Dogfight (8 page)

Unlike many pilots, Olive had pre-war experience with Germans. In late 1937, he and a South African from 65 Squadron secured leave to ski and hike in Austria. The two colonials spent most of their time with Austrian guides of similar age to themselves in the enchanting mountains of the Tyrol; friendships were struck up and conversation turned to politics and National Socialism. The guides were sympathetic to Germany's Hitler and the prospects for Austria, and dismissed the likelihood of war. Twelve months later Olive was able to revisit Austria, but everything had changed with the German take-over: the
Anschluss.
His entry to Austria was marred by the Nazi customs officer, a ‘coarse-looking brute' in jackboots who ‘spat some remark to me in German I didn't understand' and everywhere ‘floated the Nazi Swastika'.

His friends of only a year ago had lost their happy-go-lucky outlook on life and would only talk politics in the most guarded terms. Some were almost panicky and now considered war inevitable. ‘Hitler is going to try to conquer the world,' one noted desperately. ‘It is too late for us. We are already conquered. The National Socialists are incredibly evil. If they conquer the world, civilisation will go back to another Dark Age.' Olive compared this trip with his first Austrian sojourn just a year earlier and observed that the ‘people were the same, at least the ones I had mixed with were, but a brutal element had been mobilised to terrify the people into abject compliance with the slightest whim of the new ruling class'. During the Battle of Britain the thoughtful Queenslander wrestled with his moral qualms:

Richard Hillary was another pilot who rationalised his actions along ideological lines, but overlaid this with a veneer of reasoned professionalism and pragmatism. His views were similarly coloured by his pre-war contact with Germans but he was, in contrast to Olive, far less sympathetic. In 1938, at the Rhineland river town of Bad Ems as part of the Oxford rowing team, the Australian expatriate had been none too impressed with the attitude of the Germans he met at the General Göring's Prize Fours. The Oxonians deliberately displayed a cultivated indifference to the opposition and even the race itself, much to the annoyance of the German competitors.

During the penultimate race the English were five boat-lengths adrift of the leader when someone spat on them. ‘It was a tactical error,' recalled Hillary. His crew won the race by two-fifths of a second, much to the chagrin of the German crews as they watched the languid Brits hold aloft the trophy. Consequently, when the war came, Hillary felt little affinity for the German pilots, and the war itself offered, at least for those from the university squadrons, the opportunity to show they were a ‘match for Hitler's dogmafed youth'.[31]

In spite of his political disdain for his National Socialist adversaries, when he finally made his first kill Hillary, like many of his contemporaries, felt he was merely doing his job as a professional fighter pilot. In his best-selling book chronicling his combat experiences, Hillary shared his thoughts in the wake of shooting down his first German:

In spite of Hillary's clinical analysis, many other pilots who came face-to-face with their victims' mutilated and burnt bodies in an English or French field were less enamoured of the impersonal ‘duellist' analogy.

When, back in November 1939, Cobber Kain confronted the wreckage of his widely celebrated first victory over France, the young Kiwi was left with no doubt of the bloody nature of war, even for fighter pilots. What was left of the crew was scattered though an orchard and around a church, with two fire-scorched skulls adorned with the remnants of aviation headgear. His biographer Michael Burns wrote that the ‘euphoria in the kill evaporated when he saw the reality of war close-up ... and the illusion was gone'.[33] Newspaper reporters recalled that Kain was visibly distressed. On the back of a photograph, which he sent to a family friend, of himself standing amid the wreckage, he scrawled ‘Looking a little sobered after viewing my 1st victim...'

Few of the Anzacs would feel the same hatred for their enemy as some of the Continental pilots, especially the Poles, who had not only suffered the indignity of a German invasion but the great loss of civilian life that followed. Nevertheless, personal loss could inspire a strong desire to ‘even the score' or deliver retribution. Farnborough-based test pilot Arthur Clouston lost his brother to the Germans and waited for the opportunity to strike back. In September, the sirens blared and a mad rush was made for the fighters. The New Zealander won the race to a Spitfire and once
aloft found a cluster of bombers retreating after unloading their armaments. Clouston latched onto a Me 110, only to have a large bomber pass directly in front of him. A long burst from his eight machine guns resulted in the aircraft rolling over and disintegrating on impact with a local farmer's field. The temporarily forgotten Me 110 soon felt the sting of Clouston's skill and ire; the rear gunner was killed and the starboard engine suffered heavy damage. Exhilarated, he returned to base feeling much better having ‘paid the debt' for his brother.[34]

Observing the results of the conduct of some German pilots turned a number of the RAF fight pilots quickly away from the idea that this aerial struggle was an honourable contest between gentlemen. During the fall of France, pilots of the AASF had been disgusted by the Luftwaffe's deliberate use of Stuka dive bombers on civilians fleeing the front lines.[35] Calculated to slow the advance of Allied counter-operations, the attacks on the refugees left a trail of dead civilian men, women and children that dispelled any illusions that this air war was a replay of the chivalrous exploits of the Great War. Thereafter, they saw it as their duty to rid the world of Hitler and National Socialism, one Luftwaffe pilot at a time.

Attitudes also hardened towards the enemy when German pilots were deemed to be not playing within the rules of the game. Spurdle was one of the few pilots to be confronted by just such a situation and it came to define his attitude to war and the enemy. In a vertical dive at over 600 mph chasing an Me 109, he lost his starboard wing. He baled out at 20,000 feet and opened his parachute. He immediately found himself enmeshed in tracer fire as he was attacked by a Luftwaffe airman.

Fortunately, the handgun-wielding Spurdle did not have to go one-on-one with the Messerschmitt, as two Spitfires entered the fray.[37] The Kiwi had
a grandstand view of the fight as the ‘Jerry staggered, slipped and fell, crippled and smoking into a wood'. ‘Served the bastard right!' thought Spurdle.

After a handful of days of respite in London he returned to the mess to find pilots still fuming about the barbaric Luftwaffe pilot firing upon the defenceless New Zealander. Spurdle was having none of it and had drawn his own typically forthright conclusions from the frightening incident: ‘You're nuts! The Hun was right! I'd do exactly the same if over their territory ... He's only going to come up again and it could be my turn the next time.' He stated that, ‘I'd shoot up an ambulance or their bloody women to help win the war!'[38] Few pilots, Anzac or otherwise, would have agreed, but most had not been shot at while hanging defenceless in a parachute.

Clearly, the rationale for fighting and killing the enemy differed from pilot to pilot. While some argued that their actions were part of a crusade to destroy Nazism, others rested in the role assigned them of highly skilled professionals doing their job. Either way, a pilot could not be expected to have a great deal of sympathy for an enemy who had already killed some of his best mates and was doing everything in his power to do the same to him. All pilots agreed that air fighting was a zero-sum game. Returning to the squadron mess holding a trophy collected from the remains of a wreck—a Mauser pistol—Kain was asked by reporters how he felt about the Germans he had just killed. He responded, in a slightly breaking voice, ‘Well it was either them or me.'[39]

CHAPTER 4

On 24 July, a series of formidable attacks was launched on the convoys. The Germans first dispatched heavily escorted bombers against a convoy on the threshold of the Thames Estuary and one in the Dover Straits. In the thick of it was Deere commanding a flight which included Gray. The first sortie of the day took place soon after breakfast and, although they disrupted an attack on the convoy, no enemy machines were knocked out.

Their second mission took place at midday when 54 Squadron was sent rushing forward to intercept raids at 7000 feet.[1] Deere soon spotted the largest formation of enemy machines he had seen: eighteen Dornier bombers and a disturbingly high number of fighters. In typical Luftwaffe fashion, the Me 109s were staircased up to about 5000 feet above Deere's position. The convoy—easily seen in the distance—was the unsuspecting target of the Luftwaffe bombers. In terms of self-preservation the best option was to attack the fighters, because to assault the bombers first was to leave oneself open to an unpleasant counter-attack from the covering Me 109s. Nevertheless, the squadron's first duty was to destroy, or at least waylay, the Dorniers. The Anzac ordered his flight to strike.

