
He heard the sound of aircraft piston engines outside.
Night of 1st September 1940.
Wolfgang von Hentig looked at the Daimler-Benz factory in utter dismay. The expansion of the plant had come because of his close links to the Heereswaffenamt and the Reichsluftfarhtministerium, and the constant stream of contracts that generated. Daimler-Benz had become central to the rearmament of Greater Germany.
Now the production halls for aero engines were smashed. The Englander bomb had exploded with such force the concrete floor of the factory had a crater in it, and smashed machine tools lay everywhere. The situation at Genshagen was the same. Wilhelm Kissel had condemned the lack of expansion in civilian production by D-B, and forced Genshagen to be sold back to the government, while retaining the production facilities.
At least the section of the factory manufacturing Panzerkampfwagen had not been affected, thought von Hentig.
~~~
The P-51 and the DH Hornet had already landed, just before 6pm on the Saturday, so the engine noise couldn't be them. As McCarthy went outside, he could see the smoke from the infernos in London were visible from Bentwaters. He could almost smell.
Keough and Tobin were angry with themselves for failing to prevent the catastrophic bombing of London, the worst single bombing raid in the war so far.
The Ju88 from Valley, a replacement P-51D, and a humpbacked, twin-engine pusher aeroplane with a tricycle undercarriage landed at Bentwaters. None of them seemed to have pilots.
The Ju88 had been upgraded. The Jumo 211s now contained aluminium/chromium/vanadium alloys that the Nazi industry could not afford, and they now put out 1,450 hp, the two-speed supercharger kicking in 1800 metres and 4300 metres altitude. It had the fuselage of a C-6, so no draggy gondola under the nose.
In the nose were four .303 machine guns. In the bulged belly there were two Nexter 30M-781 30mm cannon, same as in the Mirage 4000 and the Rafale, but limited to 300 and 600 rounds per minute. Each gun had 400 rounds. Mounted before the cockpit was the Optronique secteur frontal which projected its output onto a Wide Quad Extended Graphics Array Retina display screen, mounted below the control panel in the cockpit.
The two gun buttons on the Ju88's control column were amusingly marked 'Stun' (the four .303s) and 'Kill' (the two M-781s)
There was no radar.
The Mantis drone could also slave its camera to that display, so the Ju88 could be in two places at once, engaging target with the four IRIS-T missiles under the wings of the drone.
Shorty Keough volunteered to be co-pilot/ tail gunner, manning the 12.7mm M3 machine gun in the rear of the cockpit. Unlike the German bomber aircrews, and RAF bombers crews, Alex and Shorty had forced air heating/ventilation in the cabin.
The flames from London were clearly visible from 9000 feet above Bentwaters, and the undersides of the Dorniers of KG76 and the Heinkels of KG27 glowed like fireflies in the distance. They didn't need Knickebein or X-Gerätto locate the target – they just used the Thames and Docklands inferno as references.
McCarthy spotted a fat Heinkel in the distance on the OSF, and he closed in for the kill. The cannon fire shattered the aircraft.
The Mantis, airborne over Kent, picked up a Do17Z, and Alex launched a IRIS-T once the drone was within range of its target.
Alex resolved to fire the .303 Colt-Brownings at bombers leaving London, and fire the cannons at the bombers heading towards the capital.
The air over Kent and the Thames estuary was a target rich environment.
He positioned the Ju88 astern a Dornier, and opened fire with the 30mm cannon. Just one shell hit the Do17Z. It was enough.
The Luftwaffe crew struggled with their crippled aircraft, and some crew bailed out. The pilot force-landed his aircraft on the nearest available open space, which was Tonbridge School's cricket pitch.
McCarthy flew south for another 28 miles in search of his next victim, another Heinkel. Alex fired just the four .303 machine guns into to the starboard wing and engine of the bomber.
In the early hours of 1st September 1940, Alex and Shorty would shoot down a total of eight enemy aircraft, four with cannon, three with missiles and one with machine guns, and damaged six others with the .303s. The Luftwaffe would think the RAF had effective night defences when they did not.
McCarthy turned to the East, climbed, then accelerated until he was near the French coast. He followed a Do17Z inland before opening fire with the four machine guns. The bomber plunged into the countryside of the Pas de Calais. They would think the RAF had night intruders, too.
The Germans also lost a Do17M, shot down at 12,000 feet by the Marksman 35mm cannon operated by the Nafasi drone. All the crew and its one passenger baled out.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Shannon: SIXTY-EIGHT.
Total number of air-to-air kills by McCarthy: SIXTY-FIVE.
Total number of air-to-air kills by Brandon: THIRTY-FOUR
Total number of air-to-air kills by Keough: NINE
Total number of air-to-air kills by Tobin: FIVE
Total number of air-to-air kills by Mamedoff: SIX
(Total number of ground-to-air kills by Autonomous Base Defences: EIGHTEEN)
Last edited:
The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt and got syph down in Cologne
And you heard the rattling death trains as you lay there all alone
Frank Ryan bought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid
And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursing all the Yids
And you heard the rattling death trains as you lay there all alone
Frank Ryan bought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid
And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursing all the Yids
McCarthy saw the heat source in Whitmore Wood, dangling three metres above the ground from a tree through the OSF as he brought the Junkers in to land at Bentwaters. For a moment the man in the tree saw the Ju88, and thought:
Maybe I'm wrong, and this is the right side of the Channel.
It was a stylish landing, even he had to admit. He yelled for help, even though they were probably the old enemy, and they couldn't hear over the engines.
The buildings were illuminated, they obviously didn't feel the blackout rule applied to them. He saw two figures emerge from those buildings, get into a vehicle, and drove towards him.
Well, I won't stay up here and die, they'll kill me later, he said to himself.
They pointed what looked like guns at him, but they had bright lights on the end of them, so maybe they weren't
"Hande hoch" said the man "Freund oder Feind?"
"Bitte schneiden Sie mich von diesem Baum ab. Diese Riemen scheuern und es ist peinlich" said the man in tree, blinded by the bright lights. They left a residual image, like looking into the sun.
"Wir sprechen kein Deutsch, only English" said the other gun-wielding person, only the man in the tree heard a female voice. He was confused for moment, and realised that he must be in Britain.
"Could you see yer way to cuttin' me down from here, I'm in tatters"
They backed up the lorry, and the woman tried to cut the straps. The man wasn't much taller, but he cut them and he fell into the open back of the truck. His legs were numb, and the girl/woman shoved a gun muzzle into his ear, other man pointing the gun at his throat.
"British or German, motherfucker!" said Alex.
"Neither" said the man, fearing he would die any moment, and regretting he had ever volunteered for any of this.
~~~
First it was the Jews. Then it was anyone the board of the stockbroking company could not personally vouch for. The staff were cleared out. It wasn't the Bank of England that they feared would learn of their activities. They would participate in the cover up, after all. It was information falling into the hands of the press, or troublemakers and rabble-rousers like McCarthy. The board of directors of Marchmont de Villiers Ltd could barely trust each other.They had heard about the collapse of the Bank of New York, and feared that McCarthy might perform a similar act of economic sabotage in the City. It was the revelation of the transactions through Frankfurt, Vienna, Stockholm, and the International Bank of Settlements in Switzerland that they fear the most. They were locked away in a vault, where no human eye could see them.
The drone was so small, it could fit between the pages of a book, and its design had to take into account the effect of Brownian motion.
Over a nine hour period, it copied details of all the transactions, all the destination accounts, and the named holders, as a string of zeroes and ones, one thousand duodecillion long (2.8 × 1075 to be precise). Orbiting Jupiter was a sphere of carbon, titanium, gold, boron, gallium, germanium and indium and other exotic matter too complex for any human mind to replicate. A susurration of picodrones swarmed over its surface.
There, it was reassembled into graphical form, beamed back to an Earth-orbiting satellite, then back down to Valley to be printed out.
~~~
They dubbed the man Mister Erious Irishman. He would not tell them his name, nor why he was jumping out of aeroplanes onto McCarthy property. He seemed to be oblivious to the name and notoriety of Alex McCarthy, and Alex wondered how long he had been in Germany.
Naked but for a pair of boxer shorts, his wrists tied behind his back, and a pillowcase placed over his head, he was pushed aboard the Cessna 441, and tied to the seat using plastic cable ties. Once he'd stopped struggling, and once Polly and Andy were aboard, Charlie pulled off the pillow case and Alex said:
"I can guarantee this flight will be less eventful than your last one"
Forty minutes later they put the pillowcase back on his head. Six minutes later they were on the concrete at Valley
"Who is this guy?" asked Tony.
"No idea. I would say a Nazi spy, but he speaks English far too good. With an Irish accent" said Alex.
"Probably PIRA" said Tony
"Yeah, Charlie said that. Weren't they heading in the other direction, on a U-boat about this time?" asked Alex.
"Dunno, you are the know-it-all"
"The Hyperians are running him through their database. In the meantime I've asked them to disable all the aircraft except the two Hawks. They've told me the Eurofighter is ready for me."
The gut-wrenching noise woke the Irishman in the night. The room had no windows, but the tearing scream could not be ignored.
Calm in the cockpit of the EF2000, McCarthy headed over enemy territory. Above the clouds, in the dark, Alex had only the instruments to tell him where he was going. The Typhoon carried two 2000L tanks, and four GBU-50/B 2000lb bombs.
It took one hour, twelve minutes to fly to his first destination, which was 786 miles away. Only the already dead would be directly affected by the huge explosion that destroyed the structure on the Königplatz.
McCarthy turned the delta-wing jet north to Nürnberg. In the darkness, those still awake looked up to wonder what the piercing growl was that was afflicting the heartland of Bavaria.
The structure destroyed at Nürnberg, a large concrete and stone grandstand, shocked and disturbed the sleep of the people of that city, the huge blast coming without warning.
The next target was just 23 miles away, in the town of Neuhaus-an-der-Pegnitz. The medieval 13th century castle, recently partially restored, was demolished in part by the 2000lb bomb.
Its current owner would not be pleased.
McCarthy turned for home. However the Typhoon was still carrying a 2000lb bomb, and he was flying over a target-rich environment.
On the banks of the River Main, at a nexus of road and railway networks, lay a factory built with capital obtained from outside the German Reich, and exporting its profits from serving the Nazi war and domestic economy, elsewhere.
Alex dropped the bomb on it, watching the tower collapse with satisfaction. He then headed back to Valley.
The death toll from these four night attacks was just nine.
Last edited:
Escalation
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Escalation
Aldwych tube station, London, night of 2nd/3rd September, 1940.
Schwanenwerder, 3rd September 1940
Schüssler walked from his villa to Speer's house, where the Führer was staying whilst the Kaiserhof and the Kanzlei des Führers were repaired. Security was intense, and the Grosser Wannsee was surrounded by 2cm and 3.7cm FLAK, with heavier guns to the north at Gatow.
Only Schüssler knew how defenceless the Führer was, but he insisted on staying in Berlin. The Führer and the SS-Brigadeführer greeted each other. The Führer had little small talk. Schüssler made straight for the main issue
"Has Udet or Milch told you about Marienfelde and Genshagen, mein Führer?"
