29 Brian in 1942 as Wing Commander.
It took me six weeks of hospital and convalescent leave to recover from the bullet wound in my leg and the treatment it had received from the naval surgeon. During that period yet another CO was posted to 92 Squadron. He was a Canadian by the name of Johnny Kent, and he was, we had to concede, a most distinguished aviator. He arrived straight from very successfully commanding one of the Polish fighter squadrons, and before that had won an AFC, the equivalent to a DFC, though it was limited to achievement in such non-operational flying duties as test and experimental work. Johnny Kent’s more than well-deserved AFC had been awarded for testing the strength of barrage-balloon cables by flying into them in old Fairey Battles which had been modified with armour-plated wings. Even unmodified, these appalling aircraft resembled a cross between a Hurricane and a banana and possessed the flying characteristics of a pork sausage. Merely taking off in one would have been worthy of an AFC, and to fly them deliberately into balloon cables must have taken rock-solid nerve and courage.
Unfortunately, despite having these unusual heroic exploits to his credit, Johnny did not endear himself to the squadron at the beginning. There was one particular incident that wrong-footed him (with the team) almost immediately after he arrived at Biggin Hill. This had its origins in the fact that, while still recuperating at nearby Orpington Hospital, I had got into the habit of hobbling over on crutches from time to time, to break the monotony and stay in touch. On one of these occasions I met up with Bob Tuck, who was taking time off from commanding his Hurricane squadron in East Anglia and paying a visit to Biggin for old times’ sake. It soon came to our attention that 92 Squadron was scheduled to patrol along the south coast later in the afternoon, and, as one man, we thought it might be fun to join in. To borrow a couple of aircraft was no problem. Two pilots standing by for take-off were only too pleased to be allocated an impromptu break. I jettisoned my crutches, was somehow hoisted into the cockpit by the ground crew, and away we went into, the air.
By good fortune the patrol was eventless and everyone landed safely, but I had definitely over-estimated my fitness. Every time I exerted any ‘G’ I had felt most peculiar, and I should, indeed, have known better, especially in the light of a warning experience that had come my way a few nights earlier when I turned up for a mess party, raring to go. The consequence was that I spent the entire evening in agony on an ante-room sofa with my leg, stuck up in the air, swelling out like one of Kent’s barrage balloons. Nature had not yet been given enough time to repair the damage done by the scourge of Chatham Naval Hospital. It was while she was still finishing her work that Johnny Kent arrived as CO.
His first action as soon as I returned to take up my old position as flight commander was to summon all the squadron’s pilots together for a pep talk. We were, he declared, a notoriously ill-controlled rabble and 92 Squadron had become a byword for indiscipline. The one thing we should therefore be sure about was that he, Johnny Kent, was about to change all that. We were not going to know what hit us. Kingcome in particular, he continued, had behaved disgracefully. It had been reported to him by the new B Flight commander, who was technically in charge in my absence, that I had overridden his authority in commandeering an aircraft. What was more, I had been in breach of King’s Regulations by flying while still officially medically unfit. Make no mistake about it, he was certainly going to keep an eye on me, and one more serious breach of discipline would see Kingcome posted.
The diatribe was greeted in stony silence. One might go even further and describe it as a silence heavy with resentment and antagonism. And, truth to tell, Kent’s remarks about 92’s lack of discipline were both misinformed and unjust. The squadron’s discipline in the air was immaculate. It had proved itself to be the most efficient killing machine in the Battle of Britain: as the air attack unit longest in the firing line, its record of success was unmatched. On the ground an outsider might have thought there was a lax air to be detected amid the general discipline, but the laid-back attitude was superficial, a front: the usual small irregularities and assertions of individualism – silk neck-scarves and longish hair. But 92 Squadron had stronger bonds of loyalty and solidarity, a fiercer pride in itself than existed in any other unit I came across before or after. Outsiders, as they sensed this, may well have felt excluded, but the only way for a new CO or flight commander to penetrate the protective wall of pride was to show he had qualities the squadron could respect. Leadership by example was the best method of winning such regard, rather than nit-picking with a copy of King’s Regulations laid open at the elbow.
