Under An Irish Sky. A John Morgan Novel

Prologue

It was early morning on the 2nd of November 1943 and each one of the five-man crew of the Luftwaffe Heinkel He111 medium bomber sat silently as their plane limped slowly towards the Irish coastline. Each man was staring intently out either the glass front cockpit window, or the bubble perspex of his machine gun post. Their nerves on edge, they wondered after everything that they had been through over the past few years if they would survive this final flight to freedom?

Only an hour earlier, the port engine had been hit by cannon fire from an attacking English fighter plane. While it was still running, the engine lost a lot of oil and started to overheat badly. Thick black smoke had begun to billow out from its underside, leaving a dark trail for any following fighters to track. The pilot, Oberleutenant Hans Kruger had initially feathered it back to try and preserve it but eventually he had been forced to switch it off completely. The propeller blade now stuck uselessly upwards, robbing the men of its vital lifting power. This meant that they were now flying on only one engine, which made the already slow lumbering bomber even slower and more vulnerable to attack and very difficult to fly. If anymore Hurricane fighter planes found them again, they were dead in the sky and they all knew it.

Along with the badly needed engine and some of the rudder control, a bullet had also taken out the intercom system. And with the ear splitting noise of the sole remaining engine and the deafening howl of the wind outside, it made communication between the men nearly impossible. It meant that Feldwebel Rutger Habich who was the navigator, had to pass course adjustments to the pilots on scribbled pieces of paper even though he was sitting right behind them. The pilots in-turn would then shout incomprehensible instructions to one another before altering their course.

The immense dark cloudbank, which had saved them earlier by hiding them from the chasing fighter, was now their biggest problem. The clouds were thick and dense and pregnant with rain. They darkened the cockpit so the crew could not get any visual confirmation of either their direction or position. Habich was making complicated calculations on their position based on time and speed but if he had his calculations wrong, even by a fraction, instead of flying towards neutral Ireland and safety they could be flying out deeper into the Atlantic Ocean and to their deaths. Things were getting very tense. They needed to find out where they were while there was still a chance to correct their position. But the cloud refused to dissipate and after nearly another hour flying in it, they thought they would never get through it. In an effort to escape it, Kruger and his co-pilot Feldwebel Ludwig Beumer had struggled to climb to the top of the plane’s operating height of twenty thousand five hundred feet, occasionally breaking through only to find another layer of thick cloud above. Eventually, they reached the edge of the huge cloudbank and were rewarded with bright daylight.

And a clear blue sky ahead.

Thank God, Muller said, breathing a huge sigh of relief, echoing the thoughts of the other men.

At twenty years of age, Obergefreiter Karl Muller was the youngest member of the crew and even though he was a veteran of six months, a long time in the imploding Luftwaffe, he was still half panicked as he stared out of the damaged perspex bubble on the top of the plane. The fear he was experiencing was close to paralysing and he gripped the handles of the twin 7.92mm machine guns so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. His eyes darted nervously left to right, downward and then up as he watched intently for the slightest sign of the return of the enemy plane that had strafed them earlier. His fear was so great that he did not realise that his face was bleeding from an injury received not from the bullets that had sprayed the side of the plane and which had miraculously missed him but from the pieces of thin plexiglas sent flying through the air by the bullets. The holed plexiglas, which the wind was now whistling sharply through, was all that was separating him from certain death. It flexed with each movement of the aircraft and he feared that at any second, it would rip completely off, taking him along with it.

Even though Muller was cold, freezing in fact, he was sweating profusely with both fear and dread as he kept watch. At this altitude it was minus forty degrees and the specially designed leather flight suit and the fur-lined jacket were barely keeping him functioning. The electrical power connection to his heated gloves had failed long before the fighter had struck, leaving his fingers stiff and numb. The freezing cold and the noise were adding to his mounting terror of dying in either a fireball or crashing helplessly into the freezing water below.

