CHAPTER 4
On 24 July, a series of formidable attacks was launched on the convoys. The Germans first dispatched heavily escorted bombers against a convoy on the threshold of the Thames Estuary and one in the Dover Straits. In the thick of it was Deere commanding a flight which included Gray. The first sortie of the day took place soon after breakfast and, although they disrupted an attack on the convoy, no enemy machines were knocked out.
Their second mission took place at midday when 54 Squadron was sent rushing forward to intercept raids at 7000 feet.[1] Deere soon spotted the largest formation of enemy machines he had seen: eighteen Dornier bombers and a disturbingly high number of fighters. In typical Luftwaffe fashion, the Me 109s were staircased up to about 5000 feet above Deere’s position. The convoy—easily seen in the distance—was the unsuspecting target of the Luftwaffe bombers. In terms of self-preservation the best option was to attack the fighters, because to assault the bombers first was to leave oneself open to an unpleasant counter-attack from the covering Me 109s. Nevertheless, the squadron’s first duty was to destroy, or at least waylay, the Dorniers. The Anzac ordered his flight to strike.
At which point the Luftwaffe fighters descended from behind and a ‘terrific dogfight’ ensued, scrawled Gray in his flight logbook. Deere, in his after-action report, noted that although most of his shots were wild bursts at aircraft flashing past him, he did manage ‘one decent long burst at a [Me] 109 at close range and he went down with glycol pouring from the machine.’[3] It was his first success in the Battle of Britain proper. For both New Zealanders the dogfight ended with the sky devoid of all machines. ‘Suddenly, the sky was clear and I was alone,’ recalled Deere, ‘one moment the air was a seething cauldron of Hun fighters, and the next it was empty.’ It struck the two of them as a strange phenomenon, but was not uncommon.
Gray turned his machine for home when he heard a pilot across the wireless calling for directions to Hornchurch. It was evident that the airman had become disorientated in the mêlée. Confirming the dilemma, a fighter flashed past Gray’s nose heading in the ‘wrong direction’ to France. Only too eager to aid a fellow pilot in need, the Anzac changed course and sent his Spitfire in pursuit. If he could overtake the errant pilot Gray could then guide him home. As he closed with the fighter, he thought the Spitfire was somewhat unusual looking and then realised that it was in fact an enemy Me 109. At which point the German threw the machine to starboard, exposing a dark cross emblazoned across the fuselage. The machine was now vulnerable to a deflection shot and burst into flames as the pilot opened the cockpit canopy to bale out.[4]
Just before lunch the following day, 54 Squadron was once again sent south to Manston. Two hours later both flights were airborne; Deere was in A Flight and Gray in B, led by Englishman George Gribble. This second flight of five Spitfires caught sight of Ju 87 dive-bombers flying from the direction of Cap Gris Nez—the closest point on the French coast to Dover, barely 20 miles distant. Gray was keen to attack the Stukas, which were rapidly gaining a reputation as easy pickings for Fighter Command’s Hurricanes and Spitfires. The flight immediately engaged the forty or so Ju 87s.
The first to fall was at the hands of Flight Lieutenant Basil ‘Wonky’ Way, of Somerset. Way was one of the squadron’s most accomplished pilots and had been the recipient of the Groves Memorial Flying Prize in training for the best all-round pilot of the course. However, in an instant the situation changed. ‘Watch out, Blue One, [Me] 109s coming in from above —hundreds of them,’ yelled Gribble over the radio.[5] Gray’s after-action report reckoned they numbered sixty. The odds were impossible, as the Kiwi was engaged by about a dozen Me 109s in a fifteen-minute dogfight that ranged between 10,000 and 19,000 feet. He could hardly ‘get in a burst’ because, in a great example of Kiwi understatement, he was ‘rather outnumbered’.[6] During his febrile manoeuvres, Gray somehow managed to hit one fighter which he saw roll over, apparently out of control.
