A Spitfire Pilot's Story: Pat Hughes: Battle of Britain Top Gun

by Dennis Newton

  The favoured opinion in the 1980s and early 1990s was that von Werra was downed in the afternoon. Mr A. E. Munday of the Air Historical Branch (RAF), Ministry of Defence wrote on 14 February 1983:

  Modern research seems to indicate that Werra was shot down in the afternoon, rather than the morning of 5 September 1940. The No 41 Squadron operations Record Books throw no light on the subject and I feel, having been interested in this subject, that Flt/Lt Webster shot down someone other than Werra in the morning of 5 September 1940.

  The book ‘The One That Got Away’ was written some years ago when a number of relevant papers were not available for consultation. Most modern writers and the 109 historians agree that Werra belly landed his ME109E sometime after 3pm at Winchet Hill, Curtisden Green, near Marden, Kent. (The place of landing is not disputed).

  The fighting in the morning centred around mid-Kent (Maidstone–Ashford), whilst that of the afternoon appeared to centre slightly further north over the Thames Estuary. From there, as the Germans made their way home, it could have drifted southward toward the South Kent Coast as the raiders crossed out over the Channel. In terms of flying time, the journey from the Thames Estuary to Marden would take only a few minutes; if Werra received damage over the river or North Kent and turned onto the most direct route home, he would eventually have landed at the place he did, near Marden.

  I do not think that the question of who shot Werra down will be resolved now. According to Winston Ramsey, JG3 lost 6 aircraft and pilots on this day, some in the morning, and some in the afternoon.’8

  John L. Stitt of East Grinstead, West Sussex, communicated on the matter in August 1990. In his account, he wrote:

  In 1940 I was an Auxiliary Airman with 500 County of Kent Coastal Command Sqdn (Ansons) based at Detling and had a grandstand view of the Battle of Britain. Detling had virtually been destroyed on the 13th August and by 5th September we had all become one hundred per cent better at aircraft recognition and above all – alertness!

  I was a member of ‘B’ Flight, dispersed at the NE edge of the airfield on the Stockbury Road. We enjoyed a panoramic view of the Isle of Sheppey and the Thames Estuary.

  On this particular afternoon an air battle was raging to the north of our position and we were manning a slit trench armed with .303 rifles and a Lewis Gun (NOT FIRED).

  Suddenly someone shouted ‘Look!’ and pointed to the NNE. We saw two low flying aircraft beyond coming towards us. Less than 400 feet. The front one was soon recognized as an Me 109 hotly pursued by a Spitfire. As they passed over our heads the Spitfire pilot was firing his guns and I distinctly recall a yellow/green haze coming from the 109. They flew over the airfield and were lost to vision over the Downs.

  Now at the time, my late father was the Adjutant (Captain William Wallace STITT) at the Maidstone Barracks, Depot of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, and nearly all German airmen shot down in the area passed his through his hands whilst awaiting collection from the Royal Air Force, London.

  That evening we swapped stories and he told me that the A/C we had seen crashed at Marden. It was not until after the war when Werra had become world famous that he told me that the German pilot who had passed through on that day was in fact Oblt Franz von Werra!

  I have drawn a line on an ordnance survey map which runs from Sheerness, over our dispersal at the Stockbury Road, finishing up at Winchett Hill, Marden and found it marked exactly the course flown by Werra and the Spitfire!

  Hughes said in his report that ‘EA force landed in a field, fifteen miles SW of Manston’. I believe he wrote ‘fifteen miles SW of Maidstone’, which is the correct distance.

  A few years ago, I was based in Hull with an international company. We would celebrate office birthdays and promotions at a pub in Sutton. One lunch time the landlord told me there was an airman buried in the churchyard opposite the pub. I walked over and found Pat Hughes’ grave.

  Werra, as you will know, finally went missing off the coast of Holland, not far from Sutton ‘as the plane flies’.

  What a waste of two good men.9

  John Webster was killed in action between 3.25 p.m. and 3.30 p.m. that afternoon. The Spitfires of 41 Squadron had engaged Dornier 17s and their escorting Me 109s over the Thames Estuary, and during the melee two of the British machines collided over the Thames Estuary. Both John Webster and his CO, Squadron Leader Hilary Richard Lionel Hood, were killed around the same time that Pat Hughes was engaging in combat.

  Although in the 1980s and 1990s there seemed to a general acceptance that these events occurred in the afternoon, the bulk of later research focuses on, and favours, the morning action.

