by Jim Crossley
The fourth sortie was different. Two formations of bombers were detected heading for Southampton and it seemed that above them there was a swarm of fighters. 609 scrambled and climbed on full power to intercept the bombers. Height is everything in air-to-air fighting. Jacky had to concentrate hard to keep close with Arthur’s wing tip. It was far from easy to fly in tight formation and at the same time keep a good lookout for the enemy. After fifteen minutes Arthur spotted the little black dots ahead which were the Dorniers, flying impassively on towards their target in perfect order. They were a little above the Spitfires, and below them huge formations of white cloud were spread out in the sunlight like gigantic eiderdowns. The squadron went for a beam attack. “Stay close!” yelled Arthur as the ugly black crosses on the fuselages became visible, then even louder, “Pull out, dive like hell.” His sharp eyes had spotted in his mirror fifty or so tiny dots directly behind him, an overwhelming number of enemy fighters screaming down on them and closing rapidly. Down plummeted the Spitfires into the clouds below pursued by bursts of gunfire from behind. Jacky lost sight of his leader as they both plunged into the safety of the cloud cover. He kept diving downwards, hoping to make contact again when he came out into clear air. In its dive the Spitfire’s speed built up alarmingly. Four hundred, four hundred and fifty, four hundred and seventy miles per hour, the airframe began to shudder and the engine raced madly. He must pull out or he’d be into the ground. He burst out of cloud at about five hundred feet, hauling back on the joystick with all his strength. Such a pull out would have wrenched the wings off most aircraft, but the Spit levelled off gracefully. Jacky felt the blood drain from his upper body and saw nothing but blackness in front of his eyes for a few seconds, then he was again alert and speeding over the Hampshire countryside. Looking down, he saw an airfield below him and from it rose a column of ugly black smoke. He could see aircraft scattered over the ground and orange fires burning. Ahead of him two black dots were silhouetted against the green down land, flying low and fast southwards towards the Channel. The Spitfire was rapidly overhauling the dots ahead and they soon transformed themselves into ugly aircraft with sharply cranked wings and a single engine. Stukas!
The Stukas had attacked the airfield in a steep, screaming dive and hit it fair and square, cratering the runway and scattering aircraft and men with the blast. Now they were making for home, keeping low and hoping to avoid the ack-ack. The gunner in the hindmost machine had, like Jacky, lost consciousness as the aircraft pulled out of the dive and was still fuddled when he saw the menacing shape of Jacky’s plane rapidly catching up. He yelled to his pilot and fired burst after burst towards his enemy, but his own aircraft was now swerving violently and his aim was wide. Jacky managed to get a long burst into the Stuka from close astern. He saw bits fly off the plane then it banked sharply and plunged downward onto a field below where it burst into flame. Madly excited by his success, Jacky looked ahead for the other machine. There she was, still hedge-hopping desperately towards the sea. This pilot was obviously more experienced than his colleague. His wheels were almost on the ground as he plunged over hedges and telegraph wires, hoping the Spitfire would be unable to follow him. If there was one aspect of flying that Hollywood had taught Jacky it was flying spectacularly close to the ground. He banked, turned and zoomed over obstructions, drawing ever closer to his quarry. The two shot over the coastline near Chichester, and now Jacky was able to fire a succession of short bursts each time the Stuka crossed his sights. A trail of black smoke began to sprout from the machine and it was clearly in trouble. Jacky was now close behind and had it firmly in his sights. He pressed the gun button. Nothing. He was out of ammo. Furious, he kept on its tail until the French coast was almost beneath him, cursing wildly at his guns, the Stuka, and life in general. At the last minute he glanced at his fuel gauges. Almost empty. One last glance towards his victim, and he saw it plunging towards the sea as he turned for home.
