Sniper of the Skies: The Story of George Frederick 'Screwball' Beurling, DSO, DFC, DFM

by Nick Thomas

  ‘the Spitfire’s performance on Tuesday must rank as one of the greatest day’s work ever done by the RAF. For the loss of only one Spitfire, seventeen Axis aircraft were destroyed and many more damaged. Malta’s only casualties were two civilians.

  ‘It was disclosed by the Air Ministry on Wednesday that the Axis lost its 1,000th aircraft over or near Malta soon after dawn on Tuesday to 20-year-old Canadian ace fighter pilot, Pilot Officer Beurling, who won the DFM and Bar before being awarded the DFC as a pilot officer.

  ‘Wednesday night’s communiqué records that in Wednesday’s fighting Pilot Officer Beurling added another bomber and four fighters to his bag before being forced to bail out. The Air Ministry says that his sense of position is instinctive and he must be one of the best marksmen in the RAF.’

  On the 16th Air Vice-Marshal Park sent a congratulatory message to his fighter Squadrons:

  ‘Grand work fighter boys. Your magnificent fighting in the last five days is being watched not only in Malta but by the RAF on other fronts as well, as well as by our Russian allies. Although heavily outnumbered last May, the Malta Spitfires came out on top and I am confident that you will win the second Battle of Malta. Some of the enemy bomber Squadrons have already shown they cannot take it. Keep it up and in a few days the other German bombers will throw in the sponge. Replacement pilots and Spitfires are on the way, but there is still some stiff fighting to finish the job. Good luck to you and good shooting.’

  Meanwhile, Beurling, now out of the battle, had already been informed of his award of the DFC which was already being mentioned in some contemporary newspaper articles. The award was officially promulgated in the London Gazette of 16 October 1942:

  ‘Air Ministry, 16th October, 1942.

  ‘Royal Air Force.

  ‘The KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the following awards in recognition of gallantry displayed in flying operations against the enemy:

  ‘Distinguished Flying Cross

  ‘Pilot Officer George Frederick BEURLING, DFM (128707), Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, No. 249 Squadron.

  ‘Since being awarded a Bar to the Distinguished Flying Medal, this officer has shot down a further three hostile aircraft, bringing his total victories to twenty. One day in September 1942, he and another pilot engaged four enemy fighters. In the ensuing combat, Pilot Officer Beurling destroyed two of them. As a relentless fighter, whose determination and will to win has won the admiration of his colleagues, this officer has set an example in keeping with the highest traditions of the Royal Air Force.’

  The citation took Beurling’s tally up to 25 September, Beurling since having destroyed a further nine enemy aircraft, damaging still more. His final Malta victories had been won while wounded and fighting to save the lives of his flight commander and Pilot Officer Williams.

  Beurling’s response to being read the official citation to his DFC, was to complain:

  ‘they clean forgot the piece of a bomber, the one I shared with Jonesy and Georgia.’

  Meanwhile the fight for Malta continued unabated, with Beurling’s No. 249 Squadron remaining in the thick of the combat. The Spitfire Squadrons continued to give a good account of themselves, but inevitably suffered further casualties.

  Beurling was singled out for individual praise by the press as the news of his gallantry award was picked-up by more newspapers. One article, also published on 16 October, led with: ‘Untidy, but What a Flier,’ Canadian Gets DFC.’

  The story, based on old articles on file and a recent official communiqués, never-the-less contained a number of inaccuracies:

  ‘An easy-going young Canadian with tousled hair has officially become top man in the air defences of Malta, after receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross for shooting down twenty-nine Axis planes.

  ‘He is 20-year-old Pilot Officer George Beurling of Verdun, Que., but he is better known in the RAF as “Screwball” and “Buzzy.”

  ‘Already his name is mentioned with those of Douglas Bader, the legless pilot, who led a Canadian fighter Squadron and who now is imprisoned in Germany, and the famous Paddy Finucane, Irish ace, who became a legend in Britain before a chance shot downed him off the coast of France.

