Ginger Lacey: Fighter Pilot

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  He soon saw one. A huge, flat plain ‘big enough to land the Queen Mary on, if you could have got her airborne.’ He came down thankfully and lowered his undercarriage.

  Congratulating himself on his good luck, judging nicely the moment when he would set the wheels down, he let the aircraft sink gracefully to the ground.

  A giant hand grabbed the landing wheels, sucked them into the mushy surface of the marsh on which he had come down, and wrenched the shuddering aircraft to a violent halt that dragged it onto its nose and somersaulting onto its back.

  Flung forward into his straps so that his head hit the instrument panel, then thrust against the back rest of his seat so that all the air was driven from his lungs, and finally left suspended upside down with his head in a whirl and his stomach churning, Lacey cursed the treachery of the smooth, boggy field that had beckoned him so alluringly. His ears smarted in the heavy silence after the loud throb of his engine.

  For several seconds he hung motionless, gathering his senses. First of all he became aware that water was seeping through the cockpit canopy as the aircraft sunk slowly into the soggy earth. He had a vision of drowning, trapped in the inverted cockpit. Next, a loud hissing came to his ears; he recognized that: petrol dripping from his carburettors, over the hot engine. This galvanized him. Struggling furiously with his harness straps, he struggled around so that he was no longer upside down although he now had his feet on the roof of his cockpit hood and his head a few inches from the floor, near the rudder bar. Easing his way forward he found that he was in about eighteen inches of water and cold panic gripped him with the certainty that he was trapped here to drown.

  A nauseating wave of claustrophobia washed through him and he flung himself against the side of the Perspex, trying to batter a way out with his fists and feet. His head throbbing from the crisp blow it had received as his Hurricane tumbled onto its back, his mind confused with anger and fear of a vile death, he flung himself again and again at the Perspex through which he could tantalizingly see the bright sunlight shining on the world outside. He kicked at the transparent panes, but his soft flying boots were of no avail; and he could never have made a hole big enough to crawl through.

  And all the while the water was rising. And as it rose, reducing the air space, more petrol fumes were swirling into the cockpit.

  With his mind a confusion of thoughts about drowning, being burned to death when the petrol vapour exploded, or dying of asphyxiation, he lost consciousness.

  ‘The next thing I knew was that I was lying flat on my back, in water, looking up into the face of a delightful French girl. The only thing that crossed my mind was, “where on earth did I find her?” I struggled up into a sitting position, but she hurled herself at me and pushed me flat again.’

  Lacey ventured a few slow words of French, trying to convince her that he was unhurt; but she kept telling him to lie still. He passed his hands over his body, moved his legs cautiously, and could find no sign of damage. His head ached a bit, but that was all. Yet the pretty French girl would not allow him to sit up.

  Over her shoulder appeared the head and shoulders of a British Army corporal. Relieved at the arrival of a fellow countryman, Lacey began to push himself upright once more. To his annoyed astonishment, the corporal pounced and shoved him flat again.

  ‘I’m all right, Corporal …’

  ‘Of course you’ll be all right, Sarge. You just lie there a minute and we’ll fix you up.’ The chiding tone reserved for children and imbeciles was meant as solicitude for a sick man, but it did nothing for Sergeant Lacey’s good temper.

  Still, he had been in worse situations than being so carefully looked after by an attractive French girl.

  Presently more helpers arrived, he heard English voices and saw R.A.F. uniforms. Many hands lifted him gently onto a gate and bore him a good half mile to the road, where he was put in an ambulance belonging to No. 12 Squadron, whose Fairey Battles he had escorted on various occasions.

  Before they moved off, he had caught a glimpse of his aircraft. The enthusiastic French farm workers who had released him had cut it almost in half with hacksaws and wire cutters in order to do so. ‘They did far more damage to that aeroplane than ever the Germans had done!’

  Half an hour later he was at 12 Squadron’s aerodrome, complaining to the Medical Officer. ‘What’s all this nonsense about? I’m perfectly all right.’

