by John Nichol
Meanwhile, Tangye, now certain he preferred Spitfires, was sweating through his own ordeal as he watched the great flashes of fire as bombs burst on the city. He asked the pilot what part of London they were over.12
‘West London. I think, over Kensington or Chelsea,’ the pilot answered.
‘Bloody hell. My wife is down there!’ Tangye could not believe he was on his first trip in a bomber looking down on his family being bombed. He felt a wave of nausea.
The pilot’s masked face turned towards him: ‘Christ, I am so sorry for you!’
Somehow Ann felt his distress from her bunker down below. ‘Mentally, Nigel called out to me and I picked it up at the same moment that they flew over our house.’
The Fortress trundled southwards, heading out over the Channel and climbing to 20,000ft. ‘Enemy and friendly shapes loomed up, our own guns were firing from immediately beneath us. Then we were coned by a mass of searchlights and felt very exposed and naked, for who would expect to see an American Fortress over the night skies of London?
‘I was left alone with visions of my house with its ceilings down but I was sure that my tough little wife would be equal to any occasion.’
Tangye’s fears rose again as the rear gunner reported vapour trails forming as they headed into enemy territory. ‘That meant we left a stream of mist reflected in the starlight for any fighter to see and follow up to its starting point which of course was us. You feel quite conspicuous enough alone in the night in the knowledge of radio-location devices without such a companion.’
The plane crossed over the occupied Channel Islands, reaching 26,000ft. He looked at the faces of the two pilots and the shadowy outline of the snouts of their oxygen masks. In front of them was the vast instrument panel with its myriad of luminous dials. Through the bullet-proof glass of the cockpit he could clearly see the night sky. ‘The stars bright and clear and below nothing but unfathomable depths. I went through in my mind all the emergency operations I had learned that afternoon – ditching drill, bailing out, oxygen failure. Then the navigator would burst in on the intercom: “Navigator to speak to pilot, please.”
‘ “Go ahead.”
‘ “Give me five degrees to port please.”
‘Or the pilot would speak: “Rear gunner, how are the contrails?” [referring to the telltale line of vapour that the engines emitted usually over 20,000ft].
‘ “Still there, all right.”
‘ “Keep a sharp lookout, fellers.” ’
Suddenly Tangye was struck by nausea and anxiety but the enemy coast was ahead and the Fortress lumbered on.
‘At 22:20 we passed over the French coast. The blackout was none too good. I could plainly see clusters of lights and individual lights and the headlights of a car. We had a hundred miles to go. A few searchlights probed the sky and a couple of guns flashed.
‘At 22:50, I had the thrill of hearing the bombardier say: “Bombardier to pilot.”
‘ “Go ahead.”
‘ “Bomb doors open please.”
‘And then what seemed a second or two later the Fortress gave a great lurch as the three-ton load was dropped. The pilot swung the plane north and we were on our way home. It was odd to realise the psychological effect this change of course had. We were heading for home. The job was done. The fact that we still had forty-five minutes over enemy territory meant nothing. Then the pilot said: “Keep a sharp lookout, fellers.” ’
Later that day Tangye arrived home to find the ceiling still up and his wife shaken but unharmed. He grabbed her in a smothering embrace, feeling her soft skin against his grizzled cheek. Looking into her melting eyes he said he would not to do a bombing run again.
It was a wise decision. The Bomber Command losses were horrific. Nearly 56,000 were killed out of a force of 125,000. With more than 8,000 wounded and almost 10,000 taken prisoner, it meant a Bomber Command airman stood a one-in-two chance of getting through unscathed.
As Ann leant against his chest, Tangye made a silent vow never to leave the comfort of his Spitfire again.
CHAPTER TEN
ITALY
Greggs Farish
The island of Sicily sat at the toe of Italy, poking far into the Mediterranean Sea. Since 1940 it had been used as an enemy base to harass shipping, bomb Malta and more recently for the desperate resupply of Tunisia.
