In the summer of 1940, the RAF found itself Britain’s last line of defence against the seemingly unstoppable onslaught of Nazi Germany in Western Europe. The line held, but the RAF’s new kind of war fought with new kinds of fighters exacted a new kind of price for victory, as several times a week for the entire duration of the Battle of Britain members of its aircrew turned up in hospitals all over the south of England with up to one third of their body tissue, including face and hands, burned away. The very worst injuries occurred as follows:
| 8 August | J.W.C. Squier | 64 Squadron | Spitfire |
| 12 August | A.G. Page | 56 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 14 August | J.A. Anderson | 253 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 16 August | R. Carnal | 111 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 24 August | K.B.L. Debenham | 151 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 26 August | R. Lane | 43 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 31 August | T.P. Gleave | 253 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 31 August | M.H. Moundsen | 56 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 1 September | B.R. Noble | 79 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 3 September | D.W. Hunt | 257 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 3 September | R.H. Hillary | 603 Squadron | Spitfire |
| 6 September | Z. Krasnodebski | 303 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 7 September | J. Koukall | 310 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 11 September | W. Towers-Perkins | 238 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 15 September | R.H. Holland | 92 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 15 September | C.A.L. Hurry | 46 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 17 September | R.D. Dunscombe | 312 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 23 September | D.J. Aslin | 257 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 24 September | H. Bird-Wilson | 17 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 1 October | G.H. Bennions | 41 Squadron | Spitfire |
| 5 October | J.W. McLaughlin | 238 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 15 October | A.J. Banham | 229 Squadron | Hurricane |
| 17 November | E.S. Lock | 41 Squadron | Spitfire |
| 28 November | P.H.V. Wells | 249 Squadron | Hurricane |
| Date of injury unknown: | |||
| R.D.F. Day | 141 Squadron | Defiant | |
| J. Lowe | 236 Squadron | Hurricane | |
| J.F. Macphail | 603 Squadron | Spitfire1 | |
Later, some of those pilots told of their experiences in their burning fighters, some in published memoirs, some in the pages of The Guinea Pig magazine. Early in the battle Geoffrey Page was hit by bullets from a Dornier bomber when he was separated from the rest of his formation:
‘Surprise quickly changed to fear, and as the instinct of self-preservation began to take over, the gas tank behind the engine blew up, and my cockpit became an inferno. Fear became blind terror, then agonised horror as the bare skin of my hands gripping the throttle and control column shrivelled up like burnt parchment under the intensity of the blast furnace temperature. Screaming at the top of my voice, I threw my head back to keep it away from the searing flames. Instinctively the tortured right hand groped for the release pin securing the restraining Sutton [safety] harness.’
Page finally escaped from his Hurricane with his parachute intact and descended towards the sea:
‘It was then that I noticed the smell. The odour of my burnt flesh was so loathsome that I wanted to vomit. But there was too much to attend to. The coastline at Margate was just discernible six to ten miles away. Ten thousand feet below me lay the deserted sea… I began to laugh. The force of the exploding gas tank had blown every vestige of clothing off my thighs downwards, including one shoe.’
Page hit the water but the injuries to his hands made it almost impossible to get free of his parachute:
‘The battle with the metal disc [the parachute harness release mechanism] had to be won or else the water-logged parachute would drag me down to a watery grave. Spluttering with mouthfuls of salt water I struggled grimly… pieces of flesh flaked off and blood poured from the raw tissues.’
Eventually Page got himself free of the parachute but his injured hands betrayed him and he was unable to grip his hipflask which sank below the waves. Page was eventually rescued by a British merchant ship but the pain of his immersion should not be underestimated:
‘… acute misery passed by as the salt dried about my face injuries and the contracting strap of the flying helmet cut into the raw surface of my chin. Buckle and leather had welded into one solid mass, preventing removal of the headgear.’
