Ginger Lacey: Fighter Pilot

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  He has two comments to make on this event which are worth recording. ‘After the squadron had been split up, and I was trying to rejoin, I was, as usual, shewing a lot more interest in where I’d been than in where I was going: because the danger always came from behind; I kept looking over my shoulder, to make certain there was nothing coming in behind me. As I brought my head round from one shoulder to look over the other I saw that I was doing what amounted to a head-on attack on twelve yellow-nosed 109s. My immediate reaction was to push the stick forward and dive to hell out of it.’ But he didn’t.

  And, after he had destroyed one and severely damaged another, and was being set on by their ten companions: ‘The others were thoroughly annoyed about the whole business and this time I did have to dive out of it.’

  The third hostile wave of the day was at the coast soon after 7 p.m., by which time the defending fighter pilots were weary to the marrow, their eyes dulled, their reactions hazy. In the twilight, with the air over three counties filled with aircraft, it was not easy to tell foe from friend or to avoid flying into the fire of someone else’s combat.

  Personal memory and official records are alike blurred and incomplete. Somewhere, sometime, in the course of that evening’s fighting —there was yet a fourth, and final, attempt to destroy England, at about 8 p.m.—Sergeant Lacey shot down two more of the enemy: a Me. 109 and a He.

  On the 16th September there was a blessed day of inactivity: the English summer, playing its familiar tricks, produced high winds and heavy rain, which kept aircraft on the ground.

  On the 17th, after the squadron had been scattered in a dogfight and were ordered to rendezvous over Maidstone …

  ‘I was flying back over the Dover area towards Maidstone and, looking down, saw 5,000 ft below me, fifteen Me. 109s. I was probably well and truly over-confident by this time, having attacked twelve of them a couple of days before and got away with it. As I had been told to rendezvous at 15,000 ft and was now at above 20,000, I thought that as I had to lose some height I might as well dive through these people and have a crack at them on the way down.

  ‘Building up speed rapidly in my dive, I found, of course, that the controls were growing very stiff. Well before I was within range, the 109s obviously saw me and did what was the most stupid thing they could possibly have done: stuck their noses down and started to dive in the same direction. Theoretically, that should have given me a non-deflection shot, but I must have been travelling 100 m.p.h. faster than they were by this time and I never got a shot at them at all. I hurtled straight through the formation; which left me in rather an embarrassing position—sitting in front of fifteen 109s.

  ‘Everything in the world seemed to hit me. I completely lost control of the aircraft and realized that I’d had it.

  ‘I jettisoned the hood and as I pulled the pin out of my straps I was, literally, sucked out of the cockpit without having to make any effort to climb out: I was going so fast that there was a tremendous difference between the low pressure in my cockpit and the high pressure of the wind rushing past outside.

  ‘Everything went black. I thought for one horrible moment that I’d gone blind. And then, for an even more horrible moment, that I must be dead. But (and his voice begins to shake with laughter as he is telling this) as I automatically put my hand up to my eyes, I found that, as we had no self-disconnecting Oxygen tube in those days, my tube, before it broke as I was dragged out of the aeroplane, had pulled my helmet down over my face!

  ‘I wasn’t blind in the least little bit,’ he explains, ‘all that was wrong was that my eyes were in my helmet!’

  ‘I pushed it back on to my head and I could then see why I’d lost control of the aircraft: the whole of the tail unit had been shot off. It was spinning down flat, and slowly, in front of me. The 109s were taking turns to come in and fire at it, passing very close to me. I didn’t want to pull the rip-cord, in case this attracted attention. When I took off, the clouds were at 5,000 ft, which was quite enough for a parachute to open comfortably, so I decided to fall into cloud before opening mine.

  ‘I was spinning end-over-end, and this was starting to make me feel sick, so I straightened myself out and this stopped my somersaulting. I now began to fall, quite comfortably, head-on, at an angle of about sixty degrees to the vertical. Although I must have been doing about 140 m.p.h., there seemed to be no tendency for my eyes to water. I was quite observant and self-critical and there was no sign of becoming unconscious in free fall. I put my right hand across my body to grasp the rip-cord, which was on the left, and found my arm acting like a small aerofoil: it started me revolving. It was easy to control the turns of my body by moving my arms. By this time the cloud was quite close and the 109s seemed to have disappeared, but I did not pull the ripcord until I was in cloud. And, as guaranteed by the makers, the parachute opened perfectly comfortably. I came down in a field.’

