Spitfire

by John Nichol

  Ken French was flying his Spitfire in a low-level patrol seeking targets of opportunity when he spotted a German car hurtling along. For an instant he hesitated. He had practised low-level strafing many times and knew, after much live-firing practice, the devastating effects the Mark IX’s mixture of cannons and machine guns could have, but now he was about to fire upon another human being. He was in the dive and committed. As the gap closed with the speeding car he could see a soldier inside look over his shoulder. French was fixed on the target now, his thumb went onto the ‘fire’ button and pressed down. A stream of gunfire kicked up a few yards behind the wheels then strode forward, puncturing both vehicle and occupants.8

  ‘Once in range it was all over in seconds,’ French said. ‘Fighting in the air, although you know there’s a pilot inside, you are still just shooting at a plane not a person. This was killing people close up on the ground and it feels different. I pondered many times as to who was in that car but of course I will never know – that was war and you didn’t have the luxury of overthinking what you were doing.’

  The risks of low-flying missions were high, as it brought the fighters well within range of groundfire, as French discovered when a shell burst just in front of him. ‘I banked the plane steeply so I could look down to the ground and there in a field on the edge of a wood I saw the gun which had fired at me. I asked myself what should I do? His gun was bigger than mine so he could hit me before I could get to him. It also crossed my mind that perhaps there were more troops in the wood lying low which could give me a hot reception, so I decided that discretion was the better part of valour. As the Irishman once said: “It’s better to be a coward for one minute than be dead the rest of your life!” ’

  * * *

  The Allies knew the secret weapons would soon be unleashed. Intelligence had picked up chatter of Vergeltungswaffen – vengeance weapons – from numerous sources. And reliable eyewitness accounts of V1 sites had come from shot-down pilots like Terry Kearins, who had spotted the distinctive rocket ‘ski jump’ launch rails while on the run in northern France.

  But no one really quite knew what was about to hit them. Certainly the Nazis had committed huge amounts of money and manpower to the projects, but until they were launched speculation filled the vacuum in military circles.

  As a liaison officer to the US 8th Air Force, Nigel Tangye had connections that went to the top and he knew the Germans had something up their sleeve. ‘The authorities have wind of a large expendable aeroplane with a range of 5,400 miles carrying six tons of explosives,’ Tangye wrote in his diary shortly after D-Day. ‘This presumably can be used against London, New York and Moscow, but even so one cannot imagine the Hun High Command believing that it would change the course of the war. They would be considerably easier to intercept than flying bombs.’

  The RAF and the wider British population were about to find out just how difficult the ‘flying bomb’ would prove to knock out.

  One week after D-Day the first V1 bombs landed on England. Initially, the government tried to hide from the population that a new savagery had been unleashed. The sudden explosions around the capital were put down to gas leaks, but the sheer volume of flying bombs meant the British public quickly discovered the truth.

  After years of surviving Luftwaffe bombing, a new terror had arrived. Hearing a ‘doodlebug’ drone overhead, civilians waited fearfully for its engine to cut out, followed seconds later by the detonation.

  The two-ton rocket that could travel at 400mph quickly proved its devastating effect when, on 18 June 1944, 500 V1s were launched on London.

  In the Guards Chapel at Wellington Barracks the sound of choir and congregation singing a hymn filled the packed interior. A few worshippers picked up a strange, intermittent buzzing noise. They halted mid-verse and prayed for the Lord’s protection. Soon the whole congregation stopped singing as the sound of the approaching menace grew. Then it stopped. Stunned looks filled the church. ‘Take cover!’ someone shouted.

  Seconds later a blast ripped through the roof, sending tons of bricks and mortar onto the worshippers below.

  A few straggled out of the choking, thick dust and screams, but 121 were left dead in the rubble.

  The V1 swarm had to be stopped. While the ranks of anti-aircraft guns took out a few, something else was needed.

  The new Spitfire Mark XIV, powered by the Griffon engine that gave it a top speed of 446mph, became an early ballistic-missile interceptor. The Mark XIV was a beast of an aircraft, loved by many pilots for its brutal power provided by the Griffon 65 engine which produced 2,050hp – almost double that of the original Merlin.