On his arrival at the RAF’s main hospital at Halton, Page was treated for his wounds and:
‘Not wishing to see the needle enter the skin, I looked away and upwards, catching sight of myself in the reflector mirrors of the overhanging light. My last conscious memory was of seeing the hideous mass of swollen burnt flesh that had once been a face.’2
Roy Lane was hit in the engine by a Messerschmitt 109 whilst attacking a formation of Heinkels over Portsmouth. His oxygen supply was hit, causing him to pass out but:
‘As I fainted I saw a dim red glow in front of my eyes – but I didn’t understand what this was until I came to at a lower altitude. I found that my Hurricane was not only on fire but was diving – upside down. Luckily I was hanging by my straps which enabled me to keep my face out of the flames a good deal. Even so I was unable to open my eyes, due to the intense heat… the rolling motion of the aeroplane blowing the flames still hotter.’
Lane eventually got clear of his aircraft, probably as a result of the straps burning through, allowing him to fall out of the cockpit, but he ended up with his parachute attached to his boots. To remedy this, he tried to remove his gloves and helmet:
‘The helmet and left hand glove came off all right but my right hand glove was burned and shrivelled on to my hand which had been in the flames most of the time. I managed finally to get that glove off but unfortunately a lot of skin came off with it, leaving my hand very raw indeed.’
Lane managed to land whilst still upside down where he was found by a corporal who asked if he were hurt. In his article for The Guinea Pig Lane commented that:
‘… the question seem to me, in view of the fact that I was limping badly, my hand was cooked, my face was red with burns and my right trouser leg was burned off – superfluous to say the least.’3
Tom Gleave was part of a two-squadron wing attacking a formation of Junkers 88 bombers when he was hit by incendiary ammunition:
‘I was about to pull up to attack… when I heard a metallic click above the roar of my engine. It seemed to come from the starboard wing and I glanced in that direction, but a sudden burst of heat struck my face, and I looked down into the cockpit. A long spout of flame was issuing from the hollow starboard wing root, curling up along the port side of the cockpit and then across my right shoulder… I had some crazy notion that if I rocked the aircraft and skidded, losing a bit of speed, the fire might go out. Not a bit of it; the flames increased until the cockpit was like the centre of a blow-lamp nozzle. There was nothing to do but bale out… The skin was already rising off my right wrist and hand, and my left hand was starting to blister, the glove being already partially burnt off. My shoes and slacks must have been burning at this time but I cannot remember any great pain.
I undid my harness and tried to raise myself, but found I had not the strength. I was comforted by the thought that I had my gun ready loaded if things came to the worst.’
Gleave eventually decided to roll out of the open cockpit cover:
‘There was a blinding flash, I seemed to be travelling through yards of flame; then I found myself turning over and over in the air but with no sense of falling.’
On landing Gleave inspected his injuries:
‘With an effort I stood up and surveyed the damage. My shoes still looked like shoes and I found I could walk; why I don’t know, as my ankle and each side of my right foot were burnt and my left foot was scorched and had several small burns. My slacks had disappeared except for portions that had been covered by the parachute harness. The skin on my right leg, from the top of the thigh to just above the ankle, had lifted and draped my leg like outsize plus-fours. My left leg was in a similar condition except that the left thigh was only scorched, thanks to the flames having been directed to my right side. Above each ankle had a bracelet of unburnt skin: my socks, which were always wrinkled, had refused to burn properly and must have just smouldered… My Service gloves were almost burnt off, and the skin from my wrists and hands hung down like paper bags. The under side of my right arm and elbow were burnt and so were my face and neck. I could see all right, although it felt like looking through slits in a mass of swollen skin, and I came to the conclusion that the services of a doctor were necessary.’4
Maurice Moundsen was part of a standing patrol when he was hit in an attack on a bomber formation over Colchester:
‘Cannon shells smashed into the left side of my Hurricane and I received a lot of shrapnel splinters in my thigh and leg before the same 109, or possibly another, hit the gravity tank and I was instantly in an inferno. I was sitting in the blast from a blow lamp, so I scrambled out just as fast as I could… I landed by parachute at Great Dunmow where I saw the skin on my hands hanging off in what appeared to be shreds of tissue paper… ’5
The most famous pilot memoir of all, Richard Hillary’s work The Last Enemy, opens with this description of his injury:
‘I felt a terrific explosion which knocked the control stick from my hand, and the whole machine quivered like a stricken animal. In a second, the cockpit was a mass of flames; instinctively, I reached up to open the hood. It would not move… I remember a second of sharp agony, remember thinking “so this is it!” and putting both hands to my eyes. Then I passed out.’