Alter the war, Johnny went into print to claim that he had transformed 92 Squadron into a disciplined force out of an undisciplined rout. In fact the reverse was true. It was not Johnny who changed the squadron but the squadron that changed Johnny. Almost without being aware of it he absorbed 92’s unique spirit and, in a few short weeks, matured from being a chippy colonial into a relaxed, respected commanding officer. In our eyes he had certainly needed to do a little maturing, and, to be fair, he caught on quickly. Those initial unjust criticisms may have rankled down the years, but he and I developed a friendship that lasted long after the war, until his sadly premature death.
His metamorphosis from martinet had unfortunately not yet come about in the early spring of 1941, when 92 Squadron was attached to Manston for a couple of months to cover the eastern corner of Kent and its coastal waters. It was my first time back at the station since my brush with the forces of law and order when I misbehaved in the local theatre. Before long we had another incident involving the law, though this time I found myself on the right side of it, if only marginally.
We divined there would be problems at Manston the moment we encountered its ambitious station commander, fresh to his post, very young to be holding the rank of wing commander and hungry for success. With one eye on the promotion ladder, he kept the other open for people and incidents he could crack down on and so highlight his administrative talents. On the day we arrived he paid a visit to our dispersal hut and delivered a diatribe along the same line as Johnny Kent’s, except that mercifully I was not singled out for comment. It had come to his knowledge, he said, that 92 was a squadron that seemed to think it was a law unto itself. He therefore wished to warn us from the start that he was not the kind of chap to tolerate breaches in King’s Regulations or lowering of the high standards of comportment he was determined to maintain on his station. Any such breaches would be treated with the utmost severity and offenders held up as an example pour encourager les autres.
It so happened that there was, among the thorns in the flesh of authority, a tendency among front-line squadrons to siphon off the odd gallon of aviation fuel as an unofficial donation towards their trips to the local to help eke out the stringent petrol ration. In 92 Squadron we made firm efforts to keep this practice to a minimum, for few were more aware than we were of the risks run by the Merchant Navy in bringing the stuff into the country under their Royal Navy escorts. On the other hand, it was our privilege to give the shipping convoys the best air cover we could when they sailed within our limited range and we never felt they would be likely to begrudge us the odd gallon here or there. Nevertheless the habit was still a fundamental breach of rule and so presented a natural target for any glory-seeking new broom hoping to sweep clean. The eager young station commander saw his big chance one fine morning when the fates decided to have a field day.
Johnny Kent was away on a few days’ leave. This meant that once again I became acting squadron commander. Johnny was none too happy with the arrangement, but there was nothing he could do about it as I retained seniority over the opportunist sneak who had done his best to unseat me after taking over the other flight. I walked into the CO’s office expecting nothing more exacting to cope with than routine paperwork, but found myself confronting an agitated squadron adjutant. ‘Bad news,’ he announced. ‘I’m afraid Snowy’s been arrested. Bloody fool parked after dark last night, on the wrong side of the road without lights, right outside the nick, would you believe it?’
Snowy was my aircraft fitter, a first-class technician who was a most likeable young man. He had for a long time been getting me safely into the air and down again, while also servicing and maintaining my car (which, needless to say, was really sister Pat’s). In return he was allowed to borrow the car when I was not using it myself.
I went blank with incredulity. How could Snowy have been such a damned ass? In those days of blackout, with no street lighting and cars’ lights reduced to tiny slits by metal covers, emergency laws stipulated that vehicles parked after dark must have their side-lights on at all times and be left next to the left-hand kerb, pointing in the direction of the traffic flow. It was an utterly sensible law, considering the drastically reduced night visibility, and Snowy must have suffered a brainstorm to take such an obvious risk. I could only think some preoccupation with a new girlfriend had hazed his wits.
The adjutant continued: ‘The worst of it is they’ve found a drop or two of the dreaded green 100-octane fuel in the tank and Snowy’s been packed off back here under military escort. The station commander’s champing at the bit, expecting you to pass him up the line. He’s even got the armed escort outside, waiting to wheel him away the moment you put him on remand.’
