The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots (34 page)

The enemy appeared to be disposed in three distinct and separate groups each comprising a hundred or more bombers. Above each group were about fifty fighters – M.E. 109’s, and M.E. 110’s. The bombers were Heinkels, Dorniers and Junkers 88’s.

“Line astern formation – Maida squadron,” ordered Maida Leader. We took up our battle formations at once, with “A” Flight in the order of Red, Yellow and White. There were two machines behind me and three in front. “Come up into line abreast ‘B’ Flight” came the next order from Red one. When we had completed this change the squadron was disposed in two lines of six machines flying abreast and at a distance of about fifty yards between each Flight.

We were ready to attack. We were now in the battle area and three-quarters of an hour had elapsed since we had taken off.

The two bomber formations furthest from us were already being attacked by a considerable number of our fighters. Spitfires and Hurricanes appeared to be in equal numbers at the time. Some of the German machines were already falling out of their hitherto ordered ranks and floundering towards the earth. There was a little ack-ack fire coming from up somewhere on the ground although its paucity seemed pathetic and its effect was little more than that of a defiant gesture.

We approached the westernmost bomber formation from the front port quarter, but we were some ten thousand feet higher than they were and we hadn’t started to dive yet. Immediately above the bombers were some twin-engined fighters, M.E. 110’s. Maida Leader let the formation get a little in front of us then he gave the order “Going down now Maida aircraft,” turning his machine upside-down as he gave it. The whole of “A” Flight, one after the other, peeled off after him, upside-down at first and then into a vertical dive.

When they had gone “B” Flight followed suit. Ferdie and I turned over with a hard leftward pressure to the stick to bring the starboard wing up to right angles to the horizon, and some application to the port or bottom rudder pedal to keep the nose from rising. Keeping the controls like this, the starboard wing fell over until it was parallel to the horizon again, but upside-down. Pulling the stick back from this position the nose of my machine fell towards the ground and followed White one in front, now going vertically down on to the bombers almost directly below us. Our speed started to build up immediately. It went from three hundred miles per hour to four and more. White one in front, his tail wheel some distance below me but visible through the upper part of my windscreen, was turning his machine in the vertical plane from one side to the other by the use of his ailerons. Red Section had reached the formation and had formed into a loosened echelon to starboard as they attacked. They were coming straight down on top of the bombers, having gone slap through the protective M.E. 110 fighter screen, ignoring them completely.

Now it was our turn. With one eye on our own machines I slipped out slightly to the right of Ferdie and placed the red dot of my sight firmly in front and in line with the starboard engine of a Dornier vertically below me and about three hundred yards off. I felt apprehensive lest I should collide with our own machines in the mêlée that was to ensue. I seemed to see one move ahead what the positions of our machines would be, and where I should be in relation to them if I wasn’t careful. I pressed my trigger and through my inch thick windscreen I saw the tracers spiralling away hitting free air in front of the bomber’s engine. I was allowing too much deflection. I must correct. I pushed the stick further forward. My machine was past the vertical and I was feeling the effect of the negative gravity trying to throw me out of the machine, forcing my body up into the perspex hood of the cockpit. My Sutton harness was biting into my shoulders and blood was forcing its way to my head, turning everything red. My tracers were hitting the bomber’s engine and bits of metal were beginning to fly off it. I was getting too close to it, much too close. I knew I must pull away but I seemed hypnotised and went still closer, fascinated by what was happening. I was oblivious to everything else. I pulled away just in time to miss hitting the Dornier’s starboard wing-tip. I turned my machine to the right on ailerons and heaved back on the stick, inflicting a terrific amount of gravity on to the machine. I was pressed down into the cockpit again and a black veil came over my eyes and I could see nothing.

I eased the stick a little to regain my vision and to look for Ferdie. I saw a machine, a single Spitfire, climbing up after a dive about five hundred yards in front of me and flew after it for all I was worth. I was going faster than it was and I soon caught up with it – in fact I overshot it. It was Ferdie all right. I could see the “C” Charlie alongside our squadron letters on his fuselage. I pulled out to one side and back again hurling my machine at the air without any finesse, just to absorb some speed so that Ferdie could catch up with me. “C” Charlie went past me and I thrust my throttle forward lest I should lose him. I got in behind him again and called him up to tell him so. He said: “Keep an eye out behind and don’t stop weaving.” I acknowledged his message and started to fall back a bit to get some room. Ferdie had turned out to the flank of the enemy formation and had taken a wide sweeping orbit to port, climbing fast as he did so. I threw my aircraft first on to its port wing-tip to pull it round, then fully over to the other tip for another steep turn, and round again and again, blacking out on each turn. We were vulnerable on the climb, intensely so, for we were so slow.

