It began to look as though the miserable English winter would never end. Rain, fog, low clouds, and drizzle continued to plague the three Eagle Squadrons, grounding all aircraft and dampening the morale of every pilot. Even when the calendar finally announced that spring had arrived, apparently nobody bothered to tell the weatherman. The dismal winter clouds and mists refused to go away.
“How the hell can anyone stand to live in this lousy, stinking climate?” was a question that native Californians, along with residents of some of the southern states, asked over and over again about the weather in the British Isles. Nobody ever managed to come up with a satisfactory answer, however.
When the weather did break for a while, long enough for the pilots to take part in a fighter sweep, regulations prevented anyone from breaking formation to chase after any inviting stray German planes. Everyone knew that this was for their own good—most of the pilots had heard about Mike Kolendorski, even if they hadn't met him—but it still did not help anyone's spirits.
On the rare occasion that an enemy fighter did present itself, RAF regulations could still interfere. According to the rule book, a German plane could not be claimed as “destroyed” unless it was seen to crash or the pilot bailed out. Otherwise, it only counted as a “probable.” This rule deflated a lot of scores, not to mention egos, and raised a lot of the pilots’ tempers.
Pilot Officer Barry Mahon of 121 Squadron ran slap into this regulation after an encounter with an FW 190 over France.1 Mahon dove on the Focke-Wulf, closed to within about 450 yards—which was actually much too far away—and opened fire with his cannons and machine guns. After giving the FW 190 an eight-second burst, Mahon was satisfied that he had shot it down. He duly claimed the enemy fighter as having been destroyed.
Back at base, however, the squadron intelligence officer did not share Mahon's enthusiasm. He refused to give credit for a “destroyed”—Mahon did not see the enemy pilot bail out, and he did not see the FW crash. “P/O Mahon seems certain that he hit this aircraft,” the intelligence officer noted. “The Enemy Aircraft was seen to dive steeply down from 9,000 feet, but there was no evidence that the Enemy Aircraft has crashed, no smoke or any other signs were visible. No claim can therefore be made.” And no claim was allowed, even though Mahon was certain that he had shot down the Focke-Wulf. This was worse than being grounded by English weather.
Nobody knew it yet, but there were plans afoot that would liven up the existence of every pilot in Fighter Command. Some of these plans were being made at RAF Fighter Command headquarters, some were being concocted by the Luftwaffe, and some were being formulated in Washington, DC. The course of the war was about to change, although none of the Eagles could have been aware of it at that time. Even if they had known, many of the pilots still would not have been satisfied. Everybody was shouting for “more action,” more enemy aircraft to destroy, and it did not look like they were going to get what they wanted as long as they were stuck in regulation-happy, fogbound England.
Since they were not content in England, some of the Americans decided to go someplace else. Seventeen pilots from the three Eagle Squadrons, including Reade Tilley and Leo Nomis, volunteered for duty on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Malta was the site of a vital RAF airfield, strategically positioned within striking distance of both the Italian peninsula and Sicily.
Because of its location, the German High Command wanted Malta and its airfield neutralized—permanently put out of action. The Luftwaffe did its best to comply with Berlin's orders. German bombers pounded the island every day, desperately trying to knock out the RAF airfield. By mid-1942, Malta had endured more than two thousand air raids. The RAF needed fighter pilots to defend its most strategic Mediterranean base.
The Air Ministry's call for volunteers sounded like just the thing for a hot, young pilot—sunshine, adventure, and lots of German planes to shoot down—which is likely why so many Eagle Squadron pilots responded. Presumably, they found everything they were looking for on Malta. There was plenty of sunshine and adventure, and there were more than enough German aircraft in the tropical air above the rocky island to satisfy the pilots’ cravings.
Not long after they left England, however, the war over northern Europe began to change. Things began to warm up, and not just in the meteorological sense, although the weather was largely responsible for the change. The sun came out of hiding, and the fog and clouds of the winter months finally disappeared. Conditions became favorable for flying, at long last. Both the RAF and the Luftwaffe took advantage of the improvement, and pilots on both sides suddenly became more active and aggressive.