  In late 1943, the test pilot Jeffrey Quill flew the first production Mark XIV and was impressed. ‘A very fine fighter it was. It fully justified the faith of those who, from the early days in 1939, had been convinced that the Griffon engine would eventually see the Spitfire into a new lease of life . . . It was a splendid aeroplane in every respect. It was powerful and performed magnificently. The only respect in which the XIV fell short was in its range.’

  The thirsty Griffon drank up fuel but it was able to climb to 20,000ft in just five minutes, compared to the original Spitfire Mark I’s eight minutes.

  Being able to climb almost vertically greatly unnerved the German pilots. ‘It gave many Luftwaffe pilots the shock of their lives when, having thought they had bounced you from a superior height, they were astonished to find the Mark XIV climbing up to tackle them head-on, throttle wide open!’ reported one pilot.9

  The operational test report also concluded: ‘The Mark XIV has the best all-round performance of any present-day fighter.’10

  Along with the powerful Hawker Tempests, Mosquitos and Mustangs, it made for an excellent missile interceptor.

  Flying a Spitfire XIV Diana Barnato Walker felt frustrated that there was little she could do even when she sighted a V1.

  ‘When we first saw the buzz-bombs we ATA women were flying Spitfire XIVs or Tempests – the aircraft with the speed to stop them – but it wasn’t our job to shoot at anything.

  ‘I enjoyed watching a successful chase, our RAF fighters catching up the shiny tail of the V1. Even in the sunlight the explosion was bright and impressive as it blew up or hit the ground. If it was flying near enough and low enough, my aircraft wobbled with the blast.’

  By high summer the sheer numbers of V1s were beginning to overwhelm the home defences. Fighter Command threw everything it had up at them, which included the Spitfire XII, carrying the first Griffon engines and the forerunner of the Mark XIV but with less speed. The American-trained John Wilkinson found himself in a Mark XII on 11 August 1944, scrambled for an intercept.

  As he powered up into the sky, Wilkinson felt growing excitement that finally he was going into action for the first time, albeit against a machine.

  A radar controller vectored him onto an approaching missile.

  ‘The best way to stop a V1 was to get your wingtip under its wings and tip it up, thereby toppling the gyros that controlled it, causing it to dive out of control before reaching populated areas.’

  But a diving Spitfire XII was not quite fast enough to accomplish this so Wilkinson had to think fast to stop the bomb.

  ‘I was pressing my aircraft to the limits as I had seen what the V1s could do during some leave in London. They were killing hundreds of people. I was determined to stop it. I was thinking of the poor people on the ground who would die if I was not successful.

  ‘But I could not quite reach the V1’s wing so I had to wait as it pulled ahead of me. I remained at full throttle and slid in behind it as soon as I could then started shooting straight away.’

  As the cannon kicked out its bullets Wilkinson felt its recoil kill off the excess speed he had over the rocket, making him fall behind. He built up his speed again, this time determined to get in close to do the job.

  ‘I was dangerously close but determined to stop it. I fired again. I pressed the gun button so hard, as if it would
increase my firepower, that my thumb was sore.

  ‘This time I hit the V1’s controlling mechanism. The missile rolled over and dived, exploding in a field below. I felt a wave of satisfaction that I had saved some potential victims from its intended death.’

  There were other Spitfire pilots who went even further than Wilkinson to save the civilians below.

  Aligning a gunsight on an object travelling at 400mph required skill, and judging the right distance to open fire even more so. Too close and there was a good chance your plane would blow up in the detonation. The courage of pilots was tested to the full.

