Hurricane Squadron

by Robert Jackson

  The car moved smoothly through the city, heading north. The driver obviously knew his business, threading his way through a maze of side streets to avoid the main mass of traffic. Yeoman had no idea where they were going, but at least it was in the right direction.

  The built-up areas fell behind, and the traffic became less dense. The exodus from Paris was towards the south, away from the German threat. After a few more minutes, Yeoman looked ahead with sudden interest as an airfield appeared on the left-hand side of the road. The driver turned in at the main gate and stopped at a striped barrier. Beside it, a wooden sign proclaimed: Aéroport du Bourget.

  Two gendarmes approached the car and checked the passes of the driver and the three officers. One of the latter, who spoke fluent French, must have explained Yeoman’s presence, because one of the gendarmes eyed him briefly and then nodded, apparently satisfied. The barrier was raised and the car purred on, heading for a cluster of buildings on the far side of the airfield.

  A few aircraft stood in front of the hangars. One of them, a gleaming twin-engined machine, puzzled the pilot for a few moments until he recalled a photograph he had seen in Flight. It was a de Havilland Flamingo airliner, one of a trio which the RAF had pressed into service on the outbreak of war as VIP transports. It must, he thought, be the machine which had brought Churchill to Paris. His belief was confirmed by the presence, close by, of two sleek fighters. They were Spitfires, the first he had seen in France. They must have been detailed to escort the airliner.

  The car cruised on past a handful of French transport and communications aircraft and stopped at the end of the line beside a twin-engined biplane that bore RAF camouflage and markings. Yeoman identified it as a de Havilland Dragon Rapide; he knew that an RAF squadron, No. 81, used the machines for communications and light transport duties.

  An army corporal came running up and opened the rear door. The staff officers climbed out, the tall general returning the NCO’s salute. Yeoman got out too, wondering what to do. The general called him over. He towered a good head and shoulders above the pilot.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he said, ‘we are flying north to Norrent-Fontès. We propose to land at Amiens to disembark you. We shall be taking off in ten minutes. I suggest you report to the pilot of the aircraft.’

  Yeoman thanked him, came briefly to attention and walked over to the Rapide, poking his head through the door. There was no one about. He climbed inside and walked up the aisle between the seats, noting the carpeting and curtains that adorned the interior of the machine. Some people, he thought, certainly travel in style.

  He entered the cockpit and sat down in the right-hand seat, looking over the unfamiliar layout. The Rapide’s nose was well forward of the wings and the view was excellent.

  ‘Hello! What are you doing in my aeroplane?’

  Yeoman jumped, startled by the sudden voice. He started to get up as an RAF officer, a squadron leader, squeezed through the hatch behind him. The newcomer told him to stay where he was, and settled himself in the seat opposite.

  ‘You’re Sergeant Yeoman, I presume. I’ve just heard about you. Well, Yeoman, you’re a bit of a bloody nuisance, but we’ll do our best to get you where you want to be. My name’s Matthews.’ He turned and grinned at the young pilot. Yeoman noticed his grey hair, and the two rows of medal ribbons on his tunic. One of them was the Distinguished Service Order. Once again, his curiosity got the better of him.

  ‘Were you a pilot in the last war, sir?’ he asked. Matthews nodded.

  ‘It makes me feel really old when somebody asks that question,’ he grinned, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t deny it. I flew DH 9s with Trenchard’s bombing force in 1918, then went out to North Russia in ’19 with the Allied Intervention Force. That’s where I first came across the general.’ He jerked a thumb towards the passenger cabin.

  ‘The general?’ Yeoman asked.

  ‘Yes, General Ironside. Didn’t you know that’s who he is? Chief of the Imperial General Staff, no less. You’re in exalted company, son. He commanded the Murmansk-Archangel front during the Intervention, and a damn’ fine soldier he was, too.’

  We’re going to need a few like that to pull us out of this mess, Yeoman thought, although he didn’t voice his opinion. Matthews was, after all, a senior officer.

  Matthews busied himself with the starting checks and then motioned through the side window to an airman, who made sure the chocks were in position. The Rapide’s Gypsy engines started effortlessly; Matthews looked back into the cabin, making sure that his passengers were strapped in, and then signalled for the chocks to be pulled away.