The path of duty was marked out with disconcerting clarity. Air force law dictated that offenders must be seen in the first instance by their immediate commanding officer, whose powers to punish were limited in accordance with rank. In other words, if the immediate CO deemed the offence too serious to be dealt with summarily, then it fell outside his scope for punishment. His duty was to remand the offender to be dealt with by his immediate superior. And so it went on, a notch at a time, until it arrived with the station commander, who could deal with the matter summarily or recommend the ultimate step of a court martial.
Here, then, was a real dilemma. My immediate superior was Johnny Kent, only as yet half-trained and gunning for me on grounds of indiscipline, but away for the moment. In his absence I could jump a notch and remand the prisoner straight to a station commander with a run-away ego longing to pounce. I had no doubt in my mind that the commander would opt for a court martial, with all the glory this would offer as star prosecution witness and the scourge of an ungodly squadron. There was no time to spare. Snowy was already outside, flanked by his armed escort, who would march him away at the double to the station commander just as soon as I could get through the formality of remanding him. It was taken for granted that this was my one legitimate option.
I did not feel quite so sure myself, and weighed the consequences in the balance. Surrendering Snowy to the station commander would undoubtedly lead to his conviction by court martial and a dishonourable discharge once he had served a month or two of imprisonment in the ‘glasshouse’. It would certainly mean the end of his career in the air service, quite apart from seriously jeopardising his chances of finding a civilian job. It troubled me not a jot that I could be considered an accomplice for having turned a blind eye to the fact that he was putting the occasional contraband gallon of fuel in my sister Pat’s car. The point which most concerned me was that the RAF was in danger of losing a valuable mechanic who was making a positive contribution to whatever success was coming our way in the conduct of the war.
On a personal level I owed it to Snowy that he had kept my aircraft in superb flying trim and been an important factor in preserving me alive. He was a valued member of the squadron, and the squadron was family; blood was thicker than water and 92 looked after its own. Meanwhile, what of Johnny Kent’s position? Being absent would absolve him from all blame, and if I bent the rules it would hand him the ammunition to fire me if he so wished. That ought to please him, I thought. It therefore boiled down to a straightforward choice between Snowy and the station commander. Either I could wreck the career and possibly the livelihood of a first-class mechanic whose skills were a basic resource to the squadron; or else I could deflate the ego of a small-minded senior officer who apparently thought the path to promotion was lined by a set of shiny buttons and topped off with a crisp haircut. ‘Call in prisoner and escort,’ I said to the adjutant.
The party marched in smartly and clunked to a halt in front of the desk, standing to attention as the charge was read out: ‘The prisoner parked his car on the wrong side of the road without lights, contrary to regulation number so and so. Furthermore, on examination of the said vehicle, the petrol tank was found to contain 100-octane aviation spirit, the property of HM Government.’
I put on the most magisterial air I could muster. ‘I have given this case much thought,’ I said, ‘and I’m not entirely satisfied that the charges are based on a sufficiently thorough examination of the facts. I have therefore decided to give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt and to dismiss the case on the grounds of lack of evidence.’
There followed one of those deeply satisfying silences so profound that the sound of a pin dropping on a heavily piled carpet would have reverberated thunderously. Even the adjutant’s cynical old eyes briefly glazed over as I concluded: ‘All charges against the prisoner are hereby dismissed. He is to be released immediately and returned to his unit to continue with normal duties. Case closed. March out.’
I fully expected my head to roll. It never did. Johnny Kent took it all amazingly in his stride and refrained from using it against me. He was beginning to mellow under 92 Squadron’s benign influence and also, I think, to appreciate the loyalties that bound his new command together. As for the station commander, once he had emerged from his state of shocked incredulity, he roared, boomed and foamed, but was powerless to do more. He was free to question my judgement, even my sanity, but never the legality of my action. Once a case is dismissed it can never be reopened. Snowy was safe.
There was rather a sad sequel to this sorry tale. Some years later, in 1946, not long after the end of the war, I was posted as an instructor to the RAF Staff College at Bracknell, near Ascot. Among the students on one of the courses there turned up no less a person than the ex-Station Commander at Manston, still stuck at the level of wing commander, never having managed the promotion he sought so desperately. On this occasion I felt genuinely sorry for him. He had a defeated look. It became even more defeated when the course finished. He failed.
