Bowyer - Fighter Pilots of the RAF 1939-1945

FIGHTER PILOTS OF THE RAF

FIGHTER PILOTS
OF THE RAF

19391945

CHAZ BOWER

First published in 1984 by
William Kimber & Co. Limited

Published in this format in 2001 by
LEO COOPER
an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Limited
47 Church Street
Barnsley, South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Chaz Bowyer, 2001

A CIP record for this book is available from
the British Library

ISBN 0 85052 786 4

Printed in England by CPI UK

By the same author:

Calshot, 191361

The Flying Elephants No. 27 Squadron RFC/RAF

Mosquito at War

Hurricane at War

Airmen of World War One

Sunderland at War

Hampden Special

Beaufighter at War

Path Finders at War

Albert Ball, VC

For Valour The Air VCs

Sopwith Camel King of Combat

History of the RAF, 191283

Guns in the Sky The AGs

Coastal Command

Spitfire

Fighter Command, 193668

Surviving Aircraft of WW2

Age of the Biplane

Bomber Group at War No. 5 Group

Air War over Europe, 193945

Desert Air Force at War (Co-author)

Encylopaedia of British Military Aircraft

Wellington at War

Images of Air War, 193945

Bomber Barons

Eugene Esmonde, VC, DSO

RAF Handbook, 193945

Bristol Blenheim

Mosquito Squadrons of the RAF

Edited:

Bomber Pilot, 191618

Fighter Pilot on the Western Front

Wings over the Somme

Fall of an Eagle Ernst Udet

Contents

To the layman the generic label fighter pilot conjures up many characteristics dashing, extrovert, steely-eyed, rock-jawed, even romantic killer; all facets engendered by an Everest of pulp and journalistic fiction, sensation-seeking yellow press, and/or sheer propaganda. Rarely do such descriptions apply to the men who actually fought from the cockpit of a fighter aircraft in war. As in any community of Servicemen with a common raison dtre; fighter pilots came in all sizes, shapes and characters, with origins ranging from humble artisan to blue-blood aristocracy, from elementary schoolboy to university graduate, from fearless oaf to ultra-sensitive aesthete. In other words, there was (is) no pattern from which all fighter pilots can be said to have derived. Each is a distinct individual, with individual attitudes, reasoning, reactions, motivations, albeit having received a parallel form of training and inculcation to his trade in common with all other fighter pilots within his particular air service initially. Yet, in one sense, that very individuality was the true essence of any successful fighter pilot. During both the 191418 and 193945 wars especially, the fighter pilot, once combat was joined, was virtually on his own, needing an instinctive aggression, single purpose, and unforced ability to conquer all odds if he was to survive and fulfil his duty.

Resulting from the wide publicity and indeed glamorisation applied to certain fighter pilots during the 191418 conflict, when the entire specious status of the ace fighter pilot was born, the equivalent generation of fighter crews during the 193945 war inherited, albeit unconsciously, the same heroic image in the lay mind. Thus a relative handful of World War Two fighter pilots received unsought plaudits on an international scale as aces in the context of having accumulated a number of claimed aerial combat victories and were honoured and feted accordingly. Though such publicity was rarely of the individuals choosing, it inevitably over-shadowed the feats and prowess of the majority of other fighter pilots who displayed equally high courage and determination to those who, however unwittingly, basked in the limelight of public acclaim. This silent majority comprised the true spine of any fighter force; men who flew and fought with a fervour matching that displayed by their more famed colleagues, and who, speaking statistically, made the greater sacrifices.

My purpose in this book is primarily to give overdue recognition to those unknowns, but also to demonstrate the diverse types of men exemplifying the fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force during the 193945 struggle against German Nazidom and Italian fascism. In deference to further volumes already in preparation about pilots who served mainly in the Middle and Far East war theatres, Coastal Command, et al, I have deliberately restricted my selection of subjects herein to a cross-section of fighter pilots who fought their particular war mainly, if not exclusively, in the Northern European theatre. Of the men featured here some were indeed aces in the popular lay conception of achieving relatively high scores, but I would emphasise to the reader that pure acedom has not been my criterion for inclusion. In the present era of computerised technology the role of the fighter pilot per se, as exemplified in the following pages, no longer exists in the RAF. The modern equivalent is very much more a highly skilled, professional segment of a superbly constructed weapons system. Yet let it never be forgotten that such a segment remains a human individual, not a robot, requiring all and possibly even more of those singular characteristics which comprised the fighter pilot of yesteryear. Whatever else may change, the essential human spirit remains.

Chaz Bowyer
Norwich, 2001

While the prime purpose of this book is to highlight the lives, deeds, attitudes, characteristics and in certain cases, self-sacrifices of a tiny selection of individual men who flew to war in fighter aircraft, such accounts must be set against the overall contexts of the aircraft they were given to fly, the tactics currently employed, and particularly the state of the organisations they belonged to at their various stages of the aerial conflict. Even the finest human spirit is hampered when given inferior equipment or faulty intelligence with which to undertake any assigned task or duty. Equally, even the finest equipment and/or supportive organisation is of relatively small value without a matching human willpower and determination to utilise such ironmongery to its greatest advantage. Since the men described in this volume flew most, if not all, of their operations in the Northern European theatre of war, their parent organisation was RAF Fighter Command for the most part of the war; thus a progressive account of that Command is relevant here as a backdrop to the actions, prowess, problems, and circumstances integral with each mans story.

Originally created as a separate entity on 14 July 1936, RAF Fighter Command faced the prospect of all-out war with Nazi Germany in September 1939 with an overall strength far below the minimal requirement of 53 first-line squadrons officially mooted then as essential for the metropolitan defence of the United Kingdom the primary role or raison dtre of the Command from its outset. Its true operational strength on 1 September 1939 comprised 37 first-line squadrons, 14 of which were recently-mobilised non-regular squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force (AAF), the so-termed, pre-war Week-end Air Force. Of the overall total, 17 squadrons were flying Hurricane I fighters, 12 were equipped with Spitfire Is, but no less than six were flying stop-gap Blenheim If fighters i.e. Blenheim I bombers modified to carry a four-gun pack bolted under their bomb bay doors. Among them the 37 squadrons held the following aircraft totals: