The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots
Page 29
For the first few weeks, only my parents were allowed to visit me and they came every day. My mother would sit and read to me by the hour. Quite how much she suffered I could only guess, for she gave no sign. One remark of hers I shall never forget. She said: “You should be glad this has to happen to you. Too many people told you how attractive you were and you believed them. You were well on the way to becoming something of a cad. Now you’ll find out who your real friends are.” I did.
When I was allowed to see people, one of my first visitors was Michael Cary (who had been at Trinity with me and had a First in Greats). He was then private secretary to the Chief of Air Staff. He was allowed to stay only a short time before being shoo’d away by my nurses, but I think it may have been time enough to shake him. A short while afterwards he joined the Navy as an A.B. I hope it was not as a result of seeing me, for he had too good a brain to waste polishing brass. Colin came down whenever he had leave from Hornchurch and brought me news of the Squadron.
Ken MacDonald, Don’s brother who had been with “A” Flight at Dyce, had been killed. He had been seen about to bale out of his blazing machine at 1000 feet; but as he was over a thickly populated area he had climbed in again and crashed the machine in the Thames.
Pip Cardell had been killed. Returning from a chase over the Channel with Dexter, one of the new members of the Squadron, he appeared to be in trouble just before reaching the English coast. He jumped; but his parachute failed to open and he came down in the sea. Dexter flew low and saw him move. He was still alive, so Dexter flew right along the shore and out to sea, waggling his wings to draw attention and calling up the base on the R.T. No boat put out from the shore, and Dexter made a crash landing on the beach, drawing up ten yards from a nest of buried mines. But when they got up to Pip he was dead.
Howes had been killed, even as he had said. His Squadron had been moved from Hornchurch to a quieter area, a few days after I was shot down. But he had been transferred to our Squadron, still deeply worried because as yet he had failed to bring anything down. The inevitable happened; and from his second flight with us he failed to return.
Rusty was missing, but a clairvoyant had written to Uncle George swearing that he was neither dead nor captured. Rusty, he said (whom he had never seen), had crashed in France, badly burned, and was being looked after by a French peasant.
As a counter to this depressing news Colin told me that Brian, Raspberry, and Sheep all had the D.F.C., and Brian was shortly to get a bar to his. The Squadron’s confirmed score was nearing the hundred mark. We had also had the pleasure of dealing with the Italians. They had come over before breakfast, and together with 41 Squadron we were looking for them. Suddenly Uncle George called out:
“Wops ahead.”
“Where are they?” asked 41 Squadron.
“Shan’t tell you,” came back the answer. “We’re only outnumbered three to one.”
Colin told me that it was the most unsporting thing he had ever had to do, rather like shooting sitting birds, as he so typically put it. We got down eight of them without loss to ourselves and much to the annoyance of 41 Squadron.
Then one day I had an unexpected visitor. Matron opened the door and said “Someone to see you,” and Denise walked in. I knew at once who she was. It was unnecessary for her to speak. Her slight figure was in mourning and she wore no make-up. She was the most beautiful person I have ever seen.
Much has been written on Beauty. Poets have excelled themselves in similes for a woman’s eyes, mouth, hair; novelists have devoted pages to a geometrically accurate description of their heroines’ features. I can write no such description of Denise. I did not see her like that. For me she had an inner beauty, a serenity which no listing of features can convey. She had a perfection of carriage and a grace of movement that were strikingly reminiscent of Peter Pease, and when she spoke it might have been Peter speaking.
“I hope you’ll excuse me coming to see you like this,” she said; “but I was going to be married to Peter. He often spoke of you and wanted so much to see you. So I hope you won’t mind me coming instead.”
There was so much I wanted to say, so many things for us to talk over, but the room seemed of a sudden unbearably full of hurrying jolly nurses who would not go away. The bustle and excitement did little to put her at her ease, and her shyness was painful to me. Time came for her to leave, and I had said nothing I wanted to say. As soon as she was gone I dictated a note, begging her to come again and to give me a little warning. She did. From then until I was able to get out, her visits did more to help my recovery than all the expert nursing and medical attention. For she was the very spirit of courage. It was useless for me to say to her any of the usual words of comfort for the loss of a fiancé, and I did not try. She and Peter were two halves of the same person. They even wrote alike. I could only pray that time would cure that awful numbness and bring her back to the fullness of life. Not that she was broken. She seemed somehow to have gathered his strength, to feel him always near her, and was determined to go on to the end in the cause for which he had given his life, hoping that she too might be allowed to die, but feeling guilty at the selfishness of the thought.
She believed passionately in freedom, in freedom from fear and oppression and tyranny, not only for herself but for the whole world.
“For the whole world.” Did I believe that? I still wasn’t sure. There was a time – only the other day – when it hadn’t mattered to me if it was true or not that a man could want freedom for others than himself. She made me feel that this might be no mere catch-phrase of politicians, since it was something to which the two finest people I had ever known had willingly dedicated themselves. I was impressed. I saw there a spirit far purer than mine. But was it for me? I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.
