When the Battle of Malta ended in victory on 1st January 1943, it had cost 844 Spitfires and the lives of 518 R.A.F. pilots. Kesselring had lost 390 Junkers 88s, 403 Messerschmitt 109s and 104 Junkers 87s. The Italian contribution to the total score was 237 Macchi 202s, 333 Cant Alcyones and S.M.79s, plus an assortment of other types ranging from the Caproni Reggiane 2001 to three-engined flying-boats.
It was in mid-1942, when Kesselring and the Regia Aeronautica d’ltalia were making their last desperate effort, when Malta’s fate—and therefore the Mediterranean’s—was hanging on a thread, that ‘Screwball’ Beurling appeared on the scene.
* * *
Malta, ‘the fighter’s paradise,’ 9th June 1942
The Eagle, escorted by two destroyers, pressed ahead and left behind the British convoy bound for Malta. It was 5 a.m., just before sunrise. The carrier’s deck was covered with Spitfire Vs equipped with auxiliary tanks.
The pilots gave their planes a final check over. They were Spit V-Cs (‘tropical’) armed with four 20-mm. cannon. They were at least brand-new planes, and at a time when everyone, from Moscow, to London, from Australia to Alaska, from Libya to the Caribbean, was screaming for fighters, the pilots felt they had not done too badly to get them.
All the same, they were slightly nervous—not one of them had ever taken off from a carrier. While they strapped themselves in, the fitters finished stowing their meagre possessions in the magazines of the machine-guns and of two of the cannon—the other two cannon were loaded. Over the Tannoy came the naval flight-officer’s final instructions: navigation gen, courses, E.T.A.s frequencies, etc.
At 6.05 a.m. the first Spitfire took off. Pointing his yellow flag, the deck officer signalled Beurling to get under way. This was it. Rather tensed, he slowly opened the throttle while keeping the brakes hard on. As soon as the tail lifted and the Spit began to champ at the bit, he let her go. Drawn by its 1500-h.p. engine, and with a 30-m.p.h. head-wind and the ship’s own 20 knots helping, the plane was airborne almost immediately.
By 6.30 the last Spit had taken off and the Eagle immediately turned about. The Algerian coast was only thirty miles away, and there might be enemy submarines lurking around. Already in formation, the thirty-two planes receded in the distance, heading east on their flight to Malta.
The sea was blue, without a wrinkle. To the right was the violet line of the Tunisian coast, down below the white patch formed by the island of Lampedusa, over there to the left at the foot of that thundercloud forming was Sicily, with its fourteen airfields crammed with Messerschmitts.
More and more frequently, as Malta drew nearer, snatches of conversation came over the R/T. Interference from German radio-location also began to jingle in the pilots’ ears like an antique telephone bell.
The formation was flying at 24,000 feet and the cold was intense in spite of the sun. Fifteen minutes to go. Malta called:
‘Hullo, Condor leader, this is Timber calling. Steer 081 and get a move on. Do not answer. Repeat, do not answer. Out.’
Things must be hotting up, and Woodhall, the controller, was getting anxious. He had no doubt seen on his radar screen an enemy raid forming over Sicily. It was probably going to develop into a race, if the Luftwaffe were not to catch them with their pants down as they landed, for the Germans had cathode-ray tubes too.
Malta ahead! A big grey and green oval, perched on white cliffs resting on the sea, and flanked to the north-west by two small islands of Comino and Gozo.
The formation split up into sections of four, diving separately. Details became discernible—the seething bay of Marsa Xlokh, the deep gash of Valetta harbour, ringed by tiers of flat-roofed houses, the web of hedges and stone walls cutting up the arid fields. Further on, the leprous sore of the main airfield, riddled with bomb craters.
Beurling had pushed back his hood and, while the first sections, with their flaps and undercarts down, were joining the circuit, he had a good look round.
Accustomed to the orderly arrangement of English airfields, he was taken aback at the sight of this stretch of ground, five miles long, with bits of runway everywhere and sinuous tracks disappearing into underground shelters. This extraordinary airfield was really three—Luqa, Safi and Hal Far—connected by two gravel strips, so that in effect a plane could take off or land anywhere, i.e. on whichever the last enemy raid had left intact.
