OTT DYM Mission 11 – Hoist With His Own Petard – 19th March 1916 by Mike
“What do you say to a trip up to Dunkirk Dubh? The four of us have a couple of days break and we don’t want to spend that time here, do we? We’ve got the transport lined up, so why don’t you join us for a trip to the seaside?”
“Whose we?” said Dubh Beard.
“Myself,” said Bo Fletcher in his Australian drawl, “Harold Isore and the new boy, John Palin. Come on Dubh, it’ll be a gas and you need to let your hair down as much as we do!”
Which is how, much against his better judgement, Acting Lieutenant Dubh Beard found himself in Dunkirk with some of his fellow pilots, expecting to have a raucous time in the local hostelries. Only fate had other ideas.
The four of them had only just booked into an hotel and were heading for the nearest bar when who should they bump into but a fellow from 5 Wing “A” Flight, RNAS, a friend of Dubh, who was in a bit of a flap and who took one look at them, realized who they were and announced in a high pitched voice “Just the men I need!” Uh oh!
“Hello, Ronald, didn’t expect to see you here!” announced Dubh. “Let me introduce you to a bunch of reprobates and then drag you off for a pint or two!”.
“No time for pleasantries, Dubh. I have no idea what you are doing here, but you’re heaven sent old boy! There’s a hell of a flap on and I’ve been sent scampering around this God forsaken place, looking for my lot as a matter of dire emergency. Only I can’t find any of them anywhere, so you’ll have to do. No arguing chaps, this is a matter of national importance to the war effort and you cannot refuse! Follow me.”
And with that he scampered off towards a vehicle that was standing in a field nearby.
“What the hell is that Ronald? And where the hell are you taking us and why?” The other members of the group were, of course, all jabbering away at the same time asking more or less the same questions.
“This, dear boy, is a pigeon carrier. But I’m commandeering it. Squeeze in, now. Corporal, take us to the airfield at Coudekerque just south of here and step on it. That’s an order!”.
“’Ere, wait on, sir. I don’t take orders from the navy, sir!”
“You take this one corporal, if you want to keep your stripes. No arguing now, this is an emergency, so get a bloody move on.”
So, off they went, bumping and bouncing along the rough track to the airfield, surrounded by the smell of pigeon droppings!
“OK, Dubh, this is what its all about” and with that, Ronald of the RNAS explained what the flap was all about.
It appeared that some damn fool scientist and his assistant needed rescuing after an experiment they were conducting, with a secret new mine, went horribly wrong.
The trawler they were on blew up and sank all hands, bar these two mad men. But not before some brave soul had managed to get off a distress call. The boffins must be rescued!
“The problem is, old boy, most of our pilots are employed elsewhere at the moment. We’re very short handed and my flight were the only ones left to deal with this emergency. Or they were supposed to be. I couldn’t find any of them, as I said, so you’ll have to take their place. My CO will clear it with your CO, so no worries there. This really is important. We’re pretty certain the hun have got wind of it too, so time is of the essence!”
“Hang on, Ronald. Where the hell are these boffins and what makes you think they’re still alive?”
“Don’t know, and we don’t know that either, are your answers. But the brass are screaming that we need to make certain one way or another and that by yesterday. The distress signal came from up north, not far from the islands of Rottumerplaat and Rottumeroog off the Dutch coast, but that’s also near the German border, so the race is on, so to speak”.
And with that and a final jolt, as they passed over a large pothole in the track, they came to a halt on the airfield.
“Oh and one last thing chaps. We only have a limited number of aircraft available, so I hope you can take off and land at least two of them from our base by the sea! There’s also a rather outdated scout, left with us by one of your lot!” That didn’t sound very encouraging either.
There was little further discussion about the matter, other than some pretty precise orders given to them by the officer in command. They would be flying two two-seaters, one of which was an Admiralty Type 184, the other an RAF BE2c. Neither would have an observer, given the need to locate and rescue the aforementioned scientists, if possible. Which also meant, naturally, that they were unarmed. Not something that either of their pilots, Lt Harold Isore and 2nd Lt John Palin, respectively, relished in the least. But they would be escorted. The Type 184 by Acting Lt Dubh Beard in a Sopwith Baby, the second float plane; the BE2c by 2nd Lt Bo Fletcher in a Martinsyde S1 scout!
“A what?” said Bo, horrified. “That’s out of the Ark! Haven’t you got something a bit better than that?”
“Certainly not”, said its rather offended AM1. “Nowt wrong with the S1 at all. A fine piece of machinery even if I says so meself.” he added, quite affronted. “Any’ows, we aint got nothink else! That’s yer lot, sir! And keep in mind that yer aint got much fuel fer yer trip all the ways up to them islands neither, so don’t ‘ang around, sir, else yer won’t be getting back ‘ere in a hurry, sir!”