At which point the Luftwaffe fighters descended from behind and a ‘terrific
dogfight' ensued, scrawled Gray in his flight logbook. Deere, in his after-action report, noted that although most of his shots were wild bursts at aircraft flashing past him, he did manage ‘one decent long burst at a [Me] 109 at close range and he went down with glycol pouring from the machine.'[3] It was his first success in the Battle of Britain proper. For both New Zealanders the dogfight ended with the sky devoid of all machines. ‘Suddenly, the sky was clear and I was alone,' recalled Deere, ‘one moment the air was a seething cauldron of Hun fighters, and the next it was empty.' It struck the two of them as a strange phenomenon, but was not uncommon.

Gray turned his machine for home when he heard a pilot across the wireless calling for directions to Hornchurch. It was evident that the airman had become disorientated in the mêlée. Confirming the dilemma, a fighter flashed past Gray's nose heading in the ‘wrong direction' to France. Only too eager to aid a fellow pilot in need, the Anzac changed course and sent his Spitfire in pursuit. If he could overtake the errant pilot Gray could then guide him home. As he closed with the fighter, he thought the Spitfire was somewhat unusual looking and then realised that it was in fact an enemy Me 109. At which point the German threw the machine to starboard, exposing a dark cross emblazoned across the fuselage. The machine was now vulnerable to a deflection shot and burst into flames as the pilot opened the cockpit canopy to bale out.[4]

Just before lunch the following day, 54 Squadron was once again sent south to Manston. Two hours later both flights were airborne; Deere was in A Flight and Gray in B, led by Englishman George Gribble. This second flight of five Spitfires caught sight of Ju 87 dive-bombers flying from the direction of Cap Gris Nez—the closest point on the French coast to Dover, barely 20 miles distant. Gray was keen to attack the Stukas, which were rapidly gaining a reputation as easy pickings for Fighter Command's Hurricanes and Spitfires. The flight immediately engaged the forty or so Ju 87s.

The first to fall was at the hands of Flight Lieutenant Basil ‘Wonky' Way, of Somerset. Way was one of the squadron's most accomplished pilots and had been the recipient of the Groves Memorial Flying Prize in training for the best all-round pilot of the course. However, in an instant the situation changed. ‘Watch out, Blue One, [Me] 109s coming in from above
—hundreds of them,' yelled Gribble over the radio.[5] Gray's after-action report reckoned they numbered sixty. The odds were impossible, as the Kiwi was engaged by about a dozen Me 109s in a fifteen-minute dogfight that ranged between 10,000 and 19,000 feet. He could hardly ‘get in a burst' because, in a great example of Kiwi understatement, he was ‘rather outnumbered'.[6] During his febrile manoeuvres, Gray somehow managed to hit one fighter which he saw roll over, apparently out of control.

In the meantime, Deere, who had been denied permission from control to aid his fellow squadron members, was forced to listen to the unfolding drama via the frantic radio chatter. The dogfight reached its crescendo with Gribble barking urgently over the radio, ‘Break, Wonky, BREAK.' Gray saw a Spitfire spinning out of control. Gribble's voice cut through the static, this time in half-sobbing anger: ‘Damn and blast this bloody war.'[7] Basil Way had been killed.

