by Norman Gelb
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Flight Lieutenant Gerry Edge
If you left it till your last hundred yards to break away from a head-on attack, you were in trouble. With practice, you got to judge when to break. But once you knew how, a head-on attack was a piece of cake. When you opened fire, you’d kill or badly wound the pilot and the second pilot. Then you’d rake the line of them as you broke away. On one attack, the first Heinkel I hit crashed into the next Heinkel. There was a lot of crashing among the bombers we attacked head-on.
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Pilot Officer Paddy Barthropp
A few brave buggers used to do head-on attacks. Bloody dangerous. There were one or two lunatics who revelled in it. The chance of hitting something going head-on was pretty remote unless you were attacking a big formation of bombers. Then you’d rake them, getting your nose up and down, knowing something was going to connect. That was very effective.
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Pilot Officer Dennis David
To split up a bombing raid, we tried to aim at the leaders. There was a good chance that if you shot down the leaders, the other bombers would disperse. It also had the effect of distracting them from their targets. Before the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had things their own way. They had won in Spain, in Poland, in Belgium, in France. Over Britain, for the first time, they came up against something they couldn’t beat. It was not easy for them to understand that.
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Pilot Officer Dave Glaser
The squadron’s CO, Sawyer, was killed on a night take-off just before I got to the squadron. Sammy Saunders, who was a flight lieutenant, took over the lead and led the squadron brilliantly. We used to fly in a snake. He’d bring us up to an altitude above the bombers. Then he’d let Gordon Olive, the flight commander of A-flight, take over and lead while he’d just go straight down vertically, right through the centre of the bomber formation. You’d see the bombers start peeling away as he went down. That was the signal for the rest of us to go in to pick them off. It worked.
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Squadron Leader George Darley
It was around teatime when our squadron was scrambled on what the Germans called Eagle Day. We were told there was a big formation of bombers and fighters coming in towards us. We were off in good time. The sun was getting down towards the west and we had time to go around and come at the bombers from behind. There were the usual 109s above and behind some Ju 87s-about thirty of each. I told our two sections on top to keep an eye out for the 109s while the rest of us went down and to sort out the bombers. Then they were to try to disentangle themselves from the 109s and come down and join us in dealing with the bombers.
I managed to get in below the fighters — I don’t think they even saw me. I throttled back a little — not too much; otherwise I would have thrown the whole formation out of position — and went through the whole lot of Ju 87s, letting fly with everything I had. The chaps coming in behind me were able to pick their targets. By that time, the 109s saw us and were coming down so we turned to take them on.
On that day we lost no one but claimed thirteen aircraft shot down, of which eight were bombers, the others 109s. Later, we learned it was only five Ju 87s we shot down. But even if you only shot up a German bomber and it got back to its base, with airmen inside maybe wounded or dying, that wasn’t good for German morale.
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Pilot Officer David Crook
I saw about five Messerschmitt 109s pass just underneath us. I immediately broke away from the formation, dived on to the last 109 and gave him a terrific burst of fire at very close range. He burst into flames and spun down for many thousands of feet into the clouds below, leaving behind him a long trail of black smoke ... He crashed just outside a small village, and I could see everybody streaming out of their houses and rushing to the spot.
I climbed up through the clouds again to rejoin the flight, but there was nothing to be seen, and so I returned to the aerodrome where all the groundcrews were in a great state of excitement as they could hear a terrific fight going on above the clouds, but saw nothing except several German machines falling in flames.
All our machines were now coming in to land and everybody’s eyes were fixed on the wings.
Yes — they were all covered with black streaks from the smoke of the guns — everybody had fired.
There was the usual anxious counting — only ten back — where are the others — they should be back by now — I hope to God everybody’s OK — good enough, here they come! Thank God, everybody’s OK.
We all stood around in small groups talking excitedly and exchanging experiences. It was very amusing to observe the exhilaration and excitement which everybody betrays after a successful action like this ...
