Down to Earth: A Fighter Pilot's Experiences of Surviving Dunkirk, The Battle of Britain, Dieppe and D-Day

CHAPTER ONE

Dunkirk

The English Channel spans only twenty-one miles at its narrowest point, yet this small passage of water has carried the legions of the Roman Empire, borne witness to the Norman Conquests and hosted clashes with the Spanish Armada. On the final day of spring in 1940, as a raw nineteen-year-old Royal Air Force pilot, I was perched at 25,000 feet witnessing another chapter in the Channel’s long history.

The French First Army, the Belgian Army and the British Expeditionary Force were encircled on the coast of Northern France by the advancing German forces. As Panzers bore down on what remained of allied defensive positions, the rest fell back to the shoreline. The Battle of France was lost and Operation Dynamo was seeking to evacuate the troops across the Channel using all and sundry vessels to access the shallows of the coastline near Dunkirk. To the east, the pall of smoke from burning oil and the haze of devastation hung over the evacuation. The narrow Channel was now all that separated Britain from the same fate that had overrun Europe.

My view of history was through the glasshouse-like canopy of my Hawker Hurricane Mk I serial number P2902, and wearing the broad markings, ‘R-DX’ along her camouflaged flanks. Whilst ‘DX’ was the code allocated to 245 Squadron, ‘R for Robert’ identified the individual machine. Fresh from the factory with only eight flight hours in her logs, my single-engined fighter cut through the sky at over 300 mph and was armed with eight Browning .303s. It had the reassuring benefit of armour plating behind the pilot’s seat and self-sealing petrol tanks that its predecessors had lacked. Nevertheless, we still waged war with the primitive TR9D radio. Selecting a frequency could be likened to finding a modern-day television channel through a sea of white hash and interference. Of course, in the midst of combat, a pilot had limited free hands to attend to such a job. For the moment, my hands were solely occupied by the task of maintaining formation and steering a course for Dunkirk.

Our base at Hawkinge sat a stone’s throw from the white cliffs of Dover and we had departed that morning destined for the nearby French coast. I was leading the rear section, whose role was to fly as protective cover for the three flights ahead. ‘Watching their backs’ as it were, whilst they sought out and attacked the enemy bombers that were intent on pounding our lads. We were a section of three, flying in a tight V, or ‘Vic’, formation. Behind and to my left was Sergeant Alan Hedges, while Sergeant Geoff Howitt mirrored his position to my right. With the exception of the plume rising up from Dunkirk, the sky was crisp and clear with tremendous visibility. Midway across the Channel, Hedges reported fluctuating oil pressure and, unable to rectify the problem, peeled off towards England. This left Howitt and I to continue as a pair, locked together with the invisible glue that constituted tight formation. As Dunkirk approached beneath my Hurricane’s nose, a group of German bombers were spotted lower down and approaching the township. Determined to create even more havoc for the demoralised troops, the Dorniers, Heinkels and Junkers 87s had relentlessly pounded the site of the evacuation for days. Our leading three flights were quick to their task and dived down to engage the bombers with Howitt and me in tow.

As the battle developed beneath me, two fighters, Messerschmitt Bf109s, slipped by 3,000 feet below emerging ahead and to my right at a great rate of knots. They were obviously seeking out the tails of my leading sections and had positioned themselves in the classic six o’clock position. I flicked my gun switch to ‘fire’ and readied to roll my machine over to initiate a diving attack on the fighters. A screech came over my ineffectual TR9D radio, filling my helmet with deafening, squawking static. I later learned it was Geoff Howitt warning me of the five 109s diving on us, attacking from our port quarter. Howitt broke hard left and crossed in front of me, yet I was still none the wiser. Amidst this melee, I was concentrating on my attack and had totally neglected to look behind. The first indication I had of anything being wrong was when the armour plate behind my head began ringing like an alarm clock. Before I could draw breath, bright red tracers started bombarding my cockpit, whistling between my legs and ravaging the panels of Perspex and fabric to my left. The incendiary-tipped tracers assist the pilot in seeing where his shots are landing and from my perspective I could see them landing very well. As my instrument panel began disintegrating before my eyes, my thoughts leapt suddenly to the vapour-rich petrol tank that sat just behind the instruments. Momentary horror turned to quick relief when I recalled that the tank was self-sealing.

The attack had been lightning fast. I slammed the control stick forward and to the right, entering a downward roll and sending the world spinning around. The back of my legs stung as metal splinters spat from the maze of piping fragmenting beneath my feet. Engine coolant, oil and all variety of hot fluids showered me as the scent of smoke began to fill the air. Foolishly I had been flying with my goggles atop my helmet and now the mix of smoke and oils that were bringing down my aeroplane were also partially blinding me. My cockpit had become a scene of absolute chaos. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the attack abated. Gathering my thoughts, I pulled the aircraft out of the dive and assessed my situation; not good. Bleeding oil and coolant, I knew my Hurricane was done for and I began readying myself to bail out. With the threat of fire growing, I cut the engine, switched off the fuel and set about sliding back the hood. My vision was getting worse and I fumbled to get the canopy back. Three times I tried and three times it slid closed. In my enthusiasm to get out, I was failing to lock the canopy open and a sense of incarceration came across me. Being trapped in a fiery cockpit was the dread of every fighter pilot and for a moment I began to wonder if this was how my war was to end. A moment after that, the second attack started.

