Dogfight (5 page)

By March 1940, with over five victory credits to his name, Kain was the first Commonwealth ace of the war and was duly awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC).[19]

Another Anzac who acquitted himself well in the early fighting in France was South Australian Leslie Clisby. Like Kain, the twenty-five-year-old was provided with ample targets by the German invasion.[20] The Australian was an almost reckless pilot, habitually disregarding unfavourable odds when throwing his fighter into action. Fiercely proud of his ‘down-under' homeland, he had continued to wear his increasingly threadbare and fraying Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) uniform rather than the RAF's lighter sky-blue colours.[21] Although the records are fragmentary, due mostly to the haste in which the AASF subsequently fled France, the Australian Battle of Britain biographer Dennis Newton has estimated that in a six-day period, Clisby was officially credited with eight successes but in fact may well have accounted for fifteen German aircraft.

Kain, Clisby and other Anzacs were able to test their new fighters against the best on offer from the German air force: the Messerschmitt Me 109.[22] Significantly faster than the Hurricane (328 mph), the Me 109 (357 mph) was a good match for the Spitfire (361 mph). Although the Spitfire and the Me 109 had an almost identical climb rate, the latter could operate at the
higher altitude of 36,000 feet. Like the Spitfire, the Messerschmitt was an all-metal monocoque construction. If the Spitfire was drop-dead curvaceous in the eyes of many pilots, the Messerschmitt exuded an aggressive, shark-like appearance with its yellow snub nose, clipped wings and squared-off canopy. Like the Spitfire, the Messerschmitt's efficient lines and adaptable design meant it was still in active service by war's end.

The Me 109's venerable 12-cylinder Daimler-Benz engine compared favourably with the Merlin with the added advantage that it was fuel-injected as opposed to the carburettor-equipped British design. The Merlin was therefore plagued by fuel starvation when RAF pilots threw it into a dive as centrifugal forces came into action, while the fuel-injected Daimler-Benz motor did not miss a beat. Although RAF pilots worked around this deficiency by half-rolling the Hurricane and Spitfire before diving, forcing fuel into, rather than out of, the engine, it did offer Luftwaffe pilots a slight edge under negative g-forces.[23] While pilots on both sides argued that their own aircraft had the tightest turning circle—a vital performance characteristic in a dogfight—the Spitfire edged out the Me 109, if only marginally.

With regards to armament, the German fighter's two fuselage-mounted 7.9 mm machine-guns and two wing-mounted 20 mm cannon appeared to hold an edge over the Hurricane and Spitfire's eight 0.303 inch Browning machine-guns. The distinguishing feature was the cannon—essentially exploding bullets. Cannon was seen as the way of the future but the Me 109's early cannon design was tempered by a relatively low velocity and rate of fire—520 rounds per minute compared with the Browning's 1200. In fighter-on-fighter combat the machine-gun appeared somewhat more advantageous but less so when applied against more resilient German bombers. Notwithstanding these limitations, in the eventual fighter-on-fighter contest, the two machines were remarkably even in their combat capabilities.

Augmenting the Luftwaffe fighter strength was the much-vaunted Messerschmitt Me 110. A twin-engine heavy fighter with a two-man crew and powered by two DB 601A engines, the Me 110 was designed to overcome the Me 109's limited operational radius. The result was a fighter that had a 1094 km (680 mile) range and a healthy top speed that rested between that of the Hurricane and the Spitfire. Its other strength was a forward-firing armament of four 7.9 mm machine-guns and two 20 mm cannons. This was supplemented by a rear gunner firing a light machine-gun. The Me 110
had ardent support at the highest levels of the Luftwaffe (Hermann Göring nicknamed it ‘Ironsides') and some of the Me 109 units were stripped of their best pilots to man what was believed to be an elite force.[24]

In the early battles of the war, the Ironsides lived up to expectations. Its first stumble, however, followed in the wake of the German invasion of France when it encountered British single-engine fighters. Relatively large, the Me 110 was not only easily spotted but, when engaged by Hurricanes and Spitfires, proved unable to match the single-engine machines' acceleration or manoeuvrability. In high-altitude escort duties it could hold its own, but in dogfights with British fighters in the Battle of Britain its limited agility would be exploited mercilessly by RAF pilots. The Me 110 found its true vocation as a night fighter later in the war.

