Last of the Few: The Battle of Britain in the Words of the Pilots Who Won It

By John C. Norcross

After the fall of France in May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk. Britain now stood alone to face Hitler’s inevitable invasion attempt. For the German army to land across the channel, Hitler needed mastery of the skiesthe Royal Air Force would have to be broken. So every day throughout the summer, German bombers pounded the RAF air bases in the southern counties. Greatly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, the pilots of RAF Fighter Command scrambled as many as five times a day, and civilians watched skies crisscrossed with the contrails from the constant dogfights between Spitfires and Me-109s. Britain’s very freedom depended on the outcome of that summer’s battle: Its air defenses were badly battered and nearly broken, but against all odds, The Few,” as they came to be known, bought Britain’s freedommany with their lives. More than a fifth of the British and Allied pilots died during the Battle of Britain.

These are the personal accounts of the pilots who fought and survived that battle. Their stories are as riveting, as vivid, and as poignant as they were seventy years ago. We will not see their like again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Release date: Aug 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781628730463

John C. Norcross

Max Arthur is Britain's foremost oral historian, with over 10 books to his name, including the bestselling The Last Post and Forgotten Voices of the Second World War. He lives in London.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

During the First World War the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) had proved the value of air reconnaissance and bombing raids over the battlefields of France and Belgium – and in return, cities in Britain had come under air attack from German Zeppelin airships. The future of warfare had been changed for ever.

The aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF) – officially named as such on 1 April 1918 – were unsophisticated biplanes. Clearly, the aircraft deployed in any future conflict would be very different machines, but in the years after the Great War, aircraft development was slow. The Treaty of Versailles which dictated the terms of peace had effectively prevented Germany from developing any armed strength and the Allies retired to recover from their devastating losses. Sir Hugh Trenchard, a former pilot, became marshal of the new RAF, and it was his vision that shaped the role of the aeroplane in future conflict. He saw aircraft as an offensive tool, taking the war to the heart of enemy territory with bombing raids against communications, production and transport centres – so he ordered increased production of bombers. Fighters, he felt, were a sideshow – a presence to boost the morale of the populace as they came under air attack. As politician Stanley Baldwin declared in 1932, ‘The bomber will always get through.’

It was therefore fortuitous that Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, Air Member for Research and Development, saw the need for new, faster and more manoeuvrable fighter aircraft and plenty of them. Certainly bomber production should continue, but fighters would be vital to take on incoming bombers and allow their own bomber force to fight on. He insisted that resources be dedicated to developing new fighter aircraft.

While Germany was still obeying the embargo on building military might the need for increased aircraft production in Britain was not deemed to be of paramount importance, but in 1933 Hitler’s Nazi Party came to power in Germany. The build-up of German military power began – at first covertly, and then with no attempt at concealment – and the German threat was a reality. The new German air force – the Luftwaffe – was to be equipped with the best aircraft, and in 1935 Hitler commissioned the Messerschmitt 109 fighter. In the meantime, in Britain, in November of the same year, the Hawker Hurricane with its Rolls-Royce Merlin engine made its first flight – but at full speed it was still 30 mph slower than the Me 109.

The other British fighter innovation first took to the air in March 1936 – Reginald Mitchell’s Supermarine Spitfire. At last there was a fighter to challenge the Me 109, and in 1938 first Hurricanes, and then eight months later Spitfires, started to be delivered to the squadrons.

All this would still be no defence against a determined invasion attempt – Dowding knew that he would need to put in place an advance warning system which would allow his fighters time to take off, gain the height they needed for effective attacks and confront the enemy before the bombers could drop their loads. This new detection system, radar, was developed and twenty-two ‘Chain Home’ stations were built along the south coast, with thirty lesser ‘Chain Home Low’ stations in support – and this, with the new Hurricane and Spitfire fighters, would be the technology on which Dowding would base his defence of Britain against invasion.

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A Sergeant Pilot sits for a moment, reflecting.

