All this time the five remaining JU88's had been circling and watching. They had scattered a few cannon shells in the water around us just as we ditched, but had then pulled off and circled. (We found out later that under the Luftwaffe scoring system, the last pilot to hit a downed aircraft is credited with the kill, so each of them kept shooting at us in turn right up to the point we ditched, as each pilot wanted to be credited with the kill.)
E/461 crew inflate dinghies immediately after ditching
It seemed as if they had been waiting for Dudley's appearance, because as he got up on the wing, Mr. Glass-nose peeled off and bored in towards us. We all looked up at him and Dudley said: "Sorry, I can't do anything more for you, boys. All I can say is, if he shoots, jump."
I reckoned this was good advice, so I stood at the leading edge of the wing between the fuselage and inner engine and watched him. If I saw gun flashes, I was going to jump. But there were no gun flashes. He swooped low over us, waggled his wings in salute, and then they were all gone, with only a small sea bird flying around us crying in such a mournful tone. I looked at my watch. It was 55 minutes from the start of combat. I estimated that the combat had lasted 40 to 45 minutes.
It had seemed like an eternity.
We organised ourselves on the top of the aircraft and the steeply sloping wing as best we could and counted our blessings. The fact that no-one had been killed was amazing luck, and we had all our emergency gear and three dinghies intact. The adrenalin was still pumping through our systems and we all went through a period of high elation and (I suppose) temporary madness. I started it – I shook my fist at the departing Ju88s in mock bravado and shouted “Come back you cowards and fight like a man!”
Much laughter, and one of the crew said “Cut it out, Pete, he might hear you and come back.”
And so it went on for ten minutes or so. Then Ivor Peatty said: “Look at this, chaps – I nearly got my DSO.”
We looked. Across the front of his trousers was a deep cut from a piece of shrapnel, straight and clean as if it had been cut by a pair of scissors.
“DSO?” was asked, perplexed.
“Yes,” he said, “Dickie shot off!”
More loud laughter.
E/461 listing
The skipper sized up the heavy seas and the slowly sinking aircraft and decided to abandon the poor shattered carcass of the old kite. One of the small dinghies was launched with most of the gear, then the other small one with Pierre, Jimmy Leigh, and Ivor Peatty, plus some more gear. Then the big 6-man dinghy was launched, and the rest of us jumped into the sea and clambered into the dinghy. We tied the three dinghies together and drifted rapidly away from the aircraft.
We had hardly been drifting more than ten or fifteen minutes when a muffled report came from our store dinghy and it deflated. We frantically pulled it in by the rope, but most of the stores were lost. We searched the casing for the puncture and found a rip about three feet long, obviously a cut by a piece of shrapnel. It was impossible to repair, so we let it go after rescuing what gear we could. We had only just absorbed that tragedy when the other small dinghy deflated. Another long, unrepairable rip, and it also was abandoned. Pierre, Ivor and Jimmy were helped into our dinghy. Pierre's wound dressings, which had been kept dry in the small dinghy, were now saturated. The salt water in his wounds must have been causing excruciating pain.
Our elation had gone - only one dinghy left. How long would it last, we wondered? We checked what gear we had left - some 2 star red pyrotechnics, a flame float; a can of water and packet of emergency rations each; a case of Verey cartridges - (but the pistol had been lost, so they were jettisoned). We still had the dinghy radio (Gibson Girl) with the aerial, the kite for flying the aerial, the rocket for sending the kite up, the pistol for shooting the rocket. However, no cartridges for the pistol. It seemed we had lost almost every critical thing we needed.
I found one of the pigeon containers, opened it up and pulled out the pigeon. It had drowned. I was about to throw it away when Dudley said: "Keep it. We'll eat it later."
I looked at the poor bedraggled creature and wished I hadn't had so many baked beans for lunch - then promptly brought them all up. I put the pigeon under my feet.