Hillary regained consciousness outside the aeroplane and landed in the water where his life jacket kept him afloat:
‘I looked at my watch: it was not there. Then for the first time I noticed how burnt my hands were: down to the wrist, the skin was dead white and hung in shreds: I felt faintly sick from the smell of burnt flesh.’6
Zdzislaw Krasnodebski, of the famed Polish 303 Squadron, remembered how 6 September 1940 was a black day not only for him, but also for the squadron when seven out of the twelve aircraft that departed for combat failed to return:
‘Guided by radio we were to attack a bomber formation flying toward London at the height of approximately 20,000 feet. I was approaching one of the enemy bombers – it was plainly in my sights and I started firing when at that moment I sighted the shattering glass falling out from my instrument panel. I noticed brightly burning gasoline pouring out of the severely bullet-damaged cockpit and filling it with flames.’
Concerned that, once falling under his parachute, he might become an easy target for German fighters, Krasnodebski delayed jumping from his increasingly dangerous aircraft. When he deemed it safe enough to jump, smoke in the cockpit made it almost impossible to find the hood release handle. Finally he located it and jumped. His descent was so rapid that it extinguished the flames on his clothing but, ‘It was then that I became conscious of the agonising pain in my badly burned hands and legs.’ The Polish airman also faced another danger peculiar to his nationality:
‘As I was descending there appeared another hazard; the soldiers of the Home Guard emerged from the surrounding bushes and moved in my direction with their rifles ready to shoot, apparently they suspected that I might be one of the German parachutists… This difficult situation was not likely to be helped by the sight of the unfamiliar Polish uniform I was wearing – nor by my scant knowledge of the English language. Possibly, only the inborn English self-control and “sang froid” saved me from unexpected consequences.’7
South African Pat Wells was injured during the so-called ‘forgotten months’ (November and December) of the Battle. On 28 November he became Adolf Galland’s 56th kill when the German ace attacked his Hurricane. Wells was shadowing a group of Messerschmitt 109s when:
‘The next thing I knew was an attack from below, I took evasive action and howled on the R/T but nobody heard or saw this lethal attack. I was only able to take a little more evasive action before my controls were shot away and the well-known “Hurricane Fire” started.’
Wells struggled to exit the aircraft but first one foot then the other became trapped under the instrument panel: ‘I made two unsuccessful attempts to get out but was finally thrown out.’ As he did, part of the Hurricane’s tail hit him, dislocating his shoulder and leaving him effectively with only one hand with which to find the ripcord. Luckily (and untypically) Wells was partly protected:
‘Gloves saved my hands from the fire… With skin hanging down in sheets from face and legs I was taken to Leeds Castle Emergency Hospital (the smell familiar to Guinea Pigs of grilled pork was in my nostrils for weeks afterwards!).’8
These pilots’ accounts of their injuries demonstrate much of the typical RAF flair for understatement. However, when read alongside an eloquent and vivid modern account of burning, some appreciation of the reality of this type of casualty can be gained:
‘Being on fire is unforgettable. You will recall those seconds with crystal clarity for the rest of your life. In fact, those who don’t remember usually don’t survive: fire strikes so fast that if you are knocked unconscious, you stand very little chance. The human body can tolerate only a few seconds in the intense heat and airlessness of a hot fire…
Speed of reaction to a fire or scald is absolutely vital to survival. And yet the experience of surprise actually disables you. So stunned are you to find yourself in the flames that you are literally immobilised. There is a momentary inability to do anything – and in those seconds the damage can be done… Words can hardly describe being on fire: painless, breath-taking, all-embracing, hot, life-threatening, “Help!” Thinking is not really coherent in the instant of inferno. You know instinctively that your life is in the balance. For a split second you think of loved ones. There are voices and screams. The heat is totally enveloping and stifling. Air is desperately short – rather like being breathless under water.
