The Battle of Barking Creek 6 Sep 1939
Tomorrow is the 80th Anniversary of the first "Blue on Blue" of the Second World War: I found this online some years ago - cannot remember where:
The Battle of Barking Creek
There was a thin early morning haze laying low over the quiet west Essex fields along the length of the Roding Valley. The silence was broken by the cough of the huge Rolls Royce Merlin engines as they spluttered and roared into life.
It was 06.27hrs on 6th September 1939, the third day of War and the pilots of 56 Squadron Royal Air Force stationed at North Weald Aerodrome had just been scrambled to meet reported enemy aircraft incoming from the North Sea.
The pilots pulled on leather flying jackets and life vests over their crumpled blue tunics as they raced towards the line of Hawker Hurricane Fighters already fuelled and armed by the ground crews who continually fussed around the machines.
Standing at the end of the line were the two Reserve machines that would follow the Squadron and act as support should they meet the enemy. Pilot Officers Frank Rose and Montague Hulton-Harrop were assigned this task.
At the same time as 56 Squadron were being scrambled so too were three Squadrons of Spitfires, amongst them 74 Squadron flying out of RAF Hornchurch to the south of the county.
All aircraft involved were vectored to the north-eastern part of Essex between the Blackwater and the Stour estuarys. In the early months of the War positive identification and tracking of aircraft was at a primitive level and still largely relied on the eyes of the Pilots themselves. Today this would end in tragedy.
As the Hurricanes of 56 Squadron arrived in the skies north east of Colchester so did the Spitfires of 74 Squadron. One can imagine the tension of those young men, keyed up and eager to meet the vaunted Luftwaffe in combat.
If there was ever a German aircraft in those skies on that day it had long since fled but two of the Spitfire Pilots spotted the Hurricane Squadron. They also spotted the two dark coloured fighters trailing them!.
Without waiting for proper identification Flying Officer Byrne and Pilot Officer Freeborn were ordered to attack the “enemy” aircraft. In a tragically superb display of shooting the Spitfires fell upon the two unfortunate Hurricanes.
Byrne fired a burst that shattered the instrument panel of Frank Rose’s aircraft rendering it uncontrollable. Though unwounded, Rose was forced to make an extremely rough forced landing just outside Ipswich.
Montagu Hulton-Harrop was not so lucky. John Freeborn’s initial burst of cannon fire riddled the fuselage of the Hurricane and hit Hulton-Harrop in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The aircraft slowly spiralled out of control crashing to the ground just outside Ipswich.
The exact story of what happened that day, and why, may never be known. Commonly known as the Battle of Barking Creek, even the origin of that name is obscure, for none of the action took place anywhere near that place.
There are, not surprisingly, differences in detail of what happened that day. Reports from a searchlight battery at Mersea Island as well as the RAF stations at North Weald and Hornchurch contained vastly differing versions of events.
Communications at the time were also quite primitive and each was not fully aware what was happening in other areas, and there were a number of areas involved. Afterwards different parties would give their version of events. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that sometimes these would be tailored to save reputations.
Today the spectre of “friendly fire” is a common visitor to our TV screens, it is unfortunate but it is nothing new. Nevertheless Byrne and Freeborn were placed before a Court Martial.
Both were acquitted and went on to have careers of varying success. Both survived the War.
Frank Rose was returned to RAF North Weald, to be amongst his shocked fellow pilots. He remained with 56 Squadron, being promoted to Flying Officer. He was shot down and killed over France on 18th May 1940.
The body of Montagu Hulton-Harrop was recovered and he too was returned to RAF North Weald. His was the dubious distinction of being the first RAF Fighter Pilot to be killed in World War II.
26 years old from a wealthy farming family in Shropshire, Hulton-Harrop was perhaps a typical “Brylcream Boy” and it is not difficult to imagine him carousing with other young pilots in the Kings Head Pub in North Weald village. He had been a close friend and flat mate of the actor Kenneth More who at that time had been stationed at nearby RAF Coltishall as a RNVR Officer.
Hulton-Harrop was buried with full military honours in the little graveyard of St Andrews Church in North Weald Bassett adjoining the aerodrome. There is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission plot at the side of the Church and he is buried in Grave 1 Row 1, the first of the eventual 50 RAF personnel to be interred there.
56 Squadron still has Montagu Hulton-Harrop's Tankard
I left a poppy cross on Tommy Rose's grave when I was last in France.
We will remember them.
Radar101.