The day was far from over. As rapidly as possible, the Spitfires had to be refuelled and rearmed. There was just time for the pilots to grab some quick relief, a cup of tea and some sandwiches while the ground crews tended to their charges. Then they were at ‘Readiness’ once more.
The Luftwaffe was back early in the afternoon, about 200 aircraft divided up into four formations with orders to target the southern airfields again. ‘A’ flight took off at 12.25 p.m. led by Spike O’Brien, closely followed five minutes later by ‘B’ Flight with six machines led by Pat Hughes. Jan Zurakowski, insisting that he’d suffered no ill effects from his landing mishap in the morning, was up again in another Spitfire, N3279. Ted Mortimer-Rose in Spitfire P9319 had replaced Bill Hornby but shortly after takeoff, he had to abort and he landed back at Middle Wallop after only thirty-five minutes in the air.7
The remaining eleven Spitfires were instructed to patrol at ‘Angels 15’ over RAF Warmwell in Dorset. Shortly before 1.40 p.m., ‘A’ Flight’s Yellow Section was vectored after a Ju 88 off Portland. Junkers 88s were fast and dangerous opponents, and this time the Spitfires came off second best. New Zealander Pat Horton in Spitfire N3061 was shot down in the clash. He bailed out over the sea and was rescued shortly afterwards by a navy launch from Weymouth. He had only been slightly injured.
‘Zig’ Klein in Spitfire P9508 was the first to return to Middle Wallop followed five minutes later by Spike O’Brien and Bob Doe. Pat brought his five Spitfires in straight afterwards. There had been no other encounters.8
The same highly efficient routine of refuelling and rearming the Spitfires as quickly as possible began all over again. It was the same for the pilots too – tea and refreshments, then again ‘Readiness’ and the waiting. The weather was good and the Germans could come again, but before then there was the wretched waiting. Mostly the pilots just lounged about as they tried to stay as calm as possible – they would read, doze, some played cards or chess; from time to time there would be snippets of conversation. Had anyone actually seen what happened to Bill Gordon or Bill Hornby? Did you hear? Jerry managed to get through and bomb Brooklands while 609 Squadron was back on the ground refuelling! What was on at the cinema? The telephone could ring at any the time. At least if they were scrambled again the squadron would be at full strength once more thanks to the hard working erks. For ‘B’ Flight, Jan Zurakowski was rested, George Bailey taking his place as Pat’s Number 3 in Spitfire P9320. Ken Dewhurst was replacing Mortimer-Rose. Dewhurst was fully recovered from his parachute escape from a burning Spitfire back on 16 August.9
As for Pat, he was worried about Kay. The previous day he had told her, ‘We’re getting so much trade that I want you to go home to Hull for a while.’
‘I’ll fetch our things from Cornwall, first, and stay at the White Hart on Saturday night,’ she had said.
On Saturday nights rooms at the White Hart were in great demand, but as Kay and Pat had spent almost all of their married nights there, the landlord knew them very well. He’d promised her that he would try to keep them a double. She was driving to Cornwall today and would probably there by now – at least she would be safer over there than in Hampshire.10
The Germans did come again. At 5.35 p.m., there was another scramble and this time the squadron was ordered to patrol Brooklands at ‘Angels 15’. Cyril Page was back leading his section, replacing Pat Horton in ‘A’ Flight.
The raiders, 150 aircraft strong, came in over the Thames Estuary towards Thames Haven ranging from 10,000 feet upwards, with escorting Me 109s flying up to 25,000 feet – one formation of 109s was even encountered at 31,000 feet.
