The Aces

Edward 'Cobber' Kain DFC

The term 'Ace' in it's aerial context first came into usage during the earliest days of air combat, during the First World War when the French pilot Adolphe Pegaud was given the term 'l'as' (French for Ace) by the French press after he had shot down five German aircraft. Since then, the term has remained in use for any pilot who has achieved five or more victories. During the Great War, every side had it's Aces - Baron von Richthofen being the highest scoring with eighty victories, and arguably becoming the most well known fighter Ace of all time in the process before he was shot down and killed in 1918. On the Allied side, aces such as Frenchman Rene Fonck, the Canadian Billy Bishop and the British Ace Mick Mannock all became household names.

By the time of the Second World War, attitudes in the RAF towards Aces had changed somewhat. Whilst the Luftwaffe deliberately set out to create warrior-heroes in accordance with the knightly ethos encouraged by Dr Goebbels and his Nazi cronies, the RAF despite it's class consciousness then prevalent throughout the British armed forces, refused to officially recognise aces. Eventually, during the Battle of Britain, the RAF was reluctantly forced to co-operate with the media interest generated by the new generation of Aces amongst 'The Few.'

In this short piece, we shall concentrate on the RAF aces if for no other reason than one of space and even here we can only scratch the surface. The first RAF pilot in the Second World War to achieve five 'kills' was actually a New Zealander, Edward James Kain, known as 'Cobber' who scored his first victory as early as the 8th November 1939 over France and by March 1940 had acheived his fifth victory. During the Battle for France in May 1940, Kain achieved a further five victories and by 5th June 1940, he was the RAF's highest scoring fighter pilot with sixteen confirmed kills. The next day, he was informed that his squadron would be returning to England and on the 7th June, he left the airfield at Echemines to fly to Le Mans to collect personal belongings prior to flying across the Channel. As Kain took off, he undertook some low-level aerobatics to bid farewell to his squadron colleagues, misjudged a flick roll and ploughed his Hurricane into the ground. So it was that the RAF's first Ace met his end, not at the hands of the enemy but due to a flying accident.

Josef Frantisek DFM*

The Battle of Britain produced a glut of Aces, all of whom were seized upon by the British press. Some like Tuck, Malan (studied here in October 2010 http://blitzwalkers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/different-adolph.html), Bader and Lacey quickly became household names and are still remembered to this day. Once again though, the first RAF pilot to achieve Ace status during the Battle of Britain was not British but on this occasion was a Czech flying as part of the Polish contingent of the RAF, Josef Frantisek. Frantisek had escaped to Poland during the German invasion of his homeland in 1938. When Poland was in turn attacked, Frantisek's squadron had been ordered to Romania and internment and extracating himself from the camp in which he was being held, Frantisek managed to reach France via North Africa in October 1939. Once in France, he elected to remain with the Poles and consumed by a fierce and understandable hatred for the Nazis, began what was in effect a private war against the Third Reich. 

Upon the fall of France, Frantisek reached England and became part of 303 (Polish) Squadron flying Hurricanes based at RAF Northolt. It has to be said that Frantisek was an extremely ill-disciplined pilot and the British squadron commander of 303 began to make arrangements to transfer him to a Czech squadron. Frantisek preferred to stay with his Polish colleagues and because of the desperate shortage of pilots, it was agreed to accommodate him as a 'guest' pilot flying a spare Hurricane. Once 303 Squadron took off, Frantisek would break formation and act alone pouncing on any unsuspecting Luftwaffe aircraft. Using these tactics, by early October 1940 Frantisek had accounted for seventeen German aircraft, in addition to those he shot down whilst attached to the French Armee de l'Air, which he claimed as a further eleven. However, like Kain, Frantisek's demise would come not at the hands of the Luftwaffe but as a result of a flying accident. On 8th October 1940, Frantisek's Hurricane crashed in Ewell, Surrey whilst on approach to land in circumstances that have never been fully explained. Some accounts state that he misjudged an aerobatic maneouvre whilst trying to impress his girlfriend, whilst others state that he simply made a critical error as a result of fatigue following what for him, had already been a long war.