1

Learning to Fly and Joining Up

Flying was new, exciting, inspiring – and following the First World War a generation of boys was growing up with pilots as their role models and heroes. For many, born among the more affluent classes, flying was the ultimate goal – and one which could be achieved by joining flying clubs or the new Auxiliary Air Force. The AAF squadrons were created to reinforce local squadrons and the sons of the wellto-do could learn to fly for pleasure. On the other hand, there was the RAF Volunteer Reserve, created in 1936 to support the regular air force. The volunteers, aged eighteen to twenty-five, were paid a retainer of £25 a year and trained at weekends – and once trained could be drafted to any squadron where they were needed.

As Hitler flexed his military muscles by invading Czechoslovakia in 1938, it became apparent that war was inevitable, sooner or later, and under Air Marshal Dowding’s orders, aircraft production was stepped up and recruitment became paramount. And with the invasion of Czechoslovakia, then Poland, a new source of pilots emerged. Trained flyers from both countries abandoned their homelands and made their way, some by long and tortuous means, to Britain, where they would form the backbone of new squadrons – and having seen what suffering and loss Hitler’s forces had inflicted on their homelands, they arrived burning with the desire to strike back and to wreak revenge on their invaders.

Dowding was adamant that the air force needed a new breed of fighter aircraft, but the powers that be, seemed to expect him to wage any future war using cumbersome, outdated Defiants. Although based on the same Rolls-Royce Merlin engine which powered the Hurricane and Spitfire, the Defiant was a two-man plane – the second man being an air gunner. There were no forwardfiring armaments and the extra weight made the Defiant painfully slow and no match for the Luftwaffe’s new Messerchmitt 109s. Dowding would not let the matter rest, and insisted stubbornly on proper investment in the RAF’s fighter force – so making himself very unpopular with the Air Staff and at the Air Ministry.

One man supported Dowding – Air Commodore Keith Park, who was promoted to Senior Air Staff Officer in July 1938. Under their supervision regular RAF, Auxiliary Air Force and Volunteer Reservists were recruited and trained, as the pair of them took on the RAF establishment and stuck doggedly to their plan for the defence of Britain.

Pilot Officer Tim Vigors

222 SQUADRON

In 1929 I was sent to join my older brother at Beaudesert Park Preparatory School near Stroud. Throughout the first week I had not made any close contacts with my fellow pupils. Wallowing in my personal misery, I had refrained from trying to make friends, and now found myself too shy to intrude on any of the groups. Sadly I wandered across the field and sat down by myself under a tree. It was then that I spotted a lean dark-haired boy of about my own age, playing with a model aeroplane.

I watched with only a vague interest as the boy launched his flimsy wooden and canvas contraption into the air. Its propeller was driven by a large elastic band and once aloft it could achieve about twenty yards of powered flight before the band had fully unwound and it glided, powerless, to the grass. On the first couple of attempts its wing tip hit the ground first and it cartwheeled to a stop. But the third time the boy made some minor adjustment to the tail and when the propeller stopped, it glided to a perfect landing.

‘Did you ever see a smoother landing than that?’ the boy said, turning to me. The next time he flew the aircraft he allowed me to pick it up. As I held it, I felt an unaccountable shiver run through me. I could suddenly imagine myself sitting behind those wings and soaring into the sky.

I told him I was Tim Vigors and he told me he was Henry Maudsley, and new to the school. I said I was new too – and said how I hated it.

‘Oh, it’s not so bad, particularly if you have a friend.’

So started one of the closest friendships of my life. We shared an interest in aeroplanes which was to absorb us both for the next nine years and one that on a dark night over Germany in 1943, after the Dams raid, was to kill Henry – and one that so often nearly killed me too.

During my teenage years my thoughts were constantly on aeroplanes. My godmother, Pamela Wills, asked me to come and stay with her for a few days. Pamela had just learned to fly and was the proud owner of a de Havilland Hornet Moth. She knew of my interest in aeroplanes and suggested that I go flying with her each day during my visit.

