by John Nichol
But Strawn also reserved a deep and enduring affection for his Spitfire. In a magazine interview after his return he said: ‘The Spitfire was very simple and easy to fly, it was almost like a trainer. If you got into trouble all you did was take your hands off the controls and let it go. It could literally fly itself. All in all, the Spitfire was a great aeroplane.’
* * *
Hugh Dundas had been in the fight for three and a half years since the days covering the British withdrawal from Dunkirk. He had seen the enemy only fleetingly, the flash of a man behind helmet and goggles before they engaged in a do-or-die struggle. Or seeing them come down by parachute in the distance. He had not particularly wanted to get too close. The enemy to an extent had to remain dehumanised. But now there were hordes of Rommel’s fabled Afrika Korps taken prisoner. Dundas got in a Jeep and drove to the encampments outside Tunis where the thousands of German prisoners stood behind barbed wire. He relished the trip.
‘It was a curious and almost solemn experience to drive out and see this hitherto impersonal enemy herded together in hordes of living, beaten human beings. I sat in my Jeep and stared at them in their ugly uniforms and forage caps as I might have stared at animals in the zoo or men from another planet. There they were, in their tens of thousands, Hitler’s invincibles, disarmed, dejected and looking pretty ordinary and harmless in defeat. There they were, the long and the short and the tall, as per the barrack-room song.
‘Well fuck ’em all, I thought, taking the lyric one line further. They were the defeated ones but they were safe. That was more than could be said for me and my friends. We had won so we had to go on and start all over again.’15
Hugh ‘Cocky’ Dundas was right. There was still plenty of fighting, and dying, to be done before Hitler’s Nazi forces were defeated. And he, and the Spitfire, would be at the heart of it all.
CHAPTER NINE
THE RELENTLESS FIGHT IN EUROPE
With the majority of their bomber force now in Russia, the Luftwaffe was keen to make some kind of response to the RAF and Bomber Command’s pulverising of German cities and factories. They came up with the Hohenkampfkommando – the High Altitude Bomber Detachment. While long in name, this consisted of just two Junkers 86Rs. They were effective, however. By injecting nitrous oxide into the engines and extending the wingspan by 20ft, the Ju86 ‘R’ could reach 48,000ft carrying a single 550lb bomb.1 The aircraft could thus enter RAF airspace with impunity. Goering could now boast that revenge attacks would start on Britain. It was not an idle threat.
Back in late August 1942, Ju86 crews bombed Britain at their leisure, looking on with disinterest as Spitfire Vs surged towards them then dropped away because their engines simply lacked the power to go much higher than 37,000ft, unable to get within attacking range.
Because the Junkers were only single aircraft rather than a fleet that could cause severe damage, and deemed to be on reconnaissance missions, no air-raid warning was given on their approach. The disruption was too costly to the war economy. Thus, during morning rush hour on 28 August 1942, the streets of Bristol were bustling with commuters. Three packed buses were caught in the middle of the Ju86’s 550lb detonation which landed in the city centre. The single bomb ripped open the buses’ thin metal skins, cruelly striking those packed inside. Hot shrapnel and flying glass tore indiscriminately through the early-morning commuters. Limbs were strewn across the bus decks, a scene of carnage that even hardened rescuers struggled to deal with. The bomb killed forty-five and injured fifty-six. It would not go unpunished.
A response was demanded. The RAF hastily formed a high-altitude interception flight using the new Spitfire Mark IXs, which could climb high, and with the Merlin 61 they were able still to generate 600hp at 40,000ft – substantially more than earlier Merlins.
Among their number was Prince Emanuel Galitzine, twenty-four, the great-grandson of Russian Emperor Paul I. The prince was a baby when his parents, with the assistance of the Royal Navy, fled the Russian Revolution in 1919. Galitzine joined the new Special Service Flight, the name given to the hoped-for high-altitude interceptors based at RAF Northolt, west London. The prince enjoyed a diet of chocolate, eggs, bacon and fresh orange juice, food unobtainable during rationing but considered necessary for high-altitude flying. He underwent tests in a decompression chamber in Farnborough, where pilots were starved of oxygen to demonstrate what it was like to work at high altitude. He was given lectures on how to conserve energy at height by making movements slowly and deliberately. ‘Everything’, the pilots were told, ‘should be done in an icy calm manner.’ He would be relying on pure oxygen to breathe and his heated suit to combat the extreme chill of high altitude.
A week later he was in the cockpit of a Mark IX that had been made significantly lighter to gain the extra altitude. To lose weight, a wooden propeller was refitted, there was no armour and the four machine guns had gone, leaving just two 20mm Hispano cannons that could fire sixty rounds a second. All further equipment not essential for high-altitude flying was removed and the plane was camouflaged in ‘Cambridge blue’ paint.
Unfortunately, the Spitfire with the pressurised cabin – the Mark VII – was still undergoing development and was not yet ready for operations, so the high-altitude pilots had to make do with the Mark IX, which had been rushed into service. With so many technical changes, and the ongoing development of the various models of the Spitfire, differing ‘Marks’ of the aircraft would be introduced in different theatres of war, to meet ongoing threats, and not necessarily in numerical order.
The 450lb reduction in weight was instantly recognisable, Galitzine reported, as he took her up for a test flight. ‘She had plenty of power and was very lively. I stayed above 40,000ft for some time and found it quite exhilarating. It was a beautiful day and I could see along the coast of England from Dover to Plymouth and almost the whole of the northern coast of France as far as Belgium and Holland.’ The temperature around 40,000ft could be as low as minus 60°C so he also ‘wore an electrically heated flying suit which kept me warm and comfortable’.
On his second flight Galitzine took the Spitfire up to 43,400ft and, to ensure they worked in the extreme cold, tested his cannons. All was well.
Two days later he was wrapped in his high-altitude suit, waiting at high readiness, when a suspicious high-flying raider was reported climbing to height over France. The prince took to the skies.
‘Climbing away at full throttle, the Spitfire went up like a lift, but there was a long way to go – 40,000ft is 7½ miles high. I climbed in a wide spiral over Northolt to 15,000ft then the ground controller informed me that the incoming aircraft was over mid-Channel and heading towards the Portsmouth area. I was ordered onto a south-westerly heading to cut him off. After several course corrections I finally caught sight of the enemy aircraft as it was flying up the Solent. I was at about 40,000ft and he was slightly higher. I continued my climb and headed after him, closing in until I could make out the outline of a Junkers 86. By then I was about half-a-mile away from him and we were both at 42,000ft.’2
Inside the Junkers, the crew gazed with their usual disinterest as the fighter climbed towards them. After a few minutes Leutnant Erich Sommer, the observer, watched with growing concern as it got closer and closer.
‘Aircraft approaching, starboard side,’ he reported to the captain.3
‘OK, observer.’ Oberfeldwebel Horst Goetz did not pay much attention as fighters had constantly tried to harry them without success.
‘Enemy fighter climbing fast,’ Sommer warned again. ‘Approaching our altitude. Still climbing . . .’ Goetz noted the concern in Sommer’s voice and leaned over to his side of the cabin to see for himself. To his horror he saw the Spitfire, a little above them and still climbing.
He had to act quickly and immediately gained some height by jettisoning the 550lb bomb. He then pushed the nitrous oxide injection lever to full, increasing power on the two engines. He also partially depressurised the cabin, avoiding the possibi
lity of an explosion if it was pierced. Then he opened the throttles and tried to outclimb the Spitfire.
Prince Galitzine knew he had been spotted when the Junkers’ bomb was released. ‘The German crew had obviously seen me because I saw them jettison their bomb, put up its nose to gain height and turn round for home.’
Prince Emanuel Galitzine
He was not going to let it get away. It was time to test the Mark IXs capabilities to the full. The war’s highest aerial combat was about to begin.
‘I jettisoned my 30 gallon external slipper tank, which was now empty, and had little difficulty in following him in the climb and getting about 200ft above the bomber. At this stage I remember telling myself: Take it easy, conserve your strength, keep icy calm.
‘The grey-blue Junkers seemed enormous and it trailed a long, curling condensation trail. It reminded me of a film I had once seen of an aerial view of an ocean liner ploughing through a calm sea and leaving a wake.