I know he held me responsible, but quite without justification. Students at the college were divided into syndicates of half a dozen or so candidates, each supervised by a member of the teaching staff and rotated every so often between staff members to prevent personality clashes. By pure chance the former station commander was never in my syndicate, so I was never called on to report on him and had no hand in his assessment. In any case, I would never have failed him or anyone else out of personal malice, even if I had felt any, which I did not. The man had never once entered my thoughts after the squadron left Manston, and even there my feelings for him had been merely ones of irritation.
There was one more ironic touch. After the war I married his goddaughter, though I doubt whether he remembered he had one.
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
A third Manston episode occurred before long. This time the connection with the base was more tenuous, but the event was infinitely more dramatic. The story had its beginnings in June 1941, when two of Germany’s most up-to-date and powerful ‘pocket’ battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the almost equally powerful battle cruiser Prinz Eugen, finding the Atlantic on the hot side, had made a dash for temporary shelter in Brest harbour. There they were promptly attacked by Bomber Command and remained bottled up for months, subjected to continuous air assault and blockaded by a round-the-clock submarine patrol at the harbour entrance.
One day, following a particularly heavy raid on the ships, air reconnaissance revealed what appeared to be crippling damage to all three, sufficient to immobilise them until extensive repairs were carried out. This assessment was confirmed by the photographic interpreters after minute examination of the aerial pictures. Accordingly it was decided for the time being to call off regular air reconnaissance cover and submarine patrols.
RAF Kenley, a fighter station about five miles west of Biggin Hill, was commanded at the time by Group Captain Victor Beamish, one of three famous aeronautical brothers, all senior air force officers, all enormous former Irish rugby internationals. On the morning of 12 February, a day or so after the critical raid on Brest, the weather was particularly dreary, and as Victor Beamish looked out of his office window at the low cloud and driving rain, he decided to do a ‘rhubarb’. This quaint term indicated an impromptu operation undertaken by two aircraft when weather conditions were too bad to allow for normal fighter offensives. The pair of aircraft would cross the Channel at wave-top height to avoid radar detection and swoop on any opportune targets that presented themselves.
Victor squeezed himself into his Spitfire cockpit and took off, and it remained a perfectly routine ‘rhubarb’ operation until he and his companion aircraft were halfway back on the home run across the Channel. All at once he found, to his astonishment, that they were flying alongside three massive German battleships escorted by a flotilla of destroyers and a fleet of E-boats – high-speed launches armed with torpedoes and cannon – steaming north off the French coast by Le Touquet.
In a daze, he reported the find over his RT. Like the rest of us, he had made a study of the silhouettes of Germany’s most important ships of war and felt certain that those he was seeing were Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen. Impossible, came the reply. Those ships were known to be in Brest harbour, too damaged to move. That might be so, he insisted, but the fact remained he was looking at three ships whose profiles exactly matched their descriptions. At the very least they must be major battleships, so where had they originated if they were not the ones from Brest? Presumably they are ours, came the answer. This wouldn’t, after all, be the first time it had slipped the navy’s mind to keep the air force informed of its movements. The matter would be looked into. Now, if he had nothing further to report, perhaps he would be so good as to return to base.
I had recently finished a short stint as an instructor at an operational training unit (OTU), the function of which was to teach qualified pilots fighter tactics. Bob Tuck, by then wing commander at Biggin Hill, had asked that I should take command of 72 Squadron when the post fell vacant, and this event had come to pass. By that February of 1942, however, we were on a temporary detachment at Gravesend, one of Biggin’s satellite airfields, and on the 12th, because of the murky weather, we had been stood down from a state of ‘readiness’ and put on ‘thirty minutes’ availability’. This jargon requires a little explanation.
Fighter Command squadrons engaged in the air defence of the United Kingdom were held in various states of availability, depending on the level of enemy air activity and the weather. In those days weather played a far more significant role in aerial activity than it does today. Sophisticated technology has made it of almost secondary importance and the modern pilot can find his target on instruments and release a computer-guided, heat-seeking air-to-air missile while still miles beyond visual range. In the 1940s the fighter pilot could fly blind, but could not as yet fight blind. We needed visual contact with our target, even as the bombers needed visual contact with theirs. Solid cloud therefore brought operations (except for those of the ‘rhubarb’ type) to a standstill.
