Ginger Lacey: Fighter Pilot

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  On the 19th, Lacey led a section ordered to patrol for enemy fighters. The flak was heavy and accurate and the language on the R/T reflected the section’s feelings as the leader twisted and shifted altitude. His sharp eyes spotted three He. 111s just south of Rheims and for a moment, as his Number Two drew his attention to what he had already seen, Lacey was tempted to tear into them. But he reluctantly reminded himself that they were looking for fighters, and left the bombers alone in the hope that someone else would deal with them. It was a great temptation to forsake the patrol temporarily and tackle the target of opportunity: but with only fifteen seconds’ worth of ammunition in a Hurricane’s guns, it might have meant sacrificing the chance of attacking enemy fighters later.

  On 27th May the squadron was ordered to operate for the day from a forward airfield, near Rouen, quaintly named Boos.

  The situation by then was grim. Boulogne had fallen four days earlier and, only the day before, Calais had been taken after a desperate defence. The Belgian Army, on a front eight miles west of Ghent, was fighting with doomed gallantry on the point of capitulation. Dunkirk had been subjected to massive air raids. The British Expeditionary Force was being squeezed out of France, threatened by annihilation.

  Scarcely had 501 landed at Boos than ‘the sky was black with He. 111s, about fifty of them; and once again we got exactly the same treatment as I’d had at Mourmelon.’

  There was no petrol in the aircraft for there had not been time to begin refuelling. Unable to taxi or take off, the pilots ran for whatever cover was available. Lacey was a few yards from a big hole in the ground and he jumped into it, to be joined a few seconds later by a tall, hefty, shock-haired flying officer from 73 Squadron which was also on this advanced aerodrome. He recognized his companion: ‘Cobber’ Kain, one of the earliest fighter D.F.C.s of the war and, at that time, a household name as one of the top-scoring fighter pilots of the day.

  Kain won the first D.F.C. of the war to be awarded to a pilot serving in France and had set up a new altitude record for air fighting, by shooting down a Do. 17 at 27,000 ft, on the 2nd November 1939. He always wore a Maori good-luck charm pinned to the chest of his white flying sweater and was the most typical of pre-war fighter boys: full of inimitable panache and good humour, with genuine modesty about his exploits. He always maintained that the publicity given to him was on account of his New Zealand nationality and aimed at maintaining Commonwealth morale and stimulating recruiting in the Dominions. He said that ‘Fanny’ Orton, who was shooting down even more of the enemy than he, should have been the victim of all the fuss and Press adulation. Had he lived, he would surely have been the greatest name in the annals of Fighter Command, surpassing even the many who fought so brilliantly then and later and lived to enjoy the victory won by their bravery and determination.

  He was killed soon after, with seventeen successes to his credit, when attempting a roll too near to the ground as he came in to land after shooting down his last German aircraft. He and Lacey sat on oil drums, feverishly chain-smoking, while the ground trembled and pieces of earth tumbled from the sides of the pit. The raid seemed to go on for an inordinately long time but no bombs fell near them as the attack was directed at the hangars on the far side.

  Presently the din of bomb bursts subsided, the growl of aero engines faded and silence fell. Kain got up and tossed his cigarette stub aside. ‘The party’s over.’

  Lacey stood up slowly, looking around. ‘Seems like it. I wonder what this place is, we’ve been sitting in?’

  Kain glanced about, then, looking at a crudely painted signboard, did a double take, and with a sudden laugh pointed at it. ‘Look at that.’ Lacey looked and felt his knees turn to jelly.

  Throughout the heavy raid they had been sitting with some complacence in the main petrol dump.

  None of the Hurricanes had been damaged and as soon as they were refuelled the squadron took off.

  Within ten minutes they saw a cluster of small crosses approaching, which, when they had covered another few miles, became thirty He. 111s, escorted by twenty Me. 110s. Whether the latter saw the Hurricanes and decided not to join battle with them, or whether they were only briefed to escort the bombers so far, they executed a lazy 180-degree turn and headed back towards Germany.