To escape the flames is to feel total release from hell. Fresh air is gasped in. Many fires today are compounded by clouds of noxious fumes, and clean air is all the more gratifying… You are certainly oblivious to the damage you have suffered… [because] the extent of pain is dependent upon how severe your burns are: the deeper they are, the less painful they will be, because the heat will destroy the nerve endings in your skin… [but] for all your facial wounds you are still remarkably sane, emotional and, above all, alive.’9
All of the above pilot-casualties had their injuries inflicted upon them by the same combination of circumstances. Seated immediately behind their main or gravity fuel tanks they took the full force of their fuel exploding in their faces (and many had wing tanks explode on them as well). So similar were both the causes and pathologies of their injuries, in fact, that they were given their own medical name, ‘Airman’s Burn’. The burn was characterised by deep, whole thickness burns to areas of great functional importance, primarily the face and hands. Whole thickness burns are the most serious of all, where all skin tissue is destroyed, including sebaceous glands, hair follicles, sweat glands and nerve endings. An RAFMS memorandum later defined the injury:
‘This is a burn of almost unvarying characteristics due to the sudden exposure of unprotected parts of the body to intense, dry heat or flame, as though the entire patient were thrust into a furnace for a few seconds and withdrawn. The distribution is characteristic:-
(i) Both wrists and hands, particularly the backs, the fingers, often the entire surface of the hands. If gloves have been worn, only the wrists are involved. Holes in glove fingers have been responsible for severe localised burns…
(ii) The face in the “helmet area”. When goggles are pushed back, the forehead, eyebrows and eyelids may be severely burned. Usually, the eyelids near the lash edges escape. The eyes themselves are not often burned. The oxygen mask may protect the face but the cheeks, nose and ears are often involved.
(iii) The neck between the chin and collar, extending on both sides to the mastoid area [temporal bone behind the ear].
(iv) The anterior and inner surfaces of the thighs if the trousers are thin. The lower legs between the trousers and boot tops if flying boots are not properly adjusted…
Deep, searing burns, usually of “third degree”, involve areas of tremendous functional importance – the hands and eyelids in particular.’10
The airman’s burn pathology also included, ‘contact burns where hot material, usually portions of the plane, directly touch[ed] a trapped or unconscious person in a crashed machine.’11
The bizarre confluence of military and medical factors that combined to create this new and unpredicted patient group also created problems for the RAF in terms of the less severe burns inflicted on its aircrew. In 1939 41 RAF aircrew suffered burns serious enough to merit sustained medical attention, paperwork, and above all, removal from duty. In 1940 there were 378 men in that category (and that figure is probably on the low side as casualty reporting was a low priority on bases in the thick of the fighting). The details of their burn injuries are shown on the table overleaf.
