20. The Calm Before the Storm

In the years leading up to this moment the prevailing winds from the Air Ministry held that any invasion of England would be proceeded by a softening–up campaign from the Luftwaffe. They were correct. However, for the British, the assumption had been that the Heinkel, Junker and Dornier bombers of the Luftwaffe would have to carry out their missions without the benefit of escorts as the German fighters didn’t have the range to attack from bases located in Germany. That all changed with the fall of Belgium, France and the Low countries of the Netherlands. Now the Nazi’s could enjoy the security of fighter escorts across the Channel and beyond.

Back in Leconfield the fighter boys of 234 Squadron were still lamenting their consignment of Fairy Battles; The ones that were being, “… shot down like flies in France.” Well aware that these planes were no match for the Messerschmitt BF 109 the Luftwaffe’s lethal killing-machine.

In 1939, Alex Henshaw, the chief test pilot of the Spitfire traveled to Germany to tour the Messerschmitt factory. Prior to the beginning of the war Germany was very keen to show off their military prowess; and showcase Nazi pride. Mr. Henshaw was impressed with what he saw. Turning to his German host he remarked, “Well, we have the Spitfire.”

“Oh yes,” replied the Luftwaffe Major, “A pretty little toy. But the Messerschmitt is a fighting machine.”

That boast would soon be put to the ultimate test.

Bob Doe recalled one afternoon in March of 1940. “One day a Spitfire landed on our airfield and taxied over to our hanger. And we walked around this thing. We looked at it. We sat in it. We stroked it. I fell in love with it.”

I could certainly empathize with his sentiments. I remember being just slightly younger than Bob Doe was then when my father came home and presented me with my first car. It was a 1961 Cadillac Coupe de Ville: tail fins and all. Well, perhaps the stakes were a little higher in the case of 234 Squadron but there’s no getting around the love affair that develops between boys and machines. You don’t have to know how it works or why. The fact that it does what you ask of it is enough. It’s the perfect relationship at a time in your life when you probably haven’t experienced a proper one. You nourish and respect her and she responds in kind. Requited love without guilt.

“It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was beautiful too! Its lines…” He searched for the right words; recapturing his youth in a phrase. A thought. You could practically smell the grass of the airfield; see it bend and dance in wide rows as the wash of the prop beat it down. Suddenly, sixty-six years peeled away like the pages of a paperback novel on a windy beach. “It was meant to fly. It just looked like that.”

“The following day fifteen more showed up. That’s how we became a fighter squadron. And we were all bomber trained pilots.”

During the month of March the weather was exceedingly good. The pilots were afforded the rare opportunity of flying nearly everyday. They got to know every nuance of their new love. Once the Battle of Britain began in earnest this would prove to be a luxury that few of the squadron’s replacement pilots would ever know. Many would be lucky to get nine hours in the cockpit before being asked to take it up in combat.

“About this time we realized that the C.O. and one Flight Commander – we had one C.O. and two Flight Commanders – (They) weren’t doing any flying at all."

234 Squadron was part of 10 Group, one of four that made up the patch work of Fighter Command. Imagine the British Isle divided horizontally into thirds. 13 Group controlled the Northern-most region including Scotland. 12 group held the Mid-lands from Wales in the West to Lowestott in the East. It also mercifully protected the city of Grantham. The lower third was divided in two by a line running north from just left of Southampton. 10 Group anchored the western defenses while 11 Group was charged with the defense of Southeast England, including London. The latter would bear the brunt of the attacks. Fortunately they were commanded by Air Vice Marshal Keith Park.

“11 Group; Keith Park. They were very well organized and they kept the squads informed of everything that was happening in the latest tactics and everything else.”

With the use of the newly developed radar the RAF was able to detect the swarms of Luftwaffe planes as they formed over the Channel. In that way Fighter Command could send up squadrons that were in the best position to meet the invaders while other squadrons could be held back in reserve or stood down in order to affect repairs. All the four Groups would see heavy action. With London and the radar installation along the eastern coast obvious targets, 10 Group was on loan to 11 Group.

“One day we were ordered up to Middle Wallop, which was a battle area just inland of Southampton. At that stage, the C.O. and Flight Commander who hadn’t done any work; they just disappeared. They walked out. That left just one Flight Commander and a bunch of young lads.”

“We arrived in Middle Wallop… in the middle of the afternoon. We were told to park over at the far side of the airfield, away from the hangers – which we did. On our way up to the mess; in the meantime, the place was bombed (laughs). And the hangers were all knocked flat (still laughing).”

