by John Nichol
It was a crisp November day and Diana decided to clear her head with a ride out on her horse Tommy the Twin over Englefield Green, which overlooked Runnymede and, in the distance, Langley airfield.2
‘Tommy the Twin and I stopped. I was admiring the view and he was nibbling the nearby shrubs when suddenly something frightened him, making him leap forward a few paces. I pulled him up, patting him gently. He returned to his munching. At that moment I looked towards Langley again, seeing an enormous spume of black, oily smoke coming up from where I knew the airfield lay. I was very frightened, being consumed with a terrible sense of premonition that something had happened to Derek in his Mustang.’
She found out the next day that her premonition was correct. Derek’s plane had crashed.
Diana was devastated. ‘My shock at the loss of my wonderful Derek was tremendous. Just the thought that he wasn’t around any more, that never again would I hear his laughter, know his sureness, rely on his strength, filled me with dread. He had survived a terrible war, only to die in some senseless crash. He would have gone far in whatever postwar career he had decided upon, but now he was no more. I would never hug him again, never love him again, except in my heart.’
Wing Commander Derek Walker was buried in the churchyard of St Jude’s, near Ridgemead House, where the couple had married eighteen months earlier.
* * *
Hugh Dundas had fought doggedly in virtually every theatre the Spitfire graced – Dunkirk, Battle of Britain, Rhubarbs over France, North Africa and Italy. And he had done so in glorious company – Douglas Bader, Johnnie Johnson and Wilfrid Duncan Smith were friends and mentors. He had become the youngest ever Group Captain and been awarded the DFC, and the DSO and bar.
To those who did not know his incredible war record, Dundas might have appeared a precocious upstart. Thus, when he arrived at the War Office in late 1945 to discuss his RAF future, the officer interviewing him glanced at the four bands of rank on his sleeves then said: ‘Well, you needn’t think you are keeping all that rank now.’3
Dundas knew then that his future lay elsewhere. His friend and fellow pilot Max Aitken, son of Lord Beaverbrook, the newspaper tycoon and driving force behind the Spitfire’s manufacture, employed him as Air Correspondent on the Daily Express.
Aitken then introduced Dundas to Rosamond Lawrence, who found him ‘frightfully good-looking and obviously incredibly brave’. Rosamond had done her bit in the war too, helping run double agents and deception operations in France. ‘I knew all about him but wasn’t that impressed,’ she said of their first meeting.
Dundas’ newly acquired reporter’s skills of inquiry had led Rosamond to think he was trying to sniff out a story. ‘I was very aware of security so when he asked all these questions my instinct kicked in and I thought he was trying to get information to put in the Daily Express. So when he asked me to go out again I refused.’4
The pair were put together again when a friend hosted a small dinner party to celebrate Princess Elizabeth’s engagement to Prince Philip in July 1947. This time she was charmed and agreed to continue the celebrations at the Milroy nightclub in Mayfair.
But Dundas still had some legwork to do. In his role as commander of the part-time 601 Auxiliary Squadron he decided to use the Spitfire’s elegant qualities to his advantage in wooing Rosamond. ‘Hughie flew down in a Spitfire to see me near our family farm to take me out while we were courting. He climbed out of his aircraft in his pale-blue overalls. He did look very glamorous by his Spitfire.’
In Rosamond, Dundas found a soulmate in whom he could confide the grief and demons brought on by war, particularly the death of his brother John in the Battle of Britain. ‘Hughie told me there was never a day of his life that passed without him thinking of his brother. He thought John’s death would destroy his poor mother who had adored him. He had truly admired him and it deeply affected him. Everything in Hughie’s life had been following John.’
Dundas’ courting by Spitfire, coupled with his renowned charm, proved effective. The couple were married in 1950, and both Douglas Bader, who had survived as a prisoner of war in Colditz, and Johnnie Johnson were at the wedding.
* * *
Nigel Tangye similarly used an aircraft but for opposite reasons to Dundas. Like many others, he and Ann Todd had married in the midst of the war, when lives were short and happiness was seized where it could be found, no matter how ephemeral.
Nigel Tangye
With some regret, Tangye returned his personal Spitfire when he left the RAF after the war. He then followed Ann to Hollywood as her career began to bloom. She had won great acclaim for her appearance alongside James Mason in The Seventh Veil, playing a young pianist who attempts suicide to escape her guardian’s cruelties. Hollywood offers had poured in and Ann found herself starring opposite Gregory Peck in The Paradine Case, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Tangye was mildly bemused by the thin veneer of Los Angeles glitz during their seven-month stay.
On their return to England he chose to remain at his ancestral home of Glendorgal in Cornwall with their daughter and Ann’s son. Todd filmed mostly up in London. A romance began to develop with the renowned director David Lean and she eventually divorced Tangye in 1949, marrying Lean within months.
The former Spitfire pilot was heartbroken. He lost himself in Paris in a haze of drink and poetry, emerging months later to make something of his life by turning Glendorgal into the West Country’s finest hotel.
But he still had a score to settle. In 1950, Tangye discovered that Lean and Ann were making another film together called Madeleine. A scene was to be shot in Cornwall, in which Todd was to have a horse bolt from under her on the beach.
It was a sunny day and the crowds had gathered to watch the famous director-and-actress couple. It was not a scene that Todd was relishing, having spent a sleepless night mulling over the action sequence.5
‘Trembling like a leaf, I was lifted onto my horse, riding sidesaddle with my long skirt draped over my foot and stirrup. Then the focus boy took the tape to measure the distance between me and the camera and shot his arm out across the horse’s nose. It immediately stood on its hind legs, pawing the air and neighing. I threw my arms around the pommel and screamed. My hat and veil fell off. David became severe. We started again. The crowd laughed and I had a nasty feeling my horse was laughing too.’
As Lean reset the scene and again shouted ‘Action!’, out of the skies an aircraft hurtled down, on what appeared to be a strafing run, directly towards Lean, Todd and the rest of the film crew.
‘It came straight at us and we all ducked. Flying very low, it skimmed along the beach. Assistant directors clung to the horse and me, seagulls screamed and the crowd, thinking it was part of the film, gazed fascinated and clapped. David lost his temper, clenched his fist and shouted at the plane as it prepared to attack again. On the second run the pilot leaned out and waved at me – it was Nigel!’
Tangye had borrowed a friend’s aircraft and, using his hard-learned skills as a wartime Spitfire pilot, had decided to make his displeasure at his wife’s betrayal clear for all to see. Ann Todd did not seem overly distressed by this display of lovelorn anger. ‘Having successfully stopped all filming Nigel flew off home. David never knew who it was – and I never told him.’
Revenge complete, Tangye settled down to creating a stunning hotel at Glendorgal. Surrounded by his family and new wife, Moira, he found he could leave behind memories of the war.
One summer’s evening, fifteen years after the war’s end, some guests arrived at the hotel as Tangye was serving drinks behind the bar.6
‘I saw a rather smart party of five, two young couples and behind them a huge man with a beautifully proportioned body and a surprisingly narrow width of head for its depth which had the same proportion to his body as a thick book on its edge. “A book on its edge” – there was an echo in my mind – a plate on its edge.
‘I greeted the new guests and turned to him. It seemed superfluous for me to a
sk but I said: “You were at Buchenwald, weren’t you? And you’re Dutch!” ’
Astonishingly, it was indeed the same man he had encountered during his visit to the notorious concentration camp towards the end of the war. ‘His response was swift, clear to me and surprising. It was all over in a second, a slight smile, a momentary narrowing of the eyes and a lifted index finger that for a fleeting moment touched his closed lips.’
* * *
For forty-six years, Jimmy Taylor had lived with good memories of the war. He had mourned the losses among 16 Squadron’s photo reconnaissance Spitfire pilots, but he had seen no horrors and did not have to struggle with thoughts of taking another human being’s life. Even his time trying to get back to friendly lines after he’d been forced to bail out over Borne, Holland, in November 1944 had more of the high-spirited adventure about it. His capture and being held as a prisoner of war had not been without risks, but it had been bearable. He’d had a good war. Five decades on that was about to change, when a phone call shattered his entire view of his war.7
In March 1990, a small advert appeared in the RAF Association magazine asking for a Flight Lieutenant James Taylor to get in touch with Hennie Noordhuis in Holland. Taylor sent a letter and a few days later he received a phone call.
‘Congratulations on being alive!’ Mr Noordhuis told Taylor, then related how flying goggles had been found near Borne with the name ‘WJS Taylor’ marked on them. Then he dropped the bombshell: ‘But did you know that three Dutchmen were executed after you landed by parachute?’
* * *
Several pairs of eyes had followed Jimmy Taylor down as he parachuted from his stricken Spitfire over Holland on Sunday, 19 November 1944. They included German paratroopers from the 500-strong regiment based in nearby Borne, who flooded the area. Dutch civilians were roughly treated by troops determined to find the Spitfire pilot.
Few witnesses had seen Taylor slip away soon after landing, but the Germans were convinced that the Dutch were hiding something. Six men were seized at random and the people of Borne were issued with an ultimatum: if the pilot was not found, the hostages would be shot at 7am on the Monday morning.
After the mayor of Borne, Jan van den Toren, intervened, saying the town could hardly be held responsible for the airman’s whereabouts, the execution was postponed to 5pm.
But now the Gestapo got involved. They told van den Toren that Borne was a ‘large pigsty of terrorists and collaborators’. He argued that it would have been impossible for the hostages to know where the pilot had gone. This failed to satisfy the Gestapo chief Karl Hadler, who told him that unless progress was made on the investigation ‘then the rifles will speak’.
As Hadler left, the mayor ran after him, protesting that innocent men would be executed. He succeeded in getting another postponement, this time until 3pm on the Tuesday.
The Germans then said the hostages would be released if they were told the direction the airman had taken. The mayor found three witnesses who had seen the pilot, described as 6ft, blond and wearing a flying jacket over a white jersey.
The German military police were now convinced of the hostages’ innocence but Hadler would allow no more than a further twenty-four-hour stay in the executions.
By Wednesday morning a feeling of relief swept through the town as news came out that the military police were going to free the hostages.
A sister of one hostage, Hendrik Roetgerink, cycled to the police cells and, using sign language, told him the good news. Her brother put his hand through the bars and gave her the thumbs-up.
Then the days passed and still the men were held in jail. On Sunday 26 November, two of the hostages were released but Roetgerink, Piet van Dijk and Jan Boomkamp remained. However, Boomkamp managed a snatched conversation with his wife, whom he had married just six weeks earlier.
At 3.30pm the Gestapo chief Hadler and some SS troopers arrived and drove the three hostages close to the site where the pilot had landed exactly a week earlier.
Informed of the latest move, Mayor van den Toren used every connection he had to delay the impending action, but both the local area commander and military chief washed their hands of the case. However, the area’s German government representative promised to phone the Gestapo.
At 3.50pm three saloon cars pulled up at the parachute landing site and the hostages were bundled out. Family and friends watched as the men were marched across the field, lined up and shot.
* * *
As Hennie Noordhuis related this story to Jimmy Taylor nearly fifty years later, Jimmy felt as though his life was crumbling around him. Barely able to believe what he’d heard, he stuttered a response of regret for the families. When he put down the phone the weight of the tragedy bore down on him. ‘I felt absolutely shattered. The war had been a great adventure for me, the realisation of boyhood dreams. I had flown a most wonderful aeroplane and I had not been required to hurt anyone. I had survived an engine failure, a bail-out, and an unpleasant but short-lived captivity. I had nothing about which to reproach myself, but now I’m told I caused the death of three innocent Dutch people.’
A few days later, Taylor received from Noordhuis an article he had written about Borne during the war. Reading it, he discovered that the men had been executed two days after Taylor himself had been apprehended by the German artillerymen, some distance from Borne. As he reread the account, which described a dogfight occurring before the bail-out, he became convinced that Mr Noordhuis was mistaken, as there had been two bail-outs near Borne on 19 November 1944. Jimmy was relieved. He was determined to show he could not have been responsible for the tragic deaths of the Dutch civilians.
He composed a letter to Mr Noordhuis: ‘From a comparison of these two accounts, it is clear to me, as I think it will also appear to you, that by an amazing coincidence of date, time and place, two airmen bailed out in the neighbourhood of Borne at about midday on Sunday 19th November. The evidence for this is considerable.’
Taylor, determined to exonerate himself, then set out in detail why he believed the pilot was not him. As a reconnaissance Spitfire, his fighter was unarmed, so could not have been in a dogfight. He was 5ft 10in, not 6ft as described by eyewitnesses, and his hair was dark and not blond. He outlined other evidence which absolved him from the incident, including a suggestion that goggles found in the area with ‘WJS Taylor’ etched on them could have been picked up and moved.
‘I should also like to try to identify “Pilot X”,’ Taylor concluded.
Not satisfied with his own interpretation of the tragic events, Jimmy was determined to set the record straight forever – the civilian deaths were not his fault. It became a passion and he set about tracing the records of all other aircraft shot down on 19 November over occupied Europe. ‘I wanted to find out the exact circumstances in the hope of showing that the downed pilot was not me and that I was not responsible for those deaths,’ Taylor said. ‘I didn’t want that downed airman to be me at all.’
After weeks of research he eventually tracked down the name of Flight Lieutenant E. F. Ashdown of 430 Squadron who was flying a Mustang that was shot down in a dogfight over the town of Venlo. Taylor concluded that the aerial combat must have drifted south from Venlo and finished over Borne. The eyewitnesses must have mistaken the Mustang for a Spitfire. He was also certain that his goggles were simply picked up and passed through many hands before they reached Mr Noordhuis.
Finally, in order prove the theory that would exonerate him, he travelled by train, bus and taxi from his home in Leeds to the Public Record Office at Kew just outside London to examine 430 Squadron’s operational reports. He was devastated by his findings. The official record showed that Ashdown was wingman to a fellow pilot who reported he’d been hit by flak and had bailed out and landed near Venlo, a full seventy miles away from Borne.
There could be no other conclusion. Taylor was the pilot the Dutch had witnessed. ‘The only realistic candidate for this unwanted role was myself,’ he said. ‘I was no
w forced to accept Hennie Noordhuis’ firm conviction that I was the leading player in the tragic drama that unfolded after my landing on 19 November 1944.’
He added: ‘This was a huge shock, the worst moment of my life and I couldn’t really believe it at first. It was my fault – if I hadn’t landed in that field they would still be alive. Of course I accept I couldn’t change anything – but if I hadn’t done they would be alive.
‘I have never recovered from the destruction of my former peace of mind that it caused.’
With this knowledge Taylor went to Borne and met Mr Noordhuis and the families of the victims, then visited a memorial to the executed men. It became the start of an annual pilgrimage of remembrance and of a warm relationship with the people of Borne. ‘My memories are stirred afresh each year for the young men cut down too soon and for no necessity, just three of thousands likewise slain.’
Speaking to me from his home in Leeds, as Jimmy described his relentless search for the truth, and exoneration, it was apparent that the death of the innocent civilians still weighed heavily on the ninety-five-year-old veteran. Reliving the story of those events, and his search for the truth, required frequent pauses from the normally precisely spoken airman. It was a burden he would carry with him until he died a few months after we spoke; another of those Spitfire heroes who would not survive to see this book published.
* * *
In the aftermath of the war, while still in RAF service, the Spitfire was not an uncommon sight, a magnificent reminder of perseverance and fortitude in the face of great odds. Classic films such as Battle of Britain, released in 1969, only served to enhance its reputation. But as the decades passed its unmistakable outline became less frequent in the skies, replaced by screaming fighter jets and the long contrails of airliners. Most of the Spitfires were eventually sold off or broken up for scrap. In an effort to preserve an icon, enthusiasts and entrepreneurs spent millions of pounds restoring a few, featuring them at airshows and displays.
