Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

by Norman Gelb

  Often a pilot would shoot up a plane, see it begin to smoke and believe it was his kill. Another pilot would then come along to finish off the smoking aircraft and claim it as well. It was common for more than one pilot to claim the same kill and for it to be counted twice.

  For the Germans, these exaggerated claims proved damaging. It lifted morale among their pilots but, at the same time, contributed to the assumption by Luftwaffe commanders that the British were in a far worse condition than they really were. It influenced their strategy and their tactics. When the Luftwaffe launched the Attack of the Eagles, German intelligence, basing its figures on the reports of Luftwaffe pilots, reported that Fighter Command had only about 300 serviceable aircraft left to withstand the German attacks; in fact, with the extra planes being churned out by the aircraft factories, it had about twice that number.

  Reconciled to never being able actually to wipe out the Luftwaffe, the British suffered no such euphoric consequences of their exaggerated kill claims. They were badly needed morale boosters for the pilots, the military commanders and the general public. Nevertheless, an effort was made to draw up guidelines for accurate kill claims, though figures found in German records after the war showed that even then, British claims had also remained inflated.

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  Pilot Officer Dennis David

  The Germans destroyed us three times over on paper. By the time Eagle Day came around, they thought we had nothing left.

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  Pilot Officer Birdie Bird-Wilson

  We were given a very good press write up. Our scores were listed like in a cricket match — how many Germans we’d shot down and how few we’d lost.

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  Squadron Leader Sandy Johnstone

  When we were up in Scotland, we used to get most of our information from the barmaid at the local pub. She was better informed than any of us. One night, she said she’d heard rumours that our squadron was moving south. When I rang up Group that night, they said, ‘Oh yes. We were going to tell you. You’re going south the day after tomorrow.’ We were pleased to be heading into the heavy combat area. We had heard that the squadrons down there were knocking up big scores on enemy aircraft. That was the great thing and we wanted to get in on it.

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  Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding

  I must disclaim any exact accuracy in the estimates of enemy losses. All that I can say is that the utmost care was taken to arrive at the closest possible approximation ... The German claims were, of course, ludicrous. They may have been deceived about our casualties, but they knew they were lying about their own. I remember being cross-examined by the Secretary of State for Air about the discrepancy. He was anxious about the effect on the American people of the wide divergence between the claims of the two sides. I replied that the Americans would soon find out the truth — if the German figures were accurate, they would be in London in a week. Otherwise, they would not.

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  Winston Churchill

  The important thing is to bring the German aircraft down and to win the battle and the rate at which American correspondents and the American public are convinced that we are winning, and that our figures are true, stands in a much lower plane ... There is something rather obnoxious in bringing correspondents down to air squadrons in order that they may assure the American public that the fighter pilots are not bragging and lying about their figures.

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  Flight Lieutenant Peter Brothers

  We had this business of half an aircraft, when two of you had shot at it and it went down. They said, ‘That’s half for each of you.’ But I didn’t bother with that. I said to my number two, who was a young pilot officer, ‘That’s all yours,’ so he could have his first swastika painted on his aircraft.

  For confirmation of an enemy plane shot down, there was preferably cinegun proof. And there were witnesses, other pilots, where available. Your intelligence officer would want to know details of place, height, time, type of aircraft, weather conditions, how the action had taken place, that sort of thing.

  I don’t think there was much deliberate overclaiming. There were certain people who got a name for it, who always happened to be on their own when they shot something down. But in general, the problem was that a lot of you would be mixed up together in one fight and somebody would shoot at something, it would start smoking, then somebody else would have a bash at it, and two people would claim it, separately. If they were from different stations and landed back at different places, there was no co-ordination in scoring.

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  Sergeant Bernard Jennings

  When suddenly there were no Germans in the sky, when there’d been a lot of them there a minute before, we knew they usually flew down the Thames Estuary on their way home. So when this happened one time, I belted down after them. I soon caught up with a 110 with a Spitfire on its tail. I flew alongside the Spitfire and saw the pilot was Sailor Blake, a sub-lieutenant in the navy, flying with us, all the carriers having been sunk.

  I said to him, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m going to ram that so-and-so.’ I said, ‘Don’t be a fool. We’re only about three hundred feet over the sea. You’ll go straight into the drink.’ He said his cannon were jammed and he wasn’t going to let that German get away. I told him I had one cannon still working and to move over so I could take him. He said, ‘Only if you give me half.’ I said all right and he moved over to my port side. I said, ‘Get over to my starboard side. I’ve only got my port cannon working and as soon as it fires, I’m going to swing into you.’ So he moved there.

  I aimed at the German’s wing tip, pressed the button, knocked the top off his starboard engine, and then my remaining cannon jammed too. So Sailor and I flew up alongside that 110. The German pilot was just sitting there, absolutely rigid, as though he was drugged, not looking at either of us. The strange thing was he had no tail gunner, otherwise we never could have done that. Sailor said, ‘I’m going to ram him.’ I said, ‘All right, if that’s what you want to do. Cheerio. I’m off back.’ I landed at base and five minutes later, in comes Sailor. Of course, he didn’t ram the German.

