by John Nichol
He then reached up and closed the canopy. The noise of howling immediately abated.
He was in the air and he was flying. His first ever solo flight and it was in a Spitfire. The elation of being in such a beautiful, responsive machine that he knew by every rivet, screw and bolt stayed with him for a long moment. But the most difficult and dangerous part lay ahead. Getting to Nettuno and down on the ground.
‘I was terribly shaken by the take-off. I couldn’t get my map folded in the right place. I couldn’t find the flying instruments at a glance. I was in the cloud base at 3,000ft and it looked thicker ahead. I could just see the coast on my right, but knew it was enemy and didn’t know where I was. I was all alone, never been so lonely before. I seemed already dead in a way. And I didn’t see how I could possibly go through with it. Yet I was committed – no going back. I was very near hysteria in the cockpit and it would have been so easy to put the nose down into the sea.’
Farish began to take a detached professional interest in how the Spitfire actually flew. And it saved him.
After years of working on the machine, talking to pilots and imagining how it would be to fly, if these were to be his last moments he might as well enjoy them.
He made gentle turns left and right. The response was astonishing. Then he dived briefly, feeling the thrill of the plunge wash over him. He climbed back up and played with the throttle lever, increasing and decreasing his speed.
‘Slowly I started to live as I had never lived before, an absolute singleness of mind came over me: I was flying!’
Then below the starboard wing he recognised the big rock that marked the end of the Pontine Marshes, over halfway to the Anzio beaches. He broke off from the weaving and began to practise gliding with his throttle closed and flaps down. Soon he would have to land. And the thought made him shiver in the sweat that had soaked his back.
But he was not there just yet. As every minute passed he grew in confidence. Why not try the guns? It would be his only opportunity to fire a Spitfire’s weapons. He grinned mischievously and dived to the sea. At around 600ft he loosed off a short burst. He was delighted. ‘The cannons shuddered, emitting a little blue smoke.’
On Farish flew, throwing in the odd manoeuvre as he followed the Italian coastline northwards. After forty flying minutes he looked ahead and saw that the sea was filled with a cluster of boats. Anzio. Knowing the navy’s appetite for shooting at aircraft that came close, he gave the beachhead a wide berth.
Strewn with wrecked or abandoned aircraft, the landing strip was not difficult to find. Farish was by now handling the Spitfire in the air with confidence. But the biggest test now awaited. First he decided to fly up and down the metal landing strip a few times, to see if it was even possible to land on. Although one end looked torn up, it appeared clear enough.
Farish climbed up to 1,000ft, searching the sky above for enemy aircraft, briefly wondering what he would do if it came to a dogfight.
He turned, took a deep breath then began the descent heading into the wind, repeating in his mind what was required for landing. Immediately, he dropped the undercarriage and throttled back. As the speed dropped off, the aircraft began to buffet. Hurriedly he lowered the flaps, steadying her again as the nose tried to drop. He glanced at the altimeter. 500ft.
He came in on a glide. The airspeed indicator hovered just above 90mph. His eyes locked onto the runway ahead. His height dipped below 300ft then 200ft. He could clearly make out debris on the airfield. Then he was at 100ft, fully committed to hitting the ground one way or another.
‘The ground came rushing up to meet me. I waited to the last moment, then pulled the stick back. The huge nose of the aircraft came up and obscured my vision entirely. I bounced once then settled down, then felt a violent swing to starboard and jammed on full brake and rudder. I was very surprised the legs didn’t fold up.’
He jumped out of the cockpit onto the ground and looked at the aeroplane with sheer surprise. My God, I’ve done it.
Unsteadily, he walked towards a group of American soldiers and asked if they’d heard anything about Bamby Taylor.
Yes, they had, the ‘Limey guy’, they said, had ‘gotten’ a ride in a DC3 transporter. For a moment Farish felt his spirits sink. All that for nothing. Then he smiled. But what a nothing!
He looked across to the Spitfire IX that Bamby had been forced to abandon then felt in his pocket for the spanner and screwdriver. There was nothing else for him to do. He walked over to the Spitfire, rolled up his sleeves and threw open the engine cover. From fighter pilot to ‘erk’, Farish grinned to himself.
