The Battle of Britain (28 page)

On May 25, 1940, the squadron moved to Hornchurch to take part in covering the Dunkirk evacuation. The element of chance in meeting the enemy is clear in what Shipman reports about the ten sorties they flew from there. ‘For me Dunkirk seemed a frustrating period. The weather was difficult and the lack of good communications with other squadrons on patrol made matters worse. The length of the patrols stretched the economical engine handling to the limit, the fuel capacity being only 85 gallons (386 litres)'.

Because there were more pilots than aircraft, he did not fly on all the 10 patrols that the squadron carried out. Of the seven sorties he did fly, only one gave him a glimpse of the enemy, ‘. . . popping in and out of cloud some distance away'. To aggravate his frustration, ‘the other three patrols the squadron made were full of activity'.

His reference to other squadrons on patrol is of particular interest in view of the ‘Big Wing' controversy that provoked so much disagreement between Air Vice Marshals Park and Leigh-Mallory later that summer. It is not widely known that at this period three or four squadrons were sent, on occasion, from different stations to patrol the same section of the French coast simultaneously. Because they were equipped with the TR9D HF radio, which had only one channel, they each had to use a different frequency and could not intercommunicate: a powerful argument in favour of Park.

No. 41 returned to Catterick, flew a lot of convoy patrols, spent some time at Hornchurch once more, on the same duties, and then went back to Catterick as the Battle of Britain was reaching its height. By this time Shipman had been commissioned. August 15 was a heavy day for the whole of Fighter Command and at 1238 13 Spitfires of 41 Squadron, P/O Shipman's among them, were scrambled to help meet a big raid on the north-east. ‘We were ordered to attack Me 110 fighters escorting He 111s at 18,000ft (5,485m) in the Durham area. Leading Green Section, I attacked the section of Me 110s on the left of the formation, but before getting into range my target turned about and offered a brief opportunity to fire a two-second burst, without result. I then picked another target and managed to get in a series of deflection shots while the enemy aircraft was evading quite violently. Finally at 200 yards (180m) range I put the starboard engine out of action. The 110 made an erratic turn to port, emitting clouds of smoke, and disappeared into cloud below, apparently out of control. This was the only occasion when my camera gun worked and the film clearly showed all that had happened, confirming my claim.'

P/Os Bennions and Lovell and Sgt Usman each also shot down a Bf 110 in the same action.

Throughout the battle, one of the advantages held by the British was that if a pilot was shot down and survived, he could be in the air with a new aircraft the next day. German aircrew shot down over the British Isles were lost to the Luftwaffe whether they survived or not, although a skilled and courageous rescue service recovered many pilots from the English Channel. Al Deere typifies the RAF pilot who kept fighting after being shot down on numerous occasions; and in fact survived the wreck of his aircraft nine times in his combat career. He tells
of one of these battles: ‘Fastening on to the tail of a yellow-nosed Messerschmitt I fought to bring my guns to bear as the range rapidly decreased, and when the wingspan of the enemy aircraft fitted snugly into the range scale bars of my reflector sight, I pressed the firing button. There was an immediate response from my eight Brownings which, to the accompaniment of a slight bucketing from my aircraft, spat a stream of lethal lead targetwards. “Got you,” I muttered to myself as the small flames of exploding “De Wilde” bullets spattered along the Messerschmitt's fuselage. My exultation was short-lived. Before I could fire another burst two 109s wheeled in behind me. I broke hard into the attack pulling my Spitfire into a climbing, spiralling turn as I did so; a manoeuvre I had discovered in previous combats with 109s to be particularly effective. And it was no less effective now; the Messerschmitts literally “fell out of the sky” as they stalled in an attempt to follow me.

‘I soon found another target. About 3,000 yards directly ahead of me, and at the same level, a Hun was just completing a turn preparatory to re-entering the fray. He saw me almost immediately and rolled out of his turn towards me so that a head-on attack became inevitable. Using both hands on the control column to steady the aircraft and thus keep my aim steady, I peered through the reflector sight at the rapidly closing enemy aircraft. We opened fire together, and immediately a hail of lead thudded into my Spitfire. One moment the Messerschmitt was a clearly defined shape, its wingspan nicely enclosed within the circle of my reflector sight, and the next it was on top of me, a terrifying blur which blotted out the sky ahead. Then we hit.

