August 21 1943.
Proposed article for the
Voelkischer Beobachter.
Author, reporter from “Signals”.
Air Battles in Sunny Italy.
The sun rises on a mostly cloudy day over the skies of England, France and the Holland. On the airfields that dot the landscape, on both sides of the channel, pilots look at the sky and hope.
The first sign of action comes from Italy. The enemy radio activity begins to rise and at 0727 hits 390 transmissions. Pilots wait by their machines, some even climb into the cockpits, leaving the canopies open as the day is already warm and muggy, with 44% cloud cover. The only raids spotted up to now are recon flights that the high command ignores.
0742. Alarms ring at dispersal at the bases of Casaldeles, Paestum and Capodiccino as patrols are ordered to form up over Paestum radar at 15000 feet. The inexperienced 101 gruppo BaT scrambles 20 2001 Falco II, 10 gruppo CT contributes 22 Veltros, 101 gruppo assalto from Paestum puts up 14 Arietes and 369 squadron from Capodiccino scrambles 7 Veltros.
More raids appear on radar on the same bearing, this time at a much higher altitude. Four minutes later, three more groups scramble to patrol over Paestum: III JG-53 from Grazanisse with 22, II JG-53 from Cancello with 27 and IV JG-3 from Foggia #3 with 30, all of them BF106G-6.
The first group of patrols, ordered to intercept the incoming raids, follows them inland, jockeying for position but fail to hit the Apaches before they hit Paestum radar.
A second group of raiders appear heading for Grottaglie. The Saggitarios scramble to intercept.
Over Paestum the battle roars as 109s pounce onto B17Fs. Their guns and cannons blazing they rip through the formations damaging some bombers but they cannot prevent the heavies from tearing up Paestum airfield.
The 109s keep pounding into the heavies as the first patrol engages the Spitfires and Kittyhawks of the first raid. Planes fall from the sky black crosses, tricolor roundels and white stars on their flanks. The battle moves over the Adriatic as the fighters chase the retreating bombers.
Far to the south, the Saggitarios follow the raiders until they reach Grottaglie. After the first Baltimores begin to bomb the airfield, the airbattle is joined. Spifires strafe the airfield and destroy several RE 2005 on the ground, damaging others. They come under attack from the Italian fighters that take a toll on the Brits.
After all is said and done, the Allies lost 24 planes over the southern Italian skies while Germany and Italy lost 25, quite a few of them on the ground. Even results, except for the enemy pilots that are now heading for our Stalags while our heroes will fly again tomorrow.
Goebbels reads the article again, pleased. It blends enough truth into it that the lies, or omissions in this case, will be missed by the casual reader. Like why there were no aircraft attacking the southern raid until it got to Grottaglie. The answer is that the airfields at the tip of the Italian boot were abandoned, like Grottaglie will be, maybe. He scribbles his initials at the bottom. It will come out in the newspapers tomorrow and in the next edition of the Luftwaffe magazine Signals.
An orderly brings in a telegraph message from Galland:
Italy them 24 us 25, NW them 14 us 9, Night them 6 us 0. Total 42/34.
Not too bad, by the time he feeds this into this evening’s newscast, it will turn into a major Luftwaffe victory.
The flak guns move around during the night and early morning. Three Italian airfields at the tip of the boot lose all their guns above machine gun size. 12JG 26 moved from Melsbroek to Asch while thirty AA machine guns, 10 20mm and 5 37 mm batteries move in to welcome the enemy light bombers expected tomorrow. The FW190s at Nivelles do not move but the pilots and crews watch as thirty new AA guns arrive bringing the total to 38. 2 quad 20mms also take positions along possible routes of approach and join the 36 20mm, 11 37mm and 2 88s that ring the field.
Goebbels manages to move 7 105mms into Oberhausen.
Appear at places to which he must hasten; move swiftly where he does not expect you.
Sun Tzu
