The spring and summer of 1941 were filled with what some historians like to call “momentous events”—events so dramatic and significant that they pushed everything else off the front page. On May 10, for instance, Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess parachuted into Scotland on his own private peace mission and was imprisoned in the Tower of London for his efforts. Two weeks later, the battleship Bismarck, pride of the German fleet, was sunk off the coast of France. On June 22, the Wehrmacht invaded Russia, which would prove to be another turning point in the war. In August, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met aboard HMS Prince of Wales in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, and issued a joint statement of war aims that would come to be known as the Atlantic Charter. (This meeting only caused more disappointment for the British, who had hoped that an American declaration of war would come out of the conference.)
To the members of 71 Squadron, these were only stories heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. On May 14, however, something happened that would have a direct impact on them. On that day, before pilot officer James Alexander claimed the squadron's “first blood” by shooting down squadron mate John Flynn, a second Eagle Squadron was formed. “No. 121 (Eagle) Squadron was formed at Kirton Lindsey” was the official entry in the new squadron's logbook.1 Hardly stirring prose, but certainly to the point.
Because so many Americans had volunteered to join the RAF, another squadron was necessary to make use of them all. This was another of the Air Ministry's ideas; neither Sholto Douglas nor Trafford Leigh-Mallory were asked for their opinion. (Or if they were asked, their opinions were ignored.)
Commanding the brand new 121 Squadron was Squadron Leader Peter Powell, a veteran of the Battle of Britain credited with seven German aircraft destroyed. His two assistants were Flight Lieutenant Hugh Kennard, from 306 Squadron, and F/Lt. Royce “Wilkie” Wilkinson, a Yorkshireman with a thick North Country accent. F/Lt. Wilkinson had spent time in 71 Squadron and was at least somewhat familiar with the Yanks and their habits. Between May 16 and May 26, the new squadron's twelve pilots filtered into Kirton. Two of them, Pilot Officers Moore and Marantz, were transferred from 71 Squadron.
Fighter Command was trying to give the new unit a degree of stability from the very outset of its existence, which accounted for the two pilots from 71 Squadron. F/Lt. Wilkinson, who had presumably grown accustomed to American speech and manners during his tenure with 71 Squadron, was also on hand to add a measure of stability as well as to provide assistance in foreign relations. In addition to his time with 71 Squadron, Wilkinson had also lived in the United States for three years before the war. It was hoped that this experience had allowed him to adjust to the behavioral patterns of the strange transatlantic men.
After the painful breaking-in ordeal of 71 Squadron, Fighter Command's chief, Sir Sholto Douglas, realized that he was going to need all the help he could get with this new bunch of Yanks. He was preparing for the worst, but luckily, the newcomers of 121 Squadron were not cut from the same cloth as the early members of 71 Squadron; they were not impatient hotheads who had no time for discipline or British training methods.
The original members of 71 Squadron had been recruited by Colonel Charles Sweeny. Colonel Sweeny had been looking for barnstormers and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants individualists—which is exactly what he and Fighter Command wound up with. The recent arrivals of 121 Squadron had been selected by the Clayton Knight Committee, a much more thorough and selective organization. Clayton Knight screened his candidates a good deal more thoroughly than Sweeny, which led to better candidates for the RAF—more mature and usually better pilots.
On the day after the Second World War began in September 1939, Knight received a telephone call from Ottawa. It was his friend and former colleague Air Vice-Marshal William “Billy” Bishop of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Bishop had shot down seventy-two enemy planes and was Canada's leading air ace of the Great War. He was calling to ask if Knight would recruit and screen American volunteers for the RCAF. Knight liked the idea and agreed.