‘I positioned myself for an attack and dived to about 200 yards astern of him, where I opened up with a three-second burst. At the end of the burst my port cannon jammed and the Spitfire slewed round to starboard; then as I passed through the bomber’s slipstream my canopy misted over. The canopy took about a minute to clear completely, during which time I climbed back into position for the next attack.
‘When I next saw the Junkers he was heading southward, trying to escape out to sea. I knew I had to get right in close behind him if I was to stand any chance of scoring hits, because it would be difficult to hold the Spitfire straight when the single cannon fired and she went into a yaw.
‘Again I dived to attack but when I was about a hundred yards away the bomber made a surprisingly tight turn to starboard. I opened fire but the Spitfire went into a yaw and fell out of the sky.’ A yaw occurs when an aircraft twists and oscillates around a vertical axis, making it very difficult to control, particularly at high altitude. But Galitzine, despite the fear of blacking out and plunging seven miles earthwards, managed to recover the tumbling Spitfire.
‘I broke off the attack and turned outside him, climbing back to 44,000ft. I carried out two further attacks. On each my Spitfire fell out of the sky whenever I opened fire with my remaining cannon and my canopy misted over whenever I passed through the bomber’s slipstream.’
Sweating, exhausted and slightly nauseous from the gut-wrenching yaws, the prince glanced down at his fuel gauge. After four attacks in an action that lasted forty-five minutes flying at full throttle, Galitzine saw that his tank was almost empty. He lined up for a final attack.
Despite the outside temperature of minus 60°C at high altitude, inside the Ju86 Goetz was sweating profusely as he fought to keep out of the Spitfire’s reach. Already the bomber had juddered alarmingly when an armour-piercing round penetrated the wing. As the Spitfire pulled out of a yaw he spotted a patch of cloud and dived into it.
Galitzine glanced again at his fuel gauge as the Junkers’ tail was swallowed in the murk. He was well over the Channel, about twenty-five miles from Cherbourg. He broke away, cursing his jammed cannon which denied him an almost certain kill.
Goetz gratefully managed to land the bomber in Caen and checked it for damage. The crew got out and slapped each other on the back, lit cigarettes and looked skywards, thankful for surviving the Spitfire attack. As they walked around the aircraft the damage was instantly recognisable. In the middle of the port wing was a hole the size of a beer bottle, where an armour-piercing round had gone straight through. It was the only damage but that single bullet was enough. Goetz knew that it was now clear that the Junkers’ period of immunity over England was at an end. There could be no more stratospheric attacks by their bombers without running the risk of being shot down. The Spitfire had again prevailed, winning a small but important strategic victory.
The War Office was also quick to let the British public, and vicariously the Luftwaffe, know that their number was up in the high-altitude fight. The aviation cartoonist Chris Wren captured the victory in a picture showing a worried Junkers 86 pilot leaning out of the cockpit and looking over his shoulder to see Spitfires above him. Underneath he penned a verse:
‘Than Doktor Junkers eighty-six nothing can fly higher,’
The pilot thought and preened himself until a glance behind
Reminded him that out of sight does not mean out of mind.
And if the sky should fill with lead, the likely clue is ‘Spitfire’.
* * *
Fearing the Spitfire threat, the Luftwaffe largely confined itself to the skies over occupied Europe, though the German pilots occasionally deigned to cross the Channel in search of prey. Bad weather was usually the best weapon to sneak through the home defences undetected for a hit-and-run strike.
Having learned her lesson about flying in poor weather, Diana Barnato Walker had wisely put down the aircraft she was ferrying at Whitchurch, Hampshire, as a heavy band of rain, moving across England from west to east, approached on 2 January 1943. Rain was pelting down as she went into the dispersal hut to find a dozen other ATA pilots who had come down and were waiting for a lift back to base.4
She was pleased to see the Anson was piloted by her friend Jim Mollison, who had flown a record-breaking solo flight from Australia to England in 1931 and gone on to marry Amy Johnson, the renowned female solo pilot killed on ATA duties in 1941.
