OTT DYM Mission 5 – Adler Tag-Team - 5th February 1916
(Mike’s effort).
“I don’t think you’re going to like this Uncle!” said Lt Mick E Taker, who happened to be staring out of the window of Uncle’s little cubby hole, his shed, the one that passed for an office. He watched a DH2 land, then it began to rain. Droplets of water dribbled down the glass panes, adding their effect to the drumming of rain water on the roof above. Uncle looked up with a grimace as the sound of an engine roared nearby.
“Rain eh! I don’t think that’s anything to worry about,” and he looked away again. “It’ll give the lads a bit of a break after their excitement of today.” And he allowed a small grin to creep across his face. He reached down to his desk and picked up his pipe, his solace in times of stress, fumbling in his pocket, at the same moment, searching for his box of matches – he wanted a smoke to calm himself, following all of the phone calls he’d had to deal with in the past thirty minutes.
“Oh it isn’t the rain I’m talking about” said Lt Taker, “It’s that bloody lot out there!”
Uncle looked past the rain drops and then swore! “Damned reporters! Damn, damn and damn again!”
The picture framed by the wet glass was one of minor chaos. Civilian and military vehicles parked any old fashion, adding mud torn tyre tracks to every available space around Uncle’s hut. Plus dozens of people in civilian clothing of all descriptions, some carrying bulky looking objects that could only be cameras, all waving and gesticulating in a frenzy. All seemingly jabbering away at once. Oh Lord, what a hullabaloo!
Uncle clumsily replaced his pipe on the desk, grabbed his coat and left the office, still trying to scramble his way into the said garment. He hated the press!
“What on earth are this lot doing here Flight Sergeant?” Uncle demanded of the nearest person he could see that was wearing a uniform. That was Flight Sergeant Henry E Roe, one of the pilots involved in the day’s earlier successful Offensive Patrol.
“Not sure, sir. But rumour ‘as it, they were all expecting the arrival, back in France, somewhere near ‘ere, of Major Hawker, sir. But someone got their information all screwed up, sir.”
“What, Major Lanoe Hawker, VC? I thought he was back in Blighty!”
“He is, sir, but there’s a rumour he’s been posted back ‘ere and this lot are all excited about it, on account of all the mess we’ve been in this past few months. Their readers need a positive story from our side it seems, sir. Now they’re kicking up a fuss ‘cos they’ve been misled and they don’t ‘ave a story after all, sir.”
“Oh for goodness sake! OK Henry, leave it with me. I’ll get Lt Taker to run today’s little fight past them. Hopefully that will satisfy their curiosity, then they’ll go away and leave us in peace!” and he hurried back indoors, to give Lt Taker the good news about his next assignment. What both he and Lt Taker were not expecting, was the license these newspaper types would take in publishing the results of Taker’s “press conference”.
A few days later, Uncle got an ear bashing from HQ about not blathering to the press ever again. The headlines in the tabloids had read something along the lines of
“Our H.E.Roe bags a Hun!” or “Phil Filled their Boots with Lead”
But just about the worst had been:
“Don’t Take the Micky Out of us”
Which was the title of a sob, sob story in “The People” about Lt Mick E Taker and how he had managed to “Loose his sheep, like Little Bo peep” during a dogfight in the blood red skies above the Western Front. Lt Taker was not amused.
About the only nearly honest report had been in the “News of the World”. Remarkable, since very few of their reports were ever considered as anything other than gossip for their claimed 2.5 million daily readers. But in fact, this time, they did succeed in passing on, in small part, the general jist of Lt Taker’s press conference. It went something like this, starting with the first of the headlines quoted above:
“Our H.E.Roe bags a Hun!”
“Last Saturday, 5th February 1916, as most of our readers were eating their Kellogg’s Cornflakes or their Kellogg’s All-Bran, our brave flying boys on the Western Front were having a breakfast that was made of lead!
One of them, F/Sgt Henry Edward Roe, is a fresh young pilot from the village of Great Bentley, in Essex. Hardly out of school, our Henry did his bit for King and Country and volunteered for flying training with the Royal Flying Corps. Now he is a hero of a different kind, because he bagged his first Hun in a terrible dogfight on this great day! Yes, readers. With bullets rattling around him all the while, facing death with a steady hand, a sikillful eye and nerves of steel, our Henry shot down one of those awful machines we have all been reading about these last few months: The Fokker Monoplane! Revenge shall be mine Sayeth the Lord, and our Henry was His weapon.