  Once again, he was very close to Leeds Castle.

  No sooner was he taken to this hospital than ‘I got a rocket from the doctor who had seen me there only three days previously.’ And who, of course, thought he must be in hospital having treatment for his burns.

  Once again there was the immediate insistence on putting him to bed and his retort that he must telephone base first. And again, after two hours’ unsuccessful attempt to get in touch with Kenley, the sergeant pilot was put in an ambulance and despatched to his squadron.

  It took them rather longer to get back, this time, because the driver was a pretty F.A.N.Y. who accepted his pleas that they must stop frequently for him to fortify himself, at numerous pubs, with brandy.

  ‘So we got back rather late.’

  There was an institution, in those days, at Kenley: a small, good-looking, and warm-hearted W.A.A.F corporal cook, Jean Campbell. Though of much the same age as the sergeant pilots, she took their daily dangers to heart as though they were her sons. Nothing she could do for their comfort was enough, in her view; and when one was missing she would stay up all night, if necessary, to welcome him back with a cup of tea. It is some measure of what this gentle creature suffered, and of the devil that sat on the shoulders of fighter pilots at that dark time, to record that, during four particular days at Kenley, the three other beds in the room where Lacey slept each had two different occupants.

  When his F.A.N.Y. with a taste for brandy that matched his own deposited him at the Mess, Corporal Jean gave him a royal welcome. And brewed a fresh pot of tea.

  The Germans changed their tactics, the directions of their raids altered, the daylight effort lessened a trifle in favour of night bombing. For a few days, the squadron flew without excitement.

  On the 27th September, Lacey was flying No. 2 in Yellow Section when Do. 17s and Me. 1095 came along from the south, at 18,000 ft.

  Before the squadron could attack the Dorniers, the Messerschmitts dived protectively in front. Lacey was instantly caught up in a dog-fight with five Me. 109s, which was presently joined by the rest of his section. In the melee they lost height rapidly until they were at 7,000 ft. At fifty yards he hammered a two-second full-deflection shot into a 109 which immediately went into a vertical dive in which one wing was wrenched off. He saw it crash in a field, and its wing hit the ground 200 yards away.

  September wore to a quiet close, with only one more combat, when he chased a Ju. 88, on the 30th, and after firing from 300 yards, closing to fifty, he saw glycol escape from its starboard engine which presently stopped a few seconds before he lost the 88 in cloud.

  At the end of the month, the squadron was still commanded by Squadron Leader Hogan, with Flight Lieutenant E. Holden, D.F.C. and Flying Officer D. A. E. Jones as Flight Commanders; and Flying Officers N. J. M. Barry, V. R. Snell and E. B. Rogers; Pilot Officers K. W. Mackenzie, P. R. Hairs, K. N. T. Lee, R. C. Dafforn, Witorzenc; Flight Sergeant P. Morfill; Sergeants P. P. C. Fames, J. H. Lacey, D.F.M., R. Gent, Whitehouse, Patterson, Pickering, C. J. Saward, R. W. E. Jarratt, S. A. Fenemore. Non-effective in hospital, were: Flight L
ieutenant J. A. Gibson, D.F.C., Pilot Officers K. R. Aldridge, Kozlowski, Skalski; Sergeants A. Glowacki, W. B. Henn, Crabtree, W. Green, D. N. E. Mackay.

  And Sergeant Pilot J. H. Lacey, D.F.M., had just been awarded a bar to his decoration.

  In the sixty-one days of August and September, Fighter Command lost 298 pilots and 615 aircraft.

  With October came a marked falling off in the enemy’s flying effort. Now, there were only hostile fighter sweeps to cope with over south-east England by day.

  On the 5th October, Squadron Leader Hogan and Flight Lieutenant Holden each got a 109 and Pilot Officer Mackenzie damaged a third.

  On the 7th Lacey claimed a Me. 109 probably destroyed, when he shot its port aileron off, at 23,000 ft., followed it as it went down, firing short bursts at it, and watched it dive vertically into cloud, streaming glycol.

  His next confirmed success fell on the 12th. The squadron took on 30 Me 109s which were returning to France. Lacey followed his down to the sea, shooting at it intermittently, until it made a pancake landing in the Channel, when he reported that the pilot had climbed out and was swimming around strongly.