Twelve of the ATA fliers climbed into the twin-engine Anson, slightly overloading it. Diana took the co-pilot’s seat next to Mollison, thirty-seven, who had flown for the RAF since the 1920s. Mollison told her that by the time they got back to headquarters at White Waltham the weather front would have cleared there, allowing the ferry pilots to spend a night in their own beds.
They flew towards Reading just under the cloud base with the sun behind them and the dark weather front looming ahead. As they passed over Reading’s rail tracks, Diana noticed smoke billowing from the railway yard below.
Probably smoke coming off a locomotive below, she thought.
She looked up at the looming dark covering ahead and caught her breath. ‘Suddenly, from the mass of cloud in front of us, out popped an aircraft, just like a cork from a bottle, going like stink. Not only that, it was coming straight for us.’ It wasn’t smoke, it was anti-aircraft fire.
‘At first I thought it was a Mosquito with some thick ATA pilot flying in the muck who had still got his head down on instruments without realising he had cleared the weather.’
The plane’s shape grew rapidly and became more defined as it quickly closed the distance between them. Then she noticed something sparkle from the aircraft’s nose. Something distinctive. Bullets!
‘Against the dark cloud, I saw tracer coming out at us from what appeared to be the guns of the silvered aircraft. I then noticed the huge black cross on the fuselage and swastika on the tailplane. An Me110!’
Jim Mollison saw it too. ‘Jeez!’ he yelled. ‘It’s a Jerry!’
He yanked the Anson up into the overcast to hide as the German flashed past. ‘It was very close, on our port side, its guns still blazing.’
They were then gratefully swallowed up by cloud and came in to land at White Waltham to find everyone running around in tin hats shouting, ‘Air raid!’
Diana Barnato Walker also had the odd mishap of her own making. In good spirits, she had left RAF Benson in a lightweight PR Spitfire Mark IX fitted with the new bubble-type canopy for better vision. Flying in clear blue skies she decided to finally attempt a roll. After a few unsuccessful tries, she managed it.
‘I promptly got stuck upside down! In this attitude, while wondering what to do next, from out of my top overall pocket fell my beautifully engraved, round, silver powder compact. It wheeled round and round the bubble canopy like a drunken sailor on a wall of death, opened, then sent all the face powder over absolutely everything.
‘When I found myself the right-way-up again, the inside of the canopy was like a frosted lavatory window. I wiped away to clear a
view but just smeared it into an awful mess. I was very hot and sticky and brushing my overalls made the stuff fly up again, sticking to my face and neck. It was amazing how much powder there seemed to be. It rapidly spread over the whole inside of the cockpit, instruments, windscreen, knobs and switches – just everywhere! To add to my discomfort, as I righted the aeroplane that dear little powder compact dropped down into the fuselage beneath the control wires under my feet. It was just sitting there, shining up at me. There was no immediate danger of it jamming anything but I couldn’t reach it to make certain.’
When Diana landed she taxied close to the watch office. As she was shutting down the plane a tall, handsome RAF flight lieutenant approached. With a jaunty step, he was up on her wing, wearing a charming smile. When Diana pulled back the canopy his expression changed to one of disbelief.
‘I was told,’ he gasped, ‘that a very, very pretty girl was bringing us a new aircraft. All I can see is some ghastly clown!’
Diana was a touch disappointed. ‘He jumped down from the wing like a maggot from a bait tin, turned on his heels, then fled away to a parked car, clanked the gears and was gone. It might have been the start of a beautiful friendship, even a romance . . .’
* * *
John Wilkinson, 1944
Meanwhile, John Wilkinson, who, as a sixteen-year-old, had witnessed the Battle of Britain unfold in the skies above his school in Sussex, had just been awarded ‘Best Flying Cadet’ after completing a year’s training in the safe blue skies of Florida before returning to England in 1943. For advanced fighter tuition he was sent to Northumbria and onto battle-weary Spitfire Mark Is. But the weathered fighters still retained a seductive quality for Wilkinson. ‘I found a great joy in flying which was greatly enhanced by the graceful and powerful Spitfire. Just like a bird, it was perhaps the one machine in that period that was most incredibly attuned to flight.’
