by John Nichol
Closer and closer he crept until he was just fifty yards behind, clearly able to see the rivets on the fuselage and helmeted heads of the rear crew, bobbing in the compartment, completely unaware of the guns trained on them.
Peart’s thumb went down on the firing button and pressed hard. ‘I opened fire with cannons and machine guns at point-blank range from dead astern. Great pieces flew off and the bomber appeared to stop in midair so that I nearly collided with it. The nose went down and I followed in a near-vertical dive, giving it another burst to make sure. I later felt rather bad about the second burst when the bomber was doomed anyway.’
As he watched the bomber crash into the sea, Peart pulled back on the stick and hurtled skywards to try to bring down a second bomber he’d spotted. The crew were now alert to their comrades’ demise and readied themselves for the incoming attack. The SM.84 poured on the fuel too, but with a top speed of 268mph there was no chance of outrunning the British fighter.
But this time the gunners were ready. As Peart came up close the Italians opened fire from the tail and side machine guns. The Spitfire flipped out of the way then swooped back to attack. By now Peart had expended all his heavy 20mm cannon rounds. Instead, he had to pepper the Italian bomber with a long raking burst from his four Browning .303 machine guns until they too ran dry.
‘Smoke was pouring from one engine. Reluctantly, I had to leave.’
As he turned to fly back to base, Peart reflected on the fact he had for the first time taken another human’s life. ‘This was the reality of aerial warfare – shooting down enemy bombers which also sometimes meant killing the half-dozen men inside. Fighting another fighter it was just a machine and you didn’t think about the man inside – it was machine versus machine. But shooting down a bomber was when I realised I was killing people. There was no sense of guilt at all – I felt sorry for them but this was what warfare was about and it was our job.’
By now Peart was beginning to realise that the men fighting in the do-or-die combat of the skies came in three categories. ‘The first was the type who simply wanted to stay alive and tried to avoid situations where that was put at risk. They didn’t achieve very much. Secondly there were people who had a job to do, did it to the best of their ability but they fought within the rules and had humanity, understanding for the enemy. Then there were the killers. They were ruthless and killed without much thought – but they were the best, the aces. I think I was probably in the second type – I had a job to do and had to do it.’
Yet despite the killing, Peart was still eager to get into the action and follow to the letter the policy of ‘attack at all times’. A few days later he was patrolling in clear skies close to Bône, with the Mediterranean shimmering below, as number two to his Flight Commander when he spotted a dozen Me109s.
Taking out the Italian bomber had been straightforward and it had also given him confidence that he could do the job.
‘Green One, this is Green Two. Tally-ho.’ He felt a rush of excitement as he opened the throttle and dived down on the Messerschmitts. He did not even wait to see if his wingman had followed.
He had not. Indeed, he had ignored Peart’s battle-cry, shaken his head then turned back to base, firm in the opinion that the young pilot had committed an act of suicide.
The lone Spitfire now headed into the middle of the German pack. Before he could get a shot in, the wily Luftwaffe pilots had already broken formation, possibly sharing the same incredulity as Peart’s wingman, in being attacked by a lone Spitfire. Their disbelief rapidly turned to delight as they realised that at least one of their number was a few short minutes away from adding a Spitfire to their tally of kills.
Peart was in very deep trouble. Me109s were coming at him from all sides and there was nowhere to hide.
The only good card he held was that he knew he was in a highly agile aircraft that, if they worked together, could possibly get him out of the almighty scrape he had just got them both into. The only other comfort was that he was behind his own lines. Even if he didn’t have much chance of survival, at least they’d find my body.
At first he stayed at the same level as the 109s, using the Spitfire’s incredible turning ability to keep inside his opponents. There might even be a chance that he could get a few shots off at them. As the first pair approached head-on, he squeezed off a few rounds then broke away. ‘But this bunch had some really experienced and capable pilots. I soon found myself in dire trouble.’
