by Adam Claasen
Caterpillar Club
Deere’s survival was due to good luck and a well-maintained parachute. A few pilots tipped their packers the princely sum of 10/-, not an inconsiderable amount, nearly a fifth of their weekly pay.[25] Fighter Command airmen recognised the importance of a well-maintained silk saviour and considered the money small change, given its life-preserving properties. The pilots of the Great War were not so fortunate and, as their machines became flying crematoria, they sometimes resorted to a pistol to hasten their exit from the excruciating pain of fire. In marked contrast to the pilots of this earlier era, approximately two-thirds of Battle of Britain airmen in stricken machines survived to tell the tale thanks to this inter-war development. Those aviators saved by the parachute were eligible for entry into the Caterpillar Club, named after the source of the silken thread parachutes were manufactured from. As ‘Bush’ Parker stated simply in his August 1945 letter applying to join the Caterpillar Club: ‘one of your parachutes saved my life.’[26]
That is not to say that baling out was not without it perils, as the loss of Cale to the River Medway grimly attested. In the first instance, the canopy of a fighter travelling anything in excess of 180 mph would not open. In addition, should the groove in which the canopy slid be damaged, the airman’s last resort was a crowbar stored at the pilot’s side. Not a heartwarming prospect when some pilots estimated that you had barely eight seconds on a good day to evacuate a burning fighter. Further, as Deere’s escapade demonstrated, there was always the possibly of striking or snagging the tail section of the fighter. If the airman was knocked unconscious in the process the parachute would remain forever unopened.
Where the pilot landed was also an important consideration. Terra firma was clearly preferable to a dip in the drink. Though it depended on which side of the Channel the evacuation had taken place, a point well understood by the few pilots like Parker who baled out over occupied France and only found freedom in May 1945 when he was liberated. Even baling out over ‘Blighty’ was no guarantee of a welcome reception, as Olive had both experienced and observed. After his first kill on 20 July, he had flown home with the intent of seeing what had become of the fellow pilot who had popped out of his aircraft like a ‘cork from a champagne bottle’. He located the parachute in a field of ripe wheat:
A track through the wheat followed a bizarre zigzag and about a quarter of a mile away was the pilot in his yellow ‘Mae West’ running like a hunted stag. Two rustic members of the Home Guard were taking pot shots at him with rifles or shotguns presumably because he had come down by parachute.[27]
In the early weeks of the Battle of Britain, fuelled by stories of German paratroop-led assaults in Denmark, Norway and Belgium, members of the Home Guard, according to the Queenslander, treated all parachutists as either hostile or ‘excellent random target practice’. Olive was not about to let a fellow airman suffer the ignominious fate of being killed by the Home Guard and made a series of low passes over the ‘two intrepid defenders of the realm’, cursing the fact he had no ammunition left to fire off a cautionary round or two in their direction. His only hope was that he had done enough to force the trigger-happy farmers to take cover, allowing the pilot sufficient opportunity to make good his escape. Finally, for an airman to have even a chance of survival after exiting an aircraft, the jump needed to take place at a sufficient altitude to facilitate the optimal deployment of the parachute.
If Deere’s 15 August escape from his Spitfire was dangerous, Gibson’s earlier example was at first flush downright reckless because it had been executed at an extremely low level. The citation for his DFC explained the significance:
In August, whilst on an offensive patrol over Dover this officer engaged and destroyed a Junkers 87 and afterwards was shot down himself. Although his aircraft was in flames he steered it away from the town of Folkestone and did not abandon the aircraft until it had descended to 1000 feet. Pilot Officer Gibson has destroyed eight enemy aircraft, and displayed great courage and presence of mind.[28]
What the citation did not mention was Gibson’s concern for his footwear. ‘I had a brand-new pair of shoes handmade at Duke Street in London. We used to fly in a jacket, collar and tie, because we were gentlemen.’[29] Fearing a sea landing, and hence damage to his shoes, he had the presence of mind to take them off and drop them over land before his parachute carried him over the Channel. Remarkably, an astute farmer sent them on to the base—a greater reward than the DFC in the mind of the New Zealander.