This time the action was far to the east of 234 Squadron’s patrol line, but Pat’s old CO, Victor Beamish, was at it again. He took-off alone in his Hurricane at 6.00 p.m. behind 249 Squadron which had relieved 151 Squadron at North Weald. On the 1st, 151 had been moved to Digby in 12 Group for a rest. Climbing hard, he reached 15,000 feet and could see that 249 Squadron was high above him. There was smoke haze up to 10,000 feet but as he looked down he could see fires at Thames Haven blazing in three places and something else. There were eight German dive-bombers half-hidden in the haze – Ju 87 Stukas! They had just attacked Thames Haven, coming in unexpectedly from the west to surprise the defences, and by remaining in the haze they were staying out of sight of the British fighters flying higher up. Beamish dived after them, going in close as usual. His Hurricane was hit by return fire as he closed in, but he ignored it as he caused a Stuka to burst into flames and spin away. He manoeuvred behind another dive-bomber, fired another long burst into it, and left it trailing smoke and losing height.11
By that evening of the 6th, it was obvious to the British commanders that their situation was grim. Between 24 August and 6 September, Fighter Command losses amounted to 295 fighters destroyed and 171 badly damaged. During the same period 103 pilots were killed and 128 wounded. The average pilot strength of each squadron was down from twenty-six to sixteen. To counterbalance this, they had received only 269 new and repaired Hurricanes and Spitfires. Material damage was widespread and so severe that, in terms of communications and facilities, crisis point was at hand. AVM Park reported that the German bombing attacks on his aerodromes and sector stations had caused extensive damage to five forward airfields and six out of seven sector stations. Mansion and Lympne were out of action temporarily, and Biggin Hill was so appallingly battered that only one squadron could use it at a time. No. 11 Group was being crushed.
At Middle Wallop, the news was sombre. Bill Hornby did not return. His Spitfire, X4183, had been shot up and exploded over Quickbourne Lane, Northam, with the wreckage falling in flames. Hornby had managed to bail out although suffering badly from burns and facial injuries. After four days at the Casualty Clearing Station at Benenden, he would be moved to Hollymoor Hospital in Birmingham. He did eventually rejoin the squadron but by that time it had been withdrawn from Middle Wallop and was back at St Eval.
Bill Gordon of ‘A’ Flight had been killed. He was the squadron’s first fatality in three weeks. His Spitfire, X4036, had crashed at Howbourne Farm, Hadlow Down. Arrangements needed to be made for him to be buried in Mortlach Parish Churchyard in Banff, Scotland, but before then more tragedy was waiting for 234 Squadron …
Too many of the veteran pilots who had been caught up continually on duty and in combat over the past weeks were reaching the end of their endurance. That evening at Middle Wallop, 234 Squadron’s intelligence officer, Gregory Krikorian, who tended to be a ‘father confessor’ to some of his young pilots, had an unexpected visitor — Pat Hughes. Pat looked tired … very tired. The Australian was obviously unsettled and he confided that spots were appearing before his eyes while he was flying. Krikorian tried to reassure him and pretended that he was simply tired and depressed because he’d had too much to drink.12
As they talked, Krikorian had the chance to look carefully at the man who was regarded by everybody as the real driving force behind the squadron. He’d had to be. Pat had, almost alone, made it into a formidable fighting force. He had the ability to make things happen, to get things done; he didn’t just wait for things happen to him. In the air, he was tough and uncompromising, setting an example by leading from the front; on the ground, he was still the leader but also still very much ‘one of the boys’. He brought out the best in the others.
Pat Horton, the New Zealander, had developed into an excellent pilot; so had ‘Budge’ Harker, and Bob Doe was now a highly proficient fighter pilot who was matching Pat victory for victory; if anything, he was becoming overconfident. The early lack of leadership in 234 had had gone completely.
With the arrival of Spike O’Brien, the squadron had the right mixture – Pat’s inspiration combined with O’Brien’s competence and even-handed influence. As a result it now had sixty enemy planes to its credit. Pat had contributed at least six to the total in the last three days alone, but at great personal cost. Although outgoing and confident in front of the others, Krikorian
was aware he was watching a different Pat Hughes – a man with his guard down, a man on the edge. Although the squadron had gone from strength to strength, relentless nervous tension and high anxiety, towering adrenalin-pumping peaks and deep cavernous troughs of constant stress had brought Pat to the brink of exhaustion.