Peart felt sweat pour down his face. He had no time to wipe it off. He was using every skill and piece of aerial combat knowledge to keep the enemy fighters off his tail. He pulled turns tighter than he’d ever made, feeling the G-forces press in on him. The sheer physical strain and mental application began to drain him. He knew the end was not far away. The Luftwaffe boys were far too good to let him get away with it.
Then a calm descended as he recalled the words of a First World War friend of his father’s who had become a mentor to the young Peart. ‘When cornered, son, give them everything you’ve got. Sell your life dear. They’ll remember you after that.’
Peart was now set on one course. ‘I decided that none of these bastards was going to get me without well and truly earning their victory.’
He used the Spitfire’s agility to the full, pulling and wrenching it into extreme rolls and dives. The twelve fighters came at him in pairs but could never quite get him squarely in their sights.
A pair of 109s would execute an attack while the next pair got in position to follow on. Peart dived under their noses, watching the cannon fire streak from them and praying it would not hit.
The twisting and turning went down and down until the twenty-year-old pilot found himself close to the ground knowing now there was very little room left to use the Spitfire’s superior manoeuvrability.
On one level he was pleased that he had managed to hold off the dozen Germans for so long. He had indeed ‘sold his life dear’. As he broke to starboard to slip away from another pair of Messerschmitts on his tail with guns blazing, he felt sweat drip down through the sleeves of his shirt onto his wrist and hand. He did not want to die. He was good at this. He enjoyed it.
He flicked the Spitfire in a dummy roll to port then hauled violently over to starboard, glancing around as he turned. His mouth went dry. The sky was empty behind. Where the hell are they?
He braced himself for the inevitable onslaught of rounds pouring up through the cockpit after a 109 had finally got underneath him. Instinctively, he rolled the Spitfire again, searching the sky and ground as he did so.
Something caught his eye higher up. At first he could not take it in. A formation of twelve fighters heading east. German fighters. The 109s were going home, probably short of fuel and astonished at the Spitfire’s ability to elude them.
Peart panted with elation, blinking the perspiration out of his eyes. He threw back the cockpit canopy, feeling the rush of air brush against his face. He had been given a second life, a second chance. Of that he was certain. And he would not waste it.
‘It then occurred to me that the German CO would have some scathing things to say about his pilots’ marksmanship, because apart from my initial opening fire I had had no chance to use my guns without leaving myself wide open to a burst myself.’
Peart looked around to get his bearings then set course for Bône. For the first time he wondered where his senior wingman was. He got his answer when he landed and walked into the dispersal area. The pilot officer at first looked shocked to see him then launched into a tirade at Peart for acting irresponsibly and endangering his own life and his aircraft.
The invective continued until one of the more experienced pilots held up his hand and signalled for the officer to stop.
‘Tone it down, sunshine,’ the Canadian flier said. ‘It’s a damned pity we don’t have a few more like him.’ Peart’s humility was momentarily salved but then he was summoned to appear before the squadron leader.
‘We have not been s
ent out here to become a shabby load of individual cowboys, do you understand, Peart?’ the CO growled from behind his desk as Peart stood to attention.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘In future you’re to follow your section leader’s orders before going off charging into attack. Got it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The CO then waved him away but not before giving Peart a big wink.
Grinning to himself, Peart headed back to his tent. He arrived to find his personal kit being lined up for auction. It was tradition that, with such severe equipment shortages, if a pilot was killed in action, his military clothing and other flying kit was shared out among surviving pilots. His section leader had told everyone he had certainly been killed and here were his possessions about to be sold for pennies. Alan managed to persuade his friends he was indeed alive, took to his cot and shut his eyes, trying to block out the images of diving and swooping Messerschmitts firing at his tail. Within seconds he was asleep.
