Night Fighters in France. Shaun Clarke

of wind and engines, the dispatcher mouthed the words ‘Get ready!’ and pointed to the light-bulb above his head. Looking up at the light, which would signal the start of the drop, the men automatically tried to become more comfortable with their harnesses, moving the straps this way and that, checking and rechecking their weapons, then doing the same with their equipment.

      ‘Close your eyes and think of England,’ Rich murmured, though most of the others merely took very deep breaths and let it out slowly, each coping with the rush of adrenalin in his own way.

      The light turned to red. Two minutes to go.

      As CO, Captain Callaghan was back at base, waiting to come out with the third and last group, and Captain Greaves was heading Group One. Greaves therefore took up a position beside the open door, from where he could check that each man had gone out properly before he became the last man out. The first man to jump was Sergeant Lorrimer, not only because he was the senior NCO, but because he was going to act as ‘drifter’, indicating the strength and direction of the wind.

      Taking his place by the open doorway in the fuselage, Lorrimer braced himself, leaned into the beating wind, took a deep breath and looked down at what appeared to be a bottomless pit of roaring darkness. Eventually the dispatcher slapped him on the shoulder and bawled: ‘Go!’

      Lorrimer threw himself out.

      First swept sideways in the slipstream, he then dropped vertically for a brief, deafening moment. But suddenly he was jerked back up when the shoot was ‘popped’ by the fully extended static line secured inside the aircraft. Tugged hard under the armpits, as if by the hands of an unseen giant, he then found himself dropping again, this time more gently, as the parachute billowed open above him like a huge white umbrella.

      In just under a minute the seemingly infinite darkness beneath him gained shape and definition, revealing the moon-streaked canopy of the dense forest north of Orléans. No sooner had Lorrimer glimpsed this than the trees were rushing up at him with ever-increasing speed. Tugging the straps of the parachute this way and that, he steered for the broad, open field that was now clearly visible and watched the trees slip away out of view as he headed for the DZ. The flat field seemed to race up to meet him and he braced himself for contact. The instant his feet touched the ground, he let his legs bend and his body relax, collapsing to the ground and rolling over once to minimize the impact. The whipping parachute dragged him along a few feet, then collapsed, and he was able to snap the straps free and climb to his feet, breathless but exhilarated.

      Glancing about him, he saw no movement either in the dark expanse of field or in the forest surrounding it. Relieved that he had not been spotted by the Germans, who were doubtless in the vicinity, he looked up at the sky and saw the blossoming white parachutes of the rest of the men, most of whom were now out of the Halifax.

      Having carefully observed Lorrimer’s fall and gauged from it the wind’s strength and direction, the pilot had banked the Halifax to come in over an area that would enable the paratroopers to drop more easily into the field, rather than into the forest. Now, they were doing so: first gliding down gently, then seeming to pick up speed as they approached the ground, hitting it and rolling over as Lorrimer had done, then snapping the straps to set themselves free from the wildly flapping parachute.

      Having disengaged himself, each man used the small spade on his webbing to quickly dig a small hole in the earth. Then he rolled up his chute and buried it. This done, he unslung his assault rifle and knelt in the firing position, all the while keeping his eyes on the trees. By the time the last man had fallen, the paratroopers were spread out across the field in a large, defensive circle, waiting for the Halifax to turn around and drop the crates containing the jeeps and supplies.

      This did not take long. The aircraft merely turned in a wide circle above the forest, then flew back to the field. When it was directly above the DZ, the crates were pushed out of the open rear bay and floated down, each supported by four parachutes. The. men in the field had to be careful not to be standing under a crate when it fell, even though its landing was cushioned by the air bags beneath it.

      Soon those not on guard, keeping their eyes on the surrounding forest, were using their special tools to split the crates open and get at the jeeps. Once out of the smaller crates, the twin Vickers K guns and the 0.5-inch Browning heavy machine-guns were remounted on the Willys jeeps and the vehicles were then driven into the forest and camouflaged. When the field had been cleared, the wood from the packing crates was buried near the edge of the trees and the upturned soil covered with loose leaves.

      ‘Now let’s get into hiding,’ Greaves told his men, ‘and wait for the others to be dropped tomorrow night.’

      ‘And the next night,’ Lorrimer said in disgust.

      The men melted silently into the edge of the forest flanking the DZ, taking up hidden positions near the field’s four sides. There, they proceeded to make individual lying-up positions, or LUPs, by scraping small hollows out of the earth, covering them with wire, and laying local vegetation on top. Having eaten a supper of cold rations washed down with water, the men bedded down for the night, most of them in their LUPs, others taking turns at guard duty. Placed in the four directions of the compass on each side of the field, the lookouts scanned the forest for any sign of the enemy.

      There were no land movements apparent that night, though many aircraft, both Allied and German, flew overhead to engage in bombing runs or aerial fights far away. While the surrounding forest was quiet, the sounds of distant explosions were heard all night as battle was engaged on several fronts and the Allied advance across France continued. When dawn broke, the mist of the horizon was smudged with clouds of ugly black smoke.

      ‘Poor bastards,’ Jacko murmured, thinking of the unfortunate men who had endured the relentless bombing all night near that murky horizon.

      ‘Poor Kraut bastards,’ Rich said ironically.

      ‘A lot of them are Allied troops,’ Jacko reminded him, ‘being bombed by the Germans. But whatever side they’re on, they’re poor bastards, all of them. I don’t like bombardments.’

      ‘I grant you that, mate. We had enough of them in North Africa and Sicily to last us a lifetime. I’m amazed we’ve still got our hearing as well as our balls.’

      ‘Some would dispute the latter assertion,’ Sergeant Lorrimer whispered as loudly as he dared, raising his head from the LUP beside them. ‘Now shut up, fill your mouths with some cold food, then go and replace those poor frozen sods out on point.’

      ‘Yes, Sarge!’ Jacko and Rich whispered simultaneously.

      For most of the men, the rest of the day was long and boring, with nothing for them to do but either lie in their LUPs or crawl out to replace one of the guards. Aircraft, mostly Allied, flew overhead constantly, Fortresses and Liberators and accompanying Spitfire fighters, intent on keeping up the relentless bombing of German positions further inland.

      Also, throughout the day, German convoys or individual jeeps and trucks could be seen passing by on the nearby road, half obscured by the hedgerows that bounded the fields, heading towards or away from the front indicated by the distant sounds of battle. Luckily, none of them turned off the road to cross the field to the forest and the SAS men remained undetected.

      When darkness fell, the sounds of distant battle were accompanied by spectacular flashes that lit up the horizon and lent a magical glow to the dense clouds. Shortly before midnight, the Halifax reappeared overhead and the white parachutes of the second batch of SAS men billowed in the darkness as they drifted gently to earth. They were followed by another consignment of wooden crates, each one descending beneath four parachutes and landing on their air bags.

      When the aircraft had disappeared again, the new men did exactly as the first batch had done: drove their jeeps into the forest, buried the wooden planking from the crates and covered the disturbed earth with leaves, then scraped out LUPs in areas selected for them by the Originals, who had landed the previous night.

      Another night passed uneventfully, except for distant explosions from the front and eerie flashes which lit up the horizon, revealing swirling clouds of