However serious the damage, there was always some serviceable corner left. Enormous heaps of stones were dotted here and there, for filling in the new craters as soon as the raid was over. All round the perimeter, except where it ran along the cliff, there was a series of bays with thick walls, to protect parked planes from splinters. Remains of burnt-out wings and fuselages were scattered about everywhere.
Six Spitfires took off to cover the newcomers’ landing. The field was swarming with men. Beurling did not quite know where to land. In the end he just followed the others down and found himself on a bumpy track at the end of which stood a group of soldiers waving him on. As he came past, two of them grabbed hold of his wing-tips while a third jumped on the wing and caught hold of his shoulder. Through the wind from the propeller this one yelled into his ear that he had better hurry up, Jerry was on the way.
In the end he found himself in a kind of rabbit burrow formed by heaps of petrol cans filled with sand. Before he had time to draw breath he was surrounded by a gesticulating crowd of extraordinary-looking individuals, unshaven and dressed in relics of the uniforms of all three Services. The fitter who had guided him in switched his engine off. Three muscular types grabbed the tail and swung the plane round so that it faced the airfield again. More men came staggering up with cans of petrol.
Beurling, flabbergasted, was ejected from his seat by a pilot who promptly took his place. Trying to keep out of the way of all these madmen he found himself in a slit trench at the back of the burrow. All his goods and chattels, lovingly stowed away in the wings, were sent flying in every direction.
‘Get a move on, get a move on!’ Everybody seemed to be shouting the same thing. The armourers came up at the double, screw-drivers between their teeth and festooned with belts of shells and cartridges. The radio-fitter had already clapped on his ear-phones, opened the fuselage panels, changed the crystals in the set and checked the battery terminals. The empty oxygen bottle was changed for a full one, which was ready waiting in a corner.
The pilot was getting impatient and drumming on the fuselage. Beurling, not quite knowing what to do, mechanically lit a cigarette. It was immediately snatched out of his mouth by a type who, before he had time to protest, bawled something at him and rushed back to his job. He might have known better; petrol was being brought up by a chain of soldiers and poured in the open through a large lined funnel.
The auxiliary tank was whisked off the plane.
‘Hurry up, for Christ’s sake!’
Already in the distance they could hear the Bofors batteries opening up. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang—the five barks from one charger—bang! bang! bang! bang! bang! The Jerries must have arrived.
The ground-crew worked on frantically. From all over the field came the roar of Merlin engines starting up.
‘O.K.? Contact!’
The men sprang off the Spitfire as it too started up, raising a furious wind which picked up Beurling’s trampled shirts and underclothes and flung them into the air.
The pilot took the aircraft out of the bay with savage bursts of throttle which made the rudder vibrate. Still flat on one wing was an armourer, hanging on to the leading edge with one hand while he screwed down the last machine-gun panel with the other. Just as the Spit opened up to take off, he let go everything and rolled on to the ground, only just escaping being bashed in by the tail-plane.
Beurling was now alone. The crowd of madmen had vanished into thin air. He emerged from his hole and made for the open. He ran into three other pilots from the Eagle, just as dazed as himself, who dragged him along in a frantic rush for a shelter. It was high time. T
he air vibrated with the powerful rumbling roar of a big formation very high up, and the shriller sound of Spitfires attacking. The staccato crackle of the machine-guns stood out above the muffled boom-boom-boom of the 20-mm. Hispano cannon.
Look out! He just had time to turn round and see six Messerschmitt 109s, which had sneaked in low over the water, jump Hal Far cliff and streak across the field at 400 m.p.h. with all guns blazing.
It was Beurling’s first glimpse of a 109. In France, when he was on 222 Squadron, he had met only Focke-Wulf 190s.
One of the 109s passed within ten yards of him, and the deafening roar of his engine mingled with the whine of the 40-mm. shells from the A.A., firing horizontally and spraying the ground with splinters.
Just at that moment Beurling was sent flying head first into a trench by a push from one of his mates. He raised his head. The Junkers 88s—about fifty of them, escorted by sixty Messerschmitt 109s—were starting their dive. They were peeling off one by one and coming down in a 65-degree dive on the airfield in one unbroken line. The deep tone of the engines had changed to a screaming crescendo. The earth quivered, and sand trickled into the trenches. Bombs ripped down with a noise like an express train. The 88s flattened out at 1500 feet, their glasshouse noses and their elongated nacelles clearly visible.