* * *
Since helping rescue the bomber crew who had ditched in the Channel in early spring 1942, Robbie Robertson and 72 Squadron had generally had a quiet time. When he received an arm-numbing batch of inoculations in November he was somewhat grateful. They were clearly off somewhere exotic.3
Freezing in a flimsy tent, wrapped in a thin blanket, was not how he’d imagined North Africa. 72 Squadron had arrived at the airstrip of Souk-el-Arba on 20 November 1942, a week before Peart shot down the Italian bomber. British paratroopers had captured the airstrip, eighty miles west of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, just a few days earlier. It didn’t take the Germans, based around Tunis, long to find 72 Squadron’s base.
Robertson was deflecting the usual digs as he sat down to write a letter to his girlfriend Connie, whose name was lovingly painted on his Spitfire. He had taken some ribbing for his constant references to her but he couldn’t care less. Connie keeps me safe.
His eyes drifted skywards at the dozen fighters in line astern circling overhead. Clearly it was the new squadron that was meant to join them. The planes descended as if coming in to land.
‘109s!’ someone shouted.
The pilots glanced at their parked aircraft. There was no way they’d be able to reach them in time to take off. There was only one option: run for it.
Robertson scattered with the rest, diving onto his belly as no slit trenches had been dug.
American .50-calibre machine guns stationed around the aerodrome blasted away but the Germans still came on.
The 109s screamed down, pumping cannon shells as they came. Bullets thudded into the dirt, running in a line up to the petrol and ammunition dump. In an instant the area ignited with a terrific whoosh. Lying on his stomach just 150 yards away, Robertson could feel the blast of heat burst over his face. Then he heard the fighters circle back round for another run. He cowered fearfully out in the open. ‘After the first run I was scared stiff. It’s no fun lying in the middle of a field where you can hear the bullets hitting the ground and ricochets going right, left and centre and you can’t tell whether they are coming across you or through you.’ He shut his eyes as he heard the scream of engines and violent throb of gunfire puckering the earth around him. Then the sound of enemy engines faded.
He got up and saw men at the petrol dump using mud and dust to put out the fire. Someone had a bucket they were using to scrape up the earth and chuck it on the flames; others used shovels or their bare hands. The smell of burning petrol and cordite was joined by another. It was the distinct, bitter odour of burnt bacon. As Robertson tossed another handful of dust into the flames he saw the grim outline of two withered arms, bent at the elbows, hands pointing upwards. The flames licked at the skin, sending slivers of fire along it. Two of their Arab labourers had unwisely hidden among the four-gallon petrol tins when the strafing began. Robertson turned away from their grisly remains. While aerial combat had its dangers, the war on the ground was dark, unforgiving and had a nauseating stench.
* * *
This is certainly not the African desert of bright sunshine, rolling sand dunes and palm-thronged oases, Flight Lieutenant Greggs Farish thought as they trundled over a landscape deadened by dark clouds overhead and pools of mud where insects hovered. At least the rain – which everyone thought had been left long behind in England – had relented after days of downpours.
Farish was the officer in charge of 72 Squadron’s ground crew responsible for ensuring the Spitfires were serviceable. They had been travelling east for two days, keeping the Algerian coastline on their left and the interior on their right. The Allies had pushed rapidly into Tunisia and the RAF squadrons had to move up to keep the pressure on the Luftwaffe and protect Allied ground troops from air attacks. They were moving 72 Squadron 100 miles east from Bône to the front line. In the last few hours he had felt his spirits rise as the cloud base lifted to reveal the tall, dramatic sentinels of the Atlas Mountains lying to the south and distant pine forests. Ahead he could just make out Spitfires landing at their new base of Souk-el-Arba, in a land of rugged mountains separated by the fertile plains of northern Tunisia.
Farish was tall, studious and a man who cared for both machines and pilots. For the pilots like Robbie Robertson who had flown into Souk-el-Arba a few days earlier, he was a welcome sight. They knew that under his supervision they could fly with complete confidence in their aircraft.4
Sporting thick, round glasses, Farish, twenty-two, was to be found at most times of the day studiously examining a Spitfire, usually with his unlit pipe close to hand. Farish, nicknamed ‘Spanner’, had applied to become a pilot but his eyesight meant he was declared ‘unfit for flying duties’. Undeterred, he still joined the air force. With an engineering degree from Imperial College London, he was commissioned into the RAF’s engineering branch in 1941.
