More memoirs from Hawker Typhoon pilot Peter Brett
Early 1944, Peter Brett continues operations with 183 squadron...
After my spell as a 'groundhog' I resumed flying on January 27th flying aircraft 'HF-D' on a long-range low-level fighter sweep across Kerlin-Bastard airfield and back over the Brest peninsular. This proved to be completely unproductive from an operational point of view but highly enjoyable as a long period of low flying in very good weather conditions. I remember seeing a chap leading a horse along a country lane. He waved and gave us the 'V' sign.
Also I remember flying very low over what seemed to be a barracks with a large parade ground where we went down to less than twenty feet across this large flat area. Although we probably were fired at, none of us saw any tracer and we were not attacked by enemy aircraft. All-in-all just a legal excuse to 'beat-up' everything in sight!
Next day in the morning I did an hour's formation leading for newly arrived pilots and in the afternoon a fighter escort job for a dive bombing operation. There did not appear to be any opposition but Flight Sergeant Phillips’ aircraft dived into the sea for no apparent reason on the way back.
We did two operations again on the 29th January. In the morning a fighter sweep across the Brest peninsular during which we attacked Guipavas airfield. My previous sight of this was you may remember on my first operation when we dive-bombed it from 12000 ft. This time it was all very low level. Before we reached Guipavas I had a good shot at a railway engine which I left enveloped in steam. Over Guipavas I shot across the boundary at an angle to the runway heading for some rather uninteresting looking single storey buildings. I gave them a short burst of cannon, hopped over them and found myself flying towards a large hangar with open doors. I gave a long burst of cannon fire into the interior and just managed to pull up over the top of the building. I then had another chance at a gun position just to my left and managed to turn sufficiently to shoot off a few more rounds, silencing the gun. After Guipavas there were only a few more 'targets of opportunity' such as a German lorry and a gun position on the end of a bridge somewhere North of Guipavas.
As we formed up again after crossing the Northern French coast I realised that two aircraft were missing. “Stu” Lovell, my Flight Commander, and Flight Sergeant 'Smitty' Smith, his number 2, were missing. It was not until 1993 that I found out exactly what had happened. Stu's son had researched the incident and had even found an eye-witness! Evidently after our first attack on Guipavas, Stu decided to go round again with his number two, Smitty. On this second attack Stu came in too low, failed to clear the top of the building, took a propeller-shaped chunk out of the roof and crashed just inside the airfield boundary. Smitty either hit his debris or was hit by flak just as he crossed the boundary and crashed well past the airfield. Both of them were killed instantly and they were buried locally with full military honours.
In the afternoon we did another long range trip. This time it was a fighter patrol south of Lorient. This was a 2½ hour trip but with no result. We did not see any other aircraft and no shipping. We did not cross the coast but returned around the Brest peninsular without sighting land. When we were doing shipping recce’s or fighter sweeps off the coast of France it had been found that, if you approached fairly close to the coast on a parallel course, the German coastal batteries would open fire. Not with any intention of trying to hit an aircraft with a large calibre coastal defence gun, but to cause large waterspouts which would force the aircraft to fly high enough to be engaged by the light AA batteries. This tended to be a bit of a game since we never heard of anybody who was actually shot down in these circumstances. However we usually kept far enough out to sea to make it not worth while for the coastal batteries to waste ammunition.
I did not fly the next day but, on the 31st January, I took part in another long range sweep round South of the Brest peninsular and back over Lorient then cross-country to the North coast. Flying Officer 'Dicky' Foster was lost on this operation. He was flying about 60 feet in front of me, to my left, and slightly lower. Just as we crossed the coast I saw flames coming from under the engine. He jettisoned his hood and I saw him start to get rid of his harness. Suddenly the front of the aircraft was enveloped in flames and it dived straight into the ground. There was an enormous explosion and something, presumably the engine, shot off along the ground in a ball of flame and then we were gone. At that height, we normally flew these low level sweeps at only 50 or 60 feet above the ground, there was no chance of baling out if the aircraft was hit badly. If however the damage allowed time to gain some height then the chances of survival were greatly improved. In this case he had no chance to pull up and crashed within seconds of being hit. My log book note for this operation, apart from noting that 'Dicky' was shot down, said 'no joy'. It is obvious that we had not found any worthwhile targets either.
This was my last operation from Predannack as the squadron then left 10 Group and was moved to Tangmere where we joined 11 Group and also became part of 136 Wing, later to become 136 Airfield, and even later to become 123 Wing as part of 84 Group of the 2nd Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF). The first operation from Tangmere in which I took part was yet again a dive bombing attack on a 'No-ball' target. It was obviously a successful operation since I noted that it was 'good bombing'. However the thing that struck me most about this show was that I had never seen so many aircraft in the sky at once! We attacked with two full squadrons, 24 aircraft, and at the same time it seemed that half the American air force was heading the same way as we crossed the channel. We saw Mustangs, Bostons and Fortresses all going the same way at different levels and, as we climbed up to get to our bombing height, at this time we were diving from about 8000 ft to 4000ft, we climbed past some of these other formations. All-in-all it was a most impressive display.
The next day it was 'No-ball' again, but this time very near Cherbourg. The remark in my log book was 'hell of a lot of flak'. Since by this time I was getting somewhat blasé about flak, it must have been very concentrated. Consequently, I believe that this was the show on which I gripped the control column so tightly during the dive and pull-out that I had to concentrate afterwards in order to relax my hand. As we dived it was like going down into, as someone else put it, a hailstorm painted red. I was convinced that nobody could survive that dive and, if it hadn't been that I was leading a four and there were three other blokes behind me, I could easily have chickened out and pulled away. As it was I concentrated so fiercely on the target and gripped the control column so tightly that, as I said, I had to make a real effort, after I had pulled up and away, to release my grip. In spite of the fact that this was, up to then, the most concentrated flak fire that I had seen, nobody was shot down and only three of us suffered minor damage.
Next day I was allocated aircraft HF-E and, from then on I mostly flew this aircraft until I left the squadron at the end of my first tour of operations. My first flight in this aircraft was a cannon test, 10 minutes, and then that night I did a half-hour night flying. Although we practised night flying regularly it was only very occasionally that we flew on operations at night. Then we only took off in the dark of the early morning so that we would arrive over the target at 'first light'.
More soon -TOW