Ginger Lacey: Fighter Pilot

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  ‘But,’ as he says, ‘the man who wrote the book hadn’t done any fighting either!’ His full-bore 5,000 ft descent swept him right past his target. He had a split-second’s confused realization that the Me. 109 was in his sights but before he could thumb the firing-button his gun-sight was blank again. So fast had he torn past that the German pilot had not even noticed him. He turned downwards, banked around and climbed for another attempt.

  In the background, Jack Teagarden’s boys were still dispensing ‘Oh, Johnny’ ….

  As he positioned himself, Lacey realized that the fighter pilot’s book of rules was not infallible. He had already made several psychological advances since taking off from Betheniville half an hour earlier: he had started his flight alone and when he could not find his friends had continued single handed; he had overcome his first discomfort at being confronted with the He. 111 when there was no leader to tell him what to do; he had immediately accepted the decision he must make when he sighted the Me. 109; he had attacked. And now, rattled though he had been when he saw the comparatively harmless bomber, he was able to plan his approach to the highly dangerous fighter with cool deliberation.

  He adjusted his gun-sight for the wing-span of a Me. 109 and for a range of 250 yards and began to stalk his victim; easing into position as though he were flying formation on the German.

  And he noticed something that irritated him. His left foot was playing a tattoo on the cockpit floor. He had become conscious of this just before he committed himself to his first dive, but had forgotten about it in the effort of concentration. Now he realized that he had been flying with only his right foot on the rudder bar and his flying boot hooked into the toe-strap so as to give it purchase for applying left rudder. He glanced down and saw his foot tapping involuntarily; gave up the task of trying to control it and settled down to creeping up on the German ahead.

  At 250 yards he felt quite certain that he could not hit the Messerschmitt unless he reduced the range considerably. It looked very small and far away. Opening the throttle gently he slid up to 150 yards; and still the Me. 109 shewed no sign of awareness and the ‘big, fat Heinkel’ continued unperturbed 5,000 ft below them. It only needed one pair of sensibly watchful eyes in the bomber to catch the sun glinting on the Hurricane; and a shout of warning on the radio if they had a common frequency, or a violent agitation of the wings, would have warned the fighter. But all was as calm as a river picnic.

  At 100 yards Lacey could not believe that his luck would hold much longer; yet it still seemed a long range from which to shoot. There was no point in blazing away with dashing, slap-happy optimism at any time; especially now after this protracted, careful shadowing.

  At 50 yards the Me. 109 filled the sights satisfactorily; it looked as big as a bus and as vulnerable: even a marksman going into action for the first time could not easily miss now.

  Lacey pressed the trigger and his eight machine guns flung a storm of bullets at the narrow fuselage and rakish wings ahead. He had scarcely time to register the flames at his gun ports, the shuddering of his Hurricane from the guns’ recoil, to sniff the cordite smoke in the cockpit or observe that the tracer ammunition looked as though solid rods were lancing from his wings to pierce the 109, when the German fighter exploded in a boiling black billow of smoke shot with red and yellow flames. There was a thunderclap of sound, a buffet from the disturbed air, he was into the enveloping smoke and out again.

  Breathless with astonishment at the suddenness of this terrifying disintegration, he whipped hard round to convince himself that it really had happened. There was nothing but drifting smoke and shards of fluttering metal to shew that a Messerschmitt had ever been there.

  Exhilarated, full of confidence, Lacey winged over and dived on the Heinkel. It looked an easy victim, now. The bomber had by this time, in the unpleasantest possible manner, recognized that it was not alone in the sky. It jinked hopefully, but fruitlessly, to port and starboard. It climbed sharply and dived steeply and its gunners fired a few bursts at the swooping Hurricane.

  At 200 yards Lacey began shooting, closing to 20 yards, and when he pulled away he saw that one wing had been torn off the He. 111 and it was spiralling steeply to the ground with a long scarf of smoke and sparks trailing behind it.

  At that moment his mind registered the fact that the dance band playing in his headphones had reached the closing bars of ‘Oh, Johnny!’. It had not taken long to blood himself; not once but twice.