  The M.O. had an effective, if brutal way of dealing with recalcitrant patients. ‘Do you think so?’ He asked mildly, reaching for a mirror which he held in front of Lacey’s eyes.

  Lacey was transfixed by the hideous mask of congealed blood confronting him, through which he barely recognized his own features. ‘After that, I didn’t feel quite so all right.’

  He lay, in a state of shock, while his helmet was soaked off. He had been trapped in the crashed aircraft for an hour and a half and the blood had hardened, fixing the helmet firmly to his head. All the time that the doctor was easing it away from his hair and scalp, Lacey was wondering what appalling injury would be revealed.

  He heard the M.O. grunt as the helmet came away; he felt light fingers swabbing his head and parting his hair, feeling his scalp.

  ‘Well,’ said the doctor after a minute, ‘all you’ve got is a gash about half an inch long. It’s been bleeding all this time, and the blood has been trickling all over your face. Nothing worse than that.’

  Nonetheless Lacey was kept in No. 1 Medical Receiving Station for four days while the doctors watched him for signs of concussion. He was discharged only when the German advance forced the evacuation of the medical receiving station and he was put in charge of an ambulance.

  Three hours along the road towards the hospital to which the unit was moving, he saw 501 Squadron’s Hurricanes parked on the airfield and knew that he was at Le Mans. Stopping the ambulance, he told the driver to report that he had returned to his squadron and said goodbye.

  He was just in time to fly with the squadron to Caen, from which base they carried out a day’s patrols. Then back to Le Mans to pack up and move, on 15th June, to Dinard.

  The evacuation of Dunkirk had been completed eleven days earlier and the curtain was coming down on operations in France.

  For three days they flew their patrols from Dinard, tired and dispirited; depressed by the news of the French defeat and worried about what the future held for Britain.

  On the fourth day Lacey was given a day off and went into Dinard to try to get himself a good lunch. When he returned, he found that the squadron had been ordered to Jersey and had gone without him. Hastily packing what he could of his belongings, he found an abandoned car and drove to St Malo. Here he found a potato boat about to sail for the Channel Islands. It was named the Fairfield, which was appropriate because that was the name of the house in which he had been born.

  After two days in Jersey, doing little and soured by the shattering success of the German blitzkrieg, 501 Squadron returned to England.

  There was one compensation. The N.A.A.F.I. was evacuated just before the squadron took off, and had to abandon much of its stock. The Hurricanes returned to England carrying as many bottles of brandy and cartons of cigarettes as could be stuffed into every odd corner.

  ‘It provided some of the cheapest drinking and smoking I have ever enjoyed.’

  They landed at Tangmere to refuel. It was strange to think that only five weeks before they had set out from here, untried; and now they had returned with enough memories and experiences to last a lifetime: hardened campaigners who would look henceforth with a sense of exclusiveness on other men who had not shared the rigours of those famous days; seasoned warriors who had destroyed forty-five enemy aircraft. Of these, Sergeant Pilot Lacey had accounted for five confirmed; and he had been mentioned in despatches.

  ‘On top of our scooping the abandoned N.A.A.F.I. stocks, without benefit of payment or Customs Duty, the authorities were very kind to us: they gave us three days’ leave to make up for the time we ha
d spent in France. They were very generous in those days!’

  CHAPTER SIX - The Battle of Britain

  Croydon had a special appeal to someone who had been an aviation enthusiast for almost as long as he could remember. It was from here that most of the great British aerial journeys had begun and this was the airport best known to the famous pilots of the world. The centre of British civil flying, Croydon had a permanent place in the history of Imperial Airways and the opening up of Empire and world routes, as well as a constant hold on the affections of aviators like Sir Alan Cobham, Jimmy Mollison, Amy Johnson, Charles Scott and Campbell Black. It was a nostalgic privilege to be guarding Britain from such a base.

  Squadron Leader Clube had been posted, as a wing commander, and Flight Lieutenant Griffiths, Flight Lieutenant Williams and Flying Officers Malfroy and Cridland were posted from the squadron too. The new C.O. was Squadron Leader H. A. V. Hogan, and Flight Lieutenants G. E. B. Stoney and ‘Pan’ Cox were Flight Commanders.