  In that case, John Webster was not the only possibility. Another scenario, now widely accepted, suggests that von Werra’s Me 109 may have been damaged by Pilot Officer George Bennions of 41 Squadron and then pursued and finally shot down by Pilot Officer Basil Gerald Stapleton of 603 Squadron. By far the best references for this are Winston Ramsey’s, The Blitz – Then and Now Vol. 1 and Nigel Parker’s Luftwaffe Crash Archive Vol. 3. In both, the time given is 10.10 a.m., which lines up with that given by Kendal Burt and James Leaser.10 David Ross, in his biography of Richard Hillary, accepted this latest scenario and presented a convincing case in support of Gerald Stapleton’s claim.11

  Gerald ‘Stapme’ Stapleton was a tough South African. He had joined the RAF on a short service commission in January 1939 and had been posted to 603 Squadron the following October. George Bennions was an experienced flier, having joined the RAF as an aircraft apprentice at Halton in 1929, and in 1935 he completed his pilot training. In January 1936, he joined 41 Squadron at Khormaksar, Aden. Promotion to flight sergeant followed in November 1938 and he was commissioned in April 1940. By September, he had at least two enemy aircraft to his credit.12

  However, how possible is it to be absolutely certain beyond a reasonable doubt of the events occurring within a whirling, confusing dogfight and a hectic chase? The question has to be asked: if it wasn’t Franz von Werra that Pat Hughes brought down on 5 September 1940, who was it? Nigel Parker’s Luftwaffe Crash Archive series records that four Me 109s force-landed in relatively good condition in Kent that day, three in the morning and one in the afternoon. These were:

  Me 109E-4 (Wn.1985) ‘White 6’ of 1/JG53 which came down at Banks Farm, Aldington, at 10.10 a.m., the pilot was Leutnant Heinz Schnabel;

  Me 109E-4 (Wn.1480) of Stab II/JG53 which came down at Winchet Hill, Love’s Farm, near Marden, at 10.10 a.m., von Werra’s machine;

  Me 109E-4 (Wn.750) ‘Yellow 7’ of 3/JG3 which came down at Wichling at 10.30 a.m., the pilot was Unteroffizier Heinz Grabow; and

  Me 109E-4 (Wn.5375) of Stab JG53 which came down at Monkton Farm, near Manston, at 3.45 p.m.

  The pilot of the Messerschmitt brought down in the afternoon near Manston was fifty-one-year-old Hauptmann Wilhelm Meyerweissflog, a veteran of the First World War who had served then as an observer in the German Air Force. In this new war, he became an administrative officer attached to the staff of JG 3. On the evening of 4 September 1940, he returned late from a period of leave apparently to JG 53 at a place (he thought) was near to Boulogne. Shortly after lunch next day, the 5th, he saw his pilots preparing to depart for a mission over Britain so he decided he would do the same. He reportedly ‘jumped into his Messerschmitt,’ and ‘flew vaguely in the direction of England’, apparently by himself, or so his story goes. Over England, he was shot up by a British fighter and had to make a forced landing.13

  This time Pat Hughes was in the right place (near Manston) at the right time (3.45 p.m.), and much of the other information about Me 109E-4 (Wn.5375) lines up with details in his combat report. ‘I must have shot his oil tank away as there was oil all over my wings to the tips,’ recorded Pat. A number of .303 inch bullet strikes were found in the oil cooler of this Messerschmitt’s Mercedes Benz engine. These obviously caused the oil to drain out therefore making the engine overheat and fail. Pat had chased the 109 and att
acked it from dead astern, firing from very close range as usual. This, no doubt, was the reason that his Spitfire was covered in oil. Pat recorded that the second group of twelve Me 109s he encountered ‘were all silver with red spinners.’ The camouflage of Me 109E-4 (Wn.5375) was light navy grey with white wing tips and rudder which, within a whirling dogfight, would very likely give the appearance of being all metallic silver. Its propeller spinner was half red, half white, and there was a twelve, inches, wide red band painted around the engine cowling.

  However, Pat stated he had attacked a vic of three Me 109s, ‘singled out one and chased him attacking from dead astern’. According to Hauptmann Wilhelm Meyerweissflog, he was flying alone.14 It will be remembered that the basic element flown by Luftwaffe fighters was a pair, called a Rotte. Two Rotten made up a Schwarm (flight) of four aircraft. Two or three Schwärme made up a Staffel (squadron). Although Hauptmann Meyerweissflog may have taken off after the others, it is likely that he met up with a Staffel of his comrades in the air after he had. To come into the formation, he would have joined a Rotte of two aircraft, thereby changing it into a vic of three.

