Opening Moves

On 9th June 1975 he joined the Fire Service and after a colourful career retired on 19th May 2007, having achieved the rank of Sub-Officer, Watch Commander, or to be politically correct for the ego-tripping harridans in HR, Watch Manager ‘A’.

After thirty-two years in the Fire Service reality suddenly hit and Colin found himself in need of a proper job!

As of today, Colin is permanently employed doing night shifts for NHS Out of Hours service.

At this moment in time Colin has a wife, two daughters, one step-daughter, two step-sons and a grandson called Lucas who is an avid Manchester United fan, although at the age of one he doesnt know it yet.

A tank of fish, two turtles, four cats and a rat masquerading as a dog complete the home ensemble.

He has been a wargamer for most of his life, hence the future plans for a Red Gambit wargaming series.

In 1992 Colin joined the magistracy, having wandered in from the street to ask how someone becomes a beak. He served until 2005. The experience taught him the true difference between justice and the law, the former being what he would have preferred to administer.

Red Gambit was researched initially over ten years ago but work and life changes prevented it from blossoming.

Now it has become five books instead of one, as more research is done and more lines of writing open themselves up.

Colin writes for the pleasure it brings him and hopefully the reader. The books are not intended to be modern day ‘Wuthering Heights’ or ‘War and Peace’. They contain a story which Colin thinks is worth the telling and to which task he set his inexperienced hand. The biographies are part of the whole experience that he hopes to bring the reader.

Enjoy them all and thank you for reading.

‘Stalemate’ – the story continues. Read the first chapter of ‘Stalemate’ now.

Chapter 55 – The Wave.

Artillery is the god of war.

Iosef Stalin

0255 hrs Monday, 13th August 1945, Europe.

Whilst not as big a bird as the Lancaster, or as potent a weapon in general, the Handley Page Halifax Bomber had seen its fair share of action and success up to May 1945.

NA-R was one of the newest Mark VII’s, in service with the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 426 Squadron, presently flying out of a base at Linton on Ouse, England.

Tonight the mission was to accompany two hundred and forty-one other aircraft and their crews to area bomb woods to the south-east of Gardelegen.

The Halifax crew were relatively inexperienced, having completed only two operations before the German War ended, added to four in the new one.

The night sky was dark, very dark, the only light provided by the glowing instrument panel or the navigators small lamp.

Until 0300 arrived, at which time night became day as beneath the bomber stream thousands of crews operated their weapons at the set time. Across a five hundred mile front Soviet artillery officers screamed their orders and instantly the air was filled with metal.

From their lofty perches, the Canadian flyers witnessed the delivery and arrival of tons of high explosive, all in total silence save for the drone of their own Bristol Hercules engines.

They watched, eyes drawn to the spectacle, as the Russian guns fired salvo after salvo.

Their inexperience was the death of them, as it was for the crew of K-Kilo, a Lancaster from 626 Squadron RAF.

Both crews, so intent on the Soviet display, drifted closer until the mid-upper gunner in UM-K screamed in shock and fear as a riveted fuselage dropped gently down towards him. The Halifax crew were oblivious to their peril, the Lancaster crew resigned to it as contact was made with the tail plane and rudders, the belly of the Halifax bending and splitting the control surfaces.

The Lancaster bucked slightly, pushing the port fin further up into the Halifax where the ruined end caught fast, partly held by a bent stay and partially by control wires caught on debris.

The Halifax pilot, a petrified twenty-one year old Pilot Officer, eased up on his stick, dragging the Lancaster into a nose down attitude and ruining its aerodynamic efficiency. The young pilot then decided to try and move left, and at the same time the Lancaster pilot lost control of his aircraft, the nose suddenly rising and causing the port inner propeller to smash into the nose of the Handley Page aircraft.

Fragments of perspex and sharp metal deluged the pilot, blinding him. His inability to see caused more coming together and the tail plane of the Avro broke away, remaining embedded in the belly of the Halifax.

Both aircraft stalled and started to tumble from the sky. Inside the wrecked craft aircrew struggled to escape, G forces building and condemning most to ride their charges into the ground.