Congratulations Flight Sergeant Henry Edward Roe – we want more of this from you!”
Uncle groaned in his office and lit his pipe again. He contemplated setting light to this copy of the News of the World, but refrained as the others had not seen it yet and they would want to.
Almost at the same time, a hail of toast and marmalade and tin cups, some still with tea in them, flew across the other ranks’ mess, aimed at Roe’s head.
“Don’t blame me lads” pleaded Henry Roe as he tried to duck out of the way. I didn’t give them all that drivel – bloody newspapers!”
“Yea, yea”, came the chorus of replies “So what did happen up there on Saturday, Roe? Nobody has told us ground crew anything about it. Tell us what did happen and maybe, just maybe, we’ll forgive you!” and everyone else burst out laughing or cheering.
“OK ok,” shouted Roe. If you pipe down I’ll tell you how it was, but no more toast and marmalade OK?
With that he settled down to tell his tale and the mess went very quiet except for his voice.
Saturday 5th February 1916
“It was like this. Four of us were out on an Offensive Patrol. Should have been five of us but there weren’t enough servicable aircraft.. We flew from ‘ere, east towards the trenches, with orders to hunt down enemy reconnaissance two seaters, but no sooner ‘ad we reached our starting point, than a bunch of those Fokker scouts turned up. Four on four it was, so a fair scrap was in the offing. Two of theirs flew in from the north and were almost on top of us before anybody noticed them, on account of some low cloud banks that just hung there, off to our left. The other two we’d seen already, coming directly towards us from behind their own lines. We knew they weren’t likely to cross over our way, so we were heading towards them, hoping for a fight.
“I ‘ad Lt Taker on my right. He was leading the flight. And one of the Fokkers suddenly turned in our direction and opened up. Of course, me and the boss returned fire, but almost immediately, my bloody gun jammed. Reckon I hit the so and so before that though. The hun wasn’t firing at me, fortunately, but I think he and the boss took hunks out of one another.
“Then I noticed one of the other DH2s heading in our direction, so given my gun was all jammed up and I needed to do something about that, I took meself off to one side like. The hun was sandwiched between us and was taking quite a bashing.
“I think the other three Fokkers were playing crafty meantime. They sort of ganged up and split us apart, seperating us from Phil Boots. I knew it was him ‘cos he was flying the only clear doped DH2 we got. So Dubh Beard must ‘ave been the other one I just mentioned.
“Bootsy did well though. Told me after that ‘is first rounds caught one of the little toe rags and set it alight
“Next thing you know, Beard damn near took out the boss. Came so close to colliding with ‘im I thought they were both done for. They were both taking hits from the Fokkers too. But somehow they managed to avoid one another.
“Meantime I could see the Fokkers working their way behind us, pretty smartly if you ask me. They knew what they was about ok! Even the one that was on fire was trying to get behind us.
“And when they got there it was Beard that got the worst of it. One of them caught ‘im at close range and I could see smoke coming from ‘is engine.
“Of course, I was trying to unjam me guns all through this, but I have to admit, I couldn’t help but keep an eye on everything at the same time. Must ‘ave taken me longer to do the job than it should ‘ave done, but I’ll learn I guess. Meantime, I just couldn’t ‘elp meself.
“Happily, the hun that got onto Beard’s tail, had the same trouble as me, otherwise Beardy would ‘ave been in even more trouble.
“Then, blow me down if things didn’t take a turn for the better. At least, as far as we was concerned!
“Two of their scouts decided to lend us a hand and they actually crashed into each other, just as Beardy ‘ad managed to pull ‘is bus around and let ‘em have it at long range. Down went one of the Fokkers, burning quite a bit too, straight into one of their trenches. That must ‘ave upset them a bit.”
At which point a healthy cheer went up in the mess. They were enjoying this tale now. One of their own had bagged a hun.
“By this time,” continued Roe, “ I’d cleared the jam in me gun. So seeing as I was meant to be the Boss’s wing man, I looked around for ‘im. He was way off by then, chasing the Fokker that ‘ad originally caught fire – and it was still ablaze, swerving this way and that but generally heading south now.
“But the Lieutenant never even came close. Which is just as well, ‘cos as I was looking in that direction, trying to find the Boss like, when up went the Fokker! And I don’t mean he gained altitude neither. The little so and so’s engine just blew up in mid air as a result of the flames, no doubt about it!
“And down he went too. I think Lt Boots claimed that one later on, but I aint sure.