Pilots who accumulated a high number of combat sorties during the campaign were more than likely to have made at least one jump, and many made more during the conflict. In 501 Squadron, over the course of the campaign some sixteen pilots either made forced landings or baled from their machines.[30] The pilot with the dubious honour of leading the rankings was ‘Gibbo’, who gathered bale-outs like prized possessions. In addition to a crash-landing in France in the May battles and landing in a bomb crater in August, Gibson would bale out of his Hurricane on four occasions—twice over the Channel. He was pretty pragmatic about his approach to exiting his machine:
People all had different ideas about baling out. Some people said you turn the thing upside down and fall out, some people climbed over the side. Some people thought that if there was fuel in the cockpit of the aircraft, and you turned it upside down, it would douse you in fuel. I think you were so pleased to get rid of the thing you didn’t think about how you did it.[31]
Having nearly ‘bought it’ at Folkestone, he secured a phone at Dover and rang through to the 501 lads and nonchalantly informed them that someone else should pick up his cards and play his hand as he would be late home. The lost Anzacs—Cale and Hight—made no phone calls.
Neither would Lovell-Gregg. The experienced pilot, but inexperienced combat flyer, was seen descending in a blazing Hurricane by a local farmer. In an interview years later he told of Lovell-Gregg’s demise:
The aircraft came down from about 15,000 feet, apparently flying under control and heading for the airfield ... As it got lower the pilot seemed to change his mind and circled the Abbotsbury area, finally skimmed low across a wood, traversed a ploughed field and plunged into a small copse. The aircraft’s wing struck an oak tree, slewed round and broke up ... Lovell-Gregg had been thrown clear but was already dead ... he had wounds in his arm and a leg and ... the upper part of his clothing was burning. Soldiers arrived who ... extinguished the burning wreckage ... [His] body was wrapped in his parachute and reverently placed on a length of corrugated iron and carried from the scene...[32]
Three 87 Squadron pilots, including the Kiwis Ward and Tait, flew to the funeral, the only mourners in attendance at his final resting place, the Holy Trinity Church, Warmwell.
Gratitude
As soon as the day had concluded, the tallies from RAF and Luftwaffe pilots were totalled. Fighter Command’s men claimed a whopping 182 German machines destroyed while the Luftwaffe was publishing 101 victories. In fact Göring had lost some 75 machines and Dowding 34 fighters in aerial combat. The Germans were facing extreme difficulties as the operational limits of the Ju 87 and Me 110 were exposed. The Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief was now of the opinion that the Stuka would need a three-fighter escort in future and that given the losses in dive-bombers and, even more significantly, the apparent lack of rewards for raids on radar stations, perhaps these should be curtailed. The success of the RAF was also evident in the fact that even the twin-engine bombers were in need of at least two fighters each to avoid crippling losses.
The result was twofold. On the one hand this meant that the number of bombers that could be used in a raid was limited to the number of fighters available for escort duties. Although 1786 Luftwaffe sorties were undertaken, only 520 were by bombers.[33] Thus some fifty per cent of Kesselring and Sperrle’s bomber fleets were unable to be used in the day’s assault on the grounds that adequate fighter protection was not possible. On the other hand, orders to protect the bombers greatly frustrated
German fighter pilots accustomed to more freedom of action. The day’s grim results led German airmen to dub it der schwarze Donnerstag (Black Thursday). To make matters worse for the Luftwaffe fighter pilots, they were now ordered to undertake their escorting duties at the same altitude as the bombers in order to more directly engage the intercepting fighters. This meant the Me 109s would be operating from between 12,000 and 20,000 feet. The result was that the RAF fighters would now meet the enemy at their optimum altitude. Park’s strategy of concentrating on the bombers was working.
