The Hero Maker

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  Russ was a private and conservative individual, yet in comfortable company he could be quite sociable, giving rein to a wicked sense of humour. Meanwhile, the little brother he found here in Halifax had changed from the youth he had known back in Sydney. Not so shy as in his younger days but still loath to stand out, Paul smoked heavily, enjoyed a beer and had a cheeky self-deprecating sense of humour. Yet, despite being surrounded by hard-swearing fellow Aussie servicemen, the strongest curse words Paul would ever use would be the occasional ‘Christ’, ‘damn’ or ‘bloody’. And here, for the first time, their similar rank and situations made the brothers equals, despite their age difference. After chattering away all evening, catching up on what each had been doing, laughing and reminiscing, the pair agreed to meet up again next day.

  But just as fate had thrown the brothers together, it rudely drew them apart again. The next morning, Brickhill and his Air Force comrades were awoken before dawn. An hour later, they were embarking on a small troopship lying in Halifax harbour. The convoy sailed for Liverpool later that day, with the warship carrying Russ located in the same column as Brickhill’s troopship. Now, both brothers would get a taste of the war that had seemed so unreal from Australia’s distant shores.

  6.

  Spitfire Pilot

  THE BROTHERS BRICKHILL survived the North Atlantic crossing and went their separate ways. As Russ went north to Scarpa Flow, Paul headed south to Bournemouth in Hampshire on England’s south coast. Paul’s destination was the RAF’s Number 3 Personnel Dispatch and Reception Centre (3PDRC), where he would await posting to a fighter training school. Quarters for newly minted airmen flooding in from around the Dominions were in Bournemouth’s many seaside hotels, and after early-morning parade and rollcall Brickhill was free to do whatever he pleased.

  During this period he found his way to Torquay in Devon; 3PDRC had an annexe there. In Torquay he made a new friend, Matron F. M. Rimmer, who ran the Cripples Home and Industrial School for Girls, which had been transferred from London in 1940 to avoid German bombing. Matron Rimmer was a single motherly older woman.

  In the second week of October, Brickhill received a posting to the RAF’s 53 Operational Training Unit, located at Llandow in the Vale of Glamorgan, twenty-four kilometres west of Cardiff in South Wales. There, in grim wintry temperatures and soaking Welsh rain, Brickhill joined a select band of Britons and men from the Dominions on Course Number 10, learning to master the legendary Supermarine Spitfire. But first, he had to go up in a Miles Master trainer to prove to his instructors, mostly 1940–41 Battle of Britain veterans who were often younger than Brickhill, that he could fly like an eagle.

  With a few flights in the Miles under their belts, trainees progressed to the star of the show, the Spit. The aircraft they trained in were Mark I Spitfires, ‘clapped out’ superseded models that had flown during the Battle of Britain, slower and less well armed than the Mark Vb currently in operational use. But that didn’t matter to Brickhill and his colleagues. Flying a Spitfire of any type was a joy. The first thing Brickhill had to become accustomed to was the claustrophobic smallness of the Spitfire’s cockpit. Once the hood was closed, it was like sitting in a coffin. Johnnie Johnson, who would end the war as the RAF’s top-scoring fighter ace, was so uncomfortable in the cockpit the first few times he flew a Spitfire he had to leave the hood open throughout.

  In the Spitfire, pilots certainly felt like captains of the clouds. They revelled in the gut-throbbing power of the V-12 Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, with the power of a thousand horses dragging them through the heavens. They savoured the serenity of flying alone in bright sunshine above oppressive grey clouds at 20,000 feet; the responsiveness of the controls; the joyous agility of the 2.5 tonne machine as they threw it about the sky.

  Roald Dahl, who later, like Brickhill, became famous as an author, flew RAF Spitfires. At the time that Brickhill was training in Britain, Dahl was flying ops in North Africa. According to Dahl, a good Spitfire pilot ‘flew his aircraft not with his hands but with the tips of his fingers, and the Spitfire was not a Spitfire but a part of his own body … For the body of the Spitfire was the body of the pilot, and there was no difference between the one and the other.’57

  Every moment in the cockpit of a Spit was a delight to natural flyers like Brickhill. At the same time, instructors made the rookies, many no more than nineteen years of age, aware of the responsibility being handed to them. The Spitfire cost the equivalent of several suburban houses. Woe betide the pilot who lost a Spit through negligent or irresponsible flying. But, despite his conscientiousness, Pilot Officer Brickhill still possessed an Australian tearaway streak. Soon supremely confident in a Spit, he buzzed a Bournemouth pub at treetop height to impress RAAF colleagues below. His stunt was reported, resulting in Brickhill being hauled before his superiors, charged with ‘low and dangerous flying’.58 He escaped with a reprimand.

  Brickhill learned fighter tactics from his instructors. He also learned the RAF lingo. An aircraft was a ‘kite’, or a ‘crate’. ‘Gen’ was information. ‘Recce’ was reconnaissance. ‘R/T’ was radio transmitter. Ground crew were ‘erks’. An air battle was a ‘scrap’. A successful outcome was a ‘good show’, an unsuccessful outcome a ‘bad show’. Anything really good was ‘wizard’. To attack by surprise from above, out of cloud or with the sun behind, was to ‘bounce’ the opposition. A low-flying attack, or a stunt like Brickhill’s at Bournemouth, was a ‘beat up’. A flying accident was a ‘prang’. A difficult situation, especially in a dogfight, was a ‘sticky’ one. If someone was killed while flying, they’d ‘gone for a burton’, or ‘bought it’, or ‘got the chop’. A captured airman was ‘in the bag’. To exaggerate, or talk a complete load of bull, was to ‘shoot a line’, while the perpetrator of such a crime was a ‘line-shooter’. This lingo would stay in Brickhill’s vocabulary for the rest of his life.

  Come January 1942, after spending his first Christmas away from home and putting in forty-two hours in Spitfires, Pilot Officer Brickhill was declared ready to fly in combat. On 16 January, he received a posting to an operational Spitfire squadron, Number 74. Known as Tiger Squadron, it had made a name for itself in the Battle of Britain. Before Brickhill left Llandow, the students and instructors of 53 OTU’s Course 10 gathered for a group photograph. For the picture, while the majority of his colleagues stood behind him, Brickhill sat on his rump on the ground in the front row. It was a typical position for Brickhill, repeated throughout his life – to the forefront, yet keeping his head down.

  With a week’s leave pass, he headed for London to see the sights before joining his unit on 23 January at Long Kesh, Maze, in Northern Ireland – which, decades later, would become infamous as the location of a British prison housing IRA prisoners during ‘the Troubles’. While in London, Brickhill went for a fitting for a new uniform at Gieves Ltd in Old Bond Street. Today, as Gieves and Hawkes, the store occupies number one Savile Row.

  Going back to 1775, this bespoke and military tailoring firm had made the uniforms of a young Winston Churchill, the Duke of Wellington and Captain, later Admiral, William Bligh – famous for the mutiny on the Bounty and less well known as the only British governor in Australia deposed in a military coup. The tunic worn by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar had been made by Gieves; it was pierced by the French sharpshooter’s round that killed him. Brickhill, always a dapper dresser, couldn’t resist the temptation to have a uniform made to measure by such famed tailors – damn the cost, in cash and clothing coupons! Made from the finest wool, the tunic of Brickhill’s Gieves Ltd uniform would be lined with satin.

  On joining 74 Squadron at Long Kesh, Brickhill upgraded to the Mark Vb Spitfire, in which, over the next six weeks, he clocked up another twenty training hours. Much faster than the Mark I he’d trained in, and armed with four machineguns and a formidable 20mm cannon in each wing, the Vb was a significant improvement. Yet, for all its features, the Spitfire then lagged behind the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt Bf 10
9F, which was faster. The Spitfire could turn more tightly, but as Johnnie Johnson was to remark, you couldn’t turn forever.59

  To survive in a dogfight, a Spitfire pilot had to find other ways of outflying and outfoxing his German opponents. A keen eye and lightning reflexes were the best attributes for any fighter pilot. But, even though they were ostensibly part of a team, Brickhill reckoned that all successful fighter pilots were individualists. Now an RAF Spitfire pilot, Brickhill could put on the airs and graces that went with his qualifications – the swagger, the unofficial right to wear the top button of his uniform jacket undone and to wear a silk scarf, or, in winter, a rollneck pullover with his uniform.

