The Last Enemy Richard Hillary (6 page)

The Government’s appeal to the people to stay put and not to evacuate, printed on the front page of every newspaper, roused England to the imminence of disaster. It could actually happen. England’s green and pleasant land might at any moment wake to the noise, of thundering tanks, to the sight of an army dropping from the skies, and to the realization that it was too late.

In Government departments, city offices, and warehouses, in farms, schools, and universities, the civilian population of England woke up. It was their war. From seventeen to seventy they came forward for the Home Guard. If they had no arms—and usually they hadn’t—they drilled with brooms. The spirit was there, but the arms and the organization were not.

At Old Sarum we had completed our six weeks and were ready for drafting to our Squadrons. Then the inevitable happened, though at that time it seemed more like a miracle. It started as a rumour, but when the whole Course was called together and the chief instructor rose to his feet, rumour became reality.

Owing to the sudden collapse of France and our own consequent vulnerability it had been decided that a number of us were to go to Fighter Squadrons. The Air Ministry had ordered fifteen to be transferred. We each looked at our neighbour as though he were suddenly an enemy. There were twenty of us, and the five who were to continue in Army Cooperation were to be drawn from a hat. It was my worst moment of the war, and I speak for all the others.

Bill Aitken and Peter Pease were both drawn, together with three others. The rest of us almost groaned with relief. But it seemed hard on Peter, though he made no complaint. It would mean his separation from Colin and the loss of a potentially great fighter pilot.

For Bill it did not matter: he was older, that type of flying appealed to him, and he was admirably suited for it. I think he was not too disappointed. The fighter pilots were to go to an Operational Training Unit in Gloucestershire close to the Welsh border, for a fortnight. Then our training would be complete and we would be drafted to Fighter Squadrons.

Of us all, I think Noel was the most elated. His face wore a permanent fixed grin which nothing could wipe off.

‘Spitfires at last,’ he kept repeating.

‘Spitfires or Hurricanes,’ I said meanly.

He continued to grin.

‘Don’t give a damn. They’re both good enough for me.’

We were to leave at once. At the last moment one other man was required and Peter Pease was selected; so it was in a contented frame of mind that we set off.

To our delight our instructors were No. 1 Squadron, back from France and being given a rest. There is little need for me to say much about them, for through Noel Monk’s account in Squadrons Up of the part they played at Maastricht Bridge and elsewhere at the front, they must be about the best-known Squadron in the R.A.F.

‘Bull’ Halahan was still their Commanding Officer, and Johnnie Walker was in charge of flying. They were the first decorated pilots of this war that we had seen and we regarded them with considerable awe. They were not unaware of this and affected a pointed nonchalance. The Bull was so much what one had expected as to be almost a caricature. A muscled stocky figure with a prominent jaw and an Irish twinkle in his eye, he would roll into the lecture room and start right in with whatever he had to say.

These men treated us as junior members of a Squadron. They were friendly and casual, but they expected cooperation and they got it. It was a pleasant change from Training Command. Time was short and we had much to learn.

We learned many things then new, though perhaps no longer true, so swiftly do fighter tactics change. We learned for the first time the German habit of using their fighter escorts in stepped-up layers all around their bombers, their admitted excellence in carrying out some prearranged manoeuvre, and their confusion and ineffectiveness once this was in any way disturbed.

We learned of the advantage of height and of attacking from out of the sun; of the Germans’ willingness to fight with height and odds in their favour and their disinclination to mix it on less favourable terms; of the vulnerability of the Messerschmitt 109 when attacked from the rear and its almost standardized method of evasion when so attacked—a half roll, followed by a vertical dive right down to the ground. As the Messerschmitt pilots had to sit on their petrol tanks, it is perhaps hard to blame them.

We learned of the necessity to work as a Squadron and to understand thoroughly every command, of the Squadron Leader whether given by mouth or gesture.

We learned that we should never follow a plane down after hitting it, for it weakened the effectiveness of the Squadron; and further was likely to result in an attack from the rear. This point was driven home by the example of five planes over Dunkirk all of which followed each other down. Only the top machine survived.