Knight's recruiting drive did not meet with much success until the spring of 1940 when the Phoney War came to an abrupt end, and German forces invaded France and the Low Countries. When the war became front-page news, pilots began to come forward. Knight posted notices at airfields, placed small advertisements in flight magazines, and generally spread the word that he was looking for volunteers. He and his assistants interviewed civilian pilots in cities all across the United States. By late summer, he went to Canada with three hundred potential volunteers for the RCAF.2
By this time, both the Air Ministry and the British embassy in Washington, DC, were having second thoughts about Charles Sweeny and his recruiting methods. While Clayton Knight went out of his way to use discretion in selecting and interviewing candidates, Sweeny seemed to be going out of his way to attract as much attention as possible—giving night-club parties for his recruits, complete with newspaper coverage and press photographers in one instance. Sweeny complained that he had encountered “many obstacles” while recruiting his volunteers. The Neutrality Acts and a hostile American press were two of them, but his main difficulty lay with his own gaudy approach to recruiting.
Sweeny's flashy methods threatened to kill off the Eagle Squadrons before any of his selected pilots could reach England. The FBI had already tried to stop US citizens from volunteering by boarding trains at the US–Canada border and telling any potential RAF candidates that they had two choices: either go home or go to prison. The Air Ministry decided to use Clayton Knight's organization to interview and screen Charles Sweeny's pilot candidates. Instead of joining the RCAF, Knight's pilots would go right into the Royal Air Force, along with Sweeny's.
The Clayton Knight Committee was also looking for proven experience and flying ability but, unlike Sweeny's recruits, their pilots also had to demonstrate maturity and discipline. Clayton Knight's rejection rate was fairly impressive—out of 49,000 applicants, only 6,700 were accepted as volunteers for the RAF, a rejection rate of over 86 percent. The highly strung, hot-headed, and impatient were eliminated. They would not have had the discipline to fly monotonous North Sea patrols or to avoid combat when ordered by their squadron leader.
It must have been disappointing and frustrating for the pilots who were turned down by the Knight Committee, especially after they had heard about the RAF's desperate need for flyers. But it was better to be weeded out by Clayton Knight than by the Luftwaffe. Of Colonel Sweeny's original group of twenty-eight adventurers, only three were left after one year: Chesley Peterson, Charles Bateman, and Gus Daymond. This represents a very permanent rejection rate of over 89 percent; some of the pilots had returned home, but most had been killed.
After the middle of 1941, the pilots of 71 Squadron also appeared to be “less bizarre” than the original group of Eagles, according to the squadron's historian.3 This was largely because of the Knight Committee's standards, though the stabilizing influence of the early survivors was certainly another factor. The really wild volunteers, like Mike Kolendorski, were dead. Not that the current bunch of pilots were completely domesticated, either. The tensions of combat flying still led to the occasional five-alarm outburst.
One pilot, after he was grounded because of poor eyesight, decided to exorcise his frustration by taking a machine gun and blasting at his reflection in every mirror he could find. Another pilot took a shot at his wing commander. Sometimes a group of pilots would get totally drunk and destroy the officers’ mess, or at least do their best. This came under the RAF heading of “picturesque” conduct.4
Although the standard of new pilots improved, the aircraft issued to the brand new 121 Squadron were no upgrade from what 71 Squadron had been issued in its early days. The squadron received seventeen Hurricane Mark Is that were “very tired,” to put it politely5—which most of the squadron members did not. Of the seventeen Hurricanes, only eleven were found to be serviceable. This was the usual practice in RAF Fighter Command. The experienced squadrons got the best planes, and the green units got what was left, which was why the newly arrived Eagle Squadron was awarded somebody else's cast-offs.
By May 31, 121 Squadron consisted of thirteen officers, four sergeant pilots, and one hundred thirty-four ground crew, as well as eleven serviceable Hurricanes. For the next month, the pilots practiced formation flying and aerobatics, training for the inevitable day when they would come into contact with the Luftwaffe. They flew formations, had mock dogfights—did all the things that 71 Squadron had done earlier in the year—but 121 Squadron became operational much more quickly than 71 Squadron had. This was mainly because the Clayton Knight Committee had screened out all the wild individualists before they could get anywhere near a Hawker Hurricane.
A Hawker Hurricane of 71 Squadron. The Hurricane has been referred to as a halfway house between the bi-planes of the First World War and the all-metal monoplanes like the Spitfire. It was made mainly of wood and fabric, like the Sopwith Camel. It could outturn the Spitfire in a dogfight, but the Eagles preferred the Spit. (Courtesy of the National Museum of the United States Air Force®.)