"Only that they have been damaged by British bombs, Jor-El"
"Production of the DB600 range of engines has been halved at the Marienfelde, and cut by three-quarters at Genshagen. These are the engines that power the Messerschmitt Me110, 109 Emil and Friedrich, and the 210. We will not have enough fighter aircraft by the summer of 1941 to conduct operations against our mortal enemy and England"
"We will have to limit production? Göring has not told me this!
"It's likely Göring does not know it himself, mein Führer. Bad news takes time to filter its way to him, these days. Of course, my aircraft, the FW190 is not reliant on Daimler-Benz inline engines, and can be fitted with the BMW 801 AND the private venture Jumo 213 – as can the FW187B"
"f you want a larger contract you should contact Milch, not me."
"I have the Nord works at Bourges, the Gnome et Rhone factory in Paris, and the Avia works in Prague." continued Schüssler "The British will not bomb Paris and Prague is out of their range, they would have to fly through the Reich's air defences. The Eindringling will know our weaknesses, our dependence on coal, our reliance on Romanian benzin, the inefficiencies of our aero industries that I have tried so hard to rectify…"
"Your fear of the these 'Eindringling' as you call them, is misplaced. They are but three, four people" said the Führer
"As was the National Socialist German Workers Party, once. Did it not start its membership numbers at 1000 to inflate its size and importance? And look at us now!"
"You have always been at our side, Jor-El. But I cannot make peace with the British while they kill the volk in Berlin…"
"Halifax is an agent of International Jewry, of American capital, as you so rightly believe. It is he who convinced Chamberlain that the British Empire could not place its trust in you, and give you the free hand in Europe that you courageously took for yourself. He is too inbred, too aristocratic, too feeble of the imagination, to realise WE are the masters of Europe. The architects of this miserable conflict are doomed. We can remove him, so oder so, and replace him with someone more amenable."
"Who will you put in his place, Jor-El? Lloyd George?"
"Maybe."
"How will you remove Halifax? Will von Marlburg not take his place?"
"Plans are already afoot, mein Führer. Von Marlburg is a person of no importance, an orphan of history, trapped in his guilded palace. Hostilities between the two great Nordic empires will end before we confront the Bolsheviks. The Englanders will have their empire, and we will have ours. You have my word."
The direct approach, with the Irish Republican gunman may yet fail, thought Schüssler. But Plan B, and Plan C always held more promise.
The Britischers are so sickly.
"Well, well, well, how's about ye", said McCarthy, sitting down at the table the mysterious Irishman. "Just who, do we have here?"
"I won't talk, ya Brit bastard! You've got my passports! You can't hold me here!"
"Well, young Sunny Jim-old-fella-me-lad matey-boots, me old pal from out of the trees, I think we can safely assume that the Swiss passport in the name of "Simon Gruber" and the Irish passport in the name of "Liam Devlin" are excellent forgeries, names to conjure with for sure. The mode of your arrival in Suffolk suggests you weren't intending to observe the usual immigration protocols, anyway."
"At least Padraig Pearse and Oscar Wilde had a barred window to look out of. How long are ya gonna keep me in this concrete cube?
"Well, until you start being a tad more helpful, ya little bollix." said McCarthy. "I haven't come here to threaten you, at least we haven't taken to beating seven shades a'shite out of yer. They say if I attach electrodes to your genitals and run a current through them, you'll tell me all your crimes, up to and including the Wall Street Bombing and the murder of 'Legs' Diamond, but I reckon if you give a guy a plate of cheese on toast and a glass of red wine, he'll sell you his soul."
McCarthy pressed the buzzer, and Nurse Daley brought in a knife and a fork, the cheese on toast and a glass of red wine on an enamel tray, and put it down in front of the prisoner.
"Eat up!" said McCarthy.
Between mouthfuls Alex asked the man this question: "Who am I?"
"Some guy from Special Branch, or that old oxymoron, British Intelligence" said the Irishman
"We ain't from MI5. We are subcontractors, consultants."
"Mercenaries"
"Zo Herr Irishman, vee are zery much like, no? You don't know who I am? You don't recognise me?"
"Ya think ya something special? The cock'a the walk?"
"No, that's fine." The Hyperian cameras captured every gesture, each intonation, his heart rate, blood pressure, even the contractions of his anal sphincter muscle. The tiny nanosensors had entered his body as he slept.
"Let's play a game"
"Let's not", replied the Irishman, having finished his meal.
"Honestly, the ingratitude of some people – three hot meals a day, all the drinking water you ask us for and no waterboarding...?"
"Just get the noose, or the firing squad, or whatever, stop playing games with me"
"Just pick one of the two words I say to you"
"No"
"Arsenal, or Spurs?"
"Arsenal!"
"Barcelona, or Madrid?"
"Barcelona"
"Yeats, or Joyce?"
"Yeats!"
"Athens, or Cairo?"
The man didn't answer.
"Interesting. Verrray interesting"
"Wichmann, or Veesenmayer?"
Again, the man didn't answer.
"Schüssler, or Kawaguchi"
"Coochy-coochy-coo" said the Irishman.
"Morecambe, or Wise?"
"What?"
"Bowie, or Crockett?"
Nothing.
"Bowie, or Slade?"
Nothing
"Dundalk, or Lurgan?"
"Lurgan" he replied.
"Underworld, or Orbital?"
"What?"
"Lennon, or Macartney?"
"Huh? Lenin."
"Hitler, or Stalin?"
"Hitler" smirked the man, the expression suggesting he had nothing left to lose. He expected to be put in front of a firing squad from the moment he had landed. It was only the luck of the Irish that he had survived at all. He had gambled, like so many others, on the National Socialists being the winning side.
"Robeson, or Crosby?"
"Robeson. Leave me in peace, you idiot"
"Blondes, or Brunettes"
"Brunettes. Go boil your head"
McCarthy stood up, shackled him back to the desk, said "As you wish" and walked towards the door. It had no door handle, no keyhole. McCarthy pushed a card against a panel, and there were six clicks. McCarthy opened the door, slipped through the door as it was opening and it closed behind him. There were six more clicks, louder this time.
"So, who is he?" asked Eileen.
"Ain't gotta clue. I just came here to annoy 'im"
The Hyperians were checking, and checking again. They had records of 76 billion humans.
"Good evening. This is the 9 o'clock news, and this Alvar Lidell reading it. The former Prime Minister, Mister Neville Chamberlain, has died at his home Highfield Park, after a short illness. He was seventy-one years old....
In the tube stations and shelters there were cheers, boos and the occasional cry of 'lucky bastard'. The bombs began to fall.
Aldwych tube station, London, night of 2nd/3rd September, 1940.
Schwanenwerder, 3rd September 1940
Schüssler walked from his villa to Speer's house, where the Führer was staying whilst the Kaiserhof and the Kanzlei des Führers were repaired. Security was intense, and the Grosser Wannsee was surrounded by 2cm and 3.7cm FLAK, with heavier guns to the north at Gatow.
Only Schüssler knew how defenceless the Führer was, but he insisted on staying in Berlin. The Führer and the SS-Brigadeführer greeted each other. The Führer had little small talk. Schüssler made straight for the main issue
"Has Udet or Milch told you about Marienfelde and Genshagen, mein Führer?"
"Only that they have been damaged by British bombs, Jor-El"
"Production of the DB600 range of engines has been halved at the Marienfelde, and cut by three-quarters at Genshagen. These are the engines that power the Messerschmitt Me110, 109 Emil and Friedrich, and the 210. We will not have enough fighter aircraft by the summer of 1941 to conduct operations against our mortal enemy and England"
"We will have to limit production? Göring has not told me this!
"It's likely Göring does not know it himself, mein Führer. Bad news takes time to filter its way to him, these days. Of course, my aircraft, the FW190 is not reliant on Daimler-Benz inline engines, and can be fitted with the BMW 801 AND the private venture Jumo 213 – as can the FW187B"
"f you want a larger contract you should contact Milch, not me."
"I have the Nord works at Bourges, the Gnome et Rhone factory in Paris, and the Avia works in Prague." continued Schüssler "The British will not bomb Paris and Prague is out of their range, they would have to fly through the Reich's air defences. The Eindringling will know our weaknesses, our dependence on coal, our reliance on Romanian benzin, the inefficiencies of our aero industries that I have tried so hard to rectify…"
"Your fear of the these 'Eindringling' as you call them, is misplaced. They are but three, four people" said the Führer
"As was the National Socialist German Workers Party, once. Did it not start its membership numbers at 1000 to inflate its size and importance? And look at us now!"
"You have always been at our side, Jor-El. But I cannot make peace with the British while they kill the volk in Berlin…"
"Halifax is an agent of International Jewry, of American capital, as you so rightly believe. It is he who convinced Chamberlain that the British Empire could not place its trust in you, and give you the free hand in Europe that you courageously took for yourself. He is too inbred, too aristocratic, too feeble of the imagination, to realise WE are the masters of Europe. The architects of this miserable conflict are doomed. We can remove him, so oder so, and replace him with someone more amenable."
"Who will you put in his place, Jor-El? Lloyd George?"
"Maybe."
"How will you remove Halifax? Will von Marlburg not take his place?"
"Plans are already afoot, mein Führer. Von Marlburg is a person of no importance, an orphan of history, trapped in his guilded palace. Hostilities between the two great Nordic empires will end before we confront the Bolsheviks. The Englanders will have their empire, and we will have ours. You have my word."
The direct approach, with the Irish Republican gunman may yet fail, thought Schüssler. But Plan B, and Plan C always held more promise.
The Britischers are so sickly.
~~~
"Well, well, well, how's about ye", said McCarthy, sitting down at the table the mysterious Irishman. "Just who, do we have here?"
"I won't talk, ya Brit bastard! You've got my passports! You can't hold me here!"
"Well, young Sunny Jim-old-fella-me-lad matey-boots, me old pal from out of the trees, I think we can safely assume that the Swiss passport in the name of "Simon Gruber" and the Irish passport in the name of "Liam Devlin" are excellent forgeries, names to conjure with for sure. The mode of your arrival in Suffolk suggests you weren't intending to observe the usual immigration protocols, anyway."
"At least Padraig Pearse and Oscar Wilde had a barred window to look out of. How long are ya gonna keep me in this concrete cube?
"Well, until you start being a tad more helpful, ya little bollix." said McCarthy. "I haven't come here to threaten you, at least we haven't taken to beating seven shades a'shite out of yer. They say if I attach electrodes to your genitals and run a current through them, you'll tell me all your crimes, up to and including the Wall Street Bombing and the murder of 'Legs' Diamond, but I reckon if you give a guy a plate of cheese on toast and a glass of red wine, he'll sell you his soul."
McCarthy pressed the buzzer, and Nurse Daley brought in a knife and a fork, the cheese on toast and a glass of red wine on an enamel tray, and put it down in front of the prisoner.
"Eat up!" said McCarthy.
Between mouthfuls Alex asked the man this question: "Who am I?"
"Some guy from Special Branch, or that old oxymoron, British Intelligence" said the Irishman
"We ain't from MI5. We are subcontractors, consultants."
"Mercenaries"
"Zo Herr Irishman, vee are zery much like, no? You don't know who I am? You don't recognise me?"
"Ya think ya something special? The cock'a the walk?"
"No, that's fine." The Hyperian cameras captured every gesture, each intonation, his heart rate, blood pressure, even the contractions of his anal sphincter muscle. The tiny nanosensors had entered his body as he slept.
