Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

by Norman Gelb

  Michael C. Tagg, Department of Printed Books, Royal Air Force Museum

  Letter to a German woman who, after the war, requested details of how her husband, a Luftwaffe pilot, had been shot down during the Battle of Britain by, she had been led to believe, Flying Officer Ben Bowring

  I have been able to locate Squadron Leader [as he was by then] Bowring, but he tells me he cannot remember details of individual combats, which is not surprising as he had flown approximately 156 hours in twenty-seven days before being shot down.

  *

  Flight Lieutenant Eustace Holden

  At dawn one day, the squadron went to 30,000 feet and, on landing, I started to walk to the mess for some breakfast when I was recalled for standby. Relieved ten minutes later, I again made for the mess but just as I got to the door, I was called back and had to go to 30,000 feet again. Back at the aerodrome in due course, I tried again to get a meal. I was half-way through it when I was wanted for another standby. When that came to nothing, I made for my quarters to have a shave. I’d just lathered myself when the loudspeaker called, ‘501 Squadron — readiness.’ So up to 30,000 feet again. Later, I finished shaving and actually had lunch before being called for another standby. Then, about five o’clock, at 30,000 feet again for the fourth time that day.

  *

  Pilot Officer Dennis David

  The days were long, starting at 3.30 in the morning. At Tangmere, sometimes we’d go into town, to Chichester, after dark. We went to a pub, ‘The Dolphin’, to have a few drinks. Legal closing time was 10.30, but the police would look the other way and let the boys down a few beers after hours, and then they would drive them back to dispersal. You had the feeling the whole country was behind you. There was tremendous kindness. It was a lovely feeling. I’ve never felt that Britain was like that again.

  You didn’t get much sleep after dawn, even if you weren’t on readiness. You’d be sleeping in the dispersal hut, but the bloody engines were warming up and the ground crew was all around getting things ready. If the weather was bad when we awoke in the morning, we thought it was marvellous. The big raids wouldn’t be coming through.

  *

  Pilot Officer Birdie Bird-Wilson

  We’d be awakened before dawn by the noise of the ground crew starting up the engines of the aircraft. We went back to sleep again.

  Some lazy buggers would carry on sleeping until we were actually scrambled. Then they’d scramble straight out of their beds, into their boots and Mae West and maybe their trousers and off they’d go.

  *

  Winston Churchill

  War Cabinet Memorandum, 26 August

  The air battle now proceeding over Great Britain may be a decisive event in the war and must dominate all other considerations ... We cannot tell what new form the enemy’s attack may take; nor what our losses will be; nor what damage will be done to our factories both of output and repair. We do not know with any certainty the size of the air force which the enemy may bring against us. It is certainly very much larger than our own.

  The men who went into combat in the air lived with death and it frightened them. But what frightened them most was something else. They were petrified by the prospect of being trapped in an aircraft that was ablaze and being roasted alive before they could bale out. There were many third-degree-burns victims among the pilots. But to the good fortune of many of them, there was a remarkable doctor on hand who, during the summer of 1940, pioneered major improvements in the treatment of serious burns and in plastic surgery for burns victims. Archibald McIndoe, later to be knighted by King George for his services to Britain, was a New Zealander who set up the trailblazing burns unit at Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead an hour south of London.

  *

  Leading Aircraftsman Cyril Jones

  I was an operating room assistant at the hospital. We were a specialized unit for treatment of burns and reconstructive surgery. We received pilots and groundcrew who were burnt as a result of German bombings and accidents on the airfields. The pilots came mostly because of flash burns caused by high octane spirits from their fuel tanks. The burns were up to sixty to seventy percent of their bodies. The difference between being burnt to a cinder and coming to us might have been just three seconds of exposure to the flames in a burning plane.

  On Monday mornings, McIndoe would fly around to all the main hospitals to decide which cases would be brought back to us for treatment. After Dunkirk, we started treating burn victims with saline baths. We found that people with burns who had been immersed in saltwater at Dunkirk did very well. Before that, there were some terrible things done. They had been using tannic acid and tannic jelly, which solidified over the burns. It was thought that if you could cover a burn by excluding the air, it wouldn’t hurt as much. The tannic acid formed a film. But in addition to sealing out the pain, it sealed in the bacteria. All the germs and pus were locked inside and we had a terrific infection rate.