Burn Injuries to RAF Aircrew During 1939–4012
| Location of Burn | Number in 1939 | Number in 1940 |
| Head | 5 | 2 |
| Face/mouth | 7 | 77 |
| Eye/lids | 4 | 14 |
| Ears | – | 14 |
| Neck | 1 | 2 |
| Chest | – | 3 |
| Back | 2 | 2 |
| Abdomen | – | 2 |
| Buttocks/pelvis | – | 2 |
| Lower arm+hand | 6 | 97 |
| Upper arm | 1 | 23 |
| Shin+ankle+foot | 12 | 91 |
| Upper Leg | 3 | 49 |
| Total burn injuries Home Force | 41 | 378 |
There were, therefore, nearly 400 men of the RAF rendered incapable of active duty by burn injuries during 1940, the vast majority of whom were pilots of Fighter Command. At first glance the figure seems negligible in the context of a world war, but it was all too important when seen against the specific background of the Battle of Britain. These men were removed from the front line at a time when, according to the man in charge, Hugh Dowding, ‘the heavy aircraft wastage… ceased to be the primary danger, its place being taken by the difficulty of producing trained fighter pilots in adequate numbers.’13 Fighter Command literally needed every man it could get, particularly during, ‘the dour campaign of attrition in August’, when the tide of the battle appeared to be running against it.14 The nature of burn injuries made these the worst possible wounds a pilot could suffer, as the treatment for even relatively minor burns could remove an airman from his squadron for several weeks or months – a short period in general medical terms, but in the specific situation of August/September 1940, a whole battle’s worth. Dowding commented on this specific problem in his Despatch:
‘As regards our casualties, we generally issued statements to the effect that we lost “x” aircraft from which “y” pilots were saved. This did not of course mean that “y” pilots were ready immediately to continue the Battle. Many of them were suffering from wounds, burns or other injuries which precluded their return to flying temporarily or permanently.’15
German tactics, as well as the scale of their daily attacks, were stretching British human resources to their limits. ‘Free chase over England’ was the order posted daily on the notice board of Adolf Galland’s squadron stationed in France.16 German fighters and bombers could strike at the south-east of England from a long line of bases that stretched along the Channel coast from Cherbourg to Antwerp. Fighter Command had to revert to the concept of standing patrols where 12-aircraft squadrons could average 45–60 flying hours in just one day. Such standing patrols, disliked in the inter-war period for their ‘uneconomic’ use of manpower, placed a further strain on a system that was increasingly reliant on trainees being put prematurely in the front line.
Decisions made the previous year about fuel tanks ensured fighter response was kept at its optimum – Spitfires and Hurricanes kept pace or outflew the German fighters, despite the RAF pilots’ lack of training for ‘free chase’ RFC-style combat. But the human cost was high, and, for want of pilots, the battle was almost lost. Unsurprisingly the situation gave a desperate momentum to the ongoing process of finding tank protection systems suitable for fighters. Late in 1939 the RAE had begun testing a material known as Linatex with a view to installing it in fighters and reported it to be ‘very promising’. A Blenheim fitted with a full set of Linatex-sealed pipes and tanks was fitted out and sent for service in France, returning for testing in 1940 to the satisfaction of all concerned.
The RAE described Linatex thus:
‘Linatex is the trade name for a special form of rubber which is manufactured in British Malaya from fresh rubber latex using a patented process which is claimed to preserve and impart valuable qualities in a degree peculiar to the material. It is produced and stocked in the form of sheets of various thicknesses. Strong joints can be made by a simple cold cementing process and it can, also, be bonded to other materials. The rubber is unusually tough and resilient and has great resistance to abrasion and penetration. It swells when exposed to the action of petrol or oil but does not dissolve. It is claimed to be almost non-ageing and to be less affected by cold than most other rubber products.’17
Approval was given for initial installations to production line fighter aircraft in May 1940 and as a result a supplement was issued to the RAF Mechanics Manual on Protected Fuel Tanks for Aircraft.18 The actual installation process turned out to be slow and patchy. Stocks of the rubber needed to manufacture Linatex had to be assembled. The manufacturer, Wilkinson Rubber, undertook to train Hawker and Supermarine contractors in the fitting and installation of the Linatex system, but this was a far more complex process than installing the three older systems used on bombers:
‘Linatex is composed of four layers of rubber sheeting and cotton duck [which] are fitted to the tank and are attached by means of special solutions, the cover being finally doped [treated with chemicals] to shrink it, and hold the rubber layers in close contact with the tank shell… Whilst the patching processes are relatively simple, the tank covering operation [the tanks were dressed in close-fitting, layered rubber jackets] entails a large amount of cutting, fitting and sewing layers of material to fit tanks of varying shapes and sizes, therefore only such competent personnel as fabric workers should undertake the complete covering operations. Strict cleanliness should be observed in the handling of the materials and precautions should be taken against them making contact with dust, oil, grease or any foreign matter that could prevent adhesion between the layers.’19