"Let's play a game"
"Let's not", replied the Irishman, having finished his meal.
"Honestly, the ingratitude of some people – three hot meals a day, all the drinking water you ask us for and no waterboarding...?"
"Just get the noose, or the firing squad, or whatever, stop playing games with me"
"Just pick one of the two words I say to you"
"No"
"Arsenal, or Spurs?"
"Arsenal!"
"Barcelona, or Madrid?"
"Barcelona"
"Yeats, or Joyce?"
"Yeats!"
"Athens, or Cairo?"
The man didn't answer.
"Interesting. Verrray interesting"
"Wichmann, or Veesenmayer?"
Again, the man didn't answer.
"Schüssler, or Kawaguchi"
"Coochy-coochy-coo" said the Irishman.
"Morecambe, or Wise?"
"What?"
"Bowie, or Crockett?"
Nothing.
"Bowie, or Slade?"
Nothing
"Dundalk, or Lurgan?"
"Lurgan" he replied.
"Underworld, or Orbital?"
"What?"
"Lennon, or Macartney?"
"Huh? Lenin."
"Hitler, or Stalin?"
"Hitler" smirked the man, the expression suggesting he had nothing left to lose. He expected to be put in front of a firing squad from the moment he had landed. It was only the luck of the Irish that he had survived at all. He had gambled, like so many others, on the National Socialists being the winning side.
"Robeson, or Crosby?"
"Robeson. Leave me in peace, you idiot"
"Blondes, or Brunettes"
"Brunettes. Go boil your head"
McCarthy stood up, shackled him back to the desk, said "As you wish" and walked towards the door. It had no door handle, no keyhole. McCarthy pushed a card against a panel, and there were six clicks. McCarthy opened the door, slipped through the door as it was opening and it closed behind him. There were six more clicks, louder this time.
"So, who is he?" asked Eileen.
"Ain't gotta clue. I just came here to annoy 'im"
The Hyperians were checking, and checking again. They had records of 76 billion humans.
"Good evening. This is the 9 o'clock news, and this Alvar Lidell reading it. The former Prime Minister, Mister Neville Chamberlain, has died at his home Highfield Park, after a short illness. He was seventy-one years old....
In the tube stations and shelters there were cheers, boos and the occasional cry of 'lucky bastard'. The bombs began to fall.
Last edited:
You'll Fall Apart
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Wodenstag, 4th September 1940/ Środa, 4 wrzesień 1940/ 1st Elul, 5700
It was a brave man that told Adolf Hitler that his beloved München and Nürnberg had been bombed. That unfortunate task fell to Oberst Nicolaus von Below. Hitler was far more enraged by the destruction of memorial to the fifteen victims of the Beer Hall Putsch, than even the attack on Berlin, with its many casualties. It emboldened the Führer to make an even more aggressive Kriegswinterhilfswerk speech at the Sportspalast.
SS-Standartenführer und Kriminaldirektor Josef Alfred Meisinger, was bored, not to say enervated by the plans being forced upon by Frank at Burg Wawel. He neither wanted, nor saw the need for the Jewish Ghetto being planned for Warschau. Why they could not be shifted en masse to a transit camp in Distrikt Krakau or Distrikt Lublin with the others, and left to rot, he did not know.
Hammer was a devotee of such minutiae. He left Regierungsrat zum Kommandeur der Sipo und des SD Walter Hammer and his underlings Untersturmführer Karl Georg Brandt and SS-Oberscharführer Gerhard Mende thrash out the details.
As he gazed vacantly out of the window there was a dull thud. Looking across the quadrangle he saw flames shoot of the windows of the other side, then the walls of the sturdy concrete building.
The blast wave shattered the window, driving shards of glass into Meisinger's face and body and blowing him off his feet.
His strangled cry of shock and terror was drowned out by the noise of the blast, and the ceiling collapsing. Moments passed. They seemed like hours. Brandt and Mende brushed the glass and plaster from themselves and went to the aid of their SS-Standartenführer boss. Mende looked out the window at the massive cloud of smoke and dust rising from the front of the building. People, some of them detainees, fled the building.
Then there was an almighty crash. Followed by a tearing noise and four thumps. The sound of the 1000lb bomb coming through the roof, passing through four floors, and embedding itself in the tiled, concrete ground floor.
Then everything went black. They found part of Mende's body on the roof of the Reichsbahn offices three streets away. Directly under the epicentre of the blast, the Germans found no identifiable remains of Meisinger, Hammer, or Brandt at all.
~
Double tap.
<That was the only way to deal with the Gestapo, SS, SD, Ordnungpolizei, whomever> thought McCarthy, switching off the screen carrying the picture feed from the pod under the fuselage.
The first 1000lb bomb had gone in at 1057hrs, the second eight minutes later at 1105hrs.
McCarthy had been to his parallel universe's version of Mauzoleum Walki i Męczeństwa so he knew precisely where to put the bombs, to minimize Polish and Jewish loss of life. Poles had died, but that location would be synonymous with Nazi, rather than Polish dead. Avenue Szucha was closed to Poles.
It had been worth taking off at 0845hrs for the 1 hour 45 minute flight.
McCarthy had programmed the return flight into the autopilot, the Mirage 4000 climbed back to 35,000 feet from 19,000 feet at a steady 560 knots, Mach 0.83, and the course set for Halmstad in Sweden, then back to Valley. McCarthy dropped the two 2000L drop tanks off the coast of Sweden. The entire journey had covered 2,241 miles, just to drop two 1000lbs electro-optically guided bombs.
It is truly magnificent to see our Volk at war and its total discipline. We realize this all the more in a time when Halifax is demonstrating to us the use of his invention: the terror raid. While the German pilots, the German planes, fly over English land day by day, night by night, weaken the English will to resist.
But the English, wherever they see a light, a spark of hope, they drop a bomb.
I did not answer for three months because I was of the opinion that they would ultimately stop this nonsense. The English perceived this as a sign of our weakness. You will surely understand that now we are giving our answers night after night, and this at an increasing rate.
The brutal and indiscriminate attacks on our capital on civilian residential centers, on farmsteads, and villages, will not be repeated. You have my word, as your leader. Plans have been put in place to make the cities and towns in the Reich the most heavily defended in the world
And should the Royal Air Force drop two thousand, or three thousand, or four thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will now drop 150,000; 180,000; 230,000; 300,000; 400,000; yes, one million kilograms in a single night. And should they declare they will greatly increase their attacks on our cities, then we will erase their cities! We will put these nighttime pirates out of business, God help us! The hour will come that one of us will crack, and it will not be National Socialist Germany! In my life, I have once already waged such a fight unto the last. And then the enemy cracked who now has his seat in England as the last available island in Europe, now France has fallen, too. And what rationale has been contrived this time? When Norway had finally been cleansed of the Allies, they had declared: "This was precisely what we wanted. We only wanted to lure the Germans up here. This was a victory, an unequaled victory for us." After France had been knocked to the ground for good, they had declared: "Now England, for the first time, can concentrate its forces. We are no longer forced to squander our troops and to dissipate our energies. We have now reached the strategic position we have always longed for and hoped for. We are now rid of the burden of France.
It only cost us precious British blood. And now we are in a position to confront the Germans quite differently." Right at the beginning of the war, they had concerned themselves with certain prophecies regarding the length of the war. They had said: "The war will last three years; Britain will prepare itself for three years." And rightly so, for these folk, who are immensely rich owners of war production shares, are clever enough to know that their new acquisitions cannot bear interest or be amortized within half a year, or even a year.
Therefore things had to take a bit longer. But I was equally careful and immediately said to the Reichsmarschall at the time: Goring, let us prepare everything for five years! Not because I believe that the war will last five years, but, come what may, England will break down! In one way or another! And I do not know of any deadline other than this one! Of course I will prepare everything in a prudent, cautious, and careful manner. You will understand that.
And when people in England today nosily inquire: "Well, why isn't he coming?" Calm yourselves: he is coming!
It is precisely in view of this battle that it is all the more necessary to comprehend how important the fashioning and formation of our German Volksgemeinschaft is. We could not have achieved a single thing, if the German soldier had stood at the front, forlorn and on his own, without any connection to kindred souls at home. What makes the German soldier strong at the front is the awareness and knowledge that behind him stands an entire Volk united in iron determination and a fanatical will! And indeed, a Volk in the pursuit of loftier objectives. And these objectives go far beyond the mere winning of this war.
We want to build up a new state! That is why the others hate us so much today.
[original speech can be found here]
Eighty-six Germans were killed by McCarthy's two bombs, as were fifteen Poles.
Floors of the Ministry of Religious Beliefs and Public Education had pancaked, crushing those trapped between, where the blasts had not thrown victims and rubble into the street, or the quadrangle. In death it was impossible to tell Slav from Aryan, Nordic from Jew.
It really was the great leveller.
A Riot of indecision
A monument to shame
A walking contradiction
Unwilling to take the blame
You'll fall apart
Before all this is through
You'll let the pressure
Get the best of you.
They had seen their Führer angry, they had seen him calm, they had seen him triumphant.
But they hadn't seen him terrified.
"Three times! Three times now! A single bomb falls from the heavens, and destroys another part of the National Socialist movement and leaves the decadent world untouched. Freiburg, Berlin, München, Nürnburg now Warschau! And no-one, not a single Wehrmacht officer, lifts a finger to stop it. Not the Flak, not the Luftwaffe nobody!"
Milch took advantage of the Führer's pause.
"The aircraft they use is undetectable…." he said
"Undetectable! Undetectable. Everyone can hear it. The people can see the white line it leaves in the sky. How can they bomb Warschau! Why do we not have a bomber that can fly from Warschau to London?"
"Herr Schussler is working on the Uralb-" began Jeshonneck
"It is flying too high and too fast for our fighters to reach it, mi — " interrupted Milch.
"How would you know? You've not even tried!"
"Three Gruppes of aircraft have been retained for Reichsverteidigung {1} at your command, and those that have are achieving growing success against the English raiders…"
"But are utterly useless against the raiders doing all the damage! Why is the Reichsmarschall not here!"
"His home has been destroyed too, mein Führer", said Bormann
"One of them." he snapped. The Führer turned back to Milch."I want all the twin-engine and single-engine fighters brought back from France to hunt down this Kriegsverbrecher!" {2}
"The attack on the British will have to be suspended, at least by day. Our bombers will be slaughtered, otherwise" said Milch
"No! The pressure on the British must be kept up!"
{1} Defence of the Reich
{2} War Criminal
Last edited:
Fear of God.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
5th September 1940
The Bristol Bombay landed at RAF Valley, and six men got out. All in civilian clothes. They introduced themselves as Squadron Leader Washbrook, and Flight Lieutenant Rayment, and asked McCarthy who was in charge here.
"Me." was Alex's laconic response.
"We understand you are in possession of a number of airworthy enemy aircraft." said Washbrook,
"Yes. A He111H-2 and a Ju88A-4, they are in that large hangar over there."
"May we..." asked Rayment.
"Of course. Who are the other four gentleman?" asked Alex.
"That need not concern you." said Washbrook.
"As long as they are on my property, they concern me." said Alex. He pulled something out of his pocket, held it up touched it three times and put it back in his pocket.
"What was that?"
"That need not concern you. They stay with that aircraft. You don't go in that hangar. I will pull out the aircraft I will permit you to take, and you will depart from this aerodrome as soon as possible, if not sooner"
Alex used the B-600 tow tractor to pull the two twin-engined aircraft from the hangar, and onto the maintenance pan. He handed them printed .pdfs of the Heinkel and Junkers pilot's manual, and left them to it. He looked at the photographs of the men on his iPhone, and wondered who they were.
After an hour they knocked on his door, and asked him if he had any fuel, and a compatible electric starter.
He provided them, and Washbrook and Rayment, if that really was their names, took off in the Heinkel and Ju88. About half an hour later the Bristol Bombay left as well.
Tony took off in the F-15EX to violate Irish airspace. Under the starboard wing was a 1000L fuel tank, to offset the 1400kg of the 6.5 metre long, 0.7 metre wide rectangular finned box under the port wing.
A red low wing monoplane then appeared over Valley, and landed on the grass in a short distance.
"Oh! What fresh hell is this?" said Alex to himself.
It is the private aircraft of the Secretary of State for Air, John Tyrrell Lord Glenavon, said soundmirror. He is unarmed.
"Does he know about our Irish friend?" asked Alex.
He knows less than you do.
"Quelle fucking surprise" said Alex to the voice inside his head.
The man climbed out of the cockpit of his red Percival P10 Vega Gull.
"So what brings you to my internal empire, Mr Tyrrell?", asked Alex
"You can't have a private army!"
"It's not an army – it's an air force"
"You know what I mean. Look, you need us on our side" said Glenavon, leading him into the library.
"Us?"
"The government. The state."
"You cannot halt my operations, from either here nor Bentwaters. These bases appear on no maps, are named after no existing location, this one cannot and will not be photographed by British nor German aircraft. Neither the Luftwaffe nor the RAF can intercept my aircraft without advanced warning, and by the time they get here, we are (poof) gone."
"Look we have rewarded you for heroic efforts against the German navy"
"I think you are the first person to use the word 'heroic' in relation to my activities in my presence, first politician anyway. However, you continue to overlook the heroism of the other five aircrew."
Glenavon looked askance at Alex "Only because we know nothing about them"
"Besides what we have told you."
"Besides what you have chosen to tell us" replied Glenavon, testily. "Do you hate Hitler so much you wish to kill him? Would a negotiated peace be so dreadful?"
"I would negotiate with any German, provided the corpses of Hitler, Goering, Himmler, Heydrich and about ninety others were nearby. I don't hate Hitler. Hate clouds your judgement. I know, unlike any other person on earth, that he is doomed, whatever he does. Hitler will not forgive us for what we have done."
"The daylight raid on Berlin, using captured enemy aircraft? We cannot publicly admit that the British state was involved. We would be accused of air piracy, deliberately attacking civilian target. Your private war must end, or accept controls from the highest level."
"And what will you do if we, if I, say no? What threat does the British state pose to me? I don't need you to answer that question. The answer is NOTHING."
Alex walked away.
"We could work together!"
Alex turned and looked witheringly at the Irish peer, MP, privy councillor, and cabinet minister, and said "Oh. Could we?" He carried on walking.
"It could be like the old times!"
"What old times?" said Alex. "There are no old times. Wait there."
Over Carlingford Lough, the F-15EX dropped the rectangular box, just west of a town called Warrenpoint. Wings sprouted from the object, and its tiny centrifugal turbojet engine lit up. The small fast aircraft flew over the farmland of Northern Ireland. It maneouvred to avoid Hillsborough and Lisburn, but flew straight through barrage balloons of Belfast and headed out to sea at high speed. It made landfall on the Ayrshire coast, just north of Culzean Castle, which the TERPROM used as a reference point to turn due north. It crossed mostly farmland, until it flew through the barrage balloons of Rutherglen. It flew over Parkhead, and towards Robroyston Hospital. It flew up the Strathblane valley and turned west over Loch Lomond, and flew over Faslane and Coulport, before climbing and diving onto the upper slopes of Beinn Ruadh and smashing itself to pieces.
Alex returned from inside building carrying a red book.
"What is this?
"It's a ledger containing the names of the Link organisation, the Anglo-German League, or Gesellschaft, or whatever - the late Archibald Ramsay's coterie of anti-Bolshevik anti-semites and Hitlerites. It's in code, so it's no further use nor interest to me"
"Why are you giving it to me?" said Glenavon, pleading ignorance.
"Well, that's either because we can't decode it. Or because we already have. You being the only cabinet minister I've met, I've decided to give it to you, and you could pass it to MI5, and they could start putting them in jail or under house arrest. I won't hold my breath."
"If my name is on that list, it would be black propaganda"
"Really? Why would the put in code, then? I only encrypt stuff I don't want other people to read"
"The newspapers won't print it."
"Of course they won't, old boys network, but say, if someone found out a peer of the realm – let's call him 'Lord Botherfear' – had funded fascist movements at home and abroad, including the ones we are currently at war with, might that gentleman of the press not want that fact emerging, blinking, into public view?"
"You couldn't prove it"
"But, say if someone anonymously sent details of the payments paid to and received by this 'Lord Rother Botherfear' and offered proof they originated from within the German Reich, might he decide to flee the country? For fear of being interned? Might an MP find his career abruptly terminated, if it were to reveal he received payments originating from an enemy country, AFTER its government had declared war on it?"
"You couldn't prove that"
"But a scurrilous person with no morals, like that 'Cato' person who wrote that Guilty Men book, now available in all good bookstores thanks to that notorious Jew Mr Victor Gollancz, might publish it anyway. Mud sticks."
"Are you trying to blackmail me?"
"Blackmail is such an ugly word, Glenavon. I merely asked hypothetical questions about hypothetical situations. Anyway, let's change the subject –
Mr Shannon is inbound, he will be overhead in 53 seconds, said soundmirror.
A distant rumble filled the air
"You said that we attacked Berlin with enemy aircraft" said Alex
"That's what you told me!"
"Maybe that was a cover story, misdirection – to conceal the fact that" The noise increased in pitch, and Alex turned towards where the noise was coming from, and yelled "WE ACTUALLY USED THIS!"
The Bristol Bombay landed at RAF Valley, and six men got out. All in civilian clothes. They introduced themselves as Squadron Leader Washbrook, and Flight Lieutenant Rayment, and asked McCarthy who was in charge here.
"Me." was Alex's laconic response.
"We understand you are in possession of a number of airworthy enemy aircraft." said Washbrook,
"Yes. A He111H-2 and a Ju88A-4, they are in that large hangar over there."
"May we..." asked Rayment.
"Of course. Who are the other four gentleman?" asked Alex.
"That need not concern you." said Washbrook.
"As long as they are on my property, they concern me." said Alex. He pulled something out of his pocket, held it up touched it three times and put it back in his pocket.
"What was that?"
"That need not concern you. They stay with that aircraft. You don't go in that hangar. I will pull out the aircraft I will permit you to take, and you will depart from this aerodrome as soon as possible, if not sooner"
Alex used the B-600 tow tractor to pull the two twin-engined aircraft from the hangar, and onto the maintenance pan. He handed them printed .pdfs of the Heinkel and Junkers pilot's manual, and left them to it. He looked at the photographs of the men on his iPhone, and wondered who they were.
After an hour they knocked on his door, and asked him if he had any fuel, and a compatible electric starter.
He provided them, and Washbrook and Rayment, if that really was their names, took off in the Heinkel and Ju88. About half an hour later the Bristol Bombay left as well.
Tony took off in the F-15EX to violate Irish airspace. Under the starboard wing was a 1000L fuel tank, to offset the 1400kg of the 6.5 metre long, 0.7 metre wide rectangular finned box under the port wing.
A red low wing monoplane then appeared over Valley, and landed on the grass in a short distance.
"Oh! What fresh hell is this?" said Alex to himself.
It is the private aircraft of the Secretary of State for Air, John Tyrrell Lord Glenavon, said soundmirror. He is unarmed.
"Does he know about our Irish friend?" asked Alex.
He knows less than you do.
"Quelle fucking surprise" said Alex to the voice inside his head.
The man climbed out of the cockpit of his red Percival P10 Vega Gull.
"So what brings you to my internal empire, Mr Tyrrell?", asked Alex
"You can't have a private army!"
"It's not an army – it's an air force"
"You know what I mean. Look, you need us on our side" said Glenavon, leading him into the library.
"Us?"
"The government. The state."
"You cannot halt my operations, from either here nor Bentwaters. These bases appear on no maps, are named after no existing location, this one cannot and will not be photographed by British nor German aircraft. Neither the Luftwaffe nor the RAF can intercept my aircraft without advanced warning, and by the time they get here, we are (poof) gone."
"Look we have rewarded you for heroic efforts against the German navy"
"I think you are the first person to use the word 'heroic' in relation to my activities in my presence, first politician anyway. However, you continue to overlook the heroism of the other five aircrew."
Glenavon looked askance at Alex "Only because we know nothing about them"
"Besides what we have told you."
"Besides what you have chosen to tell us" replied Glenavon, testily. "Do you hate Hitler so much you wish to kill him? Would a negotiated peace be so dreadful?"
"I would negotiate with any German, provided the corpses of Hitler, Goering, Himmler, Heydrich and about ninety others were nearby. I don't hate Hitler. Hate clouds your judgement. I know, unlike any other person on earth, that he is doomed, whatever he does. Hitler will not forgive us for what we have done."
"The daylight raid on Berlin, using captured enemy aircraft? We cannot publicly admit that the British state was involved. We would be accused of air piracy, deliberately attacking civilian target. Your private war must end, or accept controls from the highest level."
"And what will you do if we, if I, say no? What threat does the British state pose to me? I don't need you to answer that question. The answer is NOTHING."
Alex walked away.
"We could work together!"
Alex turned and looked witheringly at the Irish peer, MP, privy councillor, and cabinet minister, and said "Oh. Could we?" He carried on walking.
"It could be like the old times!"
"What old times?" said Alex. "There are no old times. Wait there."
Over Carlingford Lough, the F-15EX dropped the rectangular box, just west of a town called Warrenpoint. Wings sprouted from the object, and its tiny centrifugal turbojet engine lit up. The small fast aircraft flew over the farmland of Northern Ireland. It maneouvred to avoid Hillsborough and Lisburn, but flew straight through barrage balloons of Belfast and headed out to sea at high speed. It made landfall on the Ayrshire coast, just north of Culzean Castle, which the TERPROM used as a reference point to turn due north. It crossed mostly farmland, until it flew through the barrage balloons of Rutherglen. It flew over Parkhead, and towards Robroyston Hospital. It flew up the Strathblane valley and turned west over Loch Lomond, and flew over Faslane and Coulport, before climbing and diving onto the upper slopes of Beinn Ruadh and smashing itself to pieces.
Alex returned from inside building carrying a red book.
"What is this?
"It's a ledger containing the names of the Link organisation, the Anglo-German League, or Gesellschaft, or whatever - the late Archibald Ramsay's coterie of anti-Bolshevik anti-semites and Hitlerites. It's in code, so it's no further use nor interest to me"
"Why are you giving it to me?" said Glenavon, pleading ignorance.
"Well, that's either because we can't decode it. Or because we already have. You being the only cabinet minister I've met, I've decided to give it to you, and you could pass it to MI5, and they could start putting them in jail or under house arrest. I won't hold my breath."
