The Battle of Britain

by James Holland

  Climbing again, he dived once more, but this time was twenty metres out. His observer suggested they should now release the last two bombs together and go home but Hajo, feeling irritated, insisted he would drop them one at a time. It was a decision that paid off. On his next dive, he hit the ship – there was a sharp flash from below. Climbing away, Hajo circled over it, watching the fire spread. He looked down over the other boats coming to its rescue, assuming the soldiers must all be jumping off into the sea. He still had one last bomb so this time dived even lower, hitting a smaller vessel. ‘The vessel didn’t catch fire,’ noted Hajo. ‘She sank.’

  Now, on Friday, 31 May, early in the evening, Hajo had taken off from Schiphol near Amsterdam, where they were newly stationed, in a large formation. The weather had improved and although there were still dense smoke palls over Dunkirk itself, visibility was otherwise good. Their targets were the beaches and ships lying offshore, to be attacked from the land side. He was not flying his usual aircraft as it was unserviceable, but had not had a chance to test his replacement machine; it could not be helped. In any case, it seemed all right to him as they flew south across Belgium. As usual, they could see the smoke above the port way before they reached it. Above them were the fighter escort, so Hajo was happy to keep his steady position in the middle of the formation.

  As they approached the diving line, puffs of flak began to smudge the sky. Hajo watched the lead aircraft begin to dive, then pulled his own brake lever, but the brake did not come out. Hurtling downwards, he sped past the leading machines. The slipstream whistled in a high-pitch screech past the cockpit and the plane began to shake and rattle. He pulled desperately on the brake, but nothing happened, so he pulled back the control column in a long curve in the hope that the aircraft would not break up. The rest of the formation were now over their targets and dropping bombs. Cursing to himself, Hajo decided to have another go but suddenly a Hurricane swept past and then another. Abandoning plans for another attack for the moment, Hajo climbed to the safety of the smoke cloud, which stank even from inside his Junkers. All too quickly he emerged out of the top, dropped back down and came out at the bottom of the pall once more. Suddenly a burst of fire raked the fuselage. Wires sprang out towards him from the instrument panel. He wondered whether to jettison his bombs but a brief glance either side of him told him that both his engines were still working. Dipping in and out of the smoke cloud, he thought he saw a French fighter but it disappeared again just as there was a bang and one of his engines packed up. The wireless operator cried out and the under-gunner groaned. Hajo could see a dark trail of smoke from his hit engine so now dived steeply, and noticed the enemy fighters were holding back – he couldn’t understand why.

  For a moment, Hajo couldn’t decide what to do – land on the beach where the Tommies were? Or crash out at sea? Neither appealed, but with his aircraft spluttering and jolting he realized he did not have much choice. Diving down again, he picked out a ship, dropped his bombs but missed, then saw a Hurricane had followed him down after all. There was another bang as the bullets hit home, but the British pilot had overshot and now Hajo knew he had to ditch the plane. Crouching in his seat, he waited for the coup de grâce as he glided down towards the sea.

  Water now burst through the cockpit. The urgent desire for survival made Hajo act fast. Ripping off his life-jacket, leads and overalls, he clambered out through the jettisoned canopy and on to the roof of the sinking aircraft. To his relief, three more heads appeared beside him. Hajo and his observer were unharmed but the wireless operator and gunner had cuts to their faces. All four were alive, however, and they now swam the short distance to the shore, dog-paddling then crawling up through the shallows and on to the shore. Hajo looked around and then saw a soldier, wearing a German steel helmet, emerge from the grass beyond the shore. Relief coursed through him. Clearly, he had ditched just to the west of the bridgehead – off the coast that was now in German hands. ‘I’d made it,’ he noted. ‘That was my fortieth operation in this war, not counting the half-century in Spain.’

