Battle Climb

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  At whatever stage of the preparation you wished, you put on your helmet. Plugged it into the radio. Listened for more instructions from the fighter controller in the Operations Room or orders from your formation leader. Or, as formation leader, you gave orders.

  There was the instant when the enemy were first sighted. That was a stomach-cramping second or two. If someone else saw them before you did, you heard “Tallyho! Bandits ten-o’clock (or wherever they were in relation to yourselves), twenty thousand,” or whatever the height was.

  The enemy’s height was never given in “angels”; that helped to avoid mistakes. Nor were range, speed, height or formation strength ever given as separate digits. Only compass bearings and call-signs were spoken in that way: “Vector (the code word for “steer”) one-two-five,” etc. Otherwise it was “Angels fifteen... ten thousand... range twelve... thirty bandits,” and so on. “Bandits”, of course, meaning “hostile aircraft”. These distinctions helped to reduce misunderstandings.

  Often a sighting was blurted out with less formality and procedural correctness. “Swarms of the sods... eleven-o’clock... high.... About a hundred of the bastards at one-o’clock, below.... Or, simply, “Christ! Here come the buggers...” followed, a moment later, with details.

  Whatever way it happened, it squeezed the guts.

  Another bad moment was when you picked out your own target or, worse, saw an enemy fighter or more likely a whole bunch of them, coming for you.

  Upton knew of nothing more unnerving than seeing a Me 109 in his mirror, above and behind and diving in to lethal range; with or without its guns already firing.

  There was nothing to exceed the sheer naked menace of red flames at an enemy fighter’s gun ports and black smoke licking back over the leading edges of its wings and its nose. The Me 109E of the summer of 1940 had two 7.92 machine-guns above its engines and two 20 mm cannon in its wings.

  In action the British fighters, with eight machine-guns in their wings, looked even more frightening; but that was small compensation when you were in front of a 109 that was shooting at you.

  Even flying into the cross-fire of a large formation of bombers was not as bad as having just one fighter on your tail. If a dozen air gunners had you in their sights and were making life too hot, you could always break away. You couldn’t shake off a 109 so easily; if at all.

  In theory a Me 109 could turn inside a Spitfire. In practice Spitfires usually turned inside the Messerschmitts. One reason was that the R.A.F flew with greater skill and determination than most of the Luftwaffe, with much more anger, perhaps with more desperation too. Another reason was that at the heights and speeds at which most fighter-to-fighter combats were fought, the theory did not apply.

  Upton went sleepy and bleary-eyed to have his shower, the only effective way of waking himself fully, with his mind a jumble of anticipation of all the bad moments that unavoidably lay in store.

  There was no breakfast at that unearthly hour of morning and even young men’s appetites would not have wanted one. Half an hour after their early calls the pilots climbed aboard the lorries and utility vans outside their messes and went silently out to their aircraft. Conversation was not encouraged at 4 a.m. after no more than five hours’ sleep; less, for some of them.

  “If I thought the Jerries were lying in bed, I’d be really cheesed off,” Upton muttered when they arrived at dispersals.

  “That wouldn’t be a bad ploy,” said Taylor with a yawn. “They could sleep on until a civilised time while we’re wearing ourselves out by getting up at sparrow-fart every day.”

  Tom Dellow, also yawning, said “I wouldn’t object. I’d rather they snored on than got up early to come across here and annoy us.”

  Upton, settling into a chair in the crew room, thought that “annoy” really wasn’t a bad way of putting it. His and his friends’ attitude towards the enemy was one of mixed indignation and repugnance that they should dare to infest and pollute British airspace. There was growing hatred as well. Those who had seen the Luftwaffe in action over France had learned to hate the sight of a German aircraft because of what some of those aircraft did.

  All the squadrons of the Longley Wing had operated over the Dunkirk area, and one of them had been stationed in France for two months with the Advanced Air Striking Force. All the pilots who were still alive since that period had witnessed ugly behaviour by the enemy. They had seen not only the bombing and strafing of civilians but also the occasional machine-gunning of baled-out R.A.F fighter pilots.

