Chapter 23
I stayed with Robin and Emma for a further week, but finally I got the message, they were big children now and were perfectly capable of looking after their son. That wasn’t quite how they put it, they just leapt into an air ambulance with Mark and disappeared off to Russia, apparently that was where the World’s most skilled eye surgeon had his practice (it always worries me that they call it a practice – never a perfect). He had flown in a few days earlier and examined Mark, and then informed them that he was willing to operate, but there was only a seventy percent chance of Mark regaining ‘reasonable’ sight in his least damaged eye, but that was a good enough percentage for Robin and Emma, up until then it had been one hundred percent of ‘almost nothing’.
After they departed for Moscow I paid Switzerland a visit (by the way I’d had my fingers crossed when I said they left me behind, I just wanted to go flying again), there was a gentleman there that had a Fieseler Storch, and he was willing to let me have a go in it. I had flown a Storch the day before I’d had my first ‘up close and personal’ meeting with the Hunter FGA 11 in America, but although it had been a pleasant enough experience, at that stage of my life I had wanted something that would go faster than my car, but that was not now a problem, and I had purloined Leutnant Angern’s Storch as my future personal runabout. I had to have something more than just a watch and a pair of sunglasses to show for all the money that I was shelling out. The only aircraft to fly operationally from that patch of desert didn’t even make it to El Campo, it, along with a spare Argus AS10 C engine that was sat in the store room, perfectly preserved, was flown directly to Duckford Aerodrome and Michael’s engineers started on it with a vengeance. The new engine was successfully bench tested three days later, so it was back into storage for the luckless motor, and the original (one owner - low mileage) one refitted, after its own refurbishment. Although it did have to spend most of its time at Duckford sitting to one side watching as the engineers stripped and re-skinned the fabric covering of the aircraft, renew the seals in the undercarriage shock absorbers, replace the control cables, plus tidy up few other bits and pieces, although despite wanting to keep the aircraft as close to original as possible I sanctioned a new electrics system, along with a modern day aircraft battery, and allowed them to gut the radio. They carefully installed a modern radio inside its empty case and then hinged the original front panel, complete with its original switches, so that I could see the LED display and get to the push buttons when I wanted to go flying. The refurbished aircraft would then be finished in its original desert camouflage, and Michael promised faithfully to have it ready before Easter.
My Swiss tutor left me to get on with it after our first flight, and now that I was serious about the Fieseler it seemed to me that I didn’t fly it, we flew as one. It was a wonderful experience which I hadn’t felt before, even when flying a Hunter. I spent four days flying it around his little airstrip, and the Swiss countryside; it would lift off in 45 meters (150 feet), fly safely at 50 Km/H (32 mph), with a top speed of 175 Km/H (109 mph), and land within 18 meters (60 feet) although that was purely academic, I soon got used to, in any sort of head-wind, taking off and landing almost vertically, and a couple of time my tutor swore that I landed backwards. If I hadn’t been getting my own machine very soon I would have defiantly made him an offer that he couldn’t refuse.
My Storch finally arrived, sat on its very own transport trailer, with its wings folded back, in the back of a Hercules; and it looked lost in the huge interior. Michael’s team had exceeded all expectations and completed the restoration in record time, due in no small part to it being in mint condition to start with, and over the next week we became ‘as one’, but poor Chalkie had to get the paint pot out and re-designate various parts of the taxi-track as runways, as it took me a lifetime to taxi to the main runways, only to be airborne in seconds.
After a flying visit to check up on Mark, Easter was upon us and by Good Friday all the aircraft were in the hangar, in exactly the same positions that they had been in the desert, and all the artefacts (well almost all) were out of their boxes - why?, because I was going to have some very special visitors mańana. Using the records that we had found, Marcus and Maria, with the help of many ex-Luftwaffe Societies and Charities, contacted virtually all of the direct decedents of the Officers and men based in the desert, plus several from the tanker convoy. This in itself had been a delicate exercise as none of them knew for certain that they were dead, they were all just ‘missing in action’. The letters that they sent out explained that this weekend would be for them to see what their relatives had flown or worked on, pay their respects, and to receive a few mementos to help them remember them in the future. Those that couldn’t make it would receive their mementos via an ex-servicemen’s organisation.
