Thanks RedToo, good stuff and some great pics

Part 11. An early night fighter.

June, 1940

BRINGING DOWN A NIGHT RAIDER

BY A FLIGHT LIEUTENANT

Tuesday's was the first night raid over our part of the coast. When the enemy were detected I was ordered to go up and look for them between midnight and 1 a.m.

I flew around, peering into the gloom for some time, seeing nothing more than an occasional searchlight-beam snooping about the sky. I had almost begun to think that the Huns had managed to get away, when I suddenly spotted, a long way off, flashes from the ground and in the air.

"A.A. fire," I thought; "that means the enemy."

So I went over to have a look, and when nearly there saw a Heinkel sliding across the sky, really beautifully floodlit by our searchlights. A.A. fire was going off absolutely all around us. It really was a magnificent sight. After all, I had what you might call a ringside seat.

I can imagine the feelings of the chaps at the other end of the searchlight beams (and the feelings of the Ack.-ack. gunner too), turning the handles and twiddling the knobs—in action at last on their first night's raid—the first time searchlights up this way have had a chance to catch the enemy. You see, we can always have fun flying, whether the enemy comes round or not, but the searchlight and A.A. boys have to sit there in the open, wet or fine, and just wait. But that's by the way.

Well, now they really were at it. There was a simply terrific fireworks display in progress. The Heinkel looked to me rather like a puzzled old woman suddenly caught in the spotlight. I had come up more or less from behind and there he was just ambling and not quite knowing what to do.

As a matter of fact, I imagined the pilot was pretty well dazzled with all the lights on him.
I got into position right behind and just below, and got my sights on him and pressed the gun button. A shower of sparks flew out of the enemy, and clouds of smoke, and he wobbled a bit.

Then he went down in a slow spiral dive into the darkness. That is the last I saw of him, though I did catch the glare of his incendiary bombs on the ground. He must have jettisoned them as he dropped.

You feel more of a lone wolf during this night fighting than you do by day. We operate more on our own, but of course with our allies the guns and the searchlights.

I expect you have wondered as you watched searchlights at work how much good they would be. As a matter of fact, we have wondered, too, what real chance they have of lighting up the raiders without lighting us as well.

We have now had our answer. The co-operation between the air and ground defences really was a hundred per cent.


A searchlight of 210,000,000 candle-power probes the night sky with its beam.



Anti-aircraft women of the A.T.S. operating an identification telescope.




Sound Locator operated by women from the A.T.S.

Part 12 The Battle of France

July, 1940

A VETERAN PILOT RE-VISITS FRANCE

BY A PILOT OFFICER

Wing Commander: I hope you will forgive me this evening if I bring in a personal note. For I'm going to introduce to you an old friend of mine. Actually we were learning to fly together in 1913 before the last war. We trained together at the civil schools at Hendon on some of the curious and primitive machines of those early days—the comic box-kites and the funny little monoplanes which if they got off the ground at all staggered along painfully at about fifty miles an hour—rather different from the Wellingtons and the Hurricanes of to-day. But all the same, as you will hear later, it seems to have been quite a useful sort of training. Well, this friend of mine served all through the last war as a pilot in the R.F.C. and the R.A.F., and in 1918 ended up as a Wing-Commander with the D.S.O., the M.C. and the D.F.C. for his distinguished services.

Although he left the R.A.F. after the war he kept up flying and from then onwards took an active and prominent part in civil aviation. Then, at the beginning of the present war, although now fifty years of age, he felt that he was still capable of doing a useful job of work in the air as an active pilot, so he joined up again in the R.A.F.—but this time as a pilot officer, the equivalent of a second lieutenant. How far he was justified in doing this you will be able to judge for yourselves from an account he is going to give you of an exciting incident in France in which he took part the other day and for which he was awarded a bar to the D.F.C. he had won twenty-two years ago.

PILOT OFFICER: There were a good many of our aircraft in France about this time, standing by to meet the requirements of hard-pressed squadrons. Sometimes, extremely rapid evacuation had to be carried out and it wasn't always possible to get spare pilots for these aircraft at a moment's notice. Nor was it always possible to take airmen off operations to look after repairs. What we had to do, therefore, was to send out small detachments from home to do repairs and, when necessary, fly the aircraft back to England.

My job was to look after one of these relieving parties at Merville. It was a fine morning when we left England. The pilot and I chatted about the weather, and then, as we flew over France, about the pathetic streams of refugees cluttering up the roads below us. The pilot was one you all know. He is one of the many in our civil air merchant-service whose almost daily deeds are thrilling the Empire and gaining the admiration of their brothers in the Royal Air Force.

As we passed over the wooded country towards St. Omer, popping noises began to interrupt our conversation. At first we thought we were passing over French practice rifle and machine-gun ranges. But soon tracer bullets began shrieking up at us, and the pops became very sharp and nasty cracks. It was only then that we noticed about a dozen German tanks on the roadway under some trees outside a village. We could see quite plainly the Nazi swastika marked in black on a white circle covering the tops of the dull brown-and-green tanks. As we swooped over them, just over the tree-tops, the crews hurriedly drew some camouflaged netting over their markings. Then we caught sight of motor vehicles and troops who suddenly began diving into the ditches and firing at us. We flew lower still and hurried on.

When we got to Merville, the fleet of civil air transport quickly unloaded their food and ammunition and left again for England for more. The rest of us settled down to servicing the Hurricanes we'd come to rescue and soon the first was away in spite of it being badly riddled with bullet-holes.

The next one took longer, but by midday we were able to offer a fresh mount to a pilot who landed on us unexpectedly by parachute. He'd just had a desperate fight high overhead, thankfully accepted our offer and was soon off to rejoin his squadron on a strange mount—much to the astonishment of his flight sergeant.

It was soon lunchtime. We had a lovely chicken stew, with many vegetables, made for us by a sergeant of a Northern regiment who had become detached from his unit after a scrap with the Jerries, together with ten lads from somewhere round about Sunderland. The sergeant was in fine form. So far, he told me, this war had just been his cup of tea. Later in the afternoon I discovered why. For while refugees wandered up and down the road according to the direction from which the nearest gunfire and sniping seemed to be coming, there he was, joining in the Bren-gun carrier section and having a crack at the He.s and Me.s when they came too near to be healthy. It was a fine sight.

Just as we'd got the third Hurricane going, I was surprised to see one of our own aircraft leave a busy little dogfight, streak down towards us and drop the familiar little message-bag, telling me to bring the next serviceable Hurricane back home to England before nightfall. It was a strange sight in the sky—with a Tiger Moth and an Autogyro, bringing back sharp memories of peacetime flying, now floating around absolutely unconcerned on their message-carrying jobs. You might have thought they were helping the police to handle the traffic on Derby Day!

I was glad of this message to bring the Hurricane home for more reasons than one. The main reason, I think, was that—well, I wanted to test a theory. The theory is that having once been taught to fly by the R.A.F., it doesn't much matter what type of aircraft you're asked to handle—provided you remember to turn all the taps and push and pull all the knobs of a modern aircraft in the proper sequence, and have the good sense to enquire about the aircraft's peculiar habits from someone who knows her ways. Simple enough—if you have time. The unfortunate part about it was that I just didn't have time.

To cut a long story, the Merlin engine of my Hurricane took me off in grand style. Soon it throbbed gently into top gear. The boost came back, and the wheels came up and soon we were all set for Home, Sweet Home. I was above, in the air, without a care in the world—except that I was flying a machine I'd never handled before.

Soon I was to be disillusioned. Not long after the take off, the nasty "noises off" started. Then tracer-bullets began coming down at me from the hillsides. Foolishly I shot up to about 8,000 feet to sail straight into a perfect pattern of horribly noisy black A.A. bursts. An entirely unorthodox manoeuvre got me sideways and down out of this, but not before the keen eye of the Messerschmitt flight commander had registered and dived to the attack simultaneously. The strip he tore off shook me more than the A.A. gentleman had done a few seconds pre¬viously, and I slipped inwards towards the nasty noise and steeper down, changing the direction to meet the second strip from Number Two, from the other side, and wondering what the other four lads were up to above and behind.