He was peering into the carburettor when a familiar sound came from outside. A V12 Daimler Benz engine. Me109s. And they were heading straight for the airstrip. Farish leapt off the Spitfire and dived into the dirt, looking up in time to see the first Messerschmitt release its bombs. A blast thundered across the runway, spraying dirt and dust over him. They’re getting debris all over my bloody engine, the thought flashed through his head as machine-gun fire tore into abandoned aircraft at the other end of the strip.
Farish stayed on his stomach for a long minute as he waited for the Germans to go.
He dusted himself down and went back to work when a few minutes later he heard another familiar sound. This time a friendly one he knew very well.
A Spitfire crabbed towards the landing strip and came in to land. To Farish’s eye, something looked amiss. The pilot stepped out. It was his friend, ‘Screw’ Rivett of 93 Squadron.
‘What the bleeding hell are you doing here, Spanner?’ he asked.
‘Never mind that, blast you, it’s bloody hot round this joint so the sooner you get out the better.’ Farish looked from the Mark IX he was repairing to the Mark V that he had flown in and then at Rivett’s aircraft. ‘Listen, Screw, you need to get out of here. There’s a Five over there. Take it back and tell them I’m OK.’ There were now three Spitfires on the ground, two IXs and Farish’s Mark V.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Rivett said. ‘Will you give me your word it’s serviceable?’
‘Of course the bastard thing’s serviceable. I’ve just flown it up here! And tell them I’m not going to fly anything back myself.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t ask.’
They walked to the Mark V, Farish running his hand across the wing as he helped the pilot strap in. Then he stepped away as Rivett fired her up, watching with a degree of remorse and pride as the first and probably only Spitfire he’d ever fly faithfully took to the skies.
As darkness closed in, Farish was taken in by some American aircrew sheltering in a dugout nearby. With a couple of blankets and a jumper for a pillow he got his head down, in a sleep of elated exhaustion.
His eyes came wide open. The bright flash of yellow and the short ripple of thunder came again. He sat up. He heard another screaming whistle of a shell hurtling through the air. There was little he could do about it. He put his head back down and went to sleep with the rumble of gunfire in the background.
In the morning, after a few dry biscuits and some American black coffee, he decided to stroll back to the airstrip and work on the Nine.
Again his head was turned by the welcome sound of a Merlin. This time the arriving Spitfire looked in a fragile state. No undercarriage was showing as it came in to land. Farish stepped down from the Nine. At the last moment the pilot threw the nose up then the belly sank down, bringing the aircraft to an abrupt halt.
Farish ran over. From out of the cockpit came his old acquaintance, ‘Richy’ Richardson, a Flight Commander from 93 Squadron. He looked around the airfield, at the Spitfires and other aircraft left there. ‘Christ, like Piccadilly Circus here!’
‘Morning, Richy.’
‘Morning, Spanner. What the bloody hell you doing here?’
‘Fixing Spits.’
‘Course,’ Richardson retorted.
‘I have a spare one over there. But it still needs a bit of fixing.’
Richar
dson took a look around at the various wrecks, shell craters and dark smoke drifting from the Anzio beachhead. ‘Marvellous idea.’
Both men went to work on the fighter, with Richardson passing up tools and holding pieces of Merlin for Farish. As they were doing a spark plug change, Farish heard the now familiar sound of a shell whirring through the air. This time he knew it was close.
‘Run!’ he shouted.
The pair sprinted towards the dugout next to the beach, about fifty yards away, diving in as the ground shook and earth rained down.
They waited a short time then gingerly made their way back to the Spitfire. Only a few minutes had passed before another salvo came in, making them duck and again run back to shelter.
‘You might as well stay put,’ Farish ordered Richardson after their fourth trip to the dugout. He trudged back to the Nine and carried on working. ‘It was strange being the only person in sight, on top of a Spit standing on that open airfield littered with wrecks, in a frightfully exposed position. I thought of what Mother would say if she saw me and of the sunlit peace of our aerodrome among the trees of Lago. But I was absolutely determined to get that plane away, never been so fixed of purpose before in my life, a sort of cold anger.