On July 21, 121 Squadron was officially pronounced “operational.” The men had worked hard and had gone from newly formed unit to combat-ready fighter squadron in just three months and seven days. It had taken 71 Squadron more than twice as long to accomplish this.
Michael Assheton-Smith (real name Sir Michael Duff), 121 Squadron's intelligence officer, noted with a hint of disapproval that “a number of pilots” went to London to celebrate their Independence Day.6 On this same July 4, Assheton-Smith also logged the arrival of nineteen Hurricane Mark II-Bs, a notable improvement over their old Hurricane Mark Is. This entry went into the logbook with a great deal more enthusiasm.
Despite the fact that both Eagle Squadrons were made up of American volunteers, the two units did not get along very well. The members of 71 Squadron saw themselves as the senior squadron and looked down their noses at the upstarts of 121 Squadron. The “new boys” of 121 Squadron regarded 71 Squadron as publicity hounds and glamour boys who were mainly interested in getting their pictures in the papers as often as possible. This feeling did not diminish with the passing of time.
The members of 121 Squadron resented 71 Squadron's publicity. The press and the media did mention 121 Squadron when it was formed—“Second American Squadron for the RAF” ran a two-column headline in a London newspaper7—but the event was not given anything approaching the publicity deluge given 71 Squadron. The senior squadron protested that it never asked for all the press and newsreel coverage. But they did not discourage it, either.
Number 121 may have been operational, but there were few combat opportunities anywhere near Kirton-in-Lindsey. Sorties consisted of convoy patrols but no shooting. Disappointment in the Luftwaffe's refusal to come up was fairly evident in the squadron's logbook entries. “Twelve pilots went on a sweep today as part of a Wing,” one entry states, but concludes with a note of frustration: “All returned safely without firing a shot, and without being molested by e/a [enemy aircraft].”8 Two of 121 Squadron's pilots intercepted a marauding Junkers Ju 88 on August 8, shot at it, and claimed it as “damaged.” Ten days later, S/L Powell claimed a Bf 109 as “probable.” Two German airplanes in ten days—not exactly the heart of the battle zone.
But even though 121 Squadron lacked experience, its formation did give Fighter Command another active fighter squadron on its roster. There is no record of Sholto Douglas's reaction to 121 Squadron's early days, which were calm and steady compared with those of its rival Eagle Squadron. It must have come as a relief, though, to realize that all Americans were not hotheads, screwballs, and “prima donnas.” It also probably came as a very great surprise.
This attitude was not really anti-American. It was simply based upon what most Britons knew, or thought they knew, about the United States. Most people's ideas of Americans came from newspapers, magazines, films, and the radio. (There was no television to complicate the matter still further; that would come later.) From these less-than-scholarly sources, the British population concluded that Americans were a violent, ruthless people, who have no use for discipline and no regard for law and order.
In the British press and American films, Americans always seemed to be shooting each other or making huge sums of money from gambling, bootlegging, or other illegal methods. Some of this mental baggage came from Hollywood gangster films, but some of it was based on solid news. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, for instance, made the headlines in London and Manchester as well as in New York and Boston.9
There was an anti-American feeling in Britain, especially among the middle and upper-middle classes—the “officer classes” of the RAF. British writer George Orwell observed, “anti-American feeling was a middle-class, and perhaps an upper-class, thing, resulting from imperialist and business jealousy and disguising itself as dislike of the American accent etc.”10 But the image of the average-American-as-hooligan—even if some were well-bred hooligans—was based as much upon news coverage and American films as it was upon preexisting prejudices.
Besides the rivalry between the two Eagle Squadrons, there was also an intense rivalry taking place between two of 71 Squadron's best pilots. Between July 2 and August 27, 1941, P/O Bill Dunn had been credited with three and a half enemy aircraft destroyed. His competitor, P/O Gus Daymond, was close behind with three German aircraft shot down. Dunn had also been shot down himself. He bailed out of his Spitfire, parachuted into the Channel, and was picked up by Air-Sea Rescue.
