Dogfight

by Adam Claasen

  Messerschmitt Month

  October ushered in yet another change in Luftwaffe tactics. The 30 September raids confirmed the tide had turned for the Luftwaffe with close to fifty aircraft lost, of which over half were single-engine fighters. In comparison, barely twenty machines and eight pilots were removed from Fighter Command’s inventory. In recognition of the failure of the previous two and a half months, the daylight raids by twin-engine bombers were wound down. Those at the highest levels knew that they had lost the contest and in mid-October it was announced that:

  The Führer had decided that ... preparations for Sealion shall be continued solely for the purpose of maintaining political and military pressure on England. Should the invasion be reconsidered in the spring or early summer of 1941, orders for renewal of operational readiness will be issued later.[12]

  To all intents and purposes, Operation Sea Lion was dead in the water and Hitler’s gaze increasingly turned towards the Soviet Union. However, in order to keep the ‘military and political pressure on England’ the air war would continue, albeit in a less substantial form. Kesselring and Sperrle switched most, but not all, of the Heinkels, Junkers and Dorniers to nighttime duties. In their place the commanders ingeniously inserted a slightly more powerful Me 109 capable of carrying a single 250kg bomb. In all, about a third of the fighter force in the West was converted to this task, including the twin-engine Me 110. In what became known as ‘Messerschmitt Month’, German fighters penetrated British air on an almost daily basis and in level flight dropped their bombs over London. Attacks were also made on Portsmouth and Southampton and sector stations. Although the assaults were in no way decisive, they could on occasions generate significant disruption. Such was the case when Piccadilly Circus and Waterloo Station were hit within three days of each other in the second week of the month.

  The speed and height of the incursions presented Park with some serious headaches. In the past, bombers gathering over the French coast had been picked up well in advance of the assault and the speed and height of the formations were limited to the operational limitations of the ordnance-laden bombers. The quicker fighters, even with a bomb and compromised aerodynamics, gave the sector stations precious little time to get their mounts into the air. Most challenging though was the altitude at which the stream of enemy machines entered the arena. The incoming bomb-carrying fighters crossed the English coast at 28,000 feet, with their single-engine escorts covering them 2000 feet higher.

  This stretched the Hurricanes to their operational limits, exposing them to the higher-flying Me 109s. Paul Rabone discovered this in the second week of the month. Born in Salisbury, England, Rabone had been raised in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and was one of the short-service commissions of 1938, with experience in France. Freshly promoted to flying officer as part of 145 Squadron, he was bounced out of the sun by a pair of Me 109s. Attacking from 30,000 feet, the fighters soon forced Rabone into a tight circle, with the Germans close behind. Before long they were chasing each other’s tails. When one pilot attempted to break out of the ever-tightening ring, ‘I delivered a burst of two seconds from 100 yards range on the port quarter. The Me 109 appeared to explode in the air, no black smoke was seen but the plane spun downwards.’ The remaining German saw his chance, and Rabone ‘felt bullets hit my aircraft’. The twenty-two-year-old whipped the damaged Hurricane into a half roll and then a rapidly descending spin before pulling out at 10,000 feet. His violent evasive aerobatics barely saved his life. Once safely ensconced at Tangmere, the ground crew counted thirty-two bullet holes ventilating his fuselage.[13]

  Another Hurricane caught out at high altitude was piloted by Eric Edmunds of 615 Squadron. A former trainee chemist also from Palmerston North, Edmunds was ambushed at 29,000 feet over the Channel. A trio of Me 109s peppered his aircraft and at least one shell entered the cockpit, wounding him and splashing him with hot engine coolant. He only regained consciousness in time to crash-land in an English field, scattering a flock of sheep.[14] Badly wounded, he had fragments extracted from his lungs, down his back and along his legs. Bullet holes in Edmunds’ leg confirmed his belief that a German pilot had continued to fire upon him after he passed out, and a fractured skull was testament to his hard-headedness.

  Although both men would, after long convalescence, return to the air, their experiences demonstrated the Hurricane’s vulnerability at higher altitudes, increasingly leaving this part of the battlefield to the Spitfire. Yet, in this environment, even the Spitfires struggled.