Oberleutnant von Pilsen never knew how he managed to put the stricken Stuka down on the surface of the Channel with a seized engine. Stukas trying to land on water normally tripped over their undercarriage and somersaulted. Somehow Hans splashed down safely and on an even keel. He climbed out onto the wing. Feldwebel Stokmann was bleeding profusely from a wound in the shoulder but he was still conscious, and Hans was able to get him out of the plane and into the tiny dinghy. The Luftwaffe had cleverly provided a line of brightly coloured rafts along the French coast for use in just such circumstances. Hans could see one a short distance from the wreck and paddled towards it, watching his aircraft sink gracelessly in the calm water. He was strangely sorry to see it go. This was the very machine which had carried him safely through the Battle of France, blasting enemy tank concentrations and supply convoys. A few miles to the east of his present position, he had hurled it down on a British destroyer trying to evacuate the broken British army from Dunkirk. The destroyer had filled the air with flak, but it is difficult for even the most experienced gunner to hit a target diving vertically from overhead, and Hans had seen his bomb crash through her deck just aft of the funnel, and watched her capsize, a burning wreck, in less than two minutes. This new assault on the south of England, he mused, was a different story. Hitherto the Stukas had been fighting in an environment where they had air superiority. Enemy fighters had been kept at bay by the devastating superiority of the Messerschmitts, but over England things were more difficult. Spitfires and Hurricanes appeared in alarming numbers and seemed undeterred by the fighters escorting the Stukas. Losses had been five, ten, fifteen percent on each raid and destruction at this rate was simply unsustainable. Better leave the bombing of England to the high-level machines and keep the Stukas for the time when the RAF had been grounded. That wouldn’t take long. He had been assured by his commander that fifty to one hundred British fighters were being downed every day. As soon as they were all gone, his Gruppe could decimate what was left of the British army as they had the Poles and the French.
Sitting damp and dishevelled on the raft awaiting rescue by motorboat, Hans looked forward with enthusiasm to the day when the British would eventually see sense and come to terms. Then, perhaps there would be a chance to see Angela again.
Jacky returned to his squadron with two confirmed kills. Not bad for a beginner.
Exactly a week after his first triumph, Jacky and Hugo, a Fleet Air Arm pilot drafted into the battle from his aircraft carrier, took off to intercept bandits (enemy aircraft) approaching over the Isle of Wight. Radar guided them accurately towards the intruders, which seemed to consist of about twelve Dornier bombers escorted by Me109s flying high above them. The two Spitfires managed to work their way round behind the Dorniers before they were spotted by the fighters and were able to make a stern attack out of the sun. Just before Jacky opened fire, the rear gunner of a Dornier saw him and must have yelled at his pilot to take evasive action as he opened fire on Jacky’s machine. Too late. As the Dornier began its last, desperate turn, fire from the Spitfire’s eight machine guns poured into its belly and it rolled over on its side then blew up in a horrific sheet of orange flame. Jacky felt debris striking his aircraft and dived quickly for cloud to get some cover from the avenging Messerschmitts. In the relative safety of the cloud, he checked his aircraft for any damage caused by flying through the wreck of the Dornier. He noticed a rise in engine temperatures which gave warning of a coolant leak. Closing the throttle to reduce damage to the engine, he managed to slip away and land safely. His third kill was confirmed.
The very next day the whole squadron was scrambled to deal with a large enemy formation approaching Southampton. A squadron of Hurricanes was directed to attack the bombers while the faster, more agile, Spitfires kept the fighters at bay. Sure enough, as soon as 609’s aircraft came in sight of the great aerial armada a flight of Me109s came streaking down on them from far above the bombers. A furious melee ensued with machines turning, diving, whirling and zooming upwards, desperately trying to get an enemy in their sights.