  Matthews taxied out and turned the Rapide into wind, opening the throttles. The tail came up quickly and the biplane lifted cleanly into the air, settling down into a steady climb. Matthews took her up to four thousand feet. Yeoman noted the heading: 358 degrees magnetic. The Rapide laboured along at a hundred miles an hour.

  Yeoman asked the pilot if he had heard the latest news from the front. Matthews’s face became serious.

  ‘It’s not so good, I’m afraid,’ he told the younger man. ‘The Huns have broken through on the Meuse front, but I dare say you know all about that already. They’ve dropped paratroops all over Holland and their armour is knocking hell out of the Belgian Army. I flew up to Liège yesterday; the BEF were moving up to the Dyle, but they hadn’t made any serious contact by the time I left. I expect the picture’s changed by now, though.’

  The flight to Amiens lasted forty minutes. As the Rapide touched down, Yeoman saw that the airfield was stiff with British and French aircraft; there were Battles, Blenheims and Hurricanes everywhere, intermingled with French Moranes and Curtiss Hawks.

  The Rapide stopped outside the airfield buildings. Yeoman took his leave of Matthews and went back through the cabin, pausing to thank Ironside. The general nodded and wished him good luck. Yeoman opened the door and jumped down on to the grass, narrowing his eyes as the slipstream from the Rapide’s port propeller caught him. He made sure the door was shut, then ducked away past the wingtip, giving the thumbs-up to Matthews. The pilot waved back and the Rapide moved forward. Yeoman watched it as it took off and dwindled in the evening sky. It looked completely out of place in comparison with the angular lines of the warplanes, like a stately old maid who had somehow stumbled on a nest of pirates.

  Yeoman turned and walked towards the buildings. A wing commander emerged from a doorway, carrying a parachute. Yeoman approached him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. I’m Sergeant Yeoman, 505 Squadron. I’m reporting back after being shot down and I’m looking for my unit. I’m told they’re here.’

  The wing commander looked puzzled for a moment, then his face brightened. ‘Oh, yes, the new arrivals. They’re over there, I think.’ He indicated a cluster of tents half a mile away, on the other side of the airfield. Yeoman made out the camouflaged outlines of Hurricanes, parked nearby. He thanked the wing commander and started walking.

  The squadron was obviously on readiness. The pilots were lounging beside their aircraft. As he drew nearer, Yeoman felt a great upsurge of joy as he picked out the faces that had become so familiar to him in just a few short days. Jim Callender got up, grinning, and slapped him on the back. ‘Just look at it! Living proof that only the good die young!’

  Wynne-Williams’s moustache twitched. ‘Come on, George, have some tea and tell us what happened to you. You look as though you’ve been shooting bears and raping virgins, or rather the other way round.’

  ‘If I tell you,’ Yeoman said, falling gratefully into a deck-chair, ‘you won’t believe me.’

  He was right.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Twenty-nine thousand feet below, the Channel sparkled in the morning sun. Visibility was perfect, with both the French and British coasts clearly visible. Dungeness was dead ahead. It was a beautiful panorama.

  Yeoman was in no mood to enjoy it. He was frozen stiff, and having trouble with icing. The windscreen was opaque, making it hard to see Wynne-Will
iams’s Hurricane, a few hundred yards ahead and to the right, and harder still to see their quarry; a high-flying Dornier 17, three miles in front of them and still a thousand feet higher, streaming a long, arrow-straight condensation trail.

  It was the morning of 19 May. Yeoman had not flown since his return to the squadron, partly because the MO had forbidden it, and partly because the squadron had pulled back to Calais on the eighteenth. The picture of air strength at Amiens, Yeoman had soon discovered, had been an illusion; the Blenheims had belonged to two squadrons of No. 2 Group, based in England, and they had landed at Amiens to refuel before attacking enemy columns in Belgium. They had been shot to pieces.

  The Allied situation had changed dramatically for the worse over the past forty-eight hours. By 18 May, with two German armoured divisions sweeping down on Arras, it had become clear that the British Expeditionary Force could not stem the enemy advance through Belgium. The Belgian and French Armies were collapsing on either flank, and the BEF would have its work cut out to extricate itself from the trap that threatened to close around it.