‘I noticed that the shells were falling into the sea between us and some ships. They were probably trying to hit the ships and couldn’t quite reach them. By a conscious disregard of everything going on around me I worked on, until the last plug was in and the last lead connected.’
Finally, the Nine was ready. With Richardson and a couple of Americans sitting on the tail, Farish jumped into the cockpit and fired up the engine, taking it to a high boost to ensure it could get off the torn-up and congested runway.
‘She’s ready,’ he said, standing at the lip of the dugout.
‘Marvellous. Well done, Spanner. Bloody good work.’ Richardson got in the cockpit and Farish helped strap him in. He knew the plane had received a bit of shrapnel but he was certain she could fly. With a beating heart he stood back and watched the last serviceable Spitfire leave Nettuno.
As he stood watching the fighter disappear into the sky he heard the sound of a Jeep speeding onto the airstrip. It was carrying white-helmeted American military policemen. They were friendly and understanding but insisted orders had been radioed over to put Farish under immediate close arrest. ‘For stealing a goddam Spitfire’, one of them said, shrugging his shoulders, like it was the craziest thing he had heard.
At that moment everyone turned at the sound of an incoming aircraft. Farish smiled broadly. It was another Spitfire. And it was a Spitfire from 324 Wing in need of repair. A minute later it was joined by a second.
‘I think these chaps might need some help before you clap me in irons,’ Farish said. Then he nodded towards a Fairchild four-seater that had also flown in. ‘Maybe he can escort me back?’
The military policeman had a quick word with the pilot and came back wearing relieved grins. ‘You’ve got it, buster, he’ll take you back.’ They shook hands. ‘Helluva war,’ one shouted as they took off in their Jeep, eager to avoid an awkward arrest and the incoming shellfire Nettuno was attracting.
As the engineer went back to work he thought of putting up a sign: Farish School of Flying, Aircraft Repairs – done while you wait.
Another flight of Me109s hurtled in, dropped their ordnance and then sped away. By now Farish was feeling exhausted after the marathon repair effort.
The pilot of the Fairchild looked grateful when Farish finally said goodbye to the two Spitfires and their pilots. Farish was grateful too; he was only too pleased to get back to the ‘trees, sun and peace of Lago’. The Fairchild took off and had climbed just a few hundred feet when Farish closed his eyes and then slept for the entire hour-long flight.
On landing, Farish was immediately taken to hospital. Doctors there asked a series of questions as they attempted to analyse why a seemingly sane officer had committed an act of outright madness. But Farish’s answers were level-headed and rational. Not content, the medics took an X-ray of his skull. Still they could find nothing wrong. The next day he was released into the custody of the military police, who, after questioning, told him he faced court-martial.
No one acknowledged that Farish, at immense danger to himself, had flown a Spitfire with no formal pilot training to rescue a valuable pilot trapped on the battlefield. What was more, he had repaired not one but three Spitfires, all the while exposing himself to enemy fire. Instead of court-martial documents, Greggs Farish should have been reading a medal commendation for the highest of honours for his incredible skill, dedication and courage.
Perhaps RAF chiefs did not want to admit that a mere engineering officer could possibly fly something as complicated as a fighter.
A few weeks later Farish stood to attention before a senior officer as the charge was read out to him.
‘When on active service in the field in not being a qualified pilot you improperly and without authority took off and flew an aircraft.’
A second charge read: ‘Your conduct was to the prejudice of good order and discipline.’
Farish pleaded not guilty to the latter. In mitigation the court heard he had got four pilots airborne and saved three Spitfires from destruction by working single-handed on them while under fire. ‘This scarcely seems to be prejudicial to good order and discipline,’ his defending officer argued.
The court-martial board was made up of five officers with, between them, one Distinguished Service Order, for outstanding leadership on operations, and three Distinguished Flying Crosses for bravery. To Farish’s surprise, the pilots on the board took great interest in the details of the case. ‘When we got to the nitty gritty of the facts I found to my pleasure and surprise that, judging by the voluminous questions, the pilots who really constituted the board were far more interested in how I had managed to fly a first solo in a Spitfire landing it safely than they were in hanging me.
