Perhaps he ought to try for a transfer onto one of the fighter squadrons based here?
Yes, he decided, time to apply again for a transfer to single-engine jobs. Fighters weren’t designed to fight with two engines.
Duffin was not going to be able to fly for a long time now (if ever), and Briggsy was hopefully never going to have to fly again in operations.
So he was without a crew. It would help him to wangle a transfer to a single-seater squadron.
Anything had to be better than trying to take on the Luftwaffe in a fighter like the Blenheim IF. It was unlikely that she could fly far anymore anyway.
His A for Annie was a lovely aeroplane, but she was no fighter, and the six .303 machine guns she carried did not make her one.
It was madness to expect her to take on the roles expected of a fighter.
He made arrangements for the handling of his aircraft with the ground crew sergeant, whilst behind him the other members of his crew were carefully loaded onto the ambulance.
Make that application first thing in the morning, he decided.
There was no future in flying Blenheim fighters.
CHAPTER 14
Sergeant Kenneth Howes picked absent-mindedly at a shred of meat that was caught between his upper central incisors, scanning the sky around the Defiant carefully. As before, it stubbornly remained stuck between his teeth, continuing to resist all efforts to dislodge it.
Babs made a great meat and pickle sandwich, but he wished that she wouldn’t use such a lot of cheap, tough cuts. They were playing merry hell with his dentition. He’d already had one of his molar teeth extracted after it had fractured on the tiny bone that had been in one of her Cornish pasties.
Barbara Howes (nee Garrett and curvy blonde Essex beauty pageant winner) and he had been married for all of a year, but what a year it had been! It had been the best year of his life.
The early afternoon sun shone down upon him in his machine-gun turret, and the intercom was quiet save for the occasional comment or direction from the formation leader or the ground controller.
On either side of his two-seat fighter, a further eight Boulton-Paul Defiants formed the formation on convoy patrol duty, south of Folkestone. With their impressive endurance and powerful turret armament of .303 Browning Machine guns, they had already achieved amazing successes against unsuspecting enemy fighters and bombers.
They shared many of the same characteristics of the other single-engined fighters in the RAF. Except, of course that there were no forward firing machine guns in the wings, and it carried over a ton of extra weight with the turret and gunner.
German fighters, expecting an easy kill when bouncing the Defiants (thinking them to be Hurricanes or Spitfires), ended up getting a nasty surprise when the rear-facing Browning’s blew them out of the air.
Howes had already shared in the destruction of a Bf109 and a Dornier 17, and claimed a Heinkel 111 all of his own, and was looking forward to the next encounter. Having the triggers for four Brownings in his hands made him feel indestructible, and the palms of his hands were itching, hungry for action. Although Babs always said itchy palms meant he had money coming, “rub yer arse to make it fast,” was another. He tried to reach back to rub his backside.
Carefully placed in the mechanism of the turret, the photo of Babs smiled sweetly up at him, wearing that ridiculous wide-brimmed hat that she loved so much.
Still twiddling at the piece of meat between his teeth, his eyes on Barbara’s sweet smile, Howes didn’t see the slim shapes as they came down out of the light.
The German fighters fell hungrily onto the Defiants, out of the glaring sun, like a pack of wolves.
One by one, they began to be shot out of the sky.
This time things were different, as the Bf109’s were flown by pilots who were aware of the British fighters design, and keen to exact revenge for their many countrymen who had been lost to the Defiant.
They were careful to approach from the beam or head on as much as opportunity allowed, with high speed, slashing attacks. With no forward facing guns, the Defiant was particularly vulnerable to this type of attack.
And although the turrets swivelled desperately from one side to the next and back again, the gunners were unable to draw more than a momentary bead on the attacking bandits.
One Defiant whirled away from the formation, a blazing torch carrying two young men of Fighter Command into the darkness of death, whilst another was blotted out by a shattering explosion that left a few twisted pieces of metal, to drop away to the sea below.
