Weather made life even more difficult for the defenders; on some days in September, the cloud cover was so thick that the Germans might as well have been flying wrapped in invisibility cloaks. The radar stations, as ever, could only give limited warning of their approach – about ten minutes when they set off across the Channel – and there was little the Observer Corps could do in terms of reporting height and numbers when the attacking planes were enveloped deep in cloud. As a result, the intercepting forces often had to trust to blind luck.
On those black nights, the bombing would generally start at around eight o’clock. The uncanny wail of the air-raid sirens echoing through the streets sent families hurrying to shelters that – in many cases – were still makeshift. The bombing waves would go on until three or four in the morning. The disruption caused to infrastructure – the railways so expertly targeted, resulting in huge congestion and preventing goods from getting through in subsequent days – was one thing; the sleep deprivation was another. The psychology was acute: those forced into night after night of disturbed sleep, or indeed complete lack of rest, would find the subsequent days very difficult. They would be fatigued at work, their judgement sometimes as wobbly as that of a drunk.
Night fighting was still in the experimental stage; and the night-fighting squadrons were a force separate from the daytime Spitfire and Hurricane crews. They were obviously still needed for daylight attacks. In those early days of the Blitz, Dowding’s options were limited; they involved a great deal of focus and indeed bravery from the anti-aircraft gunners, aided by those operating the vast searchlights that they would try to triangulate on circling bombers. In the shelters, this was a further disturbance; anti-aircraft gun strength was doubled, and as the guns were fired from their key positions all over the capital, from Nunhead to Primrose Hill, the report would send its shockwave of sound for miles.
In the meantime, working around the clock in the operations rooms were young women like Patricia Clark. In her case, promotion came quite swiftly, but the complexity and focus of the job did not let up. Obviously, the need for accuracy on the plotting table became even more demanding, she says, ‘when there were an awful lot of aircraft’. The task was easy when it was one. ‘But when you got a mass of counters, then you had to mentally get a picture of what was happening.’ If a hundred planes were coming in, they were represented on the table with a box rather than with counters signifying a hundred aircraft. ‘It became chaotic then and if you weren’t watching what you were doing, it could lead to mistakes. Especially if there was a dogfight or something and you got a “friendly” plane near a “hostile” … but it became completely automatic after a while. You could visualise it. You didn’t have to stop to work it out.’
The tension between Air Chief Marshal Dowding and Group Commander Leigh-Mallory was now boiling over. The question of taking on the enemy with all the might available – Douglas Bader’s squadrons having flown like demons around the areas of North Weald and Hornchurch, looking for Luftwaffe targets to pick off – was now brought very much to the fore at the Air Ministry. Dowding was profoundly hurt by what was to follow – and remained so for decades afterwards. In essence, Leigh-Mallory went behind his back; and indeed, according to Park, he had long intended to do so, having declared after one meeting some weeks back that he wanted him removed.
Dowding mournfully told his biographer:
At the time I thought that this whole business of intense discussion about whether we should use three, four or five squadron wings was so simple and inconsequential that it really hardly deserved a long statement being made. But I must have been wrong there. Not about the principle of the thing or its importance. But about what people had in mind. It became obvious after a while that several people in responsible positions did hold opinions that were contrary to mine. And since in their eyes I seemed to be refusing to listen to what they had to say, I was sentenced without trial. There’s no doubt at all in my mind now that it was on that subject – the big wings – that Park and I were judged and condemned.5
This internal battle was bruising to both sides; for instance, after Douglas Bader had made some spectacular claims about the high numbers of German planes successfully shot down in his big wing formations, Dowding had written to Leigh-Mallory with the rather tactless sentiment: ‘I read a great many combat reports and I think I am beginning to pick out those which can be relied on and those which throw in claims at the end for good measure.’ Keith Park, on hearing this, added his own question: were those German bombers shot down before – or after – they had reached and destroyed their targets?
