Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Four
21st June 1962
Over Tongsin, Korea
Ben was dimly aware of the flares and Düppel that was flying out the back of the airplane as he was trying to keep them alive by climbing right at the sun. Wim reacted like he always did in situations like this by leaning on the button that dispensed the countermeasures. He could see the red light that signified that there had been a launch as well as hearing Wim yelling in his ear about it.
It had started out simple enough, the Chinese had broken through at Jonchon and there had been a desperate scramble to stabilize the lines. The fact that the enemy had punched through the lines in a place that that was supposed to be impossible had inspired a great deal of cynical laughter. Assuming that your enemy couldn’t do something was asking to have your balls kicked up between your ears.
That was also perfectly in keeping with the current situation that Ben had found himself in.
Returning to the airfield after that horrendous conversation with Kiki had been difficult. He had seen a side of her that he had found deeply disturbing. Not that she was angry, rather she simply didn’t care and the way she talked about what he did… The Oberst in charge of SKG 18 must have caught wind of it somehow because he had told Ben to “Get his head back in the game.” Not the best choice of words because it echoed Kiki’s words about how this wasn’t a game. Something she ought to know because one of those who had to clean up the mess.
Today Ben’s Squadron had been assigned to provide top cover for SKG 15 with their planes configured for the air-to-role. What many considered the greatest strength of the Pfeil was that it had the range to loiter over a given region without need to refuel and the Goshawks couldn’t just wait them out.
That was why when the search radar had detected four Goshawks over the area of operations Ben and his wingman had been raced along an intercept vector. Wim had gotten target lock and Ben had fired at the same time his wingman had. Eight of the Hermelin missiles had raced out and as Ben watched, the Goshawks had scrambled to get out of the way. One of them was hit and tumbled out of the air but the others had flown right at them. The plane flown by Ben’s wingman had eaten one of the sidewinders seconds later and Ben had found himself alone facing three Goshawks in what amounted to a World War One style knife fight. The warning about never getting into a turning fight with a Goshawk applied here as he used the greater lift and engine thrust of the Pfeil to engage them separately using the advantages that he had.
He had managed to get one with one of the heat-seeking Speer missiles and another with the 30mm but that had given the third a chance to get a launch on him. He might have told Wim that the Düppel was useless against the missile in question. At what Ben thought was the right second, he rolled the Pfeil over as hard as he could into a tight loop and his vision narrowed down to a narrow point. There came a hard kick and the whole plane shuddered. As Ben rolled out of the loop, he caught the reflection of where the missile had exploded in the mirror mounted in the faring above the canopy.
The Goshawk that had launched it was headed right at them. The thought that occurred to Ben in that second was that the Chinese pilot was to aggressive and lucky to be allowed to get away. Ben slammed the throttle all the way forward and flew into a head on pass. Both planes passed within a couple hundred meters of each other but from Ben’s perception it felt like considerably less. He rolled into a tight turn deploying the spoilers to drop the speed and cut inside the Goshawk. He tried to get a deflection shot but the opposing pilot anticipated that and dove for the deck with Ben following closely. He got target lock with one of the Speer missiles only to see it go wide. A puff of black smoke revealed that he had strayed too close to the Chinese air defenses and he was getting targeted by AAA, so he was forced to break off.
Later, following debrief, Ben was sitting in the Officer’s Club at the airfield with Wim as they were still trying to process what had happened. The mechanics were pissed that Ben had may have damaged their airplane and had given him an earful about it. He wasn’t in the mood for company, but Wim hung out with him because that was what was expected.
For lack of anything better to do some of the others had tuned into the Chinese German language radio broadcasts. The propaganda was always good for a laugh. Today was no different. The Chinese always depicted military actions as victories no matter what the outcome actually was. They were going off on how their Captain Zhao had foiled a trap set by the Luftwaffe and had found himself going head to head against an infamous German sky pirate called the “Black Knight.” It was a complete and utter load of crap. Ben gave it that much.
Wim looked stricken though.
“Don’t you know what is painted on the nose of our plane?” Wim asked, “A black knight.”
On the nose of their plane was a chess piece with the words Respice de Inferius! painted across it. That had meant something to the ground crew and Ben had let them do it because he had been unable to think of anything better.