  But enemy activity was still persistent, for Lacey flew four times that day.

  On the 15th, in a tussle at 21,000 ft over the Isle of Sheppey, he was shot at by a Hurricane: but whether this was a mistake in identity by the other pilot, or whether there was a captured Hurricane among the Germans, nobody ever knew.

  On the 25th, the squadron lost Pilot Officer Goth, who had only been with them a week, when he collided in mid-air with Pilot Officer Mackenzie, D.F.C.

  On the 26th, after running into fifteen Me. 109s ten miles north of Beachy Head, at 29,000 ft, Lacey found all the enemy engaged before he could choose one and had to descend to 14,000 ft before he was able to open fire on the rear machine in a pair just above cloud. It caught fire at once and fell into cloud with its rear fuselage burning fiercely. He then fought its partner until all his ammunition was expended; when, his combat report says, he ‘found it expedient to dive into cloud and escape.’

  There was one more fight in store for him before the Battle of Britain drew to a close. In a last, typically frenzied dog-fight that wove condensation trails over fifty square miles of sky, that swayed and see-sawed between fifteen and twenty-five thousand feet, he shot down an Me. 109 and damaged another.

  So October closed and the Battle of Britain ended, and Sergeant Lacey’s eighteen enemy aircraft destroyed in that battle was the highest score among all the pilots of Fighter Command. To add to these were four probables and six damaged, and, in France, five more destroyed.

  November and December were occupied with daily patrols and never a smell of the enemy, until, on 17th December, the squadron returned to Filton. Squadron Leader Hogan had been promoted to wing commander and posted, and Squadron Leader Fiolden, was in command, with Flight Lieutenants E. V. Morello and D. Jones as his Flight Commanders.

  Lacey’s last clear recollection of 1940 is of Christmas afternoon.

  ‘After a delicious Christmas lunch, the C.O. said, ‘Right … I’ll teach you so-and-so’s to drink too much at lunch time. We’ll do a battle climb.’

  ‘And so they did,’ as his log-book records, ‘to 30,000 frozen feet.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT - The Blitz

  On 15th January, 1941, 740042, Sergeant Lacey, J. H., became Pilot Officer J. H. Lacey, (60321).

  On the last day of his service as an N.C.O., the Officer Commanding No. 501 Squadron entered this endorsement in his flying log-book: ‘This pilot is credited with twenty-three victories in air combat and his flying ability is well above the average.’

  The official list of British air aces of Fighter Command, up to 31st January 1941, puts Lacey at the head. In addition to his twenty-three confirmed, he had four probables and six damaged to his credit. Among the other fighter pilots with high scores were:

  P/O E. S. Lock, D.S.O., D.F.C. and bar, 22 at least.

  Sgt. H. J. M. Hallowes, D.F.M. and bar (reported missing), 21.

  S/L A.A. McKellar, D.S.O., D.F.C. and bar (killed), 20.

  S/L A. G. Malan, D.S.O., D.F.C. and bar, 18 and 6 probables.

  S/L. R. R. Stanford Tuck, D.S.O., D.F.C. and bar, 18 at least.

  F/O N. Orton, D.F.C. and bar, 18.

  P/O E. J. Kain, D.F.C. (killed), 17.

  And, lower down the list, two whose names were later to win great fame:

  F/L. A. C. Deere, D.F.C. and bar, 11, probably 1 more, and assisted to destroy 2 others.

  S/L. D. R. S. Bader, D.S.O., D.F.C., 10, and damaged several more.

  Until now, Lacey had not been interested in a Commission. There was little difference in status between officers and N.C.O. pilots and life in a Sergeants’ Mess was comfortable. But, he says, he remembered that holders of the D.F.M. are entitled to a cash bounty of £20 on being discharged from the Service. In order to become an officer, he would, on paper, have to be formally discharged as an airman and re-enter the R.A.F. with his Commission. This, he claims, decided him: it was a quick way to get his hands on the bounty!

  He went on a fortnight’s leave, and his home town was waiting for him.