Another New Zealand Ace was Brian Carbury and in common with one other pilot, the Pole Anton Glowacki, he became an Ace in one day, shooting down five German aircraft on 31st August 1940 on his way to a final score of fifteen and a half kills by the end of the year. Carbury was to survive the war but was to be dismissed from the RAF in disgrace in October 1941, having been found guilty at a Court-Marshal of having passed a large number of false cheques, at that time an offence punishable by prison sentence. So ended the career of another ace, albeit in bizarre circumstances.

Bob Stanford-Tuck DSO DFC**

Just to prove that some of the RAF's Aces were British, let us take a look at two of Fighter Command's home-grown talents. Robert Stanford-Tuck was born in 1916 of Jewish parents in Catford, southeast London and after a brief career as an Officer Cadet in the Merchant Navy, joined the RAF in 1935. After completing his flying training, in which he was graded 'above average', Tuck was posted to 65 Squadron at Tangmere, at first flying Gloster Gladiator biplanes but a squadron which was lucky enough to be one of the first to convert to Spitfires in December 1938. Tuck was chosen from his squadron to go to RAF Duxford and receive one-on-one tuition from Jeffrey Quill, senior Test Pilot of Vickers (Supermarine) in order that he could acquaint his squadron colleagues with the then revolutionary new fighter. As one of the RAF's first fighter pilots to fly the Spitfire, he was posted in May 1940 to 92 Squadron at Croydon, later moving to Hornchurch, again flying Spitifires and flying his first combat patrol on 23rd May over Dunkirk, Tuck shot down three Bf109s and the following day became an Ace, when he downed two German bombers. In the ensuing combat during the Battle for France, his score rapidly mounted and he was awarded the DFC on 11th June. During the Battle of Britain, Tuck like all of his colleagues in Fighter Command, was in the thick of the action and it was during this period that "Tuck's Luck" - he had survived an early 'prang' whilst training - came to the fore once again. He was forced to bail out of his Spitfire on 18th August over Tunbridge Wells but survived this safely and a few days later, on the 25th had to nurse his crippled Spitfire back to Hornchurch following return fire from a Dornier Do17 bomber. On another occasion, he personally had been hit and upon removing the bullet in his thigh, the Squadron MO told tuck "A few inches higher and they'd have had to transfer you to the WAAFs!" Tuck's luck would never really desert him. 

In September 1940, Tuck was promoted to command 257 Sqaudron, then flying Hurricanes based at Martlesham Heath. At this time, 257 was a 'hard luck' squadron, formed only a short time previously and suffering from an influx of inexperienced pilots and frankly, not having been previously well led. Tuck turned this squadron around, weeded out one or two individuals who were not up to the task and by September 15th 1940, 257 formed part of the fighter force that routed the German daylight raiders and on that day incidentally, Tuck's two victories brought his own personal score to sixteen. In July 1941, Tuck was further promoted and given command of the Duxford Wing. By this time, Fighter Command was taking part in large fighter sweeps across occupied France known as "Rhubarbs" as part of the new policy instigated by the new head of the Command, Sholto Douglas known as "Leaning towards the Enemy." 

During this period, many fine men were killed or captured including fellow Aces 'Paddy' Finucane, Eric Lock and Douglas Bader and on 28th February 1942, Tuck's luck was to briefly desert him when he was shot down over Boulogne. Even then his luck did not abandon him completely; his Spitfire having been hit and gliding towards a forced landing, Tuck fired a final cannon burst at the anti-aircraft gun that had hit his Spitfire, killing all of the gun's crew. He feared a lynching, but as he was surrounded by angry Germans, their anger turned to laughter when they spotted that one of his final shots had split the barrel of the German gun like a banana being peeled! Tuck's time in captivity was an incredible odyssey in itself and would take too long to describe in detail here. Suffice to say that after several escape attempts, he managed to do so successfully on 1st February 1945 and having reached Russian lines, was denied access to the British authorities until he again escaped, this time from his 'liberators' and reached the British Embassy in Moscow, who arranged his repatriation in March 1945. Tuck's final tally of victories was twenty nine kills, two shared kills and six "probables."

