It was a method of attack of which the air crews were not enamoured. Conventional bombing from altitudes as low as 500 ft was frightening enough. Coming down to twenty feet and, if the waves were small, lower still, meant a last-second pull up to avoid crashing into the target; and perhaps being within the radius of the bomb’s blast when it went off. If one bomb was released at a time, the terrifying routine had to be endured four times. If all four were released together, the combined blast could spread far enough to bring down the attacking aircraft at four times the normal safe distance; which allowed very little time for getting clear.
Such modes of attack were more suited to the temperament of a dashing character like his cousin Christopher Fenton, Roger was thinking. That was the way the Beaufort squadrons did it when they carried bombs, and the run-up to bomb release was the same as when firing a torpedo. Christopher was an enthusiastic torpedo type. He revelled in the excitement. He was wild, quite mad; the sort who would fly under low bridges, do steep turns between factory chimneys set closer than the wingspan of his aircraft, skim a Hurricane or Spitfire through the narrow space between a hedge and a run of telephone wires: if, that was, his early craving to fly fighters had been allowed full rein.
I am neither mad nor even wild, Roger grumbled to himself. Even James, the epitome of fighter-boy dash, with his sixteen confirmed victories and numerous probables, and his Distinguished Flying Cross and bar, would be a trifle too prudent to emulate some of the escapades at which his young brother would not hesitate. If I had felt that sort of urge, Roger told himself, I would have asked to train with a fighter squadron instead of carefully choosing bombers when I was in the R.A.F.V.R. And when I asked for Blenheims, I didn’t reckon on this sort of caper.
He had surprised himself as much as his family by being awarded a Distinguished Flying Medal so early in the war that James had by then been in combat only once and Christopher was still at flying training school. That was because the squadron had been pitched into those raids and reconnaissances off the German coast from the second day of war. He did not really want to astonish anyone again by winning another decoration by even more hazardous deeds.
The N.A.A.F.I. van came round and he bought coffee for his crew and a rock cake for Jorkins, who was much addicted to them and perked up as soon as he heard the N.A.A.F.I. vehicle in the distance; before anyone else ever could. He would even wake from sleep and rush to the crew room door, a sure sign that the N.A.A.F.I. was about to arrive.
The telephone from Ops rang in the crew room. Roger had perforce gone in out of the cold. The Commanding Officer of the other Blenheim squadron - which had a separate crew room - had gone on the first wave. Wing Commander Dean was going on the second. He answered the telephone, spoke briefly and replaced it. Squadron Leader Eastman had led the section of three aircraft that took off first.
“Signal from Terry Eastman. They’re attacking a large convoy. I’m taking my section out at once.” The four crews began to stand up and find their life vests, Irvine jackets or Sidcot suits, and helmets. They had already stowed their parachutes aboard. Dean went to a map on the wall and stuck a coloured pin into the place at which Eastman had found the convoy. He read out the course, estimated speed and approximate composition of the convoy which he had noted down. That left only the section which Roger was leading, in their squadron. The four crews followed Dean’s crews out to watch them go.
The telephone rang again and the airman who had been told to stay by it called from the door, to Roger.
“Flying Officer Hallowes, sir. That was Ops. Another sighting, by 90 Squadron. One of their sections is taking off right away as well.”
Men came rushing out of the neighbouring crew room and ran towards their aeroplanes.
Wing Commander Dean’s four taxied out. Blue puffs of exhaust smoke hung in the air. They went and the next four were hard behind them. Briefly there was the noise of sixteen Merlin engines, all roaring at take-off power; then a sZ117 diminishing mutter; then silence. Exhaust fumes and the smell of petrol lingered. The waiting crews returned to their chairs.
The Ops telephone rang. Roger snatched it. The controller with a burned face and ruined right hand was on duty. Roger heard his words, murmured “Bad show” and put down the receiver. He turned, the cynosure of attention.
“Terry Eastman’s had it. He’s sent a ditching signal. They hit a big ship and slowed her down. She’s burning. O’Malley sent an attack signal and they’ve had nothing more. MacKinnon attacked, no details, but he’s damaged.”
