by John Nichol
The enemy were all around him. ‘I was close to panic in bewilderment and hot fear. Instinct drove me to keep turning and turning, twisting my neck all the time to look for the enemy behind. The consideration uppermost in my mind was the desire to stay alive.’
Suddenly he was all alone, far out to sea and uncertain in which direction safety lay. ‘It was then that panic took hold of me for the second time that day. Finding myself alone over the sea, a few miles north of Dunkirk, my training as well as my nerve deserted me.’
He set off blindly in what he thought was the right direction, directly north into a wilderness of sea, then came to his senses and turned back. Perhaps he could crash-land and get a boat home? Spotting two destroyers below restored some calm. Then he saw the French coastline. He forced himself to work out the simple navigation problem which panic had blinded him to.
Soaked in sweat, he took a few deep breaths then set on a northwesterly course. He soon picked up Essex, then Southend Pier, and landed at Rochford, where 616 Squadron had arrived the previous night to assist the evacuation.
He recalled the unimpressed looks the 72 Squadron pilots – fatigued and scarred by the loss of comrades – had given them the day before after 616, then yet to be bloodied in battle, had demonstrated a perfect formation landing.
As he taxied to the dispersal point, knowing the ground crew could see he had fired his guns in anger, he felt himself transformed, Walter Mitty-like, from frightened child into debonair young pilot.
His barrack-room mirror demanded a more honest appraisal. ‘Well, Hughie, you couldn’t insure your life now, for love nor money,’ he told his reflection. He was nineteen, and felt far from immortal.
* * *
The whistle of artillery fire punctuated the screech of Stukas as the Germans closed in on Dunkirk. The beaches, crammed with soldiers, became, as one German pilot saw it, a place of ‘unadulterated killing’.
Discipline was just holding in the long lines waiting to board the boats. Signaller Sidney Leach had queued for ten hours when a naval officer told him a ship was waiting at a pier several miles away. As shells dropped around them the soldiers trudged through the sand, fighting exhaustion and the scars of battle.5
At 4am, just as Leach reached the jetty, a shell burst in front of him. He was thrown backwards along the pier, just managing to avoid a plunge into the sea. Painfully, he got up and dusted himself down, then saw the piles of French dead stacked on the pier. He stared at the pale, blank faces for a moment then quickly walked past. Finally, at 6am, he boarded a minesweeper and put out to sea.
They did not get far. Whether it was a bomb from above or a shell from shore-based artillery made no difference. The ship began to sink by the stern. Leach scrambled onto a lifeboat that rowed them to another minesweeper headed for home.
But that still did not mean safety. The Luftwaffe did not want a single British soldier surviving long enough to fight their Wehrmacht comrades on the English beaches. Leach and his companions were attacked every nautical mile until they were halfway across the Channel. ‘Planes followed us, continually bombing and machine-gunning us until about halfway across.’ The Luftwaffe appeared to have freedom of the skies.
Many a Tommy had looked skywards at the black crosses of the German planes during the crossing and cursed the scarcity of RAF roundels.
A bitter feeling took hold. Where the bloody hell are the RAF?
The vast black smoke cloud that now stretched for seventy miles across the beaches might have helped as a navigation aid for the British rescuers, but it was working more in the enemy’s favour. The thick, oily plume from burning equipment was used by the Germans as cover for their bombing and strafing runs.
At least two if not three RAF squadrons were patrolling constantly overhead in daylight, but intercepting the enemy far from the English coast, and their radar cover, was tricky and they could manage little more than forty minutes at a time over Dunkirk.
The Germans also had far more planes to throw into the fight.
Pilot Officer Johnny Allen of 54 Squadron had been patrolling up high without success, so took his Spitfire down to 4,000ft. When he got there, he instantly regretted it. Immediately overhead was a formation of twenty enemy bombers escorted by forty fighters – and he’d given up the precious advantage of height.6
Allen rammed the throttle forward, pulled back the stick and soared upwards, speeding towards his first dogfight against an Me110. Happily, he found that the Spitfire’s manoeuvrability far outclassed the twin-engine fighter. In a matter of seconds the enemy’s rear sat nicely at the centre of his sights.