In May 1943, with the North Africa campaign concluded, British commanders argued that taking Sicily would secure Mediterranean shipping lanes at a time when Atlantic convoys were being hammered by U-boats. It would also be a natural springboard for the conquest of Italy and mainland Europe. An invasion date was set for July.
After a sustained assault on Sicily’s air defences, on the night of 9 July 1943 an armada of airborne troops and landing craft headed towards Sicily’s shores.
Spitfires from Malta fifty miles away were to provide continuous patrols overhead to protect the beachheads. Fuel allowed only thirty-five minutes on station per squadron, so twenty-five minutes after the first squadron left, the young Wing Commander Hugh Dundas, now confirmed in post as 324 Wing’s boss after his adventures in the North African oasis, took off.
‘We crossed great convoys of landing craft and supply ships churning through the wind-flecked sea. Even from 12,000ft it was possible to see that the waves were breaking hard against and often over them. I felt sorry for the men who had spent hours of darkness squatting miserably in those pitching, rolling little boats, wet and cold from the spray and the wind, with nothing to do but contemplate their arrival on a hostile beach. I thought that our way of fighting a war was not so bad. Probably there was danger just ahead but we had risen from comfortable beds, with sheets and pillows, and we could hope and expect to go back to a hot breakfast far from the sight and sound of battle.’
Despite being only twenty, Alan Peart was now an experienced hand, especially after surviving his foolhardy, almost suicidal, one-man attack on a dozen Me109s in North Africa. I’ll never do that again, he told himself constantly. He was now patrolling overhead in his Spitfire, looking down on the mightiest amphibious operation yet undertaken in the history of warfare with 160,000 men ready to land. ‘I had never seen so many ships together at one time. It was said that there were 2,000 of them, of all sizes, from landing craft to liners with warships spread around them. They were contending with heavy sea and I wondered how the troops must have been feeling, cooped up below decks as they were.’
It was the Allies’ first full-scale assault on western Europe since limping off Dunkirk’s beaches three years earlier.
The troops landed successfully and, as they pushed through Sicily’s rugged interior, airfields were seized and the Spitfire squadrons flew in. With little opposition in the air they had time to pick over abandoned German aircraft. The engineer officer Greggs Farish had arrived with 72 Squadron in Sicily via landing craft. His friend, the Spitfire pilot Tom Hughes, persuaded him to look over an Me109 that looked in fine condition left amid the small trees at Comiso airfield, twelve miles inland from the southern Sicilian coast. With some help from a German dictionary, Farish got it ready to fly.
As the Wing Commander of 324 Wing, Hugh Dundas was given the honour of being the first to test the German fighter. He was in high spirits, elated after entering occupied Europe. ‘A moment to remember and a memory to treasure.’
Dundas was strapped into the enemy Me109. It had been painted bright yellow and decorated with RAF roundels in an attempt to keep their own anti-aircraft gunners’ fingers off their triggers. At 6ft 4in he found the cockpit unpleasantly cramped. ‘The seat was positioned in such a way that the pilot was, so to speak, sitting on the floor in a semi-recumbent attitude, legs sticking straight out in front. Such a position had its advantages because a pilot whose legs and head were at the same level would not black out as quickly as one who was seated in an upright position. But the unfamiliarity increased my anxiety as I sat listening to the engineering officer explaining the functions of the vario
us knobs and dials. Furthermore, it was very evident that the 109 had not been tailored for pilots of my height. When I closed the cockpit canopy I found that it pressed down on the top of my head and when I turned my head to right or left my long nose was liable to come in contact with the Perspex hood.’
Uncomfortable and with the airstrip lined by interested RAF spectators, Dundas was not entirely disappointed when he discovered the engine revolution counter was faulty and taxied back in.
Farish took the Me109 back and soon made it serviceable for the next attempt. Another Spitfire pilot, ‘Sexton’ Gear, an experienced flying instructor, was very keen to fly the 109 and, on a hot Sicilian afternoon, took off after the required messages were sent out to the army AA gunners surrounding the airfield that the German plane, painted yellow and with RAF roundels, was a ‘friendly’. In his excitement Gear had, unlike Dundas, forgotten to ask for a Spitfire escort, to ensure no one in the air, on land or sea fired at him.
