Chapter 645: Crash

A few seconds after the call, a voice like an angel’s came through the German Butcher reconnaissance plane captain’s headset. The duty officer at the ground control tower asked, as if it were a routine matter, “This is the control tower. There are currently no friendly carriers cruising near you. You are approved to return to base… Confirm again, are you being harassed by enemy aircraft?”

It wasn’t the ground tower staff’s fault for being lax. In the past, the British never scrambled planes to intercept German high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. At an altitude of 10,000 meters, few fighters could challenge the Butcher. Therefore, the crew members on the Iceland reconnaissance and high-altitude photography missions often did not contact the ground tower at all during the entire flight, and the ground tower was happy to have the peace and quiet.

“Dammit! We’re not being harassed, we’re under attack! Under attack! They shot out my glass with their cannons, my engine is smoking, and my wings are full of holes! We have wounded… Requesting support! Understand? Requesting support!” The captain wished he could grab the duty officer and beat him to vent his anger, but all he could do now was scream into his throat microphone.

“Your request has been processed. I repeat, there is currently no friendly carrier fleet cruising near the incident location. I cannot dispatch fighter jets for escort missions! Your request to return to base has been approved. You are cleared to return to base ahead of schedule!” The ground tower had no better way to handle the situation and could only repeat the same words over and over again in the same tone.

“Oh God! Gruseher! Gruseher! He’s not breathing! His blood is everywhere!” The co-pilot looked back at his comrade, the wounded photographer, and found that the unlucky fellow who had been hit in the inner thigh was no longer crying out. He was leaning against his seat, his hand holding the wound hanging limply, his head lolling back and forth with the plane’s vibrations.

“Forget about him, keep an eye on those two enemy planes, find their position, I can’t see them! I can’t see them!” The captain couldn’t be bothered to argue with the ground control tower anymore. He felt that in this situation, it was more practical to save himself.

“I can’t see their position, I can’t see them!” The co-pilot searched everywhere for the two terrifyingly fast enemy fighters, but he simply could not find the two British fighters that were like the Grim Reaper.

“Nose turret has no target. Maybe they’re behind us,” the nose gunner confirmed his observation over the intercom. “They are not in front of us!”

“They’re not behind us either! The tail turret has nothing! But the glass next to me has two holes in it, and the steel plate under my feet has been pierced. God be praised, I was almost killed,” the tail gunner replied, still shaken, and confirmed that there was no sign of enemy aircraft in his direction.

“Looks like they’ve left. Maybe we’ve flown out of their range,” the gunner in the dorsal turret said after looking around.

I hope so, the captain thought with some lingering fear. He looked at the huge engine outside the cockpit that was still smoking and shook his head helplessly. His plane couldn’t take another beating like this. It was best if those two planes never came back to attack them again. Otherwise, they would be waiting in their life jackets in the icy waters of the North Atlantic for a submarine to recover their bodies.

“Let’s fly back! Return to base!” the captain said with resignation and began to fly the plane back towards the British mainland. No one on the plane knew why the two terrifying new British fighters had let them go. It was not until much, much later that the truth of this battle was revealed to the world with the declassification of documents.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the two newest British jet fighters, the Meteors, were on their way back to base at high speed. The pilot of the lead plane was the same test pilot Major who was willing to die for the British Empire. At this moment, the cockpit of his wingman’s plane was filled with thick smoke, and it was impossible to see what was happening inside.

“Cough, cough! Cough, cough!” The sound of the wingman’s continuous coughing could still be heard in the headset, proving that the pilot inside was not yet dead. But his situation was clearly not optimistic. The smoke had obviously put him in a very bad state, and he was in constant danger of suffocation.

“Major, sir! cough, cough, cough, cough! Sir! I can’t hold on! I might not be able to make it back to base! Let me bail out!” The wingman was also a veteran who had survived the Battle of Britain and had very rich combat experience. He had once shot down a German Do-217 bomber and an Fw-190D fighter. He was a pilot with extensive air combat experience.