Hitherto we had not had many successes, but had suffered rather heavy losses, and this state of affairs always shakes confidence. But now, for the first time, the glorious realization dawned on us that by using clever and careful tactics we could inflict heavy losses on the enemy and get away almost scot-free ourselves.
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Sergeant A. G. Girdwood
Combat Report
When the squadron followed a Ju 88 down through cloud, I stayed above, just in case the enemy did not go right through. After waiting for about one minute, I also went down through cloud to about 2,000 feet and saw the e/a in front and below me. I gave it a twenty-degree head-on three-secs burst, turned sharply round the back of it, and came in again at the front to repeat the attack and gave him a similar burst. The e/a was now down to about 500 feet, moving slowly in from the sea to the coast, just west of Selsey. I climbed to about 400 feet above it, dived on it shooting. It shuddered and lost height quickly. Flames were then pouring out of both engines. Someone jumped from the a/c but the parachute only half opened. The a/c reached about the second field from the shore. As it touched ground, it exploded into a mass of flames.
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New York Times
London, 14 August — Germany sent over more than 500 planes [yesterday] to attack shipping in the English Channel and Thames Estuary, as well as British airbases and other objectives in Southampton, the Kentish coast, Berkshire, Wiltshire, the Isle of Wight and other points northeast and southwest ... British officials would not say whether the Nazi airmen damaged or destroyed any important military objectives in this country or sank any ships. All they divulged was that some civilians were killed, others injured, houses and business buildings wrecked and bowling greens and other playing fields damaged by German bombs ... The day’s bag of German planes shot down over and around Britain was a record, it was declared ... The extent of the big German onslaught gave rise to the question whether the long-awaited Blitzkrieg had finally started or was about to begin in earnest. Competent observers say that the Germans are gradually increasing the number of planes they send over here daily. It is pointed out at the same time that Germany could afford to dispatch as many as 1,000 planes at a time to batter Britain and still have reserves on which to draw.
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Pilot Officer Robert Deacon-Elliott
On 15 August, we were sent off from Acklington up in Yorkshire to patrol at Angels 24, east of the Fame Islands, off the coast in the North Sea. We intercepted a raid of at least 150 aircraft coming to bomb the north of England while others were attacking down south. Every type of German plane we knew of was there. We’d never seen anything like it before. During our training, we’d learned to do ‘Number One Attack’, Number Two Attack’, ‘Number Three Attack.’ You knew exactly what each of those meant. So someone called to our acting squadron commander, Ted Graham, ‘Have you seen them?’ Ted, who stuttered, replied, ‘Of course, I’ve seen the b-b-bastards. I’m trying to w-w-work out wh-wh-what to do.’ But we already were about to reach them. Graham hurtled in through the gap between the bombers and their escort and each of us picked a target. I saw two Huns literally disintegrate. The bombers quickly began jettisoning their loads. The sea below churned up white with bombs as if a colony of whales was spouting. We hacked them
about so badly, the formation split apart and they made for home. That was the first and last time formations of Germans came over the North Sea by day.
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Pilot Officer Robert Doe
We were shifted in August from Cornwall, where nothing much had happened, to Middle Wallop and were bombed twenty minutes after we had landed. We were being driven in lorries to the mess for lunch at the time. There was nothing we could do but watch. Another squadron was in the air trying to intercept the bombers. It was over so fast. They hit a hangar. They didn’t get many planes, but they killed about thirty people.
The following day was my first day of actual combat. It was a chaos of errors, I was petrified because I knew I was probably about the worst pilot in the squadron. Fighter pilots were supposed to be wonderful at acrobatics. I didn’t like acrobatics. I was a very experienced flyer — all of us in the squadron at the time were. But we were inexperienced in tactics. When we took off from Middle Wallop, we flew off in four Vies of three in tight formation, which was ridiculous. I was number two to the leader, which was fairly safe because I was towards the front end. We were vectored to intercept 200 aircraft coming in over Swanage to the south. We got there before the Germans and were told to patrol. So we patrolled up and down the sun — a basic stupidity. At one point, we turned up sun and found we only had nine aircraft of the original twelve left. We hadn’t seen anything happen. We’d lost three planes without knowing it.
Two minutes later we were in the middle of a mass of German aircraft. We all broke up. I followed the leader because it was my job to protect his tail. I saw him shoot at something but it didn’t go down so I shot at it and it did go down. I was so elated that I followed it down and watched it crash into the sea. As I pulled up, another German aircraft passed right in front of me so I followed it and got that one as well, almost reflexively.
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Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air
I have it in command from His Majesty the King to convey the following message:
Please convey my warmest congratulations to fighter squadrons who in recent days have been so heavily engaged in the defence of our country. I, like all their compatriots, have read with ever increasing admiration the story of their daily victories. I wish them continued success and the best of luck.
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Pilot Officer Dennis David
There were six of us and it looked like hundreds of them, coming in to bomb the oil tanks near Weymouth. Just as we were getting properly into the bombers, their fighter escort came alone. Voase Jeff — he was a nephew of J. Arthur Rank — was leading. He was hit and killed. I had bullet holes up the side of my aircraft. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a parachute. Johnnie Cock was shot up and had baled out at 20,000 feet. On his way down, one of those 109s came round and started shooting at him. His parachute cords went ping! ping! ping! — beginning to separate him from his chute canopy as the bullets flew around him. I managed to get behind that murderous Hun and shot him down. I circled Johnnie till he hit the water, because I wasn’t going to let another Hun shoot him down.
I came to know and like some Germans later on. But I hated the enemy then for what they tried to do to Johnnie Cock and what they did to Johnnie Dewar, our squadron leader, later in the Battle. He parachuted out, but when we found his body, it was riddled with bullets. Some of our people say what wonderful men the German pilots were personally. But I still feel that men who could shoot boys in parachutes are not people I want to meet or know.
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Sergeant Philip Wareing
Our squadron commander said, ‘You’ve got to shoot down four enemy planes before you’re shot down yourself because that’s what the odds are. Otherwise you’re wasting your time.’
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C. B. Allen, New York Herald Tribune
Washington, 16 August — Army Air Corps reaction to Germany’s methodical mass air raids on England was summed up today by a spokesman for that service in the words: ‘It looks pretty dark for the British.’ This officer based his observations and conclusions — which he admitted were only informed guesses as to what was going on in Europe — both on press reports of the great aerial conflict and on information sent back by Air Corps observers stationed in London ... The Air Corps estimate, he said, was that the Germans had a five-to-three superiority over the British in combat airplanes and that they could keep up indefinitely the pace they had set for the last four days, barring a shortage of fuel or ammunition or an unforeseen counterstroke by the Royal Air Force, seriously crippling Nazi sources of supply.
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Edward R. Murrow, CBS News
London, 18 August — During the last three days, I have driven more than 500 miles in the south of England. Many times the sirens sounded and a few times we saw the bombs fall. There is something unreal about this air war over Britain. Much of it you can’t see. The aircraft are up in the clouds, out of sight.
Even when the Germans come down to dive bomb an airfield, it’s all over in an incredibly short time. You just see a bomber slanting down toward his target; three or four little things that look like marbles fall out, and it seems to take a long time for those bombs to hit the ground.
The other day, we drove for twenty-five miles through rural country while an air-raid alarm was on. Coasting down the smooth white road between tall green hedges, we would slide through a little village tucked away at the bottom of a hill beside a stream. There would be one grey stone church, an arched bridge over the stream, perhaps a couple of dozen little brick cottages with red-tiled roofs, and a public house. That village would be dead, the streets as empty and silent as they were at two in the morning in peacetime. Even the air was quiet and heavy as it is just before a thunderstorm, but standing on the bridge near the church or at the crossroads would be one small middle-aged man, generally with a moustache, generally smoking a pipe, and always wearing a tin hat. He was an air-raid warden, in complete command of the village until the ‘all-clear’ sounded — the sole protection against the German bombers, except for the boys in Hurricanes and Spitfires high overhead, and the men manning the anti-aircraft batteries.