It must have been a surreal scene; the juxtaposition between the horror of destruction and a comedy of errors. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he recounted the event. He could just as easily have been describing the movie Steamboat Will. Jr. where Buster Keaton nonchalantly stands in the middle of a storm while the entire front of a house falls down over him.

“But the aircraft were on the other end of the airfield… so we were quite happy about that. We weren’t worried in the slightest. I don’t know why we weren’t worried… we were expecting it I think. Probably.”

Try as I might I could think of nothing in my life that could relate to that. War; in all its incarnations is the penultimate of human experiences. Those who have never been a part of it feel that they have somehow missed out on a grand adventure. I think there is an under lying understanding that you are a part of something historic. So add to my overwhelming sense of admiration for the Bob Does of the world a touch of envy.

Bob’s story was picking up momentum. I felt badly about interrupting him to ask for a clarification of some point or another. I tried to keep my questions to a minimum as I didn’t want to break the spell. I knew that in the historical timeline we were traveling it was all about to hit the fan. I felt like I was reading a book that I didn’t want to end. I wanted to be able to put it down, absorb the verbal pictures and wallow in a world not of my own making. To that end I wanted to be clearer about the various Groups.

“We were on loan to 11 Group. They controlled us in the air. But we had no information on them at all. 10 Group hadn’t a clue and (they) didn’t tell us anything… and since we were only on loan to them, 11 Group never told us anything. So we were on our own; almost entirely.”

In another television interview he elaborated. “No one told us anything. I’d only fired my guns once. We were given, I think, 20 rounds per gun. We were told to go shoot them into the North Sea.” He paused. “Well you can’t miss the North Sea really….” A slight wry smile breaks across his face.

Newsreels and movies featuring the RAF pilots cast dashing, romantic leads. David Niven, Trevor Howard. Scenes of young (which they were) fair-haired (not necessarily) flyers lounging about in deck chairs spread around the grassy airfield just outside the command hut. They would nap in the sun, play checkers, read, listen to the Victorola playing the latest hits from Bing Crosby or Vera Lynn. A state of readiness was always maintained. The phone would ring and everyone would spring to awareness; ready for action, only to be told that the NAAFI wagon was on the way. (This was a portable diner of sorts that brought tea and pies out to the airfield. I have no idea what NAAFI stands for.)

“You were on call in those days from half an hour before dawn; which in August was very early – to a half hour after dawn. So we had… 24 hours of the day, of which, what, 20 were daylights? Probably. Nineteen. Twenty. Something of that order. We had an old Nissen hut (the fore runner of the Quanson hut) which we had some camp beds in which we could go to sleep on if necessary. We were then scrambled.”

Some historians have placed the start of the Battle of Britain as early as June 10... others say June 30th. Both days saw increased acitivty by the Germans as they probed and prodded the English defenses. July 10th is another day recognized as the official start as Göering ordered attacks on coastal convoys and radar installations knowing that it would force the RAF to send up its planes to meet the threat.

What isn't in doubt is the 13th of August: Aldertg as it was named by the Germans. "Eagle Day." This was truly the first major offensive. Göering promised the Füehrer that the Luftwaffe would sweep the RAF from the skies within four days. Hitler had assumed that the British would be leery of another protracted war and was betting that they would to sue for peace. Had Chamberlain remained in power that would have been a strong possibility. However, Churchill’s election changed the rules. The new Prime Minister had been railing against Hitler since 1930 when he said, "If a dog makes a dash for my trousers, I shoot him down before he can bite." Now it seemed as though Hitler would have little choice but to invade the island. Operation Sea Lion was his plan to land 260,000 troops along the English coast. Aldertag marked the date of Hitler's orighinal invasion time table. But before such an invasion could take place the British air defenses would have to be neutralized. Fortunately for fans of Western civilization both Hitler and Göering grossly underestimated the tenacity of the British people as a whole and the small band of RAF pilots in particular.

“The air force in those days were full of Bluebloods….”

I saw a chance to contribute. “It was very aristocratic?” I thought it was a well chosen word.

Bob/Betty – “Oh very much.” “Very”

Bob continued. “It was full of Bluebloods…because of my background… no one ever said anything to you but I was made to feel an outsider. I was made to feel inferior…”

World War I had glamorized the idea of the “Gentleman’s War”, at least in terms of the air battles. Gallant pilots, their silk scarves flapping behind them, would fire a few rounds into the opposing fellow’s plane and then give a sharp salute as the doomed pilot would ride his hurtling crate into the ground. Up there, a sense of chivalry could still be observed. Down below in the muddy trenches; that was where the enlisted men slogged. The working class soldier. Flyers were officers. The ruling class. Flying was a rich man’s hobby. The officers that piloted the bi-winged fighters in 1914 were the products of the finest public schools. (In England the public schools are what we would consider to be private schools).