There were also accusations and counter-accusations that Leigh-Mallory and the pilots of 12 Group were simply not obeying the orders passed on to them by Fighter Command; that there were instances where, for example, they had been told to patrol the air bases at North Weald and Hornchurch while 11 Group was down in Kent fighting off bombers – but that 12 Group had strayed into Kent themselves, leaving the bases undefended when the Germans came up the Thames and bombed them. There were, too, outbreaks of confusion caused by the vast formations favoured by Bader and his fellow pilot, leading to misunderstanding and misidentification in the skies over Canterbury, and on the ground too.
The technology was still in some cases rather primitive. Some planes, for instance, were now fitted with VHF radios, rather than the high frequency system still in use by other fighters; with differing frequencies in operation, however, it was impossible for pilots from different groups – in this case 11 and 12 – to communicate with each other directly. The result could be a carnival of confusion in the skies. But the real seeping poison was that Dowding and Park appeared not to have the confidence of Air Ministry figures such as Sir Charles Portal.
It might seem extraordinary now that meetings were being convened in the Air Ministry at a moment of such exquisite national emergency: surely the remorseless night-time bombing of London would focus priorities a little more clearly? And yet the Blitz was, in its own way, precisely the point. When, in October 1940, Park and Air Chief Marshal Dowding were summoned for a meeting at the Air Ministry, they found Leigh-Mallory and Squadron Leader Bader sitting there. It was unprecedented – not to say highly irregular – for an officer to be brought along to a conference. But Leigh-Mallory wanted William Sholto Douglas, then deputy chief of the Air Staff, to hear what the exceptionally forceful Bader had to say. Bader did not hold back. It was obvious even before he started where the sympathies of the senior personnel lay. This meeting cemented them. After having done so much to ensure that the Nazis never gained enough purchase to invade, both Park and Dowding sensed that they were regarded as hindrances rather than helps.
Neither of them could have foreseen just how abrupt and unjust their dismissals would be. But even as the scenario was unfolding, the Fighter Command structure that Dowding had constructed was growing further; there were operations rooms being established deep into the country. And working in them was an eager new generation of women and men who were about to step into a dazzling – and top secret – world.
Chapter Sixteen
‘This Was War and We Were Fighting’
Having thrown herself with such gusto into life at Bentley Priory, Patricia Clark now found herself facing a new challenge within an expanding Fighter Command. ‘I went to Rudloe Manor,’ she says. This, as it turned out, was an extremely attractive proposition: a seventeenth-century house not far from the spa town of Bath, built with the same honeyed stone, and located amid green hills. It had an added dimension: a secret network of tunnels beneath. Moreover, Patricia Clark discovered that she was something of a pioneer. ‘At that stage, the Rudloe station had never had women on it. They were not equipped for women. It was part of radar 10 Group, not long started.’ She describes the first site of the Operations Room there: ‘They had this converted cowshed. They hadn’t built the underground block yet. It was very primitive. The hayloft had been turned into the balcony that looked down over the table. An
d the lights would go off; we had candlelight, we had to have greatcoats on in the winter because there was no heating. But it was all very exciting.’
Despite the low-tech surroundings, the work involved the newest technology; and in some quarters, there was still scepticism that delicate females would be able to cope. ‘We were being tested to see whether we were able to do the work,’ says Patricia Clark with a laugh. ‘Which was ridiculous for anyone who was thinking about it.’ The operations table, she says, was much better suited for women ‘because clearly women’s fingers are much narrower and smaller – so a conglomeration of great big men’s hands are going to be less suitable for coping. And, of course, most women – not me – were good at embroidery. Or sewing, or things where they used their fingers.’
The early days of the Rudloe Manor establishment saw a great deal of cheerful extemporisation and misunderstandings. ‘At first, there were six girls and I, all together, living in the same Nissen hut, and one day, a sign went up at the end of the hut with a notice: “You are to report for nit inspection at 2.30 on Friday afternoon.” We looked at that and asked each other: “What’s that supposed to be?” And then someone said, “It’s a typing error of course, it’s kit inspection.” So we laid out all our kit. We had never heard of a nit at our schools.