Thereafter, as I had not had the time of means to get the Hurricane's guns serviceable, the chase went on up the village street and down a chateau drive and once almost through the chateau front door, until suddenly, twisting downstream in a wooded valley, I slipped out clear over some sand dunes and out to sea, where the fleet off Boulogne opened up on the pack at my heels. One salvo was enough for them, and I climbed up leisurely and thankfully and perhaps a little regretfully to look back at the smoke of battle round Calais and Boulogne, a weird picture in the misty red light of the setting sun, and on the other side of me at the quiet peaceful countryside of Thanet. Then, home to roost, as I had done so many times twenty-five years ago, thinking of my son and his regiment somewhere inland from Dunkirk, and wondering what kind of miracle could save them all, and if the people at home had any real picture in their mind's eye of the scene so close to them on the other side. The refugees, the burning villages, the noise and smoke of battle, and how they would stand up to the onslaught if and when it came and would they remember the defeat in Flanders with no less honour than the victories which will follow in the last rounds of their fight for freedom.

... with a Tiger Moth and Autogyro floating around on their message-carrying duties:





RedToo.

Part 13 Air/ Sea Rescue.

July, 1940

FOURTEEN HOURS IN A DINGHY

BY A FLIGHT LIEUTENANT

We were a few miles off the Dutch coast on our way back from a big raid over Germany when the port engine of our aircraft cut. We had plenty of height at the time so I told my wireless operator to send out a broadcast to say we were returning on one engine. After ten minutes' flying, however, the starboard engine started missing and we began to lose height. When we were about 3,500 feet I told my operator to put out an S O S and sent the crew to their emergency stations.

There was very low cloud at the time we came out at about 500 feet. It was raining, and we did not actually see the water until we almost hit it. We tried to put the aircraft down on the water as gently as we could, but a rather heavy sea was running at the time and we hit a wave and the aircraft nose-dived in and went under. Three of the crew got out of the front hatch over the pilot's head, but the remaining three escaped from the hatch in the centre of the aircraft. It wasn't too easy for them. The others were actually under water and I could see them clutching the fuselage and trying to haul themselves up.

When we had all got into the dinghy we discovered that the rear-gunner had the wireless aerial wrapped hopelessly knotted round his neck. We had no pliers but somehow the navigator managed to lay hands on a knife with which we cut the gunner free. After four and a half minutes the aircraft went down.

The first thing that happened when we got into the boat was that the chaps got cramp. The first half hour was hell. We then decided to chuck off all the clothes we could spare. We threw away our shoes and flying boots, except the best pair, which we used as paddles and for baling out the dinghy. At the time heavy sea was running and drizzle was falling. It was a tough job getting the dinghy balanced. One of us lay in the bottom of the boat and five sat round the edge.

I was very pleased to discover that the navigator had had the foresight to salvage the Very pistol and three cartridges.

It must have been about seven o'clock in the morning when an aircraft which we took for a German flew over us. We fired a Very light but it took no notice of us and went on. Two hours later another aircraft, this time a British plane in search of us, flew straight over the top of us, but despite our signals did not see us. We then discovered that the Very cartridges had become swollen owing to the water and we had to spend about half an hour tearing off pieces of cardboard until we eventually got one to fit the pistol.

We tried to steer a course due west hoping to reach England by paddling with the shoes, when at eleven-twenty we sighted another aircraft coming straight towards us. We waited until he was close and then fired a Very light—our last one, which the pilot spotted. He dived over us and then we recognised the machine as one of our own squadron. He circled round us for about two and a half hours and now and then sent messages with a signalling lamp saying that help was coming. But help didn't come until about four o'clock in the afternoon when we spotted an R.A.F. speed-boat coming towards us. Two and a half hours later we were landed.

It was a pretty thick fourteen hours I can tell you, but some¬how or other we managed to keep our spirits up, even after we discovered a leak in the dinghy and had to get the front gunner to stick his toe in it.

The rear gunner sang to us for an hour and a half without stopping—Scottish songs, and finished up by swinging them. We also had a sweepstake as to what time we should be picked up, which was won by the wireless operator. Unfortunately, he was hours out—on the wrong side. But I still think the longest hours were whiled away by an argument we had about the wire¬less operator who said he had been born with a caul and therefore couldn't be drowned—even though he could not swim. He was right after all.


Collapsible rubber dinghy automatically ejected from aircraft brought down on the sea.


Air/ Sea Rescue Service at work.

Part 14

July, 1940

BOMBING THE SCHARNHORST

BY A SERGEANT AIR-OBSERVER

The speaker is a Sergeant member of an air crew. He joined the R.A.F. on February 6, 1939. He has been on active service since the outbreak of war and is regarded as one of the most experienced men in his squadron.

My job is that of air observer, which means that I am navigator, bomb aimer, and front gunner. There are five of us in the crew, and our routine work is long distance night bombing.

We were ready to start as usual on Monday night, but when we reported for final instruction we found that a new job had been arranged. Information had come through that the Scharnhorst was in a floating dock at Kiel, for repairs, and we were to bomb it.

We all had a feeling of general jubilation. We were glad to have the job.

When the time came, with the good wishes of those who had to stay behind, our squadron got into the air very quickly. I gave my captain the first course to steer, and soon we were on our way, climbing through heavy, wet cloud. The temperature dropped considerably and was actually below freezing point, but apart from that it looked as though the weather was going to be good to us.

We crossed over without incident until we reached the enemy coast, when searchlights fingered the sky without finding us.

By this time it was a very clear night and we could see water reflections sixty miles away. Visibility was excellent. We flew on over enemy territory, meeting occasional A.A. fire and search-lights but we ignored them and picked up the part of the eastern coast line we were looking for, and with our maps pinpointed our exact position. Then we flew on to our target—the floating dock and the Scharnhorst.

Everything was very quiet. The estuary was plainly marked, and as we approached we spotted the German balloon barrage, but still no ground defences were in action.

It was now dead midnight. Just at that moment we saw the A. A. batteries open up on another of our aircraft that was making its attack. We located the position of the defences and decided how we would go in. We were flying fairly high. When we were in position, I gave the Captain the word "Now, sir", and he replied with "Over she goes", and, shutting off his engine, dived to the attack.

I directed my line of sight on the floating dock, which stood out sharply in the estuary, and gave necessary correction to the captain. Searchlights caught us up in the dive, but we went under the beam. Then I had to put the captain into an almost vertical dive as we came on the target. The Scharnhorst couldn't be missed; she stood out so plainly.

By this time a curtain of fierce A.A. fire was floating around us. The defences seemed to be giving everything they had got, and I could clearly see tracers of the pom-pom on the deck of the Scharnhorst at work. Besides that, the shore batteries and other ships in the harbour were doing their best to blow us out of the sky.

We took several heavy jars from exploding shells. The lower part of the starboard tail plane was blown away, the main spar was hit, we got a two-foot hole through the tailplane, which broke a rib, and narrowly missed our rudder post and we had another hole a foot wide through the fuselage.

The rear gunner said he expected to be launched into space any minute, because he felt sure the turret had been shot away. He gets the worst of the jolts back there and, on pulling out of a dive he swung through a much wider arc. But still everything held together, thanks to the splendid material and fine workman-ship that went to the making of our aircraft.

We came down very low to make sure, and when we were dead in line I released a stick of bombs. At that moment, I could only see the ship—gun turrets, masts and control tower. A vast sheet of reddish yellow flame came from the deck, and what seemed to be the heart of the Scharnhorst, right from the edge of the dock across her. The flashes lit the whole estuary, and while we banked to go over the town it seemed as though I was looking up at other ships anchored in the estuary.

