The Battle of Britain

by James Holland

  Now, by evening on this Tuesday, 9 July, the rain had stopped and the weather had begun to brighten slightly. At around 6.30 p.m., Green section was ordered to patrol Portland once more. David, Peter Drummond-Hay and Michael Appleby took off, with Peter leading. Once again, however, they saw nothing, and after three-quarters of an hour headed back to Warmwell and circled the airfield. In a rather irritated tone of voice, Peter asked for permission to land. They were told, however, to continue the patrol out over Weymouth at about 7,000 feet as a formation of Stukas had been reported approaching.

  They did as they were ordered and David immediately saw a Stuka dive down through cloud some two miles away. He called up Peter on the R/T, and they manoeuvred into line astern and turned towards the enemy. Moments later, David spotted two more Ju 87s. Turning on his reflector sights, he switched his gun button to ‘fire’, his excitement mounting at the chance to pounce on these slow, rather helpless-looking machines. Last in line behind Peter and Michael, he quickly glanced behind him and was horrified to see at least nine Me 110s some 2,000 feet above beginning to dive down upon them.

  Keenly aware that instead of attacking the Stukas they needed to get themselves out of there quickly, he shouted, ‘Look out behind! Messerschmitts behind!’ But to his horror, both Peter and Michael continued heading straight towards the Stukas. ‘I have never felt so desperate or so helpless in my life,’ noted David, ‘as when, in spite of my warnings, these two flew steadily on, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that they were going to be struck down from the rear in a few seconds.’

  Now the leading Me 110 opened fire and David saw cannon shells and machine-gun tracer hurtle over his head ‘jolly close’. Turning violently left, he dived through a layer of cloud just below. As he emerged, now travelling at more than 400 mph, he saw a Ju 87 just ahead of him, and so opened fire. It was his first shots in action, but to his surprise, the Stuka seemed to fly straight through his bullets and then disappeared. Somewhat shaken and bemused, David now climbed back up through the cloud and spotted another Messerschmitt some distance above him, so pulling himself into a steep climb he opened fire again. He was too far away, however, and the Me 110 turned away and vanished into cloud.

  But David was now aware of a spectral outline of another aircraft in cloud flying parallel to him. Stalking him through the cloud, as they emerged David saw it was a Stuka and that it was now directly in front of him. He pressed down on his gun button and pumped his remaining rounds at the machine. To his amazement, bits of the aircraft began flying off, smoke burst from the engine and then a great lick of flame. Just as suddenly, the Stuka began plummeting from the sky. David watched it tumble until the whole machine was engulfed in flames and eventually hit the sea with a great burst of white foam. The two crew had obviously been killed; David had often wondered what he would feel should such a moment ever occur, and was now rather surprised that a sensation of elation had swept over him – and bewilderment that it had been so easy.

  Now out of ammunition and with the Messerschmitts seemingly having disappeared, he headed back to the coast, repeatedly calling up Peter and Michael over the R/T, but with no response. Then he suddenly spotted another Spitfire flying a very erratic course, the pilot obviously desperately looking behind him. Catching up, David saw it was Michael and together they dashed back towards Warmwell.

  David made a poor landing, overshooting the runway badly and nearly flipping his Spitfire. When he finally unbuckled his leads and harness and jumped down on to the ground, he discovered his hands were shaking and that even his voice was unsteady. Catching up with Michael, he learned what had happened. Michael had left his radio on ‘transmit’ instead of ‘receive’ and so had not heard David’s warnings. Remembering just in time, he had heard David shout ‘Messerschmitt’ and had whipped round to see three Me 110s bearing down on him. Fortunately, he had managed to escape unscathed – but he had not seen what had happened to Peter, of whom there was still no sign.

  As soon as their Spitfires were rearmed and refuelled, six of them took off again to look for Peter, but they saw nothing. Just a wide empty sea. Inexperience, and over-excitement at seeing the Stukas, had almost certainly led Peter to leave his R/T in transmit mode too. It had proved a fatal mistake.