Nevertheless, over France the aerial battles were a decidedly uneven affair. Liberally supplied with pilots with battle experience in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939, and the recent annihilation of Poland, the Luftwaffe was significantly stronger than the opposing French air force—the Armée de l'Air—and the British AASF. The Luftwaffe had 3500 modern aircraft dispersed between the two air fleets, while the French had on hand 1145 combat machines, many obsolete.[25] Augmenting these French fighters, the RAF had on average barely forty Hurricanes and twenty Gloster Gladiators for daily operations. On 14 May 1940, the RAF saw some of its heaviest losses with a total of twenty-seven Hurricanes shot down, fifteen pilots killed and two fatally wounded. Clisby was among those lost. Fatigued and looking much older than his twenty-six years, the Australian was once again applying his maxim, ‘the best form of defence is offence', when he lost his life. In the unconfirmed accounts of his last action, his flight jumped more than thirty Me 109s. In the resulting mêlée he is believed to have shot down two machines before succumbing to the enemy. He died unaware that he had just been awarded a DFC.

The period 10 to 21 May was brutal for the RAF fighter pilots, with a total of fifty-six losing their lives and a further thirty-six wounded. Eighteen who survived their aircraft's destruction were taken prisoner.[26] By now it was clear that France would not withstand the German juggernaut and RAF men and machines were gradually retreated to England. On the ground in France, the Allied forces caught north of the German
‘sickle-cut' were herded into a pocket on the beaches of Dunkirk. In order to save what remained of the nearly half a million British and French men clustered on the coast, an evacuation was to be attempted. The RAF's role was to protect the lines of Allied men snaking out from the beaches into the surf off Dunkirk and the awaiting vessels. Up to this point, Dowding had been reluctant to expend his most potent weapon in France; now he put into the fray limited numbers of Spitfires operating from bases in south-east England.

The Spitfire sorties demonstrated a stark difference in air-fighting tactics, which would have a significant effect on the Battle of Britain. At 2.30p.m. on 23 May 1940, Deere was bound for France. As he closed in on the coast, a voice screeched over the radio, ‘Tallyho, tallyho, enemy aircraft above and ahead.' A large number of German bombers were cruising towards Dunkirk. The formation leader ordered the fighters to break off into a sequenced Fighting Area Attack: ‘Hornet squadron, No.5 attack, No.5 attack.' Deere recounts the results:

Remarkably, none of Deere's companions lost their lives and the squadron optimistically claimed nine German fighters in the ferocious air battle that ensued. However, upon returning to base the pilots were not in a celebratory mood.[28] An Englishman voiced the concerns of the others: ‘Everyone was so damn busy making certain he got into the right position in the formation that we were very nearly all shot down for our pains.' The strategic planning concentrated on bringing down bombers—thereby ignoring the possibility of engagement by enemy fighters. The problem lay with the heavily regimented flying patterns established for RAF units.

Each squadron of twelve machines was operationally divided into two flights—A and B—of six aircraft each, which were themselves broken down into two sections of three fighters.[29] The sections of A Flight were known as Red and Yellow and those of B Flight were Blue and Green. Once airborne, pilots were trained to fly in very tight formation around these units. The three aircraft in each section were deployed in V-shaped sections, known as ‘vics'. A single vic in turn formed up with the remaining three vics in a much larger V-formation totalling the squadron's twelve machines. When two or more squadrons formed together they created a wing.

