Ginger Lacey: Fighter Pilot

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  These two pilots, on patrol at 5,000 ft. behind Japanese lines, some fifty miles north of Rangoon, were maintaining positions about a mile apart; they were both weaving, constantly searching the sky and keeping a watch on each other. Healey looked down and saw a squadron of Mosquito bombers hedge-hopping towards Rangoon. Approaching them head-on at the same low level was a Spitfire. With the morbid curiosity of every pilot who sees a situation fraught with problems developing, he looked on with interest for what he thought must be an inevitable tangle. But the Spitfire skimmed over the top of the Mosquitoes without providing any spectacular entertainment.

  A minute or two later, looking towards his No. 2, he saw De Silva pull up in a steep turn and bear down towards him in an obvious attack. Wondering why De Silva had elected to make a dummy run at this moment, he turned to look behind and saw the same Spitfire which had barely escaped collision with the Mosquitoes, climbing up to get on his tail. De Silva had seen it, mistaken it for a Hostile, and was about to shoot it down.

  In quick alarm, Healey called his partner on the R/T. ‘Don’t shoot! It’s a Spit.’ And De Silva broke away directly overhead.

  The strange Spitfire drew alongside and the two 17 Squadron pilots read the identifying letters on its fuselage. It belonged to Lacey’s loathed Athlete! He waggled his wings and peeled off, leaving them to continue with their patrol.

  Lacey summoned the leader to his office tent when they landed. Healey stood formally in front of him, at attention.

  ‘I’ve just had a caustic message from You-know-who. He reported that you were not keeping a good look out and he could have shot you down. I’m damned annoyed that, of all people, this should happen to one of my pilots.’

  ‘It didn’t happen, sir.’

  ‘He says it did.’

  ‘Rex De Silva spotted him on my tail, just before I did, and was already making an attack on him, thinking he was a Jap, when I told him not to shoot.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘If you’ll send for De Silva, sir, he’ll tell you his story.’

  Flight Sergeant De Silva came, and corroborated his leader’s account.

  Lacey dismissed them so that he could have a private telephone conversation with the athletic and mistaken senior officer. As Healey ducked out of the tent he heard his name spoken in the C.O’s habitual monotone. ‘Don.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Pity you didn’t let Rex shoot the so-and-so down.’

  Meiktila provided a good source of supply for the enterprising airmen and N.C.O.s on the squadron who used to take Japanese souvenirs to Calcutta when they went on leave and sell them to envious base area officers and troops, British and American, who had never been in the combat field. Enemy uniforms with medals were much prized, firearms and swords fetched a good price; and ‘captured flags’ fashioned from the fragments of supply parachutes were impressive—except that the Japanese characters printed on them probably meant ‘fragile’, ‘this side up’ or ‘to be used before next New Year’.

  Activity at Meiktila was mounting. When the squadron had first come here they had set up their tents in a thunder storm which had swamped many of them as soon as they were erected. The day after they had suffered a severe dust storm. And by now, three weeks later, the aerodrome was the main supply terminal for the advance on Rangoon: in incessant noise and dust, transport Dakotas were taking off and landing every few minutes. There was little comfort and the din made sleep difficult, but everyone was happy in the feeling that they were in the forefront of a victorious advance.

  From Meiktila to Thedaw, for a few days; remembered for the stream running behind the domestic tent lines, where the bathing was safe and clean. Then on to a temporary strip code named ‘Tennant’ in honour of the East’s most famous brand of beer.

  It was, in a way, good to get away from Thedaw which had a poor runway only 600 yards long and 25 yards wide, full of holes and soft patches. But the arrival at Tennant was accompanied by a warning that a thousand Japanese were at large in the area: probably on their way to attack the strip.

  The squadron dug trenches and slept near the aircraft that night, with rifles and revolvers at hand. But the only Jap who approached them dropped his rifle and fled when challenged by the guards.

  It was a night not entirely free of excitement, however.

  While the ground crews slept near the aeroplanes, the pilots, who had to conserve their energies for the next day’s flying, were in their tents.

