The Battle of Britain (26 page)

The Battle of Britain has now been under the intense scrutiny of historians and others for half a century. Aided by hindsight, they have been able to raise various controversial issues. Criticism is all too easy for those who come after. To touch on but one issue, it is known that both sides overclaimed by a considerable amount. No one who has not experienced air fighting can possibly imagine the confusion. Neither can they judge. Relative scores are an effect, not a cause. What is clear is that the Battle of Britain was won by Fighter Command because it defeated the Luftwaffe in the battle to control the air over southern England.

T
he life of an RAF fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain and the Battle of France, which immediately preceded it, was as varied as the fragments that form a pattern in a kaleidoscope. By examining the diverse range of individual experiences, however, a picture emerges of the dangers and problems faced by hard-pressed aircrew and the thoughts and feelings of a typical RAF pilot.

Who were the Few? A look at some of the Hurricane pilots of 1 Squadron during the Battle for France in May 1940 shows the typical variety of backgrounds from which the RAF recruited aircrew before the war, Squadron Leader P. J. H. ‘Bull' Halahan had joined via a public school and the RAF College at Cranwell. All the other officers had five-year short service commissions and came mostly from public or grammar schools. Flying Officer Paul Richey had been to Downside – ‘the Catholic Eton' – and Flight Lieutenants ‘Johnny' Walker and Prosser Hanks were also public school products. The Canadian ‘Hilly' Brown had the customary state education of his country. S. J. Soper, similarly educated in England, had joined the RAF as a sergeant. Flying Officer ‘Boy' Mould had started in the same way but entered the apprentice school at Halton when he was fifteen and showed such outstanding qualities that he was awarded a Cranwell cadetship at eighteen. Flying Officer Leslie Clisby, some of whose exploits are mentioned in other chapters, was an Australian, and ‘Cobber' Kain, of 73 Sqdn,
whose record is also detailed elsewhere, was a New Zealander, each of them imbued with the characteristics of his native country and its schooling. Pilot Officer Albert Gerald Lewis, who was posted to 85 Sqdn while it was in France, and shot down nine enemy aircraft there, came from South Africa. Traditionally in this Service nobody cared from what economic or social level, or from which Allied country, a man came; it didn't matter who you were; all that counted was what manner of fighting material you showed yourself to be.

This pungent assortment of human types was further enriched when the war began and additional varieties of aircrew were embodied full-time. There was the Auxiliary Air Force, with its complete fighter squadrons, in which all the pilots had commissions and came from a wide range of middle- and upper-class occupations. There was the Volunteer Reserve, which was not organised in squadrons but provided a pool embracing all manner of middle- and working-class employment, from which the Regular and Auxiliary squadrons were supplemented. All its pilots were Sergeants. There were the Reserve, which consisted of officers who had left the RAF after various periods of service, and the Special Reserve, which comprised officers who had trained with the Service but not as Regulars. And there were the three University Air Squadrons at Oxford, Cambridge and London.

In this respect the RAF differed greatly from the stereotyped l'Armée de l'Air and Luftwaffe. In both France and Germany the great majority of pilots had received the same academic education at state schools, whatever their financial or social situation. If he wanted to join the air force, a Frenchman had a choice only between the Regular and the Reserve. For a German there was no choice other than making the Service a full-time career.

Whether RAF pilots were high or low in the victory ratings, there was little disparity of professional opinion about the tools of their trade. The Hurricane was held in affection and respect for its ruggedness and manoeuvrability. The Mk I was not as fast as a Bf 109E but could turn inside it, which was the prime consideration in a dogfight. The Spitfire was greatly loved and a source of immense pride. It fought the Bf 109 on level terms and, in the hands of a good pilot, could also turn inside it. The Hurricane was held to be the better gun platform because its wing was less flexible than the Spitfire's and the latter's outer gun on each side was closer to the wingtip than the Hurricane's. In consequence, the Spitfire's bullets did not converge on so small an area as the Hurricane's. Against the Bf 110 both the Hurricane and Spitfire at once established themselves as tactically superior in a fight, despite the 110's rear-firing armament. The argument about the rival merits of machine guns and cannon did
not develop until after the Battle of Britain. Most RAF aircrew respected their opponents as highly trained and determined fighters but none would concede any superiority in skill and motivation. It is a necessary characteristic of fighter pilots everywhere to believe in their own abilities, and deep down, every successful pilot secretly believes he is at least as good as the opposition. The RAF in 1940 were no exception.

