Trial By Fire

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  He looked into his rear view mirror while he held his climb. He could not identify the first Dornier at which he had shot. But he could see that the second one was well ablaze: the port engine was hidden by smoke, long flames consumed the wing, the aeroplane was rapidly losing height.

  Again now he was under heavy fire. This time, from several directions. He made a skidding turn to port and twisted his head to look all around. Two 110s, the upper gunner in one Dornier and the front guns of another, in the second rank, were all shooting at him. He banked steeply and turned to come in on the tail of one of the Dorniers in the first rank from slightly above and at once found the upper gunner’s bullets hitting his starboard wingtip. He fired back and after a three-second burst saw the gun suddenly point upward and cease firing. In a moment he was close enough to see a lot of blood in the dorsal blister and the headless body of the gunner collapsed over his breechblock. James poured all the rest of his ammunition into the Dornier’s port side, hoping to hit the pilot, the engine or a fuel tank severely enough to bring it down. Once again he saw smoke and flames emerge from the engine cowling and quickly spread.

  His goggles had become misty from the sweat that had broken out on his face. He pushed them onto his forehead, brushed the back of his hand across his eyes, diving away to port as he did so.

  An explosion resounded from his engine. Smoke erupted from it. Hot liquid sprayed into his eyes, stinging them like vitriol. He shut his eyes to protect them and jerked his goggles back in place. Sticky hot liquid was still squirting around the cockpit. He felt it burning his cheeks. He shoved the goggles up once more and tentatively opened his eyes. He was in a tight downward corkscrew with thick oily smoke pouring out of his engine and flames leaping from it. He came out of his turn, his eyes half-shut against the searing pain, and levelled out roughly, then half-rolled onto his back. He heaved at the canopy. It moved a few inches and stuck. He heaved again and it budged a little more. One more good pull and it ran freely. He undid his straps, had a fleeting moment of fright at the thought that he might hit the tail fin as he fell out, and let himself drop clear.

  He saw his Hurricane make a smoke-trailing parabola above him, pulled the ripcord, felt the parachute harness jerk as the canopy opened, then groped for a handkerchief with which to wipe the glycol from his eyes. They still smarted abominably and he found it hard to keep them open.

  He searched the sky for Hurricanes and could see none. The big enemy formation was far away; but, within a mile of him, he could see two Dorniers going down in flames and two losing height with smoke pluming out of an engine. He could also see several parachutes but could not count them because the glare hurt his eyes and he had to shut them. He kept opening them every few seconds to see where he was going. At first he thought he was descending into a wood and would be impaled on a branch or break his legs. Then he judged that he was bound to land on the roof of a farmhouse, slide off it with a collapsed parachute and either be killed or paralysed with a broken back.

  When the moment of impact seemed imminent and the ground less than a thousand feet away, he forced himself to keep his eyes open. He was happy to see that he was over a paddock around which there were no trees; it was enclosed by a post and rail fence. His burning eyes were watering now. He hit the ground with a bump that jarred his bones and made his teeth snap together. But, thank God! He had landed safely on grass.

  He struggled to his feet and released himself from his harness. At the same moment he heard a noise behind him. He had unplugged his radio .and oxygen and kept his helmet on, so the sound was muffled. He turned. Trotting towards him with its forelegs lifting high at each step, its eyes fixed on him, threatening fatal injury, came a huge red bull.

  James blinked, turned wildly round to look for the shortest route to safety, and began to sprint as fast as his flying boots would let him.

  The sound of the bull’s hoofbeats quickened and began to drum on the ground as it broke into a gallop. James looked over his shoulder, stumbled, tottered, regained his balance and tried to run faster.

  An enraged French voice bellowed “Sale Boche! Look what you’ve done to my prize bull...you’ve broken his leg.”

  Snatching another glance around, James saw that the bull was entangled with his parachute, its rigging lines and the harness. The silk canopy billowed and writhed as the brute tried to do battle with it, struggling to get on its feet. It sprawled on the ground, kicking furiously, horns tearing holes in the fabric.