  ‘Beurling shot down three Axis planes [on] Wednesday over Malta before he bailed out of his riddled plane, duplicating the toll he took [on] Monday …

  ‘A Canadian pilot who has fought beside Beurling ever since he went to Malta described him thus:

  ‘George is the most untidy RAF pilot I have ever seen. His hair looks as if it was never brushed and he is careless about his clothes. In fact, he is careless about everything but flying. But gee, what a flier!”’

  A further article, published on 19 October, gave more details surrounding Beurling’s injuries and appeared under the banner: ‘Bags Three Heinies in One Air Fight:

  ‘PO George Beurling of Verdun, Quebec, one of the Empire’s ace fighter pilots, shot down three enemy planes in a single battle of Malta yesterday, including the 1,000th enemy plane destroyed over George Cross Island.

  ‘Shooting down plane in batches is nothing new to the Quebec boy who since June has risen from sergeant to pilot officer and won the Distinguished Flying Medal and Bar, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

  ‘The Middle East News Service described Beurling’s triple success as, ‘a performance which is becoming quite a habit with him.’

  Meanwhile, on 21 October, the eve of the Battle of El Alamein, Reuters correspondent in Cairo, R.F. Rowland, wrote:

  ‘Kesselring’s eight-day assault on Malta has failed in its main objective – to improve the supply position of General Rommel’s troops. The Axis is being hit in two ways. Their convoys are sought out and vitally important cargoes are being sunk at sea or in harbour.’

  The consequences of the failure would all too soon become apparent, when Montgomery launched his offensive. Starved of fuel, Rommel’s panzers lacked manoeuvrability and could only be deployed sparingly. While the Afrika Korps was deprived of men and materials, the eighth Army and the Desert Air Force had been continually reinforced. Their armour outnumbered the enemy and they now had Spitfires to support the valiant efforts of the Hurricane and Kittyhawk Squadrons. This had been made possible to a large extent by the Malta Garrison.

  Meanwhile, further news reached home regarding Beurling’s plight via an article penned by the Canadian Press Staff Writer, Louis Hunter, and published on the same day under the heading ‘Bailed Out After Bagging Third Nazi.’ Hunter wrote:

  ‘George Beurling, Canada’s ace fighter pilot, is in hospital with a heel wound, suffered just before he bailed out of his Spitfire over Malta after destroying three Axis aircraft in a single scrap.

  ‘The RAF Mid-East news service disclosed today that an X-ray picture shows there was no serious injury, and the young wildcat of the air was hobbling around the hospital.’

  Beurling was now sidelined from the fight, confined to a hospital bed without any idea of when he might be allowed back into the air. In the skies above the battle continued, with flak batteries putting up a constant barrage against enemy aircraft. Meanwhile, the Spitfire Squadrons continued to engage the enemy both off-shore and over the island.

  Beurling recalled that from his hospital bed:

  ‘I could hear the racket even before I had completely shaken the anaesthetic. The first question I asked was: “How long, doc?”’

  When he was pulled out of his dinghy, Beurling was liberally covered with oil which had to be washed out of his hair, and scrubbed out of his skin pores. Two days after he was shot down, Beurling was visited in hospital by his Flight Commander and friend, Flight Lieutenant E.L. Hetherington, along with some of his other pals, Pilot Officers J.W. Williams and A.S. Yates:

  ‘Talking to them didn’t help a bit. The scrambles were coming oftener and were bigger than ever. Jerry was coming over in wave after wave.’

  Beurling learned that Flight Sergeant N.G. Bryden had been badly wounded by a cannon shell. H
e had been forced to bail out and was in one of the wards on the floor below. Another recent casualty was No. 229 Squadron’s Flight Sergeant J.H. Ballantyne31. He had been wounded while trying to take off from Takali during a low-level strafe by Bf 109s.

  As he chatted, Beurling noted how drawn his friends looked, the stress of continual combat taking its toll. Despite his wounds, Beurling remained desperate to get back into action to help the Squadron beat back the enemy raids.

  By the 18th, Beurling was steady enough on his feet to make his way over to the window where he had a front row view of the air battles overhead. The island was being heavily bombed during the evenings. Beurling recalled a stick of bombs landing within 100 yards of the hospital:

  ‘then I’d go back to bed and wait for the colonel to come around to give him another argument about getting out.’

