The Hornet's Sting (3 page)

His desperate act of self-defense left an ominous silence, broken only by the sound of a German soldier scrambling up the slope towards him. As the guard drew closer and raised his rifle, Tommy saw that ‘He was literally shaking with anger and looked as though he might be ready to do anything.’

At that moment he knew his charm offensive among the invaders, launched in the hope of unearthing intelligence for the British, was going to count for nothing. The dream of an escape to England and a new life as a fighter pilot in the RAF looked no more than a hollow fantasy. Right there, at home, was where the war seemed about to end for Thomas Sneum.

Tommy had been a twenty-two-year-old flight lieutenant in Denmark’s Fleet Air Arm when the Nazis had rolled across the border on 9 April 1940. He had wanted to fight them there and then, and bitterly resented being denied the opportunity to take off in his Hawker Nimrod biplane to meet the Luftwaffe in the skies above Copenhagen. He hadn’t been allowed to fire a single round in defense of his country and now, when he had finally pulled the trigger against the occupying forces, all he had done was blast a gaping hole in a dog. Worse still, it appeared that he might now be about to pay for that killing with his own life.

For a proud patriot, the situation was so absurd that it rivalled the farce of 9 April itself. Tommy had rebuilt his self-esteem by showing a dilack of respect for his own country’s conduct on that momentous day, and in particular for the decisions of his military superiors. Since then, word had spread among the occupying forces that a feisty individual had stood out during the meek capitulation, and might yet require careful handling. Hauptmann Meinicke, Hitler’s plump, middle-aged commander on the island of Fanoe, expressed some sympathy when he heard how the young Danish pilot had been grounded on the morning the German forces had swept in. The commander, a professional soldier without a Nazi bone in his body, seemed genuinely impressed by the local man’s defiant spirit, and had the opportunity to tell him so when the pair were introduced by an administrative official in nearby Esbjerg, Denmark’s most westerly port.

Although Sneum wasn’t particularly tall, there was something of a fighter in his rugged features. He hadn’t been given the chance to test himself, and that had obviously hurt, even though he would surely have been killed if his plane had been allowed to engage the enemy. Meinicke heard how the fiery Dane had conveyed his disgust to his superiors in Fleet Air Arm. First he had protested at the decision not to defend the country. Then he had asked to leave the service. Finally, when asked to put in writing a valid reason for his discharge, he had scribbled: ‘The shit behavior of the Danish Navy on 9 April.’ It was blatant insubordination.

As spring turned to summer on Fanoe, Meinicke clearly enjoyed the rapport that developed between them. The glint in Tommy’s eye and the cheeky smile were never more evident than when he refused to accept what Meinicke personally regarded as inevitable—that Germany would win the war by Christmas.

‘I don’t think you’ll win the war this year, next year or the year after that,’ insisted Tommy bravely.

Meinicke scoffed and said: ‘You can’t be serious.’

But Sneum was adamant. ‘Look at Napoleon,’ he pointed out. ‘He had all of Europe and never got to England. You’ll lose too, when the English and the Americans get together.’

They bet a bottle of whisky on the war being over by New Year 1941. Since the Americans were officially neutral and looked set to remain so, Meinicke confidently predicted that his new friend would never taste a drop of that Scotch. As a small consolation for Germany’s occupation of his country, however, he gave Sneum permission to use a firearm, if only to hunt near his family’s home. On this pretext, Tommy had edged towards the sinister-looking installation as it took shape between the dunes and the trees. He wondered what menace this new facility represented to the British across the North Sea. And if his suspicions were correct, he knew he would have to find a way to warn them. But now the only challenge he faced was how to stay alive long enough to get himself out of this mess.

With the Nazis sweeping all before them in 1940, Tommy could have taken a back seat like so many of his fellow countrymen. But he wasn’t built that way; he had to be involved somehow. And when, soon after the invasion, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering invited Flight Lieutenant Thomas Sneum to join his mighty Luftwaffe, some very troubling ideas began to form in Tommy’s head. Although he had been outraged by the invasion, Sneum had nothing against the Luftwaffe’s commander-in-chief personally. He had met Goering and even acted as a translator for him a couple of years earlier, when Hitler’s trusted ally had visited Avnoe, the Danish air base where Sneum was stationed. Later in life, Tommy observed: ‘Goering looked like a fat, stupid bastard—flabby. But he had already proved himself to be a man—one of the best fighter pilots in the First World War. He had downed a lot of Allied planes in that war, and I admired him at the time. Personally, I don’t think he was ever a Nazi at heart. By the time we finished touring the air base, he was calling me by my name, addressing me as “Flight Lieutenant Sneum.”’

It hadn’t been easy to resist the temptation to fly again, particularly after an officer on Goering’s staff had taken Tommy on a tour of airfields on both sides of the border between Denmark and Germany. The German’s persuasive, probing manner led Tommy to believe he might be an intelligence officer. Nevertheless, he was impressed by the respect he was shown, something entirely absent in the treatment he had recently suffered at the hands of his own military superiors. (Danish Fleet Air Arm had even threatened to arrest him after he had distributed naval food supplies among local households without permission in the confused hours immediately after the invasion. But Sneum hadn’t seen any point in leaving those supplies where they were, just waiting for the Germans to seize them, and he didn’t see why he should continue to take orders from men he now regarded as cowards.)