  It was just before the Monsoon, when the nights are pitch black.

  Lacey woke with a start to the loud drumming of heavy rain on the canvas. He lay gasping for breath in the stifling heat, then stirred himself to crawl out of bed as the rain came splashing over his naked body. Groping his way towards the tent flaps, he pulled them down and laced them to keep the rain out.

  Then he thought of his companion, the M.O., who slept at the other end of the tent. It was too dark to see, but ‘being at heart a very decent chap, I thought that while I was out of bed I might as well go and lace up the Doc’s flaps also.’

  Easing his way silently along the tent, holding his hands before him so as to avoid walking into the centre pole, he touched warm, sweaty bare flesh.

  He recoiled as fast as if he had put his fingers in a tiger’s jaws. The Japanese, at night, used to infiltrate into Allied lines wearing only a loincloth. And there were a thousand of them abroad this very night.

  With his heart thumping, he flung himself at the intruder, hurled him as violently as he could across the tent and scrambled back to his bed to grab the revolver which was under his pillow.

  Somewhere in the darkness he heard softly spoken but outrageously angry words in English; as the M.O., who had also risen to secure the tent flaps, groped under his own pillow for his revolver.

  ‘That you, Doc?’

  ‘Who the hell d’you think it is?’

  ‘I thought you were a Jap.’

  ‘Was it you? I thought you were a Jap …’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘I was trying to find my thirty-eight to take a shot at you.’

  ‘Same here!’

  They were patrolling over Rangoon every day, and at last came the morning when the city was in flames as the Fourteenth Army shelled and the Allied Air Forces bombed it. May 1st, 1945. Not long after, the patrolling pilots saw, in huge white letters on the roof of the gaol, the message ‘Japs gone’. And, to authenticate the information and dispel suspicion that it was enemy bait to draw the forces into Rangoon, another message was painted on an adjoining roof: ‘Extract digit’.

  Soon after the fall of Rangoon, 17 Squadron were told that they would be withdrawn from Burma, to re-equip with Spitfire 14s in preparation for the invasion of Malaya.

  On the 2nd June, Squadron Leader Lacey flew to Madura, in southern India, to ensure that the station was ready to receive his squadron. It took him five days, via Calcutta and Madras.

  Sheila, meanwhile, had been transferred from Colombo to the Fleet Air Arm station at Coimbatore, only 120 miles away. Two days after arriving at Madura he flew over to see her. This visit would have surprised his squadron if they had known about it: but they did not even suspect that their commander had an amorous interest; even the M.O., who had shared a tent with him since he came to the squadron, was not admitted to this confidence.

  Presently the rest of the squadron arrived at Madura. But where were the new Spitfires? By the end of the month, they had not appeared. A romantic impulse stirred in Ginger Lacey. The idea of a traditional wedding attended by a horde of relations and friends, embarrassed him; he was delighted to find that the prospect had a similar lack of appeal for Sheila.

  ‘So at the end of June I slipped over to Coimbatore, picked up Sheila, and we went up into the hills to Kodaikanal; on the 8th July, much to everyone’s surprise, we walked into the club there and announced that we had just got married. Nobody would believe it, of course, but when eventually we convinced them, they gave us a wonderf
ul time. They even insisted on giving us a bungalow to spend our honeymoon in.’

  The squadron, to whom he had broken the news, assembled in the Madura Club on the night of his expected return, to welcome the bride. Characteristically her husband decided to postpone the occasion.

  But on the next day, the 16th July, he returned to his command.

  The Spitfire 14s had arrived. Lacey took his off to try it out. He has a theory now that the most dangerous periods in a man’s life are when he has just assumed a new responsibility such as a wife or a child: super caution over-rules his instincts and acquired skills.

  The new Spitfire was, to his touch, like a Stradivarius to a violinist. Out of sight of the airfield, he found such joy in handling the machine that he came back in a long, shallow dive across the airfield with the intention of doing a loop over base before landing.