  Having returned to Warmwell, they then took off once more for Middle Wallop just before dusk. Arriving back, David went up to the room he had shared with Peter. Everything looked exactly as it had been left; Peter’s towel still hung on the window where he had hurriedly left it eighteen hours earlier. ‘But he was dead now,’ noted David. ‘I could not get out of my head the thought of Peter, with whom we had been talking and laughing that day, now lying in the cockpit of his wrecked Spitfire at the bottom of the English Channel.’

  Just two months earlier, David had flown his first flight in a Spitfire with barely a care in the world; war had seemed so far removed from the experience. Now, however, the reality was beginning to bite. The next morning, before David had left for London, Pip Barran, the ‘B’ Flight commander, had been called to the telephone. It had been Peter’s wife; the telegram had not yet reached her so she was ringing wondering what the arrangements were for his leave that afternoon. Of course, Pip had then had to tell her the news. ‘It all seemed so awful,’ wrote David. ‘I was seeing for the first time at very close quarters all the distress and un-happiness that casualties cause.’

  Later that day, David bade farewell to the rest of ‘B’ Flight and headed up to London on his own. He would not see either Pip or his other good friend, Gordon Mitchell, again. The following day, while David was with his wife, ‘B’ Flight was scrambled to go to the aid of another Channel convoy that was being attacked twenty miles to the south of Weymouth. Just five aircraft against a massive formation of Stukas and protective Me 110s never had much of a chance, although it seemed that once again, as three of the five had dived down on the Stukas, the pilots had not heard the warnings of the other two that Me 110s were diving down on them. What happened to Gordon Mitchell, no-one was sure. Pip had headed back to the coast, smoke trailing and his airscrew stopped. Bailing out, the surviving three had signalled his position, but by the time a naval launch found him, he had been in the water a long time, with bad burns and bullets through his legs. As he was lifted aboard, he died. Gordon’s body eventually washed up on the Isle of Wight some ten days later. For David Crook, this had been a further double blow. Both men had been close friends; Gordon had been at school with David, while he had known Pip since first joining 609. Three of his best friends had been killed in as many days. All had been hugely popular. ‘In a squadron,’ David pointed out, ‘there are so few pilots, and it really seems more like a large family than anything else, and therefore three deaths at once seems very heavy indeed.’ The whole squadron, let alone ‘B’ Flight, seemed to have had its heart ripped out.

  George Darley had been right, however. The squadron had not learned from Dunkirk. ‘Beware the Hun in the Sun’ was a mantra that would be drummed into every Fighter Command pilot, but was a lesson that the pilots of ‘B’ Flight had failed to adhere to during their first week of action on the south coast. That would all have to change very quickly. So, too, would operating in such small formations. Sending penny packets of fighters was neither an efficient nor an effective way of protecting the Channel convoys – but many of the ground controllers were inexperienced too. Like the pilots, they were learning on the job. Yet pilots also had to understand that three or five aircraft could not take on fifteen, twenty or even thirty enemy aircraft; they would have done well to follow Oberleutnant Kühle’s more cautious approach with 3/JG 52.

  This Darley recognized fully, and complained vociferously about the use of his squadron in such a way. Another problem was the method of attack. Pre-war practice had led the RAF to develop six types of formation attacks. They were based on the assumption that they would be made against unescorted bombers flying straight and level, but as France had shown, this scenario rarely occurred. When th
ey had spotted the Stukas over Portland on the evening of 9 July, Peter Drummond-Hay had ordered Michael Appleby and David Crook into a classic Fighter Attack No. 1, calling them first into line astern, one behind the other, from which they were then supposed to peel down, one after the other, have a crack at the target, then pull up and climb again, ready for another attack if necessary. Neither Peter nor Michael had looked behind and above them and had paid the price. The other five Fighter Attacks were progressively more complicated and time-wasting, and completely inappropriate. Pilots were distracted by thinking about their formations and the sequence of a particular attack, rather than keeping their wits about them.

  Yet although a large number of Fighter Command’s squadrons had seen action in France and over Dunkirk, the month’s respite had not been used to collate and disseminate the lessons learned. Dowding may have developed a supremely advanced defence system, but in the crucial area of fighter tactics he had not been so forward thinking. This was because he believed it was too late in the day to start rewriting the tactic book. He was, however, underestimating the speed with which men in battle adapt.