Given the hammering of 15 August it was remarkable that the Germans continued the assault with similar intensity. Aside from a brief hiatus on 17 August, the Luftwaffe undertook some 1700 sorties each day, but Fighter Command was there to meet them every time. Pilots and ground crew were all under considerable strain during this phase of the campaign. By 19 August, Fighter Command had lost ninety-four pilots either killed or missing, and the sixty or so wounded further thinned the ranks. In regards to aircraft, Dowding had lost 183.[34] On the German side 367 machines had been destroyed at the hands of the RAF.
In the lull, Churchill broadcast his thanks to the men involved in the air battle across Bomber, Coastal and Fighter Command:
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the war by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.[35]
Deere was listening to the BBC with one of his mates, Gribble. ‘It’s nice to know that someone appreciates us, Al. I couldn’t agree more with that bit about mortal danger, but I dispute the unwearied.’[36] ‘Despite the flippancy of George’s remarks,’ recalled Deere years later, ‘such encouraging words from a most inspiring leader were a wonderful tonic to our flagging spirits. To me, and indeed I believe to all of us, this was the first real indication of the seriousness of the Battle, and the price we would have to pay for defeat. Before, there was courage; now, there was grim determination.’
Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park (Air Force Museum of New Zealand) (Note: This and some other photographs in the following pages post-date the Battle of Britain.)
Hawker Hurricane (Imperial War Museum)
Supermarine Spitfire (Imperial War Museum)
Alan Deere (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
John Gard’ner (right) with his gunner (Suzanne Franklin-Gard’ner)
Boulton Paul Defiant (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
New Zealanders
Keith Lawrence (Keith Lawrence)
Colin Gray (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
Brian Carbury (David Ross)
Bob Spurdle (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
John Fleming (Max Lambert)
John MacKenzie (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
Australians
Gordon Olive (Dennis Newton)
John Crossman (Dennis Newton)
Clive Mayers (www.bbm.org.uk)
Pat Hughes (Dennis Newton)
Stuart Walch (Dennis Newton)
Richard Hillary (Dennis Newton)
Messerschmitt Me 109 (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
Messerschmitt Me 110 (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
Junkers Ju 87 Stuka (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
Flanked by fellow pilots of 92 Squadron, James Paterson cuts a ‘trophy’ from a bomber he has just shot down (Jim Dillon)
Cecil Hight’s funeral procession (Ray Stebbings)
Vincent Parker (standing, second left) with other Australian officers in Colditz Castle (Colin Burgess)
Irving Smith (right) in conversation with a non-commissioned officer (Rupert Smith)
Wilfred Clouston (right) with mechanics (Richard Clouston)
John Gibson (Air Force Museum of New Zealand)
CHAPTER 7
Sector Airfields
The dilemma for Dowding was that although the Luftwaffe had yet to bring his force to its knees, it was slowly being ground down by the intensity of enemy operations. His problem lay less with machines than with men. Appointed by Churchill as Minister of Aircraft Production, the business tycoon Lord Beaverbrook had cranked up the factories and workers until they were producing more than an adequate number of machines for Dowding. In the first four months of the year only 600 fighters had been produced, but from May to August Beaverbrook boosted this to over 1800. Overall, British production of new fighters was double that of the Germans over the same period. Therefore, in spite of losses in Hurricanes and Spitfires throughout August, the British-Canadian Baron had 1081 ready for action and about 500 under repair at the month’s end. The real bottleneck for Dowding was pilot numbers.
