OTTBE Mission 26 The War to end all wars! 11th Nov 1918 by Mike
Mission 26. The War to end all wars!
Lt Alan McLeod sat slouched in a chair, beside a packing case that served as a coffee table. On the “table” was the only item of importance to him, right now. A bottle of whisky! In his hand a chipped tumbler containing the said whisky, his breakfast!
He sat there, gazing vacantly in the direction of his desk, immersed in his own thoughts. The news had filtered through. It was really going to happen! The war would end in a matter of hours, if not minutes.
The wave of emotions, for miles around him, could probably be felt on the other side of the universe. But it was a mixed bag. Euphoria, confusion, disbelief, anger, sadness, regret, worry, happiness and fear. A whole lot more than that, in fact, because the war was over! For some a feeling of triumph, for others a feeling of betrayal, loss, and regret. Where had everyone gone? Gone for soldiers, every one! What did one do next?
In the not too distant future, the brass would assemble in some God forsaken wood, in a railway carriage; someplace the majority had never heard of. Just so they could humiliate their opposite numbers – that would be a terrible thing to do. Let’s just call it a day and shake hands! Not possible, I’m afraid. Not after four years of death and destruction. Someone must be held accountable and history, as we know, is written by the winners, even though they may be just as culpable!
And what of the majority? Perhaps they were simply overwhelmed with relief, that somehow they had survived. That they could go home, if such a place still existed, and start rebuilding their lives.
All it needed was for a handfull of generals to sign a piece of paper and it would be over, officially.
The phone rang.
Two minutes later
McLeod poked his head around the corner of the office door. He was fully alert and his expression brooked no hesitation on anyones part.
“Corporal, whose around at the moment?” he asked in his strong British Columbia accent.
“Dunno, sir!”
“Then go and find out and damned quickly. Spread the word. I want a volunteer to fly one of the SEs and a pilot and an observer for the Brisfit. Tell them its urgent and to get their arses over hear double quick. Then get yourself over to the hangars and tell the Ack Emmas I want the Dolphin, one SE and the Brisfit ready to mount an armed patrol immediately.”
“But the war is over, sir. Everyone says so.”
“Now corporal, I said now” answered Mcleod and for the first time in a very long while he had raised his voice.
The corporal shot off at a run.
McLeod grabbed a map from a pile on the side table and spread it before him. They had little time in which to respond and then, by the sounds of it, a long way to go. Where the hell was The Forest of Compiègne? He searched for a few seconds then found the city of the same name and stabbed his finger down on it. Moving it quickly over the paper his finger located the forest.
Good Lord, it was over 50 miles south of their present position. They would never make it in time. But others were out hunting too, he’d been told. No idea who, but someone would surely find the bastards first and stop them.
2nd Lt Arthur Hammond came through the door smartly.
“What’s the emergency old boy? The war’s over I’m told.”
“Not bloody quite it would seem. Hang on a sec, I don’t want to have to repeat this and I’m waiting for a Brisfit crew to show up!”
And right on cue, in walked 2nd Lt Harry Potser and Cpl Robin Stood.
“Good, you two will do nicely!”
“What for, sir” asked Potser.
“OK, pin your ears back and listen very carefully. I will say this only once!
“The brass are gathering to sign the armistice that will end this entire bloody war. Only someone has decided they don’t like that idea. Apparently a group of unknowns has stolen a bloody great German bomber, a Zeppelin Staaken I’m told, and intends to stop the process by blowing the brass to kingdom come!”
“Bloody ‘ell” muttered Stood, whilst Arthur Hammond whistled in surprise.
“We know that the bomber was taken from an airfield some 60 miles east of Paris. That’s according to information passed on by the German intelligence service.”
“German!!” exclaimed Potser
“That’s what I said. The war is all but over, ok. They want that as much as we do, I hope. So shut up and listen.