“That left four of us to two of them. Or it would ‘ave done, if the Boss ‘adn’t disappeared off to the south. Seems he just lost sight of the rest of us, as is easily done, don’t I know it. Told me after, one minute he was fighting in amongst us all, the next minute there was a bang from the doomed hun, followed by nothing. Nobody in sight. Reckons ‘e got a bit disoriented then, so headed off in the direction of the barn.
“Anyway, it made no odds, ‘cos from then on the hun ‘ad no chance. Beardy reckons he got another one, what kept going though, so he can’t claim that one.
“Then Boots jumped another one and is certain he saw the pilot nearly leap out of the cockpit, so ‘e must ‘ave hit him fair and square.
“Which is when yours truly finally managed to get meself into a position to help out a bit. And lucky for me the hun didn’t shoot back neither.
“It seemed to me, right then, that Boots was going after a different Fokker to mine; the Boss was nowhere to be seen and Beardy looked like ‘e was about to ‘ead off ‘ome. Which left me circling around the chap I’d just shot up.
“Which we did until around we came in a kind of ‘ead to’ead chicken run. I ‘ave to admit, I was both scared and really excited. There was bullets everywhere and how none of them hit me, or anything vital on me bus, is a mystery to me. But then he was gone. The hun I was fighting simply disappeared from sight and it wasn’t till I looked down, that I saw him heading to the fields below. ‘ad to wish ‘im luck there and then. I know he’s the enemy, but just the same, I couldn’t ‘elp it. I hope ‘e made it ok.
“And to all intents and purposes, that, boys, was that. There was one more hun left, but he made off pretty sharpish after my lad went down. Can’t say as I blame ‘im, neither. Three to one, given Beard was heading back towards us after all. I think I’d ‘ave done the same. No point in ‘anging around to get ones ‘ead blown off.”
To which there was a general buzz of agreement around the room.
Yea, they were quiet now. No more toast and marmalade. The tale had been a good one from their point of view and Roe was forgiven. The press could go hang themselves
The end
Butcher’s Bill
Entente
Top left 2nd Lt Phil Ulyses Robert Boots. Top right 2nd Lt Dubh Beard
Bottom left F/Sgt Henry Edward Roe (Rookie). Bottom right Lt Mick Evan Taker (Flight Leader)
2nd Lt Phil Ulyses Robert Boots / RTB / 1 Kill
Result All Good
2nd Lt Dubh Beard / RTB / 1 Kill
Result All Good
F/Sgt Henry Edward Roe / RTB / 1 Kill
Result All Good
Lt Mick Evan Taker / RTB / 0 Kills
Result All Good
Central Powers
Top left Ltn Kurt Jentsch. Top right Ltn Christian Koch
Bottom left Ltn Theodor Ehmann. Bottom right Ltn Friedrich Collin
Ltn Kurt Jentsch: EXP(flm) - FT / 0 Kills
Throw 2D6 = 10 -3EXP = 7 Injured – skip 1D2. Throw D6 = 6 - skip 2 scenarios.
Result: Skip 2 scenarios
Ltn Christian Koch / FLM FT / 0 Kills
Throw 2D6 = 11 – 2 FLM = 9 All good
Result: All well when you land well
Ltn Theodor Ehmann / SD FT / WIA / 0 Kills
Throw 2D6 = 6 – 1SD -1 WIA = 4 Injured – skip 1D6 scenarios. Throw 1D6 = 3 – skip 3 scenarios.
Result: Skip 3 scenarios
Ltn Friedrich Collin / RTB / WIA / 0 Kills
Throw 2D6 = 8 +1 RTB -1 WIA = 8 Injured – skip 1D2. Throw D6 = 6 – skip 2 scenarios.
Result: Skip 2 scenarios
Not sure what happened to Ltn Taker. He tried to follow a Fokker that then blew up, after which I guess he just lost sight of everyone and took no further part in the action. A fairly realistic possibility from what I have read!
Looks bad for the Central Powers, but in fact only one Fokker got badly beaten up by the DH2s. The rest either blew up because of a fire; or were pretty much knocked out by a collision, which was bad when added to the effects of one shot from a DH2, which turned out to be a flamer; or retired gracefully.
Given the number of aircraft involved, this was all over and done with very quickly indeed – which was quite pleasant for a change, given I had to prepare for Exeter legionary the following day
Result – I think I can call that my first ever decisive victory for the Bulldogs
Many thanks Peter. A very enjoyable bundle
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