Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys: Saving Britain 1940-1945. Patrick Bishop
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took off as far as I know. We kept taking off, they didn’t.’ The locals could also seem treacherous. The squadron was convinced that traitors were reporting their movements to the Germans. ‘The fifth column is operating here we are sure as Morse code starts every time we take off,’ wrote Wissler. The 17 Squadron Hurricanes left from Dinard, fuselages packed with cigarettes and alcohol, and landed at Jersey, where they celebrated their escape in Fighter Boy style with a party. When they left the following day, one Hurricane carried a passenger, a young woman who made the brief journey to freedom with the pilot perched on her lap.33
Most of the Hurricanes that went to France never came back. Given the tight margins Fighter Command was working within, the campaign had been ruinously expensive in machines. Of the 452 fighters sent out, only 66 returned when the main force withdrew. Of the missing 386, German fighters and flak accounted for only 208. The rest were abandoned as unserviceable. This was no reflection on the ground crews, who worked continuously while being regularly bombed and strafed, with only a few hours’ sleep in tent or field to sustain them before going back on shift. All but intact aeroplanes suffering only light damage had to be set on fire because there were no spares, or the chaotic conditions made repairs impossible. The normally genial tone of No. 1 Squadron diary faltered when it came to describing the waste. ‘It has been most noticeable that on a patrol yielding no apparent results as many as two or three aircraft out of six may be struck by shrapnel and on return to aerodrome it has been found necessary to write off all three as u/s, due to lack of proper servicing and maintenance facilities…Wastage has so far been in the neighbourhood of thirty-eight, only ten of which have actually crashed. Apparently we in France are the poor relations.’34
The pilots of Fighter Command could feel proud of their performance in France. Churchill had claimed that they were ‘clawing down two or three’ Germans for every British aeroplane lost. It was a vast exaggeration. The Hurricane squadrons reckoned themselves to have definitely shot down 499 bombers and fighters. The true figure was lower but it was at least 299. But with losses of 208 on their own side, it still left the RAF pilots well in the lead. Their success was their own. They were dedicated and aggressive and they made the most of their excellent machines. What they lacked was an effective early-warning system, or any proper control or direction from the ground. The pilots fought using tactics they invented for themselves for objectives that were never explained, if they were ever understood. Given these handicaps, the cost in lives looked relatively low. Altogether fifty-six pilots were killed in the twelve days between 10 and 21 May, and thirty-six wounded, with eighteen taken prisoner. But such losses could not possibly be borne over a long period, and as soon as this battle ended, a new one was beginning.
At Dunkirk some 500,000 British and French soldiers were now penned in, the sea at their backs, awaiting capture or annihilation. The job of finishing them off was given to the bombers and fighters of the Luftwaffe. Goering had proposed the idea. Hitler accepted it, apparently wishing to spare his army for the next stage of the French campaign.
The RAF was given the task of protecting the exhausted lines of soldiers, zig-zagging across the grey North Sea sands waiting to be rescued. This was the heaviest responsibility the air force had yet had to face. The troops were appallingly exposed. Defending them meant not only mounting continuous patrols over Dunkirk port and the beaches on either side. To be effective the fighters would also have to push inland to try to knock down the bombers before they could drop their loads.
Once again, they would be operating at a significant disadvantage in numbers. Despite the losses sustained in the blitzkrieg, the Germans still had 300 bombers and could draw on 550 fighters to protect them. After the depredations of the Battle of France, Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, whose 11 Group faced Dunkirk, had only 200 fighters at his immediate disposal. The mission, though, had the virtue of clarity and purpose. The pilots knew what they were supposed to do and why they were doing it. The stoicism of the infantrymen as they waited patiently among the bomb bursts was profoundly affecting to the men flying over them, however little this was appreciated on the ground.
The burden of the fighting was to be borne by the squadrons based around London, which would be fully engaged for the first time. Dowding also decided that the time had come to throw his precious Spitfires into the battle. The 11 Group pilots watched the last, painful phase of the BEF’s campaign in France with anticipation. To some it seemed to be less of a disaster than an opportunity. ‘At Hornchurch,’ wrote Brian Kingcome, ‘the taste of war at last began to tingle our palates.’1 ‘Operation Dynamo’, as the evacuation was code-named, began on the evening of 26 May when a vast flotilla of yachts, pleasure boats, fishing smacks, sailing barges, motor cruisers and dinghies joined more conventional craft in carrying the soldiers back across the Channel.
There had already been some preliminary skirmishing during the previous ten days. The Hornchurch pilots on the evening of 15 May were called to the billiards room of the officers mess for a briefing. There was no briefing room at the base. As Al Deere pointed out, ‘there was no need for any; our operations were purely defensive and aircraft were usually launched into the air at a moment’s notice, the pilots having only the vaguest idea of what to expect’.2 Now they were informed that they would be going on the offensive, roaming over the French and Belgian coasts to seek out the Luftwaffe.
When the order came to start patrolling, there was competition among the 54 Squadron pilots as to who would go off first. The honour – for this was how it was seen – went to the twelve most experienced pilots. Al Deere described the excitement, after bumping over the grass at Hornchurch and climbing to 15,000 feet, of crossing the French coast: ‘There was a hum in the earphones as the CO’s voice crackled over the air, “Hornet squadron, battle formation, battle formation, GO.” Symmetrically, like the fingers of an opening hand, the sections spread outwards. As my eyes scanned the empty skies I was conscious of a feeling of exhilaration and tenseness, akin to that experienced before an important sporting event. There was no feeling of fear…’ When nothing happened, elation soon evaporated. When the squadron returned, the other pilots crowded round to hear about the first real taste of action. Colin Gray, a fellow New Zealander, asked Deere what it had felt like, ‘knowing that at any minute a Hun might pop up and take a pot at you?’ Deere reported that ‘at first I was tingling all over with excitement but when after a time nothing happened I was damn bored’.3
It was Johnny Allen, a quiet member of the squadron who stood out because of his strong religious convictions, who scored first, shooting down a Ju 88. Deere’s turn came on 23 May. While eating breakfast in the mess that morning, he was called to the phone to speak to his flight commander, Flight Lieutenant James ‘Prof Leathart, so called because he had a degree in electrical engineering. Leathart had just come from a meeting with the station commander, Wing Commander ‘Boy’ Bouchier, who had learned that the CO of 74 Squadron, Squadron Leader White, had been shot at while patrolling across the Channel and forced down at Calais-Marcq aerodrome. ‘Drogo’ White was an example of the RAF’s fundamentally meritocratic nature. He had started out as a Halton apprentice and been selected for Cranwell, where he won the Sword of Honour. He was regarded as the finest shot in the air force, capable of scoring eighty hits out of a hundred on a towed drogue target, when the average was twenty. None of this had saved him from being shot down on his first sortie, and by a Henschel 126, a relatively slow-moving reconnaissance plane.
Before landing he radioed Johnny Freeborn, who was flying with him, asking him to tell his wife that he was unhurt and would soon be home. This optimistic prediction came true sooner than he could have dared to hope. Bouchier asked Leathart to fly over in a two-seater Miles Master trainer, keep the engine running while White hopped in, then return at sea-level. It sounded to Deere, who with Johnny Allen was asked to fly escort, ‘a piece of cake’. They reached Calais without any trouble. Deere sent Allen up to stand