  Unchivalrous and savage conduct of that kind bred the fierce loathing that drove Fighter Command into combat with such determination and desperation. Shooting parachuting airmen was not a daily event, but it did happen; although the great majority of the German pilots detested and condemned it. In reply it was not unknown for Allied fighter pilots to take revenge in the same way. There are always the hot-heads, the brutal or sadistic, the young who have been bereaved of a brother or close friend, who will commit these crimes in any war and on land or sea as well as in the air.

  Some Allied airmen had seen their comrades crash or bale out in France and be shot by the first German troops who found them. And some of them had seen British soldiers treat the enemy in the same way.

  It was not a pleasant thought with which to start a new day, that one might have to bale out; and worse when one knew that there were some among the Germans who would welcome this easy chance to kill an enemy. They didn’t even have to waste ammunition: all it needed was to sweep a wingtip through the parachute rigging.

  Upton did think about this for a few moments before he dozed off in his chair.

  Roy Taylor, looking out of a window, thought how dreary the airfield looked in that grey light. There was nothing romantic about being on dawn readiness. The hangars that dominated the station by their size looked grim. The other buildings were blacked-out and prison-like. The huts at dispersal were ugly outside and bleak inside. A lot of people smoked and created a fug. A few had not shaved, and their scruffy appearance aggravated the sullen atmosphere of an hour at which good men ought to be still abed.

  The squadron commander, twenty-five years old, fair, wiry, a dandy, came out of his office in the hut next to the crew room, followed by his two flight commanders and the squadron Engineering officer. Engineering officers were referred to as “plumbers” and this one drove off to the squadron hangar while the three pilots went into the crew room.

  A blackboard was screwed to the wall beside the door and on it the two flight commanders chalked the identification letters of the serviceable aircraft and the names of the pilots detailed to fly them. There might be as many as twenty or twenty-two Spitfires or Hurricanes on a squadron, and perhaps all of them serviceable, but the total number demanded for a squadron scramble was twelve.

  The two flights were divided into sections of three. These were also made up by the flight commanders. A Flight comprised red and yellow sections, B Flight blue and green. The pilots also had individual two-digit numbers, starting with the C.O.’s 14: one-four for R/T use. Squadron callsigns were changed at irregular intervals in the interests of security. This squadron’s current one was Maypole. Pilots used these personal call-signs when flying individually. Upton was Maypole two-zero.

  At about 6 a.m. the direct telephone from the Operations Room brought sleeping men wide awake and the more alert ones half out of their chairs or to their feet.

  No one tried to snatch the telephone away from the orderly. He was a lugubrious youth with acne and an ambition to go on the stage. In the meanwhile he did odd jobs around the squadron, although he was perfectly fit to fly himself if he had had the guts, and waited for his acne to clear up by the time peace returned and he could present himself to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for an audition.

  With studied lack of drama he answered the Ops. Room’s call. The attentive pilots heard him say mellifluously, “Yes, sir.” He turned to the squadron commander and, standing up, offered him the instrument:
“For you, sir.”

  When the C.O.had finished his short talk with the fighter controller he turned and said, “Convoy patrol off Dungeness.” He looked at the A Flight commander: “Yours, J amie.”

  The flight commander looked at Upton. “Take Yellow Section, Clive.”

  Upton, Taylor and Dellow stood up. The C.O. told them the convoy’s code name and the identity of the three Hurricanes from which they would take over, with their callsigns and the frequency on which the Spitfires could communicate with them.

  He added, “I think you can expect visitors. Ops are putting a section on stand-by, as well. It’ll be Red Section.”

  The three Yellow Section pilots dashed out of the door and ran to their aircraft.

  Their flight commander and the two wing men he had detailed to form Red Section with him followed at a trot. Being on standby meant that you must be able to take off within two minutes. In practice it was customary to halve this time. Stand-by pilots sat in their cockpits with all straps fastened and their engines already warmed. They got their scramble order either by a green Verey light or a call on the R/T from Operations.

