I was jerked back by the parachute as air punched into it, opening it up to mushroom above me. I swung there like a puppet, winded and gasping for breath. I looked down at my leg. It felt like a bear was gnawing on it but it was still in one piece. For now anyway.
Dogfights growled on above me as I drifted down. As I spun gently, dizzyingly, back and forth, I caught glimpses of the English coast, then the French, then England again. I could hear sirens wailing in the distance, the boom and thud of anti-aircraft fire. I could see the cliffs and the downland beyond. And I could see the huge empty expanse of cold grey water towards which I was heading.
Then I heard it – right behind me. A weird noise droning and roaring and screaming behind me. An Me109 diving towards me with guns blazing, twinkling like stars, clattering like hail on a tin roof.
There was nothing I could do. Nowhere I could go. Shells whistled past me on either side. A kind of weird calm came over me. I thought of Mum and Dad, and Edith, and Lenny. I thought about Waldemar and my lovely green-eyed WAAF. All in those seconds. I just thought, OK then. If this is it, OK. Maybe my turn had finally come.
But then the Messerschmitt shuddered and twitched and banked away. The pilot had no chance. I saw flames light up the cockpit like a lantern and it spun round out of control. Then there was an explosion and it broke up into a dozen pieces, falling like meteors against the cliffs.
I had hardly taken this in before I realized I had to get my parachute off and fast. I had to release it just before I hit the sea otherwise it would drag me under. I gave the release mechanism a ninety-degree twist and then a hefty thump. Nothing happened.
And then smack – I hit the water. The calmness I’d felt in the face of being shot had left me completely now as I struggled to save myself from drowning. I wasn’t going to die a sailor’s death – not if I could help it. I hit and tugged and swore and finally the chute came loose and drifted away like a huge jellyfish.
All I had to do now was inflate my lifejacket and hope that someone saw me land and was coming to pick me up. The water was freezing. I could feel my legs going numb and it felt good because it meant I didn’t feel the pain any more.
I looked up and the blue sky was scribbled all over with chalk-white vapour trails. In the distance I could hear the hum and buzz of engines, the rattle of gunfire. Again, it occurred to me that this was it for me, that I had swapped the sudden death the Messerschmitt offered, for the far worse fate of slowly freezing in the October sea.
Suddenly, an Me109 tore out of the east, diagonally downwards, belching black smoke. It spluttered and whined and drifted inland to crash out of sight. Then I realized that the pilot had baled out. And he was heading my way. . .
The Jerry pilot landed about a hundred yards away from me and made a much better job of getting out of his parachute. He bobbed in and out of view behind the grey waves, and he seemed to be drifting towards me.
I didn’t know what to do at first. I could hardly carry on ignoring him, as we were the only things out here but haddock. And anyway, maybe we were both going to die here. Maybe he was going to be the last person I saw in my life.
“Hello!” I shouted, immediately feeling a little foolish.
“Hello!” he shouted back. “Are you hurt?”
“A little, yes!” I shouted. “How about you?”
“A little, also! You are Spitfire?”
“Yes. And you? You’re a 109 pilot?”
“Yes. The Spitfire is good plane?”
“It is. The 109’s pretty good, though.”
“Pretty good. Yes.”
The cold had numbed the pain in my leg, but I knew that if we stayed here much longer, the cold would numb the rest of me too and I’d be a goner. Suddenly, being hit by the Messerschmitt’s guns seemed appealingly fast and final.
“It is cold, is it not?” said the German, as if he read my thoughts.
“Yes. Very,” I said.
“Are we to die then, Englishman?”
“No!” I shouted.
“Good,” he shouted back. “I am not ready to die.”
“Who is?” I shouted.
Then I heard the drone of an engine over my shoulder. I turned to see a fishing boat heading for us. I whooped and shouted and waved and shouted and so did the German.
“Over here! Over here!” I yelled. The boat came in close and they hauled me up and on to the deck.
“You’d better get out of those wet things or you’ll catch your death,” said one of the crew, tossing me a blanket. “How’s that wound?” The trouser leg was chewed up and bloody.
“OK, I think,” I said, struggling to get out of my flying suit. But out of the water, it started to hurt like hell again.
“Let’s go get your friend, there,” said the skipper. The boat pulled up alongside the German pilot.
“Danke, danke!” he shouted as they reached for him.
“He’s German!” yelled one of them.
“I’m not having any Jerry in my boat,” said the skipper. “The fish can have ’im if they want ’im. Let ’im drown!”
The boat started to turn for shore, with the German flailing and yelling.
“No!” I shouted, surprising myself, and everyone else, with the violence in my voice. “Pick him up!”
They all turned to face me.
“And why the hell should I? Murdering swine that they are. A minute ago ’e was trying to kill you!”
“I know,” I said. “I know that. But we can’t just let him drown. We have to be different. If we’re going to be as bad as the Nazis then what’s the point? If we leave him there, then what are we fighting for? If we’re just the same as them, then what are we fighting for?”
They all looked at me. A flag fluttered at the top of the mast and the boat creaked and groaned in the swell. The German’s cries for help grew fainter.