I lay in that hospital and watched summer turn to winter. Through my window I watched the leaves of my solitary tree gradually turn brown, and then, shaken by an ever-freshening wind, fall one by one. I watched the sun change from a great ball of fire to a watery glimmer, watched the rain beating on the glass and the small broken clouds drifting a few hundred feet above, and in that time I had ample opportunity for thinking.
I thought of the men I had known, of the men who were living and the men who were dead; and I came to this conclusion. It was to the Carburys and the Berrys of this war that Britain must look, to the tough practical men who had come up the hard way, who were not fighting this war for any philosophical principles or economic ideals; who, unlike the average Oxford undergraduate, were not flying for aesthetic reasons, but because of an instinctive knowledge that this was the job for which they were most suited. These were the men who had blasted and would continue to blast the Luftwaffe out of the sky while their more intellectual comrades would, alas, in the main be killed. They might answer, if asked why they fought, “To smash Hitler!” But instinctively, inarticulately, they too were fighting for the things that Peter had died to preserve.
Was there perhaps a new race of Englishmen arising out of this war, a race of men bred by the war, a harmonious synthesis of the governing class and the great rest of England; that synthesis of disparate backgrounds and upbringings to be seen at its most obvious best in R.A.F. Squadrons? While they were now possessed of no other thought than to win the war, yet having won it, would they this time refuse to step aside and remain indifferent to the peace-time fate of the country, once again leave government to the old governing class? I thought it possible. Indeed, the process might be said to have already begun. They now had as their representative Churchill, a man of initiative, determination, and no Party. But they would not always have him; and what then? Would they see to it that there arose from their fusion representatives, not of the old gang, deciding at Lady Cufuffle’s that Henry should have the Foreign Office and George the Ministry of Food, nor figureheads for an angry but ineffectual Labour Party, but true representatives of the new England that should emerge from this struggle? And if they did, what then?
Could they unite on a policy of humanity and sense to arrive at the settlement of problems which six thousand years of civilization had failed to solve? And even though they should fail, was there an obligation for the more thinking of them to try, to contribute at whatever personal cost “their little drop,” however small, to the betterment of mankind? Was there that obligation, was that the goal towards which all those should strive who were left, strengthened and confirmed by those who had died? Or was it still possible for men to lead the egocentric life, to work out their own salvation without concern for the rest; could they simply look to themselves – or, more important, could I? I still thought so.
The day came when I was allowed out of the hospital for a few hours. Sue got me dressed, and with a pair of dark glasses, cotton-wool under my eyes, and my right arm in a sling, I looked fairly presentable. I walked out through the swing-doors and took a deep breath.
London in the morning was still the best place in the world. The smell of wet streets, of sawdust in the butchers’ shops, of tar melted on the blocks, was exhilarating. Peter had been right: I loved the capital. The wind on the heath might call for a time, but the facile glitter of the city was the stronger. Self-esteem, I suppose, is one cause; for in the city, work of man, one is somebody, feet on the pavement, suit on the body, anybody’s equal and nobody’s fool; but in the country, work of God, one is nothing, less than the earth, the birds, and the trees; one is discordant – a blot.
I walked slowly through Ravenscourt Park and looked into many faces. Life was good, but if I hoped to find some reflection of my feeling I was disappointed. One or two looked at me with pity, and for a moment I was angry; but when I gazed again at their faces, closed in as on some dread secret, their owners hurrying along, unseeing, unfeeling, eager to get to their jobs, unaware of the life within them, I was sorry for them. I felt a desire to stop and shake them and say: “You fools, it’s you who should be pitied and not I; for this day I am alive while you are dead.”
And yet there were some who pleased me, some in whom all youth had not died. I passed one girl, and gazing into her face became aware of her as a woman: her lips were soft, her breasts firm, her legs long and graceful. It was many a month since any woman had stirred me, and I was pleased. I smiled at her and she smiled at me. I did not speak to her for fear of breaking the spell, but walked back to lunch on air. After this I was allowed out every day, and usually managed to stay out until nine o’clock, when I drove back through the blitz and the black-out.
NIGHT FIGHTER
RODERICK CHISHOLM
In 1940 Roderick Chisholm began operations as a night fighter pilot with the RAF’s 604 Squadron.
One day at the end of October 1940 the first Beaufighter arrived at Middle Wallop. On the ground it was an ominous and rather unwieldy looking aircraft, with its outsize undercarriage and propellers and small wings, but in the air it looked just right.