  In the tightly regulated military and civil aviation of modern days to simply decide to take off and join in on a raid over enemy airspace in such a manner is inconceivable, but in 1940 it was actually done by rare individuals on both sides. Another such character in the Luftwaffe was Theo Osterkamp who became an ace in both wars and was known affectionately as ‘Uncle Theo’ by ‘his boys’.15

  One like individual on the RAF side was Pat’s old CO from 64 Squadron days, the Irishman Victor Beamish who persistently indulged in such extracurricular activities. Promoted to wing commander at the beginning of March 1940, Beamish took command of RAF North Weald, a fighter station in Essex, on the following 7 June. His own Hurricane was always ready to take off with ‘his boys’ or he would take off just afterwards and catch up with them in the air. He did it regularly, and sometimes he would fly alone and find his own trouble – with considerable success. Already an iconic figure, his latest exploits were becoming the stuff of legends. Interestingly, his philosophy on air fighting was also to get in close so he couldn’t miss.16

  To fly alone in a hostile sky was to invite trouble, and on this September afternoon trouble certainly found Hauptmann Meyerweissflog. When matched with Pat Hughes’ combat report, his Messerschmitt force landed in the right vicinity at around the right time.

  *

  With darkness the German Air Force stepped up its nocturnal activity and London experienced its longest night alert so far. It was not just London, targets were spread all over England. Although Sperrle’s bombers could be tracked by RDF following their precise courses from Cherbourg, RAF night fighters were again not equal to the task of locating them, and bringing them down.

  At the same time from the British side, RAF Bomber Command despatched eighty-two aircraft to various targets ranging from Turin to Stettin, and Berlin was raided again for two hours. Three Hampdens and one Wellington were lost.

  15

  6 SEPTEMBER 1940

  Overnight in London the air raid alert lasted a record seven and a half hours.

  Daylight on Friday 6 September brought with it fine weather again, and the British commanders, particularly Hugh Dowding and Keith Park, knew that the Luftwaffe would not allow any respite. Numerous early morning reconnaissance sorties by single German aircraft suggested to Park that, as well as 11 Group’s airfields and sector stations, the vital factories at Weybridge could be under threat. He requested AVM Brand to divert fighters to cover them and the task was allocated in rotation to 234 Squadron and 609 Squadron at Middle Wallop.

  The first large RDF plots appeared on screen at 8.30 a.m. Ten minutes later, twelve aircraft of 234 Squadron led by Spike O’Brien were ordered to take off and patrol Brooklands at ‘Angels 10’. Pat Hughes in Spitfire X4009 was at the head of ‘B’ Flight as Cressy Blue 1, as usual. Well into their patrol, the Spitfires were directed to head east to Beachy Head and climb to 24,000 feet. Meanwhile, 609 Squadron was scrambled to cover Brooklands.

  North of Beachy Head at about 9.30 a.m., 234 Squadron engaged a large formation of escorted enemy bombers – Dornier 17s escorted by Messerschmitt 109s and 110s. They were high over Dover when Pat saw he was in an ideal position above a group of Me 109s just below. Ordering his section into line astern, Pat launched an attack and the victim he selected was mortally hit with a long burst as he closed in from 150 to fifty yards and pursued it down. He saw that it ‘crashed on landing approx. 5 miles west of Littlestone’.1

  Littlestone-on-Sea is a small coastal village that was established in the 1880s as a resort for ‘the gentry’ close to New Romney. Old Romney village, situated two miles inland from New Romney, was the original settlement site on what was once an island in the former River Rother estuary. The Romney Marsh proper lies north of a line between New Romney and Appledore and is a sparsely populated wetland area of Kent and East Sussex covering about 100 square miles. It is flat and low lying, with areas below sea-level. In case of invasion in 1940, plans were afoot for the marsh to be flooded and covered with oil, ready to be set alight when the invaders arrived.