"If my name is on that list, it would be black propaganda"
"Really? Why would the put in code, then? I only encrypt stuff I don't want other people to read"
"The newspapers won't print it."
"Of course they won't, old boys network, but say, if someone found out a peer of the realm – let's call him 'Lord Botherfear' – had funded fascist movements at home and abroad, including the ones we are currently at war with, might that gentleman of the press not want that fact emerging, blinking, into public view?"
"You couldn't prove it"
"But, say if someone anonymously sent details of the payments paid to and received by this 'Lord Rother Botherfear' and offered proof they originated from within the German Reich, might he decide to flee the country? For fear of being interned? Might an MP find his career abruptly terminated, if it were to reveal he received payments originating from an enemy country, AFTER its government had declared war on it?"
"You couldn't prove that"
"But a scurrilous person with no morals, like that 'Cato' person who wrote that Guilty Men book, now available in all good bookstores thanks to that notorious Jew Mr Victor Gollancz, might publish it anyway. Mud sticks."
"Are you trying to blackmail me?"
"Blackmail is such an ugly word, Glenavon. I merely asked hypothetical questions about hypothetical situations. Anyway, let's change the subject –
Mr Shannon is inbound, he will be overhead in 53 seconds, said soundmirror.
A distant rumble filled the air
"You said that we attacked Berlin with enemy aircraft" said Alex
"That's what you told me!"
"Maybe that was a cover story, misdirection – to conceal the fact that" The noise increased in pitch, and Alex turned towards where the noise was coming from, and yelled "WE ACTUALLY USED THIS!"
Last edited:
Calm Like A Bomb
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
The noise of the angel of death penetrated the fibre of Glenavon's being, and he threw himself to the ground in terror.
McCarthy just stood there, pushing the antitragus of both his ears in with his fingers, as though he seen it all, hundreds of times before.
(Narrator: he had.)
Glenavon pulled himself to his feet, only to the feel wake vortex of the passing Strike Eagle.
"Can you hear me John Tyrrell Viscount Glenavon?" said Alex.
The son of the aristocracy, the child of privilege, the man of the establishment, was visibly shaking. "Yer-yes"
"In the event of my arrest, detention, internment or death, OR the abduction of the ones I love, the Aquila Raptor will be launched, and wherever the War Cabinet is sat, a Tempestas Umbra, a Storm Shadow will destroy whichever bunker they are cowering in. You don't need to know what a Storm Shadow is to know that is very bad news.
Not only will you have to explain why I have been detained, or how I died, you will have to explain, from the blackened rubble of your power base, who destroyed your government.
If you told the truth, you would be dismissed as insane.
Even if you do survive, a second Storm Shadow will be launched, simultaneously at your home in Essex, destroying everything your predecessors carefully cultivated. Questions?"
"Wuhh-whhaaat do you want from me? I'll give you money"
"I have no need of your 'money', the wages of treachery, nor that which you have stolen in the form of rent and profit. I merely demand your unquestioning loyalty, and that you mislead and betray your existing paymasters. It will cost you nothing. The master becomes the servant — that is all."
"Why are you doing this to me, Alec, after all we did together?"
"I am not the person you think I am. Any physical resemblance is merely happy coincidence. Do you know what nemesis means, John Tyrrell Viscount Glenavon, with your classical education? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible cunt — me."
"You repel me"
"The old Etonian Alexander Douglas McCarthy is dead. He drowned in the sea off Hong Kong, three years ago, dissatisfied with the course his life had taken."
"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!"
"I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS DEATH. I never met him, he died by his own hand. I am not here to destroy you, to humiliate you, to impoverish you. Quite the opposite. I am here to RECRUIT you. To help you avenge the death of your elder brother, whom you hero-worshipped, at the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge in September 1917, for you to become the war hero you craved to be, but missed out by two months"
"I don't want vengeance, I want this blasted war to end." claimed Glenavon.
"So do I, and it will. Wars come and go, what remains are only the values of culture. I want it to end with British tanks on the Unter den Linden, not with Hitler dominating Europe from the Bay of Biscay to the Volga."
"How many innocent lives are you prepared to sacrifice to achieve this?" asked Glenavon
"The same number Chamberlain was prepared to when he declared war, and you took the collective decision to agree with. He started this war, and now he is dead, those that remain must fight for victory, or live with the ignominy of surrender. Come with me."
The room was virtually empty. McCarthy opened the MacBook Pro.
"What. On. Earth. Is. That?" asked Glenavon
"It's a computer"
"A calculating machine?"
"Much more than that. Information storage, retrieval, copying, playing music, editing documents, pictures, films. The technology is far in advance of anything British industry could replicate here. It comes from the future, seventy-six years into the future. It is a window on the world." McCarthy conjured with the object, and black and white pictures appeared on screen.
"Oh for pity's sake — Good Lord, what is that?"
"It's a castle in Westphalia, being renovated as an occult temple, to pay homage to the pagan Nordic gods by the head of the SS — Heinrich Himmler, of whom you are aware. This is it being damaged by bombing. This is it being completely destroyed. This is the private home of Paul Joseph Goebbels, built with bribes from the German film industry, money stolen from Jews, and the labour of misguided Germans. This is it being destroyed. We spared the lives of Goebbels, his wife and children, and only destroyed his ill-gotten gains. THE NEXT TIME, WE MAY NOT BE SO MERCIFUL."
"The Germans are in league with the forces of darkness?"
"Why did you suspect it was otherwise? Because you wanted a bulwark against Bolshevism. Now they are in league with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, now what you do? Capitulate?"
Glenavon looked incredulously at Alex.
"How on earth does that work?"
"Clarke's third law. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. These targets were attacked in broad daylight.", Alex paused. "We only attack industrial targets at night to minimise the loss of life. We want the German people on our side, not burnt out of house and home like the poor people of London. You have been shown enough evidence to make your decision. Now leave."
A terrified Glenavon walked back to his aircraft. He shook so badly he feared he would crash his aeroplane if he tried to fly it. The black 'Aquila Raptor' cast its shadow over the Vega Gull as it came in to land.
"So did the Storm Shadow work, then?" asked Charlie
"TERPROM, INS, GPS, worked perfectly in every mode. " said Tony.
Did you doubt that they would? said the calm female voice of soundmirror
"Forgive me madam, for not trusting the fabric of the reality I live in?" asked Charlie
It was not meant as accusation, replied soundmirror
"Alex, soundmirror?" said Charlie. "Have you got a moment?"
Always.
"Yeah?" said Alex.
"I've been meaning to say this since we got back from America" replied Charlie.
"You're pregnant. With Holtzmann's baby"
"Shut up! I'm serious! Look, this map of the world — do you see anything wrong with it"
"Well. All the continents are in the right place, but apart from that, EVERYTHING!"
"Look at India"
"Huh. All pink"
"No Afghanistan. No Pakistan either"
"So there isn't! Well, there wouldn't be a Pakistan now. 'Kushan Protectorate'. Whatever that is. Wait a moment, that squadron I wound up with, 259, they were called that. Are they Muslims, like Pakistan?" asked Alex.
"That close to Iran? They must be. Don't think we will get away without the Taliban."
That country has the highest population of Buddhists in the world, soundmirror informed them, because of their location they are a martial people. Do not assume that any religion is incapable of violence.
"So what about Saudi Arabia, hasn't got Mecca and Medina – Hashemite Kingdom of the Hejaz, apparently. TE Lawrence designed their stamps."
We assume that the support from the Britain Empire to the Hashemite kings was greater than here than it was in yours.
"You assume? Nice. Is Lawrence still dead?" asked Alex.
Even the greatest of men are mortal. In other words, yes.
"Dunno" said Charlie
"Also, the states of the USA are different." said Floyd, walking into the room.
"You got ears on sticks, Floyd?"
"I'm a journalist, whatcha gonna do? Part of my home state of Pennsylvania has been hived off into something called 'Franklin'."
Mainly to stop its citizens from calling it 'Pennsyltucky'.
"Oh, that's nothing. There's 48 contiguous US states in our world. 49 in this. No New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, and New York state." said Charlie.
"The US pilots think its hilarious there is a New York state that hasn't got New York in it, in our universe. It's all in New Joisey in theirs." said Holtzmann.
"So what is there then?" asked Alex.
Hudson — state capital Albany. Niagara — state capital Buffalo. Franklin — state capital Bridgeport. Superior — parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin — state capital Thunder Bay. Camino, this universe's version of New Mexico — state capital Albuquerque. Dakota — state capital Pierre.
"I've only heard of one of those states" said Floyd
"Still somewhere for the British to name the Douglas DC-3 after, then" said Alex.
Ha ha, YES. Columbia — state capital Bozeman. Lincoln — state capital Fargo.
"So we flew over all these states without realising." said Alex.
"Uh huh. Hard to tell from the air" said Charlie, smiling. "There's no country called Paraguay either – Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina seem to have swallowed it up."
"Where will the Nazi's flee to now?"
"I thought they all went to Argentina, anyway? Oh yeah, and Brazil?"
"Where the nuts come from?" said Alex.
"It's got an Emperor – former kings of Portugal after they got kicked out. Also Colombia and Venezuela don't exist. Colombia is Nueva Granada, and just to confuse things even more Venezuela is Gran Colombia. And its capital is El Libertador, so you can't make the maracas from Caracas joke any more."
"Damn you, alternate universe! Of course you haven't noticed the biggest difference with our universe"
"Which is?"
"British Arctic Territory. British Athabaska"
"Yer what?" said a puzzled Charlie.
"Keep looking" smirked Alex.
"And did France own all that Africa?"
"Yeah, it's mostly desert and the occasional bedouin or chaps with bones through their noses, so no-one else wanted it."
How enlighted! We wish to remind you that all this is none of our doing. Hyperian intervention in this time began in May 1940 — with you.
~
The assault on Dakar seemed like such a good idea.
A much better deep water port on the Atlantic than those in Sierra Leone. The location of the gold reserves of the French and Polish national banks.
The Fleet Air Arm did not expect six of their Swordfish bombers from the Ark Royal to be shot down by Dewoitine D.510s and Curtiss Hawk 75s
The Navy did not expect the guns of the French battleship Strasbourg to outrange theirs, or the shore batteries to drive off their smaller ships.
The Royal Marines did not expect the troops they landed to meet such stiff opposition from the French troops of the Dakar garrison, nor all the Marines to be taken prisoner.
It seemed to many that not only had Britain forgotten how to win battles on the continent, it had forgotten how to do colonial operations, and 'gunboat diplomacy'.
The Luftwaffe had begun dropping parachute mines on British cities since the 4th September, the enormous explosions spreading terror.
The House of Commons wanted to question the Prime Minister on the failure of Operation Menace, the inadequate response to the German attacks on British cities, the lack of deep shelters in Central London, the collapse of morale that the epidemic of vandalism on Ministry of Information posters was a symptom.
But they couldn't.
~
"That's racist!" said Charlie.
"Believe me, you will hear a lot worse."
"Tony told me you scared the shit out of that politician."
"That was fun. Doubt it will make any difference. We could provide bigger bribes than Schüssler. I like a politician that remains loyal to the people bribing him. Waste of money, otherwise"
"What about Mr Erious Irishman?"
