A Spitfire Pilot - continued - Part 21
72 Sqn – May 1942 and a trip to Bentley Priory
In May, the weather got better and better and we were kept quite busy. We did a number of sweeps, here, there and everywhere and after I’d landed from one, feeling a bit shakey, I was told to go and see the doc for a medical, prior to my going up for my commission. So I got on my bike, went across to the hospital, saw the doc and I found that I couldn’t hold my breath long enough to keep the mercury stuck up the tube. So Doc White, who was an awfully nice chap told me that if I put my hand over the tube and held my cheeks in while I was blowing, I could hold the mercury up there for weeks on end. So I did that, and he passed me as absolutely fit and all was well. I could never understand why, if I was flying as a Sergeant Pilot and coping alright, I had to have a medical to prove that I could do the same thing as a Pilot Officer!
I was told to report to Bentley Priory, where Leigh-Mallory would interview me. (Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, was, at that time, Air Officer Commanding 11 Group, Fighter Command, having previously, during the Battle of Britain, commanded 12 Group. He was promoted to Air Chief Marshal and later killed in an air crash in the French Alps in 1944 whilst en route to take up his appointment as Air Officer Commander in Chief. South East Asia Command). I was put in an interview room where I met two or three other chaps that I’d seen before and where I learnt how Pat Lust had been killed when the wing came off his Spitfire. I was shown in to see Leigh-Mallory and stood in front of his desk. He had all the details of my career in front of him and he said,
“Ah, I see you’ve had to use your parachute. Did you come out alright?”
And I said, “Yes, thank you very much”
“And you’ve done 22 sweeps, but haven’t been lucky enough to destroy any German aircraft?”
So I said, “No, so far I’ve done 46 sweeps, got one destroyed, one probable and one damaged”
Anyway, he seemed to think that was alright and I was shown out and went back to Biggin Hill.
Early in May we were given a job of top cover to a wing that was escorting a squadron of bombers to Caen. Now top cover is not a bad job, you’re not as restricted as you are if you are giving close escort where you have to stick with the bombers and make sure nothing comes through. But with top cover, the idea, obviously, is to keep anything off that is likely to come down and there’s normally far more chance of having a shot at something. ‘B’ Flight were a man short and so I was flying with them and being led by Flight Lieutenant Hugo Armstrong, an Australian, and it was always his section that got bounced, wherever we went and this day was no exception. We got jumped by four 190s, somewhere near Le Havre, and they did their usual trick of two coming down followed by a further two and we were going round and round and having shots here and there and it got a bit hairy and eventually I finished up very close to the deck. Having got there the only thing to do was to belt home as fast as possible as there was no future in trying to climb up from the deck to get height again, you were a sitting duck. I could hear Hugo calling out,
“Keep turning ‘B’ Flight, keep turning ‘B’ Flight”
and I was weaving like a so-and-so, right down on the deck and suddenly I found I was being chased to by two 109Fs and we went round and round in the Channel at nought feet. Eventually one of them cleared off, I presume he got fed up with the roundabout, and left me with one, still going round and round and eventually I managed to get a shot at him, mainly because the Spit can outturn anything and the next thing, there was a great splash and he’d gone for a Burton, so I continued on and eventually got to Tangmere, running very short of fuel, just as the wing was lined up ready to take off. I explained that I was a little short of petrol so they kindly gave me permission to drop in first before the others took off.
It was whilst I was there, getting refuelled, I was chatting to a few Sergeant Pilots who were loitering about that I learnt that Jack Ranger, who had been with me at Kidlington, and been posted on Beaufighters, had been killed in action.
Towards the end of May, the squadron was doing a sweep over Dieppe and Faixcombe (?) and Tommy Wright was flying as my number 2. We spotted a couple of 190s about 1000’ below us, in a beautiful position for us to bounce them, but unfortunately, at that particular moment my engine was hurling out oil all over the place and smothering the windscreen. I couldn’t see forward at all and could only just see out the side so I had to call up Tommy and say,
“Forget the bounce, get me home”.
So I flew home as gently as possible, with Tommy weaving behind me, cursing the fact that we’d missed this lovely chance to bounce. Anyway, we got back to Biggin Hill and I had to formate as well as I could on Tommy Wright and he led me down to the runway and I managed to land all right, though I wasn’t at all popular with my groundcrew because the aircraft was literally smothered from front to back in black, horrible oil. There was only one good thing about it and that was that at that particular time, we had some ATC (Air Training Corps) cadets on the aerodrome and they were delighted to do any little job and consequently they got the job of washing down my aircraft, which saved a lot of hard work for my groundcrew.
On 31st May we did a sweep to Dieppe, which normally wasn’t too much hassle, but on this occasion we met umpteen enemy aircraft and the squadron had a fair old time. I managed to get one 190 destroyed and one damaged, but our squadron really had a very good day. I think a lot of it was due to the fact that the Jerries were slightly upset over the fact that the night before they’d had a “Thousand Bomber Raid” over Cologne and they were doing their best to see what damage they could do us in return.