In the meantime, Deere, who had been denied permission from control to aid his fellow squadron members, was forced to listen to the unfolding drama via the frantic radio chatter. The dogfight reached its crescendo with Gribble barking urgently over the radio, ‘Break, Wonky, BREAK.’ Gray saw a Spitfire spinning out of control. Gribble’s voice cut through the static, this time in half-sobbing anger: ‘Damn and blast this bloody war.’[7] Basil Way had been killed.
For Gray the death of Way was just the most recent in a series of losses that stretched back to November 1939. The list included his brother, Kenneth; John Kemp, one of his very best New Zealand friends; John Allen, a favoured colleague; and now the popular ‘Wonky’ Way. Ken Gray had entered the service ahead of his twin brother as a bomber pilot. With the April 1940 German invasion of Scandinavia, Ken’s unit was shipped north from Driffield to Kinloss, Scotland, to fly missions over Norway. In the course of these operations Colin contacted his older sibling in order to share some leave together. Ken was delivering a bomber from Kinloss to Driffield and arranged to pick Colin up at another airfield as he flew south. His brother never appeared. ‘It seemed such a cruel twist of fate that a skilful and experienced pilot ... should lose his life in such circumstances,’ recalled a stunned Colin.[8]
The loss of Kemp in the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ on 19 July hit Gray particularly hard as the Wellingtonian had been on the same England-bound voyage in 1938 and they became fast friends. In November 1939, Kemp was posted to 54 Squadron as the third New Zealander alongside Gray and Deere, only to be quickly shunted sideways to the Defiant-equipped 141 Squadron. Gray was only too well aware that Kemp was ill-suited to the shift and, in the light of 54 Squadron’s losses sustained over Dunkirk, made a case for the twenty-five-year-old’s return. The squadron leader put in the paperwork. A foul-up ensued and instead of J.R. Kemp, a J.L. Kemp was delivered. It was ‘the wrong Kemp’, recalled a frustrated Gray.[9] Soon afterwards he received a pleasant surprise in the form of an evening phone call from his good friend, only to learn that Kemp was still untested in battle. On 18 July, in a break in the action, Gray took a short jaunt in a Spitfire to West Malling, Kent, to see his friend: ‘It was the last time I saw him alive.’
The deaths of Allen and Way in quick succession, on 24 and 25 July respectively, hit Gray and the squadron hard. Both men were accomplished pilots and widely regarded as leaders. Allen was a quiet, religious man and at first glance seemed a little out place in the ‘bloodthirsty atmosphere’ prevailing the squadron—he was often found with his nose in his bible in squadron downtime—but his bravery and ability behind the controls of a Spitfire were undeniable. On 24 July, the DFC recipient’s engine was damaged in a dogfight over the Thames Estuary. He was seen gliding to Margate when the engine kicked into life, only to fail again: his machine stalled and the twenty-two-year-old was killed on impact. ‘With eight enemy aircraft destroyed to his credit, and many others probably destroyed and damaged, Johnny had at last been struck down,’ wrote Deere, ‘a tragedy for the squadron and a sad day for his family and many friends.’[10] When ‘Wonky’ Way was killed, the morale of the squadron pilots sunk to a new low. Some pilots were particularly embittered by the loss of such good pilots and friends, who were not outfought but outnumbered.[11]
Each man dealt with the death of fellow airman on his own terms, but there was a general tendency towards a ‘nonchalance and a touch of manufactured, protective heartlessness’.[12] Few pilots at the time or afterwards were willing to dwell on the loss of so many friends and colleagues. ‘At the end of the day we went off to the village pub or the mess and had a few drinks’ and thought briefly about those absent from the gathering, recalled Keith Lawrence of Invercargill, but in the end ‘it was just part of the job ... you didn’t seem to dwell on it’.[13]
Many airmen often took the view, as expressed in an epitaph for one pilot, ‘that it is better to forget and smile than to remember and be sad’.[14] ‘The death of a friend,’ wrote one pilot, ‘provided food for a few moments of thought, before the next swirling dogfight began to distract the ... mind from the stupid thoughts of sadness or pity ... the art was to cheat the Reaper and perhaps blunt his scythe a little.’[15]
Those that remained in 54 Squadron were now physically and emotionally spread thin. The squadron had flown more sorties than any other and was reaching its operational limits. Over the month of July, Gray had notched up a remarkable sixty-eight sorties. Orders from Dowding had the squadron sent north to Catterick for a break.