We had finished bombing and went off, pursued by A.A. fire, and then circled for height over the quiet waters of the harbour. While we were doing this, we could see fires breaking out on the dockside, and our own comrades going in, one after the other to do their stuff. We saw their bombs exploding dead in the target area. The fires got bigger, and there were a lot of explo¬sions that seemed to come from the middle of the fires until they merged into one vast inferno. One explosion outdid all the others and it was probably either an ammunition dump or oil tanks.

When we began to climb we realised the damage that had been done to us, and so, on reaching height, I gave the captain a course for home. But while we were still over the estuary at only about 1,000 feet, a German A.A. ship opened fire. I turned my front gun and pumped about two hundred rounds at him and he ceased fire.

We flew on down the enemy coast. The rear gunner was chattering all the time something about the fires. We didn't get what he meant at first, but when we were over the coast we turned the aircraft so that we could have a look and we actually pin¬pointed the position, from which we could see it—I don't mean see the glow in the sky, but the actual fire. This distance was eighty-five miles. Then we sent a signal to base, giving our position and telling them that the aircraft was damaged so that they would know where to search for us if anything untoward did happen.

That was the last message we were able to send as we flew into a storm which earthed the aerial and the radio went up in smoke.

Still, damaged as we were, after crossing three hundred and fifty miles of sea, we struck our point only three miles off our bearing, and came quietly home and made a smooth landing. We were bubbling over with excitement at such a successful night's hunting—a bit tired but pretty certain that the Scharnhorst will be unserviceable for many months to come.


Loading a Wellington with 250lb bombs.


A German coastal battery.

RedToo.

Excellent pics!

Part 15.

July, 1940

A NIGHT FIGHT

BY AN AUXILIARY SQUADRON LEADER

The following story of a night combat is told by a young Squadron Leader of the R.A.F. who was awarded the D.F.C

Night fighting is a fascinating game. It is rather like a game of rather noisy hide-and-seek or, better still, it is just like a game my brother and I used to play some years ago. We used to climb down into a large maze of stone quarries near our home and then start stalking each other. Our ammunition was sharp stones and the loser the first one to be hard hit. We used to play for hours wriggling on our stomachs slowly gaining a good position and then a hard throw. My brother could throw a cricket ball almost a hundred yards, so the tension was considerable.

The other night at midnight the operational phone rang and I received orders to patrol a certain line. As I ran out to my fighter plane I could hear the sirens wailing in a nearby town. There was no moon and quite a lot of cloud.

I took off and climbed through the clouds. I was excited, for I had waited for this chance for the previous three nights, sitting in a chair all night dressed in my flying clothes and one of those yellow painted rubber life jackets which we call Mae Wests. They are painted yellow so that if we are swimming for hours we can be more easily seen in the water. I had waited from dusk to dawn but nothing whatsoever would come our way, but this night they obviously were coming.

I climbed to my ordered height and remained on my patrol line. After about an hour I was told by wireless that the enemy were at a certain spot flying from N.W. to S.E. Luckily I was approaching that spot myself. The searchlights which had been weaving about beneath light cloud suddenly converged at a spot. They illuminated the cloud brilliantly and there silhouetted on the cloud flying across my starboard beam were three enemy aircraft.

I turned left and slowed down slightly. One searchlight struck through a small gap and showed up the whole of one plane. I recognised the plane as a Heinkel 111. One of the enemy turned left, I lost sight of the other. I fastened on to the last of the three. I got about one hundred yards behind and below where I could clearly see his exhaust flames. As we went out of the searchlights and crossed the coast he went into a shallow dive. This upset me a bit for I got rather high, almost directly behind him. I managed to get back and opened my hood to see better. I put my firing button to fire and pressed it. Bullets poured into him. It was at point-blank range. I could see the tracer disappearing inside but nothing seemed to happen, except he slowed down consider¬ably. I almost overshot him, but put the propeller into the full fine and managed to keep my position.

I fired again in four bursts and then noticed a glow inside the machine. We had been in a shallow dive and I thought we were getting near the sea, so I fired all the rest of my ammunition into him. The red glow got brighter. He was obviously on fire inside. At five hundred feet I broke away to the right and tried to follow but overshot, so I did not see him strike the water. I climbed and at a thousand feet pulled off a parachute flare. As the flare fell towards the sea I saw the Heinkel lying on the water, a column of smoke was blowing from his rear section. I circled twice but there was no movement; no one tried to climb out so I turned and flew for home.


A Hurricane night-fighter taxis to take off.

Excellent pictures !!!
if you're interested in seeing many of these pictures but in original RAF rare archival footage in good quality , I am uploading slowly tons of RAF rare footage plus will soon post Korean Air War documentary and guncam footage

http://www.youtube.com/user/ChampionFx

Thanks for the link Zlin.

Part 16:

July, 1940

THE OBSERVER CORPS WAITS FOR THE ENEMY

BY A MEMBER OF THE OBSERVER CORPS

It is midnight at one of the posts of the Observer Corps near a small country town somewhere in England. I am one of the crew on duty. My mate has just said it isn't a bad night but he wishes it were a bit warmer. And so do I, for I call it decidedly chilly, even for an English midsummer. It's dark, too, for the waning moon has not yet risen, and the stars don't seem to have much brightness about them.

We came on duty at ten o'clock, just as it was getting dark, and since then we've been watching the skies and listening, as we have watched and listened since the war began. But the night is quiet. The wind has blown away the rain-clouds which threatened a wet night, and has now died down. My mate and I discuss the prospects of a raid. He thinks it most likely that Jerry will come over a bit later on—when the moon rises.

Suddenly our telephone bell rings. A message from head-quarters: "Keep a sharp lookout—we're expecting a spot of trouble." My mate and I stand-to with increased vigilance. But all is quiet. A little breeze brings the scent of new-mown hay across the meadows. The river murmurs as it wanders below us on its way to the sea. All is as it has been for centuries—the war is a thousand miles away.

The bell rings again. This time the voice at the other end is a little more explicit. Jerry, the gentleman who drops the bombs, is definitely about. Certain figures and directions are given, and on the map we are able to trace his course from the spot where he last disclosed his unwelcome presence. The telephone is very busy now, and we hear our neighbouring posts take up the tale as they pick up the sound of the raider and pass him on to the next post, and the next. Still we can hear no sound of him—he is too far away yet. Suddenly the air-raid sirens—a melancholy sound at the best of times but in the dead of night a most depress¬ing performance. And when they have died away we are able to listen again. Our nearest neighbour now has the raider within his hearing, and, on the telephone, we hear him reporting the track of the plane across the sky. Will he come towards us? We wonder. At last we hear him, but he is still a long way off and our neighbour hasn't finished with him yet. Faintly and inter¬mittently at first, then louder we hear him and finally our neigh¬bour passes him on to us. And now we start to track him; we hear him quite plainly now. There's no gunfire yet, but we can picture the anti-aircraft gunners behind their guns waiting for the moment when he comes within the probing beams of those search-lights. On and on comes the raider—a lone machine, we decide. Suddenly there's a flash and a report and a light in the sky. He's dropped a bomb—and another—and another.

My mate and I are very busy now. It is vitally important that every movement of the raider should be followed and reported, and we watch and listen for every change in his height or direc¬tion. Ah, he's turning now, coming straight towards us—his engine becomes suddenly louder. On he comes, louder again now, turning again till he strikes his course for home. Fainter and fainter grows his engine, and at last we pass him back to our neighbour, a little regretfully. We had hopes he would have shown himself for just one moment—just long enough, as my mate puts it, for the boys to crack off at him. But he is a long way from home yet, and he has many perils of British fighters and anti-aircraft guns to face before he can say he is safe. On the telephone we hear him being passed on from one post to the next.

Before long the sirens sound again—this time the long sustained note of the "all clear". Gradually the sound of activity in the little town beneath us dies away. The worthy country folk return to their beds, and my mate and I settle down once again to our routine job of watching and listening.



Using range and direction equipment to watch the skies around London.


Ready to transmit details to the control centre.