Pamela met me at the Bristol airfield. Here she kept her own aircraft, so we loaded my suitcase into her Rolls Bentley and drove straight to the hangar where the Hornet Moth was housed. With the assistance of a mechanic we pushed the little aircraft out on to the tarmac and climbed in. The little cabin biplane was fitted with dual controls, and as I took my seat beside her, Pamela told me to be careful to keep my hands and feet away from the joystick and the rudder pedals. She then gave a signal and the mechanic swung the propeller and, at the second attempt, the engine roared into life. We taxied on to the grass field. Pamela looked over her shoulder to see that no other aircraft were in sight or landing, asked me if I was all right and strapped in, then opened the throttle. Off we sped across the airfield, running and bumping, and after some 300 yards Pamela pulled back on the stick and we were airborne.

We climbed out to the west of the field and when we had reached about 2,000 feet, levelled off and turned out over the Severn Estuary. We flew around for about five minutes and then Pamela turned to me and shouted to me to take the controls.

From reading books on aeroplanes I knew all about aircraft controls, but this was the very first time I had actually touched them. Gingerly I took the stick in my right hand and reached out with my left for the centrally situated throttle. Carefully I placed my feet on the rudder bars. I felt the nose going down and eased back on the stick. Of course, I overcorrected and the next thing I knew was that the nose was going up in the air and the right wing was dropping. I lifted it up quickly by pushing the stick to the left, but immediately found myself in a shallow left-hand dive. I glanced anxiously at Pamela, but she was smiling at my efforts and looking remarkably relaxed. Gradually I got the little aircraft back on to a level course and determinedly kept it there for at least two minutes.

I was beginning to get the hang of it when Pamela shouted at me that we must head back for the airfield or we’d be late for our dinner. Reluctantly I relinquished the controls. Pamela turned the aircraft back towards the airfield and, joining the circuit on the downwind leg, smoothly eased the Hornet into a left-hand turn and, losing height all the time, was soon on her final approach.

The next thing I knew we were bumping over the grass as she touched down in a reasonable three-point landing. I was ecstatic. At last I had actually flown an aircraft by myself.

For the next two days we flew for at least an hour each morning. I started to get a feel for what I was doing and by the end of the second day was completely confident of being able to control the aircraft climbing, diving and turning in the air. At the end of each flight my kind godmother allowed me to keep my hands on the controls while she landed and so, while I could not say that I had actually got the aircraft back on the ground by myself, I felt confident that should the necessity arise, I would be able to do so without undue damage to the undercarriage.

Something had happened to me which had made me different from my friends. I, Tim, had actually piloted an aircraft. I tried to while away the time which lay between the present and the moment I could join the RAF. My future was sealed.

Flight Lieutenant Johnny Kent

(CANADIAN) 303 AND 92 SQUADRONS

I was one whom the flying bug had bitten badly, long before Lindbergh’s flight, and I was determined to learn to fly. I read everything I could find about my heroes of aviation – such men as Barker, Bishop, MacLeod, Mannock and McCudden. I suppose, like many others, I was most thrilled by the tales of the great fighter aces, but I never supposed that there would ever be a war which would allow me to take part in similar battles.

As a treat on my fifteenth birthday my father took me out to the Flying Club and I had my first flight. The pilot kindly showed me over the Gipsy Moth which the club had only recently obtained and then, thrill of thrills, I was put into the front cockpit, told what not to touch, and away we went for a most glorious half-hour over the city. I can still recall the terrific exhilaration that I felt and my surprise when I had no sensation of height. When we returned and landed my father saw from the expression on my face as I waved to him that there was no doubt about it – I had to fly.

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Flight Lieutenant Johnny Kent, a Canadian pilot of 303 Squadron.

I was terribly keen to fly with the RCAF but when I found that this entailed undergoing a six-year university course, I decided, reluctantly, that such a career was not for me. There was, it turned out, only one possible way and that was for my long-suffering father to dig into his not-too-well-lined pocket and pay up. This he finally agreed to, on condition that I waited until I was seventeen and passed my Senior Matriculation examinations. Naturally I agreed most readily to these terms, but as time went on, I found it increasingly difficult to concentrate upon my studies.

Finally arrangements were made for me to start my flying lessons at the Winnipeg Flying Club under the tuition of Konrad or ‘Konnie’, as he was always called, Johannesson, a Canadian of Icelandic parentage who had served in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force in the First World War.