Devonshire was taking deep inhalations of tobacco smoke. He looked sallow and his eyes had a fevered brightness.
“Aren’t they sending us out, then?”
“Not yet.”
Jorkins was prowling round the room, as unsettled as the men who waited there. He came back to sit at Roger’s feet.
The telephone rang again to tell them that another section from their sister squadron had been ordered off. Three convoys had now been found and attacked.
“How’s it going?” Roger asked the controller.
“Sorry, I’m busy now, Roger. Talk to you later.”
Roger knew what that meant and so did the rest of them. So many aircraft were being lost that Ops did not want the waiting crews to know.
Three people left the crew room to go to the lavatory. Someone else went out and they could hear him being sick near the door, which was as far as he had managed to go.
Everyone rushed out at the sound of an aircraft overhead. It was a Blenheim in the circuit: one of those which had most recently taken off. The waiting crews from both squadrons stood around it curiously. As soon as the engines stopped someone called up to the pilot “What’s wrong.”
The pilot, looking pale and harassed, answered curtly.
“Mag drop on both engines.”
One of the other pilots on his squadron said loudly. “Windy bugger. His aircraft was O.K. on air test. That’s the second time he’s turned back out of three take-offs.”
Everyone walked away and the last Roger saw of the returned pilot he was arguing with his ground crew while his observer and wireless operator trudged dejectedly towards their crew room.
There was silence in the other crew room where Roger waited with his section. It was broken after an uneasy five minutes by the sound of another approaching aeroplane.
Roger made for the window.
“Don’t say that’s another gutless wonder scrubbing.”
“It’s too early for any of the first wave to be back,” said Devonshire.
Roger was turning his head this way and that. “Funny... I can’t see him.”
He went outside, Jorkins as usual dogging (sic) his footsteps. The rest of them followed. They walked thirty yards from the hut and searched the sky.
“There he is!” Roger pointed.
The aircraft was coming in very low, straight across the airfield instead of around the circuit.
Recognition struck Roger with the force of a physical blow: the effect on his tripes was the same.
“It’s a bloody Heinkel! Hit the deck, you stupid...”
His epithet was lost in the noise of the two Bofors guns, the Hispano cannon, the dozen Vickers and Lewis machine-guns around the airfield opening fire: and the roar of the Heinkel’s engines.
Jorkins raced across the grass, barking with anger and defiance.
The Heinkel 111’s front guns were shooting. It was the new H type, with a twenty-millimetre cannon in a ventral gondola as well as the 7.9 mm machine-gun in the nose. Tracer shells and bullets were spattering the ground and making a confused pattern with the crossing tracer fired by the ground gunners.
Jorkins was fifty yards away and the Heinkel’s bullets and shells were spattering around him.
Roger, yelling “Jorkins, come here” fruitlessly in the din, got to his feet and ran after him.
He saw two bombs leave the Heinkel and fall, from about a hundred feet, towards one of the concrete runways. He was flung t
o the ground by the blast of their explosion and sent rolling across the grass. When he picked himself up, smoke hung over two craters, one in the runway and one close beside it. He looked around for Jorkins. There was no sign of him. Roger was hazy and unsteady on his feet. He saw a metallic object on the ground and walked towards it. He stopped and hesitated before picking it up. A few inches of Jorkins’s brass-studded collar lay on the grass, with a metal tag on its bearing his name and Ginger Pike’s, with the address of R.A.F. Belton.
Roger was glad there was no one near him to see the tears that ran down his cheeks.
He was still muttering “Oh, Christ! Oh, Christ Almighty... what can I say to Ginger when he gets back... what can I say to him? He’ll kill me... I should have hung on to Jorkins... I should have hung on to him...”
He was so dazed and grief-stricken that he was oblivious of the noise that was still going on as the station defence gunners kept up their fire. He jerked out of his blankness when there was a loud explosion, and, looking round, he saw the Heinkel fall in a burning heap on the station playing fields beyond the airfield perimeter.