First among the normal states of availability came ‘readiness’: pilots in the dispersal hut, in full flying gear, within a short sprint of their aircraft; their fitters in the cockpits, keeping the engines warm and ready for instant take-off. From a state of ‘readiness’ we could normally be airborne within three minutes from the order, ‘Scramble!’ meaning, ‘Take off.’ The second state was ‘thirty minutes’ availability’, which meant pilots could wait in the mess and grab a meal while they had the chance. Occasionally, if the weather was really poor, the ‘thirty’ would be relaxed to ‘sixty minutes’ availability’. Finally, thirty minutes after last light, the squadrons would be ‘released’, which meant you were free to drift off and do your own thing until thirty minutes before next day’s sunrise.
We spent the dreary morning of the 12th in our luxury pad at Cobham Hall, the home of the Earl of Darnley, reading newspapers or snoozing to catch up on a bit of sleep. Shortly before midday the phone went and summoned us to a state of readiness. Our transport was permanently ready to go, and within minutes we were back at dispersal. No sooner had we arrived than we were called to cockpit standby. Hardly had I strapped myself in before I was ordered to report to the control tower and had to unstrap myself again.
There was, it appeared, some as yet undefined surface activity off Dover involving the navy, who were very probably going to need our support. The moment more information was to hand I would be told. Meanwhile it was back to the cockpit to resume strapping myself in before, yet again, being called to the control tower. During the next quarter of an hour I must have been summoned four times between cockpit and control tower, each time fastening and unfastening the straps and each time been given a set of different instructions, each set more confusing than the one preceding it. It became obvious there was not a soul, from Fighter Command downwards, who had a clue as to what was afoot in the English Channel.
Eventually I emerged from this spin of activity with a set of instructions which at least looked positive and clear cut: 72 Squadron was to take off at once and fly flat out towards Manston. There we would find four other Spitfire squadrons already orbiting the airfield, and these were to form up behind 72. Kingcome was to take command of this scratch wing of five squadrons, at which point six naval Swordfish of the Fleet Air Arm, based at Manston, would be scrambled. The task of our wing would be to escort them to the Straits of Dover, where some kind of fracas was in progress between a flotilla of German E-boats and several of our own MTBs (or motor torpedo boats – high-speed launches similar to the E-boats). The Swordfish were to do what they could to break up the E-boat flotilla while the Spitfires provided air cover and, air-cover duties permitting, joined in the attack.
Swordfish were affectionately, and for obvious reasons, nicknamed ‘Stringbags’. They were certainly a joke of an aircraft, and a testimony to the navy’s attachment to the prehistoric: antediluvian aeroplanes with fixed undercarriages and three crew members crammed into two open cockpits. They had been designed by the Fairey Aviation Co. to function as torpedo carriers, and this was a task they could just about manage, though the weight of a torpedo left them a top speed of only between 85 and 90 knots – about or below the stalling speed for most other aircraft of their generation.
The trouble with the Royal Navy was that it was still having difficulty coming to terms with air power, and for some time it continued to treat its air arm as the Cinderella in the family. It was fortunate for the navy, if not for its air crews, that the short comings and vulnerability of such aircraft as the Swordfish were counterbalanced by the dedication and heroism of the Fleet Air Arm personnel. These qualities had been demonstrated at the end of May 1940 in the naval action that culminated in the sinking of the Bismarck, another of Germany’s most powerful battle ships. She had virtually been chased around the Atlantic by the cream of the British Fleet, but her powerful guns comfortably out-ranged those of the Royal Navy, and this, in combination with her superior speed, enabled her to elude her pursuers. Eventually a lucky strike from the torpedo of a Swordfish from the Ark Royal sealed the Bismarck’s fate. It hit her in the rudder and put her steering gear out of action. She was unable to do more than steam in helpless circles as the British battleships King George V, Rodney and Dorsetshire finished her with a bombardment.