I worked steadily towards obtaining my Commercial Licence although I was still below the minimum age. It was an expensive business, building up the required number of flying hours and, like others, I was always on the lookout for some means of getting cheap flying. The sad fact was that the great economic ‘boom’ was over and we were now floundering in the awful ‘Depression’ of the Thirties.

In my constant lookout for a flying job I had, towards the end of 1933, come across an advertisement in the British publication The Aeroplane offering short service commissions of six years’ duration in the Royal Air Force. I had made, along with several others, an application to be considered for such a commission, and in January 1934 I received a letter telling me to report to Fort Osborne just outside Winnipeg for a medical examination and an interview with the Brigadier Commanding. I duly attended and was both medically examined and interviewed – but nothing happened for a month or so, when I was again instructed to report for another medical examination. This happened four times and I got so fed up I wrote and asked for my papers to be returned and advised the authorities that I wished to withdraw my application. Back came a letter advising me that I had been selected as a candidate for a short service commission and that I was to make my own way to London and report to the Air Ministry not later than the beginning of March 1935. In February I said my sad farewells and set off for England and, I hoped, a career in the Royal Air Force.

After two weeks of square bashing, lectures and indoctrination, I was sent to No. 5 Flying Training School at Sealand near Chester. Initially the instructors and staff pilots flew us around the county in the Atlas and dual-controlled Bulldogs so that we could get used to the various landmarks, but after two weeks we started our proper training programme, which pleased me very much, as I found the Tutor such a delightful and easy aircraft to fly. After the official minimum of three hours’ dual, I was sent solo.

Towards the end of the term various competitions were held and I was fortunate to win the forced landing silver cup – the only cup I have ever won. At the end of the term I was gratified to find that I was the only pupil assessed as ‘Exceptional’ as a pilot.

About this time the upsurge of militarism in Germany following the seizure of power by the Nazi Party brought to the Prime Minister, Mr Baldwin, the truth of his own words that our frontier was indeed on the Rhine. This and the knowledge that Germany was rapidly building up a modern air force convinced him of the need for a great increase in Britain’s air power; the machinery was set in motion to implement the planned expansion of the Royal Air Force.

Flight Lieutenant Tom Morgan

43 SQUADRON

In less than nine months after I had turned eighteen, the air force told me I’d been accepted; I was interviewed and cleared the medical, then they wrote to me and said that I wouldn’t be called forward for about seven months. We were living just outside Penarth in South Wales so I borrowed my brother’s bike, and I went to Cardiff Aeroplane Club and saw the chief ground engineer. I asked him if I could come into the hangar and familiarise myself with the aircraft – but I wasn’t expecting to be paid. He had one licensed aircraft maintenance engineer – a very good chap – and that’s where I started flying. I learned to hand-start the Gipsy Moths and the Tiger Moths, and Flying Officer Pope, the flying instructor, took me up. He showed me the effects of controls and over a few flights he showed me how to approach the landing and take off – so anyhow I could fly before I joined the air force.

Sergeant Pilot Iain Hutchinson

222 SQUADRON

I had a friend, Alec Green, who started flying at the Scottish Flying Club at the airport, and he took me up once or twice – and the bug bit, and I felt I really wanted to fly. I took a course and I started flying in May 1938. Then I realised that His Majesty provided a much better flying club, with more powerful aircraft, and so I applied to join the RAFVR. We flew at Prestwick about every second or third weekend, initially in Tiger Moths, and then we graduated to Hawker Hawks and Hinds, which was the first operational biplane that I flew – and I got my wings there.

The Volunteer Reserve was formed to complement the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. The Air Ministry wanted a more flexible reserve of pilots and navigators, and whereas the RAF was organised in squadrons, we were organised into town units. We were part of the City of Glasgow unit, but we were free to be posted to anywhere – as indeed we were when war broke out.

I expected to be called up when I was needed, but actually I wanted to fly the whole time, and I made a tactical error in going into the Volunteer Reserve. If I’d applied for a short service commission, I would probably have been able to do that.

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Flight Lieutenant Peter Brothers, 32 and 257 Squadrons.

