AAR @ Wings over Basingstoke: Operation "Feather In Your Cap"
Inspired by John Buchan's 39 Steps and Erskine Childers' Riddle of the Sands there is Edwardian Espionage theme to our adventures.
This is the first of a two part story, where the outcome of the first mission affects the second.
This was the advance billing to the players of what would happen, just to wet their appetites:
Operation: Feather in your Cap.
During 1916 the Germans significantly developed the Belgian fishing harbour at Haanstaartveer, as they did with many ports along the coast.
On Monday 12 November 1917 Royal Navy vessels monitoring shipping in the channel spot unusual traffic entering Haanstaartveer. The same day a Directorate of Military Intelligence agent in Switzerland reported that Austrian master of disguise Hermann Greif has left his house in Geneva, heading for the Belgian coast, possibly Haanstaartveer.
Two days later, the secret listening station at Hunstanton intercepts a wireless trasmission from a German observer in the channel reporting a sighting of a British reconnaissance aircraft and escort.
Minutes later Hunstanton operatives translate a partial message scrambling aircraft from Sint-Denijs-Westrem to defend a codenamed location on East Flanders Coast.
The result of this operation could affect the future of British secret operations.
The Entente and Alliance were given their briefings.
Things got off to bad start for the Albatros; a collision at first looked imminent [below] and then actually occurred [too terrible to depict].
This was all the more inexplicable as both aircraft were controlled by the same player. Some damaged was sustained, but fortunately both aeroplanes were able to continue.
Then in a dramatic turn of events, the English Spad VII and one of the Albatros DIIs both exploded on their first pass.
Emerging from the smoke, the other DII tried to drop onto the tail of the Bristol, but judged it badly, and was given the good news from F.2B's number two for his trouble.
Meantime, a D.Va, composure now recovered, jousted with two Spad XIIIs, for control of the air above the harbour.
He completely out manoeuvred them both, and the French pilot was soon ablaze.
The aircraft that remained, jockeyed for position, the Bristol pilot struggling unjam his gun, while fighting to get his observer into position for that all important holiday snap of the pretty Belgian port.
It is on!
A D.Va, damaged from his initial collision goes down, caught in the cross fire of the spiralling flying machines.
His wingman, raked by the English observers Lewis guns, begins to trail smoke.
The Bristol swings round, but the pilot throttles back too late, and the observer is only able to get a photograph of half the harbour.
Is it enough?
As the fighters circle overhead, Kapitän Hansen follows his orders; if he believes they have been exposed, make full speed for the English coast to deliver his secret agent, Herr Greif, before any intelligence can be analysed.
As the ship makes for open water, our French hero dives, and skimming across the waves, opens fire into the fleeing boat.
Bullets rip into the hull, inflicting serious damage; tearing through the wheel house, killing poor Kapitän Hansen instantly.
But an MG 08 manned by the crew on the rear deck returns fire; the SPAD breaking up in ball of flame and shattered wood.
Meanwhile the Bristol, having downed the remaining D.Va and set the last DII on fire, makes a beeline for the harbour and another slice the photographic cake.
The DII, swinging left and then right, fights to put out the flames...
...but just as it seems to be going out, the integrity of his crate fails, and smoking wooden lumps plummet into the sea.
The Bristol, unhindered, completes his primary objective of photographing the port, all the while unaware that the real prize, the wounded ship, is disappearing into the safety of clear blue waters.
Post Script:
With a little difficulty, Herr Greif was able to land on a quiet part of the Norfolk coast.
Despite British tightened security following the events of Haanstaartveer, Herr Greif is able to identify, on a German aerial photographs, a number of targets in the Aldmere area of Norfolk, which he thinks are key to British secret project.
Unfortunately, because some pilots were not prompt in arriving to the afternoon session, there wasn't time to run the follow up mission, and we will have to leave that to another time.
So we finished the day with a simple dogfight, which gave us this lovely image.
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