Night Fighters in France. Shaun Clarke

Callaghan and I have wasted most of the day desperately phoning between 1st Airborne Corps and 38 Group RAF at Netheravon and Special Forces Unit, begging for more aircraft for the drop.’

      ‘Bloody waste of time,’ Callaghan said curtly to Sergeant Lorrimer and the other ranks grouped around him. ‘By the time we’d finished we still had only one Halifax to go with – this one here.’

      ‘Which means,’ Greaves cut in, ‘that we will, as feared, have to insert the men and jeeps over two or three nights.’

      ‘Wonderful!’ Lorrimer murmured sardonically. ‘What a bloody waste of time!’

      Callaghan nodded wearily, then continued: ‘Since then, we’ve been rushing around trying to finalize routes, supplies and men, and liaise with the units across the water. Everything’s now set for the drop, but the insertion will necessarily be tedious. The most experienced men will therefore go first.’

      ‘That’s us,’ Jacko said.

      ‘Lucky us,’ Rich added. ‘We’ll be on the ground with Krauts all around us and we won’t be able to do a sodding thing until the others are dropped. Two or three days of high risk coupled with boredom – a fitting reward for experience.’

      ‘Stop whining,’ Lorrimer told him. ‘When it’s over you’ll be boasting about it in every pub in the land. You should thank us for this.’

      ‘Gee, thanks, Sarge!’ Rich replied.

      ‘All joking aside,’ Callaghan said, ‘this business of not having our own aircraft means we’re practically having to beg for planes that are constantly being allocated elsewhere at the last moment, leaving us strapped. I don’t like being at the mercy of 1st Airborne Corps or 38 Group RAF. Sooner or later, we’ll have to get our own air support – always there when we want it.’

      ‘I agree,’ Greaves said. ‘But in the meantime we’ll have to live with our single Halifax.’

      ‘All right, let’s get to it.’

      Already well trained for this specific task, the Originals of C Squadron, who would go on the first flight, removed the twin Vickers K guns normally mounted to the front and rear of the modified American Willys jeeps, along with the 0.5-inch Browning heavy machine-guns, and placed them in separate wooden crates. Then, with the aid of short crates and nets operated by REME, the jeeps were placed in their own crates, which had air bags underneath to cushion the impact on landing. When the lids had been nailed down, four parachute packs were attached to each crate. To facilitate the drop, the aircraft’s rear-bay doors had already been removed and a long beam fastened inside, so the men rigged each crated jeep with a complicated arrangement of crash pans and struts, then attached it to the beam to spread the load.

      ‘Those should slow your darling down a bit,’ Jacko said to the RAF pilot standing beside him, referring to the crated jeeps and weapons.

      The pilot, who was chewing gum, nodded. ‘They’ll certainly have an adverse effect on the aircraft’s performance, but apart from making it sluggish to fly, there should be no great problems.’

      ‘Unless we’re attacked by Kraut fighters.’

      ‘Hopefully they’ll take care of that,’ the pilot said, pointing at the other RAF men who had already entered the Halifax and were taking their positions behind the two .303-inch Brownings in the nose turret and the four in the tail turret. The remaining two guns in the manual beam positions would be handled in an emergency by one of the other seven crew members. ‘They’ll make up for our sluggishness,’ the pilot added.

      ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Jacko.

      By the time the last of the crates had been fixed to the beam in the rear bay, darkness was falling. Once the rest of the RAF crew had taken up their positions in the aircraft and were checking their instruments, the men of C Squadron were ordered to pick up their kit and board the Halifax through the door in the side. After forming a long line, they filed in one by one and sat side by side in the cramped, gloomy space between the fuselage and the supply crates stowed along the middle of the dimly lit hold. Shortly after, the RAF loadmaster slammed the door shut and the four Rolls-Royce Merlin 1390-hp, liquid-cooled engines roared into life, quickly gained power, and gradually propelled the Halifax along the runway and into the air.

      Flying at a speed of just over 685mph, the aircraft was soon over the English Channel, though the SAS men in the windowless hold could not see it. All they could see directly in front of them were the wooden supply crates which, though firmly strapped down, shook visibly each time the aircraft rose or fell. Glancing left or right, all that each trooper could see were the profiles of the other men seated along the hold, faces pale and slightly unreal in the weak yellow glow of the overhead lights.

      The hold was long, too crowded, horribly noisy and claustrophobic, making many of the men feel uncomfortable, even helpless. This feeling was in no way eased when, over France, the Halifax was attacked by German fighters and the Brownings front and rear roared into action, turning the din in the hold into absolute bedlam. To make matters worse, the Halifax began to buck and dip, obviously attempting to evade the German Stukas, and the piled crates began banging noisily into one another while making disturbing creaking sounds.

      ‘Christ!’ Neil shouted, to make himself heard above the noise. ‘Those bloody crates are going to break away from their moorings!’

      ‘If they do, they’ll fall right on top of us,’ his friend Harry-boy Turnball replied, ‘and crush more than our balls. They’ll bloody flatten us, mate!’

      ‘Or crash right through the fuselage,’ Jacko put in, ‘and leave a great big fucking hole that would see us sucked out and swept away. Put paid to the lot of us, that would.’

      Even above the clamour of the Halifax’s engine and the banging, groaning supply crates, they could hear the whine of the attacking Stukas and the deafening roar of the Brownings.

      Suddenly, there was a mighty explosion outside the Halifax, which shuddered from the impact, followed by cheering from the front of the plane. The RAF sergeant acting as dispatcher, standing near the crated jeeps in the bomb bay, gave the thumbs up.

      ‘They must have knocked out one of those Kraut fighters,’ Rich said. ‘I just wish I could see it.’

      ‘Right,’ Jacko replied. ‘Bloody frustrating being stuck in here while all that’s going on outside. Makes a man feel helpless. I’d rather be down there on the ground, seeing what’s going on.’

      ‘Too right,’ Rich agreed.

      In fact, they didn’t have long to wait. The buzz of the Stukas faded away, the Brownings ceased firing, and the Halifax, which had been dipping and shaking, settled back into normal, steady flight. Ten minutes later, it banked towards the drop zone (DZ) and the dispatcher opened the door near the bomb bay, letting the angry wind rush in.

      ‘Five minutes to zero hour,’ he informed the men, shouting above the combined roar of the aircraft’s engines and the incoming wind, which beat brutally at the seated men. ‘On your feet, lads.’

      Standing up, the SAS paratroopers fixed their static lines to the designated strong points in the fuselage and then waited until the dispatcher had checked the connections. This check was particularly important as the static lines were designed to jerk open the ’chutes as each man fell clear of the aircraft. If the static line was not fixed properly to the fuselage, it would slip free, the canopy would not open and the unlucky paratrooper would plunge to his death. A man’s life could therefore depend on whether or not his static line was secure.

      Satisfied that the clips would hold firm, the dispatcher went to the open door, leaned into the roaring wind, looked down at the nocturnal fields of France, hardly visible in the darkness, then indicated that the paratroopers should line up, ready to jump. As they were already in line, having been seated along the length of the fuselage, they merely turned towards the open door, where the wind was blasting in, and stood there patiently, each man’s eyes focused on the back of the head of the soldier in front of him.