The Vultee Vengeance in Defence.
As for the Jap defences, it was an article of faith among us that no AA gunner ever hit anything except by the purest chance, and you can't provide against that. What we couldn't understand was why the Jap never tried to intercept us - for as far as I know, he never did. But we had to live with the thought "there's always a first time" - it was at the back of our minds on every sortie. Every raw recruit must think of that first day:
"When the hugly bullets come a' peckin' up the dust,
And no beggar wants to face 'em, but every beggar must"............ (Kipling).
It was such an obvious thing for him to do. To start with, he had the aircraft, the Nakajima "Oscar", a small but very good fighter mounting 2 x .50 guns (later ones 2 x 20mm cannon). He didn't have many, but two would do. Of course Burma is a big place; there were no radar or any other early warning systems. The chances of running into each other were remote.
But our attacks on their Army positions were so regular that you'd think it worth their while to put up a standing patrol for a couple of hours a day over the area. They'd draw blank for a few days and then get lucky. It was a very real possibility. So what form of defence should we try?
We could forget about the dive. No one could touch us there. At the bottom, we would be scattered, low down, and going very fast. Our camouflage was excellent against the jungle. At worst, the Oscars might get one down there. Nothing could be done about that. Far and away their best bet would be to catch a box on the way to the target, and this is what we expected.
The danger was recognised, of course, and we were sometimes given an escort of two pairs of Hurricanes: one pair for top cover and the other sweeping a mile behind. It was a kind thought, but the Hurricane was so inferior to the Oscar in almost all respects apart from its ability to absorb punishment, that our escort would have had its work cut out defending itself, never mind us. This escort appeared only randomly, and we could never see any particular reason for it - perhaps when they had nothing more important to do.
The accepted tactic was that a formation should stand and fight. There were exhortatory posters. I recall: "STRAGGLERS DIE"......... "BIRDS OF A FEATHER, STICK TOGETHER"........... and "SHOULDER TO SHOULDER TO SHOULDER MEANS CONCENTRATED FIRE - STAY IN FORMATION AND THE JAP WILL SOON TIRE"........ (that raised a few eyebrows, the Jap didn't "do" tired).
These were heroic sentiments, fully in accordance with the declared view of our contemporary Admiral Tom Philips out there that: "a properly handled capital ship can always beat off air attack". Japanese torpedo bombers proved him wrong off the coast of Malaya. He went down in "Prince of Wales" (one of our newest battleships), and with him the old "Repulse" and some 1500 men. It was one of our worst naval disasters of the war, and sealed the fate of Singapore, Malaya and Burma.
It was decided that we would stay in formation and use the 12 rear guns in defence. We had done some "fighter affiliation" exercises with the Hurricanes during training, and tried a DIY version with a VV as "fighter" - a task which fell to me on account of my fighter OCU experience. This was not a good substitute, but better than nothing, I suppose. The main impression on me was the excellence of our camouflage - if I took my eye off the "box", it had simply disappeared.
I thought then, and think now, that the whole idea was absurd. The only result would be to give the Oscars a six-times bigger target for their guns. "He who fights and runs away"............would have made much more sense. We could have devised a "bomb burst" (like the Red Arrows), where we fanned-out, rolled over, dived and scooted for home individually. At worst the Oscars might get one instead of the lot, which would be the likely outcome if we all stayed together.
I would think that many people were secretly of the same opinion, but no one dared voice it. Were we not heirs to the glorious "Few"? Were we not supposed to "press on regardless"? It seemed dishonourable even to think of such a thing. But a dead hero is no use to himself and very little use to anyone else. ("Who hath honour"? asked old Sir John Falstaff "him that died o' Wednesday") In the event, there was never an interception (nor, I think, with the Aussies in New Guinea), so we'll never know what might have happened.
At this point, I must put it on record that our Vengeance operations must rank among the safest ones in all the War. They did not even carry the risks of the so-called "nursery ops" back home (these were attacks on relatively unimportant and poorly defended targets on which new Bomber Command crews might (if lucky) be sent to "cut their teeth" before the more serious work to come).
Nearly all our people flew all their sorties over a two-year period without a scratch. The Jap fighters never tried to intercept us and their AA was largely ineffective. Very few of our losses could be put down to them with any certainty. Almost all were due to flying accidents, as ever the result of carelessness, stupidity, weather or sheer bad luck.
Next time we'll go back to Danny's story.
Goodnight, all,
Danny42C
Look to your front !
Last edited by Danny42C; 31st Jul 2012 at 22:57.