Next, he was aware of Devonshire running towards him.
“Ops on the blower, Roger... take off at once... the controller wants you, to give you the gen.”
*
The last section of the other squadron had been told to take off immediately after Roger’s four. The bomb crater in the runway was no impediment: there was still half its width left undamaged beside the hole and the cracked concrete around it. Roger, throttled back to give the other three time to formate on him, heard one of them on the R/T, complaining to the control tower that he had low oil pressure on one engine and the intercom was faulty. Unserviceable intercom was the most frequent expedient of the faint-hearted. It was seldom credible and not at all today, when the aircraft had just been air and ground tested. The pilot had been on the squadron almost as long as Roger and had suffered a close brush with extinction on their last operation two nights earlier. It was he who had vomited near the crew room door. If he could not get airborne with the rest of them he would have to stay behind. On this sort of operation aircraft never flew alone.
Roger hoped he would be thrown off the squadron and out of flying altogether. He felt no pity for him. All he felt was a great hatred for the Germans, epitomised by the sneak raider which had obliterated Jorkins; and, incidentally, demolished a hut in which six men were sleeping after night duty and wounded nine airmen and W.A.A.F. with its gunfire. That was the order of precedence in Roger’s determination on revenge.
Half an hour after they had crossed the English coast they passed a Blenheim coming towards them. It was on one engine and there were big holes in its fuselage. It belonged to their own squadron. Roger lifted a hand in response to its pilot, wondering if the crew were all alive or unhurt. Ten minutes later they passed an aircraft from the other squadron, apparently undamaged.
They came upon the convoy while flitting through dense clumps of broken low cloud. The escorting ships, alerted by the earlier attacks, greeted them with heavy fire.
Roger led the section up into the fringes of the cloud immediately overhead and put on his navigation lights as a guide to the others. He made a wide sweep around the convoy, to attack from landward, the unexpected side.
When he took them down again they descended immediately to a few feet above the water, which their propellers whipped into a froth. The three Blenheims separated widely to select different targets. The light flak guns were able to shoot down at them, but not the heavy armament.
The aircraft on Roger’s left sank suddenly with smoke coiling from both engines. Its belly brushed the water, flinging away foaming waves on both sides. The perspex in the nose must have caved in, for the tail rose sharply and it dived beneath the surface.
Vengeance had superseded all else in Roger’s thoughts. There were two big merchant ships. He knew he ought to select one of them. His mind was full of the Heinkel, of the Blenheim he had just seen shot down, of Terry Eastman and Ginger Pike and of the others who had been lost that morning; of Jorkins.
“We’re going to sink that flak ship. Let them all go in one stick, Tommy.”
There was no need to designate which of the flak ships he meant. He had turned towards the one which had shot down the other Blenheim.
It was concentrating its fire from its port side guns on them. Roger skidded briefly to left and right. Cannon shells hit the port wing and tore pieces out of the engine nacelle. Roger felt as though the enemy gunners were firing directly at him, personally; at his head... he had a vision of Stan Price lying decapitated in a compartment awash with blood. He wanted to scream... not words, not even abuse at the enemy... an inarticulate, terrified scream.
He ought to go closer yet, to make sure that his bombs carried and did not dip into the sea before they could strike. There would barely be time to scrape over the flak ship’s masts.
Another ten seconds. He couldn’t do it.
“Now!”
He counted three, to make sure the bombs were away, before putting the Blenheim into a hard turn to port with his wingtip no more than a foot above the wave crests.
He felt a hard blow on his right shin and the aircraft lurched to starboard. He tried to force it back in the other direction but there was no feeling in his right foot. Wind was howling around his legs from a hole in the aircraft’s side. He hooked his left foot to pull the left rudder pedal back. The nose of the aircraft jerked up and spray tore into the cockpit, with a smell of high explosive. He got the wings level and was only then aware of the smoke coming from the port engine. He feathered it and began climbing. They were out of range of the convoy’s guns. There was a savage throbbing in his right leg.