  ‘Half way up the loop, I realized that I had gone into it much too slowly and I wasn’t going to make it. As she approached the top of the loop, on her back, I was frantically trying to roll her out because I knew she was going to stall. And of course with full aileron on, not only did she stall inverted but she spun inverted. I was only at 2,500 ft. I knew what to do, but it took some doing. I forced her nose down, still upside-down, and let her pick up speed. When she had enough speed, I rolled her out. By that time, I didn’t have very much height left. I’ve never been closer to being killed.’ So much for the extra caution of the newly married fighter pilot.

  Preparation for ‘Operation Zipper’, the invasion of Malaya, demanded a high standard of airmanship: No. 17 Squadron would have to fly off a ‘Woolworth’ carrier—a merchant ship equipped with a flight deck that allowed no room for mistakes.

  On 15th August, the Japanese laid down their arms.

  The atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima on the 6th August, and it was obvious that the armistice must come very soon. In the meanwhile, the Station Commander had gone to Bombay on temporary duty, the Wing Commander Flying also had to leave the station for a few days, and command passed to Squadron Leader Lacey who was the senior Squadron Commander.

  Foreseeing the celebrations which would follow the Japanese surrender, he laid down stringent rules to avoid all types of accident. No transport was to be driven except by Indian drivers with armed escorts; all pyrotechnics and arms were locked in the armoury and he kept the key himself; all aircraft were grounded.

  The end of the war was announced and a monumental party began. Well on in the night one of the pilots (not from 17 Squadron), well nourished by gin and beer, produced a two-star red Vérey cartridge he had concealed and fired it into the sky.

  Ten seconds later, the pyrotechnic landed on a basha hut. Within five minutes, forty-two officers’ quarters and three lorries had been burned to the ground.

  In consequence, five officer pilots had Summaries of Evidence taken against them and were awaiting probable Courts Martial when their squadron was posted to Hong Kong, leaving them behind. And it happened that Lacey’s squadron was exactly five pilots short when the time came to embark for Malaya. ‘As you know, it’s always the good pilots who are involved in slight breaches of discipline.’

  Lacey ordered all five of them to be on the runway with their bags packed when the transport Liberators came to embark the squadron’s equipment for China Bay and the carrier. The last Liberator was only half full and he ordered them to board it.

  By the time he got them to Singapore, nobody could remember much about them; he informed H.Q. Air Command South East Asia that he had these pilots with him and asked for them to be formally posted to his squadron: they were.

  ‘I got rather a rap over the knuckles for kidnapping these pilots, but at the same time I got a pat on the back for making sure that my squadron arrived in Malaya fully up to strength: which I could not have done in any other way.’

  ‘Operation Zipper’ became ‘Exercise Zipper’; it could not be stopped entirely, because a huge invasion force was gathering from all over the world and it was simpler to let the arrangements stand than to try to halt the preparations. On 30th August, the squadron flew to China Bay, in Ceylon, to be embarked on H.M.S. Trumpeter.

  Taking off from Madura, he had a tyre burst. The Spitfire wheels had split hubs which were kept in place by the air pressure in the tyres. When a tyre burst, the wheel came off. An hour and fifteen minutes later, Lacey was faced with the problem of landing at China Bay: either with his wheels up, on the aircraft’s belly, doing considerable damage; or on one main wheel and the tail wheel. If the latter method did not succeed, the aircraft would almost certainly overturn.

  Commander Flying, on the R/T advised him strongly to land wheels-up.

  Lacey decided that he could put his aeroplane down successfully with its wheels down.

  In the event, he did. So gently that not even the propeller was damaged. A dozen men ran out to him on the runway. Six sat on one wing and six heaved underneath the other. A spare Seafire wheel was fitted, and he taxied to his dispersal point.

  If landing at China Bay had been difficult, taking off from the Trumpeter in the Malacca Straits promised to be almost impossible. The ship was only 420 ft long; Lacey, leading the way, had six Spitfires lined up behind him and only 350 ft of deck in front of him. Every knot of head-wind was equivalent to 10 ft of runway, but it was a dead calm day and the only wind over the deck was what could be achieved by the ship’s speed. Commander Engineering produced a phenomenal 17½ knots (‘I don’t know what he was doing—burning the Wardroom piano, I think’) which gave them half a knot more than she had done even on her acceptance trials. The navy did them proud, and despite some frightening moments when some of the pilots sunk below the level of the flight deck as they left it, all twenty Spitfires were got off safely.