  His left foot had stopped its nervous tapping. He put it back on the rudder and turned for base.

  In every fighter pilot’s mind there exists a vision of his first return from successful combat. A little latitude in the matter of flying regulations, perhaps: not shewing off, but a legitimate exuberance, a mild beat-up of the airfield. A victory roll. A landing to the exultant welcome of his ground crew and fellow pilots.

  Lacey stepped down from his cockpit to confront mild censure. His two section mates had returned minutes before.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Why didn’t you join up with us?’

  ‘Why are your gun-covers blown off?’

  His explanation was not well received. Nobody had reported seeing a Me. 109 or a He. 111 shot down that morning. Everyone knew the line-shooting type of so-and-so who would blaze away at a flock of birds and delude himself that he had taken a squirt at the foe. This sort of thing just wasn’t on. Sergeant pilots who couldn’t even start their engines in time to fly No. 3 in a section were not entitled to make singleton patrols and claim two scalps. One would have been indecent enough; but two! Oh, no, that sort of thing didn’t wash …

  But there was no time to sit around on the deck and natter. ‘A’ Flight was ordered up on another patrol: the three members of the dawn patrol section, with the other two members of the flight, one of whom was a sergeant and the other an Auxiliary Air Force flight lieutenant, Charles Griffiths, took off at once.

  Once more they headed towards Sedan.

  And the four sergeant pilots soon saw that their flight of five was flying a collision course with seven Me. 111s. But the flight commander, who was rather older than the average fighter pilot and whose sight was not as acute as his sergeants’, had failed to pick them out.

  For a couple of minutes an interesting situation prevailed. Who ever said that your true fighting man itches to get at the enemy’s throat whatever the cost? The truth is that your professional is as cagey as in any other walk of life: if he can get home with a whole skin he feels more satisfied than he does by being a hero. Besides, when is it meet for N.C.O.s to draw their officer’s attention to the fact that they have observed an enemy for which he is supposed, unsuccessfully, to be looking?

  ‘We were hoping,’ says Ginger Lacey, ‘that he would change his course and turn away before he actually saw them.’

  The Me. 110 was, at that time, mistakenly reputed to be more fearsome even than the 109. Nobody was keen to dispute this.

  It makes a piquant picture. The four sergeant pilots eyeing the seven enemy aircraft of which their elderly (by their standards) leader is unaware; casting wry glances at each other, exchanging the odd gesture or two: every one of them thinking ‘hope he doesn’t see ’em.’

  And then, when the two formations are almost entangled, Charles Griffiths says: ‘Let’s go,’ in his slow way and the five Hurricanes break furiously and in an instant there is a whirling dogfight.

  Lacey picked his 110. He knew that these twin-engined fighters carried a crew of two—pilot and air gunner—with five machine guns and two cannons. They were faster than a Hurricane and had an all-round field of fire for both defence and attack.

  The Me. 110 dived and Lacey, his left foot thudding the floor and his right hooked into the starboard rudder pedal, followed it. Tracer licked up at him and he instinctively ducked as he saw it flick overhead. He was close enough to fire a burst himself and saw the orange splashes of strikes along the
enemy’s fuselage: he was more confident of his accuracy than he had been a short two hours ago. The Messerschmitt stall-turned. Lacey took a quick glance in his mirror to see that there was nobody on his tail and turned after it. It banked sharply to port and he banked inside it; at the instant that it levelled off he got in a two-second burst that raked the wings and the port engine cowling. So far, the 110 had not lived up to its name. Lacey was beginning to enjoy himself; a momentary vision of the two hostiles he had destroyed that morning cheered and encouraged him: but this was proving to be a longer flight than both the others and he felt sweat on his neck and chest from mental and physical exertion.

  Another near miss made him kick hard out of the way: the tracer almost scraped the Hurricane’s belly. And still they were going down. From dead astern and above he put a burst into the port engine; and then the fire started: he saw flames from the dead engine flung by the wind towards the Me.’s cockpit canopy. One more careful burst and the whole wing was alight and the aircraft began turning slowly onto its back; but still the gunner was shooting at the Hurricane. With a sharp flick the 110 completed its half roll and went into a twisting vertical dive. Lacey went down to make sure that it did not recover. He saw it crash in a field and watched briefly while French troops ran out from a wood towards the wreckage.