In general the radio equipment was deplored. High frequency (HF) sets were obsolescent and slowly being replaced by very high frequency (VHF) equipment. Pilots' dissatisfaction lay not so much in the range of HF as in the poor quality of reception, for it was susceptible to all manner of distorting interference. A further handicap was that an aircraft transmitter-receiver carried only one channel, so there was no communication between squadrons, whereas with the later VHF equipment there were four channels. Also, the system for fixing the position of an aircraft or formation imposed 14 seconds of radio silence on its HF every minute, which could mean missing vital messages and causing an aborted interception.

The name radar had not been coined and the term radio direction finding (RDF) was used. The equipment was secret but it was common knowledge that the tall ‘radio' masts on the south and east coasts supplied Operations Rooms that controlled fighter interceptions. The deductive powers of a genius were not necessary to conclude that the positioning of defending fighters in the right place to intercept German raids was not mere chance. The existence of this still mysterious facility was a further boost for the already high confidence and morale of Fighter Command. So much for the men and the equipment. The question remains, however; what was it actually like to fly and fight in the Battle of Britain? The experience of individual pilots can be used to illustrate the problems and pressures of trying to hold back the most powerful aerial onslaught the world had seen.

A good example is that of New Zealand's most successful fighter pilot, Group Captain Colin Falkland Gray, DSO, DFC and two bars, who destroyed 27½ enemy aircraft, 15½ of them between early June and early September 1940. He joined the RAF before the war and was posted to No. 54 Squadron.

About his participation in these air battles he says modestly, ‘The whole thing was quite fortuitous and therefore those of us who happened to be concerned deserve no particular credit. Anyone in a fighter squadron in England at the time was automatically to be involved whether he liked it or not – it wasn't a matter of choice.'

He had hoped to be posted to fighters and says, ‘I knew that if there was a war I was certainly likely to be in action and I accepted this. It was merely a case
of being in the right place at the right time. Even the volunteers who joined after the outbreak didn't have much choice in the matter either. They had to go where they were sent.' As for the rights and wrongs of the war: ‘I figured that “the mother country”, as we New Zealanders called it, was not likely to be involved in unjustified hostilities and this was probably the extent of our thoughts on the matter.'

As many other RAF fighter pilots have, he deplored their lack of realistic training in air-to-air fighting and fighter-to-fighter combat. ‘The first time I encountered any enemy aircraft was over France on May 24, 1940. By that time I had been in in the RAF for 16 months, and 6 months in a fighter squadron. I had flown a total of 140 hours on Spitfires so was reasonably experienced. I'd fired my guns a few times against ground targets but had no experience of air-to-air gunnery against high-speed targets and therefore no idea of the amount of deflection (angle off) required. The only experience I'd had against aerial targets was during training when we fired at a drogue towed at not much more than 100 mph, and this wasn't much help.'

He illustrates some of the problems. ‘The muzzle velocity of a .303 bullet (our armament at that time), was 2,660ft per second (810m/sec). This would take the bullets 0.28 of a second to travel 250 yards (228m), the range at which our guns were harmonised. During that time a target travelling at 300mph (483km/h) would travel 41 yards (37m), which is a hell of a lot of deflection, especially for a 90 degree crossing shot. To add to this difficulty, the target would be lost to sight under the nose of a fighter pulling through in a normal curve of pursuit and one would be left shooting at a spot in space where the target should eventually arrive! Fortunately it seldom came to this as our angles off were not as great as 90 degrees, but the deflection could range from 0 degrees for dead astern of the target to about 20 yards (18m) or more for a 45 degree crossing shot.

