Thanks Trooper 117

Part 74.

February, 1941

ADVENTURES OF A NEW ZEALAND FIGHTER PILOT IN THE R.A.F.

This is the story of a twenty-three-year-old fighter pilot from Wanganui, New Zealand. Not only is he a squadron leader with a great many confirmed victories to his credit and the holder of the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar, but he has himself been shot down seven times and has three times had to bale out from crippled aircraft. He has had a head-on collision with an enemy machine, has seen his plane blown up three seconds after abandoning it and has even been bombed on the ground when taking off.

WELL, I certainly don't feel any the worse for my various adventures and I hope to do a lot more flying yet.

When war broke out, for a long time life was uneventful. In fact our first engagement did not take place until the German army was half-way through France. But my adventures began with that first engagement and from then on they came pretty thick and fast.

That first engagement was over Calais. Another pilot and I volunteered to escort a small training type aircraft to Calais aerodrome where the trainer was to land and pick up a British pilot who had force-landed. He was in command of a squadron which, operating from the same English base as ourselves, had been fighting along the French coast during the German drive to Dunkirk. Calais was surrounded by German troops, but the aerodrome was still a sort of No-man's Land.

Well, the trainer landed, but the passenger was nowhere to be seen and because of the attention we were getting the trainer had to take off again. My pal and I were "milling around" at 1,000 feet and the other plane was just leaving the ground when a dozen Messerschmitt 109s hurtled down on us. The trainer was forced back to the ground and stopped in a hedge while our two Spitfires had a grand shooting match with those 109s. It was over in a few minutes, when the survivors flew off, leaving us still in the air and the wrecks of several 109s lying on the beach, on the aerodrome and in the middle of the town. I had got two certain and one probable. The other Spitfire had one certainty and two probables. Immediately after the pilot of the trainer got his aircraft ready to take off again and arrived home safely without a bullet-mark.

Next day the whole squadron was sent up to intercept fifteen Hes, twenty-four 110s and three squadrons of 109s. We shot down eleven without a scratch to ourselves. After that we had dozens of engagements, mostly over the French coast and near Dunkirk, for the great evacuation of the British Army had by then begun. It was tiring doing several patrols a day, starting at three-forty-five a.m., and getting in two before breakfast. But I think all the pilots who took part were living on the crest of a wave of enthusiasm and wouldn't have stayed out of it for anything. The losses to the enemy were tremendous, but of course the R.A.F. had its losses too.

It was during the Dunkirk fighting that I had my first real adventure. One day I was chasing a Dornier 215 from Dunkirk to Ostend in and out of clouds. We were firing at each other and it seems we shot each other down more or less simultaneously. My engine was hit and I crash-landed on the beach at Ostend. The Dornier passed over my head with both motors on fire and, I think, crashed five miles further down the beach.

I was knocked out—cut my forehead and got concussion— but luckily I came to and was able to get out of the machine which was beginning to burn. A few seconds after I scrambled out the petrol tank exploded and the aircraft became a beacon. Ostend was surrounded by Germans, but I saw none. I walked along the beach for half an hour getting shot at now and then by Belgian soldiers who took me for a Hun. Making my way inland I found a bus carrying Belgian troops to Gravelines and I rode with them until they stopped halfway and seemed to be in some trouble. I helped myself to a car—there were cars all over the place—and went on, but few of those abandoned cars had much petrol and I had to transfer to others five times before I reached Dunkirk, finishing the trip on a motor-cycle. I had crashed at Ostend a little before dawn and it was now midday.

I went on the beach among the troops to wait my turn for a place on a boat. The Germans bombed us from time to time, but I got safely away in a destroyer. On a zig-zag course it took us five hours to reach Dover and German planes followed us almost all the time dropping bombs. There were 1,000 troops on board and one bomb hit us, but did not prevent us from getting into Dover.

About ten p.m. I was on the quay at Dover and by four the next morning I was back at my base. I had been absent altogether only twenty-four hours.

A day or two later I was involved in a collision with an Me. 109. Leading my flight I intercepted a Red Cross seaplane which was escorted—which a genuine hospital aircraft need not have been—by about twenty 109s. Two members of my flight were killed and I ended up with a collision. We had, however, collected two of the Germans and two probables—as well as the seaplane.

The collision occurred because I thought the Hun would give way and he thought I would. We had passed each other once, turned, and were coming together again. Too late to turn, I must have dropped slightly in a last second effort to dive and the 109's belly tore along the top of my fuselage, ramming my hood down on my head. My propeller had been snapped off and the engine pulled half out of the aircraft.

I found I could still hold the machine in a glide, but I was blinded by smoke and flames from the engine and could see absolutely nothing. Gliding down towards the English coast at about 100 m.p.h.—the collision occurred a few miles out to sea—I sat and hoped for the best.

The best was to hit an anti-invasion post, which pulled off a wing and sent the aircraft slithering on its side through two cornfields.

It finished up burning nicely and with ammunition popping off in all directions due to the heat. I had climbed out as quickly as possible, slightly burned on the back of the hands and forehead, but otherwise O.K. I had tightened up my cockpit harness during the glide down and that probably saved me from a broken neck.