Ironically it was that very perception of entitlement and sense of elitism that had become very evident to the Air Ministry. The war that was coming would not be a Gentleman’s War. The British would need to cultivate their flyers and fitters from every walk of life. In a battle of attrition a live pilot was worth considerably more than a wrecked machine. It was into this new school of thought that young men, boys really, from all over the Empire were able to forego a formal education and study at the one thing that they all had in common: a love of flying. With the adoption of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve these common fellows would break down social barriers that had been so prevalent in the military and in doing so make a lasting impression on British society at large. But it would take some time. Respect must be earned. It can’t be endowed.

“I felt inferior to start with mind you – but I was made to feel even more inferior. As a result, when we went into action the first time I was convinced I’d be killed. But, because I was more scared of calling myself a coward, than have anyone else doing it, I went."

" In fact, I shot two down on my first sortee… That was my introduction to war. “

19. All This and World War Too

Robert Francis Thomas Doe was born March 10, 1920 in Surrey, England, just 16 months after WWI ended. In 1914, when the “War to End All Wars” began, the population of Great Britain and Ireland was 46,089,249. By the time of the next official census in 1921 the population was only 42,769,196; reflecting the 3,190,235 causalities suffered. The ensuing drain on manpower, material and manufacturing pulled England deep into the post-war doldrums.

“I had to leave school when I was fourteen.” Bob Doe conceded. “Jobs didn’t exist in England in the 1930’s. This was the time of the big depression.”

He had no way of knowing it then, but his humble beginnings, and the social class into which he was born, would have profound changes on the British military in general and the RAF in particular; and all within one, very short, and short-lived, generation.

“…. It wasn’t a rich background. My dad was just an ordinary gardener. And he worked for a man who owned a business in London… and when I had to leave school at Christmas… he went to his boss and said, could he find me a job in his business. He owned a newspaper. A very famous newspaper.”

That newspaper was, the News of the World. It outsold the other papers by almost 10 to 1, making it by far the biggest tabloid in England. Interestingly, Heinz Medefind, a German journalist, and all around good Nazi, had worked in London for five years before fleeing to Germany in 1939. Upon returning to the Fatherland he wrote of his experiences with the English press. He noted that the Times, “…. has the lowest circulation of about 200,000, due to its academic style that only a limited part of the population can understand.” Of the largest of the papers he commented, “The News of the World has the lowest intellectual level, but its circulation of 3 3/4 million is the highest.”

“I got a job of an office boy.” He said this with such clarity and glee it was as if he had just gotten the job.

Bob Doe was almost 15-years old. The British economy had sputtered and failed. As Prime Minister, James Ramsey MacDonald was out, and Stanley Baldwin was back in. Baldwin had previously served as PM from 1924 -1929 but lost the ’29 election to the Labour party’s MacDonald, who would serve from 1929 to 1935 before losing the post back to Baldwin and the Conservatives. Confused? Imagine the British electorates. I bring this rather dry detail to light because it was during this crucial time that the world stage was being re-dressed. The British government’s attitude toward their military was, by and large, “We have the greatest Navy in the world… what’s to worry? And don’t forget that the French have the Maginot Line.” Besides, there was the League of Nations*; founded to prevent future wars by embracing a policy of tolerance and negotiated settlement between nations. How’d that work out?

* Did You Know? Quiz time boys and girls. Who proposed the formation of the League of Nations? That’s right. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, as part of his Fourteen Points speech and the adoption of the Treaty of Versailles. Ironically, Congress voted against joining the League of Nations, which began a period of U.S. Isolationism. Hitler came to power in 1933, and began rearming Germany.

“But wait” You say. “Didn’t that violate the terms of the Versailles Treaty?” That’s right, little Johnny. Hitler ignored the treaty. Can anyone tell me what else did Hitler did? “He took over the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia?” Very good Becky. You see, in 1938 Neville Chamberlain was now the Prime Minister and he flew to Munich to meet with Herr Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Édouard Daladier (of France). They agreed to take the Sudetenland away from Czechoslovakia and give it to Germany in hopes of appeasing Hitler and staving off another world war. How’d that work out for them?