  Being on stand-by was generally regarded as a bore, because it could mean an hour or so of rather uncomfortable immobility. Upton, Taylor and Dellow grinned at one another as they raced out of the crew room, for they had drawn the better chore.

  They just hoped that, if the convoy did receive “visitors”, Red Section would be quick enough in reinforcing them to be of some use.

  Convoy attacks were usually made by about a dozen Stukas and as many Me 109s.

  ***

  Although Britain’s defenders had to be up and ready for the day’s first onslaught while the blackness of night still enveloped the country, her attackers could be a little more leisurely for they had the initiative.

  Werner Hintsch usually flew with his friend Leutnant Emil Festner as his wing man: the German fighters operated in pairs, a formation that the Spanish Civil War had proved to be more efficient than threes.

  The Staffel commanded by Hauptman Erich Siegert, on which Hintsch served, was called at 4.15 a.m. and the pilots had three quarters of an hour in which to shower, dress and drink a couple of cups of coffee before leaving the house.

  The Staffel had requisitioned an eight-bedroomed mansion with servants’ quarters and an empty stable block, and room for the erection of tents on the lawns.

  By the time the pilots reached their dispersed aeroplanes the sky was full of dawn light and they had thrown off their drowsiness.

  Hintsch, Festner and three or four others paused when they got out of the truck that had brought them, to study the sky.

  “Looks like another scorcher,” said Hintsch. He was feeling relaxed and energetic. His thoughts were as much on Hiltrud as on the day’s flying and he remembered his tender hours with her with affection and gratitude. She had given him a wonderful time. The reality of love-making with her had been every bit as good as the anticipation. And it had been love-making, he told himself, not mere fornication. She was a charming girl and he was truly fond of her. He felt especially confident this morning and knew that to a large measure it was she who had given him fresh confidence. He had suffered a bad scare yesterday; and almost daily for many weeks before that. The British were fighting like demons and no matter what route the Luftwaffe raids took, the Spitfires and Hurricanes were waiting for them: outnumbered, but apparently fighting all the more fiercely for that. But today he felt like the mediaeval champions must have felt, the knights who dedicated themselves to the service of some beautiful lady: he told himself he was Hiltrud’s champion; it made him feel sentimental about her and invincible.

  Emil Festner agreed about the weather outlook. “Good visibility: but that cuts both ways. We should see the Tommy fighters’ condensation trails long before they see us, though.”

  “I hope they don’t keep us hanging about all morning,” Hintsch said. “I begrudge getting up early just to sit around and twiddle my thumbs.”

  Siegert, the C.O., known as the Bull, for his physique, heard him and said, “Just the man I want, then, Werner. Take a Schwarm and go and have a look around on the other side; say, between Beachy Head and Dungeness. You too, Emil. Take Falck and Rudorffer with you.” He turned to two newly-joined N.C.O.s “Keep a good look out astern: the Tommies will have their convoy patrols out already.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Hintsch said with a grin. “I’d really rather take on a dozen Spitfires than get corns on my behind sitting in a chair waiting for something to happen,”

  “Stop shooting a line and go and make something happen,” Siegert told him.

  The day did not begin so early for the bomber crews.

  It was six-o’clock before Oberleutnant Kreft’s batman shook him awake or an orderly roused Unteroffizier Voss.

  Kreft’s waking thought was that he hoped his Staffel would not be needed that day. He knew he was not a coward but neither did he want to die at the age of twenty-seven with so many ambitions unfulfilled. The burden on the Geschwader to which his Staffel belonged had been especially heavy because dive-bombing had achieved such conspicuous successes in Poland, France and the Low Countries, that it was being used day after day against England. Kreft wished the tacticians at Luftflotte H.Q. would make more use of the Heinkel 1 lls, Dornier 17s and Junkers 88s instead of calling so insistently on the Ju 87s.

  He took no pleasure from the clear sky and sunshine that greeted him when he went to the window of his bedroom with a cup of coffee in his hand to survey the day.

