A Spitfire Pilot's Story: Pat Hughes: Battle of Britain Top Gun

by Dennis Newton

  That two men should go on the same day pointed to symptoms of discontent that were worsening, exacerbated by an underlying problem – a commanding officer that did not fly. The records show that Squadron Leader Barnett flew just four times early in July, but never with the squadron, he always went alone. His last was a ‘patrol’ on 9 July to Land’s End. AVM Douglas Strath Evill, who was Dowding’s SASO, had visited St Eval a few weeks earlier so Barnett’s lack of air time and other limitations, which caused so much unpopularity with his pilots, were apparently known to the chief of Fighter Command – but what could be done about it? Two pilots being removed from duty in one day probably provided the necessary impetus to act.

  On 11 August, Sir Quintin Brand visited St Eval, first calling in on Wing Commander Harvey, the Fighter Sector CO. After spending time in 234 Squadron’s mess that night, the AOC interviewed Barnett next morning in private. Whatever was said behind closed doors led to Barnett suddenly resigning his command the next day. That was on 13 August, Adler Tag, the day the Battle of Britain erupted.

  Most of the pilots in 234 Squadron were happy to see Barnett go. Alan ‘Budge’ Harker remarked, ‘He was a hopeless CO. He did all his flying in the hangar. I was delighted to see the back of him.’8 Others felt Barnett’s case was one of LMF (lack of moral fibre), but some were more charitable, Keith Lawrence commenting, ‘He was a nominal CO. Don’t think he had very good health either.’9 (Barnett resigned his commission on 11 August 1941, a month before Charles Igglesden resigned in September.)

  Pat now found himself in the position of being ‘the last man standing’ until a new CO could be found. His temporary command came at a drastic time. Because of the severe air activity of 11 and 12 August, Dowding ordered three of his most devastated squadrons to quieter areas. From Middle Wallop, 238 Squadron, with its CO wounded and both of its flight commanders killed in action (they were both Australians, Stuart Walch from Tasmania and Jack Kennedy from Sydney), was ordered west to St Eval; 234 Squadron was instructed to transfer east to Middle Wallop as its replacement. The standard routine of day and night patrols, convoy escort and intercepting lone enemy raiders was about to change.

  The move from St Eval to Middle Wallop on 14 August could have been disastrous. With dawn there was a thick wet mist rolling from west to east making flying impossible. They could only wait. As the morning went on it did break and the weather was good when the squadron took off. A factor overlooked was that the mist was rolling to the east and the squadron would catch up to it! It did. Before reaching Middle Wallop, the Spitfires were flying in tight formation through the mist. Bill Hornby remembered, ‘Dark shapes loomed everywhere and it was a miracle that there were no collisions.’10

  During the day the Germans continued attacking RAF airfields. Late that afternoon Luftflotte 3 launched nine scattered and relatively small raids designed to spread 10 Group’s defences. As they advanced on the south coast over a 100-mile front, AVM Brand’s squadrons were obliged to scatter to meet the oncoming bombers. Inevitably, some groups avoided the British fighters and reached their targets, one of which was Middle Wallop.

  When 234 Squadron arrived it was found that it shared the airfield with 609 Squadron and 604 Blenheim night fighter Squadron but it was 234’s turn to be on ‘Readiness’. The newly arrived Spitfires were being refuelled when Middle Wallop was attacked.

  Three Heinkel He 111s appeared over the airfield and unloaded their bombs. Then a single Ju 88 conducted a dive-bombing attack. In the same instant three airmen, realising that the thirteen-ton steel doors of 609 Squadron’s hangar were open, ran to close them to protect the Spitfires inside. They were cranking them shut when the hangar was struck by a bomb which blasted the doors down, killing them instantly. Two others were wounded, one having his foot blown off and the other losing his arm at the shoulder. Inside the hangar, three Blenheims and several Spitfires were destroyed. One of 234’s new pilots, Joseph Szlagowski, ran for shelter in a nearby wood and threw himself flat. The trees ahead of him erupted in flames, exposing a hidden ammunition dump! Bob Doe was on a lorry taking some of the pilots to the mess when he heard bombs exploding and turned around to see the huge doors blown off the hangar.11

  While the bombs were falling two 609 Squadron Spitfires managed to take off. They overtook the Heinkels and shot down the leading bomber. Another 609 pilot, already airborne, tackled the Ju 88 which crashed and exploded near Romsey.

