by John Nichol
Victory in the Battle of Britain bought the RAF time in which to properly train its pilots. No longer were men thrown straight into the front line with just a dozen or so hours in a Spitfire under their belts. Instead, thousands were sent to America or Canada to train in clear blue skies free from marauding Messerschmitts. Then they were swiftly transported home past the hunting U-boats in the relative luxury of the Queen Elizabeth liner.
Thus Ken French had already had experiences beyond the gushing trout streams of County Cork when he arrived back in England after a year in America. The Protestant Irishman, whose family had been targeted by the IRA, had seen a bit of the world since leaving Ireland just before the outbreak of war to get a job as a clerk in Southend, Essex, prior to being accepted into the RAF.
On the six-day Atlantic crossing, the pilots constantly speculated about what it would be like to fly a Spitfire. By March 1943, Ken French had arrived at Eshott in Northumberland, where he was confronted by a long line of Spitfires waiting for their pilots.
His impatience and anticipation to get airborne in a Spit were held up as they relentlessly practised on the ground, learning how to use the instruments blindfolded then tantalisingly being allowed to taxi down the runway.
Then, on 31 March, French found himself strapped into a Spitfire with its Merlin engine purring. Here I am, a young lad from Cork, in the world’s finest fighter!
‘Green One to tower, permission to take off?’ French tried to sound calm as his heart thudded, waiting for the response.
‘Permission granted, Green One. Good luck.’
French pushed the throttle lever forward and the Spitfire responded instantly. ‘I was aware of a greater power than I had on any other aircraft. Once I got moving I raised the tail by easing the stick forward to allow me to see where I was going and in a very short time I was in the air and climbing away. I stayed up for just over an hour and found it a real pleasure to fly. But what goes up must come down and I knew this would be the difficult part. The Spitfire landing speed was faster than anything I had experienced before. It also had a very narrow undercarriage, which called for extra care once you touched down. If you did not keep it straight it could spin around on the ground and do what was called a “ground loop”.’
French need not have worried. He made a perfect landing, emerging from the cockpit with his usual grin spread broadly across his face.
‘My first trip in a Spitfire was a glorious experience. I was part of this beautiful machine and it almost flew itself. I spent an hour in the air and felt so wonderful looking all around me and down at the earth far below me.’
But in wartime, learning to fly a Spitfire also came with the necessity of having to fight it. French would have to go to war in Spitfire Mark Vs that were outclassed by the Focke-Wulf 190, which was earning the nickname of the ‘Butcher Bird’.7
He was posted to 66 Squadron based in Kenley, Surrey, and on 11 September he was strapped in his plane and battling with nerves minutes before his first operational sortie escorting Mitchell bombers over northern France. The new pilots had been told in no uncertain terms that they would be up against the more capable 190s and that casualties were inevitable.
French tried to wear his customary grin as his flight sergeant strapped him in. ‘Knowing it was my first trip he helped me, which was a nice gesture. His parting words were that he would say a prayer for me. I was not religious but I’m sure most of us said a quiet prayer from time to time.’
No Fw190s came up to meet them but over Le Havre the German AA opened up, sending accurate shells towards the planes.
‘This was my first operational sortie and here were people trying to kill us, which was a strange thought. Most of the flak was centred on the bombers but I was very aware that if one of those puffs of smoke hit me there was a good chance I could die. It was a sobering thought.’
The sorties continued, along with the inevitable casualties. In early October, French’s room-mate Alan Edwards failed to return from a mission over France. Despite an effort to find any sign of a crash he had simply disappeared and was reported ‘missing in action’.
It was yet another sobering moment for French but not much time was allowed for reflection. ‘Alan was a friend of mine and it hit home. It was funny really, one minute we’d be flying, perhaps someone dying, then we would land and if there were no other ops, we’d pile into cars and head out to the pubs or to a party. We would have a few drinks together. I don’t think we got that close to anyone as people would arrive and sometimes be missing a few days later. Everything was always changing. Just because someone was shot down didn’t stop anything – we were back in action a bit later that day.