Leave was a vital component in maintaining the fighting abilities of the squadron. Time away from the battlefield enabled pilots to forget the horrors of the war in the air. For many pilots there was plenty to see and do. As Lawrence noted, ‘All these English towns were lovely places to look around and at the history, the buildings, it was so unlike New Zealand.’[16] Many pilots had relatives, while other stayed on large estates opened to the pilots in order to get them away from the battlefield. Paterson was able to get away from the front lines to an earl’s estate in Scotland and spent much of his time hiking and hunting. He was in his element and bagged three stags.[17] Gard’ner, before his mauling during the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ had taken a shine to ice skating, which he picked up while stationed in Scotland. The Canadians in the squadron played in a local ice hockey league and, by his own confession ‘not much of pub crawler’, the young New Zealander spent much of his time watching and learning from Canadian speedsters.[18] While Gard’ner and others found diversions in the picturesque countryside, many more gravitated to the hedonistic pleasures of British towns and cities.
Most Anzacs in the Second World War fought their battles far from the comforts of home, but the Battle of Britain fighter boys engaged the enemy over ‘home soil’, with some of Britain’s best pubs, nightclubs and theatres close at hand. An arduous operation could be swiftly followed by one of the pilots’ favourite pastimes: the consumption of alcohol. Therefore, the first port of call was often the officer’s mess, located either on the base, or sometimes off-base, in a requisitioned manor house or some such venue. Sofas, chairs and the bar were the essential furnishings. Roving beyond the confines of the airfield, the Anzacs became accustomed to the beer, a ‘tangy sudsy bitter’, common to the pubs of England.[19] Strenuous efforts were made to hit the local tavern before closing, even after the most arduous of flights. On a good day, clasping a favourite pewter tankard, pilots discussed the day’s sorties, or alternately joined in the banter with the locals; on a bad day a more sombre mood prevailed, accompanied by a toast in honour of the departed. Local pubs were often adopted by squadrons. The White Hart tavern near Biggin Hill was the favourite off-base watering-hole for Kinder and his fellow pilots and the scene of many a jest and long evening of drinking.[20] In general the airmen were well received, especially as the Battle of Britain became increasingly punishing in August and September.
The proximity to London drew pilots like a moth to a flame. For those based close enough to travel into London, it was the Tivoli bar not far from the respective New Zealand and Australia Houses situated in the Strand. One New Zealander who was used to making such regular forays was the North Weald-based Irving ‘Black’ Smith of 151 Squadron. On one occasion, later in the campaign, the Invercargill-born pilot’s efforts to reach the bar looked doomed to fail when his quarters were bombed. Lacking kit, he was hastily transferred to North Weald’s satellite field at Stapleford, Tawney. With circumstances conspiring to prevent his attendance at the night’s planned festivities, he left a message at the Tivoli informing his friends that he would not make it there.
Upon arriving at Stapleford he discovered a late train that would get him into the city after all. Exhausted but undeterred, he bought a ticket. His appearance was something of a surprise to his friends, who had misinterpreted the message to mean that the young New Zealander had been killed and he discovered them in the middle of a solemn wake in his honour. ‘My message was garbled. They all thought I’d been shot down and was dead,’ an abashed Smith admitted. ‘After that there was a great thrash.’[21]
Paterson also made the trip into London on many occasions and relished the opportunity to catch up with New Zealanders over a few pints and hear news of events back home. As he soon discovered though, young Anzacs looking to release some tension could run amuck. On one occasion he met a West Coaster who, though terribly drunk, insisted that Paterson show him the town. In the end he was able to locate a group of New Zealanders in a favourite watering hole and detach himself from the inebriated airman. ‘Taking the opportunity [I] slipped out before they broke up the place, it was heading that way when I left,’ wrote Paterson to his parents.[22]
As a general rule the behaviour of pilots was determined by the tenor set by the squadron commander. Fifty-four Squadron was led by Squadron Leader James ‘Prof’ Leathart, a highly competent and well-regarded airman who took a middle-of-the-road approach. Consequently, he recognised the need for pilots to let their hair down but was concerned that airmen were at the top of their game when the enemy came calling. Stories of pilots drinking heavily into the small hours were not commonplace within the squadron during periods of intensive fighting. For their part, the New Zealanders Deere and Gray had seen enough action and the loss of too many comrades to take lightly the impact of unchecked carousing on the ability of airmen to meet the enemy in the blue arena. Other airmen were less circumspect, and at least one New Zealand pilot from another squadron was rumoured lost after an alcohol-sodden night on the town.
An object lesson in extremes was provided by 74 ‘Tiger’ and 92 ‘East India’ Squadrons, which for a season were based at Biggin Hill, Kent. Over the course of the battle the squadrons included seven New Zealanders and one Australian. Seventy-four Squadron was kept on a fairly tight leash by their mercurial leader, the South African Adolph ‘Sailor’ Malan, while 92 Squadron operating under the motto ‘fight-or-die’ and cobra insignia was a much less regulated unit. One member of the East India Squadron summed up the differences well when he noted in his post-war memoirs that ‘74 were fresh compared to us, and started shooting down Huns, right left and centre ... They were all red hot shots, and the squadron the complete antithesis of 92. They did not indulge themselves in large cars, night clubs or fancy dress.’ Malan, a stickler for discipline, dissuaded contact with 92 Squadron, which he considered a ‘bunch of playboys’.[23]
The 92 boys reconfigured their lives in the light of the death of a number of their colleagues who, in the early stages of war, had abandoned their booze and cigarette-infused late nights for a more monastic life in order to better face the demands of the battle at hand. Unfortunately a number of these were killed early in the battle. This only fuelled a more cavalier, hedonistic attitude among the survivors. The squadron became notorious for its pilots’ disregard for rank outside the confines of the unit and its larrikinism. Kinder transferred into the unit late in the campaign and noted that they ‘were a rough lot. No ties were worn in those days; instead we tied our girlfriends’ silk stockings round our necks, stuck our map and revolver in our flying boots and left the top brass button undone on jackets ... We would go to the local after a really hectic fight and get drunk in the gear just to relieve the build-up of tension.’[24] Concerned with the unit’s behaviour, the RAF commissioned a team of psychologists to examine the squadron. The experts concluded that the ‘fight hard, play hard’ attitude permeating the unit could remain as long as they continued to get results.[25] Meanwhile in 74 Squadron, Malan made sure his young men were tucked up in bed by 10.00p.m. Many of the lads in 92 joked that Malan was keeping the boys in line ‘at the point of a pistol’.[26]
Not that the 74 Squadron pilots were saints, as one incident in October highlighted. On a week’s leave from the heavily bombed Biggin Hill, the squadron, which included Spurdle and fellow New Zealander Edward Churches, eased the stress levels with a little pheasant shooting. Loaded into a couple of station wagons, provided to ferry the airmen from their off-base house to the airfield, the pilots headed to a local spot seen to be well supplied with pheasants in a flyover only days before. Armed with 12-bore shotguns, they killed a handful of the birds, which were clearly in an enclosure. The pilot, who had cleared the fence to collect the ‘downed’ birds, was caught by the gamekeeper, much to the amusement of the other pilots leaning on the fence elbowing each other. The resolute gamekeeper enquired if the pilot, with dead pheasants in hand, knew upon whose land he had been poaching. ‘No, but I’m sure he’s wealthy enough to have a gamekeeper and a pen like this.’
‘His name,’ the gamekeeper replied curtly, ‘is Winston Churchill. So I’ll be having your name!’