  In some instances it took less than 20 minutes after being picked up by radar for an Me 109 to reach London, but nearer 30 minutes for a standard Mark 1 Spitfire to reach the raider. Escorting 109s could pick off the Spitfires as they clawed for height in their climb. More often than not the Spitfires completely missed their prey, which was already hightailing it back to France and Belgium. Should the Allied pilots be successful in meeting their adversary, the cockpit of an unpressurised and unheated single-engine fighter was extremely cold at high altitudes. Added to the discomfort was the irregular visual impairment caused by misting and icing-over of a fighter’s windscreen at such heights.

  New Zealander Maurice Kinder found this out first-hand in the dying days of the Battle of Britain when 607 Squadron was ordered to investigate a possible attack on a convoy. ‘While on patrol we were detailed to climb to 30,000 feet and were notified to proceed and intercept a large formation of Junkers ... protected by 10 Me 109s. When it came time to make the attack,’ said Kinder, ‘I had great difficulty in seeing as my windscreen was covered with a thick layer of ice, which was very difficult to rub off. I made several criss-crosses on the ice to get some sort of view and then continued on my dive.’ The former Auckland Grammar School pupil hit a bomber, but was in turn struck:

  I was distracted at this moment by a cannon shell which entered my left wing near the last outer gun and one nearest the gun beside the cockpit. I felt a sharp bang on my left leg and right arm but could not see anything wrong at the moment. I turned my aircraft right round and made a head-on attack ... I gave him a 3 second burst straight at his engine and black smoke started to pour out as he turned away.[15]

  Kinder was severely injured. The Me 109s had shredded the Hurricane and the New Zealander sported broken wrists and cannon-shell fragments in both buttocks. Worse yet was the blood pulsing from his right arm—a severed artery. Increasingly faint, Kinder pressed his right arm against his leg to staunch the bleeding and turned the oxygen on full to counteract dizziness. He never made Eastchurch airfield, but managed a wheels-up landing in a field. He passed out, reviving only to discover ‘Australian soldiers ... thinking him dead’ removing his ‘helmet, gloves and buttons as souvenirs’.[16] A handful of choice expletives convinced them otherwise and Kinder was extracted from the wreck and eventually found a home at RAF Hospital Uxbridge.

  Only five days into the new month and Fighter Command’s difficulties were evident when over 1100 sorties were completed for the meagre catch of six Me 109s. Only exceptional pilots like Carbury were able to gain consistent success in the rarified high-altitude air. ‘I was leading Green Section,’ reported Carbury on 10 October, ‘when enemy aircraft ... were sighted heading for France. Squadron went into line astern and I remained at 33,000 feet, saw two Me 109s and sent a burst into the last one. He went on his back and dived straight into the Channel.’[17] Carbury continued his scrap with another fighter at 31,000 feet, sending the blazing machine into the sands of Dunkirk beach.

  The New Zealand commander of 11 Group changed tactics, setting up patrol lines and instructing his controllers only to move units into position once they had attained 25,000 feet.[18] Although this gave the Spitfires a chance of meeting the Me 109s on a level playing field, the intensity of fighting fell away rapidly on both sides. Dispirited Luftwaffe pilots recognised they had lost the struggle for England’s skies, and the Fighter Command boys felt that there was little to be gained from putting themselves in undue danger for scant
reward.

  Later in the month, Edward Wells’ squadron latched on to thirty bomb-carrying Me 109s over Dungeness. Wells, with 41 Squadron, was a Battle of Britain latecomer intent on making up for lost time. ‘Hawkeye’ Wells was an Auckland provincial clay-bird champion and brought his accuracy with buckshot to the skies above England. ‘The one I selected to destroy dropped a bomb immediately I got on its tail,’ he recalled in frustration. Although a gun malfunction stopped him from finishing off the enemy, the episode highlighted the increasing willingness of German pilots to turn tail at the sight of a Spitfire. More often than not the German raiders were happy to fly over England at 30,000 feet and Park’s defenders were similarly at ease at their optimum operating height of 27,000 feet. The number of dogfights diminished and losses on both sides fell away markedly. In September, New Zealand Spitfire pilots had been involved in combat that resulted in either destruction of or damage to nearly fifty enemy machines. In October the number totalled just nineteen, the greater part of them falling to just three Kiwis. Between them Carbury, Mackenzie and Wells knocked out fourteen enemy aircraft.[19]