With the intercom not working, Muller removed his rubber and leather facemask and tried to call down to Wilhelm Jackel to see if his friend, who was manning the underbelly machine gun close to him, was holding up okay. From his vantage point in the upper gun position, all he could see were Jackel’s legs sticking out of his position as most of the planes skeletal fuselage hid his friend’s upper body. It seemed to Muller that Jackel was like a half buried corpse waiting for the rest of the grave to be filled in.

Wilhelm, Wilhelm, are you okay? he shouted at the top of his voice.

No reply.

Damn, he thought. He wished that they could talk, as Wilhelm being a few years older then him, always knew what to say to steady his nerves and calm him down in situations like this. He needed to be told that everything would be all right. Even if that was a lie, he needed to be told that they were going to make it.

Although he knew he should have been keeping his eyes on the surrounding sky for enemy fighters, he could not prevent himself from looking nervously at the crate tied down at the rear of the plane. It was about two feet square. It had a Swastika and a series of strange numbers, which none of them could figure out what they meant, stencilled in black on its side. Its top had been nailed back down after being crudely prised off by Kruger a few days earlier. It was their treasure as he had started calling it the previous night. But was it worth dying for? Was it worth leaving their comrades behind for? Abandoning their families and country? They had argued amongst themselves for hours over what to do with the crate. Hand it in or say nothing? Finally at midnight, the night before the decision had been made. They would fly to a neutral country and live out the rest of the War safe and sound in an internment camp. And afterwards their treasure meant that they would become rich men. As the youngest of the crew, Muller did not have much choice in the matter. He was just told what to do and he had to go along with it. He didn’t care about what was in the box; just the thought of surviving the War was enough for him.

Their plan had been simple. They would fly with the rest of their bombing formation towards England the next night as part of Operation Steinbock. It was Goering’s last attempt to blitz London once more and show the world that the Luftwaffe was not the spent force that everyone thought it was. After an hour or so flying, they would radio the flight leader to say that they were having engine problems and slowly begin to fall back from the formation until they were on their own. When out of sight and still over the English Channel, they would drop their payload of over four thousand kilos of high explosive bombs harmlessly into the sea. This reduction in weight would have the combined effect of raising the plane’s speed to about two hundred and fifty miles per hour and increase the flying distance enough to reach the Irish coastline while still leaving them a bit of fuel to spare. It would be tight, but if all went well and with a bit of luck, they would make it.

As they sat there at the dawn briefing, they looked around the briefing room; the lingering worry was that they could do nothing about the new English radar system that so efficiently combed the sky. Muller had felt guilty knowing that their comrades, flying all the way to London would act as a decoy and would hopefully draw all the available fighters away from the southern English coastline and allow them to make an easy passage. Were the other English Hurricanes out there now? Were the radar operators of British Fighter Command following a little blip on a screen leading the fighter straight to them, with no place to hide?

Things had initially gone as planned. After the first hour of flying time they had quietly slowed their flight speed by twenty knots an hour, then thirty and watched the rest of their squadron disappear into the distance. As soon as theirs was the only plane visible in the sky, Kruger and Beumer veered the bomber sharply westward along the southern English coastline. However, contrary to the positive weather forecast that they had been given at the briefing earlier that morning, the clouds over the Channel had been thick and visibility was very poor.

The British Hawker Hurricane fighter plane had seemed to come out of nowhere. It was Jackel in the underbelly of the Heinkel who had spotted it first. Through the intercom, he shouted a coarse warning to the captain then he fired furiously at the fighter airplane, its own tracer bullets flashing brightly through the air as it flew at them from below, firing its guns as it came at them. Its four guns sprayed twenty millimetre bullets along the entire length of the craft as it flew past them. Muller in the top machine gun post had taken over the bomber’s defence from Jackel as the small plane shot over them. He swung the upper gun in an arc as the English fighter made a slow wide turn trying to come back around for another strafing run. Habich, the navigator and bomber lying prone in the nose section fired a burst from his own twenty millimetre cannon, screaming maniacally as he did so. As the small attacking plane disappeared in the clouds, Kruger had corkscrewed the Heinkel bomber violently to starboard and dived, hoping to lose the smaller more nimble plane in the dense clouds. The engines roared as he coaxed every ounce of power he could from them. He weaved the plane this way then that, the plane’s gyro horizon on the instrument panel spinning wildly. He completely changed their earlier direction before diving nearly five thousand feet. Then they all held their breath and waited but another burst of cannon fire did not rain down on them and tear them to pieces.