Jacky was sweating and swearing in his cockpit, throwing his machine about the sky with abandon. This was the sort of fighting he had always hoped for, man against man in equal combat. Slamming in a violent turn towards an enemy who crossed his path, he got in a short burst which left it plunging downwards, pouring black smoke. Looking for another victim, he suddenly heard a voice in his headphones. “Jacky, break right break right!” Perhaps if he had been a younger man, his reactions would have been quick enough, but at thirty-two he was a fraction of a second too slow. Out of the sun roared four more 109s in a steep power dive. Two of them poured a deadly fire into Jacky’s machine which broke clean in half with the impact of the blast. The front section careered downwards, engine screaming in its death throes. As it fell, bits and pieces of the fighter became mingled with those of a stricken Heinkel bomber, a victim of one of the Hurricanes. The two wrecks smashed together into the chalky hillside below, their structures bent and charred metal, their crews nothing but shredded and burnt flesh. Jacky, beautiful Jacky, was gone forever.
Gone but not forgotten. Dead, Jacky did more for the British cause than he could possibly have achieved alive. Newspapers, radio programmes and newsreels all over the US were soon fed with the story. The heroic deeds of the movie star turned fighter pilot were told time and again as every household in America was reminded of his handsome face, his daring deeds and his devotion to the cause of freedom. Americans, especially the women, who had been strenuously isolationist and anti-war, began to re-examine their sentiments. Gradually President Roosevelt was able to marshal public opinion onto the side of Britain. The end of Jacky’s life, terrible as it was, was not in vain. Six months after his death the Lend-Lease Act passed through the Congress, giving Britain almost unlimited access to the mighty arsenal which was American industry, and nine months after that, the US was at war with Germany.
William was confronted by another tragedy even before he learnt of Jacky’s death. Reunited with his crew before joining his new squadron, he found them in sombre mood. Their old squadron, the Ospreys, had been in action off the Dutch coast. An attack on a convoy had resulted in eight out of the ten aircraft involved being lost, two to defensive fire and six to attack by Messerschmitts, who, alerted by radar, had picked them up on their flight home. Sadly William, Willis and Hopson contemplated the fate of their erstwhile comrades. Although he himself had been somewhat cold-shouldered by the old-timers in the squadron, he felt their loss deeply. They had been sent into battle poorly trained and equipped with inadequate aircraft and with no support whatever from friendly fighters. It was criminal, murder. Britain needed every machine and trained pilot it could get and to throw them away like this was not the way to win a war.
William’s Blenheim night fighter squadron had had a poor start to its operational career. Blenheims were too slow and too clumsy for the role; they were, however, the only machines available which could be fitted with radar for night fighting. The radar itself was a system known as the AI (airborne intercept) radar. It was extremely temperamental. It had a short antenna projecting from the nose of the aircraft and could pick up another aircraft at a range of two or three miles in good conditions, provided that the target was within its fairly narrow arc of acquisition. The job of William’s new unit was to develop the procedures needed to make proper use of the system and to iron out any technical problems.
The development unit was commanded by a Squadron Leader. Although nominally based at Tangmere, it actually flew from Martlesham Heath. It worked in very close co-operation with Bawdsey Manor. To everyone’s surprise, one of the first radar-equipped Blenheims had shot down a Heinkel as early as February 1940, but since then there had been no further successes until June when William joined the team. He found congenial company among the officers of his new squadron who were not unlike the “odd balls” he had worked with at Duxford. All the aircrews were aware of the vital importance of the work they were doing and were interested in the technology as well as the tactics involved. They would fly all night, struggling with the strange behaviour of their radars, stalking each other through cloud and darkness and making imaginary kills. Then they would sit for hours working out tactics with people from Bawdsey and the fighter controllers who operated with the Chain Home system. The unit was extraordinarily democratic, allowing the radar operators, often junior NCOs, equal say alongside quite senior officers. The radar sets went through many stages of development and modification to make them more suitable for operational use. William was delighted with the progress made by his own operator, Jimmy Hopson. He was now made up to flight sergeant, and scheduled to go on a navigator’s course as soon as his operational duties allowed. His quick practical way of thinking allowed him to contribute useful ideas to the team. He had a natural inventiveness and feel for what an operator needed in his dark, cold cockpit. The brilliance of the set must be variable, the intercom microphone must not obstruct the operator’s vision. All the instruments must glow dark red to assist night vision… there were hosts of other details.