  ‘After that it was just a copybook exercise.’ ‘A’ Flight went in first, in two sections of three of which Hawkeye Lee led the first (Red), and Lacey the second (Yellow).

  Yellow Section watched, incredulously, as the Heinkels flew straight and level while Red Section opened out and selected the last three bombers in the big formation. There was plenty of time to take in the details. The He. 111s were painted very dark green with a white letter on top of the starboard wing. The Germans were taking no evasive or defensive action. The whole scene was being carried out with the unhurried dignity of a practice.

  Lacey saw smoke drift back from Lee’s guns. A few seconds later there was a loud thudding on his own aircraft and he jerked upright in his straps. He was being shot at! But from where? By whom? A glance over his shoulder only heightened the mystery: despite the sound and feel of strikes on his wing, no holes were appearing; but the wings were being dented. Looking forward again, striving to locate the source of the fire which was evidently aimed at him, he involuntarily pulled his head back and blinked as something hurtled into his windscreen and struck it with noisy force.

  Then he recognized what was happening. He was flying through the empty cartridge cases and belt links which were being thrown out of Hawkeye Lee’s guns. He climbed quickly so as to avoid this hail of spent ammunition.

  By now the He. 111s were breaking but offering no return fire. Throughout the engagement Lacey saw no fire from their rear guns. He closed with one which was breaking to the right and braced himself for the expected tracer from the rear turret, his right foot in the strap of the rudder bar, his left tapping the floor. The Heinkel momentarily pulled up and then put its nose down in a diving turn to starboard. He followed it, waiting for the instant when he could get a good shot. The German jinked hard to port and as he crossed the Hurricane’s nose Lacey gave him a two-second burst, turning with him. He felt a shock wave of air buffet him as another Hurricane rushed past, putting him off aim. Holding his fire, he saw a flame creep out of the He. 111s port engine. Smoke seeped after it. He opened his throttle and closed to fifty yards. The bomber was flying with its port wing tip low. He could see right into the enemy’s cockpit through the Perspex. The pilot turned to look at him and the last thing the German must have seen was eight blue and orange flashes at the Hurricane’s gunports. As Lacey pulled up to avoid colliding with his victim, he saw that the whole of the front part of the aircraft was on fire and, with both engines stopped, it was dropping vertically.

  But there was still a lot more trade around and he whipped into a steep climbing turn. There, five hundred feet above him, was a Heinkel sneaking off on its own. He could see the white-edged black crosses on its wings and fuselage and he kept his eyes fixed on them as they grew bigger and nearer. With a few precautionary glances in his mirror and out through his Perspex canopy, just in case the fighters had returned, he shortened the range. And still there was no fire from the rear guns.

  He fired with careful deliberation into the starboard engine until the propeller flew off in a myriad shards of metal. The nacelle, wrenched half out of the wing, was smothered in flame. He fired again, shifting his aim to the fuselage, and the bomber staggered into a steep sideslip; a few seconds later two figures scrambled out and parachutes opened while the He. 111 fell, inverted, into a small bank of cloud.

  Landing back at base, the squadron found that, without any losses, it had shot down fourteen He. 111s. ‘We’d have destroyed the lot if our ammunition had lasted out.’

  The excursion to Boos had an amusing sequel. Soon after returning to Mourmelon, Sergeant MacKay spotted three approaching specks in the sky. Not intending to be caught on the ground again during an air raid, he dashed to his Hurri
cane and took off. The specks, when over-head, were identified as French Potez fighters. Sergeant MacKay landed.

  The C.O., who had been talking to MacKay and some others, asking them about the day’s operations, in which he had not taken part, was not pleased by the sergeant’s swift reaction to alarm; it was, to say the least, impolite to break off a conversation.

  ‘What the hell d’you mean by taking off without permission, Sergeant MacKay?’

  Mac’s quick wit was almost his undoing. ‘I’m afraid, sir, it was the after effects of … of Boos!’

  After which retort the C.O. was even less pleased.