At least my instructions from the control tower at Gravesend seemed clear at last. I sprinted back to my aircraft to clamber into the cockpit and take off before there could be any more changes of plan. We could muster only ten serviceable Spitfires and pilots, and my nine companions formed up behind me as we high-tailed towards Manston. There the six Swordfish were already airborne and orbiting the airfield, but we could see no more Spitfires anywhere in view. How long the Swordfish had been waiting was impossible to tell, but they were making their impatience obvious. The instant they saw us they straightened up and set course without hanging about for the rest of the escort to show up.
With hindsight I realised that their impatience sprang from the fear that the painfully slow speeds of their ‘Stringbags’ could allow their targets to get clean beyond range before they could catch them. Yet the most immediate surprise they gave me was that, instead of flying south towards Dover, as I expected, they turned due east and, at zero altitude, headed out across the North Sea, the surface of which was uninviting and threatening beneath a swirling cover of low cloud and rain. Undaunted, I took up station above and behind, deploying the ten aircraft to which the promised five-squadron wing had evidently been reduced. Considering the atrocious weather, this depletion was probably just as well. Five squadrons could easily have become unworkable with visibility fluctuating between zero and a few hundred yards. We also had to maintain a low altitude to avoid losing visual contact. Because the maximum speed of a Swordfish equalled the stalling speed of a Spitfire, the only way to hold them in view without spinning into the sea ourselves was to sweep behind them in large loose figures of eight. Trying to co-ordinate the movements of more than ten aircraft in those conditions might well have got us all into an untimely tangle.
The coast was hardly more than a few minutes behind us before the first attack came from enemy fighters. We managed to thwart them without sustaining casualties. Then, without warning, I found myself gazing at an astonishing sight as it materialised dramatically and magically out of the low cloud and tempestuous rain. I found I was sitting at masthead height above the most magisterial warship you could have imagined. Its sinister beauty and overpowering menace were palpable. Mentally I began to chalk up points of congratulation to the Royal Navy. At last, it seemed, they had made a dramatic move up-market and got themselves a real ship of battle for the present and future. The contrast between our lumbering patrol of Swordfish, wallowing sluggishly over the waves, and this magnificent vast floating fortress cruelly showed up the contrast between struggling museum relics and a sleek, deadly product of the latest technology. Perhaps, I thought, if the Sea Lords of the Admiralty could only be here to witness this scene, then even they might take the decision to scrap those farcical flying machines.
I wasn’t given long to ponder the imponderable. In the midst of my reveries the marvellous fighting ship I was circling so admiringly opened up at me with every mighty gun barrel. I moved deftly away from the turmoil of shrapnel, aggrieved if not astounded. The Royal Navy was known among airmen for having this habit of firing first and asking questions afterwards. Then all at once the gunners on the great warship switched attention to the Swordfish, which were by now driving straight towards her in two ‘vics’ of three in line astern. There was no doubt about it. They were preparing for combat. My confusion intensified by the second. Either we had a case of mistaken identity and the torpedo planes were about to attack one of our own, or else the beautiful ship belonged to a set-up other than the Royal Navy. But if she was not one of ours, then whose could she be? It was impossible to think she might be German. Surely in that case we would have been briefed; and surely a major enemy warship could never have come so close to the English coast without triggering the nation’s alarm bells long before this.
The huge ship herself seemed in no doubts. She lowered her big guns and fired salvos into the sea ahead of the approaching Swordfish. As the colossal walls of water and spray rose directly into their paths, I had the impression that one was brought down by the deluge. Somehow the others seemed to survive, however, and then the battleship raised her sights and let fly directly at the Swordfish with a fiery inferno. The brave ‘Stringbags’ never faltered, but just kept driving steadily on at wave-top height, straight and level as though on a practice run. They made perfect targets as they held back from firing their missiles before closing to torpedo range. They were flying unswerving to certain destruction, and all we as their escort could do was sit helplessly in the air above them and watch them die.
Mercifully our role as inactive spectators came to a dramatic close as, out of the murk and broken cloud, a swarm of German fighters appeared. We had expected nothing less. What we had not expected was that among the Messerschmitt 109s, Germany’s front-line, single-engined, single-seat fighter, there would be a strange new radial-engined single-seater never before seen or even mentioned in advance intelligence warnings. As we discovered later, we had made our first contact with the Focke-Wulf 190, a first-class performer destined to supplant the Me 109 as Göring’s most deadly answer to the Spitfire, and the air cover had been led by no less a person than Adolf Galland. Meanwhile there was not a split second free for speculation. We turned in towards the attacking fighters and did our utmost to intercept between them and the vulnerable Swordfish. The battle was short, sharp and violent, and it probably lasted only a few minutes before the German fighters melted away. Of the Swordfish no trace remained, apart from floating wreckage and one or two life-rafts.