He thumbed the trigger button once then twice. The smell of cordite fumes blowing back from the Brownings’ 153 ‘squirts’ a second filled the cockpit. Flame spurted from the enemy aircraft as rounds hammered home. For a fraction of a second, Allen saw the pilot’s head half-slewed round to see what was attacking him. Then the 110 plummeted downwards.
Wow, that was bloody dangerous, Allen thought, as the exhilaration of the dogfight wore off.
The Messerschmitt pilot was almost certainly experienced, but he was not prepared for the ferocity and agility of their new foe. ‘The British attack with the fury of maniacs,’ a surviving comrade wrote in his diary.7
The RAF pilots faced two certainties: the Nazis were ominously close to their home shores, and they had to do everything possible to save the troops below.
This was not immediately apparent to those on the ground, bruised by defeat and retreat. One army officer made the mistake of confronting the high-class amateur boxer-turned-pilot Ken Manger after he had just bailed out onto the beach and queued patiently for a destroyer. ‘All boats are for the Army and not the RAF.’8
Manger responded with a punch that sent the officer sprawling into the sea, then calmly stepped on board. He was back in the fray, flying over the beaches, the very next day.
* * *
Jack Bell, a former solicitor and now with 616 Squadron, sampled similar chagrin in more trying circumstances. He had dived after a flight of Messerschmitts machine-gunning ships, downed one, then had to bail out himself. He spent some time in the water, until an open boat crewed by navy ratings came alongside. Instead of bringing the shivering airman on board, the sailors used their oars to push him away. When Bell finally persuaded them he was an RAF pilot he was sarcastically told they thought all airmen in the area were German.9
A diminished RAF presence was not the Luftwaffe’s experience over Dunkirk. ‘Our bombers pressed home their attacks but were constantly harassed by the RAF who inflicted substantial losses,’ wrote the Luftwaffe ace Ulrich Steinhilper.10 ‘I understand that it is a complaint of many British and French soldiers who were on the beaches that the RAF were nowhere to be seen. Believe me, they flew to their limit.’
23 MAY 1940
Squadron Leader Francis White, of 74 Squadron, had got into a tangle with some Me109s and a two-seat Henschel 126 reconnaissance plane whose rear gunner scored a lucky hit. With glycol pouring out of his cooling system, White was forced to crash-land his damaged Spitfire at Calais Marck airfield. Germans were driving past the main gate as he landed and Calais was encircled. There was no way back to the beaches.
His friend Squadron Leader James ‘Prof’ Leathart, of 54 Squadron, had seen White go down, and was determined not to let him fall into enemy hands. He dashed back to Kent and grabbed the squadron’s two-seat Miles Master trainer. The Master had the advantage of a Kestrel engine that gave it 142mph, but as a trainer its underside was painted bright yellow. Not ideal camouflage for a combat zone. It was decided to fly very low level, escorted by two Spitfires flown by the New Zealander Al Deere and Johnny Allen, twenty-four, and already credited with 54 Squadron’s first kill, shooting down a Ju88 the previous day.11
The plan was for Leathart to land on the airfield and taxi with engine running in the hope that White would show himself and they’d take off. Leathart began his approach to land unobserved by the German trucks and
motorcycles driving past, but not by those in the skies above.
Deere had sent Allen ‘upstairs’ to provide top cover while he shepherded the Master. Allen abruptly ran into a dozen 109s, all streaking towards Calais Marck airfield. ‘I’m going to have a go at them,’ he brusquely told his wingman below and thrust his throttle to maximum power.
No one could alert Leathart in the Miles Master. He had no radio.
Deere was contemplating waggling his wings as a warning when he spotted a Messerschmitt tearing down onto Leathart’s Master. He squeezed off a burst that was enough to divert the German’s attention.
‘Red One – I’m surrounded, can you help me?’ Allen pleaded as he tore into the fighters above.
‘Try and hang on, Johnny,’ Deere replied, ‘till I kill this bastard in front of me and I’ll be right up.’
