No Place for Chivalry

by Alastair Goodrum

  Herrmann was an experienced and successful intruder pilot, having been credited with seven kills before his capture. He crash-landed the Junkers at Hay Green, Terrington St Clement, near King’s Lynn, with some injuries to the occupants, one of whom, Böttner, suffered a fractured pelvis. RAF Air Intelligence inspectors considered the cause of the crash was due to the failure of a conrod, which fractured and burst through the crankcase of the starboard engine. Their report also stated that no bullet strikes were visible – although the captured radio operator, Uffz Böttner, expressed an opinion that the starboard engine may have been hit by flak. Fire took hold of the port engine on the ground and when local Home Guard soldiers arrived on the scene they found Herrmann gamely trying to get the flames to spread. He was disarmed and the fire extinguished by the soldiers. Although the aircraft was badly damaged in the landing it was described as being painted matt black overall, with the code slate grey, the C outlined in white and the fin swastikas painted out.

  At least one account of this incident erroneously credits this Junkers to Flt Lt Bill Denison, a Hurricane pilot with 79 Squadron, who at that time was based at RAF Pembrey in South Wales. It seems slightly odd, even allowing for the considerable distances frequently covered during Fighter Night or freelance sorties, that one of their aircraft should be associated with a combat so far away over south Lincolnshire. The error is probably due to someone misreading the date of a combat claim submitted by Flt Lt Denison and then making an assumption in relation to the Herrmann incident. In 79 Squadron’s records there is no mention of any combats or claims on March 10/11. In fact the only combat claim by 79 Squadron between January 2 and April 2 1941 was made on March 13 when Flt Lt Denison did indeed shoot down a Junkers Ju88 but that was over Pembroke Dock and confirmed as such.

  Interestingly, from information contained in the same documentation one can also get a feel for the size of the forces being ranged against one another on occasions such as these. Data in Air Ministry ASO Summary 111 indicates the Luftwaffe despatched 160 bombers, 30 fighters and 90 mine-layer aircraft against the British Isles on the night of March 10/11, against which the RAF launched 109 single and twin-engine night fighter sorties.

  Richard Stevens, back in action after a spell off flying with an ear infection, was sent off at 00.50 on March 13 on a freelance patrol off north Norfolk. Sector control directed him towards an outbound raider near Ipswich and he caught up with a bandit flying at 15,000 feet crossing the coast near Orfordness. In a cloudless, moonlit sky Stevens saw the bomber, a Junkers Ju88, as it passed across the moon’s reflection in the sea some 3,000 feet below him. Diving on the bomber he closed to seventy-five yards, fired and saw hits on the fuselage and port engine. Trailing glycol and with its gunners firing back at him, the Junkers climbed steeply away but Stevens could not stay with it. He tried selecting fine pitch on the propeller but the pitch control had frozen up so he fell behind. Continuing the chase, he finally lost contact about twenty-five miles out to sea and returned to Wittering to claim one Ju88 damaged.

  April 1941 saw the Luftwaffe making heavy raids on Midlands targets, in particular against Coventry and Birmingham on the nights of 8/9 and 9/10. In addition to those equipped with airborne radar these raids consisted of several RAF night fighter units on Fighter Night patrols, including 151 Squadron, from which the Defiants of Sgt Wagner and Flt Lt McMullen and the Hurricane of Plt Off Stevens were in the thick of the action. Wittering-based fighters had to operate well to the west of base in order to get among the bombers on this night and combats during this particular period serve to illustrate well the prevailing state of night air defence in general.

  Sgt Alan Wagner – equally at home in either the Defiant or the Hurricane – and his air gunner Sgt Sidenberg, left Wittering at 00.48 on the 9th with orders to patrol Coventry. There was a big raid on and the night was bright from a quarter moon. In conjunction with a cloud layer below the patrol height, the moonlight made picking out other aircraft relatively easy – which of course worked both ways. While right over the city Wagner’s Defiant was itself attacked and hit by gunfire from the equally alert crew of a Ju88 as it shot underneath the fighter, going so fast in the opposite direction that Sidenberg had no time to draw a bead on it. The damage seemed slight so the patrol continued with better results to come. Wagner spotted a Heinkel 111 a few miles north of the city flying south-west at 13,000 feet. He brought the Defiant to within forty yards where, from a position under the bomber’s port wing, Sgt Sidenberg opened fire at point blank range. He reported seeing flames in the cockpit and forward fuselage, and return fire stopped at that point, but the Heinkel was already diving away and was last seen with smoke streaming out, disappearing into a cloud layer. Now south of Coventry, again Wagner resumed his patrol at 18,000 feet and found another Heinkel travelling south. Closing in to point blank range once more without being seen, Sgt Sidenberg poured in about a thousand rounds in three long bursts from under the port wing. Explosive rounds were seen hitting the fuselage but there was neither return fire from nor evasive action taken by the bomber. It simply flew straight on and was lost to sight, leaving Wagner and his gunner to surmise that all its crew may have been killed or had abandoned the aircraft. What was even more remarkable about this patrol was that after the hits registered by the Ju88 the Defiant’s gun turret jammed, although later this was found out to be due to a burned-out fuse and not the enemy’s gunfire. In the subsequent two engagements with Heinkels the four turret guns had to be fired from a fixed position, requiring a very special degree of cooperation and coordination by both the pilot and gunner to achieve the results they got. To round off their action-packed eighty-minute sortie Wagner and Sidenberg also reported they saw no less than three other enemy aircraft, which they identified as two Junkers Ju88s and one Heinkel He111, but were unable to engage them in combat.

  Birmingham was the objective of a major Luftwaffe raid on April 9/10 and 151 launched several Hurricanes and Defiants on Fighter Night patrols over the city. Flt Lt Desmond McMullen with air gunner Sgt Fairweather were back in action and theirs was the first of the Defiants into the air at 23.15 on the 9th. Fires were much in evidence when they reached the city but the glow made it somewhat easier to spot the enemy. As the Defiant circled above the fires Sgt Fairweather saw a Heinkel He111 below and about 400 yards ahead. McMullen closed the range and came up on the bomber from below to give his gunner a twenty-yard point blank shot for a three-second burst into its belly. As the Defiant drew ahead the enemy pilot threw the Heinkel into a series of climbing and diving turns but McMullen kept the Defiant in close and Sgt Fairweather, now with one of his four guns jammed and useless, continued firing short bursts into his elusive target, until its port engine caught fire. With the fire spreading rapidly the enemy pilot appeared to try to ram the Defiant but as it turned towards the fighter, Fairweather caught it with a one-second burst into the cockpit area and the bomber crashed to earth west of RAF Bramcote. McMullen and Fairweather claimed to have destroyed a Heinkel He111 and despite at one point attacking from as close as twenty yards, it appears that the only enemy aircraft crash that fits this engagement was that of a Junkers Ju88, 3Z+AL from I/KG77 which came down near Bramcote.

  One Defiant crew with cause to remember this night’s action more than most was that of Sgts Bodien and Jonas and to say it was an eventful sortie would be quite an understatement.

  A nearly full moon gave excellent visibility when Henry Bodien took off from Wittering at 01.10 on April 10, with air gunner Sgt D Jonas, for a Fighter Night patrol 13,000 feet over Birmingham. Twenty-five minutes later, while circling anti-clockwise round the city, they were in action. In the bright moonlight Sgt Bodien saw a Heinkel He111 flying north-east 500 yards ahead of him. Bringing the Defiant in from behind and below the target, Bodien presented an upward, no-deflection shot to Sgt Jonas who hit the bomber with a four-second burst of machine-gun fire from 200 yards. Still closing, Jonas fired again at thirty yards and as he did so, three of the crew baled
out and the bomber dived hard to port. Bodien followed it down and when the Heinkel zoomed out of its dive at 8,000 feet, Jonas put another long burst into it from just 20 yards range. With one engine on fire the bomber half-rolled and dived vertically – followed again by the Defiant. Ominously close to the balloon barrage now and clearly doomed, the bomber continued its headlong dive towards the ground as Bodien hauled hard to bring his fighter out of its own dive and back to patrol altitude. It was then that he noticed the red and green intercom lights, linking him with his gunner, were both lit up and he assumed this indicated Jonas had passed out from the G-force effects of the last manoeuvre. Patrolling with a disabled gunner was no use so, with an emergency homing from Wittering, he landed back at 02.30 hours to find to his astonishment that the gunner’s turret was empty. Sgt Jonas had baled out!

  Many hours later the whole story emerged when Sgt Jonas returned to Wittering, clutching his parachute, having become another involuntary member of the Caterpillar Club. So steep was the angle of the Defiant’s last headlong dive that Jonas reckoned his pilot must have either been killed or wounded so he made a very rapid exit from the turret, landing unhurt in the Birmingham suburb of King’s Norton. The following report was submitted describing his experience.

  Sgt Jonas confirmed that two or three objects fell from the E/A which he presumed were members of the crew as he believes he saw parachutes open. The E/A was going down in a spiral with engines on fire and there was a large explosion on the ground just afterwards. After jumping from the Defiant he reported to a Balloon Barrage Unit and they informed him that an E/A had crashed just previously in Birmingham, killing about twelve civilians. The combat had taken place just east of Birmingham. Another E/A had also crashed in the Birmingham area.

  Research by The Blitz Then And Now team identified the Heinkel as wk nr 1555, 1G+KM from II/KG27 which crashed onto houses in Hales Lane (later renamed St Mark’s Rise) in the Smethwick area of Birmingham at 01.45 on the 10th. Although some accounts suggest this bomber should be credited to Flt Lt Deansley of 256 Squadron, that is now felt to be incorrect since all the facts clearly support Sgt Bodien’s claim.

  Lining up for take-off on the runway immediately behind Sgt Bodien was Sgt Lionel Staples (pilot) and Sgt K Parkin (air gunner) in Defiant N3479, also detailed for a Fighter Night over Birmingham. As he flew towards the patrol area Sgt Staples saw and attacked what he thought might be a Dornier east of the city. Staples brought the Defiant under the starboard wing of the bomber to within twenty-five yards and Parkin raked the fuselage with a very long burst. As usual the bomber crew seemed to have been caught totally unawares since there was no return fire. Staples had to climb rapidly to avoid collision, though, when the bomber turned towards the Defiant then dived, weaving from side to side as it went down. With only two of his four guns working now, Sgt Parkin hit it again with three more bursts as they followed the bomber down. Smoke started to pour out then something – probably one of the crew – was seen to fall away from the aircraft. When it seemed certain that the bomber would crash, Sgt Staples broke off, climbed away from the looming balloon barrage and headed back to Wittering to claim one Dornier destroyed. The subsequent combat report was altered to show the type as a Heinkel He111 or a Do17 and the claim amended to a probable. The question of recognition seems odd in view of the Defiant managing to get so close to the target and when no Dorniers seem to have been involved in this night’s raid.

  Flt Lt Donald Darling with his air gunner Plt Off J Davidson followed the other two Defiants bound for Birmingham, where they were detailed to patrol at 11,000 feet altitude. At 01.40 on the 10th when east-north-east of Birmingham they found a Junkers Ju88 heading south-west and Darling, unseen, brought the Defiant into a firing position just below its fuselage. Davidson fired a couple of two-second bursts into its belly from fifty yards as the Junkers turned away to port. Again there was no return fire and the bomber dived steeply with the Defiant clinging to its tail. At 3,000 feet they lost sight of the bomber in mist and smoke over the city and he returned to Wittering. Again amid the confusion of that very busy night there is some doubt about which aircraft Darling and Davidson attacked and what might have been its fate. They were officially credited with, “One Ju88 destroyed (shared with AA)”, but their combat report is another that was later amended to include the following handwritten comment, “This E/A was identified as the Ju88 found in Windsor Great Park, damaged by AA fire. It is now claimed by 151 as a destroyed shared with AA.”

  However, in recent times it has been stated the enemy aircraft that crashed in Windsor Great Park was Heinkel He111, G1+LS of III/KG55, shared by Darling/Davidson and AA, but with the crash time/date given as 02.40 on April 9 rather than April 10. If Darling’s identification of his Ju88 is correct then there is clearly an anomaly here. Furthermore, a Ju88, V4+JV of II/KG1, said to be attacking Coventry, is listed as brought down by an unidentified night fighter and AA to crash at Whitwell in Hertfordshire at 02.00 on April 10. Perhaps that might be the enemy aircraft claimed by Flt Lt Darling. Such are the joys of research!

  The following night, April 10/11, the Luftwaffe returned to Birmingham and gave Flt Lt Richard Stevens another opportunity to notch up two kills in one night. His first sortie was a Fighter Night to the city, taking off at 22.45 on April 10. It would seem he had no intention of tying himself to the metropolitan area since one hour later he intercepted what he described as a Ju88, heading south at 16,000 feet ten miles north-east of Banbury. Attacking from astern, Stevens fired 1,600 m/g rounds in two long bursts into the target, causing pieces to fly off it and the Hurricane to be covered with oil. The bomber went down in a vertical dive, exploding into flames in a field below. There were no survivors. For this combat Richard Stevens is generally credited with bringing down Junkers Ju88, V4+FV of I/KG1 at Murcott, a village between Bicester and Oxford, and this final location certainly seems to fit the tracks of the combatants. For reasons not explained, Stevens’ combat report was altered later to show the E/A type as a Heinkel He111, but the only He111 to crash anywhere near was believed to be 1H+FS, shot down about eight miles north-west of Banbury by another squadron.

  Plt Off Stevens returned to Wittering at 00.25 hours to refuel and rearm and was off again at 02.15, this time on a freelance patrol within the sector. The moon was still up as he set off westwards from Wittering and within fifteen minutes his eagle eyes spotted a Heinkel above him heading in the opposite direction. Bringing his Hurricane round onto the tail of the bomber Stevens opened fire with a three-second burst from his eight guns at 150 yards range. He said, “The whole burst hit the bomber and I was temporarily blinded when something in the E/A blew up.”

  When the bomber’s shadow filled his sight ring again he put another long burst into the fuselage. Its engines and fuselage on fire, the Heinkel slowly turned over, fell into a steep dive and Stevens saw it explode on the ground. He estimated his position was between Kettering and Thrapston when he saw the bomber and is credited with bringing down Heinkel He111, G1+AT from III/KG55, found at Rothwell Lodge near Kettering. Of the crew, three died and two baled out to become POWs.

  Plt Off Stevens scored one more success that month when at 04.15 in the morning of April 20 he shot down Heinkel He111, 5J+JR from III/KG4, near Chatham, during a freelance patrol of the London area.

  Enemy air activity was of such intensity now, that on some nights, Spitfires of day-fighter 266 Squadron at Wittering were even thrown into the sector’s Fighter Night operations and it was not unknown for between 200 and 300 AI and non-AI equipped RAF fighters to be airborne on a single night in the skies over the British Isles. For example on May 4/5 when the Luftwaffe was piling on the pressure, 450 bombers were sent against Belfast, Liverpool, Barrow-in-Furness and Tyneside, against which the RAF launched 260 night fighter sorties.

  Defiant crews were still notching up successes, too. KG30 sent bombers to Merseyside on May 2/3 and one of its Ju88s, an A-5, 4D+BH, was caught by Plt Off Guy Edmiston and Sgt Albert Beal
e (gunner) of 151 Sqn as it made its way home over The Wash. Sgt Beale managed to inflict enough damage for Major W Seeburg to need all his skill to pull off a good belly landing on the beach at Weybourne, north Norfolk. Seeburg and his crew, Fws Altmayer, Geiger and Laser got out safely and were all made POW.

  Newly commissioned as a Pilot Officer, Henry Bodien continued to harass the enemy in battle and his sharp eyes brought him into combat again on the night of May 3/4. Half an hour before midnight, crewed with air gunner Sgt Wrampling, Bodien eased his Defiant into the air from RAF Wittering for a Fighter Night patrol. Turning north, he was led by search-lights towards potential enemy activity and soon he spotted a white light – possibly an aircraft tail navigation lamp – about five miles distant and just north of Wittering, moving across his track from west to east. Bodien went flat out after the target, but having caught up with it near Boston at 00.20 hours on the 4th, he thought at first it might be a friendly. Easing in to just fifty yards astern to check, he and his gunner agreed it was a Heinkel He111 whereupon Wrampling, without further ado, opened fire. This pro-voked a hot response from the Heinkel’s upper and lower rear gun positions, then Wrampling was forced to stop firing when the solenoid (an electrical component that controlled the firing mechanism) of one of his four machine guns flew off after the first burst and two others suffered link-chute jams.

  They were crossing the coast now, north of The Wash at about 7,000 feet altitude. Wrampling was able to keep one gun firing with two others working intermittently before he could clear the jams. The fourth gun, loaded with de Wilde ammunition, failed to fire at all. Despite this handicap the gunner kept up his attack as Bodien, still flying over sea but by now uncertain of his whereabouts, clung to his quarry like a dog after a fox. One good burst from Wrampling appeared to put the lower rear gunner out of action, then another burst stopped the port engine and a stream of white vapour began to pour from it. Now the Heinkel was losing height and all return fire had stopped. Still Bodien kept close in and slightly below so that Wrampling, even with his reduced firepower, could not fail to hit the target – which he continued to do with good effect.