‘The force of the impact pitched me violently forward on to my cockpit harness, the straps of which bit viciously into my shoulders. At the same moment, the control column was snatched abruptly from my gripping fingers by a momentary, but powerful, reversal of elevator load. In a flash it was over; there was clear sky ahead of me, and I was still alive. But smoke and flame were pouring from the engine which began to vibrate, slowly at first but with increasing momentum causing the now regained control column to jump back and forwards in my hand. Hastily I closed the throttle and reached forward to flick off the ignition switches, but before I could do so the engine seized and the airscrew stopped abruptly. I saw with amazement that the blades had been bent almost double with the impact of the collision; the Messerschmitt must have been just that fraction above me as we hit.

‘With smoke now pouring into the cockpit I reached blindly forward for the hood release toggle and tugged at it violently. There was no welcoming and expected rush of air to denote that the hood had been jettisoned. Again and
again I pulled at the toggle but there was no response. In desperation I turned to the normal release catch and exerting my full strength endeavoured to slide back the hood. It refused to budge; I was trapped. There was only one thing to do; try to keep the aircraft under control and head for the nearby coast. The speed had by now dropped off considerably, and with full backward pressure on the stick I was just able to keep a reasonable gliding attitude. If only I could be lucky enough to hit in open country where there was a small chance that I might get away with it.

‘Frantically I peered through the smoke and flame enveloping the engine, seeking with streaming eyes for what lay ahead. There could be no question of turning; I had no idea what damage had been done to the fuselage and tail of my aircraft, although the mainplanes appeared to be undamaged, and I daren't risk even a small turn at low level, even if I could have seen to turn.

‘Through a miasmatic cloud of flame and smoke the ground suddenly appeared ahead of me. The next moment a post flashed by my wingtip and then the aircraft struck the ground and ricocheted into the air again finally returning to earth with a jarring impact and once again I was jerked forward on to my harness. Fortunately the straps held fast and continued to do so as the aircraft ploughed its way through a succession of splintering posts before finally coming to a halt on the edge of a cornfield. Half blinded by smoke and frantic with fear I tore at my harness release pin. And then with my bare hands wielding the strength of desperation, I battered at the perspex hood which entombed me. With a splintering crash it finally cracked open, thus enabling me to scramble from the cockpit to the safety of the surrounding field.'

Two other pilots who have never received national acclaim, but whose dedication and selflessness were also typical of all the RAF pilots, are Wing Commander Roddick Lee Smith, OBE, and Squadron Leader L. A. Thorogood, DFC. Dick Smith joined the RAF with a short service commission in 1935 and, after being assessed ‘Above Average' on his training course, was posted to No. 19 Squadron. He was later assessed ‘Exceptional' and was also a brilliant shot. At Malvern College he had been in the shooting eight and in 19 Squadron was in the team of three led by Sqdn Ldr (now Air Chief Marshal) Sir Harry Broadhurst, GCB, KBE, DSO, DFC, AFC, that won the RAF air firing competition. In 1936 he was seconded to the Fleet Air Arm, with which he served for three years, during which he did 68 deck landings, three of them at night. In June 1940 he arrived at North Weald as a flight lieutenant to command B Flight of 151 Squadron, under Sqdn Ldr E. M. Donaldson (now Air Commodore, CB, CBE, DSO, AFC) and fly Hurricanes. As he had no combat experience and the
squadron had seen much action over France, he put in many hours practising dogfighting before his first operational sortie.

On June 12 the squadron did two sweeps over France, on which two pilots, both flying No. 3 in their sections, were shot down without any of the others being aware of it. On June 17 he did air-to-ground firing for the first time with eight guns. All his 1,000 flying hours had been in biplanes, ‘I had only 12 hours on Hurricanes and I was a flight commander!'

Early in July Dick Smith noticed a Hurricane in the hangar “with tubes sticking out of each wing” and asked the squadron engineering officer what they were. They were 20mm cannon, which at the time were still secret. ‘As I had always been keen on guns, I asked why it was not being flown and was told that the other pilots considered it was a much less safe aircraft: than the other Hurricanes, which had eight .303 Brownings, because it was much slower, less manoeuvrable and had guns that were highly unreliable, prone to inconvenient misfeeds and stoppages.'