‘Alan’s mother kept writing to me, desperate for information, but there was nothing I could tell her. It was a very sad situation. Of course we felt sorry for them, but we also made light of it – the attitude was, “I’ll have his flying jacket; he won’t need that any more!” Someone came to take Alan’s things away and that was that. You didn’t have time to dwell on it – there was a war to be fought.’
It was only months later that they were told Edwards had survived the crash, been captured and now languished in a POW camp.
There was one relief from the stress of continuously flying in the knowledge that the next day you might be the unlucky one. A good party.
‘We lived life to the full. You had to – you didn’t know if you’d be around to have a drink next day! After a few drinks, it took the edge off the reality, the war and what it meant. One minute we were battling Fw190s or seeing bombers shot down, next we’d be partying in the mess. It’s daft to think like this now, but the partying took your mind off what might happen the next day. You could die the next day.’
Some of the antics were perhaps inevitable for young men living under immense pressure. During one such party, French found himself hanging upside down from the rafters of a pub.
‘Don’t ask how I got there but all the money fell out of my pockets. This was quickly gathered up and used to buy the next round of drinks. It might sound frivolous but it was fun and I am sure we all felt much better for it. If we were flying the next morning and still had a hangover we would plug into our Spitfire’s oxygen supply and this usually did the trick.’
Oxygen was fitted to the planes so that pilots could fight above 10,000ft with all senses fully functioning. During training, they were given a demonstration of the effects of oxygen depletion. They were put in a chamber which gradually had the oxygen reduced, as would happen in a climbing aircraft. ‘All but one of us were fed with oxygen to compensate for this and we watched the behaviour of the one who was not getting any. He was given a pencil and paper and asked to keep writing his name and address. He did this quite normally at first but his writing gradually deteriorated as he was starved of oxygen until it eventually became no more than a scribble. When they turned on his supply and showed him what he had written he could not believe it as he thought he was writing quite normally right up to the end.’
French was to experience himself the potentially fatal effects of oxygen depletion. Poor weather had forced the squadron to 30,000ft to escort back home a large force of Flying Fortresses and Liberators, which was returning from a Berlin raid.
The intense cold of high-altitude flying was the first thing to hit home. ‘Our only heating was what we got from our engines and the planes were by no means draughtproof. I wore four pairs of gloves but my hands still went dead and I lost all feeling in my feet. I had frost on my eyelids and I could see ice forming on my wings. My windscreen and hood were frosting up, making it difficult to see out. Then I blacked out. I fell some distance before coming round. I fought to get the plane under control again. I increased my oxygen supply and rejoined my friends.
‘The danger with lack of oxygen is that you get no warning. In fact, you think you’re functioning normally right up to the point you black out.’
French knew that he had to learn fast. Soon the assault on Europe would begin. They star
ted training hard to use the Spitfire in its evolving ground-attack role.
* * *
Nigel Tangye and Ann Todd on their wedding day in Chelsea, October 1939
The actress Ann Todd had suffered many sleepless nights wondering if her Spitfire pilot husband Nigel Tangye would return home safe. She had had a curious war, giving birth during a bombing raid, and performing on stage, including one show in front of Queen Mary.8
Tangye had also done well from the proceeds of Teach Yourself to Fly, a book he had written in 1938 and that the Air Ministry recommended to all trainee pilots. Together they purchased a London home.
Tangye was a man of adventure, who had covered the Spanish Civil War as a journalist and as an MI5 agent spying on German forces. During the war, he had been appointed as the chief liaison officer between the RAF and the US 8th Air Force operating out of Britain. To do so, he had been given his own personal Spitfire to get about.
Tangye was the type of single-minded man who, when he wanted something, generally got it. Being in his thirties, he found it difficult to get onto an operational fighting squadron and instead found himself during the Battle of Britain and afterwards either as an instructor or doing liaison jobs. He was itching to see some sort of action. He had a friend in charge of the PR Spitfires at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, who agreed to give Tangye a trial. It seemed a perfect fit for the Cornish adventurer. ‘By doing this I would expose no one to danger but myself. I could be working at my Air Ministry desk in the morning, flying over Europe in the afternoon and, rather grotesquely, home for dinner in the evening. Further, flying under the conditions of extreme isolation suited my loner temperament perfectly.’