  Beurling believed that he was letting his pals down. He had convinced himself that he could still fly combat operations despite his injuries and tried to persuade his doctor, Colonel Davidson, to allow him fly during the day and return to his hospital bed overnight.32

  As the days passed, more casualties came in, including Pilot Officer J.G.W. Farmer who had escaped from his Spitfire while in a power-dive at over 450mph. Farmer had pulled his ripcord too soon, before he had decelerated. As a result, he suffered a dislocated shoulder, broken arm and a slight rupture. Another pilot was the American Flight Lieutenant A.F. ‘Art’ Roscoe33 of No. 603 Squadron (and formerly of No. 249 Squadron). A cannon shell had exploded in his cockpit, fragments entering his chest below the shoulder, shattering his collar-bone and exiting through his back. Somehow Roscoe made it back to base, but crash-landed in flames. He was thrown out onto the wing, unconscious, and a couple of ‘erks’ risked everything and ran into the flames to pull him to safety.

  When they could, Hetherington, Williams or Shewell came over to the ward to visit Beurling and his friends in hospital as their casualties mounted. Meanwhile, their evacuation was being discussed at staff level.

  Wing Commander Arthur Donaldson explained that a number of senior officers had discussed Beurling and the probability that he was tour-expired:

  ‘The Doctors, myself and the senior officers at Headquarters, thought that he was in need of a rest, he had been fighting non-stop for several months so we decided to rest him.’

  Donaldson freely acknowledged that Beurling was in a class of his own and had been a lynch-pin in the island’s air defences, but it was time for him to leave the theatre and return to England. Here his wounds could be properly tended, while there were fewer dietary restrictions.

  On about 25 October, nine days after he had been shot down, Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park came on to Beurling’s ward to personally congratulate him on the award of the Distinguish Service Order. Then he broke the news that Beurling was to be sent home on leave, explaining that the Canadian government had requested his secondment to help with a recruiting and War Bond drive.

  Beurling protested that he didn’t want to go and that he was needed in the air, quoting Colonel Davidson’s projection that he would be discharged within the fortnight. Park’s news came as a bitter blow; a more accurate estimate of his enforced incapacitation was at least two months. Caught off-guard, Beurling reluctantly conceded to the transfer; he would take off from Malta’s airfields one more time, but this time as a passenger.

  On 29 October, Beurling’s CO, Squadron Leader E.N. Woods, dropped by to inform him that he and his friends Hetherington and Williams were being flown out of Malta any day soon. Woods invited Beurling over to the officer’s mess overlooking Takali, where the tour-expired pilots were having a last get together to bid their goodbyes.

  Beurling’s Distinguished Service Order was promulgated in the London Gazette on the following day:

  ‘Air Ministry, 30th October, 1942.

  ‘Royal Air Force.

  ‘The KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the following awards in recognition of gallantry displayed in flying operations against the enemy:

  ‘Distinguished Service Order

  ‘Pilot Officer George Frederick BEURLING, DFC, DFM (128707), Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, No. 249 Squadron.

  ‘Since being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Pilot Officer Beurling has destroyed a further six enemy aircraft, bringing his total victories to twenty-eight. During one sortie on 13th October 1942, he shot down a Junkers 88 and two Messerschmitt 109s. The following day, in a head-on attack on enemy bombers, he destroyed one of them before he observed his leader being attacked by an enemy fighter. Although wounded, Pilot Officer Beurling destroyed the fighter. Then climbing again, although his aircraft was hit by enemy fire, he shot down another fighter before his own aircraft was so damaged that he was forced to abandon it. He descended safely on to the sea and was rescued. This officer’s skill and daring are unexcelled.’

