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Operation
Fallow
Mission Briefing
“Bloody hell.” Corporal Barkle uttered to himself. “Half past seven on a Sunday morning in a briefing hut at Boscombe Down. Any idea why we’re here?” He asks the Sergeant beside him.
The man shrugs. “Beats me. I was planning on a game footy. Not being sat here.”
“What, no church service?”
The sergeant exchanges a look with the third man in the room. “Nar, not today.” Both men laugh.
The corporal glanced between them. “You two know each other?”
“Yeah.” Replied the third man. “I’m corporal Miller, me and George were at Pegasus Bridge together. You?”
“No. Arnham. The name’s Barkle, Craig Barkle.”
“Good to meet you Craig. “Miller exchanges a handshake with the stranger as the briefing room door opens.
They all turn to see five more people enter. Three were Paras; one a Colonel, the other two Lieutenants. The fourth was in naval dress and the fifth a nervous looking man in a tweed suit.
One of the Lieutenants takes a seat beside the three NCOs, “Good to see you again, Barkle.”
“And you sir. Didn’t think you made it out of Arnham alive.”
“Nearly didn’t.”
The others continue on to the low stage. The second Lieutenant, obviously the Colonels attaché, opens a brief case a takes out an old style tape machine, followed by a file of glass slides, while the naval office and the tweed suit man exchanged a quiet word.
The colonel waits in the centre of the stage while the attaché finished arranged the equipment, before switching on the tape machine. The crackle and hiss of a recording fills the room followed by the tinny voice of the BBC.
"...A
traffic hold-up in Deptford had brought a temporary lull in the usual busy
stream of traffic, otherwise the carnage would have been greater still. As it
was, scores of dazed and blood-covered victims moaned on the pavement, or ran
hysterically they knew not where. Others were silent and motionless.
Such were the scenes that confronted the Civil Defence Services, which
rushed to New Cross from all over SE boroughs. No need to visit Europe to view
a battlefield; here in an ordinary London shopping area was one as bloody as
the front line could offer. The small borough of Deptford had experienced more
of its share of a "people's war" since 1940, but this catastrophe
exceeded all in its scale of suffering."
The recorded radio bulletin fades away and the Colonel nods to the attaché who switches on the projector. A photo appears on the screen above the stage.
“Gentlemen,” the Colonel begins.
“Yesterday should have been just another Saturday morning. The Woolworth shop
in New Cross Road, south London, was unusually busy as housewives, taking
advantage of the sunny day, queued up to buy an unexpected consignment of
saucepans. Then, at 12.26pm, a single V-2 missile landed behind the Woolworth.
The packed store collapsed, leaving only the pile of rubble visible in this
photograph. The Co-Op store next door also collapsed, and a passing bus
disintegrated. The official death toll so far is 160, but 11 are still
unaccounted for, including two women who were having a cup of tea in Woolworth
with their babies. More than 100 others were seriously injured. “ He pauses
just long enough to hear a whispered profanity from the four soldiers.
”One eyewitness described the scene as looking as if ‘someone had turned a
machine gun on everybody in the street’. A fireman involved in the rescue
recalled that the bodies he pulled from the rubble were like ‘pieces of meat
hanging up in butchers’ shops,’ adding that ‘next door was the butcher’s shop
itself which had sawdust on the floor, and some of the bodies even had sawdust
on them’.
The slide changes.
“Just in case you are in any doubt, this what we are talking about, and this is the man who invented this monstrosity.” He allows himself a look at the two images before continuing. “What you are about to hear is Most Secret and must be treated with the utmost care. This is Lieutenant Commander Johns. He will be conducting the briefing”
“Good morning, gentlemen. I’m sorry for dragging you here on a Sunday morning.” The young naval officer says as he takes centre stage. “Two days ago we received information that Doctor Wernher von Braun, the man in the photo behind me and Germany's most senior rocket scientist, would be spending the few days in the Netherlands overseeing V-2 launches from a new type of mobile launcher. ‘T’ Section has established that von Braun will be travelling to the region aboard one of Hitler's specially built armoured trains. We have obtained the movement ordered for this train. The train will leave Berlin on the 27th November, travel over night to The Hague. Once there it will spend a day each at Uithoorn, Bussum and Amersfoort, were we believe the trials on the new launcher will take place, before returning to Berlin on the night of the 1st December. We speculate that if von Braun could be captured, it would not only cripple further development of Germany's Rocket program, but also assist allied scientists to develop a successful countermeasure to the ongoing V-2 threat. This is an opportunity the Prime Minister is not willing to over look and has sanctions an operation to abduct von Braun. That, gentlemen, is why you four are here. Your records show you have all demonstrated great valour and ingenuity in the field, both in Normandy and Arnham. We need to capture von Braun alive and return him to England.” Johns steps to the front of the stage. “Gentlemen, how do we do this?”
Your unit so far consists of:-
Lieutenant John Patrick, Explosive Specialist.
Sergeant Robert Hitchcock, Fire Support Specialist
Corporal Stewart John Robert Miller, Sniper Specialist
Corporal Craig
Barkle, Medical Specialist