‘So along comes the sergeant,’ she continues, laughing. ‘He shouts, “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? It’s nit inspection! Don’t you know what a nit is?” And of course, feeling very stupid and very ignorant, we trailed along for nit inspection – we were absolutely horrified at the idea that people had bugs in their hair. Inconceivable from the homes we came from! Even though it sounds awfully snobbish.’
The early days at Rudloe Manor also posed uniquely delicate problems; the notion of having women working in such a place was still highly novel, and not all the ideal arrangements had been made beforehand. ‘Being a men’s station, they were not equipped for women’s monthly problems. Inevitably, within a very short while, the camp plumbing system broke down.’
The solution was very far from ideal. ‘Eventually they decided that until they had got organised, we were to go to the incinerator which was across the camp,’ continues Mrs Clark. ‘In order to cross the camp, you had to cross the men’s quarters. And, of course, whenever we were down there, the only reason we could be down there was for that. We all knew this and the men used to make noises as we went by.’
This exquisite embarrassment led to one more misunderstanding. ‘Up goes another sign,’ says Mrs Clark. ‘“Report to Hut such and such for VD lecture.” We looked at that and thought, is this another typing error? We decided it was. We thought it was WD – Works Department. So down we went, a bit on the late side. We went in the back of the hut and the place was full, all seated. And at the platform at the end, there was a huge blackboard, and on it a diagram. And there were two yellow circles and then two mauve pipes that came down into another coloured pipe. Quite obviously, we thought it was a diagram of the camp plumbing system. We went out of that building as ignorant as we came in. Not only had we never heard of VD, we knew very little about anatomy! Let alone men’s anatomy. We were totally innocent.
‘Some of the girls had a clue – one of the girls had a brother and she was a font of information because she knew what men looked like. And we were nearly twenty. When I talk to my grandchildren, they think I’m making it up, but it’s quite true. So our life at Rudloe Manor had its complications and its difficulties but we all settled down in the end. It was very easy going at first because there was no female administration there, it was the men who were responsible for us.’
After her time studying in pre-war Germany, Patricia Clark was used to being independent, and naturally welcomed the chance for more such freedom. Allied to this was the immense satisfaction of doing a job – a highly secret job – where she could see, right before her eyes, the difference that they were making, day after day. The kind of life she was now leading had its own appeal; wartime privations were a nuisance, but she found that she rather loved her new rural billet, nestled deep in the heart of Wiltshire. ‘We were billeted out to Corsham village where we were in a little self-contained four-up two-down with one bathroom. Four girls in a room, about sixteen in total – and one bathroom. And we had been brought up to have a bath every day. So there would be queues for the bathroom and the water would run out. And the loo was in the bathroom as well, so – well, concessions were made by everybody. But it was all rather exciting. Here we were, this was war and we were fighting it.’
Eileen Younghusband also recalls the exhilaration not merely of working at Rudloe but being picked out as exceptionally good at what she did: ‘There was a wing commander called Rudd, and he knew I was quite good at maths.’ One day he launched a surprise on her. ‘He sent me into a separate room and said, “I want you to convert the Filter Room table as if it is on a globe.” Why he ever asked me to do that I don’t know, because it wouldn’t have been feasible to have it on a table made like that. It was just a test. I did it.’
Wing Commander Rudd was clearly impressed. ‘He said, “I’m putting you forward as a filter officer.”’ However, the news was unwelcome – by that stage, Eileen Younghusband had her own ideas of what she wanted to do. ‘I’ve already applied for Intelligence,’ she told him.
He replied, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve cancelled it.’
To which she responded, ‘But I’m going up for an interview next week. He said, “Well you won’t get it.” And it was perfectly true.’