'Johnnie' Johnson CB CBE DSO** DFC*

Even this impressive tally was not the highest achieved by a Fighter Command pilot. James Edgar "Johnnie" Johnson was born in Loughborough in 1915 and joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in September 1939. An old rugby injury which had broken his collar bone and which had not been re-set correctly precluded his active participation in the Battle of Britain. However, following a successful operation to correct this, Johnson returned to operational flying with 616 Squadron at Tangmere flying under Wing Commander Douglas Bader. Johnson learned much of his early trade under Bader and on 26th June 1941, he was to score his first victory when he shot down a Bf109 over Gravelines. Johnson took part in the sweep on 9th August 1941 when Bader was shot down and captured and despite the loss of his Wing Leader, Johnson added to his personal score. Later promoted to command 610 Squadron at RAF Coltishall, Norfolk which continued on sweeps over occupied France, Johnson continued to add to his score, despite still flying the Spitfire Mk V, which was being outclassed by the new German Fw190s then coming into service. Promoted again in early 1943, this time to Wing Commander, Johnson was given command of 144 (Canadian) Wing at Kenley, which was equipped with the new Spitfire Mk IX, which was able to once again re-establish British mastery over the Luftwaffe's fighters. Johnson's score soon mounted and by August 1943, he claimed his twenty first victory. By this time, apart from fighter sweeps, the Wing was regularly escorting USAAF bombers on their daylight missions to targets in occupied France. In September 1943, Johnson was rested from Ops but was restored to flying duties in March 1944 in time for the run-up to Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy. Back with the Canadians of 144 Wing, Johnson again scored regularly and by 23rd August 1944, Johnson equalled and then overtook 'Sailor' Malan's tally of thirty two victories. As Johnson modestly pointed out himself "Malan had fought with great distinction when the odds were against him. He had matched his handful of Spitfires against greatly superior numbers of Luftwaffe fighters and bombers." As Johnson also pointed out, his combat was mostly fought on the offensive, with either a squadron, a wing, or sometimes two wings behind him. Johnson's last victory of the war came on 27th September 1944 over Nijmegen, when his squadron bounced a formation of Bf109s. Johnson survived the war to finish with thirty four individual victories as well as seven shared victories, which was the highest achieved by any of the Western Allies. Postwar, he served in the Korean War flying F-86 Sabre jet fighters on exchange with the USAF and remained in the RAF until 1966, retiring with the rank of Air Vice Marshal.

There are many more aces to discuss and hopefully we shall return to the subject again in a future edition but whether one of the Aces, or one of the vast majority of non-scoring pilots, whatever nationality, the fighter pilot was, and remains a breed apart.

Published Sources:

Fly For Your Life: The Story of Bob Stanford-Tuck - Larry Forester, Cerberus 2002

The Most Dangerous Enemy - Stephen Bungay, Aurum Press 2000

The Narrow Margin - Derek Wood with Derek Dempster, Tri-Service Press 1990

Wing Leader - 'Johnnie' Johnson - Chatto & Windus Limited 1956

 

Two Way Traffic

Although Saturday September 7th 1940 marked the beginning of the Night Blitz on London and was the start of 57 consecutive nights when the capital received the attention of the Luftwaffe, this first raid actually began at about 4.30 on this sunny late summer afternoon and marked the first and last time that the German air force attempted a large scale mass attack on London in daylight. Although they did attempt daylight raids subsequently, notably on September 15th, the losses they suffered at the hands of RAF Fighter Command were too heavy and the strategy soon settled down to one of night bombing. At night, although the British radar still picked up the approaching raiders, the RAF at this stage of the war, lacked an effective night fighter and it was not until the entry into service of the Bristol Beaufighter in early 1941, coupled with Airborne Intercept radar sets that the Luftwaffe began to find the night skies over the British Isles seriously contested for the first time.