  James began to laugh. There was another irate howl and now he heard more pounding feet: this time, those of two angry men with pitchforks.

  Both were shouting at the tops of their voices, calling him a dirty Boche and a murderer of valuable animals.

  One of them was making for the bull. The other, James was shocked to see, was coming straight for him, pitchfork lowered as though bayonet-charging.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled

  “ Je suis anglais...anglais...”

  He began to unfasten his overalls.

  The other Frenchman yelled “Look out, he’s going for his revolver!” Half his attention on his prized beast, half on James.

  It was then that James had the presence of mind to whip the lanyard of his revolver over his head, unbuckle the belt which strapped its holster about his waist outside his overalls, and let it fall to the ground. He had just managed to drag his overalls open enough to reveal his R.A.F. blue uniform and pilot’s wings when he felt the sharp tines of the pitchfork pressed hard into his chest.

  “Hands up!” The farm hand was about five feet five inches tall, gnarled, middle-aged — an old soldier, James told himself in alarm — diffused a stale stink of sweat, manure and red wine, and spat when he talked, he was so furious.

  “I am an Englishman, Monsieur. Look at my uniform...”

  “The only uniforms I know are French.” The farmhand glared and pushed his pitchfork harder against James, who took a sudden step back which sent the little man floundering. James stuck out his foot and tripped him, then bent and grabbed the pitchfork away from him as his attacker fell. He also picked up his own belt and revolver.

  “My friend, I assure you I am not a Boche. I have just shot down three of them.” James was glad his comrades were not there to hear this boastful claim.

  The farmhand picked himself up, glowering. “But you cannot be an Englishman. You speak French. I fought in the last war and knew many Englishmen, and not one of them could speak French: if they tried, they called the Allemands ‘Alleymans’.”

  “I’m not going to stay here and argue with you. I’m getting on the other side of this fence before the bull gets free.”

  Safely over the fence, they were joined by the farmer, who looked James up and down dubiously. “You are really English? It is as well my bull was not harmed: you would have had to pay me full compensation.”

  James felt like kicking the fellow on his backside. At the same time his emotions were divided between almost hysterical amusement and anger. Reaction to being shot down, the pain inflicted by the hot glycol, his narrow escape from being burned in his cockpit, had put his whole nervous system on the rack.

  “If we can’t prevent the Germans over-running your country as they did last time, you’ll be lucky if your farm is still standing and any of your animals left alive, after they have passed this way. If it happens, just try asking the Boches for compensation, my friend.”

  A French military car drove up and a young lieutenant got out. James went to meet him. The lieutenant told the farmer he was an idiot, called the farmhand a hothead with more courage than sense, and drove James away.

  The squadron Intelligence officer allowed him one confirmed kill, one probable and one aircraft damaged. The M.O. treated his eyes, which still smarted badly, and grounded him for 48 hours.

  The next four and a half weeks were a confusion of air battles in which the British were always outnumbered by the Germans. On most days, dawn found the squadron at readiness
and they flew sortie after sortie until sunset. Sometimes they were released until noon, which allowed them to recover some of their lost sleep. Now and then they were given a whole day off. They stayed at their first airfield for two weeks, then moved twice in the week following. They retreated towards the coast with each change of site. Sometimes they lived in tents and sometimes in rooms requisitioned in private houses. Once, the officers spent three days in a hotel. Another time, they spent two days and nights on a permanent French Air Force station.

  Wherever they were based and over whatever area they operated, at the end of each long day, when they threw themselves thankfully into whatever sort of chairs their abode of the moment provided, and the batmen brought them tankards of beer, the memories were the same. James carried with him a jumble of visual, aural and olfactory recollections which fused into an overall impression which a painter could have expressed only by some lunatic, chaotic design in lurid colours on a huge canvas. A sky crowded with burning, falling, weaving, diving, climbing aircraft. The rattle of his own guns and the roar of his engine. The clatter of the enemy’s guns, the howl of the engines in the enemy’s aeroplanes. The vari-coloured streaks of tracer, the orange, red, yellow and blue of flames consuming Hurricanes, Battles, Blenheims, Me 109s and 110s, Dorniers and Heinkels. The searing white light with which an aircraft sometimes would explode with a full load of bombs. The smell of cordite in his cockpit, of burning canvas and metal. The sight of wings sagging and folding, breaking right off, under the impact of bullets and cannon shells; of aircraft in collision, tumbling to earth locked in an embrace of fire and smoke. Smoke of various colours: black, white, different shades of grey. Odours again: the cloying one of hot glycol, the acridity of burning oil, the terrifying reek of petrol fumes which always threatened explosion or incineration.