  The sergeant pilots of No. 501 Squadron were housed in the control tower. What they lacked in domestic comfort they made up for during frequent and extended visits to the ‘Greyhound’ hard by. The kindness of the manager took a practical form: most of them had bank accounts, but after so many months away from home, in the Service, and having lost much of their kit in France, few of them could find cheque books. The landlord accepted cheques made out on the backs of menus or beer mats, as long as they bore a two-penny stamp. Not one of these was returned to him marked ‘Refer to Drawer’.

  On the 4th July, after barely a fortnight at Croydon during which they flew uneventful patrols and, in the intervals, put in long hours of sleep and unhurried conviviality, the squadron moved to Middle Wallop, in Hampshire, six miles outside Andover on the Salisbury road; the assault on Britain would come from every direction, and fighter airfields everywhere could expect to be fully committed. Immediately on arrival they were put on Night Readiness.

  The pace of the aerial war was quickening. Having begun in May with a few light air raids, by both night and day, the Germans were already sending over as many as a hundred bombers at a time. Enemy aircraft appeared over Britain almost every day and on most nights. So far they had done little damage, but few had been shot down.

  The first requirement of an adequate fighter defence was sufficiently early warning of the raiders’ approach. Radar stations had been built around our coasts some three years before the outbreak of war, but their coverage was as yet limited and in order to make effective use of the system standing fighter patrols were maintained. In consequence of radiolocation (the contemporary name for radar), the comparatively small British fighter force was able to puzzle the Germans by appearing in whatever area the latter approached.

  Night fighting was still in its infancy. It was long before the days of two-man Beaufighters and Mosquitoes with airborne radar operated by the navigator. It was not yet the era of experiment with ‘Turbin-light’ Havocs: a variant of the fast Boston light bombers, which carried a blindingly powerful searchlight in the nose with which to illuminate enemy bombers; they operated in company with a Hurricane, which flew two hundred yards astern and to starboard, ready to dart ahead and shoot down the target held in the Turbinlight’s glare. The Control and Reporting System still operated without the refinement of close control from a radar screen, and fighter controllers were able only to place their fighters in a position of advantage from which they could see the enemy before being seen themselves. At night, all a controller could hope to do was to guide the night fighter towards a searchlight cone which held a hostile aircraft, or close enough to see exhaust flames or a silhouette against cloud.

  Hurricanes operating at night were crude instruments in a method of night operating which was perforce unsophisticated.

  Middle Wallop had just been built, the living quarters were comfortable, the countryside was beautiful and there were many good pubs within easy reach. All the squadron needed to fill its cup was lots of action: and this it did not get. On most days, the pilots flew down to Warmwell, on the south coast, carried out a couple of patrols from there and returned to their home base in the evening. Even so, the squadron lost a pilot, during one of these routine, uneventful patrols: Sergeant Dixon, covering a convoy off Portland Bill, had to bale out with engine trouble and was drowned. In those days, British fighter pilots did not carry dinghies, and had to rely on their inflatable ‘Mae West’ life jackets to keep them alive and afloat when they came down in the sea. It was not until a German one-man dinghy was captured, that Britain was able to design one—and better—for the R.A.F.

  This monotony continued until 20th July.

  On that afternoon, while the pilots were sunning themselves outside their dispersal hut, a panic call came from the Ops. Room.

  When they were airborne the controller told them that a convoy was being attacked near Jersey. In fact, they came upon it only halfway between Portland Bill and the Channel Islands.

  First they saw the swarm of steeply diving Ju. 87s; and then the escorting Me. 109s were upon them.