*
Throughout the night the Luftwaffe was not as active as usual. Only single raiders were despatched to strategic areas of England to keep the air raid sirens screaming and the people confined to shelters. Most fighter controllers felt that the Germans were resting after their sustained effort and heavy losses over the past fortnight but some suspected a more sinister reason for the relative quiet. Aerial reconnaissance had revealed that more invasion barges had arrived in the captured French ports. Heavy concentrations of troops were already nearby. Were the Germans about to unleash their forces for the final blow … invasion?
Headquarters Home Forces issued its preliminary Alert No. 3: ‘Invasion probable within three days.’
16
7 SEPTEMBER 1940
At Treyarronn Bay in Cornwall, Kay Hughes had packed all night. At dawn she set off to drive to Middle Wallop. There, she would pick up Pat and they would go to nearby Andover to stay again at the White Hart.
She felt sad driving away from the lonely seaside house near RAF St Eval where she and Pat should have spent their honeymoon, but so far Pat had not slept there a single night. He’d never even had time to eat there. A few times he’d phoned, saying, ‘Put the coffee on, and get out a few beers for me and the boys.’ Then there would be just time for a wildly happy hour or two. So far, they had only had eleven nights together, their wedding night in a hotel at Newquay and ten more in the little White Hart Hotel at Andover.1
It was a beautiful day for the drive east. Things seemed peaceful for once.
The period of relative calm continued overnight and into Saturday morning, but with sunrise there was an oppressive stillness over south and south-east England. Apart from a few isolated sorties by German reconnaissance aircraft, the first half of the day dragged on quietly, slowly.
During the morning, the latest reports of increased barge concentrations in the French ports, the building of new airfields close to the French coast, construction of new heavy gun emplacements, and rumours of bomber group deployments and information from captured airmen came in and were passed on to the British Chiefs of Staff (COS). Together with these, there was a forecast received that moon and tide conditions would favour a Channel crossing and landing on the English coast between 8 and 10 September. There was a heightened possibility of invasion. A COS meeting headed by Lieutenant General Alan Brooke, the commander-in-chief of home forces responsible for the army’s anti-invasion preparations, was scheduled for 5.20 p.m. to discuss whether or not ‘Alert No. 1’ (invasion imminent and probable within twelve hours) should be issued.
Meanwhile at 11 Group HQ in Uxbridge, AVM Keith Park instructed his controllers and squadron commanders to follow orders ‘exactly’ and ‘without modification’ from Group Operations. This statement had been made necessary as his squadrons were too often being positioned too high to successfully intercept the German bombers. Because of this, they were instead becoming embroiled with the escorting fighters. To avoid being ‘bounced’ from above by the German fighter escorts, some squadron commanders were indeed consistently adding ‘a few thousand feet’ extra to the heights at which they were ordered to intercept. Two days earlier, Park had also instructed that, wherever practical, two squadrons were to operate together, with Spitfires, because of their better performance at high altitudes, engaging the escort fighters while Hurricanes attacked the bombers. He had emphasised that it was vital to harass and destroy as many bombers as possible. Bearing in mind the Luftwaffe’s continuous pressure on his airfields and sector stations, Park issued his orders for the deployment of his squadrons before he left Uxbridge to attend a conference that had been called by Dowding at Fighter Command Headquarters, Bentley Priory.
The oppressive lull continued. RDF screens remained empty and sector controllers relaxed their fighter states, but for many the quiet was nerve-racking.
After the midday meal at Tangmere, the pilots of 43 Squadron took the opportunity to ‘relax’ in deck chairs outside the officers’ mess. Someone produced a camera and took photographs of them. Little was it realised that from a group of eight men in several of the pictures, two would be dead within a few hours.
Just before 4.00 p.m., a marker was placed on the huge map-table at Fighter Command Headquarters. RDF had detected a build-up of enemy aircraft, twenty plus, over the Pas de Calais. The German air force was beginning to move.