An Observer Corps control room which receives reports from outlying observation posts. Information is then passed to regional centres in direct touch with Fighter Command.

Nice pics and stories , keep it up

Part 17.

July, 1940

AIR BATTLE OVER THE CHANNEL

BY A FLYING OFFICER

The following description of one of the biggest air battles since raids on this country began is given by a young Fighter pilot who fought in the battle. He is a flying officer and was recently awarded the D.F.C. On Wednesday he destroyed one Me. 109 and helped to destroy a Dornier 215. His squadron that day shot down their fiftieth enemy aircraft.

I suppose many people who watched the air battle from the shore saw a lot more than I did, although I was in it. As you can imagine, you don't see anything but your own particular part of the show when you are actually fighting.

Our squadron was ordered to fly to the spot where ships were being attacked.

In a few minutes we had reached the scene. We were at 8,000 feet, the clouds were about 2,000 to 3,000 feet above us, and below we saw very clearly a line of ships and a formation of bombers about to attack.

The bombers were between 100 to 200 feet below us. There were twenty-four Dorniers altogether and they apparently in¬tended to attack in three ways. The first bunch of bombers had already dropped their bombs when we got there and the second formation was about to go in. The third wave never delivered an attack at all. It was a thrilling sight I must confess, as I looked down on the tiny ships below and saw two long lines of broken water where the first lot of bombs had fallen. There were two distinct lines of disturbed water near the ships and just ahead were fountains of water leaping skywards from bombs newly dropped. In a second or two the sea down below spouted up to the height of about 50 feet or more in two lines alongside the convoy.

Our squadron leader gave the order to attack. Down we went. He led one flight against a formation of bombers and I led my flight over the starboard side. It was a simultaneous attack. We went screaming down and pumped lead into our targets. We shook them up quite a bit. Then I broke away and looked round for a prospective victim, and saw, some distance away, a Dornier lagging behind the first formation. I flew after it, accompanied by two other members of my flight, and the enemy went into a gentle dive turning towards the French coast. He was doing a steady 300 miles an hour in that gentle dive, but we overtook him and started firing at him.

He was in obvious distress. When fifteen miles out from the English coast we turned back to rejoin the main battle.

I was just turning round when I saw an Me. 109 come hurtling at me. He came from above and in front of me, so I made a quick turn and dived after him. I was then at about 5,000 feet and when I began to chase him down to the sea he was a good 800 yards in front. He was going very fast, and I had to do 400 miles an hour to catch him up, or rather to get him nicely within range. Then, before I could fire, he flattened out no more than 50 feet above the sea level, and went streaking for home. I followed him, and we still were doing a good 400 miles an hour when I pressed the gun button. First one short burst of less than one second's duration, then another, and then another, and finally a fifth short burst, all aimed very deliberately. Suddenly the Messerschmitt's port wing dropped down. The starboard wing went up, and then in a flash his nose went down and he was gone. He simply vanished into the sea.

I hadn't time to look round for him, because almost at the precise moment he disappeared from my gun sights I felt a sting in my leg. It was a sting from a splinter of my aircraft, which had been hit by enemy bullets. There were some Messerschmitt 109s right on my tail. Just as I had been firing at the enemy fighter which had now gone, three of his mates had been firing at me. I did a quick turn and made for home, but it wasn't quite so easy as all that. My attacker had put my port aileron out of action, so that I could hardly turn on the left side. The control column went rough on that side too, and then I realised that my engine was beginning to run not quite so smoothly.

There were no clouds to hide in except those up at 10,000 feet and they seemed miles away. Practically all my ammunition had gone, so it would have been suicide for me to try and make a fight of it. All I could hope for was to get back home. I watched my pursuers carefully. When they got near me I made a quick turn to the right and saw their tracer bullets go past my tail. I gained a bit on them and then they overtook me again, and once more I turned when I thought they had me within range. I did that at least twelve times. All the time I was climbing slightly and when I reached the coast I was at 2,000 feet. My course had been rather like a staircase. They had not hit my aircraft after that first surprise attack and finally, on the coast, they turned back.

I went on and landed at my home aerodrome, got a fresh Hurricane, and rejoined my squadron before going on another patrol.


Hurricanes.


Vapour trails signal the start of an air battle.


Dorniers passing Beachy Head.

Part 18.

July, 1940

AIR LOG

A BOMBER PILOT'S ADVENTURES

BY A PILOT OFFICER

This Pilot Officer has been in the service for eighteen months. Aged twenty-two, he was born in Co. Derry, Northern Ireland.

LONG distance bombing is generally just routine work without incident. Still, most bomber pilots come in for unusual experi¬ences sometimes. Mine came all in a bunch. They began in France towards the end of May when I was the second pilot of an aircraft detailed to bomb bridges over the River Oise and so hold up the German advance.

We started just after dusk, and to identify the target the captain had to come down to about 300 feet. The Germans opened up an intense barrage of anti-aircraft fire which hit the radiator. The engine did not fail immediately, so we bombed at 800 feet and the observer was able to see the bursts on the bridge.

Then we climbed. At 3,000 feet the engine gave out and then, when we were about twenty miles south of Amiens, it caught fire. The captain told us to jump. We did, one after the other, in the dark. The intercommunication system was out of action and the captain had to see us all away before he baled out last of all.

That meant we were all well separated when we got down, but hearing the rattle of refugee carts on the road we all made for the noise, and the captain, the wireless operator and myself met in a little village where we were directed to a house where they spoke English. Reaching the house we found the family packing up to join the unending stream of people on the same trek. The Germans were in Amiens, but we did not know that.

Harried as they were, that family gave us each two raw eggs and a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine before they went. We searched for the aeroplane, hoping to meet the other two members of the crew. We did not find them but found the air¬craft burned out where it had crashed. As there was no need for us to do anything more to it, we set off for Beauvais, but changed our direction very soon. French soldiers who had just left the Germans, told us where they were.

So instead we made for Rouen and walked from half-past two in the morning till about one o'clock in the afternoon, along roads crowded with a pitiful procession of refugees in every kind of vehicle, or on foot. Some were in farm carts, some in motor cars that gasped at every turn of the wheel and were so heavily laden that it was a miracle they held together. Others were on bicycles with little carts trailing behind, even perambulators were used. They had been machine-gunned on their way and nearly all of them must have suffered, because whenever an aeroplane—any aeroplane—was heard or seen they hopped into ditches asking us if it were friendly.

At one o'clock in the afternoon we were arrested by a French captain who questioned us closely. When we had satisfied him that we weren't German parachutists he got hold of some milk, bread and chocolate and arranged transport for us to a town about twenty-eight kilometres from Rouen.

That place was expecting an attack and everybody was clearing out, leaving the British troops to do what they could. They were fighting hard and in a tight corner themselves, but they gave us a long drink of lemonade and fixed us up as well as they could.
We went on to the Prefect of Police looking for transport. It seemed hopeless. There was no transport at all, but while we were talking with him a rat-trap of an old Ford—the original T model—was pushed in and the owner begged petrol. The Prefect promised some petrol only if the motorist would give us a lift. We got it, but half way on the journey the Ford broke down. Yet our luck seemed to be turning and we got a lift in an Army ambulance for ten miles, and then an R.A.S.C. wagon took us right into Rouen. The rest was easy—we were taken to headquarters and sent home on a refugee ship.

Our rear gunner got home a few days later. He had been marched what seemed to be half way across France at the point of a bayonet. He, too, had been taken for a parachutist. The fifth member of the crew was probably taken prisoner by the Germans.

A fortnight later, I was promoted to be captain of aircraft and began another series of adventures. On my second raid as captain, we had only been in the air for half an hour when a flare was accidentally let off inside the fuselage and began to blaze furiously. I turned for home.

The second pilot went back to see what had happened and with the wireless operator and observer helping tried to get the flare out, and fight the fire, while I stayed at the controls.

The fumes had carried to the rear-gunner and were choking him so I told him to jump. Shortly afterwards the forward cabin filled so I ordered the rest out and looked round. The fuselage was filled with smoke but the fire seemed to be slowing down. Probably the flare had burned its way through and fallen out. So I decided to try to land. We were only about five miles from an aerodrome and I landed and looked for the crew. They had dropped all over the place, of course, but were all safe. Safe enough, but treated as suspicious characters by the police. In fact they came back in Police escort—parachutists again.

Shortly after this we were detailed to attack a target in the Ruhr and were expecting to sight it at any moment when we were caught in a blaze of searchlights and a barrage of heavy anti-aircraft fire. I could not shake the searchlights off—or the barrage. In fact they were hitting us. We felt a few jolts and one seemed to come flat amidships. The rear-gunner said later that there had been bursts all round us filling the sky with little puffs that showed up in the moonlight.

The only thing I could do was to get out of range, which I did, and went back again to look for the target.

We were off our original track so we made for an alternative objective. Just as I was running up on it a Messerschmitt 109 came at us from behind and below. We were about 9,000 feet up then and the Messerschmitt had us against the moon. It was a beautiful clear night. The first thing we knew was that a lot of stuff was zipping through the aircraft. I had no idea that it was a fighter because as the intercommunication system had been shot away the rear gunner could not tell me.

I continued my run and the burst stopped. Another one came, though, and then I realised it must be a fighter. I turned steeply to port just in time to see the old Messerschmitt going down in an inverted dive. The rear gunner had got him. He had held his fire until the fighter was right on him before letting him have it. Then in the middle of dropping our bombs on the target the starboard engine which had been hit by enemy bullets caught fire.

I gave orders to stand by to bale out, and the second pilot came up and said, "Not so fast. Let's have a crack at getting it out."

We did get it out, stopped the engine, jettisoned the rest of the bombs and headed for home. Nursing the other engine, we reached the Dutch coast at 2,000 feet steadily losing height, so again the crew were given the option of bailing out over Holland or heading out to sea in the hope that a destroyer would pick us up. They've done that before—they're good at it.

I did not know until we were well on the way home that the wireless operator and the observer had been wounded in the scrap, but the wounded wireless operator managed to fix his instruments and the observer got back to take over navigation, while the second pilot looked after the crew in case a quick exit was needed.

Everyone of them decided to go on. They said they didn't want to be a—something—prisoner-of-war, so with each of us at our job we headed out to sea.

Eventually we were down to within 400 feet of the surface and decided to stand by in case we were forced into it. The wireless operator sent out his SOS.

I was at the controls and opened up the port engine further than I had ever dared up to that time in a last effort to make England.

We struggled on for another couple of hours with the wireless operator giving me the course and reached the south coast. As we could not climb over the cliffs we flew along looking for somewhere to come in. Our petrol was nearly gone, the under¬carriage and flaps had been damaged by anti-aircraft fire and we decided to come down near the first friendly-looking town we could see.

Ultimately we landed in the sea half a mile from a popular resort. The second pilot threw the dinghy out so enthusiastically that he threw himself out with it. We all climbed in and floated about, waiting for a rescue party, sending up Very lights to indicate our position.

We had already been seen, and almost immediately about twelve rowing-boats were coming towards us with the Police and A.R.P. wardens. They took us ashore, gave us hot baths and dry clothes, soup and tea, and one dear old lady, who had been up all night because there had been an air-raid alarm, cooked us breakfast. The observer who was rather seriously wounded, but is better now, was taken to hospital. We telephoned to our commanding officer, who said, "Have a night in London and come on up"—which we did.

Then I had some leave and went back to routine stuff.


Refugees, France, 1940.


London, 1940.

Part 19.

July, 1940

A RAID ON NORWAY

BY A FLIGHT COMMANDER

I am a Flight Commander in a Squadron attached to the Coastal Command. We are based in Scotland, and when I was last in London I was actually taken for a Scotsman, but, as you may guess, my home is in Canada—Vancouver, British Columbia—in fact, in some ways, Scotland is quite like home—pine trees, moun¬tains, and plenty of snow in the winter.

We've been pretty busy in the last few weeks with our Ameri¬can-built Hudson aircraft. It's a mixed type of work that falls to the Coastal Command.

We spend most of our time over the North Sea doing recon¬naissance work, looking for U-boats, and escorting convoys. These are comparatively peaceable occupations, although you may run into German aircraft doing the same job from the other side.

But sometimes you get an operation which breaks the monotony.

We had a bit of excitement the other day when orders came through for us to attack some shipping in a Norwegian harbour.

Our leader was our Wing Commander and we had a talk in his office before starting, discussing the method of attack, and then we got ready for the flight.

Soon after we left we ran into mist, fog and rain, and had to fly blind for about half an hour. There was a possibility that the bad weather might spoil the fun, but nearer to the Norwegian coast, it cleared.

In the half light the scores of little islands were a greyish-brown colour, with the sea a darker shade. The wide fjord showed up almost black ahead.

We flew into it, keeping level with the tops of the surrounding mountains. We kept on until we had a big, snow-covered moun¬tain between us and the harbour. We skipped over the top of this mountain and flew down the other side so close to the snow that we almost seemed to be tobogganing down it.

In a few minutes we were below the snow level, skimming the rocks and the tops of the pines.

The wing commander was leading, with five of us streaming along behind.

That was just about the moment that the guns opened up on us. Batteries on the mountain-side behind started firing down from above, and anti-aircraft posts on each flank and in front let us have all they'd got. Streams of tracer shells coming at us made a criss-cross pattern all round, and there were bursts of black smoke ahead where the heavy stuff was exploding. It was really a fireworks display, and, actually, it looked very nice—if you were in a position to appreciate it.

Another few seconds, and we were down over the harbour. Machine gunners were shooting from the windows of the hotels on the waterfront. One of our rear gunners sprayed the buildings with bullets as we passed—and the windows emptied like magic.

The guns on either side were firing so low that they were probably hitting each other as we went between them. They didn't touch us and, as a matter of fact, none of our six aircraft was so much as scratched.
The ships we were after were lying at anchor—some against the quays, and some moored in the harbour. We dropped our bombs on and around them and shot off towards the sea. As we looked back, we could see the smoke and flames caused by the explosions.

We had an even more spectacular party over the same harbour, later, when we paid a return visit and blew up an ammunition dump. I arrived by myself, a little early for the appointment, and decided to start the ball rolling. It was very early dawn, and I could just pick out the little huts on the end of the quay which we knew contained ammunition. (I'd seen photographs of them before leaving, taken by another aircraft of the squadron.)

Two of my bombs, and possibly more, scored direct hits on the dumps. We were about 2,500 feet up, but even there the force of the explosion lifted the aircraft as if it were riding a wave.
We went right over the hill and did a right turn and circled back round the harbour to see what damage we had done.

Growing from the remains of the ammunition dump was a huge mushroom of black smoke, going up to 2,000 feet. Its base was a fiery red mass, and higher up it was pierced through and through by flames and pieces of burning debris flying through the air.

Other aircraft which arrived later saw the fire still burning. We all returned from that trip safely.

Another job was the occasion when we bombed a group of enemy warships. To give honour where it is due, I must raise my hat to the German naval gunners. We were flying at 15,000 feet, but they kept planting their heavy ack-ack so close to us that we could see the flash of the bursts before the smoke appeared (the burst has to be VERY close for you to see more than just the smoke). We could feel the aircraft vibrating from the explosions. It was continually jerking, as though it had been kicked by a giant. All six of our aircraft were hit by bits of high explosive shell, but we all got back to our base—and I might mention as a tribute to the maintenance staff that the six were all flying again the next day.

On one of our raids in the north of Norway, we used the Midnight Sun to light us to our objective, which was an aerodrome. We dropped numbers of high explosive and incendiary bombs on that occasion, and left several fires behind us.