While excellent for parade-ground flying, tight formation flying soon proved inadequate to the demands of modern fighter-on-fighter combat. The real problem was that because pilots were required to fly in such close proximity, a great deal of effort was spent simply adjusting air speed in order to maintain formation. In other words, most of the pilots were concentrating on keeping ‘on station' rather than the all-important job of active fighting observation. A costly measure designed to offset this cumbersome configuration was the employment of a ‘tail-end Charlie' whose sole job was to ‘weave' across the back of the formation to protect the squadron's rear. These poor souls were often the first casualties when combat was joined.

By contrast the Luftwaffe's Spanish adventure led to the abandoning of the three-aircraft vic formation in favour of a
Rotte
of two aircraft. The forward machine of the pair was piloted by the leader, known as the
Rottenführer,
who concentrated on locating and attacking enemy fighters. Two hundred yards behind, above, and slightly to the side, the wingman, or
Rottenflieger,
covered the leader. The formation was designed to allow the lead pilot to concentrate solely on aggressive attacks, confident that he was not going to get a nasty surprise as he closed in for the kill. In this way a number of leaders became Luftwaffe aces, accumulating successes under the protection of much lower-scoring wingmen.

Two
Rotten
were formed up into a
Schwarm
of four aircraft in which the second pair flew slightly behind and above some 300 yards distant. Known as the ‘finger-four', this was vastly superior to the British three-machine vic.[30] A series of three
Schwärme
could be combined in staircase fashion to make up a
Staffel,
which had the ability to sweep nearly a mile and a half of air space.[31] This loose and combat-ready aerial alignment of fighters was aggressive and tactically flexible. This configuration was also harder to spot than the more densely packed V-formations of the RAF.

Compounding the weakness of RAF formation flying were the carefully choreographed manoeuvres designed to deal with intercepted bombers: Fighting Area Attacks. Having identified the formation of bombers, the fighters were then ordered to break off in formation by the squadron leader in sequence. Deere's commanding officer's order to ‘No.5 attack' was just one of six such set-piece schemes composed to meet an array of situations. This particular pattern was designed to deal with a string of bombers and stretched the fighters into a line abreast formation to pick them off. Once again, this might have worked well if the bombers were unescorted, but with covering fighters the results were often disastrous. It is little wonder that the Germans described the combination of close vic flying and the Fighting Area Attacks as
Idiotenreihen
(‘rows of idiots').[32]

The combination of close-formation flying and time taken to form up Fighting Area Attacks were simply too demanding and time-consuming. Unfortunately, although some squadrons were realising the inadequacy of peacetime tactics, both the Fighting Area Attacks and formation flying were deeply ingrained in RAF thinking. Consequently, both were still being taught to varying degrees late into 1940. Dunkirk also revealed the inadequacy of prewar gunnery training.

‘Looking back,' wrote Deere in his memoirs, ‘I can see how dreadfully we neglected gunnery practice ... and what an important part it plays in the part of a successful fighter pilot.' In these early operations covering the retreat of the BEF, he concluded that ‘squadron morale carried us safely through the early fighter battles of the war, not straight shooting'.[33] The limited amount of live training in the prewar period was in part due to a shortage of ammunition and then, after the war started, the decreasing time available to train pilots in war fighting. The ability of pilots like Colin Gray to knock out an enemy machine required a specific collection of skills. Obviously, the pilot's first task was to manoeuvre his fighter into a favourable attacking position. Just as difficult was the need to assess the correct range at which to fire. Fighter machine-guns were calibrated in order to concentrate lethality on an enemy machine. In prewar training this was thought to be about 400 yards. Pilots over France compressed this to some 250 yards. Airmen who went on to rack up large tallies invariably manoeuvred even closer.

On 1 June 1940 highly accomplished New Zealander, Flight Lieutenant
Wilfrid Clouston of 19 Squadron, knocked out two Me 109s at close range north-east of Dunkirk. In the very spare and abbreviated language of his combat report completed at his home base of Duxford, the Hurricane-flying Wellingtonian detailed the engagement: