COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER FIVE WINTER IN FLANDERS
rate of forty to fifty a day. This rose to almost eighty when the
offensive was at its height, providing ample opportunity to study their
behaviour.
It was said that a V2 never gave any warning of its arrival. True in
a sense, but our experience was different. On a clear day the walking
stick trails could be seen from the ground at Deurne, soaring upwards
above the launching sites, before they vanished into the tropopause.
Four minutes later, and you could almost set your watch by them, they
arrived in characteristic fashion. An exploding warhead followed by
the sonic boom echoing and re-echoing backwards into the empty sky.
Those with a warped sense of humour took a fiendish delight in
timing them secretly and then announcing:
"V2 arriving in ten seconds!..... three!..... two!..... one!..... NOW!"
And, to make matters worse, the wretched missile frequently
disintegrated en route!
As the bombardment intensified there was growing concern about
our lack of dispersal. The pilots, in their terraced cottages at Deurne,
were said to be living dangerously close together. A single lucky hit
might knock out most of the Wing. In the end it was agreed that a
number of us would be accommodated in town and 193 moved into a
block of centrally heated flats.
After unpacking, as we were relaxing on our beds and enjoying the
unaccustomed warmth, the building rocked violently. There was a
sudden blast of air and the lights went out. Groping around by
torchlight it was soon apparent that all the glass had gone, the heating
had ceased to work, and the door had been thrown right across the
room into the window embrasure.
We were lucky that night. Saved by the reinforced concrete
structure, which remained standing when the V2 exploded thirty yards
away, and the fact that we were lying down when the massive door
flew over our heads. Only Bunny Austin, shaving in the bathroom, was
slightly the worse for wear, his face cut by flying splinters. The
dispersal scheme was promptly abandoned and 193 returned to base for
the winter.
V weapons and winter quarters were evidence that we were into a
new phase of the war. Everywhere from Switzerland to the North Sea
the advance was slowing down. The enemy was not on his way back to
Berlin, as we had fondly imagined until a few weeks ago, at least not
this side of Christmas.
In our sector, on the left of the line, he was falling back towards
63