Perhaps our most successful attack on an enemy aerodrome was when we dropped ninety bombs in less than a minute. This particular aerodrome had hardly been used, and was tucked into the side of a hill. With infinite trouble, the Germans had built new wooden runways which looked as smooth as a skating rink when we arrived, but were burning merrily after our bombing. We counted forty fires when we left, some of them in the woods where the aircraft were probably hidden, and others in the huts around the side of the aerodrome.



Norwegian carpenters lay wooden paving on an airfield. The aircraft are Bf 109E-1s.


Bf 109Es of JG 77 on a Norwegian airfield.

Part 20.

July, 1940

A BOMBING RAID ON GOTHA

By a Polish Group Captain

I was most pleased to have this opportunity of being with the Royal Air Force in action for the first time. For me it was very enjoyable and very profitable to have had this experience. The impression that is most strong in my mind is the excellent collaboration of the crew. It was as though they had worked together for years and years. Each one was so efficient and so calm, and all of them most confident and working so smoothly together. I had never imagined that such a high standard could be obtained. As in sport one talks of the team spirit, so in these British Bomber Squadrons they talk of the crew spirit.

On this night we were to bomb the aircraft factory at Gotha. It is here that some of the Messerschmitt fighters and training aircraft are assembled. The factory is also engaged in the production of heavy tanks. When we have set off from our base the navigation is very, very correct and most exact. I am astonished at this accuracy because the conditions are not good and for the most part of our trip we are flying blind in the clouds.

We are going, on this occasion, a little north of the Ruhr. A.A. fire and the searchlights there are very strong and the pilot is all the time manoeuvring and varying his height and speed. Several times we have been held by three, four or five searchlights together in a bundle. Some of the A.A. fire comes quite close, making the aeroplane bump about but we are not hit.

Suddenly I hear machine-gun fire from another plane. We are now near Cassel. Just afterwards I hear, three times, firing from the rear of our own aircraft. I cannot see anything because I am in the front. The whole of this lasts a very short space of time. Perhaps a minute—no more. Then the pilot says to me: "One Me. down. Very good." He has the report from his gunner in the rear turret.

We have approached our target and it is quite easy to find the factory because the machine going before us has dropped bombs and we have seen the explosions and the fires from them. Our pilot does a run, then he takes the direction of the factory and we drop our bombs. Afterwards he makes a special turn to see what is the effect of the bombing, and it is possible for me to see bright fires burning. Over the target there is very little firing at us, but coming home we have once more for a period this heavy fire and searchlights. But the pilot just laughs and puts his fingers to his nose at them. He is a very fine young man with great courage, like all of them, and quite without excitement at all this.

Then coming home we have also made some ice on the machine in the clouds. We are blind because the windscreen is covered with ice and that obliges the pilot to come lower down. When we get back to our aerodrome it is raining and visibility is very, very bad, but he makes an excellent landing without incident.


A Whitley bomber coming in to land.


The rear turret of a Whitley bomber.

Great pitures RedToo

Part 21.

August, 1940

HUDSONS’ MILLIONTH MILE

BY A SQUADRON COMMANDER OF COASTAL COMMAND

I am the Commanding Officer of a Squadron which has just completed a million miles of flying in Hudson aircraft.

A million miles is a long way—about four times the distance between the earth and the moon. Indeed, for most of our flying time, we might have been on our way to the moon for all that we saw of Mother Earth.

We clocked up our millionth mile quite quietly. It happened the other night when we had a number of aircraft out over the North Sea. After they came back we logged up the mileage, and found we were well over the million mark. Incidentally, we've used up enough petrol in those million miles to send a fleet of four hundred family-cars right round the world.

Our work is general reconnaissance—known in the Service as "G.R."—and we are a unit of the Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force. A reconnaissance really means going somewhere to see what is there. But while that is the essence of our job, there is actually a great deal more to it than that. For instance, we do a lot of bombing, and, when we run into enemy aircraft, we have to be fighters as well.

I would like to tell you first something about our day to day work, then about our aircraft, and finally about the men who compose our Squadron. I'm not going to try to shoot a line about hair-raising exploits in which our Squadron has played a part—not because we haven't had plenty, but because that would be putting such incidents in a false perspective. Our work is not spectacular in the main. It is a hard, plodding routine on patrols. Every day, in sunshine, rain or snow we go out over the North Sea to find out what's happening on the other side. With the long days of summer we put in plenty of flying hours, but winter, of course, is the biggest test. Think of a bare aerodrome in the bleak darkness of a frigid morning, a bitter wind whistling, and perhaps ice on the ground. Pilots, navigators, air-gunners and wireless operator stagger and slither to their aircraft, laden like Father Christmases with their bulky navigation bags, parachutes, flying kit, thermos flasks, packets of sandwiches, pigeon baskets and what-nots.

Flying towards the rising sun, it may be the navigator has just enough light to see the white horses on the grey sea as he lies full length in the nose of the aircraft calculating wind, drift, speed and position. The engines drone on for a couple of hours before the coast of Norway comes into view, or is found hidden in cloud or mist. It isn't uncommon for the crew never to see land in six or seven hours' flying, although they may be so close to the mountains of the Norwegian coast as to be in danger of running into them. If visibility permits, they go into the fjords to take photographs, spot shipping and note anti-aircraft positions and aerodrome sites. Such information is of the greatest importance to Coastal Command, and many a fruitful bombing raid has been made possible by the preliminary reports from my Squadron.

In the early parts of the war the Squadron did a good deal of U-boat hunting. There was scarcely a pilot who had not had a crack at one or more, and our total bag of enemy submarines is quite impressive. Even if a U-boat sees us coming and crash-dives as fast as it can, it may still be within reach of our bombs. They are timed to explode beneath the surface of the sea. Then a shuddering and a disturbance of the water, and masses of dark brown oil coming up. These tell what has happened in the sea below. Other U-boats, which we caught by surprise on the surface, proved easy prey. Some of my pilots have seen their heavy bombs burst right on the hulls.

Now that Germany threatens to invade this country from Norway, our work has become even more vital. If Germany should ever attempt a mass crossing of the North Sea, my crews may well be the first British subjects to find it out. It might be on their reports that the whole of our anti-invasion system of defence would spring into operation. Please don't think for a moment that a reconnaissance, say, of the North Sea or Norwegian coast is just a question of flying over there, taking a few photographs, making observations, and flying back. I wish it were as simple as that.

But the Germans have established a very excellent system of coast defences, specially designed to keep our aircraft from doing the jobs we want them to do. So we have to look out for such hazards as enemy fighters, patrolling the coast, and anti-aircraft fire which is of an accuracy not to be sneezed at. It is on such occasions that we use our Hudsons as fighters.
To match an aircraft built for reconnaissance work against a modern fighter is rather like putting a retired boxing champion against the newest holder of the title. The fighters have an advantage over us in speed, but we carry pretty useful armament, and our big aircraft can take an enormous amount of punishment.

You would be surprised if you could see the condition of some aircraft which our pilots bring home. One of my pilot-officers—who, by the way, has just received the D.F.C.—is making quite a habit of bringing back what one might describe as a bundle of shell holes held together by pieces of fuselage. I was aghast when I saw the holes in his last two efforts. You could crawl through the gashes in the wings and petrol tanks. In one case the undercarriage folded up as he landed. In the other, although it stayed in position, one tyre was shot to pieces and made the aircraft sink dangerously.

There's no doubt about it, our Hudsons are first-class aircraft for the job of reconnaissance. They have far more room in them than the average Service machine; indeed, there's the same internal space as in the Civil counterpart, the Lockheed 14 airliner, in which some of you have probably flown before the war. There is a row of windows in each side of the cabin, a folding bed, hot and cold air regulator—in fact, every modern convenience. The seats, of course, have been taken out, and there is a gun turret in the tail. The operational performance, too, is exceptionally good. The fact that we use these land-planes so much for long reconnaissances over the sea speaks for itself. Nobody ever worries about engine failure, which used to cause so much anxiety in the last war. A typical remark was made by one of my pilots as he taxied in the other day after a long trip. He turned to his navigator and said: "You'd think these blinking engines would go on turning over forever."