On August 27, 71 Squadron was assigned to escort nine Blenheim bombers over to France. The target, again, was Lille, which meant yet another encounter with the “Abbeville Boys” and their yellow-nosed Bf 109s.
As soon as the formation crossed the enemy coast, dark brown puffs of antiaircraft fire began popping all around it. Enemy fighters were expected at any time, so everyone kept a sharp eye out for them. Dunn spotted three Bf 109s that had been pointed out by an alert squadron mate, but he did not see the one behind him.11 He found out about them the hard way when tracer bullets started whizzing past him. Dunn shouted a warning to his flight, which immediately broke up into individual combats, and also threw his Spitfire into a violent turn to evade his pursuer. He was lucky—the only damage done had been to his composure.
When he came out of his evasion tactics, Dunn could see fighting all around—yellow-nosed Messerschmitts trying to get through to the bombers; a Spitfire trailing white smoke—but he was not under attack himself. Below him, he caught sight of two Bf 109s that were waiting to finish off any straggling Blenheims. Dunn pushed his stick forward and dove after them.
The German leader saw the Spitfire coming and quickly broke away, but his wingman executed a climbing turn—right in front of Dunn. When he was about 150 yards away from his target, Dunn pressed the firing button. Tracer shots converged on the Messerschmitt from Dunn's eight .303 caliber machine guns, and the enemy fighter staggered under the impact. Dunn was able to close to within 50 yards, near enough that oil from the stricken Bf 109 splattered the Spitfire's windscreen. The German pilot never made any real effort to evade Dunn. His Bf 109 fell away, on fire, and crashed into a French field. Dunn felt a bit sorry for his adversary; he was probably just a green kid, right out of flight school. But—“what the hell, they all count.”
Off in the distance, Dunn could see the Blenheims bombing their target—there were still nine of them. While he was keeping an eye on the bombers, another Messerschmitt locked onto his tail. His first warning came in the very nasty form of bullet holes in his port wing and a jagged tear near the tip—the Bf 109, closing in from behind, was firing tracer bullets and cannon shells.
Dunn reacted instantly. He throttled back, changed propeller pitch to fine, opened his flaps, and skidded the Spitfire out of the Messerschmitt's gun path. The Spitfire's speed dropped immediately, and the Bf 109 shot past, skimming not more than ten feet above Dunn's head. He was able to see the black crosses on the German fighter, as well as the unit markings and a red rooster insignia on the side of the cockpit.
Within seconds, the situation had been reversed—the Bf 109 was now in front of the Spitfire's guns. Dunn fired a three- or four-second burst, which was all it took to set the Messerschmitt on fire. It rolled over and veered away, out of control. On the way down, its tail section broke off. Kill number two for the day.
About 500 feet below, Dunn spotted another Bf 109 and dove after it. When he got within range, he fired a short burst and saw smoke trail from the German fighter. He was just about to fire another burst when four Messerschmitts got behind him and began shooting. The first one missed—cannon shells darted past Dunn and curved away. But the second one did not. Dunn heard “explosions and a banging like hail” against the Spitfire's fuselage. A cannon shell blew a hole in his instrument panel; his foot was hit and went numb. His leg and head also hurt, and he began losing consciousness. Through his increasing haze, he could see bits of metal and broken glass on the cockpit floor.
Dunn had been dazed by the impact of the bullets and cannon shells. When he came to, he found himself all alone in the sky. He did not know how badly he had been injured, but his head hurt, and he could see that his right foot was covered with blood. Luckily his Spitfire was still flyable, which meant that he would at least be able to get back home.
Dunn made his way back to England by gently weaving his Spitfire across the Channel. (Weaving allowed a pilot to keep an eye out for enemy fighters on the prowl—flying straight and level for any amount of time was an excellent way for an enemy to sneak up behind you and shoot you full of holes.) On the way across, Dunn was picked up by two Spitfires from another squadron and given an escort. He brought his damaged Spitfire down on the grass landing field at Hawkinge, near Folkestone, Kent, just inland from the Channel coast.