A large part of Germany's fighter force had been sent to Russia by the spring of 1942, but the pilots who remained in northern France were among the Luftwaffe's elite. The very best of these were the “Abbeville Boys,” still based at various airfields in the vicinity of Abbeville and still making life as hazardous as possible for the RAF's bomber crews and fighter pilots.
British writer and historian Len Deighton claimed that the Abbeville Boys did not really exist, that they were nothing but a loose conglomeration of pilots who happened to paint the nose sections of their fighters the same color. But anyone who flew operations over northern France, British or American, quickly found out that the “yellow-nose boys” were real enough. They also discovered that the Abbeville-based pilots were first rate—excellent shots, persistent, and deadly aggressive against any intruding fighters or bombers.
Probably the most famous of the Abbeville Boys was Adolf Galland. Galland was as well known in Britain as he was in Germany. He was enormously popular among his fellow Luftwaffe fighter pilots, and respected by the RAF, if not exactly admired.
Galland had a weakness for cigars, a friendly manner, and an easy smile. His human qualities helped him in his relations with junior officers, but did not always make him popular with his superiors. He was too outspoken to suit the High Command—Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring still remembered Galland's remark that what the Luftwaffe really needed to improve its fighter force was a squadron of Spitfires. Also, the big shots in Berlin thought that he smoked too many cigars, which meant that he was not being a proper role model for the younger pilots in his command.
“Dolfo” Galland was highly amused by the fact that Adolf Hitler disapproved of his cigar smoking on the grounds that it set a bad example for Germany's pure-hearted Aryan youth. He was forbidden to pose for publicity photos while holding a cigar, and no news reporters were allowed to mention the fact that he smoked. Nevertheless, none of these things discouraged Galland from smoking as many cigars as he pleased. He gave himself permission to smoke while on operations, had an ashtray and an electric lighter installed in his fighter's cockpit, and kept a cigar in his mouth until the moment that it was time to go on oxygen. The fact that Berlin did not approve made the cigars taste even better.
Galland did not become one of the Luftwaffe's top-scoring aces on the basis of his personality. He was not only an outstanding pilot, but was also one of the best shots in any of the air forces (German, British, or American), and he had an unshakable confidence in his own abilities. This confidence was not misplaced—Galland not only shot down more than one hundred Allied aircraft, but he also managed to survive the war.
Because of the Abbeville Boys and the improved weather, fighter sweeps were no longer just uneventful round-trip excursions for the Eagle Squadrons. The Luftwaffe suddenly began to show itself. The “yellow-nose boys” came up looking for a fight, and pilots of all three Eagle Squadrons abruptly stopped complaining about “no action.”
On April 27, while escorting a bomber strike to St. Omer, 71 Squadron claimed five FW 190s destroyed as well as a few “probables.”2 They had the advantage of position, which gave them an edge in spite of the Focke-Wulf's superior performance over their Spitfire Mark Vs.
Even though the Focke-Wulf was well protected by armor plate, the Spitfire's exploding 20 mm cannon shells smashed right through it. The cannon shells could have a devastating effect, especially if the attacking pilot closed to within minimum firing range—100 yards or less. Even a single 20 mm shell could destroy an enemy aircraft if it hit a vital spot—it could knock out the engine, blow up the fuel tank, or kill the pilot.
Although 71 Squadron scored an impressive number of victories on April 27, the losses were not entirely one-sided. Among those killed was John Flynn, the same pilot who had been shot down by squadron mate James Alexander a year earlier. In April 1941, Flynn had been 71 Squadron's “first blood,” but had managed to bring his shot-up plane, filled with .303-caliber bullet holes, back to England. He was not as lucky this time around and crashed with his Spitfire.