  There were the sheer physical sensations of whirling around in a roll; the stomach-wrench of a loop; the dizziness of a spin; the blacking out in a tight turn. The harness cutting into one’s shoulders, the feeling of a heavy weight forcing one’s head down to telescope the neck when pulling out of a dive.

  During the week from 27th May to 3rd June when the British Expeditionary Force was being evacuated from Dunkirk, the squadron was over the beleaguered area every day. R.A.F. fighters were seldom seen over Dunkirk itself, because they would have been of little use there. Their task was to intercept the German bombers many miles from the target. When a bomb is released at high altitude it travels a long way forward while it falls. The Hurricanes and Spitfires which were trying to shoot down Heinkels and Dorniers before they could launch their bombs were far out of sight of the troops on the beach. It was only the Ju 87 dive bombers which could effectually be dealt with when overhead where all could see.

  On 1st June, when the retreat through Dunkirk was at its height, James was flying one of the only ten aircraft which were serviceable on the squadron that morning. The column of dense smoke which had risen above the burning port for days rose many thousands of feet into the air, spread eastward by the upper wind which was stronger than the light breeze at sea level.

  It was a time of such emergency that not only were the Hurricanes, Spitfires and Defiants of Fighter Command patrolling and fighting around Dunkirk and along the coast on both sides of it, but Blenheims, Hudsons and Ansons of Coastal Command were also on patrol and also challenging enemy bombers and fighters, with their few machine-guns and despite their poor manoeuvrability. Blenheims and Wellingtons of Bomber Command were bombing the advancing enemy all round the rearguard battle zone.

  Every time James had taken off during the past eighteen days since the Germans invaded France and the Luftwaffe had begun to send formations of seldom less than thirty bombers and fighters and often five times that number on every raid, he had known that he and his comrades would be scattered in the event of battle and have to return to base singly. Action was a virtual certainty each time they flew. He could be equally sure that they would not all have returned to base when the day was done. One or two could be expected to make forced landings, one or two to bale out; and one or two to be killed or wounded. Added to the noise and frights and sights of daily combat was the pattern of death and disablement, of pilots with scorched skin hanging from them in strips as they were helped out of their cockpits; of pilots with hands blackened and burned to mere claws; of pilots with a severed arm or an empty eye socket being carried from their aircraft on stretchers.

  More than he had to summon his courage to go into action himself, he had to call upon it to face the prospect of missing friends when he returned. It was not that someone on the squadron was killed or wounded, burned or shot down, forced to bale out or forced-land on every sortie: but on most days at least one of these things happened; and each sortie could be one which brought these disasters.

  Twenty miles east of Dunkirk stood the small town of Furnes. For three days the 7th Guards Brigade, comprising the Coldstream and Grenadiers, had held Furnes in order to permit the bulk of the B.E.F. to assemble on the Dunkirk beaches. In the early hours of 1st June, their task accomplished, the Guards were ordered to withdraw and march the seven miles to La Panne, on the coast. The Germans began to advance through the town at daylight by throwing bridges across the canal which ran to the south of it. It was here to which the squadron was directed, to cover an attack on the advancing Germans by nine Blenheim bombers based in England.