As he flew out to sea a navy destroyer ignored the bright yellow paint and RAF markings and gave him several AA broadsides. Gear put his nose down and headed for home with flak bursting in the sky around him.
The army gunners now took their cue from the sailors. Farish looked on in horror: ‘All the guns for miles around opened up at this Me109. We were in mental agony lying on our bellies with shrapnel pattering down. A Spit took off in the middle of it all and flew into the gunfire.’
The Spitfire was flown by his friend Tom Hughes, twenty-one, the Rugby-educated man who, with his elegant attire and neatly trimmed moustache, exemplified a gentleman pilot.1
Hughes had quickly realised that Sexton was in real trouble and made a hundred-yard sprint to his Spitfire, taking off at full boost. ‘I quickly found Flying Officer Gear in the Me109 being skilfully flown among the treetops amid a barrage of anti-aircraft fire from our troops.
‘I was terrified by the tracer but managed to get fairly close behind the “friendly” enemy, waggling my wings violently and hoping the Army would be kind enough not to hit me in the Spitfire or my friend in the Messerschmitt. By then, all Flying Officer Gear wanted to do was to get his mount back to our landing strip as quickly as could be.’
On landing, the Messerschmitt was found to be completely untouched by AA fire. ‘Much to the officer commanding the Royal Artillery’s consternation there was not one bullet hole in it,’ Farish said.2
Despite the experience Tom Hughes was still keen to fly an enemy plane himself, to compare the speeds at level flight between a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt, particularly the ‘G’ version which was said to be the Luftwaffe’s favourite.
He found another Me109G and, after alerting the AA gunners and with a Spitfire for escort, he took off.3 ‘We climbed together to 6,000ft and I flew westwards at cruising speed. As I opened the throttle to maximum and increased the revs the engine sounded horrible. I thought it would be sensible to return and land at once so turned back eastwards. Suddenly there was a fearful escape of steam from under the instrument panel, some sort of leak in the coolant system had developed and I found it not only hot, but choking to breathe. I immediately jettisoned the hood and was pleasantly surprised with the excellent arrangement of it, which allowed quite easy escape.’
But the steam was building around his legs and was unbearably hot. He would have to abandon ship.
‘I undid my straps and started to climb out. I had a sudden change of mind – were my parachute straps tight? I tried to climb back in and somehow knocked the control column. In a trice I was catapulted straight up and clear of the cockpit and somersaulted over and over. I pulled the D-ring without bothering to count to three, which was part of the training advice. As the parachute opened I was startled by the shock from dropping freely. I was now supported underneath the canopy and saw galaxies of stars before my eyes, but what a joy it is to be safely lowered to the ground on a silken thread.
‘I drifted down in the summer sunshine with a relief approaching ecstasy. I saw the German fighter crashing and exploding in a vineyard down below. I landed perfectly in soft volcanic soil up to my ankles in the vineyard. I pulled on the lines and collapsed the canopy quite easily.
‘Two Sicilians appeared by magic. They took me to a little shack nearby and I was introduced to a tiny, ancient, shrivelled woman who must have been their grandmother. They gave me a glass of wonderful red wine and soon I was as cheerful as they were. With my parachute rolled up I got on their donkey cart and headed for the main road back to Pachino. A Jeep driven by Greggs Farish rounded the corner and I was trans-shipped and returned to base, but only after we had all been back and had another drink of their famous wine.’
* * *
Gallons of Sicilian wine had been assembled by members of 81 Squadron to celebrate the joint twenty-first birthday of Alan Peart and his new boss, Squadron Leader William Whitamore, who was a mere one day older.4 The squadron had been sent to the airstrip at Lentini, near the town of Catania on the eastern coast, surrounded by low hills where they pitched their tents away from the malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Whitamore had been nicknamed ‘Babe’ on his promotion to Squadron Leader aged just twenty. Despite his tender age and youthful looks, Whitamore had proved his worth, destroying more than five aircraft since joining the RAF soon after his eighteenth birthday in 1940.