And there was a war on. Bases where the modifications to service aircraft would be made were on high alert, men and machines were constantly being moved around the country to make up for losses, and RAF priorities lay in the precarious day-to-day operations, not in fulfilling complicated aircraft retro-fit instructions. Dowding’s Battle of Britain Despatch highlighted another constraint on installation efficiency:
‘So far as our Fighters were concerned, the wing tanks in the Hurricane were removed and covered with a fabric known as Linatex which had fairly good self-sealing characteristics. The reserve tank in the fuselage was left uncovered as it was difficult of access, and it was thought that it would be substantially protected by the armour which had been fitted. During the Battle, however, a great number of Hurricanes were set on fire by incendiary bullets or cannon shells, and their pilots were badly burned by a sheet of flame which filled the cockpit before they could escape by parachute.’20
Although there were a number of factors that aggravated pilot burn injuries (pilots often discarded goggles and gloves that would otherwise have protected their hands and eyes, and their clothing was often impregnated with oil from assisting ground crew with rapid aircraft turnarounds), the Dowding Despatch alludes to the possibility that certain aspects of fighter design itself may have made the problem of fire worse. Losses to burn injuries were disproportionately high among the pilots of Hurricanes, even allowing for the higher proportion of Hurricanes to Spitfires flying in the battle. Whilst it is impossible to determine whether or not pilots of Spitfires were more likely to suffer fatal injuries, there is good evidence that the Hurricane posed more of a danger of serious non-fatal injury to its pilots than its stablemate. Two among the ‘great number’ of Hurricane pilots who fell victim to this design problem described what could happen:
‘Flight Lt. Nicholson… was leading a section surprised by an Me.110. The aircraft had self-sealing wing but not gravity tanks. It was hit by cannon shells one of which hit and set fire to the gravity tank. He attacked the Me.110 and shot it down. He could not see the flames but ‘flakes’ of paint came from the tank. The dashboard also crumbled with the heat – some of it dropped on and burned his legs. By this time the aircraft was at 15,000 feet in a vertical dive doing 400mph. He managed to get both feet on to the seat and jump clear after opening the hood. He did not disconnect either his R/T or oxygen. This pilot did a delayed drop which he thinks put out the flames from his trousers… ’
Flight Officer Zatonski had a similar experience when he:
‘… was flying a Hurricane without any self-sealing tanks. He was shot down by a Me.109 and his aircraft caught fire in the gravity tank. The flames were colourless; he knew he was burning by the heat and by the flakes which came back from his tank.’
Flying Officer Sutton was another who fell victim to a design fault peculiar to the Hurricane which increased the pilot’s chances of serious burn injuries. The area in which the wing met the body of the aircraft (the wing root) was not closed by any armour plating or sealing mechanism, creating a direct channel from fuel tank to cockpit that pushed exploding petrol directly towards the pilot most efficiently. Flying Officer Sutton was:
‘… flying alone and had exhausted his gravity tank when he was attacked from the port beam. His port wing tank was hit and set on fire. He had the hood half open and yellow flames came into the cockpit from the wing tank via the wing root end which is not sealed off from the fuselage.’21
Burn injury figures appear to back up theories about the dangers of the unsecured wing root. The 1940 figures show high incidences of burns to those parts of the pilot’s body nearest the wing root (lower arm and hand, 97; upper arm, 23; shin, ankle, foot, 91; leg, 49). Word appears to have got around amongst Hurricane pilots about the increased risk from their aircraft. Pat Wells’ awareness of ‘the well known “Hurricane Fire”’ has already been noted, and Wing Commander Tom Neil commented in more detail on, ‘the fire problem in Hurricanes’, during the Battle of Britain itself after a member of his squadron had been badly burned:
‘A known fact was that the fire in a Hurricane caused by blazing fuel presented the pilot with a desperate and fearful crisis. In a matter of two or three seconds, the aircraft became untenable and the act of opening the cockpit hood for the purpose of baling out, had the effect of drawing the flames into the pilot’s face. There were lurid tales of dashboards melting and running like treacle and the more imaginative of us found heartless amusement visualising scenes in which all the instruments dropped like stones into the bottom of the cockpit.