  The Hurricanes made their way towards Furnes at 15000 ft. The mass of smoke towering over Dunkirk was visible for several minutes before they saw the first signs of enemy activity near Furnes. The Blenheims came in sight while the Hurricanes were making an orbit around the town with light flak from 37 mm guns following them. The anti-aircraft gunners shifted their attention to the bombers, which were down at 6000 ft. James kept glancing away from the Blenheims to look for enemy fighters. He saw a flurry of explosions and big puffs of black smoke just above the bombers and knew that the enemy had brought two of their 88 mm guns into action. He wondered how far the Blenheims had come and what it felt like to have to fly straight and level to make a good bombing run, with the dreaded eighty-eights firing at one.

  Squadron Leader Wilson was leading the squadron and was the first to spot the approaching Messerschmitts. When James looked eastward in response to his warning he saw the enemy fighters splitting into two: a group of about sixteen of them diving towards the Blenheims; another group of at least a dozen making for the Hurricanes.

  Wilson led the squadron straight at the diving Me 109s to break them up and give the Blenheims time to drop their bombs accurately on the columns of enemy armour and infantry. The first cannon shells and bullets from the 109s began to rake the British fighters. The Messerschmitt 109E carried a 20 mm cannon in the nose, firing through the propeller boss, and one in each wing. It also had two 13 mm machine-guns in its nose, above the engine. These, with its speed of 350 m.p.h., gave it two advantages over the Hurricanes: which, however, could turn inside it comfortably.

  The Messerschmitts were 5000 ft above the Hurricanes, so the latter were able to reach a position 1000 ft above the bombers before the 109s could get down there. When James was able to read the identification letters on the bombers he felt a quick, nervous contraction in his chest. His mind went back to Christmas leave and Roger’s parting words: “If you ever happen to see a Blenheim in trouble, and it’s got HK on the fuselage, take special care of it: it’ll be one of ours.” HK were the letters he saw now on the nine Blenheims directly beneath him. He wondered if Roger was in one of them; and, if so, what his aircraft’s individual letter was.

  The 109s came swooping in with their cannon firing. The Hurricanes broke right and left to turn in on their tails. James had his eyes on a pair of them which were holding their dives straight at the left hand Blenheim in the last section of three. The Blenheim’s dorsal gunner was shooting steadily at the two attackers and James kept a wary eye on his tracer. The 109 pilots were intent on the Blenheims, leaving the Hurricanes to the others who wer
e following them. James positioned himself above and behind the two into which he had turned. Cannon shells were passing close to the Blenheim with smears of tracer marking their path.

  Four 250 lb bombs fell from the Blenheim but it held its course and height. Bombers stayed in formation as long as they could for the sake of mutual protection, the effect of their combined cross-fire. James saw cannon shells strike the Blenheim’s starboard engine at the same instant as he opened fire on the leader of the two 109s. He saw the Blenheim’s propeller break up. Two seconds later he saw the 109’s canopy disintegrate in a shower of sparkling fragments, large pieces of metal break off its engine cowling, smoke coil from the rents his bullets had made, flames dancing through the smoke. The 109’s tail suddenly snapped off a few inches in front of the fin and the aircraft began to rotate rapidly as it plunged towards the ground.

  Racing past the Blenheim, in pursuit of the second 109, James snatched a glance to his left and for a moment he and the bomber’s pilot stared at each other from a few yards’ distance and raised a hand in greeting. There was no mistaking that deep-chested torso, the square face with its fair, heavy eyebrows meeting in the centre, the slightly upturned nose which gave Roger his boyish look. Only James had his oxygen-and-microphone mask fastened across the lower part of his face. He did not know if his cousin had recognised him. The 109 was curving round to attack another of the Blenheims from below. James held it in his sights as they both turned, and shot at it. His bullets made a series of flashes along the side of its fuselage from the tail plane to the port wing root. He had given the first one two longish bursts. He hadn’t much ammunition left. He’d better make certain this time. He fired again, the 109 steepened its bank and his bullets hammered into the upper surface of its port wing. Large portions of the trailing edge detached themselves. A flap fluttered away and struck his Hurricane with a violence which sent a tremor through it. He saw it snap into an involuntary roll and fired his last second’s worth of bullets as the cockpit canopy passed through his cone of fire and knew that he must have riddled the pilot. The 109 began to dive vertically, shedding more pieces and turning end over end.