"He's about as Irish as I am." said Alex. It's all a front. He calls himself Orn Mac Gabhann or something, but he was born in London as John McGowan. Moved to Belfast aged six. He was sent to assassinate Halifax, so he can't be all bad, he was going to be shooting defenceless wildfowl at Campsea Ashe with some peer, another Viscount. His rifle went down with the Dornier he was in."
"So what use is he?" asked Charlie
The noise of Tony's F-15EX taking off again interrupted the conversation. In the real world it would be in hangar for 48 hours, technicians checking it over.
"Fuctifino" came Alex's response.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
Well, having caught up at last I must first commend you on writing the first bit of WWII fiction to really catch my interest since Catch-22 or You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger by Roger Hall. It's gotten a dreadful lack of love here on SV, though Original fiction here always has a tough row to hoe. I think you could proabbly do without the Timeline and Supernatural tags, though - it's not as if you've got pages of dated bullet points for the first, or espers or vampires, demons, and werewolves running around for the second, and either seems more likely to put folks off than draw them in. Sure, you've got your space-magic AIs but even all of their doings are dressed up in suitably "scientifical" technobabble.
I do have to say I'm disappointed in the lack of Lightnings on your prop-twisting equipment roster, but it's understandable in the European theater where they historically had only mediocre performance, with the teething troubles of early production blocks. Still my favorite warbird though, with longer legs than the 'Stang and all those guns in the nose, and at least you haven't included that boondoggle of a disgrace to the name among the more modern birds.
dated bullet points for the first, or espers or vampires, demons, and werewolves running around for the second, and either seems more likely to put folks off than draw them in. Sure, you've got your space-magic AIs but even all of their doings are dressed up in suitably "scientifical" technobabble.I do have to say I'm disappointed in the lack of Lightnings on your prop-twisting equipment roster, but it's understandable in the European theater where they historically had only mediocre performance, with the teething troubles of early production blocks. Still my favorite warbird though, with longer legs than the 'Stang and all those guns in the nose, and at least you haven't included that boondoggle of a disgrace to the name among the more modern birds.
Last edited:
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Thanks! I loved cascade of likes you gave me. Sorry I've taken nearly a week to reply.
You're right, it's not a timeline in the conventional sense, or supernatural in the 'Dean and Sam Winchester' sense
Stay tuned, I love the P-38 and P-49 too! Twin booms rule!
No Connection.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Tony was over the Southern Ruhr, approaching Munich, when the F-15EX turned suddenly, climbed and accelerated all at once.
"Rezwalker, what is happening?"
We have detected anachronistic S-band radar waves being reflected back by this aircraft. You will be outside their acquisition zone in 97 seconds.
"Are you jamming it?"
Scan rates suggest it is 96L6 or related system, so a home-on-jam capability cannot be ruled out. You are not being scanned by a 30N6E2 Tomb Stone. Yet.
"So there is an S-300 system somewhere down there?"
Examination of the electromagnetic spectrum in central Europe suggests this is one of two currently in operation.
"I'm not taking these bombs back to Valley. Recommend a secondary target and direct me there."
I have control. Diverting to Bremer-Vulkan and Deschimag yards at Bremen.
The F-15EX began a shallow dive. It was carrying two 1000lb and two 500lb LGB.
"So, then. John Valentine MacGowan, born 14 February 1898, in Stoke Newington, how ya doing?" said Alex.
"I have no idea who you mean."
"Also you were known at various times, Eoghan Mac Gabhann, Joseph McNulty and Liam Devlin.
Your parents moved to Norn Iron in 1904 when your father, a Protestant shipyard foreman, was transferred there. You mother was a Catholic, and this plus your London accent led to you being bullied at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, which you left aged seventeen to join the Army. You are still wanted for desertion by the Royal Irish Regiment. You fled to Dublin, where you talked yourself into a place at Trinity College, and within a year you witnessed the crushing of the Easter Rising at first hand. You joined the Irish Volunteers, and were part of Flying Column that kidnapped and killed two Royal Irish Constables in Tuam in 1919.
Then you disappear, only to reappear in Belfast, where you shot Sergeant John J Fitzgerald at 28 Earlsfort Terrace on 21 November 1920. Now wanted for a number of capital crimes, only your friendship with senior National Army figures prevents your arrest and execution. You are also wanted for the assassination of anti-treaty leaders Brigadier Oscar Traynor and Noel Lemass, in retaliation for the murder of Michael Collins.
You flee to Scotland, under an assumed name, and forged passport, and emigrate to the US. Unable to settle, and fearing for your life, you end up in another war zone, Spain this time with the Lincoln Battalion and the Connolly Column – You also obtained that Swiss passport during that conflict, from a dead comrade. Handy. When the Republicans lose you flee to France, and you are interned with other Brigadists, at Camp Gurs. You are, were, a stateless person. When the Germans reached the camp in June you offer your services to the SD, Abwehr, and anyone who listens. Finally an Sicherheitsdienst officer recruits you to semi-official scheme to assassinate the British PM, and put an individual unknown to you, but known to us, in his place. You were to report to a female German spy, know to you as Johanna Graves, in Ipswich."
"You know all that is absolute bollocks."
Over Germany, the four precision guided munitions destroyed cranes, gantries, and sent the wreckage of five nearly complete U-boats to the bottom of the Weser river. Unladen by bombs, Shannon headed back to Valley.
"You wanted to be captured alive, confess to the killing, and implicate Ireland in the assassination, knowing you are on a suicide mission. Strike a final blow at the head of the British empire, and the Irish Free State."
"It's a nice idea, but you can't prove a thing."
"Of course not. But I can hand you over to the British authorities, who still want you for the Cairo gang murder. The Irish, despite de Valera's amnesty, might still want you for Traynor or Lemass. Instead, I'm going offer you a choice."
"Oh yes?"
"This is Drumlanrig Castle. In Dumfries and Galloway – there will be a grouse shoot there. Tomorrow. Saturday 7th."
"If you would be so kind, would you please kill this man. Or this man. Indeed any of them. But we would prefer the first man."
"Who are they?" asked the Irishman
"Aristocrats. They both are. Like Halifax, only richer, more land. Racehorse owners. The first one's family owned estates in Ireland during the famine, so maybe you'd like to do him in. The gun we are going to give you only fires four rounds, and will be utterly untraceable. We will provide transport in and out of the location."
"Why do you want them dead?"
"Why not? That's the good thing about hereditary peers. Kill one, there's another to replace them."
"....Who wants revenge. These people have blood feuds going back hundreds of years."
"But you have no connection with us, nor us with you. If the police capture you alive, who's going to believe some mysterious organisation put you up to this? You are a just another IRA man with a grudge, a leftist revolutionary. Even though you didn't kill the PM, they'll sing songs about you in pubs in the Falls Road, in Kilburn and Boston"
"And if I tell you to go and fuck yourselves, whoever you are?"
"You are free to do that, of course. Heaven forbid that I should force a law-abiding man such as yourself to do such a thing. But remember that white aeroplane you flew here in? It can fly for 4000km. That means we could fly you to Iceland, or to the Mediterranean, if you prefer warmer climes. It won't make the slightest difference when we depressurize the cabin and push you out of the door at 30,000 feet. Without a parachute, this time.
"Rezwalker, what is happening?"
We have detected anachronistic S-band radar waves being reflected back by this aircraft. You will be outside their acquisition zone in 97 seconds.
"Are you jamming it?"
Scan rates suggest it is 96L6 or related system, so a home-on-jam capability cannot be ruled out. You are not being scanned by a 30N6E2 Tomb Stone. Yet.
"So there is an S-300 system somewhere down there?"
Examination of the electromagnetic spectrum in central Europe suggests this is one of two currently in operation.
"I'm not taking these bombs back to Valley. Recommend a secondary target and direct me there."
I have control. Diverting to Bremer-Vulkan and Deschimag yards at Bremen.
The F-15EX began a shallow dive. It was carrying two 1000lb and two 500lb LGB.
~
"So, then. John Valentine MacGowan, born 14 February 1898, in Stoke Newington, how ya doing?" said Alex.
"I have no idea who you mean."
"Also you were known at various times, Eoghan Mac Gabhann, Joseph McNulty and Liam Devlin.
Your parents moved to Norn Iron in 1904 when your father, a Protestant shipyard foreman, was transferred there. You mother was a Catholic, and this plus your London accent led to you being bullied at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, which you left aged seventeen to join the Army. You are still wanted for desertion by the Royal Irish Regiment. You fled to Dublin, where you talked yourself into a place at Trinity College, and within a year you witnessed the crushing of the Easter Rising at first hand. You joined the Irish Volunteers, and were part of Flying Column that kidnapped and killed two Royal Irish Constables in Tuam in 1919.
Then you disappear, only to reappear in Belfast, where you shot Sergeant John J Fitzgerald at 28 Earlsfort Terrace on 21 November 1920. Now wanted for a number of capital crimes, only your friendship with senior National Army figures prevents your arrest and execution. You are also wanted for the assassination of anti-treaty leaders Brigadier Oscar Traynor and Noel Lemass, in retaliation for the murder of Michael Collins.
You flee to Scotland, under an assumed name, and forged passport, and emigrate to the US. Unable to settle, and fearing for your life, you end up in another war zone, Spain this time with the Lincoln Battalion and the Connolly Column – You also obtained that Swiss passport during that conflict, from a dead comrade. Handy. When the Republicans lose you flee to France, and you are interned with other Brigadists, at Camp Gurs. You are, were, a stateless person. When the Germans reached the camp in June you offer your services to the SD, Abwehr, and anyone who listens. Finally an Sicherheitsdienst officer recruits you to semi-official scheme to assassinate the British PM, and put an individual unknown to you, but known to us, in his place. You were to report to a female German spy, know to you as Johanna Graves, in Ipswich."
"You know all that is absolute bollocks."
Over Germany, the four precision guided munitions destroyed cranes, gantries, and sent the wreckage of five nearly complete U-boats to the bottom of the Weser river. Unladen by bombs, Shannon headed back to Valley.
"You wanted to be captured alive, confess to the killing, and implicate Ireland in the assassination, knowing you are on a suicide mission. Strike a final blow at the head of the British empire, and the Irish Free State."
"It's a nice idea, but you can't prove a thing."
"Of course not. But I can hand you over to the British authorities, who still want you for the Cairo gang murder. The Irish, despite de Valera's amnesty, might still want you for Traynor or Lemass. Instead, I'm going offer you a choice."
"Oh yes?"
"This is Drumlanrig Castle. In Dumfries and Galloway – there will be a grouse shoot there. Tomorrow. Saturday 7th."
"If you would be so kind, would you please kill this man. Or this man. Indeed any of them. But we would prefer the first man."
"Who are they?" asked the Irishman
"Aristocrats. They both are. Like Halifax, only richer, more land. Racehorse owners. The first one's family owned estates in Ireland during the famine, so maybe you'd like to do him in. The gun we are going to give you only fires four rounds, and will be utterly untraceable. We will provide transport in and out of the location."
"Why do you want them dead?"
"Why not? That's the good thing about hereditary peers. Kill one, there's another to replace them."
"....Who wants revenge. These people have blood feuds going back hundreds of years."
