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THE IDEA occurred to me one morning over a cup of coffee. My squadron had just returned from a sortie involving a spot of bother with a large number of Huns, and we pilot boys were taking it easy. General conversation was going on about what was to be done when the war had finished and there were no vacuum cleaners to be sold. Someone or other had decided to take a dozen battlescarred Spitfires over to America complete with war veteran pilots to give displays of aerobatics and fake combat over various parts of the States.

I remember thinking it a good idea. Then the idea of this book sprang to life. I had always been interested in journalism, and for some unknown reason thought that I would be some use at the game. I knew that after the last war thousands of books had been published on life in the trenches, aerial combat, naval actions, etc. But why wait until after the war? People would be so much more enthralled to read first-hand about events that were going on all round at the time of reading. Even more so if the book was written jointly by a few of “the few” who were still living through all these immense happenings.

And we got to work. We began in November, 1940, and here, after many months of trial and error, is the result, by ten pilots, most of whom have seen action in the Battle of Britain, and later, in the Battle of France.

Three of the original authors are now dead – killed in action. A number of other pilots started to write about their flying experiences with us, but they were killed before their work had assumed sufficient proportions for inclusion in the book. But of the ten pilots whose work you are about to read, seven are still alive at the time of writing. God only knows how many will see the war through.

The original idea was that all the pilots in the squadron should write a few thousand words about their experiences in flying and combat. Each pilot would in this way write a complete chapter of the book.

No effort has been made to alter the phraseology. What you are about to read is as pilots would and did express themselves. The language is not always drawing-room. One doesn’t think in terms of drawing-rooms when one is 30,000 feet above the earth, turning and twisting to avoid a hail of lead and explosives. Raw, primitive, the instinct of self-preservation always to the foreground – that is how one’s mind works under those conditions, and in that manner this book is written.

I will give you a brief outline of the squadron concerned, and then of the pilots who are mentioned in the book.

The squadron was formed in the last war, and after disbandment re-formed in 1936. It was the original Spitfire Squadron, and carried out all the necessary squadron tests on that most loved of all aircraft.

The outbreak of war found it in East Anglia, and it moved nearer the coast just before Dunkirk. It fought over Rotterdam, The Hague, Dunkirk, and moved into the front line of London at the end of August, 1940.

Since then, it has done its quota over the Atlantic, over the North Sea, France, Belgium and Holland. I think it’s the best squadron in the Air Force, but then I’m prejudiced.

The members of the squadron were a truly motley throng, consisting of young men from every walk of life. Regular Air Force officers, sergeant-pilots who had, in peace-time, been dockhands, clerks, motor-mechanics; there was even an ex-dirt-track motor-cycle expert with us. Every conceivable type was represented.

I will now introduce you to the lads who wrote the book. Bob is a tallish, good-looking, fair-headed bloke, with a typical schoolboy complexion, liable to blush every now and then. He joined the squadron at the time when it was re-equipping with Spitfires. He can take his beer like a man, comes from the North and has a very typical Yorkshire outlook. A little shy, he may appear off-hand at first, but having broken down his barriers of reserve, you would find a lovable, gay, carefree youth of twenty-two years. He won his D.F.C. in October, 1940, for shooting down Huns. His father, funnily enough, served in the same squadron in the last war and won the M.C. and bar. We all hope that Bob will also get his bar.

Dizzy is a different kettle of fish who took longer to get his D.F.C., as might be expected from his character. Medium stocky build, he likes to call the colour of his hair titian or auburn – actually it’s red. He has just a touch of the old school-tie about him. He behaves as his name implies, being the life and soul of the party in his more convivial moments. In the air he is very cautious, and always behind before looking ahead.

He was most annoyed when someone cut his tail off one day and he had to bale-out. The air around his parachute was blue, but on receiving a very liberal amount of whisky at the local where he conveniently landed, his feelings were somewhat modified.

Bogle was a real character. Imagine a particularly husky “dead-end kid,” and you have Bogle. Being a strong individualist he is decidedly unconventional in appearance, usually wearing a uniform which, to say the least of it, would not pass muster on a ceremonial parade, with a colourful scarf round his neck and a large sheath-knife in his boot.