  Around the same time, Siegfried Bethke was leading the Staffel over Amiens in support of Army Group A’s southern push. It was his second flight of the day and they soon encountered a flight of French LeO 415 and Douglas Db-7 twin-engine bombers. Siegfried ordered them to attack, swooping down fast upon the enemy planes. Opening with his cannon he saw bits of the French bomber fly off and one of the engines catch fire, so he pulled back the stick and climbed out of the way to dodge the debris. All his pilots were now attacking in turn. He spotted one Frenchman bail out; one of the planes dived and glided in to land before being engulfed in flames, then another bomber was plunging earthwards. All four had been destroyed, no match for the 109s. Siegfried had just ordered his Staffel to reassemble over Amiens when he spotted two more French aircraft flying low below them. Diving down, he attacked again, although this time only with his machine guns as he had already used up his cannon ammunition. Then suddenly he heard a loud crack from the front below his plane and in seconds thick smoke was swirling around the cockpit and flames were licking his feet. The control column was loose in his hands and he knew he needed to get out of his machine fast. Releasing the canopy, he managed to undo his harness and leads and somehow flip the Messerschmitt over so that he fell out. He was horribly close to the ground but managed to get the parachute open and briefly noticed a large cenotaph from the last war and large numbers of shell craters and dead strewn round about before hitting the ground. Knocked unconscious, he awoke as several soldiers were carrying him back to their positions. Not far away, Siegfried saw his plane, his ‘No. 7’, burning. His head throbbed, but he was alive. Like Hajo, his had been a lucky escape.

  Back on the ground, the situation was becoming critical at the eastern end of the perimeter. It was here, against Nieuport and Furnes, that the German Eighteenth Army had hit hardest, and the Fusiliers, for one, were suffering under the weight of this onslaught. Their depleted number, armed with rifles, a few Brens and way too little ammunition, could only hold on so long against an enemy of massively superior man- and firepower. Their remaining carriers had now been pressed into service as ambulances to take the wounded back to the Regimental Aid Post. Casualties were now critical so Major Lotinga ordered them to fall back 800 yards. Another second lieutenant and several NCOs were killed in the process. The new battalion HQ was little more than a ditch. ‘It consisted merely of me,’ says Norman Field, ‘with a signaller equipped with a vital telephone.’ Dribs and drabs found their way back and took cover in neighbouring water ditches.

  The RAP, which had been operating in a house on a crossroads, was also ordered to pack up and fall back. It was just as well, because no sooner had they left than it was hit by six successive shells and reduced to rubble.

  All along the eastern end of the perimeter, the Tommies were hanging on by a thread. Furnes had been heavily attacked all morning and looked likely to fall as the line between the town and the village of Wulpen began to collapse. A costly counter-attack by the Coldstream Guards managed to restore the situation but it was clear they would not be able to hold out much longer. Next to the Fusiliers, the 1st/6th Surreys were also suffering, although they had managed to stand firm. Late in the afternoon the Germans had been seen massing for another attack on Nieuport but it was at that moment that the Blenheims arrived, hitting them sufficiently hard for no further assault to come that evening.

  General Alexander, meanwhile, had managed to get through to London and just after 8 p.m. received his instructions, which were to continue withdrawing his forces on the fifty-fifty basis with the French that had earlier been put to Gort. This was relayed to the French, who could do little but acquiesce. With Gort now gone, Alexander at least now had the authority to act as he thought fit, coming up against Admiral Abrial at every turn.

  And it was clear that the eastern perimeter could not hold another day. In the ditch that was still the Royal Fusiliers’ headquarters, orders were received at
9 p.m. that they were to pull back and embark at La Panne. The fighting had died down; the Germans never liked attacking much at night. Out of nearly 800 men who had marched into Belgium a fortnight earlier, only around 150 now remained. Gathering their remaining carriers, they collected themselves together and under the cover of dusk headed down the road to La Panne, now largely empty but pitted with shell craters and lined by houses and buildings reduced to rubble.