“OK,” said the skipper with a sigh. “Fish ’im out.”
The boat turned again and they hauled the German out, though with a lot less care than they had with me. Even so, the crewman who had thrown me a blanket did the same with the German and he duly stripped and wrapped himself up, wincing at some injury to his side.
Someone appeared with a mug of tea and a shot of brandy. We both sat there in silence as the engine chugged and gulls hung in the breeze around us, crying like children. My leg throbbed and I didn’t dare look for fear of what I’d see.
“Blasted Nazis,” said one of the crew.
“I am not a Nazi,” said the pilot. “I am just a German. I love my country.”
“Then why didn’t you stay there, you swine?” shouted another man. The German looked away, down at the deck, but the man leaned closer and continued. “Look at all this,” he said with a wild wave of his hand that took in me, the dogfight above and the whole splintered and bloody world. “Look at it! Don’t tell me you love your country, or so help me I’ll throw you back in!”
The skipper came over and pulled him away.
“You’ll have to forgive us,” he said to the German. “We haven’t forgotten what it was like picking soldiers off the beach at Dunkirk, with you cowards trying to kill us all for doing it. Most likely we’ll never forget it. I don’t think I’ll ever get the smell of that beach out of this boat.”
“I am sorry,” said the German.
“Shut up,” said the skipper coldly, “Or I’ll throw you back in myself.”
They left us alone. I could think of nothing to say and so I kept quiet. The German looked away from me and out to sea.
“I flew raids at Dunkirk,” he said suddenly. “We fighters gave protection to the Heinkels bombing the beaches and the waiting ships. On 1 June it was different. We flew in low, guns blasting.”
It was 1 June when I had shot down the 110. It was odd to think we were all there that day – these fishermen, the German an
d me.
“As you came in you could see the men below, the lines of men, run for their lives, running for the cover of the dunes. I saw a man turn, and freeze, like a rabbit. As he turned I saw the light glint on his spectacles. Can you believe that? I was so low I saw that, and I saw the shells bursting in the sand in a line towards him.”
“The men, they ran for the dunes. But if they stayed in the dunes they could not get off the beach and so they had to come back to their lines and queue for the boats and ships offshore. They came back and so did we. Black smoke rose up everywhere, from burning ships and bombed-out buildings.”
“We would fly through these columns of smoke, down towards the men, firing our guns into them.” He shook his head. “That was no job for a Luftwaffe pilot. There was no honour in that.”
I looked at him but he stayed turned away. In the end I turned away too. I felt like he wanted me to say something, to say it was OK. But I couldn’t – no one could. As for honour; was there honour in any of this? And what would I have done in his place? I just didn’t know any more.
A kittiwake flew alongside me, only a couple of yards away, its face level with mine. It turned and seemed to look straight at me, its head cocked to one side slightly. Its black eyes glinted and then it banked away from me and glided clear of the boat and out of sight.
I looked back towards the German. At first I thought he was just hanging his head and looking at the deck, but then I realized he was slumped forward. I got up and caught him as he fell and sat him up again. I put my arm around him.
A pool of deep red blood was sinking into the wooden decking below him and the pale grey blanket was soaked with it. His pale hands were cold. I whispered to him. I asked him his name, but there was no reply. He was dead.
He was dead and suddenly I wanted to know his name. Suddenly I had the weirdest feeling that I had more in common with this man than with anyone else I knew. His head rested against my shoulder and I put my arm around him to stop him falling.
And then, in the midst of those staring fishermen, I did something I had never done in the whole course of the war. I began to cry. . .
Epilogue
1941
Anyway, my leg was patched up. They pulled a few pieces of shrapnel out and stitched me up, good as new – or almost, anyway – and before I knew it I was back in the cockpit. I ended up with this rather good scar in my calf shaped like the letter “m” or the way little kids draw birds.
Then one day in April ’41, I was lying on my bunk reading a book Lenny had sent me. One of the orderlies came in and gave me a package that had arrived from my folks. I used a letter from Harriet to keep my place, closed the book and opened it up.
There was a copy of a pamphlet the Government had brought out. The cover showed vapour trails against a darkening sky and the words The Battle of Britain. Underneath that, across the black silhouette of a building, was written: August–October 1940.
The Air Ministry had published it, so it was full of stuff about RAF tactics, with diagrams and the like, and maps covered in arrows. There was a photo of laughing pilots walking across a sunlit aerodrome, hair and scarves blowing in the breeze. I wondered how many of them were still alive.
The pamphlet made it all seem much less of a shambles than it felt at the time. The dawn scrambles and the rabid dogfights had all been smartened up and dusted down. There were little drawings of planes with dotted lines coming from their guns and others with smoke trailing out. It all looked so clean and simple. No blood or pain or burning. No screaming. I couldn’t read it then and haven’t since.
Mum and Dad wrote and said they were so proud of me. They said I was part of history now. I wrote back and told him so were they. So was Edith. So was Lenny. Harriet. We all were.
