Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

by Norman Gelb

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  Sergeant Mike Croskell

  We were based for a week at Hullavington near Bristol. It was just a field, just a farmer’s field. We didn’t even have loos. We’d go to the farmer’s place next door. They were expecting German bombers over Bristol. We were patrolling the area at night. We never saw anything. We just went up and down for an hour and a half and that was it. One of the fellows managed to bring his car down. We went into the nearest town and paid sixpence for a bath.

  My first combat engagement was not long afterwards. It was during a very big raid — a lot of dive bombers with a large fighter escort. They were going to raid the big naval base at Portland Bill, I think. We intercepted them over the sea as they were coming in. I got behind a Ju 88.1 didn’t seem to shoot for very long before it started to smoke out of the port engine. The crew obligingly got out, slid down the wing and parachuted down. But there were a lot of their friends about, Me 109s, who began paying a good deal of attention to me. I went around and around in circles with about five of these chaps chasing after me, until I eventually got behind the last of the five and shot him down. Suddenly his mates didn’t seem to be around anymore. But that was a bad day for us. Our squadron alone lost three aircraft. Two pilots were killed — both very experienced men.

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  Pilot Officer Birdie Bird-Wilson

  Our standard formation was an extremely tight one which would have been ideal for pre-war air shows. Very compact. Very close together. The pilots in the formation were looking at each other so as not to collide. We were not looking around as we should have. The Germans, who had learned many flying lessons during the Spanish Civil War, knew better. They flew in much looser formations and were able to pick us off.

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  Squadron Leader James Leathart

  All our attack practice had been designed for us to meet unescorted bombers. There had been years of a complete waste of bloody time. We had to learn from scratch how to fight the Germans.

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  Squadron Leader Peter Devitt

  We were absolute sitting ducks to start with. We didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know anything about dogfighting. All we’d learnt was ‘Fighter Command Attack Number One. Go!’ That sort of thing. It meant you were flying along and you’d dive down and come up underneath the enemy bomber and shoot him down. That’s all there was to it.

  Of course, it didn’t happen like that in real combat. We had to find our own way. We had to decide what was the best thing to do as the battle developed. We were learning all the time. You could lead the squadron or a flight up high and get it into position. But once you got engaged, it was individual fighting. And the whole thing was over so quickly. You’d have a good old shot at somebody or other and then somebody else would be shooting at you so you’d peel off and dive down to get out of the way and you’d quickly come up again and find the whole lot had gone.

  At the beginning, our air-sea rescue was very sparse. Some of our men were being shot down over the Channel, baling out and landing in the water and there weren’t very many launches to send out to pick them up. I told Group, ‘Look, if this thing is going to go on for any length of time, we must get some more launches out into the water to pick up our pilots.’ It improved later on and more of our men were saved after they landed in the water.

  We were down at Warmwell, right down on the coast. The trouble with being at Warmwell was the Germans were not very far away in France. We took off but where could we go to gain height? We had to get to about 18,000 feet or so. Do we fly straight up underneath the enemy? Do we head back inland and come back again after we gained height? We could have been based further back, at Middle Wallop, and had time to get above the Germans as they came in. It was no good going up underneath them because their 109 escorts would see you and come straight down at you.

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  Oberkommando der Luftwaffe

  Intelligence Report, 16 July

  The Luftwaffe is clearly superior to the RAF as regards strength, equipment, training, command and location of bases. In the event of an intensification of air warfare, the Luftwaffe, unlike the RAF, will be in a position in every respect to achieve a decisive result this year if the time for the start of large scale operations is set early enough to allow advantage to be taken of the months with relatively favourable weather conditions — July to the beginning of October.

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  Pilot Officer Brian Considine

  Some squadrons were better than others on tactics. They actually got together and worked out what they were going to do and developed better combat tactics. We never did. We stuck to the old-fashioned ways. We’d go up in Vies of three and go into line astern when we saw the enemy. Then, one by one, we followed the leader down onto the attack. On two occasions, I never got in on the attack because I was shot up the arse by enemy fighters before I could go down there.

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  Sergeant Jack Perkin

  Somebody said Sailor Malan’s squadron is spreading out in formation on patrol. It seemed like a mistake. It seemed highly dangerous. Somebody said, ‘They’ll all get shot down.’ The Germans were flying these loose formations, but we thought it was very untidy. It took us a while to learn better.

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  Pilot Officer Wally Wallens

  In the early days, we were always firing out of range. You thought you were opening up at the right distance but you weren’t. You were miles out. That’s what our camera guns showed. A fellow would say, ‘Oh yes, I was in range.’ Then the film from his camera gun would be developed and he’d see that instead of a German bomber up close, all he had in front of him was a little spot in the sky. It got us to move in closer.

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  Squadron Leader George Darley

  The only way to overcome German superiority in numbers was to have superiority in tactics. Our tactics were awful to start with. The basic prescribed formation was a V shape of three aircraft. They had taught us that you fly astern of the bombers and open fire — bang, bang, bang. The curious omission was that they told you nothing about the enemy fighters who might be on your tail. That is where a lot of early losses occurred. You went in at the bombers, looking forward, nobody looking behind, and you were picked off. I adopted a more flexible formation. I made all our aircraft fly in line astern in formations of three, each of us protecting the other’s tail.

  It was also a mistake to split the squadron up into penny packets when we were coming up against huge German formations, some of us flying from our home base at Middle Wallop and the others down at the satellite base at Warmwell on a different assignment. It was bad tactics. I complained about it very strongly and finally we were permitted to fly as a squadron again.

  We had had too many of our people killed in the beginning, with nothing to show for it. We had to kill a sight more Germans than we had men shot down ourselves if we were going to get anything done. The tactics had to be changed. When they did change, our kill-loss ratio went up and up and up.

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  Pilot Officer Dennis David

  Part of our flying uniform had been semi-stiff collars and ties. They looked very nice, but if you fell in the drink, the collar could strangle you and to be able to look behind you and around while flying, you had to get rid of them. So we took to wearing those scarves for which RAF fighter pilots became famous.

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  Daily Express, 11 July

  Tremblers and ‘wonder-if-we’ll-stand-it-ers’ and all those other people who aren’t sure how the population of this country would act in air raids should take a look at this busy little east coast town where people have almost forgotten what it’s like to get an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Worried? Scared? Not on your life. Raids here are the regular routine.

  People don’t prepare for bed wondering if Jerry will be over. They go to bed knowing he’ll be over. They adjust their lives accordingly. The great thing is to get sleep and then you do not become nervous and jumpy. So most of the women finish their housework
as early as possible and take a nap in the afternoon ... No heroics, no terrors, no nerves. Just common sense.

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  Squadron Leader Sandy Johnstone

  I was at Drem near Edinburgh during the early part of the Battle. We were really quite busy up north in June and July. The Germans were doing a lot of raiding in Scotland, against Glasgow and on the east coast. I shot my first aircraft down at night there. He had dropped his bombs and was on his way out when I caught him. I had been up there on patrol and was told by radio that there was some enemy activity around. I was watching the searchlight beams when I suddenly saw two of them latch on to an aircraft, so I went to look and saw that it was a Heinkel. I went for it too quickly to begin with and nearly ran into it the first time. But I sorted myself out. The searchlights were marvellous. They stayed with this thing all the time, so I was able to come around again and went in much more carefully, and let fly. The next thing I knew, I couldn’t see anything. I had punctured his oil tanks and my windscreen and everything were all covered with oil. I pulled over to the side to see what was happening. I saw that one of his engines was on fire so I followed him along, realizing that we were getting lower and lower. The searchlights still hung onto him. He finally went into the sea. I later discovered that my final burst had taken place right over our airfield. All the chaps on the ground had been watching.

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  Flying Officer Alan Deere

  After shooting a Messerschmitt down over the water, I pulled up to look for another and found one coming head-on at me. There was no way I could have got out of the way, nor he, I suspect. It all happened so quickly. I went straight into him, hitting him underneath. It was a hell of a crash. He went right into the sea. I couldn’t bale out; my cockpit hood was jammed closed where we had collided. I couldn’t see because the plane was full of smoke, but I was able to keep a reasonable angle of glide and just carried on till I reached land and hit the ground. The first I knew I was down was the bounce. I hit amid some posts that had been put into the ground to stop enemy aircraft from landing. I sawed through those and finished up in a heap, on fire, at one end of a cornfield in Kent. I had to break open the hood, smashing the perspex with my hands, and I clambered out. I was lucky. The plane was burning pretty fiercely by then.

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  Edward Angly, New York Herald Tribune

  London, 15 July — The Royal Air Force is in the market for American flyers as well as American airplanes. Experienced airmen, preferably those with at least 250 flying hours to their credit, would be welcomed by the RAF ... [They] will find a ready welcome into the RAF if they will cross the Canadian border and can pass the physical examination, it was said by the Air Ministry here. For such volunteers, there will be no question about signing or swearing an oath of allegiance to the British crown.

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  James MacDonald, New York Times

  London, 25 July — Hundreds of German planes fought it out with the British, sometimes at altitudes of five or six miles, and countless anti-aircraft guns roared angrily and almost continuously from dawn until late evening today as the Nazis intensified their drive to blockade this country by air attacks on its shipping and various coastal points ... The Germans lost twenty planes, eleven bombers and nine fighters, the British said ... The British loss was placed at five planes.

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  Daily Express, 2 August

  A Messerschmitt 110 twin-engined fighter, diving suddenly from high clouds, bombed and machine-gunned streets in the centre of Norwich this afternoon. Five people were killed and several injured, and buildings were damaged. People in the town saw the raider diving, engines roaring. He flattened out at 400 feet, opened fire with his machine-guns, dropped his bombs, repeated the machine-gun fire, then fled for the coast, chased by British fighters. Windows of shops and offices more than a quarter of a mile away were smashed by the explosions ... Mr R. Perkins was making for shelter with friends after hearing the first bombs fall when machine-gun bullets spattered the street ahead of them. Two more bombs fell before they reached the shelter. The foreman of a building squad shouted, ‘It’s a Nazi!’ when he saw the Me 110 coming out of the clouds. As he threw himself down flat, he saw three bombs leave the plane. ‘Then bullets started whizzing over me,’ he said.

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  Sergeant David Cox

  A bandit was reported off the east coast and we went off into broken cloud in a Vic of three to find it — Flying Officer Haines, Flight Sergeant Steere, both very experienced pilots, and myself, very inexperienced and treated with a bit of disdain. I spotted the bandit first. There was suddenly a break in the cloud and off in the distance, a long way off, there was this long, pencil-shaped thing. I cried, ‘Bandit!’ and shot out into the clear sky over the sea, and there was this Dornier bomber. I opened fire straight away when I got within range. The others came in after me. Then I went at it again. It started to burn and the crew baled out.

  After that, I was accepted. Haines changed his attitude towards me. He took me under his wing. He said, ‘You fly with me. Just keep behind me. Don’t get too ambitious.’ It did me a lot of good. A lot of my friends who went through flying school with me were shot down the first or second time they went into combat. I managed to survive up there till the end of September before being shot down.

  Even before the Dunkirk evacuation, it was clear that Britain had far fewer fighter planes than it needed for its first line of defence, and aircraft factory production schedules offered little hope that this dangerous shortfall would soon be overcome. Keenly aware of the implications, within days of being named Prime Minister, Churchill gave Lord Beaverbrook the job of remedying the situation.

  The son of a poor, Scotch-born Canadian clergyman, Beaverbrook was notorious for his un-English, thrusting business practices. He had made a fortune in financial wheeling and dealing in Canada before he had arrived in Britain at the age of thirty, to build both a newspaper empire and a political career.

  As soon as he took over the Ministry of Aircraft Production, Beaverbrook set about dissolving the thrombosis of bureaucratic red tape which more often than not undermined plans for crash government programmes. Ignoring proper channels, he sent his men to factories and warehouses around the country to determine what resources were available and unceremoniously to claim on the spot what was wanted for fighter construction and repair. His men even raided airfields for damaged aircraft that could be rehabilitated or cannibalized.

  There were howls of protest, not least from people at the Air Ministry horrified that Beaverbrook was making a shambles of their long term programmes for the construction of bombers, trainers and other aircraft. Other government departments were equally offended by his eccentric, outlandish approach to government business. Beaverbrook scorned their complaints and declined to change his ways. A cartoon at the time showed him dressed as a buccaneer, lurking around a corner with his band of pirates, prepared to pounce on a bunch of smug, stiff-necked bureaucrats, telling his merry crew of ruffians, ‘Skin them for their toolbags, watches and penknives — and don’t forget the nails in their boots and the fillings in their teeth.’

  Each night during the worst of the battle, Beaverbrook telephoned 11 Group commander Keith Park to ask what the situation was and how many planes were needed. He then proceeded to supply them. When complaints about his contempt for standard bureaucratic procedure reached Churchill, the Prime Minister stiffly noted, ‘In the fierce light of the present emergency, the fighter is the need and the output of fighters must be the prime concern until we have broken the back of the enemy’s attack.’

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  Pilot Officer Dennis David

  We were losing planes every day, but heard terrible things about replacements for them. We heard that certain Maintenance Units where Hurricanes were being assembled to come to us were closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Beaverbrook stopped all that. He said, ‘Twenty-four hours a day solid working, seven days a week.’ That was Beaver. He petrified people into working and the aeroplan
es started coming to us.

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  Lord Beaverbrook

  This is an appeal to all workers in the aircraft industry. Urgently we ask for the fullest output this week and next ... I want to reach all of you with my words: the work you do this week fortifies and strengthens the front of battle next week. The production which you pour out of your factories this week will be hurled into the desperate struggle next week.

  And make no mistake, in meeting this crisis we have none to rely on but our own energy and driving force. Britain stands or falls on her own resources. You have the power to multiply and to magnify them. The young men of the Air Force, the pilots and gunners, are waiting to fly the machines. We must not fail them. We must provide the aircraft, engined, armed, equipped and ready for battle.

  A few days later, Beaverbrook announced that aircraft production had increased by sixty-two percent.

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  Francis Rodwell Banks

  The principle that Lord Beaverbrook worked on was to get supplies of everything quickly — leaving long term planning to go ahead on a longer term basis. We proceeded to organize the companies on a twenty-four hour basis, and also expand them as quickly as possible. In addition, we searched all the RAF stores for equipment that was urgently needed by the aircraft and engine manufacturers — even sometimes risking the supplies to the RAF units in the field. Service storekeepers, and others, always think that they are doing their jobs well when the stores are full. But in the early days of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, we on Lord Beaverbrook’s staff decided that we must rob the stores and keep the Air Force flying in those critical Battle of Britain days. It was like pulling teeth from an unwilling child, but the stores people finally accepted with good grace. They had to!