  Instead, it was left to individual squadrons, commanders and pilots to learn and change on their own initiative. Some did, others did not. Fortunately for 609 Squadron, George Darley was not going to let all his pilots be killed in such an unnecessary manner. He began drumming into them the importance of working as a team, of each pilot constantly looking out for enemy aircraft above, behind and below. In the days that followed, he was unable to persuade the ground controllers to use the entire squadron rather than individual flights and sections, but the kill–loss ratio did improve; at least, no-one was getting killed, although two of the pilots were shot down by a single, diving Ju 88. They both bailed out safely, returning to the squadron in one piece, albeit rather humiliated. John Dundas also improved his record from Dunkirk by sharing in the destruction of an Me 110 and the probable kill of a Dornier 17. Darley had not made himself popular with his plain speaking, but the men of 609 were quick to realize that he was a man worth listening to. David Crook, for one, soon began to admire him greatly. His experience, imperturbability, and sound good sense were precisely what the squadron needed.

  Darley’s plans to keep his squadron alive were given a boost on 13 July, when 152 Squadron was posted to Warmwell. Since it was a Spitfire squadron, the pressure on 609’s groundcrew was at last alleviated. Most could now remain at Middle Wallop because there was enough support at Warmwell to house the entire squadron during the day. ‘From now onwards,’ noted David Crook, ‘we generally flew as a complete squadron, which is a very much more formidable and powerful adversary than three aircraft only.’

  In terms of numbers of single-seater aircraft, the Luftwaffe had only a small advantage over Fighter Command, but overall Göring’s men had enormous numerical superiority. Even so, only two Fliegerkorps had been given the task of establishing air superiority over the Channel. General von Richthofen’s VIII Fliegerkorps was now mostly based in Normandy between Cherbourg and Le Havre, while General Loerzer’s II Fliegerkorps was slowly but surely arriving in the Pas de Calais. Plenty had yet to arrive, however. The entire Jagdgeschwader 26 was now part of II Fliegerkorps, but neither Dolfo Galland’s new command, III/JG 26, nor the other two Gruppen had yet left Germany. A sense of urgency there certainly was not.

  This meant that during the Channel attacks, the Luftwaffe did not have the kind of overwhelming superiority in numbers that it had on paper. However, it had the huge advantage of being able to choose when and where it would attack. Dowding rightly insisted on keeping his forces well spread, but that meant that Park in 11 Group and Brand, now in command of the newly formed 10 Group in the south-west, could only respond to attacks. The Luftwaffe could thus attack in strength at one or two points, rather as German field commanders had done at the start of the western campaign.

  These main two points were the Channel and coastal ports of central and south-east England. In the latter, 32 Squadron was one of 11 Group’s squadrons also now spending much of its time patrolling over convoys, taking off at dawn from Biggin Hill and heading to Hawkinge near Dover, or to Manston near Ramsgate. It had also been sent on patrols over to the French coast. Pete Brothers had flown to Le Havre on 4 July and to Calais-Boulogne two days later.

  It was also being scrambled to intercept incoming raids. On the other side of the Channel, the principal bomber formation in II Fliegerkorps was KG 2, equipped with Dornier 17s, which was being sent over both during the day and at night. On the afternoon of 3 July, 32 Squadron had been vectored to attack a raid of twenty-one Do 17s along with 610 Squadron; on this occasion, the enemy had promptly turned back to France. Soon after, and while still in the air, they were vectored towards another raid, this time of thirty-four Dorniers that were bombing Kenley, just a short distance away from Biggin. Seeing the explosions and puffs of AA fire, they dived on the bombers, managing to shoot three down.