  Staring upward as he climbed at full throttle, he could see a skein of aircraft darting about in an undefined pattern at about 20,000 ft. The fight was still on, it seemed; his place was up there in it, not down here verifying the destruction of an obviously uncontrollable victim.

  He wriggled uncomfortably on his parachute: it felt as though he had been on this seat for hours; he eased his collar away from his neck and brushed sweat from his face with the back of his gloved hand.

  They were still there, the silhouettes above him; still apparently weaving and feinting. Damn this altimeter! Only 15,000 ft. yet. Would it never get to 20,000?

  At 18,000 ft., his eyes screwed half-shut against the glare, he felt as though he had walked round a blind, dark corner straight into a mule’s kick. His stomach contracted and while he still looked up and over his shoulder at the Me. 110s 2,000 ft. above, he was putting his aircraft into a steep dive. That was no dogfight he had been in such a hurry to join: it was the surviving Messerschmitts flying nose to tail in a defensive circle; and there wasn’t another British fighter in sight.

  The German pilots had recognized the Hurricane at the same moment that Lacey appreciated his danger. Here was an easy prize in the worst possible position: down sun and climbing slowly. They broke and pounced together.

  Diving vertically from 18,000 ft. Lacey watched the German fighters in his mirror: tearing down with two 1,150 h.p. engines propelling their seven-ton weight, they were measurably overhauling the three-ton Hurricane with its single 1,030 h.p. power unit. He could see them looming nearer as the landscape hurtled up to meet him. If he had sweated before, it was a mild reaction compared with what he was exuding now.

  It was an effort to keep his head back and watch the mirror, against the tremendous force of ‘g’ that hammered at him. His aircraft was vibrating and whining with speed and he pushed the stick further forward to coax the last degree of perpendicularity and the last yard of speed from the protesting airframe.

  With his ears pounding he suddenly felt control snatched away from him.

  It was as though the world had collapsed, imprisoning him in a cocoon where violent forces heaved and tore at him simultaneously from all directions. A hideous sensation ripping and clawing at his body, his mind in darkening confusion, he had a semi-conscious knowledge that the Hurricane had dragged itself away from the control of his hands on the stick and his feet on the rudder bar and was flying itself.

  It had bunted right over the perpendicular and done an outside loop onto its back. But it had saved him: the crazy, involuntary manoeuvre had swept him right out of his pursuers’ ken. None of the Messerschmitt pilots cared to emulate this aerobatic! Lacey would not have attempted it himself, in the most frantic efforts to evade them; but it had happened, and as he regained his clear-headedness to find that the fighter was straight and level, though inverted, he rolled dazedly out and found himself alone in the sky.

  An aircraft less sturdy than the Hurricane could not have survived without having its wings ripped off. The loading on them was so heavy that the Perspex covers over the landing lights were sprung out of position. And in the manoeuvre, although he did not know the name for it then, its pilot had experienced compressibility for the first time.

  Shaken but thankful, he saw Rheims come into view. 501 Squadron’s base at Betheniville was near the city. Sourly he asked himself what sort of a disbelieving reception he could expect this time. But at least he had not been alone, the others had seen him go after a Me. 110 and his claim to have destroyed it should not fall on such sceptical ears as before.

  But there was marked cordiality awaiting him: a French anti-aircraft gun site had telephoned to report that a Hurricane had shot down a Me. 109 and a He. III near Sedan that morning.

  Sergeant Lacey had fought his first air battle and his second in the space of a few hours. He had blooded himself threefold.

  He was destined to multiply his kills tenfold before 1,500 flying hours and five years later, he fired his guns in action for the last time, in his 87th combat, as a squadron commander over Burma.

  He had a lot to think about and the Intelligence Officer was importuning him for a combat report; but for the time being he had no desire for anything but breakfast.

