As it's close to 75 years since D Day and 1 week after the first V1's started to arrive, some newcomers might need a bit of a refresher.
In early 1944, Bomber Command had diverted from attacking Germany targets to switch to paralysing the French transport network in preparation for D Day.
Resources had to be diverted once the purpose of "ski jump" launch ramps for the V1 were discovered being built in hundreds of locations, all aligned towards London. Many crews fell victim during daylight raids, but perhaps their biggest unsung triumph was the devastating raid on Peenemunde which set back the V1 and V2 programmes.
Had that not been interrupted, V1's would have been trundling over much sooner, perhaps before December 1943 and possibly had a tremendous effect not only on morale, but on the massing of troops and equipment building up for D Day.
As it was, the impact (perhaps not the best word) of the V1 assault was overshadowed by the relief that the D Day landings had been successful, and thus did less damage to morale.
Add the V2 into the mix in early 1944 and London would have had a pulverising series of blows that it may have had to be abandoned.
Whilst the Spit Mk XIV, Mustang, Mosquito and the American P61 Black Widow and several others helped in shooting down many, of the nearly 10,000 V1's launched, almost 40% were stopped one way or another. The Tempest Mk V was about the only aircraft capable of catching the V1's in level flight, the others all needed to sweep down in a dive to get close. 0.303 ammo tended to bounce off the casing, so 20mm cannon was really the only effective ammunition, but needed to get to 200 yards, and that distance can be covered in a blink of an eye at 400 mph! That resulted in the attacker flying through the debris cloud of burning fuel and lumps of metal.
Once the London defenders had got over their joy at downing seemingly every enemy attacking "bomber" in flames - not realising that they'd begun the terminal dive - the tactics were for fighters to patrol the Channel, AA on a coastal belt and fighters over the Weald with barrage balloons as the last line of defence.
My involvement with this crash came about simply by accident. I do a lot of internet research about my village and accidentally mistyped the name, and up came this Tempest crash, which had also been mistyped and catalogued incorrectly..That meant no one else had connected the mistype with the correct village. The Australians have done Mackerras proud, with a Last Post ceremony and will be projecting his name in December, but nothing was known about it in the village. Only one old resident thought he remembered it, and gave me accurate details which I certainly hadn't fed him, so it bore out what I knew, except location. It didn't tie in with what I'd been given, so it needed a lot more determined digging to get it.
We did have a V1 land very close to the Church, and that was linked to the funeral of a village lad electrocuted when the barrage balloon he was attempting to tether but blown into nearby HT lines. That was 1st August and I wondered whether the V1 that exploded by the Church, and which showered mourners leaving in debris, had been the one that Mackerras attacked.
Unfortunately, the Church records show that Hugh was buried the next day (2nd August - which seemed unusually soon) and Mackerras crashed on the Sunday 6th August, so I can't use the "heroic pilot sacrificed his life steering doomed plane away from village, after downing V1 which would have destroyed the village" EXCEPT the first part is possibly true. I believe he force landed, as the police records give a partial serial number and Squadron code which indicates the aircraft broke apart and I know it caught fire. Suffice it to say that I had the DPA (not GDPR) and PMRA thrown at me before I was able to obtain the precise location. It didn't seem much point trying to organise a commemoration if, with dignitaries and perhaps family present, all we could say was that he crashed "somewhere around here". It's not a wreck site as exploding cannon shells were firing in all directions, and that isn't likely if buried deep in the earth. I will say I have looked over the area and have to say it has some beautiful views, not that it means much.
One aspect I'd be interested in is if Sqdn Leader R Dryland who was the other pilot on patrol, left any memories of this behind.
I'm also curious as to where the barrage balloon that caused all this came from. RAF Wartling wasn't far away and we're only a couple of miles from the coast, so the radar station might be the origin, as I thought all barrage balloons had moved back from coastal towns.
Any way, I'm filling a bit of space in before Skip returns from SSQ