Without this, the combats had ended inconclusively, no proof of destruction, allowing them only probable kills on both occasions. No matter how unlikely it might be, recovery from a steep dive at low level was not impossible, and quite possibly those diving aircraft may have made it back to their airfields.
On one particularly frustrating occasion, after a text-book interception brilliantly performed by a terribly smug sounding White, one in which everything had gone right, and when they’d been perfectly placed behind an unsuspecting, lumbering great Heinkel, the guns had inexplicably jammed after firing only seven rounds that appeared (unsurprisingly) not to have had any effect whatsoever.
It had been one of the most galling experiences of Rose’s life to watch the bomber dive safely away and disappear into the black night. The enemy gunner had squirted a short burst at them and then fallen silent as the enemy bomber disappeared safely into the dark.
Later, on the ground, a grim-faced crew mechanic had silently shown Rose and White a detached connection in the control wires, a tiny little thing which caused a break in the circuit and prevented their guns from firing more than a handful of shells.
On yet another occasion, Rose and White successfully intercepted an enemy bomber on its way home, a fleeting contact diving towards them, hurtling for the coast on an opposite heading, a little scrap of Rose trembling inwardly as the German had loomed towards them in his mind at their phenomenal combined speed, awful memories still sharp of a horrific collision between his Hurricane and a Bf109 the previous year which almost resulted in his death.
This time, though, the enemy zipped past them unseen, not even close enough to feel the other aeroplane’s slipstream, and even as he turned after it, muscles straining and vision blurring, the contact on White’s scope was lost almost immediately in the ‘grass’ of the screen’s background returns.
Rose and White then spent a fruitless and frustrating quarter of an hour hoping to catch it again on the scopes, but were unable to reacquire contact, and the wily enemy pilot scurried home at low level, scared out of his skin, grateful for the lucky escape and looking forward to a furlough in Paris with his new French girlfriend.
There were also plenty of wasted chases in which the bomber had been either too fast or they had been seen by sharp-eyed gunners whilst still out of range, and the enemy would evade by diving before they could get close enough to shoot.
In one instance Rose attempted a few tentative bursts as the enemy bomber drew away, but none of the rounds had connected and all he could do was swear impotently into his mask and break off as his controls began to lock at the high speeds.
And when there was no custom at all and they were on long hours of dreary patrolling, the time dragged as they waited for directions onto an enemy aircraft.
Initially, the first couple of patrols Rose had flown with a little underlying tension as he worried about staying on his allotted circuit, but with time he learned to step back and manage the tasks automatically, and easing the tension and concentration.
There was something soothing about maintaining position by the stars when the nights were clear and dark or even when well-lit by the moon.
He hated the dirty weather, lashing rain pounding at them and the flickering electrical discharges that danced, slipped, crowded and squirmed over D-Dog, just as fleas would over a real dog, and just as uncomfortable for them both, faces lit eerily by coruscating waves and headphones hissing and popping.
Rather than fly the fighter with an effervescent but harmless and glowing electric cerulean overcoat, a discomfited Rose usually descended to less ionised air.
A fortnight before, the cloud had been deep and all-consuming, opaque swirling thickness and buffeting gusts. Despite the aerial roughness of the interception on which they were, the GCI controller expertly brought them into contact with a bogey, and White did the rest, closing the distance with the contact to a few hundred yards.
And after all of that the job was his to complete, Rose had merely to place the enemy within the gun sight and let rip.
Yet he could not do so. Despite closing with the other aircraft as close as he safely could, he was unable to pick it out in the dirty murkiness.
And without a positive identification, Rose was forced to hold fire. What if it were British? If it was a friendly it would be fratricidal to shoot it down, and if it weren’t, how could he aim? What would he aim at? And then of course if he fired there was the danger that they would fly through debris or get too close and collide with the bogey.
Despite a lengthy pursuit (from a respectful distance), the cloud had not thinned appreciably, and they never once caught sight of the enemy (if that was what it was) and finally were forced to break off the pointless hunt. It had been a bitter but unavoidable pill to swallow.
