by John Nichol
But Shanks’s pony was simply not quick enough. After walking a few miles, he came across an Arab leading a donkey and saw an opportunity for a swift ride back to his whisky.
‘Can I borrow your donkey?’ Charnock asked bluntly, pointing at the animal.
The Arab showed no understanding so Charnock repeated himself. This time the Arab wagged his index finger vigorously and shook his head.
Charnock moved in close, his hand resting on the pistol in its holster, and repeated his demand.
The Arab remained unmoved and pulled the donkey’s rein tighter into him. At that moment a stray dog came past them, eyeing the scene. Charnock pulled out his revolver and shot the dog between the eyes. He then turned back to the Arab, smoke drifting from the gun barrel.
With shaking hands, the man handed over his donkey. Charnock mounted the animal and trotted towards British lines.
Within a few hours he spotted the sandbags and trenches of the British positions and with a kick sent the donkey trotting back home. Charnock scrambled over the sandbags and tumbled into the friendly trench. He dusted himself down, then looked for the nearest officer and the chance of a liquid reward for his efforts.
‘I see you’re a member of the rival establishment.’ A clean-shaven captain in an ironed uniform emerged from a dugout. The words were spoken in a cut-glass accent by someone who could only have been to bloody Eton.
Charnock always wore his Old Harrovian scarf when flying in his Spitfire, in the knowledge that in his permanently unkempt state it would be a snub to the establishment in general and rival Old Etonians in particular.
The officer handed over a canteen. Charnock took a swig, half in expectation that his throat would be delightfully lit with the sting of something strong. It was water. He turned on his heel and left, still swigging the canteen.
At the rear lines, Charnock found a truck heading in the direction of Souk-el-Arba and got a lift. His irritation at the lack of a proper drink abated when an idea struck him as they drove past a monastery.
‘Stop!’ he shouted at the driver. He jumped out of the cab and, wearing his best grin, knocked on the monastery door. A monk opened it and, in the ensuing conversation – in a mix of French, Arabic, English and a smattering of Latin – Charnock discovered what he had suspected. Monks make booze . . . so they must have some spare!
With the nose of a practitioner well-versed in foraging for alcohol, he struck up a rapport with the wine-making Christian monks and promised to return.
Charnock reappeared the next day in a 15cwt Bedford truck with a dozen washed four-gallon petrol cans in the back. The whole lot was filled with the monk’s red wine and back at 72 Squadron he invited everyone to a party. By this time Robbie Robertson had become his wingman and felt a degree of trepidation with Charnock both on the ground and in the air. His fears were to prove correct and Charnock poured out mugfuls of the dark-red liquid. ‘The only thing we had to drink from were large, white enamelled mugs and if you pour red wine in those you have to pour a lot before it looks as though you’ve got any in at all. We half-filled these mugs and sat around enjoying ourselves.’
Charnock had bought a prodigious amount of wine and insisted everyone should celebrate his safe return. Toasts were made to the Spitfire, monastic orders, donkeys, Arabs and finally the Luftwaffe for making it all happen. The toasts were inevitably followed by singing around a fire made from wood, debris and aviation fuel. Then Charnock stripped off and began a gyrating dance with Indian-like ululations. As darkness headed towards dawn, Robertson managed to find his tent and slumped down on his cot. For once the sun was out and its blaze turned his hangover into something he had not experienced before.
‘I woke up in the morning not really with a headache, but my head just wouldn’t leave the ground. I felt like death. Red wine wasn’t for us if we were to go on flying.’6
A few days later Robertson was on patrol with Chas Charnock for company, escorting Boston bombers on a raid on German positions in Tunisia when ‘twenty-plus’ fighters appeared out of the sun. The rest of the squadron failed to spot the diving 109s and Fw190s. Robertson looked at the Spitfires then back up at the diving enemy.
‘Go for the bastards,’ he heard Charnock shout.
‘Roger,’ Robertson replied.
Rather than present their backs to the enemy, the Spitfires turned and sped upwards to meet the ‘wad of enemy aircraft’. Robertson pulled hard on his stick and opened up the throttle to stay as close as possible to his Flight Commander. Charnock steamed ahead, letting go a full burst at an Fw190 as it closed within range. Robertson watched as the aircraft went from a clean dive into a flat spin.