He stayed doggedly on the 109’s tail, waiting for him to make a mistake. The German was desperate to get away. In a final attempt to avoid Deere’s fire, he straightened out of a turn and, perhaps overestimating the Me109’s rate of climb, pulled vertically upwards.
For Deere the pilot had written his own death warrant. He’d presented the Kiwi with a perfect point-blank shot from dead below. ‘I made no mistake.’
Scores of rounds raked the 109. The fighter slowly heeled over then plunged vertically into the water’s edge from 3,000ft.
Leathart had just managed to avoid the attentions of the 109 as he came in to land. ‘I pulled around in a tight turn, observing as I did so the Messerschmitt shoot straight past me. I literally banged the aircraft onto the ground and evacuated the cockpit with all possible speed, diving into a ditch that ran around the airfield’s perimeter. Just as I did so, I saw an Me109 come hurtling out of the clouds and crash with a tremendous explosion a few hundred yards away.’
Leathart watched the drama unfold from the ditch that happily contained another occupant – Squadron Leader White, the friend he had come to rescue. Both looked on anxiously as 109s continued to swoop out of the clouds, usually with a Spitfire on their tail. After watching three German planes plummet to earth, the officers leapt out of the ditch and raced to their plane. But there was a problem. The Master had no electric starter.
One turned the crank handle to start the engine while the other jumped into the cockpit. As German vehicles continued to trundle past, the engine spluttered then roared. ‘When it seemed safe we made a hasty take-off and a rather frightening trip back to England and safety,’ Leathart said. Throughout the rescue, German troops failed to spot the drama that had unfolded under their noses.12
Despite his bravery, Deere was beginning to feel the psychological effect of being outnumbered. ‘Odds of 20–1 and 12–1 in consecutive engagements were too much for one’s nerves.’13 Deere received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions.
* * *
Deere was resilient. Others were not. Unable to contemplate a duel to the death in the skies, a fellow pilot had broken down in tears as he went to climb into his plane. The medical officer was quickly summoned. He was clearly of the old school. ‘The doc gave him a terrific punch and a few well-chosen words,’ a 616 officer observed. ‘And we had no further trouble.’14
There were some who relished the thought of closing with a force they increasingly viewed as downright evil. ‘I felt no mercy must be shown to a people who are a disgrace to humanity,’15 said Brian Lane, the twenty-three-year-old commander of 19 Squadron, after a Stuka became his first kill. ‘I had wondered what it would be like to shoot down an aircraft . . . Now I knew, and it was exhilarating.’
Duelling in the air was an intimate affair. The most successful pilots were those who got in close before opening fire, sometimes seeing pieces fly off the pilot as well as his plane. They were experiencing the full spectrum of emotions that came from fighting a fellow human being to the death. For some it was a killing rage, for others cold, clinical and remote.
Nineteen-year-old Tim Vigors’ first success over Dunkirk felt similar to bagging a pigeon. The Anglo-Irish Old Etonian of 222 Squadron said: ‘I was aware that I had killed a fellow human being and was surprised not to feel remorse. Of course, Hitler’s atrocities had been well-publicised and we had got into the way of identifying all Germans with their leader.’16
LATE MAY 1940
Bernard Brown
With Dowding limiting Spitfire numbers, the RAF threw whatever they could into the fight. This included the Hawker Hector, a 187mph biplane whose only previous action had been on India’s North-West Frontier, keeping musket-toting insurgents at bay.
The situation in France was desperate. The BEF needed some relief from the German onslaught closing around Calais. 613 Squadron were in the process of converting from Hectors to slightly more modern Lysanders when the call to action came. They were to bomb a German artillery battery in a chalk pit outside Calais.
Bernie Brown was among those assembled who looked at their CO with a mixture of dismay and astonishment when he was allocated an older Hector. Even if the Hectors did get past the modern German fighters and vicious anti-aircraft fire, what difference would our two paltry 112lb bombs make?17
It was not what Brown, twenty-two, had signed up for when he’d left his job as a postman in New Zealand in 1938 and followed his boyhood desire to join the RAF and fly. But desperate times require desperate measures, he consoled himself, as he puttered across the Channel.