His first mission in the reconnaissance Spitfire high over occupied Europe gave Tangye an unforgettable experience. ‘A quarter of an hour of briefing and I was off in this superb machine. I was not prepared for the awesome majesty of flying really high and alone. The paradox of being poised as on a cliff edge, between a dark night-blue sky and the sun flooding the earth’s surface far beneath.
‘The air is so rare that the controls are flabby, making flying and stalling recognisable only by a hair’s breadth.
‘After half an hour of feeling my way, the majesty of the scene won over its awesomeness and I felt a great wonder at the privilege of being equipped to enter such a realm of the gods.’
After several missions Tangye’s celestial experiences came to an abrupt end when he collapsed from high-altitude sickness. The high flying did not, however, sufficiently scratch the itch for adventure.
One night as he lay in bed at their Chelsea flat in London holding Ann tight, her son David from her first marriage sleeping peacefully next door, he began asking her about what it had been like during the bombings.9 Ann described the horror of trying to protect her child then the intense feeling of relief when the attack was over.
Tangye promised to finish the Anderson air-raid shelter in the garden as soon as he could. Then he brought up the subject of flying on a bombing mission himself. An opportunity had come up with the Americans to go in one of their mighty Flying Fortresses. Nigel thought it would be different to being alone in a Spitfire as he’d have six other crew for company. He also suggested it might help him be more in tune with the RAF’s daylight bombing problems. Plus it was only a propaganda leaflet-dropping mission, not a bombing run.
Ann knew better than to argue with the man who, even before their marriage, had earned the reputation of a swashbuckling adventurer. She turned over and went to sleep. Tangye lay awake, imagining himself in the bomber’s cockpit.
A few days later his American contact phoned to say his flight as an observer on a B17 Flying Fortress had been confirmed. They were to drop three tons of propaganda leaflets over St Nazaire, the heavily defended dry dock on the north-western coast of France.
Tangye felt both excitement and nerves as he landed his Spitfire at the USAAF airfield outside Nottingham. The sense of imminent adventure was once again upon him. He spent the afternoon getting kitted up, trying on the big bomber-crew overalls, boots, helmets and thick gloves. For at least an hour he went through the emergency drills of exiting a crippled aircraft. The prospect of being entombed inside the burning hulk of a B17 as it plummeted earthwards was brought home. It contrasted with the relative ease with which you could escape from the Spitfire cockpit. The very bulk of his flying kit coupled with parachute made it seem an impossible task to squeeze through the escape hatch. Hopefully the adrenaline would see him through. And at least he had others for company.
His thoughts turned back to the Spitfire, where everything was down to just the pilot’s responsibility. There was no one else to consult or to rely on.
‘Chow time, sir.’ A grinning head popped up through the hatch. Tangye checked his watch: 5pm. In three and a half hours he’d be airborne and committed to whatever the crew faced.
As he sat down in the ‘chow hall’, a mighty dish of stew, creamed carrots, sauté potatoes and beetroot was put in front of him. Despite the impending mission, he found his appetite and ate the lot, then the pineapple that followed, finishing with the excellent coffee the Americans always served.
An hour later they were called in for a mission briefing. Tangye squirmed in his seat nervously at the intelligence officer’s conclusion. ‘You’ll have vapour trails all the way so keep a sharp lookout for cat’s-eye fighters.’10
Tangye went to the crew room where conversation turned to the near-misses of the previous night’s operation. While the Fortress could take a pounding, losses were high. Tangye wondered if he’d made the right decision to swap his comfortable and manoeuvrable Spitfire for a lumbering bomber. And, with thirty minutes to go before take-off, he began to reflect on whether his desire for adventure was entirely misplaced. Surely he should be at home, there for his young family?