By 24 July 1943 he was already an ‘ace’, with a Distinguished Flying Cross to boot. The party on a hill overlooking the airstrip had just started when a parachute flare descended over their airfield. After weeks of quiet it was apparent that the Luftwaffe had regrouped for a counter-attack. The pilots went haring for the nearest cover just in time to hear the rushing whistle of bombs descending. Peart was among those left stranded in the open. He dived to the ground as a crackle of giant fireworks broke out all around. The earth shook with explosions, lifting him off the ground. Peart lay flat, waiting with dread for the next bomb to land. It came seconds later, obliterating a fellow airman lying next to him.
‘The guy was shredded by one of the anti-personnel bomblets; his body was lifted in the air and he landed beside me with a thump. I was shocked as he had shielded me from the blast.’
In the bursting light of an explosion Peart looked in horror at the wrecked body. He did not want to die. He needed to find shelter. Fast. He remembered a partially dug slit trench at the edge of the airstrip.
He felt the heat from the bomb blasts as he sprinted to the hole, terrified of being obliterated in an instant.
‘I found it empty and dived in. Meanwhile, more heavy explosive and anti-personnel bombs were falling and everything seemed to be in flames. The protection to my body provided by the slit trench was most comforting. Then someone dived in on top of me.
‘The feeling of cover over my back was welcome. Then a third chap joined and immediately complained that his backside was showing above ground. Could we get lower? We couldn’t. I felt perfectly safe with two bodies on top of me and I certainly could not get any lower. Next, the topmost fellow slid down the side of the trench and squirmed his way under me in spite of my strenuous efforts to stop him. Then I was second. The chap above me started to complain and did exactly the same thing. I was on top now and could vouch that protection was indeed extremely limited. I was also not amused as I had got there first. I did the same thing and fought my way under the bottom chap.
‘With much swearing and cursing at each other we changed places I don’t know how many times while the bombing was going on.’
When they heard the last of the bombers’ engines disappear back into the distance they gingerly emerged from the trench and dusted themselves down.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Whitamore exclaimed. All around them were the burning wrecks of Spitfires, some flattened on their bellies and wingless, others with fire streaking from their engines. One had been skittled over by a blast, lying on its back with wheels in the air. 81 Squadron had not one single flyable Spitfire.
‘The place looked like Dante’s inferno, with rising columns o
f smoke and dust illuminated by the flares, burning aircraft, exploding ammunition and AA guns firing,’ Peart said.
‘There was not much we could do until daylight so we returned to our hilltop campsite and continued our party. So ended our birthday celebrations. I became twenty-one years old the next day.’
Peart subsequently discovered that an unexploded anti-personnel bomb lay at the bottom of the slit trench in which the three of them, including Whitamore, had been squirming. Their luck seemed to be holding out. For the moment.
* * *
This new German aerial offensive was the result of a Goering diatribe against the Luftwaffe as Sicily slipped from Nazi control. A message sent to his pilots accused them of cowardice and threatened Eastern Front postings.
I can only regard you with contempt. If an immediate improvement is not forthcoming, flying personnel, from the Kommodore downwards, must expect to be reduced to the ranks and transferred to the Eastern Front to serve on the ground.
But the Luftwaffe had been kept quiet for good reason. As one pilot put it: ‘We lacked everything necessary to a fighter unit’s operations – skilled personnel, spares, ammunition, even petrol.’5 Added to this was the ‘quality’ of Allied aircraft.
Helped by the renewed bombing offensive, the Germans conducted an orderly withdrawal from Sicily. As in North Africa, 72 Squadron moved up with the advance in their trucks. Greggs Farish was delighted to find a decent spot to camp near the ancient port of Augusta on the east coast, next to a battery of Bofors gunners he had befriended.6
