Opening Moves

The first hitch in the Soviet planning occurred later that same morning. During the high-level meeting Vyshinski was told, in no uncertain terms, that his Yugoslavian Communist Allies took an extremely jaundiced view of their exclusion from planning or even being able to offer their views on this, as Tito put it, ‘fucking lunacy’. There would be no Yugoslavian contribution to military matters.

Using extremely earthy language, Tito let Vyshinski know that the Soviets should be eternally grateful that the Yugoslav Army would stand its ground and remain a problem to affect Allied thinking. None the less, Soviet units were banned from overflying or setting foot on Yugoslavian soil until further notice.

The senior GRU officer previously attached to Tito’s headquarters accompanied the party back to Moscow under escort, where his report assuring his seniors of Tito’s compliance was examined at painful length before he succumbed in the cellars of the Lubyanka.

Chapter 41 – THE PILOT

The great defence against the air menace is to attack the enemy’s aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.

Sir Winston Spencer Churchill

0535 hrs Monday, 6th August 1945, 182 Squadron, RAF, Rheine Airfield, Germany.

Andrew Mackenzie had been in short trousers when Hitler’s legions rolled across the Polish border. Admittedly, that was because the family had little by the way of spare cash, for his parents ploughed their money into the education of their three sons. His father and mother worked hard, long hours away from home or taking in washing and sewing. Even though the Canadian education system was good, extra books and tuition went a long way towards their goal of givingthe three apples of their eyes the best possible start in life and an opportunity to escape the poverty trap that had ensnared the parents.

From such a humble background sprang Mackenzie, a fresh-faced gangly Canadian youth of nineteen from an impoverished family, who arrived in Europe with the rank of Pilot Officer and wings earned in basic training, when he passed out top of his course by some notable distance.

Conversion to the brutish Hawker Typhoon followed and he arrived at 182 Squadron’s RAF base nearby the German town of Rheine, eager to get to grips with the enemy. That he arrived on the evening of 6th May 1945 was, for him, a personal disaster that he felt nothing could ever overcome.

XM-F, his aircraft, was the latest refinement, with a four-bladed propeller and Sabre IIc engine. A fine weapon to take to war to be sure and he had managed one operational take-off that following morning but the mission was aborted and he returned having never fired his weapons in anger, touching down as peace descended over Europe once more.

For some time now, he had been the subject of much ribbing by his comrades, partially about his lack of combat experience, partially because he moved with the grace of the proverbial bull in a china shop and partially because he was blessed with a shaggy mass of ginger hair that defied all attempts to control it. It was all good-natured, because his seasoned comrades realised that in Andy McKenzie they were in the presence of a true phenomenon; a born natural flier who could make the Typhoon do things they all considered unnatural at best, and bordering on witchcraft according to the older lags.

His Flight Lieutenant, Johnny Hall, had woken him and the rest of the quarters with little ceremony some time previously, agitated beyond measure, ordering all to the briefing room.

182 Squadron had been alerted by the ripples of response to General Clark’s message and was breaking out of its slumber to find a very different day developing around them.

As aircraft were prepared, the RAF Regiment personnel guarding the base readied themselves, not wholly aware of the circumstances surrounding their abrupt early morning reverie but understanding enough to believe that something big was happening elsewhere.

In the early morning half-light one patrolling section saw and challenged four men near one of the perimeter fuel storage bunkers and were brought under fire.

The nearby sound of automatic weapons gave urgency to the ground crews and it was not long before McKenzie and five others clawed their way into the developing morning, heading towards the headquarters of 21st Army Group at Bad Oeynhausen, from where frantic calls for help originated.

Behind them one RAF Regiment Corporal and two German black marketers lay dead, their attempt to steal fuel terminated by the unexpected early morning mobilisation of base security personnel. The other two, wounded and bleeding, lay on the ground and at great risk from retribution, for the dead Corporal had been a very popular man.