‘I had offended every rule in the Pilots’ Union it seemed to me and yet these pilots were all empathetic.’
But despite a strong case Farish was convicted on both counts, receiving a Severe Reprimand and six months’ loss of seniority, meaning delay to any potential promotion. ‘I went away somewhat disappointed, to put it mildly.’
However, there was some solace when the court’s findings were published a few months later. They read: ‘After careful consideration the Air Council have formed the opinion that the sentence was too severe and have decided to exercise their power to remit that part of the sentence relating to loss of seniority.’
Saving three Spitfires and four pilots was quite a feat. It needed other such acts of individual heroism for the Allies to eventually break out of Anzio three months later in June 1944 and liberate Rome. But the country was still proving difficult to conquer.
Italy, Churchill had earlier pronounced, was the ‘soft underbelly of the Axis’. An American general was later to acerbically comment that it was ‘one tough gut’.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SPITFIRES OUT EAST
Alan Peart in the Imphal Valley, 1944 (fifth from left on back row with hand on belt)
The landing at Broadway in Burma was going to be tricky. The temporary airstrip was just 700 yards long, the minimum landing distance for a Spitfire. At one end there were tall teak trees, the other a swamp.
To land safely required what was called a ‘precautionary letdown’ at minimum flying speed, aiming to touch down right at the start of the available landing run after a steep approach to avoid the trees. Maximum safe braking was applied in the hope that they didn’t end up in the swamp at the far end. With the Spitfire’s long, heavy nose, braking had to be very carefully applied.
Alan Peart could already feel sweat drip down his new denim shirt which he’d just managed to grab from stores before taking off. Denim was by far the best material for the jungle. Everything else just rotted away in the wet and humidity.
Below him a sea of green stretched away, pu
nctuated by the odd bare hilltop. Somewhere in it was Broadway, the thin stretch of cleared jungle that they might just squeeze into. There was going to be no room for mistakes.
* * *
The plan was for the Spitfires to join the Chindits, the highly trained jungle soldiers who operated far behind enemy lines sabotaging enemy supplies and bases. It was early 1944 and the Japanese were planning an offensive on British imperial India. Fighters operating from jungle strips had proved a success in hitting supply lines while protecting vital Dakota transport planes.
Replacing the outclassed Hurricanes in 1943, Spitfire Vs had proved a match for the Japanese Mitsubishi Zeros and the swift Nakajima ‘Oscar’ fighters. Although the Oscars only had a top speed of 333mph, they were light and highly manoeuvrable. But they did not have armour or self-sealing fuel tanks and carried just two 12.7mm heavy machine guns.
Worse, the Japanese aircraft, being mostly constructed of wood, made them easy ‘flamers’. But their planes were agile and their tactics were brave as well as clever. A British intelligence report warned against dogfights as the Japanese liked to be ‘jumped’ because they could ‘rely on their very superior manoeuvrability at low speeds to keep them out of trouble’.1
When the Spitfire VIII arrived in early 1944 it was more than a match. It could outclimb the Japanese aircraft and, being twice their weight, could out-dive them as well.
There was very little difference in performance between the Spitfire VIII and IX marks, except that the VIII’s extended wing-tips made it perform better at high altitude.2 However, the new ‘tear-drop’ canopy gave the Spitfire a vastly improved rearward view when the pilot looked over his shoulder, so much so the rear-facing mirror was removed. Its all-round performance was superior to the standard Japanese Nakajima Ki-44 ‘Tojo’ fighter. The Mark VIII was to fight predominantly in the Far East and 1,658 were built by Supermarine in Southampton. As the Mark IX was rushed into service in mid-1942, it came out even before the pressurised Mark VII and when the Mark VIII was still being constructed and tested by the Supermarine engineers. The Mark VIII, from a pure flying point of view, was Supermarine test pilot Jeffrey Quill’s favourite model of Spitfire.