What is perhaps less widely known, is that the start of the heavy raids on London was brought about by a series of navigational errors, subsequent escalations and 'tit for tat' retaliatory raids. This escalation began on the night of August 24th 1940 when part of a force of 170 German bombers tasked with bombing the Thameshaven oil refineries in the Thames Estuary and also the town of Rochester in Kent, became disoriented and thinking that they were jettisoning their bomb load over open countryside in Hertfordshire, actually dropped their deadly cargo over the London Wall area of the City of London as well as Islington, Finsbury, Millwall, Stepney, East Ham, Leyton and Bethnal Green, in a grim foretaste of much worse to come.

As a result of this raid, the following night saw a curious two way traffic develop over the North Sea, for while the Luftwaffe reverted to attacking their then normal targets of RAF airfields, Channel convoys and sporadic attacks on towns along the south coast, some 81 Hampden and Wellington bombers of RAF Bomber Command were heading in the opposite direction, for Churchill had ordered a raid against Berlin in retaliation for the previous night's attack on London. Although this and a subsequent larger raid on September 23rd were ineffectual in terms of actual damage done, they were to have far reaching effects on future German strategy. Ironically, the switching of the Luftwaffe's attacks from the RAF's airfields to London and other major British cities, took the pressure off Fighter Command and allowed them to concentrate on attacking the intruders in daylight without having to continually worry about attacks on their own airfields, thus ensuring continued British air superiority and the ultimate defeat of the Luftwaffe.

The RAF's raids on Berlin caused outrage amongst the German leadership. After all, Hermann Goering had boasted that no enemy aircraft would ever fly over Reich Territory; Hitler flew into a rage and insisted that in retaliation for the bombing of Berlin (which itself was a reprisal raid), then London would be erased from the map.

This threat, like so many of Hitler's others, soon proved to be empty. Although the damage to British cities was grievous and the casualties heavy, the British people were not easily cowed. Also, unlike previous targets of the Luftwaffe such as Warsaw and Rotterdam, the defending air force had not been destroyed on the ground; the RAF was tenacious, well led, well organised and manned by men of the highest calibre. They also had the edge with technology, both in terms of radar and it's utilisation and also with the fighting hardware. Although the Spitfire was closely matched to the German Bf109, the British defenders had the great advantage of fighting over home territory; if a British pilot was shot down and survived, he was landing in a friendly area. If a German pilot was shot down over Britain, whatever his fate, he would take no further part in the war - it was to put it brutally, a case of death or captivity.

This was a lesson that the RAF was to learn later in 1941 and 1942, when they went on the offensive. The tactic was known as 'leaning towards the enemy' but Fighter Command was to lose many of the 'aces' of the Battle of Britain, such as Douglas Bader and Bob Stanford-Tuck, who were shot down over enemy occupied France whilst taking part in 'Rhubarbs' as these massive fighter sweeps were known. These men and many others were to spend the rest of the war in captivity and it was only the superior numbers of the British and the newly arrived Americans, together with the continual dilution of the Luftwaffe's resources in the Russian campaign that ensured that the Allies would continue to enjoy air superiority and eventual air supremacy by the time of the invasion of Europe in June of 1944.

By this time, RAF Bomber Command had grown in strength hugely from the early raids of August and September 1940. Berlin, far from being the distant object of raids by medium bombers such as the Wellington, Hampden and Whitley, had become 'The Big City' attracting the nightly attention of the RAF's Lancasters and Halifaxes and although it was a battle of attrition, it was a battle that the Germans could never win. One by one, every major city in Germany was reduced systematically to ruins. As well as Berlin, cities such as Cologne, Essen, Hannover, Kassel and worst of all, Hamburg and Dresden 'reaped the whirlwind' sewn by the Luftwaffe in the early days of the war.

The tentative two way traffic across the North Sea had by the spring of 1944, become for the Germans a very monotonous one way affair and it was only the coming of peace in May 1945 that saw the ruined cities of Europe gain much needed respite and eventual rebuilding both of ruined buildings and lives.

As a footnote to this article, many of the ruined cities in West Germany as the free half of this divided country had become post war, were rebuilt far more quickly and thoroughly than London and many other British cities. Perhaps this was one advantage of starting with a blank canvas; for the destruction had been more total in Germany than almost anywhere else. Bomb sites could still be found in London well into the 1970s and generally speaking it seemed to take London a long time to recover completly from the scars of wartime. Conversely, a visit to Communist East Berlin in the mid 1980s by this writer, discovered a drab city with many still wrecked buildings extant and with vast areas of central Berlin still laid waste. The fall of East Germany in 1990 presented this now re-unified city as a property developer's paradise and the centre of Berlin is unrecognisable from those dark days of communist control.