For Gray the death of Way was just the most recent in a series of losses that stretched back to November 1939. The list included his brother, Kenneth; John Kemp, one of his very best New Zealand friends; John Allen, a favoured colleague; and now the popular ‘Wonky' Way. Ken Gray had entered the service ahead of his twin brother as a bomber pilot. With the April 1940 German invasion of Scandinavia, Ken's unit was shipped north from Driffield to Kinloss, Scotland, to fly missions over Norway. In the course of these operations Colin contacted his older sibling in order to share some leave together. Ken was delivering a bomber from Kinloss to Driffield and arranged to pick Colin up at another airfield as he flew south. His brother never appeared. ‘It seemed such a cruel twist of fate that a skilful and experienced pilot ... should lose his life in such circumstances,' recalled a stunned Colin.[8]

The loss of Kemp in the ‘slaughter of the innocents' on 19 July hit Gray particularly hard as the Wellingtonian had been on the same England-bound voyage in 1938 and they became fast friends. In November 1939, Kemp was posted to 54 Squadron as the third New Zealander alongside Gray and Deere, only to be quickly shunted sideways to the Defiant-equipped 141 Squadron. Gray was only too well aware that Kemp was ill-suited to the shift and, in the light of 54 Squadron's losses sustained over Dunkirk, made a case for the twenty-five-year-old's return. The squadron leader put in the paperwork. A foul-up ensued and instead of J.R. Kemp, a J.L. Kemp was delivered. It was ‘the wrong Kemp', recalled a frustrated Gray.[9] Soon afterwards he received a pleasant surprise in the form of an evening phone
call from his good friend, only to learn that Kemp was still untested in battle. On 18 July, in a break in the action, Gray took a short jaunt in a Spitfire to West Malling, Kent, to see his friend: ‘It was the last time I saw him alive.'

The deaths of Allen and Way in quick succession, on 24 and 25 July respectively, hit Gray and the squadron hard. Both men were accomplished pilots and widely regarded as leaders. Allen was a quiet, religious man and at first glance seemed a little out place in the ‘bloodthirsty atmosphere' prevailing the squadron—he was often found with his nose in his bible in squadron downtime—but his bravery and ability behind the controls of a Spitfire were undeniable. On 24 July, the DFC recipient's engine was damaged in a dogfight over the Thames Estuary. He was seen gliding to Margate when the engine kicked into life, only to fail again: his machine stalled and the twenty-two-year-old was killed on impact. ‘With eight enemy aircraft destroyed to his credit, and many others probably destroyed and damaged, Johnny had at last been struck down,' wrote Deere, ‘a tragedy for the squadron and a sad day for his family and many friends.'[10] When ‘Wonky' Way was killed, the morale of the squadron pilots sunk to a new low. Some pilots were particularly embittered by the loss of such good pilots and friends, who were not outfought but outnumbered.[11]

Each man dealt with the death of fellow airman on his own terms, but there was a general tendency towards a ‘nonchalance and a touch of manufactured, protective heartlessness'.[12] Few pilots at the time or afterwards were willing to dwell on the loss of so many friends and colleagues. ‘At the end of the day we went off to the village pub or the mess and had a few drinks' and thought briefly about those absent from the gathering, recalled Keith Lawrence of Invercargill, but in the end ‘it was just part of the job ... you didn't seem to dwell on it'.[13]

Many airmen often took the view, as expressed in an epitaph for one pilot, ‘that it is better to forget and smile than to remember and be sad'.[14] ‘The death of a friend,' wrote one pilot, ‘provided food for a few moments of thought, before the next swirling dogfight began to distract the ... mind from the stupid thoughts of sadness or pity ... the art was to cheat the Reaper and perhaps blunt his scythe a little.'[15]

Those that remained in 54 Squadron were now physically and emotionally spread thin. The squadron had flown more sorties than any other and was reaching its operational limits. Over the month of July, Gray
had notched up a remarkable sixty-eight sorties. Orders from Dowding had the squadron sent north to Catterick for a break.

Leave was a vital component in maintaining the fighting abilities of the squadron. Time away from the battlefield enabled pilots to forget the horrors of the war in the air. For many pilots there was plenty to see and do. As Lawrence noted, ‘All these English towns were lovely places to look around and at the history, the buildings, it was so unlike New Zealand.'[16] Many pilots had relatives, while other stayed on large estates opened to the pilots in order to get them away from the battlefield. Paterson was able to get away from the front lines to an earl's estate in Scotland and spent much of his time hiking and hunting. He was in his element and bagged three stags.[17] Gard'ner, before his mauling during the ‘slaughter of the innocents' had taken a shine to ice skating, which he picked up while stationed in Scotland. The Canadians in the squadron played in a local ice hockey league and, by his own confession ‘not much of pub crawler', the young New Zealander spent much of his time watching and learning from Canadian speedsters.[18] While Gard'ner and others found diversions in the picturesque countryside, many more gravitated to the hedonistic pleasures of British towns and cities.