The left-hand side of my canopy exploded again as the red tracer ravaged what remained of my aircraft’s port side. With the engine shutdown, I was literally powerless. Again I slammed the stick forward, though this time to the left. I combined inertia with gravity, accelerating my wounded machine downwards. I felt a wallop and then a trickling sensation down the back of my leg and I thought that I’d copped a hit in the backside (it turned out to be a direct hit on an Agfa cartridge in my pocket, allowing the film to unfurl in my trousers). Headlong, vertical and hurtling towards terra firma, I had a moment of unexpected clarity and recalled banter at the bar that formed a consensus that 109s were poor at recovering from dives. With the earth looming large in the windscreen and absolutely nothing left to lose, I decided to test this theory. At the last possible moment I hauled back on the control column with all of my remaining might. As the blood drained from my head, my world faded to black and white and then just black.

When I came to, I was beetling along in level flight at the grand altitude of ten feet towards Dunkirk. I weaved myself a path between the sea of abandoned trucks, lorries and equipment that covered the beach. It was a surreal scene. With the water lapping at half tide, I chose a place parallel to the shore to put down my battered, and now decelerating, fighter. The shards of glass and metal that had been flung about the cockpit had sliced through my gloves, so it was with tentative fingertips that I reached down to the greasy gun-firing switch to make it safe before landing. In the process, I bumped the firing button and unleashed a short burst from my Brownings down the beach. Slower, ever slower, I eased the Hurricane on to the sand in a passage between two of the countless abandoned vehicles. Sliding to a halt, the radiator beneath my aircraft dug in to the sand, heaving the Hurricane up on to its nose. As images of flipping over and having to extricate myself from a sand-locked, inverted cockpit flashed before me, the aircraft teetered and fell back onto its belly.

Even now, I was not convinced that I’d shaken my Messerschmitt loose and half expected him to finish the job he’d started. I flung the shattered canopy back, unstrapped, threw my helmet and oxygen mask over the side and leapt out of the cockpit. Looking around desperately, I took cover beneath an abandoned truck where I hoped to gather my thoughts and work out my next move. Suddenly, something grabbed my ankle. Looking down I saw it was a large black hand. It dragged me from my shelter and two French colonial troops lifted me to my feet and backed me up against the truck. Whilst they appeared to be Algerian, my attention was more focused on the long razor sharp bayonets they had pressed deep in to my Mae West life jacket. They began asking in French whether I was German, to which I fervently replied, Non! Non! Anglais! I ventured into my best schoolboy French: Je suis Anglais. Still no relief. As they gnashed their teeth and pierced me with their crazy eyes, I couldn’t help wondering if my short, unintentional burst of gunfire down the beach had played a part in this unfolding drama. They seemed to be discussing whether to finish me off, there and then. Things were getting to fever pitch when I spotted two armed British soldiers, ‘Green Howards’ I think, walking along the beach. I called out to them with all the strength I could muster and they, in turn, came to my aid. Much to my relief, they set the Algerians to flight and for the second time that day I had a very fortunate escape.

The rescuing ‘Tommys’ were from a bren gun section positioned a short distance away awaiting the arrival of German Panzers. They had the unenviable task of staring down German armour with what was tantamount to a pea-shooter. To compound their situation, they were low on ammunition. They eyed my forlorn Hurricane and asked if I had any .303 ammunition left. Lots, I replied as we made our way to RDX. I opened the gun compartments in the wings to reveal the intertwining belts of ammunition. It’s DeWilde, I explained, knowing that Geneva Convention did not permit the combination of incendiary, armour piercing and explosive bullets for use against personnel. This didn’t deter them and they loaded up with as much ammunition as they could carry. With belts of .303 draped across their shoulders they vanished in the direction of their outpost to keep their appointment with the Hun. I have since wondered what fate befell those lads, though in my heart there is no real mystery.

Alone again, I decided that I should destroy my aircraft, particularly as it carried the highly secret ‘identification friend or foe’ (IFF) unit. Located aft of the pilot’s seat, this small box served to signal British ground-based radar of the aircraft status as ‘friendly’. Standing on the wing, I took an oil-soaked map from my pocket and attempted to light it before throwing it into the cockpit. As my luck was running, I couldn’t light the map. It was probably soaked in relatively flame resistant glycol rather than the other many flammable fluids that were sloshing around my cockpit. I was still attempting to light the map when a loud CRACK and a WHIZZ straightened me up. They were sounds I recognised from my schooldays when I had spent many hours manning the butts and marking targets at the rifle range. Unfortunately, today I was the target for some German infantrymen. I hauled my parachute from the cockpit, threw it over my back, subconsciously thinking it would protect my backside, and made best speed up the beach towards the smoking township of Dunkirk.