  On the eighteenth, Lord Gort, the BEF’s commander, had ordered the evacuation to begin of wounded and non-combatant personnel from three main ports: Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk. Since it was expected that the Luftwaffe would try to interfere with the evacuations, 505 Squadron had been detailed to provide air cover over Calais and Boulogne. Farther up the coast, at Dunkirk, patrols would be carried out by the Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons of Fighter Command’s No. 11 Group, based in the south-east of England.

  Yeoman and Wynne-Williams had been on readiness that morning, spending an uncomfortable hour strapped into their Hurricanes. It had been a relief when, at nine o’clock, they had taken off in response to a sudden alert, climbing hard over Calais. They had circled the port several times at eighteen thousand feet before they sighted the slender contrail, crossing the coast a few miles to the north.

  The Dornier was fast. The two Hurricanes managed to close the distance a little, but then the German pilot poured on the coals and maintained his lead. Yeoman swore fluently to himself as the altimeter wavered around the 29,000-foot mark and refused to climb any higher. The performance of Wynne-Williams’s fighter was better, and it gradually began to draw away.

  In the distance, the Dornier’s contrail described a curve in the sky as the reconnaissance aircraft crossed the English coast near Dungeness and turned northeastwards, its mission apparently to photograph the coastal airfields as far as Manston. Wynne-Williams’s voice came over the radio.

  ‘George, we’ve got him. The bugger’s got to go home sometime. We’ll fly parallel to him for a bit.’

  The two Hurricanes turned up the Channel, keeping the coast on their port wingtips. The Dornier’s contrail crawled over Folkestone. Suddenly, it kinked sharply as the German pilot steep-turned. A few moments later it vanished. Two more trails appeared briefly like thin slashes of chalk, some distance away from the Dornier, then they too disappeared. No. 11 Group’s fighters, probably Spitfires at that height, were hot on the German’s tail and he was losing no time in getting clear.

  ‘Damn it, I’ve lost him. Keep your eyes peeled, George, he’ll be diving like hell.’

  Yeoman was the first to locate the Dornier again, its cruciform shape showing up darkly against the glittering surface of the sea. It was already several thousand feet lower than the Hurricanes and was crossing underneath them to their left. There was no sign of the fighters that were supposedly chasing it.

  Wynne-Williams winged over and dived in pursuit, followed by Yeoman. The Dornier was still diving, its pilot intent on getting down to wave-top height to prevent attacks from underneath. Yeoman was astonished by the bomber’s speed; the Hurricanes were doing four hundred miles per hour and more in the dive, but were closing with the Dornier painfully slowly. Perhaps the aircraft had been stripped of a lot of equipment to enable it to carry out its high-flying missions more effectively.

  The Dornier levelled out at five hundred feet and sped towards Cap Gris Nez, followed by the Hurricanes. Yeoman’s aircraft creaked and groaned alarmingly as it came out of its headlong plunge. The pilot felt slightly dizzy as the sea blurred under him, the wave-crests flashing past. A few moments earlier the Channel had looked like a glassy sheet, silent and peaceful; now it appeared angry and forbidding, as though ready to pluck the fleeting aircraft from the sky.

  The Dornier was gradually creeping towards them. Wynne-Williams was two hundred yards ahead of Yeoman, and the latter saw his Hurricane shudder as he opened fire at extreme range. The burst kicked up spray slightly to the left of the bomber. Wynne-Williams fired again. It was either a tremendous fluke, or a very expert piece of shooting. Smoke poured back from the Dornier’s port engine and the aircraft climbed steeply, losing speed rapidly. Wynne-Williams corrected his aim and fired again, chopping at the Dornier in short, deadly bursts. With both engines now on fire the bomber levelled out and twisted away across the sea, the pilot desperately trying to gain the coast. A parachute broke away, a thin yellow streamer with a shapeless bundle attached to it. It was swallowed up by the waves before it had a chance to deploy.

  The Dornier faltered and went into a descending turn to the right. It was finished, and Wynne-Williams knew it. He drew off to one side. Yeoman watched, fascinated, imagining the agony of the German pilot as he struggled in vain to control the dying aircraft. Yeoman had been an interested spectator throughout; it had been entirely Wynne-Williams’s show.

