The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots (40 page)

I watched the lights intently and started to lose height, trying not to overshoot them. Then they went out and I followed blindly. The thin layer of cloud I had seen to the south intervened, and I reckoned that if the aircraft was skimming along the top, I would have a good chance of seeing it – it was tempting, day or night, to skim along just above the cloud – but I saw nothing. We were now at 5,000 feet and we went down to 4,000, where we were below cloud. As we came out into clear air, Ripley got a contact ahead and close. I started to search and soon, in that light, I saw an aircraft about 2,000 feet away and dead ahead.

I closed in quickly and, recognising it as a Heinkel, dropped below and crept up to sure firing range. Coming up I opened fire from about a hundred and fifty yards. There were flashes on the fuselage and the starboard engine, which lost a cowling and started to emit smoke and sparks. I drew away to await developments, thinking that it would be forced down at once, but instead it started to climb, making for the cloud layer not far above. Hurriedly I opened fire again, but the rear gunner, recovered by now, opened fire and red streaks came past which made me wince and break away to the left.

I followed, climbing well above so that I might see it against the cloud below. Soon I saw that about a mile ahead there was clear air, the cloud ending abruptly. This Heinkel was hard hit and its chances of getting back were, I reckoned, nil; and then I saw ahead – how far I could not judge, but it was perhaps not more than a few miles – a vivid explosion on the sea. We went to the spot and circled, but there was nothing to be seen. I called up to report the combat and find my position, and I was surprised that we were only a few miles south of the Isle of Wight.

We went home to bed, tired after five hours very active flying and blissfully contented. After this successful but wakeful night, I discovered that I had become, according to the more exaggerated Press accounts, a minor “ace”.

These were brilliant times for us. Successes, once they had started, came fast, and the lessons learnt from each by aircrews and controllers brought more successes. Although the nation’s fortunes of war were as low as they had ever been, our particular war was then being loudly acclaimed as a victory of a sort, and that was all that mattered to most of us.

The enemy was sending picked crews ahead of his raids to find the targets and start fires as guides to the bombing force which was following. Late one evening we intercepted one of these pathfinders. There was that groping pursuit, then the sight of twinkling exhausts and the stealthy unseen approach to a position below and close enough for there to be no mistakes. I came up and opened fire, and it was all over very quickly. It was not surprising that the two survivors of the crew did not know what had hit them, for the aircraft exploded, seeming to burst open after the first few rounds, and we were left alone, with the sky to ourselves, the only visible reminder of that aircraft being the oil which smothered our windscreen and forced us to return to base. Well I remember the quiet “Well done” from the station commander, who was waiting on the tarmac. Later that night I destroyed a second Heinkel and two nights later a third. It was characteristic of this sort of warfare that these two nights’ flying alternated with attendances at the Sadler’s Wells ballet, which was performing at a nearby camp.

I had passed a milestone in my flying by the completion of one hundred hours at night; I had become fairly experienced. This seemed a long way from the timid flying at the training school.

With such successes came a heady self-confidence and the conviction that interception was not only the best counter-measure to the night bomber, being within the powers of even average crews, but that it should seldom fail. From being incredulous and sceptical I quickly became over-confident, forgetting that moonlight or near twilight (and even navigation lights) and the unawareness of the enemy had allowed me to score. Then my confidence would disappear with a succession of failures, reminders that the real dark multiplied difficulties incredibly, and doubts about the adequacy of my own flying assailed me. It was testing to be close to an opponent, unseen though known to be within visual range, sometimes flying through his slipstream with a sickening bump, and to persevere, waiting for the hail of bullets from an alert gunner (which, in fact, seldom came), with the suspicion growing all the time that the radar was at fault – for this early type could lie most perfectly. Did I fly steadily enough when things were not going well? How did my flying compare with that of others? Their accounts were usually most reticent, and I wondered whether most were more stable or simply less impressionable than I.