His language is foul, but he possesses more character than any one I can remember. Honest as the day, he is absolutely straight, and he never did any one a bad turn – with the possible exception of a number of Huns. He very soon got his D.F.C., and appears to prefer flying on his back to the right way up. A truly magnificent pilot.

Durex is young and noisy. The clown of the squadron, he can imitate every noise conceivable, from an underground train pulling out of a station to the ricochetting of a rifle bullet. Something had to happen before he would shut up – a little Durex went a long way. On his first operational sortie he shot down an ME. 109; on each of his next three sorties he was shot up himself.

Pickle is a funny little fellow. He’s thin and long-legged and looks half-starved, but he eats more than any one else in the squadron. His hair is all over the place; I don’t think even glue would keep it down, especially that funny little tuft slap in the middle. An amateur runner in peace-time, he walks twice as fast as any one else and leans forward as if he were pushing against a head-wind. You’d never think he could run a yard without breaking his legs, but if you try to catch him you’ll soon find out your mistake. He is completely hare-brained; talks fast and incoherently. In an aeroplane he flies faster and lower than any one I know. If Pickle is beating you up, you have to be on your belly to avoid him.

Half a pint of beer and Pickle is “well away”; a pint, and he goes to sleep in a corner.

Max was with us all too short a time before he was killed in a Channel dog-fight. He was a tremendously strong youth and an amateur boxer – a good fellow to have in a rough-house – and tougher than they make most of us. Shy, diffident, he had a good brain. When he just did not come back we felt his loss keenly.

Duggie was a flight-sergeant and had done a hell of a lot of flying. He was shot down, and baled out over Dunkirk, but he managed to get back in a boat. He has a very droll manner and a terrific scheme about a revolution after the war, so that the whole of the country can be governed by pilots – perhaps it is not such a bad idea either.

Parsons is now, alas, missing, believed killed over Holland. A first-class man, he realised a long ambition when he flew his first Spitfire, as he had been helping to make them at Vickers’ for many years before the war. Short and tubby, he was a little old at twenty-six to be a fighter-pilot, but he was just up for a D.F.M. when he was lost.

Binder Corbin finishes the list. Always moaning – usually about leave – he was the image of George Formby except that he was born in Kent and proud of it.

Thee average age of those boys was twenty-one years. At twenty-one they had seen more of Heaven and Earth – especially Heaven – than most people dream of at sixty.

A funny thing about our game is the suddenness with which things happen. I remember once going on patrol when I hadn’t seen a Hun for about four months, and then, incidentally, I only saw that one after my aeroplane had been hit by forty of his bullets, one of which went through my starboard arm. I had as my number two a raw sergeant-pilot, full of dash, absolutely fearless and with no idea about how to shoot down Huns. We were stooging along sixty miles out to sea after a so-called enemy aircraft, when I suddenly saw a few spots in the distance. On closer examination, they proved to be three Heinkels escorted by half a dozen ME.s. My first instinct was to bolt, but I went on. After a hell of a scrap, we got two ME. 109’s and the rest of the party retired in disorder.

That occurred after a lull of some months, and it was, incidentally, the only action fought around our coasts on that day. I had no idea when I took off that there was anything doing or that I would so much as smell a Hun. It’s just the luck of the game.

Another thing about fighting that the land-lubber may not appreciate is the business of windscreens and hoods getting frozen over. At altitude, hoar-frost always appears on the cockpit hoods owing to the intense cold, and whenever we have to lose height rapidly, the inside of the windscreen becomes covered in ice. It’s impossible to see forward or upwards under these conditions and it’s mighty unpleasant, for as fast as you wipe the stuff off, it ices up again. Once I had taken a dive at a Hun, a JU. 87 it was, and my windscreen iced up. I couldn’t sight him through the windscreen so I had to make a rough guess through the perspex at the side of the windscreen. Funnily enough he blew up, but I expect that many a good Nazi has got away with his life because the other fellow couldn’t see him on account of ice.