But there was truth in it. We had made a difference, we “Few” – I had to admit it. We hadn’t beaten the Nazis, but we’d shown they couldn’t get everything their own way. We’d given the bully a black eye and winded him a little. And maybe there was honour in that after all. Yes, I think that maybe there was.
Historical note
Officially, the Battle of Britain was fought between 8 August and 30 October 1940 and was the first time that aircraft had played such a decisive role in the War. As well as ensuring that Britain remained free of German control, and free of Nazi deportations to concentration camps, the battle proved to be a major turning point in the War. It helped to convince the Americans to enter the War on the side of the Allies. British resistance also meant that there would be a base from which to bomb German forces (and civilians) and eventually launch an allied invasion of Europe in June 1944.
From the outset, the Germans knew that if they were to invade Britain successfully, they would have to put the RAF out of action first. The German air force (Luftwaffe) began to attack British shipping convoys in the Channel, to disrupt trade, to stop supplies reaching British shores from other countries, and to lure Spitfires and Hurricanes into dogfights over the sea.
During the Battle of Britain, RAF Fighter Command was led by Air Vice-Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding. It was divided into four Groups: 10 Group covered the West Country, 11 Group covered the South East, 12 Group covered the area roughly from London to York, and 13 Group covered the remaining North of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
11 Group was commanded by Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park from its HQ in Uxbridge, and was divided into sectors, each with its own Sector Station – Biggin Hill in Kent being perhaps the most famous. As it was closest to German Occupied France, 11 Group was the first line of defence during the Battle of Britain and squadrons in this Group were reinforced from squadrons in other groups to keep them up to full strength. Although Harry Woods is fictional, it is a squadron in 11 Group in which he is seen to serve.
The odds were in favour of a German victory at the beginning of the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe were well equipped and had well-trained, battle-hardened pilots and crews and the RAF had experienced heavy losses in France and Norway and during the Dunkirk evacuation. At the end of June it had less than 400 Spitfires and Hurricanes for the defence of the whole country. But Britain did have one secret weapon.
Radar, or Radio Direction Finding (RDF) as it was known, was first developed in 1935. It used shortwave radio pulses to pick up incoming aircraft. The radio pulses bounced back and were captured by a cathode ray tube, showing up as blips of light on a glass screen. By 1939 there were a string of radar stations along the coast from Shetland to the south coast of England.
Information gathered by radar stations (and from members of the Observer Corps dotted around the coast) was relayed by landline to the Filter Room at Fighter Command HQ at Bentley Priory in Stanmore near London. The aircraft were plotted on a large map table and then the information was relayed to the Group Headquarters and then to Sector Stations (airfields). Group commanders decided which Sector Stations to activate. Sector Station commanders decided which squadrons should fly.
Radar had its problems though. Radar picked up all sorts of things – clouds, flocks of birds etc – as well as planes. Height readings were very inaccurate and although it might only take four minutes to warn the squadrons, it only took six minutes for German planes to cross the Channel. Luckily for the RAF, Messerschmitts were at the limit of their range by the time they got to England and Me109s had hardly any fuel in their tanks for dogfights over southern England and could barely reach London.
Radar was a secret and there was a lot of speculation in the country about what the radar stations with their huge masts and antenna were for. The WAAFs, like Harriet in this story, who worked in the airfield Ops rooms, were sworn to secrecy and pilots like Harry would not need to be told. The Germans knew we had it, but failed to put it out of action during their attacks on 12 August.
Germans also failed to follow through on their attacks on RAF airfields. Too often they targeted the smaller satellite airfields rathe
r than the important sector airfields. Even so, they did kill many pilots and ground crew and destroyed valuable aircraft. Though it was terrible for the people of London, it was a let off for the RAF when Hitler changed tactics and started bombing cities instead.
Civilian losses became heavier and heavier as the Luftwaffe’s bombs rained down. Over 13,000 Londoners had been killed by the end of 1940 and another 18,000 hospitalized. Thousands more were killed in other cities across the country. Despite this, most people learned to cope with the bombing, and many were eventually able to sleep through it!
Pilot losses were horrendous during the Battle of Britain; at the end of August 1940, RAF pilot losses were approaching 120 men a week. Replacing pilots was an even bigger problem than replacing aircraft, as operational training time was shortened and shortened, with many pilots entering combat never having fired their guns before. Many only flew one fatal sortie.
More than 80% of the 3,080 aircrew listed were British, but those that were not had often volunteered, making their way to Britain at their own cost and often at great personal risk, often escaping from the advancing German army. Six of the twelve top-scoring Fighter Command pilots were from countries other than Britain.
Most Polish pilots, like the fictional Waldemar in this story, were more highly trained than their British counterparts, but as they rarely spoke fluent English, they had British squadron and flight commanders allocated to their squadrons.
Although the Polish squadrons did not become operational until August 1940, they accounted for 7.5% of all the aircraft shot down by the RAF, and the Polish 303 Squadron had the highest score rate in Fighter Command.
Nationality of aircrew involved in the Battle of Britain:
British
2,543
(418 killed)
Battle of Britain Page 8