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. Neville Chamberlain - Heston Airport, London. September 1938.

“But I’m confused. What did the Czech President Edvard Benes˙ think about this Munich Agreement?” Well you might well ask, Keeshana. Unfortunately no one asked him. Chamberlain and Daladier made the decision on their own. Benes later resigned before the German invaded and he went into exile in England with his family. His daughter eventually made her way to America where she married and ended up being John Grantham’s 1st grade teacher. See how this all comes together?

But I digress….

Like many boys during the heady days of the 30’s Bob Doe was crazy about airplanes (or aeroplanes). He was walking home from school one day when an RAF bi-plane made a forced landing in a field nearby. Although painfully shy, he approached the plane and was able to feel the heavily doped fabric under his touch. It kindled an indescribable yearning in him.

“Every time I saw a picture of on aeroplane I’d cut it out and stick it in a book. I was just mad about aeroplanes.”

By 1936 it was pretty obvious to some within the British government (Churchill for one) that war was inevitable. There was much debate regarding what the best use of resources would be. Most felt that bombers were the future: That you must take the war to the enemies’ cities. Other’s argued, “The bomber always gets through”, meaning that fighters were needed to combat the threat. The “Threat” was openly acknowledged as being Germany. The Air Ministry ordered 600 Hurricanes and 310 Spitfires. However the Spitfire program was running a year behind schedule. It was such an advanced aircraft that it was difficult and expensive to manufacture. As late as 1939 there were discussions about scrapping it all together. And while they might not yet have the number of planes that would be need if war came, the Air Ministry could make certain that they would have enough pilots. That same year, The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve was commissioned. Bob Doe remembers…

“Whilst I was there (at the News of the World) the government introduced a scheme where they would pay you to learn to fly, if you would give up your time. Now I leapt at that, as you can imagine. I did about 75 hours flying with the VR in old B2s.”

The salary was £25 a year.

“I realized the war was coming. It becomes obvious after a while. I was working in Fleet Street. The old Air Ministry building was literally 1/4 mile away. So I walked into the building; lunch time, and said to the commissionaire, ‘I want to be a pilot. What do I do?’”

I interrupted. “It was that simple?”

“I just remember being terribly, uh….”

“Green…naïve….” Betty offered up.

“Yeah. Green. I was that… all those things. I was terribly naïve.”

“Not very educated – “ Betty continued.

“Well, I left school at fourteen, let’s face it. I failed the only exam I ever sat, in fact” Bob laughed.

I asked him how old he was when he walked into the Air Ministry.

“Seventeen. I went to various offices and every time they found out I had no education I was pushed on to another office.”

That’s when he ended up in sitting in front of the officer with the “scrambled egg” on his hat.

“Anyway – he and I got along like a house on fire, and he discovered that I had done 75 hours of flying which, at that time was pretty good. Eventually he said, ‘Because of your lack of education I’m going to sat you an exam which you have to sit in the Ministry here next week. Wednesday.’ And then he took a book out of the drawer of his desk and he marked a chapter in this book. He said, ‘Learn that by heart before you come.’ This was the Moment of the Arm…, which I had no clue what the Moment of the Arm was. It’s where you put your foot on the pedal on a bicycle and the forced is not applied on the pedal, it’s applied on the fulcrum.”

“Oh yes, of course.” I agreed. Probably because I didn’t want to sound ignorant. I had no idea what the Motion of the Arm was.

“I knew nothing about that… however, I learnt this verbatim, by heart, and he sat me this exam that was a dead simple one apart from one question: “What is the Moment of the Arm?”, Which I knew, word for word. That’s how I became an officer in the Royal Air Force, sir. And that’s the honest truth.”

That was 1938 – one year before the war came to Europe.

“…. I became a short service officer and started flying with the air force in, what was it… February ’39. And I was right on through the normal things. I was trained on twin engines. Recommended for heavy bombers and eventually, the end of the course, which finished in the beginning of November ’39, after the war had officially started, I was posted to form 234 Squadron.”

Assuming that the average American school kid is still taught history in school they would probably tell you that WWII started on December 7, 1941. Tell that to Poland. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland using the Blitzkrieg tactics of dive-bombers and massive ground troops. Everyone declared war on one another and then… nothing happened. There were some minor skirmishes here and there but for the most part it was all quiet on the Western Front. This period of seemingly inactivity came be to known as the Phony War; as christened by an American senator: more likely than not to illustrate why America didn’t need to involve herself in the conflict. Churchill referred it this as the Twilight War, though many in Britain called it the Bore War. Even the always hilarious Germans jumped on the band wagon; referring to it as Sitzkrieg (Sitting War), an obvious pun on Blitzkrieg.