  The leader’s R/T crackled ‘Tallyho!’ and as Lacey broke he quickly sought his first target. Two hundred yards dead ahead, a Messerschmitt was turning towards him. The Hurricane could easily turn inside a Me. 109 and Lacey banked hard over, watching the German pilot try to bring his guns to bear. As the 109 flashed by, fifty yards ahead, the Hurricane opened fire. The German twisted down and away; then Lacey followed, waiting for the next chance. Again the Me. 109 tried to turn inward and once more Lacey turned with him, holding the inside position. Sharply, the German pulled up and stall turned in the opposite direction. Lacey put a long burst into his fuselage, just astern of the cockpit. The 109 dived sharply, attempting to get away by sheer speed. Lacey opened the taps and held him in his sights at a hundred and fifty yards, pouring another four-second burst into him; this time it was the engine that he hit.

  ‘I can clearly remember watching him slanting down the sky at a hell of a steep angle. A beautiful little blue and grey mottled aircraft with white and black crosses standing out startlingly clear, getting smaller and smaller; and thinking what a terribly small splash he made when he went straight into the Channel.’

  Neither on this occasion nor on any other did he feel any compassion for the pilot. It did not occur to him as a fight between himself and another man, but as a totally impersonal combat between two aircraft. Moreover, in his philosophy then, as now, human life was only a speck of dust in the universe and not worth worrying about greatly.

  Now he saw another Me. 109 about three-quarters of a mile away, flying due north. I thought, ‘Well, he’s making a fool of himself. He’s going due north. He’ll have to turn any moment now and then I’ve got him. He pulled up in a climbing turn to starboard and I remember thinking he looked exactly like the other one: a beautiful blue and grey mottled effect with the sun shining on him from the south. As he pulled up in a climbing turn I pulled up inside him and as he came into my sights I was giving him an enormous amount of deflection because it was almost a ninety-degree crossing. Then as his turn continued, and I was reducing the deflection, I could see him coming back towards me; I thought for one awful moment that he was going to attempt to crash into me. Then I suddenly saw the aeroplane almost stagger as my bullets were hitting it. It didn’t catch fire or break up or anything like that. Its propeller just started to slow down until I could almost see it turning over. Probably the engine had stopped and it was just windmilling. We flashed past each other, a few feet apart, going in opposite directions; and by the time I had whipped round, my new flight commander, “Pan” Cox, latched onto this 109: he didn’t fire until he was in to about twenty yards: and once again the dive of that 109 got steeper and steeper and it went in almost right beside the oily patch marking the place where my first one had gone in. I put no claim in for the half-share in that because it was “Pan” Cox’s first success. I was getting a bit blasé by that time,’ Lacey adds deprecatingly. But, alth
ough this statement would qualify for entry in any squadron’s ‘Line Book’, it reflects a genuine lack of egocentricity. There is, too, an unexpected touch of aestheticism in his appreciation of the form and colour values of his two victims on the bright summer’s day.

  Pilot Officer Sylvester was missing after this action; and this time, he did not turn up again.

  Three days later ‘a rather amusing incident occurred.’ Lacey took off from Middle Wallop on a night patrol. After being vectored all over the sky by the controller, he unexpectedly saw a Heinkel 111 caught in the searchlights some two miles ahead and slightly above; so he started to climb after it. Immediately, some of the searchlights switched to the Hurricane.

  Pilots identified themselves by flashing the Letters of the Day on their downward identification lights, if they were fighters, or firing Vérey light Colours of the Day if they were bombers.

  Lacey strained his memory a little, recollected the correct letters and dutifully flashed them on his downwards light. Watching the Heinkel, he saw a red and then a green Vérey light burst just above it. Much to his surprise the searchlights holding the hostile aircraft at once switched over to his Hurricane. Ten seconds later the anti-aircraft guns opened up. Blinded by the searchlights, swearing at the ineptitude of the gunners and searchlight crews, he lost the He.

  A brilliant coruscation of shell bursts uncomfortably near sent him corkscrewing away in successful evasion.

  Landing back at Middle Wallop, intending to grab the first soldier he saw and chop him into small pieces, he found that the time was past midnight and the Colours and Letters of the Day had changed since he took off. He had, therefore, flashed the wrong identification and the Germans had fired the right one: whether because German Intelligence was superbly accurate or by sheer fluke, who knows?