As they set out on convoy from Liverpool for North Africa, he had an inkling that he was in for interesting times and kept a diary.
Arriving at Souk-el-Arba, Farish encountered the RAF ‘commandos’, a group of rugged mechanics who had kept the muddy, puddle-littered airstrip and planes running before the squadron’s mechanics arrived.
‘These men, in tattered bits of uniform, dirty, long-haired, unshaven, tools sticking out of their pockets, were either cooking food over fires among the planes or dashing out to service aircraft as they landed.
‘These were the RAF “Commando” servicing echelon. Two flights of them, about 200 men, keeping flying four squadrons of Spitfires, one of Beaufighters and some Hurricanes. They came in with the original assault and today are preparing to move out now that the squadron’s personnel are coming up. They had done a damn fine job. These men are different from the average RAF airmen. Much more independent and don’t care a damn who you are sort of attitude. They are tough too. I like working with them.’
Exhausted after the long drive, Farish had fallen onto his cot only to be awoken again by the sound of rain thrashing against his tent. He managed to drift off to the sound he found comforting under canvas. When he woke, there were six inches of water in his tent. It was not turning out to be the adventure he’d expected. But fighting through the rain, mud and bombing, Farish ensured 72’s fighters were kept aloft to help push the Germans further back into Tunisia.
And among those whose aircraft he serviced was one of the most rakish men to hold rank in the RAF.
* * *
Harry ‘Chas’ Charnock was a character who would not have been out of place in a Flashman novel. Having missed out on the Great War, he joined the RAF after Harrow School in 1924, aged nineteen. Six years later he was booted out, ostensibly for a low-level flying incident over Tangmere. The fact he had pushed a senior officer into a pond had not helped. For nine years little was heard of him, until two days into the outbreak of war the shortage of pilots persuaded the RAF to forget the past and allow Charnock to return as a noncommissioned sergeant pilot.5
He claimed three Germans during the Battle of Britain and was shot down once. This
Charnock used to his full advantage. Despite landing on friendly ground, he managed to persuade the RAF to pay out compensation for the loss of his entire kit bag, as well as pocketing the gold sovereigns kept by pilots to facilitate their return from hostile territory. Charnock was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. He’d also had a taste for action and wanted more. His request for transfer from Britain was granted and he joined 72 Squadron.
‘If ever you saw a dissolute looking fellow, here was one,’ wrote Farish. ‘Even in his worn flying clothing one felt Charnock would be better placed propping up a night club bar. He usually contrived to have a bottle of whisky in his hand when on the ground. He was over thirty, by far the oldest pilot in the squadron. He had flown everything and had broken Spitfires up in the air with aerobatics. He was the maddest pilot I ever met, completely round the bend. And yet one felt he had seen the whole world. Perhaps he had and in his wisdom found only flying left. And he flew only to kill and be killed.’
No one knew what demons drove Charnock, whether it was violent hangovers or something from his past. As Alan Peart had noted, fighter pilots fell into three categories: the avoider; the ‘get the job done’ type and the killer. Charnock most certainly fell into the last category.
When he arrived over the steep mountains and occasional green trees of Algeria he went on a killing spree.
Over a three-week period from 25 November, he claimed five enemy shot down, an Fw190 and four Me109s, and one Me109 probable. For a time the rampage was put in abeyance, after Charnock was himself shot down on 18 December 1942.
Furious at the Luftwaffe’s effrontery, Charnock was in no mood for niceties when he bailed out of his Spitfire and descended by parachute into no-man’s land. He found himself among thin bushes and dusty tracks, up in the hills and some distance from the nearest town. Anxious to get back to his own lines and the bottle of whisky under his bed – which under the circumstances he was entirely justified in seeing off that night – he set out on foot.
