by Nick Thomas
Beurling’s final three weeks at Montrose were on Hurricanes. Curious to experience its performance in a power-dive, Beurling recalled that he had topped 500mph, but in the process ripped the fabric off the gun-ports.
While Beurling’s unauthorised manoeuvres had only damaged the gun-ports, other pilots were less fortunate and there were a number of tragedies before the course was over, all attributed to ‘pilot error’. On 13 July, two pilots, LAC (780969) H. Adach and LAC (780569) A. Janczk collided while flying in tight formation; both were lost over the sea. Another pilot had glycol issues, resulting in his engine seizing. He was forced to bail out, but pulled his ripcord too soon and, as his parachute caught in the tail, he plummeted down with his crippled aircraft.
In a further incident, a pilot overshot on landing and was going around again when his engine began to splutter, and he stall-turned and went into the sea.
Among the other fatalities during the course were three which occurred on 6 September, when Flight Lieutenant (39832) Stewart, an instructor, along with LAC (1005760) Housley, were killed while flying AZ264. Another casualty was Pilot Officer (P0239) Becko, who was flying AZ377.
Beurling’s course ended on the following day, 7 September. There was no parade and Beurling noted that the pilots purchased their own first pair of wings on their award two days later. On 9 September 1941, Beurling was promoted to the rank of sergeant, along with his friend Bill Allen, while Bob Seed and Paul Forster both became pilot officers.
Beurling’s log book was signed-off by Squadron Leader Slater, who had instructed him on Masters. Slater noted: ‘To be useful as a Service Pilot’, adding the rather telling, ‘he should cultivate a sense of responsibility.’
Sergeant (1267053) Beurling and the other newly fledged pilots were granted a week’s leave before they had to report to their OTU. Travelling down to London, George spent a few days sight-seeing and it was whilst at Tottenham Court Road during an air raid, he bore witness to a scene which was to haunt him:
‘there’d been a little bit of a girl sitting on the curb, playing with a doll. She was stunned, or in a stupor, just sitting there looking at her unhurt doll – her own right arm blown clean off at the shoulder.’
On another day, Beurling had been sitting musing in the Canadian Legion Club, when he caught sight of a beautiful young woman. His gaze followed her as she walked briskly by and he admired her long slim legs. Minutes later, there was an air raid. Learning of a blast close by, which had trapped a number of people in a shelter, Beurling joined volunteers in digging out the injured with their bare hands. One woman’s leg was trapped by a huge block which could not be lifted. A surgeon arrived on the scene and performed an amputation; the victim was the same woman who Beurling had seen only hours earlier.
With his leave over, on 23 September Sergeant Beurling was posted to No. 57 Operational Training Unit (OTU), Harwarden, where he converted onto Spitfires. The OTU’s flying staff were largely drawn from the ranks of the ‘Few’, who were now being ‘rested’ after their tour of operations. Among their ranks were Pilot Officer Paul Farnes, DFM, who had flown as a sergeant-pilot with No. 501 Squadron during the Battle of France and Battle of Britain, and had earned a well-deserved DFM (London Gazette, 22 October 1940).
Another former Battle of Britain pilot was Flying Officer John Freeborn, DFC and Bar (DFC, London Gazette, 13 August 1940 and Bar, London Gazette, 25 February 1941), who had served with No. 74 Squadron.
Sergeant Tony Pickering had served initially with No. 32 Squadron, having been posted with hardly any hours on Hurricanes and was sent away to an OTU. He returned to Biggin Hill shortly before the Squadron transferred to Acklington, at the end of September and therefore was posted to No. 501 Squadron. With his own tour expired, Pickering was sent back to Harwarden as a Maintenance Test Pilot, on 14 February 1941, becoming a member of the OTU’s flying staff on 20 December.
Pickering has clear recollections of Beurling, who was unconventional in his dress, to say the least:
‘George was always hanging loose. [He] was never buttoned up. [He wore a] scarf around his neck; no tie – he wasn’t an example for good discipline.’