  When late March arrived, Brickhill had yet to fly in combat. By that time, 74 Squadron was busy packing up to go out to the Middle East to join the Desert Air Force in the fight against General Erwin Rommel, the ‘Desert Fox’, and his Afrika Korps. Before they left Britain, the men of 74 Squadron were granted a week’s leave. Brickhill had been in touch with brother Russ in Scotland, who arranged to get leave at the same time so they could meet up. Paul set off from Long Kesh on 31 March, and the pair reunited in London.

  It turned out that Russ was quite envious of Paul. Bored with naval station life at icy Scapa Flow, Russ wanted to be where the action was, as he imagined Paul was shortly going to be. Russ told his little brother that after he’d requested a transfer to the army for active duty, and been rejected, he’d applied for a transfer to the RAF. Three times. And on each occasion, he’d been knocked back by the aircrew medical board, because of his thumb. Trying a fourth time, he had been accepted by the Air Force, only for the Royal Navy to counter with an offer to send him home to Australia as a liaison officer with the Australian military. But that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He’d rejected that, and was still determined to join Paul in the RAF.

  ‘Good luck,’ said the younger Brickhill as they firmly shook hands on parting, and Russell in turn wished him luck in North Africa.60

  In the middle of 1942, 74 Squadron sailed from England for the Middle East aboard a Mediterranean convoy. Now it was the younger Brickhill’s time to be frustrated, as, once he landed in Palestine in July, the prospect of action seemed to slip further and further away. The ship carrying 74 Squadron’s cherished Spitfires had been sunk by the Germans as it crossed the Mediterranean.

  With no means with which to fight, the squadron was transferred to Tehran, capital of Iran, where, after several weeks, it was given a handful of Hawker Hurricane IIb fighters, and sent to North Africa’s Western Desert. Rapidly retraining on the Hurricane, 74’s best pilots managed to get in some flying time escorting sea convoys and strafing German-occupied Crete. But there was no opportunity for Brickhill to fly. In August, Tiger Squadron finally received replacement Spitfire Vb and Vc aircraft, but by this time Brickhill had applied for a transfer. While a new home was found for him, he was sent to the RAF’s 22 Personnel Transit Centre at Almaza, just outside Cairo.

  From Almaza, on 28 August, Brickhill was posted to Number 145 Squadron as a replacement. But Number 145 also had many more pilots than it had planes after a disastrous summer. Out in the desert, Rommel’s German and Italian forces were driving the Allies back, and the Desert Air Force, like the British Army, was in retreat. Brickhill had no plane to fly and nothing to do. Another transfer brought a wasted week with 127 Squadron, with no flying, before he was informed he was being sent to join 274 Squadron, to fly Hurricane fighter-bombers.

  This was a comedown for a Spitfire jockey, the Hurricane being considered the inferior of the Spitfire by friend and foe alike. The RAF had twice as many Hurricanes as Spitfires, and to the Hurricane fell the majority of the tough fighter assignments of the air war. Proven the inferior of the Me 109, during the Battle of Britain the Hurricane had been assigned the task of going after German bombers, leaving their Spitfire cousins to intercept German fighters and keep them off the ‘Hurri’s’ tails. Now, the demands of the desert war meant that the Hurricane was being thrown into the ground-attack role.

  This meant that when Brickhill joined 274 Squadron he had to retrain, firstly learning to fly the Hurricane, and secondly learning the techniques of ground attack with bomb, shell and bullet. He spent twenty hours in Hurricanes as a result, until, by the Second Battle of El Alamein in September 1942, he was flying his first operational sorties, swooping down on German and Italian tanks, vehicles and troops, dropping bombs and strafing with his guns. For the first time he saw the enemy, close up, and killed them.

  Rommel’s army was in full retreat following Second El Alamein, and 274 Squadron pursued them across Libya and Tripolitania towards Tunisia, jumping from one captured German airstrip and rough landing ground to another. This became known within Allied ranks as the Big Push. Before 274 Squadron left Alexandria for the desert chase, Brickhill received a letter from his big brother. The bad news was that Russ’ application for a transfer to the RAF had been turned down by the possessive Royal Navy. The good news was that the navy was posting him to North Africa, to manage harbour clearance operations. And, what was more, he was being sent to Alexandria. Russ arrived before Paul departed Alexandria, but neither could get leave. Hopes of a reunion in the city were dashed.