They’d done the best possible, but that did not help to ease the deep despair in their hearts. The best had not been enough. Would that unidentified aircraft be back tomorrow to drop bombs on their country folk? They could never know for sure, but it was likely.
And then there was the ice. Insidiously, silently, gradually, it would gently build up to form a second skin, weighing down the Beaufighter, affecting the flying surfaces, obscuring the cockpit windows and White’s observation bubble, and straining the Hercules engines as they strove to drag the encumbered aircraft to height.
Chunks of ice large and small would break off to disappear in their turbulent wake with unnervingly daunting cracking sounds, sometimes tumbling back to whack and clatter violently against the aircraft nastily, like monstrous lumps of sleet.
After one such flight Rose inspected the fuselage and was disconcerted to see deep indentations left on the skin of the aeroplane by the lumps of ricocheting ice.
Ice building up on the aerials a couple of days ago damaged them badly as D-Dog was climbing after a scramble, cracking them and rendering the AI totally unserviceable.
Returning to base so soon after take-off because of damaged equipment had been infuriating to say the least, and recalibrating and repairing the damage had meant that they were forced to switch aircraft and fly G-Gertrude instead, the squadron’s hangar queen.
And dear old Gertie continued to act true to form.
It had taken them the best part of an hour to drag ‘Dirty Gertie’ (as she was unkindly known by all the ground crew and aircrews) to their operational patrol altitude at fifteen thousand feet, and almost immediately she began to lose revs in her port engine, forcing Rose to lose height as he fought to hold altitude.
Finally being able to maintain altitude at eleven thousand feet, with both of the Hercules engines behaving normally, Lamplight had found them a customer, and began to direct them to an intercept.
As soon as Gertie was within twenty miles of the bandit, as was normal practice, White switched on the set and almost immediately his compartment was filled with the awful stink that indicated all was not well with the set. Hastily, he switched it off and shared the bad news with Rose, who in turn would have the unenviable task of passing on the gen to Lamplight.
Rose closed his eyes wearily and keyed the R/T to advise the controller of their predicament, “Lamplight, I’m afraid that my Thing is unserviceable.” He wouldn’t use the words ‘My thing is bent’, with all its unfortunate connotations, but he needn’t have worried, for the girls in the control room had heard the words so often over the previous months, no one would bat an eyelash.
They tried hard, assisted very ably via direction from the ground to intercept the raider, but it had been a fruitless search without a functioning AI, and Gertie had been brought back to Dimple Heath without further ado. Luckily the flight back and the landing was one that was (fortunately) without excitement or incident, although Rose watched the controls like a hawk throughout.
An exceedingly fretful hawk.
Once the fighter had rolled to a stop, and safely on the ground, Rose laid one palm gently against the stained skin of the fuselage, and pursed his lips thoughtf
ully for a moment, but the crew chief merely stared darkly at Gertie, had shaken his head and ordered her wheeled away back into exile at the back of the hanger.
Once more the groundcrews and technicians scratched their heads unhappily, and wondered what to do with her.
It was suggested unkindly by some wag that she be rolled out and left exposed on the hardstanding until their occasional and inept enemy night raider (derisively named ‘Von Plop’ by all and sundry, to differentiate Dimple Heath’s gormless intruder from Manston’s ‘Von Plonk’) obligingly dropped a stick of bombs on her and put Gertie out of her misery, but the suggestion was rejected because it was generally agreed that Von Plop’s aim was rotten (thankfully he’d yet to hit anything other than open ground with his bombs) and poor Gertie might have to wait a very long time to be hit.
Furthermore, it was felt that even an aeroplane like Gertie did not deserve such an ignominious fate at the hands of Von Plop.
To provide her as an easy target for him would be unpatriotic.
Toffee sighed when he heard the news. “She’ll be sent as a training aircraft and shred some poor new crew’s nerves,” he predicted acidly.
Chapter 21
With a disgraced Gertie banished back into obscurity, back in her usual resting place in the darkest recesses of a hangar again, Rose and White were assigned the shared use of A-Able with Williams and Heather. When one crew landed, the other would take off.
