Chapter Two

605 Squadron

So, ten months after the outbreak of war, and following seven months of intense flying training, I had at last reached my goal and become a fairly well trained fighter pilot. And what a great feeling it was; at the age of just 20 to be at the controls of one of the world’s greatest fighter aircraft was a lot for a youngster just out of his teens to take in.

Sometimes there is this pointless controversy about the relative merits between the Hurricane and the Spitfire. In 1940 the Hurricane was probably the better known of the two partly because it had been well publicised. In February 1938, the CO of the first Hurricane squadron, 111, eager for a chance to put his squadron squarely on the map, had flown a Hurricane up to Turnhouse, in Scotland, and then, noting that there would be a strong tail-wind back to Northolt, took off for the return journey as flat-out as he could. Squadron Leader John Gillan’s average speed south was recorded as 408.75 mph, thereby covering the 327-mile journey in just 48 minutes.

Hilariously, some of Gillan’s pilots had achieved similar speeds the previous day while testing the route. Gillan, of course, in anticipation of a good result of his flight had immediately telephoned Air Ministry after he’d landed and was then on his way to meet the press in London, which he had previously arranged.

Meantime, James Sanders, one of 111’s pilots who had been part of the earlier flight, told the story about Flight Lieutenant J W ‘Baldy’ Donaldson, who was in charge of the station flight at Northolt. Baldy had telephoned the newspapers too and arranged a press conference at Northolt, using Gillan’s office and putting on one of Gillan’s spare squadron leader tunics. Therefore, all the stuff that appeared in the newspapers actually came from Donaldson. Understandably, Donaldson, who was quite a character, and one of three famous brothers in the RAF, was reprimanded by the AOC for his actions. Baldy, having won the DSO with 263 Squadron in Norway, died on 8 June with the sinking of the carrier HMS Glorious.

It had been the Hurricane that had taken the brunt of the air fighting over France both before the Blitzkrieg and afterwards, had also seen action in Norway, where frozen lakes were used as airfields, and had been very active over the Dunkirk evacuation. The Spitfire had, of course, been the first RAF fighter to shoot down German aircraft over Britain – Ju88s and He111s over Scotland and the North of England but the Hurricane, for the moment, held pole position in the public’s eye.

Therefore, whatever fate took me along the route of either the Hurricane or Spitfire was of no account. Both were great fighter aircraft and capable of standing up to anything the Germans might throw at us. It was no let-down, therefore, for me to be posted to a Hurricane squadron. I mention this because I have recently read a comment by some historian writing about the Battle of Britain, quoting that some pilots came into the Battle with only a few hours of solo flying. If this is an accurate quote then it is absolute nonsense. It may be true that they had only a few hours on either Hurricane or Spitfire but flying solo – never.

This is how history is sometimes misinterpreted. This same historian also wrote that a lot of us were not very good at shooting, ie: air to air firing, and that may very well be true, but we all had to start sometime. Whatever experience one might have had firing at a drogue, being towed behind an aircraft, this does not compare in any way with trying to stay with a jinking, turning, twisting enemy aircraft, whose pilot is far from eager to be your next victory. One also must not forget that while thus engaged, there is more than a good chance that one of his pals is trying to line you up too.

With shooting, in common with the other “S’s” – ski-ing, snooker, soccer, swimming and even sex – the more you practice, the better you get. When you go into action you have so many things to think about, things to do, that you are lucky to get in anything more than a few shots at a fleeting and fast moving target. My old friend Frank Carey, a particularly good exponent with a Hurricane in combat, once recorded that while training new fighter pilots, from his experience during a tour of some 300 operational hours a pilot might expect only to be in contact with enemy aircraft for about 30 of those hours. Approach and attack might occupy only a few minutes of that time, so that in consequence one must take the fullest advantage of those minutes to hit an opponent.

If you survive your first encounters and as time goes on, it all begins to fall into place automatically. You have more time to concentrate on your shooting; judge the size and type of aircraft in front of you; the amount of deflection you need to allow, and so on. In other words, practice makes perfect. In the Battle of Britain we all had to learn that the hard way, and fast.