And now I'll tell you a little about the lads who do this work. They are the advance scouts of our defence system, and they accept gladly the risks of the scout—the danger of running into enemy forces and the prospect of lone flights with the odds against you, where you know that if you survive the fight, you have a long slog back, perhaps damaged, over the sea to your base.

There is little glamour in our work. It is rather like the northern patrols of the Navy—loneliness, monotony, danger of dirty weather. But it is a vital work, and the men of my squadron and other squadrons who do similar work include some of the most experienced pilots and navigators in the Royal Air Force. They have hundreds of hours of war flying to their credit, and many of them have been out on more than a hundred long range operational flights.

They are all grand types, and I should like to make special mention of the sergeant pilots and also of the wireless operators and air gunners, and the ground staff who are an indispensable part of the Squadron.

At nights when I go down to the aerodrome, waiting for the aircraft to come back from the sea, I often think of those in my squadron who have not returned. Their work has gone to build up our first million miles. I know they would wish us luck as we go forward to our second million miles.


A Hudson crew back from a patrol off the German and Scandinavian coasts. Left to right: Navigator, Pilot, Wireless Operator, Rear Gunner (with carrier-pigeons taken in case of wireless failure).


A Hudson back from reconnaissance over Norway with a shell hole in her wing.

Hi all,

As they say in the quiz thread: It's Intermission Time! I'm off on holiday tomorrow and internetless for two weeks. I will be here:



A German seaplane base during the war. Anybody guess where? See you all in a fortnight.

RedToo.

No guesses? It is Norway. Secifically the seaplane base at Stavanger. It looks quite different today. There is an excellent little plane museum on the site now - Sola FlyMuseum which contains quite a bit of WWII stuff. They are rebuilding an Italian bomber which was based at Stavanger aerodrome during WWII and a 109 G1 that was pulled out of the sea a few years ago. Anyhow on with the stories.

Part 22.

August, 1940

A BOMBER BAGS A FIGHTER

BY A CANADIAN PILOT OFFICER

It was the first time I had ever been chased by German fighters, but the observer and gunner were sergeants of long experience. They were grand and kept their heads well, and I am proud to be in the same crew.

We were on our way home from a daylight raid one day last week. We had already been fired at by A.A. batteries near the Zuider Zee, and apparently the crews of the batteries had wasted no time in reporting our presence to the German fighter squad¬rons, for we had been heading west for only about five minutes when the enemy fighters caught us up. Two of them broke off and came for us—a Messerschmitt 109 and a Heinkel 112. We were about 6,000 feet up at the time, and as there was no cloud to dodge into, we dived down to nearly sea level so that both of our opponents would be obliged to attack us from above.

We had crossed the coast by this time and they followed us out to sea, both firing, and our rear gunner firing back. For a while we seemed to be doing nothing else but turning either to port or to starboard. After about fifteen minutes of skimming around just clear of the water the aircraft suddenly became rather hard to control, and we found that one of the ailerons had been shot away.

Just about the same time the gunner got the Messerschmitt. He had put in a good burst at him as he was coming up at us from above and astern, about 300 feet up, and the German fighter just put his nose down and dived straight into the North Sea. That left us with only the Heinkel to reckon with, and he stuck to us and continued to exchange bursts with our own gunner.

At this time I was taking evasive action mainly by watching the pattern the Heinkel's tracers were making on the water and banking out of the line of fire thus revealed. The gunner was still giving me directions, but the intercommunication had been damaged, so the observer came and assisted me by making signals with his hands to show me which way to turn. It was quicker than talking and we didn't have much time to spare.

Suddenly I heard a yell of fury from the gunner, followed by an awful volley of language. It didn't take long to find out what had happened. Oil started spraying around in the front ****¬pit and we knew the hydraulic system had been put out of action. This meant that the gunner instead of being able to manipulate his gun mechanically had to do it manually, which is no easy matter in an aircraft which is making violent movements. Meanwhile I couldn't see much out of the front window which had become smeared all over with oil, but I was trying to keep roughly to a westerly course all the time.

After about thirty-five minutes' chase, the rear gunner stopped firing and called out, "You can take it easy now, sir, he's cleared off". That was a relief and we climbed up from the water to a safer height and made straight for the aerodrome. We knew we were in for what we call a "Belly landing"—that is to say landing on the body of the machine with the wheels up, because with the hydraulic system out of action the undercarriage wouldn't come down.

Having jettisoned a few things that might have added to the danger of landing, we circled the aerodrome several times to warn the ground staff to have the ambulance and fire-engine ready. But they weren't needed for she parked down all right, and that is about all there is to it. Nobody was hurt; and we are still together as a crew.



A Wellington heavy bomber sets off.

Part 23. In colour!

August, 1940

GATE-CRASHING A GERMAN BALLOON BARRAGE

BY A PILOT OFFICER OF A HEAVY BOMBER SQUADRON

WE had a bit of excitement a few nights back when we ran slap into the middle of a German balloon barrage. Our luck was in. Not only did we get away with it, but we brought one of the balloons down.

Our target that night was a synthetic oil plant at a place called Gelsenkirchen which is in the middle of the Ruhr. It was a dark night—very dark—and we had come down to about 6,000 feet to find the target. We dropped our flares and located and bombed the works, then we climbed and went back to see what results we'd had. My second pilot was flying the plane. I'd been down in the bomb aimer's position, which is in the nose of the aircraft, doing the bombing.

Suddenly I saw a long dark shape silhouetted against the clouds; then, as the searchlights played across them, I saw three more. They looked rather sinister and they were on the port beam and port quarter about a hundred yards away. By now I'd gone up from the bomb aimer's position and was standing beside the second pilot. I gave instructions to the gunners to open fire at the balloons and we started to turn away to starboard to get away from them. Immediately afterwards the second pilot threw the aircraft into a very steep right-hand turn for he'd seen another balloon coming straight up in front of him. It had loomed up out of the darkness dead ahead and our wing tip just caught the fabric. If the pilot hadn't yanked the aircraft over quickly we should have flown right into it, the envelope would have wrapped itself round the plane, and that would have been the end of the trip, but all that happened was that the aircraft bucked a bit, then there was a terrific explosion which we could hear even above the roar of the engines and I imagine the Germans were minus one balloon, though we couldn't see what happened.

After the explosion, when we climbed up higher, we found we'd been flying along a row of balloons right in the thick of 'em. It was pretty amazing that we hadn't hit a few more, for when we'd been bombing, we must have been among all the cables. I knew there were balloons in the area—we'd been warned about them before we started—but the only way to find the target was to come down fairly low, so we had to take the odd chance. When we examined the aircraft the next day we found it hadn't been damaged at all.

Another raid which I shan't forget in a hurry happened just before this balloon incident. On this occasion we were bombing the railway marshalling yards at Hamm. There's an important railway traffic centre here and it seems to be selected as a target most nights in the week. When we took off, the weather was pretty poor and at 7,000 feet it was freezing. Over the North Sea we struck heavy banks of cloud. I climbed to 14,000 feet, but even at that height we couldn't get out of it—so we just carried on flying through cloud; there was nothing else we could do about it. When we were about fifteen minutes away from our target, the port engine began to splutter and the engine revolu-tions dropped. This time again I was down in the bomb aimer's position preparing the bomb sight. I realized that we'd probably got ice in the carburetter, so I came back to the second pilot. The starboard engine spluttered and soon both engines ceased to give any power at all. Our air speed indicator packed up, so did the altimeter. We didn't know whether we had flying speed or how high we were. The second pilot and I were flying the machine between us while he was fixing the warm air control which had become disengaged. This is an arrangement by which the air, instead of being sucked straight in, is warmed up by the heat of the engine before being passed through to the carburetter. He'd got both his hands on the warm air lever, forcing it down as far as it would possibly go and he'd got his feet on the rudders while I grabbed the stick, keeping the aircraft on an even keel. I could tell by the feel of it that we were going down very quickly.

