For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II

At hospital I was eventually picked up and taken to Halton, the RAF Hospital, and after a spell there was sent down to Torquay where the RAF Convalescent Hospital was. It was the old Palace Hotel taken over by the RAF. I had a long time to reflect in the hospital and was there with one of our most famous fighter pilots who won the VC, Nicholson – it was announced whilst we were in hospital. In my thoughts, after my being shot down, I’d wondered if I was the only flat-footed policeman who’d been walking the streets in 1938 in London in the Metropolitan Police and was, two years later, a Flying Officer in the RAF, flying aeroplanes 20,000 feet above that fair city.

After getting out of hospital eventually, I was posted to 10 Group Headquarters as an Assistant Controller. I quite enjoyed this job, seeing the fair ladies pushing discs all over the table down below, but my main purpose in life had been to join the Air Force to fly aeroplanes, so I was very keen to get back on flying. Although my medical category had been considerably lowered and I was off flying, I couldn’t wait till I could have another medical and finally get back on it again. I succeeded, but not on operations.’

Back from the ‘Phoney War’ in France, Flying Officer James Hayter had some difficulty locating his Squadron:

‘Eventually, after landing at about three aerodromes, we located our unit. We were then given an opportunity of either going on to Wellingtons or into Fighter Command, and seeing as I’d been shot down the odd time in the Fairey Battle, I thought this was a bit of a dead loss. I volunteered to go into Fighter Command.

I joined 615 Squadron and they gave us about five or six hours conversion on to a Hurricane, and then I went to 605 Squadron which was stationed at Croydon – that was towards the end of the Battle of Britain. Things were fairly hectic – we’d do sometimes two, three, four trips a day. I was shot down again over Kent and landed in Major Cazalet’s place – who I understood was England’s champion squash player and an MP – when he was having a cocktail party. I was slightly wounded and went back to my unit, and I was flying again in another three or four days.

When they had the big formations at night, Heinkels and 88s coming in, we were still flying formations of a number of fighters which the Germans had showed us not to use. Invariably, if you got into a dogfight or if you were attacking a formation, everybody got split up, so actually that formation was the most stupid thing we ever used. The Germans had showed us how to fly and attack but we didn’t learn. We had some big formations of 300 or 400 aircraft coming in, and we’d attack a formation and it would be a shambles. The formation that we were flying in was completely useless as everybody would break up into their own little thing.

At that stage I remember going to our Intelligence Officer and saying, well, look the claims were absolutely outrageous. There were some very, very good pilots in the aeroplanes – but I think it’s history now, and I suppose it was to keep the morale up, maybe, but we had a whole lot of glamour boys who over-claimed and this is proven now. I think the thing that impressed me most was that, while there were some individuals who were most likely the genuine scorers, there was a whole lot of people there that weren’t.

I think that what impressed me quite a lot in England was that when we arrived we’d come from all sorts of walks of life and were pretty rough, I suppose, socially, and a lot of these so-called English gentlemen looked pretty anaemic, weak physically; but when it came down to the real nitty-gritty, the anaemic-looking Pom was most likely the bravest of the lot. Of course they had something to fight for, it was their country, but what did impress was that these very, very nice chaps were tough.

We went through until we finished the Battle of Britain. We went to Scotland for a spell and then I joined 611 Squadron at Hornchurch where I did another tour on Spitfires, and then we were sent for a spell to Prestwick where Peter Townsend was the Wing Commander, Flying. He had a rose garden, and one night I had a nice little sports car and I tried to drive through the front doors of the Officers’ Mess and couldn’t make it, and backed out, but unfortunately I backed into Peter’s rose garden. Then I got my immediate posting to the Middle East.’