I wonder if any non-flying people realise the importance of keen sight in this fighting racket? Very few, I expect. Pickle had extraordinarily good sight, and he would sometimes say that there were some Huns above us which I could not see until I’d gazed up for about five minutes. The Poles usually have exceptionally good eyesight, as have most of our fighter-aces. After all, you can’t shoot an aeroplane down until you see it, and with three dimensions to look around in there’s quite a bit of sky which needs to be scanned.

Another bit of inside information is the never-ending argument which wages between pilots who like aerobatics and those who don’t. The former school of thought – to which your humble servant subscribes – maintains that aerobatics are good for the soul and are completely essential to a successful fighter-pilot. The latter – sometimes called dead-beat school – will assure you that aerobatics are bad for the aeroplanes, and for the instruments, and are completely non-essential in the shooting down of a Hun. They may be perfectly correct, but we (and by we I speak for the school of aerobatic thought) consider that a man cannot be master of his aeroplane until he has done everything humanly possible with it. And further, that until a man is complete master of his aeroplane, he has no right to charge about the sky, as he constitutes a menace to friend and foe alike. We agree that a dog-fight with a Hun very rarely entails a considered aerobatic movement as an evasive action. In fact, the more ham-fisted the movement, the better its effect.

I have often seen aircraft firing whilst on their backs when in the middle of an almighty scrap, and I’m sure that it is not possible to sight accurately whilst on your back unless you have practised flying in this manner time and time again. I remember an ME. 109 giving me what I presumed to be an unintentional aerobatic display one fine day in 1940. It happened that I heard the rattle of guns behind me and took very violent evasive action. As I did so, an ME. 109 flashed past me, pulled up in front, and performed a complete flick roll before shooting earthwards. What he had obviously intended to do on overshooting me was to flick over and spin down, but being a little ham, he overdid the manœuvre and came out the right way up. I was so enthralled by the picture that I forgot to fire until he was on his way earthwards.

When trying to recall to memory events of this nature, it’s surprising how the little things stand out in the mind. The ME. I was just telling you about had a huge red nose, and to this day, if I close my eyes and think about the action, I can distinctly see in my mind’s eye that red nose flashing past me.

Another funny thing about combat is the vague and jumbled picture that one gets immediately afterwards. I can only remember having seen the black crosses on a German machine on two occasions. I think one knows instinctively when an aeroplane is hostile. On one occasion I had beaten up a 109, and his engine was stopped. I yelled out jubilantly over the Radio Telephony, “I’ve just got a 109.” Yet on landing, the only clear recollection I had of the action was of seeing the other fellow’s parachute going down.

I expect most people wonder what it must be like to have to bale-out. I used to wonder also, until one day when I had a collision in the air. I didn’t know the full extent of the damage to my aeroplane, all I knew was that I’d got no airscrew, and the other fellow’s tail-plane had knocked my windscreen off. I was at 6,000 feet, which isn’t too high, and I had to make a horrible decision – to bale-out or try and force-land. The latter would entail the risk of the aircraft falling to pieces on me, whilst I didn’t like to think of the former. The thing which decided me was the fact that I’d instinctively loosened all my straps and tubes and I couldn’t risk a crash-landing unless I was tightly strapped in. So over the side I went, with my hand on the rip-cord. I honestly don’t remember falling or pulling the rip-cord, or even letting it go, but my next impression is one of a deathly silence and a huge canopy above me. I seemed to be stationary ’twixt Heaven and Earth. I finally landed up a tree, hanging twenty feet from the ground. When I scrambled down the trunk, the Home Guard were all for shooting me. I managed to convince them of my identity, however, before they took that step, and went to a nearby house where I was treated to a distinctly large whisky with a touch of soda.

What glorious days those were: blue English skies, with always the chance of seeing a Hun. Knowing that your country depended on you, that every one’s prayers and hopes were with you; the excitement of the chase; the exhilaration of seeing your opponent going down in flames, whilst at the same time knowing that your chances were equal. The trip home at unprecedented speeds; your base; the final beat-up with the inevitable upward Charlie or victory roll. And then your fitter’s jubilance at your success; a cup of steaming-hot tea, and after that, who knows?

On that note I will leave you to read the true stories of a few fighter-pilots.

H.A.