  Actually, Beurling had destroyed a further eight enemy aircraft since his last citation, not six, while no account had been taken of the nine aircraft allowed as damaged (several of which were claimed as destroyed but which had to be down-graded due to the lack of an independent eyewitness). The circumstances surrounding Beurling’s last two victories alone were deserving of recognition, the intervening four ‘kills’ also being deserving of separate recognition – a DSO and a Bar to the DFC might have been a more fitting reward.34

  Of the campaign as a whole, according to Air Ministry figures, 131 enemy aircraft were destroyed during October. And so, with the Luftwaffe defeated over Malta, and the Afrika Korps on the verge of being pushed out of North Africa, Beurling had seen the battle out. Now it was time for him to return home for a well deserved rest and to recover from his wounds. He was officially posted to No. 1 Depot, UK on 31 October 1942. However, fate would dictate that his departure would end in tragedy.

  Beurling and a handful of tour-expired pilots took off for Gibraltar as passengers aboard No. 511 Squadron’s Liberator AL516. The long-haul flight was nearing its end as they closed in on the short airstrip during a severe thunderstorm; it was going to be a difficult landing.

  Already sensing that something was wrong from the aircraft’s attitude and approach, Beurling became more concerned when he heard the engines strain; the pilot tried to go around again:

  ‘As we stalled, I flung open an escape door right by my back seat, and just as we hit the water, before the big wallop hit us, I dived out.’

  The Liberator had broken its back but didn’t sink immediately, giving two or three of the passengers who hadn’t been knocked out when they were thrown about on impact, time to escape. Beurling encountered Flight Lieutenant A.F. Roscoe, who was unable to swim due to the broken collarbone he had suffered in combat, and who was clinging onto floating debris. Meanwhile, the Liberator crew had fared better than most due, to being strapped-in.

  Beurling frantically searched for Flight Lieutenant E.L. Hetherington, Pilot Officer J.W. Williams, Warrant Officer C.E. Mutch and Flight Lieutenant E.H. Glazebrooke, but there was no sign of either them or the eight or nine others who had been trapped in the aircraft, no doubt killed by the impact when they hit the water. By then, a number of eye-witnesses had waded and swam out, and were assisting the injured and diving into the now submerged wreckage to pull bodies out. Beurling began dog-paddling towards the shore, unable to swim due to the heavy plaster cast on his foot. When the rescuers saw Beurling’s cast they immediately offered him help, but he replied, ‘I’m okay. Get somebody else!’

  Another of the survivors, Wing Commander A.H. Donaldson, recalled the scene as the Liberator made its approach through heavy rain and with restricted visibility:

  ‘The first intimation we had that all was not well was that the aircraft touched down with rather a bump and then there was a burst of all four engines; the Liberator had attempted to take off and go round again. People who were watching from the aerodrome told me that the pilot overshot the runway, landing about two-thirds of the way down.

  ‘After the pilot
had aborted the landing and had opened up all his engines at full throttle, he saw the end of the runway coming up fast.’

  The end of the runway was denoted by a high barbed wire and it must have been obvious to the pilot that the two were going to connect.

  ‘he had to pull the stick back hard and the Liberator rose up sharply, clearing the fence, but because it did not have sufficient forward speed it stalled and flopped into the sea about 100 yards off the runway.’

  None of the passengers was strapped-in and, on impact, they and their baggage were thrown about. Many would have been killed immediately, others badly injured or concussed.

  For those with less serious injuries and who were not pinned down by dead bodies or debris, there was the possibility of escape, but only if they could act fast. The impact had broken the Liberator’s back, and within a minute water gushed in and the aircraft become partly submerged:

  ‘I remember a loud noise as we hit the sea then the bomb-bay started to take in water at a rapid speed. In no time at all we hit the bottom of the sea. Naturally we were all thrown forward, not being strapped in and everything was chaos. I can remember too seeing that above me was a small crack which looked lighter. This turned out to be where the aircraft had broken its back.’

  ‘I simply fought my way up through the hull to the surface. The scene of the accident was amazing. There seemed to be literally hundreds of men swimming out to the position of the wreck and soon someone got hold of me and pulled me towards the shore.’

  Among those that Donaldson recalled who had broken free was Hetherington:

  ‘he seemed quite alright, certainly conscious, though I noticed a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. I heard him shout to his rescuers: “I’m okay, save some of the others passengers who need help!” Two seconds later he died, presumably from internal injuries.