As summer wore on, the squadron’s routine became frequently interrupted by urgent operational requirements. The serious nocturnal blitz on Britain by the Luftwaffe had not yet started but there were frequent night time intrusions by bombers and the Blenheims were called on to try to intercept them. Typically an aircraft would be scrambled and ordered to stand by over a selected location:
Control to Blenheim: “We have trade for you, bogy is at angels one eight (eighteen thousand feet) make course one eight zero.”
The waiting machine would climb on full throttle towards the path of the intruder.
Control to Blenheim: “Target bears one three zero five thousand yards, do you have contact?”
Blenheim: “No contact.”
Control to Blenheim: “Target bears one two zero. Steer one zero zero for beam attack.”
Blenheim: “Have contact. Tallyho.” This indicated that the radar operator had a trace on his screen and from now on the attack would be orchestrated by the aircraft’s crew. Eventually the pilot might see the exhaust flames of the enemy and attempt to close the range. However, since the intruder was probably at least as fast as the Blenheim it was a frustrating business. Occasionally the pursuing pilot would catch a glimpse of the intruder, illuminated by the moon or see a tell-tale stream of sparks from his exhaust, but the fighters almost never managed to get close enough to open fire, and when they did, it was seldom effective. The Blenheim just wasn’t up to the job. The team did achieve a few kills on unsuspecting bombers but nowhere near enough to justify the effort expended. William himself never once got a chance to open fire at all.
His first taste of serious fighting came in August, a few days before Jacky’s death. The Battle of Britain was now raging and the RAF was in severe danger of losing control of the sky over southern England. Every available aircraft had to be thrown into the fray. A squadron of Blenheims was briefed to make a dawn bombing raid on airfields in northern France in an attempt to hinder the relentless pressure exerted by their skilled and ruthless enemy. The bombers were to be escorted by Blenheim long-range fighters, and, scraping the barrel for enough of these to go round, Fighter Command decreed that the radars should be temporarily removed from William’s unit’s machines to eliminate the danger of them falling into German hands, so that the aircraft could be pressed into service as daylight escorts. At first all went well, eighteen bombers and twelve fighters formed up over Selsey Bill and roared off across the Channel. William’s flight were in the lead, and aimed to approach the target from the east so as to make their attack out of the rising sun. They rapidly identified the airfield, near Lille. Half a dozen Dorniers were standing near the hangars being readied for the day’s operations. The leading Blenheims seemed to have caught the defenders napping and were able to make a high-speed pass over the aerodrome, guns blazing so as to soften up the defences a few seconds before the bombers struck. They then climbed away, gaining height as quickly as possible so as to be able to prote
ct the bombers on their return run. From his turret, Jimmy Hopson was able to see the bomb bursts as the main attack went in and satisfactory plumes of black smoke rose from the hangars and surrounding aircraft. Now it was a question of getting back safely.
The Germans had woken up and flak was bursting all round the bombers. Jimmy saw two of them crashing earthwards, trailing smoke. Worse was to come. A swarm of little black dots appeared high overhead, and these soon turned into Me109s. The twelve Blenheim fighters turned towards the attackers but their chances of success were small. Using their superior speed and agility, the Messerschmitts easily slotted in astern and poured fire into the returning aircraft. Jimmy watched in horror as two of his companions plunged downwards. He had heard from a friend in the sergeant’s mess that you could always tell when a pursuing single-seater was going to open fire as it would always lift its nose a fraction before opening up so that the pilot could align his sights. He watched a machine line up behind his Blenheim carefully. When it seemed to be about two hundred yards away, he saw the nose begin to rise as the pilot sighted his guns for an easy kill. “Break right now, skipper!” he yelled and saw the tracer whizz past them as William flung the aircraft into a steep turn. He tried to turn his gun onto the 109 as it flashed past, but missed behind. The fighter pulled up into a steep climbing turn to have another go. William decided that his best chance was to get as low as possible and hope that he might lose his attacker by some high-speed hedge hopping. He went into a steep dive, only levelling out a few feet above the ground.