If we were so outnumbered that we were forced to break formation, we should attempt to keep in pairs, and never for more than two seconds fly on a straight course. In that moment we might forget all we had ever learned about Rate-1 turns and keeping a watchful eye on the turn-and-bank indicator. We should straighten up only when about to attack, closing in to 200 yards, holding the machine steady in the turbulent slipstream of the other plane, and letting go with all eight guns in short snap bursts of from two to four seconds.

We learned of the German mass psychology applied even to their planes, of how they were so constructed that the crews were always bunched together, thus gaining confidence and a false sense of security.

We learned the importance of getting to know our ground crews and to appreciate their part in a successful day’s fighting, to make a careful check-up before taking off, but not to be hypercritical, for the crews would detect and resent any lack of confidence at once.

And we learned, finally, to fly the Spitfire.

I faced the prospect with some trepidation. Here for the first time was a machine in which there was no chance of making a dual circuit as a preliminary. I must solo tight off, and in the fastest machine in the world.

One of the Squadron took me up for a couple of trips in a Miles Master, the British trainer most similar to a Spitfire in characteristics.

I was put through half an hour’s instrument flying under the hood in a Harvard, and then I was ready. At least I hoped I was ready. Kilmartin, a slight dark-haired Irishman in charge of our Flight, said: ‘Get your parachute and climb in. I’ll just show you the cockpit before you go off.’

He sauntered over to the machine, and I found myself memorizing every detail of his appearance with the clearness of a condemned man on his way to the scaffold—the chin sunk into the folds of a polo sweater, the leather pads on the elbows, and the string-darned hole in the seat of the pants. He caught my look of anxiety and grinned.

‘Don’t worry; you’ll be surprised how easy she is to handle.’

I hoped so.

The Spitfires stood in two lines outside ‘A’ Flight Pilots’ room. The dull grey-brown of the camouflage could not conceal the clear-cut beauty, the wicked simplicity of their lines. I hooked up my parachute and climbed awkwardly into the low cockpit. I noticed how small was my field of vision. Kilmartin swung himself on to a wing and started to run through the instruments. I was conscious of his voice, but heard nothing of what he said. I was to fly Spitfire. It was what I had most wanted through all the long dreary months of training. If I could fly a Spitfire, it would be worth it. Well, I was about to achieve my ambition and felt nothing. I was numb, neither exhilarated nor scared. I noticed the white enamel undercarriage handle. ‘Like a lavatory plug,’ I thought.

‘What did you say?’

Kilmartin was looking at me and I realized I had spoken aloud. I pulled myself together.

‘Have you got all that?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, off you go then. About four circuits and bumps. Good luck!’

He climbed down.

I taxied slowly across the field, remembering suddenly what I had been told: that the Spitfire’s prop was long and that it was therefore inadvisable to push the stick too far forward when taking off; that the Spitfire was not a Lysander and that any hard application of the brake when landing would result in a somersault and immediate transfer to a ‘Battle’ Squadron. Because of the Battle’s lack of power and small armament this was regarded by everyone as the ultimate disgrace.

I ran quickly through my cockpit drill, swung the nose into wind, and took off. I had been flying automatically for several minutes before it dawned on me that I was actually in the air, undercarriage retracted and half-way round the circuit without incident. I turned into wind and hauled up on my seat, at the same time pushing back the hood. I came in low, cut the engine just over the boundary hedge, and floated down on all three points. I took off again. Three more times I came round for a perfect landing. It was too easy. I waited across wind for a minute and watched with satisfaction several machines bounce badly as they came in. Then I taxied rapidly back to the hangars and climbed out nonchalantly. Noel, who had not yet soloed, met me.

‘How was it?’ he said.

I made a circle of approval with my thumb and forefinger.

‘Money for old rope,’ I said.

I didn’t make another good landing for a week.

The flight immediately following our first solo was an hour’s aerobatics. I climbed up to 12,000 feet before attempting even a slow roll.