But there was no question of Beurling’s abilities as a pilot and Pickering was astonished at how quickly he converted to type, mastering the controls of the Spitfire:
‘He’d probably had only a few hours on a Spitfire. He was flying it just as though he’d been born to [fly] Spitfires. He could operate that Spitfire quicker and more efficiently than any other trainee pilot I ever knew.’
The most famous of all the instructors at Harwarden was Beurling’s flight commander, Flying Officer James ‘Ginger’ Lacey, DFM and Bar (DFM London Gazette, 23 August 1940 and Bar, London Gazette, 26 November 1940). Lacey was another former No. 501 Squadron pilot. He had become an ace over France and was the Squadron’s top scorer during the Battle of Britain.
Beurling and the other pilots had been given a copy of the Spitfire’s manual to study, learning its flying characteristics and where all ‘tits and knobs’ were, before being tested on the cockpit layout. There were many factors to lookout for: the torque from the Merlin engine which meant the port wing dipped on take-off; the blind-spot under the nose on both take-off and landing.
The Merlin roared into action at the first touch of the starter button, a lick of flame shooting from the exhaust stubs, accompanied by a guttural roar and plumes of black smoke. Once airborne, Beurling and the other pilots quickly fell in love with Reginald Mitchell’s creation.
Having converted onto Spitfires, much of the pilot’s time was spent in practicing tight formations, flying in vics, in echelon, line abreast or astern, and making oxygen climbs, in excess of 35,000ft. Beurling recalled that his time on Spitfires was under the command of ‘Larry Philpott’. A former fighter pilot, ‘Philpott’ had, according to Beurling, flown with Douglas Bader in the post-Battle of Britain era, before being shot down.
Not all of their ‘hands-on’ training was in the air. The pilots also spent time on the Link Trainer too, which allowed the instructors to challenge their pupils with any number of scenarios they might encounter in the air and to test their reactions. By practicing how to deal with every feasible eventuality in the air, the pilots made emergency drill second nature. Beurling would later acknowledge that it wasn’t until an aircraft was mastered that you could truly be called a pilot.
They would spend time perfecting mock scrambles too:
‘suddenly Lacey, or whoever happened to be running the show, would snap: “Beurling, Seed, Allen. Scramble!”’
The pilots raced to their aircraft and up onto the wing. One of the ‘erks’ helped them on with their parachute harness as they clambered into the cockpit, throwing the straps over the shoulders and locking them. Next they buckled up their Sutton harness, taking a strap over each shoulder and over each thigh. Then came their helmet, goggles and oxygen mask, finally their gloves. Beurling had practiced the process over and over, until it had become second nature: ‘If you’re smart, you’re airborne in a minute and a half.’
While flying out of Harwarden, Beurling and the other pilots had the opportunity to practice dogfighting, without risking the wrath of the authorities. Initially the mock combat was pupil against instructor, but quickly they became pupil on pupil.
The pilots on Beurling’s course were itching to go to the next level and train on the ranges. Unlike Beurling, few had fired machine guns before, while none had mastered deflection firing. Pickering explained how Beurling used to keep his eye in, between his time on the range:
‘George would be sitting outside the dispersal hut, his hands suddenly clenched and then, a few seconds later, up they would go. [Pickering gestured with hands as though shooting] He was practicing his deflection shooting on a bird.
‘When he started you couldn’t see anything at all, but after a couple of seconds you’d suddenly see a crow or a starling. It had to be something fast like a seagull; something that was moving. George wou
ld follow it through [the air], get the deflection [right] and down it would come, in his imagination. George was practicing deflection shooting all of the time.’
This skill was actually something that went back to using a ball-bearing gun in Beurling’s childhood as he revealed in a later interview:
‘I’ve been a marksman since I was a kid of twelve, potting tin cans on the fence or rabbits out in the country around Lake Gratton in the Laurentians.’
Even then, Beurling was an expert at hitting moving targets:
‘I prefer hitting something on the wing. I would miss a stationary object probably five times out of ten – but a bird on the wing or an enemy plane, doesn’t get away.’
With their main flying training at Montrose out of the way, the pilots got their wish and the whole course flew down to Sutton Bridge for around three weeks of air-to-air firing and practice bombing.