Another New Zealander, John Gard’ner, was accepted for a short service commission in the RAF and was under training in Britain when the war started:

‘On getting my wings I was posted as a Pilot Officer to 141 Squadron at Grangemouth, where I trained on and operated Blenheims. Our job in the Blenheims was to patrol in the Firth of Forth area, and as I recall the Germans were coming across from Norway or somewhere in that direction and I believe their target was the Forth Bridge and, of course, going on down to the Glasgow area. After a few weeks of flying the Blenheims – rather unsuccessfully as far as any action with Germans were concerned, and during this time we lost a number of aircraft, just plane crashes at night-time – we were told we were going to be re-equipped with the new Boulton Paul Defiant aircraft. Now those of us who had been on the Blenheims had to be now converted on to single-engine-type aircraft, and they brought in an old Fairey Battle. It was on this Fairey Battle that all of us pilots, who had been flying the Blenheims, were converted from twin-engined on to single-engined aircraft. Again, just circuits and bumps, and because the old Battle took so long to have its flaps come up and its wheels come up, we flew them just round the airfield wheels and flaps down until it was considered that we were well enough flying on single-engine ones to get into the first Defiants.

In the meantime we’d heard that No 264 Squadron, which was down south, they’d had their Defiants for some time before us and in the first few days they were doing extraordinarily well. The Germans didn’t know what they were and were being shot down rather rapidly by 264 Squadron. When the time came for 141 Squadron to get into the action, No 264 Squadron had been “sorted out” and the Germans actually had decimated it. We went down to take over from where 264 Squadron left off.

John Rushton Gard’ner (left)

We were posted to the airfield which is now Gatwick – it was a little grass strip quite near to Biggin Hill I think – and again we were put on to day flying training out of this little grass airfield there. It was a one-squadron airfield as I remember it. Anyway, this was day flying – we were just doing day training – and as soon as we were considered to be experienced enough we were sent down to Hawkinge for the first of our operational sorties. We flew daily; we flew out from Gatwick each morning down there and went at night-time back to this airfield.

The first patrols of the Defiant in daylight were not successful in any way – no fighter actions occurred – but on the third patrol which I was involved in we were sent off – I2 aircraft were ordered off. Nine of us got airborne because three of them turned out, well, had trouble, either engine trouble or trouble before they got to the take-off point, and didn’t get airborne. We took off and had got to some, I think it was, about 7,000 or 8,000 feet when we were jumped by 109s coming down out of the sun behind us. In those days we flew in formations of three, and I was tail-end Charlie in the third section.

I vividly recall what appeared to be white streaks of light going through my cockpit and out the front of the aeroplane and the smell of cordite and stuff, and, glancing to my left, I saw aeroplanes in flames and suddenly I realised that my engine was just stopping on me. I found that the rudder was loose, there was no control over the rudder, and I could wobble the joystick. Anyway, I thought I’m going to get out of here quick, so as far as I recall I sort of pulled the nose over and dived for the sea, which was down below me, thinking, “God, is that chap on my tail?”

Anyway, I just went down and down and I found I still had a measure of control. The engine had just stopped dead, and as far as I can remember the prop was dead in front of me. Anyway, I got down and I was able to level off and I could see a naval vessel way ahead and I thought, gosh, I don’t know what the speed was then, but I seemed to be going at quite a fast speed, and I thought, well, I’m going to try and land beside that naval vessel. Anyway, I overshot it and I went on and on and on and my speed was dropping off and dropping off, and finally I got to the point where I felt that at any minute now I was going to have to make a landing. Now, why I did it I don’t know, but I undid my straps, thinking I’m just going to plop on to the water and get out quickly. The result of that was, when the aeroplane finally stalled on to the water, the next thing I knew I was in Stygian blackness and I was in the water.

Anyway, I realised that I had to get up. I got out of the cockpit – I must have been knocked out just for a fraction – and I managed to struggle up to the surface which seemed a helluva long way up. Anyway, I came out of the surface and I realised that I’d been hit on the head; I felt a bit sore on the head, but otherwise I felt OK.