  For the young men of 234 Squadron, it was a worrying welcome to their new home, and so particularly was the heavy mantle of responsibility that had fallen on Pat’s shoulders as ‘the last man standing’, who was so suddenly put in command! What would happen next?

  Nightfall brought small scattered raids over southern England but, following the interception of German radio signals, the British defences were keyed up for a possible heavy attack on Liverpool. The RAF’s counter-measures included patrols by Blenheim night fighters, some of them carrying new, experimental airborne radar, and several single-seat day fighters.

  Pat flew a night patrol at 10 p.m. The expected raid did not eventuate.

  9

  15 AUGUST 1940

  Because German forecasters predicted poor weather for Thursday 15 August, Göring summoned his senior air corps commanders to a meeting to analyse the Adler Tag attacks. With daylight the predictions seemed to be correct as German bomber crews returning from night and early morning sorties reported that there was extensive cloud over England. Later in the morning, however, the skies cleared and conditions also improved over northern France as well. Orders were issued for all Luftflotten to come to readiness in accordance with plans that had been outlined the previous day.

  At Middle Wallop, the remainder of 234 Squadron arrived, completing the transfer from St Eval.1 The other Spitfire squadron at the base had another Australian in it. John Curchin had been born in Hawthorn, a suburb of Melbourne, but his family moved to Enfield in Middlesex while John was young. He was educated at Merchant Taylor’s School and applied to join the RAF in June 1939, at which time his address was Grange Park, London. His posting to 609 Squadron at Northolt came in June 1940, when the squadron was replacing losses suffered covering the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk. The squadron had transferred to Middle Wallop on 5 July and been involved in much of the heavy fighting.2 There was little indication of the huge air battles about to take place.

  At 11 a.m. a two-pronged attack was picked up on RDF. The first, consisting of sixty Junkers Ju 87 Stukas escorted by Messerschmitt 110s, made a heavy dive-bombing attack on the forward airfield at Lympne, putting it out of action for forty-eight hours.

  The second raid of twenty-plus Stukas headed for Hawkinge with a strong escort of Me 109s of JG26. Before the British fighters could intercept, the Stukas were already diving on the airfield and inflicted heavy damage. The unplanned severing of power cables put the Dover RDF system out of action and posed a very serious problem for the defences. As the dive-bombers withdrew the British fighters pounced and claimed seven shot down. JG26 responded by engaging the interceptors and the RAF lost two Spitfires and two Hurricanes.

  Believing RAF Fighter Command to be almost exclusively concentrated in the south, the Germans launched a two-pronged daylight assault in the north. What they did not realise was that several experienced fighter squadrons were in 13 Group in the north ‘resting’ at Acklington and Church Fenton.

  At 10 a.m., sixty-three Heinkel He 111s from KG26 took off from Stavanger/Sola in Norway. Their main targets were the northern British airfields of Dishforth and Asworth, with secondary targets listed as Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Their escorts, twenty-one Messerschmitt Me 110s of I/ZG76 stationed at Stavanger/Forus took off shortly afterwards. Further south, fifty unescorted Junkers Ju 88s of KG30 were flying from Aalborg in Denmark, heading for RAF Station Driffield.

  Just after midday, RDF detected the northernmost raid. Five minutes later the controller scrambled a Spitfire squadron from Acklington. Numerical estimates
by RDF at this stage of the war were far from accurate. Each time the controller guessed at the size of the raid, he presented a more dramatic picture. At first reported as ten bandits, a few minutes later this jumped to thirty and then to fifty. The true picture was further confused by a diversionary mock attack further north by Heinkel He 115 seaplanes. The enemy was sighted some thirty miles east of the Fame Islands and the aircraft in the big broad-fronted formation were identified as Heinkel He 111s followed by Junkers Ju 88s with Messerschmitt Me 110s bringing up the rear. The Spitfires had in fact encountered the force from Norway containing Heinkels and Messerschmitts, but no Ju 88s – these were coming from Denmark to a target a hundred miles further south. Meanwhile, knowing that a large raid was taking place, the controller called more units into action. A Hurricane squadron intercepted raiders approaching Newcastle. Again aircraft recognition was faulty and Dornier Do 215s were identified as well as the actual He 111s. The unescorted Heinkels were badly mauled.