  CHAPTER TWO - Beginnings

  You are a prosperous, cautious Yorkshire cattle dealer; not opposed unreasonably to innovation, but inclined to be reactionary. Your son pipes up one morning at breakfast and says he’d like to join the Royal Air Force. You look at him with approval and an indulgent smile: it’s a very natural expression for a twelve-year-old; a couple of years ago it was engine driver, and before and since that there have been phases of yearning to be a deep sea diver, a bus conductor (because of the machine with the engaging little bell), a detective and a cowboy. Now it is an air pilot. You pat the little lad on the head and go your way with a mildly amusing yarn to tell your pals over a pint next market day.

  Two years later, young Jim mentions again, pointedly, that a Halton apprenticeship can lead to a pilot’s cockpit. You are still benevolent about his obsession. It spews the lad’s growing up: at least he hasn’t changed his mind about his career for a long time. You attribute the ambition largely to the attraction of wearing a uniform: King James’s Grammar School at Knaresborough has a pretty efficient Boy Scout troop and your youngster is one of its keenest members. True, it’s not all uniform and badges with him: he enjoys the comradeship and the camping, the wide games, the pioneering of scouting. Moreover, the R.A.F. is getting a lot of publicity these days: it’s 1931 and every Englishman is proud and excited about the Schneider Trophy, which a R.A.F. team has just won for Britain. Everybody is becoming air-minded in this decade; you don’t deny that: and it’s not only the Service that is blazing the way. Look at Amy Johnson, for instance; aye, a Yorkshire lass. Of course. But ‘What’s that, Jim? You want to join the R.A.F.? Aye, you do that, son.’ You chuckle and go on your way: there’s real work to be done in the cattle trade and you can’t hang about at home listening to a boy’s day dream, fond though you are of him.

  But when, at the age of sixteen, Jim Lacey told his father with conviction that he wanted to enter the R.A.F. Apprentices’ School at Halton, the latter realized that they had reached a crisis which had to be reckoned with. There was a firmness of purpose about the boy that called for serious man-to-man treatment. He was a quiet chap, and not given to making a fuss either when he was dejected or elated; but if he made up his mind to achieve something you couldn’t put him off without a cogent reason.

  What were the arguments for and against? Well, they were all against; summed up, it came to just this: the R.A.F. was a short way to suicide. It was no use
pointing out that aeroplanes were becoming safer every day; that they were being flown to Australia by young women; to India by rich playboys; that a one-eyed American Indian could pilot one safely to distant places. They were still nasty, dangerous things to the generation that had grown up with a wary eye even on motor cars. If you were fond of your son and believed it your duty to protect him from danger and ensure him a life-span of decent length, you could not agree to his embracing so perilous an occupation. That was final. And on the credit side, you offered this: ‘When you leave school, go to an agricultural college and I’ll take a farm for you.’ What could be fairer than that?

  To a boy brought up in a conventional pre-war home, with a proper respect for his parents and a genuine affection for them, this was bound to seem a fair and acceptable proposition. One didn’t upset one’s mother and father by stubborn wilfulness.

  So Jim Lacey, albeit reluctantly, put aside his own wishes and acceded to his father’s.

  ‘But,’ he says, ‘just before I was due to leave school I suddenly realized for the first time that being a farmer was a life sentence! It’s a seven day a week job, twenty-four hours a day. When the farm needs you, you’ve got to be there.’

  And there speaks the Ginger Lacey who is familiar to so many: something of a lotus-eater by instinct, not perhaps the most industrious of mortals, born in another clime and of a different colour he would likely have been content to recline on a warm beach (in the shade) and open his mouth occasionally to let some succulent fruit drop into it. It would not, however, be fair to construe his distaste for farming as a mere unwillingness to sacrifice his freedom. We see here also an honest reluctance to tackle anything which he knows he is not going to have the will to carry out thoroughly. An indolent man doesn’t survive 87 combats as a fighter pilot; even the briskest man doesn’t live through that amount of fighting unless he has put in a lot of hard work learning to be a master of his calling.