The signing of the armistice is apparently happening at 11.00 hrs today, in a bloody railway carriage, in a forest near a place called Compiègne. That’s some fifty miles south of here. The time is now 9.45, so its going to be tight. We have to move quickly! I shall lead the flight and we’ll have to go at the pace of the slowest - that’s with you Potser. We must try to stick together. There are others out there looking for this bomber but we don’t know if the bomber crew have any support. I imagine that there are more than a few Germans who, right now, feel they are being screwed and are up for putting a stop to the armistice! It would appear that this group intend to time their attack to coincide with the exact moment of signing. That would clearly kill many of the top brass of both sides!”
“So what if we encounter what have been hostiles for the past four years?”
“Good question, Arthur. I guess we can’t take any chances. If it looks like they’re in cahoots with the bad guys, then shoot them down! But the main target is the bomber. Stop that at any cost. Do you understand?”
“Ye, Gods, what a mess!” muttered Stood. “Never volunteer for anything! What will me mum say if I gets this far only to buy it on the last bloody day of the war?”
“We leave in five minutes, gentlemen. We may have just enough time to get there ahead of the bad guys and scout the area first. Fingers crossed. Do what you have to now, but five minutes max.”
“Tally ho, old chap” announce Hammond cheerfully. “Anything to end this dreadful bloody war!”
Not surprisingly, the German high command was in a dreadful flap about the very same problem. This whole affair was going to be ugly enough without the interference of a group of Bolshevik revolutionaries. At least, that was their interpretation.
“Good luck to them, I say” thought Ltn Kurt Parschau to himself.
He had just been given the same information and orders as his counterpart many miles west. But a good part of him wished the rebels well. Never- the-less, he had called for volunteers to go in search of the Staaken bomber and end its attempt, before any more damage to the proposed peace could be done.
There had been some resentment and misgivings, but in the end the response had been the same. Time to end the damned war. Forget and try to forgive. Perhaps this was one last chance to show the enemy they were every bit as good and probably better than them.
Parschau himself would lead and he had been joined by Ltn Albert Fitzler, Ltn Fritz Jäger and Vzfwbl Arno Brendler, the latter two to crew a Hannover two seater. He and Fitzler would fly Fokker DVIIs, probably for the last time. The thought made him shudder.
“And what do we do if we come across the enemy and by that I do not mean the Staaken?” asked Fitzler.
“Since we cannot be certain who these rebels are, and because we have no information about who else is looking for the rebels, we must assume that this is an internal matter. Any interference from outside may well be in support of the Staaken crew. So take them down!”
“Certainly, Kurt. It will be a pleasure!”
“Just remember Albert, the war is over. Get that into your tiny head mein freund.”
An hour or so later
And so it was, some time later, that the two flights, one German the other British, found themselves first on the scene. Remarkably, the fates had decreed that they would arrive in the vicinity of The Forest of Compiègne more or less at the same time as each other and not far behind the slower moving bomber. The Eagles just to the rear of the bomber, the Bulldogs approaching it head on.
The chase was on!
Ltn Parschau fired a warning shot. Enough to do no more than a small amount of damage, but hopefully sufficient to persuade whoever was flying the Staaken bomber to turn away from its course. The response was encouraging as the lumbering beast turned to starboard.
But not enought to convince Ltn Parschau that the game was off. He fired another warning shot, resulting in his guns jamming. “Verdammte!” A few more splinters detached themselves from various non-essential parts of the bomber.
It was then that Parschau thought he caught a glimpse of more aircraft approaching from the opposite direction.
“What the hell are they up to?”He thought. “Friend or foe I wonder?”
The uncertainty troubled him and he decided that the time for warnings was over. Signalling for the others to do the same, he closed on the Staaken bomber, indicating they should attack. He, himself could do little other than hammer furiously at the breach of his gun to try to clear the jam as quickly as possible. So he hardly noticed that at last the gunners on the Staaken had begun to return fire. Their shooting was poor, though, and one of them also suffered what was to be the first in a succession of jams. It has to be assumed that the rebel party had not had much time to prepare for this. Steal the bomber and get going. No time to check everything first! That would cost them dear.
Ltn Albert Fitzler opened fire meanwhile and immediately one of the gunners aboard the bomber went down (Gunner number 3). Whilst Vzfwbl Arno Brendler was struggling to bring up the much slower Hannover two seater, close enough to join the action.
The bomber lumbered on, all the while menacing the target train, that now seemed so close that the rebels could not fail. It turned back towards its intended target and now there could be no doubt. The rebels would not be deterred!
By now, the two Fokker DVII pilots had used their experience to place themselves in the least vulnerable position they could. Only the guns on the wings of the Staaken bomber could hit them. Fitzler fired again but was not ready for the bomber to swing back to port again, so he missed, twice. The movement also affected the aim of the rebel gunner, so bullets flew in both directions, going nowhere in particular.
And now Parschau was certain what the other aircraft were, approaching rapidly. It was a flight of Verdammt Engländer.
“Man kann nicht mit den Adlern fliegen, wenn man mit den Tauben arbeiten muss!” or were they working with the rebels. More uncertainty. Well they would soon find out!
And find out they did, only too emphatically. In the next few seconds everything was mayhem. Three German aircraft and a large bomber, flying in one direction. Three British aircraft flying in the opposite direction. All intent on stopping the others, or so it seemed. The British opened fire on the Staaken immediately they came into range.
Their shooting wasn’t too bad, but not brilliant either. The flight leader, Lt Alan Mcleod, in a Sopwith Dolphin did quite a bit of damage (using his ace skill Marksman I completely ineffectively as usual) and 2nd Lt Arthur Hammond in the SE5a added his pennyworth, drawing inaccurate fire from the nose gun of the bomber, which immediately jammed. Meanwhile, Ltn Albert Fitzler seemed to have got his eye in again as his machine guns did considerable damage and started smoke pouring from one of the Staarkens engines.
Then came the moment when disaster almost struck.
Passing either side of the enormous Staaken bomber, the British pilots were confronted by the German trio, whilst receiving fire from what remained of the rear guns on the Staaken.
The SE5a was struck in the vitals, resulting in an explosion that sent Arthur Hammond spinning earthwards! He in the meantime had been in the process of following orders and exchanging fire with Parschau, also following orders. Parschau was convinced he had shot down the SE5, but whilst he most definitely helped the SE5 on its way, luckily, or unluckily as the case may be, for him, that was not the case. Staaken gunner number 2 was most definitely the culprit.
So too was gunner number 4 on the Staaken, who fired at the Sopwith Dolphin, causing McLeod to wince in pain as one of the bullets ripped through his arm. Fortunately a minor wound as it turned out, which was little comfort to McLeod at the time. Of more concern however, was the result of the exchange of fire he then had with a German two seater, that suddenly appeared before him. Without even thinking, the conditioned responses of both pilots had kicked in and the Dolphin caught fire, whilst the Hannover’s engine exploded, sending it and its crew, also plummeting towards terra firma. McLeod was probably in for a rocket from his superiors for that mistake! Even if he wasn’t really to blame.
Which still left the Zeppelin Staaken bomber trundling along nicely on its mission of destruction.
But help was at hand, partly in the form of 2nd Lt Harry Potser and his trusty sidekick Cpl Robin Stood, neither of whom seemed to be able to avoid a bloody great bomber, even with millions of square feet of clear air space to do so in. They followed their leader blindly, only to realise, when it was almost too late, that shooting down a bomber might be a good idea; trying to ram it wasn’t. However, they came out of the collision ok as it happens and hence the aforementioned help, since the Staaken had part of its vitals ripped away by the impact.