In the Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone, Dunn was informed that a cannon shell had blown off the front of his right foot. In addition, two machine-gun bullets had gone through his right calf, and another had hit a glancing blow to his skull, cutting the scalp and leaving an indentation several inches long. One of the doctors told Dunn he was lucky to be alive. Dunn already knew this.
When the cast was taken off his leg about a month later, he saw the damage for the first time. The two machine gun bullets had left “reddish scars,” and he could feel the place where one of the bullets nicked his shin bone. His head wound had already healed, leaving a raised scar. The injury to his right foot caused him the most alarm. The cannon shell had blown away three toes and had also shattered bones inside his foot. He still had his big toe and the one next to it, but the second toe was not connected to anything—all the connecting bones having been shot away—and “just flapped loose.”
While he was undergoing rehabilitation, Dunn was given a shoe fitted with a metal plate, which gave his foot the support it would need in lieu of its missing toes. It would be several weeks before he became used to it. When he was finally discharged from the hospital, he was given a month's leave. He used the time to return to the United States and visit his family. He would be posted to a training command in Canada when he returned to duty.
Before leaving England, however, Dunn decided to visit his squadron mates at North Weald. He was glad to see most of them, but was saddened to find out that several pilots had been killed while he was in the hospital. He also noticed several new faces around the airfield. When he went to collect his personal belongings, Dunn was annoyed to find that somebody had helped themselves to his socks, underwear, towels, ties, and shirts. What was left over had been dumped into a parachute bag, which had then been thrown into a puddle of water on the hut floor.
Dunn was even more annoyed to find out that Chesley Peterson and Gus Daymond had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross—normally awarded to a fighter pilot with five victories—and that Gus Daymond had been officially credited as being the “first American ace.” Dunn had collected his fifth victory nearly a month before Gus Daymond. And Peterson did not even have five victories; he only had two. Dunn was the first member of 71 Squadron with five enemy aircraft destroyed (actually five and a half) and never got the DFC. “What about my victories,” Dunn wanted to know, “didn't they count?”
He credits this omission to the squadron's intelligence officer, J. Roland “Robbie” Robinson. Robinson had influence at the Air Ministry and had “worked the DFC gongs for his two fair-haired boys.” Dunn felt that Robinson was always pushing his friends, his “fair-haired clique,” for promotions and decorations at the expense of anyone not in the charmed circle.
Although he never received the DFC, Bill Dunn finally did receive credit for being the first ace in the Eagle Squadrons. In 1968, nearly twenty-seven years after the event, he was given official credit for being the first American ace of the Second World War. Air Marshal Sir Patrick Dunn (no relation to William R. Dunn), along with an officer with the RAF Historical Branch, rechecked Dunn's logbook and RAF files. After careful study, they concluded that William R. Dunn had scored his fifth victory before any other American pilot.
Dunn received a letter from Raymond E. Tolliver, historian of the American Fighter Aces Association, dated March 19, 1968, which confirmed the RAF's findings. In the letter, Tolliver said, “The American Fighter Aces Association is happy to inform you that in a recently completed study in conjunction with the Royal Air Force, victory credits clearly indicate that you are America's first fighter ace of World War II.” The letter went on to say that the records of the association, which has the final say on victory claims, “are being changed to reflect his fact.”
Dunn was serving as an air strike plans officer at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam, when the letter reached him. “I was certainly glad to have the matter settled,” he later said, even though it had taken over a quarter of a century.
Squadron Leader William Taylor left 71 Squadron and the Royal Air Force in June 1941.12 He was followed by a succession of British commanding officers, which did not stop the press and news media from referring to 71 Squadron as the “all-American squadron.” Publicity is not necessarily based upon fact, especially publicity involving Americans and especially during 1940 and 1941.
Taylor was actually removed from command as the result of a quiet revolt staged by the Eagles themselves in response to his strict discipline. (Surprisingly, the Americans could do something quietly when the need arose.) Taylor had been bearing down hard on the pilots, insisting that they obey all the minor rules and regulations regarding dress code and other small matters. He held to the pet US Navy idea that punctual attention to minor details, such as keeping shoes and buttons polished, would make the squadron a better and more disciplined fighting unit. The squadron members emphatically did not agree.