"But you have no connection with us, nor us with you. If the police capture you alive, who's going to believe some mysterious organisation put you up to this? You are a just another IRA man with a grudge, a leftist revolutionary. Even though you didn't kill the PM, they'll sing songs about you in pubs in the Falls Road, in Kilburn and Boston"
"And if I tell you to go and fuck yourselves, whoever you are?"
"You are free to do that, of course. Heaven forbid that I should force a law-abiding man such as yourself to do such a thing. But remember that white aeroplane you flew here in? It can fly for 4000km. That means we could fly you to Iceland, or to the Mediterranean, if you prefer warmer climes. It won't make the slightest difference when we depressurize the cabin and push you out of the door at 30,000 feet. Without a parachute, this time.
Pretty alibi for a white guy.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"So Schüssler has got an SA-20 Gargoyle then?" asked Alex.
"Two of them, apparently" said Tony.
We cannot confirm he has the 9M96E2 missiles, only the CHEESE BOARD and TOMB STONE radars. Mr Shannon was within missile range when escape manoeuvring began..
"But they are mobile radars?" Asked Alex.
They are. They cannot be integrated with any air defence systems. Perhaps the Hierocrats only supplied the two griefers with a limited number of missiles.
"So we launch an Iron Hand attack on them?" asked Tony.
"Rather you than me, mate. You do it – you've already died once".
Tony grimaced.
"So, soundmirror the only way to find out if they have these silver bullets is to have one launched at us, or…"
That is not what we want to happen, — you are our assets, the aircraft are all disposable artefacts.
"You could neutralise the missile though?"
But of course. We assume the griefers have moved their radars to Munich to ensure that their pet Herr Hitler can safely return to the Berghof. And to protect their research facilities in Bohmen und Mahren.
"Their WHAT?"
We assume they are working on similar jet aircraft, ballistic missiles, nerve agents, weaponized diseases that the Nazis developed in your timelines.
"If they've got these SAMs and radars, what do the need jets and V2s for?" asked Charlie.
They cannot reproduce them — any more than an existing British factory could manufacture the EF2000, or even the DH Vampire or the BAe Systems Hawk 128. The radars cover their aircraft factories at Berlin, Cottbus and Prague, but not the ones at Bremen or Paris.
"He owns aircraft factories?" said Tony.
And steel mills, and oil wells, and antibiotic and stimulant factories. Why would he not do? They need to design industrial artefacts the inefficient German industries can reproduce, now they cannot count on resupply by extraterrestrial means.
"Where are our oil wells, and aircraft factories?" asked Tony.
We will provide you with some. And the relevant contracts, and licences to exploit them. It will not be difficult to introduce efficiencies and attract workers. What of the killer Irishman, MacGowan?
I offered him £2000 or $8000 and a new life in the USA, with forged documents if he did the hit – and that we'd push him out the Cessna without a parachute, if he didn't.
Harsh.
Tony's dropping him off in Scotland tomorrow in the Slepcev Storch – chances are he'll do a runner with the self-loading 12 gauge, and the 9mm pistol we are going to give him. Do you think Glenavon will succeed Halifax?
We suspect it is almost inevitable. No matter how well the battle of Britain goes, Halifax will be removed from office, or will step down.
Glenavon seems the least worst option — I'm meeting him on Saturday, at the Ritz.
The helicopter landed at Northwood, where it would be concealed in a Nissen Hut belonging to vegetable growing company. McCarthy got on the southbound Metropolitan train at the ugly low-rise station. He changed onto the Bakerloo line at Finchley Road and Alex continued on to St Johns Wood. He felt he was being followed, and only felt safe when he found the door on the northbound platform, and locked it behind him. He walked the subterranean 970 metre walk to Regents Park, and to Holford Hall, where he changed into his little worn tailored Black Satin Peak Lapel Tuxedo Jacket.
Thank you for seeing me, Brigadeführer Schüssler. As you know, there have been isolated attacks on Luftwaffe by unusual aircraft.
"Quite so."
"These have been dismissed as misidentification of Luftwaffe and enemy aircraft. I however, regard these reports more seriously than that. There is this radial engined fighter — " Ohlenschläger produced a photograph.
"That is a Hawker aircraft, that has been developed using technology derived, stolen even, from one of our aircraft" said Schüssler.
Sea Fury — many of those survived the second war, and were used as air racers.
"It has been reported in two- and single seater variants, painted red, grey and silver. It is most definitely not a Curtiss Hawk"
"This aircraft has been variously described as captured Me109 — "
"But it obviously is not. The 109 does not have the underfuselage radiator, nor the bulging canopy. I know which aircraft this is, but I cannot tell you what it is. All I can say it is a hybrid of British and American technologies"
Mustang — how many Malcolm Hood Mustangs survived the second war — not many, thought Schüssler.
"Then there is this — taken by a He111 pilot I trained with before the war — probably the most bizarre of them all — it's triangular, and no propeller!"
The delta wing, leading to an angle, and the short fuselage meant it could only be a Mirage. How many of those made it onto the civilian market. Mirage III, V, 50, 2000? Ties in with the reports from Berliners though, from the Propaganda Ministry and Gestapo attacks.
"There is one aircraft conspicuous by its absence, of course," said Schüssler. The aircraft McCarthy used to cross America, to try and get the American people behind the war.
"You believe that the American McCarthy is behind all of this?" asked Ohlenschläger
"I'm almost certain of it. Thank you for assembling this information, Hauptmann, and congratulations on your Ritterkreuz. No more Halsschmerzen for you!"
"Heil Hitler!"
"Heil Hitler"
That only leaves the aircraft used for the high altitude attacks. Schüssler would expect the Hyperians to give McCarthy a Mirage, an aircraft designed by Jews, or one used to attack hapless Palestinians, like the F-16 Sufa or the F-15I Ra'am
With adequate warning, a radar guided missile might end it all for him.
"Well, this is an unexpected surprise." said McCarthy, as he looked around the people around him in the basement Brasserie at the Ritz. "At least some people are still enjoying themselves despite the carnage"
"Fear of death concentrates the mind" said Glenavon "This is Major Ball, of the Conservative Research Department. What would you like to drink"
"Tap water, slice of lemon, ice. You can't be very busy, working for the stupid party" said Alex.
"Ha, ha. On the contrary, you've been keeping us very busy"
"So your intention, or that of the government is to bribe me into submission?" asked Alex.
"That's one of the options. You'd be safe from harm in the USA, or New Zealand"
"I've been to New Zealand – there's nothing there for me. Not now. Why all this sudden interest in my wealth and welfare?"
Having returned with a McCarthy's drink. Glenavon dodged the question.
"So you are prepared to go back to America? In my view you should have stayed there" said Ball.
"All the tech goes with me if I do. All of it." said Alex
"We aren't willing to transport it for you. We cannot spare the ships." said Glenavon.
"I don't need any of your bloody ships. If I go, all the tech goes with me. There is literally nothing you can do to stop me taking it away from the UK mainland, or the British Isles generally, should the War Cabinet foolishly decide to surrender."
"We, the government are prepared to pay you £1 million to you to transfer title of your aircraft to it" said Ball.
"Ha haha ha ha, no. All men have their price and mine is considerably higher than that. If you think I'm impressed by piffling amounts like a million quid, you are very much mistaken."
"How…." Glenavon and Sir George Ball wore expressions of enraged incredulity.
If you have access to the Treasury's chequebook, which I doubt, then I suggest you write a pound sign, a one, then keep writing noughts until I tell you to stop. I can't just be bought for a thousand quid a month from a Swedish bank"
"What?"
"The money Schüssler was paying you. 'Cabinet minister caught trading with the enemy'. I can see the headlines now. The pallor of prison might add to you disgrace, but I know how you toffs look after each other. Has that press baron I referred to decided have it away on his toes?"
"You sound like a black marketeer, or an East End crook" said Ball.
"Small time." said McCarthy.
"He's gone. If you mean Rothermere. To Bermuda. He had to apply to the Home Office just to leave" said Glenavon.
"Someone else who couldn't be viscounted on. Safely out of Harmsworths way." said Alex. Nobody smiled. "I notice there are few women in this venue."
"It's frequented by predominantly men of a certain persuasion. The gossip is of a far higher quality." said Ball.
"A few Martinis before heading off to St James Park to suck the cocks of Guardsmen?" said Alex.
"So you are of that persuasion, too?" said Ball.
"No, I had to give it up. Made my fucking eyes water" replied Alex
The Slepcev Storch landed in the clearing in Dumfriesshire. Tony handed the Irishman the semi-auto shotgun, and the P38 pistol and a ziplock plastic bag containing the ammunition. He had no idea where the Storch had taken off from. MacGowan marched off towards the sound of the guns, in his tweeds, pausing only load the shotgun and the pistol.
"Of course blackmail works both ways. I suspect it wouldn't be difficult to blacken your name."
"You sound like a man who hasn't researched by my background"
"Oh but I have, It wouldn't be too difficult to concoct something to blacken your name. Tax evasion, arms dealing, drug peddling."
"All my past indiscretions are in the future, and all my future indiscretions will be in the past. All the drugs I possess are legal or unknown, all the men or women I may bed will be at locations I control. I'm middle-aged and able to control my impulses. I expect Glenavon is knocking off Doris Castlerosse, once Randy Randolph Churchill has finished with her."
"I assure you I am a happily married man, with two children" said Glenavon,
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks. I've seen the way you look at me. Just the way the men in here are looking at me now, longingly, hoping. I wonder what Lady Glenavon would say?"
"Why are you prepared to go such extreme lengths to prolong the war, what do expect to gain, Mister McCarthy?"
"The same thing you crave: absolute power. The technology and money I have access to assures me of a bright postwar future, enabling me to obtain the finest politicians money can buy. And I will be around a lot longer than you."
"I wouldn't bank on that"
"I've only been here five months — and I have already broken one bank"
"A feeble New York institution. I think you'll find the British establishment a rather tougher nut to crack. And I think we are entitled to know whom you are working for, who your paymasters are."
"You are hoping it's International Jewish Finance, I'm sure."
"Only you think that."
"Men from space, if you must know.The gods themselves. You must be really bereft of ideas now the Nazis have made common cause with the Bolsheviks. Is fighting on really such a lost cause? Are you planning a humiliating defeat to eclipse the massive scale of Dunkirk?"
"Defeats are far easier to organise than victories." said Sir George Ball.
MacGowan waited for a pause in the shooting, levelled his shotgun and shouted someone's nickname.
"Thorners!"
He fired a single cartridge, and six Special Small Game pellets hit the man who turned around and said "What?" His loader was also hit.
The man next to his first target exclaimed in wordless Brit upper class anger, and loaded his double-barrel shotgun as his fellow gun crumpled to the ground. The assassin's semi-auto had ejected a round, and he squeezed the trigger again. And again.
Everyone else fled for the cover of the trees.
MacGowan threw away the (attempted) murder weapon and ran back to the Storch. He expected to hear the blast of a shotgun as he ran.
It never came.
"Two of them, apparently" said Tony.
We cannot confirm he has the 9M96E2 missiles, only the CHEESE BOARD and TOMB STONE radars. Mr Shannon was within missile range when escape manoeuvring began..
"But they are mobile radars?" Asked Alex.
They are. They cannot be integrated with any air defence systems. Perhaps the Hierocrats only supplied the two griefers with a limited number of missiles.
"So we launch an Iron Hand attack on them?" asked Tony.