The same warning was given to Dubh Beard concerning fuel limitations on the Sopwith Baby.
So, despite all the mumbling and grumbling about “Bloody friends in the RNAS” and the violation of their time off, especially from Bo, off they went into the blue yonder, on what amounted to a search and rescue mission.
They reached the area around Dollard Bay, at the mouth of the Eems river, some time later, but it was a while before John Palin, in the BE2c, waggled his wings excitedly and pointed to a small uninhabited island just to their north east. He had spotted two lonely figures on the island and they could only be the marooned boffins.
Almost at the same time, however, Harold Isore waggled his wings too. But he was pointing off to the north. There, coming in from the seaward side of the island, on a more or less parallel course, were four other machines. They could only be the enemy!
Beard and Fletcher immediately peeled off to attack them; this coinciding with the Hun doing exactly the same in a mirror image attack. Leaving the two British two-seaters and the two German two-seaters to head towards opposite ends of the small island, intent on reaching it first.
The island was small. But just long enough and wide enough to land an aircraft. Palin and two German pilots, prayed that the surface was not so rough that it would rip off their undercarriages.
No such problem for Lt Harold Isore, of course. But, never having done this before, he was a little concerned about having to land the large Type 184 on the choppy waters around the island. There was surf showing on the west coast, towards which the wind was blowing, but only gently today. So he headed for what looked like calmer waters in the lee of the southern coastline. Not much shelter there but it looked better.
Palin, in the BE2c, headed for the southern end of the island too, but of course, he needed to land on it, not beside it. And the race was on, because even as the single seat aircraft from either side engaged in combat, so one of the German two-seaters, an LVG by the look of it, started to make its landing from the northern end of the island.
This was going to be tricky. The LVG had beaten the BE2c to it, but if he landed successfully, the pilot would be in a position to capture or kill the scientists. Nothing for it. Palin had to try and land too.
He could already see the Type 184 edging its way near to the coastline below him, having successfully touched down on the salt water. Isore would pick up one of the scientists, for sure. But there would be no assistance for the other one from that quarter. It was down to him!
The battle between the single seat aircraft was desultory, although one of the Fokker EIIIs caught fire quite early on, hit by a burst of machine gun bullets from Fletcher’s Martinsyde, that nipped a fuel line. The scouts passed one another and whilst the two Fokkers turned seawards in long slow arcs, the Sopwith Baby and the Martinsyde turned inland, towards the island intending to attack the opposition two-seaters.
It was at this point that the LVG commenced its landing. Coming in from the north end of the island, the pilot narrowly missed crashing into the bay, before coming to a halt just as the BE2c flew towards it from the south. Fwbl Franz Theiller, the LVG pilot, expected machine gun fire at any
second, but instead,
just as the LVG reached the end of its landing run, Palin skipped his BE2c over its head and touched down successfully himself, heading in the opposite direction.
He was horrified to see another aircraft also looking to land, but the pilot of the German aircraft, an Aviatik, pulled up sharply to avoid a collision.
Which was lucky for Palin who went on to land safely. But not so lucky for the Aviatik, that flew right under the sights of the Sopwith Baby. Dubh Beard fired and there was a loud bang and lots of smoke, before the unfortunate Aviatik spiralled into the island, bounced of the shallow coast line and plunged into the surf covered sand.
Beard hardly had time to register his success as bullets tore all around him from behind. One of the Fokker EIIIs had managed to get onto his tail and now the engine of the Sopwith Baby was trailing dirty black smoke.
Meanwhile, Harold Isore had successfully turned the Short 184 about, allowing the scientist to leap aboard, ready to make his escape. The poor assistant was left to fend for himself and ran to hide in the bushes.
At this point, the scout pilots all realized that their fighting day was done. All four, British and German alike, were now short of fuel and needed to head for home. That or end up either in Holland, where they would be interned for the duration of the war; or in the sea, which would be almost certain death, unless they were lucky. So that’s what all four of them did. They ignored one another and headed either north for Germany or South for Belgium.
Except, that is, for one of the Fokkers. 2nd Lt Bo Fletcher had his second kill, because the fire on board the Fokker claimed his victim for him. The little green machine took a nose dive into the sea and with a great spray of white sea foam, headed for the deeps.
Which left an interesting situation on the island. As Harold Isore turned the Type 184 about, collected the scientist and headed back out to sea to take the large floatplane back into the air, so the scientist’s assistant made a dash towards the BE2c.