Because of the loss of the homeland, the British pilot training and replacement system had collapsed. The remaining veteran pilots with combat records were few and far between, and each one was an invaluable, intangible asset. Therefore, when the new jet fighters entered service, the British government in Iceland assigned the best pilots to them.

The only pity was that the reliability of this aircraft was too low. On the first day it was equipped by the force, one crashed due to mechanical failure, which reduced the number of planes in the British jet interceptor unit by a third. Yes, you heard that right, a third! The unit was only equipped with a total of three Meteor fighters. The only two remaining had almost shot down a Butcher reconnaissance plane in this air battle.

Unfortunately, now another plane had malfunctioned, causing the attack mission to be aborted. The wingman was now trying his best to save the precious new fighter, but his efforts had clearly failed. He was exhausted, and the thick smoke was choking him, making his head a little fuzzy.

“Sir, I want to go home! cough, cough!” In the headset, the wingman’s voice was growing weaker.

“We’re almost over the airfield! Shut down the engine and glide in! Acknowledge if you hear me!” the Major replied, his brow furrowed. The man in the wing plane was his friend of many years. The cruel Battle of Britain had not been able to kill this old friend, but now a malfunction in a new fighter was about to take his life.

“I mean my home in Yorktown. I want to go back, to see that place… cough, cough, cough, cough… Damn it, I can’t breathe!” The wingman seemed to be saying something, but his voice was getting smaller and smaller. The Major in the lead plane could no longer hear clearly what his friend was saying.

“I have to bail out! God! I have to bail out! I have to get out of this damn place!” Suddenly, the wingman shouted hysterically. His voice startled the Major, who then saw the canopy of the wingman’s plane next to him being forcefully pulled open from the inside.

“We’ve reached the airfield! Just hold on for a few more seconds and you can land! My friend! Just hold on!” the Major pleaded with his comrade, hoping he could save the precious aircraft.

“…” No one answered his plea, because he had already seen the wingman’s plane plunge towards the ground. Terrifyingly, the pilot had not yet bailed out. Smoke poured from the open cockpit, and then the flames, meeting the wind outside, flared up with a whoosh.

The jet aircraft wobbled and hurtled towards the Icelandic coastline, finally crashing in the shallows by the sea. The British beach patrol found the wreckage, and soon, air force personnel also arrived at the scene.

After the Major landed at the airfield and rushed to the scene of the accident, the medics were lifting the wingman’s body onto a jeep. The body’s face was blackened by smoke, and his clothes had been partially burned by the flames that had flared up. This pilot, who had once shot down a German fighter in an outdated plane, had ultimately not been able to escape a mechanical accident, and had died during the return flight.

“The plane? Is it still usable?” the Major asked, his face expressionless, betraying no emotion. He turned his head and asked an engineering technician who had followed him in a low voice, “My friend should not have died in vain.”

“The entire cockpit was destroyed by the fire. I don’t know if this plane is worth repairing, but in my opinion, even if it is repaired, no one would dare to fly it into combat again,” the engineering technician said with a helpless shrug. “Besides, one of the engines hit the mud first, and half the wing flew over there… it’s a definite write-off.”

He still couldn’t save the plane. The Major gave a bitter smile, then said to another pilot who had come with him, “As a pilot of the British Empire, I just want to ask you, are you willing to continue flying this plane to defend the airspace of the British Empire and fight?”

“I am willing! Sir!” the young pilot replied, standing at attention, his expression filled with an English-style fanaticism. A super-empire that had lasted for a hundred years would not lack loyal and brave warriors when it fell. Fanaticism was not the patent of any one country; it was the courage of every country’s patriots.

“With men like you, Britain will never fall!” the Major said, solemnly returning the salute. He then looked at the engineering technician. “Did you hear what he said? We dare to take off and face the enemy without fear for our lives. Please, improve the performance of the aircraft, so that patriotic pilots do not have to be sacrificed in vain again!”

The engineer gave a helpless smile and walked towards the wreckage without a word. But in his heart, he sighed bitterly: “If it were possible, I would want to make the plane more reliable too, but… we really can’t do it…”

Published: 2025-09-14T06:57:10.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-02-05T17:53:18.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c645-crash-138854548

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