Dogfight (9 page)

An object lesson in extremes was provided by 74 ‘Tiger' and 92 ‘East India' Squadrons, which for a season were based at Biggin Hill, Kent. Over the course of the battle the squadrons included seven New Zealanders and one Australian. Seventy-four Squadron was kept on a fairly tight leash by their mercurial leader, the South African Adolph ‘Sailor' Malan, while 92 Squadron operating under the motto ‘fight-or-die' and cobra insignia was a much less regulated unit. One member of the East India Squadron summed up the differences well when he noted in his post-war memoirs that ‘74 were fresh compared to us, and started shooting down Huns, right left and centre ... They were all red hot shots, and the squadron the complete antithesis of 92. They did not indulge themselves in large cars, night clubs or fancy dress.' Malan, a stickler for discipline, dissuaded contact with 92 Squadron, which he considered a ‘bunch of playboys'.[23]

The 92 boys reconfigured their lives in the light of the death of a number of their colleagues who, in the early stages of war, had abandoned their booze and cigarette-infused late nights for a more monastic life in order to better face the demands of the battle at hand. Unfortunately a number of these were killed early in the battle. This only fuelled a more cavalier, hedonistic attitude among the survivors. The squadron became notorious for its pilots' disregard for rank outside the confines of the unit and its larrikinism. Kinder transferred into the unit late in the campaign and noted that they ‘were a rough lot. No ties were worn in those days; instead we tied our girlfriends' silk stockings round our necks, stuck our map and revolver in our flying boots and left the top brass button undone on jackets ... We would go to the local after a really hectic fight and get drunk in the gear just to relieve the build-up of tension.'[24] Concerned with the unit's behaviour, the RAF commissioned a team of psychologists to examine the squadron. The experts concluded that the ‘fight hard, play hard' attitude permeating the unit could remain as long as they continued to get results.[25] Meanwhile in 74 Squadron, Malan made sure his young men were tucked up in bed by 10.00p.m. Many of the lads in 92 joked that Malan was keeping the boys in line ‘at the point of a pistol'.[26]

Not that the 74 Squadron pilots were saints, as one incident in October highlighted. On a week's leave from the heavily bombed Biggin Hill, the squadron, which included Spurdle and fellow New Zealander Edward Churches, eased the stress levels with a little pheasant shooting. Loaded into a couple of station wagons, provided to ferry the airmen from their off-base house to the airfield, the pilots headed to a local spot seen to be well supplied with pheasants in a flyover only days before. Armed with 12-bore shotguns, they killed a handful of the birds, which were clearly in an enclosure. The pilot, who had cleared the fence to collect the ‘downed' birds, was caught by the gamekeeper, much to the amusement of the other pilots leaning on the fence elbowing each other. The resolute gamekeeper enquired if the pilot, with dead pheasants in hand, knew upon whose land he had been poaching. ‘No, but I'm sure he's wealthy enough to have a gamekeeper and a pen like this.'

‘His name,' the gamekeeper replied curtly, ‘is Winston Churchill. So I'll be having your name!'

The other pilots yelled out to the gamekeeper that the man before him was in fact the ‘Archbishop of Canterbury', and they ran to the cars and made their escape. The birds were cooked and consumed at a local pub.[27]

On rare occasions the entertainment came to the Anzacs at their respective bases. In August the Hornchurch field was visited by the famous Windmill Girls, named after their stage home, the Windmill Theatre, London. News of their upcoming performance was widely circulated and anticipated. The risqué revue was famous for its glamorous semi-nude women. The theatre's revealing productions circumvented the censor's condemnation by presenting the nudes as living statues with the understanding that ‘if you move it's rude'. Patronage in London was high and the show noteworthy for operating continuously throughout the war, even during the Blitz, under the motto ‘We Never Close'—regularly transmogrified to ‘We're Never Clothed' by local comedians.

The two New Zealanders on base—Deere and Gray—were keen as mustard to attend. The show was an unsurprising success and in short order was followed by a party in the officers' mess, where ‘there was much competition from the younger fry for a dance with the girls.'[28] After the squadron's heavy losses and the demands of daily combat, Deere concluded that:

The party did not break until 2.30a.m. The pilots would only have a few hours' blissful sleep before they entered the final throw of the
Kanalkampf.

Inclement weather restricted enemy initiatives over the following two weeks, but it did not stop deaths among RAF pilots. What is not often realised regarding the Battle of Britain, or any air campaign in the Second World War for that matter, is that aviation accidents were a significant factor in the loss of men and machines. In the four weeks of the
Kanalkampf,
Fighter Command had 336 aircraft either completely destroyed or significantly damaged. Of these, one-third were as a result of mishap, not enemy action.[30] The causes ranged from Polish airmen—who were accustomed to flying aircraft without retractable undercarriage—failing to put their landing gear down, to pilots attempting to fly in poor weather. The biggest loss of life occurred during night flying, with mechanical failure the second biggest culprit.

Upon awaking on 6 August, Olive was relieved to see cloud cover and drizzle. The inclement weather offered the opportunity to get some much-needed shut-eye. The entire 65 Squadron was exhausted, with reports of pilots falling asleep in flight and at the controls of recently landed aircraft. Small nightly nuisance raids only increased weariness, something Squadron Leader Henry Sawyer, one of Olive's best friends, was only too well aware of. To the consternation of the pilots, who had almost no night-flying hours, they were often woken to take off in an attempt at an interception, an almost impossible task. This meant that pilots like Olive took turns bedding down at night fully dressed in a caravan near the Spitfires.