When my posting came through, I had no idea what 605 Squadron was all about other than it had Hurricanes, and that it was stationed at Drem. Drem is not a particularly attractive name, something rather like Doom or Gloom, so it was with some mixed feelings that I travelled north to Edinburgh at the beginning of July.

Ricky Wright and I were picked up at Edinburgh railway station by RAF transport and as we left the city and travelled east along the coast road towards North Berwick, my spirits lifted somewhat. It was a beautiful sunny summer day and to the south were some lovely rolling hills, while to the north was the sparkling Firth of Forth. It was as if my foreboding about Drem was quite unfounded; and so it proved. We turned off the main road at the small village of Gullane, and within a few minutes driving inland we arrived at our destination.

Drem, in fact, was yet another large grass field, turned into an airfield with some semi-permanent and temporary accommodation. Although it was all grass, two airstrips had been cut and flattened out to make runways, one running north to south, the other east to west. I sorted out my accommodation and settled down for the night.

My new home was about two miles south of another village, called Dirleton. The field had been a home defence landing ground as far back as 1916-17 when it was known as West Fenton. In the last year of WW1 it had become the home of No.2 Training Depot Station (TDS) and after that it was renamed Gullane. It remained unused till 1933, at which time it was employed by 602 and 603 Squadron’s Hawker Harts as a re-fuelling point during exercises. Then shortly before WW2 it became a training base once more and the home of 13 FTS.

Once war was declared, Drem was an ideal spot for the fighter defence of the Scottish Lowlands, being on the approach to Edinburgh and for shipping in the Firth of Forth, and another auxiliary squadron – 609 – brought its Spitfires up from Acklington and the FTS was disbanded in October 1939, the airfield being taken over by Fighter Command. 602 Squadron were operating from Drem on 16 October and intercepted bombers attacking ships near the Forth Bridge. 602, and 603 from Turnhouse, each claimed one German bomber in the sea off Dunbar.

Several alerts, patrols and scrambles occurred over the next several weeks and further engagements took place in the first months of 1940. Not much had happened since, except pilots flying convoy patrols out over the sea and there was always the chance that raiders would again try to bomb shipping in the Firth of Forth, or even go for Edinburgh.

As I was soon to discover, 605 was named County of Warwick Squadron, and formed part of the important Royal Auxiliary Air Force. It had come into existence in late 1926, at Castle Bromwich and had originally been a bomber outfit. Its first aircraft were Avro 504s for training and WW1 vintage DH9A bombers. Over the next few years it had maintained its role as a training squadron for weekend airmen, keen to fly while holding down civilian jobs during the weekdays. It went on to fly Westland Wapiti IIs, Hawker Harts, the Hind and then Gloster Gladiator fighters as the squadron became a fighter unit at the beginning of 1939.

While I was finishing my training at Grantham, 605 were having their first encounters with enemy aircraft, while based at Wick. On 28 March the squadron shared the honours of bringing down a Heinkel 111, then on 10 April Pilot Officer I J Muirhead attacked a German recce aircraft but it went into cloud before he could see any results of his attack. However, Flying Officer P G Leeson was more successful and his attack on another raider brought results, with two of the crew baling out as the aircraft went down.

The day before the Germans began their move on France, Flying Officers G R Edge, G W B Austin and R Hope shot down a Dornier 17 off Dunnett Head. With things going badly in France and with an evacuation already on the cards, 605 were moved south to Hawkinge, near Folkestone on 21 May and began patrols over France. Graham Austin and Pat Leeson were two pilots the squadron lost in these skirmishes across the Channel. Leeson ended up a prisoner of war, but Austin, although wounded, was evacuated via Dunkirk. The squadron also lost Sergeant Moffatt and Flying Officer G F M Wright, both killed.

Further fighting took place during the Dunkirk show and more claims were made against the enemy. Ian Muirhead was shot down but landed safely despite being fired on by Belgian soldiers. Boarding a ship at Ostende, his journey was interrupted by a torpedo, but he was rescued from the sea and finally got home OK. In its final actions, the squadron lost is commander, Squadron Leader G V Perry and two other pilots, following which it returned to Scotland and to Drem.

Once at Drem 605’s new CO arrived, Squadron Leader Walter Churchill, who was 32 years of age and had been in the AAF since 1931, and actually with 605 Squadron for a while. He had become a reserve officer in 1937 but was recalled once the war started and sent to France as a flight commander with 3 Squadron, flying Hurricanes. Despite failing eyesight and his age, Churchill did remarkably well. It was not long before he was commanding the squadron, and in three or four days he had shot down four German aircraft, had shared three more and claimed two others as probables. His actions resulted in awards of the DFC and then the DSO.

This was the chap I met on my first morning with the squadron. He was an impressive looking man, and those two medal ribbons beneath his wings attracted my attention. Here was a man who had faced the enemy, done well, survived and was now my boss. I had gone down to the squadron dispersal area and although when I met Churchill he was welcoming, I have to say that for some reason or other there was no great empathy between him and myself. There was no animosity at all, it was just one of those cases, and we never seemed to be on the same wavelength.

I was told I was to be in A Flight, and Gerry Edge was the flight commander. Gerry was a completely different type of man to Churchill, very easy to get on with and a great chap. He was several years older than me and had joined the RAuxAF in 1936, flying with 605 Squadron, and was called for full-time service just prior to war being declared. He had seen considerable action over France and Dunkirk and already had a creditable score of victories, including four Ju87 Stuka dive-bombers in one action east of Calais on 25 May. He was something of a perfectionist and got into the habit of wearing two wrist-watches. When asked why, he would confess: ‘If you are 200 miles out over the North Sea, doing, say, 250 miles per hour and your watch fails when you are trying to rendezvous with other aircraft, you are going to end up very lost or very dead, or both.’ Gerry I discovered, came from Staffordshire, had attended Oundle School before going into the family metal business in Wolverhampton, flying with 605 at weekends.

The other flight commander was Archie McKeller. Born in Paisley, outside Glasgow, he was 28 years old, and the son of a stockbroker. Not wanting to follow in his father’s profession he became a plasterer’s apprentice, and because his father disapproved of his desire to fly, took lessons in secret at the Scottish Flying Club at Abbotsinch. Once he received his A Licence, he was invited to join 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron in 1936 and was commissioned that November. By the time the war came he was a flying officer, but he hadn’t improved on his diminutive height of 5′ 3″; however, in those early skirmishes over Scotland in October 1939, he had shared in the destruction of two German raiders. It must have been quite a change for him to swap Spitfires for 605’s Hurricanes, when posted in June 1940. He and Walter Churchill hit it off well together, the CO no doubt appreciating Archie’s very press-on nature.

Among the other experienced pilots we had was C R ‘Bunny’ Currant. He was 28 and came from Luton, having received a direct entry into the RAF in 1936. As a sergeant pilot he had flown with 46 and 151 Squadrons but upon being commissioned, moved to 605 in April 1940. In one of those patrols over France pre-Dunkirk, Chris had been shot down south of Arras, force-landed, but not before he had actually got out onto the wing prior to taking to his parachute. Once there he thought it was possible to make a force-landing so he climbed back into the cockpit. Unfortunately he did not have time to put his straps back on, so when he crunched in, he smashed his face on the gun-sight, resulting in two black eyes and a broken nose. Having a ‘Hurricane Nose’ was something easily achieved by a number of pilots during these extreme ways of landing. His number two had circled and was able to report back that Bunny had survived the crash but it was uncertain if he would ever be seen again, such was the chaos in northern France.

Sorting himself out Bunny decided to walk to Calais and being a conscientious type lugged his heavy and awkward parachute all the way, which in hindsight he wished he’d left in the cockpit. After covering some miles he came to a small town and managed to find the mayor and talked him into providing him with a car and driver to take him to Calais. He was somewhat amazed that the mayor agreed. He was taken to within walking distance of the port, so continued into the dock area, teamed with some British and French troops, and managed to get himself aboard one of the last ships leaving for England. He had been shot down at around 10.30 am but by 11 pm that night he walked into the mess at Hawkinge to the amazement of everyone, sporting those two black eyes and a smashed nose.

Bunny always looked the part as a fighter pilot. Handsome, although in most photographs he seemed dour, with wavy hair, RAF moustache, he seemed never too far from his pipe. He even appeared film-star-like – although only briefly – in the movie about Reginald Mitchell and the Spitfire, which starred Leslie Howard and David Niven. This was First of the Few, filmed at Ibsley in 1941, by which time Bunny was commanding 501 Squadron.

Mike Cooper-Slipper was another pilot I met that first morning. He was six months younger than me and came from Staffordshire. He joined the RAF via the short service com-mission route in 1938 and had become a member of 605 in February 1940. He had also seen action over Dunkirk.

Ian ‘Jock’ Muirhead came from East London and had been accepted into the RAF as a 16-year-old apprentice in 1929. Like many such boy-entrants, ‘Jock’ managed to get himself accepted for a flying course, his first squadron being 151, but then moved to 605 in April 1940. He had also claimed some scalps over France and Dunkirk although shot down on 26 May during a fight with some Me110s. He baled out safely, and got home by ship as previously mentioned.

Jock became the first member of 605 Squadron to win the Distinguished Flying Cross for these recent actions. The award was announced in the London Gazette on 28 June 1940 with the following citation:

This officer has shot down five enemy aircraft and has shown outstanding skill, coolness and daring in carrying out eight patrols in five days over N.W. France and Belgium. During the last patrol he was forced to escape by parachute and after surmounting many difficulties succeeded in reaching his unit.

There were one or two regulars on the squadron who had yet to see any action and the rest were made up from earlier auxiliaries, such as Ralph Hope and Douglas Scott. The balance were all VR chaps like myself, so 605 were more or less complete by the end of July. Ralph Hope was in fact a nephew of the former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He had also rowed for Oxford in the 1935 boat race. He had learnt to fly in America whilst working for the family business in New York, and he was a really nice man, one you could easily get on with – a gentleman.

I had my first flight with the squadron on 9 July in P2994. It was a formation trip together with Bunny Currant and Cyril Passy. In the afternoon I was up in L2059 with Sergeants L F Ralls and R D Ritchie. Exactly one month later, Bob Ritchie, while engaged in a patrol off the east coast, called base to report that he had a glycol leak and that fumes were making him drowsy. That was the last we heard and apparently he was overcome, passed out, and dived into the sea off Dunbar. The body of this 24-year old was picked up by a ship and returned to Drem, later to be buried in his home town of Fife.

The station commander at Drem was a chap called ‘Batchy’ Atcherley. Wing Commander Richard Llewellyn Roger Atcherley, to give him his full title, and his twin brother, David, were fast becoming legends within the RAF, legends that grew as the war progressed. When the war began he was commanding 85 Squadron at RAF Debden, in 12 Group, Fighter Command. Batchy had then been sent to Norway where his reputation was even more enhanced. He was tasked with finding landing grounds for RAF fighters, which were mostly located on frozen lakes. One tactic he employed that I heard of was that in order to create a landing area on a snowcovered iced-up lake, he got some locals to guide a herd of reindeer across the snow, the men being rewarded with some medicinal brandy from an RAF doctor.

After the ill-fated Norwegian campaign, Batchy had been given command of Drem and he used his recent knowledge of airfield defence and operational efficiency to the full. He arranged dispersal sites for the aircraft, ordering in quantities of old railway sleepers to act as hard-standings among the trees at the edge of the field, and also building rudimentary blast pens around them. Being a grass airfield and prone to becoming wet and muddy in inclement weather, these dispersal points made it virtually impossible for our Hurricanes to sink into any soft earth as they stood waiting for action.