  They landed at Morib. The Army should have been there first, to occupy the airfield, but were bogged down on the way. The Japanese major in command surrendered his sword and the airfield to Squadron Leader Lacey.

  Three days later the squadron did a fly-past at the Japanese surrender at Kuala Lumpur. By that time the Army had arrived at Morib; and with them came the rations: until then, the squadron had been living on the C.O’s signature in all the Chinese eating houses round about. They were sorry to see the rations come up.

  On 23rd September, 17 went to Singapore Island; first to Tengah then to Seletar.

  There was very little flying to do, but plenty of swimming, fishing and football. Already the months in Burma belonged to another era.

  From Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. And now the good news that they were destined for Japan. It was a fitting destination for a squadron which had fought its way back into, and through Burma after having taken part in the withdrawal from there in 1942.

  They had to say good-bye to Chico at last. A heart-rending parting for the child and for the men who had gently cared for him for four years. But they left him in the charge of the R.A.F. station at Butterworth, northern Malaya, with a generous gift of money in safe-keeping for his maintenance and his future.

  This time, they were embarked in H.M.S. Vengeance. But her captain was not prepared to steam at full speed in the Inland Sea of Japan, which had been heavily mined by both the Japanese and the Allies, so instead of flying their Spitfires off they watched them taken off by lighters. No. 11 Squadron, their old friends and rivals, were aboard with them. Immediately each had an aircraft ashore there was tremendous competition to get it ready to be the first Spitfire to fly over Japan.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - The First Spitfire Over Japan

  The race to get the Spitfires serviceable was close run.

  As Lacey taxied out, he saw another Spitfire approaching the other end of the runway from No. 11 Squadron’s dispersals. He knew that the pilot must be Squadron Leader MacGregor, 11’s C.O.

  ‘I was lucky. I was facing into wind.’

  Both pilots opened their throttles simultaneously and bore down on each other head-on. Neither gave way. Lacey, taking off up-wind, got airborne
first and scraped barely three feet over his rival Squadron Commander’s head.

  No. 17 Squadron had put the first Spitfire over Japan. 30th April 1946.

  Their base at Iwa Kuni was not far from Hiroshima and Lacey went to have a look at the effects of the atomic bomb. He was appalled by the devastation: the only reinforced concrete building in the city still stood, although it was gutted. The rest of the town was flat. Whole lengths of railway line with their sleepers still attached had been tossed half a furlong from their embankments.

  On the 6th May 1946 he said goodbye to his squadron and embarked for Singapore on his way to England where Sheila had preceded him.

  He was sorry to leave the squadron, but not reluctant to leave the Far East. The days when a legendary, independent fighter commander had led a famous squadron to victory had already gone, never to return. The man who had been known all over India, Assam, the Arakan and Burma for his strong individuality and his effectiveness in getting things done in an unorthodox way and with the minimum of fuss, had played his part. The war was over, Japan was occupied; and men like Ginger Lacey belong where Mannock, Macrudden, Ball and Billy Bishop belong; where Bader, Cobber Kain and Screwball Beurling belong. When the nation is in danger we make much of them. When the staid days of peace rule our lives we are not always as grateful as we should be.

  They are men who hate war as much as the rest of us, but who are especially equipped for it by nature; and, it may be, too well endowed with enterprise and bravery for the conditions of peacetime, which restrict their personalities.

  Let two pilots of No. 17 Squadron sum it up.

  ‘The C.O’s courage and exploits are well known.’

  And, ‘He didn’t show off with fancy flying, but his reputation (well earned) was for bags of guts and being a wonderful shot. Surely the two most wanted attributes in a fighter pilot.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Nec Deus Intersit, Nisi Dignus Vindice Nodus