I saw them coming quite suddenly on a left turn; red tracers coming towards us from the centre of a large black twin-engined M.E. 110 which wasn’t quite far enough in the sun from us to be totally obscured, though I had to squint to identify it. I shouted to Ferdie but he had already seen the tracers flash past him and had discontinued his port climbing turn and had started to turn over on his back and to dive. I followed, doing the same thing, but the M.E. 110 must have done so too for the tracers were still following us. We dived for about a thousand feet, I should think, and I kept wondering why my machine had not been hit.

Ferdie started to ease his dive a bit. I watched him turn his machine on to its side and stay there for a second, then its nose came up, still on its side, and the whole aircraft seemed to come round in a barrel-roll as if clinging to the inside of some revolving drum. I tried to imitate this manœuvre but I didn’t know how to, so I just thrust open the throttle and aimed my machine in Ferdie’s direction and eventually caught him up.

The M.E. 110 had gone off somewhere. I got up to Ferdie and slid once more under the doubtful protection of his tail and told him that I was there. I continued to weave like a pilot inspired, but my inspiration was the result of sheer terror and nothing more.

All the time we were moving towards the bombers; but we moved indirectly by turns, and that was the only way we could move with any degree of immunity now. Four Spitfires flashed past in front of us, they weren’t ours, though, for I noticed the markings. There was a lot of talking going on on the ether and we seemed to be on the same frequency as a lot of other squadrons. “Hallo Firefly Yellow Section – 110 behind you” – “Hallo Cushing Control – Knockout Red leader returning to base to refuel.” “Close up Knockout ‘N’ for Nellie and watch for those 109’s on your left” – “All right Landsdown Squadron – control answering – your message received – many more bandits coming from the east – over” – “Talker White two where the bloody hell are you?” – “Going down now Sheldrake Squadron – loosen up a bit” – “You clumsy clot – Hurricane ‘Y’ Yoke – what the flaming hades do you think you are doing?” – “I don’t know Blue one but there are some bastards up there on the left – nine o’clock above” – Even the Germans came in intermittently: “Achtung, Achtung – drei Spitfeuer unter, unter Achtung, Spitfeuer, Spitfeuer.” “Tally Ho – Tally Ho – Homer Red leader attacking now.” “Get off the bastard air Homer leader” – “Yes I can see Rimmer leader – Red two answering – Glycol leak I think – he’s getting out – yes he’s baled out he’s o.k.”

And so it went on incessantly, disjointed bits of conversation coming from different units all revealing some private little episode in the great battle of which each story was a small part of the integral whole.

Two 109’s were coming up behind the four Spitfires and instinctively I found myself thrusting forward my two-way radio switch to the transmitting position and calling out “Look out those four Spitfires – 109’s behind you – look out.” I felt that my message could hardly be of
less importance than some that I had heard, but no heed was taken of it. The two 109’s had now settled themselves on the tail of the rear Spitfire and were pumping cannon shells into it. We were some way off but Ferdie too saw them and changed direction to starboard, opening up his throttle as we closed. The fourth Spitfire, or “tail-end Charlie”, had broken away, black smoke pouring from its engine, and the third in line came under fire now from the same 109. We approached the two 109’s from above their starboard rear quarter and, taking a long deflection shot from what must have been still out of range, Ferdie opened fire on the leader. The 109 didn’t see us for he still continued to fire at number three until it too started to trail Glycol from its radiator and turned over on its back breaking away from the remaining two. “Look out Black one – look out Black Section Apple Squadron – 109’s-109’s came the belated warning, possibly from number three as he went down. At last number one turned steeply to port, with the two 109’s still hanging on to their tails now firing at number two. They were presenting a relatively stationary target in us now for we were directly behind them. Ferdie’s bullets were hitting the second 109 now and pieces of its tail unit were coming away and floating past underneath us. The 109 jinked to the starboard. The leading Spitfire followed by its number two had now turned full circle in a very tight turn and as yet it didn’t seem that either of them had been hit. The 109 leader was vainly trying to keep into the same turn but couldn’t hold it tight enough so I think his bullets were skidding past the starboard of the Spitfires. The rear 109’s tail unit disintegrated under Ferdie’s fire and a large chunk of it slithered across the top surface of my starboard wing, denting the panels but making no noise. I put my hand up to my face for a second.

