Free Mosquito Squadron by Robert Jackson

with the Air-Sea Rescue Service, Olafsson had applied for aircrew training and had been readily accepted. Like Lorrimer, he had completed a tour on Coastal Command Beauforts. Olafsson’s nickname was ‘Moby Dick’, and Yeoman had a shrewd suspicion that it referred to something other than his association with whales.
    Next to Olafsson sat the Icelander’s close friend, Paddy Keen, a diminutive and wiry man of twenty-two who came from Rostrevor, in the north of Ireland. His shock of blond hair led Yeoman to believe that he might be descended from the Vikings who had settled in Northern Ireland nine hundred years ago; perhaps that accounted for the unlikely friendship between the two, for they seemed to have little else in common.
    Last of all there was Sergeant Telfer, a man in his late twenties who had a wife and a couple of children somewhere up in County Durham. A quiet, pleasant individual, Telfer spent many hours alone in his billet, carving model aircraft out of perspex for his kids, but he was not reticent in the same way as O’Grady; his balding head gave him a fatherly appearance and Yeoman knew that the other NCOS often sought him out for advice, knowing him affectionately as ‘Old Tef’. A superb, rock-steady pilot, Telfer would never take unnecessary risks.
    Yes, thought Yeoman, they were a good crew, just about the best a commander could wish for.
    The engineer officer, the last of the specialists to speak, was concluding his part of the briefing with details of fuel loads and other technicalities, and when he had finished Yeoman rose to his feet and was joined on the platform by Group Captain Davison. The navigators had arrived outside and someone opened the door to admit them. When they were seated, Davison addressed the complete assembly.
    ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he began crisply, ‘you have the details. It is now my job to put you in the overall picture. This morning, you will be operating in direct support of the United States Eighth Army Air Force.’
    The crews exchanged glances, and a brief ripple of muted comment ran round the room. Davison picked up the billiard cue’ pointer and turned to the wall map.
    ‘At 0600,’ he went on, ‘about a hundred and fifty Flying Fortresses will take off from their bases here in England to attack the Messerschmitt aircraft factory here, at Regensburg.’ The tip of the pointer indicated a spot deep in Bavaria, five hundred miles inside enemy territory. There were low whistles from the audience. Five hundred miles into Germany. In daylight, with flak and fighters all the way. Not a recipe for survival.
    The pointer’s tip moved back across the map to the Frisian Islands, then inland again.
    ‘The Fortresses will cross the Dutch coast here, and will have fighter escort to a point north of Meppel. After that, they will be on their own. As you can see, their route takes them across the centre of a line joining the three fighter airfields you have been detailed to attack.’
    The group captain paused, then turned from the map to face the crews. ‘This is where the enemy fighters are expected to start hitting them hard,’ he said. ‘If they can break through this heavily defended sector reasonably intact, then they will have a fighting chance of getting through to the target. After attacking Regensburg, they will fly on to bases in North Africa.
    ‘The Regensburg force will be followed by a second wave of over two hundred more Fortresses, whose target will be the ball-bearing factories here, at Schweinfurt.’ The pointer tapped the map once again, then Davison went on: ‘This second wave will not be required to penetrate so deeply into enemy territory. However, there is a snag. None of the Fortresses in the Schweinfurt force have been fitted with the necessary long-range fuel tanks to enable them to reach North Africa, which means that they will have to fight their way back over northern Germany and the Low Countries again.’
    The group captain’s hard gaze