There was nothing; just clouds.

The next ten minutes were incredibly tense, with each man expecting the more manoeuvrable Hurricane to re-appear and finish the job. But to everybody’s relief, Kruger’s evasive flying must have lost the faster plane. Or maybe the fighter was coming back from a mission and was already low on fuel and it only had one attack run left in it? Either way, they would never know or care. Enough damage had been done already. Maybe too much.

Their port engine, the rudder stabiliser and the intercom system had all either been damaged or completely destroyed in the attack. The plane was dying and if they didn’t land soon, they were in deep trouble. And they all knew it. Muller was no navigator but by his rough calculations Ireland was still a long way off. Along with the intercom system, the co-pilot Beumer had been shot in the strafing run as well, a stray bullet had caught him in the right leg tearing a large hole in it. Luckily for Beumer, it had gone straight through his thigh but there was a lot of blood covering his legs and pooling on the floor beneath him. Though he was still conscious and helping Kruger, Beumer was getting weaker by the minute. How much longer he could help fly the plane was doubtful. Up in the cockpit, Kruger was shouting to him.

Where do you think he came out of?

He must be from Bristol. It is not too far from here, came the strained reply.

Kruger just grunted and nodded. What did it matter anyway where he came from? If he found them again, they were dead in the air.

After nearly another hour of anxious flying, they figured that they were only about fifteen miles from the Irish coastline. They could now see it in the distance, the welcoming green and brown in contrast to the greyish-green of the sea below. It was about then when the wind really picked up. There was a strong seventy-mile an hour cross wind gusting from the north, making the disabled plane virtually impossible to fly. With only one engine and no power to try and rise above the wind currents, the captain and his injured co-pilot made the brave decision to try and drop below the air current. With gritted teeth they took the plane down to only fifteen hundred feet. This would be a suicidal height if they were flying over land, a mountain suddenly appearing out of the fog could be catastrophic but out over the sea and with a clear sky they would be safe enough. But if they had a problem and needed to climb, with only one working engine they would not be able to do so. Thankfully, at the lower height, the pounding eased to manageable levels.

As they approached what they hoped was the Irish coastline, the wind once again picked up and violently buffeted the plane. Kruger and Beumer cursed loudly and did their best to keep the plane level but they were fighting a losing battle. They were both drenched in sweat as their tired muscles fought the controls. Through the plane’s front bay window, Muller could make out the deep blue sea disappearing; only to be replaced by the tan colour of a beach and then the motley colours of the fields lay in a patchwork appearing out under them. The green hedges and trees clearly visible dividing them like the bocage in France. There was a large grey tower over on their starboard side, probably an old lighthouse with some ruined buildings near it. Comforted as he was by seeing land, Muller was scared as he knew that they were still pretty high and coming in much too fast.

From his vantage point, he could see large lettering cut into the ground, which in thirty foot high lettering painted white said EIRE 18. If there had been any doubts about the country they were approaching, they were instantly dispelled.

This was Ireland. Despite everything they had made it.

They were so low that he could see a number of men dressed as soldiers running around excitedly and pointing up into the air. The German flight crew waited for a barrage of gunfire but mercifully the Irish look-out post didn’t appear to have any anti-aircraft guns.

As the plane flew low over the Irish coastline, it cast a black shadow on the ground, like a giant bird coming down to land. Upfront, Kruger and Beumer bravely fought the ailing aircraft as they tried to find somewhere safe to land. Muscles strained as they pulled on the control sticks and worked the foot levers. A terrified Rutger Habich, the nose gunner, abandoned his position and joined Muller and Wilhelm Jackel as they stood together in the rear of the plane and tried to remain upright as the plane bucked and shuddered. Muller was frozen to his spot with fear; his knuckles were white as he clung tightly to the inner fuselage for support. He barely noticed as Jackel beside him began praying ever louder and that Habich had started to cry gently. Beumer lowered the landing gear, which creaked and groaned as it came down but gave a welcoming locking noise as it clicked into place. Muller’s heart lifted when he heard the noise. They were nearly down. Thank God, they were going to be all right.

With the high coastal winds gone and through the superhuman efforts of the captain and his co-pilot, the plane was now coming down steady and reasonably level.

There! shouted Kruger to Beumer, pointing to a large long brown field about two miles away to his left. Beumer nodded in agreement. It was much larger than the other fields in the area. It was a rectangular shape, quite long and recently tilled, with no trees in the middle. It seemed perfect for landing the big ailing bomber. Both pilots turned their controls towards the field, but the large labouring plane refused to co-operate fully. Instead it was heading straight towards a copse of about twenty trees directly ahead of them. The men shouted instructions and advice, screamed them to each other, but it was no good. Instructions gave way to curses. The last remaining engine roared as it gave everything that it had but it wasn’t going to be enough. They were flying at about five hundred feet and descending too fast. The plane was not turning nearly enough to clear the trees. They were not going to make it. In the back, the three young men held on for dear life. In the event of a crash, they would be unable to help or influence events, their fate rested entirely in the hands of the two men in the front.

At three hundred feet, a sudden gust of strong wind caught the plane on its exposed blue underbelly and flipped it completely over, leaving its nose pointing towards the ground. Everybody screamed as the plane dived upside down towards the ground.

There was nothing any of them could do now. They were all just passengers.

The elements and luck were in control of their fate. The crew sheltering in the back collapsed into a pile of flailing limbs in the fuselage and would have ended up in the cockpit except they crashed hard into Muller’s seat that was bolted down in the middle of the fuselage. The bottom of the plane seemed to drop away and they were falling and tumbling around on top of each other. With no power over their own bodies they were unable to control their own movements. Time stretched interminably and then finally the inevitable happened. They hit the ground.

The plane came in upside down and at about a thirty-degree angle. The nose ploughed deep into the ground, glass smashed and metal screeched as the entire front of the plane was ripped asunder by the crash. The plane slid along the ground, digging what was left of its nose deeper and deeper into the soft soil. The noise was deafening. The pilots strapped into their seats at the front, died instantly while the crew cowering in the back were thrown violently around like rag dolls. Muller was flung from one side of the plane to the other, upside down, towards the front and then backwards. He crashed into everything possible, which in turn landed on top of him. It was all happening so fast, he did not even have time to scream. He could hardly catch his breath. Surely it was only a matter of seconds before he died.

The plane finally came to a grinding stop on its starboard side some one hundred metres from where it first touched Irish soil. Its one remaining intact wing with its black German cross, painted proudly on the side pointed accusingly up to the stars, from where it had just fallen. The glass front of the plane along with the first ten feet of the fuselage were completely caved in, leaving a jumbled pile of metal, glass, blood and bone. Kruger and Beumer’s bodies were now fused with the wreckage. The fuselage behind the wing area had broken off at the bomb bay doors. Miraculously it was still in one piece and lay on the ground about twenty feet from the rest of the plane. Lying in it were the badly bruised and shaken forms of Muller and Jackel.

After a few long minutes of trying to fathom what had just happened and realising that he was still alive, Muller somehow managed to get to his knees and shook the dizziness from his head before vomiting. Eventually he dragged himself upright and looked around him. Debris lay everywhere and partly obscured by thick black smoke. Jackel lay beside him groaning. Habich’s legs were burned into the fuselage beside them but his torso lay in a pool of dark congealing blood on the tilled ground, well beyond the crash site. Muller looked away in revulsion at the sight of his comrade.