  Another treatment was with gentian violet, a violet dye that looked fluorescent when it was painted on. What it did was to make everything go rigid. We had one Canadian boy in the RAF whose leg we had to take off above the knee because of the infection caused by the gentian. McIndoe stopped all that sort of treatment when we went over to saline baths treatments, though there was still the danger that the burn victims might die of toxaemia or shock during the first ten days.

  Most of our patients were young men, in the prime of their lives. Most had been good-looking. The pilots who came to us were also well educated. To suddenly look the way they looked after being badly burnt was very shaking. It hit them hard. The advantage of our unit was there was always someone worse off. You may have lost a leg, but right next to you might be a chap who’d lost his hands. A man might have no ears but there was another chap who was blind.

  McIndoe insisted on putting these men together. He’d never allow rank to get special privilege. He was always asked by other services to take special cases. We once had a captain in the Royal Navy who needed treatment. The navy in those days was all posh. There was a lot of tradition and this, that and the other and, of course, the under ranks weren’t even spoken of. This captain came to us one day. He’d lost an eye and McIndoe was asked to rebuild his eye socket. McIndoe admitted him into a ward with ordinary airmen who had suffered bad burns. This captain, who expected VIP treatment, was put into a ward with forty men. On one side was a leading aircraftsman. On the other side was a sergeant. Well, this navy captain was in high dudgeon about it. He went straight to McIndoe and said, ‘It is ridiculous for me to be nursed in a ward where I’ve got ordinary ranks around me. I must have a private room of my own.’ McIndoe told him, ‘You asked to be treated by me. If you wish to be treated by me, you will take the treatment I am offering. If you don’t like the ward, then go and find someone else to treat you.’

  There was terrific camaraderie among the patients. You’d often see fifteen wheelchairs being pushed to town, all going to the pub. McIndoe wanted the men to be accepted by the general public as normal human beings. He wanted to give them back their normal functions and their dignity. In the early days, we had to go through the stage of men not wanting to live. They were terrible to look at. But to see them now, after so many years — they are accepted and have been for years, though some had to go through as many as sixty operations. Some decided, ‘Right — my wife accepts me and that’s good enough.’ This is where many of the women played an important role. Some of our nurses — good-looking young girls — married those men when they were at their worst.

  In his treatment, McIndoe paid most attention to eyelids and hands. He would take a single layer of epidermis from the arm of the man to replace his eyelids. He wasn’t looking to give a man back his looks. It couldn’t be done. He was aiming at restoring their normal functions — opening and closing of the eyes, opening and closing of their mouths, restoring their noses, and restoring the use of their hands. They went through phases. From healing the burns to starting reconstru
ctive surgery could be anything from three days to three years.

  *

  Dan Attwater, currently Director of Nursing Services, Queen Victoria Hospital

  Some of the men became our customers for life. Scar tissue contracts so people feel a tightening of eyelids and puckering of the mouth. So they had to keep having corrective operations.

  *

  Nurse Ann Standen, Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead

  It would be wrong of me to say we weren’t horrified. Inwardly, you’d say, ‘Oh my God, what will they do with them?’ You didn’t recoil in horror but you wondered what could be done. Faces were just horrible — even the man I would later marry. He was injured when his bomber was in a collision. The injuries were horrific. By the time he called a halt to the treatment and said enough was enough, he had new eyelids, a new nose, new lips. They couldn’t do much for his hands because they were too badly burned. It was amazing what they did do. He had sixty operations.

  Relatives of the patients would come to the hospital to see the men. Some took it well. Some didn’t. It was a shock. They’d seen a perfectly normal being one day. The next time they saw them, they were a mess. They could recognize them, but it was a shock.

  Some of the men showed a tinge of bitterness, ‘Why did it happen?’ they asked. ‘I’m finished now,’ they’d say. That sort of thing. But they were soon made to realize they were not the only ones.