All this is incidental and we would do well to remember the reasons behind the bomb sites. Never forget, never again.

Published Sources:

Bomber Boys, Patrick Bishop - Harper Press 2007
Bomber Command 1939-45, Richard Overy - Harper Collins 1997
The Narrow Margin, Derek Wood with Derek Dempster - Arrow Books 1969

A Perfect Lady

On 6th March 1936 a small patchwork painted fighter aeroplane took off from Eastleigh Aerodrome in Hampshire for its first short test flight. At the controls that day was test pilot Joseph ‘Mutt’ Summers. When he landed the pretty little fighter after just fifteen minutes flying, he taxied it over towards the hangar, climbed out of the cockpit and said to those assembled “I don’t want anything touched.” This comment has subsequently become misinterpreted over the years, because as good as this fighter later proved to be, what Summers really meant was that the first flight had been a success and that there were no faults apparent which needed correcting before his next flight.

This little fighter numbered K5054 was the prototype Supermarine Spitfire and following this first tentative test flight, many months of further testing were to follow before the design was put into production in 1938, ultimately becoming the RAF’s standard fighter aircraft during the Second World War.

Much of this gruelling programme of test flying was done by Jeffrey Quill, another of Supermarine’s test pilots. Quill recalled in his book ‘Spitfire – A Test Pilot’s Story’

“’Here’, I thought to myself, ‘is a real lady.’”

The Spitfire was designed by RJ Mitchell, Chief Designer at Supermarine, in response to the Air Ministry specification F36/34, later modified to F10/35 which was written around the prototype. The original Air Ministry specification also covered the Hawker Hurricane, designed by Sydney Camm but whilst the Hurricane was of a traditional wooden framed, fabric covered design, the Spitfire was something altogether different, being of a then radical all metal design. This led to problems - the Hurricane was much simpler to produce and easier to repair and indeed, during the Battle of Britain, there were far more Hurricanes in Fighter Command’s service than there were Spitfires but the design of the Spitfire meant that it could be developed almost infinitely, with larger engines, bigger armaments and many other refinements added over the years of production. Indeed, the Spitfire was the only Allied fighter of the War to be in production from the first day of the war to the last, with the last of the 20,351 aircraft to be built not rolling off the production line until February 1948. This last Spitfire, the Mark 24 was a very different creature to the prototype, being capable of a top speed of 452 mph as opposed to the 348 of the prototype and being armed with four 20mm Hispano cannons instead of eight Browning .303” machine guns and powered by a Rolls Royce Griffon engine rather than the original Merlin. The Mark 24 was also twice the weight of the prototype, which truly demonstrates the genius and potential of the original design.

However, we are jumping ahead in time too quickly and should return to the events of 1936. Mitchell’s design was a logical development of his work on the various Supermarine floatplane entrants for the Schneider Trophy during the late 1920s and early 30s, culminating in the brilliant S6B of 1931 which also broke the World air speed record in reaching 407.5 mph. These aircraft were powered by various marks of Rolls Royce ‘R’ engines, which would ultimately be developed into the famous Merlin engine.

When Mitchell started work on the fighter that was to become the Spitfire, it was originally titled somewhat unimaginatively, ‘The Supermarine Fighter’ and was at one stage destined to become the ‘Shrew’ before the name ‘Spitfire’ was given to the new fighter. The name was reputedly given by Sir Robert McLean, the Chairman of Vickers Supermarine and when told about it, Mitchell, never an emotional man simply replied that it was “Just the sort of bloody silly name they would give it!”

By this stage, Mitchell was a very sick man who was dying from cancer. When this happened in June 1937, his erstwhile Chief Draughtsman, Joe Smith was promoted and under his guidance, the Spitfire was seen into production, development and evolution that would last throughout the War and beyond.