Robertson overtook Charnock, then suddenly, without any apparent reason, his speed suddenly dropped off and he went into a spin. Trying to correct the spin so high up would have left him a ‘dead duck’ with so many enemy around. Despite the growing dangers of spinning all the way down into the ground, Robertson saw it as the best of bad options.
‘I continued spinning down until I got closer to the ground.’ Fighting hard and seeing the ground looming, he managed to pull out of the spin and regain control. But he was still being closely followed by two 109s.
‘My engine was coughing and spluttering and not going as fast as I’d have liked it to go. So I got right down on the deck and was belting for home as fast as possible, weaving like mad, in and out of valleys, frightening the life out of camels and odd bodies I passed over, still pursued by the 109s who were taking potshots at me every now and again. All I could do was keep turning the minute they came within range.
‘Eventually, after one of these turns, I managed to get a fairly good shot in at the leading 109 and he shot straight past me onto the deck. I thought by this time the other one would have cleared off, but he was a bit of a keen type and he went on chasing me all the way back to within a few miles of the aerodrome. He finally gave up but did manage to put seven bullet holes in my aircraft. When I finally landed at Souk-el-Arba I had no ammunition, very little petrol and was absolutely drenched in perspiration! Most of it, I must admit, due to heaving the aircraft about at low level and doing all sorts of things that the Spit wasn’t meant to do, but probably quite a percentage was due to the fact that I was scared stiff.’
* * *
Sergeant Robbie Robertson lay back in a slightly damaged wicker armchair, enjoying some rare sunshine at Souk-el-Arba. His thoughts were sometimes gripped by memories of his spinning Spitfire heading downwards with two Messerschmitts on his tail, but he had learned to put them out of his mind by dreaming of England and his girlfriend Connie. On the gramophone next to him Vera Lynn’s beguiling voice sang ‘Do I Love You’. Warmed by the winter sun, he felt at peace with the world, looking forward to some Christmas cheer in five days’ time. He sipped his tea as his gaze took in the empty skies then he looked across to his parked Spitfire. Its sleek line had an addictive quality, demanding to be flown. It was time to go so, grabbing his parachute, he joined another sergeant pilot for an overhead patrol.
They had been airborne for just five minutes when a ‘twenty-plus’ raid was reported heading towards a nearby aerodrome. Gaining height, the two Spitfire pilots knew they had a chance of getting a good ‘bounce’ on the Germans.
Just before they got within range of the bombers, Robertson spotted an Me109 creeping up towards the vulnerable underbelly of his wingman’s plane 200 yards away.
‘Break, break! Enemy below!’ There was no response.
‘As the Jerry started shooting I could see the flashes all over the place from his guns. I pulled in to try and head him off and with luck have a crack at him. I’m not sure whether I hit him or not, but the next thing I knew there was a hell of a bang and I got hit in the head and started bleeding like a stuck pig.
‘I couldn’t see out of my right eye and was feeling a bit groggy so the only thing I could do was crash-land. It was 4.40pm, a Sunday, and I was at 1,500ft. So I pushed the aircraft down; it was doing about 180mph
by that time. I landed with the wheels up and the engine still going.
‘I came to a grinding halt and, by the time I’d finished, the engine and fuselage were pointing off to the left and I was staring from the cockpit out over nothing.’
Robertson could smell the distinct odour of high-octane fuel. For a moment he flailed around the cockpit trying to focus on what was important with his one functioning eye. He knew at any moment a spark could ignite the entire aircraft into an inferno which no amount of fire tenders could put out in time. His hand reached up to the hood and he managed to pull it open. Then, as blood flowed down his face, he felt for the pilot’s door handle at his side and opened it.
‘I crawled out and crawled as far as I could from the aircraft, because the Huns were great ones for coming back and shooting you up on the ground.’
Ground crew then came running to pick him up and get him into an ambulance to the field hospital.