  *

  Squadron Leader Tom Gleave

  There were long lines of Ju 88s, Dorniers, possibly Heinkels as well — huge grills of them stretching out in the sky. We had come too late to get above them, but we wanted to get them before they unloaded their bombs. We were climbing higher and higher. I could see everything on the aircraft above me, even their rivets. I broke my chaps away for the attack. I got on to number five bomber on the outside line and fired, just underneath the nose. I couldn’t get number four, but I gave number three a burst. As I went over the top of him, I saw glycol pouring out of his engine. But as I went down to do number one bomber in the line, I got a clink in my starboard tank — an incendiary, and it burst into flames.

  It burnt so quickly, it was unbelievable. I tried to get the cockpit hood open. Though I’d always been a stickler for drill, I forgot that all I had to do was pull the toggle. I finally managed to get the hood open. By then, I’d undone my belt. As the hood came back, there was a God Almighty explosion. I went straight up in a huge sheet of flame. The aircraft just disappeared. I came down head over heels, pulled my ripcord and my parachute opened. My hands were swelled up, and my face and legs. Most of my clothes had gone. I was pretty badly burnt — about thirty percent bums. I lost all the skin off my right foot. I still get holes occasionally, things sometimes come out, bits of bone. I lost all the skin off my hand and most of my face. My eyelids and nose went. We carried loaded guns. We could have shot ourselves and I would have had I got to the state where I hadn’t a hope in hell. No doubt some pilots did.

  *

  Pilot Officer John Fleming

  We’d had three or four false alarms in the morning. We were in our cockpits and then stood down. And, about five to one, the whistle went. I was tail-end Charlie, zig-zagging, sweeping the back of the formation. I saw in my mirror that we were being jumped. I could see the German fighters coming down. I just had time to call out to everybody, ‘We’re being jumped from behind! I’ll go and look at them!’ I turned around, flew towards the Germans and made them split up. We had a private party there, with me in the middle. I reckon I got a couple of them — the way things were happening there was no evidence — and then they got me. They knocked off my wing tips. My radiator was under my feet. That got shot up and I was more or less on a red-hot footplate. A string of bullets ripped through my instrument panel. There was a reserve tank of forty-five gallons of petrol behind that. The petrol poured onto this red-hot plate and onto me. So me and my forty-five gallons went up in one big whoomph, which was quite interesting. I found I couldn’t open my hood. I turned the plane upside down, twice, but still couldn’t move it. I was still being shot at. I could hear the bullets. The third time upside down I pushed off from the floor. I was thirteen stone ten and very fit so the hood came off its runners and out I went. I was above the rest of the squadron by then. I was seen by some of them coming down, smoke pouring from me, with my cockpit hood round my neck. I knew the cloud base was 2,000 feet that day and the Germans had been reported to have shot people parachuting down, so I didn’t pull the rip cord till I could see the ground and steered myself towards a field.

  The next thing I knew there were bullets whistling all around me — farm labourers on the ground, thinking I was a German, were shooting at me till they heard me cursing down at them in English. Being a New Zealander, they heard some curse words they had never heard before. Everything was burnt off me. I had no clothing on me. My fur-lined flying boots were burnt down to slippers. I had no skin left to be transferred to burnt parts. I’ve been wearing a harness around my middle ever since I came out of hospital, more than forty years ago. My legs are tied on to me. The surgeons wanted to take my legs off at the hips, and give me a pair of roller skates to get around on, I suppose. But I was fortunate. I had no relatives in Britain. So they couldn’t get authorization from my next of kin. I wasn’t going to sign. I wanted six-foot-two of ground when I was buried. I’d fought for it. I wasn’t going to be short-changed on the coffin. Sir Archie McIndoe saw that I wouldn’t be.

  *

  Flying Officer Peter Davies

  My hands were badly burnt and very painful when my aircraft was shot up. I had to bale out. They sprayed them with tannic acid. It formed a dark brown hard casing over my hands. The skin began to grow back over some of the fingers together. They had to be separated. One or two things went septic, but I recovered pretty quickly and was fortunate compared to some of the men. There was another pilot officer named Davies who was brought in. His mother was upset seeing him — he was so badly burnt, his eyes were just slits. They brought her in to see me to show how burn cases could recover.