The Spitfire had an immediate impact and effect upon all who flew it. Pilots found it a wonderful aircraft to fly with no obvious vices and it is interesting to compare the views of three of the RAF’s Battle of Britain ‘aces’ with regard to their experiences with the fighter. Firstly, ‘Sailor’ Malan:

“The Spitfire had style and was obviously a killer….Moreover, she was a perfect lady. She had no vices. She was beautifully responsive. You could dive until your eyes were popping out of your head, she would still answer to a touch.”

Like Jeffrey Quill and ‘Sailor’ Malan, Bob Stanford-Tuck also saw the Spitfire as undoubtedly female and recalling his first flight, wrote:

"If it comes to war, this is the girl for me!"

Bob Doe was a little more unemotional, but his love for the aircraft was still evident when he spoke to Stephen Bungay:

“It became a part of you, it was an absolute joy.”

So we can see then, that the Spitfire very quickly won over all those who came into contact with her – certainly on the British side and there were also some Germans who wanted her as well. Adolf Galland famously fell foul of Hermann Goring when he replied to the Reichsmarschall’s question as to what he could provide to help Galland and his pilots win the Battle of Britain. He simply answered “I should like an outfit of Spitfires for my squadron.”

Although this statement was somewhat misunderstood when it became public – Galland was simply requesting that a more agile German fighter be available – his comments showed the deep respect with which the Luftwaffe held the Spitfire – and the men that flew them.

In 1941 with the Battle of Britain safely won, RAF Fighter Command, under a new commander, William Sholto Douglas, could afford the luxury of a more aggressive policy than had been possible during the Battle, using their new Spitfire Mark Vs on fighter sweeps over occupied France known as ‘Rhubarbs.’ In hindsight, the wisdom of these sweeps has been questioned as many aircraft were lost, as were their pilots, many of whom had previously survived the Battle of Britain. This was a curious reversal of fortune for the RAF, who now found themselves in the same situation as the Luftwaffe in 1940 – being shot down over enemy territory and with every chance that the surviving pilots would fall into captivity. It was also during these fighter sweeps that a new adversary emerged for the Spitfire, in the form of the FW190 which outclassed the Spitfire V in almost every way. It was now that the Spitfire’s almost infinite capability for development became apparent with the appearance of the Mark IX with the new two-stage supercharged Merlin 61 engine which transformed the fighter's performance and made it capable of taking on the best of Luftwaffe’s fighters once again. The Mark IX had the advantage of being almost indistinguishable from the earlier Mark V to the Germans, thus making every Spitfire they saw a potential Mark IX and deserving of appropriate respect.

So it continued for the Spitfire – as well as the classic interceptor fighter role, they were used as ground attack aircraft, ‘tropicalised’ for use in the desert and the Far East, high altitude interceptors, carrier borne as the Seafire and for photo reconnaissance purposes (PR) at high altitude. It was PR Spitfires that discovered the "Bismarck", provided the first photographs of the German ’Freya’ and ‘Wurzburg’ radars at Bruneval, uncovered the V-1 launch sites in France and Holland and found the vital evidence of the German V-2s at Peenemunde. It seemed that there was almost nothing that the Spitfire couldn’t do and that they would continue forever.

However, it was not to be – the advent of the jet engine saw to that and with the war nine years over, it was on 1st April 1954 that the last operational Spitfire flight was undertaken by a PR Mark 19 (the RAF had changed from Roman to Arabic numerals in 1948) from RAF Seletar in Singapore and the last non-operational flight was flown by another PR Mark 19 of the Temperature and Humidity Flight based at RAF Woodvale, near Southport on 9th June 1957.

Thanks to the work of the RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and many private preservationists, we can still see and hear the Spitfire flying today at air shows and flypasts and are able to witness for ourselves the perfect lady in her true element.

Published Sources:

Fly For Your Life: The Story of Bob Stanford Tuck - Larry Forester, Cerberus Publishing 2002
The Most Dangerous Enemy - Stephen Bungay, Aurum Books 2000
Spitfire: A Test Pilot's Story - Jeffrey Quill OBE, AFC, FRAeS, Arrow Books 1983