There had been six aircraft and eighteen crew. Five survivors were later picked out of the water. I never knew how many of the Swordfish were shot down by the ship’s guns and how many by the attacking aircraft, but I hoped we had at least managed to protect them from the main brunt of the attack from the air. The rest became history, much of it still shrouded in a fog of obfuscation to the present day. The great ship I had so admired turned out to be the Prinz Eugen, the battle cruiser escorting the twin battleships, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. It had paused and with almost contemptuous ease swatted six buzzing mechanical insects out of the way before turning to rejoin Gneisenau and Scharnhorst where they lurked in the mist a few hundred yards distant. The mighty trio, with escorting fleet, then vanished eastward into the gloom of the North Sea, on its way through the minefields to the haven of the north German harbours. Thirteen men had died and six aircraft been lost on a doomed mission. Their effort had had as much impact on the progress of German’s mighty battleships as raindrops on the windscreen of a speeding car.
With guns empty, the Spitfires of 72 Squadron made their way back to base together, many shot up but none shot down. We had been in the air little more than an hour since take-off, but it had been time enough to witness the highest heroism and its toll; time enough for lives to be ended and family ties shattered. An epic of sacrifice and tragedy had been squeezed into sixty fleeting minutes, the time you might take over a hurried lunch. Back on the ground at Gravesend we taxied to dispersal and our waiting groups of ground crew, who were eager to hear the news and assess any damage to the aircraft in their charge. It was usual for the eight gun ports along the leading edge of a Spitfire’s wings to be covered with fabric patches to protect the guns from dirt and weather. As the guns were fired, these would be blown away, and consequently as they came into land the aircraft emitted rather weird whistling sounds, alerting ground crew to the fact they had been in action.
One other innovation had been present on that historic day. At about this time the new camera guns were being developed and an experimental one had been fitted to my aircraft. They were activated by the gun button and designed to operate automatically every time the guns were fired. During the fracas over the Prinz Eugen I had got what I thought must be a number of particularly good shots of the new German fighters. Naturally I was agog to see the results and asked Snowy, my fitter, to do all he could to get the film developed as quickly as possible. Apart from the matter of my own satisfaction, the film could hold valuable information about these new combatants. Away Snowy trotted to unload the camera, only to return crestfallen and red-faced a few minutes later. ‘Very sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I forgot to remove the lens cover.’ The camera gun was taken away a few days later for more experimental work and I never managed to get hold of another.
In war, as in peace, it seems we tend to forget the triumphs and remember the disasters. The Channel Dash stayed in my mind so vividly because it was a failure and a tragic one; it was also entirely man-made. The Germans fooled us totally, and panicked our staff personnel into making ill-considered, off-the-cuff decisions that were never vetted by planners with up-to-date operational experience. Had that happened, we would undoubtedly have thought twice before sending out six absurdly outmoded Swordfish to stop three of the most advanced floating fortresses in the world.
There was a Whitehall cover-up, I hardly need to add. I attended a couple of inquiries, but nothing came out and the operation, a German naval and propaganda triumph of the highest order, was heavily and correctly exploited to the full in Germany. It passed largely unknown and unremarked in Britain, which was scarcely surprising. For three German battleships to have outwitted our intelligence and sailed unscathed in broad daylight up the English Channel and through the Straits of Dover before escaping into the wilderness of the North Sea was barely credible. It was certainly an event Whitehall preferred to have swept quietly under the carpet then and thereafter.
Later it emerged that the factor which made the feat possible for the Germans was the brilliance of the Brest dockyard workers and their directing genius. The last air attack on the ships in Brest supposedly did so much damage that all air and submarine surveillance could be called off, but in fact it achieved only superficial damage, leaving the ships’ main fighting and navigational systems intact. The ingenuity of the Germans was that, after the raid, they managed to strew the ships’ decks with debris so cleverly arranged that our photographic interpreters were deceived into thinking the damage far more extensive and invasive than it was. As soon as the surveillance of the British was eased off, all that the Germans needed to do was – literally – clear the decks. The ships were then free to put to sea with operational systems working perfectly, transformed by sleight of hand back into their deadly selves. The Germans completely hoodwinked our intelligence.
