A Spitfire Pilot. Part 16.
New W/C Flying and CO 72 Sqn, and “The Channel Dash” - February 1942
Jamie Rankin took over as Wing Commander Flying at Biggin Hill and Brian Kingcome took over 72 with Pete Wickham as ‘A’ Flight Commander. Now, you’ve heard me mention Brian Kingcome on a number of occasions, but I’ll just say, he was probably one of the finest leaders and squadron commanders I’ve ever come across. He really was tremendous. To begin with he had no side whatsoever and after being introduced to each of us at the dispersal, he said,
“Well, my name is Brian. I don’t want any of this “Sir” business, but on the other hand, if I’m talking to the Station Commander, I don’t want some Sergeant Pilot walking up and slapping me on the back and saying ”Wotcher Brian, how are you?””
PeteWickham had fought out in Greece with Pattle and Vale (“Pat” Pattle was the highest scoring Commonwealth pilot in WWII credited with 50+ kills , before being killed in April 1941 over Athens/Piraeus. “Cherry” Vale was credited with 30+ in the same theatre, both flying with 33 and 80 Squadrons in Gladiators and Hurricanes. “Timber” Woods, passim, was in the same combat when Pattle was shot down.) He was a very experienced chap and a very good flight commander. He also gave me permission to have the word “Connie” painted on my aircraft, so I obviously had a soft spot for him.
Now the normal daily arrangement on the squadron was to have a list of pilots written up on the board, so that whatever came up, those pilots would be on the first show. Now I’d done a convoy job on Feb 10th and Feb 11th and consequently I wasn’t particularly surprised when my name wasn’t on the board on Feb 12th. We were a bit surprised when the squadron was ordered to take off and rendezvous at Manston to escort some Swordfish on what we were told was a convoy strike. Anyway the aircraft took off. Well, eleven out of twelve did and the twelfth chap was a South African by the name of Suga, who wasn’t exactly a do or die character. We were watching from the dispersal and we were a bit surprised to find that Suga’s aircraft never left the perimeter track. He eventually returned to dispersal and we couldn’t make out whether his aircraft was u/s or he was u/s, or just didn’t feel in the mood, or what. Anyway, no arrangements had been made for a spare to fly along with the squadron, so the rest of us just hung around and waited for them to come back. As you know full well, the eleven aircraft from 72 picked up the Swordfish off Manston and tried to do some damage to the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The squadron ran into a horde of 190s and what with the enemy aircraft and the flak from the battleships, they were unable to do anything about protecting the Swordfish, which were all shot down one after the other. (The Swordfish were from 825 Naval Air Squadron, led by Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde RN, who received a posthumous Victoria Cross for his gallantry. Five aircrew survived, all of whom were subsequently decorated for bravery.)
One of our chaps circled one of the Swordfish in the sea and saw one of the airmen get into a dinghy and circled as long as he could, calling up “Mayday”, but eventually had to leave for lack of fuel and how any of the Swordfish chaps got back I have no idea. Anyway, the squadron destroyed three confirmed, four damaged but that wasn’t much help to the Swordfish boys. Not long after they had returned the squadron was ordered out again and once again, Sogar decided that either he wasn’t well, or the aircraft wasn’t well, but he never took off with the rest of the Squadron. I hadn’t anything to do, and consequently I got into my aircraft and in order to save time, instead of taxiing round the perimeter track, I shot straight out of the bomb-bay, took off downwind, much to the surprise of Doc White who’d been watching from the dispersal. He said it was quite an interesting take-off!
Anyway, I couldn’t find the squadron after I got to Manston, although there was every type of aircraft you could imagine flying around, but I saw a couple of Beauforts and I imagined they’d be pointing in the right direction, so I tacked onto those and flew in very misty weather it seemed, for ages. We went on, we never saw anything and I thought I’d either run out of fuel or get lost, because there didn’t seem much point in going on, so I waved goodbye to the Beaufort boys, turned round and eventually found my way back to Gravesend. The weather by this time really was grim, you couldn’t see more than about four or five hundred yards and I’m surprised anyone found the German warships at all.
The following day we escorted seven destroyers far out into the North Sea but although we were expecting loads of enemy aircraft, nothing turned up and the only thing we saw was a Beaufighter, so we handed over to another squadron and came back and that was the end of the Scharnhorst affair as far as we were concerned.
During Feb we had two Rhodesian pilots posted to us, Sgt Pat Reilly and Sgt Tommy Wright and I took both of them out on sector recces, to show them our area, points to look out for and how to find the aerodrome in bad weather and all this sort of business. It made quite a change from 111 Sqn where new pilots were just told to take off and have a look round on their own. It’s a lot better if you’ve got somebody with you who can point out things to you that will help you in days to come. Actually, on the first trip, I took Pat Reilly on, his engine packed up, it had a glycol leak and crash-landed just outside Rochester but he got away with it alright. He was shot down and killed later on and many years after the war I was reading “Airmail” and there was an advert in the paper from his son asking if anyone knew Pat Reilly who was with him on the squadron, so I wrote out to Rhodesia, explaining what I knew of him and what had happened when we did our one trip together and said that I also had his clothes brush, which was a very nice one, and if his son would like to have it I’d send it out to him. I received a very nice letter from his son, saying thanks for the information and he’d be delighted if I’d hang on to the clothes brush in memory of his father, and I’ve still got it.
Tommy Wright was a great lad, a very cheerful soul, he stayed with the Sqn until August 42 when he and “Timber” Woods, who was our flight commander, were sent out to Malta and Tommy Wright, I regret to say, was killed at Malta.