My next adventure was a few weeks later when I chased two 113 Hes back to Calais, from the North Foreland. One of them I shot down over Calais aerodrome. The air was full of 113s, and they followed me like a swarm of bees as I turned for England. Their fire seemed to be coming from all directions and I flew flat out doing everything I could think of to shake them off. The Channel seemed an awful long way across. One bullet ripped the watch from my wrist and another singed my eye¬brow.

At Folkestone, the Germans turned and went home. I carried on, but my aircraft was full of holes and suddenly, only 800 feet above Ashford, it began to fall to pieces. I was too low to jump and I could not have landed the plane. I was still doing 250 m.p.h. so I pulled back the stick, hoping to climb a few hundred feet before dropping out. But I got caught on my seat and it was so late when I did get clear that I hit the ground a few seconds after the parachute opened and knocked myself out. I spent that day in East Grinstead hospital, but was back flying the next.

Two days later I was in a scrap with a large force of 110s, and after shooting one down had my oil-tank shot away. I was about five miles over Chatham and had to force-land without an air-speed indicator—it had been damaged—but I got down all right.

By this time I was becoming used to being shot down and when I next got mixed up with a large force of Jerries I wasn't in the least surprised to have my Spitfire's rudder shot away and my engine set on fire. Nor, if it comes to that, was I much concerned. I had gone into the fight wholeheartedly, had shot one German down for certain, another was a probable victim and now I was shot down, and I knew from past experience that I still had a very good chance of living to fight another day.

I had glided down from 28,000 to 10,000 feet, keeping control by using the ailerons in place of the rudder. But then the engine caught fire and I had to bale out. Remembering how I got caught in my seat on the last occasion I did not attempt to tip myself out, but stood up in my seat and took a header over the side. I cleared everything beautifully.

It was a lovely day, and as I came nearer the ground I could hear people talking in the streets of Maidstone and pointing to me. I don't know what they thought, for I had been practising side-slipping on the way down. You side-slip by pulling on the cords and "Spilling a little air from one side of the brolley". It was just as well, for I had to side-slip pretty vigorously to miss a house and landed instead in a plum-tree.

Next morning I was just taking off, doing about 100 m.p.h. over the ground, when bombs whistled down on the aerodrome. The Hun was dive-bombing us. One bomb landed just in front of me, blew the engine clean out and sent me and my Spitfire hurtling upside down along the ground for 150 yards. My leather helmet was torn where it had caught the ground, but beyond slight concussion and bruises I was all right. I was helped out of the plane by a colleague who had been blown out of his aircraft. He revived me and we ran for shelter, as bombs were dropping thick and heavy. A couple of Jerries tried to machine-gun us as we ran, but they didn't get us. I was put to bed and I was still in bed the next day when another raid started. I felt I would rather be in the air than on the ground so I hopped out of bed, slipped on some clothes, went up in my Spitfire and brought down a Dornier.

After these adventures I was just beginning to think that things were getting uneventful when I had another thrill— as big a thrill as I want. A pupil pilot to whom I was teaching tactics flew into me and cut my Spitfire in two. I was caught up on the remnants of my aircraft and couldn't jump. The aircraft dropped a good many thousand feet before I got clear, and I had struggled so much that half my parachute harness was torn off. I found the rip-cord handle dangling six feet out of reach.

The earth was corning up to meet me and there was nothing I could do. I closed my eyes and waited. Suddenly there was an awful jerk on my shoulders. The "brolley" had opened on its own accord. Subsequent examination showed that the rip-cord and pin had never been pulled, but that somehow the silk had bellied out and checked my fall. I landed heavily, however, and had to go to hospital for three days—a record time for me. And I hope it'll remain a record.

The fighter pilot above is Al Deere. It’s interesting to compare his war time BBC talk with his Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Christopher_Deere

Here he is with Dowding and others in a line up photographed on the 14th of September 1942. An early celebration of the Battle of Britain:

Photograph of Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding and an aide with several Battle of Britain fighter pilots (representing "The Few") outside the Air Ministry in London during the celebration of the second anniversary of the RAF's most successful day of the Battle. Left to right as shown: Sqn Ldr A C Bartley DFC, Wg Cdr D F B Sheen DFC, Wg Cdr I R Gleed DSO DFC, Wg Cdr Max Aitken DSO DFC, Wg Cdr A G Malan DSO DFC, Sqn Ldr A C Deere DFC, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, Flt Off E C Henderson, Flt Lt R H Hilary, Wg Cdr J A Kent DFC AFC, Wg Cdr C B F Kingcome, Sqn Ldr D H Watkins DFC and WO R H Gretton.


This entry is the last in my book ‘Winged Words’. Fear not however, I have another book ‘We Speak from the Air’ published in 1942, which contains 23 more BBC talks dating from the early war years. Will SoW BoB be out before this book finishes?

RedToo.

Last edited by RedToo; 08/13/10 09:35 PM. Reason: Incorrect information.

My 'Waiting for Clod' thread: http://tinyurl.com/bqxc9ee

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