  The Dornier’s wingtip hit the water. A plume of spray shimmered in the sunlight. The next instant the bomber was gone. Wynne-Williams flew low over the spot and Yeoman followed him, looking down. The Dornier’s grave was marked by a spreading patch of oil and a few islands of wreckage, bobbing on the surface of the Channel.

  Yeoman jumped as a shadow flashed suddenly across his cockpit. He looked up, startled, then relaxed. Sitting a few feet away from his wingtip was the slender, shark-like shape of a Spitfire, presumably one of the aircraft that had been chasing the Dornier. The Spit’s pilot, in a gesture of supreme disgust at being robbed of his prey, stuck two fingers up at Yeoman, then stood his fighter on its wingtip and curved gracefully away towards the English coast. Yeoman watched it go, admiring the Spitfire’s slender fuselage and elliptical wings. He wondered if he would ever get his hands on one.

  ‘Come on, George, let’s go home.’

  Yeoman formed up alongside Wynne-Williams and the two Hurricanes set course for Calais, the pilots leaning out their fuel mixture as far as they dared. The chase had used up a lot of petrol. They landed at Calais-Marck airfield with only a couple of gallons to spare.

  By noon on 19 May, the Luftwaffe had become undisputed mistress of the sky over the battlefront. The battered remnants of the British Air Forces in France were regrouping on the Cherbourg peninsula, and apart from the depleted Hurricane squadrons were able to take no further part in the battle for the time being. The French, too, with much of their fighter and bomber strength wiped out on the ground, were utterly disorganized, and making desperate attempts to regroup south of the river Somme.

  The German armour was on the advance everywhere, supported by the fearful combination of Henschel spotter aircraft and Stuka dive-bombers. On 18 May, one of the few determined French armoured counterattacks — by the 4th Division Cuirassée at Montcornet — had been shattered by Stukas almost before it had had time to get under way. It was a bitter blow for the French division’s commander, a young colonel whose repeated requests for French spotter aircraft to work together with tanks had been ignored by the High Command. His name was Charles de Gaulle.

  In the north the Germans were gathering their resources for the big push designed to split the Allied armies in two and take the Panzer spearhead to the Channel coast. While Erwin Rommel’s armoured division prepared to by-pass Arras and encircle the British forces there — the Germans unaware that the British armour would soon give them a bloody nose and check their onrush for a short t
ime — General Heinz Guderian’s Panzer Corps massed on a line between Cambrai and Péronne, ready to sweep down and capture Arras before thrusting on to reach the sea at Abbeville, on the Somme estuary.

  On the afternoon of the nineteenth, small groups of high-flying German bombers began the Luftwaffe’s air offensive against Boulogne and Calais. The first attack, at two o’clock, took 505 Squadron completely by surprise. Taking advantage of scattered cloud cover, twelve Heinkels slipped over the top of Calais-Marck at fifteen thousand feet. While ten of them headed for the port, the other two turned and flew back over the airfield, unloading their bombs just as the pilots raced for their Hurricanes.

  Yeoman, whose Hurricane was in the process of being rearmed, heard the strange rustling noise of the falling bombs and threw himself down, hugging the grass, as the rustle swelled to an ear-piercing shriek. He never heard the explosions, but the ground heaved under him and the concussion struck him like a hammer-blow, jarring him from head to foot. Pebbles and clods of earth rained around him.

  He raised his head and looked around cautiously. A great cloud of dust and smoke hung over the centre of the airfield, across which the bombs had fallen, apparently without doing any real damage. He picked himself up stiffly and watched as two sections of Hurricanes raced through the smoke, the pilots tucking up their wheels as soon as they were airborne and climbing hard towards the coast, over which the German formation was turning at the end of its bombing run. He saw three or four columns of smoke shoot up from Calais, and a few moments later the boom of the explosions reached him.

  The second stick of bombs aimed at the airfield had fallen outside the perimeter, exploding among the white-painted houses of a small hamlet that lay half a mile from the outskirts of the village of Marck. Smoke and flames rose from it.