With these failures came the suspicion that the enemy, now expecting interception though probably unaware of the approach of individual fighters, was taking routine evasive action: a small turn off course then back being enough to keep the pursuer always at a distance, noticing the turns after they had started and swinging about always on the outside of them.

A dark night when Plymouth was being blitzed for the fourth time in succession was typical of the many occasions when all this was brought disconcertingly home to me. We were sent after an enemy aircraft which was leaving the target and, getting an early contact, we overhauled it steadily. Hopes began to rise and then, as we reached a position from which I might have seen it (but only after a search and knowing which section of the sky to scan), some relative movement started. The enemy slid off quickly to one side, and we had to turn hard to keep the contact. Soon we were weaving about doing hard turns first one way and then the other as if we were on the end of a whip. We lost distance and our oscillations diminished until we were able to settle down to an approach again. Each time we closed in the same thing happened, and finally we were called off and sent after another bomber which was approaching the target. Again all went well until we were a few hundred yards away. We had climbed to 19,000 feet, and I believed that in the glare of the burning city I would not fail to see this aircraft; it should be flying steadily here for its bombing run. But there ensued the same depressing sequence of turns one way and then the other, sometimes becoming hard turns so as to keep the enemy ahead in our radar’s field of vision, with never a moment to steady up and endeavour to construe what was happening. And having seen in the inferno far below the flashes of bomb bursts, bombs perhaps dropped by our opponent, we had again to give up. That night the streets of Plymouth stood out, clear dark furrows in the flames. We went home considerably chastened.

Comparing notes the next day with John, I learnt that he and Jimmie
²⁴
(his air gunner since 1936 and now his radar operator) had chased one aircraft almost to Cherbourg before they had had to give up, and then I felt less dejected.

By May 1941 the Squadron score, which had been mounting steadily, was in the thirties; we led others by a comfortable margin. The system for doing what a year before was almost unheard of was no longer experimental but firmly established. There was no knowing how far the technique would develop before the war ended. It seemed that night was slowly being turned into day. How long, I wondered, would it take for defence to overcome the disadvantage of the dark. How long would it be worth bombing at night? How long would it take us to develop radar to a pitch that would allow us to repulse bombers at night as we had by day? These were interesting speculations.

My luck deserted me. One thing after another went wrong, and sometimes I seemed fated to choose a wrong course when decisions had to be made quickly and there was one right course that might earn the much-needed success. I had a glimpse of an enemy aircraft over Bristol, silhouetted against the glow of fires on the cloud a thousand or so feet below. Perhaps prompt action, a steep dive, would have let me keep it in sight until my observer could pick out the radar contact, but I hesitated and it passed out of sight, screened by one of the engines, and did not reappear. Some nights later my guns jammed when I was behind a Heinkel, close and unseen – this would have been a certainty – and having fired a round or two I could do nothing but try to avoid the return fire and save our own skins. On a night in May a deplorable error was saved from having tragic results by what then seemed a miracle.

We were sent down to the coast west of Portland to look for low-flying enemy aircraft which had been reported. It was late and we had already been on patrol for an hour and a half. There was little chance of success, but I hoped and expected that my luck would change; there was a moon and the weather was good. Approaching the coast, I reduced height. It was a beautiful night, and flying south it was easy to see, as we crossed it, the irregular line of demarcation between complete and incomplete blackness which was the coastline. “Vector one eight zero for ten miles and then patrol east and west.” The controller had little else to say, and I guessed rightly that not much was known about those low-flying aircraft. It was a wild-goose chase and my confidence evaporated; I was pleased to be soon told to return to base.

Near the coast the radio voice warned me of the presence of another aircraft, saying ominously: “You are being followed by another aircraft. Orbit once.” Without any further clue as to the identity of my shadower, I construed that it was the needle in the haystack which, in my optimism, I almost expected to find. I turned the switch that cut off all contact with the outside world so as to have uninterrupted conversation with my observer. We started to search and soon got a contact. After a few changes of course, we were going west and were closing in comfortably. Then I saw a small indistinct shape, barely a silhouette, about 2,000 feet away; for there was a half moon.