At first it was thought that the reserve fuel tank, located in front of the dashboard and containing about 30 gallons, was the source of most such fires but it soon became obvious that this was not so. The two wing tanks were the main culprits. Not only were they easier to hit and puncture – the reserve tank was largely shielded by the engine, the pilot and armour plate – but there being no blanking planes between wings and fuselage, the blazing fuel was drawn into the cockpit by the natural draught pattern, particularly if the guns had been fired and the linen patches which covered the gun ports blown off. Clearly, whilst the use of self-sealing tanks would obviously be of benefit, nothing short of redesigning the Hurricane would make much of an improvement. All fighters were susceptible to the fire hazard; the Hurricane was worse than some.’22
Historian Stephen Bungay has identified combat tactics peculiar to the Hurricane which would also account for the higher fire risk:
‘Most fighters hit by bombers were struck by bullets as they passed through the formation or pulled away, when they offered a far bigger target. The Hurricanes, unlike the Spitfires, would also have exposed their wing tanks during this part of an attack. The major relevant design difference between the two types is that Hurricanes had wing tanks and Spitfires did not… wing tanks were very exposed to hits from an astern attack [by fighters] whatever the pilot did. They are in the area forming the natural centre of any attacker’s target area – the central fuselage and wing roots. If a Hurricane pilot flew on dead ahead (as if he were bounced and taken by surprise), there must have been a very high probability of some strikes being on the area of the wing tanks. If he saw his attacker, his most common defensive manoeuvre would have been to turn. Once in the turn, he could get out of the sights of a 109 quite quickly if he flew his machine to its limits. However, in order to do so, in banking and pulling into the turn, he would have presented an even bigger target, exposing the wing roots themselves to an attacker’s fire.
The only way to avoid this would have been to bunt rather than turn, but he could not do this because his engine would cut and a 109 following him could close to point-blank range. The first few seconds of his classic defensive manoeuvre were therefore perilous for the pilot of a Hurricane in a way that it was not for the pilot of a Spitfire.’23
The concerns of pilots regarding their aircraft did not go unheeded, reflecting the respect the RAF had for its technically specialist, volunteer crewmen. In the aftermath of the Battle of France, and at the same time as the Linatex protection system was first being tested in fighters, the RAF had set up a committee, ‘to sift available war experience with a view to seeing what lessons are to be learned which might guide future policy’.24 Officers and other ranks from all commands were able to raise issues and concerns that they had with their aircraft or training. When the war moved to British airspace in August, the War Experience Committee actively sought out the opinions of those at its very sharpest end, despatching investigators to learn what they could from aircrew who had survived being shot down or crashing.
Squadron Leader Rees was one such War Experience Committee investigator who visited the RAF hospital at Halton during September 1940 and reported on his, ‘conversations with 7 Officer and 6 Sergeant Pilots who have recently been shot down. Of these 6 out of the 7 Officers and 5 of the 6 Sergeants were Hurricane Pilots’, including Nicholson, Zatonski, Page and Sutton.25 Rees appears to have quickly taken on board the extra fire risk to Hurricane pilots, as his report made several specific recommendations aimed at improving the fire-resistance features of fighter aircraft. His recommendations, which in themselves were evidence for the slow pace of installation of self-sealing mechanisms, were:
‘1. That the gravity tank [reserve fuel tank in front of the pilot] as well as the wing tanks of Hurricane aircraft be self-sealing.
