For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II. Dr. Campbell-Begg Richard

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      So they sent an open-flap wagon down to pick me up and I bounced in this with my parachute all the way back to North Weald and was immediately taken to the MO. The MO looked at me and said, “I don’t like the look of you – I’m taking you down to St Margaret’s Hospital, Epping, right away,” and he took me to St Margaret’s, where I was immediately taken in hand. Exactly what they did I don’t quite know, but they eventually told me I had fractured three cervical vertebrae in my neck and I had broken my jaw in three places.

      At hospital I was eventually picked up and taken to Halton, the RAF Hospital, and after a spell there was sent down to Torquay where the RAF Convalescent Hospital was. It was the old Palace Hotel taken over by the RAF. I had a long time to reflect in the hospital and was there with one of our most famous fighter pilots who won the VC, Nicholson – it was announced whilst we were in hospital. In my thoughts, after my being shot down, I’d wondered if I was the only flat-footed policeman who’d been walking the streets in 1938 in London in the Metropolitan Police and was, two years later, a Flying Officer in the RAF, flying aeroplanes 20,000 feet above that fair city.

      After getting out of hospital eventually, I was posted to 10 Group Headquarters as an Assistant Controller. I quite enjoyed this job, seeing the fair ladies pushing discs all over the table down below, but my main purpose in life had been to join the Air Force to fly aeroplanes, so I was very keen to get back on flying. Although my medical category had been considerably lowered and I was off flying, I couldn’t wait till I could have another medical and finally get back on it again. I succeeded, but not on operations.’

      Back from the ‘Phoney War’ in France, Flying Officer James Hayter had some difficulty locating his Squadron:

      ‘Eventually, after landing at about three aerodromes, we located our unit. We were then given an opportunity of either going on to Wellingtons or into Fighter Command, and seeing as I’d been shot down the odd time in the Fairey Battle, I thought this was a bit of a dead loss. I volunteered to go into Fighter Command.

      I joined 615 Squadron and they gave us about five or six hours conversion on to a Hurricane, and then I went to 605 Squadron which was stationed at Croydon – that was towards the end of the Battle of Britain. Things were fairly hectic – we’d do sometimes two, three, four trips a day. I was shot down again over Kent and landed in Major Cazalet’s place – who I understood was England’s champion squash player and an MP – when he was having a cocktail party. I was slightly wounded and went back to my unit, and I was flying again in another three or four days.

      When they had the big formations at night, Heinkels and 88s coming in, we were still flying formations of a number of fighters which the Germans had showed us not to use. Invariably, if you got into a dogfight or if you were attacking a formation, everybody got split up, so actually that formation was the most stupid thing we ever used. The Germans had showed us how to fly and attack but we didn’t learn. We had some big formations of 300 or 400 aircraft coming in, and we’d attack a formation and it would be a shambles. The formation that we were flying in was completely useless as everybody would break up into their own little thing.

      At that stage I remember going to our Intelligence Officer and saying, well, look the claims were absolutely outrageous. There were some very, very good pilots in the aeroplanes – but I think it’s history now, and I suppose it was to keep the morale up, maybe, but we had a whole lot of glamour boys who over-claimed and this is proven now. I think the thing that impressed me most was that, while there were some individuals who were most likely the genuine scorers, there was a whole lot of people there that weren’t.

      I think that what impressed me quite a lot in England was that when we arrived we’d come from all sorts of walks of life and were pretty rough, I suppose, socially, and a lot of these so-called English gentlemen looked pretty anaemic, weak physically; but when it came down to the real nitty-gritty, the anaemic-looking Pom was most likely the bravest of the lot. Of course they had something to fight for, it was their country, but what did impress was that these very, very nice chaps were tough.

      We went through until we finished the Battle of Britain. We went to Scotland for a spell and then I joined 611 Squadron at Hornchurch where I did another tour on Spitfires, and then we were sent for a spell to Prestwick where Peter Townsend was the Wing Commander, Flying. He had a rose garden, and one night I had a nice little sports car and I tried to drive through the front doors of the Officers’ Mess and couldn’t make it, and backed out, but unfortunately I backed into Peter’s rose garden. Then I got my immediate posting to the Middle East.’

      Another New Zealander, John Gard’ner, was accepted for a short service commission in the RAF and was under training in Britain when the war started:

      ‘On getting my wings I was posted as a Pilot Officer to 141 Squadron at Grangemouth, where I trained on and operated Blenheims. Our job in the Blenheims was to patrol in the Firth of Forth area, and as I recall the Germans were coming across from Norway or somewhere in that direction and I believe their target was the Forth Bridge and, of course, going on down to the Glasgow area. After a few weeks of flying the Blenheims – rather unsuccessfully as far as any action with Germans were concerned, and during this time we lost a number of aircraft, just plane crashes at night-time – we were told we were going to be re-equipped with the new Boulton Paul Defiant aircraft. Now those of us who had been on the Blenheims had to be now converted on to single-engine-type aircraft, and they brought in an old Fairey Battle. It was on this Fairey Battle that all of us pilots, who had been flying the Blenheims, were converted from twin-engined on to single-engined aircraft. Again, just circuits and bumps, and because the old Battle took so long to have its flaps come up and its wheels come up, we flew them just round the airfield wheels and flaps down until it was considered that we were well enough flying on single-engine ones to get into the first Defiants.

      In the meantime we’d heard that No 264 Squadron, which was down south, they’d had their Defiants for some time before us and in the first few days they were doing extraordinarily well. The Germans didn’t know what they were and were being shot down rather rapidly by 264 Squadron. When the time came for 141 Squadron to get into the action, No 264 Squadron had been “sorted out” and the Germans actually had decimated it. We went down to take over from where 264 Squadron left off.