Most of the young American pilots were not the reflective type. To them, the war was a matter of shooting down the enemy before they were shot down themselves. If they had thought about it, they might have regarded the Luftwaffe pilots in the same light as Spitfire pilot Richard Hillary. “I wondered idly what he was like, this man I would kill,” Hillary wrote. “Was he young, was he fat, would he die with the Führer's name on his lips, or would he die alone, in that last moment conscious of himself as a man? I would never know. Then I was being strapped in, my mind automatically checking the controls, and we were off.”3
As has already been seen, the pilots of all three Eagle Squadrons had extremely high opinions of themselves. Not many senior RAF officers, in either the Air Ministry or at Fighter Command headquarters, had any argument with this opinion or with the pilot's technical skills in general at this point. This represented a complete reversal in outlook from 71 Squadron's early days, when RAF Fighter Command had nothing good to say about the new Yank pilots. Their opinion of the Eagles’ leadership was another matter, however—senior RAF officers never did get over the “cowboy” image of the Yank volunteers. But sometimes there was a pleasant surprise in this department, as well.
In May 1942, the Air Ministry announced that Newton Anderson of 71 Squadron had been promoted to the rank of squadron leader and had been given command of 222 Squadron, an all-British unit.4 Anderson's nickname was “Weak Eyes;” he had become a fighter pilot in spite of his poor eyesight. His determination to succeed made him an excellent pilot, better than some of the “naturals,” as well as a respected officer.
Anderson became the first US citizen to lead a British unit in combat—no other American had ever been given such a promotion. (Cynics would say that it was the first time that the British ever trusted an American that far.) Unfortunately, he held the new post for little more than a month. In June, while leading three squadrons—an RAF wing—on a bomber escort assignment, Anderson was shot down and killed.
At the beginning of May, the several members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in the Operations Room of Biggin Hill Aerodrome heard a strange noise coming over the radio. It was the “battle song” of 133 Squadron, which featured lyrics that were mostly unprintable and ended with “on me no mercy bestow.” The song was sung in a “lazy Texan drawl.”5 (The British tend to classify any unfamiliar American accent, as well as a few Canadian, as a “Texan drawl.”) The girls smiled at each other with raised eyebrows—the Yanks had arrived. The members of 133 Squadron had been transferred to 11 Group—Fighter Command's first line of defense, and based at Biggin Hill, at that. God only knew what was going to happen next.
“Biggin on the Bump,” so called because the airfield was on top of a hill in northwestern Kent, had acquired an almost legendary status. The station protected the vital southern approaches to London. It had been bombed many times during the summer of 1940 and had been knocked out of action several times. Some of the buildings still showed scars from bomb damage. But even more important to 133 Squadron, pilots stationed at Biggin Hill always seemed to be in the thick of the fighting. The station could claim nearly one thousand enemy aircraft destroyed—the first having been shot down by Jimmy Davies, the American volunteer from Bernardsville, NJ. This impressive score would increase as the war went on.
At about the same time that 133 moved to Biggin Hill, and just before Newton Anderson left to take over 222 Squadron, 71 Squadron left Martlesham Heath for the much more modern facilities at Debden, in Essex. Like Biggin Hill, Debden was a sector station in 11 Group and had also been bombed during the Battle of Britain. A map on display in the Officer's Mess served as a reminder of those grim days. It had been salvaged from a German bomber that attacked the field on August 24, 1940. The map traced the course of the plane, a Dornier Do 17, from its base in northern France to Debden.
The Luftwaffe remained active all throughout the spring and summer of 1942, and both squadrons were needed in the front line. Whenever a fighter sweep was made over northern France, the German fighters always came up to challenge. The Debden Wing—made up of 65 and 111 Squadrons along with 71 (Eagle) Squadron—almost always ran into opposition. During one fighter sweep in early June, “numerous enemy aircraft were encountered,” according to the squadron logbook.6 Squadron Leader Peterson claimed one German aircraft destroyed and one damaged, Flight Lieutenants Gus Daymond and Bob Sprague each claimed one damaged, and Flight Lieutenant Oscar Coen fired his guns at three German aircraft, “but was too preoccupied to notice any results.”