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  Pilot Officer Dennis David

  More often than not, I didn’t find it possible to confirm aircraft shot down. We shot at a lot. We destroyed a lot. We damaged a lot. But there was too much going on in the sky to see the results. You’d tell the squadron intelligence officer when you landed. You’d fill out a report listing date, time, weather factor, your aircraft number. Then he’d ask, ‘What did you see? What did you do?’ Gradually from the report would emerge a confirmed score, or perhaps not. The system wasn’t always accurate. It couldn’t be. A list was published throughout Fighter Command once a month. It would list high scores. I was given seventeen on that list once. It was really only to boost morale.

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  Pilot Officer David Crook

  The squadron ... caught two Dorniers that had dropped behind the rest of the enemy formation ... The two wretched Dorniers were overwhelmed by the twelve Spitfires and were literally shot to pieces in mid-air. Everybody in B-flight was absolutely determined to have a squirt at the Hun and as a result there was a mad scramble in which people cut across in front of each other and fired wildly in the direction of the Dorniers, regardless of the fact that the air was full of Spitfires. Fortunately, nobody collected any of the bullets that were flying about, and their energy was duly rewarded as each pilot was able to claim one-sixth of one Dornier very definitely destroyed!

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  Squadron Leader Jack Satchell

  One of my Polish sergeant pilots shot up a Hun and saw him start to go down with smoke coming out. He assumed that he was going to crash, so broke off his attack to attack another German plane. When he got back to base, he was told he was only credited with a Hun ‘damaged’ because he had not seen it crash and not unquestionably on fire.

  He was very angry and said he knew it would crash and that there was no point in his following it
all the way down when there were other Huns waiting to be shot down. But it was to no avail and he got credited with it only as a ‘damaged’. But he was determined to be credited with a Hun definitely destroyed. So that afternoon, when he was scrambled, he attacked a Dornier, first set its starboard engine on fire, then he went to the other side and set the port engine afire. Not content with this, he began firing at the fuselage to make certain. The Huns within started to bale out and one of them, to show how close that pilot got to the wretched German aircraft, jumped straight into his prop! Needless to say, the prop smashed to bits and the radiator was also smashed off, but he managed to crash land the aircraft near North Weald without further damage. When he got out, he saw that his whole aircraft was smothered with blood and bits of flesh. There was no question this time. He was credited with that Hun as ‘confirmed destroyed’.

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  Chichester Observer, 17 August

  People who reside anywhere near the coast of the southeastern counties ... are not likely to complain of want of excitement during the past week. From all directions come stories of battles in the air of a severity compared with which previous raids sink into insignificance. The war is indeed ‘on’, and it is difficult to run against anybody who has not got some little tit-bit of unconfirmed information to add to the sum total of rumours abroad. It is doubtless an inevitable state of things, condemn the chatterbugs as much as we like, but ... this week’s gossip is mostly of a nature to cheer people. Tales multiply, of course, about the skill and gallantry of our RAF, and now many have seen it for themselves who had hitherto only heard about it ... Who can resist the temptation, when it offers itself, of watching those thrilling chases up in the mist, even though the rattle of an aerial dogfight seems ominously near? If we believed all the stories of enemy planes brought to grief, the countryside would be littered with smashed-up bombers. But there are quite a number of well authenticated instances.

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  Air Ministry

  DEFINING ENEMY CASUALTIES DESTROYED

  (a) Aircraft must be seen on the ground or in the air destroyed by a member of the crew or formation, or confirmed from other sources, e.g. ships at sea, local authorities, etc.

  (b) Aircraft must be seen to descend with flames issuing. It is not sufficient if only smoke is seen.

  (c)Aircraft must be seen to break up in the air.

  PROBABLES

  (a) When the pilot of a single-engined aircraft is seen to bale out.

  (b) The aircraft must be seen to break off the combat in circumstances which lead our pilots to believe it will be a loss.

  DAMAGED

  Aircraft must be seen to be considerably damaged as the result of attack, e.g. undercarriage dropped, engine dropped, aircraft parts shot away, or volume of smoke issuing.

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  Sergeant Philip Wareing

  Churchill visited Kenley Aerodrome five days after we got there from the north. We were scrambled soon after he arrived. I thought it was put on just for his benefit, but we intercepted some Germans near Canterbury, fighters on top, bombers underneath. A-flight went for the bombers. We went for the fighters which had formed a defensive ring. We just barged in. It was an unholy melee. The sky was full of aircraft, all very close, going in all directions. I saw four Germans in a long line astern going off towards France and went after them. I pressed the emergency boost to get double power, caught up with them over the Channel, and fired at each one in turn. I thought, ‘This is easy.’ I could see my tracer bullets hitting or appear to be hitting them. Down they went with smoke coming out and I thought, ‘I’m going to be an ace. Four already, all at once.’ Not till later did I learn that the German way of getting out of a jam was to turn upside down and put full boost on. A lot of smoke comes out of them as they dive away — and that may be all that happened, though I’ve always thought I really got at least one of those for sure and probably damaged the others.