  CHAPTER FIVE - The Fall of France

  Lacey says ‘We had a wonderful time in France.’ This is not because, looking back after twenty-two years, the small pleasures and the compensations for discomfort appear magnified. Moving from one airfield to another, sleeping and eating always in tents or barns, washing and shaving in cold streams, none of this was a severe hardship in fine weather. There was also the interest, when it was his turn to be Mess Caterer, of finding his schoolboy French improve as he haggled at some market stall or farmer’s door, for vegetables, eggs and chickens.

  There was the fun of going into a strange town or village to find an estaminet where the wine and the company were good; the satisfactory feeling that, at the end of the day, one had achieved something useful by patrols and combats, after the stultifying winter months in England. The larger picture of the war was gloomy, with Dunkirk under siege and the bulk of the B.E.F. withdrawing within its perimeter to quit France altogether. But the life and work of the squadron went on rather apart from the great tragedy, and fighter pilots are not by temperament given to introspection or a serious consideration of General Staff tactics.

  501 Squadron moved to Le Mans. The first night, they slept in the pits on the Grand Prix course; but the C.O. decided that these were too close to the airfield and too much in the open, so the next day they set up their tents further up the course, in the woods.

  Le Mans was a lively town, full of good bars and restaurants, dance halls, cinemas and music halls. The squadron made generous use of it at the end of each day when their patrols were over.

  Lacey and Sergeant MacKay, who was a particularly good companion because he had worked in a French bank and spoke the language well, decided one night that it was too late to return to camp. They were not on the roster for an early patrol the next morning, and having dined and wined exceptionally well they felt that it would be fitting to end their evening’s enjoyment with a comfortable night’s sleep in a hotel bed.

  Le Mans was crowded with monied folk who had fled from the path of the German advance, and the hotels were full. After having tried at three or four, the two sergeants decided to walk the town for a while and try to find any humble pension or lodging house that would take them in.

  At length, trudging a side street, they saw lights gleaming through a homely, cheerful, brightly patterned chintz curtain.

  ‘This is it,’ said MacKay.

  ‘I think we’re in luck at last,’ agreed Lacey.

  They rang the bell. Almost at once the door opened and a severely dressed but smiling woman of about fifty welcomed them in.

  ‘We want two beds for the night,’ MacKay explained.

  `Mais bien sûr, mon Sergeant. And do you prefer blondes or brunettes? Tall or short? Plump or slim?’

  MacKay looked sideways at Lacey, who was grinning broadly, and hesitated. ‘Well … Madame … my friend and I …’

  ‘I understand: you would like to see for yourselves …’

  ‘No, no. Please … don’t inconvenience yourself; Madame …’

  ‘Ah, les braves Anglais. Toujours la politesse, eh? Come, mes amis … don’t be shy … I will shew you the young ladies …’

  She turned away, took a few paces and saw that the two pilots were standing resolutely by the door.

  ‘No need to be shy, boys …’

  ‘It’s not that, Madame. You see … we have had a late evening … several bottles of wine … you know how it is … we are very tired and we just want a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘You can certainly be sure of that!’

  ‘You don’t understand, Madame: we simply want beds for the night. Nothing more.’

  ‘But all my beds are already occupied by my young ladies, Sergeant.’ She gave them a winning smile of encouragement.

  ‘Then, Madame, perhaps you would be so good as to ask one of the young ladies to give up her bed and sleep with one of the other young ladies: then my friend and I can share her bed …’

  Lacey and MacKay recoiled before the outraged advance of their would-be landlady. Her face angrily flushed, her inviting tones replaced by a harsh voice of markedly indelicate reproof, she thrust them aside and flung the door open, pointing dramatically into the night-dark street. ‘I never heard such a thing. The very idea! I’ll have you know I’m running a respectable house …’

  So the two sergeant pilots had a long walk home.

  In this vein of alternating drama and comedy, the last days of the battle for France dragged on. Another 501 pilot, Pilot Officer A. J. Claydon, was killed in action. The squadron patrolled as usual, from dawn to dusk, and sometimes gave escort to bombers sent to attack roads and bridges, railway lines and troop concentrations.