  Major von Handorf had gone to a lot of trouble to find good quarters for the Staffeln of his Gruppe. There was no reason, the Gruppenkommandeur said, why the fighter boys should enjoy a higher standard of living than his Stuka crews. He had personally requisitioned an estate which comprised a manor house and home farm. In the fields a few tents had been put up and several prefabricated wooden huts as well. Thus he had his own headquarters in the big house and had one of the Staffeln — Kreft’s, as it happened — around him. He believed in keeping close touch with his operational crews and did this best by having one of them as a sort of Praetorian Guard right under his hand. They messed separately and he did not interfere with the Hauptmann who commanded the Staffel, but he did wonders for morale and esprit de corps by maintaining this contact.

  Kreft liked and admired his Gruppenkommandeur but knew that the more work his crews were given the prouder he was; whereas the crews’ view of the matter was not quite the same.

  Voss, who lived with the other N.C.O.s in a row of comfortable huts, woke to the morning with the pleasurable realisation that this was the day on which his fortnightly visit to l’Ange Bleu was due. He had that to look forward to all day. There were only five girls in the establishment and he had been with them all. It would occupy him pleasantly for the next few hours to think about which one he would have tonight.

  It was pleasanter than thinking about another raid on R.A.F. airfields or radio direction-finding stations.

  He reached the air strip a few minutes before Kreft, and while he waited for his pilot to arrive he wondered uneasily, as he always did, what mood he would be in.

  When he saw Kreft loping towards him he came smartly to attention, saluted him as he came up to their aircraft, and said formally “Good morning, sir.”

  “Morning, Voss. Had an early night, I hope?”

  “Oh, yes, Oberleutnant. I had a long sleep.”

  “That’s fine, Fritz: I don’t want a dozy air gunner guarding my back.”

  Your back is protected by the thickness of my body as well as eight millimetres of armour plating, through both of which a bullet would have to pass before it could give you a scratch, thought Voss. He made no reply.

  Kreft went on, “We’ve got an air test to do, first thing. Let’s get on with it.”

  “The sooner the better, or we won’t be able to get into a game.” He meant cards, of which both he and Kreft were devotees like most of their comrades. He poin
ted to a table that was already set in a spot where it would catch the sun, with canvas chairs around it. “I’ve arranged a game for us.”

  “Good. I’d like a few hands of cards to get my brain working; then I want to do some sketching. I think I’ll try my hand at a few portraits: perhaps I’ll draw a picture of the rest of you chaps around the card table.”

  God be thanked, he’s in a good mood, Voss thought.

  By the time they landed from their air test the sun’s warmth could be felt and they joined a group of their comrades around two card tables, all of them in shirt sleeves and most of them smoking pipes or cigarettes.

  It was a tranquil scene, more like a country outing than the prelude to a bombing raid.

  FIVE

  The convoy was not one of the great pack of passenger liners and big merchantmen, escorted by a strong force of destroyers, that crossed the Atlantic. It was a huddle of briny coasters and rust-streaked deepwater cargo ships that a brace of destroyers and a trio of corvettes with a minesweeper or two were bringing round from the Clyde to the Thames.

  Humble though it was, the convoy bore essential war materials and was, in its way, as attractive a target to the enemy as any transatlantic one: not least because it was less strongly defended. Ships in the Atlantic were within range of the Luftwaffe’s bombers, and did not need fighter cover because, at that early stage of the war, the R.A.F. was not sending out long-range Beaufighters to attack them. In the Channel, ships could easily be bombed repeatedly with Messerschmitt escort: but so could the British fighters easily maintain fighter cover over them.

  In all circumstances, attacking and protecting convoys from the air was a hazardous business.

  Upton led his section cautiously over the coast. He knew that the fighter controller at the sector from which the Hurricanes had come had warned them of the Spitfires’ take-over; but, even so, mistakes in identity happened all the time. The ships’ gunners, also, were understandably on edge and apt to fire first and make a positive identification later.