  But my aircraft must have been hit in the radiator during the earlier melee, because after I intercepted the four Germans over the Channel, it started getting hot. The oil pressure and temperature went right off the clock. I didn’t realize it, but I was now over France; it took only three minutes to fly across the Channel. I was beginning to slow down and another lot of Germans appeared and went for me. I was going slower and slower and then my engine caught fire. I side-slipped and it went out. I was almost gliding by then. The Germans were using me for target practice. Their machine-gun bullets on my armour plating sounded like one of those old alarm clocks going off. My aircraft was very badly hit. I did a very steep turn to get away and spun down a couple of thousand feet. That shook them off for a minute or so, though it may have been only seconds. I had no idea of time. I thought the whole thing lasted an hour, but it probably was only ten minutes.

  I looked at my poor Spitfire. It was a new one. I’d only had it a few days. Now there were holes all over it. I knew I’d have to get out. There was a lot of smoke. It seemed to get quiet again for a moment. I opened the cockpit lid, undid my straps and took off my helmet. I thought I’d remembered everything that I had to do and was going to turn upside down to fall out, when I was hit again, a cannon shell I think, and then everything happened at once. The petrol tanks just in front of me went up in flames. I felt the heat coming up my legs. At the same time, they blew my tail off and I was thrown clear of the plane. I’d heard stories that the Germans might shoot at you when you were parachuting down, so I delayed pulling the ripcord. I was thrown out of the plane at 6,000 feet but didn’t open my parachute till I was down to about 1,000 feet. I was tumbling over and over, waiting until the Messerschmitts got smaller and smaller in the distance so they wouldn’t get at me. The ground came up very quickly. When I opened my parachute, it was only a matter of seconds before I landed, but it was an easy landing anyway.

  I came down in a field near the Channel coast in France. A German motorcycle with a sidecar came riding right up. The driver drew his pistol and pointed at me and said, ‘Haben sie pistol.’ I said, ‘Don’t be silly.’ He spoke a little English. He said, ‘For you, the war is over.’ I think they all said things like that. He put his pistol away, put me in the sidecar and, with another chap riding behind him, he took me to an airfield close by.

  I was very impressed with that field. The planes and everything there were very well camouflaged, far better than ours were. It was haymaking time and the aircraft were literally under the hay, well hidden. The Germans were very friendly. Of course, they were winning, or thought they were. One chap said to me, ‘Cheer up. We’ll be in London next week and you will soon be home.’ They had quite a party for me. They said they were sorry they’d finished all the English whisky that had been captured at Dunkirk and they only had French brandy and beer. It was good fun, really. Some of them showed me family photographs. Two asked for my home address and one of them was shot down over England a few days later, either with my address in his pocket or he said during interrogation that he’d seen me. That was the first news anyone at home had that I was still alive. They took off early the next morning. I watched them form up above. It was impressive — several hundred aircraft going round and round, getting into their massive formations. I was then taken away and spent a day in the office of an adjutant. He was writing letters of condolence to families of Germans who were being shot down. He told me, ‘Not only you. We lose a lot, too.’

  I ended up in a prison camp in Germany where I was interrogated. They asked a lot of innocuous questions, pretending it was routine, for the Red Cross — my mother’s name; that sort of thing — and then more detailed questions — about my squadron — till I finally said no. Strangely, they didn’t ask anything about radar. They knew about it, but didn’t realize how much it meant to us. One German asked me, ‘How is it you’re always there when we come.’ I said, ‘We have powerful binoculars and watch all the time.’ They didn’t query that at all.

  Wareing was later transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland from which he
escaped two-and-a-half years later and got home after stowing away aboard a Swedish ship.

  Tales of the heroism, pluck and skill of the RAF fighter pilots spread quickly throughout Britain. But little was reported of the difficulties Fighter Command was increasingly facing. Of course, no effort was made to minimize the continuing German threat. There were repeated military and civilian counter-invasion drills. Air-raid precautions became part of everyday life. Exhortation for people to watch out for fifth columnists and saboteurs was incessant. However, details of growing RAF losses as the German onslaught intensified were carefully withheld. Few people in the country knew the extent of the damage inflicted by the Luftwaffe raids. Not many knew that some airfields in the south of England were so badly hit that they were temporarily knocked out of action.

  Subject to censorship restraints, spoonfed with Ministry of Information propaganda, shielded from the real dimensions of the struggle, London newspapers were jubilant. Their front pages screamed tales of glory. HUNS LOSE 113, RAF 6. AGAIN! SIXTY SHOT DOWN. 140 RAIDERS OUT OF 600 DESTROYED. AT LEAST 115 MORE! JERRIES DRIVEN OFF, MASS RAID FOILED. The fact was, however, never before had Fighter Command been under such sustained pressure.

  Increasingly short of men, it began sending recruits who had barely begun their flying training to make up the falling numbers at hard-pressed operational squadrons, where they were sometimes permitted no time at all to settle in before being rushed into combat. In one case, two young pilots showed up for duty with one of the frontline squadrons, were assigned aircraft and were sent up before they had time to unpack. One was immediately shot down and killed; the other ended up in hospital that very afternoon. By nightfall, all that remained at the airfield to tell of their arrival that day was their car, their luggage still inside.