Beurling relished the opportunity to put his theories on deflection shooting to the test. As a further aid to handling the controls, and in getting a better ‘feel’ for the gun-button, he discarded his service gloves, wearing instead only the silk liner.
All pilots had to master air-to-ground firing before being let loose on a drogue, which was towed by a specially armoured Fairey Battle. Attacking the drogue, the pilot had to make his approach before turning in on it, as though he were intending to pull in line astern. Instead, he cut his turn while at an angle of about forty-five degrees and, off to one side, starboard or port. Then he’d fill the gun-sight with the drogue and let it have a burst.
Beurling had immersed himself in the art of gunnery, estimating the range, deflection and bullet drop, and imprinting them into his subconscious until they were automatic. For him, flying and shooting were to become one single action.
Beurling’s first air-to-air burst actually blew the drogue off its cable. The next time he was up, he proved that this had been no fluke and delivered such a well concentrated pattern of fire that the fabric of the drogue was literally shot to pieces. At best, the other pilots who were flying and shooting by the book could only manage a liberal peppering of holes. This was what Beurling described as the inevitable results of adherence to the – then accepted gunnery instruction, which invariably meant that they would, ‘scatter tracer all over the sky.’ As it was, Beurling felt vindicated, he was elated at this personal triumph – his deflection theories worked.
Pickering recalled that Beurling was not only an exceptional shot, but his keen eyesight meant he knew exactly where he had hit the target, even his score:
‘He used to come back after firing and he’d say, “you’ll find sixty-five holes in the drogue.” George was very, very accurate; he knew exactly how many of them had hit the drogue. Oh, [he was] exceptional, exceptional; I couldn’t have done it like that, nor could anyone else on the station.’
Beurling would later explain his theories which he evolved for both machine gun and cannon rounds:
‘You know that cannon shells travel 2,800ft in a second. You know your enemy is flying at, say, 300 miles an hour and you know what you’re doing yourself. Well deflection shooting, roughly, is the result of relating all these known speeds.’
From these calculations and the angle of the travel of the target in relation to the gun-platform, Beurling knew exactly where the enemy aircraft was going to be when his rounds crossed its path:
‘the secret is in that merging of flying and shooting, when the aircraft, the pilot, and the guns become one fighting unit, not three.’
In his semi-autobiography, Beurling mentioned a number of accidents that occurred at his OTU, not all of which appear to be corroborated. However, two of the fifteen pilots in Beurling’s flight were killed during training on 2 November: the Australian Pronk and South African Morau.1, 2 The pair were practicing head-on attacks over the coast and either pulled out too late or both went the same way. Morau’s Spitfire disintegrated on impact, while Pronk’s aircraft remained intact, but he was unable regain control and crashed into a hillside.
Bill Allen and Beurling so nearly went the same way, both pilots momentarily blacking out, having made a tight turn to avoid colliding head-on. Fortunately, both regained consciousness before they lost control of their aircraft and they fell out of the sky.
Other potentially fatal crashes included an incident when Sergeant Fletcher dived in from thirty feet while trying to extend a glide to the landing-strip. Another pilot ditched a burning Spitfire in a nearby river at an estimated 250 mph, and ‘flew’ through the water, before coming to rest without major injury. In a similar ‘prang’, a Czech pilot hit a mud flat, but stepped out of the wreckage without a scratch.
Between them, the flight had their fair share of near misses, each of which cost the perpetrator a pound-note. Ginger Lacey held the ‘pot’, which provided nearly £40 for the end of course party.
Beurling’s friends Bob and Paul were contributors to the beer fund. Bob had the bright idea of diving down and giving a flock of gulls on the deck a fright. Startled as he dived towards them, the gulls took off en-masse, straight into the Spitfire’s flight-path. Around twenty struck the hood, wings and tail, very nearly bringing the fighter down. Meanwhile, flying a little further behind, Paul took avoiding action, which resulted in his prop hitting the water, being bent in the process.
At the end of the course, the four friends went their separate ways Both Bob and Paul would later fly alongside Beurling in combat, while the last he heard of Bill was in 1943, when he was still in North Africa.