At Biggin Hill, 133 Squadron was just as busy with fighter sweeps. Among other activities, the squadron took part in an attack on Abbeville Aerodrome during the month of July. The “yellow-nose boys” rose to the occasion and, as expected, gave the intruders a hard fight. The Eagles of 133 claimed two FWs destroyed and a Bf 109 damaged, but also lost three of their own pilots to German fighters.
The fact that the Germans shot back still came as a shock to some of the newer squadron members. On his first flight over France, one newly arrived pilot found himself in a dogfight with an enemy fighter. It was just like flight training back in England until tracer and cannon shells started whizzing past him. “They're shooting at me!” the pilot blurted into the radio.7 The entire Operations Room at Biggin Hill burst into laughter.
Replacement pilots were usually kids who had just left an Operational Training Unit and usually still had a lot to learn about flying with a fighter unit. But sometimes a squadron was lucky enough to acquire a pilot with some experience.
An RAF historian commented that the heart of a fighter is its engine, but the pilot is its soul. One of 133 Squadron's more rambunctious souls was F/Lt. Donald Blakeslee, who joined the squadron in June 1942. By the time he joined the junior Eagles, he had destroyed a Bf 109 and had also been credited with several enemy aircraft damaged. He had also been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Blakeslee had gone to Canada in June 1940 and joined the RCAF. In May 1941, he began flying operations with 401 Squadron. Number 133 was glad to have a replacement with Blakeslee's experience.
Blakeslee's reputation was based upon his talents as an air leader, not just as a fighter pilot. There might have been better pilots and better gunners, but Blakeslee knew how to command. “He was everywhere in battle,” one commentator said, “twisting and climbing, bellowing and blaspheming, warning and exhorting.”8 Unfortunately, Blakeslee also had a blunt, blustery manner and had no use at all for tact or diplomacy. His personality frequently offended senior officers and gave them second thoughts about his abilities as an officer. Because of his bluntness, he would find himself in and out of trouble in the RAF and, later on, in the US Army Air Force.
Shortly after Blakeslee joined 133 Squadron, the pilots of 71 Squadron began to hear exciting rumors that they were going to be transferred to Russia. In July, the rumor became an official order—71 Squadron and two other RAF squadrons were being sent to the Soviet Union to help reinforce the Red Air Force at Stalingrad. The “Soviet Wing” would be equipped with the newest and fastest Spitfire, the Mark IX. In fact, the new Spitfire IXs had already been shipped to Russia by the time official word of the transfer came through.
The Squadron had a farewell celebration—unusually wild and raucous, even by Eagle Squadron standards—and was preparing to leave England when the transfer order was canceled. Several reasons were given for this sudden change of plan. One was that the Spitfire pilots would be needed for an upcoming offensive against enemy-occupied northern France. Another was that the freighter carrying the Spitfire IXs had been torpedoed by a U-boat on its way to Murmansk. Whatever the reason, 71 Squadron would be staying at Debden.
During the summer of 1942, all three Eagle Squadrons were hearing a rumor of a different sort. And actually, it was more of a vague certainty than a rumor. The topic concerned the transfer of the Eagle Squadrons to the US Army Air Force, news of which was received with mixed reactions. Most of the pilots were glad to be joining the American forces at long last, but many were sorry to be leaving the RAF.
By this time, the pilots of the Eagle Squadrons were not the only American flyers in England. In June, they had been joined by the 31st Fighter Group, the first American unit to operate in the United Kingdom.
Although the 31st FG was a USAAF unit, it came under the operational control of RAF Fighter Command—there was still no “US Fighter Command” in England. The group's three component squadrons—the 307th, 308th, and 309th (a US group was the equivalent of an RAF wing)—were trained in RAF methods, procedures, and techniques. Almost all of the operating procedures of what would become the US Eighth Air Force, right down to the squadron markings on the airplanes, would be Americanized versions of RAF methods.9
Some of the methods did not go down very well. For instance, the US Army Air Force pilots did not like the concept of the Rhubarb mission. Air sweeps did not appeal to them, and luring the enemy up from his bases and destroying his aircraft through superior tactics was not direct enough for them. “They had come to Britain to win the war,” according to one British observer of the new arrivals, “to chase [the enemy] around and shoot him down.”10
It took quite a lot of time and effort, as well as quite a few hard knocks, to persuade the new American pilots that the Luftwaffe was a lot better than they had been led to believe. It would take a lot more than bombast and good intentions to beat the Germans, the USAAF were warned.