We were heavily iced up; the wings had a thick layer of ice on them and one couldn't see through the windscreen because that too was covered in ice. It didn't matter very much about that because it was so dark and we were still in cloud, so we wouldn't have been able to see anyway. I decided that if the engines didn't come on within another four or five seconds, I'd give the order to abandon the aircraft. I'd got the words on the tip of my tongue, when the port engine spluttered a couple of times and began to pick up again. It would still have been impossible to maintain height with the amount of ice we had on the aircraft, but I decided to hang on a little longer before giving the order to bale out. The starboard engine picked up, and after a bit more spluttering, both engines started working normally again.

We flew on for another half minute or so and then the altimeter started registering. I looked at the height and found it was approximately 4,000 feet, that meant that we'd come down in a dive about 11,000 feet. We were just recovering from this when we ran into an electrical storm. The effect was so weird that I began to wonder whether we hadn't arrived in another world. The others said afterwards that they began to think the same thing too. Everything seemed outlined in a blue haze. The pro¬pellers made shining spinning circles. The two guns in the front turret were pointing up in the air and there was the same blue haze round them too. The front gunner reported that there were sparks jumping from one gun to another. The rear gunner after¬wards said, that for a minute he thought his guns were actually firing and he couldn't understand it. As I looked at the second pilot's face, I saw that it was ringed with blue. The tips of his fingers had the same blue haze around them. It covered the instrument panel and ran along the leading edges of the wings. That lasted about two minutes. It was one of the weirdest experiences I have ever had. I was very glad when we got out of the storm.

We flew on and arrived over our target area. The cloud was still so heavy that it was impossible to locate the marshalling yards, so we turned and came back, and on the way we bombed the alternative military target which had been allotted to us.

Three fighters picked us up near Rotterdam. First of all the rear gunner reported one enemy aircraft apparently trailing us, then he was joined by a couple of his pals. We got all set for a bit of a scrap but nothing happened. They didn't attack and we arrived back at the base without further incident.


Last minute preparations on a Whitely Bomber.

Part 24.

August, 1940

STORY OF A FIGHTER SERGEANT PILOT

Here is a story of one of those fighter pilots you read about quite a lot —a sergeant pilot. This young man—he will be twenty-three next November—has been in the R.A.F. since September, 1935. After getting his wings he was posted to his present squadron in August, 1936. He has fought with them in France, over Dunkirk, and over the Channel, as well as, of course, over this country. He has been in action at least thirty times, and in addition to many enemy aircraft damaged he has a bag of six definitely destroyed. He was fighting last Wednesday, the day seventy-eight German raiders were destroyed.

OUR squadron had a very enjoyable time last Wednesday before breakfast. We had a lovely party somewhere off the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames estuary. It was a beautiful morning, and twelve of us were flying very high over Beachy Head. We were told to patrol below clouds over Dover and then we had orders to intercept enemy aircraft between us and the North Foreland. So we went down to about 3,000 feet just below clouds. We turned north and came over the Thames estuary. It was very misty so we went up again above the clouds to about 6,000 feet. The sun was coming up from the east—and so were the enemy. We saw two formations of bombers—two lots of twelve aircraft, one behind the other, with about two miles between them. They were 1,500 feet lower than we were, so we had an immediate advantage. Our squadron leader gave his orders quickly, and clearly, over the radio telephone. He would lead his flight of six Hurricanes round the back of the first formation, and the other flight of six, which included myself, was to deliver a head-on attack.

As soon as the leader of my flight went down towards the first formation, the enemy darted down for the clouds. I should have explained, by the way, that the squadron was in four sections of three each in line astern. The CO. led the first two sections, and I was leading the last section of three. It is one of the duties of the last section to give warning of approach of enemy fighters.

Anyway, when the Dorniers went into cloud, I led my section down after them, and when we emerged at the bottom of the clouds I found we were ahead of them. So I swung completely round and led a head-on attack on the second formation of Dorniers which had now appeared. I'm sure they got an awful shock. They didn't expect an attack from the front like that. You could see that they didn't like it.

My section came up from below and slightly to one side of the bombers and we blazed away for all we were worth. It was impossible to miss them. We simply sprayed them with bullets, and then we broke away to the left. One of them was badly hit and he broke away. I pounced on him right away, fired from dead astern, and after another pilot had fired at him I believe he went down to crash into the sea.

In a battle you don't often have time to see what happens to every enemy aircraft you shoot at. But you usually have a chance to look round and see what is happening near you. I looked around after my head-on attack and saw a grand sight. My flight-leader was leading his section up at the bombers head-on. I could see their machine-gun bullets spurting from their wings, and I could see the Germans losing their formation under this terrific fire.

After that we began to look for odd enemy bombers which were now wheeling about in the sky and trying to form up to¬gether. I went up above the clouds again with another pilot and we saw three Dorniers, looking very sorry for themselves, head¬ing for home. We took one each, and the one I fired at shed a lot of pieces from his wings and fuselage. I saw the other pilot —another sergeant, as a matter of fact—later when he landed. I asked him how he got on, and he said: "Fine! I got him nicely. First the rear gunner baled out and then I saw the Jerry plane go into the sea."

We had quite a good breakfast that morning, for including what we got the squadron's bag contained four certainties and a number of others probably destroyed or damaged.

I think my best day—by which I mean the day I enjoyed most —was one over Dunkirk during the evacuation of the B.E.F. Our squadron was patrolling Dunkirk at more than 10,000 feet —I doubt if our troops could see us at that height—when we saw a formation of about twenty Heinkels in. High above them were a lot of Messerschmitts 109 acting as a fighter escort. We were told to attack the fighters, but before we could reach them they sheered off, and left the bombers to us. We went down on them like a shot.

I got two of the easiest enemies of my life that afternoon. I dived on one Heinkel and gave him an incredibly short burst of fire. My thumb was still on the gun button when both his engines immediately caught fire. He put his nose down, and to my sur¬prise, I must confess, he went straight down into the sea with a tremendous splash. He just went straight in from 10,000 feet.

I climbed up a bit and looked round. Then I saw another Heinkel going east, having attacked shipping in Dunkirk harbour. I started chasing him, climbing after him all the time. When I got fairly near I just crept up to him—we were doing just over 200 m.p.h.—that is what I call "creeping" in a Hurricane. Any¬way, I crept after him for a few minutes and I'm sure he didn't see me until I opened fire from close in. I just let him have it —a long burst of five seconds. The rear gunner opened fire at me almost at the same moment that I started firing. He was silenced immediately, yet he managed to put half a dozen bullets into my aircraft. The Heinkel began to emit black smoke and dived vertically towards the sea. I watched him crash.

There was another day in France when we ran into ten Messerschmitts and only one of them got away. That was a good scrap. If I remember rightly, it was our first morning in France, too.

One afternoon, in France, when on patrol, we saw anti-aircraft shells bursting high above us. I spotted a German aircraft and reported it to the leader of the squadron. He as good as said, "Well, go and get it then, if you can see it". I went up to 15,000 feet and found it was a Dornier 17. I attacked from behind and below and in a few moments the machine caught fire and a second or two later, began a dive which ended on the ground. Then I rejoined the rest of the squadron to continue the patrol. I was just lucky to be the one who happened to see the enemy.

I have about 850 flying hours altogether on my log book, half of them on Hurricanes. As a matter of fact, I have been with the squadron longer than any other pilot. A few have joined since the war, but most of the pilots came in two or three years ago. There isn't one of them who hasn't got a Hun. It's a grand squadron to be in, I can assure you.

Dornier Do 17Z-1 bombers heading for England.


‘There he was, right in front of me...’ Adolf Galland describes his latest ‘scrap’ to Hauptmann Pingel of 1.JG 26. Pingel force-landed near Dover on 10 July 1941, and was captured with a total of twenty-six victories.