Determined to get her own way, Eileen Younghusband travelled to London for her Intelligence interview; it took her a while to realise that anything was wrong. On arriving at the central London address, ‘I was told to go to room fifty-two up the stairs … there was no one in there. I sat down – it was one of those rooms with glass in the door and a corridor outside and people looking in. People kept on looking in at me, but no one arrived. And then I went downstairs – and I realised that it had been fixed, that I wouldn’t see anybody. So I came back to Bath. And Wing Commander Rudd said: “I told you so.”’
It hadn’t been that Eileen Younghusband had wanted to escape from Fighter Command; she simply had energy and a thirst for excitement. ‘I ticked all the boxes. And I suppose I was a bit ambitious,’ she says now, laughing. ‘I didn’t want to just be a plotter all my life.
‘But Wing Commander Rudd had this idea and that was it. And to be quite honest, he was probably right, as there were only a certain number of people who could do the job – who had the right attitude. So I went straight away on the filterer course.’
In the end, she was not too disappointed; the work was intensely involving as well as a challenge to pick up. ‘To be a filterer was a really demanding job, more demanding than a plotter obviously. The plotter was only putting on the table what they had been told. They had to be correct, they had to understand but they didn’t have to make many great decisions … unless they couldn’t get information. Then they had to say to whoever was on the balcony, “Ma’am, I can’t get what I want to know from the radar station.” But that didn’t happen very often because everyone worked so well. And we got to know the radar operators. Because we were there eight hours at a time, you knew all about the radar operators – their background, whether they were married, what they liked doing … and that talking when you weren’t working was called binding.’
In the depths of the country, the nights were clearly a great deal quieter than in London. But this sense of peace presented its own difficulties when it came to shifts in the early hours of the morning. ‘On quiet nights you had to keep alert in case anything happened. But when it was foggy for example, and you were underground, heating wasn’t as good, you were either boiling hot or freezing cold, the air-conditioning was indifferent. There was no smoking, either.’ In order to combat any longueurs and to help keep their eyes open, some women developed side interests during their shifts. ‘Lots of them brought knitting to do,’ says
Mrs Younghusband. ‘They dropped it immediately if anything started to happen. Then they were writing love letters. But you had to be ready.’
As she said, Eileen Younghusband did not stay long at Rudloe Manor – she was about to be given grander responsibilities – but some aspects of the place she found utterly intriguing. ‘We were underground in the quarries,’ she says with delight. ‘Where all the stone was taken out to build Bath.’ More importantly, she adds conspiratorially, ‘that’s where the Crown Jewels were rumoured to be kept.’ Such apocryphal stories, or tales that entire collections of paintings from the National Gallery were stashed down there as well, gave tea breaks an almost surreal dimension of interest.
Back east, the assault on London was ineluctable; night after night of burst sewers, of hospital wards being hit, of buses flattened into roads. The German planes were once more ranging more widely across the country: to Coventry and Birmingham, to Manchester, Liverpool and up to Glasgow. The prospects of invasion were felt to be receding, and with the season of storms upon the Channel, any attempted crossings with large quantities of materiel would have been impractical. But the internal pressure upon Fighter Command was intense, and for senior War Office and Air Ministry figures to have to pick their way through the traffic chaos engendered by each night’s Blitz can’t have cast a tremendously positive light on Dowding’s tactics for the defence of the city.
The differences between Keith Park’s 11 Group and Leigh-Mallory’s 12 Group widened and became ever more belligerent, Park firing off memos complaining about the length of time it took for 12 Group’s squadrons to fly south to back up 11 Group. Air Vice Marshal Sholto Douglas seemed to be hearing a lot of the complaints from both Park and the Leigh-Mallory camp, and this fierce internal dispute was now exhausting his patience. Sholto Douglas commented in a confidential letter to Dowding at the time:
The Secret Life of Fighter Command Page 22