2. That until all wing tanks are self-sealing the wing roots of Hurricane aircraft be blanked off.’
Squadron Leader Rees obviously went to some trouble investigating all possible factors, however minor they appeared, that could aggravate injury. Geoffrey Page testified to the difficulties he had undoing his Sutton harness because the pin was high up, almost under his chin. Page’s hands had been badly burned, so releasing the pin and undoing his aircraft hood were very difficult. As soon as he released the pin he fell out of his Hurricane. He estimated that it took him 15–20 seconds to get out but that he could have been quicker but for the trouble with his release pin. His severe burns were obviously aggravated by the extra time spent in the flame-filled cockpit of his aircraft. David Hunt, a New Zealander, had experienced a similar problem with a jammed cockpit but his father owned a company that manufactured axes that could withstand high temperatures and voltages, and who insisted that his son mount one in the cockpit of his Hurricane. On 3 September Hunt was attacked by a Messerschmitt 109 and, but for his special axe, would not have been able to escape from his burning cockpit. The problems experienced by Hunt and Page led Rees to recommend:
‘3. That some method of jettisoning the hood be incorporated. This especially applies to Spitfire aircraft, the hoods of which seem to jam easily and which cannot be opened at high speed. Until this has been done, pilots are advised to go into action with the hood open.’26
Rees’ report was sent to Fighter Command headquarters on 1 October 1940, after the worst of the battle was over, but before then word had reached Fighter Command informally of the problems with the Hurricane, and a senior officer of the command requested that:
‘… urgent consideration be given to the isolation of the wing fuel tank of Hurricane aircraft from the cockpit by fireproof material.
It is considered that if, during combat, the wing fuel tanks catch on fire, flames from the tanks are blown into the cockpit causing severe local burns to the pilot’s leg.’27
The Director General of Research and Development responded on 16 October but was only able to offer a partial resolution to the issue of retro-fit fuel tank protection for operational fighter aircraft:
‘I am directed… to inform you that modification action is now in hand to isolate the fuselage tank of the Hurricane from the pilot. The modification will be capable of easy application in the service but will also be applied to production aircraft.’
His news about the unsecured wing root was not so good:
‘With regard to the request for isolation of the wing tanks in the Hurricane, I am to say that it was agreed by a Staff Officer of your Headquarters that although the modification already introduced in production Hurricanes to seal the centre section inboard of the wing tanks should be made available for retrospective application, such application is beyond the facilities of the service units and retrospective modification action for this sealing is therefore not being taken.’
It is worth noting that it was not just the Allied air services who were preoccupied with tank safety systems. In 1940 the Farnborough engineers had found the German tank wanting in comparison even with the unsealed British fighter tanks. It seems that German investigations of tank safety paralleled those of their British counterparts. In July 1941 Farnborough received a tank from a Messerschmitt 109F-2 which had crashed at Tenterden in Kent. That safety improvements had been made was immediately obvious to the RAE engineers. The tank was no longer metal but constructed from four layers of different synthetic rubber materials, all of which had good self-sealing properties when hit by test shots, and armour plating had replaced the bulkhead behind and underneath the pilot’s seat.
By the time Rees’ report was written, the tide of the Battle of Britain had turned, and the need for pilots was becoming less desperate. It was not an unreasonable assumption that as older Hurricanes were continually being replaced by the new production models it was not worth taking aircraft currently on active service prematurely out of the front line. Pilots, like Pat Wells, continued to burn in the interim, and although such casualties were no longer the manpower emergency for Fighter Command that they had been in August and September 1940, it had become as serious an emergency for the RAF Medical Service, as it struggled to come to terms with both the survival and treatment of the men who had come into its care.