"Rather you than me, mate. You do it – you've already died once".
Tony grimaced.
"So, soundmirror the only way to find out if they have these silver bullets is to have one launched at us, or…"
That is not what we want to happen, — you are our assets, the aircraft are all disposable artefacts.
"You could neutralise the missile though?"
But of course. We assume the griefers have moved their radars to Munich to ensure that their pet Herr Hitler can safely return to the Berghof. And to protect their research facilities in Bohmen und Mahren.
"Their WHAT?"
We assume they are working on similar jet aircraft, ballistic missiles, nerve agents, weaponized diseases that the Nazis developed in your timelines.
"If they've got these SAMs and radars, what do the need jets and V2s for?" asked Charlie.
They cannot reproduce them — any more than an existing British factory could manufacture the EF2000, or even the DH Vampire or the BAe Systems Hawk 128. The radars cover their aircraft factories at Berlin, Cottbus and Prague, but not the ones at Bremen or Paris.
"He owns aircraft factories?" said Tony.
And steel mills, and oil wells, and antibiotic and stimulant factories. Why would he not do? They need to design industrial artefacts the inefficient German industries can reproduce, now they cannot count on resupply by extraterrestrial means.
"Where are our oil wells, and aircraft factories?" asked Tony.
We will provide you with some. And the relevant contracts, and licences to exploit them. It will not be difficult to introduce efficiencies and attract workers. What of the killer Irishman, MacGowan?
I offered him £2000 or $8000 and a new life in the USA, with forged documents if he did the hit – and that we'd push him out the Cessna without a parachute, if he didn't.
Harsh.
Tony's dropping him off in Scotland tomorrow in the Slepcev Storch – chances are he'll do a runner with the self-loading 12 gauge, and the 9mm pistol we are going to give him. Do you think Glenavon will succeed Halifax?
We suspect it is almost inevitable. No matter how well the battle of Britain goes, Halifax will be removed from office, or will step down.
Glenavon seems the least worst option — I'm meeting him on Saturday, at the Ritz.
The helicopter landed at Northwood, where it would be concealed in a Nissen Hut belonging to vegetable growing company. McCarthy got on the southbound Metropolitan train at the ugly low-rise station. He changed onto the Bakerloo line at Finchley Road and Alex continued on to St Johns Wood. He felt he was being followed, and only felt safe when he found the door on the northbound platform, and locked it behind him. He walked the subterranean 970 metre walk to Regents Park, and to Holford Hall, where he changed into his little worn tailored Black Satin Peak Lapel Tuxedo Jacket.
Thank you for seeing me, Brigadeführer Schüssler. As you know, there have been isolated attacks on Luftwaffe by unusual aircraft.
"Quite so."
"These have been dismissed as misidentification of Luftwaffe and enemy aircraft. I however, regard these reports more seriously than that. There is this radial engined fighter — " Ohlenschläger produced a photograph.
"That is a Hawker aircraft, that has been developed using technology derived, stolen even, from one of our aircraft" said Schüssler.
Sea Fury — many of those survived the second war, and were used as air racers.
"It has been reported in two- and single seater variants, painted red, grey and silver. It is most definitely not a Curtiss Hawk"
"This aircraft has been variously described as captured Me109 — "
"But it obviously is not. The 109 does not have the underfuselage radiator, nor the bulging canopy. I know which aircraft this is, but I cannot tell you what it is. All I can say it is a hybrid of British and American technologies"
Mustang — how many Malcolm Hood Mustangs survived the second war — not many, thought Schüssler.
"Then there is this — taken by a He111 pilot I trained with before the war — probably the most bizarre of them all — it's triangular, and no propeller!"
The delta wing, leading to an angle, and the short fuselage meant it could only be a Mirage. How many of those made it onto the civilian market. Mirage III, V, 50, 2000? Ties in with the reports from Berliners though, from the Propaganda Ministry and Gestapo attacks.
"There is one aircraft conspicuous by its absence, of course," said Schüssler. The aircraft McCarthy used to cross America, to try and get the American people behind the war.
"You believe that the American McCarthy is behind all of this?" asked Ohlenschläger
"I'm almost certain of it. Thank you for assembling this information, Hauptmann, and congratulations on your Ritterkreuz. No more Halsschmerzen for you!"
"Heil Hitler!"
"Heil Hitler"
That only leaves the aircraft used for the high altitude attacks. Schüssler would expect the Hyperians to give McCarthy a Mirage, an aircraft designed by Jews, or one used to attack hapless Palestinians, like the F-16 Sufa or the F-15I Ra'am
With adequate warning, a radar guided missile might end it all for him.
~
"Well, this is an unexpected surprise." said McCarthy, as he looked around the people around him in the basement Brasserie at the Ritz. "At least some people are still enjoying themselves despite the carnage"
"Fear of death concentrates the mind" said Glenavon "This is Major Ball, of the Conservative Research Department. What would you like to drink"
"Tap water, slice of lemon, ice. You can't be very busy, working for the stupid party" said Alex.
"Ha, ha. On the contrary, you've been keeping us very busy"
"So your intention, or that of the government is to bribe me into submission?" asked Alex.
"That's one of the options. You'd be safe from harm in the USA, or New Zealand"
"I've been to New Zealand – there's nothing there for me. Not now. Why all this sudden interest in my wealth and welfare?"
Having returned with a McCarthy's drink. Glenavon dodged the question.
"So you are prepared to go back to America? In my view you should have stayed there" said Ball.
"All the tech goes with me if I do. All of it." said Alex
"We aren't willing to transport it for you. We cannot spare the ships." said Glenavon.
"I don't need any of your bloody ships. If I go, all the tech goes with me. There is literally nothing you can do to stop me taking it away from the UK mainland, or the British Isles generally, should the War Cabinet foolishly decide to surrender."
"We, the government are prepared to pay you £1 million to you to transfer title of your aircraft to it" said Ball.
"Ha haha ha ha, no. All men have their price and mine is considerably higher than that. If you think I'm impressed by piffling amounts like a million quid, you are very much mistaken."
"How…." Glenavon and Sir George Ball wore expressions of enraged incredulity.
If you have access to the Treasury's chequebook, which I doubt, then I suggest you write a pound sign, a one, then keep writing noughts until I tell you to stop. I can't just be bought for a thousand quid a month from a Swedish bank"
"What?"
"The money Schüssler was paying you. 'Cabinet minister caught trading with the enemy'. I can see the headlines now. The pallor of prison might add to you disgrace, but I know how you toffs look after each other. Has that press baron I referred to decided have it away on his toes?"
"You sound like a black marketeer, or an East End crook" said Ball.
"Small time." said McCarthy.
"He's gone. If you mean Rothermere. To Bermuda. He had to apply to the Home Office just to leave" said Glenavon.
"Someone else who couldn't be viscounted on. Safely out of Harmsworths way." said Alex. Nobody smiled. "I notice there are few women in this venue."
"It's frequented by predominantly men of a certain persuasion. The gossip is of a far higher quality." said Ball.
"A few Martinis before heading off to St James Park to suck the cocks of Guardsmen?" said Alex.
"So you are of that persuasion, too?" said Ball.
"No, I had to give it up. Made my fucking eyes water" replied Alex
The Slepcev Storch landed in the clearing in Dumfriesshire. Tony handed the Irishman the semi-auto shotgun, and the P38 pistol and a ziplock plastic bag containing the ammunition. He had no idea where the Storch had taken off from. MacGowan marched off towards the sound of the guns, in his tweeds, pausing only load the shotgun and the pistol.
"Of course blackmail works both ways. I suspect it wouldn't be difficult to blacken your name."
"You sound like a man who hasn't researched by my background"
"Oh but I have, It wouldn't be too difficult to concoct something to blacken your name. Tax evasion, arms dealing, drug peddling."
"All my past indiscretions are in the future, and all my future indiscretions will be in the past. All the drugs I possess are legal or unknown, all the men or women I may bed will be at locations I control. I'm middle-aged and able to control my impulses. I expect Glenavon is knocking off Doris Castlerosse, once Randy Randolph Churchill has finished with her."
"I assure you I am a happily married man, with two children" said Glenavon,
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks. I've seen the way you look at me. Just the way the men in here are looking at me now, longingly, hoping. I wonder what Lady Glenavon would say?"
"Why are you prepared to go such extreme lengths to prolong the war, what do expect to gain, Mister McCarthy?"
"The same thing you crave: absolute power. The technology and money I have access to assures me of a bright postwar future, enabling me to obtain the finest politicians money can buy. And I will be around a lot longer than you."
"I wouldn't bank on that"
"I've only been here five months — and I have already broken one bank"
"A feeble New York institution. I think you'll find the British establishment a rather tougher nut to crack. And I think we are entitled to know whom you are working for, who your paymasters are."
"You are hoping it's International Jewish Finance, I'm sure."
"Only you think that."
"Men from space, if you must know.The gods themselves. You must be really bereft of ideas now the Nazis have made common cause with the Bolsheviks. Is fighting on really such a lost cause? Are you planning a humiliating defeat to eclipse the massive scale of Dunkirk?"
"Defeats are far easier to organise than victories." said Sir George Ball.
MacGowan waited for a pause in the shooting, levelled his shotgun and shouted someone's nickname.
"Thorners!"
He fired a single cartridge, and six Special Small Game pellets hit the man who turned around and said "What?" His loader was also hit.
The man next to his first target exclaimed in wordless Brit upper class anger, and loaded his double-barrel shotgun as his fellow gun crumpled to the ground. The assassin's semi-auto had ejected a round, and he squeezed the trigger again. And again.
Everyone else fled for the cover of the trees.
MacGowan threw away the (attempted) murder weapon and ran back to the Storch. He expected to hear the blast of a shotgun as he ran.
It never came.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
The rapidly shifting perspectives made that one feel a little disjointed, I had to skim ove it a second time to get everything straightened out. It works well enough once grokked, and my popping off to look up the various aircraft mentioned (and a few oters mentioned on their pages) probably didn't help any.
On the subject of possible future rides, have you considered the F-16XL? The Typhoon is a pretty good bomb truck, but with 12 Mk82 500 pounders plus four conformal AMRAAMs and the wingtip Sidewinder rails, the XL still has it beat from what I can find quickly. I'm not sure about operational ranges/altitudes/speed etc., though, and it would probably need an avionics upgrade for the laser guidance packages and so on.
General Dynamics F-16XL - Wikipedia
On the subject of possible future rides, have you considered the F-16XL? The Typhoon is a pretty good bomb truck, but with 12 Mk82 500 pounders plus four conformal AMRAAMs and the wingtip Sidewinder rails, the XL still has it beat from what I can find quickly. I'm not sure about operational ranges/altitudes/speed etc., though, and it would probably need an avionics upgrade for the laser guidance packages and so on.
General Dynamics F-16XL - Wikipedia
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
If you want me to clarify anything, DM me. Sometimes it's meant to be confusing! It's six/seven timestreams in one story
Yes I have - but I've struggled to find pictures of one I can easily retouch. A earlier version of this story had the Su-30MKM or MKI as the high-survivability bomb truck (28 250kg bombs
) I'm thinking of bringing it back.Loads of pictures of grey Typhoons/Eagles/Sukhois to redo!
The Tony Shannon character wants to try all the fifth generation canard fighters!
The B-26K may put in an appearance too.