In some of the cities and larger towns, people stand about in the streets, but the small villages take cover ... From what I could see, the people down along the coast had been badly shaken. Many of them don’t like the sound of the siren. It is loud, penetrating, and can’t very well be ignored. The sirens seem to be about as disturbing and upsetting as the distant crump of bombs.
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Miss Edith Starling, Epsom, Surrey
Letter to her Mother, 22 August 1940
Dear Mother and All,
... At almost the same time on Sunday, Uncle and I looked questioningly at one another across the dinner table for we could hear the distant drone of a considerable force of aircraft drawing nearer. Aunty had left shortly before to visit Gran and I was hoping she would catch her train before anything happened. We were listening to the news when it abruptly switched off and at the same time the sirens started up. We were getting better organized by this time and in two bats of a butterfly’s eyelid, Uncle and I had whisked a small table into the hall, whisked a cloth on it and grabbed our plates which got gloriously messed up. I am sure I finished Jeanne’s dinner for her and vice versa! It wasn’t long before we heard the crump, crump of bombs falling. It was a very clear day and I wished I could see what was happening overhead, but as such things are not allowed we just sat tight. One of our Hurricanes crashed about four minutes’ walk from the house in the RAC grounds. The pilot seemed quite cheerful, although he had been shot through the foot. He drove off, whistling, in an RAF car, but perhaps familiarity breeds contempt for this was his third crash in two days.
Love to all,
Edith
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Pilot Officer Wally Wallens
We were short of pilots but we were short of aircraft too. They arrived from the maintenance unit, but you couldn’t just put some ammo into a plane, jump into it
and fly off. There were so many things that had to be done to it after it was delivered. Radios had to be fitted. The guns had to be sighted and made operational. Modifications had to be made by our fitters and armourers and other groundcrewmen, things that hadn’t been done as the planes were rushed out of the maintenance units because they were so badly needed by the squadrons. It was non-stop day and night work getting those planes operational and keeping them operational after they’d been in combat. Our Spitfires and Hurricanes were being patched up with fabric and glue after they’d been shot up. People said the First World War practice of just putting on patches of doped fabric to mend bullet holes wouldn’t work on a stressed skin modern aircraft. But it did, by God! They patched the buggers up and off we’d go again.
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Pilot Officer Roland Beamont
Few people realized what hard work a dogfight was. You concentrated like mad while it was going on. It was an incredibly energetic thing. You’d be wet with sweat.
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Flight Lieutenant Peter Brothers
I enjoyed a dogfight. I had been one of those schoolboy idiots who had started playing with model aeroplanes when I was nine years old. My father had me taught to fly when I was fifteen to cure me of the habit so that I’d settle down and go into the family chemical manufacturing business. But I whizzed off to join the air force when I was seventeen and a half. My heroes were Mannock and McCudden and Ball and Bishop — our First World War air heroes. In a dogfight, I thought this was a great chance to try to live up to those characters. I don’t think I did.
In a dogfight, you had to convince yourself that you were better than the other chaps. This I learnt from Taffy Jones, a First World War ace who was our mentor when I first joined the air force. He stuttered. He said there was going to be a war and, ‘Youch-ch-chaps are g-g-going to b-b-b-be in it. Ne-ne-never forget that you will b-b-b-be terribly frightened. B-b-but always remember, the ch-chap in the enemy aircraft is t-t-twice as frightened.’ I remembered that when I first got into combat. I was terrified. Then I thought, ‘I feel sorry for the chap in the 109. He must be in a terrible state.’ I figure Taffy Jones saved my life — many times over.