The other pilots yelled out to the gamekeeper that the man before him was in fact the ‘Archbishop of Canterbury’, and they ran to the cars and made their escape. The birds were cooked and consumed at a local pub.[27]
On rare occasions the entertainment came to the Anzacs at their respective bases. In August the Hornchurch field was visited by the famous Windmill Girls, named after their stage home, the Windmill Theatre, London. News of their upcoming performance was widely circulated and anticipated. The risqué revue was famous for its glamorous semi-nude women. The theatre’s revealing productions circumvented the censor’s condemnation by presenting the nudes as living statues with the understanding that ‘if you move it’s rude’. Patronage in London was high and the show noteworthy for operating continuously throughout the war, even during the Blitz, under the motto ‘We Never Close’—regularly transmogrified to ‘We’re Never Clothed’ by local comedians.
The two New Zealanders on base—Deere and Gray—were keen as mustard to attend. The show was an unsurprising success and in short order was followed by a party in the officers’ mess, where ‘there was much competition from the younger fry for a dance with the girls.’[28] After the squadron’s heavy losses and the demands of daily combat, Deere concluded that:
The party did not break until 2.30a.m. The pilots would only have a few hours’ blissful sleep before they entered the final throw of the Kanalkampf.
Inclement weather restricted enemy initiatives over the following two weeks, but it did not stop deaths among RAF pilots. What is not often realised regarding the Battle of Britain, or any air campaign in the Second World War for that matter, is that aviation accidents were a significant factor in the loss of men and machines. In the four weeks of the Kanalkampf, Fighter Command had 336 aircraft either completely destroyed or significantly damaged. Of these, one-third were as a result of mishap, not enemy action.[30] The causes ranged from Polish airmen—who were accustomed to flying aircraft without retractable undercarriage—failing to put their landing gear down, to pilots attempting to fly in poor weather. The biggest loss of life occurred during night flying, with mechanical failure the second biggest culprit.
Upon awaking on 6 August, Olive was relieved to see cloud cover and drizzle. The inclement weather offered the opportunity to get some much-needed shut-eye. The entire 65 Squadron was exhausted, with reports of pilots falling asleep in flight and at the controls of recently landed aircraft. Small nightly nuisance raids only increased weariness, something Squadron Leader Henry Sawyer, one of Olive’s best friends, was only too well aware of. To the consternation of the pilots, who had almost no night-flying hours, they were often woken to take off in an attempt at an interception, an almost impossible task. This meant that pilots like Olive took turns bedding down at night fully dressed in a caravan near the Spitfires.
On Olive’s allotted night he was awoken in the early hours of the morning to the roar of a Spitfire taking off and he contacted the controller to find out what was going on. ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ he heard from the other end of the telephone, ‘Squadron Leader Sawyer said you hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep for weeks and that if there was a “scramble” he would take your turn.’[31] A moment later the Queenslander heard the din of the Spitfire’s 12-cylinder motor abruptly extinguished in an explosion. With sinking heart, he peered through the caravan window at the fierce glow lighting up the countryside a mile distant. Olive arrived at the scene to find fire and ambulance personnel extracting the dead body of his friend from the wreckage. The Anzac was ‘violently sick’. Ashen-faced, he made his way back to the flight caravan, only to be informed by the controller that ‘it wasn’t a raider after all, so you can go back to bed’.
‘To bed, yes, but not to sleep,’ Olive wrote later. ‘Poor Sawyer, trying to do me a kindness and let me sleep a little longer, had paid for it with his life. He had a beautiful wife and two little children—oh! The tragedy of war.’[32]
It is possible that Sawyer had been blinded by the incandescent exhaust flames and became disoriented, an all-too-common experience on particularly dark nights for pilots unaccustomed to night-flying a Spitfire. Alternatively, he may not have been concentrating on his instruments, another recurrent mistake that usually had fatal consequences during night flights.
Olive had his own close call soon after. In August the squadron was ordered on a midday patrol near Manston—now aptly dubbed ‘Hell’s Corner’ thanks to its proximity to the English Channel and as a focal point of the fighting. The Aussie led the dozen Spitfires aloft. As the engine pulled past 500 feet he flicked the oxygen supply on; with that, an abrupt explosion occurred as the ‘oxygen regulator blew up’. A deadly flame was flickering behind the instrument panel, and sparks and ‘dense smoke filled the cockpit and I realised with horror I was in trouble. My first thought was, Perhaps this killed Sawyer—I had to think of a way out. The Spitfire would obviously blow up in a few seconds—as soon as the oxygen fire heated the petrol tank to flash point.’[33]
The Australian now faced a dilemma; he could not simply roll the Spitfire on its back and bale out, as the other aircraft were still in close formation and to do so could see him blown back into their thrashing twelve-foot propellers. Moreover, because the explosion had disintegrated his radio he could not warn his fellow aviators. This meant that if he peeled away, his vic would follow. His spur-of-the-moment solution was to use hand signals perfected in the previous months for aerobatics. It worked; both wing-men swung away from their wildly gesticulating leader. With only moments left to live, he pulled the controls back and sent the Spitfire heavenward. He needed to purchase enough height to bale out successfully.
Nothing. Olive looked down and to his horror the little pilot-chute, which pulled out the main parachute, had wrapped itself around his boots in a ghostly funeral shroud. In free fall, he madly worked it loose—the sudden deceleration as the rest of the silk was pulled out and opened above him dazed the young Anzac. Olive had already used up two of his proverbial nine lives in one sortie, but was about to call on a handful more.[35]
The Spitfire was a crumpled toy in a field below, having barely missed a series of high-tension cables. Olive was now drifting close to the 330,000 volt lines. He had heard of pilots pulling on their straps to collapse one side of the parachute to ‘side slip’, and in this rudimentary manner direct their descent. Yanking on the straps was not as helpful as he had hoped, because the parachute was in the process of disintegrating. The middle section had completely disappeared and he was left with ‘two half moons’ held together by the frailest of seams. His life was literally hanging by a thread. The parachute had been packed four months earlier and had not been aired since; moisture had mildewed the silk. Olive abandoned tugging on the straps, fearing a mere sneeze could be lethal. He skimmed past the wires with only inches to spare. Given his speed, he was lucky to make landfall in a freshly turned field of potatoes, but less lucky to find himself in the sights of a couple of shotgun-wielding Home Guard members. Both men were poor shots and Olive fortunately merely heard, rather than felt, the ‘thunk, thunk’ of discharged lead shot as they fired in his direction.
Covered in sweat and dirt, and surrounded by mashed and scattered potatoes, the prone and winded Olive lifted his head from the dark English soil to find himself besieged by a troop of Women’s Land Army girls silhouetted against the early afternoon sun. ‘Eee luv, be you one of us or one of them?’ asked one round-faced cherub. The question was understandable, since the patriotic Australian had continued to wear his less easily identified dark blue RAAF uniform. When the Home Guard appeared, Olive cleared up the situation with some well-placed ‘Australian vulgar tongue’. Befitting a comedy, the Land Army girl gathered the parachute, motioning to a friend: ‘It’s a luvly bit of stuff. See ’ere Gert, make luvly knickers, wouldn’t it?’ To which Gert replied, ‘It’s not much good luv, it’s all ripped to ruddy ribbons. Better take it back and trade it in for a new one.’[36] The airfield’s ambulance and fire engine were soon on hand.
The Anzac caught his breath aboard the ambulance as it left the scene on its way to the base, from which he had taken off only minutes before. The reassuring cocoon of the ambulance, however, was short-lived as it ran into a ditch masked by recently scythed grass. Olive crawled out from the overturned machine shaken but without additional injuries. The fire engine beckoned, and after the crew doused the still-burning Spitfire, he clambered atop the red truck to thunder back to the base.
On the back-country roads the crew could open the throttle right out, and did so. With tears streaming back across his face from the wind in his eyes, and the alarm bell literally ringing in his ears, the Australian held on for dear life as they careened along the green-hedged lanes. Unfortunately, the driver was a newcomer to this particular country network, which included a bridge set in a hairpin bend. With a full head of steam, he predictably failed to negotiate the turn and the fire engine went straight over the bank into a creek. Olive was once again airborne, catapulted free from the vehicle, landing heavily on the far bank. Dazed, he looked over his shoulder to observe the upside-down fire engine sink gently into a watery grave. It was another close call, not only for Olive but also the firemen, who fortunately made it clear of the wreckage.
He now chanced his arm walking the last mile back to the airfield and was met by a local farmer at the wheel of his car. Did the Australian want a lift to the base? Olive replied, ‘Not bloody likely, I’m going to walk.’[37] With badly singed hair, mild skin burns, a broken foot and bruises the size of continents wrapping his body, he was given forty-eight hours by the doctor for recuperation.
Olive’s exploding oxygen tank indicated how dependent the pilots were on the effective and timely maintenance of their machines by the ground crew. In general the Anzacs had a relatively egalitarian attitude toward their supporting team on the ground and treated them very well. ‘We could not have done it without them,’ wrote Kinder. ‘They worked very long hours and in appalling conditions during the main fighting ... Speed was the essential in the re-arming and re-fuelling [of] aircraft after combat and our men did a magnificent job. A whole squadron was refuelled and rearmed in two minutes flat. Armourers would climb onto the aircraft wings before it had stopped, belts of ammunition draped over their shoulders.’[38]
‘They were terrific,’ noted former Marlborough sheep musterer James Hayter; keeping ‘twelve aircraft in the air was a hell of job’. The New Zealander got very attached to his ground crew, to the point of picking up some of their habits. Hayter confessed that he had never smoked a cigarette until they offered him one, and then ‘I started to love smoking ... [and] smoked like a chimney afterwards.’[39]
The mechanics were particularly favoured by some of the pilots. Deere’s chief mechanic throughout the Battle of Britain was G.F. ‘Ricky’ Richardson. The New Zealander was particularly fussy when it came to his machine and demanded that it be ready at all times. ‘All the other pilots would take any other machine if theirs wasn’t serviceable,’ recalled Richardson, ‘but with Alan you had to work till two or three o’clock in the morning.’ Yet, as he noted, both Deere and Gray, as ‘the only colonials’, were ‘different to our chaps in the RAF; there was no side at all to them, it would be “Ricky this” and “Ricky that”.’[40]
Attacks by German aircraft continued, but at a lower intensity due to the poor prevailing weather conditions and the need to conserve aircraft for the next phase. The final significant throws against the convoys occurred on 8 and 11 August. Terrifyingly, at 3.00a.m., a convoy of twenty merchant vessels and nine Royal Navy ships, codenamed ‘Peewit’, was assaulted by massed German E-boats. The fast motor torpedo boats created havoc, sinking three ships and seriously damaging three more. Göring ordered the Luftwaffe to administer the coup de grâce to the scattered vessels, in what would become the biggest attack on a convoy in the Battle of Britain.
After 8.30a.m. on 8 August, dive-bombers and fighters assembled on the French side of the Channel. Park dispatched five squadrons to meet the threat. The resulting aerial battle successfully prevented any further vessels from being hit but, at midday, a larger Luftwaffe effort was made. The force included fifty-seven Ju 87s, twenty Me 110s and, at altitude overseeing the proceedings, thirty Me 109s. Three squadrons of Hurricanes and one of Spitfires were vectored to intercept. Among them were the Australians Clive Mayers and Curchin. The Cambridge-educated Mayers had only been with the Tangmere-based 601 Squadron for five days, while the former Victorian Curchin had made his home with 609 since 11 June 1940. Within minutes both found themselves embroiled in a large, freewheeling dogfight.
