I originally started this thread as a question Mutiny at RAF Manston? The original source was an academic book The Stress of Battle printed by the Stationary Office and sourced from DSTL and the MOD. Pretty impeccable credentials.
I did not at any point refer Len Deighton or quote Fighter.
I did receive from this website and other sources many interesting leads one of which was a brief quote from Al Deere's book Nine Lives which stated that James Leathart had mentioned the incident to him in conversation.
I believe that the main source of information, which has been quoted by others, on the affairs at Manston in BoB is Eagle Day by Richard Collier, who employed thirteen researchers to prepare the book. It was printed in 1954 and they had the opportunity to interview participants. I have left in the preceding and succeeding paragraphs to the part on Manston because I think it establishes credibility. I think it can be seen that the source is people who were actually present and it does not have a message or an agenda.
I do not believe that this version could be improved upon and it has the ring of veracity.
It seems probable that there were mutinous acts perpetrated but in 1940 with imminent threat of invasion I am sure no one wished to pursue the matter. The traumatic plight of the people actually in the shelters must have marked them emotionally for life.
To C.B.C.'s Ed Murrow, their calm unflinching demeanour was what impressed him most: the question he and other U.S. newsmen had asked themselves— could the British people take it?—seemed answered now. Only two days back, in a Sussex village street, he had marvelled; a police loudspeaker had suddenly announced, "Clear the streets for His Majesty the King. Hold that horse's head," and King George VI’s big maroon car purred sedately past. Though the country was on the brink of invasion, Murrow noted the King's sole escort was a lone patrolman on a motor cycle.
Today, outside Kenley airfield, Murrow marvelled again: a company of uniformed WA A.F.S had marched with drill-ground precision through the airfield's main gates, ranks steady, every girl smiling. Eight men had died and eight—among them a W.A.A.F.—had been wounded in that lunch-time raid, but the clerks, cooks and waitresses were going on duty just the same.
Not all were heroes. At Manston, on the Kent coast, the morale of many was at lowest ebb, their officers' example notwithstand¬ing; for six days many airmen had not ventured forth from the deep chalk shelters. To the pilots of 266 Spitfire Squadron, operational flights from Charlie Three spelt frustration from start to finish— the first devastating Eastchurch raid had cost them their Mae Wests and parachutes, and at Manston no storeman came on duty to replace them.
Only today Flight Lieutenant Dennis Armitage had spent a dusty half-hour groping through the labyrinth of caves, vainly seeking a station electrician he'd entrusted to complete a job. Finally, blinking in the strong sun-light, he emerged to check on the squadron's Spitfires—and cursed forcefully. Though no Ger¬man aircraft had been sighted in two hours, the man hadn't even started. Patiently, holding himself in check, Armitage bent to the task himself.
Across the airfield's 500 acres, every officer could tell the same story. At 600 Squadron's dispersal, Pilot Officer Henry Jacobs just had to chuckle: though it was Sunday, the station accountant officer had wandered disconsolately by yet again, weighed down
by two bags of chinking silver, vainly seeking enough airmen above ground to organise a pay parade.
By now, after four all-out raids, few buildings were even tenable. With all water cut off, men shaved at the pre-war swim¬ming pool—if they shaved at all. Many were close to breaking-point; in the nick of time Squadron Leader James Leathart, 54 Squadron, stopped an overwrought technical officer firing blind down the shelters to flush the scrimshankers out. Mansion's chaplain, the Reverend Cecil King, acted as promptly. Near-berserk, another officer had burst wild-eyed into the mess, a revolver trembling in his hand, threatening to finish off himself and every man present. Gently, King led him from the room, talking of God's infinite mercy, until the man broke down and surrendered his gun.
In Manston's smoke-filled horror and confusion, the thirty-four-year-old chaplain was an inspiration to all who saw him. Armed for safety's sake with his uncle's Webley revolver—which he later found would have blown up after one round—King had helped to organise every detail of the shattered station's routine. Often, he'd noticed the Germans zoomed in from Cap Gris Nez at meal¬times, when many airmen were queuing outside their dining halls; his suggestion that all mealtimes were put back an hour kept casualties low. Even burial services needed careful planning; for German airmen he had thoughtfully procured a German flag, captured at Narvik, to drape the coffins. And few would forget King's dispersal-hut services, his text from Psalm 63 hand-picked for pilots: "In the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice."
But King and all of them divined the bleak truth; for Mansion, now, the end was very near. Pilot Officer Henry Jacobs still recalls bitterly, "Manston was literally taken from us piece by piece"; it had needed more than the brave primitive armament of 600 Squadron to stop the Luftwaffe.
At 3.30 p.m. on August 18, Mansion was again, without warn¬ing, under fire. The Spitfires of 266 Squadron were still on the ground, being serviced by the flight crews, when sixteen ME 109s burst from the sun, machine-guns hammering. Planes took fire with a white incandescent flame, and everywhere men fell wounded.
There was no time for anything but evasive action. Spitfire
pilot Dick Trousdale, a canny New Zealander, too weighed down by flying kit to run for it, presented his rear-end to the raiders like a Moslem at prayer; obligingly, his low-slung parachute stopped three bullets. Sergeant Don Kingaby, hitting the deck, saw the earth spout ahead of him and marked the line of fire; rolling rhythmically back and forth for five minutes, gauging the spouts, he escaped with a nicked thumb.
Others sought shelter as and where they could. Pilot Officer Henry Jacobs, at the base of an apple tree while Squadron Leader Graham Deverley tossed down fruit to him, dived with¬out hesitation for a bed of stinging-nettles; when Deverley fell clean on top of him he judged himself amply screened. Flying Officer David Clackson and six others lay prone beneath the mess billiard table—while raking shots sheared the baize from the slate as cleanly as a knife might have done.
Crawling from beneath the table they stared, unbelieving: it was as if the Germans had meant to do that. They felt a sudden unutterable sense of helplessness.
The full text of Eagle Day can be downloaded as a pdf from this link
http://ia331336.us.archive.org/1/ite...y001398mbp.pdf