Old comrades
When we arrived back at Base, my beloved "Z" for Zombie was damaged somewhat. Among other things, an aileron wire had been severed, clean shot through, and I hadn't full wing control. The following day, when we went out on our next raid, I was given a brand new aircraft, just delivered to the Squadron and there hadn't been time even to paint the aircraft identification letters on the fuselage.
We flew out in the same general direction of Cos, Leros and Scarpanto, (now called Karpathos) looking for enemy shipping. Suddenly, a full flight of us was attacked by half-a-dozen ME 109Fs. Not in true British style, but obeying standing orders explicitly, we turned tail and fled - Beaufighters were really no good against single-engined ME 109s. We were no match for that kind of aggression. Alas and alack, I discovered that the brand-new aircraft I had taken out, was alarmingly slow. Whilst the rest of the flight drew rapidly ahead of me, I dropped back just as rapidly (obviously) and became a true "tail-arse Charlie". I banged desperately on the throttles, hoping to get past some imaginary stoppage and put about 50 knots extra airspeed on the cow, but destiny loomed.
The ME's took it in turn to sit on my tail, and use me for target practice. At 20 feet over the wave tops, I jinked and jinked. "Tell me when they're lining up, Bob", I called to my observer, who was cursing in the back seat, and firing vainly with his Vickers 'pop-gun' when the occasion presented itself. He dutifully told me when the time came. Meanwhile, I flew straight and level at best top speed. As soon as the next attack came, I jinked and jinked once more. (Violent movements of the aircraft controls produced uneven flight and spoiled the enemy chances of getting straight shots).
What seemed like an age passed. I think it was all of ten minutes. A couple of the enemy planes ran out of ammo. Eventually, thick smoke filled the cockpit. I saw flames licking over the whole of the starboard wing. I throttled back on that side, feathered the airscrew, found the fire extinguisher button, and pressed hard. It made no difference. We flew on, and still continued burning.
Eyes smarting, unable to see ahead properly, I gave the observer the emergency message, "Dinghy, dinghy, prepare for ditching." I throttled back the port engine, and pancaked on the sea, which was fortunately reasonably calm.
The “Beau” was reputed to float for only five seconds. We had had lots of "dry runs" in the hangar, and in the desert, practising that urgent exit from the cockpit, onto the port wing, pulling the toggle to release the dinghy, and hopping over the side of the wing into the yellow lifesaver. True to life's experience, this one didn't work quite the same.
No sooner had we stopped our forward motion on the water, than the kite stuck down its nose, and plunged deep beneath the waves. I threw back the top of the canopy, and attempted to rise from my seat. Horror! I couldn't move. I tried again. It grew dark around me, so swift was our descent into Neptune's grave. I tried a third time. O Foolish Youth! I remembered this time to pull the pin from my seat strap. Out I popped like a cork from a champagne bottle. Quickly the light returned, and my head broke the surface of the sea.
Bob wasn't far off, and neither was the dinghy. The only good luck that day was that we had obtained an advance model Beaufighter, with an automatically ejecting dinghy. There the luck stopped. The bloody thing was upside down, and only partly inflated. Every attempt to turn it right way up met with failure. It collapsed upon itself, time and time again. We couldn't get at the inflating pump, naturally, until we were able to right it. I think it took about 45 minutes, and by that time poor old Bob (he was 28, and 'granddad' to me) was thoroughly exhausted.
Eventually, we were in it. We were both stained bright yellow from the sea-dye marker, which had also operated automatically, and we sat uncomfortably in several inches of water. The sea-dye, by the way, was a pack of concentrated colouring, tied to the dinghy by a piece of cord, and designed to leave a bright trail of yellow dye in the water, that could be seen from the air by potential rescuers. It was 1500 hours when we were shot down, and the next 18 hours were very miserable. The torn-off starboard wing floated for a long time, about a hundred yards away, and we lost sight of it when it got dark.