The bombs exploded with a terrifying crump, great clods of earth flew up, splinters whizzed murderously, mowing down everything in their path. Each explosion sent a shock wave through the earth and each time Beurling felt a thump like a kick in the stomach.
The empty cases of the 20-mm. fell like hail, clanging against the empty cans. A Junkers 88, hit, continued its dive and crashed with a tremendous roar between two parked Wellingtons, which immediately burst into flame. Clouds of dust rose, mixed with smoke. The air stank of hot metal, sulphur and cordite. Shell splinters rained down.
A muffled explosion, followed by two others—another Junkers 88 had crashed, the wreck bouncing along in a sheet of flame.
Four parachutes hung above, stupidly silent amidst the infernal din.
A minute’s relative calm on the ground while the battle raged 10,000 feet up. Planes circled in pairs, pursuer and pursued; wings glinted in the sun, and all the time the rattle of machine-guns went on. Now and then a plane broke away from the mêlée, trailing white smoke—over there, a Spitfire, and that ball of fire plummeting into the sea was a Messerschmitt 109.
The sky was thick with black clusters of A.A. bursts—like lumps of coal thrown up by the Bofors batteries.
A new wave of bombers came cascading down. Two Junkers 88s, harried by Spitfires and both with engines on fire, broke from the line and dived towards the sea.
Very high in the sky, well above all the turmoil, five little bright dots could be seen in impeccable formation. They were five Italian Cants. Nobody took any notice of them, but their perfectly grouped stick of bombs fell plumb on the intersection of the two runways on Safi airfield. How those bombs managed to fall through all those whirling planes without smashing a single one was a miracle.
The newly arrived pilots, covered with dust and rubble, shaken by the exploding bombs, huddling down to avoid the hail of stones and splinters, were rocked to their foundations. This really was war!
Ten minutes later it was all over. The Spitfires, fuel running low and ammunition spent, came into the circuit to land. Five Hurricanes from Takali airfield at the other end of the island flew above Luqa to protect the landing and the hurried dispersal of the planes. Beurling went back to his rabbit burrow to look for his belongings and wait for his plane to come back. He failed to find his razor or his toothbrush, which must have been left behind somewhere in the wings.
The planes were now coming in. Two with damaged undercarts had to belly-land, while a third with a good square yard of wing missing did a ground loop and turned arse over tit. Just about one plane in three was obviously damaged in one way or another. A promising look-out!
A pilot who came past, exhausted and eyes bloodshot, and humping his parachute, called across:
‘No point waiting for your Spit. Norman Lee was flying it and he got the chop. Get weaving, or you’ll miss the Mess bus, and it’s a five-mile walk!’
The Mess was an old chalk quarry, a smoky tunnel, a hundred yards long and emerging straight into a coast road. The roof was pierced with ventilation shafts, but in the daytime there was insufficient current to work the fans; what there was of it was reserved for the dim bulbs and the water pumps. The air was heavy with the smell of sweat, cooking and tobacco smoke.
About a hundred and fifty N.C.Os. from the fighter and torpedo-bomber squadrons slept and ate there all crowded together. The officers were no better off. Their billets had been bombed three times and they lived in a kind of gipsy encampment composed of tarpaulins and corrugated-iron sheets stretched over remains of walls. You roasted in summer and froze in winter. No one was worrying overmuch about the winter at this time as the question was rather whether Malta would hold out even till autumn.
Lunch consisted of five shrivelled olives, one slice of fried corned beef, four ounces of bread, three semi-ripe dried figs and a cup of tea. Pilots also had a right to two tablespoonfuls of raw shredded carrots soaked in cod-liver oil, for the essential vitamins, and a sulphur pill against diarrhoea.
Beurling was still too shaken by his eventful arrival to have any appetite. In addition, the pervading stink of petrol and oil smoke made his gorge rise. As there was no coal, the cookers were fed on old sump-oil—a damaged aircraft was a godsend, as it meant hot soup for two or three days.