Kilmartin had said ‘See if you can make her talk.’ That meant the whole bag of tricks, and I wanted ample room for mistakes and possible blacking-out. With one or two very sharp movements on the stick I blacked myself out for a few seconds, but the machine was sweeter to handle than any other that I had flown. I put it through every manoeuvre that I knew of and it responded beautifully. I ended with two flick rolls and turned back for home. I was filled with a sudden exhilarating confidence. I could fly a Spitfire; in any position I was its master. It remained to be seen whether I could fight in one.

We also had to put in an oxygen climb to 28,000 feet, an air-firing exercise, formation attacks, and numerous dogfights.

The oxygen climb was uneventful but lengthy. It was interesting to see what a distance one ended up from the aerodrome even though climbing all the way in wide circles. Helmet, goggles, and oxygen mask gave me a feeling of restriction, and from then on I always flew with my goggles up, except when landing. The results of this were to be far-reaching.

The air-firing exercise was uneventful, but as short as the oxygen climb had been long. We were given a few rounds in each gun and sent off to fire them into the Severn. All eight guns roared out from a quick pressure on the fire button on the control stick. The noise through the enclosed cabin was muffled, but the recoil caused a momentary drop in speed of 40 miles per hour.

For our formation attack practices we usually needed six machines. We flew in two sections of three with an instructor heading each. One section would fly along in V formation representing the enemy and the other would make an attack. The attacking section would also fly in V formation until the enemy were sighted. Then the section leader would call out over the radio telephone ‘Line astern!’ and the pilots to right and left of him would drop behind.

A section in line astern is in its most manoeuvrable formation. The leader would then come up on the enemy formation, taking care to keep well out to one side (usually to starboard) and a few hundred feet above them. When still some distance off, he would call out ‘Echelon starboard!’ and the two following machines would draw out to his right, still keeping fairly tight formation. When about 300 yards astern and to starboard of the enemy, he would call out ‘Going down!’ and all three machines, still in echelon formation, would dive down and come up behind the target aircraft. At about 250 yards’ range they would open fire (theoretically), and close in more slowly to about 100 yards when the leader would call out ‘Breaking away!’ and with an abrupt movement of stick and rudder go tearing downwards and sideways beneath the enemy machines, thus giving the rear gunners, if they were still alive, a double factor to allow for when taking their aim. The other two machines would follow and form up again in line astern, this time to port of the enemy and in a position to repeat the attack. We came up in echelon to avoid cross fire—assuming the target aircraft to be bombers—and we broke away downwards to avoid presenting the bellies of our machines to the rear gunners. If the target aircraft were fighters, we broke away upwards, as they had no rear gunners, and by doing so we at the same time gained height.

When we were sent up for a dogfight, two of us would go off together for forty minutes and endeavour in every way possible to ‘shoot’ each other down. One learned most from this exercise, of course, when an instructor was in the other plane; but there were many pilots and few instructors, so this was a rarity. On one occasion I went up with Kilmartin. We climbed to 10,000 feet, and he intimated that he would attempt to get on my tail. He succeeded. In frenzied eagerness I hurled my machine about the sky. Never, I felt, had such things been done to a plane. They must inevitably dislodge him. But a quick glance in my mirror showed that he was quietly behind me like a patient nursemaid following a too boisterous charge. Only once did I nearly succeed. I did a particularly tight turn and inadvertently went into a spin which took me into a cloud. For a moment I had lost him, but I had lost myself too, and thus restored the status quo.

When we re-established contact, he signalled to me to get on his tail and stay there. I carried out the first part of my orders admirably and started to pursue him round in every-tightening circles. I attempted to get him in my sights, but could not quite succeed in doing so. But that did not prevent me from wondering why he calmly allowed me to follow him without taking any evasive action: these circles were becoming monotonous and making me dizzy. I glanced in my mirror and understood. I was dead long ago, and I could almost imagine that I saw him smile. I was very glad it was a practice.