Within one week of Adlertag, eighty per cent of the initial squadron leaders were gone; a small number had been withdrawn from the battle due to stress, but greater numbers had either been wounded or killed outright in the furious air battles. Moreover, the freshly minted replacement aviators were arriving with an ever-diminishing level of training and experience. In effect the pre-war half-year training regime had been slashed to two weeks and men who should have been learning to fly were now thrust into actual aerial warfare. Making matters worse, nearly all of their pre-posting training was on older machines, including antiquated biplanes. In the pre-24 August lull, Fighter Command made a grim assessment of the battle so far and it was not pretty reading. While it was true that the Luftwaffe had ‘suffered more severely thus far,’ the authors of the RAF Narrative cautioned that, ‘Fighter Command had lost pilots it could ill afford; and the grim prospect of the fighter force slowly withering away through lack of pilots was already apparent...’[1]
Sustaining most of these losses was Park’s 11 Group, of which six squadrons had suffered a 50 per cent loss rate between 13 and 22 August.[2] In response, these units were replaced with squadrons from less heavily engaged Groups. Park worked feverishly to get everything ready for a renewed German assault. At Northolt, wearing a steel helmet and his trademark white overalls, the long-limbed Park strode about his duties purposefully. Under his direction airfields were repaired, defensive measures refined and, in an attempt to cut down on unnecessary losses, he ordered that reconnaissance interceptions were not to be chased out over the Channel, the site of too many pilot losses.[3] He also reiterated his instructions to controllers to avoid sending fighters to intercept marauding Me 109 formations and concentrate all efforts on the bombers. Given the increasing levels of German interest in the airfields he made it clear that 12 Group would need to provide cover for the airfields north of the Thames. Park industriously visited as many squadrons as he could personally, cementing his ‘hands-on’ leadership reputation by flying his Hurricane on visits to the Group’s airfields. The Germans, however, were about to bring their forces to bear directly on the airfields scattered around London.
Changing Targets
‘We have reached,’ declared Göring on 19 August, ‘the decisive period of the war against England. The vital task is to turn all means at our disposal to the defeat of the enemy air force. Our first aim is the destruction of the enemy’s fighter force. If they no longer take to the air, we shall attack them on the ground, or force them into battle, by directing bomber attacks against targets within range of our fighters.’[4] To this end the greater weight of attacks was moved inwards. Although the coastal bases would still, as and when required, come under assault, the Luftwaffe now centred its major effort on the vital sector airfields. The Germans were hoping to force Fighter Command to give battle in the air and at the same time destroy its main bases of operation on the ground. As an unintentional by-product, the raids might diminish the effectiveness of Dowding’s elegant defensive network.
The Germans were still unaware of the importance of the sector stations and their all-important operations rooms. As command and control hubs, their role in
facilitating the collection and dispersal of information and direction of air units was vital to the meaningful deployment of the Hurricanes and Spitfires. Consequently, the attacks offered the possibility of even greater rewards than they realised. Focusing on a smaller number of specific targets would also enable a concentration of force hitherto unseen in the campaign. Frustrated that Fighter Command was still very much alive and kicking—despite faulty intelligence suggesting that Dowding’s force was on its last legs—Göring transferred all of the fighters to Kesslring’s command in Pas de Calais. This would move the fighters within range of the airfields. Bombers would now receive a much heavier escort, reducing their losses and forcing greater numbers of the British single-engine fighters into direct combat with the Me 109s.
On the first day of the new phase of the battle, 24 August, the sky over England was clear blue—ideal for aerial operations. Park did not have to wait long before the croupiers at Northolt were shuffling markers around the giant maps in the operations room. What he saw was a massive buildup of Kesselring’s machines emanating from Cap Gris Nez. To temper the RAF response, Luftwaffe commanders had choreographed a series of cleverly designed opening pirouettes. An unending cortège of German machines was to fly parallel with the Sussex coastline at a distance of 20 miles out to sea. At various points Luftwaffe machines would break away from the line and head towards the coast in a series of feints. In this manner it was hoped to pull as many RAF fighters as possible into the air and follow up with actual attacks on airfields when fighters were forced to refuel. The first strike of over 100 machines ended in a draw. Few German aircraft were lost, despite twelve squadrons being put up, but RAF targets got off relatively unscathed. When midday arrived, another enemy formation was detected. Remarkably, alongside the Hurricanes a lone squadron of Defiants was scrambled.