As he was leading B Flight and often the whole squadron, and having a leader with a slow kite helped the rest to keep up, he voluntarily flew this aircraft on all his sorties. He made 133 operational flights with this and another Hurricane that had four cannon and was therefore even heavier and slower. He was surprised that higher authority did not take more interest in the development of this weapon: he can recall no urgency for detailed reports.

On July 12 when he and ‘Buzz' Allen, a New Zealander, intercepted two Dorniers off the east coast, and he tried to fire his cannon, ‘there was just a hiss – the compressor had broken down'. Allen pressed on and was seen to fly into the sea. Another day, the squadron was bounced by Bf 109s and, ‘I found myself in my heavy and slow four-cannon aircraft when I noticed two 109s about a mile to my right and climbing much faster than I was. My only hope of survival was to attack. I immediately turned into the lower one, which dived away. I followed, firing vertically downwards at extreme range. As I knew the first 109 must be on my tail, I hauled the aircraft into a maximum-rate turn and climb in which I blacked out through positive
g
. Tracer shot past me and I hauled back again. The aircraft flicked into a spin. When I recovered I was alone in the sky.'

The thought occurred to him that he would not have liked to be below, in Kent, on the receiving end of his cannon volley. Some time later he was introduced at a party to a man with a limp, who complained that a cannon shell had passed through his foot while he was gardening . . . in Kent. Handicapped by his ponderous aircraft, Dick Smith's score at the end of the Battle was one destroyed, three probables and two damaged.

Laurence ‘Rubber' Thorogood had joined the RAFVR in December, 1938, and went to 89 Squadron as a sergeant pilot straight from flying school, assessed ‘Above Average' but without any combat training, an experience common to most novice fighter pilots at that hard-pressed period. On the squadron he was given tactical training but no air firing, and had only 28 hours on Hurricanes before his first combat. His description of the spirit in Fighter Command could be extended to the whole nation in that time of crisis. ‘We never thought we would not win. We were fighting over our home ground and this had a great bearing on our morale. The Luftwaffe certainly had the numbers but this only seemed to spur us on. We certainly got tired but we were fit and young. On 87 Squadron we were a fairly abstemious bunch of chaps. Nobody went round the bend, as far as I know.' He flew 59 sorties during the Battle, which yielded him one Ju 88 destroyed and one Ju 87 damaged.

Ted Shipman, Dick Smith and Laurence Thorogood are typical of the pilots who were the backbone of the defence of Britain during the great air battles. From first to last light day after day they were subjected to the stress of waiting to meet the enemy and of being in action, yet personal fame never touched them. They showed the same bravery, determination and mastery of their aircraft as those who emerged from the air fighting that summer with a record of victories in double figures and decorations to go with them.

The most successful pilots were epitomised by the late Sgt J. H. ‘Ginger' Lacey, DFM and bar, later a squadron leader, and the late Squadron Leader (later Gp Capt) D. R. S. Bader, DSO, DFC and bar. Ginger Lacey had joined the RAFVR when it was formed, in 1936. Within two years he had become an instructor at the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club. By January 1939 he had completed 250 Service flying hours and was spending three weeks with No. 1 Squadron at Tangmere, where he flew a Hurricane for the first time. When war came Sgt Lacey was posted to 501 Squadron at Filton, Bristol and took part in the battles in France. On returning to England he added a Bf 109 to his list of victories on July 20. On August 12 he destroyed two Ju 87s in the same combat. On September 15, the day when the RAF achieved its greatest number of successes and set the seal on the Luftwaffe's defeat, he brought down three more enemy aircraft and severely damaged a fourth in two combats.

On the squadron's second sortie of the day, they intercepted the enemy at 2 pm over Heathfield, Sussex. Lacey found himself flying head-on at 12 yellow-nosed 109s. He dipped his nose as though about to dive under them, then pulled back the stick and swept up and over in a loop to attack the last one, which was lagging. Still inverted, he fired and sent it down in flames, then rolled off the top
and followed the enemy formation. Closing to 250 yards (230m) he fired on No. 3 in the rear section and it pulled out with a stream of glycol leaking from its radiator. It was about 8 pm when, weary and on his fourth scramble of the day, he shot down a 109 and an He 111, making his score to date 19 destroyed, three probables and four damaged.