  It was almost dark by the time they reached the town of La Panne. They abandoned their vehicles, immobilized them, then marched to a crossroads near the centre of town. There they were halted by Movement Control Staff for over an hour. As other units arrived, so their numbers swelled until the town was dense with exhausted soldiers. Then the German guns opened fire once more, and shells began to hit the town. Norman Field managed to take cover in a kind of cellar window below a house. ‘It was all rather frightening,’ he says. ‘It’s fascinating stuff, though, to see what happens when these shells burst on the road – like white tadpoles whizzing around because there are bits of white-hot metal.’ Whilst crouching there, he felt his left hand move. Lifting it up, he could no longer move his fingers. ‘I realized I’d been clobbered,’ he says, ‘but I didn’t feel a thing, not then.’ Shrapnel had ripped off the back of his hand. With the shelling, the bottlenecked men had been hurriedly dispersed down to the beaches, so Norman now got up and headed that way too, calling out, ‘Royal Fusiliers! Royal Fusiliers!’ Eventually a voice called out, ‘Come and lie down here,’ so he did and found himself next to Jock Cleghorn, a Fusilier captain on the brigade HQ staff, who then dressed Norman’s wound. Of the rest of the battalion there was no sign. The shelling continued, while overhead a plane circled, dropping flares that hung in the air and made the beach like daylight. The men lay flat, pressed against the sand. They no longer had any weapons, kit or anything – not even entrenching tools. ‘The firing was so intense,’ says Norman, ‘and people were being hit all over the place and crying out. It was awful; a nightmare. We were worn out. We hadn’t had any proper sleep for ages.’

  This attack had brought the evacuation at La Panne to a halt. As the shelling intensified, the ships were forced to withdraw westwards, although it was hoped that later, when the guns quietened down, they would return and continue lifting the men, now numbering some 7,000 from 3rd and 4th Divisions. Desultory shelling continued. The night was absolutely black except for some tiny beach creatures which glowed at the shore’s edge. The sea was still flat, so that in between the groans of wounded and dying men all that could now be heard was the gentle lapping of the waves.

  Eventually the ships returned, the destroyer HMS Worcester and the minesweeper HMS Hebe; also anchored a little west of La Panne was another minesweeper, HMS Speedwell. Suddenly everyone was on their feet running down to the shore. There was chaos until two Military Police began firing Bren guns into the water to warn the mass to move back. With his wounded hand, Norman was one of the lucky few to be put on to one of the collapsible canvas rowing boats available to ferry men to the waiting ships. When Norman was hauled up on to Speedwell, he found one of his signallers lying on a stretcher. He had been shot in the stomach and thought he was going to die. ‘Of course you’re not,’ Norman told him. ‘I’ll go and get a doctor.’ He found one then lay down himself and fell fast asleep.

  Norman might have got away, but it was clear there were nothing like enough small ships at La Panne. Because the eastern perimeter had been abandoned up to the French border, it was essential to have La Panne cleared by dawn. It was soon realized, however, that this would never happen so the beach was abandoned entirely as an evacuation point. The remaining men, utterly shattered, hungry and, above all, parched with thirst, were ordered to trudge up the coast to Bray Dunes and the port, the latter ten miles away.

  At Dunkirk, the harbour entrance was thick with boats. Destroyers and other ships were lined up three abreast alongside the mole, while many of the little ships were also bobbing about off the coast at Bray and Malo-les-Bains and around the harbour. The mole was packed with men, British and French, a long dark column of weary troops patiently waiting their turn to embark. One of the ships reaching Dunkirk that morning was HMS Icarus, now on her sixth round trip.

  With the weather much improved, the Luftwaffe hit Dunkirk hard that morning. Norman Field, on board HMS Speedwell, awoke to the sound of crashing glass. The ship was zig-zagging violently and above Norman glass bottles were falling off their shelves. He now heard the screeching sirens of Stukas and from the corner of his eye saw huge spikes of water exploding into the air. Wave after wave attacked her, dropping more than a hundred bombs. Miraculously, there were no direct hits, although some, as Norman saw for himself, were horribly close. Some forty-six men had been killed and many more wounded.