  The Free French pilot Jean Maridor had shown his determination to fly from an early age. His parents were poor so he had funded flying lessons in Le Havre by working part-time as a hairdresser. He had just qualified as a fighter pilot when France surrendered in 1940, so he escaped to England to carry on fighting the Nazis. Flying Hurricanes and Spitfires with 91 Squadron, he shot down four enemy aircraft. By the summer of 1944 he had a reputation as a V1 killer after shooting down six.11

  On the afternoon of 3 August, Maridor spotted a V1 coming in over Rye, Kent, and dived down in pursuit in his Spitfire XIV, making repeated attempts to shoot it down from the safety of 200 yards away. But his bullets kept missing and it was now clear the missile was heading towards the military hospital at Benenden School in Kent. Spotting the large red cross on its roof, Maridor, twenty-four, made a final, desperate manoeuvre to take out the missile. He closed to under fifty yards from its jet engine and let go a salvo of 20mm cannon shells. The V1 immediately blew up, the explosion engulfing the Spitfire, tearing off its right wing. Maridor was sent to his death, spinning into the ground close to the hospital. But the Frenchman had undoubtedly saved scores of lives.

  * * *

  Nigel Tangye (on right), 1943

  After his return from the Flying Fortress bomber mission, Spitfire pilot Nigel Tangye had a greater insight into what Londoners went through in the attacks, not knowing when they went to work if their home would be standing on their return.

  Tangye had had a few close shaves, having to dive under his desk in the War Office when 180 V1s were launched at London over a twenty-four-hour period in late July. While the RAF shot down sixty and AA around the city got sixteen more, the rest got through.

  One unintended consequence of the V1s falling short of London was the effect upon the Kent countryside. Nigel Tangye reported in his diary: ‘The hopping season is approaching and the hop growers are wondering with considerable anxiety whether the hoppers will feel quite the normal zest for the usual excursion to regions where the bombs are being shot down in large numbers to explode on or near the ground.’12 Without the hops harvested, Britain’s thirsty troops were in danger of going without a key ingredient for their beer.

  Tangye, like many others, developed a hatred for the bombs. ‘They were a vile, indiscriminate weapon with a devilish sound preceding them which for a few seconds gave no evidence of crescendo so you did not know if it was coming your way or not. Soon you heard it develop into an approaching string of rapidly repeated obscene expletives until it stopped and the air was filled with a cavernous silence that you could hear as you wondered if the bomb was falling toward you. An aspect of evil about it was that during the silence of a few seconds that seemed like an age you could not help wishing it onto some other area, in effect for it to kill other people. And the relief when that wish came true. One hardly felt proud of oneself.’

  The bee-like whine of the V1’s engine and its distinctive cigar shape of stubby, square-cut wings with the jet engine mounted at the rudder began to haunt Londoners.

  While Spitfires could be used to intercept the missiles, they also played a vital role in the most effective method of quelling the threat.

  The light, agile and unarmed Spitfire XI photo reconnaissance planes were sent on the dangerous missions to take photographs of the V1 launch sites and factories. Their pictures were crucial in planning for immediate bombing raids to flatten them.

  John Blyth

  The American reconnaissance pilot John Blyth, who had come from an impoverished background on the US West Coast where his English father had sold tree bark to pay for school clothes, was among those who flew the PR missions in the days after the first V1 attacks. The pilots not only had to fly into the teeth of German defences, but in order to get the best pictures they were ordered to drop from 30,000ft to 15,000ft, making them even more vulnerable to fighters.

  On one of his first missions, Blyth realised he had to develop astute tactics if he wanted to stay alive. He had just reached German airspace when he spotted an Me109 diving down on his tail. Coolly, he acted as if he hadn’t spotted the threat. ‘If you panicked and reacted too soon they might get a better line on you. The 109 disappeared behind me and I figured he was just getting ready to open fire when I pulled straight back on the stick – going straight up in the Spitfire which I could never have done in the American P38. I got up to 35,000ft and rolled over to see him still sitting below me trying to see where I’d gone – I could see him weaving around trying to figure out where the hell I was and what the hell had happened!

  ‘I watched him disappear then continued on the mission. That was the power of the Spitfire for you.’

  While Blyth enjoyed the solitude of the cockpit and loved flying, it got lonely on missions with no one else to speak to. ‘But you were also very busy – navigating, keeping an eye on your maps, watching the engine instruments and fuel, getting ready for photo runs, always on the lookout for Germans. It was a wonderful experience to be up there, almost God-like looking down on the world. I loved flying the Spitfire and was confident if I was ever intercepted.’