  Now that German aircraft were flying over south-east England, Pete began to feel worried about his wife. He was unusually young amongst fighter pilots to be married. He had met Annette when the squadron had been based at Boscombe Down and had been instantly smitten. ‘She was super, gorgeous,’ says Pete. ‘I was very lucky.’ Annette had been only twenty when they became engaged, and perhaps not surprisingly her father was none too pleased at the prospect of her marrying so young, and especially a pilot. However, she was due to be twenty-one in April and told her father that then she could do as she pleased. Reluctantly, he agreed to the marriage. The next hurdle was for Pete to get the permission of the station commander. Generally, pilots had to be either a squadron leader or twenty-eight to be allowed to marry. ‘You’re a bit bloody young, aren’t you?’ the station commander told him. ‘What if I said no?’

  ‘It would be a bit difficult to send you an invitation to the wedding, Sir!’ Pete replied. The station commander laughed and gave him his blessing. They married in March 1939, honeymooning in Cornwall during the Czech crisis. Then, the day before they returned, he received a telegram saying he had been promoted to Flight Lieutenant, which pushed his pay from fourteen shillings a day to twenty shillings and twopence. It made all the difference. To begin with they lived in a bungalow next to Biggin, but when war was declared he insisted she should move in with an aunt in nearby Westerham.

  Now, in July, he had already begun to think he should move her out of danger when a bomb fell nearby and a piece of shrapnel flew through the window and smashed the mirror on her table as Annette was sitting at it. As far as Pete was concerned, that was it. He insisted on her going to Lancashire to stay with his parents. ‘Got her away from the worst of it,’ he says, ‘which was good because she used to count us in. Every time I came back from a sortie, I had to whiz over the house to reassure her I was still around.’ He would miss her, but at least he no longer had to worry about her so much.

  The incident also marked a change in his attitude. Like many others, he had regarded the war as something of a game that was exciting, dangerous, but nothing personal. He felt differently now. ‘I then said, “Right, these are a bunch of bastards. I don’t like them any more. I am going to be beastly.”’ He was soon able to put his words into actions. On 19 July, the squadron was scrambled to intercept an attack by Stukas on Dover Harbour. In the ensuing scrap, he shot down an Me 109 from JG 51. The next day, whilst protecting yet another Channel convoy, he claimed another.

  Yet although it was principally 10 and 11 Group squadrons that were in range of II and VIII Fliegerkorps and most called upon during these early days of July, other squadrons were seeing some action, albeit usually in negligible amounts. From Pembrey, for example, on 15 July, Tony Bartley had chased a Ju 88 that had been targeting a nearby TNT factory. A few days later, other members of 92 Squadron had shot down a lone Heinkel. Enemy bombers were also occasionally venturing further north, in part lured by the east-coast convoys as the Admiralty had predicted, but also by airfield and industrial
targets. However, whether this enemy activity was worth the Luftwaffe ‘bait’ policy was another matter. Certainly, as far as Cocky Dundas was concerned, 616 Squadron was flying endless, tedious convoy patrols in which there was a conspicuous absence of the enemy. It had attacked a lone Dornier on 7 July, and Cocky had actually managed to score some hits, so shared in its destruction. That had been it, however, and he was conscious that his older brother had not only been involved in a number of scraps, but was also steadily increasing his personal score. Immensely proud of his older brother, Cocky was desperate to emulate John’s success.

  Sharing Leconfield was one of Dowding’s new squadrons, 249. It had originally been formed during the last war, but had been disbanded after the armistice. In the middle of May, it had been re-formed at Church Fenton. For nineteen-year-old Pilot Officer Tom Neil, it was his first posting, as it was for most of the pilots. However, some more experienced men had also been drafted in – the Canadian ‘Butch’ Barton from 41 Squadron, ‘Boozy’ Kellett from 616; James Nicolson from 72; and John Grandy, still only twenty-six, as the new CO. Only Grandy held a regular commission. Four or five held short-service commissions, while the rest of the officers, like Tom, were Volunteer Reservists. Of the sergeant pilots, who made up slightly under half the total, only three were regulars. The average age was twenty-two; Tom, still a couple of months off his twentieth birthday, was among the youngest. The squadron was also equipped with Spitfires, much to Tom’s great joy. His first flight had been on a perfect summer’s day with unlimited visibility. Flying this machine of untold and awesome power, he was acutely aware that he had never been happier. His life’s ambition had been fulfilled.