During this sortie, immediately after I knew I’d been hit by the enemy from behind, I had no response from my gunner – I’d heard no shooting from the gunner, my gunner sitting in the back there, and I presumed at the time that he must have been hit, because whilst I had armour plating behind my head, I knew that all he had to protect him was his own big gun turret. So when we went down and into the water, I did worry about him, but then he didn’t appear. I’d landed beside another little naval vessel – I think it was just a little torpedo boat of some sort which came roaring over and picked me up – and I recall again seeing my parachute, which I’d been sitting on, floating on the water, and I’d kicked off my lovely big black leather flying boots and they appeared to me to be floating almost side by side on the water. I suggested to the chaps who were picking me up, please go and pick up my boots, but they ignored me.

At this time I realised that I’d had a gash on my forehead. I was wounded in the sense that blood was pouring down in front of my eyes and I kept seeing blood, then I can’t recall much after that. I do know that the next thing I found myself in was a hospital in Dover, a small public hospital there, and there I came to again with stitches up the back of my head and stitches on my forehead and so forth, but otherwise unharmed. Thinking back on it, I realise, I think, that what got me on the back of the head was the fact that some bullets or something had hit that armour plating and had shattered something and had just torn the back of my head.

Anyway, I stayed in that hospital in Dover, and actually it was beautiful weather and I was lying in a bed and I could watch some of the battle going on and I was able to look out and see blue sky and the vapour trails of aircraft, whilst battles were going on just over that narrow part of the Channel where Dover is. I stayed in the hospital, I think it was about 10 days, and I was posted off on sick leave and I had the next two months on sick leave, where I was joined by another New Zealander who, unfortunately, was killed later on in the war, but he and I were on sick leave together. We had a marvellous time under the auspices of the Lady Frances Ryder Scheme. We went to Northern Ireland and even into Southern Ireland, and I stayed in some of the stately homes of Britain and it really was an interesting and exciting time of my life.

However, good things come to an end and I was posted back to 141 Squadron, by which time they had been converted on to night fighting. After my sick leave period I reported back to the Squadron at Gatwick. Now at Gatwick we were on to night fighting, but at some stage after that the Squadron was moved over to Gravesend. But I know most of my night fighter work, done on the Defiant, was out of Gatwick, and it was during this period that London was being heavily bombed and we in the Defiants were sent up over London night after night. I recall vividly that the night of the really big fire of London, I happened to be airborne that night and I was being controlled by some control unit from the ground, who was getting most frustrated, as I was, because he kept telling me I was right alongside enemy aircraft, and neither I nor my gunner could see any enemy aircraft there, and during this whole time when I was airborne and I had many, many operational flights out of Gravesend, but I personally never saw a thing.’

David Hunt left his studies at Birmingham University to take a short service commission in the RAF, and during his training the war started. He has recalled that:

‘As the threat of invasion loomed closer, some of the single-engined pilots, having now acquired their wings, were posted direct to squadrons with no time left for operational training courses. I was posted to Hendon and no one appeared to know our purpose, least of all ourselves. It was an interesting time during the fall of the Low Countries, with Sabena and KLM Dakotas flying into that historic Hendon airfield. Parked around the perimeter track were these venerable Imperial Airways biplanes, Hengist and Horsa. We spent our time watching these arrivals and inspecting the ancient aeroplanes with their cane and bamboo “pomp-forming” splendour, redolent of Empire.

David Hunt

Eventually planes started arriving, brought in by Air Transport Auxiliary pilots, including some lady pilots – a Magister, two Masters and numerous Spitfire Mark 2s. We sat in the cockpits of the Spitfires, which felt as small as Tiger Moths, and wondered if we should ever be able to fly these sleek, powerful machines. Later we found that they handled as easily as Tiger Moths, with a few additional complications like flaps and retractable undercarriages and massive instrument panels.

Our spell in wonderland had to end sometime, and after the fall of France and Dunkirk the war-torn remnants of the Allied Air Striking Force Squadrons returned from France. It wasn’t long before we were flying, first the Magister, which is a light open-cockpit, club-style plane, then the Masters, real gentlemen’s planes, and at last the great day, the first flight in a Spitfire. This had to be at Northolt with its single long runway. Everything went well and it called for celebration.