Like many pilots who had performed a belly-landing, Robbie had discovered that the Spitfire was resilient in protecting its pilots as it broke up. Only his shoulder was bruised from the crash. ‘The Spitfire could take an enormous amount of punishment without any damage to the pilot.’
But Robertson’s right eye had been lacerated with shrapnel from the German bullet. The surgeon told him it would have to be removed.
‘I pleaded with them not to and asked if they could take the bits of shrapnel out that were in and around my eye but keep the eye in. If I could just keep the eye in and look normal I might wangle myself back on flying.’
The doctor reluctantly agreed. For the next two days the wound was treated and Robertson was given morphine to keep the pain at bay. But the throbbing in his head became unbearable. A screaming, constant headache made sleep near-impossible and the only relief came for just an hour after his morphine. He finally realised that his eye, vital for a fighter pilot, would have to be removed. Resigned that his Spitfire days were over, he asked the surgeon to carry out the operation. And he was lucky. The excruciating pain in his right eye had been caused by it becoming infected by the shrapnel. Septicaemia was spreading to his remaining eye. If he had waited much longer the surgeon would have been forced to remove both eyes.
He sank into a morose state. He would be taken away from his good friends on the squadron and he would never fly the Spitfire again. And, of course, his face was now disfigured. The full onset of the ‘miseries’ was complete when he realised what Connie would see. A scarred, one-eyed ex-fighter pilot with few prospects.
For a brief moment the miseries lifted when an official letter with RAF typed letterhead arrived, informing him he’d been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery.
He smiled grimly. There was one letter that he now had to write. It was only proper to release Connie from their commitment. ‘It was hardly fair to keep her to our engagement. It is one thing to be engaged to someone who is all in one piece and certainly something else to be engaged to someone who is hardly 100 per cent. She could call our proposed marriage off and there’d be no hard feelings.’
Connie would not hear of such a thing. Within a few months of Robertson’s return to England they were married.
* * *
As the early days of New Year 1943 passed, the British and American forces that had thrust into Tunisia, coming to within forty miles of the capital Tunis, suddenly found themselves confronted by fresh German divisions. Reinforcements had been rushed over from Europe from mid-November 1942, across the ninety-mile stretch of water between Sicily and Cap Bon, elbowing out from the Tunisian coast. The plan to sweep into Tunis had been largely thwarted after the French commander there had failed to prevent the Germans using the ports and airfields to rapidly reinforce. Now the Germans were able to launch a counter-attack against the poorly prepared Allied positions. The Luftwaffe had been reinforced too. On the back foot, the RAF, still equipped with the battle-weary Spitfire Mark Vs, were taking a battering and struggled to provide the army with adequate air support.
When Greggs Farish arrived just inside Tunisia at Souk-el-Arba a month earlier, 72 Squadron had formed part of a wing totalling forty-eight aircraft. Against the Axis onslaught, the wing had now been reduced to just twelve serviceable Spitfire Vs. They were also up against superior Me109 ‘G’s and Fw190s, which had the advantage of flying off the tarmac road between Tunis and Carthage rather than muddy strips.
The relentless bombing, dogfights and sorties were beginning to have strange consequences.
Following the dressing-down after his solo charge at twelve Messerschmitts, Alan Peart had seen 81 Squadron numbers decline at their airfield outside the coastal city of Bône from thirty pilots to ten and only a few serviceable planes. Half-a-dozen had been killed, more had been wounded and a number had reported sick. But the intensity of operations against superior aircraft and living in austere conditions was proving too much for others. Some pilots were cracking up, either through exhaustion or the stress of waking up each day knowing it might be their last.
It was not only seeing friends killed or absent that made Peart more cautious. After his experience of taking on a dozen German fighters, Peart was understandably wary. Thus, when in the circuit preparing to land at Bône, he was aware of the Luftwaffe penchant for attacking aircraft at their most vulnerable. He was not ready for a fellow Spitfire pilot’s aggressive moves. As Peart settled to come in to land, with flaps down, speed indicator showing 85mph and altimeter 300ft, he took one last look to check for enemy. There was no Luftwaffe plane in sight but less than 100 yards behind him was a Spitfire and its pilot’s intentions were clear. He’s bloody well lining up to take a shot!
