A battle to the death with the German flak crews
Post no. 19 from the memoirs of Tempest pilot Flt Lt Jack Stafford, DFC, RNZAF
MY MAIN memory is of the other aircraft streaking away from me and my Tempest hanging in the air almost stalled. She shuddered and as I stuck the nose down I noticed that the airspeed had fallen to around 170mph, well down from the 400 mph we had been doing. I was almost at the stall when I got the nose down and she recovered just in time to lift, and was almost on the ground before she regained flying speed.
Bev and Bill were several miles ahead of me, such was my loss of speed, and were attacking a train which included several flak cars. As I stumbled up, the Tempests were well on their way with the flak following them. I gave the flak cars a couple of long bursts and I also plastered the loco. The gunners had their backs to me and were firing madly at Bev and Bill so I was able to upset the plans of some of them for that evening and many to follow.
My speed had not really built up so the flak gave me a hard time as I flew low over them. They had just me to shoot at and really wanted to get the man who had given them such a pasting. I heard hits on my aircraft and she shuddered, almost staggering in the air. I caught up to the others as we approached a town which met us with a violent barrage of flak.
My only chance of survival was to be low, low, low. I was just clear of the ground, firing my cannons at the flashes from their guns as they poured it at us. As we came to the town I raised one wing and I skidded down the street between buildings. Billy lifted up to clear a building on my left, we were only meters apart, and I could see light flak pouring into the underside of his fuselage. His aircraft was wobbling and as we left the town he was forward in his seat and getting lower towards the ground.
I flew beside him screaming at him to pull up, but his head kept falling forward and lifting again as he struggled to see and to control the crippled plane. I was devastated, I yelled and cursed the Hun as I watched him finally slump forward and his aircraft dropped lower, still being struck by the following flak. He hit the ground, skipped like a stone and hit again, exploding into a great orange ball, the colour exaggerated by the misty low cloud. I felt so sick I could hardly hold my head up.
At that point I took a cannon shell from behind which deadened the radio and filled the cockpit with smoke. I could smell the explosive while wearing an oxygen mask. Bev, who had been a mile or so out to port from us, closed up on me and I climbed into the cloud, finally breaking through above it. Bev kept trying to formate on me expecting me to lead but I wanted him to get a vector home and kept pointing to my earphones. Finally he got the message and turned slightly, indicating that he was in contact with control. We droned on just on top of the cloud ready to drop into it if attacked by German fighters. I was anxiously checking the instruments, for the engine had low oil pressure and a high temperature, but apart from being very noisy everything seemed to function.