During June all the Spitfires were removed by the ATA pilots and replaced with Hurricanes, because Spitfires were in short supply, and we grew to like the Hurricanes. Another thing happened in my life at this time: I got married and we managed a honeymoon of a few days down at Midhurst, Sussex.

On 14 July we were posted to Northolt where our training went on apace, including formation flying and air-to-air firing at Sutton Bridge with a target towed by a Hawker Henley. Air-to-ground firing was at Dengie Flats in East Anglia. One amusing experience was RT practice – that’s Radio Telephony. We were taken by coach to an Uxbridge football ground complete with stadium, where we pedalled around in low gear on El Dorado ice-cream tricycles which had been converted for blind flying with screens around and magnetic compasses and RT sets and headphones. We had to carry out the orders received over the RT to “fly” on various courses using the appropriate call signs and terms such as “Fly victor 120”, “angels 20” and “yellow through”, “pipsqueak in”, “scramble”, “pancake”, “tallyho”, “under bandits” – all that sort of thing.

In July 1940 operational flights were becoming an everyday occurrence with convoy patrols and interception of enemy sorties. The Squadron was operating from forward bases at Hawkinge near Dover and Tangmere near Portsmouth, as required, and intercepted small formations attacking the ports and radar installations. The Squadron was now at readiness from an hour before dawn until an hour after dusk for most of the time. The Squadron RT call sign was “Alert” and my section was Yellow section.

At this point I should say something about the Hurricane, powered by the Rolls Royce Merlin of a 1,030 brake horsepower. Its top speed at 15,000 feet was over 300 miles an hour, and the three-bladed propeller converted this power into thrust, and the aircraft ceiling was 30,000 feet. An optical gunsight projected an aiming ring and crosswires on to a glass screen behind the bullet-proof windscreen. She was armed with eight Browning 303 machine-guns with 2,660 rounds of ammunition, which could all be fired off in three or four short bursts of 4 seconds each. The pilot’s face-mask was plugged into oxygen and RT connections. After bonding and earthing was carried out by a radio expert, the RT was as good as the ordinary telephone. The cine camera-gun recorded the action when the guns were fired.

In early August the Squadron had the honour of escorting the Prime Minister on a tour of the East Coast Defences. Next day the Squadron left Northolt for its forward base at Tangmere; three sections were scrambled with a big contact over St Catherine’s Point. This was an attempt by the Jerries to put one radar station, our radar station, out of action. The raiders were driven off with losses to both sides; we lost our Flight Commander and two other pilots. The great German “Eagle” attack was due to start on 10 August, but was delayed by bad weather. This was aimed at destroying coastal fighter airfields and radar stations.

A few days later the Squadron returned to Tangmere, but before landing we were vectored to the Portsmouth area to repel a raid by 500 enemy aircraft. Our new Squadron Commander, Squadron Leader Harkness, led us straight in to drive off the big formations of Heinkel 111s, Dornier 17 Flying Pencils and a fighter cover of Messerschmitt 109s and 110s. The Squadron shot down several aircraft and we lost one pilot; another pilot lost a finger which had to be amputated.

We left Northolt for our new sector at Debden where the Station Commander, Wing Commander Fullergood, welcomed the Squadron and explained the characteristics of Sector F. After settling in at Debden the Squadron moved to its forward base at Martlesham Heath near Ipswich. Yellow section was scrambled early at 0622 hours on the southbound convoy escort patrol off the East Coast. It dawned a bright sunny day as usual that summer, and it wasn’t long before we saw a Dornier Flying Pencil sneaking in for an attack. Cockram yelled over the RT, “Bandit tallyho!” and roared into the attack, and we struggled to keep up with him and had the satisfaction to see the Dornier limping away after the attack, quite out of control with its undercarriage obviously damaged. As we tailed the plume of smoke we resisted the temptation to chase him out to sea and stayed with the convoy.