As the shooting stopped, I relaxed my pace to a walk and estimated the township lay about nine miles ahead. It was evidently still the focus of the bombardment, as were the ships waiting to evacuate troops. It was an eerie sensation walking along the beach surrounded by the debris of battle, whilst a fierce air battle continued to rage overhead. I can honestly say that I have never felt more alone than when I traipsed along that beach, a nineteen year old on a foreign shore in the midst of war. The rattling of machine-gun fire and the pounding from an anti-aircraft battery filled the air. With expended cartridges and ammo belt links returning to earth, metal seemed to be falling out of the sky all around me so I stopped to pick up a discarded tin hat. Shortly thereafter, I stumbled upon a Colt .45 automatic pistol embossed with the RAF insignia. ‘Kitted up’, I continued to trudge towards Dunkirk and witnessed a Spitfire plunge into the sea before me and then another lose his clash with the enemy and meet the same watery fate.

Finally I made it to the bottom of the Eastern mole where the wooden breakwater was serving as the point of dispatch for the thousands of troops evacuating the beach. It had obviously been the object of recent battery as it had been holed in a number of places and subsequently patched with makeshift planking. My aerial combat had occurred nearby and it was quite likely that the bombers we had sought were responsible for the damage. The army clearing post was working at capacity as the medical processing centre ‘triaged’ the wounded and dying. To one side stood a lone Tommy, overseeing a group of German prisoners as they dug a mass grave. There was still sporadic shelling taking place and I took the lead of some soldiers who moved into the fresh craters once things had settled down. Their belief obviously being based on the theory that lightning never strikes twice.

I sat and gathered my breath and thoughts. The scene around me was one of despondency as dejected troops sat in their muddy holes with their eyes downcast. In contrast, I spotted a very upright naval captain coming off the mole. Cane in hand and gas mask slung from his shoulder, as per regulations, he was picking his way through the mess with a genuine air of authority. I righted myself, still holding my parachute, approached the captain and asked, Sir. How could I return to England? Without hesitation he instructed me to walk out on the mole where I would find a paddle steamer, The Golden Eagle, moored on the left-hand side. He turned away, continued on and I made my way onto the mole. The walk seemed to go on for miles, exacerbated as I was by my surroundings. Stepping over planks on the holed parts, I surveyed the floating sea of humanity that filled the water. Dead soldiery, and pieces thereof, were bobbing up and down with the water’s endless motion.

As promised, moored to port, sat an old single-stacked paddle steamer. I boarded her and made my way straight to the first aid post. Here my eyes were rinsed clear of the various fluids that had sprayed around my cockpit and I sought attention for the splinters in my legs. Many of these fragments were to make their way to the surface in the ensuing weeks, whilst others were to remain with me for life. Stationary and full of troops, The Golden Eagle was an obvious target for the German bombers. Waiting to cast off was a very nervous period as the area was still extremely active. Finally, much to my relief, we got underway and set out to sea through the maze of anchored shipping. Entering relatively clear water, safety was still not at hand as a Dornier took an interest in us and lined up for a bombing run. He made two attacks and missed us on both attempts. I believe this was due to the captain’s tremendous ability to make the vessel twitch and dance out of the way as the Hun ended his bombing run by alternating the paddles either side at full speed, thence into reverse. However, the Dornier persisted and turned in for a third attempt at us. Nearby, a destroyer that had been firing at another enemy aircraft turned its attention to our Dornier. The bomber closed in as the destroyer’s guns tracked the closing foe and I waited for one or the other to deliver a fatal blow. Fortunately, the ship’s guns were the first to erupt and hurl their shells skyward. The glasshouse nose of the German bomber exploded in front of me as the projectile struck home with devastating effect. Once threatening, the shattered bomber crashed into the sea to the accompaniment of our cheers aboard The Golden Eagle.

Things then settled down and we ploughed our way back to English shores, yet there was still one twist of fate to take place. As I sat below decks reflecting on the events of the day, another air battle raged overhead. One of our Hurricanes was locked in combat with a twin-engined Messerschmitt Me110; combat which saw both aircraft destroyed and a lone parachute drift to earth. Noting the winding down of the engines I returned upstairs to see what was the cause of the latest obstacle to my return home. It was a pilot, swimming with all his might in the direction of England. Again with deft skill, the captain jockeyed his vessel towards the aquatic aviator and brought the paddles to a halt so that they may serve as a ladder of sorts. Much to my surprise, as the sodden pilot climbed aboard, I recognised him at once. It was Vic Verity, a New Zealander and fellow pupil from my days of training at Hullavington. Only six months had passed since then, but as we made our way home to England it seemed a world away.

CHAPTER TWO

Into the Blue

My first memory of any consequence was carrying a large, feral black cat, hooked over one arm, into the rear of our three-storey terrace in Bearsden, Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Though only four, or five, years of