With Calais looming, Brown decided to test the Hector’s single Vickers machine gun. As he pulled the trigger there was an almighty bang. Something wet splashed over his face. His skin stung. He smelt fuel and experienced the darkest terror of every pilot. Fire.
Damn it!
His goggles were smeared in fuel. He pulled them off and looked over the nose. There was a gaping hole in the main fuel tank and bits missing from the Vickers. A piece of the machine gun had flown off and gouged the tank. Behind him, he could still see the English coast. He glanced below and released the two bombs into the sea.
He ate up the miles back to Kent, spotted a strip of green and finally managed to put the battered Hector down on Herne Bay golf course. Bernie Brown was forthright in his view. ‘It was damn dangerous. Most of my fellow crews were captured or killed. There were nine of us on the squadron and only two survived. I thought, “To hell with this job.” I knew that if I stayed on Hectors I’d be dead.’ He was convinced his future would be more secure if he could transfer onto a faster, lighter aircraft, one with more punch. A fighter.
* * *
Despite his reservations at committing precious aircraft to the doomed mission, Dowding conceded that some invaluable lessons had been learned over France.
The early skirmishes over the North Sea had already suggested that focusing the Spitfire’s cone of bullets to meet a ‘kill spread’ for the eight Browning machine guns at 400 yards was too cautious. Without the heavy calibre 20mm cannon, the .303 rounds were not causing enough damage. The most effective pilots in France were those who got in close and had their guns refocused to within 250 yards. It soon became the standard.
The ‘ring-and-bead’ circular, iron gunsight of the First World War had been replaced by a system of lenses set behind the windscreen. Its illuminated amber circle with a dot at the centre gave much greater accuracy, and the ability to fire in poor light.
It was not only good shooting that was making the Luftwaffe’s aces begin to twitch, but the fighter’s agility. ‘The bastards make such infernally tight turns, there seems no way of nailing them,’ was an observation many German pilots were making about their new adversary.
Despite this, the Luftwaffe knew the Me109 was far superior to any other fighter aircraft. It could climb quicker, dive faster and, with its two 20mm cannon and twin nose-mounted 7.92mm machine guns, could deliver far superior firepower. The problem was, in a dogfight it couldn’t grab the Spitfire by the tail.
Other lessons were absorbed and improvements quickly made. A rear-view mirror was installed, along with a two
-inch-thick slab of laminated glass on the windscreen against head-on attacks. An alloy cover was fitted over the main fuel tank and 73lb of armour plating behind the pilot’s seat.18
But nothing was done as quickly or as efficiently as the replacement of the Spitfire’s propeller. The original ‘two-speed’ propeller did not give the performance it deserved. An improved ‘constant speed’ version that had been developed for the new Spitfire Mark II (initial plans not to develop the aircraft beyond the Mark I version had already been dropped) offered even greater manoeuvrability, better climb and a higher ceiling.
Dowding understood the implications. He ordered it to be retro-fitted on the Mark Is as ‘a matter of supreme urgency’.19
On 24 June 1940, De Havilland began producing twenty airscrew conversion kits per day. The conversions began at a dozen squadrons at the very moment the French army formally surrendered to the Germans. Working fifteen-hour shifts, ‘supreme urgency’ was clearly fixed in their minds.
The new prop reduced the take-off run by more than a quarter – from 320 yards to 225. More importantly, the climb rate to 20,000ft reduced from eleven minutes to less than eight.
The speed of these improvements reflected the realisation in the RAF establishment that they had a world-class fighter on their books. The decision was made to build as many as possible, as quickly as possible. By 15 August, 1,051 Spitfires and Hurricanes had been retro-fitted with the new airscrew. Eventually, 1,567 Spitfire Mark Is were built along with 920 Mark IIs.20
JUNE 1940
It was crucial to the RAF to find out the weaknesses and strengths of the leading German fighter before the coming battle. Fortunately, an Me109 captured by the French had arrived in England before France’s defeat. It was decided to stage a mock dogfight between a Spitfire Mark II and the Messerschmitt at Farnborough airfield.21