Poor Screwball! Scarcely six hours before, he had been getting outside a comfortable breakfast with all the trimmings at a large waxed-oak table in the aircraft-carrier’s air-conditioned mess—an absolute pleasure-cruise! Now he was in a different world altogether. The fighter-pilot’s paradise! With all those Junkers 88s and Messerschmitt 109s spoiling for a fight it was possibly a paradise up in the air. But a paradise on earth, no!
He went and sat on a rickety chair with Hesslyn, a New Zealander, Buchanan, a South African, Gil Gilbert, Billy the Kid and a few others of his crowd. The contrast was striking between the clean-shaven unlined faces of the new arrivals from the Eagle in their new Gibraltar-issue battle-dress, and the stubby faces—not a Gillette blade on the island—soiled shirts and tattered denims of the others.
‘When Tedder passed this way a month ago,’ said Mickey Butler, a Malta pilot of four months’ standing who had already acquired seven confirmed successes, a D.F.M. and dysentery, ‘we shook him rigid; I thought he was going to get out his wallet and give us ten bob each to buy a new shirt.’
* * *
1520 hours
‘Screwball’ was already on ‘immediate readiness’ and sat strapped in his cockpit. The twelve Spitfires of 249 Squadron were lined up at the end of the runway, ready to take off at the first signal. The Ops. room had picked up radio traffic over Sicily which suggested that a raid was in the offing.
The sun beat down on the pilots. It was like being in an oven. The fitters had spread damp canvas over the hoods to give them some sort of protection, before themselves taking shelter in the shade under the wings. Everything seemed to dance in the heat waves rising from the baked earth. Several hundred soldiers and Maltese, sweat pouring off them, were at work trying to repair the damage of the morning’s raid. In spite of their primitive tools, the runway was quickly patched up.
What heat! And at 20,000 feet there were going to be 27 degrees of frost, but a stroke would be the result if they put on fur-lined boots or anything in the shape of underclothes now.
Feeling slightly dizzy, Beurling tried to recall the advice given to him by Grant, his Squadron-Leader, and Beverley Hill, his Section-Leader. Necessary advice too, as here you were always outnumbered ten to one!
Anyhow, this was it! This was what he had begged those hours of flying for, in Canada, when he was a kid. Those hours of flying he had paid for by leaving school and selling papers ten hou
rs a day in the snow, half-starving—ten dollars per sixty intoxicating minutes in an old 120-h.p. Rambler. It was for this moment in Malta that he had worked as a stoker in a broken-down Chilean cargo ship, to pay for his passage to England. For this he had put up with everything, the long hours with textbooks at Buxton-on-Sea while the other chaps went out with the girls, the scarcely veiled jeers of the maths and navigation instructors at his ignorance. For Sergeant Beurling, this was the pay-off.
He was brought back to the present by his fitter shouting: ‘Scramble! Gozo at 20,000 feet!’
The perspex hood closed over him—at Luqa you had to start up your engines and take off with the hood shut because of the dust. The green rocket from the control truck was still in the air as the last Spit’s engine started up.
As they climbed, the Spitfires, in three widely spaced sections of four—the famous Malta formation—described a wide spiral, crossing and recrossing every 360 degrees. Beurling was Beverley Hill’s No. 2, and by careful flying he kept just fifty yards from his leader.
The pilots began to look for the enemy. A methodical search—a look to the left, to the right, above, a quick lift of the nose of the plane to see behind, a waggle of the wings to see down properly.
24,000 feet. Malta was now nothing but a featureless pancake on the sea, small enough to be hidden by one wing. A smell of hot oil, rubber and nervous sweat.
‘Salmon Leader, Timber calling. 20 plus big boys at 18,000, and 40 plus fighters 15 miles out above. Gain angels quickly.’
Sixty to twelve—not too long odds, for Malta. Usually four Spits had to take on about fifty Jerries. Would there be time to get above the fighters of the escort? That was the crucial point, otherwise it would be a ‘dicey’ do. Unfortunately, not a wisp of cirrus to take refuge in anywhere in the whole clear expanse of blue sky.
Flames in the Sky: Epic stories of WWII air war heroism from the author of The Big Show (Pierre Clostermann's Air War Collection Book 2) Page 6