It was a pity the cover-up threw an obscuring shadow over the shining exploit of those Swordfish crews. Their leader, Eugene Esmonde, was deservedly awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, the first in the Fleet Air Arm, but in my view each of the men who took part should have received the highest honour. They were unquestionably launched on a suicide mission. As they took off every crew member must have had it as a certainty at the back of his mind that he was going to his death. The fact that five of the eighteen survived miraculously was a bonus none could have expected or believed possible.
Perhaps their heroism was best and most simply summed up by an eyewitness from the other side, who saw all that happened from the deck of one of the two sister battleships being escorted by Prinz Eugen. Helmuth Giessler, who was navigation officer on board Scharnhorst, put it in these words: ‘Their bravery was devoted and incredible. They knowingly and ungrudgingly gave their all to their country and went to their doom without hesitation.’
29 Brian in 1942 as Wing Commander.
30 Bob Tuck.
31 BK introducing HM King George VI to 92 Squadron pilots. The king is seen here shaking hands with Robbie Robertson, with New Zealander Owen Hardy standing to Robbie’s left.
32 The ‘Glorious’ twins (Moira and Sheila) outside the White Hart.
33 By the White Hart. Left to right: BK, Moira, Sam Saunders, Bill, Roy Dutton, Sheila and Kath Preston.
34 Janet Montague (née Aitkin), Paddy Green, Sheila, Bob Holland and Roger Frankland.
35 Some of the ‘few’ taken later in the war (14 September 1942). Tony Bartley, DFC, Desmond Sheen, DFC, Ian Gleed, DSO, DFC, Max Aitkin, DSO, DFC, ‘Sailor’ Malan, DSO, DFC, SIL ‘Al’ Deere, DFC, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, F/O Henderson, MM, FIL Richard Hillary, Johnny Kent, DFC, AFC, Brian Kingcome, DFC, OSO D. H. Watkins, DFC and R.H. Gretton.
36 92 Squadron, Biggin Hill, 1940/42.
37 Wing Cdr Duncan Smith, Maj. Malcolm Ostler and Group Capt. Brian Kingcome, outside their mobile operations room in Italy. ‘Group Capt. Kingcome seems to have recovered from the injuries he received when a jeep turned over recently.’ (Flight, June 1944)
38, 39, 40 Photographs of BK in Italy in 1944 showing the injuries he sustained falling out of a jeep when it overturned.
41 Churchill visiting 244 Wing in Italy. BK (behind) as CO showing the Prime Minister around.
42 ‘Cocky’ Dundas stands tall on the left, with BK in the middle, in this group shot of 244 Wing in Italy.
43 The Malcolm Club in Italy – where chaps went to drink and relax and be entertained by rather collect young ladies!
44 BK and a friend (possibly Allan Wright) walking the dog on the beach in Italy. The dog, Nelly, was BK’s.
45 324 Wing at RAF Zeltweg in Austria, August 1946, with BK as CO.
46 Lesley Kingcome and Betty Barthropp drawing the raffle tickets to win a car that Paddy annually presented to the RAF Benevolent Fund (early 1960s).
47 BK and Paddy Barthropp in the early 1960s.
48 Battle of Britain reunion. Left to right: Jamie Rankin, Paddy Barthropp, (?), ‘Sailor’ Malan, Bobby Preston, Brian Kingcome, (?), Tony Bartley and Bob Tuck.
49 Christopher Foxley-Norris (middle foreground), Bob Tuck (eighth from right), Douglas Bader (fifth from right), Paddy Barthropp (fourth) and Brian Kingcome (third).
50 Brian and Paddy standing by a Spitfire (1970s).
51 Battle of Britain personalities at Hendon, 20 November 1978. Douglas Bader is sitting nearest to BK, who stands with hands in pockets.
52 The blackboard in the White Hart, Brasted,