As an Me 109 swept across the nose of Mayers’ Hurricane he turned to follow. Closing to within fifty yards, his five-second burst from the eight machine-guns was enough to dispatch the enemy, trailing smoke, into the Channel.[42] Curchin’s Spitfire was aimed at a Me 110 and, closing in to 100 yards, he delivered a long burst, silencing the rear gunner who had been firing frantically at the Australian. In moments another of the twin-engine heavy fighters came into view and he opened fire. ‘I gave him the rest of my ammunition,’ wrote Curchin in his after-action report, and a ‘white puff of smoke came out of the fuselage and he turned on his back—[then] did a nose dive.’[43] Out of ammunition, he turned for home.
Although the two pilots had a kill each, the Ju 87s were able to break through and sink four vessels. At 3.30p.m. the final Stuka-led attack was undertaken with an even greater collection of machines. By the end of the day, of the twenty-seven vessels that set sail, only four had made it to their destination; the rest had either been sunk or so badly damaged they were forced to seek shelter. The Luftwaffe had lost nineteen aircraft and twenty-two men, and the RAF seventeen fighters and eight men killed.
On 11 August, the final day of the Kanalkampf, two Australians and two New Zealanders were again in the thick of the effort. Early German activity near Dover was merely a feint; the real target of the day was the Portland naval base. Park was informed of a concentration of enemy machines within the vicinity of Cherbourg Peninsula. Fighter Command put eight squadrons up in preparation for the inevitable attacks. In over five raids the Germans deployed nearly 200 aircraft in all. South Australian John Cock was one of six pilots in B Flight, 87 Squadron. A veteran of the fighting in France, he looked older than his twenty-two years, and already had a slew of confirmed and probables recorded in his logbook.[44]
The squadron’s late-morning targets were the Ju 88 bombers that had just set alight the oil storage tanks at Portland. Dirty black smoke cloaked the port, punctuated by fires burning brightly at the hospital and other buildings. Before reaching the bombers, Cock crossed paths with an Me 109 into which he unleashed a hail of fire, tearing chunks off the machine. His next target was a Ju 88. The Brownings set one wing alight, but Cock was unable to follow the bomber down as the Hurricane was suddenly peppered with cannon and bullets, destroying the instrument panel and damaging the engine. The Australian, nursing a bullet nick to the shoulder, inverted the aircraft, tugged himself free from a snag in the cockpit and opened his parachute in the midst of the free-for-all dogfight. All too soon he was aware that he was being fired on by a Messerschmitt and, in fact, a number of the cords attaching him to his parachute were severed by the enemy’s attempts to kill him mid-air. Mercifully a fellow RAF pilot intervened, dispatching the enemy pilot and machine.[45]
Once in the water, Cock divested himself of his boots and trousers in an aquatic dash for the shore. Overhead and monitoring events, a fellow 87 Squadron pilot laughed all the way back to base after seeing the bedraggled and trouser-less Australian crawl from the surf.[46] For his troubles Cock was put on leave for a month. The other Australian, Walch, was less fortunate. A massive formation of Me 109s caught his section of 238 Squadron completely outnumbered and three pilots were killed. The loss of Walch was a blow to the squadron as the Tasmanian was well known for taking less experienced pilots under his wing. It would appear that his death was precipitated by an attempt to rescue two young men from overwhelming odds.[47]
Among the Kiwis involved in operations over Portland were Squadron Leader Hector McGregor and Cobden. A graduate of Napier Boys’ High School, McGregor was a good half-dozen years older than most Anzac pilots in the Battle of Britain, and prior to the war had commanded squadrons in Egypt and Palestine.[48] The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) recipient had returned to Britain in 1940 and taken over the command of the Biggin Hill-based 213 Squadron. At 10.30a.m., his Hurricane squadron intercepted approximately 50 bombers and 30 single-engine fighters at 10,000 feet.
Twenty-six-year-old Cobden had shot down one of the first bombers of the campaign, but would lose his life on 11 August. The squadron took up patrolling duties over a convoy. Forty Me 110s were attacked and formed a defensive circle. In the ensuing struggle, the former All Black was shot down off Harwich and his body recovered by the enemy. The New Zealander was buried at the Oostende New Communal Cemetery, Belgium. Cobden’s death closed off the first phase of the Battle of Britain—it was his birthday.[50]