He had no intention of surrendering to the pilot of the LVG. The latter, of course, had little alternative. If he wanted to capture one of these boffins, he had to take to the land, armed with his pistol. He would either pursuade the Englishman to return to Germany with him, there to share what secrets he knew, or he would put a bullet in his head. It seemed the latter alternative would be inevitable as the boffin ran away towards the other aircraft that had landed just ahead.
Several shots rang out and the assistant stumbled. He had been wounded! But fear and adrenalin spurred him on and he dived under the tail of the BE2c, for protection, just as 2nd Lt John Palin leapt from his own cockpit, with pistol in hand.
Like two gun slingers from the western United States, the two pilots, Palin and Theiller, walked slowly towards one another, emptying their chambers as they went. Not a single bullet hit Palin, but the German dropped, first to his knees, then onto his stomach. The fight was over.
The assistant crawled from under the BE2c and rushed to Palin, nursing his left arm and full of gratitude. But Palin growled at him to keep quiet and keep behind him. Together they walked carefully towards the remains of the Aviatik. Palin wanted to check if the pilot still lived or not. He did not.
And that was that! As the surviving aircraft flew away, Palin found some dressings to patch up the wounded German pilot and the three of them sat there and waited for the Royal Navy to arrive – they knew they were coming because they could see them approaching already. A welcome sight for Palin. Hopefully there would be a spare pilot on board the naval vessel. If so, they wouldn’t need to burn the LVG. It too would be taken into captivity along with its pilot. And Palin would be able to make the long lonely return journey to Dunkirk, knowing he had done a damned good job.
The end
Butcher’s Bill
Entente
Acting Lt Dubh Beard - (pilot Sopwith Baby) RTB / 1 kill
Result - All Good
2nd Lt Bo Fletcher - (pilot Martinsyde S1) RTB / 1 kill
Result - All Good
2nd Lt John Palin - (pilot BE2c) RTB / Rescued the scientists assistant. Captured an LVG intact (hopefully)and its pilot.
Result - All Good
Lt Harold Isore - (pilot Short Type 184) RTB / Rescued the scientist.
Result - All Good
Central Powers
Ltn Christian Koch - (pilot Green Fokker EIII) FLM SEA / 0 kills
Roll 2D6 = 4 – 2 FLM – 1 SEA = 1
Result KIA
ObLtn Josef Jacob - (pilot CDL Fokker EIII) RTB / 0 kills
Result - All Good
Fwbl Friedrich Schleiff - (pilot Aviatik C1) EXP ET / 0 kills
Roll 2D6 = 5 – 3 EXP = 2
Result KIA
Fwbl Franz Theiller - (pilot LVG CII) Shot and wounded in gun fight.
Roll 2D6 = 9 – 1 WIA = 8 Injured. Skip 1D2 scenarios = 1 Skip 1 scenario.
E & E
Roll 2D6 = 3 - 1 WIA = 2 Captured! The war is over for this pilot.
Result - Captured
The gun fight on the ground
2nd Lt John Palin – received no hits in 4 shots.
The assistant scientist – received 3 hits whilst running away.
Fwbl Franz Theiler – received 7 hits and a pilot wound from 5 shots (one of those from an aircraft as it was passing).
Notes: Some interesting problems with this mission. Given the need for two two-seaters a side, the small landing strip was potentially going to get very crowded unless the mission took a very long time. And scouts did not have that time. So, rather than use lots of replacement scouts, I decided to limit both sides to two and to use a float plane for the British side. I wanted to use one for the Central Powers as well but I don’t have one. One is on order but isn’t arriving until too late in the month. So sorry, the enemy didn’t get to have a floatplane.
Another interesting problem was how the German pilots were going to persuade British boffins to meekly climb into captivity if the Germans landed first. Nothing for it but to be armed and to leave the aircraft and leg it. This resulted in the gun fight on the ground. I applied the following conditions. Each man involved was given 5 hit points. The range of the pistols was set at 10 cm. Shots were counted as B damage. Special damage didn’t count except for “pilot wound” (which was drawn) and “explosion”, which I would have counted as a kill (it wasn’t drawn). The total number of hits did not count as wounds or a kill but once the five point limit was passed the fight ended. I then attempted to apply the usual dice rolls in the Butcher’s Bill summary. I hope all this was acceptable.
Finally, I was delighted to find one of my Bulldogs in a position to claim the capture of an intact LVG, but of course, how to get it back to Belgium? I’ll leave it to Uncle to permit or deny that claim, based on my proposed solution of the presence of an RNAS pilot on board the Royal Naval vessel that appears at the end of the AAR.
Another really enjoyable Mission, so many thanks to Rob for that one
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