  Months of desert bombing and strafing operations passed without pause until, in the second week of December, Brickhill was transferred to 244 Wing’s Number 92 Squadron, which was equipped with Spitfires. Making a name for itself flying out of Tangmere and Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain, Number 92 was the most celebrated, top-scoring RAF fighter squadron in North Africa, and its cocky pilots were considered the ‘bad boys’ of the Desert Air Force. That this posting was a deliberate upgrade for the Australian, and a reward for meritorious flying with 274 Squadron, was confirmed a week later with his promotion to flying officer (first lieutenant), just three days shy of his twenty-sixth birthday. He arrived at 92 Squadron bearing a bottle of Scotch whisky and a cheeky grin. A beer drinker himself, Brickhill had found that a gift of a bottle of Scotch was a sure way to win friends and influence fellow officers at new squadrons.

  Among the first 92 Squadron pilots Brickhill met was Flying Officer Neville Duke, one of the squadron’s aces – an RAF ‘ace’ being a fighter pilot who’d shot down five or more enemy aircraft. The USAAF also made five ‘kills’ the qualification for ace status, but allowed its pilots to include aircraft destroyed on the ground in their tally. The Luftwaffe, meanwhile, only gave its pilots Experte or ace recognition with the downing of ten enemy aircraft. Twenty-year-old ace Neville Duke was a tall, skinny-as-a rake native of Tonbridge in Kent. His facial features put some in mind of the male members of the British Royal Family. Duke’s favourite word was the well-used RAF superlative ‘wizard’, and he was particularly keen to welcome Brickhill, and his ‘wizard’ gift of Scotch – the squadron mess had been drunk dry the previous day.

  Brickhill was now back in Spits, his first love, and flying with the best of the best. The heavy-smoking, hard-drinking, quick-witted Australian swiftly made friends with his two dozen fellow 92 Squadron pilots, who included several other Aussies as well as Canadians. Most Australians quickly fitted into the British squadrons. Brickhill’s former workmate at the Sydney Sun, John Ulm, was one of them. ‘I thoroughly enjoyed being on a RAF squadron,’ said Ulm, who later flew Spitfires with 145 Squadron, which, as fate would have it, would then be commanded by Neville Duke. What Ulm liked most was the cosmopolitan mix of nationalities populating the Spitfire squadrons: fellow Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Americans, South Africans and Britons.61 In the desert, too, Desert Air Force officers and non-commissioned ranks ate in the same mess, a breaking down of British class structure which suited Brickhill and fellow egalitarian Australians.

  By this time, back in Australia, Brickhill’s father, George, was continuing to scratch a living as Sydney correspondent of the Newcastle Sun, and Paul knew that his parents were still struggling financially. He also knew that his father was too proud to take handout
s directly. So Brickhill wrote home and told his parents that he was arranging for the difference between his old pilot officer’s pay and his new salary as a flying officer to be sent to his mother each payday.

  Brickhill spent his second lonely Christmas away from home, this time at a bleak tented base in the desert. Beer, spirits, cigarettes and rations were in short supply. Water for washing clothes was almost non-existent. When he’d first arrived in the desert, Brickhill had been repelled by the sight and smell of ‘dirty Arabs’. Now, with his clothes filthy and his aroma rich, he felt he was ‘no longer entitled to haughty scorn’ of the locals. No one in the squadron minded how he looked or smelled. They were all in the same dirty boat, and took their situation in good spirits. Brickhill would write home, ‘The desert isn’t so bad, and we have a fair bit of fun in one way and another.’62

  In early January, 92 Squadron relocated to a landing ground near Hamrat in Tripolitania. The squadron was engaged in almost daily battles with the German and Italian air forces, several of whose pilots were well-known aces. The new year’s battles started out even on 8 January with 92 Squadron bagging two Me 109s but with two of their Spitfires being shot down, one piloted by an Australian, Geoffrey Rose. The next day the score was one loss for each side, and once again the squadron’s commanding officer was writing a condolence letter to a bereaved family. On 10 January, high-flying pilots from the squadron excitedly reported they were able to see enemy-occupied Tripoli, the Libyan capital, in the distance.