The fuselage of the 109 fell away below us and we came into the leader. I hadn’t fired at it yet but now I slipped out to port of Ferdie as the leader turned right steeply and over on to its back to show its duck-egg blue belly to us. I came up almost to line abreast of Ferdie on his port side and fired at the under surface of the German machine, turning upside-down with it. The earth was now above my perspex hood and I was trying to keep my sights on the 109 in this attitude, pushing my stick forward to do so. Pieces of refuse rose up from the floor of my machine and the engine spluttered and coughed as the carburettor became temporarily starved of fuel. My propeller idled helplessly for a second and my harness straps bit into my shoulders again. Flames leapt from the engine of the 109 but at the same time there was a loud bang from somewhere behind me and I heard “Look out Roger” as a large hole appeared near my starboard wing-tip throwing up the matt green metal into a ragged rent to show the naked aluminium beneath.

I broke from the 109 and turned steeply to starboard throwing the stick over to the right and then pulling it back into me and blacking out at once. Easing out I saw three 110’s go past my tail in “V” formation but they made no attempt to follow me round. “Hallo Roger – Are you O.K.?” I heard Ferdie calling. “I think so – where are you?” I called back.

“I’m on your tail – keep turning” came Ferdie’s reply. Thank God, I thought. Ferdie and I seemed to be alone in the sky. It was often like this. At one moment the air seemed to be full of aircraft and the next there was nothing except you. Ferdie came up in “V” on my port side telling me at the same time that he thought we had better try to find the rest of the squadron.

The battle had gone to the north. We at this moment were somewhere over the western part of Kent, and a little less than a quarter of an hour had elapsed since we had delivered our first attack on the bombers. Ferdie set course to the north where we could see in the distance the main body of aircraft. London with its barrage balloons floating unconcernedly, like a flock of grazing sheep, ten thousand feet above it, was now feeling the full impact of the enemy bombers. Those that had got through – and the majority of them had – were letting their bombs go. I recalled for an instant Mr Baldwin’s prophecy, not a sanguine one, made to the House of Commons some five years before when he said that the bomber will always get through.

Now it was doing just that. I wondered if it need have done. As we approached South London the ground beneath us became obscured by smoke from the bomb explosions which appeared suddenly from the most unlikely sort of places – an open field, a house, a row of houses, a factory, railway sidings, all sorts of things. Suddenly there would be a flash, then a cloud of reddish dust obscuring whatever was there before and then drifting away horizontally to reveal once more what was left of the target.

I saw a whole stick of bombs in a straight line advancing like a creeping barrage such as you would see on the films in pictures like “Journey’s End” or “All quiet on the Western Front”, but this time they were not over the muddy desolation of No-Man’s Land but over Croydon, Surbiton and Earl’s Court. I wondered what the people were like who were fighting the Battle of Britain just as surely as we were doing but in a less spectacular fashion. I thought of the air raid wardens shepherding their flocks to the air raid trenches without a thought of their own safety; the Auxiliary Firemen and the regular fire brigades who were clambering about the newly settled rubble strewn with white-hot and flaming girders and charred wood shiny black with heat, to pull out the victims buried beneath; the nurses, both the professional ones and the V.A.D.’s in their scarlet cloaks and immaculate white caps and cuffs, who were also clambering about the shambles to administer first aid to the wounded and give morphine to the badly hurt; the St John’s Ambulance brigade who always were on the spot somehow no matter where or under what circumstances an accident or emergency occurred, helping, encouraging and uplifting the victims without thought for themselves; the Red Cross and all the civilian volunteers who, when an emergency arises, always go to assist. Not least I thought of the priests and clergy who would also be there, not only to administer the final rites to the dying but to provide an inspiration to those who had lost faith or through shock seemed temporarily lost. The clergy were there all right and showed that their job was not just a once-a-week affair at the Church, but that religion was as much a part of everyday living as was eating and sleeping.