In the late afternoon the Squadron was scrambled and we intercepted a raid of German bombers and fighter escort proceeding up the Thames Estuary in box formation, also accompanied by top cover fighters several thousand feet above the main formation. It was an awesome feeling to realise that there was nothing between this large formation and the City of London except our little squadron. However, we stalked them steadily for a minute or two, keeping well ahead, until the time came and we just had to attack. As we closed in to attack, the bombers started to move into the sun and split up into smaller formations, jettisoning their bombs all over Kent and Sussex. At that moment the top cover came screaming down out of the sun, hotly pursued by Spitfires. All hell let loose in a series of dogfights all over the sky. A formation of Stukas decided to make a break for it, having shed their load; I helped them on their way with the occasional squirt from my guns as they gradually came into range. I must have caused some damage as one dropped out of formation. I closed in for a good stern attack. Smoke started to stream as he dived down steeply, dropping a few bits as he went. I turned back towards the main scrap but by that time the day was done, the battle over and the sun dipping in the sky.

The next day the Squadron received orders to fly to the forward aerodrome at Martlesham Heath and to stay there for several days using 17 Squadron’s ground staff. We carried out convoy patrols. Blue section intercepted an unidentified aircraft; after a few warning shots the aircraft, a friendly Blenheim, gave the correct identification signal for the day. More convoy patrols next day, and Green section flushed out a Dornier 17 which was stalking the convoy. He put up a spirited defence with his rear guns and did some damage to our lads. He disappeared into cloud trailing some smoke. On their next convoy patrol Green section had better luck and destroyed a Dornier 215.

Another day of intensive flying followed and we had the Squadron at readiness all day from dawn till dusk with continuous precautionary patrols and convoy duties. This state of affairs was to last until 26 August when Debden was bombed, killing three airmen of 257 Squadron and damaging hangars badly and many other buildings, including the Sergeants’ Mess.

The whole Squadron was scrambled at 0830 hours at the end of the month on 31 August. In the Clacton area at 18,000 feet a formation of 50 Messerschmitt 110s was attacked and they went into defensive circles, each plane covering the next one’s tail. I attacked one ring from the reverse direction in which they were turning, which must have put the fear of God up them, and me too. One of them dropped out of the formation, smoking from both engines, and made for the coast. I pursued him out to sea, past the Dengie Flats, filling him with some final bursts, and roared back to Martlesham in a power dive of 450 miles an hour plus. In these late stages of the battle there had been little contact with the rest of the Squadron. One of our pilots was killed and another one shot down in flames. At that stage the Jerries gave Debden another drubbing, but this time there weren’t any casualties.

After two days of patrols, the Squadron was scrambled from Martlesham with orders to orbit Chelmsford. On that day my aircraft had been taken into the workshop for maintenance. I had an earlier mark Hurricane with fabric-covered wings and non-self-sealing tanks, and when the scramble came over the field telephone she wouldn’t start. The whole Squadron took off and there I was still on the ground with a dead prop, but I was determined and 5 minutes later we had her going and I took off to join the Squadron. I’d only just closed with the formation when there was a terrific concussion with coloured lights flashing all around me. In a moment the fuel tanks and the cockpit became an inferno, but I knew I had to get out quick and I reached up to open my hood but it had jammed tight. I struggled and, putting my feet up on the instrument panel, chopped it open with an air axe and ripped off my safety harness and helmet and jumped. I should say that my father’s war effort was the production of this air axe and the ARP axe, and they were insulated to withstand a high voltage. One of them saved my life on that occasion.

I pulled the ripcord without delay and felt the satisfying jerk as the canopy opened. Everything went quiet, save for a gentle flutter from the parachute. The Squadron droned away into the distance. It took me about half an hour to come down. As I floated closer, I could hear cars, people shouting, “There he goes.” I came down in a Brigadier Brazier Craig’s garden in Stock near Chelmsford, narrowly missing a glasshouse of grapevines by bumping into a tree trunk on the way down. There I sat on the ground with sheets of skin hanging and flapping around me and all my sleeves and trouser legs burned off, just my rank stripes hanging limply from my wrists.