In return, a single German fighter broke off the action and limped home, trailing smoke and a semi-conscious injured pilot.
Howes gripped his handles with tight claw-like hands and depressed the triggers as a Bf109 swept past. The turret vibrated with the recoil, and an enemy fighter flipped sharply over onto its back, and fell away with a white smoke trail streaming thinly behind. Perhaps the damage had been fatal, he thought and hoped.
“Two more coming from ahead and above, Kenny.” The voice of his pilot, Pilot-Officer Newton was terse and strained.
Howes swung his turret, but the enemy pair split apart and dived away beneath the formation of Defiants, well before they entered the deadly envelope of the turret’s arc of fire.
Fuck!
Another Defiant fell away, its wings shredded by bullets and cannon shells. Fire licked from it, curling back to swallow the rear half of the British aircraft.
Howes caught a glimpse of his friend, Ernie Dent fighting to get out of the rear turret before fire obscured him from sight.
He felt like retching and weeping as he turned to find a target.
What the fuck had happened? He couldn’t draw a bead on any of the enemy fighters for longer than a couple of seconds before they were gone from his sights.
As it fell lower, a pair of Bf109s raked Ernie’s Defiant again, setting off a series of small explosions. The black smoke became thicker and thicker, but a small figure fell away. Howes did not stop to watch the survivor, for already more German fighters snapped around them, and he and his squadron were fighting a losing battle, their numbers dwindling rapidly.
But even as the Defiants fought and died in the one-sided battle, reinforcements were on their way.
Hurricanes from nearby patrols were being desperately vectored on to the area.
Newton threw the Defiant away from the now seriously depleted formation.
They had to try and escape. Perhaps if they went further down, they would be able to protect their vulnerable underbelly. There was no chance that they could dogfight with the nimble little Bf109’s.
There was no security now in the formation, anyway, there were too few of them, and the damaged aircraft straggled unprotected behind, easy pickings for the Jerry fighters.
Newton’s Defiant spiralled downwards sickeningly, desperately seeking safety.
Howes was pressed forwards and sideways by the strong forces of the dive, head against the side of his turret, and he groaned involuntarily at the pressure. The world spun violently, faded, and his full stomach protested painfully. With the aircraft spinning like this, there was no chance that he could track the enemy kites with his guns. Every time he fired, he was just uselessly throwing away ammunition.
The delicious sandwich that Barbara had so lovingly prepared for him threatened to re-surface.
Bitter acid filled his mouth, and he spat out, the gobbet falling into the well of the turret, and onto his left flying boot.
He cursed foully, before his mouth flooded again.
Pilot Officer Michael Newton strained to look back over his shoulder, fighting against the g-forces. Behind them, yet another Defiant fell burning from the sky.
Already, some Bf109’s had broken away from the main battle to pursue him. He could hear Howe retching over the R/T, behind him.
The airframe was vibrating, and the engine was screaming, yet he still continued to strive to lose more height. The sea was ru
shing upwards to meet them, but the only chance of survival lay in slipping away from Jerry at low altitude.
When he reached 500 feet, he levelled out, arms straining against the force of the dive, heart pumping fit to burst.
He breathed a sigh of relief once he had managed to get the aircraft back into level flight, but then he felt and heard the roar of the four browning machine guns behind him as Howe fired at the Jerry aeroplanes that came down towards them.
Desperately, Newton pulled the complaining Defiant into a series of turns to port and starboard, cutting as sharply as possible.
One Bf109, miscalculating it’s closing speed, overshot and screamed past their wing, turning hard away. Newton instinctively swung around to follow, but then remembered that he had no forward-firing guns, and swore bitterly.
Ahead of them was the convoy they were supposed to be escorting. A pitifully small collection of coasters and trawlers that hardly seemed to justify the name.
But, at their head was a destroyer. And that meant anti-aircraft guns.