Peart pulled up the flaps, poured on the power and wrenched the stick back and to starboard, immediately aborting his landing. As he climbed back up into the sky, he heard over the radio a pilot in a 242 Squadron Spitfire shout, ‘Johnnie, what the hell are you up to?’7
On landing, Peart wanted to ask the very same question and strode over to 242’s dispersal area. But the pilot, an experienced Flight Commander, had already been whisked away for medical evaluation after hallucinating that Peart was an enemy aircraft.
A few days later, Peart witnessed a more horrifying incident. He was chatting to an army lieutenant supervising three men filling in a bomb crater when a Spitfire came in to land. Peart, the officer and three men all stood on the side of the airstrip as the fighter lined up for landing. Its wheel bounced on the soft ground then Peart watched as the tail lowered and the plane settled onto the runway. As it approached their position, he instinctively took a step back. Suddenly, from the corner of his vision, he saw the Spitfire lurch round as a wheel hit a poorly covered crater. The scream of the propeller along with a rush of wind brushed past his face. Then he heard the sickening whack of a wing slicing through flesh. Blood splattered down his front. Peart stared at the bloodied wings and nose of the Spitfire. Bits of human body, including what appeared to be an ear, hung from a gunport. He felt his gaze drawn to where the three soldiers had been standing. On the ground were three men in uniform, all missing their heads.
Jesus!
‘You bloody idiot!’ The army lieutenant was screaming at the pilot. ‘You bloody, damned fool.’ He began walking menacingly towards the aircraft.
Peart put a hand firmly on his shoulder. ‘Calm down, mate. It was an accident. Calm it down.’
Men came running along with an ambulance. Peart jumped onto the Spitfire wing among the blood and gore. The canopy slid back and he looked upon the pilot’s ashen face. The realities and intensity of warfare were draining morale. It was clear he would not be flying for some time.
It was not the first time Peart had seen pilots be taken off frontline operations after the stresses of constant warfare got on top of them.
‘This was a nerve-wracking period and quite a few pilots suffered nervous breakdowns which manifested themselves in a reluctance to get into combat, irrational behaviour, mental disturbances and hallucinating,’ Pea
rt wrote. ‘These pilots were rapidly moved away.’ Some of them were given the label LMF – lacking moral fibre – essentially accusing them of cowardice at a time when they were suffering a mental breakdown through combat stress.
‘All of us were under considerable nervous tension and, like frontline soldiers, looked upon the dawn and wondered if we would see another tomorrow.
‘Small things like the sunlight, trees, birds and other living things assumed an unusual importance, clarity and value in our limited world and helped us to keep a sense of what was normal. I suppose it could be called sanity. One felt seriously vulnerable and mortal.
‘We all understood what LMF could mean though it was rarely mentioned. We were losing people hand over fist and a few people had nervous breakdowns; it was the worst time for losses and we all felt it. It was a real period of stress and strain and it took a toll on all of us.’
The question of mortality took a tighter grip as the Luftwaffe counter-attack developed from their bases in Tunisia and advanced into Algeria. The RAF had little in the way of riposte. Greggs Farish used bulldozers to ram wrecks off the airfield as every flyable aircraft was put in the air. Pilots flew five sweeps a day. Some mornings, the wing would start with fourteen aircraft and by dinner time they were down to two.
Replacement planes arrived and were adopted by whichever squadron area they taxied into. Their ‘acceptance check’ for combat was straightforward: they were declared airworthy simply by being refuelled and having a letter chalked on the fuselage.8
To cut down the number of Spitfires nose-diving into the mud, Farish ordered airmen to climb onto the tail during taxiing. In the course of one scramble, a pilot forgot about his tail-man as he opened the throttle at the bottom of the airstrip. ‘The poor bloke must have been too frightened to fall off as the Spitfire gathered speed and the next thing they were airborne,’ Farish wrote on 20 January 1943. ‘Imagine the pilot’s consternation when he, unable to trim the aircraft, looked in the mirror and saw an airman waving in the breeze around his rudder! He managed to stagger round the circuit on full power while the terrified man hung on like grim death.