  The Fairey Battles operating from French bases had suffered badly from the earliest days of the war. Single-engined aircraft with a top speed of only 250 m.p.h., they carried little defensive armament and made most of their attacks at a dangerously low level.

  Lacey, attending a briefing with some of the Battle crews one day when he was leading two sections which were to escort them, gave vein to his macabre sense of humour in a way which brought the most twisted of smiles to the bomber boys’ faces. Everybody was ready to leave the briefing tent, except the Battle navigators, who were busy over their charts.

  ‘Hurry up chaps,’ Lacey urged them, ‘it’s time we were going. What are you doing, anyway?’

  ‘Shan’t be a minute. We’re just working out our courses home.’

  ‘What for? You don’t think you’re coming back, do you?’

  Unfortunately, only about half of them ever did from any raid.

  Although this is essentially a story of fighter operations, and particularly the story of one man’s war, the achievements of the Fairey Battle squadrons deserve mention in any book that treats of the 1939-40 war in France. It is perhaps enough to say that the first two Victoria Crosses awarded to the R.A.F. in the Second World War, went to Flying Officer D. E. Garland (pilot) and Sergeant Gray (navigator) of No. 12 Squadron, flying Battles. And these were posthumous awards.

  There was, indeed, good reason for the scrupulous working out of navigational details before a raid, which always provoked such ribald, macabre comment from the fighter pilots: the Battles had no time to lose in finding their targets. This was demonstrated in the famous attack on the Vroenhoven and Veldwezelt bridges across the Albert Canal, in which these two Victoria Crosses were won, on 12th May 1940.

  Blenheims attacked the bridges first, early in the morning, and were fought off by appallingly heavy anti-aircraft fire; but they bombed; and then enemy fighters attacked them. Four Blenheims were shot down and every one of the eight which survived was damaged. The bridges still stood.

  No. 12 Squadron, stationed at Amifontaine, was only a hundred miles away and the closest squadron in the Advanced Air Striking Force to the target. Six crews were wanted, everybody on the squadron volunteered and the choice was made by lot. Garland (nicknamed ‘Judy’ in the Service, after the young film star), who was twenty-one years old, led the raid.

  Soon after taking off, one of the Battles had to turn back with a fault in its engine. The remainder, escorted by six Hurricanes, formed two sections.

  Eight Hurricanes of No. t Squadron flew into the target area first, to try to clear it of enemy fighters. They met a hundred of them, Me 109s, Arados and He. 112s, shot down ten, and
lost two of their own aircraft although the pilots survived.

  The first three Battles, led by Garland, managed to drop their bombs and hit one bridge; but were caught by German fighters as they turned for home, and shot down. The second section of two was intercepted, twenty-five miles from the target, by thirty Me 109s which their three escorting Hurricanes immediately attacked. They bombed the second bridge, hit it and were fired on by a flak barrage of terrible intensity which riddled both bombers.

  Of the five Battle crews on this mission, only one (pilot, navigator and bomb aimer) lived; and even so, Pilot Officer Davy, the captain, had to land at Brussels in an aircraft that burst into flames on touching down.

  Good reason, this sort of work, for careful preparation by the navigators; but the escorting fighter pilots, who were themselves taking formidable chances every day, shewed no reverence for it; nor were they expected to.

  On 9th June, Lacey was in a section flying over le Havre when they encountered five Me 109s. Instantly, the two formations broke up in a dogfight that scattered them all over the sky. He fired four or five times at two different aircraft, but saw only a few strikes on the tail of one and on the wingtip of the other. It was an inconclusive, desultory affair, with the Germans showing a reluctance to stay. Within three minutes Lacey found himself alone. As he had not been leading the formation, he had no maps with him and when he turned in the direction of Le Mans he had no exact idea of what his course should be.

  Some five minutes later he noticed that the temperature of his engine was rising and the oil pressure dropping; there was also an unpleasant clatter from under the cowling, at irregular intervals. While he flew along, searching for a landmark, the engine surged and the whole aircraft shook. A moment later it faltered and he felt the aircraft’s nose drop disconcertingly. He knew then that he must have been hit in the engine and that he would have to look for a suitable place on which to make a forced landing.