  Once the raid had finally passed, Norman, unhurt apart from his badly wounded hand, gathered himself up and saw they were now speeding across the Channel. His signaller had died – as the man had foretold – and now the dead were buried at sea, a padre performing the burial rites. To his astonishment, Norman recognized him – he’d been in his house at Shrewsbury. He was equally surprised to see the ship was full of Frenchmen; he’d had no idea that, having left La Panne, Speedwell had picked up more men from the mole. And then, at long last, they neared England, finally pulling into Sheerness. From there, Norman was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Dartford. It would take some time for his hand to mend, but at least he was home. The same could not be said for far too many of his friends and colleagues, who would, like the young men of a generation before, be staying forever in Flanders.

  Home seemed a long way away to those still manning the perimeter. Four German divisions now attacked the six British battalions continuing to man the Canal Line between Bergues and the village of Houthem. All these men fought with extraordinary bravery – as did the French in the east and to the west of the port, and as had those holding the line between Nieuport and Furnes the day before. One officer in the East Lancashires, Captain Harold Ervine-Andrews, managed to hold off an entire German attack by leading one of his platoons to the roof of a barn and personally shooting seventeen Germans with his rifle and many more with a Bren, despite being under continuous fire. Not until the barn was a charred wreck did he eventually fall back at round 4.30 p.m. that afternoon. For this action, he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

  The RAF continued to send fighters over to cover this last stand. Both Cocky and John Dundas flew over Dunkirk this first day of June; John managed to hit a Heinkel 111. Cocky and the rest of 616 Squadron had been over the port by 5 a.m., this time along with three other squadrons, although their efforts could not prevent a heavy toll on the ships below. Four had been sunk before 7.30 a.m., including the destroyer HMS Keith. More followed: the destroyers Basilisk and Havant, while Ivanhoe was also hit, killing a number of men already loaded on to her. Sid Nuttall, who was still stuck on the beaches, saw the attack on Keith, Basilisk and Ivanhoe. One dive-bomber, attacked from the sea, finished up low over the dunes, where a number of soldiers took pot-shots. ‘We saw a piece of plane fall off,’ says Sid. ‘He veered off and crashed into the ground beyond the town.’

  Sid had been helping as a stretcher bearer since arriving at Bray Dunes, although mostly this had been at night. Nearby, the casualty clearing station at Malo was heaving with the wounded. He found it quite difficult lumbering these men out on to the boats, even with three others to help. ‘We’d wade into the sea and had water up to our chests before a boat could reach you,’ he says. ‘Then you had to pass this wounded chap inside the boat.’ He now had a thick line of salt around his battle dress. With no watch, Sid had lost all sense of time. He had no idea what day it was or when it might be his turn to leave; all he knew was that he’d now been on the beach at least three days. An eternity.

  By mid-afternoon, the Canal Line was crumbling; Bergues, after a heroic defence by the Loyals, was finally given up at 5 p.m. Alexander had already accepted that morning th
at the evacuation would not be completed that night, but hoped that with the help of the French to the west and south of the town, his last few thousand fighting men might be able to maintain a small perimeter around Malo and ensure the remaining 39,000 British might yet be able to get away. The French were also defending equally heroically and putting up greater resistance than Alexander had anticipated and so, in agreement with Abrial, he decided to continue the evacuation through the night of 2/3 June.

  Yet there was no doubt that the end was now near. Later that day, Sid Nuttall saw some French troops reach the beaches then spotted a German tank that began firing towards them until the guns of a destroyer offshore opened up and hit it. The proximity of the enemy and the confused nature of the fighting, combined with the shortage of communications, meant that Alexander was faced with making decisions based on what limited information he had. It was a huge responsibility, but one of the hardest decisions he had made was that no more wounded could be lifted off. Stretchers took too much room. It was, he decided, the fit that now needed saving. A hospital ship sent out that day was so badly bombed she was forced to return. So too was a second, but 1 June was undoubtedly the worst suffered since the evacuation had begun. The Luftwaffe had flown over a thousand sorties that day between 5.30 a.m. and 5.54 p.m. Thirty-two ships had been lost this day, not including further little boats, and a further ten badly damaged. It was a disastrous toll.