My plane had crashed into a railway embankment near Margaretting and was burning fiercely and ammunition was exploding. Onlookers held up my parachute to shield me from the bright sun – I couldn’t find a comfortable position to be in. Under my instructions they managed to remove my parachute harness and my Mae West lifejacket with the Croix de Guerre painted on it.

I was told an ambulance was on its way. I said, well, I couldn’t get under the anaesthetic quick enough. I must have had morphine. When the ambulance came they arrived in such a hurry that they knocked the gatepost down. By that time I was in the Brigadier’s living room on the sofa, offered brandy and all I wanted was water. I remembered no more until I woke up in a hospital bed after a cleaning-up operation. I was covered from head to foot with a dye called Kelly’s Blue. My arms were soaked for hours at a time in a saline solution to soften up the bandages. My wife, she spent almost all her time by my side, but I was pretty low and miserable.

After some weeks Archie McIndoe called in to see me and asked if I’d like a transfer to Queen Victoria Cottage Hospital. I placed myself in his hands and I was transferred and admitted to the Kindersley Ward under the care of Sister Hall. After a day or two I was moved out on to the balcony and joined by other charred pilots, Richard Hillary, Tony Tollemache, Geoff Page, Ian McPhail, Geoff Noble, Roy Lane and Smith Barry. We soon took over the ward, which had been geriatric.

Archie fitted me out with new nose and eyebrows, new eyelids, upper and lower, during which time I had plaster casts over my eyes and wandered about the ward on dead reckoning, reinforced by directions from all sides. I had Tiersch and pinch grafts and during the course of the operations it was also discovered that I had some cannon shell fragments in my right shoulder, which until then, when extracted, had not wanted to heal up. Archie’s new saline bath treatment helped to heal the third degree burns on my arms and legs and by Christmas 1940 I was allowed out, after much pleading to go home on leave. I must have been in and out of Queen Victoria Cottage Hospital for six months between ops, but I was fortunate compared to many.

Archie came to see me before the ops and showed me photographs of myself before the burns and said, “How would you like it?”

I replied, “That’s all right, but I might have the nose a bit bigger.”

Archie would do his rounds of the wards accompanied by his team and as soon as he entered the ward it was rather like a visit by Royalty. The general tone went up straight away accompanied by smiles and laughter; indeed it was as good as a tonic.

The Guinea Pig Club was started almost as a joke when one of the patients was heard to observe that we were being treated like guinea pigs to improve Archie’s technique. The reply came back smartly,“ Good name for a club, old boy.” This was the start of the club and Archie was the obvious choice for Chief Guinea Pig.’

The perspective of the air-gunner in fighter squadron aircraft in the battle is conveyed by James Walker, who joined the RNZAF and was seconded to the RAF. He arrived in Britain in May 1940 where he qualified as an air-gunner with the rank of Sergeant:

‘I was posted to City of London Auxiliary Squadron 600, which was stationed at Manston. I arrived there in the middle of an air raid and I witnessed combat between a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt 109, which the Spitfire got the better of, and the Messerschmitt 109 crashed in front of our eyes as we were driving along to the Station, so that was our baptism of fire, as it were. Arriving at 600 Squadron I was met and introduced and I was the only New Zealander there, which was quite a novelty to them, and I was treated rather well and everybody was very friendly. I had my first flight in a Bristol Blenheim, a training flight, and I think the second day or the third day there we really experienced the might of the German Air Force. We were having lunch in the Sergeants’ Mess when the bombing raid took place, which was so unexpected; we had no warning whatsoever, and I remember a concerted dive under the tables. The peacetime Warrant Officers, who at that time had rather looked down on us as jumped-up sergeants without any experience, they were all levelled to the same grade under these tables and it was quite amusing to see these Warrant Officers and us jumped-up sergeants in the same situation.