Most Anzacs in the Second World War fought their battles far from the comforts of home, but the Battle of Britain fighter boys engaged the enemy over ‘home soil', with some of Britain's best pubs, nightclubs and theatres close at hand. An arduous operation could be swiftly followed by one of the pilots' favourite pastimes: the consumption of alcohol. Therefore, the first port of call was often the officer's mess, located either on the base, or sometimes off-base, in a requisitioned manor house or some such venue. Sofas, chairs and the bar were the essential furnishings. Roving beyond the confines of the airfield, the Anzacs became accustomed to the beer, a ‘tangy sudsy bitter', common to the pubs of England.[19] Strenuous efforts were made to hit the local tavern before closing, even after the most arduous of flights. On a good day, clasping a favourite pewter tankard, pilots discussed the day's sorties, or alternately joined in the banter with the locals; on a bad day a more sombre mood prevailed, accompanied by a toast in honour of the departed. Local pubs were often adopted by squadrons. The White Hart tavern near Biggin Hill was the favourite off-base watering-hole for
Kinder and his fellow pilots and the scene of many a jest and long evening of drinking.[20] In general the airmen were well received, especially as the Battle of Britain became increasingly punishing in August and September.

The proximity to London drew pilots like a moth to a flame. For those based close enough to travel into London, it was the Tivoli bar not far from the respective New Zealand and Australia Houses situated in the Strand. One New Zealander who was used to making such regular forays was the North Weald-based Irving ‘Black' Smith of 151 Squadron. On one occasion, later in the campaign, the Invercargill-born pilot's efforts to reach the bar looked doomed to fail when his quarters were bombed. Lacking kit, he was hastily transferred to North Weald's satellite field at Stapleford, Tawney. With circumstances conspiring to prevent his attendance at the night's planned festivities, he left a message at the Tivoli informing his friends that he would not make it there.

Upon arriving at Stapleford he discovered a late train that would get him into the city after all. Exhausted but undeterred, he bought a ticket. His appearance was something of a surprise to his friends, who had misinterpreted the message to mean that the young New Zealander had been killed and he discovered them in the middle of a solemn wake in his honour. ‘My message was garbled. They all thought I'd been shot down and was dead,' an abashed Smith admitted. ‘After that there was a great thrash.'[21]

Paterson also made the trip into London on many occasions and relished the opportunity to catch up with New Zealanders over a few pints and hear news of events back home. As he soon discovered though, young Anzacs looking to release some tension could run amuck. On one occasion he met a West Coaster who, though terribly drunk, insisted that Paterson show him the town. In the end he was able to locate a group of New Zealanders in a favourite watering hole and detach himself from the inebriated airman. ‘Taking the opportunity [I] slipped out before they broke up the place, it was heading that way when I left,' wrote Paterson to his parents.[22]

As a general rule the behaviour of pilots was determined by the tenor set by the squadron commander. Fifty-four Squadron was led by Squadron Leader James ‘Prof' Leathart, a highly competent and well-regarded airman who took a middle-of-the-road approach. Consequently, he recognised the need for pilots to let their hair down but was concerned that airmen were at the top of their game when the enemy came calling. Stories of pilots drinking heavily into the small hours were not commonplace within
the squadron during periods of intensive fighting. For their part, the New Zealanders Deere and Gray had seen enough action and the loss of too many comrades to take lightly the impact of unchecked carousing on the ability of airmen to meet the enemy in the blue arena. Other airmen were less circumspect, and at least one New Zealand pilot from another squadron was rumoured lost after an alcohol-sodden night on the town.