There was another explosion in the cockpit, rocking what was left of the plane and sending a large plume of thick black smoke up into the clear morning air. A flash fire sprang up, bright yellow and red. It was searing hot and raged along the inside of the fuselage. Muller watched in stunned amazement as it jumped the gap to what was left of the rear fuselage, seemingly determined to finish what the crash had failed to do.

Muller instinctively turned away from the flames and ducked down but Jackel had recovered enough to stand and hauled himself up at just the wrong moment and was briefly enveloped by the fuel fed fire. Screaming Jackel flung himself out of the burning wreck, his hands covering his burning face, his clothes on fire. He rolled around in agony on the ground. Muller, who remained largely unscathed by the fireball, dived on top of him, beating his hands against the fire consuming his friend as he tried to put out the flames. Muller managed to get Jackel’s burning flight jacket off and flung it away. With the flames out, Jackel just lay there in the dirt, his eyes open in his blackened face, staring back up at him. Muller battered, bruised and completely exhausted lay on the ground beside him. It was about then that he noticed the small wooden crate out of the corner of his eye. It had come loose from its restraints and been flung out of the plane during the crash. It lay broken open but still largely undamaged on the freshly turned Irish soil.

Even later on in his life, Muller never really understood why he did it, but men whom he had called his friends had died to get this box out of Nazi controlled Europe and he was not going to let it burn now. He was not going to let them die in vain. It felt like his last mission. Muller, ignoring the blood pouring from the myriad of cuts covering his face and torso and the pains stabbing at in his battered body, crawled over to the box.

He finished breaking open the side of the damaged box and took out its contents which were in oil covered cloths and secured in four smaller boxes inside. With supreme effort he got to his feet and dragged himself and the four boxes across the field and down along the hedge bordering the farmland till he found a large tree lying on its side in the ditch. There, using his last bit of strength, he clawed at the dirt and rocks until he made a gap wide enough so that he could get the smaller boxes deep down in between the tree and the old thorn covered ditch wall. Then he piled the soil back on top of the hole before finally covering it with some small branches.

Disorientated and lightheaded, he turned and looked at the scene of the crash in front of him. It was utter devastation. It was like so many crashes that he had seen before. Air crews making it back to the airfield in damaged planes after hours of dog fighting over the French and English countryside, only to be killed by their own fragile planes failing at the last hurdle. He was lucky to be alive and he knew it.

With the last bit of energy he could muster, he stumbled back over towards the wreckage and his injured friend. He fell a number of times and had to crawl the last few metres over the soft brown rutted dirt. Jackel was unconscious but Muller knew that he was still alive as Jackel’s chest was rising and falling. Muller collapsed face forward on the ground beside him and held his friend’s hand, as much to give himself some comfort as Wilhelm. Then he surrendered to the pain and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure if he would ever open them again.

Muller was not sure how long he lay there before the locals arrived to see if anyone had survived the crash. It wasn’t long before three men stood over them. One was older then the others. From their clothes they looked like a farmer and his young farm hands and they seemed more scared of him then anything else. They were saying something to him but he could not understand them. The farmer pointed an ancient shotgun in his direction but Muller ignored the weapon and closed his eyes once again.

He was no threat to any of them.

For him the War was over.

Chapter One

John Morgan jogged easily along the long sandy beach. It was a perfect bright summer afternoon in Ireland’s sunny southeast. Clear and warm. The summer sun’s heat soaked right into him easing every tight muscle in his body after his two-hour training session in the gym. He was very relaxed and in no hurry as he ran on the hard compacted sand along the water’s edge. Morgan’s old worn trainers left perfect prints in the sand, that stretched back nearly two miles along the beach behind him. The tide lapped gently onto the beach beside him as it came in, occasionally licking his trainers as he passed by. But it was in no rush either. It was just taking its time, chilling out like everyone else on the beach. It was too nice of a day to hurry at anything. The weather had been fine for nearly two weeks and Morgan was determined to make the most of it while it lasted. It wouldn’t be long before