‘The whole question of deflection was brought home to me in a very salutary way on July 24. We had been sent down to Rochford the previous day and on the 24th had already been in action against Dorniers attacking a convoy off Deal. Although we chased them back to France and I fired all my rounds at one of them, it didn't seem to have any effect. We returned to Rochford to refuel and rearm and were scrambled again just after midday. This time we ran into 18 Dorniers, escorted by about 20 Me 109s, attacking a convoy in the Thames Estuary off Margate, and a terrific dogfight developed. In the general mêlée that ensued I had a good crack at a 109 but was unable to observe any positive results. The dogfight seemed to end as suddenly as it started and as I couldn't see anyone else around I set off for home.

‘I hadn't been going for long before I heard one of our aircraft calling for a homing and thought I could see him in the distance but heading in the wrong direction, so I set off in hot pursuit to see if I could lead him home. He was going like the clappers and it took some time to catch him up, but when I finally did so I realised it wasn't a Spitfire at all but an Me 109. He obviously spotted me at the same time and started to turn hard to starboard. As I was close behind I pulled round and gave him a quick squirt, but in my excitement I allowed twice the deflection I had intended. To my astonishment my first burst caught him smack amidships and the pilot immediately baled out into the sea. From then on I always allowed twice the deflection I thought necessary and maybe a bit more for good luck.'

For the front-line squadrons, the daily routine from May to October 1940 varied little. Dowding tried to allow each squadron one day's rest a week, but this was not always possible. A normal battle day on a day fighter squadron began at about 3.30 am and carried on until stand-down at around 8 pm. Some flights or entire squadrons would be at readiness to take off within five minutes which, in actual practice, meant two or three minutes. Sometimes there would be a section on standby, with the pilots in their cockpits and able to be off the ground in a minute or so. Breakfast and a sandwich lunch would probably be brought to the dispersal points around the airfield.

In the intervals between flights, pilots dozed on beds or chairs in the crew huts – or tents, at a satellite airfield – or on the grass. Some read, some played cards, draughts or chess. Tiredness inhibited conversation. When released, the favourite recreation was a couple of hours in a local pub. Some squadrons stationed close to London had a taste for night-clubbing, which often meant virtually no sleep apart from what could be snatched between sorties. The resilience of youth and the natural high spirits of most aircrew kept them alert in the air, no matter how hard they drove themselves when off duty.

Group Captain Bobby Oxspring DFC, AFC, describes how the peace and quiet of the dispersal could be transformed into frantic action in a few seconds.

‘The hectic actions filled the long days and we slipped into a routine. An hour before dawn we crawled out of bed, forced down some breakfast and got shaken into wakefulness as we were transported to dispersal in a hard-arsed lorry. We arrived to the cacophony of Merlin engines being warmed up and tested all round the airfield by the reliable fitters. Having chalked up the allocations of pilots to aircraft and formation compositions we donned our Mae West life jackets, collected our parachutes and helmets and trudged out to our aircraft. Detailed walk round inspections such as are the mode today would have been an insult to
our conscientious ground crews, many of whom had been up all night rectifying faults and repairing battle damage. A quick kick on the tyres followed by a nervous pee on the rudder was quite sufficient.

‘The next move was to carefully arrange the safety harness and parachute straps, plug in the helmet leads to radio and oxygen so that on a scramble the least possible time would be lost in getting strapped in and away. Quick checks to see that the oxygen was flowing through the mask, that the gunsight was working with spare bulb in place and we were ready to go. As we fidgeted about with these essential tasks we exchanged facetious banter with our faithful ground crews. Very often in those autumn days there was a murky pre-dawn mist soaking the aircraft in heavy condensation which ran off the windscreen and cockpit canopy. We'd grab a rag from the rigger and help him polish the transparent areas as clear as we could get them. We had learned the hard way that unrestricted visibility was vital to fighter pilots whose aggression and indeed survival depended so much on clarity of vision.

‘We lounged around the dispersal talking, playing cards or just sitting. Periodically the telephone rang jerking us all into boggle-eyed alertness. More often than not the telephone orderly would call one of us to some innocuous administrative call and the tension of another anticipated order to combat receded. That telephone played hell with our nerves. I don't think any of us pilots ever again appreciated the virtues of Mr Bell's invention. Sooner or later though, the action charged instruction came through. The orderly would pause, listen and then bawl: