If you want to know more about VFR flight operations flown in IFR conditions with radio communications failure, and understand the context, read Geoffrey Wellum's account of one convoy escort op flown from Manston in his book "First Light".
Ditto his account of losing a wing while learning to fly a Spitfire at night using a row of six "Glims" for runway lighting.
The sad fact is that wartime flight crews were, like all other serving sailors, soldiers and airmen, considered expendable when it came to mission success.
Bloody heros, the lot of them.