  Twelve Spitfires and six Hurricanes engaged the Ju 88s from Denmark when they swept over the Yorkshire coast.

  Out of the 134 aircraft despatched from Norway and Denmark, Luftflotte 5 lost sixteen bombers and seven fighters and many others were damaged. These losses were so severe that Luftflotte 5 would never again make a major daylight attack on the north. The cost to the RAF was just one Hurricane.

  The battle switched back to the south. At midday, twelve Messerschmitt 110s swooped down on Manston airfield in a hit-and-run attack, raking it with cannon and machine-gun fire. Two Spitfires were destroyed and there were sixteen casualties. It was the beginning of a series of attacks in the early afternoon in which the defending British fighters found it almost impossible to engage the bombers because of the size of the fighter escorts.

  A raid on Rochester was highly successful. Over 300 bombs rained down on the airfield and the Short Bros factory where production was under way on the RAF’s newest heavy bomber, the huge four-engine Stirling. Six completed aircraft and the spare parts store were destroyed. Although this was serious, the Luftwaffe had not hit a Fighter Command target and therefore had not taken a step towards achieving air supremacy.

  Around 5 p.m., two more raids materialised, this time in the south-west. One force of forty Ju 87 Stukas escorted by sixty Messerschmitt 109s and twenty Messerschmitt 110s was detected on the way to Portland. The second raid of over sixty Junkers Ju 88s of LG 1, escorted by forty Me 110s, was on a heading for Middle Wallop.

  The two Hurricane Squadrons at Exeter, Nos 87 and 213, were ordered up, as was 234 Squadron at Middle Wallop. Thirteen Spitfires took off. Pat Hughes in the extra Spitfire was Cressy Leader at the head of ‘A’ Flight. They were ordered to patrol Swanage and await instructions.

  Shortly afterwards, 609 Squadron still on the ground at Middle Wallop was brought to ‘Readiness’. Minutes later the Ju 88s of the second raid split up, half diverting for an attack on Worthy Down while the rest continued on. At 5.50 p.m., 609 Squadron was scrambled. The Spitfires were hardly airborne when the bombers appeared overhead. Two stranded pilots ran to parked planes which had been earmarked for maintenance and took off just before the bombs began raining down.

  In sharp contrast to the previous day’s raid just after 234 Squadron had arrived, very little damage was done to the airfield. Likewise at Worthy Down and Oldham damage was negligible. On the other hand, 609 Squadron’s pilots claimed one Ju 88 and four Me 109s destroyed plus three Ju 88s probables.

  While this was happening, 234 Squadron had continued patrolling south of Swanage, flying in its usual formal tight formation of four sections in vics of three. The only person who did not have to concentrate on staying in position was Pat in the lead. Bob Doe was Pat’s Number Two. They flew at the same height that they had been told the enemy was flying and proceeded to patrol up and down sun. Because of their lack of combat experience they were ‘following the book’ just as they had been trained. They did not yet realise that by doing so they were not only heading for the enemy in an inflexible, cramped formation; they were also leaving themselves open to attack from above and behind.

  The inevitable happened. Coming around in another turn they suddenly became conscious that there were only nine Spitfires, not twelve! The rear vic of three, Red Section, had vanished. Then almost by surprise, they were in the middle of the German escort fighters, twin-engine Messerschmitt 110s and some stray Me 109s.

  Pat, followed by Doe, turned after a 110 and, seizing a fleeting chance, he fired a short burst and broke away. To Doe it seemed to have little effect but then he closed in and fired in his turn. The rear gunner replied but the Messerschmitt was hit. With its engines alight the big fighter turned over and dived down towards the sea. Doe followed in the dive and when the fire coming from the engines seemed to wane he gave it another burst from 100 yards away, seven seconds this time. The gunner kept up his return fire until at around 1,000 feet he decided it was time to bail out. Doe kept watching the 110 until it plunged into the water.3 He zoomed up again heading towards three Me 110s he spotted diving through thick haze at about 4,500 feet. Closing on the nearest aircraft, he fired the remainder of his ammunition and saw pieces fly off it as he broke away. Another Spitfire appeared, sweeping in to engage the same 110 which Doe had attacked. It was Blue 1 – Pat. The big heavy fighter caught fire and, like the other, it too crashed into the sea.4

  It became a fast and brutal running battle as the Germans retreated out to sea. Budge Harker’s Spitfire was hit in the tail before he could fire his guns in anger. He managed to nurse his damaged fighter back to Middle Wallop, some twenty-five miles, and land without further difficulty. Szlagowski’s plane was also slightly damaged, but the Pole made it home as well.