There is never a new machine introduced but some people whisper that it is dangerous to fly, that its speed is disappointing and that it is, in general, a wash-out. Of such criticisms the Beaufighter had more than its fair share. The reports, however, from those few of the Squadron who first flew it were favourable. It obviously had a good take-off and it was said to be manoeuvrable and fast, doing well over 300 miles per hour at about 15,000 feet. It had tankage for five hours’ patrolling, an improved type of radar, and four cannon. Most important of all, it had a cockpit out of which the pilot could see well. First impressions were favourable; but having just become accustomed to the Blenheim, I could not help feeling a bit depressed because I knew I would have to start again from scratch.
Results and operational experience were urgently needed, and the first Beaufighter was pressed into operations immediately, the only pilots to whom it was entrusted being Mike Anderson and John Cunningham.23
Ignorant of the theoretical side of night interception and inexperienced on the practical side, I was then sceptical about its prospects. I did not believe it possible with Blenheims, quite apart from their inadequate speed and radar, and so I doubted whether Beaufighters would be any more successful. This was a doubt based only on a “hunch” of the most reactionary sort. I had already chased many aircraft and sometimes I had been told that I should be fairly near them, but I had not yet seen another aircraft in flight at night and I could not imagine a technique for interception and attack. My discouragement grew, and sometimes a fleeting and irrational doubt appeared, the fruit perhaps of a primitive instinct: seeing is believing and I was not seeing. And later it always seemed somehow incredible when, after a drawn-out and exacting chase wholly dependent on electric sight, a silhouette suddenly took shape, looming up like a lamp-post in a fog.
The news less than a month after the arrival of the first Beaufighter that John had destroyed a Junkers 88 was electrifying. For me it meant that the bombers we were sent to chase were really there and that the cover of the dark was not absolute. Had further confirmation been needed, it was supplied by Mike, who destroyed a Heinkel 111 a few nights later. There seemed something unreal about these combats. To leave a comfortable Hampshire airfield and to come upon an intruder over one’s own country in the dark, to shoot at it and watch it go down like a Catherine wheel and explode on hitting the ground, to break the spell and feel that the cover of darkness was no longer complete – these were strange and exciting adventures. While John with typical resourcefulness had enabled his observer, Phillipson, to get the contact by investigating a searchlight concentration, Mike had been guided all the way by a ground controller who, with radar, kept track both of the enemy and the Beaufighter, remotely manœuvring the latter to a position from which its own radar could see the enemy and from where Cannon, his observer, could take over. Thus radar had played a key part in both successes, and it was stimulating for some of us to think that the latter interception took place entirely in the dark and under close ground control. Perhaps there was hope yet for the less resourceful; perhaps all of us might see some action before long – such was one line of reasoning.
But contacts alone were useless. Their size and their movement had to be interpreted by the observer and a running commentary maintained to the pilot to give him a picture of what he could not see and had to imagine, and every now and again a quick instruction had to be inserted like “slow down”, “faster”, “climb a little”, “down a bit” or “steady, hold it there”. This and the flying of the aircraft made the teamwork which would bring the Beaufighter to a position from which the pilot could see with his own eyes; then it was all up to him, and the four 20-millimetre cannon he controlled. It sounded straightforward; yet I, for one, was still dubious. I doubted my ability to achieve the high standard of flying which seemed vital to this sort of blind-man’s bluff, this groping for the enemy. To fly in the dark and at the same time to search for the visual contact by a systematic concentration on the sky seemed a very far-off feat to one who had only just begun to realise that concentration on instruments need not, in some conditions, be incessant. It was plain that we all needed much training and practice; how we were to get it was less obvious.
Radar control from the ground had been on trial in our sector for some months, and many of us had had experience of it in practices, taking the part alternately of the bomber and the fighter. These early experiments were not encouraging, but they had about them an air of scientific investigation that made them interesting for us, although we knew little about the gear used, which then was “top secret” and was referred to simply as G.C.I. There was an academic ring about the instructions given by the scientist designers (who were then the controllers) to the pilot who, miles high above the sleeping land, was charging about blindfold and trusting. It seemed that the thanks proffered over the radio at the end of a practice or a patrol were appropriate to the completion of a valuable but inconclusive laboratory experiment. But inconclusive though it consistently was so far as I was concerned, G.C.I. was now no longer experimental. We had proof that G.C.I. c
ould direct a radar fighter near enough to an enemy bomber for a contact, and we knew that the Beaufighter had the speed to overhaul it.
The problems facing the higher command must at this time have been exceedingly grave. The enemy were flying over us at night with all but immunity from interception, and our cities were being systematically destroyed. To deal with the night bomber there were plans in profusion; more anti-aircraft guns, more searchlights, more radar fighters, more cat’s-eye fighters and more special devices; but with successes so few and experience so slender, there can have been no certainty that priorities were being rightly allocated, and there must have been much relief that there was now a clear indication. A new radar fighter had succeeded in one sector with both ground control and searchlights, and informed circles were probably now optimistic. The pioneering efforts of Mike and John and their observers, and their rewards, were probably as far reaching in their effect on policy as they were laudable in their execution.