  Big Wings Clipped

  The other Anzac engaged in a running battle, albeit of a bureaucratic nature, was Park. Leigh-Mallory’s complaints, amplified by Bader, were migrating up the command chain. Side-stepping Dowding, Leigh-Mallory took the conflict higher up on 15 September delivering a critique of operations to the Air Ministry. Park’s own response added further fuel to the fire. What had been a smouldering conflict between Park and Leigh-Mallory had broken out into a full-blown conflagration. Equally troubling was Dowding, who, though sympathetic to the New Zealander, was reluctant to take a firm stand and bring Leigh-Mallory to heel. Unfortunately, those at the highest levels were beguiled by the Leigh-Mallory chimera and Park was ambushed in an Air Ministry meeting on 15 October.

  The very first item on the agenda boldly proposed that: ‘It is agreed that the minimum fighter unit to meet large enemy formations should be a wing of three squadrons.’ All subsequent points were direct attacks on Park’s modus operandi of the preceding months.[20] Leigh-Mallory caught the New Zealander off guard by bringing along Bader to bolster his cause. In the end, Park was forced to make greater use of 12 Group’s Big Wing, but the results were predictably underwhelming.

  From 11 September until 31 October, Park estimated that in over ten sorties only a single interception occurred and one enemy machine was destroyed.[21] The deployment of the Big Wing on 29 October demonstrated its unwieldiness. A morning raid led Park to request that Bader’s force support his interception of a large body of intruders. The twenty minutes it took to form up meant they were characteristically late, completely missing the Luftwaffe machines. Shortly thereafter, another raid caught the entire formation refuelling and unable to assist. The opportunity for redemption came in the late afternoon. The New Zealander once again requested assistance, as nearly all his units were in play. However, once on patrol, the wing was almost impossible to control thanks to the almost incessant chatter between the formation’s pilots and Duxford. The New Zealander’s fears over the effective use of communications with massed forces proved to be correct. In the end the wing was unable to be directed into action and returned to base without firing its guns in anger. Adding insult to injury, the Germans took the opportunity to assault 12 Group airfields and Leigh-Mallory was powerless to intervene.[22] Park’s assessment of the day’s activity was damning. The Big Wing had made three sorties into his area and claimed to have destroyed only one Me 109. Meanwhile, his own units made fourteen engagements and claimed twenty-seven destroyed.[23]

  The reasons for the abject failure of the Duxford formation were apparent to many pilots. All too often, Park’s airmen returned from combat to find Leigh-Mallory’s massed aircraft ‘in neat vics of three, streaming comfortably over our heads in pursuit of the enemy who had long since disappeared in the direction of France.’[24] Even pilots under Bader’s charge were unconvinced of its efficacy. The New Zealander Francis Brinsden of 19 Squadron was unequivocal: the Big Wing was a ‘disaster’. ‘Almost immediately battle was joined,’ Brinsden wryly observed, ‘the Wing disintegrated.’[25] The bottom line was that the wings took too long to form up and once together they were almost impossible to manage. The 29 October fiasco proved that the Duxford wing was a mirage. ‘In spite of many invitations to join the party,’ Park noted, the Big Wing had failed to make a single engagement of substance with the enemy.[26] Fortunately, by the time the leadership fracas reached its crescendo, the greatest aerial threat had already passed.

  Last Days

  The battle might have been winding down, but the last week of October saw a flurry of close calls and deaths for the Anzacs. It began with a John Cock mid-air collision. On 24 October, the young South Australian, an ace twice over, headed a tight formation of five Hurricanes on a routine patrol at 3000 feet when his engine inexplicably failed. To avoid a pile-up he pushed the control column forward. He was not quick enough. A trailing pilot ran his propeller through the tail section of the Australian’s machine. The low-altitude mid-air collusion gave Cock little time to recover control, but he wrestled the mauled fighter to level flight and made a wheels-up landing. He scrambled free from the wreckage only to find that the other pilot had been killed.[27] The next day he was awarded a DFC.