The other part of the help came in the form of anti aircraft fire from French guns placed on the rear trucks of the all important train, now very close indeed. Everyone in the train was beginning to experience feelings of panic, but of course, being brass, they dare not show it, so continued to sit still as if nothing untoward was going on outside.
But one or two faces twiched when the anti aircraft guns opened fire. Two of them in fact. One missed, but the second, by some miracle, managed to actually hit one of the largest targets its gunners would ever see. Or perhaps the miracle was the fact the first one managed to miss. Either way, the damage done was considerable and actually started a fire (second smoke damage card drawn). Obviously, the secondary effect of the AA fire was to further put the rebel gunners off their aim. Only the Pink DVII of Ltn Parschau receiving additional minor damage. McLeod meantime was weaving around in the air, trying hard not to allow the flames from his aircraft from burning him personally, so he didn’t even notice when the Staaken gunner had yet another ineffective go at him, only to experience yet another jam. If only their guns hadn’t jammed so frequently, might the tale have ended so differently?
Perhaps. But we shall never really know, because right then came the end of the dream for the rebels. Gunner number 4 had the satisfaction of seeing his final shots hit home on Parchau’s Pink DVII. Yet another explosion sorted that aircraft out and it too was sent earthbound, even as the return fire was taking out gunner number 5 and also damaging the left rudder mechanism on the giant. But it was McLeod who got the final say. A long range burst from his guns, adjusted by the many months of experience (Marksman I) finally paid off. The Zeppelin Zaaken had finally had enough and along with its distraught crew, whose only future lay in death in the crash or at the hands of the executioner, it wallowed its way down and down, into the trees not yards from the train it was set to destroy.
McLeod continued to sideslip in each direction until the fire on his precious Dolphin went out. The damage was severe, but the aircraft got him home ok. It was a great relief to find out later that none of the Adlers and none of the Bulldogs had died that day. One of the Germans was quite severely injured, but he would live, and only minor injuries bothered the other casualties.
And so the armistice was signed. Der Adlers of the proud Deutche Luftstreitkräfte and the Bulldogs of the proud British airforce, had somehow managed to co-operate, of a sort, in finally bringing about the end of the war. The survivors could all go home, what was left of it!
The End
The Butcher’s Bill
Entente
Lt Alan McLeod DFC & bar; CdG, silver palm/ RTB/WIA/2 Kills (One Staaken Bomber & one Hannover two seater – oops!)
Throw 2D6 = 8 – 1 WIA + 3 RTB + 1 Ace = 11 All good when you land well.
2nd Lt Arthur Hammond MC / SD EXP FT / No kills
Throw 2D6 = 6 – 3 EXP + 1 ace = 4 Injured skip 1D6 = 1
Result: Skip 1 scenario.
2nd Lt Harry Potser pilot two seater / RTB / No kills / All good
Cpl Robin Stood Observer two seater / RTB / No kills / All good
Central Powers
Ltn Kurt Parschau WBg / SD EXP FT/ No kills
Throw 2D6 = 11 – 3 EXP = 8 Injured – Skip 1D2 = 2
Result Skip 1 scenario
Ltn Albert Fitzler WBg / RTB / No kills / All Good
Vzfwbl Arno Brendler pilot two seater / SD EXP FT / No Kills
Throw 2D6 = 8 – 3 EXP = 5 Injured skip 1D3 = 2
Result skip 1 scenario
Ltn Fritz Jäger / SD EXP FT / No Kills
Throw 2D6 = 7 – 3 EXP = 4 Injured skip 1D6 = 4
Result skip 4 scenarios
Rebels
1 Kill to gunner 2 & 1 kill to gunner 4. They nearly made it, but the final shot to bring them down was made by Lt Alan McLeod in a Sopwith Dolphin.
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A special thanks to Uncle, of course, for running the entire show and for doing it so patiently.
.. It has been a pleasure & privilege, not only to campaign with you but to meet and game with you person. 
Originally Posted by Setarius
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