On Olive's allotted night he was awoken in the early hours of the morning to the roar of a Spitfire taking off and he contacted the controller to find out what was going on. ‘Oh, it's all right,' he heard from the other end of the telephone, ‘Squadron Leader Sawyer said you hadn't had a
decent night's sleep for weeks and that if there was a “scramble” he would take your turn.'[31] A moment later the Queenslander heard the din of the Spitfire's 12-cylinder motor abruptly extinguished in an explosion. With sinking heart, he peered through the caravan window at the fierce glow lighting up the countryside a mile distant. Olive arrived at the scene to find fire and ambulance personnel extracting the dead body of his friend from the wreckage. The Anzac was ‘violently sick'. Ashen-faced, he made his way back to the flight caravan, only to be informed by the controller that ‘it wasn't a raider after all, so you can go back to bed'.

‘To bed, yes, but not to sleep,' Olive wrote later. ‘Poor Sawyer, trying to do me a kindness and let me sleep a little longer, had paid for it with his life. He had a beautiful wife and two little children—oh! The tragedy of war.'[32]

It is possible that Sawyer had been blinded by the incandescent exhaust flames and became disoriented, an all-too-common experience on particularly dark nights for pilots unaccustomed to night-flying a Spitfire. Alternatively, he may not have been concentrating on his instruments, another recurrent mistake that usually had fatal consequences during night flights.

Olive had his own close call soon after. In August the squadron was ordered on a midday patrol near Manston—now aptly dubbed ‘Hell's Corner' thanks to its proximity to the English Channel and as a focal point of the fighting. The Aussie led the dozen Spitfires aloft. As the engine pulled past 500 feet he flicked the oxygen supply on; with that, an abrupt explosion occurred as the ‘oxygen regulator blew up'. A deadly flame was flickering behind the instrument panel, and sparks and ‘dense smoke filled the cockpit and I realised with horror I was in trouble. My first thought was, Perhaps this killed Sawyer—I had to think of a way out. The Spitfire would obviously blow up in a few seconds—as soon as the oxygen fire heated the petrol tank to flash point.'[33]

The Australian now faced a dilemma; he could not simply roll the Spitfire on its back and bale out, as the other aircraft were still in close formation and to do so could see him blown back into their thrashing twelve-foot propellers. Moreover, because the explosion had disintegrated his radio he could not warn his fellow aviators. This meant that if he peeled away, his vic would follow. His spur-of-the-moment solution was to use hand signals perfected in the previous months for aerobatics. It worked; both wing-men swung away from their wildly gesticulating leader. With only moments left
to live, he pulled the controls back and sent the Spitfire heavenward. He needed to purchase enough height to bale out successfully.

Nothing. Olive looked down and to his horror the little pilot-chute, which pulled out the main parachute, had wrapped itself around his boots in a ghostly funeral shroud. In free fall, he madly worked it loose—the sudden deceleration as the rest of the silk was pulled out and opened above him dazed the young Anzac. Olive had already used up two of his proverbial nine lives in one sortie, but was about to call on a handful more.[35]

The Spitfire was a crumpled toy in a field below, having barely missed a series of high-tension cables. Olive was now drifting close to the 330,000 volt lines. He had heard of pilots pulling on their straps to collapse one side of the parachute to ‘side slip', and in this rudimentary manner direct their descent. Yanking on the straps was not as helpful as he had hoped, because the parachute was in the process of disintegrating. The middle section had completely disappeared and he was left with ‘two half moons' held together by the frailest of seams. His life was literally hanging by a thread. The parachute had been packed four months earlier and had not been aired since; moisture had mildewed the silk. Olive abandoned tugging on the straps, fearing a mere sneeze could be lethal. He skimmed past the wires with only inches to spare. Given his speed, he was lucky to make landfall in a freshly turned field of potatoes, but less lucky to find himself in the sights of a couple of shotgun-wielding Home Guard members. Both men were poor shots and Olive fortunately merely heard, rather than felt, the ‘thunk, thunk' of discharged lead shot as they fired in his direction.

Covered in sweat and dirt, and surrounded by mashed and scattered
potatoes, the prone and winded Olive lifted his head from the dark English soil to find himself besieged by a troop of Women's Land Army girls silhouetted against the early afternoon sun. ‘Eee luv, be you one of us or one of them?' asked one round-faced cherub. The question was understandable, since the patriotic Australian had continued to wear his less easily identified dark blue RAAF uniform. When the Home Guard appeared, Olive cleared up the situation with some well-placed ‘Australian vulgar tongue'. Befitting a comedy, the Land Army girl gathered the parachute, motioning to a friend: ‘It's a luvly bit of stuff. See 'ere Gert, make luvly knickers, wouldn't it?' To which Gert replied, ‘It's not much good luv, it's all ripped to ruddy ribbons. Better take it back and trade it in for a new one.'[36] The airfield's ambulance and fire engine were soon on hand.

The Anzac caught his breath aboard the ambulance as it left the scene on its way to the base, from which he had taken off only minutes before. The reassuring cocoon of the ambulance, however, was short-lived as it ran into a ditch masked by recently scythed grass. Olive crawled out from the overturned machine shaken but without additional injuries. The fire engine beckoned, and after the crew doused the still-burning Spitfire, he clambered atop the red truck to thunder back to the base.

On the back-country roads the crew could open the throttle right out, and did so. With tears streaming back across his face from the wind in his eyes, and the alarm bell literally ringing in his ears, the Australian held on for dear life as they careened along the green-hedged lanes. Unfortunately, the driver was a newcomer to this particular country network, which included a bridge set in a hairpin bend. With a full head of steam, he predictably failed to negotiate the turn and the fire engine went straight over the bank into a creek. Olive was once again airborne, catapulted free from the vehicle, landing heavily on the far bank. Dazed, he looked over his shoulder to observe the upside-down fire engine sink gently into a watery grave. It was another close call, not only for Olive but also the firemen, who fortunately made it clear of the wreckage.