ScienceDirect - Technol Rep Tohoku Univ ... - Garryck Osborne

40 The Hunt for Zero Point
there was a better than even chance you could follow your own cannonfire
into the ground.
There was no official record as to why the intelligence officer Ringwald
was along for the ride, but knowing something of the way in which spooks
had a habit of ring-fencing intelligence from the people who needed it
most, I had a feeling that Schlueter and his radar operator would have
been left just as much in the dark.
In the black skies above the Rhineland, after a long period of routine
activity, it was Ringwald who broke the silence.
"What the hell are those lights over there?" he asked over the RT.
"Probably stars," Schlueter said, concentrating on his instruments.
"I don't think so," Ringwald replied. "They're coming straight for
us."
Now, Schlueter looked up and out of the cockpit. In the pitch-black of
his surroundings, the formation of aircraft off his starboard wing stood
out like a constellation of tiny brilliant suns. Instinctively, he twisted the
control column, bringing the Black Widow's four cannon and four .50 cal
machine guns into line with them. At the same time, he called ground
radar.
The ground station was supposed to be Schlueter's eyes and ears at all
times, but if each pulsating point of light represented the exhaust plumes
of a German night fighter, there were anything up to ten aircraft closing
on him and he hadn't heard a whisper out of them. Somebody had
screwed up. Later, he would be angry. Now, he was simply frightened
and confused. He urgently requested information.
"Negative," the reply came back. "There are no bogies in your sector.
You're on your own."
Schlueter's radar operator, Lieutenant Don Meiers, who was
crouched over the scope of the SCR540 airborne intercept (AI) radar in
a well behind Ringwald, told him the same thing. The sky ahead of them
was empty of any air activity.
But the lights were still there and they kept coming. Instead of
running, Schlueter boosted the throttles and pointed the nose of the
Black Widow at the lead aircraft of the formation.
As the twin air-cooled radiais powered up either side of him, the glow
from his opponents' exhausts dimmed; and then they winked out.
Puzzled and alarmed at having lost the contacts, and with no help from
Meiers on the Black Widow's own radar, Schlueter held the aircraft
steady and the crew braced themselves for the engagement.
Schlueter eased the night fighter into the blacked-out bowl of sky
where he had last seen the contacts. He craned his neck for a glimpse of