  *

  Squadron Leader Tom Gleave

  Sister came in [at the hospital] and said my wife had arrived. I was well enough to worry about her seeing me as I was: my hands, forearms and legs were encased in dried tannic acid. My face, which felt the size of the proverbial melon, was treated in the same way, and I peered through slits in the mask. I heard footsteps approaching the bed and then saw my wife standing gazing at me. She flushed a little and said, ‘What on earth have you been doing with yourself, darling?’ I found it hard to answer. ‘Had a row with a German,’ I replied.

  *

  Sergeant Jack Perkin

  The extraordinary thing was that for the only time in my life did anybody have to say to me — as my fitter did the morning I was shot down — ‘Don’t forget your leg straps, Sarge.’ I looked down and to my surprise, I’d forgotten to put the parachute leg straps through the loops and into the central buckle. If I hadn’t, I’d have slipped right through the parachute when I had to bale out.

  When we took off, I took my position in the leading section on the right of Flying Officer Smith, who was leading the squadron. We climbed to 20,000 feet over the Chelmsford area. We were told over the radio that twenty escorted bandits were approaching the east coast at 20,000. So we patrolled over there, but didn’t see anything. Five minutes later, we were told to descend to 5,000 feet, where fifty escorted Jerries were said to be approaching the coast. We dived down and almost immediately were ordered back to 20,000 feet, where masses of enemy fighters were said to be. I could almost hear Smithy swearing at our having lost height for no reason. But we started up again and climbed towards London. We’d almost reached 20,000 feet. The sky was perfectly clear and the sun was shining brightly. I was flying very near to Smith, about five feet away, concentrating on keeping station with him. I hadn’t seen any enemy aircraft at all, but suddenly there was an explosion and my whole cockpit was enveloped in f
lames. A petrol flame is more intense, hotter and fiercer than almost any other fire I know of. In the Hurricane, you had the reserve tank of petrol right in front of you, in between the engine and the cockpit. You had that straight in your face. You can only think, ‘I must get out of this.’ People who stayed in a burning cockpit for ten seconds were overcome by the flames and the heat. Nine seconds and you ended up in Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead in Dr Archie McIndoe’s burns surgery for the rest of the war. If you got out in eight seconds, you never flew again, but you went back about twelve times for plastic surgery.

  I reckon that, undoing my straps, I got out of that burning plane in four to five seconds. I thought that, in my hurry, I had kicked off my parachute at the same time. With the flames all around me, I didn’t care. I got out of the plane, but found myself held in place by my oxygen lead and my radio lead, both of which were still attached to my flight helmet and to the inside of the cockpit. I actually was going down with the plane, outside it. It was spiralling down in flames and I was outside, at the side of the cockpit, my legs towards the tail, being held there by the two leads which were still firmly attached inside the cockpit. But as we gathered speed spiralling down, my helmet was wrenched off. As I fell free, I had this lovely feeling of cool air. I was away from the burning plane. I thought, ‘This must be heaven.’ I just let myself fall. There was nothing else to do. There was nothing else I wanted to do. I thought I was falling to my death, with my parachute kicked off, but I didn’t mind. I was glad to be away from the flames and I was also dazed by the shock of one instant being in close formation with my leader and the next instant being in a fiercely burning cockpit. The lovely cool air was marvellous. I just fell. Then I began to feel sick. I later turned out not to be badly burnt, but at the time there was a nasty smell of burning flesh and burning hair. And I was somersaulting. I saw the ground and then the sky and then the ground and then the sky. I thought, ‘I can’t stand this any longer.’ And I thought, ‘I wish I still had my parachute.’ I reached for the ring and it was there! I felt for the pack and it was there also, behind me. I hadn’t kicked it off! I pulled the ring and there was an enormous jerk on my crotch as the main chute opened and I was pulled up. The feeling was not relief or exultation — it was surprise.