  The low-altitude flying to hunt for the V1 launch sites also put them in range of AA fire, which proved a challenge when they had to fly straight and level to photograph. All the pilots could do was hold their nerve. ‘You could see the flak coming up; the puffs of smoke, the black clouds blooming outwards,’ Blyth said. ‘You knew you were being shot at, someone trying to kill you, but you just had to go through it as best you could. You couldn’t let it stop you. It’s hard to say what being scared means. You just got on with the job.

  ‘For this job I really loved the Spitfire because it was so manoeuvrable and a pleasure to fly at high altitude. I never had any problem with it – it just kept ticking along. It carried me through hostile territory and I trusted it with my life.’

  After a mission in July 1944 Blyth found himself in the rather extraordinary position of being targeted by the very bombs he’d photographed. After flying over the Pas-de-Calais, he beetled back to London for a date with his English girlfriend Betty Peck at the Savoy Hotel. They were in a taxi heading towards the hotel when they heard the dread approach of a missile. ‘We looked at each other and then the driver sharply pulled over. We knew when the engine quit two tons of explosive would be heading our way. I dived onto the floor and tried to pull Betty down with me. But she was having none of it as she didn’t want to get her dress dirty on the taxi floor. A few seconds later we heard a big explosion a short distance away. So I just got up, dusted myself down and we went our way.’

  Recalling those heady days seventy-two years later from his home in North America, John was clearly delighted to be reliving his wartime experiences. His son had warned me that his increasing dementia and deafness meant that it may be too difficult to interview him, but once we got going the memories flooded back and his love of both the Spitfire and Britain shone through. Sadly, he died a few months after our interview, but his son wrote to tell me he had thoroughly enjoyed our discussions and he was in no doubt that reliving his wartime exploits had prolonged his life.

  Diana Barnato Walker was another who had a dangerously close encounter with a V1. Lying in bed at her Chelsea home in Tite Street during a spot of leave in London, ‘I was lolling around when a buzz-bomb went gliding past the window of the third-floor flat. Tite Street isn’t very wide and the bomb went b
etween my house and the house opposite. The engine had already cut out as it came over the Thames and it swished past, exploding at the top of the street. I was glad it was time to get back to Hamble and the safety of ATA flying.’

  Of the 9,000 V1s fired, 1,999 were shot down by fighters. Many others crashed, or were brought down by AA guns and barrage balloons. The V1 Diana had seen exploding was one of 2,400 that got through to England, killing 6,000 and injuring 19,000 people.

  * * *

  The benefits of invading France, alongside access to one’s own Spitfire, soon became evident to some of those who had been living under strict rationing. On an afternoon in late July, a Spitfire landed at the ATA base in Hamble and taxied up to the mess, where Diana Barnato Walker had gathered with the rest of the curious pilots. She was astonished to see who the pilot was. ‘Out climbed my Derek. I tried to look nonchalant.’

  After a quick embrace he warned her: ‘Don’t go anywhere near my plane. I’m afraid there’s a terrible smell in the cockpit!’

  Diana looked at him in shock, wondering if something awful had happened. Was there something dead in there perhaps?

  The war had been on for a long time and food rationing in Britain was drastic. People weren’t starving but they were hungry. She watched as Derek went back to the Spitfire, fished out a large circular parcel and brought it over with a big smile on his face. ‘He had been over to Caen and brought back a huge Camembert cheese,’ Diana said. ‘No such cheese had been seen in England since the fall of France in 1940. Derek said: “Diana, darling, this is something I liberated especially for you.” We all fell upon it and munched away.’

  * * *

  Despite German counter-attacks using the near-invulnerable Tiger II tank, the Allied advance began to gain momentum. US General George Patton led the break-out, entrapping 50,000 Germans in the ‘Falaise Pocket’, south of Caen in Normandy, where they were killed at will. Vehicles, pack horses and men littered the battlefield, all of them dead or destroyed.