Flight Lieutenant Peter Brothers

32 AND 257 SQUADRONS

I learned to fly as a schoolboy, but my father hoped I would settle down and join his business. As soon as I was seventeen and a half, however, I pissed off and got a short service commission in the air force. That was in January 1936, and I was sent to Uxbridge first, for ground training, getting kitted out and so on.

At Uxbridge there was this splendid First World War pilot, Ira Taffy Jones, who stuttered terribly. One day he stood up and said, ‘There is going to be a b-b-bloody wa-wa-war and you ch-chaps are going to be in it. I’ll give you one piece of advice – wh-whwhen you fir-first get into a co-combat, you will be fu-fu-fucking fr-frightened. Ne-never forget the ch-chap in the other cock-cockpit is tw-twice as fu-fucking fr-frightened as you are.’

I reckon he saved my life with that piece of advice. In my first combat over France, I suddenly thought, My God, the chap in that other cockpit must be having hysterics, and shot him down. But I give all credit to Taffy.

I was posted to Biggin Hill in the autumn, and I operated there, flying Gloster Gauntlets and doing practice interceptions on civil aircraft. We were the first station to have an ops room. It was all chalk blackboards in those days, and one aircraft had a clock on the transmitter which transmitted for fifteen seconds every minute, so that the radio stations could get a DF (Direction Finding) bearing on you. Meanwhile, the radar was also checking on that, so we had a dual-fixing situation. The idea was to see how close the interception worked out on the incoming aircraft. The radar would plot incoming aircraft to Croydon, for example, and we’d go off to intercept them somewhere over the Channel or East Kent. We’d just fly past and report how close we’d been and when we first sighted them. That was very interesting and amusing, because the Station Commander would give you a course to steer, vector so-and-so, and off you went. Then you’d hear him over the radio, saying, ‘Vector . . . How the hell can I see the blackboard with your fat bottom in the way?’

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Pilot Officer Ludwik Martel, 3 Regiment Polish Air Force.

The Gloster Gauntlets were biplanes, single-engine, single-seater aircraft. Very cold, with an open cockpit. In 1938 we converted to Hurricanes, and carried on doing the same sort of thing, plus gunnery practice. I never really bothered to think that we’d actually face an enemy. It was like being in a glorious, but expert flying club.

During 1938 Winston Churchill occasionally used to come into the mess at Biggin Hill, on his way home to Chartwell. The door would open just before six o’clock, and he’d come in. We’d say, ‘Good evening, sir,’ and he’d say, ‘Would you mind turning on the radio, so that I can hear the six o’clock news?’ Sometimes he’d have a glass of sherry, and then he’d ask us about our Supermarine Spitfires, whether we were content with them, and that sort of thing. He’d spend a few minutes with us, then he’d get on his way home. But we never told him that we were actually flying Hawker Hurricanes.

Pilot Officer Ludwik Martel

3 REGIMENT POLISH AIR FORCE

I went to technical college to go into the textile industry, and finished my education when I was nineteen. We had a professor in charge of physics and he was very interested in flying, and encouraged us to be interested too.

In 1936 I did a course in gliding – and that’s where I fell in love with flying. Gliding was a very pleasant exercise. I did my course and was determined to continue flying afterwards. This was my vocation in 1936, and the next year I volunteered and went on a course to learn to fly. In Poland there was a system that all the young people who were willing and fit to fly were given a chance. We lived in a camp at the airfield. I volunteered to go and do my military service the next year.

The first plane I flew was a Polish construction called a Bartel. It was very exciting and very demanding – after gliding you find out that you have to concentrate when flying. It’s quite a serious occupation – very pleasant – but you have to concentrate. I was very happy with it and in ’38 I did my one year’s National Service.

National Service was very demanding – before you were transferred to the air force, they sent you for one month to the army – which was very unpleasant. The people who were meant to train you as a soldier were not very nice, so people were rather jealous of those who were not staying in the army but going to the air force and there were some rude remarks.

I was with 3 Regiment in Posnan, then I went back home and back into civilian life. At Posnan we saw the German aircraft overflying us and people said this was very unusual, so we knew something was going on. I tried to get a job and wasn’t very successful at first, then the time came at the end of 1938 that I got my call-up to join the Regiment again.

I flew