  Twenty-four hours later, two more New Zealanders were knocked from the sky. Robert Yule was hit by an Me 109 over Tenterden, Kent. The Hurricane was written off in the forced landing and the twenty-year-old was admitted to hospital nursing leg injuries. The other pilot, John Mackenzie, damaged two German fighters during a long patrol. With fuel running low, he crossed paths with a gaggle of Me 109s. The fight was perfunctory and inconclusive, but with only fumes left in the tank, the Kiwi endeavoured to put down in a field near Redhill, Surrey. As he skimmed the grass the engine spluttered its last and the propeller locked up. The field proved to be too short and he ran through a hedge. The wheels dropped into a ditch, snubbing the nose of the Spitfire in the English countryside. Eager children and parents converged on the graceless sight. The New Zealander was forced to keep the crowd back until a policeman took over the proceedings.

  Patrolling at 27,000 feet, James Hayter intercepted sixteen Messerschmitts on 26 October. ‘I picked a rear one and closed in for a quarter attack from slightly above until I was astern at 60 yards.’ He damaged the fighter, but was jumped by another. Cannon fire stopped the Hurricane’s engine with a loud bang, the pedals went wobbly, and shrapnel entered his knee and scalp. He opened the lid, flipped his doomed machine on its back and dropped out like a rocket. He landed, wreathed in his parachute, in the middle of a dignitary-filled party in the grounds of the palatial home of a Member of Parliament.[28] The Anzac gatecrasher was met by elderly groundsmen brandishing shotguns and pitchforks. Safely identified as an RAF pilot, he was treated royally by the party attendees. One, a female doctor, inspected and cleaned his wounds. The squadron commander told the New Zealander to take a couple of days off, which he gladly did with his young fiancée. To his surprise, he later received a bill from the doctor.

  Not all Anzacs were so fortunate and the Battle of Britain ended with the death of three men—two in training flights and one in combat. Sergeants Douglas Stanley and Robert Holder had been inseparable. Stanley was born in the North Island town of Matamata and took up flying in 1938.[29] Only eight months Stanley’s junior, Holder was a native of Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, England, and had arrived in New Zealand in 1938. Within a month of each other, both men entered the RNZAF pilot training programme in late 1939 at the Ground Training School, Weraroa. Stanley was relocated to 2FTS Woodbourne in January 1940 and four weeks later Holder followed. On 12 July, the two men sailed together aboard RMS Rangitane to Britain.

  The pair trained on Miles Masters and then Hurricanes before being sent to 151 Squadron. Although the unit saw heavy action in July and August, neither appears to have shot down an enemy machine by the time the squadron w
as transferred to 12 Group to catch its breath. On 26 October, a number of the pilots were undertaking night circuits at Digby’s satellite airfield at Coleby Grange. It was 8.40p.m. when Holder watched Stanley take off in his Hurricane and crash beyond the airfield boundary. He was badly burned and rushed to hospital. The shaken Holder was told by the fight commander that under the circumstances none would think ill of him if he chose not to carry out his own circuit.[30] Holder was of a mind to fly, but within moments of taking to the air his aircraft was seen to turn left and soon thereafter plough into the ground not more than 800 yards from the wreckage of his friend’s machine. He was killed. Stanley passed away in his hospital bed that same night. Four days later, Millington was lost.

  Millington had recovered from his serious burns and was transferred to 249 Squadron with a well-deserved DFC for his selfless heroism of late August. He was one of the few Australians to notch up a string of successes in October, many coming with a rush in the month’s final days.[31] The twenty-three-year-old South Australian was only thirty-six hours short of the end of the Battle of Britain. Tireless and devoted to his craft, he was scrambled with the squadron to intercept a raid of over 100 raiders shortly before midday on 30 October. Millington was caught in a string of spluttering dogfights and was last spotted by his mates chasing an Me 109 east. As one of his squadron colleagues grimly wrote, ‘It had been a miserable ... and perfectly bloody day, with the loss of Bill Millington especially upsetting.’[32] He was the last Anzac to die in the Battle of Britain.