On passing out of the course Beurling’s flight commander, ‘Ginger’ Lacey, offered to recommend him for a commission, but he declined, saying that:
‘I feel like a pilot, but not like an officer.’
Lacey, who was without doubt one of Fighter Command’s most distinguished pilots, said of Beurling: ‘There are no two ways about it, he was a wonderful pilot and an even better shot.’
Pickering was similarly impressed, even from Beurling’s early displays of his skills at the controls of a Spitfire:
‘George in my opinion was the finest fighter pilot [there was], and I went all through the war as a fighter pilot. I met some very distinguished fighter pilots. But George was my No. 1.’
1. Pilot Officer (107918) Hendrick William Pronk, RAFVR, was buried at Harwarden Cemetery, Section 4G, Grave 84.
2. Sergeant (1380465) Pierre Louis Marie Morau, RAFVR, was the son of Marie Louis Jules Morau and Jeanne Anne Marie Morau of Mauritius. He was buried at Harwarden Cemetery, Section 4F, Grave 84.
Chapter Three
Fully Operational
On 16 December 1941, Sergeant G.F. Beurling was posted to No. 403 (RCAF) Squadron, flying Spitfire Mk Vbs out of their base at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk. For Beurling, the choice of Squadron could hardly have been better:
‘I was joining a mob whose pilots were almost all Canadians, even though the RCAF had turned me down back home. I’d be flying with fellows who talked my kind of language.’
Arriving by rail, Beurling stepped onto the station platform to find himself standing next to a fellow Canadian pilot. Sergeant Ken Collison was from Hamilton, Ontario, and was returning to No. 403 Squadron from leave; Beurling tagged along for the ride.
Reporting to Martlesham Heath, Beurling was escorted to the CO’s office by the Squadron Adjutant. Squadron Leader A.G. ‘Pinky’ Douglas, DFC, had led the unit since 30 September 1941, and was one of the few non-Canadian pilots on the Squadron. Beurling later recalled how at their first meeting, Douglas had flicked though his log book, pausing to read his assessments and to remind the young Canadian: ‘Here you’ve got to obey orders and fly how you’re told.’
Beurling was informed that he was to be assigned to ‘B’ Flight, which at the time included amongst its members:
Flying Officer R.R. Gillespie (flight commander)
Flight Sergeant Larry Somers
Pilot Officer William Forsythe ‘Bill’ Munn
Pilot Officer N.D.R. ‘Norm’ Di
ck
Flight Sergeant Arthur Joseph ‘Art’ Monserez
Sergeant D.C. ‘Don’ Campbell
Sergeant Ken Collison
Sergeant Crawford
Sergeant A.J. Schmitz
‘A’ Flight, meanwhile, was composed of:
Flight Lieutenant J.C.P. ‘Timber’ Wood (English)
Pilot Officer H.H. ‘Mac’ McDonald
Pilot Officer John N. Cawsey
Pilot Officer C.M. Magwood
Pilot Officer J. Parr
Pilot Officer Johnny Baptiste Bernard Rainville
Flight Sergeant George Albert ‘Rick’ Ryckman
Sergeant Hugh Belcher
Sergeant Eric Ambrose ‘Junior’ or ‘Crisy’ Crist
Sergeant Hubbard
Sergeant O’Neil
Sergeant L.A. Walker
The sergeant-pilots were billeted in a house close to the airfield, where Beurling shared a room with Flight Sergeant ‘Art’ Monserez.
Three days after Beurling’s arrival, the Air Officer Commander 11 Group, Air Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory, visited the Squadron, pausing to talk to the pilots and ground-staff. Later that day, the pilots attended a special viewing of gun-camera footage from recent combats, before watching an Air Ministry instructional film on aircraft recognition, focussing on the Bf 110 and Ju 87.
For Beurling there was no time to settle in, as he had only flown a sector reconnaissance and formation practice with the Squadron before No. 403 Squadron transferred to North Weald, Essex, on 24 December. Meanwhile, their role was assumed by No. 71 Squadron, one of the old ‘Eagle’ Squadrons.