As he was courted by the invaders, Tommy reflected bitterly that at least the Germans were true fighters, like himself. To be among fellow warriors in the skies above Europe would be appealing. From another perspective, he also considered that signing up with the Luftwaffe would give him the opportunity to learn a great deal about the German war machine, valuable intelligence that could be passed on to the Allies. Looking back, Tommy reasoned:

However, the fear of being a bystander throughout the war was strong in these emotive times. Still hungry for action of some kind, Sneum fed his natural addiction to danger by edging ever closer to the new Fanoe installation, and in particular the strange rectangular shapes by the sea, with their mesh frames and mysterious rods protruding like antennae. The mystery behind their precise function had begun to consume him, with his curiosity only sharpened by an equal determination among the Germans to protect their secrets. For months, local traffic had been diverted so that no islanders could come close to the new giants on their doorstep.

But Tommy knew this island better than the back of his hand. He was also intelligent—‘My IQ is 164,’ he later claimed. And, crucially, he had sufficient imagination to grasp the enormous military potential of scientific innovation. As he edged ever closer to the facility, he could see that each giant structure was constructed around a searchlight. The metal grids were built on huge cubic bases, with the two connected by long levers which offered horizontal and vertical mobility. He suspected he was looking at some kind of early-warning system, and if he was right the consequences would be grave indeed. Any British bombers hoping in the future to attack the Nazis at Esbjerg, or pass unnoticedover this strategic coast on their way to targets in Germany, would be blasted out of the sky.

But before he could contact the British to sound the alarm, Tommy felt that he needed to be sure of his facts. And so, on this particular summer’s day, he had climbed Kikkebjerg—‘Lookout Hill’—not far from the German base. He was trying to monitor the installation through a powerful pair of binoculars, and make sure the coast was clear before he moved closer still. But the Alsatian had ruined everything, and the shotgun blast had left one angry German guard looking distinctly trigger-happy.

When he saw the remains of his dog, and the intruder with a shotgun, the guard aimed his rifle as if ready to exact instant revenge. Rather than fire, though, he shouted: ‘Put it down. Now!’ Sneum thought it wise to comply, and also raised his hands in the air. The guard was still shaking with anger as he walked forward; and there were tears in his eyes. The steel bayonet attached to the barrel of the German’s rifle was soon an inch from Tommy’s temple.

‘Look, there’s no need for this,’ Sneum suggested as calmly as he could, in fluent German. ‘I had no choice but to shoot. Your dog was about to rip my throat out. I don’t know why. I was just hunting.’

‘Hunting?’ The German wasn’t buying it. ‘No one is allowed here.’ ‘I have a permit,’ Tommy insisted. ‘Why wasn’t your dog on a leash?’

‘I’ll ask the questions, not you!’ screamed the guard. ‘Now move!’

‘I’ll do as you say,’ said Sneum, then added, ‘but I’ll report you, too.’

He was frog-marched to an office just inside the perimeter of the German base. ‘This bastard has just shot my dog,’ the soldier told his colleagues. ‘What shall we do with him?’

Typically, Sneum suppressed his fear and moved on to the attack. ‘Now look, if you carry on like this, I’ll make sure Hauptmann Meinicke hears about your behavior. He’s a personal friend of mine. Your dog was out of control and an obvious threat. Under Danish law, I was well within my rights to shoot it.’

The Germans looked at one another for a moment. The mention of their commanding officer’s name had clearly given them food for thought.

‘Take his name and address then get him out of here.’ Having delivered his verdict, the guard in charge turned on the troublemaker. ‘We’d better not see you around here again. Believe me, you won’t be so lucky if we do, whether you know Hauptmann Meinicke or not.’

When he next met the formerly amiable Meinicke, Sneum noticed immediately that the Hauptmann’s jovial manner had disappeared. There was no more banter about how quickly Hitler would win the war. And there was no apology for the dog’s sudden attack, or for the threats from his guards. Worse still, as he led the young islander to his office, Meinicke behaved as though he now required proof of Tommy’s allegiance.

‘Flight Lieutenant Sneum,’ said the German officer rather formally, ‘some of our bigger vessels have been experiencing some difficulties trying to negotiate the narrow sea-lane around Fanoe as they approach Esbjerg on the mainland.’

‘Is that so?’ Tommy sensed he was about to be pushed further than he wanted to go.

‘Indeed it is. In fact, some of our ships have almost run aground. So I wonder if you could help us.’

Sneum looked for a way out. ‘Hauptmann Meinicke, I’m an aircraft pilot, not a ship’s pilot.’

‘But you’re a navy man, you’re an islander and you know the waters. We just need confirmation of the best way into Esbjerg. And it so happens that I have a map right here.’