We had found to our cost that the enemy were, by then, keeping a good look-out in moonlight; they had been able to get away several times, diving as the fighter closed in or opening fire unexpectedly early. I wanted no mistake this time, and with my eyes glued to this almost shapeless patch of darkness I came in fast, all set to fire as soon as I was satisfied that it was what I expected it to be, hostile. The shape became more distinct; it had all the squatness of the Heinkels I had seen before; there was no doubt in my mind: it was a Heinkel. My approach was not seen, and I was able to close well in before opening fire. I gave a burst and I saw hits on the starboard wing. With another there was a big flash on the port engine; the port wheel came down. It was still flying, but probably, damaged as it was, it would not get home. We had only to follow, reload the guns and finish it off, if it had not already fallen into the sea. The experimental graticule pattern in the gunsight which I was using had done nothing to improve my shooting; it had perhaps made it worse.

I was overtaking all the time, and I overshot, pulling away to the right. The damaged machine turned left towards the sea and across the moon. As the moon caught it I saw something that I would not accept; that tail was familiar. Was it familiar? A thought came to my mind, and I smothered it. It was not possible; it was unthinkable. There was no question that this was not an enemy aircraft; I had been told it was hostile. But had I? One had to make up one’s mind in moonlight quickly and from a long way off; otherwise the chance would be lost. And once one’s mind was made up there was no drawing back; the rear gunner might shoot first, and his aim would be deliberate. Perhaps it was not a Heinkel; it might be a Junkers 88; I had never seen one of them at night. But there was the shape of that tail, and back came the awful doubt.

All this flashed through my mind, and then I called up, as was the normal procedure, to report that I had had a combat. The answer to my excited message was calm and there were no congratulations. The voice said: “That was probably a friendly aircraft. Follow it and report its position. How badly damaged is it?” I felt as if I had taken an ice-cold plunge. The bottom fell out of my world. I knew now why the tail of that aircraft had looked familiar. The two men inside it were on my side and I had probably killed them; probably they were from my Squadron. John Cunningham and Edward Crew were flying; it might be either of them.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that it was a ‘friendly’ which was following me?”

“We could not get in touch with you.” Of course they could not get in touch with me when it was too late. Why could they not have warned me at once, when they told me I was being followed? What I had done scarcely bore contemplation.

We followed the crippled aircraft, with one wheel hanging grotesquely down, for four or five minutes as it turned slowly from south to east and then towards north. And then, against a darker part of the sky, I lost sight of it. That this aircraft was still flying did not mean that the pilot was still alive; damaged aircraft can fly on with no one in control for some time. But there was a little hope. Then on the radio I heard:

“One engine is still working. They hope to make their base.” That meant that the pilot was still alive.

“Follow close and report your position if you can.”

“I have lost sight of him and I do not know my position.”

“The crew is going to bale out. Is it over the sea or land?”

“I do not know.”

I was instructed to return to base; there was nothing I could do now. The sight, some minutes later, of a fire on the ground suggested that the machine had crashed on land, and that the crew, had it been possible to bale out, was safe. I reported what I had seen and went home, my mind a seething, unhappy turmoil. I had done a terrible thing. Was it possible, I wondered, that the crew was safe and sound? It would have been a miracle if neither member had been touched.

It seemed to take an age to fly the eighty miles to base. I landed, taxied in, got out and stumbled towards the “readiness” room. I pushed the door open and went in, blinking and dazzled by the lights. Someone – I forget who it was – was lying on a bed; he was the only chap left there. He said sleepily: “Hullo.” I said: “I’ve shot down a Beau,” and he said: “God! I’m sorry. Bloody bad luck.” That, I felt, was decent of him. I would not have been surprised had he said something like “I never want to speak to you again.” A stupid idea, but that is how I felt.