When pilots asked permission to fly low-level strafing missions over France and the Low Countries, Taylor refused. The reason he gave was that the squadron was not at full strength (recent flying accidents had made several Spitfires unserviceable). This incident prompted some of the pilots to complain about the situation to their former squadron leader, Walter Churchill. Churchill took the complaint to 11 Group headquarters, And headquarters sent a group captain to investigate.
Taking action by way of the chain of command usually takes time, but sometimes produces results. A month after the group captain's visit, S/L Taylor was summoned to appear at 11 Group headquarters. The summons came from the group's new commander, Air Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory. The air marshal already had his hands full of the Yanks while he was still in 12 Group; now here they were again.
Leigh-Mallory told Taylor that, between the US Navy and the RAF, he had accumulated too many operational flying hours and that he was too old—at age 36—to command an operational fighter squadron. In other words, Squadron Leader Taylor no longer had a squadron to lead. Leigh-Mallory was never known for being subtle, and this was typical of him—nasty but effective. As a consolation prize, Taylor was offered a training command and a promotion to wing commander. He turned down the training job, as Leigh-Mallory knew he would.
The offer having been made and turned down, Taylor was given two weeks to decide what he wanted to do. But he did not need that much time. Both the US Navy and the Royal Navy had asked him to return, and he was pretty fed up with the RAF and everybody in it by this time. Since the Americans had asked him first, Taylor decided to return to the US Navy. (Trafford Leigh-Mallory's reaction to Taylor's decision is not known, but it was probably a sigh of relief—one less Yank for him to worry about.)
When Taylor returned to 71 Squadron, his entire attitude changed. Knowing that he would be leaving the squadron in two weeks’ time, he decided to become “one of the boys.” He suddenly became friendly with everybody in the squadron and even joined them in the officers’ mess. The pilots quickly came to like the “new” S/L Taylor and decided they wanted him to stay after all. But by that time it was too late; Taylor was soon on his way to join the US Pacific Fleet.
After Taylor's departure, the squadron was taken over by squadron leader Henry de Clifford Anthony Woodhouse, given the nickname “Paddy.” He and the Eagles did not hit it off, to put it mildly. For one thing, he was an even sterner taskmaster than Bill Taylor had been. For another thing, he was British. The squadron did not like this stuffy Limey; they considered him to be a typical look-down-your-nose-officer-class type. They thought they should have another American commander—that way, if they were going to be harassed, as least it would be in a language they understood.
The men never really liked Woodhouse—he was too much of an authoritarian to become popular—but he did come to be respected eventually. The pilots realized they were learning a great deal about flying from him, in spite of themselves. Maneuvers were practiced over and over again until Woodhouse was satisfied, which meant until they were performed to perfection.
In August 1941, after two months with 71 Squadron, Woodhouse was promoted to the rank of wing commander and posted to Tangmere to take over the famous “Bader Wing.” The wing was named after the well-known but controversial Douglas Bader, who had become an ace in spite of the fact that he had lost both legs (they had been amputated after a flying accident in the 1930s). Bader had recently been shot down over the Continent and captured by the Germans. Woodhouse was sent to replace him. No one in 71 Squadron was sorry to see him go.
Squadron Leader E. R. Bitmead took command after Woodhouse. But Bitmead had not fully recovered from an earlier accident and was not yet fit enough to lead an operational squadron. He left after only nine days, before the squadron could get to know him. Bitmead was replaced by Squadron Leader Stanley T. Meares, who had flown with 54 Squadron during the Battle of Britain. Bitmead was just the opposite of Woodhouse—friendly, affable, and maybe just a little too easygoing. Meares was also a first-rate leader, and he had the benefit of the discipline imposed by Taylor and Woodhouse.
The pilots of 71 Squadron had three commanders in three months. If Trafford Leigh-Mallory, or anyone else in Fighter Command, still wondered about the squadron's steadiness and reliability, at least the Eagles had an excuse for being undependable. Nobody could be expected to perform at their best with revolving-door squadron leaders. But with Meares in command, the Eagles were expected to improve—they had discipline instilled by past squadron leaders, and now they had a good, and experienced, British commanding officer running things. The one hope was that Meares would last longer than his two predecessors.