It was a prickly arrangement (no-one wants to share their aircraft if they can help it), and the next day there was a collective cheer when a brand new replacement Beaufighter appeared in the circuit overhead.
The pilot expertly turned the heavy fighter into a steep landing approach, smoothly pulling up at the last moment to perform a neat three-point landing, the wheels hardly even kicking up a slight fuss of dust as the Beau settled onto the ground.
Once on the ground, the aircraft was quickly marshalled into a vacant hardstanding.
A little group of pilots had gathered behind them.
“Hm, that was a bit flash, no pun intended, old man,” murmured Barr, grinning apologetically at Rose, “Must be an expert pilot; that was a neater landing than I’m used to seeing around here.”
He ignored the dirty looks and the derisive muttering from his companions, “Perhaps we could get the fellow to join our little band?”
The pilot of the machine ran up the engines at maximum revolutions for a moment, blipped them, and then, safety checks done, switched off. A moment later a slim figure bounced down the ladder to chat with Chiefy.
Meanwhile, the ground crew fell on the fighter eagerly, inserting the locking components in the undercarriage and opening up hatches, ensuring that the aircraft was readied for operations as quickly as possible.
“Oh dear, the chap’s a bit on the small side,” Barr grinned contritely once more as he looked down at Rose. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.”
Rose beamed back good-naturedly, “’Course not. It’s not all bad being small, y’know Billy, because I’m actually perfectly placed down here to punch you in the balls. Fancy a demonstration?”
The Beaufighter pilot finished the discussion with Chiefy, looked around the airfield with interest and noticed the little group of pilots including Rose and Barr, and with a final nod at the grizzled sergeant, turned and walked towards them.
Pulling off the flying helmet, to the onlooker’s astonishment, the pilot shook out a wavy thatch of shoulder-length fair hair and pulled off her goggles to reveal a very feminine face.
Despite himself Barr whistled and Rose was amazed to see Toffee Jones gawp in surprise.
“But she’s just a girl!” muttered Cole in surprise, looking past the figure approaching them. “Where’s the pilot?”
“Hardly a girl, Flying Officer. And I’m the pilot. Who were you expecting? Trenchard? Hermann Goering? George Formby perhaps?”
The ‘girl’ stopped before them, and her voice was light and cool, eyes flinty.
“My name’s Wilcox, Flight Captain Connie Willcox, and I’m with the Air Transport Auxiliary. Surely you must have met some of my colleagues before?”
On Willcox’s shoulders were the two and a half gold stripes of her rank, and on her flying overalls were her ‘wings’, bearing the legend ATA. She was senior in rank to all of them (but equal in rank to Barr), despite her girlish freshness.
“You’re the first ATA pilot to deliver an aircraft to us, Ma’am,” Rose smiled but his words were respectful, “I must say you caught us all quite by surprise!”
Willcox smiled warmly back at him, face and voice softening as she expertly shouldered her satchel, helmet and gasmask. “Oh. I didn’t realise. I’m the first?”
Barr jumped in smoothly, “The first any of us have seen, Miss Willcox, but well worth the wait, believe me. But enough of this. You must be parched after flying that Beau, they aren’t the easiest of kites to fly; it must have been quite a flight for a delightful young lady such as yourself. Would you care for a cup of tea? I could show you around?” he gave her his best, most charming smile, his ‘Knee-trembler’, and immediately hers disappeared.
“I found it quite a pleasant trip, Squadron Leader, and she was an absolute delight to fly, even for a mere little young lady such as myself, quite the sweet little kitten, in fact.” She smiled, a thing of slicing ice, “And I will have a cup of tea, but I think I can find one all by my own, helpless little self. I did manage to fly and navigate my way here all by myself, of course.”
They were agog, and Cole’s jaw hung open. It was the first time any of them had heard of a Beaufighter being called a sweet little kitten. Usually they behaved like anything but, and had more of a reputation as a monstrous brute.