When the first American pilots arrived in Britain, they did so without airplanes. The USAAF did not have any fighters that could hope to compete with either the Bf 109 or the FW 190, so American units were equipped with Spitfire Mark Vs—courtesy of the RAF. (The British referred to this as “reverse Lend-Lease.”)
The Yanks fell in love with the Spitfire. They liked it much better than the fighters they left behind in the US—Bell P-39 Airacobras and Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks. In this, at least, they were in full agreement with their hosts. The RAF had given the Airacobra a try. They even equipped 601 (County of London) Squadron—Billy Fiske's unit—with it. But the fighter was found to be so poor in performance that it had to be withdrawn.
An “American” Spitfire of the 31st Fighter Group. The white US star has been painted over the RAF roundel. The US Army Air Force was completely unprepared for war after Pearl Harbor and had no fighter that could hope to compete with either the Messerschmitt 109 or the Focke-Wulf 190. American fighter units in England flew the Spitfire during its earliest operations, until the P-47 Thunderbolt was ready for service in 1943. (Courtesy of the National Museum of the United States Air Force®.)
The fact that American pilots preferred the Spitfire caused no small amount of disapproval and embarrassment in Washington, DC, as well as among the top brass of the Army Air Force. A remark by one of the new pilots, that he was “glad they had Spitfires instead of P-40s and Airacobras,” was quoted in the New York Herald Tribune.11 The same quote also formed the basis for an article in Time magazine.
When the story broke in the United States, it caused faces to turn bright red from coast to coast. Neither the War Department nor anyone connected with the aviation industry wanted to hear that any foreign airplane could possibly be better than anything made in the USA—even if it happened to be the truth. Any public official who even so much as hinted at such a thing would have been committing political suicide.
Along with the fighter pilots, American bomber crews were also beginning to trickle into England—just crews, not airplanes. The first American bombing raid against Nazi Germany was flown in airplanes borrowed from the RAF, twin-engine Bostons.12 Six American crews joined 226 Squadron and took part in a joint USAAF/RAF attack on four Luftwaffe airfields in the Netherlands. All twelve Bostons, including the ones manned by Americans, bore the RAF roundel insignia.
The raid, which was flown on July 4, 1942, can at best be described as a mixed success. Nine of the twelve Bostons bombed their targets; the other three returned to base without hitting their objectives. Of the nine bombers that attacked their target, three were hit by antiaircraft fire and crashed. Two of these were manned by Americans. Another of the American-manned Bostons was damaged by the intense ground fire.
It was a very small beginning, but the raid certainly got its share of publicity, and then some. A great deal was made of the fact that the first American bombing raid had been carried out on the Fourth of July, Independence Day. For security reasons, the British media did not report the exact location of the targets.
Not everyone was impressed by the first American bombing strike, in spite of all the publicity. “In the nine o'clock news was an account of the first US Army Air Corps raid over enemy territory,” remarked Kansasborn Robert S. Raymond, “and everyone in the mess smiled when the losses were announced. Two out of six failed to return…they'll need a couple of months to forget their glamour propaganda and smarten up a bit. Until then—no cheers from the RAF.”13
Actually, the BBC announcer had been trying his best to sound encouraging. He wanted his British audience to know that the Americans had arrived and had finally taken the offensive against the Germans, even if it was in a very small way. But Raymond was right—a 33 percent loss was not a very good beginning.