On the cliffs near Calais, the Luftwaffe’s commander-in-chief, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, stood posing and waiting for an incredible passing parade. With him were Albert Kesselring, commander of Luftflotte 2, and Bruno Lörzer, commander of Fliegerkorps II, an entourage of high-ranking officers and a following of war correspondents and reporters. Göring had arrived earlier in his special VIP train for the purpose of personally commanding the assault against London. He posed for the press, looking skywards through his binoculars as 348 bombers and 617 fighters, almost 1,000 aircraft, the largest aerial armada so far assembled, thundered overhead on their way to bomb London in daylight for the first time.
The rationale for the attack was that the few remaining RAF fighters should be drawn into the air to defend the capital of the British Empire and be destroyed by the escorting fighters.
It would also carry out the promises which Hitler had shouted to his audience in Berlin’s Sportpalast a few days before:
In England they’re filled with curiosity and keep asking: ‘Well, why isn’t he coming?’ Calm yourselves: he is coming!
*
On his arrival at Bentley Priory, Keith Park found that, besides Dowding and an NCO shorthand typist to record the minutes of the meeting, there were four others present. These were Sholto Douglas, assistant chief of the Air Staff, a group captain from the Air Ministry, AVM H. Nicholl of Fighter Command and AVM D. C. S. Evill, Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO).
As he spoke, Dowding painted a grim picture. Up to now his policy had been to concentrate most of his squadrons in the south-east with supporting units just outside 11 Group to be brought into action upon Park’s request when needed. As squadrons become fatigued they had so far been rotated out of the combat area and replaced by fresh squadrons drawn from the surrounding groups, but if the present scale of attack continued this procedure could not continue. He was after a decision on the best measures to be adopted so that a rapid recovery could be made should the situation change.
Strath Evill, who had been born at Broken Hill in the west of New South Wales, had figures to confirm the worsening situation. Disregarding accidents and illness, total pilot casualties for the four weeks ending 4 September amounted to 348. During the same period the three OTUs had turned out only 280 fighter pilots, resulting in a decline in numerical strength of sixty-eight. Park added that the casualty rate in 11 Group was nearly 100 per week.
Everyone knew that there was a big difference between a pilot fresh out of an OTU and a seasoned combat pilot. Park suggested that new pilots should go from the OTUs to squadrons in the north for extra training, and that his squadrons should only receive fully trained pilots from the north to replace those lost. It was agreed that a few fresh squadrons must be kept ready to relieve Park’s most tired units when necessary, and that the importing of individual airmen would come into effect when a squadron’s strength fell to only fifteen pilots.
For this purpose, the squadrons were to be re-classified:
Class A: All squadrons which based in 11 Group and those in 10 and 12 Groups which might be called upon by AVM Park were to provide first line reinforcements.
Class B: Squadrons of all groups (other than 11 Group) fully established in men and machines, which the southern Groups could call into action with consideration of fatigue or lack of combat
experience.
Class C: All remaining squadrons which, although possessing combat experience, had suffered crippling losses in action and were obviously overdue for rest and the training of new pilots. Experienced airmen would be ‘milked’ from these squadrons after a short rest to provide replacements for those in Class A and Class B.
These would not be popular measures among the pilots and particularly with such ‘resting’ veteran units as 32, 65, 85, 145, 151 and 615 Squadrons whose members had achieved much and paid a heavy price. There were strong bonds between the survivors.
While the meeting continued, British RDF operators were chilled by what they were detecting. This was not just another raid on the airfields, sector stations or factories. An armada was coming, and it was coming in one direction – towards London. At 4.17 p.m., Park’s controllers scrambled eleven squadrons; fifteen minutes later every fighter squadron within seventy miles of London was airborne or preparing to scramble.
The COS meeting at Whitehall began at 5.20 p.m. As it proceeded, the first bombs whistled down on London’s dockyard areas of Woolwich and the Isle of Dogs. The attack was concentrated because the leading bombers had arrived unmolested. British defences were caught on the wrong foot, most of Fighter Command’s squadrons having been deployed to counter the usual airfield attacks. They were hurriedly redirected, but there was no time for coordination. They were only able to arrive piecemeal, one by one, to confront masses of German planes.
A Spitfire Pilot's Story: Pat Hughes: Battle of Britain Top Gun Page 22