On August 1, 1941, the rivalry between the two Eagle Squadrons was given something additional—the formation of a third Eagle Squadron.
Most of the pilots of the new unit, designated Number 133 (Eagle) Squadron, had been recruited by the Clayton Knight Committee.13 These volunteers had been trained in Canada, at bases operated by the RAF. Enough pilots had passed the training course to form a brand new all-American squadron.
Reaction to the new squadron in Fighter Command was mixed. The newly qualified pilots were both needed and welcome. But yet another Eagle Squadron was an idea that was treated with skepticism—the early days of 71 Squadron, with its crazy ways and flying accidents, were still too fresh in everyone's mind. As far as Trafford Leigh-Mallory was concerned, a Yank was a Yank, wherever he was trained, and should not be trusted too far.
The pilots of 133 Squadron had the advantage of starting out with up-to-date fighter planes. Instead of the war-weary hulks that had been supplied to both 71 and 121 Squadron, the new unit was issued Hurricane Mark II-Bs that were in excellent condition. The Mark II-B was a much more modern fighter than anything the other two Eagle squadrons had seen in their early days. It could fly higher than its predecessors, because of its Rolls-Royce Merlin XX engine, and was also armed with twelve .303 machine guns, as opposed to the eight guns of earlier models.
Commanding the new squadron, which was based at Coltishall, Norfolk, was Flight Lieutenant George A. Brown, who had been promoted to the rank of acting squadron leader. F/Lt. Brown had been a flight leader with 71 Squadron and was also the pilot who taught Bill Dunn how to survive in combat. Because he had been exposed to Americans, their language and their habits and customs, Brown was expected by Fighter Command to know something about these oddball foreigners.
The squadron adjutant, Pilot Officer J. G. Staveley-Dick (also a pipe-smoking lawyer), did not have the benefit of such exposure and seemed to have some very peculiar notions about the Yanks. One of 133 Squadron's pilots said that Staveley-Dick seemed “always to be in a state of amazement at his close association with such odd-ball Americans.” To a class-conscious, university-educated English lad, everything about the Yanks—their accents, behaviors, manners, just about anything they said or did—probably struck him as strange, if not absolutely bizarre.
If the British thought Americans were peculiar, the Yanks likely found many Britons, especially the higher-ranking officers, to be almost surreal. Americans tended to think of these lofty gentlemen as formal, coldly polite, standoffish, remote, and just plain freakish. The feeling about being strange was entirely mutual.
Squadron leader Brown's welcoming speech to the new squadron was anything but cheerful and reassuring. He invited the men to have a good look around the room because, “in a year from now, most of you will be dead.”14 It was a startling prophesy. It also turned out to be true.
Early entries in 133 Squadron's operations record book deal almost entirely with practice drills—formation flying, machine-gun practice, and all the other things that new squadrons have to go through before becoming operational. The drills continued throughout September. A few new pilots also joined the squadron—including Acting Flight Lieutenant Andy Mamedoff from 71 Squadron.
Fighter Command wanted to have an American officer with 133 Squadron—an officer above the rank of pilot officer—and Mamedoff was the obvious choice. He was an excellent pilot, he had combat experience, and nobody ever accused him of being standoffish or reserved. Mamedoff's old unit, 71 Squadron, was not wild about losing him, but an order was an order. Mamedoff joined 133 Squadron on September 2.
The rivalry between the Eagle squadrons was beginning to intensify, especially now that there were three of them. The members of 71 Squadron believed they were the best of the three units and resented accusations that they received too much publicity. In 121 Squadron, the pilots thought themselves equal to the “publicity hounds” of 71 Squadron, even if they did not get their pictures in the paper as often. They had become operational in less than half the time of 71 Squadron and did so with fewer than half the casualties and wrecked airplanes.