Newton pointed the nose of his aeroplane at the grey shapes ahead, pressed hard on the throttle lever again. Already the hope of salvation was germinating in his head. If he could use the protection of the destroyer’s ack-ack, there may be a greater chance of getting away.
It was more than likely that the naval gunners were liable to fire upon the Defiant, but it was a risk worth taking if it scared off the Messerschmitts snapping away at his heels.
And in truth, there was no other realistic choice. Without some help there was little chance for survival.
So far, Newton had managed to evade the Jerry barrage, but with a Bf109 on either side and behind, the enemy had him boxed in. He continued turning and swerving, but they were closing his space for manoeuvre. It was just a matter of time before they nailed him.
High above, Hurricanes had arrived on the scene, and the Bf109’s attacking the main Defiant formation were breaking off the action, well satisfied with the results.
Five Defiants had been ripped out of the formation, another was smoking and it looked as if it would be unable to make it back home.
Three, widely separated and rather battered looking aircraft were all that were left of the original nine-strong Defiant formation.
Donald, at the head of his squadron, gritting his teeth in frustration and fury as he led them in a fruitless pursuit of the departing German fighters, when Granny called out to him.
“Yellow One to Red Leader, looks like there’s some trouble below.” Donald looked downwards, and a flash of light from a turning aircraft below showed him where more aircraft were yet battling.
“Okay, Yellow One, I see ‘em. Take your section down and see what’s happening. Looks like these bloody Huns are going to get away, anyway. They’ve had enough already, those-er hum…’ Then, mindful of the WAAFs listening, he fell silent.
“Understood, Red Leader, Yellow section, let’s go.”
Granny dipped a wing and dived down, closely followed by Rose and another new Sergeant-Pilot, Burton.
The Defiant was less than a couple of hundred yards off the port quarter of the destroyer HMS Shilton when a burst from the pursuing German fighters tore at the rudder, and smashed its way along the fuselage of the two-seat British fighter plane.
Howe was firing desperately, without sighting, and also looking fearfully at the oxygen bottle between his legs. If the bottle catches one…
The cannon shells and bullets burst along the aircraft and into his small turret. A bullet ripped through his sights and smashed its way between his upper central incisors, dislodging and pulverising the shred of meat that had bothered him so greatly scant minutes before. A second followed closely behind it.
The photograph of Babs fell to the floor of the turret, but Howe was past caring.
There was no pain, just the fleeting sensation of a sharp blow to his mouth before the sudden oblivion as the bullets exploded through the back of his head, heaving him backwards into death.
Newton did not see his young gunner fall back from his guns, but as they fell silent, his canopy was holed, and his instrument panel blown to scrap. The impact of bullets into his back threw him forward, painting the windscreen bright red with his blood.
He hung forward, pain and confusion blotting his thoughts, sucking in air painfully, his hands still tight on the control-stick, wondering why he could no longer see out of the cockpit, why the world had gone so red. Where was Ken? Nothing made any sense.
The mainspar broke, and the wings folded back, so that the faltering Defiant fell at full power in to the sea, blowing up as it hit. One second a well flown and lovely flying machine, the next a collection of shattered scrap metal.
Newton did not feel it, though, because he was already dead.
The men on the side of the little warship were soaked by the water thrown up by the explosion. Fragments of the wings and the still turning airscrew scythed in an arc over the forecastle, dangerously close, forcing the onlookers to duck.
The destroyer vibrated like a tin can as the shock-wave from the explosion slammed into it, threatening to cave in hull-plates.
Appalled, the gunners on the Destroyer, up until this moment shooting enthusiastically at both the RAF plane and the Luftwaffe fighters, stopped shooting as one.
All except for a light-calibre machine gun firing from the bridge.
Disdainfully ignoring the popgun firing defiance, the two Bf109’s that had shot down Newton, swept low on either side of the Shilton, before curving up and away as they headed for France, their victim leaving only a subsiding and expanding circle of disturbed water. In seconds the wind had blown away the thin skein of smoke.