Almost a hundred and fifty relatives arrived by Airbus the next morning, and spent the rest of the day with the aircraft and artefacts. There were voluntary organisations on hand to help if any of them had any problems, but most seemed to come to terms with their grief in their own way. Oberstleutnant von Beneckendorf’s wife (now in her early nineties) sat at his desk all afternoon reading his diary, clasping the rosewood box that held the going away present that she had given him as she had bid him farewell that last time (it was a fountain pen); and Leutnant Angern’s son, who had just worked out that he had been born whilst his father was actually airborne on his last mission, talked me into taking him up for a flight in his father’s aircraft. It turned out that he had flown Phantoms in the post war Luftwaffe and he cried like a baby throughout the entire flight. On landing he thanked me, and then returned to his hard bitten self. That evening I lay on a grand dinner in Mi Casa, where everyone seemed to want to give a speech, and then it was off to bed, as we all had an early start the next day. The majority of my guests slept on the top floor of Mi Casa, although a surprising number, and not only the younger ones, wanted to sleep on their relative’s camp beds alongside the aircraft.
The next morning, after breakfast and hangover remedies, my guests and I were airborne again, and were flown to a Royal Moroccan Air Force Special Forces Base close to the hangar, and then were transferred by their Chinook helicopters to the site itself. They spent a little time walking around the now empty hangar, and then re-embarked in the helicopters, which then transported them to the site of their relative’s untimely demise.
--------------------
As soon as it became clear that we had discovered the exact location of their relative’s remains, I had personally rung the German Ambassador in Rabat with the information, and within a very short time the area around the remains of the trucks and tankers was roped off and became an official war graves cemetary, and once the international media got hold of the story an unidentified American gentleman anonymously came forward and made ample provision for its construction and upkeep, the consensus of opinion in the press being that the benefactor was a German national that had emigrated to America after the War.
--------------------
Although the cemetery was not yet fully completed a German Military Chaplain officiated over its dedication and then a full military funeral ceremony was performed, and as the guard of honour, made up of serving Luftwaffe personnel fired off the volley shots, a flight of Luftwaffe Eurofighter Typhoon’s flew above in the ‘missing man formation’, and each one of my guests knew that their relatives would never again be forgotten.
As they all stood lost in their own thoughts David handed me a monocular that he always carried, and indicated to a sand dune a little way away. On top of it stood a silent helicopter, I had presumed that it was full of members of the press, but as it came into focus I made out an elderly gentleman sat slumped in a wheelchair, accompanied only by two uniformed nurses. Initially I was puzzled at who it could be, until I looked closer, the figure was wearing, no, was draped in an old US naval uniform jacket. On its sleeves were two and a half faded gold stripes, and on his chest he had a pair of pilot’s wings, although it
was now devoid of medals. I didn’t have to be the ‘Brain of Britain’ to work out that it was in all probability Lieutenant Commander Dabrowski USN (Retired), and that the benefactor of the cemetery was of Polish, not German extraction, but I made no tracks to climb the dune; I thought it was best to let him come to terms with his demons in his own way.
That evening, back at El Campo, I laid on a buffet dinner for my guests, but most of them just stood quietly in small groups, hardly touching the food, cementing friendship’s that had now been formed out of grief, and I knew that pilgrimages were being planned for the future, and then next morning it was time for me to say goodbye to my guests, but not before they said a final farewell to the aircraft, although Leutnant Angern’s son and I had gone for a clandestine early morning spin. I flew the Storch to a desolate part of the airfield and swopped seats with him, he had more than enough experience to fly his father’s tiny aircraft, and fortunately this time there were no tears.
Just before they departed I presented each set of relatives with a box, inside of which were their relative’s military records, any personal items that we had come across, and a 37 mm anti-tank cannon shell. They were all families of military personnel so as I had struggled to think of a fitting memento of their visit I remembered that the one thing that I had a supply of was de-activated anti-tank cannon shells from the Stuka’s and Fw190’s, so after all the brass cases had been polished to perfection, each member of that ill-fated unit had one of them mounted on a varnished wooden plinth; and their rank, name, service number and date of birth (dash) 20th November 1942 was etched into a brass plate and then attached to it.
Finally, just as everyone was making their way to board the Airbus Frau von Beneckendorf stopped, turned and raised herself out of her chair, and with the rest of my guests stood behind her she beckoned me to her. As I approached her one of her grandchildren handed her something and then she gave me a hug and a kiss and thanked me again on behalf of everyone, and then pressed a small rosewood box into my hand. I didn’t need to shake it to know that there was a fountain pen inside, and she whispered ‘a little something for you to remember us both by’; and then she was whisked up the steps and away. I hope Maria wouldn’t be too upset if it cluttered up my desk. It wasn’t as though this was the last time that they would hear from me though, I had arranged for a regular newsletter to be sent to each of them, keeping them all up to date with the restorations, and which museums would be receiving what memorabilia, it would keep my Editor-in-Chief (AKA Marcus) out of trouble for a long while to come.
~~~~