Churchill's Hellraisers. Damien Lewis

64th’s mission was to service the needs of special operations across all northern Italy.

      Alongside the ranks of Dakotas there were one or two other, more curious airframes. One was a distinctive Nardi FN.305, a sleek Italian two-seater trainer and liaison aircraft, which in 1939 had achieved a world speed record. The other was even more instantly recognisable: it was a spindly, long-legged Fieseler Fi 156 Storch – Stork – a single-engine German spotter plane with an unrivalled short take-off and landing capability.

      Both aircraft had seen service with the Italian air force against the Allies. Now, they’d been repainted in friendly colours to meet the SOE’s needs. They were perfect for executing ultra-clandestine flights behind the Gothic Line, and especially as they boasted a pilot of untold renown. Lieutenant Furio Lauri was an Italian fighter ace credited with twelve Allied kills, including one Lancaster bomber. He’d been shot down twice, once by a Hurricane and once by anti-aircraft fire. Both times he’d survived.

      By the time of the Italian surrender he’d been awarded the War Cross for Military Valour and the Italian Crown, plus the Order of the German Eagle, among other decorations. Regardless, he’d signed up with the Italian resistance and it wasn’t long before the clandestine operators had come calling. Lauri had been approached by both the SOE and the US equivalent, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He’d decided to work with the British, hence his installation at the Rosignano airbase on SOE business.

      As he strode out to the waiting Dakotas, Lees paid those former-enemy aircraft small heed, little realising what a crucial role they would play on his coming mission. He clutched the flying suit closer to his six-foot-two frame. The sky was grey, the weather bitingly cold. Three aircraft were being readied: one was already packed with Lees and Farrimond’s weaponry and kit, while the others were stuffed full of arms, ammo and supplies to drop to the partisans.

      As Lees clambered aboard the American transport aircraft he was struck by how different this deployment was from those that had gone before. When heading into Yugoslavia, and later to join Major Temple, there had been rich theatre and drama in the moment. He remembered his 1943 departure, flying out to join the Yugoslavian Chetniks. The dark, gaping bomb-bay of the Halifax – the route via which agents had had to exit the aircraft – had been somehow so symbolic: a gateway into another world, one wherein all the normal rules of warfare were to be torn up and burned to a cinder. They’d dropped into a world where anything goes.

      By contrast, there was something curiously flat and unemotional about climbing aboard a purpose-built aircraft like the Dakota and settling into a relatively comfortable seat. As the aircraft roared into the skies, Lees had to remind himself just what he was flying into here: he was going in to wage total war. Their destination lay less than 200 kilometres north, and he had to focus and get into the zone.

      With a flight of powerful P-51 Mustang fighters as escort, the Dakotas crossed the coast before turning north. Faint flashes from a coastal hill battery revealed that they had crossed into enemy territory. The shells burst harmlessly far below their 20,000 feet cruise altitude. In perfect arrow-shaped formation the three-aircraft rumbled on towards the high mountains, as a pair of Mustangs broke off and dived to strafe the enemy gunners.