If the Eagle Squadrons heard the news of the first American bombing attack, they did not mention it. They were probably bored by the whole thing. In 121 Squadron's logbook, the intelligence officer did not think that anything noteworthy happened on that particular day. He noted only that the “Squadron released at 13.00 hrs.” so that everybody could go to London to celebrate the Fourth of July.14
Shortly after this early tentative effort, the first US Army Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses arrived in the British Isles. In mid-July, the four squadrons of the 97th Bomb Group arrived at Polebrook Airfield, in Northamptonshire. Senior officers of the US Eighth Air Force were anxious to see their four-engine bombers go into action against the enemy, but bad weather kept them grounded for a month—which produced even more curses and complaints about the rotten English climate.
Finally, in mid-August, the weather cleared. On August 17, eleven B-17s took off from Polebrook to bomb the rail yards at Rouen, just across the Channel. Their fighter escort consisted of four Spitfire squadrons, and some of the bombs they dropped were of British manufacture. The strike itself was a success—the target was hit, and railway locomotives and buildings within the rail yards were destroyed. Although this was hardly a major effort—in May, RAF Bomber Command had sent over one thousand bombers against Cologne—it was the first time that American bombers had taken action against the enemy from British bases.
The Rouen mission may not have done all that much damage to the enemy, but it provided a publicity windfall for the Eighth Air Force. The press told the world that the Yanks had arrived, and with a vengeance. More than thirty reporters and photographers were on hand when the B-17s returned to Polebrook. They made prominent mention of the fact that the commander of VIII Bomber Command, Brigadier General Ira Eaker, had flown to Rouen in a Flying Fortress named Yankee Doodle. Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, the chief of RAF Bomber Command, sent Eaker this message: “Yankee Doodle certainly went to town, and can stick another well-deserved feather in his cap.”15
But yet again, with the exception of Air Marshal Harris, the British were not impressed. As far as the RAF was concerned, the Americans paid too much attention to publicity and not enough to training. By RAF standards, American crews were found to be very poorly trained in the fundamental skills that would be needed to survive over enemy territory. Pilots had trouble flying tight formations. Air gunners could not hit attacking enemy fighters. Some radio operators were thoroughly unfamiliar with sending and receiving in Morse code.
Also, RAF Bomber Command did not have much faith in what the Americans referred to as “daylight precision bombing.” The British tried daylight bombing themselves, but had to switch to night bombing because of heavy losses to both fighters and antiaircraft fire. If the Americans were going to try daylight bombing over northern France and Germany with undertrained crews, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Most of the criticism was well meant. The RAF had made many of the same mistakes themselves. British officers were trying to advise the Americans of their own weak points and the enemy's strong points before the Luftwaffe taught them the same lessons the hard way. The RAF also helped to remedy a few training deficiencies. American crews went to RAF schools to brush up on Morse code; target-towing aircraft were provided for air-gunnery practice; British pilots even made mock attacks on Flying Fortresses to simulate air combat. Fighter Command would also be providing escort for the heavy bombers on their first trips over the enemy-occupied Continent, until the Americans could build up their own fighter force.
Officers in the Eighth Air Force accepted both the criticism and the assistance. The commander of the 97th Bomb Group, Colonel Frank Armstrong, followed the advice of British officers and invoked an intensified training program for his pilots and crews. The offer of RAF training facilities was also welcome and appreciated.
But back in the United States, British criticism did not always go down quite so smoothly. As it was told in the American press, the British sounded as though they were faulting the Americans for dragging their feet—shades of the First World War, when the US was criticized for going “over there” much too late in the war and for bringing too little with them when they finally did decide to show up. This did not endear the British to the American public, just as it had not done in 1917.
During the first half of 1942, Americans were especially sensitive about criticism. US forces had been on the defensive for seven months—since Pearl Harbor—and had suffered heavy losses in the early months of fighting. They had not been prepared for war and did not like having their noses rubbed in it. Especially not by the British, who always seemed so willing to criticize, even though the criticism had been constructive—or at least was meant to be constructive.
The double meaning of the phrase “belligerent allies” was becoming more evident.