  Old Romney is within the range of ‘approximately five miles west of Littlestone’ estimated by Pat in his combat report and, according to the Luftwaffe Crash Archive, a Messerschmitt 109 did come down in that area during the morning. This was Me 109E-1 (Wn.3877) of 7/JG26 which reportedly crashed on Swamp Farm, Old Romney, at 10.40 a.m., cause not known.2

  Pat could well have been the cause, but there is an anomaly with the times recorded. The timing is open to question. Pat’s combat report has the time of his attack as ‘09.30–10.00’, and according to 234 Squadron’s Form 451 sheets ‘Detail of Work Carried Out’ in the Operations Record Book, Pat was landing back at Middle Wallop at 10.40 a.m. – the same time as that recorded for the crash. However, 234 Squadron’s Form 451 sheets are erratic in their layout and may possibly be just as erratic with some of their recorded times (given the circumstances of those days, not too surprising). Just how and when the time of the crash of Me 109E-1 (Wn.3877) was actually noted down may also be open to question, especially considering the circumstances of what happened next, which was absolute horror. By the time soldiers arrived on the scene the crashed fighter was burning fiercely. Flames had enveloped the machine and the pilot was trapped inside the cockpit! He was being burnt alive before their eyes! He could not escape and they were helpless to do anything to save him. There was only one thing that could be done – an act of mercy. To end the tormented man’s agony, he was shot dead. After the flames were finally extinguished, his body was removed but identification was impossible. His remains were buried as ‘Unknown’ in the Folkestone (New) Cemetery.3

  After seeing that the 109 ‘crashed on landing’, Pat hauled back on his controls to regain height. He would have been well away before any soldiers arrived.

  At 10,000 feet above Dover, Pat found five Me 109s escorting a damaged Messerschmitt 110. Seeing an opportunity, he stalked them from behind. The 110 had one engine on fire and just past Dover he saw the crew bail out. The burning 110 plunged down into the sea.

  Pat’s account tallies with what happened to Me 110C-4 (Wn.2145) 3U+CA of Stab ZG 26 (Horst Wessel) flown by Oberleutnant Friedrich Viertel and his wireless operator Unteroffizier Rudolf Roth. Viertel was the Geschwader’s Technical Officer and frequently had to fly different aircraft. The pair had taken off at 8.50 a.m. to escort bombers and had just reached the coast of Kent without meeting any opposition when an electrical fault caused a fire in one engine. Friedrich Viertel managed to bail out but suffered injuries. The body of Rudolf Roth was not recovered from the sea until 30 October.

  As the 110 fell, Pat positioned himself directly behind the last 109 and opened fire, but at the same time he was aware of three more Messerschmitts diving at him from the beam. Determined to finish off his victim, he kept the button down until he ran out of ammunition. Oil splattered ove
r his windscreen. The 109 was badly hit, apparently with a ruptured oil tank. It was trailing heavy smoke and losing height when he last saw it. Breaking off at the last possible second, Pat turned swiftly into the three 109s, faked an attack and gave himself a chance to escape in the opposite direction.4

  Meanwhile at Middle Wallop, they waited. It was always an anxious time waiting for the Spitfires to return.

  First back was ‘A’ Flight at 9.50 a.m., but somebody was missing. There were only five of them. Spike O’Brien, Bob Doe, Alan ‘Budge’ Harker, Cyril Page, and Jozef ‘Slug’ Szlagowski were there but Bill Gordon had been shot down by a 109. On the credit side, O’Brien claimed two Me 109s shot down; Bob Doe destroyed one Me 109 and damaged three Do 17s; and Alan Harker destroyed two Me 109s plus probably one more.

  ‘B’ Flight had been scattered all over the place in the fighting but they began turning up in ones and twos five minutes later. First to arrive were the two sergeants Mike Boddington and Keith Lawrence, the New Zealander. Boddington claimed another Me 109 which made four kills in three days for him, and gave him a total of five altogether. Twenty minutes later, after another nervous wait, two more Spitfires arrived – the two Poles Zbigniew Olenski and Jan Zurakowski. Olenski, a former test pilot, had landed at Hawkinge for fuel before returning to Middle Wallop. Zurakowski’s Spitfire, N3279, had been damaged by an Me 109 over Beachy Head. He made a shaky approach and overturned while landing. He emerged uninjured and cheerfully added to the tally by informing everyone he had shot down a 109.

  Pat Hughes was the last to turn up at 10.40, twenty-five minutes after everybody else. He was late because he had landed and refuelled at North Weald before flying back. Why North Weald? His old CO, Victor Beamish, happened to be the station commander there. It is very likely that after escaping from the three Messerschmitts, Pat found himself over Essex low on fuel, realised he had the opportunity to drop in on an old friend and seized it. When he did return to Middle Wallop, he announced that he had one Me 109 definite and a probable he did not see crash although it was obviously badly damaged.5 As a result of the engagement, 234 Squadron claimed eight Me 109s destroyed, two Me 109s probably destroyed and three Do 17s damaged, but there was no time to rest on its laurels.6