  In ones and twos the others returned, but some didn’t. Mortimer-Rose was the only one back out of Red Section. Altogether, three were missing: Cecil Hight, one of the New Zealanders; Richard Hardy; and the Australian Bush Parker. Perhaps they had landed at another field. All that Pat and the others could do was await news of them. A report did come in about Cecil Hight, the leader of ‘A’ Flight’s Yellow Section. He had been killed. He had run into trouble over Bournemouth and his Spitfire crashed at Walsford Road, Meyrick Park. About the other two, there was nothing. They had to remain as ‘missing’. Nothing would be known about them for months.

  In the running fight, Red Section had been overwhelmed by the enemy fighters. The Spitfire of Richard Hardy, Red 1, was hit probably by a cannon shell which hit struck the fuselage just behind the pilot’s seat. Hardy was wounded in the shoulder. Short of fuel and far out to sea, he headed for France where he managed to land safely on Cherbourg-East/Theville airfield, much to the shock of those on the ground. He struggled out and surrendered to Hauptmann Rolf Pingel, Staffel Kapitan of 2/JG53, and was taken prisoner. Hardy would remain a POW until the end of the war. Red 2, Bush Parker, chased a Messerschmitt 110 low over the Channel and apparently fell victim to his intended target. Unteroffizier Willy Lehner, the radio operator/gunner to Leutnant Siegfried Hahn of Stab II/ZG76, reported he had shot down a Spitfire off Cherbourg before they themselves had to crash-land their damaged machine at Cherbourg-West. Parker bailed out into the sea near Cherbourg. He was rescued by a German boat after hours in the water.

  Against these losses 234 Squadron claimed five Messerschmitt Me 110s destroyed and one Me 109 damaged. Pat Hughes and Bob Doe were credited with one Me 110 destroyed apiece and they shared the third; Mortimer-Rose destroyed one Me 110; Janusz Zurakowski, another new Polish pilot who had joined the squadron early in August, also destroyed one Me 110; and Ken Dewhurst damaged an Me 109.5

  But the day’s fighting was not over. A large force of Dornier Do 17s in several small formations aimed for Biggin Hill. It flew in over the coast of Kent at 6.20 p.m. with covering Messerschmitt 109s following.

  To defend Biggin Hill 610 Squadron had eight serviceable Spitfires and 32 Squadron had nine Hurricanes. The controller ordered 610 Squadron off first and ten miles south-eas
t of Biggin Hill they met the Dorniers and shot several down. Those that continued on attacked West Mailing by mistake. At the same time 32 Squadron was ordered up to orbit the airfield. From this position the Hurricane pilots could see a pall of smoke and dust to the west. Croydon was under heavy attack and they rushed there as fast as possible. Fifteen Messerschmitt 110s escorted by eight Me 109s made a highly effective hit-and-run attack on Croydon, the home of 111 Squadron. Sixty-eight people were killed, almost 200 injured and numerous buildings were damaged. Luckily, the nine Hurricanes of 111 Squadron had taken off moments before the bombing. They clawed for height and counter-attacked the German fighter-bombers which immediately formed a defensive circle.

  At the same time 32 Squadron arrived and took on the 109s. Down below the 110s decided to make a run for it and broke out of their circle into small groups heading for cloud cover. It was the chance that 111 Squadron had been waiting for and they dived to give chase. Seven Me 110s were claimed shot down. Meanwhile, 266 Squadron from Hornchurch fell victim to Me 109s over Maidstone. One Spitfire was shot down and a second severely damaged.

  Claims of the aircraft destroyed on this day were greatly exaggerated by both sides. The RAF claimed to have shot down 182 German aircraft while the Luftwaffe claimed eighty-two Hurricanes and Spitfires, five Curtiss Hawks and fourteen others. Clearly aircraft recognition was a problem for both sides. While in some areas RAF pilots saw Ju 88s and Dornier 215s where none were flying, the Curtiss Hawks claimed by the Luftwaffe did not exist. Post-war figures would put Luftwaffe losses at seventy-five and Fighter Command losses at thirty-four, with seventeen pilots killed and sixteen wounded. German airmen would remember this day as ‘Black Thursday’.