Behind and above in the diving Hurricanes, the pilots of Yellow section saw the Defiant go down, and raged ineffectually.
“The Navy shot down our kite,” breathed young Burton over the R/T, horrified. And indeed, it did appear as if the ack-ack bursts peppering the sky around the British plane had plucked it from the air. Rose was silent with shock and sorrow.
“Yellow Leader to Yellow Three, shut up and stay in formation,” Grated Granny coldly.
They shot past the convoy, and this time, the appalled naval gunners remained silent.
The speed of their dive allowed them to close with the fleeing Bf109s, and Granny tried a testing burst at long range with his machine guns. Trails of smoke tore back from his guns.
They were just too far, although a piece of metal flicked from the hindmost 109, pirouetting and catching the light, but the enemy aircraft continued to fly as the pair put down their noses to take advantage of their higher speed in a dive.
Rose was keeping an eye for German fighters behind, when he became aware of a strange rattling against his Hurricane, like a sudden flurry of hailstones against a window pane. The thumping was against his wings, and he could see where a number of dents appeared on the wings.
Thinking they were under attack, he glanced again into his rear-view mirror, before realising the truth.
Spent cartridges and ammo links from Granny’s machine-guns were streaming back from his wings, and into his path, so that Rose flew his Hurricane through a shower of small metal casings.
He grinned humourlessly under his oxygen mask at his foolishness.
“Break, Yellow!” The scream seared through Rose’s ears, and he pulled back hard on the stick instinctively, kicking the rudder pedal.
Damn it! Bounced again! He hadn’t even seen anything! Bloody useless wingman he was! They were being bounced by a second group of enemy fighters. Why hadn’t Excalibur squadron called a warning?
The three Hurricanes broke away hard, splitting sharply from each other, Granny split-essing to face the new threat.
The sky immediately behind them was empty. They circled warily, but the feared Messerschmitts were not there.
“Who called out that warning?” Granny demanded. He was almost incoherent with rage.
The Bf109s, their pursuers checked
, disappeared gratefully into the distance, until they were quickly swallowed up by the haze.
“Yellow Three to Yellow One, I did, sir. I was being hit, so I called out the warning.” Burton sounded confused. His Hurricane turned slowly. Good lad, at least you’ve owned up.
“Did you see anything at all? Harry?”
Rose shook his head, “No, Yellow One, nothing.”
“Where the fuck are they, then?”
“Yellow Three to Yellow One, no, sir. I just felt some hits on my Hurricane. I thought, I was sure, we were under attack.” Poor Burton sounded close to tears.
“Those flipping Huns have cleared off as well, now, blast it!” Granny waggled his wings. “OK, can’t be helped, form up Yellow Section, we’ll re-join the squadron. Probably have to stay as escort until the relief for those poor sods in the Defiants turns up.”
Then, ominously, “I’ll speak to you later, Yellow Three, back at the ‘drome.”
Burton, you poor chap, thought Rose pityingly, I’ll bet any odds the hits you felt were the same ones I did. Except we weren’t under fire as I thought; it was only the spent cartridges from Granny’s guns. I’ll have a quiet word with you when we get back. If I say anything now, the boys will never let you forget it.
And Granny, red hot and denied vengeance, will string you up by your balls.
I’ll bet those blokes in the convoy will be wondering what the hell was wrong with us, what the sudden aerobatics were all about, why we let the Jerries get away from us when we had a slim chance of getting even.
He scowled beneath his mask in frustration.
But then he remembered his own startled reaction when the phenomenon had occurred, the way his heart had beaten painfully by the sudden hail of shell cases, and he felt ashamed.
He, too, had almost called out that they were under attack. The tension of the past few minutes drained out of him, and he suddenly felt very tired, and horribly dejected.
Men in the same uniform as his had just died, he’d witnessed the deaths, and the killers had escaped scot-free from the wrath of the avenging Hurricanes. We let them escape.
To So Few Page 17