At Coltishall, 133 Squadron took a somewhat wary view of both of the elder squadrons. They received practically no media coverage at all; in August 1941, because of the fighting against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps in Libya, as well as fighting on all other fronts, the story of another Eagle squadron was not considered a very hot news item. Also, the pilots resented the other two Eagle Squadrons looking down their noses at them. And they hated being called the “third Eagles.”
All three squadrons would receive increasingly advanced fighters as their flying ability improved (and as Fighter Command's confidence in the Yanks increased). All new squadrons—including 133—started out with Hawker Hurricanes and moved on to the Spitfire: first to the Spitfire Mark II-A and then to the Mark V-B.
The differences between the Mark II-A and the Mark V-B were small but substantial. The Mark V's engine was only slightly larger than the Mark II's, which meant that there was not that much difference in speed or performance. Armament in the Mark V certainly represented an improvement—four .303 machine guns and two 20 mm cannons. The cannons were much more effective than the 30 caliber machine guns. Their exploding shells not only could penetrate armor plate on enemy bombers but also gave an edge against the Messerschmitts—a machine-gun bullet was seldom fatal, but even a single cannon shell could destroy an enemy fighter. The Luftwaffe had learned this years before.
When the war first began, the 20 mm cannon was more of a hindrance than a help. They always seemed to jam when they were needed most, sometimes after only a few rounds were fired. But when this defect was corrected, the cannon soon proved its worth in combat. A cannon shell could penetrate armor that would have deflected a .303 bullet. The pilot actually had the option of firing just the two cannons, just the four machine guns, or all of the guns at once.
To many pilots, the most important difference between the Mark II and the Mark V-B was the latter's metal ailerons. (Ailerons were responsible for steering a plane up and down.) Metal ailerons made the Spitfire V much more maneuverable and responsive than its elder brother, which came equipped with fabric-covered ailerons.15 Stick pressure was reduced, along with “heavy response” to the controls. In short, the Spit V was slightly faster, more heavily armed, and much more maneuverable than its predecessor.
The Spitfire was admired by pilots on both sides. According to legend, German ace Adolf Galland infuriated Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring by saying that what the Luftwaffe really needed was a squadron of Spitfires. Still, no one ever praised the machine for its comfort or luxury; the pilot at the controls of any model Spitfire was not the most comfortable man in the world.
According to Wing Commander Miles Duke-Woolley, who would fly with the Eagle squadrons in the future, the pilot of a Spitfire was a “lonely man.”16 The cockpit was so narrow that a pilot's shoulders brushed against the sides whenever he rubbernecked for enemy fighters (which was constantly); his flying helmet, with his radio headset, covered his ears; and the Spitfire's long nose limited his forward vision. Thus the pilot could not hear very well (even the engine roar was muffled), his vision was severely limited, and his entire body was boxed in by the confines of the cockpit. He was, in short, not only lonely but also extremely uncomfortable.
The pilot's position was not improved by the fact that he was traveling at speeds in excess of 300 miles per hour. It became even more awkward when a German pilot in another machine—probably just as uncomfortable—was shooting at him.
When 133 Squadron first saw its Spitfire Mark V-As, the pilots were dismayed. The planes had suffered a great deal of wear and tear: their Plexiglas cockpit hoods were in such bad shape that they could hardly be seen through, and the engines sounded rough and grating. It looked as though Fighter Command was trying to atone for the fact that the squadron had been issued brand new Hurricanes when the unit had first been formed. Just about every fighter needed a complete overhaul before it could be considered combat-ready. When the Spitfires were tuned up and made more air-worthy and presentable, squadron morale improved in direct proportion with the condition of its aircraft.
By the autumn of 1941, all three of the Eagle Squadrons were operational. Fighter Command was glad to have the American volunteers, even though both 121 and 133 squadrons had no combat experience at all, but the behavior of the “wild Yanks” was still a cause for concern. Especially troubling was the rivalry between the three units, which seemed to be worsening.
The future of the Eagle Squadrons was viewed by Sholto Douglas, chief of Fighter Command, as well as his colleagues, with wary optimism. But, if they were as good at fighting the Germans as they were at raising hell and fighting with each other, they ought to have fine combat records.