  As the local newspaper put it: ‘Wetherby paid a well-deserved tribute to one of its sons on Wednesday night, when, at an informal gathering in the Town Hall, a presentation was made to Flying Officer James Harry Lacey, D.F.M. and bar.’ (With understandable chauvinism, Wetherby promoted its distinguished son rather more rapidly than had the Air Ministry).

  ‘Although the meeting was called at very short notice the Hall was full. Captain J. H. Hudson, M.C., J.P., presided and made the presentation—a silver tankard inscribed as follows: Presented to Sergeant Pilot James Harry Lacey, D. F. M. and bar, by the people of Wetherby, in recognition of his conspicuous skill and gallantry in defence of freedom. 1940.’

  Among the speeches was one by his old headmaster, who recalled that ‘As a young boy at school James Lacey was shy and reserved. On one occasion he said to me, in the playground, “Please, teacher, these other boys and girls are following me and they are harassing me”—not a bad word for a boy of five.’

  Manifestly, he displayed at an early age the independence that is his hallmark; although by the time the schoolmaster spoke in reminiscence, James had largely overcome his repugnance for being followed by girls.

  The presentation from his fellow townsmen was an event which Ginger Lacey remembers with affection and pleasure.

  Being out of the war for two weeks, at the period, was bearable.

  Compared with the May to October months, there was little urgency in the squadron’s affairs. To be among his family and old friends, to have Nicky, his smooth-haired terrier, constantly at heel, was a return to normality which he would have been glad to prolong.

  He returned to the squadron to find that they were doing a lot of night flying, from Chalmy Down near Bath.

  The German ‘Blitz’ had been directed, in the last few weeks, at many targets besides London and some of these were in the west: Cardiff, Bristol and Avonmouth, Plymouth, Swansea and Portsmouth. In the Midlands, within easy range of Filton and Chalmy Down, Coventry and Birmingham were major enemy targets. At night, the fires caused by Goering’s bombs lit the sky for scores of miles, and the fighters on night flying duty could only go towards the stricken cities and hope to find the enemy. The Operations Rooms could give very little help.

  It was frustrating to fly, with mounting anger and hatred, seeing the acres of flame by night and the aftermath of devastation by day, and be unable to strike back. The winter weather brought snow, fog and rain, so that the opportunities to operate were all too few: and when they did occur, the fighter pilots could even, on occasion, see enemy bombs falling past them from bombers overhead, ugly, black eggs in the glare of the towering flames below, without being able to see the raiders who were so close. And here was a new menace: what an end to a fighter pilot’s life, to be killed in the air by a bomb.

  Lacey was glad to get away fr
om the hopeless business of chasing Germans through the night sky—like looking for a fly, in the dark, in the Albert Hall, someone described it—and go to London to be decorated with his D.F.M. and bar. Paul Farnes had to go for his D.F.M., and they were summoned together.

  Like all wartime ceremonial, there was more exuberance than solemnity about it, and ‘after quite a convivial evening the night before, and one or two drinks in the morning to get rid of the hangover,’ the two alumni of 501 Squadron presented themselves at the royal residence. They were, they agreed, ‘most impressed by Buckingham Palace’; which, bearing in mind their habit of understatement, was praise which the architect might well have liked in writing, to frame, had he been alive. ‘But Farnes,’ Lacey tells us, ‘was not particularly impressed by an Admiral who was marshalling us. He persisted in trying to do up Farnes’s top button.’ This, in the eyes of a highly operational fighter boy of the period, was the ultimate in gaucherie. The unfastened top button, traditional since the Great War, was the recognized means of distinguishing between Fighter Pilots and the rest—those bomber, coastal, training, army co-operation and transport types one believed existed somewhere. ‘Farnes resisted strenuously,’ we are told; and imagination quakes at what must have been the very senior Naval Officer’s reaction to being wrestled by a non-commissioned officer of the junior service—the only one, of course, in which such insubordination could conceivably be encountered. ‘He told the Admiral that he might be very good with a battle-boat, but he knew nothing about fighter pilots.’ But Sergeant Farnes’s intentions were of the best, and he was correctly buttoned when he appeared before King George VI.

  Lacey does not feel that he acquitted himself as well as he might have on his only visit to the Palace.

  The procedure—and he was confident of his ability to carry it out—demanded a smart march up to His Majesty. A smart left turn to face him. A bow. A pace forward to receive your medal. Answer any questions the King may put to you. A pace back. A smart right turn. And march off.