The secret life of Fighter Command : the men and women who beat the Luftwaffe

304 Pages·2015·4.77 MB·English

by  McKay

The Secret Life of
Fighter Command

Contents
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1 The Celestial Ballet
Chapter 2 The Vision of Wings
Chapter 3 The Seduction of Flight
Chapter 4 The Lines in the Heavens
Chapter 5 The Secret Under the Hill
Chapter 6 We Are At War
Chapter 7 Dress Rehearsals
Chapter 8 ‘Interesting Work of a Confidential Nature’
Chapter 9 Blood Runs Hotly
Chapter 10 Alert
Chapter 11 The Sky was Black with Planes
Chapter 12 Nerve Endings
Chapter 13 Big Wing
Chapter 14 ‘We Will All Be Here Soon’
Chapter 15 ‘Resist Until the Very End’
Chapter 16 ‘This Was War and We Were Fighting’
Chapter 17 A Dog Called Heinkel
Chapter 18 Rhubarbs
Chapter 19 Knitting, Smoking and Great Literature
Chapter 20 Death Will Send No Warning
Chapter 21 Grounded
Chapter 22 Afterlife
Endnotes
Further Reading
Index
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
‘A beautifully proportioned body and graceful curves just where they should be’.
Lord Balfour of Inchyre was one of many pilots who rhapsodised about Spitfires,
seen here in formation.
© IWM (CH 740)
Although much joked about at the time, the striking silvery masses of barrage
balloons – here protecting shipping – were a valuable tool in Fighter
Command’s defensive arsenal and were ubiquitous over London.
© IWM (A 6175)
The Luftwaffe over London. On the night of 7 September 1940, Hitler’s
promised retaliation for an RAF raid on Berlin came in the form of wave after
wave of bombers. The pilots of Fighter Command managed to shoot down a
surprising number.
© IWM (C 5422)
Bentley Priory, on the hilly northern outskirts of London, from which Fighter
Command personnel could see London ablaze during the height of the Blitz. In
the eighteenth century, the house played host to poets and princes.
© Graham Hill/Stanmoretouristboard
The first Operations Room was set up in the ballroom; whilst a more secure and
hi-tech version, including colour-coded clocks, was being constructed beneath
the ground.
© IWM/Getty Images via Getty Images
Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding (right), architect of the RAF’s defensive
fighter network, nicknamed ‘Stuffy’ owing to a perceived dryness of manner,
with His Majesty King George VI. In fact, Dowding was much more sensitive –
particularly about the welfare of his pilots – than many realised.
© Popperfoto/Getty Images
The Hornchurch station down on the marshes near the Thames – which on
autumn mornings would frequently be shrouded with yellow fog – was to prove
pivotal throughout the fight for Britain, and was frequently targeted by the
Luftwaffe.
© IWM (COL 191)
Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, who fought with Dowding, championed the theories
of Douglas Bader, and rose to become Air Chief Marshal. Despite their
profound differences over tactics, both men shared deeper beliefs: Leigh-Mallory
and Dowding were avowed spiritualists.
© Popperfoto/Getty Images
Douglas Bader, centre, surrounded by 11 Group colleagues. It is possible that his
disability – both legs amputated after a horrific accident – stoked his ferocity in
the air. He was also, for the time, unusually abstemious in the pub. There is a
Douglas Bader Foundation today in London, helping children with disabilities.
© IWM (CH 1413)
New Zealand-born Alan Deere, one of many pilots from around the world who
came to fight for Britain, originally hailed from a deeply agricultural background
but set his heart on flying for the RAF.
© IWM (CH 13619)
Patricia Clark, who worked as a Flight Officer in Fighter Command’s Filter
Room, was one of a select group of young women. Her rarefied social
background made her war career a voyage of discovery and also inspired her
later success as a best-selling novelist.
© Patricia Clark
Max Aitken, pilot son of Lord Beaverbrook, the Minister for Aircraft Production.
Aitken was a skilled and flamboyant fighter who caught the attention of
Churchill and was friends with fellow pilot Roger Bushell, later better known as
the genius behind the Great Escape.
© Popperfoto/Getty Images
Pilot Tony Bartley, who embodied the perceived glamour of Fighter Command;
friends with actor David Niven, he was later to marry the film star Deborah Kerr.
© IWM (CNA 125)
The first eyes and ears to see the incoming waves of enemy fighters were
members of the Observer Corps. They were often First World War veterans,
and were keen to receive proper recognition.
© War Office Official Photographer/IWM via Getty Images
A number of young women volunteered for the Observer Corps, working in
hazardously exposed conditions and mastering the calculations of speed and
trajectory produced on the ‘Micklethwaite’, an astrolabestyle device.
© Planet News Archive/SSPL/Getty Images
With radar in its infancy, navigation could be dicey, especially in the absence of
familiar landmarks; some pilots even used Bradshaw’s Railway Timetable to
identify certain lines to guide them back to base.
© IWM (C 1664)
The Operations Room, tracking incoming raids with astonishing accuracy in a
precomputer age, was staffed with skilled operators, from young WAAFs to City
of London stockbrokers, all of whom were good with instant calculations.
© IWM (CH 7698)
The ground staff at each fighter base became renowned for their forensic
devotion; but the pilots were also mesmerised by the workings of their planes.
© William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
The signal to scramble was sometimes curiously a relief; the hours beforehand
waiting in the mess were, even though pilots never admitted it at the time, a
source of great tension.
© Jimmy Sime/CentralPress/Getty Images
During the height of the Battle of Britain pilots found themselves sprinting into
action many times a day. That combination of courage and focus, repeated over
weeks and months, was an astounding psychological and physical feat.
© Fg. Off. N S Clark/IWM via Getty Images
Chapter One
The Celestial Ballet
‘Be calm,’ Hitler had told the Berlin crowds. ‘He is coming. He is coming.’
Late on the afternoon of 7 September 1940, the warmth of summer lingered in
the hazy air over England; and the graceful whorls and curls of white in the blue
sky above the South Downs might either have been innocent clouds or the last
traces of a distant aerial fight. On the chalk ridges and green slopes below, and
in the bustling lanes of south coast towns from Portsmouth to Dover, civilians
were making the most of the temporary lull and were tensed for the next attack.
For the past few weeks, huge numbers of people had watched with guileless
fascination as, high above, planes had swooped and swerved, describing wide
circles as they chased one another. From that distance, even an exploding fuel
tank hit by gunfire – a split second of glittering gold and orange, followed by the
plane simply falling out of the sky – was hypnotic rather than frightening.
It was almost a different war. Across the grey waters of the Channel, on the
continent and deep in the darkness of Europe, the conflict had been lumbering,
ugly, brutally functional. Vast tanks that jerked and manoeuvred in unnatural
lines, vast guns roaring beyond human reason; and everywhere the mortal
wreckage of red, glistening viscera. But here, high above in the blue, no one
could look away from the Spitfires and the Messerschmitts. Every fleet
movement, from climbs to dives, had an innate elegance, a geometrical beauty –
even as the pilots were flying for their lives.
British pilots had been fighting continuously in these skies for days and weeks;
physically and mentally, they had been taken to the edge. The fear that kept
them focused during sorties left them exhausted in the aftermath, with the result
that many of these men were working by pure instinct. That summer, their