Negative thoughts were pushed aside as the crew were bundled aboard a truck and driven to a tent close to the bomber. ‘Here we enrobed in the complicated paraphernalia of high flight. We were given escape kits for use if we had to bail out, along with chocolate and chewing gum. Then we walked out in the inky blackness to the great shape that stood before us. I was amazed that so large a thing should have such small holes to squeeze through. I clambered up to my position behind the two pilots. I was to have no space as I was squashed between the pilot seats and the upper turret. I couldn’t stand up straight and directly beneath me was a hole so that I was forced to lean slightly forward over it. At all costs I couldn’t lean back as the turret would be revolving all the time.’
He began to wonder if he could possibly remain in the cramped and painful position for the next five hours. It might have been feasible perhaps in a pleasantly heated room at sea level, but flying in the turbulent, cold air at 26,000ft was a different prospect. And, at thirty-three, he was no longer young when compared to the age of the pilot, twenty-two, and his twenty-year-old co-pilot.
Despite his misgivings, Tangye felt a thrill of excitement as the four turbo-supercharged engines thundered into life. At precisely 8.30pm the eighteen-ton Fortress rolled down the runway and pulled up into the night sky, circling the airfield to gain height. After fifteen minutes they reached 10,000ft and set course for St Nazaire, a hundred miles inside enemy territory.
With a flier’s curiosity Tangye looked out of the port window to see if he could spot London and observe how good the blackout was from the air. He knew they would pass in close proximity to Ann and their Chelsea home as their course lay five miles to the west of the city.
London, to his surprise, was not at all difficult to find. For all the wrong reasons.
Searchlights scoured the sky and endless flashes came from AA gunfire in Hyde Park and every other piece of open ground, shooting up into the night. The cold realisation hit him. A major air raid was in progress and his wife was in the middle of it.
Most people in London had grown complacent over the Luftwaffe’s ability to mount another Blitz. By winter 1943 there had been no hea
vy raids over London for a year and a half. Now it looked like the biggest barrage of the war had begun.
‘The old home town looked as though hell had broken loose,’ Tangye recorded. ‘Flares falling, staccato flashes of guns, leisurely flashes of bombs, a huge red rose of an explosion as a gasometer was hit and the crew over the intercom shouting: “Jesus, did you see that?”, “Christ, poor old London!”, “Aircraft at 3 o’clock” and so on.
‘I felt truly sick at heart and cursed myself for choosing that night of all nights to leave Ann and David to fend for themselves. It was a tremendous experience of helplessness to watch that battle from the skies. I thanked God for the Anderson shelter that had only just been completed at my home a few days before.’
It was into that Anderson shelter at their Chelsea home that Ann Todd now fled with her young son. The curved corrugated iron shelter was designed to accommodate six people. Ann took advantage of the extra space to put in a few cushions, a table and toys for her son. Despite her attempts at airing it, the shelter still smelled damp, being dug 4ft down into the garden. On the outside she had planted flowers but they seemed of little importance as she sat fitfully while the bombs rained down.
‘It was a terrifying air raid on London. I was alone as Nigel was on duty, so putting a tin hat on my small son and one on myself I carried him across the back yard as bits of shell fell like rain around us. We jumped down into the underground shelter. I had tried to make the place as comfortable as possible by painting the walls and covering everything with pictures but it was very damp and dismal.’11
Ann had cuddled up on one of the bunks with David in her arms and was trying to shut her eyes to ward off the sound of detonation when something strange happened.
‘I suddenly heard Nigel’s voice calling me and his well-known whistle. I thought he must be outside the back gate which was locked and that I must let him in immediately. I practically crawled the short distance and above the noise of gunfire shouted: “One minute, darling” and unlocked the gate. There was no one there.’ Whether it was the terror of the bombing or an overactive imagination, she was certain she had heard her husband’s voice. She stood for a minute in the garden listening to the crash of AA fire and the groaning impact of bombs. The ground shuddered under her feet as a bomb landed a few streets away. She suddenly remembered David and rushed back to the shelter, taking him into her arms in a smothering embrace.