Recovering quickly, Barr swept off his cap and smiled winningly at Willcox, charm and magnetism personified, “Oh, but I must insist, miss.”
Willcox shook her head, “Thank you for the kind offer of your company, Squadron Leader, but I’m not looking for it. And even If I were, I’d not be looking your way. Understood?”
Ouch! That’s cut you down to size, my old mate!
Barr’s mouth opened and closed helplessly like a landed fish, and Rose tried not to laugh at his bewildered expression.
Willcox noticed his amusement, and her smile returned. “Perhaps you could point me in the right direction, Flying Officer?” her eyes danced, “Care to show me the way?”
He could feel his cheeks colouring. “I’d love to, Ma’am, but I’m afraid the Squadron Leader and I were discussing the flying schedule for later. However, I’m sure my navigator, Sergeant White here, would be more than happy to take you. Chalky, would you mind, old chap?” he held up a finger, “But first best nip into Operations so they can sort out the Flight Captain’s paperwork and a travel warrant, OK?”
White’s eyes were like saucers, “Oh, um, yes sir!” the young NCO almost tripped in his eagerness.
“Right-oh, then, lead on, Chalky.” She inclined her head solemnly to Rose, warm eyes curious, “Thank you, Flying Officer…?”
“Rose, Ma’am, Harry Rose.”
Willcox smiled playfully, one hand brushing back some errant strands of hair, “My friends call me Connie, Harry Rose, and so must you. Next time, perhaps?”
Rose nodded in agreement, “Next time.”
But not if my lady wife has anything to do with it, Flight Captain, he thought regretfully, before instantly reproaching himself for even thinking it.
He was happily married for goodness’ sake!
The eyes of the little knot of B-Flight aircrew collectively followed Willcox’s jaunty step as she followed after White, and a silly little limerick began to silently form in Rose’s mind as he watched her walk away from them.
‘Today an angel delivered our newest kite,
A porcelain butterfly born into flight,
Soft eyes of grey, lit bright from within,
She smiled and my world began to spin,
And I no longer knew my left from my right…’
“You cheeky beggar, if you hadn’t spoken up I’d have hooked that delicious little fish. Had her eating out of my hand, mesmerised, she was.” Barr huffed, eyes still fixed longingly on the girl, dragging Rose from his musings.
Rose laughed, “Yeah, Billy, I could see that you’d captivated her completely!”
“Couldn’t get a word in, with all that purposeless jabbering you were doing, all your bloody fault, you scallywag,” Barr whined plaintively, “A real corker, wasn’t she? Be wasted on you, Flash.”
Toffee let out a long, low whistle, “Whew…!”, and Barlow wistfully hummed a line from a song.
Indeed.
With a sorrowful sigh and a shake of the head, Barr turned to glower at Rose. “You’ll be sorry, you damn disgraceful donkey. I’m going to tell Molly that being married to gorgeous senior WAAF Totty isn’t enough for you, now you’re running around chatting up gorgeous senior ATA Popsie!”
Barr grinned suddenly, “I ain’t blind, I saw the way you were drooling at the lovely Flight Captain, though I think she needs her eyes checked if she liked the cut of your miserable jib!”
Rose laughed again and waved his hand at Barr, as if warding off a troublesome fly.
Four days later, Clark and Jones left B-Flight.
Their tour of operations finally over, the pair, after a very long tour of ops were being ‘rested’ at long last.
Almost eleven months of continuous operational flying and fighting later, eleven confirmed kills, ending their tour with a very well-deserved Bar added to their DFCs.
Pre-war regulars initially flying Hawker Harts, the pair had begun their fighting war as NCOs under the most primitive of conditions, finally finishing their tour at the forefront of the RAF’s night defence umbrella as officers, with a DFC and Bar, DFM, and a Mention in Despatches each to show for their experience, expertise and sacrifice.
After all the stresses of front line fighting, learning that they were being rested left Clark and Jones looking simultaneously lost, melancholic, relieved and euphoric.
Beaufighter Blitz Page 21