“We arrived in Hull; we were stationed in Leconfield in Yorkshire. We arrived at Hull Station in the pouring rain. It always seemed to rain in Yorkshire. They sent a three-tonner over to fetch us up and back (laughs). We finished up in the mess where we met the C.O. and two Flight Commanders and we said, ‘What sort of squadron is it, Sir?’ And they didn’t know. We went down to the flights the next morning to find that reason they didn’t know was, our equipment was 1 Tutor, which was a WWI flying dual aeroplane, 1 Gauntlet, which was the predecessor of the last biplane fighter we ever made; the Gladiator…so that was something like 15-years old… 1 modern, two-seater trainer, the Magister, which was a very basic trainer. That was our total equipment, thank you very much.” He breaks out in a broad smile. “That’s why we didn’t know what we were.”

“A bit later, a load of Blenhiems (twin-engine, light bombers)… turned up and we were flying those around the place. They’re quite a joy to fly. Remember, we were trained as bomber pilots. Then they took the Blenhiems away and sent them to Finland to help them fight the war against Russia.”

The Finnish-Russian War was a brief, six-month affair over border disputes. World opinion, such as it was, sided with the Finns, but the Russians, with their superior numbers, eventually got what they asked for. Ironically, when Germany declared war on the USSR in 1941, Finland, in one of those historically stupid moments, allied itself with Hitler, hoping that they could regain the lost territories. Great Britain now declared war on Finland. In the end, Finland lost more territory than they had originally given up and were also made to pay $300,000 in reparations to the USSR. That would be over $ 3 billion today. Ouch.

“They gave us Battles….”

“Fairey Battles?” I inquired. I have no idea where I pulled that name from.

“Fairey Battles. This was the time that Battles were being shot down in France like flies. Their total defensive weapon was one .303 (7.7mm machine gun). Their total defensive; and offensive weapon….” He let that point hang in the air. “They could carry one thousand pounds worth of bombs and had one .303 and that was it. It was, it was… well, it was about four times the size of a Hurricane with the same engine so you can imagine how effective it was.”

Flown for the first in March of 1936, the Fairey Battle was designed as a light bomber to replace the Hawker Hart biplane.

“It (Battle) was the first aeroplane in the air force to have retractable undercarriage and people kept landing wheels up all over the place – they put the word “wheels” in lights right across the dashboard.” He laughed at the thought of RAF pilots needing a reminder to lower their wheels. “This was very unpopular, as you can imagine. Letters about an inch high! One chap, I found out, had turned the lights off, which meant turning the engine off as well.” (Laughs).

Although they had only been in production a few years, the Battle was already obsolete by the time the war really started to heat up. Even the formidable German Stuka, which had proved to be so devastatingly lethal in Spain and Poland, would soon be pulled from service. A new era of aerial warfare was about to begin.

“I was very worried because, as I said, Battles were being shot down like flies in France. In fact, I don’t think we ever got a Battle back from France. Um, one came back.”

His story had pulled me in and I wanted to somehow participate in the adventure. I fumbled for an awkward opening. “This would have been before Dunkirk?” I tentatively asked and proclaimed in the same breath, like a schoolboy volunteering an answer he wasn’t 100% was correct.

“Er… around the time of Dunkirk. Just before.”

Yes! I thought smugly to myself. I’m historically in the groove.

Dunkirk. Victory through defeat. Army Group A of the Nazi war machine rolled through the Ardennes, flanked the Maginot Line and cut a swath through France. Army Group B swung down through the Netherlands and Belgium. Caught between the pincers of these advancing armies were 330,000 men of the British Expeditionary Forces, literally stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk; the English Channel at their back. What happened next would provide fodder for historians for the next 66 years and beyond.

The German panzers stopped. Faced with an opportunity to wipe out the B.E.F. the German High Command halted outside the town of Dunkirk and didn’t press their advantage. This allowed the British to commandeer a flotilla of privately owned boats known as the Little Ships. Over 700 of these vessels were used to ferry the stranded soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk safely back to England in what was classified as Operation Dynamo. The resulting “Disaster turned to Triumph”, as the British press referred to it, allowed the British army to live to fight another day.

“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' Winston Churchill - To the House of Commons, 18 June 1940.

The war was now at their doorstep and the Battle of Britain of about to begin.