“Tommy... O.K.?”
No answer.
“Creamy... O.K. Creamy?”
No answer. There was no sound in his own headphones. The intercom was dead. Devonshire appeared beside him, blood oozing from a rip in the shoulder of his Irvine jacket.
“Intercom’s duff, Roger...” His speech was slurred, saliva trickled down his chin.
“Did we hit her?”
Devonshire shook his head. “They fell short.”
“Tommy...”
“I’ll go and see... you all right?”
Roger nodded. “Bit of a... bash... right leg.”
Devonshire ducked to look at Roger’s wound.
“Bloody ‘ell, Roger...”
“Never mind now... Tommy...”
“But your leg... ‘orrible mess... lemme put a dressing...”
“I’m all right, damn it... go and see about Tommy.”
Devonshire went forward and came back presently with more blood on his clothes.
“He’s been ‘it... chest and arm... gave me a course for base before he passed out.”
“Dressing?”
“I put one on... and gave him a shot of morphia. Lemme do your leg.”
“No. I’m O.K.... look after yourself... then you can do me.”
They were fifteen miles from the coast of Norfolk, in fog, when the port engine failed. Devonshire just had time to send a distress signal and get their position fixed before they alighted on the sea. They barely managed to haul Thompson out of the foundering aircraft and inflate the dinghy. When the Blenheim sank it almost sucked them all down with it.
Three
James took off that evening with a bad grace. He deplored any waste of engine hours and fuel. He also despised rashness; and in his view it was rash to fly Spitfires at night as well as ill-rewarded. A few enemy bombers had been brought down by pilots flying Hurricanes at night and an even smaller number by Spitfire pilots; but in proportion to the effort put in, the results were negligible.
Defiant squadrons which had been withdrawn from day fighting during the Battle of Britain because they suffered such appalling casualties had been converted to night fighting. They stood a better chance in the dark than single-seaters. The pilot had a comparatively big cockp
it and canopy. The air gunner in a turret immediately behind him provided another pair of eyes for all-round search.
The Spitfire had a smaller cockpit and canopy than the Hurricane and therefore offered its pilot a poorer view. Its undercarriage folded into its wings, which meant that the legs and wheels were very close together. The Hurricane’s undercarriage tucked into the underside of the fuselage and its wheels were thus set further apart. The latter therefore could land on the rough surface of a grass airfield by dim light more safely than the former.
In spite of the constraints which limited the single-seaters, there was, inevitably, one pilot who excelled in destroying enemy aircraft with them at night. Flying Officer R.P. Stevens shot down fourteen German bombers over England in the winter of 1940-41.
James and the rest of his squadron were perfectly content to let him get on with it as long as they could return to day operations.
The Spitfires, Hurricanes and Defiants were originally planned to fly only on what were to be known as “Fighter Nights”, when there was a full moon and good visibility. In practice, they flew in all weathers.
The Spitfire IIB with which the squadron had been equipped had four .303 Browning machine-guns and two twenty-millimetre cannon in its wings. It could climb to 20000ft in seven minutes and attain a top speed of 357 m.p.h. Therefore, if it did spot an enemy bomber with the aid of the moon or a searchlight, it had every prospect of overtaking it and of hitting it effectively from several hundred yards’ range.
This consideration did not put James in any better humour as he climbed through scattered, large cloud banks to patrol at 12000 ft. To avoid collision, other aircraft on Fighter Nights which did not have airborne radar were given different heights at which to patrol as well as different patrol lines. The Beaufighters with airborne radar, which were increasing rapidly in numbers, were supposed to be warned of their whereabouts.
Nobody with any experience of military flying in that war or the one before it had much confidence in such precautions. Human error and mechanical fallibility played too large a part in them. It was common for someone to forget to notify an aircraft movement; it was even more common for a pilot or observer to make a wrong notation. Pilots’ navigation in the dark was inaccurate. Aircraft identification at night was difficult. Compasses and altimeters frequently erred.
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 25