Flames over France Read Online Free Page B

the folder and smiled thinly. “Straightforward, all right,” he grunted. “All I have to do is to fly to Berry-au-Bac, top up with fuel, fly at medium level over what is probably the biggest concentration of anti-aircraft guns this side of Berlin, dodge Messerschmitts, and deliver the film to Air HQ. Simple, really.”
    He handed the folder back to Max. “Well, I suppose I’d better grab a bite of breakfast and get cracking. Oh, there is just one thing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Suppose — just suppose — that the Germans have launched their offensive in France already. Suppose they are halfway to Reims. What then?”
    “Come home,” Max told him quietly. “By then, it will be much too late.”
    *
    BATTLE SITUATION: THE ARDENNES, 10 MAY 1940
    For the Allied air forces, the enormous mass of men and material that wound its way through the Ardennes on the morning of 10 May represented the target of a lifetime.
    But the hours of the morning dragged on, and still no order came to unleash the Allied bombers. In the joint headquarters at Chauny, Air Marshal Arthur Barratt, commanding the British Air Forces in France, and General d’Astier de la Vigerie, commanding the French Northern Zone of Air Operations, paced up and down in frustration as they awaited the necessary signal from the French GHQ. Their anger mounted when, at 0800, they received a signal restricting Allied air operations to fighter and reconnaissance activity. At that very moment the enemy columns, jammed tightly along the narrow roads through the Ardennes, were highly vulnerable to air attack; and yet, because of the French terror of Luftwaffe reprisals and the totally irrational hope of General Maurice Gamelin, the French Commander-in-Chief, that a bombing war might somehow be avoided, the opportunity to hit the invaders hard was being thrown away.
    It was not until 1100 that GHQ finally relented — and even then its orders only added to the frustration of the Allied air commanders. They were authorised to attack enemy columns as first priority and Luftwaffe airfields as second priority, but built-up areas were to be avoided at all costs. This immediately robbed the first-priority task of much of its effectiveness, since the biggest and most inviting concentrations of enemy armour were to be found in the innumerable hamlets scattered throughout the Ardennes. In addition, the Allied bombers were strictly forbidden to attack enemy industrial areas or centres of communication — an order that directly contravened the operational plans so carefully formulated by the British and French Air Staffs over the previous months. In the end the French day-bomber force, utterly confused by the ambiguity of it all, simply stayed on the ground while General d’Astier begged GHQ for further orders that might clarify the position.
    By this time, Air Marshal Barratt’s impatience at the apparent lethargy of the French commanders had reached breaking point. Taking the initiative, he telephoned General Georges, Commander-in-Chief of the forces on the North-Eastern Front, and informed him that he intended to send the light bombers of the RAF’s Advanced Air Striking Force, the AASF, into action without delay. Georges murmured, “Thank God!” His men were hard pressed and the Panzers were breaking through everywhere. And yet it was Georges himself who had insisted that the Allied air forces should not attack built-up areas.
    Most of the AASF’s squadrons, based on a number of airfields in Champagne, between Paris and the Meuse, had been at readiness since 0600, with half their available aircraft ready for take-off at thirty minutes’ notice and half at two hours’ notice. In the few hours since then, however, the German advance had been so rapid that Intelligence had not been able to keep pace with the enemy’s movements, and it was not until noon that firm target information was available. A few minutes later, thirty-two Fairey Battle light bombers — one